Giant Bombcast 639: Ribcages Per Capita

Yolo

Neat

what a beautiful Kidd

Jan: are they gonna introduce a new sexy creature on Space Jam 2

This constant dismissal of the year's biggest and most talked about games really bodes well for the GOTY show.

Cancel Jan

I don't know what movie you guys were watching but the sexy character from Space Jam is the thing that hangs out with Marvin the Martian.

@dolphin_tequila: I was kind of thinking the exact same thing. The whole Last of Us discussion was Brad basically saying things that nobody cared about. It actually kind of bummed me out.

I don't know if you meant it this way, but I 100% agree with this as an earnest statement. A lot of the big games this year have been pretty bog-standard, and it kinda looks like it's gonna continue go that way. This year's headliners are very "something you've seen before, but done really well", and discussion of those interests me far less than discussion of some of the really cool indie stuff that's hit and will hit this year.

Can I get a time stamp for when they’re done talking about TLoU2?

They've talked a shit ton about Animal Crossing already. Cmon now.

The sheer mileage GB has gotten out of MK3's ass-stupid fatality design will never not make me laugh.

I mean I hope Cyberpunk will change that. Its an open world Sci fi RPG set in a futuristic world we haven't seen in that scale. We've had cyberpunk style games like Deus Ex but thats very linear. Nothing in the scale of 2077. So that game may be "THE" AAA game this year.

I know not caring about sports or the world outside America is a Giant Bomb tradition, but pro sports are already back in many countries around the world.

Yeah, I'm with Jason, Jeff, Ben, and Jan(?) when it comes to The Last of Us: Part 2. I recognize that it's probably a very great game, but it would just be a little too much for me to stomach right now. I can see myself finally getting to it in like a year or something, lol. Also, I don't care what you guys say, Majora's Mask is a superb game from start to finish!

It's perhaps not surprising that the dialogue around Last of Us is going the way that it is so far, with lots of folks saying it's tough to play with the current state of the world. That said, it just seems like beating a dead horse every time the conversation goes that way. I feel like it'd be a lot more productive to mention the elephant in the room quickly up front, and move on to talking about the aspects of the game that people waiting to play it may want to hear about.

I get it if the heaviness is a big part of the players' experience and they want to talk about it, but it's kind of a bummer that the conversations just seem so dominated by this aspect right now.

Personally I feel like I'll be able to separate a great story, even a dark one, from what's going on in the world, but it almost feels like everyone talking about the game are attempting to lure me into a state of not being able to enjoy it.

Anyone else feel at all the same?

What game continues to be better than every game discussed in this podcast? Bros it's Xenoblade!

Oragami King has card based attacks like the bad Sticker Star one. That's the reason for all the coins and no experience. Hope you like the zero sum RPG with no build up.

I'm not claiming Minecraft Dungeons is great maybe not even good, if it wasn't on GamePass I'd probably feel somewhat bad about my purchase if it was more than $30. I know Jeff says he "finished" it and won't play it again. I will say it's one of those games I'm enjoying more on the 2nd play through. While there isn't a wide variety of gear, the "enchantment" system really starts to shine when you're getting some of the higher level loot, can put some fun synergies together.

@Brad The Jay & Bob thing might be dumb, but people worked hard on it, those dumb characters are one of the few things that get my depressed ass a smile these days.

Also, they released an 8-bit NES game and now a full new beat em up is coming. The NES game wasn’t bad for what it was.

Giant Bomb feels so negative, I really can’t deal with the world anymore.

@jjweatherman: Yeah, it's weird. I don't begrudge anyone who isn't "ready" for it, but it's the sequel to their 2013 GOTY so it's just a little odd to hear 4 people shrugging as Brad vaguely pushes them away from this experience. He basically said the game has the hooks in deep and he's eager to finish, but that was almost an afterthought.

Hoping East has some more insight. We already know Jeff B really dug it and I suspect the whole crew over there is going to at the very least give it a shot.

You guys can be down on them if you want, but Jeff just saved my sanity with the Win 10 store. Finally got my Halo MCC to not error out at the end of a full install by renaming a folder. I would have deleted and reinstalled multiple times over but couldn't even do that.

I know it's not "technically" under Phil Spencer but they sell an Xbox Game Pass for PC now and the Windows 10 store is a complete abomination. Get on it Phil. UWP is dead.

@jjweatherman: Eh. I get GB's feelings. I was on the fence and tried to defend TLOU2 for what people said is nihilism in the trailers and gore porn etc. since I could care less but think art shouldn't be dismayed for challenging taboo topics. Thou, I concede that sometimes it's out of your control and your hit idea can come out in the wrong times. It's hard to separate for some and it's valid. It reminds me when bad reviews came out for the episode of black mirror for being too stupid and a plot that could never happen. It involved an elected official winning by being crass, to the point, and unorthodox. Winning causes other candidates were boring. At least that's what I got from reviews. Come years later and people laud it for being so timely. Personal outside feelings affect games and its risky to make stories with negative feelings even if theirs some positive pay off. Same reason so much media is about good guys winning and bad guys getting their due. At a time like this, people just wanna escape with their escapism not talk about it more. (obviously not everyone and not a perfect or reliable system.) TLOU2 no matter how great it is, for some is like an Oscar-winning movie about Good ___ coming out that was in production for years. Even if the story was phenomenal, if it dealt with some plot point relating to justified civilian casualties or something, it would rub the wrong way.

