Anyone else cringe when Brad starts spoilering???

No.

Shut up.

Spoiler warning:

Now try to find a story that fits that bill.

Come on, people, there aren't really enough new stories left to tell since humanity learned to string events together in a narrative.

Further reading: the Wikipedia entry on the Monomyth, Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces, the concept of the Archetype, Cliché, Trope.

So you're literally mad about something that YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT IT IS?! That's not a spoiler! By definition!

I wouldn't single Brad out, but yes. It is completely possible to have a good discussion without delving into spoilers.

I think the slashfilmcast handles it best by putting spoilers at the end with a clear announcement when they begin.

I hate it when shit gets spoiled for me.

...so it's a good thing Brad's never actually spoiled anything important without warning. Seriously, what are you people whining about? There's gonna be a fight in the citadel? Come on now.

Going off the info from one of the previous bombcasts of how spoilers tend to get people more excited about something that happens in a game to see how it develops. With the information age we are in, it's really freaking hard to stay ignorant to everything including spoilers, just go with it & have fun. Now if someone outlines the story of some game from beginning to end right after the game comes out (or major spoiler) then they should be punished, but as others have put here in the forum, if they announce in ME3 that the citadel is attacked then it peaks the curious to know the who/how/when to make it quite compelling to find out the before & after. That is if the short term memory doesn't wipe the information of the spoiler first, the purpose of games is to have fun so just have fun with it regardless if you know what's going to happen or not, you kind of known going in that Zelda was going to defeat Gannon (or Simon defeating Dracula when going into the game) or the hero will probably beat the baddie & save the day so don't worry about it.

I dunno. I'm okay with it as long spoilers are called out before they're blurted out. The rest of the crew does a good job of that.

It's irritating that he's such a ninny about other people spoiling things for him but doesn't ever give the same courtesy. Like, be the change you want to see, ninny.

I hate when they have to stop each other from saying anything spoilerish, if its been a few months since release, say what you want to say about the game, or don't bring it up at all. They could use a spoilercast or something where they can actually say what they want about the weeks releases. Manyof us play the games in the same timeframe they do.

I usually try and skip the part where they talk about a game if I want to go in without any spoilers. I skipped them talking about Tomb Raider two weeks in a row because of that. I am less uptight about spoilers now. This week I don't care at all if they spoil something like GOW: Judgement.

@defaultprophet: Hey, we're not the ones shouting. You are. Calm down, dude.

@toowalrus: Personally I don't think anything said about the Citadel were spoilerish, I just generally don't like the "Ooooh, wait for the twist half way through the game, it will blow your MIND!" type comments they have a tendency to make. You know what, if you tell me that, it most likely will not blow my mind. I don't know why this is so hard to grasp.

@bocam: I know it was Patrick there. It wasn't asked who, just what was spoiled this week.

Patrick unnecessarily ruined a memorable moment in The Walking Dead for me. The Tell Tale game, not the TV series. I wanted to punch a wall.

Other than that, no big complaints about spoilers in the Bombcast.

As someone who doesn't give a shit about spoilers I find it more annoying when he says spoiler alert a million times and then still only discusses the actual thing in the vaguest way possible.

Poor Brad just can't win.

Yeah I held shift down and used exclamation points, I'm very upset. I wasn't doing it for effect or anything. Lol c'mon

I wish they didn't have to talk around spoilers. It makes for a worse podcast when they have to dance around discussing cool stuff. But with people like you whining about it's not going to happen.

Most of the problem here could be resolved by setting out a specific policy for spoilers that is adhered to on the Bombcast. Nobody complains about the existence of spoiler-casts, the complaints happen when spoilers are uttered on a podcast that purports to be spoiler free, or sort of does, or sort of sits the fence on that without really having any specific policy.

So, a few possible solutions:

1. Have a strict no-spoiler policy on the Bombcast. Or,

2. Have a specific spoiler segment in the Bombcast, preferably at the end of the show so people have a clear idea when they should stop listening if they are concerned.

