Y2Ken

It's a lil weird having some games get their full run of releases while others just get one entry. That said, I think Elden Ring's tough to top and I reckon it'd still have a good chance to snap the GB awards too, given what broad appeal it seems to have had. The entire MGS catalogue (especially if we assume it includes PW) is a pretty choice collection, though.

Obviously this is personal taste, but I'm not super into Mario or Sonic, but I get Mario more.

I like Sonic as a character, and I think a lot of those games have great art direction and phenomenal music. I don't think any of them work that well on a gameplay level, at least for an average player. They're games where the goal is to go fast, but that's not really a viable strategy when you first play them. You either take it slow and careful, which the game isn't built for, or you go fast and end up basically being pinged around with little control or smashing into enemies and hazards.

If you play a bunch and you learn the levels, you can do cool stuff, but that's a big investment. They're almost like speedrunning games, but ones that are kinda clunky to play normally before you learn them inside-out. I gave Sonic Mania a fair shake, and it's slightly better structured than some of the others, but it still falls foul of those same issues. I feel like the game wants me to go full-tilt, but punishes me when I do (or takes control out of my hands to do a cool thing while I'm basically holding one direction).

They're kinda clunky games wrapped in fantastic presentation. Again, personal taste, but I can understand the appeal of Mario on a gameplay level despite not really being into it myself, whereas Sonic I only really get if you're super committed to just going all-in on learning it back to front (at which point it does look quite cool).

This double-extra sucks because the site's been so good lately. I was ready to wrap it all up when Jeff G left but nuGB has been making perhaps their most fun stuff since pre-pandemic times. It's a crew built to work in the streaming era, and with some incredible chemistry. But a change-up like that needs time to bring people on board, and they haven't given it that. Even if they'd fully transitioned to a Twitch or YT focus, I'd have been fine with that. Now... I don't know at all.

This is a real bummer, the current crew has been excellent since the revamp and this feels like pulling the rug out from under them. The most love to Jason, Jess, and Justin, of course, but also thoughts with the rest of the team that has to deal with the fallout from this.

It's not my position to apportion blame (nor is this likely anything like the be-all and end-all) but GB has always felt like it came too cheap. It's what, like 40 bucks for a year? That's certainly not nothing and I appreciated the value it offered me but a Twitch sub is 60 bucks a year and that's usually for a single person. Past the twitch subathon they did it doesn't really feel like there was a great attempt to rectify that monetisation, if it was an issue.

Anyway, the backend doesn't matter; this was a mistake, and it's only going to hurt the site.

Really sad news. I'll always have super fond memories of watching that dude just absolutely whip the shit out of some stunt courses, felt like he could make cars move in ways few are able to. RIP.

I've been absolutely loving the new era.

The main thing for me about GB has always been the chemistry between the hosts, and I feel like this current crew all bounces off one another super well. As others have said, I kinda wish Tam, Lucy, and Dan were on the podcast a bit more (but I get that they're all fairly busy) - Jess as well though she's obviously had to do a lot of editing work and set building recently.

I really enjoy the gang, they all bring a slightly different energy to things, and they all vibe with each other in a great way. Some of the most good-feeling energy since peak GB era. I'm still watching Nextlander stuff, as well as Waypoint things here and there, and I catch the occasional JGS production as well, so we've got a good blend of different things going.

Plus they do stuff together here and there, which has made me very happy to see. Generally it seems like pretty much everyone involved is a little happier in their current setup, which is perhaps the most important part.

I kinda forgot how strongly people feel about ads. My personal feeling on them, especially in a case like this (where it's not a paid partnership with the game in question, it's just a link to an online store under the same parent company that sells the game) is that no affiliate-style link is ever going to pay out enough to warrant the team selling out their morals for (which would risk compromising their perceived integrity).

If I have a gripe, it'd be that they are technically ads (even if it does end up being the cheapest place to buy the game) and they probably shouldn't be shown to premium members. I realise that might be awkward depending upon how they're framed, though (given that this one was literally just a comment under the video).

This particular case is perhaps an interesting example too because you can tell Sonic fans that a game is bad until the cows come home and a lot of them will still buy it regardless. I can certainly appreciate the concerns people have; I just can't think of any situation where I've felt like someone is speaking more favourably about a game because it has an affiliate link. If we were talking 'This Quick Look is brought to you by SEGA and Sonic Frontiers' I might feel more strongly against it.

I got a PS5 last month, and I pretty much just saw it as a hardware upgrade to the PS4 I've had since a little over eight years ago. I will say that the controller does feel nice with it's snazzy features - I've been playing Astro's Playroom, and that does feel fairly unique. However, when you're not using the fancy rumble I could almost mistake it for a DS4, and the other games I've played on it so far are ones that would've run on my PS4 or PC (albeit slightly worse on the former).

They changed the UI up a fair bit from the XMB design of the PS3 and PS4. I wish they hadn't. It feels like an active loss of functionality in a lot of places, with almost no tangible benefits. That said I'm still happy with the purchase, but it definitely feels like less of a "wow" moment than you might've had with past console generations. That's probably expected, though; I think that mostly just comes down to the way that tech and the game industry iterates and evolves over time.

Wild news. I can't say I had strong feelings about RV but it must be a logistical nightmare getting tossed between various owners.

I got a 3080 a couple months ago as the prices dropped - feeling very happy with my purchase. I'm excited to see what these new cards can do but the 3080 will almost certainly cover me for a good long while. I'm currently running at 1080p144 (with three monitors, but only using one to play games) but planning to upgrade my main monitor to 1440p144 (helped by the announcement that PS5 will now support that resolution if I get one down the line).

I'd needed a new card for a while and was starting to run into games that flat out didn't work at all, so that forced my hand somewhat alongside increased availability and reduced prices. But hearing rumours of the increased power draw for the new cards certainly helped my consideration to pick up a current-gen card rather than waiting (also I'm sure the demand will peak again with the launch of the 4000 series cards).