Given the unemployment situation in the US vs other parts of the world, I wonder if Sony/Microsoft will send even less stock to the US so they can send it to places in a better economic situation

The WWE is truly the only place politicians can say "oh, he would've died soon anyway" regarding a mass of people under 45 dying of coronavirus.

@haz_kaj: I will preface this thought by noting that I am a huge fuddy duddy who increasingly dislikes AAA video games. I am earnestly more excited for Deadly Premonition 2 than The Last of Us 2, without a single trace of irony. That's the kind of broken person I am, so keep that in mind as I say this.

Cyberpunk looks insanely boring to me. I feel like it's pulling from a school of open-world video game design that other games have long since explored and abandoned. The idea of "you can do this mission however you want, you can shoot people, or you can sneak through a vent!" was revolutionary in 2010, now every game does this. Unless the game allows for some genuinely meaningful gameplay creativity other than just a bunch of thinly veiled skill checks, I will pretty thoroughly be passing.

I'm curious to see if the GB crew enjoys it or not, because as someone who plays a moderate amount of video games, Cyberpunk looks extremely "tried and true, ol' reliable open world game" to me, and I'll be curious if it still manages to hook someone.

Also, boy they are really just ripping off a lot of Gibson verbatim, and I realize that's because R. Talrosian ripped off a lot of Gibson verbatim, but still, come on.

I'm actually a little surprised to hear how they all bounced off the first Last of Us. I suppose it shouldn't be all that surprising, but it's such a big game. I'm not even that huge a fan myself as I really enjoyed the storytelling but thought the gameplay was just average, but it's always weird to hear a major gaming site completely bounce off one of the biggest releases of that generation.

Some of those people were definitely CGI people and YOU CANNOT CONVINCE ME OTHERWISE.

I love hearing a billion hours of what they think of the Sony stream which barely had any content and then hearing the fun PCG Show and Guerilla streams, which featured 100+ games, being reduced to "a bunch of deckbuilding games" which is not true in the slightest. Good stuff guys.

The fake crowd in the sports talk in the beginning, I was watching soccer this past weekend since it started back up and they 100% had a fake crowd and noise. When there was a replay it was completely empty stands but live it has this awful blurry flat crowd stuck on there and I am 100% about that nonsense.

I think an additional factor which made everyone look like CGI in that Sony presentation was that everyone looked slightly shinier than you would expect. I'm putting this down to them having proper lighting set ups, but no one doing makeup to take off the sheen of a high powered light

@duffman96: Yes! I watched Barcelona this weekend and for a while i was trying to figure out if they had decorated the entire place with weird confetti or something. But nope, all virtual. It all looked very ps2-era :D

Majora's Mask is great and I'll hear nothing else of it.

@humanity: TLOU was Giant Bomb’s 2013 GotY.

@curufinwe: Wow thats kinda nuts from the sound of how they discuss it in this Bombcast - I'm going to have to go back and listen to that podcast!

EDIT: What a time! I was just skimming to find the discussion and I just happened on a moment where Brad says DOTA 2 is the best, most innovative and most important game of that year.

It was weird to hear the “Microsoft will use warchest to undercut Sony” talking points spoken aloud after having read them in forum posts and tweets by, shall we say, hardcore Xbox enthusiasts. We are talking about the same company that put out a $500 Xbox One X not even three years ago when the PS4 Pro had already been available at $400 for 12 months.

Agreed, it would be nice if they got an international perspective on things.

Whats missing for me on console game pricing is that older titles arent just flat out cheap. If I feel like picking up a copy of say Grip on the PS4, I can pay like £10 on Amazon, or a bit less preowned. If I hit a random sale on PSN it would probably be similar, but right now its £35. Waiting for the next sale and hoping you get lucky is incompatible with the short term desire to try a specific game.

I always love the validation people require from the bombcrew re: whatever their favorite game of the moment is.

The TLOU2 discussion felt like a product of time and place for me. As someone outside the U.S my perspective on current events and their tangible impact on me differ from those in this room.

As a result, the reaction to TLOU2 dissappointed me, as I'm 100% ready for it. I want to be challenged and provoked by my media and can keep the game stuff compartmentalized from the news.

Their attitude and sensitivity was understandable, it just didn't match my life or state of mind

Boy, TLOU2 sounds like a real punch in the gut. I didn't have any interest in it before, and Brad's impressions have turned me off even more, if anything. I'm sure I'll play it eventually, someday, but I thought the first game was incredibly overrated, so I'm in no rush.

I also bounced off that original Last of Us, just never liked Naughty Dog gameplay.

I will not stand for this Alex Kidd slander Jeff!!!!!!!!

I'm never going to get the "Nathan Drake as cold-blooded killer" thing. He definitely fits "this dork wouldn't be able to weild a gun so deftly and fight trained soldiers", for sure, but the former makes it sound like he's mowing down innocents.

In the game's world, he's a treasure hunter looking for lucrative items, which are understandably chased after by rich dudes with private militias. While on the hunt, Nathan is constantly getting jumped by hardened mercenaries who shoot first, so he takes them out.

I know the game needs a gameplay loop, but I've never felt the dissonance as strong as seemingly literally everyone else does.

Is there a link to the Konami E3 conference they were talking about? Sounds worth watching.

Hearing you all say BugSnax again and again made me realize how close it sounds to Butt Snacks.

Alaloth looks like the only interesting game to be announced in the past week

28:30

is the twitch player lower volume than youtube?