Giant Bombcast 02/02/2016

I'm ready boys.

This podcast would be way better of they stopped talking about videogames on purpose.

@spitznock: And the best way to deal with those people is to just say "Fuck them". It their lose for a possible interesting media to add to their lives.

@dougfunk15: That's actually the exact mindset I'm hoping Dan can escape. When you dismiss an idea, or a person, as pretentious (or dumb) you're setting yourself up to approach it dishonestly.

heh, pretty sure the ios puzzle game he's talking about as the least colorblind-friendly game of all time was Shibuya, which I helped make and jeff and vinny had a hard time playing way back at pax in 2010. at least we fixed it in the new one

First let me say that I've beaten The Witness, but only found maybe 8 or 9 audio logs. It's one of my favorite games of all time now, pretty much. Certainly one of my favorites from the last few years.

I'm pretty much the opposite of Dan in every way. I love "artsy fartsy" stuff. I'm a writer myself. I love meta narratives (Adaptation, Metal Gear Solid 2). I love literary theory. I love art. I have a very high threshold for pretension. The Witness blew right past that threshold and into the freaking stratosphere. You're free to think it isn't up its own ass, but to not see how many, many others would disagree and how that's a perfectly valid and reasonable viewpoint is to be blind, imo.

@decaped: I don't blame Dan for feeling the way he is. It's a nice anecdote but overly long and jarring and seems placed merely to hint at some greater meaning that probably isn't there. Maybe in context it's better but it just felt out of place and a bit momentum killing (as far as you can kill momentum in a puzzle game). Besides, it's not like he dismissed it completely off hand; much of his response was pretty strongly positive.

When I inevitably win the "Come Hang With Giant Bomb" sweepstakes me 'n' Jeff are just going to sit on our asses and bullshit about games while binge-watching all of Burn Notice and the Blacklist. I still wish Alpha Protocol: Burn Notice Edition was a thing.

On the topic of Jeffs SMB3 revelation... I'm 100% there myself. Do to various circumstances I actually skipped it entirely, and only ended up playing it a few years after the SNES was already out. Having had an SNES and thus having played an obscene amount of World it just seemed like such a step back. There's never been any room for SMB3 in my heart, and there probably never will be.

@davidh219: I guess I'm just one of those people who is a sucker for earnest aspirations, even if unmet. To be dismissive of that is something vulgar, to me.

I had to refund the Witness. I never have gotten sick from playing a game ever, and in general life never really get motion sick too easily. However, the witness got me so sick I almost went to a doctor until I realized it was just the game making me sick. Loved the game, but I couldn't play it any longer.

Steam refund was surprisingly good. I was at about 4 hours played [two hours above the refund soft cap], and just explained the situation, and they refunded it with no questions asked.

Purple is the king of colors.

Please no more vague talk about The Witness. If you want to talk about it, that's cool, but actually talk about it.

@brad the audio in the last three minutes is real weird.

edit: oops I missed the gifs.

Those last few minutes are the best. All podcasts should sound like they were secretly recorded in a hidden bunker.

Regarding Bubble System games in MAME: Gradius shows the "Warming Up" screen while the "Morning Music" plays. I don't think it goes on for as long as long as the real cabinet though.

@spitznock: You're not wrong. I think that anime fandom is seen as nerdy by many in the gaming community. It's a niche thing, and with that status comes the misunderstanding that leads to derision.

Come on guys keep the witness talk vague. Dan principal offender!

@decaped: I guess that's where we diverge. I don't see self-seriousness to the point of a complete lack of self-awareness to be earnest at all. If anything, The Witness' "story" feels almost manufactured to me. I mean, that's what the word pretentious means. An artificial attempt to portray yourself or your art as more intelligent and culturally relevant than it actually is. It's posturing. It's an attempt to avoid criticism because if you don't like it, "you just don't get it, man."

Since the only "story" or "writing" we have is a collection of existing real life quotes that talk about a wide variety of subjects, none of which seem to be relevant to the game, form a cohesive theme, or say anything new, we can assume the following: Blow is either incapable of or not willing to present his ideas in a clear manner. If the former, he has failed as a writer in a big way. If the latter, he is unwilling to have his ideas scrutinized in the light of day. Either way I don't see it as something to be praised. Blow's attitude of, "I'm the only one making real art in video games," doesn't help.

If you want to talk about earnest aspirations that are easy to dismiss, let's talk about The Talos Principle. It's very similar to The Witness in both the type of game that it is, and the story which is rooted in philosophical musings about metaphysics, religion, etc. The difference? The Talos Principle very clearly communicates its themes and ideas, and leaves it up to the player to decide if they are intelligent and worthwhile. The Witness doesn't, because it's up its own ass.

