Giant Bombcast 649: Courtnite

I feel I must say that I don't take any responsibility for any gastrointestinal injuries that might occur in any banana eating contests between Jan and Ben due to my silly banana email. I am happy however at how many times it got the crew to say banana in so short a time. It's just a good word. Banana!

We need Brad and Bakalar next!

Yay for more group streams! Also Alex you got white and black backwards. Black being the absence of color and white all colors.

Bring back the $100 1-hour games! Make games great again!

This is my favorite episode title since Metroid Crime

I was in the grocery store when the emails started and had a real dark night of the soul in front of the croissant DiGiornos. Also me and my sister were drinking one Christmas and started making shots out of vodka and a recently gifted jar of apple butter, and that was pretty good so probably jam and liqour makes sense.

@humanity: In all seriousness games don’t need to be long just to be long. If there’s not compelling enough content to fill out that time then the game should just be cut back to a tighter, shorter experience. Two recent releases that really suffered from time bloat are The Last of Us Part II and the Final Fantasy VII remake. They were so unnecessarily long and long before the end I just wanted them to be over. That is not a feeling a game or a movie should elicit.

I know there's a lot going on but their surprise on the Hitman 3 release date is baffling to me considering that they were having a short bit about it during Sony's stream.

@splodge: Thanks for the clarification.

@jamesm: No prob! Weirdly, it has kind of put me off this game a bit. It looks a bit too fidgety, for a game that is already super floaty, and it seems to come up a fair bit while traversing the map. It doesnt look all that fun as a mechanic.

@splodge: Yeah, I can see that. That move never really felt good for me in the first game, so I generally avoided using it. I think it's part of why I felt like I hit a wall in my skill progress.

I did actually make it to the last boss, but from what I remember that was from some lucky boss room placement. I never beat him.

Iwata, banana in hand.

Keanu, in all his splendor.

There's a couple. Good show, duders.

See, if you listen to Zappa, you get both Prog AND Jazz!

It really bugs me when the guys go "complain" about topics that they have no clue with what they are talking about. Tone down your “clueless” griping and add some caveats ahead of time. I will say Brad is great about this so thank you but Alex and Ben need to calm down on this episode. Most recent examples from last 2 episodes... Apple v Epic when nobody had even read the complaint, emails with what Epic wanted etc. even though plenty of time has passed. Brad as always is cautious and Jeff tackled it pretty well but points he made were based off inaccurate info and wrong. Another example you have all said repeatedly you aren’t a fan of DC, Marvel etc so these obviously aren’t for you all. Many people are excited about “the Snyder cut”, the new games, DC etc. At least wait till you’ve seen or played before griping so hard about it otherwise say you know you aren’t the target audience. This was made clear with how little you all understand DC universe, Superman etc. Pre Iron Man movie you would all be just as clueless about the Marvel universe. There are just as many people who like the new games as there are who didn’t. Your opinions are important but when there’s nobody to counter a negative opinion and the rant goes on for 10 minutes it just becomes a gripe session worse than GOTY. As to it being 4 hours long it is going to be released in 4 episodes so calm down! I do agree with the Hallelujah point as being a bit over the top but considering the number of people who have been begging for it over the years I can see why DC chose it. As far as griping about Superman being evil it is not a “hack” @Alex. It’s barely been told in the mainstream, I don’t think you realize how many young people have no clue of that there were Reeves Superman movies. I need Alex or Ben to tell me one story line name they read where Superman has been turned evil. It’s been done in one videogame series and from a game design standpoint it solves the problem of making a Superman game where he’s the protagonist. I will also wager that Superman won’t be evil (red kryptonite) during the whole game. Simmer down nah!

Please understand you frustrate people just as much as you would get frustrated by somebody who knew nothing about videogames and came up and said “I hate how Mario can’t jump in his games” and then went on a long tangent. This has gotten so much worse since Covid has forced you all to work from home. I get being busy but if going to add your unfiltered and uniformed opinion to the news outside of one article that is as barely read please make sure people are researched or could even have a fact checker. I’m sure plenty of duders would volunteer to help. Heck I can do it some.

I still love what you guys do and have for a long time but just wanted to point out it’s gotten worse since having to work from home, again understandable but you all can do better, just like we all want politicians, companies and their boards to do better.

