Giant Bombcast 680: Room Temperature Clam Chowder

I'll take that clam chowder at whatever temperature I can get it.

Me, being a worrywart: Please dispose of your extremely expired promotional food items. What if they become a biohazard!

Oh wow, this made me feel really gross and I 100% believe it.

Really happy to hear Jason enjoying MHR. I'm chipping away after work but still in low rank. Hope Jason and Jan keep exploring weapons. Material costs are really accessible to diversify, a deliberate design decision. Hope to hear lots more of MHR for a while!

Brad is forever lost in his closet overcome by the boxes

Also for OUTRIDERS - a "get out of the Hinterlands" PSA

If you plan to play this solo I strongly advise picking either Trickster or Devastator or Technomancer if you want more of a vanilla playstyle. I've experienced this myself and seen many people say the same thing, including Jeff here, but the Pyro is not all that great and personally I struggled to get through some of the earlier parts of that game as that class. I also switched to Trickster and it was a TON more fun and I breezed through fights that were previously giving me issues. I've seen people say they like the class but I've seen way more folks say "man I didn't like this as Pyro then I switched and am having a ton more fun." Also I've heard your Stash is shared between characters.

Granted the game itself is not particularly good. This is really a case of March Madness where nothing is out and this very basic loot shooter is looking a lot more exciting than it really is. That said because of it's extremely basic structure it is the perfect podcast game. There are no keys to look for, no puzzles to solve, there are no sidepaths or exploration. You go forward and shoot from zone to zone.

I definitely want to see all of Jeff playing Balan WonderWorld including replaying levels for statues. In fact he'll probably get even less statues the first time through later levels so probably at least half of his playtime will be replaying levels. It'll be a shame to miss his reactions to how to obtain some statues.

Also Act 3 isn't the boss fight. You unlock them for each world after beating the game.

@zoofame: Yeah loved that series. That particular game's plot is kind of crazy.

While I want to see Jeff finish Balam Wonderland, (I know its world, but I will continue to call it land) I'd prefer him streaming it after he can unlock more levels rather than watch him backtrack for hours. However, if he is trying to show how bad or tedious the game is, then I guess I would understand his streaming the full playthrough with the backtracking. I personally liked Nights Into Dreams and might play the demo... one day.

With Outriders, I actually picked the trickster class when I played the demo and still had a meh time with it. Jeff claims the game really opens and up and gets fun after level 10. Maybe he is right, but I'm not going to pay full price to find out and I currently don't have game pass. People May Fly have made some great games over the years, and maybe this is another one, but the price has to drop for me before I take the plunge.

And speaking of game pass, I agree, it is messed up that Xbox Series X owners with it get to play the newest MLB The Show out of the gate, while Playstation owners have to pay full price. I don't care if the series is no longer a Playstation exclusive, but to not have a PS Plus or PS Now alternative to what is happening on game pass is just dirty. Especially, for fans of the series who have loyally brought each installment on Playstation. Maybe its a desperate move to get more players because baseball is not as big as Soccer, Football, or Basketball in terms of a gaming player base willing to spend lots of money on card packs or whatever, but it is still not a good look.

Finally, Avengers is now on PS Now for a least a couple of months, so I might play it again to see the end game stuff and the new PS5 update they added. See what everyone is complaining about.

I just finished Outriders main story, about 25 hours in. The story and game, like Jeff says starts off really weak. The story is bad, the character forgettable. But half way through the cutscenes become less and the character better. So I'd say the story is like a decent B action movie. Which is all I need from a game like this.

The gameplay is where this game shines. It is absolutely fucking cool when you get to world tier 6+ and you get to fix up your character the way you want. If you die, its all up to you. It just works and flows very well.

I'm looking forward trying the end-game with friends.

I played through as a Devastator.

In regards to the Monster Hunter talk - as Jason said, you really want to engage with the wyvern riding as you get a ton of extra drops, and it does pretty good damage. But the thing I like about it is that it's just a quick interlude mid-hunt rather than a big repeated focus of the gameplay like the clutch claw in Iceborne. But yeah people don't usually do a lot of back-and-forth, just ride a Nargacuga or whatever in and fuck up the target real good then back to the usual monster beatdown.

