Giant Bombcast Giant Bomb's Game of the Year 2015: Day Five

Goddammit! If only you guys had finished Life is Strange, it totally would have made the list.

Brad continues to be the Biggest Heel when it comes to the Game of the Year discussions.

None of them have finished it. I'm pretty sure Dan's the only one that made it much further than Bloody Baron. This was pretty much obvious when they were talking about Best Moment, like Bloody Baron was the only quest in the game.

The Skill system for witcher is designed to be swapped for each battle, you guys come on

Man I can't believe no one named Tap Titans for Best Idle Game. It's so good. It's been on my phone since it released this year.

I've been on the toughest difficulty, which makes every battle feel tense and exciting. Even a small group of drowners can tear you up early on. And every big fight is a huge event.

It means I've been taking my time with the game and I'm not even close to beating it, but hearing people complain about the combat being mindless blows my mind.

I'm a lot more salty than I thought I would be on bloodborne not making the GOTY list....

Oh good, they have a top 10...

*1 hour of podcast left*

I guess not then.

All you dh'ione out there hating on Witcher 3. We can't all be vatt'ghern.

That is the weakest, most hipster-ass counter culture top 10 list I've seen.

wow that minute where contradiction and book of unwritten tales 2 both get cut so close to the top ten, so sorry vinny

least kerbal did well

is anyone getting weird psycho music after 4 hours?

@spiketail: he's definetly prepared for this. HE BROUGHT NOTES!

Over 40 games on discussion here. WHAT A SEASON!

AUSTIN WALKER HAS A TEMPLE

This cast was intense, and as fun as it was aggravating. Good job on another year dudes, looking forward to suffering/enjoying it again next year.

Mad respect to Austin for putting down the "is not a video game" BS argument, I may not agree with him in everything but I respect he is a congruent person that admits if stuff like Her Story depends of the narrative, then the Witcher 3 cannot be dismissive because "we like the no-game parts".

Shame on you Dan.

@ikramit: I cant say I'm mad, just gobsmacked. Like what? That happened? Really?

Not at all surprised with how things turned out. It felt like it's been trending that way for months. There was actually surprisingly little drama ultimately. They probably spent more energy arguing over the ordering of the bottom 5.

Re: Bloodborne, I think it just came out too early in the year. I also loved it, and platinum-ed it, but I have cooled on it big time since then. I didn't even bother to pick up the DLC. Great game, but I'm not heart-broken it missed out or anything.

Loved all the podcasts - thanks for all the effort guys!

Gotta say, felt slightly uncomfortable when Jeff cursed and silenced Austin, or was it Alex? That surprised "wow" response, will resonate with me for a while.

I mean, this is the best of the year so they should probably list good games (KIDDING, KIDDING I SWEAR TO GOD).

@ikramit: The fact that it didn't even get mentioned for music, and was cut so quickly from "style" so a game that has no visible style could win, has made me saltier than old Carthage.

Halo 5 defense here. The list is the list and their experience with the game, but I really gotta talk about Warzone.

The card thing seemed like a limitation for an hour or so and I had no desire to play it. By the end of hour two, I had a surplus of tanks, warthogs, sniper rifles, and more. Early on you're constantly getting packs for leveling up and doing simple things like a few melee kills. By the time that slows down, you'll have a nice cushion of most of the common Halo equipment and vehicles. (later on, the gold packs give you some of the rare things, which are just modified weapons, etc.)

It's not simply "Halo + Battlefield" because the player count is far lower. The Req thing became a part of the strategy and a decent way to keep a dozen tanks from driving around. Even with that cushion of 10 tanks and several Spartan Lasers in my inventory, I'm still gonna think about when and where to deploy them.

And as Drew noted, Big Team Battle is still there if you want the usual thing and don't even want to engage in Warzone. But even play BTB for a few hours and you'll have plenty of items in stock. I should note that I haven't spent a dollar on the Req system, but I do find that it pulls me into just one more match when I'm sitting at 9,000 and really want that 10,000 gold pack.

Again, this was their experience and they were disappointed, but 343 put a lot of thought into that mode and will continue to tweak it as we go. Excited to see how they improve and expand it.

Their arguments just seemed dismissive and I didn't hear a proper counterargument so here you go! Still, too many Wardens. Even though all you need to do is a Spartan dash to stun him and expose the core a couple times.

Timestamps, via NeoGAF:

DAY 5

00:02:05 - Podcast starts

00:03:44 - The categories are announced: Best Use of FMV, Animal of the Year, Incremental/Idle Experience of the Year, Best Game

00:05:21 - Best Use of FMV.

