Giant Bombcast 04-03-2012

Oh God Brad... you drank Naragasset?! Fuck, that shit is like $6.00 a case! It's complete garbage.

@Hef People seem to dislike Patrick not because he's not one of the originals, but because he has a pompous, arrogant attitude to his opinions and is somewhat condescending.

Also, he called Nolan North an asshole to his face. :D

Ugh, the continuous hate towards Silent Hill was ugly to listen to. I mean has Patrick completed Downpour? Because Downpour as a whole is great, regardless of the poor combat and technical hiccups. A massive step up from Homecoming (which isn't even all that bad to begin with...) and it has some absolutely fantastic moments, with plenty of illusionary effects and overall weirdness to stand against the best of the previous Silent Hills.

It equally baffles and frustrates me to no end how much shit Patrick likes to pour over Silent Hill, then goes on to compliment Siren Blood Curse which isn't anything special nor was it even all that scary. Downpour... now there's a game that genuinely had me instinctively shouting out loud out of fright once or twice.

Massimo Rex? More like Masseffect Wrex, amirite? Eh? Eh?

@Abyssfull: I love the Silent Hill series to death, and I actually agree with Patrick. To me, the quality of 2 and 3 were just SO GOOD that anything resembling the fluff that came afterward is just crap. 2 and 3 and really intriguing, deeply stirring games and nothing after them has even come close to that. Shattered Memories didn't even interest me that much with the (supposedly) solid gameplay, because thats not what I come to Silent HIll for. I come for good stories, striking visuals, and to be disturbed on a level I've never experiences in an interactive medium before. None of the recent games have that.

Ergo, Silent Hill sucks now.

Oh and whats up with these guys always cracking up so damn much at weed jokes??

SOMEONE on this staff smokes a ton of weed.

I just can't figure out if it's Jeff or Patrick.

@amirite: I'd say SH4 was plenty disturbing (especially the story which was all kinds of ridiculous) and the 'ghost victims' are easily one of the most terrifying creatures within the entire franchise.

But more importantly: have you played Downpour? At least up until till you start exploring Silent Hill? If you have already, then I'm curious to know what you didn't like about it. If you haven't, then I can't recommend it enough - crappy combat (which can be avoided entirely for around 95% of the time) be damned.

@Abyssfull: I appreciated Silent Hill 4 to an extent. Are you talking about the ghosties that floated around the subway on their toes? They were not scary. Eerie at first, definitely, but a far cry from the most terrifying in the series. And dude... they are the most ANNOYING ENEMY IN ANY GAME EVER. Those assholes took like 15 hits to defeat. I hated the sight of those guys after fighting two of them. It made it really hard to complete the game. This is not the type of fear and anxiety that the Silent Hill games are meant to create.

I actually haven't played Downpour, and your endorsement definitely motivates me a bit. I haven't played one since 4, but honestly, every review of a Silent Hill game that I've read since echos the exact same sentiment I had about that game. It was a stylistic departure in a lot of ways and for some reason it just didn't carry the weight that the previous two did for me.

@amirite: Well I personally always got the shivers whenever the grain covered the screen and Henry would grab at his head, signifying one of those bastards was looming by. The tubby guy during the Prison world in particular was bloody freaky. As for them taking too long to kill... sure, but you're not meant to. You can't even kill them either, you could only knock them down for a short while before they'd get back up. I remember there was these... daggers or something that you could use to keep them down permanently, but yeah you were clearly meant to run away at every opportunity.

But once again more importantly: Downpour! See this is why I loathe how much Patrick is putting Downpour... down. It's warding away people who may otherwise want to check this out and the bile both Patrick and Ryan (more so Patrick since he's meant to be the 'horror guy') is so unfair. Putting it bluntly, I think Downpour is great. I'll admit it still isn't quite as good as the original three, but it soundly hits the 4th spot for me as best SH of the franchise. I love it. Silent Hill as a town has never been more realised and expanded, with multiple side-stories you can uncover and solve, and the rain makes Silent Hill look hauntingly beautiful at times. There's a lot of great effects and mind-fuckery as well with some pretty clever puzzles, and also as I've said before, it can be pretty damn scary at times too. The Otherworld sections in particular are fantastic as well, varying across some great chase sequences, to some expectedly bizarre adventure/puzzle elements. There's even some well placed camera angles in here during specific portions of the game; it's like a love letter to fans of the early days of Silent Hill , but with obvious improvements like the scope of the town itself.

