Humanity

@rorie: It's very anime and makes multiple references to various classic anime moments but I don't think you will be at a disadvantage in not knowing the references apart from a moment of "ahh I recognize that from so and so." The game plays a lot like a classic Resident Evil but has the atmosphere and styling of a Silent Hill which is probably why Jess enjoyed it so much. From a pure gameplay perspective I would very much recommend it because the moment to moment gameplay is very enjoyable, the puzzles are genuinely interesting to solve and the graphic design is incredibly unique. Even if the story itself isn't going to hook I think the part where you actually play the game should be enough which is a stark contrast to stuff like Silent Hill which is rough to go back to these days.

I finished the game the other day and really enjoyed it. The end boss is pretty weak and the whole thing just ends rather abruptly for a game that goes to great pains to stretch every story moment out to it's breaking point and then some, and then some. That said - the gameplay loop is really solid. Classic metroidvania ability gated progress is always fun and the first person shooting is I would say above competent although not exceptional. The different mods you can find and secondary fire modes do enough to vary up the different combat encounters and apart from the above mentioned final boss all the other boss encounters are creative and challenging.

If you're one of those people that just hate Rick and Morty then yah I would stay away. Even outside of that circle the humor might miss more than it hits but I really had to applaud and appreciate the sheer volume of dialog they pack into this thing. Even when the jokes aren't hitting the absurdity of all the talking made me chuckle a bit. There is SO much writing here that you can choose to have a completely different boss interaction based on what gun you have out and there are a ton of places where the game forks in subtle ways.

Probably one of my more pleasant surprises of the year, to balance out my huge disappointment with Somerville

@undeadpool: It is inarguable that the community has largely dropped off. This is not just a case of many more Giant Bomb adjacent sites popping up as this really isn't the case. Giant Bomb was always very unique in how they presented themselves and their content. For better and worse they had actively stayed away from YouTube and Twitch streaming for years until just recently. There was a huge dropoff in users actively participating in the site after all the Game Gate shenanigans and it mostly had to do with site moderation. Then came the many acquisitions and then core staff leaving and the community is all but gone. They are serving a different audience because a vast majority of the original audience simply moved on. This is not all due to content or onscreen personalities either. It's mostly down to how little traffic the forums get. Some people are happy with shouting into the void but a lot of us want to actually interact with other members. Making a thread about a current game and barely getting 10 replies is just bad. I held out as long as I could but eventually writing up threads about games I was playing - current mainstream games and not some niche Itch.io indies - and getting barely any responses is disheartening. A lot of folks moved into the Discord permanently and others moved to sites like ResetEra where you have thriving game threads with a lot of folks to discuss stuff with.

Did they take the community for granted at it's peak? I don't know if I would put it that harshly but when Giant Bomb was thriving there was a sense that they actively avoided the forums. I can only say this from someone who posted a whole lot in the past and barely saw Jeff or Brad or anyone in here. It was not uncommon to hear Brad mention about some conversation he was part of on NeoGaf but you hardly ever saw him on the GB boards. I had begged and begged for some sort of updates on whats going on with the site and eventually Vinny started that thread where he would post weekly updates which was great but that quickly fell behind and stopped entirely until Vinny and the guys just left.

So I would say they are definitely serving a different audience as the staff turnover is nearly 100% and the vibe is very different as a result. Folks have moved on to Nextlander and the likes and some still keep up with the site. But the forums have been bleeding for many years now and that has nothing to do with any of the recent acquisitions or staff changes.

I agree that the inventory limit really does hamper the experience and in my opinion is too stringent. Forcing the flashlight to take up one inventory slot was also a frustrating game design choice that just adds even more needless back and forth trips. It’s also the reason why I never used the screenshot item which I thought was a really fun in-world tool for solving the puzzles but fuck me if I’m wasting an entire slot for it when I can just take a picture of my screen with my phone. The radio stuff was great though and especially in the way it ties into one of the enemies which can be killed by just tuning your radio. I also loved all the anime references - I have to admit I initially thought the presentation had a very “friend who drew anime during recess” vibe to it at first but it really won me over by the end. That one moment with the hatch that directly references Ghost in the Shell had me laughing and cheering these crazy Germans on.

@allthedinos: You and me buddy.. you and me..

