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The Community Spotlight 2023.01.28

Brand new, state of the art video games this week!

Welcome to the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight! I, @zombiepie, am once again honored to be your host as we look back at the best community-created works from the previous week. Obviously, the site is still processing the loss of Jess and Jason from last week. As a friendly reminder, it is strongly encouraged you do whatever you can support those impacted by the layoffs that hit Giant Bomb and GameSpot and if you need some help, here are some links:

Giant Bomb

For those that really took the loss of Jess/Voidburger hard, be aware they were on an episode of noclip's podcast that you can give a listen. If you want to learn more about what they think the future holds for them or what they think of the current state of games journalism, it's a necessary listen.

The Giant Bomb staff are aware that the Programming Schedule & Show Notes on the front page needs to be updated. The good news is that Rorie is hoping to get back to the weekly roundup posts on Mondays going forward.

Speaking of Rorie-based news, he's continuing to go back to old Bombcast episodes and add them to the Premium feed so you can get them without ads. This undertaking is slow, but it has been on the docket for a while. Let them know on the Giant Bomb Discord if there's anything weird about them, (e.g. if they start floating up in your podcast reader).

Have any of you been having issues logging in since the site rolled out the new login stuff this week? If yes, head over to the "Site Tech Issues" section of the Giant Bomb Discord and drop a comment!

Tweets

Activities

Once again, the Album Club hits HARD with some clammy clam classics.
Once again, the Album Club hits HARD with some clammy clam classics.

The GB Album Club 021 - Paranoid by Black Sabbath (By: @unclejam23)

AWW HELL YEAH! This edition of the Community Album Club is looking at Paranoid by Black Sabbath! Is thus Album still necessary listening to any self-respecting music appreciator? Are you a fan if any tracks on it?

Tinykin Is The 2nd Game Of UUGPGC Year 2! Finish By January 30, 2023! Mark All Spoilers! (By: @bigsocrates)

Tinykin is the 2nd game for the 2023 edition of the Giant Bomb Community Game Pass Game Club! If you have any early non-spoiler impressions of the game and how it plays or looks, feel free to join that discussion.

Blogs

A definitely must read blog from BladeOfCreation this week.
A definitely must read blog from BladeOfCreation this week.

History is No Game: Part 1 -- "Bury Me, My Love" (By: @bladeofcreation)

BladeOfCreation briefly talks about their military service, living through the G.I. Bill, and playing Bury me, my Love. Head over and read why they think it is a useful tool for teaching the player about the hardship.

The Last of Us And The Importance Of A Quality Homage (By: @crunchyflies)

crunchyflies recently tuned in to watch HBO’s The Last of Us and explains why they think video games require "quality homage" as the medium matures and evolves to reach wider audiences.

Cyberia asks the question, what if Wing Commander was really bad?
Cyberia asks the question, what if Wing Commander was really bad?

All PS1 Games In Order: Part 015 (By: @borgmaster)

The journey to play every single PS1 game ever made continues on Giant Bomb with borgmaster's latest blog on the site! This week they review their time with Cyberia, Revolution X, Philosoma, and Goal Storm! They can't all be bangers. Furthermore, and this is not a joke, borgmaster went ahead and looked at the launch window games for the 3DO because that seems like something everyone has been asking for recently.

Some Early Thoughts On Hitman's New "Freelancer" Mode (By: @atheistpreacher)

AtheistPreacher has already played a good amount of Hitman 3's new "Freelancer" mode and shares what they think are the pros and cons of the mode and if it says anything about the long-term future of the game.

Oops All Tactics Games 2022 - Turn 3: Brought to you by Fire Emblem Engageâ„¢ (By: @arbitrarywater)

A music essay on Giant Bomb? I'LL TAKE IT!
A music essay on Giant Bomb? I'LL TAKE IT!

With interest in Fire Emblem at an all-time high, ArbitraryWater looked at three Fire Emblem clones! Why, they wrote a blog about Lost Eidolons, Symphony of War: The Nephilim Saga, and Dark Deity that you can read right now!

The Pleasure Principle: A Brief Historical Analysis And Review (By: @dain22)

Inspired by the most recent edition of the latest community Album Club, Dain22 wrote a track-by-track review and historical breakdown of The Pleasure Principle by Gary Numan that is a must read by any music fans in the GB community!

64 in 64: Episode 26 +

Go! Go! GOTY! 2022: Norco & Vampire Survivors +

Indie Game of the Week 304: Recompile (By: @mento)

Ah, the days when consoles had wildly different versions of the same game... wait that still happens!
Ah, the days when consoles had wildly different versions of the same game... wait that still happens!

It is time for a new edition of moderator Mento's "64 in 64" blog series where they look at games in the Nintendo 64's catalogue but in 64 minutes or less! This week they check out Bomberman Hero and Madden Football 64.

Likewise, Mento is nearing the end of their "Go! Go! GOTY! 2022" blog series on but that doesn't mean they are running low on heavy hitters! This week they looked at Norco and Vampire Survivors!