To be fair, Downpour isn't without need of criticism of course. The combat is primarily a load of wank and the shooting isn't all too better either. It's not so much a problem since you can very easily run away from most encounters, minus the final section of the game that more often increases the amount of enemies spawned and puts you into encounters were combat is near enough forced upon you; it gets pretty damn awful during that part I'll admit. The enemy design isn't very inventive either and the framerate can stutter pretty haphazardly when you're roaming the city. It's not utterly terrible, but it's noticeable enough that you'd wish it was improved.

The story isn't quite as memorable either. The atmosphere and tone is on par, but the overall narrative doesn't spark the same train of thought as previous entries, offering a comparatively safe story for Murphy. It's not bad and I think Murphy is a decent protagonist, but given that he's an escaped convict, the pay off isn't as shocking or memorable as you may expect.

Honestly, overall I enjoyed Downpour enough that I hope Vatra will be on board for the next one. Konami were testing the waters for a lot of the earlier entries, handing it out to varying developers, and I'd say they hit the mark with Vatra. Budget constraints clearly held it back, but where it counts, I think Vatra clearly understand the franchise well enough that I'd be confident they could potentially tap into something even better given more time and resources.

And more people definitely need to at least give it a chance with a rent or something. There's been a lot good buzz across our forums, but of course that's tough to counter against such strong assertions by the staff themselves. =/ I just hope I've at least convinced one person to give it a shot :P

I swear the exact moment Giancarlo said goal Ireland scored a goal on me in sensible soccer. This requires further examination..

I'm not trying to be a rabblerouser, but I feel like I need to say this. I do not subscribe to Giant Bomb because I want to hear what Giancarlo Viancoolie has to say. I don't care. I want to hear what the Giant Bomb crew has to say on the Bombcast. Nothing more, nothing less.

@Javes said:

Ryan: "The Dark Souls of mech combat simulators." I guess he forget about Armored Core, a mech combat simulator developed by From Software, the creators of Dark souls?

I guess he did. Moving on!

@blacklab said:

I'm not trying to be a rabblerouser, but I feel like I need to say this. I do not subscribe to Giant Bomb because I want to hear what Giancarlo Viancoolie has to say. I don't care. I want to hear what the Giant Bomb crew has to say on the Bombcast. Nothing more, nothing less.

Agreed. He seems like a cool dude but the whole tone of the Bombcast was very muted compared to the usual.

Patrick, I love you; I accept your midwesternisms, but when you say "Nukuler" instead of "New-Clear" it makes me feel like I'm listening to George Bush, and he's basically a monkey with a decent tailor. Also, "impact" isn't a verb and "irregardless" isn't even a word. In the end though, it's not like it really matters, so feel free to think of me as some pedantic dickwad on teh interwebz.

@Korosuzo said:

@blacklab said:

I'm not trying to be a rabblerouser, but I feel like I need to say this. I do not subscribe to Giant Bomb because I want to hear what Giancarlo Viancoolie has to say. I don't care. I want to hear what the Giant Bomb crew has to say on the Bombcast. Nothing more, nothing less.

Agreed. He seems like a cool dude but the whole tone of the Bombcast was very muted compared to the usual.

They've had guests before. These guests have talked about themselves. But this is a problem now?

Plus they were short handed this week and could use someone to fill in the gaps.

@blacklab: You're not a rabble-rouser, just an asshole.

I came here to say Brad's "EMAILS" was particularly good this week. Its unpleasant to find such asshole-ish comments. The Game Cop is friend of the staff and guested because they were down two men. Why come here and shit on him like he's a villain?

I wasn't a fan of this week's podcast. It was kinda boring without Jeff and Vinny.

@Bulby33 said:

I wasn't a fan of this week's podcast. It was kinda boring without Jeff and Vinny.

I disagree.

Congrats on fatherhood, Mr. Two Pens Caravella! Hope it treats you well!

I thought this podcast was great by the way, and I didn't find Patrick annoying at all.