• 00:06:22 - Press X to Not Die
• 00:07:10 - MISSING: An Interactive Thriller
• 00:08:49 - Her Story
• 00:09:40 - Contradiction - Spot The Liar!
• 00:11:44 - Need for Speed
• 00:13:41 - Cradle
• 00:14:54 - Cibele
• 00:16:28 - Guitar Hero Live
• 00:22:07 - #IDARB, and every E3 VR video trailer
• 00:23:04 - Final discussion

00:27:07 - Animal of the Year.

• 00:27:54 - Poochy (Yoshi's Woolly World)
• 00:29:07 - Roach (The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt)
• 00:30:43 - Dogmeat (Fallout 4)
• 00:33:08 - Tatsu (Xenocross)
• 00:33:55 - Yoshi (Super Mario Maker and Yoshi's Woolly World)
• 00:34:21 - Lesser Dog (Undertale)
• 00:35:17 - K8 (SOMA) (spoilers)
• 00:37:50 - D-Dog and D-Horse (Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain)
• 00:39:35 - Final discussion

00:43:01 - Incremental/Idle Experience of the Year.

• 00:46:33 - Anno 2205
• 00:47:26 - Book of Unwritten Tales 2
• 00:48:02 - Fallout Shelter
• 00:48:51 - Trimps
• 00:53:20 - Time Clickers
• 00:56:49 - Adventure Capitalist
• 00:59:00 - stealth Anno 2205
• 00:59:49 - Final discussion

01:06:47 - Best Game, 1st round.

• 01:14:38 - Dragon Ball XenoVerse
• 01:16:32 - Mortal Kombat X
• 01:17:25 - Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate
• 01:18:42 - Just Cause 3
• 01:19:32 - Starcraft II: Legacy of the Void
• 01:20:05 - Assassin's Creed Syndicate
• 01:21:18 - The Beginner's Guide
• 01:21:58 - Time Clickers
• 01:22:32 - Destiny: The Taken King
• 01:22:57 - BoxBoy!
• 01:23:24 - Batman: Arkham Knight
• 01:23:46 - Yoshi's Woolly World
• 01:26:17 - Grow Home
• 01:27:15 - Dying Light
• 01:29:22 - Her Story
• 01:30:54 - Bloodborne
• 01:34:02 - Rare Replay
• 01:34:36 - Cities: Skylines
• 01:36:32 - Halo 5: Guardians
• 01:40:14 - Lara Croft Go
• 01:41:06 - Hacknet
• 01:44:26 - Axiom Verge (nice ploy here)
• 01:48:33 - Contradiction - Spot The Liar!
• 01:49:58 - Galak-Z: The Dimensional
• 01:51:19 - Puzzle & Dragons Z + Super Mario Bros. Edition

01:52:30 - Best Game, 2nd round.

• 01:53:55 - Crypt of the Necrodancer
• 01:54:12 - Ori and the Blind Forest
• 01:57:14 - Book of Unwritten Tales 2
• 01:58:41 - Batman: Arkham Knight
• 02:00:01 - Fallout 4
• 02:03:47 - Assassin's Creed Syndicate
• 02:08:40 - Kerbal Space Program and Rebel Galaxy
• 02:09:42 - Cibele
• 02:12:37 - Mortal Kombat X

02:14:46 - Best Game, 3rd round.

• 02:20:04 - Bloodborne
• 02:22:32 - Dying Light
• 02:25:08 - SOMA
• 02:31:24 - Until Dawn
• 02:31:43 - Her Story
• 02:33:54 - Undertale
• 02:36:34 - Life Is Strange
• 02:39:21 - Contradiction - Spot The Liar!
• 02:40:47 - Book of Unwritten Tales 2
• 02:42:54 - The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
• 02:50:26 - Invisible, Inc. (Austin bomb, and things start getting wild)
• 03:08:29 - Rise of the Tomb Raider

03:17:56 - Best Game, final round.

• 03:19:15 - Interests in all games are weighed (Jeff laughs maniacally at 03:28:46)
• 03:36:45 - A preliminar list is made
• 03:46:31 - Bottom 5 are chosen, top 5 remaining
• 03:47:33 - MGSV
• 03:55:15 - SMM (and the Filibuster)
• 04:30:36 - Top ten are listed

I had no idea what had happened by the end.

