Bombcrew opinion you vehemently disagree with.

I would support Red Dead Redemption as one of the best games of the generation, and while it is obviously not for everyone, i cannot understand anyone developing a passionate hatred of the game.

The outright dismissal of Dark Souls, which isn't as impenetrable as it's reputation suggests. I understand the behavior though, as I imagine being a game journalist makes it impossible to devote a lot of time to any one game.

Rather than being upset about this, I feel bad for the guys because they have a glaring blind spot when it comes to one of the most important games of the generation.

@Bane122 said:

That Mark of the Ninja fixed stealth somehow. A 2D stealth game is hardly comparable to a 3D one. MotN, while a good game, doesn't try to do half the stuff MGS does (can't speak to SC, haven't played one in years).

Stealth's not broken, they just don't like it.

I also disagree about the way MotN controls. They say you pull off exactly what you intend to, but there were quite a few times I had a prompt to do a stealth kill but instead my character does that awkward 3 hit combo.

@YI_Orange: The thing is Jeff complained about the mechanics of Red Dead. Mechanically RDR is an evolution of GTA 4 just not as clunky. Red Dead also has the slow motion mark your target thing to make up for the bad GTA gunplay.

@Nottle: I don't know his feelings on the mechanics of GTA IV, but to me, it plays poorly. RDR plays better, but got boring. Horse travel stopped being fun very quickly and needing to go outside and make a camp fire to fast travel was just stupid. Duels were essentially pointless and honestly anything that wasn't just shooting guys felt like a waste of time. Horseback shooting was terrible, but vehicle gunplay is bad in most games. Fighting animals was akin to boss fights in Binary Domain. Not hard, but you spend a lot of time on the ground. I realize it's all subjective, but my point is I totally understand where he's coming from with complaints on RDR(without knowing the specifics of the situation anyway).

As a side note, I had the same exact problem with Mark of the Ninja, especially if stairs were involved. For the most part I felt it worked really well, but there were some issues. And one of the major problems with stealth games they point out is that getting seen might as well just be an automatic fail state and start you over. I felt the same way with MotN. The "combat" in that game was terrible. The enemies you couldn't stealth kill hurt the game more than helped I think. Whenever I got seen I would just let them kill instead of doing the combat.

@paulwade1984: They take weekends off, and you're "disgusted" there's no new content? What is wrong with you? I don't know either way how difficult or easy this job is, but they deserve weekends off too.

I never liked the fact that none of the guys were really hot on Banjo-Kazooie, it's the greatest game of all time damnit!

@YI_Orange: Apparently GTA4 was good enough to be GOTY right? He had to enjoy some of GTA4's gameplay. RDR is just an evolution of that. What I remember him saying is that RDR mechanically is broken across the board. Thats what puzzles me, how can RDR be broken and GTA4 be GOTY when other than horses (which I can understand people liking cars more) and dead eye aiming GTA4 and RDR are the same?

This is just my opinion but a lot of the negatives you mentioned I really enjoyed.

@Shortbreadtom said:

@paulwade1984: They take weekends off, and you're "disgusted" there's no new content? What is wrong with you? I don't know either way how difficult or easy this job is, but they deserve weekends off too.

This right here.

Between organization and meetings, finding time to play games good and bad, contacting publishers or sifting through PR garbage, audio visual editing and website maintenence, there is actually a decent amount of work to be done. I don't know about Ryan, Patrick, or Brad's work load (not to say they don't work as hard), but with Jeff's duties as EIC, Vinny and Drew's audio visual duties, and Alexis and Dave's techincal stuff: these duders put in a lot of time and effort. They also do a hell of a job, over all. If they want to take it easy for a week or take some time off, the are more than entitled to it. To complain about a lack of content or to call them lazy is fucking childish.

@Zrais said:

This thread is way to negative. Nobody agrees with everyone all the time, but the Brad and Patrick hate is silly.

Totally. I think it is an interesting concept seeing as I agree with so much of what the editorial team has to say. I contributed too, hopefully without giving the impression of negativity. But the ad hominem stuff that is showing up is totally bonkers. It could have been an interesting discussion about the community's relationship with the editorial opinions, but it just seems to have become a hate fest. It's totally okay for people to disagree with the editorial staff and to discuss that, but it's not okay to just rain shit on 'em for no good reason.

The internet. Go figure.

@chocolaterhinovampire said:

...that man introduced me to spaghetti sandwhiches

say what now?

@JohnDudebro said:

Popeyes is delicious.

Fuck everyone Resident Evil 6 is awesome.

@TheHT: Old video series that he did on Gamespot back in the day. It was a cooking segment.

People are allowed to have opinions.

Jeff's idiotic opposition to even attempt to play more than 2 hours of Red Dead when he acted like GTA IV was one of the best games ever made only a few years before. It's actually irresponsible as a critic to take such an arbitrary position that it calls into question anything he says about any game because you never know if he is just hating on it simply because he wants to hate on it.

