Giant Bombcast 616: Sonic's Wife

Neat

Steep was included with PS+ January 2019, and is as of this comment free on Epic Game Store until January 9. Darksiders Warmastered Edition and Darksiders II Deathinitive Edition are also free on Epic.

That's the Granny's Garden witch! Childhood flashback and probably the first game I played in school.

no video?

Hahahahah a JEFF YES. THAT WHOLE EMAIL I'M LIKE THE COMICS AREN'T CANON THIS IS JUST MORE MISLEADING. But you wonderful jackass Jeff you were ready

What about two HDMI out ports? I definitely don't think it will be on the next Xbox since Phil has pretty much stated no interest in VR. I kind of hope the PS5 might have two HDMI out instead of this stupid box solution for the next VR headset.

Very intimate echidna anatomy.

The site twitter and Jan said some bad funk is delaying the video :(

Dan took the video with him...

No Ben, the best way to do training videos is with an autoclicker while you're at lunch.

Jason's excitement at Ben picking MHW back up brings a tear to my eye... :')

Just a heads up, the mp3 download is only the first 3 minutes of the show.

Regarding Jeff's headphones:

I'd be down for headphone (or other peripheral) review streams. Not that there's any shortage of those videos on Youtube, but if Jeff or any of the other staff are facing questions around potential gear purchases, I'd just assume they kill two birds with one stone and turn it into a feature. For something like headphones you could probably get a variety of them as free review units and pass them around during a UPF, and it'd be a good topic of conversation to keep everyone awake and engaged.

Regarding the game director commentary:

This is already best served by post-mortem talks that often take place at GDC and other such conferences. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2e4mYbwSTbbiX2uwspn0xiYb8_P_cTAr The best part is that you're not constrained by the pace of the gameplay and tech of older games/engines/hardware.

Grannys Garden witch, the scourge of educational classes around the UK. Still remember feeding those dragons in the right order.

Good bombcast to start the year.

I really hope there is plenty of Granny's Garden discussion this week

Refreshing hearing Ben's take on Skill based matchmaking. It's why I dropped off this Call of Duty a week after release, the game is so stressful.

Skill based matchmaking sucks.
I can see its use in certain games, Counter Strike for example, people gather up for a best of 30 in a mode designed specifically for competitive play.
Call of Duty? People are relaxing after a days work, leveling up their characters and weapons to unlock stuff and have fun, why the fuck would they want to be matched in a way that gives them less success?
I get the argument that "bad" or "low skill" players would want to be matched up with other similar players, but i'm not sure that's happening, the system is always trying to match you up to your highest skill level, so as a bad player if you have 3 great matches you're suddenly about to get shit on by psychic sweat lords... is that fun?
I became very good at COD as i've played every entry since the first, i'm a high scorer, but MW makes me feel like i'm awful at it. Is it about time i was put in my place so other people can have fun? Maybe, but now the matches i'm in are being dominated by extremely good players and everyone else is suffering for it. It doesn't feel like matches are more balanced, some people will always dominate a server, but now the majority of your matches are going to be impacted by this forced balance... until you lose 10 times in a row and get 1 match with a lower skill, again... fun...

I for One can not wait to hear Shaggys «it wasnt me part II: It wasnt him feat. Sisqo» boo Jeff! get on the hyperhypetrain! You tell’em Pack!

This is my problem. I have played since Modern Warfare 2 every year and this game makes me feel like I'm terrible. Every match is meta loadouts, which while fun in League Play/Gamebattles, I don't want it in regular pub matches. I want to be able to use weaker guns and not go 5-15.

The audio download is only 11 mins. long.
The iTunes feed is still down (almost 5 months now).
You guys are really making it difficult to listen to your show on the go..

Re: fighting game cowboys and Games that would be well suited to in game directors commentary. Mortal Kombats own Erron Black. Baba is You.

I love that the banner with the episode number and date had 2019. With all the times I’ve already jacked up the date, I feel seen.

They always talk about how terrible the Steam controller but it is great for a lot of games that aren’t as physically engaging. Like Disco Elysium or card games or things like Darkest Dungeon.

@maxxcanti: I wouldn’t bother with Apple podcasts, it’s problematic for a lot of reasons. Check out Overcast, it’s great.

I have no issues with the iTunes feed...

Oh lord they read my Granny's Garden e-mail!

This ep is busted in my podcast feed too (podcast republic on Android)

No mention of Dan leaving at all?

I went to Disneyland for New Year's Eve with my family in 2014, and it was awesome. Seriously, the happiest, most positive vibes that I've ever had staying up for the midnight "Happy New Year." The general vibe from the attendants was very cheerful, the fireworks were great, and the cast members gave everyone these little plastic top hats that I always associate with NYE (though I have to imagine they were a nightmare to clean up). Bummer about Jan getting a bad DJ; I just remember being delighted at hearing "Just Dance" while standing in line for Star Tours while Chip and Dale were dancing on the stage with the DJ. Glad that Jan had a great time!

Not from a movie, but the most infuriating representation of a video game in another medium was in an old TV show, Life, where a bunch of detectives figure out that a bunch of vital files is stored in an Xbox, and the way to access them is... to play Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones. That alone would have been dumb, but then the detectives completely fail at playing the game, and have to get in another person to play the game, and once she reaches level 10 (never mind that Two Thrones doesn't have numbered levels) the files are unlocked and the plot moves on. The sequence was incredibly contrived. The suspect couldn't think of a better way to store the files? The detectives couldn't find another way to get the files? The writers couldn't have picked a game with actual numbered levels? On that note, they couldn't think of a less contrived situation? That was a bad scene all around.

