Giant Bombcast 571: It's Like a Big Slider

Bad audio, unlistenable.

Having played both, I would say that Anthem is worse. Destiny had a ton of problems, no doubt, but its "bones" were pretty solid. The shooting was awesome, the universe was fascinating even if the actual story they were telling was a mess, and the dopamine drip of loot felt good despite the end-game progression being kind of awful.

Because the core of the game was solid, I could at least see a pretty clear roadmap of what they needed to do to make it better; more content, a more coherent story, and better end-game progression.

With Anthem, I'm not sure I'm as clear on what the plan needs to be. Unlike Destiny, it isn't quite as solid at its core. The shooting isn't as strong as Destiny (I'm not nearly as down as Jeff on it, but it sure isn't Destiny), the loot drops suck, and I have absolutely zero interest in this universe or any of the characters. Like Jeff said on the podcast, Anthem's problems are so inextricably bound up in what it is that I'm not quite sure how to solve them.

Plus you need to consider that when Destiny came out, it didn't really have any competition in the space. It had time to grow and get better and get folks back in the door. Anthem launched in a world where Destiny already exists and it also has another shiny new competitor coming out in less than a month with The Division 2. I'm not sure Anthem has time to do everything it needs to do to make itself compelling.

Super Mario Bros 2 (USA) is Brad's Mother 3

@inemzis: Nothing wrong with that! Welcome. You made a good decision.

Metacritic Rating for Crackdown 1 (2007) : 83 (out of 100).

70 out of 75 reviews from major publications were "positive", and the remaining 5 were "mixed". There were 0 "Negative" reviews. Source: https://www.metacritic.com/game/xbox-360/crackdown/critic-reviews

Crackdown 1's praise wasn't just a "Giant Bomb thing".

@entireties:Seemed like a pretty standard back and forth to me. He wasn't steamrolling him, just offering an important take on a game that was only getting negatives placed against it. People probably need to hear more sides than just Jeff who has already stated multiple times that he's not into this game.

I'm sure Anthem has a lot of things wrong with it that need to be addressed, but it sounds like Jeff made up his mind that it sucks and won't change it. I'm sure how good or bad it actually is is probably somewhere in the middle between Jeff and Jason's opinion. I'd still like to get it, but I'll probably either wait for a big update or it to go on sale.

@mattchops: I think a lot of Jeff's criticisms are fair. He played through the whole game and tried to give it a somewhat fair shake, which didn't seem to be the case in the first look video where I would agree with you that it looked like he was just looking for things to hate.

I actually agree with a lot of his criticisms, however I disagree about their severity.

I find the combat a lot of fun, and I'm playing the same Ranger class as Jeff. I definitely think he is playing down the flight mechanics unfairly, lots of fights require you to utilize the movement. Facing an Ursix (huge bear-like creature), if you're on the ground you're toast so you're required to hover around to avoid those attacks. To counter this the Ursix will fling boulders/groups of small rocks at you, and if they hit you it knocks you out of flight. So it becomes a fun fight of using hover to keep your distance the having to use dodge mechanic while hovering to avoid his ranged attacks. The Titan enemies also require you to be very mobile, you have to do lots of jumping or hovering to avoid his AOE attacks, and I feel like the only way to consistently avoid his large laser (which is close to an instant kill, but is pretty televised beforehand) is to go into full flight mode and fly perpendicular to him.

I'm assuming Jeff missed out on a lot of this because he plays on normal difficulty with a full party, at which point the game becomes extremely easy and you don't have to avoid most of these attacks because the enemy won't be focusing on you. Which is fair game to be criticized by Jeff because this is definitely how the game wants to make you play. Hard bumps up the difficulty (good for groups), and also something none of them mention is that you can play this game solo, which is how I've been doing all of the story content to avoid party members ruining the story triggers by charging forward. It also serendipitously revealed a lot more of the combat mechanics of enemies like the Ursix (the mechanics for the Titan are just as impactful for groups).

I'm enjoying the game, find the combat fun and engaging, and think the world they're building is cool. The game's story is average to pretty good at times. I think his criticisms of the loot system are completely fair.

This is the impression I got. It was pretty clear that Jeff wasn't going to back down from his hard "ANTHEM IS BAD" stance, so really all Jason could reasonably get in was a polite disagreement. Jason was also in agreement with a lot of Jeff's issues, so it's not as if he's unaware of its flaws.

New Fire Emblem is honestly the first 3D Fire Emblem I've liked the art-style for, turning the characters into squads is a cool look.

Also Mario Maker is like going to a restaurant and paying to use the kitchen.

Yah it wasn't but the reverence is also a bit off. In my opinion a lot of what Jeff says about Crackdown 3 is somewhat rough, and beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all that but he seems to skew in a very negative direction. Crackdown 1 was very much a repetitive, simple game that you played for the power fantasy which honestly boiled down to the jumping around. It was alright even back then, but nothing amazing. The vehicles handled like trash, the shooting was uninspired and the missions structure was very plain. It was fun to a) jump from roof to roof of skyscrapers b) see your cars transform when you got in them.