3. In combination with #1, post more clearly labeled spoilercasts.

The annoyance happening here is entirely due to the lack of a clear policy on this. People get pissed when it's a sorta non-spoiler but hey we'll give you warnings but we don't time stamp so you just have to guess how far to skip ahead i don't know. :/

Well, if you're going to accuse people of being upset and/or angry, writing that in an angry and/or upset manner is perhaps not to be advised because the effect you ended up getting was rather... amusing, and likely not what you were going for.

That said, back to your original point. Assume it's your birthday. During the day one of your friends comes up to you and says "man... wait till you get back home, it's gonna be AWESOME dude!" Maybe, just maybe, you'll know something is going to happen when you get home that is out of the ordinary. Perhaps related to your birthday. Now when you get home, are you truly surprised to find a "surprise" birthday party? Or was the surprise lessened, perhaps even ruined, even though the guy never actually told you there was a party waiting for you? Do you understand what I mean? Sometimes just knowing something is going to happen, or knowing that something is going to get turned upside down is enough to dramatically lessen the effect of that moment when it happens.

If you don't like that, that's totally fine, but it's just the way these guys talk about games. There's nothing inherently wrong with it, you're just not into it. I personally liked knowing that the "train sequence" in Uncharted 2 was supposed to be really fuckin' great, and you know what, they were right. It sucks that it has the opposite effect on you, but whining about it for no reason other than "it bugs me" isn't really constructive criticism, it's just whining. It's like saying "I hate hearing Brad breathe into a the microphone every once and awhile" or "I hate hearing Patrick talk about indie games." It would absolutely be a different story if they were flat out spoiling games, but dude... they aren't.

Basically, don't like Bombcast, don't eat!

Brad spoils things? I think TS meant Patrick who is king of that.

"There's this really cool part I don't wanna spoil, but *proceeds to spoil anyways*".

That's ridiculous. That's like complaining that there's gonna be racing in a Fast and the Furious movie, or the good guy is gonna win in almost every single instance unless it's the dark middle chapter.

The only time I care is when someone says I don't want to spoil anything or something like that and then just spoils it, but generally i expect them to talk about games and spoilers come with that. If I'm truly concerned about spoilers I just skip past whatever section might contain something about the game I'm worried about.

I feel your pain but maybe you should just start skipping through things or at least be ready to pause when they talk about games you are trying not to hear much about.

The only real reason I cringe is that, I know how Brad tends to react when a potential spoiler is going to be discussed by others on the Bombcast, and he goes a little bonkers trying to not listen. Then, when he knows something, he makes a huge deal about wanting to talk about it.

That's it...I don't tend to play the games that have real spoilers that I care about anyway, so whatever. That just tends to be a little annoying...

I think it's just a consequence of a couple of things. First, a lot of games have become much more focused on big spectacles and grandiose experiences, as well as becoming more cinematic; a moment that you have to see, as opposed to you have to play. It's a similar phenomenon to "content tourism" (playing games on easy and cruising through just to see the story unfold). The number of times you hear them talking about "you have to see this incredible moment" or "you have to see the payoff" seems to have increased exponentially between when they started doing the Bombcast and now. And if when trying to describe a game, they limited themselves just to saying that the game has incredible moments in it and not trying to provide at least some context or explanation for the moments, then that isn't exactly satisfactory for people that want to hear their "expert" opinions on games. DmC was a very obvious and prominent case, because when Brad first wanted to talk about the supposedly huge moment in the game, he was obviously checked by Ryan and Vinny - but then when Vinny and Patrick had played the game they wanted to talk about "that moment" as well.

Second, it's also symptomatic of an era where people are more price sensitive (i.e. a recession) and where the market gives them great opportunities to buy games for cheap if they are willing to be patient. Don't want to pay $60 for a newly released title? Wait two months, and the retail price drops to $30-40, or wait even longer and eventually it goes on sale on Steam for a fraction of the original price. I think a lot of gamers are becoming smarter with their money, only dishing out the full $60 for the games that are really important to them, but at the same time that patience comes at a cost, and seems to make people become much more sensitive and hyper vigilant about things like spoilers - "I can't play this game right now, so I need to live in a vacuum where no info about the game's narrative can penetrate until I play it". Conversely, the Bombcast guys play every new game before or during its release window, because that's their job. And naturally, they want to talk about it in as much detail as possible, without verging into serious spoiler territory, but for the two reasons above, people's definitions of what constitutes a spoiler seem, IMO, to have gotten extremely out of hand.

