The Community Spotlight 2023.09.09

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 creations from the last week.

First on the docket of discussion items is an update about the premium feed issues. Bakalar has returned from his vacation and has stated that he will be bringing up the issue to the site engineers. He will have an update on what went wrong and when things should be working. Some of the premium RSS feeds are forwarding to Spreaker, but they do not know why that is the case. Nonetheless, the staff agrees this issue should not exist.

Secondly, last week marked the start of Drew Scanlon's yearly charity drive for Bike MS! If you have even a small donation to spare to help the Blinking White Guy in a quest to raise as much money as possible to fund research for treatments and cures for multiple sclerosis, please do what you can! And even if you are unable to donate, please consider spreading the word.

Finally, if any of you reading this attended Giant Bomb's Voicemail Dump Truck PAX panel, there's a survey you can complete about your thoughts about the panel and if you would like to see Giant Bomb continue to attend PAX in the future.

Tweets

Activities

The GB Album Club 039 - Expert in a Dying Field by The Beths (By: @unclejam23)

The Giant Bomb Community Album Club has a new album it wishes to discuss with you and this time it is "Expert in a Dying Field" by The Beths! Do you have any impressions of this indie rock outing by The Beths?

Planet of Lana Is The 19th Selection Year 2 Of The UUGPGC! Finish By September 12, 2023! Mark All Spoilers! +

Unsanctioned Unofficial Game Pass Game Club Voting Thread For Cycle Starting September 12, 2023 (By: @bigsocrates)

Planet of Lana is the 19th pick of SEASON TWO of the Game Pass Game Club! If you have thoughts about this 2023 indie sci-fi puzzle adventure game from Wishfully, you can join the community discussion by clicking the link!

Art

Super Bombio Bros. (By: @kone)

The photo of the Giant Bomb staff occupying a Mario pipe at PAX West 2023 continues to deliver. As you can see below, Kone edited the original video to imagine which Mario character they would be by placing color-coded hats on their heads. Do you think their hat assignments are correct?

Bowsotti's Fury (By: @TurboShawn_)

Shawn McDowell made one "correction" to Kone's Mario Pipe photoshop to make it better by putting Mike Minotti as Bowser and I don't think anyone here would disagree.

Gameboy Camera Photos Of Giant Bomb's 2023 PAX West Panel (By: @ethers_elixirs)

Here's a blast from the past. evie mae attended Giant Bomb's 2023 PAX West panelas well as several others while taking photos using the Game Boy Camera. Here's what they snapped of Giant Bomb!

Gallery

Tit Tacs x Cum? (By: @kone)

The trend of Giant Bomb staffers interacting with questionable street art continues! This week, Mike was caught posing next to a fake advertisement for breast milk-based Tic Tacs and Kone felt this worked with the time Jan posed next to graffiti related to a different bodily fluid.

Blogs

The Portopia Serial Murder Case Deserved So Much Better Than What It Got In 2023 (By: @zombiepie)

2023 is shaping up to be a GREAT YEAR for visual novels, but one remaster of a classic simply fell flat on its face. Today, moderator ZombiePie checked out the AI-derived Portopia Renzoku Satsujin Jiken/Portopia remaster and reviews why it is a complete tragedy.

Roll, Plot-armor, Shotgun (By: @infantpipoc)

infantpipoc wrote a blog discussing Tony Leung winning a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Venice International Film Festival while also reviewing Hard Boiled. Why is it the only John Woo film people in the West are able to discuss?

Editor's Note from Marino: We can discuss Mission Impossible 2 if you want, but it's awful and a miracle that it didn't kill the franchise.

All PS1 Games In Order: Part 027 (By: @borgmaster)

borgmaster has a new blog chronicling their quest to play every single North American PS1 game! This week, they checked out Olympic Summer Games, True Pinball, Fade to Black, and Shellshock.

Look, not every week will have bangers.

Mega Archive: Part XXXV: From Davis Cup Tennis to Jurassic Park +

Indie Game of the Week 336: The Room 4: Old Sins (By: @mento)

It is time to return to the wild world of the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis with the latest blog by moderator Mento! Are Davis Cup Tennis, Shinobi III, Bart's Nightmare, Double Clutch, AND MORE worth playing today?

I Failed My Friends' Child By Suggesting His Parents Get Him A Switch And Not First Suggesting Amico (By: @bigsocrates)

bigsocrates was tapped by a friend for child gift recommendations and told them to get a Switch. Is that still valid in 2023 with the Switch 2 possibly near? Also, how many more times will they dunk on the Amico?

Discussion Threads

What Difficulty Do You Start At Without Knowledge Of The Game Your Playing (A New Game)? (By: @topcyclist)

Here's a fun debate on the forums everyone can participate in! When you start a game that you are jumping into blind and know very little about, do you bump the starting difficulty to Easy or do you stick with the default?

Your Opinions On The Switch So Far? (By: @gtxforza)

With rumors of a Switch 2 growing by the minute, what do you think is the legacy of the current Nintendo Switch? As one of the best selling consoles of all time, where do you rank it?

Alone In Dark Delayed To January 2024! (By: @ginormous76)

The modern re-imagining of the original Alone in the Dark has been delayed! What do you make of the developer's explanation they are doing this delay to avoid the busy month of October 2023?

EA Sports WRC Official Reveal Trailer Is Here (By: @gtxforza)

Codemasters released a trailer of a new rally game, which is also the first game form the Dirt team since they were bought by EA. What are your impressions of the trailer and will EA let the Dirt team cook?

Reminder! PlayStation Plus Prices Are Going Up This Week (Exact Date: Sept 6th, 2023)! (By: @zombiepie)

The price of all tiers of PlayStation Plus is going up! What is your reaction to the price increases and do you plan to opt out or drop down a tier? Is it still messed up that you need PSN Plus for cloud saves?

Does The Controller Layout For All The Systems/PC Need To Be Unified? (By: @topcyclist)

Some people have mentioned a learning curve as part of their attempts to play Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon, but do you think there's more room for controller layout unification across systems and genres? Will we ever see something like dual-analog FPS controls happen in the future?

Lists

Dogshit Games (By: @devoureroftime)

The "Dogshit" media meme has been making the rounds on Twitter and DevourerOfTime had a go at making a list that annotates their personal video game examples.

Be warned, they picked VIOLENCE with some of their selections!

User Reviews

@pauljeremiah has reviews for Snake's Revenge and Metal Gear Survive, which marks the end of their review retrospective wherein he played and reviewed every single Metal Gear game.

He also reviewed the nostalgia trip that is Astro's Playroom on the PS5 and shares why he thinks it is the best example of a game that uses nostalgia to its benefit.

@infantpipoc's Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon review shares why they aren't just happy about the return of Armored Core, but applauding how it takes the core of what makes From games special and applying it to a different gameplay crease.

Wiki Of The Week

Portopia Renzoku Satsujin Jiken

ZombiePie is still super salty about Square Enix's AWFUL "AI Tech Preview" release of Portopia; a game that is BY FAR one of the most important visual novels ever made. However, thankfully we have a carefully crafted wiki page by @bowl-of-lentils to get the bad taste out of their mouth.