I think people will forever hate him for that Nolan North interview, which yes was a tad awkward, but I'm sure he grew from the experience- cut the guy some slack :P

@Death_Burnout said:

It's a shame. Last time Giancarlo was on it was one of the best Bombcasts of all time, but this one I found to be mostly boring. I don't think it's even a Jeff and Vinny thing either. Way too much time spent on talking about Kinect Star Wars, and again What Games Have You Been Playing probably shouldn't go on for 2 hours.

I think this Bombcast was boring because Giancarlo was really untalkative, aside from the beginning where they went over his past jobs. So instead of replacing Jeff and Vinny, he just barely chimed in, and it mostly ended up being the Ryan & Patrick Show, featuring Brad Hating Star Wars Kinect.

So, did John wake up? Guys? Did he?! I'm starting to feak out here! John, you okay?!

I turned on my xbox today to play Doom 2 after watching Brad and I had the old nxe. I totally forgot there was a new one until I saw the update take more than 2 seconds. Maybe it's because I use my xbox solely for xbla exclusives, but I don't find the interface to be that bad. I never experienced the blades either on my own machine.

@Hef said:

@StrikerTheLizard said:

@zyn said:

@SlickWillyJJ said:

No Jeff or Vinny, and Patrick's there. No thanks. I'll wait for next week's podcast.

Indeed. Patrick is annoying as FUCK!

Ditto.

So can any of you tell me why you find Patrick so annoying? I don't really see it and no one ever provides a reason. They just say he's annoying. I assume it's cause he's not one of the original 4 crew and people aggressively hate change on the internet. Please one of you, enlighten me.

At this point, "Patrick is annoying" is on the same level as "Brad is leaving" when it comes to sentences that have lost all their meaning around here.

@NoelVeiga: Huh? Brad is leaving never had any meaning, it's a dumb joke.

people need to stop hating on patrick. he's a part of giant bomb now, get the fuck over it.

if you don't like the smell...

people need to stop hating on patrick. he's a part of giant bomb now, get the fuck over it.

if you don't like the smell...

@Soviet666: I'll back you up on the voice thing before people start telling you it's all you and there isn't anything annoying about his voice.

@ez123 said:

@NoelVeiga: Huh? Brad is leaving never had any meaning, it's a dumb joke.

Yeah. Yeah it is.

Think about it for a second.

Thank you Patrick for knowing what a nap really is: a 20-30 min of light sleep.

Street Fighter X Tekken is getting a free ride from these guys.

1. Street Fighter 4 [AE and AE2012] and BlazBlue [Characters code was in a forced balance patch, online was blocked until you patched] handled DLC without issue. NRS pulling a midway shouldn't mean that Capcom gets to pretend that this is an issue with them or any company. Making the worse of a genre the standard isn't a way to do business.

2. The amount of DLC on the disc, both paid and free makes it look like Capcom is done with the game, but expects players to still engage with them. Two sets of outfits and 12 characters to be released across the year. They are making another $80 of the disc without looking at what the cast is lacking or studying actual fan input of the game. Delivery method aside, this is an absentee father approach to DLC and community interaction.

3. Local coop doesn't work on 360. This is a feature in the instruction manual, on the box and was advertised. They have no plans to fix it and claim that it is the 360's fault. Halo, Gear and Mortal Kombat (the fall guy) all have this feature. This is what the BBB complaint should have been, this was true false advertising.

4. The content on the disc is complete and hackers are using the unreleased characters online. This includes full voiced cut scenes as well. The Bioware defense doesn't cover this.

5. The online is broken. The sound issue shows a complete lack of QA and it is embarrassing to see another step backwards in a Capcom game. This will be patched on April 10th, but I am wondering what will break thanks to the patch.

6. Mega Man is broken. The on disc DLC that Sony payed for doesn't work. This was game breaking day one glitch. No QA.

This is a game that is missing advertised features and is unfinished due to a lack of polish and locked content. They are testing to see what they can get away with. Who knows how low the bar will go with their next game.

@zoskia said:

people need to stop hating on patrick. he's a part of giant bomb now, get the fuck over it.

i really don't get it

@NoelVeiga said:

@Hef said:

@StrikerTheLizard said:

@zyn said:

@SlickWillyJJ said:

No Jeff or Vinny, and Patrick's there. No thanks. I'll wait for next week's podcast.

