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

Well shit, Vinny's dropping some hot Ender's Game spoilers up in this, y'all!

After they cut Life Is Strange and got their ten, it was over for me. I don't care about the order if they don't have Until Dawn and Life is Strange in the mix. I say Kerbel Space Program being on the list is insane...fuckin insane. Kerbel is a 2011 to 2013 game. Sorry, its just NOT a 2015 game.

How did no one mention Prison Architect. for shame

You actually get paid real steambux which you can then spend on other games. You literally get paid to do nothing. You also get paid while playing games. It's pretty much the best idle experience ever. (Provided you actually, y'know, sell the cards...)

I'd rather have it not on the list with them saying "we didn't really play it" then some just false information in this. Don't get me wrong, it's their list, everything is fine ... I just don't like clearly false information. If they do that with games I played and can tell I get unsure about games I didn't play. How can I be sure they represent those games correct?

@xymox: And yet people waste their time and money on clicker 'games'. Tsk tsk tsk.

Nothing quite spells out the shit show this GOTY part is going to be like reading out that fucking list around 1:06.

@2headedninja: How can their opinions be false? Their takes on the combat, inventory, leveling system, and Dandelion bullshit are not false, it's what they think.

@monkeyking1969: dota 2 was on the list the year it actually came out.

FIGHT!

Oh boy, well this is gonna be a process. Both Dan and Jeff just vetoed the MKX cut even though the game wasn't even in their own personal top 10.....

Is Grow Home seriously going to make the top 10? You people are nuts!

ahahaha love love love Dan going after Brad so hard. Brad is such an easy target he is so sensitive when it comes to this last list.

Austin saying that roguelikes have no understanding of how to end and naming FTL wounds me deep. I'll forgive him because he mentioned Netrunner in his defense.

I feel like Brad is taking this stuff waaaay too seriously. The way he reacted to Vinny suggesting Gone Home and Dying Light to be cut was ridiculous.

Poor Undertale: Always a bridesmaid, never a bride.

Wow what an awesome Game of the Year discussion. Mad props to Austin for his defense of Invisible Inc. I glad to see such a diverse top 10 this year and hopefully people remember these lists are very subjective and really, do they really mean anything?

Good discussion on Mario Maker at the end. I have 0 interest in playing Mario Maker, but I can understand why Dan and Jeff really like it. I have enjoyed watching Dan and Patrick's little spat over it.

The only problem I have with the final list is Grow Home. What a wasted spot. How does that just sneak in there with basically no discussion?

The problem with it is that the card system ends up being somewhat of a game changer in Warzone. It adds way too much randomness to a game that's historically never been about RNG. You can have teams/players who come in loaded up with all the best cards with stat buffs to weapons/vehicles and can make a big difference in combat. Not to mention the fact that if your team is losing, there will be players that would rather save those cards for another match rather than use it and try to push for a potential comeback.

No Jeff, Rise of the Tomb Rider is no better than the Witcher 3.

Life is Strange and The Witcher 3 definitely belong on the list, especially if their so passionate about Metal Gear Solid V which in all honesty is not a complete game.

Jeff flexin those editor in chief muscles. I respected that.

WHAT IS A TRIMPS?

Oh no.

I'm one hour and eight minutes in. They're on the final category. There are three and a half hours left on this podcast.

Oh no.

@machiavalium: But then, at one moment, it also becomes another Top Ten list with AAA/Mobile games they were able to finish.

I feel conflicted about this because I essentially agree with you that l rather prefeer they finish the games or not being in the list before shit talking them (or praising in hyperbole like Life is Strange), specially when attempt to do the "is better or worse" death kiss. But also feels desingenius how defensive they acted during all the year about the Witcher 3 when it become clear they needed to complete the game for GOTY deliberations and there were no easy way to ignore or forget about it. So in the end we have Dan being suprisingly poisounous about Witcher 3 or games that only 2 or 3 people played being high in the list.

So, I understand that GB was build in the principle of not be trapped in the video game review process of need to play game that you don't like/care but in the end they NEED to play certain games. This year had more diverse games but also made more apparent the great divide between what we expect of GB as an audience and what they are willing to cover. They admitted in the podcast that for most the Witcher 3 was a burn out than being a bad game, but the amount of shit talking becomed very oppresive to hear, almost like if they were talking about Two Worlds. Maybe the GOTY nomination procces needs to change to make the discussion better than just feeling that a game needs to be or not be in that list, the personal GOTY list seems to be not enough given how sooner or later concensous becomes difficult as no everyone bother to play the same games.

