Giant Bombcast 502: Bad Wood

paying for skins is not a problem but loot-boxes-as-a-slot-machine for sure is a real problem. Less gambling in video games please.

Also shadow of war just seems like a power fantasy game with loot boxes. Pass.

@anoldtoilet: As long as he wants? It isn't shitty to everyone.

Game prices jumped from $60 to $80 ($40 to $50 for 3DS) around 2013 in Canada. Games are over $90 with tax.
I typically wait 6 months to a year before buying a game now.

FWIW, I wouldn't ascribe too much meaning to the fact that they gave the original Shadow of Mordor GOTY, since 2014 was a pretty slow year for games, especially given how strong the past 3 years have been. The runners-up in 2014 were Bayonetta 2, Far Cry 4, CoD: Advanced Warfare, Hearthstone, South Park, Jazzpunk, Shovel Knight, Mario Kart 8, & Destiny.

If Giant Bomb's 9 GOTY winners since 2008 were to be matched up against each other, Shadow of Mordor is probably 8th or 9th on that list.

Condolences to the West Coast squad and anyone else (lotta games industry folks) affected by the terrible wildfires up north. It may seem like the world is ending, but we will persevere

@catsanddogs: Of that list, Bayonetta 2 and South Park were both far stronger games than Shadow of Mordor.

And there were plenty of other good-to-great, fairly mainstream 2014 releases: Dark Souls II, Dragon Age Inquisition, Divinity Original Sin, Wolfenstein The New Order, Sunset Overdrive, Titanfall, etc.

Also lots of amazing smaller games like The Banner Saga and This War of Mine.

2014 wasn't as good as this year, or probably 2015 or 2016 either. But to say it was a bad year for releases, as they do, is revisionist history covering the fact that the staff didn't give most of them due consideration.

Also, 2014 I think was the last year where they tried to find a true consensus GOTY, and the result was something middling they all played; whereas in 2015 and 2016 it was Jeff pushing whichever of his favorites had at least a couple others also really liking. The 2014 system never would've resulted in Super Mario Maker winning in 2015 (it may have still gotten Hitman in 2016, but DOOM would've been a stronger challenger I think).

Sympathy for orcs... Now I have heard it all.

I still don't get the whining over Shelob. So many critics are like "ugh, video games why do you need to be so icky" and I wonder if they've even seen her. She's not freaking Quiet. Yeah she's an attractive lady in the same way that any leading woman in a movie or TV show is attractive, but she's not overtly sexually gratuitous - not even close. Calling the character "sexy lady" is a stretch just to support the narrative du jour.

I'm not buying notion that Shelob was presented as a human to pander. Sorry, but I don't think a reasonably attractive mid-30s looking lady in a high necked long dress is what the people interested in simple sexual fantasy are really looking for. Being a human just makes it easier to have a character that can emote and be more interesting and have more nuance than a giant spider.

I still don't understand why people think Hitman won just because it was Jeff's favorite and nothing else. I thought it was pretty obvious he was pushing it as a website favorite since it was the game that everyone played a lot and loved. It was the game that produced more content for the site on that year, they played it every month, on multiple UPFs, various Extra Life streams and even had a segment dedicated to it on the GOTY videos. It was pretty clear that Hitman was Giant Bomb's game for that year.

@sweetz: Its not so much her sexiness that's bad, its the fact that she is apparently a "shapeshifter" now but chooses to be a very standard video game pretty lady. Its boring. She could be anything but decides to be something very unimaginative. If you're going to break the lore, go hard or go home I guess.

Unrelated to that: Not sure why people are upset about the orc slavery thing. My impression from the movies is that the orcs are undead elves brought back to life for the sole purpose of being soldiers for Mordor... right? I don't think something like that is deserving of personhood but also, my knowledge of LotR stuff is shaky.

@johnymyko: I'm not saying its the only reason. But I think he helped push it over DOOM. When Jeff first said he thought Hitman should be GOTY over DOOM, Dan was the only one who immediately jumped on board and Brad was downright disappointed.

@brad, don't listen to Jason: the Final Cut changed nothing meaningful about the ending. You can check out a list of differences here. It's mainly alternative takes, along with a few fixes like painting out wires, replacing a stunt double's head, overdubbing an incorrect line, etc. Also the colour grade is different, which some people don't like because it looks more modern and "digital". But the substantial differences (including to the ending, the notorious voiceover and the addition of the unicorn dream) are between the theatrical cuts (US and international) and the director's cut. That's where the implication that Deckard is a replicant was made more concrete. Here is the relevant comparison.

Look, I get that it can be a bit of a downer to frame things in this light, but that doesn't make it any less meaningful or valid. I had heaps of fun with Shadow of Mordor, but also there's a lot about that game that's kind of sketchy when you take a moment to think about it (much of which is carried over from the books or the films). You can ignore all that if you like, but complaining when others don't can make it seem like you want to shut down discussion just because it makes you uncomfortable, which would be pretty petulant. And honestly, will this brief discussion actually mar your enjoyment of the game at all?

I think the point is that they're written to be inherently unsympathetic, which is an idea in itself which has some pretty unpleasant implications. It's a useful shortcut and it works, but as with all things it doesn't exist in a vacuum.

