Giant Bombcast 02/25/2014

Brad is right FPS deathmatch is some non-strategic shit. If you disagree with Jeff you are not just wrong you are "crazy".

I don't think the creator of Kairo made Naissance...

Jeff won that argument.

No, I have not listened yet. Don't need to.

Actually, with that graphic I hope one accused the other of lusting after Elizabeth.

"Somebody has to be the best in the business"

Oh jeez, not even three minutes in and I'm dead.

Uhh... not like them to let an argument get that heated. That was bordering on uncomfortable.

Arguments like this one make me miss Ryan. He was always good at mediating and articulating the other guys' points of view, or just shutting them the fuck up and moving on when it went nowhere or got too confrontational.

Brads argument makes no goddamn sense to me.

Jeff is always so damn quick to jump on Brad. The whole "rip on Brad because he's Brad" thing is starting to get a bit old actually. Sometimes its funny, because Brad will blame a game for something he's clearly at fault for or something similar, but most the time its excessive and not really called for. I just don't think Jeff even wanted to listen at all to what he was saying and just wanted to have fun ripping on him.

I agree with Brad, his point that every MP shooter is essentially very much the same, even with different guns. Look at Team Fortress 2, there are many classes that don't shoot at all and do many other things besides "shoot dude in face" and that's essentially what he meant by roles. This ends up forcing players to truly work together, instead of just run around by yourself and shoot the first guy you see before he shoots you.

Just because you can pick up a sniper instead of an SMG, it doesn't all of a sudden create deep strategy or anything, its just a different gun. Sure you don't use that gun in the same way but can you really say that shooting farther away is just as deep as building turrets and teleporters, or just running around healing? I really can't see how you can so quickly dismiss Brad's argument unless there's some weird underlying thing that just sets Jeff off.

I agree with brad. Sure there are different modes besides deathmatch in those games, but the only player controlled mechanic in those games is pointing at dudes with guns and shooting them. There's no gameplay variety whatsoever. things like tf2 have the modes, and a variety of different gameplay mechanics that make it more interesting.

@gringbot: Let's not pretend that class based, team based shooters are so deep with strategy, either. Brad's point was "There's nothing but killing people" and that's why he doesn't like the Call of Duty games. But TF2, his prime example, is just killing people. Even the Medic and Engineer, the "strategic" classes, are just killing other people in different ways.

pvz cod argument ends at 0:47:00

A lengthy Bombcast on my Birthday? Awesome.

He's saying a certain subset of games that take after call of duty have no variety in gameplay mechanics. The only thing you as a player can do is point and shoot at people. Yes there are other modes, but the way you interact with the game itself is stale and offers no variety to gameplay. He's talking strictly about the way you, as the player, interact with the game. Things like tf2 have a multitude of different mechanics that adds more variety to your interaction with the game. There is no push and pull with call of duty/titanfall, there are no roles other than "shoot guy". That's not interesting to a lot of people anymore (including me).

I dunno, what game mode does not just involve stacking a point and shooting lots of dudes.

Brad was so right.

@likeassur: No, I definitely wouldn't say TF2 is the shining example of pure strategy or anything. What I got out of it is he's saying there's more strategy in TF2 then in CoD. Which is absolutely true.

My point about the engineer and medic is you can play both classes very well without shooting a single person with your own gun. That's a role very different then say, the soldier and sniper. Hell, look at the spy even. Good god, to be great at spy takes a huge amount of strategy, awareness, and out-thinking your opponents.

Brad. Jeff. Fight! Fight! Fight!

Huh, happy birthday to Ric Flair AND me..... When is the next power bombcast *dagger glare*

Man, Jeff took what Brad said really fucking personally. Jeez

I agree with Jeff. Sorta. You CAN just lone wolf kill people in team based shooters, especially if you keep re-spawning. However in games like counter-strike and the titan killer mode, where you don't re-spawn and fight in rounds, team based coordination is key and super fun. But Jeff doesn't like those modes, so I guess I agree with no one :D

@gringbot: Yeah, but at the end of the day, you're just killing people, just like Call of Duty. It's that "just killing people" that Brad criticized said games, and yet, that's all class-based shooters are too.

Though I sort of understand Brad's argument, he deserved to be chewed up by Jeff since all he gave were strawman arguments that did nothing to articulate his point.

@mooncake: Yeah he made Journal that just came out you are right

God damn, Jeff and Vinny could sell me anything!

