The Community Spotlight - 7/20/2012
By ZombiePie 39 Comments
Hello and welcome to the much belated latest edition of the Giant bomb Community Spotlight! As always let's start this off with some site related news and announcements. Giant Bomb will celebrate it's fourth birthday this Saturday! As the years have passed many users have come and gone, for better or for worse, but this site still stands with most of the same cast and crew that worked on it when it first launched. So please, let's all take the time to thank every person who has helped to make that possible. Giant Bomb mod Marino is encouraging all users to change their avatar to their first original avatar to commemorate Giant Bomb's birthday. As for the site itself Dave and company are still busy working on the re-design. Dave recently Tweeted that he was working on the credits pages for the site wiki database. With that all said please remember to follow the GiantBombSquad Twitter account to stay updated on all of the best user created content on Giant Bomb, and let's get on with the latest edition of the Community Spotlight!
Game Nights and Activities
- Giant Bomb Persona 4 Arena Tournament (Xbox 360) - Set fo August 10th-12th - Sign Up Here!
- PC Gaming Hub - UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT! - Join One of the Community's Many PC Communities Over Here!
- Giant Bomb Community SC2 US Tournament #14 - Set for July 29th - Sign Up Here!
Wonderful Wikis
As the Summer Game Drought Continues the selection of big video game releases dwindles. That said check out the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD wiki page to check out what all in the game. Theatrhythm Final Fantasy has been updated nicely thanks to a wiki task. Still confused as to what in the hell La-Mulana is all about? Check out Giant Bomb's surprsingly detailed wiki page to figure it out, and the smae could be said for Dyad.
Best of Blogs
The two major highlights of the week hands down are Marino stats breakdown of what it was like moderating the site when it launched and Gamer-152's breakdown of how Halo: ODST's story hearkens to Dante's Divine Comedy. Not to be one upped are Fobwashed who is presenting a handful of Mario themed wedding cards he has made for a friend and EquitasInvictus's blog that compares and contrasts a visual novel to L.A. Noire. User ahoodedfigure explains why the game Slender "got" him whereas user AjayRaz details how the indie-game Ib is a more effective and better told horror experience to Slender. User ahoodedfigure also wrote a blog breaking down everything about Bastion and what he thought about the game. Going back to older games was a reoccurring theme this week as user metalsnakezero finally got around to the Assassin's Creed franchise with the first game. Video_Game_King continued doing what he did by writing a blog about two old anime games. MarkWahlberg explains why he doesn't see the appeal of KOTOR or Bully having finally played both for the first time, and on that note user Alaska_Gamer talks about playing Psychonauts for the first time. ArbitraryWater wrote a massive blog about his passion for Fire Emblem: Thracia 776 and Alphazero asks why there's so much lens flare in futuristic video games. User CJduke evaluated video games as interactive stories, Mento detailed how Rogue-likes are expanding into different genres, Grant Heaslip annotates all the best music from Ocarina of Time and buzz_clik details the great music in the C64 game Lightforce. Mason_M explains why he feels the same as Jeff about Shootmania: Storm having played the Beta, Sarumarine discusses if you should import Anarchy Reigns like he did, and SparkyBuzzsaw writes about the first disappointment in his RPG Retrospective blog series. MajorMitch, Hailinel, and RecSpec all wrote blogs about Theatrhythm and other things they have played. Majormitch and Hailinel also followed up their blogs with MajorMitch concluding his Awesome Video Game Music series and Hailinel detailing the weird and wacky story of Final Fantasy Versus XIII.
- By the Numbers: July 21, 2008 (By: Marino)
- Bungie's Inferno (By: Gamer_152)
- The Long, Strange Road of Final Fantasy Versus XIII (By: Hailinel)
- Ib - A Different Kind of Horror Game (By: AjayRaz)
- Investigations & Storytelling (L.A. Noire / Kara no Shoujo) (By: EquitasInvictus)
- Mario Themed Wedding Card (By: Fobwashed)
- Yesterday's Games: Assassin's Creed 1 (By: metalsnakezero)
- Wait, When Did This Become Anime Vice? What's Going On? (By: Video_Game_King)
- Video Games as Interactive Stories (By: CJduke)
- Roguelikes Gone Rogue (By: Mento)
- My Favorite Ocarina of Time Music (By: GrantHeaslip)
- Syndicate and Our Lens Flare Future (By: Alphazero)
- SID-licious #11: Lightforce (By: buzz_clik)
- Shootmania: Storm Beta - First Impressions (By: Mason_M)
- Going Overboard: Anarchy Reigns (By: Sarumarine)
- RPG Retrospective - Star Ocean: First Departure (By: Sparky_Buzzsaw)
- RecSpec Roulette: July 16, 2012 (By: RecSpec)
- Slender Reflection (By: ahoodedfigure)
- Bastion, With Full-on Spoilers. Stay Away if You Haven't Played (By: ahoodedfigure)
- I Delight in These Games Eating My Soul (By: Hailinel)
- Awesome Video Game Music: Finale (By: MajorMitch)
- Weekly Roundup 07/15/2012 (By: MajorMitch)
- I Play Old Games That Only Came Out in Japan (Part 2) (By: ArbitraryWater)
- [insert title] 7-14-12 (By: Alaska_Gamer)
- Haut Kotor, Bully For You (By: MarkWahlberg)
Fantastic Forums
In lieu of the Name Your Top 3 Game thread form last week there's now a Name Your Top Three Books thread. Seppli opens the floor by asking what your dream setting and genre combination would be (a popular pick seems to be a Game of Thrones RTS). User VaddidBell asks you to recall your favorite use of New Game + in a video game. Finally user allworkandlowpay has created a thread where you can post your Peter Molyneux themed haiku on.
- Moly-ku: Post your best Peter Molyneux Haikus! (By: allworkandlowpay)
- Favorite Use of New Game + (By: VaddixBell)
- Dream Setting and Genre Combination? (By: Seppli)
- Your Top 3 Books of All Time (By: Feanor)
Lovable Lists
User ahoodedfigure has created a list of games that prove that writers and good writing can elevate games. ArbitraryWater is now listing every game that he has espoused positively on the site. Finally user Mento has created a list of Square-Enix games that he thinks are worthy of getting Theatrhythm-esque spin-offs.
- Square-Enix Soundtracks I'd Like To See Theatrhythmicized (By: Mento)
- Games You've Probably Heard Me Endorse/Accidentally Endorse One Time Too Many (By: ArbitraryWater)
- Writers Matter (By: ahoodedfigure)
Useful User Reviews
- therealminime's user review of The Walking Dead
- yellownumber5's user review of Dyad
- Zenogiasu's user review of Xenoblade Chronicles
- Mento's user review of The Amazing Spider-Man
- Nadafinga's user review of Renegade Ops
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