As far as Crackdown 3 goes I think Jeff is being a bit negative here as I mentioned before, and a lot of them seem to be getting caught up in the past a little much. First of all regarding the length, it's not an extremely long game but for a person like myself that has an 8 hour job I can't even imagine beating it in a single afternoon. It took me like 3-4 days of getting in there each day and doing some of the activities. The mission design is what it is, the shooting was never really great in the previous games and it remains mindless here. The most fun I had was with the propaganda towers which Jeff doesn't really mention, because those are fun platforming sections that use your agility skills to full effect. They are also segments that cause real tension as you're 100 stories up jumping from platform to platform (although thankfully the game is kind enough to have a checkpoint system so you don't have to redo all the jumping from the start). That said, it's not too outrageous to say the mission structure in Crackdown 3 isn't any less creative than lets say an Assassins Creed Origins where you're basically going from camp to camp killing a dood without much in the way of variety.

The the last few boss fights are mainly interesting because you are climbing some of the tallest structures in the game to get to them and the buildings are obviously designed in a way to create a path for the player to get up which is fun. The fights themselves were sort of boring but I do appreciate a callback in the last boss encounter to a joke made early on in the game. The intro cinematics are pretty nice and thats saying something for me because typically I associate comic-book animated still frames with budget games. They're not amazing or anything and it's all very basic bad-corporation sort of stuff but some are clever.

Jeff mentioned a few times how the orb placement is bad and I honestly don't understand the complaint. The orbs are placed in such a way that you usually see them placed along a path and at some point you grow to learn where potential orbs might be placed. It's not an issue and as was the case with Crackdown 1, the more inland you get where architecture starts being more vertical the more interesting it is to hunt the orbs down. The added mobility with the air-dashing makes it all that much more enjoyable.

Lastly without spoiling the meager story that there is, they sort of hint at the evil nature of the agency at the end of the game, and the fact that there is a post credits stinger hints at possible campaign DLC - although if they haven't already made it I don't really see them pursuing this because I don't think sales are going to be great.

It's totally a 3/5 but as a Crackdown 1 Remaster it's decent fun. Typically I don't really bother writing out all this stuff because everyone will have their own opinion but I did want to offer a second opinion as someone that generally enjoyed their time with it.

I feel as though Anthem could've been something had it had a compelling narrative, seeing as it's theoretically Bioware and all that (and I think I heard Inquisition did end up having a satisfying story, or at least characters); I think it would've softened how sparse and unsatisfying the game seems to be on a structural level.
Of course it's easy to say "just write it good", but just talking priorities.

Anyway really enjoyed Jeff's energy in this episode, everyone were very good!

@mattchops: lol you haven’t even played the game yet and you’re sure Jeff’s wrong. Jason didn’t even disagree with him that much. Jason seemed to be positive on the environment and the flying but not much else. It’s getting quite ridiculous the amount of people thinking Jeff just wants to hate this game. It’s not like Brad didn’t share many of the same sentiments as Jeff.

@japanesebuffalo: I didn't say I'm certain he's wrong or that he's doing it to be a troll to make people hate the game, just that what I've read and watched the sentiment is probably somewhere in the middle between Jeff and Jason.

@mattchops: Jeff is never intentionally being a "troll" because the guy is too old for that childish nonsense (Dan on the other hand..) I do agree that Jeff can sort of wind himself up where things that were just kinda middling suddenly become glaring issues and his negativity overall will sort of start to wash over any redeeming factors. I'm sure he's not doing it on purpose because if you listen to Jeff over the years thats just the way he is.

Does Anthem have a Tower of Hanoi puzzle? All the good BioWare games have one, maybe that's what its missing.

these mics are too hot

@humanity: thanks for the writeup about crackdown. I don't care for the game, but it's good to have this out there.

Mics are hot, color is off, and Jeff hates on everything new. 2 of these things are correctable, the other one we just have to accept lol. Love me some angry Jeff XD

On a serious side note, how can the sound and color settings very so much week to week? Im not a video engineer duder at all but you'd think Jan should of been able to see the mics clipping into the red on the mixer, right?

addition #1: Jeff is correct on crackdown, its simple fun and nothing more, but if you play on hard it's definitely more than a 6 hour game, some of the end bosses are down right, well, hard.....

Jeff has a general hate towards any new popular game which is widely loved by the general gaming population to the point where it is obnoxious which i cant stand by, but in this case I am 100% behind everything he said about Anthem. my god this game is fucking trash and anyone that thinks it can be redeemed on their pretend launch day (22nd) is completely delusional. the general public has access to the full game on the 15th (provided they pick the right payment option out of several to play it on time). is the actual launch date of the game was the 15th. i played 5-6 hours of it with my 10 hour trial. i got the game free with my new RTX card and i still have zero desire to go back to it on launch

Thank god for Jeff. It's so refreshing to see someone take a definitive stand and back it up with examples.

