Giant Bombcast 498: Cat Spanker’s Alley

I don't really get the hate on Cayde-6. He seemed fine.

k, he's done good work in the past. he has more good work to do now, irrespective of past work.

So I did; I meant @chicken008, to whom you were replying. Post fixed; I very much apologize for my error.

I can already hear Brad on his pedestal during GOTY telling us why Destiny 2 should be winning. We get it Brad, you make bad choices.

This was a good podcast overall but I also feel like Jeff's cynicism reached a critical mass in it. He couldn't say anything good about Destiny 2 without following up with a criticism, he decided he didn't like Mario + Rabbids, he bashed Apple products, and he immediately decided he didn't want to play Sky on a tablet without even having seen it. I appreciate Jeff's insight and opinions, but I would love for him to dial back some of the negativity, especially when it doesn't add much to the discussion.

League of Legends eclipses any other game in terms of concurrent daily players.

That Star Trek ad was something else.

Dang they did not discuss Metroid Samus Returns. I can't wait to hear their opinions on this amazing game!

I want to go out on a limb on a controversial topic and just put this on record:

I think the Virtual Boy was a bad console. I would go so far as to call it a worthless console.

It isn't like people could even learn anything from this. What would you learn? That a "portable" system that requires you to have a flat surface in front of you capable of supporting a 5 pound weight is a bad idea? That a red and black screen less than an inch from your face might give you a headache in about 5 minutes? That red on black is a bad set of colors for a two color console to begin with?

Worthless.

@tikicobra: He actually didn't bash Apple products. He bashed Apple's absurd branding. He even stated that Apple has some good products.

@sammo21: Hearing them say that the story in Destiny 1 is better than the story in Destiny 2 is mental. There's no story in Destiny 1. At all. There's a set up and that's it. The set up is there's a big giant ball in the sky to protect us. The pay off is that a character called The Stranger gives us a gun at the end and then goes away. The stuff in between is a bunch of set pieces that do nothing to advance a story.

There's no way to be worse than zero without being an absolute pile of shit - which nobody is saying about this games story.

@matiaz_tapia: I don't get what people hate about Tiny Tina. She's one of the better characters in that game and she fits in with the rest of the characters who are over the top in their personalities. The DLC based around her is probably the best DLC for the game.

I played all of BL and BL2 with the same group of friends and easily put in hundreds of hours to both games. Tiny Tina was one of our favourite characters.

@jesus_phish: personally I found Tiny Tina to be over the top in a way that while fit the world, was annoying. The writing just didn't work for me at all because it was too in the nose, or just trying too hard. It's the same story with Cayde in Destiny 2. His lines don't feel organic at all to me - you can almost feel the writers strain in trying so hard to make this guy be the cool and oddballish but it just ends up feeling contrived and at odds with the game.

I haven't picked up Destiny 2, end of the month for me, but from the trailer for it that has the duality between the SERIOUS MAN and the FUNNY MAN it was obvious they told Nathan Fillion to go full Nathan Fillion - ie be that guy you are who owes his career to being imitations of classic Harrison Ford characters.

I sort of knew he'd always end up like that in Destiny because that is literally all Nathan Fillion does.

Tina to me was another OTT character in a world of OTT characters but who actually had a fairly shitty past and was dealing with it by making the most out of it that she could. However, while I can see how people might think her lines are annoying or her voice is grating (I don't think either) - the hyperbole around her being "omg the worst thing ever in video games all people who worked on her should be banned from video games" is incredibly overblown. She's a good character. Just because she might be "annoying" doesn't make her a bad character.

@jesus_phish: well I wouldn't say she is the worst character in the world but at the same time I wouldn't say an "annoying" character is a "good" character to me.

What was the Destiny 2 tip regarding Powerful Milestones? Just to save skimming through the podcast to find it.

@indigozeal: Not just Jewish people. It's OK to make invective jokes towards any religion, race, age, gender, etc.
You shouldn't single out one word and claim a person is prejudice toward someone/a group. Take the whole joke/story and judge them based on the context.

I mean, I agree with your overall point that Pee-whatever a shitty person who has consistently displayed this behavior and doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt, but let us never forget the infamous F-word moment here on GB. Sometimes people do just fuck up.

@three0nefive: I did use a plural for a reason. Because, yeah, accidents happen, but PDP has a record and a rep. Ryan Davis sure didn't--and the people around him bolstered that because nobody involved was defending it, they weren't normalizing the behavior, GB fans were not going "oh it's okay, he was mad," y'know?

It's not really hard to know who somebody is when they spend that much time in front of a camera. You don't get all the details, but you know the broad strokes. When the broad stroke is "racist jerk"...it's not subtle.

@bladeofcreation: That's fair, although he did also say that Apple makes products for assholes, which is a bit of a bold statement considering those products are so mainstream. Apple's branding is absurd but it feels like he's making a judgment against people who buy those products.