Also in regards to ore farming since Jan mentioned having some trouble - it's actually comically easy in this game compared to past games. If you go in to a gathering expedition during a mining nodes upsurge (says it on the expedition quest description) and are using a set with Geologist, you get seriously like 12 pieces of ore per node. And unlike past games it's just one tap and done, no more whacking it with a pickaxe 3-4 times. It's so crazy this is actually how people farm money in the game now, just run a circuit in lava caverns for 10 minutes and sell the 250+ ores for 300k zenny.

They really need to nail every aspect of a VF5 re-release if it's going to succeed at all, it needs to have great netcode and cross play. New fighting games are always missing features, they lack in characters, stages, online features but they get a pass because they're new and exciting which is fine, VF5 (on console) is 14 years old, they promoted it with a focus on esports which in a pandemic world means playing online so it HAS to be good online, especially because all the other studios are FINALLY getting it right, and if you want to foster a community for a 14 year old game i think cross play is basically a requirement.
I'm the PC guy so i have to bring this up, PC didn't have a 3D fighting game for an absurd amount of time and Sega absolutely missed the extremely large window to own that platform.
SF4 brought fighting games back into the spotlight in 2008, Sega re-released VF5 in 2012 for consoles only, DOA5 finally brought a 3D fighter to PC in 2015 with one of the worst ports i've ever seen, then Tekken 7 became the platform's only valid option in 2017 and has enjoyed a very active community for nearly 4 years. Sega had 10 years to put VF5 on PC and claim the platform so i'll say it again, if this version is even coming to PC, if they want to do this now, now that there is actually competition on the platform, they better put the work in and do it right, Tekken 7 doesn't have excellent netcode or cross play, that's what VF5 needs to compete, if they mess this up i'll be amazed.

I find it wild how strongly Jeff hates the writing/dialogue/VA in Outriders. Coming off the demo, those were kind of the main points that sold me on it since the combat is so predictable and straightforward (but still feels good). It hits me as a less-abrasive Bulletstorm vibe with a bit of new Wolfenstein mixed in. It ain't Nier or The Last of Us or whatever you want to point to as excellent examples of those aspects in games, but I think it's well done for what they're going for.

@osiris: I'm in the same place. Got to the point where I'm skipping cutscenes. As for gameplay, I'm still pretty early on but as the Technomancer I'm seeing a lot of potential.

@munnyshh: Same, I just got to Rank 3 and just finished my first Rampage mission. (I agree with Jason - I don't like them very much.) Played World with the Switch Axe, and now I'm playing with Dual Blades. What's your weapon of choice?

Brad could do a video followup to this:

Re: Titanfall 3

1) Titanfall 2 is the best modern FPS to date; both the single-player campaign and the multiplayer are ABSOLUTE BANGERS! to this day. I still replay the single-player campaign several times a year (I can't say that about any other FPS I've played) and the occasional multiplayer game.

2) I want a sequel to Titanfall 2 that is worthy of Titanfall 2. I want more BT & Pilot Jack Cooper.

I miss Abby's Clue Crew series, too.

@neau:

Yea, the first rampage, I wasn't a fan. Did one online and it was alright. My third one was the first hub urgent rampage, and the second I join it was complete, so I lucked out!

In MHW/I I was CB for a vast majority, with occasional hammer or lance. So far in Rise, I've been trying to experiment a bit more. I'm doing Hunting Horn a lot, perhaps to try and focus my way through low rank and expand the roster. That said, I've been making more other weapons too. Gunlance felt fantastic. I want to be more versatile.

@i_speel_my_dreenk: To each their own and all that but I think most of the writing and voice acting is quite abysmal. There is weird tonal whiplash all over the place and not in a good way. Bulletstorm was stupid but over the top and you could kind of go along with most of it. Outriders is trying to be serious but then has weird Bulletstorm moments that don't fit. I mean it's not the end of the world or anything but I find it very weird to hear someone say they came to the game for the story.

SIX-EIGHTY!

MLB The Show 20 was the 18th best selling game of the year according to the NPD.

"The Bathroom Powder is Never Free" should've been the episode title.

A recent and good Bombcast trend is Jan asking "you guys seen/heard of [dumb trendy thing kids these days are doing]?" and the rest of the crew exuding old man energy by looking confused and saying no.