Poor bloodborne, no fromsoft love again this year, good list otherwise though. Does anyone's else feel like the witcher got throw a lot of bones this year, especially considering no one had actually seen the conclusion of the game.

I never thought I would say this, but in this case, Brad is a far bigger heel than Dan. Proper throwing his toys out the pram because he doesn't get his own way. I've loved the GotY content but so much of that podcast had me thinking '...why Brad?'

Even as someone who hasn't played Mario Maker and doesn't have the affinity for Mario that a lot of other people have, Brad's arguments against it (and his responses to other people reasoning with him) were seriously childish.

I'm guessing Jeff didn't pick up Nuclear Throne until after this was recorded, huh?

DAVE SNIDER HAS WRITTEN IN

I feel it just needs to be said that Austin should be the model for how to set an argument for a game you really love. Compared to last year when Brad forced Destiny on to the list with literally no cohesive argument.

Kudos Austin, I'm buying Invisible Inc

I was wondering when Brad's stubbornness would show up. It took until the Mario Maker over MGSV debate to happen. Now the GOTY podcast is complete.

Yep, these recordings ended on December 3rd.

Yep, that was pretty messed up.

No surprise Jeff and Dan flexed super hard and pushed Mario Maker to #1. Oh well.

Plus an inaccessible space shuttle launch simulator at #4 is ridiculous.

I really enjoyed this. I also REALLY don't see the appeal of Mario Maker, but I don't have a Wii U, and I have no interest in making games.

I honestly can't think of a game I've had more fun with (maybe ever?) than Rocket League, even though, as I just found out, my all time record is 701-703.

1400 * 5 min (not counting goals and replays) = 7000 minutes = damn. I've put hundreds of hours into it. Even with the community getting some annoying people who type "BRUH" in an accusatory manner when someone scores against us, I don't care. It's just fantastic, and I'm really happy it got as much love as it did. It's a real videogame.

No hyperbole, I think it is pretty disgusting that some people say, "Witcher 3 doesn't deserve to be on the top 10" but they claim MGSv is one of the best games of the year, lol. MGSv only has graphics and good controls...everything else is in is done better by almost every other game on the list.

Dan's comment about "its not good if you don't finish it" even made my wife call him an ass, lol. I would take 15 hours of Witcher 3 over 100 hours of any other game in there, but that's fine. The thing that annoys me if how categorically they try to tear that game down as if it was some colossal disappointment of the year and it is was definitely not.

(also don't forget that Life is Strange wasn't finished by anyone on that podcast)

When I hear people talk about MGSv and they go beyond "it controls really well" I feel like they crazy people. If Bubsy 3D controlled extremely well but the rest of the game was Bubsy 3D...that crap is still Bubsy 3D. Metal Gear Solid V is not a finished game. That is a free to play game with JUST AS MUCH CONTENT AS DESTINY and it has you replay content JUST LIKE DESTINY, but they all (but Brad) hated Destiny last year. The world is dead and lifeless, all of the "Great" music was simply novelty, 99% of the unlocks are unnecessary and do not change the game, the companions are simply easy mode additions to an already easy game, the story is 100% garbage, there are no likable characters in the game who respond or act anything like their previous installment versions, the missions are nearly all the exact same, the boss fights are all awful, the boss fights are all awful, and I think I blacked out at some point because holy crap is MGSv 2015's game for crazy people.

While I am joking some, everything I said about MGSv was honest.

@gianthamish : In all honesty, I felt Brad was childish several times this year during the final podcasts. His diatribe about Fallout being impossible to be better or that fixing a fundamental issue would take freedom away was hilarious and weird.

@spacecouncil: With how 99% of the crew talks I almost feel like they haven't played the game but merely YT most of the content. Realistically, that opinion is false but hearing how they talk about the game its pretty amazing how categorically hateful they are about the game. When they do ever talk positive about any part of that game I feel its as if they are throwing it a bone or something. I think the reason my reaction to them is so strong is because of how belligerent and "heelish" they almost all are in regards to the game, especially Dan, Brad, and Jeff. I honestly don't doubt they've played it but seeing some of the crap they do claim they force themselves to play for "fun" to waste time on the Bombcast I can't believe they couldn't play through more of Witcher 3.

Brad should have focused on building an argument for Metal Gear rather than trying to tear down Mario.