@tikicobra: I must've missed that specific part (I usually listen while doing other stuff, so it happens). Yeah, there are certainly people who take their love of Apple to assholish levels, but of course that's also true of Android users. It's just that Apple's branding and marketing is super weird. The last time I bought a phone, even my own mom, who is not a tech person by any means (I'm not exaggerating when I say that my parents never actually learned how to use the DVD player properly) asked me why I didn't get an iPhone. Apple has long framed itself as this sort of scrappy, bold underdog, a sort of tech counterculture. And people seem to buy into at least part of that thinking all the time. It's truly baffling to me.

But hey, at least we can all agree that Windows phone users are fucking weird, amirite?! :-)

Do you believe both of those things can't be done in ANY context without being racist?

@goldrock: Intellectually and abstractly, sure. Practically? The likelihood of it is less than being hit by lightning. Twice. Guys like this are not doing it for any noble or even misguided reasons. It's toe-to-tip racism.

@afashionablehat: that's a fair statement. I believe in intent more than content. He's an idiot for saying it for sure. I'm not a fan of his. More so just wondering people's opinions on speech.

@goldrock: And that's a fair way to think. At this point, I view it as super unlikely for any reasonably well-known figure in games to not know what they're doing, though, so nobody gets the benefit of the doubt in my book at the moment unless they have a consistent history of decency (because, sure, everybody makes mistakes sometimes)--we've gone to default-deny rather than default-allow because of what the underbelly, and belly, and most of the overbelly of gaming culture has become.

@playd3ux: I think you're reading into that a little? Repeating what bigots say to characterize them ain't getting anybody in trouble. And it really is important to make sure the ugliness of it is very apparent.

a) Go back to my previous comment and read what I said about slurs doing damage even if you don't think (don't *think*) you're supporting the beliefs that spawned them.

b) People are taking this in context - both in the context of how Pewdiepie reacted and commented on his use of the word, and in his larger history of ignorant behavior. (They're also looking at the larger contexts of the potential impact on Pewdiepie's behavior on his huge, young audience and on other YouTubers, who are already facing mass withdrawals of ad dollars from companies who don't want to put up with antics like this.) That you seem to think folks are looking at this in a vacuum indicates that you're not really familiar with the arguments being made concerning the incident.

I again have to recommend the Waypoint episode (even if Waypoint isn't usually your cup of tea), which goes into very helpful detail on the points you think aren't being covered.

Well that's really disappointing. I thought Giant Bomb moved on and grew up since patrick and austin left, guess not.

Comments like this always crack me up. Why do you think they hired those guys? Because they didn't like them or their views and biases? Was it an accident they hired the guy that wrote about race in Animal Crossing?

My above comment was only about the Jew joke btw. I do think he was being racist this time as it was unscripted and said out of anger.
I've heard the new Waypoint Radio episode and usually agree with them.
I don't know of every "incident" involving PewDiePie but I think rape jokes and anti-semite jokes are OK.
People can be offended by these jokes, but I don't think people should try and stop them from happening. Perhaps he should have a 2nd channel for his "dark humour" videos to appease large companies and parents.
I'm not sure about this but if he has been swearing in his videos from the start it's odd that large companies would approve that.

@andrewslug: Wow, in a comments section full of hot takes, this one is scalding.

It blows my mind that we STILL have people in this community that act like somehow guys like Patrick and Austin kicked in the GB door with their super social justice powers and seemingly harangued their way into those jobs or something.

In all seriousness. Who here thinks having an in depth discussion about serious issues makes Giant Bomb "immature"? I can't even. No seriously I'm really having trouble figuring this one out. Incredible. It feels like it's been a long while since the west coast crew has taken the time and consideration to discuss a heavy topic in relation to the gaming industry - I really appreciate that they did it.

@kawiji: Didn't you know, caring about certain issues and talking about them is lame and uncool and stupid. Oh and it's also "cringe-worthy". Like, who cares, get over it folks.

Finally finished watching this episode. More than half of it is dedicated to talk about Destiny, even more PUBG and youtube drama. The Bombcast has been really great lately, but this one was rough to listen to.

The guys talking about Destiny 2 sounds an awful lot like them talking about Destiny 1.

@andrewslug: What are you trying to accomplish with this vague and snide comment? Are you trying to imply Patrick and Austin were "bad" reporters? Are you trying to imply Pewdiepie did nothing wrong? Are you trying to imply that the GB guys are leaning more towards a certain political side that you may not align with?

Regardless, your terse comment says far more about you in one sentence -- most of which are not good, by the way -- than anybody you flippantly mentioned.

'mantle' does not mean 'vault' and you guys gotta stop saying it

I love Giantbomb, PewDiePie's a pile of shit for using that word and a lame edgelord, I lean very far to the left- but I could really care less what the duders think of the issue and don't really get what it has to do with them nor do I come here for social commentary or youtube news.

Not saying don't talk about it, just wanted to throw out another viewpoint, the disinterested guy who agrees with you but would much prefer videogame talk. I practically consume politics and news 2/3 hours a day already and come here for the great conversation from some cool duders and some vidyagame fun. Thanks guys, really appreciate the podcast though, got me hyped for Destiny 2 when it comes to P.C.

That's 2 of my emails answered now! Seems like I gotta stop writing so wordy and cut to the chase.

I think the final words on this discussion should belong to Louis Armstrong: "There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell them."

2:27:50 jeff looks like he is doin some spanking of his own