Making points and clicking things #1 - GB's future & Whiskey Media, VGCW Preview, Luigi's Ballad

This blog recommends the immediate and continuous listening of -

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance - A Stranger I Remain - Extension

Intro

Welcome to Making points and clicking things #1, a blog series which makes points regarding video games & Giant Bomb at large and provides things to click regarding -

• Gaming
• Films
• Comics/Graphic Novels
• Books
• Anime/Manga
• The Internet/Youtube
• TVeeee
• VGCW and inferior wrestling products like WWE

Basically I've pinched Patrick's Worth Reading idea because it's a great way to give things you want to be seen a push in the right direction.

PS. A new Fighting Game Community blog will go up on Tuesday evening/Wednesday morning once the EVO 2014 line-up is announced, it'll have tons of info and videos on what's been happening in the past 6 weeks of fighting games and tournaments, as have the blogs that came before it.

Making points

Games I'm playing

I am about 1 hour into both Batman: Arkham Origins and The Banner Saga and have nothing clever to say of either at the moment.

Graphic Novels I've finished reading

1. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Book 1 (Vertigo Comics) - 4/5 - Does as good of a job as it can fitting half of the book into 40 or so pages, art is good, dialogue strayed from the books a bit.
2. Mass Effect: Redemption (Dark Horse Comics) - 2/5 - Tells the story of what happened to Commander Shepard's body between the 2 years of the Mass Effect 2 intro and the rest of the game through Liara and Feron. Characterisation of Liara and people in general in the Mass Effect universe is off, thought the art was a bit cartoony.

The future of Giant Bomb and the death of Whiskey Media

After a tumblr post by Jeff, this thread appeared in the forums which started off 3 pages of discussions/comments/bickering about Giant Bomb hiring new staff. I didn't have much doubts about Giant Bomb making money and having a future going future to begin with, but as I've been nosey about Giant Bomb's yearly budget and such since its inception I'm glad to see that the ball has begun rolling once again.

Especially since the last time this happened Whiskey Media was officially killed off AKA sold to BermanBraun who have no intention of doing anything with the name/brand and that made me sad. I originally bought into the idea of Giant Bomb leading on from Jeff's firing at GS and the Top Men jokes, but I quickly became pro-Whiskey Media, joining all 5 sites, getting to know their staffers and working hard on the Giant Bomb and Whiskey Media Wikipedia pages.

My favourite Giant Bomb content is and forever will be the 1st Big Live LIVE Show: Live! and the block party that followed. Though #TeamBrad is a close second.

So we've established that as far as I'm concerned Whiskey Media was a golden age. It's just a shame that in the premium membership, no ads money making scheme that WM went with, Comic Vine, Screened and Anime Vice didn't pull their weight in bringing in new premium members. This left Giant Bomb, supported by Tested, to hold the company on their shoulders.

Luckily both sites are still going today and even CV, AV and Screened still exist, though CV still doesn't have real on-screen presence since Sara Lima left along with her weekly news videos to do a business degree in France. AV and Screened meanwhile, well, I like to compare them to husks from Mass Effect.

Now that CBSi has finally gotten on-board with giving the right people the right opportunities (not unlike the situation that's going on in the world of WWE at the moment, more on that below), it's time for Giant Bomb to grow and expand in the ways I hoped it would do originally as a Whiskey Media Property.

FLStyle's list of people who should be hired to work on Giant Bomb

• Video producers! If the GOTY(/all) content is going to surpass the high standard set by 2012, we've going to need more staffers so that Vinny and Drew don't have to sleep in the CBSi building just to get the videos out of the door on time. In general GB would be able to pump more content out as well.
• People capable of covering gaming culture and interests - What does gaming culture and interests mean you ask? The Speed Run Community, the Fighting Game Community, eSports at large, shows like VGCW. There's whole new worlds out there in gaming like youtubers who the gaming "press" have completely missed and haven't reacted to. I can only imagine the money gaming sites would make if they had half as many eyes on them as some youtubers have. Maybe the answer lies in head-hunting a member of one of these communities.
• Female gaming press - Sooner rather than later I want gaming to be accepted on the same level as music and film. The gaming industry makes more money than both combined, but the acceptance isn't there. One big step to move gaming in the right direction is to eliminate the gender equality problem. Who knows, if that can happen, maybe the race and sexual orientation problems can be solved too, and then gaming won't be behind the curve, it'll be ahead of it.