The same thing can be said about the entire crew with games like Dark Souls. The real problem with these things isn't that they don't like a game, because anyone can like or dislike a game for their own reasons, it's that they simply won't even attempt to understand something due to preconceived notions about what a game should be. I mean, that's perfectly fine if you're just buying games to play for yourself and for fun, but that's not what these guys do. Whether they like it or not, part of their job is being critics. As such, they have a responsibility to their audience to at least give a somewhat educated opinion or simply shut up. It just really rubs me the wrong way when they consistently demonstrate and perpetuate the stubborn immaturity that they constantly demonize within the gaming community.

That being said, I usually just ignore it because it's their decision and so be it. It will just take time before video game criticism eventually grows out of this immaturity once newer generations start taking over.

I agree with what GB says most the time, and I don't really get angry when they state an opinion I disagree with. I liked Red Dead, but I'm not really perturbed by Jeff not liking it.

@DoctorWelch said:

As such, they have a responsibility to their audience to at least give a somewhat educated opinion or simply shut up. It just really rubs me the wrong way when they consistently demonstrate and perpetuate the stubborn immaturity that they constantly demonize within the gaming community.

In reviews and quicklooks, sure, but the bombcast isn't supposed to be that. It's a couple of dudes hanging around talking about games without censoring themselves, produced for our entertainment, which is why I'm confused about everyone raging over their opinions like it's their duty to agree with the viewers. Jeff dismisses Red Dead, but he knows he's being petty when he's doing it. It's funny amongst friends, and it's in perfectly fine taste. He'd never review Red Dead and just say "it sux because western." Okay, maybe he would because that'd be a great way to troll you guys, but still. It's not like these guys are putting on their reviewer hat everytime they state an opinion.

just my two cents, take it for what it's worth.

two cents, it's worth two cents.

@claybrez: I've always found that excuse to be a bunch of bull shit. The Bombcast is basically the Number 1 consumed thing they do, and it's really where they get most of their opinions about games. Especially with how Jeff is constantly talking about how getting to know what each person on the staff likes is key to understanding their reviews and opinions. Think about how little you would know about what they think if they didn't have the Bombcast. You would basically get 0 audible opinons about games if it wasn't for the podcast. Yes, it may have started out as a stupid little drink test with guys talking about games, but denying it hasn't become much much more than that is just silly. It is one of their main avenues with which to communicate opinions to their audience.

Now, this thread is a little bit different from what I'm talking about directly because this thread is about people disagreeing with opinons. That is just a matter of personal taste, and you can't tell someone what they do or don't like, just as there is no way to say definitively if a game is "good" or "bad". What I'm doing is making a distinction between the opinions of the crew seeing as they are supposed to be profesional critics, versus the opinions of regular people just playing games for fun. I have no problem with someone disliking something. What I do have a problem with is a profesional critic voicing an arbitrary opinion that logically doesn't match their previous statements and puts their integrity in question. Thats what I have a problem with.

Honestly, the discussion of differing opinions is something I welcome. It's really cool to try to understand why someone hates something you love and vice versa. And like I said, if you aren't a profesional critic, it's acceptable to dismiss a game outright for no other reason than just because (although if we are talking about philosophy and ethics I would actually consider strict adherence to preconceived notions and unquestioned beliefs to be very dangerous, but that's beside the point). I guess, in essence, what I'm trying to say is that these guys should hold themselves to a higher standard then the rest of us.

All that being said, I completely understand that a decent amount of Jeff's hate for Red Dead on the recent Bombcast was just inflammatory for the purpose of being comical, and it was. Although, I do find Jeff consistently hating on games for no other reason then "because they're terrible/hot garbage/bad/negative word or phrase here," and then no one really challenges him and we don't get to understand why or if he even has any real reasons for his opinion. In some cases it may be a lack of integrity, but more often then not I feel like it's simply a lack of disclosure. And as they've said many times, being transparent is extremely important.

I can appreciate the sentiment that they should be held to a higher standard, but videogames are so damn subjective that it is really easy to just not like something. So I also appreciate the GB crew's blatant honesty, if they sounded like critics all the time, I wouldn't buy them as genuine. And hey, since there's no real way to know what opinions they are keeping to themselves, their integrity can't exactly be measured.

@chocolaterhinovampire said:

@TheHT: Old video series that he did on Gamespot back in the day. It was a cooking segment.

and it's a sandwich with spaghetti (and i assume sauce/groundbeef/meatballs) in it? sounds terribly messy.

Probably some of their views on "animation priority". They don't seem to realize that animation involving weapon wind up and so on is the only thing making you feel like you are swinging a giant fucking hammer as opposed to slashing quickly with a dagger, not to mention the gameplay ramifications of actually having to use a thought in your head when in combat, instead of just button mashing your way to victory.