Signalis created by Rose Engine consisting primarily of two people is basically a love letter to classic survival horror, dark sci-fi cinema and anime all mashed together into a stellar indie release that naturally has flown under most radars (it didn't even get a VGA nomination). Signalis meshes an isometric overhead camera that smoothly sweeps down into focus when interacting with puzzle objects revealing things that you assumed were simple 2D pixel art to be in fact fully rendered 3D objects. With everything having a very unique lo-fi aesthetic with jagged pixelated edges this is a great effect and the last time I saw something similar was in FEZ. Everything has this chunky feel to it from the PC bootup sequence to the inventory screens. It's an incredible look and a breath of fresh air in the indie space which has for a long time been dominated by increasingly more detailed flat pixel art.

The story delves into many different genres but broadly speaking it tasks your character with the singular goal of locating your copilot who has gone missing. What follows is a gradual descent into madness as you begin piecing together a fractured narrative and start to question pieces of the puzzle that initially seem to fit together but with added time and context begin to increasingly fall out of place. While the narrative goes in many directions the world of Signalis is wonderfully grounded. There is history to it's people and concepts and it feels like a place that has existed and worked and isn't just mere set dressing for you to walk through. This is one of those games where I anxiously picked up and examined every note in order to learn more about these people and their conflicts.

The game harkens back to classic Resident Evil with strict inventory management that constantly challenges you with making the call on whether to carry ammo or leave your precious inventory slots open for the many key items you will need to pick up. Combat is meaningfully slow and cumbersome but not unpleasant from a gameplay perspective like Silent Hill, a game from which Signalis draws many inspirations - some quite literal towards the latter half of the story. Puzzles range from classics like finding a specific key for a specific door to very clever headscratches requiring you to write down ciphers and even take screenshots with a built in game camera (or you know.. just take a picture of your screen with your phone). There is a lot of variety and most importantly Signalis will typically point you in the right direction but apart from one puzzle involving a water pump will never outright tell you the answer. You will never encounter a locked box and the combination written on a piece of paper 2 steps away. While unlike Silent Hill games there is no slider for puzzle difficulty I found them all quite enjoyable and never too obscure to the point of frustration.

The game is Game Pass so no excuse really. Go and play it, enjoy it, and support the developers because they've created something special.

From what I understood Jeff was let go before he put in his “two weeks” which is a bit different, but the end result would have been the same either way. Who knows what the terms were but he might have benefited a bit more from being fired than if he had actually just quit. That said it sure is something that the guy who started this site because a bunch of suits decided to sack him from his previous job has now after a decade and change gotten once again sacked by a bunch of suits from his “own” site no less (Obviously Jeff hasn’t owned Giant Bomb for a long time now).

The only surprising thing for me here is that no one from the remaining cast was willing to stand up and say anything about it. Especially after that letter announcing a new era of transparency and how much Giant Bomb has over the years criticized shitty corporate behavior in the games industry, to then see a guy like Jeff get fired by a bunch of idiot suits from his own site and to have no one stand up and criticize it seems like a bad look. I can only hope that Jeff actually asked everyone not to mention it and just wanted a quiet exit.

She should have been offered more money and more respect for having established and grounded a character so completely purely through her talent. Being offered a bit role and a shit payout as a consolation parting gift as the studio hires a more expensive new VO to take over your spot certainly doesn't feel great. For her to break NDA and go public with this in such an aggressive way only goes to show how frustrated she must have felt. This is nothing like the David Hayer MGSV situation where they simply didn't contact him at all.

Boycotting the game is a whole different conversation but I think we have all seen how boycotts typically work out in the world of gaming. Sure people want to support VO actors and are very up in arms about this whole situation but.. they also want to play that hot new 10/10 Bayonetta 3 too. Pretty sure not much is going to come from that. Not that the IP has ever been much of a financial hit regardless. Bayonetta is a critical darling and a character action fan favorite, but sadly has never done huge numbers. This latest drama is certainly not helping either, but who knows maybe if it makes it into enough news cycles it will bring the awareness and curiosity to more folks out there.

Surprised it lasted as long as it did. G4 is a relic of bygone times that are best left forgotten. Even back in the day when the show premiered on cable tv in comparison to Tech TVs much more straightforward X-Play, G4 did stuff that was at best eye roll worthy and at worst straight up embarrassing. This new iteration certainly swung for the fences and tried some new things but it's a tough market out there and the promise of doing G4 but in 2022 wasn't going to get people to tune in. Adam Sessler and Kevin Pereira aren't the hot gaming celebs crowds are going to flock to these days either and the rest is a colorful staff that has potential but no real built in fanbase to help grow the channel. Pretty tough time to be out of a job in the gaming space right now as several major sites are shutting down and with few positions open and a ton of new potential hires looking for a spot it's going to be real rough unless you decide to branch out into different fields which is easier for some than others.

@csl316: you’ll just do so un-ethically