Giant Bombcast 718: The Sandler Squad

Yay! Thank you all for an amazingly interesting 2021. I’m looking forward to see how the site continues to evolve in 2022. 😊

Jeff laughing at my chat jokes as always.

Its an alpaca o wait its taylor lautner

Chennels.

Seeing the PS5 store still full of the sort of junk that comes at the end of console life cycles because they're still putting out PS4 games is a little offputting. Usually a powerful new console would keep you from seeing the detective games and weird European stuff that doesn't look quite up to snuff that comes along later, but that's most of what you still see on the year old next gen console store. I'd think the XBox store would be even worse, if there isn't even a differentiation between new and old systems, just the fact that your new system will make the same games look a bit prettier.

<3

I can see why Jeff might dislike Myst but I'm surprised about Jess. Outer Wilds is "Myst in Space" (at least structure/puzzle wise) and I thought she loved that one.

To be fair I didn't give Myst a fair shot either. Immediately dismissed it as a slideshow when I was gifted a copy back when it came out. It wasn't until maybe 10~15 years afterwards I played though it and realized there was something to it.

Hey y'all! Videos weren't publishing but they're up now if you're looking for them!

Alternative episode titles were:

• Dick Trickle
• Sandlerverse
• Just Mayo
• Hood Luigi

@goosemunch: I started playing Myst at the release of Myst 3 which was around 2001 and I loved it. I think it was really refreshing to play a puzzle game that required you to write things down on a piece of paper and which didn't involve any combat or real danger. Just beautiful exploration and puzzling. Anyone that likes mechanical puzzles should give the series a shot - admittedly even the new remastered Myst is a bit rough but if you pick up Myst 3 / 4 those are some really solid games and as for the story you don't really have to worry about it.

@humanity: Heh, I'm gonna sound gatekeepy about Myst (ironically how the game was brought up in the podcast) but I'm not a fan of any of the sequels. Riven is very pretty to look at but borderline unplayable. 3 (and onward) plays much better, but felt like they were more focused on linear chain of puzzles rather than exploration. Plus the first game has the "the only thing you pick up is knowledge" thing going on like in Outer Wilds so if you already know the answers, you can finish the whole game from the start in just a few minutes which I found very novel.

Dick Trickle's story is a tragic one. Genuinely. Look up how he died if you want to be depressed.

Jeff is right, Kevin James had an excellent stand up special on Comedy Central called 'Sweat The Small Stuff' that they played all the time for YEARS. I don't know if that represented the quality of all his stand up work, but that special rocked. And I'm not really a fan of his other work. KoQ is fine, never enjoyed his movies.

There is something pretty fucking ironic about saying "don't gatekeep" and then following that with complaining about game websites that started posting about Marvel. Calling it a cynical cash-grab as if there isn't huge overlap between the type of person who visits a video game website and the type of person who likes comic book movies is insane.

This website is about to air its thirteenth episode of a show about internet memes.

Small heads up to everyone!

If you go to the Bombcast on YouTube there are actual chapter markers now, possibly a first for the Bombcast?

I've been asking for timestamps or something like this for years so I shed a single tear when I saw it. Now if they only integrate these into the podcast so I can use them on the iPhone podcast app that would be SWELL.

This is one of the best episodes in a while. Really dug the break from the format and cadence of the normal bombcast.

It's possible I've seen Saigon or Little Saigon on tv before.

@goosemunch said:

Whoa whoa whoa, did I black out and somehow talk shit about MYST? I played the remake recently and thought it ruled??? whatchu talkin about

100%. Seriously, the anti-Marvel stuff is usually just as bad as the crazy pro-Marvel stuff. I like these movies, and I know they're silly superhero movies, but comeon. You can't go making fun of them for silly shit and then start talking about Monster Hunter. The secret is: you don't have to watch them. I get it, it's annoying because Disney has one of the biggest marketing machines in the world. Marketing sucks, breaking news. They're silly things people like that aren't the silly things you like. Can we just stop.

Also, yes, silly to complain about game websites having Marvel stuff when it has nothing to do with games with what's been happening here. With that logic, who's coming to a video game site for a show about bad music?

Hmm, you did say "It's not a video game" in concert with Jeff, but you must've been simply echoing the "gamer" reaction at the time. My mistake.

Idiocracy lost its luster once we started living in it.

The "regular folk" are under the desk and up on the pole.

Jess, some group of an audience can always have bad behaviors.

I don't think that justifies psychoanalyzing them or their childhood.

There are professionals for that.

Also, to the 2 Jeffs: There's no downside to being "embraced"?!

This is the story of every independent wide-eyed idealist choosing to work for "the man" to serve their ideals, only to become a "sell-out".

How can JG criticize Disney for insisting on being thought of every 3 s & not Ten-cent?

A problem for game developers is when people (especially people with less experience playing games) change the way the game plays and have way less fun than they would have if they left the developer in charge of the experience, and stop playing the game or telling their friends about it.

A problem for fan communities is whether fans have a shared experience or if the experiences are so different that they no longer really signal something strangers might have in common. (I certainly played a lot of Battle Chess because of the cool animations and credit fed through a bunch of arcade shooters long before I knew what those games had to offer)

Taz is not black?? WTF...

I echo the sentiments of anti marvel stuff being a bit boring. And moaning about games websites covering them seems a bit silly when currently this site has shows on bad music, power rangers and whatever Reel Layers is.

Agreed. It's very silly when Giant Bomb is one of those sites now.

Listening to Jan at 16:00 talking about Adam Sandler, Rupert Grint was keeping himself busy selling ice creams for a while :D

Thank you J Crew!
I don't think you can hire a person with non-J name now.