This difference is so perfectly exposed when looking at Skyrim and Demon's/Dark Souls. If you take away the "animation priority" from the Souls games, then guess what you get? The boring as fuck gameplay of Skyrim where every weapon feels exactly the same. It's not "animation priority", it's games actually making different weapons feel appropriate and unique.

I like getting my milk in bags..... dickheads

@Petiew said:

I disagree with Patrick's apparent hatred of FF9. Although his well developed argument conisting only of "Fuck that game" almost won me over.

FFIX FOR LIFE

@DoctorWelch said:

Jeff's idiotic opposition to even attempt to play more than 2 hours of Red Dead when he acted like GTA IV was one of the best games ever made only a few years before. It's actually irresponsible as a critic to take such an arbitrary position that it calls into question anything he says about any game because you never know if he is just hating on it simply because he wants to hate on it.

The same thing can be said about the entire crew with games like Dark Souls. The real problem with these things isn't that they don't like a game, because anyone can like or dislike a game for their own reasons, it's that they simply won't even attempt to understand something due to preconceived notions about what a game should be. I mean, that's perfectly fine if you're just buying games to play for yourself and for fun, but that's not what these guys do. Whether they like it or not, part of their job is being critics. As such, they have a responsibility to their audience to at least give a somewhat educated opinion or simply shut up. It just really rubs me the wrong way when they consistently demonstrate and perpetuate the stubborn immaturity that they constantly demonize within the gaming community.

That being said, I usually just ignore it because it's their decision and so be it. It will just take time before video game criticism eventually grows out of this immaturity once newer generations start taking over.

You're so damn right. The sad part is that I truly think they will never try to address stuff like this. Especially Jeff. He's been subject to so much ridiculous internet hate that I think he is numb to any legitimate criticism like this.

@GreggD said:

@Petiew said:

I disagree with Patrick's apparent hatred of FF9. Although his well developed argument conisting only of "Fuck that game" almost won me over.

FFIX FOR LIFE

Patrick hates FFIX? That's the last straw, man.

@ThePickle: I completely agree. On a "level playing field" so to say, or a one on one conversation I bet he would totally agree with me, or at least have a civil conversation about it. It's just that there has been, and still is, so much stupidity on the internet that I honestly wouldn't fault him for just generally putting up a mental barrier over the years that would just group my thoughts in with others. I mean, if you really think about it, you simply must develop thick skin to deal with this kind of stuff if you're in his position, otherwise you'll eventually just feel like a complete piece of shit that everyone hates. It's kind of a the sad reality of the internet.

The way that Patrick shit on mafia 2 I really like that games a great game in it self and not trying to be gta

@bigsmoke77 said:

I like getting my milk in bags..... dickheads

bagged milk is the shit

@bushpusherr said:

Probably some of their views on "animation priority". They don't seem to realize that animation involving weapon wind up and so on is the only thing making you feel like you are swinging a giant fucking hammer as opposed to slashing quickly with a dagger, not to mention the gameplay ramifications of actually having to use a thought in your head when in combat, instead of just button mashing your way to victory.

This difference is so perfectly exposed when looking at Skyrim and Demon's/Dark Souls. If you take away the "animation priority" from the Souls games, then guess what you get? The boring as fuck gameplay of Skyrim where every weapon feels exactly the same. It's not "animation priority", it's games actually making different weapons feel appropriate and unique.

Each weapon class has different handling in Skyrim. Everything doesn't swing the same, nothing swings at the same speed. Sometimes it's hard carrying around greatswords, because fuck, one opportunity and the enemy takes me down with a hot crit.

Probably Vinny's Opinion that Halo 4 is boring. I understand that he was not shitting on the game, and the part he is on currently, is the slowest point in the whole story line. However, to call the game Boring, I do not necessarily agree.

Also as stated before Jeff saying Red Dead is a bad game, but I do not agree with Brad on it being the best game either. That is a whole other argument. (It's Bioshock 1)

Red Dead is over rated as fuck IMO.

Best game of this gen? I say Gears 1, because that was the first game where I played it and it felt truly "Next gen", it was unlike anything else I had ever played, it was fun, looked amazing, was empowering, and unique.

That said, I am entirely aware that it was a flawed game, how ever at the time of release it was something truly special.

I generally disagree with the entire bombcasts over infatuation with indie games, I think they are often entirely overrated, I also disagree with their opinions on Halo a lot of the time, and I think Borderlands straight up looks terrible, and bland.

But to each their own, I don't let it keep me up at night.

@GreggD said:

Each weapon class has different handling in Skyrim. Everything doesn't swing the same, nothing swings at the same speed. Sometimes it's hard carrying around greatswords, because fuck, one opportunity and the enemy takes me down with a hot crit.

