Jar Time w/ Jeff: We Like The Jars, The Jars That Go Boom 02/27/2013

@snide God damn I love the new feature of returning to where you left off in the video player, perfect for long form vids like this :D

Nintendo have shatteth the bedding trolly lorry loo g'day mate.

your gate is jacked.

Yeah, MOBAs suck, I totally agree. Though I do enjoy unique/Hero units in RTS games.

Good stuff. Jeff's dissertation on the changing standards that Youtube has brought to video and coverage really drives home that he knows what he's talking about. Not so much that shitty production is acceptable, but that the message is what really counts,

And it was nice to hear some honest feedback for that guy wanting to get into games writing. You usually get something like "do blogs and post videos!" Not often where you get a blunt message of "it's really fucking hard to get in nowadays." And really different from ten years ago.

"We won't be doing any more Endurance Runs... any time soon."

So you're telling me there's a chance? :D

j/k

Some crackly audio up in here.

A+ Quality content - Jeff is bringing it

Jeff's straight talk about how he feels regarding the gaming industry is always very interesting. Good stuff sir.

hahahaha I also got this reference. such a terrible song lmao

"Shat" is the past participle of "shite." Thus, Nintendo shat the lorry on the WiiU.

Hah, I remember my first wiki edit was to add Daft Punk and/or Thomas Bangalter to DJ Hero's page, which was denied.

I don't see no boom boxes up in there..

Deleting comments, with jars!

Yeah, that audio cutting out is very annoying.

".....Not constantly jiggling..."

Hell yeah L'Trimm reference!

does anyone have the link for the keilghley thing he mentioned real quick

audio cut out a few times but it was very infrequent and not that big of an issue, don't know why people are freaking about it. i'm sure you'll get it fixed soon in any case.

my first jar time and i can see why people enjoy it :)

Sick Jar.

This should be a proper podcast on the site, it's good stuff.

Dude, fix your mics noise gate! >.<

I need this in podcast form.

@SleepyDoughnut

I work as a production journalist on a national daily newspaper, a position that it took me a few years to reach after studying a post-graduate journalism course, starting as a junior reporter on a local weekly newspaper, then as a junior reporter on a local daily newspaper, then as a senior reporter, then as a sub-editor on a local paper. Competition within the industry is fierce. You have to be very passionate, but even more importantly, assiduous at (I hate this word) networking. People skills and tenacity are paramount. I was working seven days a week (balancing local and national newspaper shifts) for several months before I got a position on the newspaper where I work.

The pay is comparatively bad. Had I pursued a career in IT, I am fairly confident that I would be on about one and a half to two times the salary that I earn now. So what @HerbieBug says does make a lot of sense. I know friends who do a little writing on the side and they find that a good way to pursue their hobby. It is also a way of avoiding the fatigue you sometimes see in Jeff and other members of the team, which is only natural when you deal with an industry constantly (but hey, it's a job). I certainly feel it with news journalism at times, but that's only natural. There are highs, too.

It is a bad epoch for journalists at the moment; the internet has wrecked the hold that news companies had on the market and they are struggling to work out how to make money by uploading everything on the web for free. Simply erecting pay walls is not enough for most news services (specialist sites excepting). Thus, with tighter margins and shareholder expectations to meet, a series of deep job cuts have followed. This trend has not stopped, so it can be concerning if you value your job security.

However, if you are truly determined to break into the industry, I would say go for it. Even if, in five years, you turn your back on it, you will find the process of constant writing and interviewing sharpens skills that will not easily be lost, while giving you a certain edge of cynicism, too! But if you stick it out, there are some really exciting times to be had, as Jeff describes, just be prepared to be adaptable to the changing times.

Hope some of this helps...

Oh, and @Jeff, it's true that Britons use sports teams and bands as plurals; they are classed as mass nouns in British-English. But we don't regard a single company as a plural, so it's not correct British-English to say "Nintendo have announced", even though it is acceptable to say "Manchester United have just scored"... I don't really know why we do this. Maybe it's because when you think of a sports team or a band, you tend to think of them as a group of people, but when you regard a company, it is easier to picture it as a massive, singular, corporate entity that slowly drains every employee's soul to slake its unending thirst? Who really cares. English, huh?

@Jeff This video is/was incredibly hard to listen to with the sporadic, staccato audio. You need to increase the sensitivity of the mic you use or mess about and just let in some background noise or something. Unless you're a huge fan of the cough button, in which case I recommend a sound board as a replacement for your fidgety fingers...

Wasn't enough to STOP me listening to it though, so maybe that's something.