Indeed. Patrick is annoying as FUCK!

Ditto.

So can any of you tell me why you find Patrick so annoying? I don't really see it and no one ever provides a reason. They just say he's annoying. I assume it's cause he's not one of the original 4 crew and people aggressively hate change on the internet. Please one of you, enlighten me.

At this point, "Patrick is annoying" is on the same level as "Brad is leaving" when it comes to sentences that have lost all their meaning around here.

Yeah, I seriously don't get it. Patrick is great and he fits in fine with the rest of the group.

Journey's multiplayer: do no one on the bombast played demons souls huh?

@tourgen said:

Journey's multiplayer: do no one on the bombast played demons souls huh?

huh?

Really liked the frank discussion of Gamespot and the direction of other gaming websites over time. Really cool to see how other websites were trying to do what Giantbomb did, but just couldn't pull it off for a variety of reasons.

A good amount of complaining about the Xbox dashboard, and I agree. Please make an article on that. We need as many loud but valid complaints about it as possible. Microsoft needs to hear that!

@rimmonhouse said:

@blacklab: You're not a rabble-rouser, just an asshole.

Something you clearly know a lot about.

@NoelVeiga said:

@ez123 said:

@NoelVeiga: Huh? Brad is leaving never had any meaning, it's a dumb joke.

Yeah. Yeah it is.

Think about it for a second.

Even if the joke is mean or saying something about Brad, that still doesn't gave the phrase some important meaning that was lost over time. The whole "People use _____ so much that it doesn't mean anything anymore" stuff is used so much that it doesn't even mean anything anymore.

@Meatsim said:

Now I need to go to Olive Garden for lunch.

But it is so bad! I will never understand why that place gets so much business.

You guys should definitely get some business hammocks.

Congratulations Vinny!

Not feeling well today, so I had laid down, with the podcast on in the background. Much to my surprise when the urgent shouting commenced toward the end of the podcast to wake up the emailer on his road trip. Awesome.

@Pop said:

Wow, you guys hated this podcast? Fuck man I thought it was great, it was actually informative while still being goofy, I really liked the horror talk and I'm gonna try to find "The house of the devil".

I don't know if I hated it, but a lot of it was boring as shit. Couldn't care less about Giancarlo and Gamespot's new direction and the Game Jam talk was insanely dull. The event was definitely a cool thing, and I'm sure everyone involved had a great time, but the discussion made for some terrible internet radio.

It's sort of a weird compliment to the OG 4 cast members. They're so good on the podcast together that when one of them are missing or a guest is brought in the quality of the show is noticeably diminished for me.

Yay 3DS game readings!!

Fucking wake up, John.

Nice podcast, I would really like to see more Giancarlo, what a great sub for Vinny, and obviously there is no sub for Jeff. Wait...

Is that racist?

When Ryan and Patrick get into the thick of it, 5 stars view... listening. Likewise with Brad and Jeff.

@AssInAss said:

@tourgen said:

Journey's multiplayer: do no one on the bombast played demons souls huh?

huh?

so you didn't play demon's souls multiplayer mode either. great.

Everything original they ascribe to journey's multiplayer was done in Demon's Souls, and much more. Other than the fact that you had to "opt-in" by using the colored stones.

ayyyyyyyy Giantbomb dudes.. Great podcast, but I heard something that bothered me on there.

One of the dudes said he woke up from naps with headaches! This was happening to me too and it was due to a a sleeping disorder. Headaches after sleep can be caused by a lack of oxygen! Might want to get it checked out bro!

@tourgen said:

@AssInAss said:

@tourgen said:

Journey's multiplayer: do no one on the bombast played demons souls huh?

huh?

so you didn't play demon's souls multiplayer mode either. great.

Everything original they ascribe to journey's multiplayer was done in Demon's Souls, and much more. Other than the fact that you had to "opt-in" by using the colored stones.

Was it that much different from Dark Souls? I didn't get around to playing Demons' Souls. It seems like the only thing you could compare to Journey was the sudden invasions. It sounds like they're more impressed with Journey's seamless multiplayer where dudes just come and go without any input from the player at all.