The HotSpot - Episode 369

thumbnail of the year

Shoemaker = legend

Nope. It's straight up his name.

@scoopskipotahto - Because that's the user name he chose?

Also extra hyped for this week's Hotspot because there wasn't one last week. And @brad is murdering it so incredibly well with that hair.

I'm glad Brad's hair continues to be so majestic

Looking forward to Ubisoft's press conference on Sunday, but short of showing some Skull & Bones progress (which I don't expect will happen. Especially since everything in it is supposed to be out by March), I don't think much will interest me. Where the hell is Skull & Bones! Did Sea of Thieves' water tech scare them that much!?

I'm playing Mass Effect Andromeda right as I listen to this. My third playthrough.

I oddly enough enjoyed Street Fighter X Tekken, so if MS gets the MK franchise and years from now we get an MK x KI.....I'm okay with that. Yes, please.

The VG industry started fighting over how to soidfy a struture to make sure that video games continue to get funded,; and reduce instability. . A while ago., 2007+5 ish was a golden age for the craziest video game ideas. Funding/creativity... it worked, well.

After that, technology has been trying to figure out how to monetize/value this indurstry. Get money for experiances that get moeny unitl eveyone reaslizes that it gets money... How do you vallue it?! What does it even mean?! Virtual/time/land?
All we can understand is wether the menus look good or not.
Do i want to participate in therse buttons.
There is a genuaine message here. pease dont go work at a gas station or twitter. keep real consersatios alive please.

alright

ok

werer just talking

keep saying, giantbomb.com.

keep it real.

Street fighter 2 the animation

As far as video game movies go, I thought that Dragon Quest movie was alright - until... you know (if you have seen the movie).

Brad's working on his Geralt cosplay and it's glorious. I love it.

I personally find Brad's hair extremely intimidating. Mission Accomplished?

I'm so excited that Brad is going to be featured in Skate 4.

I hated ME Andromeda when it came out. I started playing it again this year just to see if anything had changed and I have to say that I’m enjoying myself. I don’t know what changed that made it better this time around but something happened.

I actually just set up a pi hole today, it seems great so far! Also Brad's hair is majestic

Brad looks like he used to sell acid dipped joints in the 70s

Speaking of Mass Effect Alex please please please get “Flare” and do Biotic Detonations don’t care you’re 3/4 done it’s the cathartic knead for me at this point

👍

I'm so happy that Brad's hair still looks like this

Brad's getting the band back together!

Also one topic I would love to have covered on here is everyone but Jeff's departure from Gamespot since those are sides of the story I've never heard.

Now, this is "PREMIUM CONTENT."

The Hotspot absolute needs to become it's own premium podcast; never change the format of OG Giant Bomb Duders.

Brad looking like he's about to fight Scott Pilgrim

Brad has been replaced with his bad boy alter ego, Brod

at 51 minutes, Vinny you are describing both Dragon's Dogma, and Monster Hunter World. Come on man; you don't need a new Joust, we have decent modern takes, but good thought experiment. Also both above games rule and you should play them.

The Astro Bot talk toward the end had me looking up and finding out the next Astro Bot game will be a platformer / tech demo that will be bundled with the PS5? Pretty cool.

FInd it weird that hairdressers are not open in US yet. In most EU countries they've been open since May.

I'm a bit jealous of people who manage to go gray before also going bald. Brad is definitely rocking that look.

Brad doing his best David Foster Wallace cosplay.

Was it a deliberate decision to not include the audio of the YouTube video you guys watched on the audio only version of the Podcast?

Those were riveting dead air filled five minutes of podcast entertainment

@goosemunch: I love that movie too, and I agree about the...you know. Although my friend theorized that it may be the most successful villain ever in that it makes you feel exactly as the character would by sucking you completely out of the moment.

The Lego game license at least used to be different to how you think, they didnt need to get dual licenses. The Lego license gave Travellers Tales the right to make Lego games of any property that Lego the company had made physical sets of. There was physical Lego Star Wars Batman, Indiana Jones and Harry Potter before there were matching games

This lead to the unusual situation of TT owned by Warners, who own DC making Lego Marvel Super Heroes, which is the rival to DC.