Jury Duty is a waste of everyone's time and money!

I'm just getting into Dota 2 and I don't really find the RTS comparison to hold up that great. From a gameplay perspective it's closer to a PVP-styled Diablo. Now if you don't like that, that's fine. But it's so far from building a base, building an army and mining various gases I don't think it's fair to compare it at all. It's like saying I don't like Portal because they took the guns away. Well, it's not a shooter.

Interesting as ever, Jeff. I agree with next to everything you say.

Al Qeida's favourite song according to YouTube...

Sound popping! :-)

I think given that Ninja Theory are a Studio based in England, its perfectly acceptable for them to have a British tone / art style. As a Brit, its nice to see this sort of thing represented.

There's no time like jartime.

@nethlem: I don't really see it as skating around it. It's the answer that I expected to receive (I posed the question). I was just wondering if someone with a lot of experience with both consoles saw any real differences that are not the obvious ones. Apparently, that's not the case.

I agree with you that from a multiplayer perspective, the PS3 is the better choice (if you don't have friends on the 360, that is). For most people that haven't yet bought a console, though, this usually isn't much of a thing. I don't see bluray as a real plus either, because if you really care about that, you probably already bought a bluray player. But yes, it's better than dvd. But since most games are designed for the 360 and then 'ported' to the PS3, I thought that might result in a slightly better (yet still mostly neglectable) experience on the 360. I also (but that's of course quite personal) like the 360 controller more.

All in all, it seems like it does boil down to the obvious answers when it comes to buying one or the other this late in the cycle. Both are good machines, and neither is a bad choice.

Awesome Brewers and Expos hats back there, Jeff.

By the way, here's that Guy Game review he mentions: http://www.gamespot.com/the-guy-game/reviews/the-guy-game-review-6106329/

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Yup, that's audio alright.

The achievement system on here was a really cool thing for sure. Hopefully you all are able to figure it out and bring them back, because it's fascinating to just dig down into the numbers, comparing, seeing who has stuff, what the rarest achievements are, etc. :)

You piling up the money! with these Wrestling game screenshots!

Jeff G is quite a smart man, and these videos reflect that

Your jury duty sounds a lot better than mine - here we have to spend a day at the courthouse in a room waiting to see if they call your number to get picked for a jury pool. Even if you don't get picked, you have to stay there all day in the most depressing room ever.

Hey so kind of off-topic, but I started watching this on my laptop, and loaded it up again when I got home, and it looks like it started back up where I left off?? Is that how awesome new Giant Bomb is? What is this magic

Jeff's opinion on Lord's Management Games is exactly the same as how I feel.

Yeah, that's a great new function in the new Giantbomb. It saves where you left it. :)

I'm really hoping Jeff is a fan of the Fogelnest Files.

And for the Dishonored portion of the question - Maybe I misunderstood, but I didn't understand where the complaint came from. The game world in Dishonored is like almost any other work of fantasy based on real-world things. There are places in Dishonored based on Africa, Spain, Russia, and Italy. Gristol (the island Dunwall is located in) is a combination of England in the 17th century transported to the late 1800s and America. Considering the inspiration behind that part of the world, I would expect it to look and sound that way. I mean, if we ended up going to the Pandyssian continent, I'd expect to see and hear vaguely African things, or if we end up in Corvo's homeland, I'd expect to see/hear the blend of Italy and Spain they came up with for it.

I guess I didn't understand the question/complaint, as that kind of just seems like an obvious thing to do when dealing with that kind of design.

"Next week's [Giant Bomb Gaming Minute] will be about... boats."

Very clever, Jeff.

Just want to repeat what many of said. The resume feature that was added is awesome.

Yo yo yo Jeffrey.This. @Jeff

What does that mean? D:

I don't know if anyone has said this yet, but as someone who works with audio equipment on a regular basis here is what I think is causing the clipping:

Some microphones have a feature where they will shut off when they don't detect any sound within a certain frequency range (usually between the predetermined noise threshold where "important sound" lives) for a specific amount of time. This is, in theory, supposed to cut down on background noise and recording junk when nothing important is going on that you will have to edit out and replace with silence later.

The problem is that 9 times out of ten, the microphone doesn't turn it's self back on in time to catch everything you are saying. This feature can also be software based, or could even be on another piece of hardware; so it's uncertain which device is causing this problem from my end, but you could check to see if anything you are using has this feature and try disabling it if you can. Or you could, you know, go back to yelling at a webcam.

I thought the audio was fine. I don't watch these videos as nothing happens during them, instead I just let it play in the background and didn't notice any problems.