Is Jeff and Brad still under the assumption that Street Fighter V doesn't come with an arcade mode that literally does what Jeff asks for which is dealing with every characters backstory and what they're up to in 5?

The story mode won't be clogged down by having to explain every characters origin. That's what the arcade mode stuff is for and that will be in the game at release.

I also don't understand how anyone can seriously want a predominantly multiplayer game to be delayed for 4 months just to get a presumably less than 10 hour single player experience at the same time as the game's release.

@davidh219: If you're going to keep playing The WItness, just ignore the rest of my comment because...

@Spitznock - agreed - the crew [and I love them, don't get me wrong!] seem VERY snide and

cutting re any anime related game. Guess they didn't know Saya is/was a MONSTER!

Jeff's feelings and experience with Mario 3 is similar to my experience with Mario World. I never owned it and have no love for it.

@decaped: I'd love to know where this is called out in the game, because I haven't seen it. I don't really care that much about spoilers at this point. But anyway, even if it does, I don't believe that he believes it. Not after some of the shit he's said. He may be aware that he will be called pretentious, but he doesn't accept that he is pretentious, and I think that is a key difference. A dictator can realize he will be seen as one and yet not think of himself that way.

As for building upon spoken ideas with gameplay, that's all well and good, except, like I said, the quotes talk about, like, everything. There is no consistent theme. You can't write a novel that's about everything, nor can you make a game that's about everything. It just doesn't work. I can see many angles you could take this gameplay into an intellectual realm. A commentary about the limits of knowledge (epistemology). A virtual study of how language is created through the stacking of arbitrary semantics over time. Those would be consistent themes that you could create gameplay commentary on. From what I've seen and read about about so far, it doesn't seem like Blow even knows what he's trying to convey with this selection of quotes. It's the most all over the place pseudo-intellectual waffling I've seen in long time. If you like it, that's great, but to imply that other people are somehow inherently wrong for calling bullshit on it is, well, bullshit.

Speak of the devil...I just got my mother addicted to The Blacklist.

Jeff throwing shade at Lupe, I see. :P In all seriousness, his latest album (Tetsuo & Youth) is very solid. I definitely recommend it.

@davidh219: I'm not trying to call anyone wrong for having an opinion on the game. There are many reasons to dislike The Witness or dislike what Blow is trying to do with it, or think he does a shitty job of doing it.

What I disagree with is when someone says these ideas aren't worth expressing to others, which is what someone says by calling it "up it's own ass". What I'm trying to get at is the mentality that allows for the dismissal of an idea without approaching it honestly, which is what someone does when they call it pretentious. The author is a liar/fraud and only speaks because he likes to hear himself talk.

Huh, it's weird hearing people say that the marsh puzzles in the Witness were the worst. I think I've enjoyed those ones the most.

I love hearing the guys talk about The Witness. I don't have any friends that have played the game, but I really want to be able to talk to someone about it in the way they are. My favorite place so far has been the castle.

@davidh219: You know, you have made well reasoned, compelling arguements. I just think the game addresses most of them so I'd like to continue the conversation after you're fully spoiled.

Is there any way to get the "Filed Under" tags on the premiums feed as well?

@decaped: No idea is bad, and no one is saying that Jonathan Blow had a wrong philosophy or whatever, but just that the way in which he's expressing it is pretentious. Other people are expressing this exact same message but not taking themselves as seriously, and therefore are not "up their own asses"

World 8 in SMB3 is garbage but man the rest of that game is great

@zxlpx: Thanks for this! I stopped listening when Dan started to talk general stuff about puzzles. Now I can pick up without hearing things I'd like to see for myself first.

That's fair. I doubt it will change my mind much, though. I'm close to as spoiled as somebody can possibly be through googling, I think. Unlike Jonathan Blow I don't assume I'm smarter than everyone else in the world. If people on the internet haven't puzzled out the true meaning of the game, I don't just automatically assume that I will be the first one to "get it," simply by having all the information at hand.

As for your first response:

My problem isn't that some ideas aren't worth expressing. That's insane. Where you even got the notion that anyone is saying that is beyond me, because I've yet to seen anyone say anything remotely like that. Nobody is saying, "you can't make a game that talks about metaphysics, that would be pretentious," or, "you can't make a game that deals with the relationship between creator and creation, that would be pretentious." That's basically what you're accusing me of, despite me never having said that. By all means, express whatever idea you think is interesting and worth expressing, but actually have an idea first and communicate it as clearly and honestly as you can because that's what good writing is.