He clarified and said he was criticizing the left trigger right trigger design philosophy. Class based shooters have more player mechanics/interaction than just shooting at people. The only way you as a player can interact with call of duty/titanfall is by shooting at other players. Tf2 has the medic which has you healing/buffing players; the engineer has the turret for defense, ammo machine for support, teleporter for level traversal; the spy is a pretty fucking crazy class if you get really deep into it. And then there's the crazy amount of item variety.

At the end of the day it all comes down to personal preference and opinion. I just think it sucks that Jeff had such a negative reaction to something so stupid..

@likeassur: That was not the entirety of his argument.

Been listening to the Bombcast for over a year and the PVZ discussion is the first time I never heard things get nasty like that. Closer to an actual fight and not fun at all.

Bunch of wash-women in these comments.

Dudes argue. If i haven't almost put you through a table, we aren't really friends.

Y'all need to calm the fuck down. Nobody wants to hear you guys genuinely tearing at each other during podcasts or quicklooks or anything else, and it feels like lately I'm hearing a whole lot of Jeff attacking Brad all over the place while Brad gets really pissed off about it and stumbles through a nearly incoherent response. I don't know what the issue is but you guys need to work it the fuck out before it starts ruining your content or worse.

Yo, Brad is wrong about one thing, though. Portrait of Ruin is EXCELLENT.

I don't like CoD's multiplayer (at all) but I think Brad was being severely reductionistic in his indictment. Using the kind of language he was using allows you to break down every game to boring-sounding parts ("all you're doing is running around and shooting dudes/clicking on monsters/grinding levels"). I get that he might be a little fatigued from the onslaught of competitive shooters we had last gen, but it was still a little grating to hear him so hostile without a better argument, which he almost touched upon when Drew mentioned the adversarial part.

I think there is still some underlying tension from when Brad left that empty tea cup on the set.

That PVZ argument was a little hard to listen to. Normally when the guys disagree, they do a pretty good job of discussing and criticizing the ideas, not the person. I was pretty surprised at how personal things got.

Brad's right that competitive multiplayer shooters are all pretty much the same thing, even if he wasn't really able to express why. I think Jeff took it personally because of the insinuation that Plants vs. Zombies was a good game when they both agreed earlier that it was kinda middling.

As someone who loves the shit out of Dota, you're absolutely right. Brad's argument makes no sense considering the types of games he plays.

Glad I take all ginat bomb game recommendations with a huge grain of salt. Loving the first couple hours of Thief. Not as good as Dishonored but considering how cool everyone but Patrick was on that game, I could tell this game was gonna be right up my alley from the gameplay vids I saw.

TEAM BRAD! TEAM BRAD!

I just got the cover image.

Whoa. What the hell am I seeing in the comments here? I'm almost a little scared to listen to the PvZ part now.

@joshuan: I listen to this podcast for interesting discussion about video games (as well as the random shit that goes on in their lives). Debates are one thing, but listening to this argument was simply not enjoyable or entertaining.

I haven't listened yet, but from past discussions this seems to be the case. Jeff typically refuses to acknowledge different ways to look at something, while Brad I think panics and fails to actually articulate the reasoning behind his feelings.

Jeff won that argument

Strongly disagree with Brad's argument. Basically his entire rebuttal seemed to be based on a super reductionist view of an entire genre. If you were to say DotA's just killing dudes until you can kill their base, it'd be an equally dumb way of explaining what's going on there. If you genuinely believe there's no strategy, even in public matches, to competitive FPS games, then you're probably not very good at them. I've got no issue with Brad still liking horde modes, and that seemed like a weird place for that argument to even start, but the reasoning provided was pretty ridiculous.

Anyways, I feel like that whole argument could have just been straight-up cut from the podcast, and we'd probably all be better for it.

LOL JEFF, TOO DAMN LIVE DUDE!!

I can't deal with this ad song, you guys. Perfect.

Jeff getting super defensive over Call of Duty/Titanfall consistently amuses me.

Man sometimes in conversations between friends fuckin' tables just have to be flipped over. Totally natural.

How can Titanfall be the thing for Xbox One when it's on PC. Going by the reports from the Beta it seems well optimised thanks to the source engine here's hoping it's not broken at launch like every other EA game it's only on 3 platforms not five so I hope that helps.

If it's in a playable state at launch I will pick it as I like what I saw of it but Sim City has taught me never to pre order a game so thanks EA I guess.

"hopefully I will too..." getting kinda dark there.