Finally, they capped the week off with the a new episode of their "Indie Game of the Week" series and this one is all about Recompile!

I Spent The First Two Weeks Of 2023 Playing Final Fantasy VII: The First Soldier Before It Was Sent To Pasture (By: @zombiepie)

Moderator ZombiePie played a good chunk of Final Fantasy VII: The First Soldier before the game shut down. What did they learn? How is the game connected to Yuji Naka's insider trading trial? Click the link above to find the answers to all of these questions!

What's in a game sequel?
What's in a game sequel?

How Faithful Should A Sequel Be? (By: @purpleshyguy)

PurpleShyGuy takes to the site to blog about Axiom Verge 2 and why it is a great question to ask whether or not a successor should branch out to something new even if it alienates fans? If you want to join their conversation, click the link!

Fast Time at Windy Valley High Part 1 of 2 +

Fast Time at Windy Valley High Part 2 of 2 (By: @infantpipoc)

Rats are gross disgusting animals.
Rats are gross disgusting animals.

infantpipoc decided to give Fire Emblem: Three Houses another go and felt like the characters in the game map well to the characters of Naussica of the Valley of the Wind. Don't buy it? Give their two-part blog series a shot before you swear it off.

Pestilence: A Plague Tale: Innocence and 14th-Century France (By: @gamer_152)

This week on their blog, moderator Gamer_152 is discussing A Plague Tale: Innocence and how it relates to the disease, war, and the persecution of people in 14-century France.

Discussion Threads

game good
game good

Is The Callisto Protocol Better Than Dead Space 3? (By: @topcyclist)

The thread got started for obvious reason. People seem to be drawing lines in the sand about it, but a war has erupted on the forums over if The Callisto Protocol is better than Dead Space 3. What is your reaction?

Do You Try To Finish Games Even After You've Had Your Fill Of Them Or Do Just Step Away Even Before The Ending? (By: @bigsocrates)

Here's a new thread on the Giant Bomb forums everyone can relate to. When you've "had enough" of a video game, do you get to the end out of principal or stop the moment you feel that?

Has any other racing franchise been soft rebooted? You tell me.
Has any other racing franchise been soft rebooted? You tell me.

Is Skies Of Arcadia The One Piece Game People Want But Never Got? (By: @topcyclist)

Is Skies of Arcadia basically a One Piece video game? Do you think the RPG structure and template of Skies of Arcadia working well for a future One Piece game or do you think a long RPG epic would prove to be too slow?

Does Anyone Care That GoldenEye Just Dropped For Switch And Xbox? (By: @bigsocrates)

How many of you plan to play or purchase GoldenEye 007 on Switch and/or Xbox? What's motivating you to give the game a shot after so much evolution with the genre? Why are some of you skeptical? Share on Giant Bomb!

I don't know, this face feels pretty tiemless.
I don't know, this face feels pretty tiemless.

Your Thoughts On The Forza Trailer Being Shown Via Developer Direct, Presented By Xbox & Bethesda? (By: @gtxforza)

Are you surprised that the mainline Forza Motorsport series is getting the soft reboot treatment? How would you reboot the simulation-focused games in light of the Horizon games becoming more popular?

Should They Remake/Remaster inFamous (By: @rovium)

Some on the internet are comparing the style and tone of Forspoken to the early Infamous games and that has inspired some on the forums to ask why Sony hasn't given the series the remaster treatment. Would you be down?

Lists

I'm still more than happy to showcase late GOTY lists on the site!
I'm still more than happy to showcase late GOTY lists on the site!

GOTY 2022 (By: @wess)

Wess finally got around to making a 2022 GOTY list and they went to great lengths to show that last year was a great year for games and gaming in general. See if you agree or disagree with their rankings by clicking the link!

Cooked Dishes in Video Games (By: @suzukagongen)

suzukagongen is working on a list that annotates every single example of a cooked dish in video game history! If you noticed they missed any examples, drop a comment on their list.

T-dokuro's M.U.G.E.N Wishlist (By: @tyrannosaurusreich)

M.U.G.E.N Tyrannodokuro's "guilty pleasure" video game experience and they took up the monstrous task of making a list of iconic video game characters that are still not in the "game." Check out what they have thus far!

Wiki Page Of The Week

Monster Hunter & Warren

Thanks for the many memories, Jason.
Thanks for the many memories, Jason.

The first two wiki pages this week are in tribute to Jason Oestreicher, the legendary producer of nearly a decade of Giant Bomb content. As many of you already know, Jason was a massive fan of Monster Hunter and he was spiritually connected to Warren from Deadly Moves.

Announced and Released on the Same Day

We added Hi-Fi Rush to the page this past week, and then Stephen Totilo posted the page on Twitter asking for more examples of shadow dropped games. This led to the page expanding from eight games to sixteen currently. If you can think of any additional examples, double check them with Marino or me.