To All the Epic vs Apple arguments where all of you think Apple has all this “profit, not revenue” from the App Store need to educate themselves. Go read an Apple annual 10-K. If you did you would realize that Apple uses the App Store to subsidize all the free apps and other costs they incur as well as iCloud accounts they provide people, since they aren’t getting a profit stream from selling your info from your email scans etc. It’s the same as why Google pays the same payouts to large YT as they do small ones. The larger ones pay more to subsidize all the smaller videos and creators that are uploaded each day. That’s the way biz works, you subsidize one area that is a money loser with something that is profitable. Apple, FB, Amazon and Google all do this as well as 5000 other corporations in the world. Just like almost all of the US tax revenue is paid for by corporations and wealthy people (who actually pay). Over 75% of families in the US pay no federal income tax if they file taxes properly. FYI FICA is not federal income tax revenue. Something is always subsidized by Apple. Everybody picks on them b/c of all the money they have but are clueless b/c Apple borrows money every year since they can’t actually USE that money to cover their big expenditures, mostly dividends. Success should be sought after and treated as a hold and not to tear so thing down out of spite or jealousy.

Why don’t you go read Sweeney’s email with his demands of Apple, it wasn’t just the 30% cut! It was some ludicrous demands that are impossible. FYI... If you have kids who spend money on apps and you use iPhones you really do not want Epic to succeed. If you don’t get it just truly think of what would happen if “any app” could use any payment processor they want. If you still aren’t sure you can message my inbox on the site for why.

Was she really mad?? Oh no. I didn't feel he was criticizing either.

Gotta say, even though i don't feel Alex deserved that, I would absolutely love to have Sam join one day and share her pov on the game and their island. Would be great!

Big Yikes! Your guys reaction to the Snyder cut was major cringe. Getting THAT upset over a director getting to finish his original vision (ya know, cause his daughter died during the filming) was almost triggering. Especially since WB has begun an investigation into onset harassment from the writer/director who took over from Snyder. Thanks in part to Ray Fisher's bravery in calling them out. This isn't entirely surprising though, the Disney marketing machine must be working pretty well on you guys!

Pepsi Blue was the SHIT. Legitimately amazing. I think about it all the time, even though I only ever had it a handful of times. I can't believe they haven't brought that back in some form. But they brought back Crystal Pepsi for the memes. Unbelievable.

Humans did not ruin bananas due to gene modification or over-engineering.

The most popular banana strain up until the 1950s was the Gros Michel, but a massive fungal outbreak made it no longer viable to cultivate and distribute.

So global banana production switched over to Cavendish bananas which are like Gros Michel in they are yellow and seedless (seedless is really important as to what makes a banana strain marketable) but have a different taste and were resistant to the fungus that was wiping out the Gros Michel bananas.

The point being the change in bananas is not an example of man's horrible hubris but rather a very natural fungal outbreak shifting which strains were viable for farmers and distributors to trade in.

The Snyder cut is 4 hours because the original movie was supposed to be two movies. Because Snyder left the project the new director changed the plot and cut out most of critical plot points and the main antagonist so the resulting movie that made it to theaters was confusing, bad, and shorter.

Since its going to streaming they feel they can go back to the longer format. They may make it a mini series.

If you're complaining about a thing taking more than two hours maybe reconsider any TV shows you watch and perhaps your podcast length.

The "Kill the Justice League" game also works better than you make it seem because the leader of the Squad is secretly evil and hates Superman so they are using the situation with Brainiac as cover to kill Superman and get her revenge on the JL.

I disagree with calling it hack. Not sure how many other movies or games where the audience/player follows anti-heroes lead by a secret villain who's out to kill a Hero who's being controlled by another villain.

I know this is a casual podcast with little prep involved but sometimes it really hurts you're credibility when you complain about things you've done little research on.

For real. No one at Giant Bomb should be complaining about ANY media being too long.

Y'all got a "Pot calling the kettle" situation here.

Edit Note: You can interpret mine as a dig because some of the takes were just that silly.

@jimbot: OMG for real its like people think they have to watch all 4 hours at once and then take a test about what happened. People watch an entire Netflix series and don't complain and those can be 13 hours or more adding all the episodes together. Reactionary BS. Negativity gets views, I guess.

bens pizza segment was very erotic