Giant Bombcast 628: Respect the Headcrab

@miceman64: Whenever I hear someone saying the controls in Mario Sunshine are bad I just assume that they haven't played it. I think the controls in that game are super satisfying.

I'm glad I played through Doom Eternal before hearing anyone on the Bombcast's opinion of it. Without firsthand experience, I would be under the assumption that Id really dropped the ball on this one which couldn't be farther from the truth. Doom Eternal plays better than 2016 in every way.

First Bombcast I nearly turned off due to their takes. Doom Eternal rules, weirdos.

FYI Jeff, you can totally play Online together with one digital copy, my wife and I do it everyday, you just can't play local multiplayer with one copy, my guess is its to make it harder for people to run tournaments with just a couple of copies of smash, splatoon etc

fun fact Dwight Schultz was the voice of Mung Daal on chowder...... there's my connection to that man as a person who's never seen a Star Trek or a A Team

My surround sound speakers must be about 20 years old now. I'd have the same Yamaha receiver, still, if I didn't get sick of jumping through a bunch of hoops every few months to get it working again with Windows (completely unnecessary. My current receiver is inferior, but plays well with Windows).

I feel like complaints about 'jadedness' or 'negativity' are just ways to hand-wave legitimate criticism of games people personally like. Nothing is flawless. Disagreement is fine, but making weird 'psychoanalytical' assumptions about Jeff as a person feels like a step too far. Jeff has quite often sung praises for many games, you don't even have to go that far back. Here's 3 examples from the past 6 months (not to mention GOTY):

https://www.giantbomb.com/reviews/control-pc-review/1900-792/

https://www.giantbomb.com/reviews/gears-5-review/1900-793/

https://www.giantbomb.com/reviews/call-of-duty-modern-warfare-review/1900-794/

Not that it happens just in this site, but media criticism as a whole, especially in the age of influences where you can find a personality that makes their money cheer-leading/hyping anything their audience wants. This leads to criticism being blunted in order to justify people's purchases.

Giant bomb is great because I can hear nuanced criticism and points I haven't considered before. Doesn't mean I always agree with it, but I don't feel like it makes them invalid.

So great podcast as usual. But what's up with the music during the email segment? That was insanity inducing with it fading in and out constantly.

@regmcfly: sounds like Pilot Wings 64 to me

@sekou: Yeah, well he doesn't like the game. The whole game. So he is giving his opinion. Take it or don't, but don't expect people to modify their opinions just to please everyone. Last time I've checked, people on this site liked Jeff because he was honest and direct about his opinions.

@sintes: Negative my friend; he doesn't hate the whole game because he hasn't payed the whole game. Have you? 'Cause if you had, you'd know that point where he threw his hands up in disgust happens on day TWO. He gave up literally in the tutorial, without giving the game anywhere near a fair chance to get going. And hey, if that's what he wants to do, you're right more power to him! What myself and others in the comments are reacting to is a): how he dominated the conversation on a game he'd played waaaaaaay less than 3 other people at the table, and b): his insistence on trashing it with pretty much no experience with it. Why you'd react so strongly to a couple very valid, obvious facts is beyond me but I'm not surprised....I've been here since the start of this site, but I'll still never know GB grew such a sycophantic fanbase. Guys...it's ok to love Jeff and co/ while still calling them out on stuff. Breathe.

I don't think I would want to play Doom Eternal with mouse and keyboard because there's so damn many buttons in that game. I guess if you're good at remembering where all that stuff is mapped it wouldn't be a problem but that's not me.

Also I have to say I have not been enjoying Eternal very much at all. I don't find the combat loop fun and the world has seemed pretty bland so far. I enjoyed the platforming for the first few hours but it's gotten kind of stale and even annoying in some parts.

I've been trying to get into Animal Crossing a little bit and after about 3 hours I just really don't get what that game is supposed to be about. It sorta seems like a create your own fun kind of game like a minecraft or something and I've never been able to get into any of that.

I do have to say I just completed all 40 levels on Doom 64 Remaster and had an absolute blast with that. The level design, music and gun feel in that game is still all top notch in 2020. I love it. It's basically Doom 1 or 2 with better audio, graphics and level design.