The death penalty in hollow knight is extremely limited. It does add tension, but can be easily bypassed and the spirit can be easily found again. Its like the dark souls soul system, except you dont lvl up with them. So the loss of currency is a setback,but never gamebreaking or tragic. The times i actually losta meaningfull amount and failed to retrieve it can be counted on 1 hand.

Also how the map works is critical to the game and adds to the tension and enjoyment,but ill leave writing a paragraph about that for someone else .

Audio on the video is definitely super hot.

Give Kofi the strap!

My ears are bleeding. Did Brad just say he's NEVER played Link's Awakening?!? WTF!

Definitely the second best Zelda ever after Link to the Past. Welll, maybe tied for second with Breath of the Wild. :P

As a guy who didn't have an Xbox before the XboxOne - this team has always praised Crackdown 1. Brad would always talk about grabbing those orbs, and how cool leaping felt. Even the goofy transforming cars. they 100% have always praised it to the point i badly wanted to play it.

Fable came to PC, so this was probably the #1 game I wanted on backwards compatibility - and the day it was announced i went and bought an old copy. (Then they released it free, meh!). But yeah, 100%, if you've listened to this site for years - the first got nothing but praise, and the second they said was a huge let down. -- i couldn't tell you how it reviewed elsewhere as i didn't have Xbox at the time, and i really only have been a Gamspot/Giantbomb customer. But I vouch for them here.

Games commentary is silly sometimes (and totally subjective). But being mad at games commentary is even sillier!
These guys can dislike a game like Crackdown and Anthem, and as long as they back it up, dont be upset. They are literally trying to save you time and money by playing it first and giving an opinion.
Find a reviewer you agree with most of the time ,and put stock in what they say. if you find you disagree with someone more often than not, then ignore them.
But obviously not everyone likes the same games. Smash sold like 15 million copies already and that baffles me. I have it on Wii u and 3DS to give it a try with my niece, we probably put 3 hours in collectively and both agreed we didn't enjoy it. Her Dad just bought her the Switch version. She played the week while he was here, and i can tell thats going back in the box never to be opened again. -- We can dislike Smash, and you guys can like it, and thats okay!

I enjoyed Crackdown 3 just fine, was a fun distraction. There's probably a tale to be told about its development, but as an end product it's ok. Not sure I could do it in one afternoon, took me maybe 10 hours. I got it with Game Pass and I think that's what MS hope most people do, to grow their service there. Can't imagine they are really expecting folk to spend $60 on it.

I love Jason but man he will defend anything, sorry but someone that plays tons of god eater explaining that anthem doesn't suck because it's conceptually sound is frustrating.

I wish Link's Awakening looked half as good as Wind Waker.

I think it's unfair to frame this as "Celda 2.0"

Whenever I hear Jason speak, I wanna cough or clear my throat.

Whenever I hear Ben speak, I wanna swallow or blow my nose.

I love these duders but, shit man, I can't stand listening to them talk.

I liked Wind Waker's look when it was new. I don't like the new Link's Awakening look. I would much prefer if it looked more like Link Between Worlds. It just looks bland. It looks like it's going for the "toy" look and not quite getting it. It's just meh. I also felt like I didn't like the arrangement of the music. It didn't remind me of the original music enough.

This is a deep cut. I remember KOTOR's Tower of Hanoi puzzle vividly, I can't place the one in Mass Effect though.

How do you put an engaging story into an online co-op game with cutscenes? The more I think about it the more I realize Ghost Recon Wildlands maybe did it right to just have them be super short and kinda pointless. If you got 3 other people on your team, some of whom may have already completed missions and are replaying them with you, you aren't going to have the time or concentration to go from friendly banter to suddenly concentrating on cutscenes and NPC dialogue.

That's a good-looking hamburger.

Timestamps for Free Video Version

1:23 Intro

4:51 Video Games

4:57 Tetris 99

14:56 Crackdown 3

33:23 Farcry New Dawn

38:11 Metro Exodus

43:51 Anthem

1:34:14 NEWS

1:34:51 Nintendo direct announcements

1:52:40 Scalebound resurrected is coming to Nintendo Switch

1:55:56 Activision's mass layoffs

2:03:19 Fortnite season pass is free

2:14:52 AFL-CIO calls for unionization of game developers

2:18:11 Hollow Knight Silksong was announced

2:19:33 System Shock 3 developer buys back publishing rights from Starbreeze

2:21:16 E-Mails

2:21:26 Tate is japanese for vertical

2:22:38 There's only 10 minutes of body harm in the home alone movie

2:25:28 Why is sony repeating mistakes that it did with ps3?

2:26:57 Do good games have better food at their preview events?

2:30:32 Halo 3 mini boss idea

2:31:34 Farcry New Dawn has splinter cell references