Just glad to see Kerbal Space Program so high

Oh and I did not realise that Jeff thinks Mario Maker is the best game ever made

I'm sorry ... but those arguments against Witcher 3 are just plain fucking crazy. It's their list and thats all good and fine, but 90% of their arguments are just plain false.

As much as I love The Witcher 3 (my favorite game of the year) I think there was no place for it on this list. In my opinion I feel there were other games the staff felt a bit more passionate about. Other than that really enjoyable end of the year discussion :)

That whole segment on clickers quite literally frightened me. Like I've never tried any of these things yet I felt filthy listening to that description of game play. You guys got fucking dark in a way I've rarely experienced. Austin was a terrific addition to these discussions because he had very intelligent arguments for and against other games that I really appreciated even if I didn't always agree. As far as I'm concerned he was the MVP for deliberations this year. Just know that I dig every one of the Giant Bomb staff for various reasons I have listed in numerous comments over the years. Pretty much everyone felt invested in the disagreements they were having in way that made this year of gaming seem kind of awesome.

This podcast was truly great. I realize you guys are going to get grief for some of these selections but just so I know I rather enjoyed this whole thing and respect the choices you've made to reflect the varying philosophies in gaming of the Giant Bomb staff. Upon first listening most of the arguments felt passionate and rational. I haven't played everything you guys have mentioned but thanks to these kinds of audio features I feel compelled to try a bunch of stuff that I wouldn't normally. I'd like to thank you all for this amazing website. Hope you all had a happy new year.

around the 2:30 hr mark it just started to become painful to hear. I listened to the other days to completion. There are games on the list that flat out shouldn't be. Games that just by sheer arguing over and over stayed, sometimes that only one person played. Not saying they are bad games at all, but they are more top 25 games, not top 10.

Early in the year EVERYONE was loving the witcher, everyone. If they go back and hear how crazy they were going over it I think they would be shocked. I think it might've been too long since any of them played it.

Phantom Pain online-offline-FOB stored stuff is still super weird and hard to understand when it comes to GMP. Mainly because it makes dick sense.

TPP gameplay on the field still feels absolutely great, I replay things, MGO3 needs serious help from Japan and more than a patch a month and whatever it releases for content and radical changes for the better need to be free. Still nothing pulling me back into it since a week after I first finished it in September.

(TPP has improved a lot with the patches and un-done the stuff that can screw you over if you drop offline, and with the December 17 patch they have started handing out serious rewards for single-player mission completion, reaching internal goals, the game is a lot better now. It is still 100% playable without showstoppers unpatched of course.)

Drews "not now, I can't", with 2 hrs left to deliberate goy is hilarious. Considering he's spoken for literally under 3 minutes during the previous 16 hrs of deliberating. Cheers mate,take that edge off next time.

The truth is Witcher 3 had no business being on their list in the first place. No matter how good a game you, or the industry at large, think it is. Most of the crew didn't play the game even halfway through. You can't expect them to have 100% factual information about a game in which they didn't really care about to begin with.

To place it any higher would have been disingenuous. Having it at 10 is stretching it as is. So take the win, but don't act like it should have skyrocketed to the top.

Every year he becomes more and more abrasive and combative not just for his favorite games, but now he's shitting on the others picks/opinion and I think that is a shitty thing to do.

Word of the Year: Bounce

Meh, I thought he was fine. This was no Destiny year, I thought he rolled with the others choices a lot more this time around.

Destiny STILL makes the top ten list last year despite being runner up for most disappointing, and Fallout 4 doesn't make this list? Then Witcher 3 makes the list despite that no one in the room actually finished it.

Shoutout to @alex

Straight up, the best debater of the crew.

Dan's ignorant "Err Assassin's Creed series sucksss" argument is really tiring.

Just thought I'd say that hiring Austin was one of the greatest decisions Giant Bomb has ever made.

Contradiction over Her Story.... well then.

@dougfunk15: it would be ignorant if he didn't play those games and didn't know what he was talking about. Dan played Syndicate and had the exact problems with it that he had with previous Assassin Creed games ( the traversal and combat are lacking).

Sure, the story and presentation might be amazing, but if the player doesn't want to engage with the gameplay of the game, that is irrelevant for that player.

He did mention that he liked that this one threw you into the game rapidly instead of tutorializing you for hours.

@jonny_anonymous: Agreed. God damn do I wish they had finished that game.

I wanna hug Jason. He feels so bad being mean to everybody's games.

The Brad Filibuster in effect within 10 minutes... can see how the GOTY discussion goes for 3 hours D:

Surprised Brad didn't know the Wii U has a web browser.