Giant Bombcast 721: Doctor Hockey

Slow news day :)

Missed this live, here we goooo

Not much to talk about on this episode I'm sure, lol. ;)

I'm seeing triple. Nine Jeffs!

The J crew is back.

there is now hope for rerelease of Mech Warrior titles!

The Joker crew is back: Jeff, Jeff, Jeff, Jan, Jess, Jesus

ALL JEFFS ON DECK!

THIS IS NOT A DRILL!

ALL JEFFS ON DECK!!!

Youtube keeps deleting my comment, so I'm putting them here...

4:03 - *>>>>>NEWS<<<<<*

5:45 - Microsoft said they're gonna buy Activision for 68.7 BILLION money-dollars

_Oh, some other stuff happened this week too._

1:01:40 - Hitman 3: Year 2 ("Hitman Trilogy") got announced

1:07:28 - They're gonna start selling Final Fantasy 14 again later this month

1:15:09 - Some PS3 games appeared on the PS5 store

1:21:02 - Microsoft confirms all Xbox One models have been discontinued

1:26:07 - details for "mobility-based single-player game from Respawn"

1:31:06 - "Final Fantasy "video" interrupts Italian Senate Zoom event"

1:32:46 - Wordle clones were all removed from Apple's App store

1:36:46 - Halo Infinite cosmetics getting price changes today

1:40:24 - STALKER 2 delayed 'til December

1:42:07 - Sony's list of most downloaded games of 2021

1:50:30 - *>>>>>VIDEO GAMES<<<<<*

1:51:06 - Rainbow Six: Extraction (Grubb)

1:54:46 - The Anacrusis

2:05:15 - God of War PC (Jan)

2:09:52 - Vampire Survivor (Gerstmann)

2:15:15 - American McGee's Alice (Jess)

2:20:39 - *>>>>>E-MAILS<<<<<*

2:21:08 - Ben in Seattle educates us on the word "biome"

2:23:19 - "Jeff Bakalar is a bully... in my dreams" (Nick from Michigan)

2:32:25 - "Real or Fake" quiz (Wes from Louisville)

2:35:25 - "Can you control the ducks in Duck Hunt with a controller?" (Raz)

SimEarth was the videogame that taught me what a Biome was

@chinohormann: YOU ARE A TREASURE !!

@jeff tiktok is flooded with Did You Know's that make me feel 1,000 years old. Last week it was "Let me tell you about this little known, slept-on Indie movie. It's called Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind." It had over a million views.

I WAS SCREAMING

@kennneth: Why would you share this you complete monster!?

This was such a good episode. Love it when the crew deep dives on a topic

I'm sitting here wondering why this called the Jiant Bombcast yet

I see that ... uh, party jokes video from a previous discussion is still open on someone's dash :eyes:

If the alternative to Activision not using all the IP they sit on is industry consolidation then I'll gladly let those IPs sit in limbo. Monopolies suck shit and that point not getting much pushback from the crew is very disappointing.

Who gives a shit about "gAmE pAsS vAlUe" when one company owns most of the industry?

@jimbot: For sure. Why do we care about moldy oldie IP over, say, $70 billion of new ideas and IP?

@jimbot: Video games will just be Sony, Tencent/Netease/other China big tech, and Microsoft with Nintendo somehow stubbornly not getting bought :p

There was a time, on PS3, when it seemed like I played a lot of EA and Activision games, and I was surprised by that fact. But, I haven't had much use for either of them on PS4 or 5. Their games feel very gamey to me, so they'd fit well on Gamepass, where it sounds like people don't really love the games they play, but feel okay with them since they aren't paying $60 apiece. It doesn't seem like MS is trying to push the envelope, with games just scaling up if you have more powerful systems, and Activision doesn't seem like they've been interested in going anywhere different, so it doesn't seem like a huge loss of you're looking for PS games to push forward. Hopefully Sony will finally push to get the PS5 train going.

Really really good episode this week, great discussion on the news from a number of perspectives, kudos.

I'm guessing Jeff B. was a bully/dirtbag in school. He just sends out that vibe.

@voidburger is a woman who refuses to be talked over by men out of politesse. Icon.

I avoided Hitman 3 because the EGS authentication mess sounded like a nightmare, and I would've refused to start over from scratch. I'm looking forward to finally getting to play it. Although it's January 19th with mere hours to go until the 20th, and there still isn't a Steam page up for it... EDIT: Ah, they were hiding the page because it's an absolute goddamn mess of a dozen different "versions," and also there's no discount on it. Didn't want to have that mess of a page out ahead of time.