As you may have been able to gather, I'm not that sensitive in regards to spoilers. I can only think of one time when finding out a spoiler actually seriously annoyed me, or killed interest I had in playing a game I was interested in - I found out who the killer in Heavy Rain is before I owned a PS3 because some asshole - on these forums no less - didn't put a spoiler tag in their thread title and the first line of the post had the spoiler in it. But that's an extreme case, and is related to a game that is 90% narrative.

And I've always had a major soft spot for Brad - I just think he's a really cool dude - so I'm naturally inclined to not be particularly critical of his behaviour. As others have said in this thread, I admire his enthusiasm, even if sometimes he does go just a little bit overboard. And seriously, people shouting about spoilers for games where they have absolutely no context for the spoiler, or shouting about the fact that they have been made aware that there is something to be spoiled, are insane.

tl;dr - chill the fuck out and just enjoy the games you're playing.

Oh god. Knowing there is a train sequence in Uncharted 2 and that it's good is not a spoiler. I don't know how you could read anything I said and come to that conclusion. Knowing that the story in The Line is similar to Apocalypse Now is a spoiler. Much of the effect is lost when you go into the game with that knowledge. It basically gave away the entire premise of the game without saying anything specific what happens. Do you see the difference between these two scenarios? And this goes double for you, @defaultprophet, your counter argument was even more stupid. I have to think you both understand the difference perfectly but choose to play ignorant for sport. At least I hope that is the case, otherwise this whole conversation just makes me sad.

I totally understand the frustration, and if it were with movies or TV I would totally agree. I just don't care most of the time for games, unless there is a major plot twist in the game, and they usually stay away from those anyway.

For those complaining: Brad has done a quick look and a couple of Bombcasts with SC2: Heart of the Swarm and has avoided talking about the early campaign story beats which are pretty big. Given how excited he is for that game and how he avoided spoiling those details I wonder why people target Brad as an serial offender of spoiling.

I cringe at topics like this

I brought that up because "The train sequence in Uncharted 2 is really great" is as much of a "spoiler" as "Ooooh, wait for the twist half way through the game, it will blow your MIND!" And by that I mean, neither of these things are spoilers or even spoiler-like, and neither are issues worth getting all riled up over. Basically we're bitching over nothing.

I like this idea.

Brad is just annoying all together.

I do feel kind of bad for people who care about spoilers (for brief period after a release). He was especially bad this last podcast because he got deep into the Citadel and its story elements. Personally I don't care and will probably never play it but you could tell that even the guys wanted him to stop telling them about the best parts of the DLC. The most unecessary was when he explained the entire party sequence. There was definitely a cringe for that one.

Beyond that, I can no longer watch his quick looks because half the time he is explaining why he sucks. Other times its worse because he cannot stop collecting shit. The thing I hate the most is that whenever he is corrected he never says "oh you're right", he says "I know". Most of the time he was just fucking wrong. The most cringe worthy thing is just watching Brad play games. The live stream a while back of him playing ME3 multi-player was unbearable; he kept running around like an idiot and dying.

Nope. If there's a narrative I care enough about that I'd get upset about it being spoiled, I'd dive into it immediately. If Brad were to drop some Bioshock: Infinite spoilers in this week's Bombcast, I'd be really annoyed but if he does it in 6 months, I really won't care.

What? Saying something like "There is something really crazy happening at some point" is not a spoiler. I want to know that. Stop caring about spoilers that are no spoilers. If he would be like "Oh, at the end of Starcraft II HotS Kerrigan turns into a Protos and marries an Orc from Warcraft cause it all takes place in the same world" , that would be a spoiler. "The ending of the game is really fucked up" is not a spoiler.

Yeah, i have to skip ahead or avoid some content just because of that lol

I disagree, we're not bitching about nothing. However, we are bitching about something which we'll never reach consensus about. Basically I am saying I like cake and you're saying you don't. To me my example is a spoiler, to you it's not. There's no real objective argument to be made for either side beyond "I think you're wrong" and that's not going to lead anywhere.

Then you need a new term. Because a spoiler has to be something concrete that ruins a plot point. That's the definition of the word. And yes I was using hyperbole in my post.

