PAX Prime 2014: The Giant Bomb Panel

Man, Alex took one for the team at the end!

Sunderland once had a goalkeeper called Mart Poom. Everyone would chant "POOOOOOOOM" and people confused it for booing. Similarly, no one is booing Patrick. Patrick himself has said that he has never had a single negative interaction with anyone at PAX.

All that Fire Watch stuff is pure gold

Far and away, this is my favorite comment in every panel video. It never ends!

That panel was fan-freaking-tastic. Maybe one of my favorite moments was when Jeff and Johnny V were talking about Tron with no one paying attention because the staff and Ninja Theory folks were throwing Disney Infinity figures to the crowd. The Game Bomb segment was a hilarious botch fest with Olaf Gerstmanoff failing to maintain a Russian accent and Ivan Shoemaker losing his mustache.

Also, Dan knows what's up with Smash Bros so good to hear the game is a blast!

That was a great panel. The Fire Watch parts were really funny. And gamebomb.ru was funny too, Drake's no accent was really funny.

I just went and pre-ordered Disney Infinity 2.0. Because Johnny V is the best hype man ever! And apparantly we get it a week sooner too. :P I'm looking forward to it !

I'm wiping the tears from my eyes...

I was the one who asked the "Is GB's demographic representative of people who play games as a whole" question, and I thought Jeff's answer was great, and it showed to me that he does think about this stuff. To be honest, as much as I enjoy their goofball antics (and the Firewatch stuff was awesome in person), my favorite parts of the podcast are when they engage in real talk about games and the industry as a whole.

I swear just the other day I was thinking how funny it would be if someone would go to the PAX rumble as a GameBomb.ru Russian guy and would have the Soviet theme in the background and they actually did it. I was dying in tears from that.

Great Panel Camerads

Thank you for your hard work @drewbert!!!

That sweet, sweet chin music...

TRIPLE COLLUSION

I really could've done without the uninformed Nintendo shit-talking again. Came here for the fun shenanigans not a reminder of why I stopped listening to the podcast. :/

@def: Dude. They shit-talk A LOT of things. Chill. I listen to a few different gaming podcasts and theyall have WILDLY differing opinions about certain subject matters, companies, franchises, etc. I wouldn't have anything to listen to if I needed to agree with everything they said.

Yes, that's a typo!

I do listen to a lot of podcasts. It's the consistency that bothers me in this case. I have no patience for that anymore. Has nothing to do with different opinions and everything to do with how they're expressed. With the panel I was hoping for the fun silliness of yore without the need for that stuff for once but I should've expected it with the news hitting during the event.

Great panel. Game Bomb segment was incredible. Socialist Justice Warrior, haha, I'm glad at least one gaming website can not take themselves so seriously and make fun of all the over dramatic bullshit ruining gaming journalism these days. Games are about having fun and Giantbomb is one of the few non-youtube game websites left that seems to still celebrate that instead of being over dramatic, whining constantly like a tumblr blog, slandering game devs and game players, focusing on negatives and trying to push personal social agendas 24/7 instead of actually telling us if a game is fun or not. Ty giantbomb, stay fun, lighthearted while informative in the ways that matter when it comes to games, pls never go the way of certain other game sites out there.

I've got so much love for this ... <3

I love how dumb these things have become.

The jig is up!!!!!

Man that panel space looks so much smaller then PAX East.

This is beautiful.

Are... are those empty seats in the back?

You disappoint me West Coast.

Stop. Just, stop. Please.

That was one heck of a Superkick. Great panel!

Great show! But man, what happened to the audio this year. I don't remember it ever being this bad.

Top-notch panel as always. Love both the theatrics of these big, live, LIVE shows and seeing the guests so unbuttoned. Hearkening back to the question about YouTubers: it's those taut - almost brotherly - developer relationships between Johnny V, Drake, Lang & a whole host of others that plays a big part in my growing love of Giant Bomb (and my waning interest in the likes of TBFP or Yogscast).

1989 MOTHERFUCKERS

is jeff drinking wine or pepsi/coke?

I'm glad this got up faster than last year. Is there any chance of piping direct audio in the future? The bigger the theater, the worst the audio quality comes out it seems.

It's pretty interesting that Ninja Theory is on board with Infinity. I'm gradually becoming more enticed in getting into it, but the game needs to be less floaty. I hope 3.0 will be that game that I want.

Also, @jeff Gerstmann is the smartest man in video games. I'm always blown away by the way he carries himself and how well formulated he is when answering questions, both on this panel, Jar-time and anywhere else. Every time there's some kind of new bullshit about gaming or whatever, I've never see him have some kind of knee-jerk reaction or done anything that I don't agree with.... With the exception of him being wrong about musou, which is the greatest genre in video games.

I was born in 1988. So...I guess I just barely was alive in 1989. I win?

I'm russian, and that game bomb bit was fucked up. I've been following Jeff since 2003, and that was the most disappointed that I've ever been with the crew. Using offensive stereotypes is in really poor taste, even if its for humor's sake. Really bummed out over this.

@nickm: I agree, that was really shitty. They were misappropriating a culture and clearly had little understanding of what they were parodying. I was cringing from the time they pulled out the Soviet flag until the segment was over. I feel the only solace one could take from this is that the GB crew didn't have any knowledge beforehand of what John Drake + the others were going to do, which was clear from the way Jeff later mentioned people just asking for a chunk of panel time and him giving the go ahead sight unseen. Although the panel segments that the GB crew don't plan are usually awesome, perhaps there should be at least a minimal amount of oversight in the future.

While I did have fun watching the whole thing, I did take a second to note that the entire Russian bit was definitely cheap comedy straight out of pro-wrestling (which i happen to be a fan of, beeteedubs). I would say that everyone in that room aren't racists though, and everything was done tongue-in-cheek. The potshot about the Ukrainian invasion I think was definitely eyebrow-raising, but since that's more of an insult towards the Russian government than the people, I'll allow it!

I'm also of the idea that it's fine to punch up or in your own weight class when it comes to comedy. Russians aren't exactly a minority group that has suffered great oppression!

And besides, I think they're totally into it: http://gamebomb.ru/videos/6616

This panel was one of the greatest goddamn things ever.

Game Bomb Shirt ordered :)

Fantastic panel duders!

greatest Russian video game character is the straight Tetromino.

so jeff kinda shits all over firewatch and doesn't rly let anybody talk about it at length (sure, it was meant to be funny but it kind of wasn't) and then there's this huge disney infinity spot? weird.

I thought it was really funny and also really obvious he wasn't actually insulting Firewatch...

Maybe your sense of humour and Jeff's just don't vibe, I don't think there's any more to it than that. Disney Infinity always gets lots of love from GB, and it makes sense considering JV.

Thats a good looking superkick.

Totally agree - he knows his stuff better than anyone in the industry! However - he is also wrong about Dark Souls, Red Dead Redemption and Monster Hunter - which would normally be unforgiveable sins. Jeff gets a pass though - due to the extenuating circumstance of his general awesomeness.

Fantastic Panel! Russian bit was hilarious. Both Alex and Dan sold the shit out of that ending!

Overall, pretty bad. Save for Dan kicking Alex in the face and Jeff doing some real talk.

Great panel but the audio was kind of annoying.

/beginsarc

Waiting for the outrage that all the people on Gamebomb.ru podcast t are white.

/endsarc

/beginrant (spoiler blocked because its largely unimportant to this panel)

/endrant