Hello and welcome to the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight. I, @zombiepie, am honored to be your host as always! As many of you are already plainly aware, former video game freelancer, Austin Walker, has been announced as the new hire for Giant Bomb East. Please join the rest of the Giant Bomb Community in welcoming Austin to the site over here. Also, feel free to follow Austin on Twitter and be able to follow his every thought on the internet. Those interested in reading over the previous writings of Austin should check out his personal website over here.
Speaking of Giant Bomb East, the engineers are curious as to how you are subscribing to The Giant Beastcast. Feel free to also indicate if you are listening to the free versus premium version of The Beastcast as all of this data helps make the site better. Now, moving onto the "state of the site." Some users have reported not having controls for the site video player when using iOS. If this is true please file a report here, and understand the engineers are on the case. Finally, do you want to see Brad Shoemaker and Vinny Caravella sing a cover of More Than Words? Well here you go. Brad has the voice of an angel if you were not already aware. With that, let's get on with the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight!
Clip(s) of the Week
The first notable user created video this week comes from @viper who created a compilation video of what he thinks are the best and funniest moments from the first series of Metal Gear Scanlon. The second video comes from @cosmicbacon who has a time-lapse video showing off how he made the wonderful Luchazilla Beast Cast artwork that many of you have enjoyed.
The Giant Bomb Weekly Gallery
As mentioned above @fobwashed is the man to thank for pixelating Austin Walker as he has done in the past for previous staff members. @pistolpackinpoet created a GREAT vector illustration of the Giant Bomb logo. @humanity was inspired by Brad's quest to platinum Bloodborne when he created "Ghost Brad" the second coming of "Ghost Truck." Finally ... we have more "magic" from the MS Paint thread. One work comes from @mmzone who envisions Drew as a space cowboy sherrif. The second work comes from @evanfrancisrogers who perfectly conveys Jeff's feelings about Mario Party in a single work of MS Paint art.
Community Activities
- The Giant Bomb DiRT Rally League - The Racing League for DiRT Rally is Currently in its Second Season! Learn How to Join the Group HERE!
- iRacing.com Skippy League - DOWN TO THE LAST TWO RACES - Still Feel Free to Join the Community Event if You Are a User HERE!
Best of Blogs
- My First Hours with Final Fantasy XI (By: @audiobusting) - audioBusting recently picked up Final Fantasy XI while it was on sale. On his blog you can enjoy some good old fashioned schadenfreude as you read how he spent hours futilely trying to get the game to install and run correctly.
- The Beast Cast is Totally Epic!(By: @cosmicbacon) - CosmicBacon created the Beastcast artwork that you can see to the right. Read and watch how he made this great piece of artwork on his latest blog.
- The Consequence is Also a Great Piece of DLC (By: @yummylee) - Yummylee has enjoyed every bit of DLC for The Evil Within and expresses why the latest batch of DLC, The Consequence, is no exception.
- Fifteen Minutes of GAME (By: @bdhurkett) - bduhurkett created an interesting challenge for himself when attempting to deal with his gaming backlog. He committed himself to only playing the first fifteen minutes of a smattering of games that he has been meaning to get to in order to decide which games are worth playing more of. Check out his blog to see how his experiment went.
- 6 Months of Games and a Few Minor Life Changes (By: @asmo917) - Despite some medical issues, Asmo917 was able to provide this half-year synopsis of all of the games that he has played thus far. Please wish him the best there.
- Mento's May Mastery: Day 29: The Banner Saga (By: @mento) - Giant Bomb moderator Mento has gotten to The Banner Saga as part of his May blog series, and discusses the tragic tone of the game's story on his latest blog outing.
- PlayStation Plus Catch Up: May 2015 (By: @mooseymcman) - Race the Sun, Unfinished Swan, Hohokum, and Guacamelee are all part of MooseyMcMan's latest PlayStation Plus "Catch Up" blog.