Couldn't agree more, truly well said. Possibly my new favorite comment on the internet.

I'd believe audio deepfakes were already out there since video deepfakes are.

As long as EA has the right to make Star Wars games I guess they don't need Mass Effect. RIP Shepard. They were probably the best "Star Trek" games we'll ever get.

Didn't realize we are already at that point culturally where Nolan movies are suddenly considered lame.

It's more that he's mostly an one trick pony. Not necessarily a bad thing. It's just that you can often predict what tropes his movies will involve.

Jeez, how cynical can you be? How much in common does Insomnia have in common with Momento and what is the big twist? How does Interstellar overlap with Dunkirk? And why is having a twist a bad thing if it fits and is interesting/rewarding like in Interstellar?

The biggest knock I can say about Nolan is that there is a lack of humor in his movies but that's fine. Hearing QT on the Ringer podcast talk about how Dunkirk is one of the greatest movies ever made and how even as QT he has no idea how some of it was shot -- that really gave me some perspective on Nolan's genius when even the other best filmmakers have no idea how he does some of his work.

I say all this as an Inception hater. I never liked that movie. Or at least the last act ruins it as it seriously feels like Call of Duty: The Movie. But Dark Knight Rises is my fav. Batman so I'm full of Nolan hot takes I guess?

Fun fact: I like most of his movies.

Brad is starting to look like he's a member of Steel Panther...

@toxicantidote: I wouldn’t say one-trick-pony but I agree a lot of his films share a common theme although what is interesting is that between Memento, Inception and Interstellar the idea of time is explored in very different ways which I find equally interesting and enjoyable.

I write this because lately I’ve seen a lot of negative talk about Nolan that spills over to critiques of his movies. Just recently there was that very typical drama that can only happen online where Anne Hathaway said he doesn’t allow chairs on set because if you’re sitting down you’re not working - which of course led the entire internet to dogpile on Nolan and trash him. Then like a day later his publicist said “uhh actually there are chairs for anyone that wants them this isn’t true at all, he just doesn’t like to sit in one himself” and a lot of other people that worked on his movies confirmed this is not a thing at all - and after all the trash talking the internet collectively kind of shrugged and moved on. It was the perfect example of current online discourse - jump on the chance to spew hate and ridicule towards someone and then when the claims are debunked you don’t have thousands of people say “oh man sorry about that” there is zero liability for anything you say.

Kind of a rant, sorry, but it’s been bothering me. Not that someone like Nolan probably even noticed or cared what is happening online but it’s the principle that matters.

Alex looks like Scorpion decided to wrestle for Lucha Underground, and Brad looks like he's gonna rob a bank with Keanu Reeves. I love it.

@humanity: It does seem common place to dog pile on someone, then "shrug and move on" if it actually wasn't a thing. Which sucks, because in a year or two if someone mentions Nolan the conversation can go like this.

"Hey, new Nolan movie."

"Oh, is that the guy that hates chairs?"

"Yeah, but I think that wasn't really a thing."

True or not, it stays in your brain and wastes valuable space, while coloring your perception of someone.

And quite often, no one is talking about the person one day, then has extremely passionate opinions the next day.

In conclusion, I don't use Twitter and feel better for it.

My mom bought the DVD of the first Tomb Raider movie, and for the life of me, I never understood why. My brother and I have never played Tomb Raider (we didn't have a PS1). I was only 10 or 11, so she wasn't going for the Angelina Jolie angle either. We've never watched it.

I guess I'm in the minority here, but I've always thought manbuns are pretty terrible. Sorry.

@nigeth: I agree, most of the audio only version of this podcast was a rough listening experience

Yikes, definitely not! Checking that now...

Edit: Fixed

@vinny: thanks a lot Vinny. Re-reading my comment made me realise that it sounded quite a bit bitchy and passive aggressive and I’d like to apologise for it. It wasn’t intended to be that way

We need a cast credit for Brad's Hair.