Now I really really want to play Resident Evil 3 Remake but it'll be a while before I can afford to drop the funds on it. Sort of a weird feeling not getting to play this game at release. I've literally bought every RE game on release day besides RE1. Don't know if I'll put any more of my time into Eternal or Animal Crossing.

Did I listen to the same podcast as some others? For all this talk about Jeff being a grumpy old dude, he had good things to say about Control, and for his misgivings about Doom Eternal he still said there were some good things about it. He had a lot to say about Animal Crossing: New Horizons too, but he let everyone else have their fun and never talked over them. And even then, he said he put New Horizons down, not that it was a terrible game or anything like that. You also gotta remember that he's played other Animal Crossing games too, so he's qualified to say his piece on it. Like seriously, this degree of throat-leaping-down that happened is insane.

@aktane said:

I don't understand how Jeff and you both played this game expecting melee/hand physics and seemingly completely missed it. You cant melee to damage because it sucks ass, playing through Boneworks made this super obvious. No force feedback while you are swinging around melee weapons just feels bad.

But you can totally use your hands in HL Alyx, actually one of the headcrap types is MADE to encourage this behaviour. When i shook off the worst fear of the game, i spend most of it catching headcrabs leaping through the air with my hands, and giving them a one-shot up close with my shotgun, and it felt amazing. If you catch em just right you can even avoid their damaging forearms which further enhance how it feels to do stuff like that. You can also easily use random stuff as shield if you need.

The only thing that doesnt work is using random stuff as melee/throwing weapon, again, because it just doesnt feel good. Other games have shown this plenty.

I realllllllllly wish they'd stop putting backing music to any part of this. It's super distracting and annoying, all while not adding anything of value. I find it very unnecessary.

Did anyone else try to join the production meeting this morning?

1:33:02 You guys fought very hard to put that game down at every turn in 2013 GOTY.

Please PLEASE stop playing music during the emails. It's incredibly distracting.

Wow, Dwight Schultz has political viewpoints that differ from Brad’s? What a lunatic. They should lock him up!

Anyone else hearing a low humming "buzz" during the bombcast? I think someone's Blue Yeti isn't plugged into a powered USB hub. Freakin' Blue Yeti should just work, but it's so finicky. :/

Huh. I don't think I've once tried to actually hit things with melee items or throwables in Alyx. Never came to my mind, I guess. I get that Gordon's well known for his crowbar and all, but melee in VR is generally finnicky and unfun, and pretty dangerous to your furniture/family. It would've been neat if there was more stuff to do with the random junk, and maybe there is (I'm not through the game yet) but for me it was all about it being a really fun, actual game in VR, that looks absolutely phenomenal and plays buttery smooth. The shooting is some top-tier shit. And I dunno what game Jeff played, but the physics are like a THOUSAND times better than anything in Source 1. If you actually spend time messing around with physics objects, like, say, chairs, and putting them on other objects, the physics "hitboxes," or bounding boxes or whatever, are super accurate.

So a chair is not just a physics cube with a chair model inside, the legs will go through things and get caught on things, they'll hold the chair up if you position it on another item, it's actually super cool and I hope the game uses some of that at some point, because it's fucking neat. The physics, despite what Jeff said, are WAYYYY less "jittery" than Half-Life 2 or anything, I haven't seen a single object jiggling around or dealing damage, though I'm sure it can happen. One of the first things I did when I opened it up was chucked some items on top of each other, they land with some actual weight and don't all bounce around like balloons or low gravity. The physics are on an entirely different level than what I'm used to, and they're fast and responsive to boot, rather than slow and floaty or janky.

It's true that largely the game does what other "games" have done in VR, but... I don't think Half-Life has ever really blown me away to begin with, I guess. Half-Life 2 introduced physics, which was neat, but was largely just some super simple puzzles and the gravity gun, which was like a normal gun but slower and clunkier. Most of the titles that use the best parts of Alyx were glorified tech demos, so it's nice seeing a great package of great ideas in a full-fledged, real game, rather than what feels like a college project.

I'm also sort of wondering if taking weeks to make very little progress in the game and getting really hung up on something the game doesn't have (melee combat) is really protracting the issue. Chapter 3 is very, VERY early on. Obviously I'm writing this as newer podcasts are out, but I find it fun to leave comments as I hear something, rather than come back with future context.