- RElapsed Fan – Resident Evil 2 and 3 (By: @nightriff) - The latest episode of NightRiff's retrospective of the Resident Evil franchise details his experiences and final thoughts regarding Resident Evil 2 and 3 and how they have held up.
- I Like Heroes of the Storm More Than Dota 2 (By: @joemotycki) - Despite having sunk in over 200 hours into Dota 2, Joemotycki discusses why he plans on retiring the game in favor of Heroes of the Storm from now on.
- Agar.io Is the Most Addicting Game You'll Play This Weekend & The Consequences of Accidental Violence (Light Spoilers) (By: @grtkbrandon) - Inspired by a recent Unprofessional Friday grtkbrandon discusses why Agar.io was able to completely absorb an entire weekend of his. grtkbrandon also wrote a blog discussing in great detail the The Bloody Baron's Family Matters quest in The Witcher 3.
- Let's You and Me Fight: There Wulf. There Castle. (By: @ford_dent) - Ford_Dent shares the latest part of his effort to get competent at playing fighting games as he discusses fighting game tutorials in Killer Instinct and Skullgirls.
Join the Discussion
- Official The Witcher 3 Screenshot Sharing Thread (By: @armaan8014) - Are you able to run The Witcher 3 on the highest possible settings? Even if you can't feel free to showcase what your Witcher experience looks like right here!
- Splatoon Impressions Sharing Thread (By: @bwheeeler) - What have your online experiences been regarding Splatoon? Share them as well as your overall thoughts on the game here!
- Game of Thrones Episode 4 Discussion and Choices Thread (SPOILER WARNING!) (By: @lackingsaint) - The latest episode of TellTale's Game of Thrones game has been released. If you don't mind spoilers feel free to share your thoughts and in-game choices here.
- Best Bombcast Year Discussion and Poll (By: @kierkegaard) - Check out this thread if you want a depressing warning of how old you are getting by reminding yourself that the Bombcast has been active for EIGHT YEARS! Of those eight years which which one individual year stands out as the best and features your favorite Bombcast moments.
- Bloodborne DLC and Expansion Wishlist Discussion Thread (By: @dantre) - Are you excited for the soon to be released expansion pack for Bloodborne? Well feel free to discuss that as well as you overall hopes regarding future DLC right here.
Lovable Lists
- Games I Couldn't Live Without Playing (By: @cairnsythebeard) - Can you think of games that you could not possibly imagine not being in your gaming repertoire? Well that is the exact subject of CairnsyTheBeard's latest list and hopefully you feel inspired to create your own lists as well.
- Great Games You've Never Played (By: @indeedcodybrown) - IndeedCodyBrown has annotated every game that he has loved, but has struggled to find people that have played on his latest list.
Wonderful Wikis
- Earth Defense Force - This is NOT the Earth Defense Force you are thinking about. Anyways this week we have TWO nice wiki pages for games that are getting re-released onto new platforms that you may not of heard of. Earth Defense Force is a horizontal shoot 'em up that features a massive 500 point plus wiki page worth looking over.
- Battle High 2 - This may be a game that you have never heard about until now. That said you should check out the wiki page for the game as it is MASSIVE and filled to the brim with detail.
Useful User Reviews
- @n7's review of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt shares why he thinks the game is a perfect example of a "true open world."
- @danjohnhobbs' review of Project CARS explains why he had a difficult time writing it and expressing his conflicted thoughts about the game.
- @gamer_152's review of Gears of War: Judgment discusses how it is the gaming equivalent of a "well oiled machine."
- @vert_vermillion breaks down how Devil Survivor 2: Record Breaker honors the original Devil Survivor 2 while also adding in a handful of new ideas.
- @moonlightmoth details how Tormentum: Dark Sorrow is a basic but "beautiful" adventure game that could have benefitted from more complexity.
- @jaypb08 extrapolates on how his morbid curiosity in regards to playing The Simpsons: Road Rage went on his review for the game.