Get your edible collectables graded @jeff

I also just don't really understand the hate on the dialogue that much. If you compare it to other games in the genre, it just seems middle of the road? I played the female protagonist and I actually like her quite a bit.

You guys are a bit off on the MLB stuff. Sony doesn't have an exclusive license for MLB games. 2K Sports signed a third-party exclusivity deal with the MLB after the NFL went exclusive with EA, which killed third-party MLB games until 2K let the deal expire after bleeding money for years. Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft were free to make MLB games and Nintendo was the only other company to work on a game, but cancelled it at some point. That just leaves Sony as the only company making baseball games with nobody else being that interested in making an MLB game, which put them in the same situation as EA with the NHL games with no competition and exclusivity by default. That's just how it is these days since sports gamers tend to not support competition and never move from one franchise to any competitors that exist.

If the MLB is fine with having no games, they can force Sony out of the deal they just signed recently and probably ensure nobody wants to deal with them in the future. Either way, they'd have no big games for a few years and even then, it would probably be an NBA Live-style situation where it takes a while to get the game to a good place.

Also, the games do way better than the NHL games since they tend to chart highly for their launch month and a month or two after that. It's been a steady increase over the past few iterations.

@chucktowski: That's a good callout actually. I'm also playing the female version of the character and I think she's been passable at worst and charming at best. Maybe the male performance is way worse? There are a couple of other characters with weird pauses between lines or other odd delivery quirks (camp leader in the snow area comes to mind), but I'm also only ~9 hours in at level 14 or so, so it very well could drive right off a cliff in general.

@humanity: I think there's some aspect of expectation here for me, as I went in expecting the gameplay to be mindless fun and everything else to be ignorable, thus allowing the other stuff to more pleasantly surprise me. I've found it to be more or less tonally consistent, though things like side quests sticking around after the npc giving you the quest gets smoked are bizarre and jarring. I do agree with Jeff about it feeling weirdly dated though.

Ive been away for a bit -- Is Danny part of the website now? I know hes been a "friend of the site" and had the Gamespot ties -- is he just filling in because of Giantbomb losing Ben and such, or is he on the crew now?

Someone already beat me in correcting Jeff that baseball is not exclusive to one platform.

While MLB is publishing the game on Xbox, meaning they pay the publishing license fees instead of Sony, I have not read anything about them producing the game in any capacity to cut Sony out any profits without being in breach of their contract. So while the perception might be bad that PS5 owners don‘t get it for free, Sony would still profit off any Game Pass downloads, likely as if they were purchases at MSRP.

If MLB were not happy with their deal, that would just mean an end to any good baseball video games. They may have shot themselves in the foot if there is no required number of games in their licensing deal with Sony.

@squidracerx: He has not announced joining Giant Bomb, though I know Bakalar is.

@zoofame: I work in the collectibles industry and we use Heritage to sell a lot of things that are hard to price ("is this worth $10 or $1000? Let's just send it to Heritage"). That said, auctions are always a bit of a game, and shady stuff does go on, especially with higher value items in speculative markets. The third-party-graded video game market is very new, with few established values, so the people spending huge amounts of money are speculating. But there is a tremendous amount of excitement around it, too. Graded sports cards, TCG cards, and coins are doing the same thing right now. Collectibles in general are in a major market bubble, inflated by Covid boredom. What was a $100 coin in 2019 is regularly selling for $300+ now, just because there are more eyes on auctions and more excitement around them. So while there very well could have been shenanigans around the sale of the Mario Bros cart, it could also have been totally legitimate because people are spending absurd amounts of money on things right now (just look at NFTs!!). One of the previously sold WATA-graded Mario Bros (in a slightly lower grade than the one that just sold) that brought close to $200,000 a year ago was bought by a consortium of collectors who pooled their money with the intent to sell it later at a profit. So that kind of thing goes on as well, and that group of buyers may secretly game the auction, too, in order to inflate the value and generate buzz (which is against the terms of auction houses, but still happens). After all, you can't make a profit if there's no buzz about the item, right? TLDR: Auctions are a game; a necessary evil in the collectibles market. $600,000+ is impressive, but can it be replicated before the bubble bursts?

The game Danny called 'Sleepwalker' might've been Back To Bed. Quite a neat little puzzlegame.

Condemned had a detective mode.