Giant Bombcast 03/08/2016

@ildon: Yeah it's a good idea to get your brand to transcend physical items, no one can blame them for that, and it makes sense for ms to put content out on pc.

The Division vs real life.

I know that some of the bigger profile crowd funded campaigns have had issues, but I think the crew tends to overlook the smaller side that has been very healthy.

The games looking for 50 to 100k, that if they show their work, usually make it through. A good amount of their favorites from last year were indie kickstarters that they didn't hear about, but were quietly successful and came out.

I hear ya but it still sounds crazy to me. The original Xbox was more powerful than the PS2 but the PS2 dominated the Xbox in no small part due to its install base. Even if Microsoft comes out with a new console next year that's faster than a PS4 I have a feeling that most people will stick with their PS4 because it's good enough for them and they don't feel like shelling out the dough for another piece of hardware so soon.

Also because of the PS4 install base we'll probably still see third party devs continuing using that console as the benchmark rather than the new Xbox 2.0 with it's drastically smaller install base. What incentive would they have to make they're games a little better looking when they can sell more copies on the under powered PS4?

Okay, so I guess No Man's Sky is now a game like Minecraft and Terreria, according to Jeff. Can you build structures in No Man's Sky?

Stepping in human poop is worse than dog poop. Many pathogens are species specific, so there's a good chance that some of the stuff in the dog poop that can't infect you, whereas all the horrors in the people poop can probably get you.

Maybe Brad should play SkiFree on UPF.

I have a feeling that on the Microsoft stuff that we may see a turn in your old console and for an additional 100 bucks you will get the upgraded xbox1.1 model or something. another format is re-release the console with slottable parts kind of like razer's project christine and the N64's ram increase. The last format I could see is do like phones, increase the cost of xbox gold to like 100/year and every time they increase the power you trade in your old one and get the new one

That jam behind the Blue Apron ad sounds like a song from a Sonic game.

I admire Conker from the angle of "3D platformers were so tedious that I like how they made on that took the piss" but it's neither funny nor a good platformer

@brad If I enter the Typhon Expanse in No Man's Sky, does the temporal causality loop repeat until I decompress the main cargo bay?

@hassun: On synthesizing Sweeney's message on Google Play and Jeff's comments on "Microsoft getting it right": I have been totally ok with Googles's takeover of the Android platform. It has made some conveniences on my phone, even though it is not perfect. I agree with Jeff that I don't think MS can pull it off.

@yellownumber5: Mobile/phones is a lot different from desktop PCs though.

Very similar high school newspaper experience here to @brad.

I like that Conker had so much gameplay variety. It could switch from a third person shooter to a surfing game in a few levels. Ignoring the humor, the game played well for the time. I'm sure if you went back to it the "variety" is just a bunch of different sections with garbage controls similar to Mario Party minigames. I refuse to go back to Conker because I still think positively of that game, but there is no chance that the humor would not make me sigh today.

@hassun: True, the market is different between the main user base and power of each system. So does that make Sweenys comparison of Google Play and UWP irrelevant then?

I'm OK with Google, as I don't need my phone to do much more than popping up a few notifications that Google provides, plus the link to my Gmail account generally makes things easy. But since the PC is such an open platform, it would be frustrating if Microsoft takes over in the same way.

@csl316: This ep. is definitely the roughest so far for doubling up - kind of creates a "choose one" feeling for someone who listens to both casts.

A new Xbox hardware revision will certainly be faster, but “better?” Subjective, and doubtful. Unless graphical quality is all you care about, the fragmentation of the player base, uncertainty of which games will work, and the additional burden on developers sounds like a net loss to me.

Unrelated: Source for the image @aquacadet posted of the IRL v. The Division comparison.

@brad We need some Ski Free on UPF.

I'm literally stunned you've never heard of it.

@yellownumber5: I think he only made the comparison between how difficult Google makes it to go outside of their ecosystem and how Microsoft could potentially handle it.

What I meant in my previous post is that Google is far more involved in the hardware side of the mobile business than Microsoft is with the hardware side of the desktop PC business.

http://www.merseyremakes.co.uk/gibber/uwp/

Yeah the double emails need to stop but that's not the host's fault. The only thing that bothered me about the Coleco Fiasco segment is how much better it was covered by the Beastcast. Jeff not really knowing the whole story/getting details wrong kind of sapped some of the enjoyment of Brad and Drew's reactions for me but it was a good segment nonetheless and I look forward to the Beastcast's take on the exciting(?) conclusion this week.

And when talking about content for the audience, it's hard to get wrapped up in the Coleco story again. Brad's just hearing about it for the first time (and SkiFree somehow), whereas we heard it all before so it's not really shocking or anything.

But then again, not everyone listens to both podcasts.

Holy, Brad doesn't know what Skifree is? I thought he was joking at first.

Them criticizing other survival games is kind of amusing. There is a reason they have only shown extremely short demos of No Man Sky. Its also a meter management survival game in the exact same veins as the games they are saying they don't like.

There will be an extremely fast burnout on No Man Sky from the crew. Once they get to sit down with it for a while.

These em-effers double dipping on emails! You're on the list Salami man!

Yeah I feel like I can already hear Jeff saying, "Yeah...I don't know...there are things I want to like about No Mans Sky...but on a whole it just doesn't click for me."

It's another Spore.

I can totally see that being the case.

If I saw a person throwing away shoes because they stepped in poo, I'd - not exaggerating(!) - question the sanity of that person.

First, I'll say you're *probably* right. But...