I have no idea about the quality or fun-ness of Rainbow 6 Extraction, so not commenting on that part, but claiming that no one cares about the Siege operators as characters is about on par with claiming that no one cares about the Halo story. It is simply wrong. I think it's pretty cool that they are using the same operators and they're being fleshed out.

Hell yeah, GameSharks were awesome. I was the only person I ever knew who owned a GS or Action Replay for anything. Friends always wanted me to cheat for them when they learned what it could do. I had a carefully curated list of Action Replay GBA codes for Pokémon, I let a friend look at them, and he managed to somehow wipe the entirety of the AR's memory... to this day I have no idea how he did it.

Wow, that Grubb story about being suspended was crazy... although it does raise the question why a new kid would moon a table.

If Jeff, Jeff, and Jeff were to be called Jeff 1, Jeff Alpha, and Jeff Prime, which would be called which?

The move, if they make it, to make CoD an xbox and PC exclusive is going to be the beginning of the end for CoD as one of the golden standards. I'm pretty sure Dice is extatic about this, cause they'll be making the FPS for everyone while Microsoft focuses on Windows again... In an era where Windows PCs worth having start at around 2k.... And the new Xbox has inspired no one... Only reason it's sold out is that there are few. If there was no shortage, the Xbox numbers would look griiiiiiiiiim. MS caught a big break on the shortage, makes it seem like people want the xbox. Literally no one outside the US cares..

Then again, we can all play call of duty streamed to our laptops and windows and android tablets, so there's that. Just what the "core gamer" wants. A netflix for games with a bunch of old and tired games.

Microsoft, at this point, is exciting for the business moves it does, not for the games it's brought to the next gen, cause they're not doing next gen... Just continuing last gen........... ZzZZzZzzZzZzzzzz. Last gen was one of the most boring generations in video games aside from the emergence of VR.. Judging by the lineup for the next few years, it's going to be prettier 3rd person action games and fps'es with light roleplaying mechanics..... Enough of this lame shit, please... So stale... We've gone nowhere since uncharted, Asscreed 2 and MW2. If it wasn't for VR I'd probably not even play games anymore... And business moves like these make me groan so hard...

How did games get so dull? Only shooter that worked out of the box last year was Vanguard. Everything else shipped in a broken state and some never even got fixed.. BF, looking at you... You pile of trash.

Only 6-7 more years of 3rd person action games until we get fully raytraced 3rd person action games on the next gen. And the RPG elements will still be just as light as today. m-m-mmm, foreversame.

@uncleeddie: You might think so, but sadly Activision hasn't owned MechWarrior for decades. FASA still owns it (to my knowledge) and licenses the rights to whomever wants to make a MechWarrior game. Microsoft (or activision) could have licenced it at any time in the past decades but they opted not to.

I think they own Interstate 76 though... That could be a thing (I'm just gonna keep hoping and mentioning interstate 76 whenever I get the chance forever..)

Wow, I'd love tpo see this "good guy" image that Jeff sees. Like when was that happening?

Was it when XBox One was going to be online only and playesr woudl not even have teh sliver of ownership they currently grasp? Or, maybe ist visable through the vast Microsoft Graveyard of killed developers over the past 20 years?

Was there a Back for Blood "let's play" from GB? Where can I find it ?

Wow! No pushback at all for Microsoft's monopolism???

The fencesitting and apathy in this podcast is both astounding and disheartening to see.

@kartikmathur:

If you search for a game on Giant Bomb, and then click on that game's Videos tab, you'll see every video tagged with that game.

https://www.giantbomb.com/back-4-blood/3030-72499/videos/

@madmatt213: thanks !!!!!

Jeff literally is saying that this image started being built with Phil Spencer, who was brought in specifically because of that DRM TV hybrid nightmare and Microsoft's spotty past with IP and developer relations. He isn't saying they are the good guys, just that they're working that angle. Since Spencer took over the games division, Microsoft has been trying to play the hearts-and-minds game to win people over, with back-compat, with the way they treat their newly acquired developers, to even how Spencer speaks about the competition in interviews. They are very much trying to cultivate a good-guy image.

Well this Microsoft acquisition made me go out and buy a Series X, found one in stock straight after luckily. Too many future exclusives on that platform and it seems clear I'm not going to be able to upgrade my PC for a reasonable price in the next 2-3 years.

@voidburger The story in Madness Returns goes, uh…places, that might make one want to take a shower, much like with 12 Minutes, just as a heads up.

My young-self also enjoyed the edgyness of the original back in the day. Madness Returns was kinda enjoyable action-platformer with neat visuals too, but the story…

Looking forward to seeing Crash and Spyro games on game pass.