I doubt it would have done much anyway though, Jeff was going hard.

@memu: RE: Grow Home, Alex and Vinny tried to knock it off a few times, but Brad (with Jeff and Austin to a lesser extent) kept jumping to its defense.

I guess it's a fun game, but it's short and really forgettable. It didn't crack my Top 20, let alone my Top 10...

@gianthamish: Brad Is like this every year though, I love him but not during these casts. His destiny stall last year was the worst, and skyrim the hear that came out was horrible. Not to mention making best dlc 2 hours long during the mass effect 2/bios hock 2 year

@sammo21: I loved MGSV and Witcher 3, though Witcher 3 is the open world game I went back to even after finishing it instead of mgsv, really for the story reasons. I think MGSV has way, way better gameplay but puts it toward objectives that could have been more interesting.

Honestly, gamers as a whole have already elevated Witcher 3 to be the game its going to be remembered as. Nobody on Giant Bomb got very far in that game, but, in the large scheme of things, it doesn't say anything about Witcher 3, even if people want to believe it does. But I mean they also didn't like bloodborne or other games that have the gameplay everyone wants to have, so, different strokes!

@bamse said:

It was Alex. I caught that too. This stuff gets pretty heated so I doubt it was a blip in either of their radars.

Ok, I'm 3.5 hours into this podcast and it's just insanity.

I was so ready for Witcher 3 to be absent from their list. And then it made it to the Final 30. And the Final 20. And the Final 12.

Then I wasn't ready anymore. Them cutting it would hurt.

They brought my hopes high when Grow Home and Undertale got pushed below it. My hopes were stabbed when Jeff branded it the Meh-Conensus game.

What a ride. What a season. Witcher 3: the worst of all the ten best games of the year, and my favorite game of the decade. I'm a whomping nerd.

Yes, I loved Austin in this years GOTY discussion. He was the anti-Brad. Austin was able to get his game on the top ten very eloquently, unlike Brad who usually covers his ears and goes "lalalala" until everyone concedes.

The me from the past just sighed and thought, "Clearly no one played Witcher 3." At the very least no one even reached that specific part of the game where you are more or less forced to face Roach head on.

@john_wiswell: I am only disappointed because after them always talking about getting back to Witcher and never doing it for over 6 months is kinda insane. Alternatively it really speaks to their age and the stage of their lives. Most of the games on the list are much more time friendly, you can spend 15 minutes or 15 hours. Whereas Witcher definitely has a long session feel to it like I don't think I ever played it for less than 3 or 4 hours at a time (at release It was probably 6 hours a day at least).

Regardless I am disappointed that such a high profile game did not get any real discussion out of them. Also whoever it is that played the game that told them the Baron is the height of that game is grossly mistaken. The entire game has those great moments. Its a shame that most of them are unlikely to ever experience them because Witcher is the ultimate refinement/next step in classical RPGs and in AAA games. I'd argue it is the best all around RPG package ever.

Also to anyone who is having trouble cracking Witcher, I advise you to basically ignore everything in your log that isn't Main Quest or Side Quest, Contracts/Treasure Hunts are just time sinks and entirely 100% optional sadly the Monster Contracts are rather poorly represented by the first one you received in White Orchard

Am I mistaken or did Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, Dark Souls 2, and now Bloodborne fail to make Giantbombs top 10?

I'd also like to add that I was kinda upset that GB failed to list my number 1 game this year (nothing else came close) in the top 10, but it subsided when I saw other places make the right choice in giving Bloodborne their GOTY award.

Fuck Fallout 4, fuck Just Cause 3, fuck The Witcher 3, fuck all the games you probably spent 40+ hours in this year - these are the games our jaded asses decided were worth plunking down 80+ hours.

/s

Still, it is a bit at odds with my own opinions.

i generally like the list, but is anyone else confused by Austin saying MGS was supposed to be his goty but then he played SMM at alex's apartment? its weird cause neither game is actually on his list, and it seems like his argument really solidified SMM above MGS

Jeff and Dan were unbearable . I'm on team brad

@l33t_haxor: Yeah, I have played Grow Home up to about the 1000ft mark, the island with a waterfall in the middle. It is mildly amusing for a short while, but there is nothing special about it like there is for many of the games they cut.

(1:26) Vinnie tried to cut it as his first choice and Brad got all hurt about it and a couple other guys came to his rescue and then 2hrs later, boom, it is in the top 10. Much better games got a LOT more scrutiny.