I don't appreciate this negative discussion of the Fail Army. Please respect the service of our brave fail soldiers on the front lines.

Yes, because comparing websites that put out 5 different articles about Marvel related things every day to GB having a podcast about power rangers once every week is totally fair.

Yes! Man, I thought I was the only one getting frustratingly tired of these takes from GB. I get that it's a personality driven site and everyone has their own opinions, but lately everyone just seems like they hate everything. It is so tiring. Marvel didn't kill your fucking dog. I feel like Jan and Jason are the only ones who know how to fairly discuss these things without shitting all over things they don't like, and I respect them a lot more for it. Maybe it's not for you, let's move on. On the upside, the hate train of these takes reminds me how off-putting it is, so that I don't do it myself. FYI I'm only commenting here as constructive criticism, and not saying "fuck this fucking shit".

Jeff G being self-conscious about "using his clout" is a good thing. I've seen lesser internet personalities (for lack of a better term) try to throw their weight around at every chance, over incredibly small and petty things. It's pretty disgusting to see.

this white background is hard to look at, even on a second screen. paint it black!

Just wanted to chime in to say that I’m doing a play through of Halo Infinite with a skull on and it totally saves progress. I think what it doesn’t save is unlock progress but I’m not 100% sure on that. But yeah I’m playing on Normal just to collect stuff with the IWHBYD skull on and I’m able to just keep going

Note, since this pains me

Overwatch 2 is literally an update to Overwatch 1. The PvP changes are just a straight up patch, the purchased content is the PvE component. The day Overwatch 2 comes out, you will not be able to play Overwatch 1 anymore, and you will have to buy nothing for the new heroes/maps/systems.

In regards to itch.io I think it is worth remembering that at one point Desura was a thing and at the time was basically the itch.io equivalent with a main focus on being a mod distribution platform and also being a way to buy and sell indie games as a second. Desura was sold off to Linden Labs who IIRC were planning on it being a Steam competitor however with it no longer being directly tied to ModDB kind of fell off as big mods stopped pushing to it. They sold it off only like a year later to some other group that then promptly went bankrupt and took Desura down with them.

I think itch.io has a much more healthy user base compared to Desura but I don't think that makes them immune to the same careless treatment.

Everyone ripping on IGN style reporting on movie ending explained and then Jason gives a completely valid reason why those can sometimes be useful.

in what world is bad music and power ranger a money grab. You Marvel guyz are too sensitive.

You wanna talk over the air tv? Here's your YouTube channel.

https://www.youtube.com/c/AntennaMan/featured

The Marvel defenders have logged on, didn't expect them here though.

Just don't put a splitter between the internet cable line and the over the air antenna. OTA signals are a major cause of ingress, and will result in packet loss/interference.

Gunna log onto giantbomb.com and play defence for Disney

They went from "Anime has become mainstream and is everywhere all of the time now and that's awesome!" to "Comics have become mainstream and are everywhere all of the time now and that's terrible!" so fast I thought they were doing a bit at first.

Yeah, Marvel movies aren't high art.

Yeah, the ubiquity of them doesn't leave a lot of bandwidth for other things, which sucks if you're not a fan.

But like..they're fun? Charming? Well-made? Exciting? Connected in neat ways? Loving of the comics without being chained to the worst parts of them? It's not just the drooling masses that like these movies. It's not the Michael Bay transformers franchise, or something.

There's more programming in the NFL on a single Sunday than there is Marvel content over a like, five year span.

It might just be hard for me to relate because I don't have the natural resentment that comes from a vocal fandom getting pissed off at me about opinions, or urging me 365 days a year that something that is not for me IS for me actually. But in a world where there are legitimate criticisms to be levied at this franchise (occasional contracts with the military, restrictive theatre demands, whitewashing a character, limited representation that can be edited out in some countries etc), shallow shots fired just wear me down, you know?

I had watched 500 bombcasts in a row or whatever but fell off this year when people left. (That doesn't entitle me to anything, I know. ) I decided today to make an effort to try and hop back on the train, only to get clotheslined off the train by the Marvel...discussion(?) in this episode. It's not that people don't like something that I like, it's mostly just that the -level- of disdain feels weirdly high. I don't find it hard to believe that there's good reason for it, that justification just didn't seem to get articulated here.

I don't know. I tried not to be a fanboy fandom warrior, but probably didn't articulate any of this well enough myself. Long story short, was having a good time with this episode, but got real bummed out in a hurry. Like, I guess for the first time since clicking on a link to the Dragon Age 1 quick look in 2009, I felt unwelcome? Oh well, it'll probably pass.

Edit: Within seconds after hitting play again, Jess makes a good point about the saturation feeling overwhelming even with TONS of filters, which is totally a valid reason to be frustrated.

Hoo boy, just imagine how ticked people would be if I brought THAT stuff up! If even just saying "man, it's a lot of saturation and it's hard to avoid and that annoys me" inspired this much backlash, imagine saying "by the way, the thing you like is military propaganda and made by committee to make the most money possible worldwide and it sometimes does that by limiting minority representation"? YEESH. Shallow shots are all I'm willing to take!

@voidburger:

That’s fair! I definitely respect that it has to suck to be a single comment away from igniting a real hateful storm at any given moment, especially when you have to talk publicly for hours a week.

And even then, not every podcast opinion needs a dissertation backing up, the core feeling behind it is valid either way.

For what it’s worth, the stuff that struck a nerve enough to make me type a bunch of BS at 3am was not just you or even mostly you, because yeah this year alone they semi-undid like 5 deaths and replaced two others with new versions.

Appreciate you taking the time to reply, sorry to take up some of your New Years Eve, I hope the rest is better.