The game is completely, intentionally obtuse and at the same time laughably self-serious about what idea it's trying to express, and what it's trying to say. Blow even defends this approach by saying:

The majority of its ideas are there as pieces of introspection and contemplation. So there’s no correct reading. When you visit an art gallery, some paintings might be coded messages in some way. But the greater question is: Are you interested in what’s in the picture, and what is your response?

I'm very much not interested in the picture if the picture is random unrelated quotes that have zero central focus, and nothing new to say. My response is that I think a certain artist is full of himself.

The way this game presents its "story," to me, comes across as an insincere attempt to be viewed as deep and intelligent without actually earning it, and to avoid honest criticism of whatever ideas and themes may or may not exist within it. Part of that is my perception of Blow's character based on things he's said, to be perfectly fair. But the alternative is that it is instead a complete and utter failure to convey its ideas in any way that even approaches the realm of clarity. Either way, I think it's crap marring an otherwise masterpiece of a game.

As far as I can tell, based on what I personally know from playing and can find by googling about the game and what Blow has said about it, he didn't know what he wanted to say at all, or had nothing to say, so he threw his random dream journal musings into the game and called it "true art," or however he likes to distinguish his work as being above everyone else's, which totally fits his character. If you don't think he speaks just to hear himself talk, you either haven't been following him all these years or you're drinking the kool aid. JoBlow is the dictionary definition of pretentious. Misanthropic, insults other people's work, thinks he's the most specialist unique snowflake, etc.

But hey, I will absolutely at least admit the possibility that I will completely change my mind and find the genius meaning behind this game with additional information (again, I really don't mind spoilers so feel free to write me a paper on it. You can PM me. I'm not joking at all when I say I will read the whole thing even if it's 20 thousand words long). Since it would make a game I already love far more satisfying I want nothing more than to be proven wrong in this regard, and I invite you to do so. But I will always take some issue with the self-indulgent way that meaning is presented to the player (or not presented, as the case may be), and JoBlow himself will always be pretentious, because it's an attitude thing, not an aptitude thing. Pretentious is as pretentious does and the moment you come out and say that you think you're the only one doing work that "matters," you've crossed that line.

This guy gets it.

I listened to this while playing The Witness for the first time and when the email about it making someone sick came around I was on the verge of barfing. First time a game has done that to me since the N64. VR here we come.

MARIO 64 FOR LYFE YO!

@oldskooldeano: "it's near THE place after you see THE THING.." "Oh you mean by the castle after the hero gets shot??" Yes Dan, that vague moment.

definitely! the area stumped me the most out of the logical puzzles camp, but it was my favorite area and the most rewarding to finish. they don't give me any trouble anymore though! my least favorite is by far the desert temple. I tried that first solar panel for at least 40 minutes before realizing what was happening, and i just left out of embarrassment.

I wouldn't mind witness-style line puzzles in 99c workbooks at the grocery though, I need more~

Episode 3 of this latest X Files run was one of the shows best episodes. Those first two though...

@ottoman673 said:

I dunno, man, World 7 with endless pipes and piranha plants is a real fucker that put an end to my "actually play through all of SMB3" run where I didn't warp whistle at all and actually wanted to see the whole game.

Seriously, fuck World 7. I looked it up, and 7-7 is the dumb garbage level that made me quit. It's basically wall-to-wall of those little black piranha plant guys, and you have to keep getting stars to be invincible to run over them, and you have such a tight timing window to get the next star or else you die, and it's just trial and error garbage as you learn each part of the level, die, try again and learn like 5 feet farther ahead, die. It's bad.

Resident Evil 6 was great. You people are crazy.

Resident Evil 6 was great. You people are crazy.

Color blindness for Jeff = Everything looks like everything

Shower tip:
1: Bars are crazy, get shower gel/body wash whatever. We've advanced as a civilization to the point where we should not be rubbing hard blocks on our bodies and then share it with everyone else in the home. That's gross as fuck. That's like sharing tooth brushes.
2: Get a pair of those bath gloves from the bath section of most stores that carry beauty products.
3: Never look back.

You'll be so clean. SO clean. And you don't have to reapply soap all the time. Just squeeze some into the gloves and you can wash your entire upper body before reapplying.

Quickly dismissing something as "Pretentious": A tacit admission of the inadequacy of the critical apparatus somehow becoming - as it has done so often - a means of undervaluing creative endeavour.

@spitznock: To be fair most anime is crap, and this is from someone who likes anime.

theres a plot to the witness?