Good Tweets

Clicking Things

VGCW End Game 6 Preview

Video Game Championship Wrestling is nearly the end of Season 6 with its PPV, End Game 6 on Tuesday February 4th at 3PM PST/6PMEST/11PMGMT and so on, the matches we know about are as follows -

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• Duke Nukem vs. Ganondorf
• Team Snake vs. Team Phoenix
• Ezio Auditore da Firenze vs. Dracula
• Segata Sanshiro (C) vs Goemon - for the Casual Championship
• GameCenter FU (C) Angry Video Game Nerd & Chief Arino vs. The Saiyans (Vegeta and Nappa) - for the Co-Op Tag Team Championship
• Gabe Newell vs. Angry Video Game Nerd - for the VGCW Championship

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Click on for why who is facing who

Duke Nuken vs. Ganondorf has been the primary feud leading up to EG6, with Duke suffering one loss in "devastating" fashion (Bazza accidentally set the match to quick) to Ganondorf, the two have been squabbling for weeks

Team Snake vs. Team Phoenix is a leftover story from Season 4, with Phoenix seeking revenge against Snake for leaving him stuck 6 months in the past (by way of a time travelling Chaos Emerald), it hasn't gotten much air time because people have gotten a little tired of them featuring in the plot so much. Team Snake is comprised of Snake and 2 unknown partners and Team Phoenix is comprised of three different versions of Phoenix.

A glitch in an otherwise inconsequential First Blood match between Ezio and Dracula lead to Ezio reversing a move of Dracula's that caused Ezio to bleed, resulting in WWE 2K14 awarding the victory to Ezio instead. And you thought regular wrestling was dumb.

Segata has enjoyed a long reign as Casual Champion, but the John Cena-like Goemon (some like him, some hate him) has risen quite quickly since his debut.

After causing a shock in the VGCW title number 1 contender's match last week, Angry Video Game Nerd must wrestle in two matches, one as a champion, one as the challenger.

Starbomb - Luigi's Ballad (Animated by Egoraptor)

Egoraptor's animations amuse me greatly (Metal Gear Awesome and such) and he since his VGCW career has come to an end (;_;7) he's evidently turned to making a comedy supergroup called Starbomb with an album of the same name. Think The Lonely Island with a focus on video games, his has lent his animation skills to track 3, Luigi's Ballad.

I'd love this to turn into a series since things like Metal Gear Awesome seem to have ended at episode 2 when Egoraptor's sense of humour was a lot different at the time (his words). The triangle between asshole Mario, sensitive Luigi and indecisive Peach has a lot of potential for laughs and fun times.

WWE: Royal Rumble 2014 summed up in 2:51

Ironically the default image for this video is a diva (the best one), none of which featured in the 2014 Royal Rumble PPV. Fans were happy, then they raged and 20 hours later CM Punk quit the company. The WWE is either delaying the pay-off on this story for a long time or they just refuse to give the fans what they want and shove part timers down our throats. Sad times.

I salute you Matt Smith, no-one ever thought you'd live up to being The Doctor in Doctor Who after one of the best Doctors there has been (David Tennant), but you were great!

I have now linked you to episode 1 of Dragonball Z Abridged, I expect you to watch it all now.

Hurray! That does it for Making points and clicking things #1 Follow me on the Twitter

For those who are basing the quality of Dragon Ball Z Abridged off the first episode:

Keep watching.

The show is funny at the start, but it's really rough. That's because it's several years old at this point. Since then, the guys behind Team Four Star have really hit their stride, both in producing the episodes and writing them.

If you need some proof, check the latest episode, then wrap back to the beginning and enjoy it sequentially:

@devoureroftime: That's actually a big jump in quality, never noticed before, good post!

Awesome poster!

That husk caption man...

But I'll forgive it because now I'm listening to Revengeance music. Again.

@slndr: Thanks, first of many hopefully.

@csl316: The state of those sites saddens me greatly.