The word "spoilers" makes me cringe. It's one thing if some asshole ruins major plot points and endings (not a big deal for me), but most people are so ridiculously petty about it nowadays. Shit, a friend of mine got all "OH NO SPOILERS" when I showed another friend the trailer for Fez.

I wish they didn't give a shit about spoilers so they could actually talk about the games they're talking about. Start using timestamps or something with it maybe. I don't personally care about spoilers much, I don't go seeking for them but if I hear one it's not a big deal. What's annoying is skirting around it all saying stuff like "you'll know when you get to it" or "we'll talk about it later."

No, I prefer in-depth discussion rather than tip toeing around things.

I consider saying "There's a twist" to be a spoiler in itself, but other than that, the crew is fine about it and they always give fair warning.

Nope. I've never cared about spoilers for any form of entertainment. Hell, I'm crazy enough to read plot details about a television show while watching it. And still be excited and enjoy it. *shrug*

Something good is gonna happen on my birthday? COLOR ME SHOCKED. And yes I am painting your argument as ridiculous in an effort to get you to see how I see your argument.

I agree with your ideas here. I think it would be smart to have more clearly defined "rules" about what is acceptable and what isn't. That way people are not surprised by sudden spoilers or whatever. In my opinion, the bombcast is for the in depth discussion of games. I think spoilers are inevitable if you are talking about narrative and how it compares with other games. Also if you are talking about a specific moment or highlight that made an impression then the spoiler is necessary to have that discussion. So I think that people should expect spoilers to be a part of the bombcast because they are necessary in a lot of cases to have the interesting conversations that are the appeal of the bombcast to begin with. I think that regulating spoiler stuff to a specific timeframe might work to some extent, but it also limits the freeform nature of the cast. Also, it would be weird to have them talk about a game for like a half hour and then have to wait until the end of the show before they can come back to it and specifically justify their opinions.

The talking around spoilers is incredibly annoying. Instead of a conversation we get 15 minutes of winks and elbows.

I dislike when games with great stories get spoiled, but I hate when I finish a game and listen to a podcast just to hear them talk around it. It's a lose-lose, maybe a bi-weekly spoiler cast would be a great addition to the site.

I personally haven't experienced spoilers without adequate warning. I think if you are serious about keeping spoiler free on a title, and the team are talking about it, you should be ready to skip ahead, again, they generally give a heads up.

You know a lot of terms, hyperbole indeed, but you don't really know how to apply them in practice. What you were actually doing was using the rather common tactic of taking what your opponent says and taking it to ridiculous extremes he never intended. It's a common tactic used when you're really out of arguments to support your own cause and all you have left is trying to make the opponent look stupid. It also means I am done arguing with you.

Games are probably the hardest form of media to discuss without delving into spoilers. When you're talking about a book or movie, you can just give it a few throwaway opinions like "oh and the ending does a good job of rounding the whole experience off" or "It's about as good as you would think for this type of movie". With games, something can happen that dramatically alters not only the way the story is told, but the way you play. It can make the whole experience leading up to that point completely null and void, or enhance it dramatically. It'll always either completely piss someone off if they want to discover a game for themselves completely pure and blind, or not really affect you at all. I lean towards the latter.

If a dramatic thing happens in a game that affects the player emotionally in any way, I feel it's sort of important to discuss the ramifications of said event. If not for archiving sake, then for discussion value that is SO potent and waiting to be taken advantage of. I mean, when IS a good time to talk about something dramatic in a game before it's still considered a spoiler? Never? That's so silly, especially for the people that put so much work into that part. Don't you think they WANTED the internet to become ablaze with discussion and theories? And if you REALLY wanted the game in question to be spoiler free so you can experience it yourself, wouldn't you have done so as soon as possible? And not, you know, listening to people talking about? I dunno man, I don't think that very small demographic should be catered to if they hadn't enough interest to already discover it, over the rest of us who want it discussed.

Woo, ramblin' man.

They shoud simply have a spoiler cast hosted by Brad where he and guests can gush about moments in games. And I would totally listen to that because if there's anything I enjoy about Brad's willingness to talk spoilers, it's his pure joyful enthusiasm about it.