The changes that come along with different weapon types in the Soul's games are massively more consequential than in Skyrim. Yeah the speed it swings and the damage numbers might be a bit modified between them, but they all feel identical to swing, and the enemies all take the hits without even fucking flinching.

Minerva's Den being better than Shadow Broker. Skyrim being better than Saints Row 3. Why'd you cave Vinny?! WHYYYY?!?!

Basically anything Jeff says about food ever.

@Rebel_Scum: Would it happen to have a fence, or perhaps even a...gate in the title? (Subtle, I know)

I pretty much disagree with all of them (although rarely with Vinny) constantly, but I don't give a shit. They're human beings talking about something completely subjective and even though they're all prone to hyperbolic statements, trolling, or straight up ignorance, so are the rest of us. I understand that we're not the ones getting paid to do this shit, but sometimes you can't help the way you feel about stuff.

However, I do wish they would be more informed when they decide to talk mad yang about something they clearly know nothing about. That's something entirely in their control that they're very bad at doing. Those are the only times I can't take their opinion at face value.

@Triumvir said:

@Shortbreadtom said:

@paulwade1984: They take weekends off, and you're "disgusted" there's no new content? What is wrong with you? I don't know either way how difficult or easy this job is, but they deserve weekends off too.

This right here.

Between organization and meetings, finding time to play games good and bad, contacting publishers or sifting through PR garbage, audio visual editing and website maintenence, there is actually a decent amount of work to be done. I don't know about Ryan, Patrick, or Brad's work load (not to say they don't work as hard), but with Jeff's duties as EIC, Vinny and Drew's audio visual duties, and Alexis and Dave's techincal stuff: these duders put in a lot of time and effort. They also do a hell of a job, over all. If they want to take it easy for a week or take some time off, the are more than entitled to it. To complain about a lack of content or to call them lazy is fucking childish.

Take it easy for a week? Go and tell your boss at work that you're going to take it easy this week, see what happens. Plus its not like they are breaking their backs on a construction site all day.

Anyway, there have been plenty of dry spells over the past year. I was a monthly subscriber who un-subed due to the lack of premium content. I understand things can get slow, but this community eats up anything they put out. Also they where bought by CBSi about 8 months ago. When that happened they promised us all "a bigger and better Giantbomb". That still has not happened, instead we where given less content when compared to their whiskey media days.

@Feanor: Offices can take a while to get used to, man...

@TwoArmed said:

@Feanor: Offices can take a while to get used to, man...

Yeah, 8 months is "a while".

I just really don't know what everybody does all day. sometimes nothing is posted for a couple of days.

I understand that playing games for reviews takes a long time, but this site doesnt really review games anymore. family guy and farcry 3 before that....

obviously brad is deep into dmc right now, but will he review it or just do a quicklook and 15mins on the podcast.

God i love this website, but give me a reason to come back more often/stay all day.

That they have opinions that are different than mine. Also Dishonored is the game of the year, I have all the research and pie charts to prove this as objectively true.

Them giving Skyrim 2011 GOTY (360, PC) while not taking into account the numerous issues of the PS3 version. I seriously doubt that they would have given it GOTY if the 360 or PC versions had similar technical issues.

@PillClinton said:

Basically anything Jeff says about food ever.

So you're saying you'd take human breast milk over a shit steak?

that far cry 3 is a good game

• The absolute unwillingness to try to understand more complex games like The Witcher or Demon/Dark Souls (Mostly coming from Ryan/Jeff)

It's gotten better recently, but I can't help but feel like it's professional ignorance sometimes.

• And I don't understand the praise for Dust at all. The art is terrible, the gameplay is boring, and the storytelling is clumsy and childish. Especially when compared to TWD or The Witcher, which are infinitely more "mature" than Dust.

@Pr1mus said:

All of what Patrick says all the time.

This also.

He started growing on me until he started bitching about the "sexism" in the Cyberpunk 2077 trailer.

I do not agree with Jeff's opinion on WWF No Mercy.

@TwoArmed said:

@Rebel_Scum: Would it happen to have a fence, or perhaps even a...gate in the title? (Subtle, I know)

I've no idea what game you are talking about. Doesn't matter really.

MAN people complaining about the android ''hate'' from the crew are stupid.

What giantbomb said: android is a shit platform for devellopers. The piracy issues are huge. The marketplace curation is bad. The platform fragmentation is terrible.

All valide critisisms that will also apply to android consoles. Get over yourself!

@Rebel_Scum: Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition. That was the most recent one I could think of where people got worked up over Ryan and Patrick's Quick Look of it. It was the one that came to my mind based on what you had posted, heh.

I don't agree with any of them when the topic of an endurance run comes up...it's some of the best content on the site... stop whining!!! You play video games for a living!!! I work with adults with severe autism and behavior issues! Get over it and sitin front of a TV and GIVE US WHAT WE LOVE!