If they are thinking this through at all, they REALLY need to do something for current owners. If they were in the 360's position from before, or in the PS4 position now, they might be able to get away with doing it without throwing any current owners a trade-up discount or something. But MS screwed up the initial presentation and launch of the X1 so bad that they're STILL paying for it today. They've done a decent job of playing catch up as far as public perception with frequent console updates and adding stuff no one expected (back compat, etc) but if they mishandle this rumored "upgrade" process, it's going to put them right back where they were at the end of 2013, only this time, they probably won't even get the initial console curiosity sales boost they got from people who always buy day 1 no matter what.

This could literally kill the brand for good. They need to be really fucking careful with how this is handled. They probably won't be.

Homeless people were thrown out and put under an overpass? Not being from the US myself, man, this may not be popular with you guys but the more and more I hear, the more I think Fuck America, at least the people in positions of power anyway.

It sucks that "hands-on" previews are going the way of the DoDo bird and gameplay videos are becoming all that matters. I miss the mystery of never really seeing a game before I play it.

Giantbomb and Extra Credits should do some things together......

The Division: Hey, this game is good.

@deadpanjazman: Other countries do that as well, especially during the Olympics. The treatment of homelessness is a worldwide problem and not just limited to the US.

@ildon: While the annual upgrade cycle for phones is somewhat still popular/well utilized, the tablet market is different with the market slowing pretty significantly. I can't imagine the general public being as enthusiastic to spend money annually to upgrade their console (which arguably has lesser priority than a phone).

I'm actually incredibly surprised over all the hate on Conkers Bad Fur Day. That game is generally very highly regarded and is easily one of, if not the best looking game on the N64. The gameplay was varied and fun, the story was written well enough for its time and had lots of funny moments and memorable missions. The multiplayer was also some of the best times I have ever had playing video games with my friends, and has yet to be topped by anything to this day. The game got incredibly high ratings and reviews on most sites as well.

I love Jeff but I've really started feeling that he's dominating the podcast way too much lately. It feels like he's doing at least two-thirds of the talking and sometimes it's almost like a lengthy monologue. In any conversation you're going to have bigger personalities but I enjoy the podcast most when it's a conversation with different opinions. I don't necessarily blame Jeff as such, perhaps the others just aren't contributing enough and he's filling the gaps.

Scott with the email is a damned fool about Conker (he says there were two games cancelled, that's not true the cutesy Gameboy Color game game was released so only one game was essentially cancelled). As a 14 year old at the time of its release I'd like to share my opinion on why Conker was a hell of a great game. I'm not saying the reference's hold up now, but at the time it was great and why the criticism's of the game are superficial.

1. The criticism of some of the pop culture references being dated is fair to an extent. Yes, Saving Private Ryan and The Matrix references were a year too late to be topical, but that's not a fair criticism of a lot of the rest of the game. The Terminator, Alien, Clockwork Orange, The Untouchables, Resevoir Dogs, and Monty Python references were not supposed to be topical, they were fun homages and spoofs to those pieces, much like by the time Spaceballs came out Star Wars was a decade old. Further, the game plays up many of the tropes typical of gaming and especially of Rare's own games back before anybody else in games called out these gaming tropes.

2. The character is a tragic figure. He tries to get his girlfriend Berri back throughout the game but, spoilers, shortly after being reunited she dies at the end. Having slayed the Panther King he is now crowned ruler of their world but all the power in the old can't bring his girlfriend back so he drinks himself into a stupor every night rather than face the world.

3. The game was fully voiced which on an N64 was a major rarity. And not only that, but the voice acting was good! It was appropriate and the dialogue was natural. Compare that to Playstation's three biggest voiced games, Final Fantasy, Resident Evil, and Metal Gear Solid, and Conker's BFD is an Oscar worthy performance in comparison. There's no "Master of Unlocking" terrible lines, there's no embarrassing acting and there's not 45 minute lapses of unnatural sounding, poorly acted, game halting Kojima tangents and horribly conveyed exposition. Everyone sounds like human beings rather than aliens pretending to sound human which is far more than what you can say for the other games mentioned above.

4. If you strip all of the homages, references, cutscenes, etc. out of the game, you have what is likely the second best 3D open platformer of that generation. Obviously Mario 64 was groundbreaking but Conker was better than the rest. It took Rare's pedigree of platforming but removed all the mind-numbing collectible nonsense from the game. You simply beat the levels and grab the cash, the only collectible in the game. There isn't another game in the genre that generation that was as streamlined or as fun. Spyro wasn't as fun, Jersey Devil as Dan knows is crap, and games like Crash and the Sonic bits of Sonic Adventure are on-rail platforming, not the open platforming of a Mario or Rare game. Plus it offered a bunch of variety in the action as well. And additional FYI, the Normandy scene in the game is the worst part of the game. Why that would be chosen for a demo I do not know.

5. The multiplayer was great! Each level featured drastically different gameplay and offered a lot of variety and genuinely fun games. The caveman mode let you play as cavemen stealing eggs from the raptors to cook in a frying pan and you could also play as the raptors. War and CTF were basically 2-fort and Beach let you try to get past the base as unarmed squirrel refugees or gun down the refugees as the Tediz. What made the game modes work was that there were plenty of AI to fill out the game modes, making 2-player with full AI the ideal way to play like most N64 games.

I loved Conker and I still do. I know a lot of it doesn't hold up but from a gameplay perspective it's still a highly enjoyable platformer and that multiplayer were some of my best memories and one we kept going back to.

If you're telling me the $500 Xbox One I bought at the beginning of 2014 isn't good enough to play this new Xbox One game at its fullest potential and I need to buy a new Xbox One is the moment I only play my PlayStation 4. Five year cycles worked great for twenty years. Just because last generation lasted eight years doesn't mean we have to choose between eight year cycles and 2 year cycles.

Fuck that.

WHERE can i find that sweet pause music? (2:39:00) Preferably a 24-hour loop of it.