So Fast & Furious X M.A.SK. X Transformers?

I once thought about the FF cast as Transformers and it came out weird.

@csl316 They had a nearly 4-hour-long "Farewell Dan" stream just a few days ago. What else is there to say?

I am a bit disapointed and find it jarring by how the steam controller is dragged through the dirt everytime it comes up. I also got it through the sale but it did not cross my mind to play any twitchy-games with it.

Disco Elysium is great on the couch with the steam controller or ANY singleplayer game that does not have controller support. It has it's uses and fills a gap.

Is the issue actually skill-based matchmaking, or is it just the age-old unsolved problem of skill creep in games that rely on mechanical skill? The majority of players want a low-effort but satisfying experience, but everyone can't have that in a zero-sum game where one person's satisfaction comes from another's dissatisfaction.

Perhaps in the past this issue was mitigated somewhat with dedicated servers and a server browser, as that allowed players some semblance of agency over what style of gameplay they were likely to get. If you wanted to fuck around and relax, you would join a server that has a map rotation that caters to spammy nonsense. If you wanted more challenge you could choose a pub server where lots of clan players would hang out at, and if you wanted even more than that you'd find a pickup game on IRC.

Come to think of it, I'm honestly not sure if I've enjoyed any multiplayer FPS that utilizes a global hopper with automated matchmaking, as it completely robs games of the social aspect of having familiar players congregate on the same servers. It's also not nearly as annoying to get killed by passing acquaintances than it is to get killed by a revolving door of faceless people.

Yeah I don't understand the hate that the Steam Controller gets, either. I recently got my old PC disk of Sonic R running on a modern system with mods and didn't feel like futzing around to get a controller to work, so I decided to give my new 5 dollar Steam Controller a try. It's pretty damn cool, and the ease with which it made that old PC game playable was kind of amazing. Granted, it has pretty specific uses and isn't gonna be a good choice for everything, but I feel like it does what it was designed to do quite well.

Then again, people shit on the Steam Link and I love that thing.

The knowledge Jeff has retained through his career is astounding. Loved that segment of the UK stamp games.

That was some....ummmm….interesting echidna discussion.

I'm in Victoria Australia, the whole east side of our state has just been fires and warnings and emergency notices non stop for weeks on the map.

A lot of it is to do with the fact it's been especially dry for a long while around the country and our summer started very intense with a good number of days hitting above 104f and some places getting to and probably over 114f or so.

It's also a lot of bush land and forest terrain over that way too. I've personally not been affected by any of it and am no where near it, but February in my experience tends to be hotter than December and January, so who the hell knows.

For anyone curious as to what this all looks like on the map, this is from a incidents and warnings site in our state showing info of any sort fire or similar kind of emergency that has been reported and dealt with in recent days/week. The important part is the big orange and red zone, showing the ongoing fire situation out that way and the level of danger in the areas directly around it. Perspective on it's size may not really show through until you consider that we basically have 6 states across a landmass that is around the same size of the US.

Ben picked Shield because of Melony, but didn't want to out himself. It's ok man, we feel you.

I'm actually shocked Jeff couldn't come up with Lemmings for the stamps. That was the one game I thought of.

I would be interested to know what the Bomb crew thinks of Call of Duty mobile now that it has controller support.

I teach middle school students. Your predictions on 'video game lies' that kids tell in 2020 is pretty spot on - I've heard the 'I beat Ninja' one before. They also talk a lot about Destiny 2 gear as well?

Ben, if you are interested in the development of Obra Dinn, you can read Lucas Pope's game development log posts on the TIGSource forum.

https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=40832.0

The posts start at initial conception through to full release. This, along with his thread for Papers Please, are a fantastic insight into indie game development.

My favourite arcade game ending is Zangief's ending in SF2.

It's only a matter of time for Jeff, Jason, and Vinny to have a dad cast.

@caffeinatedking: The magnitude of these fires really feel understated here in the US. I may be somewhat desensitized by all the California fires (terrifying in their own right), but I only really got an idea of their impact from this podcast and your post. Thanks for the post, and stay safe out there!

Skill based matchmaking just sucks. It always turns a fun game into a chore for me. In fact skill based matchmaking was the reason why I quit playing SC2, Hearthstone and Dota 2. Concerning Dota 2, I had hundreds of hours of fun before skill based matchmaking was introduced, but after it was introduced I only played a dozen of hours before getting burned out and quitting the game altogether.

Should I be worried that suddenly the video stopped just as Jeff started talking about Russian numbers stations? Heh. I remember years back finding a recording some some creepy sounding numbers station. I distored it a bit and put it on my phone. Then I went by my comic shop. I went over to where he had the radio playing music and snuck my new Bluetooth speaker next to it when my comic shop guy wasn't looking. We had been talking about conspiracy theories and cold war paranoia recently. I waiting until no one else was in the shop and I started playing having it already queued up. After a while he noticed it and I commented it must be one of those number stations like on L O S T . Of course eventually he figured I was behind it, but it got us talking about how interesting those things were.

re: Inaccurate depictions of games in movies

This one always bothered me and still does. I think it was in the original Charlie's Angels movie from 2000, there was a chase scene where they run through a house where two kids are sitting down playing Final Fantasy VIII as if it's a multiplayer action game.

@azuregale: @azuregale: I just watched a episode of Law and Order SVU with a fictional version of a Grand Theft Auto game and a deranged Perverted game developer. It was bad

This image triggered some repressed memory in my brain.

We must have had a BBC Micro at my school, since this memory is squirreled away as one of my earliest computer experiences.