Anyway, whatever, enjoy the game. I hope to, too. Just don't think it's absurd for others to consider the attitudes it implicitly represents.

Ben got one of those groups who are having a backlash to Mordor right. I’ve generally never heard any real complaints about the morality of the game. I’ve heard the argument that it was a slim year, and the other camp that thought it was a generally middling game. It’s weird that Brad would think the main missions are boring because you get rite objectives like kill 10 orcs, when the entire game is built around such lackluster design.

Can't stress enough how bad this fire is. I work in Marin County which borders Sonoma and Petaluma, and the destruction is just unbelievable. I live about an hour away and for the last two days I've woken up to my car covered in ash. I hope all the best for Jeff as well as Ben's parents and anyone else who has been affected by the fire.

Regarding the Mordor sadism... This is a game. They are not thinking, feeling beings. They don't have emotions. Why is this still a thought that won't die out? Why do people empathize with inanimate, inorganic objects?

Having empathy for inanimate objects is always ridiculous.

"Come on video games, really?" is one of the best things I've ever heard Brad say.

If anyone wants the old episodes of the hotspot: https://archive.org/details/gamespot_thehotspot

(use the torrent if you wanna get em all)

I also recommend the "this year collection" compilations of the different years of that podcast: https://archive.org/details/this-year-collection/

If anyone wants the old episodes of the hotspot: https://archive.org/details/gamespot_thehotspot

(use the torrent if you wanna get em all)

I also recommend the "this year collection" compilations of the different years of that podcast: https://archive.org/details/this-year-collection/

Was that a My Hero Academia reference out of Ben? "Best Geneist"?

@guynamedbilly: I see where they're coming from. Yes of course they're not real. But they're the bulk of the personality and humor in the game. It's kinda hard not to emphasize or connect to them at least a little, and it makes it a little weird. But ludonarrative dissonance and all that. I don't know if there's a better way to make it come across, and taking it out would remove some of the most fun mechanics so I'll deal.

@ripelivejam: There's of course nothing wrong with feeling sympathy with people in bad situations, but promoting empathic feelings for inanimate objects and selectively choosing when those feelings are relevant or not is incredibly dangerous. I mean, regardless of what the original books were, this is so obviously not a parable, or metaphor, or even a warning of a possible future or anything like that. It's a dumb fun game mechanic. That's obviously all they designed it to be and that's all it has to be. Just because you can play six degrees of separation to find some cause to tie it to, does not make it important or worthy of thought.

"Live from Transylvania, Gamespot presents: The Hotspot. And now here is your 'Ghoooost' master: Riiiiiich GALLUUUUUP!" Don't ask me why that specifically stuck with me after all these years, maybe because it was for a Halloween episode and it's that time of year.

With the way things are going in the home console business I can't help but wonder if we're headed towards another market crash on the software end of things. The idea that the most valuable game deals are happening on a micro level of indie development and smaller studio projects makes this endless cycle of loot boxes in triple A games feel like some desperate cling to life from publishers. Don't get me wrong I absolutely love the sheer variety of smaller games being made available and I can easily ignore the temptations of that no good Michael Transactions. I'm just trying to hold out hope that bigger games can have higher aspirations than devolving into delivery mechanisms for gatcha scams. Plus there's the fact that the current console hardware is already woefully underpowered to the point that these half-step revisions create even more layers of uncertainty for the average consumer.

I think that backlash over Loot Boxes is getting a little..."out there". I'm also of the opinion that a lot of these recent games jammed the shitty, half-assed loot-box mechanic into their games at the last second for no reason other than "the publisher wants more money-money-money", but trying to spin it like "Won't someone PLEASE think of all the hopeless gambling addicts?!" is imagining a problem where there is none (or at least, no evidence at all linking compulsive gamblers, loot crates, and mental health issues).

This is the happiest a comment has made me in a while. Implicit trolling through podcast art.

Wow, hope everything turns out ok for both Ben's parents and Jeff and his wife with all this fire stuff. Hope to not hear any bad news in the coming days.

laughing my ass off at Jeff's ring rant :D

Hearing Ben talk about Gundam Versus, makes it sound quite similar to Gunz: The Duel.

The game the devs imagined was a Matrix-like third person online shooter. What they didn't expect, was that it would turn into a keyboard rhythm game as people were bouncing around cancelling sword slashes & reloads, while weapon switching to be more agile and shoot faster. Was a lot of fun to learn all these new moves together with the community.

"We're past the point of saying 'any lootbox of any kind is bad.' People are buying them. We're past that part of the conversation."

I found the laziness of this excuse to be especially egregious. Shame.

Jim Sterling did a video related to this just this week and I think he makes some solid points as well since those discussing it have come in on both sides of it with different factors. I would assume as with most things, there are many variables and lots of factors that really determine what is profitable or "needed". But when talking about bigger companies versus "indie" I think it is easier to group them into which camp they are in. Of course I'm also a cynical consumer and any company (read: all of them) that is about making a profit it always comes down to only profit, always.

I think the Mordor boxes are less gross than something like the Overwatch Boxes.

The Mordor boxes are more likely to be ignored by people who may be hurt by them because they are just time savers. I doubt anyone opening those is even looking for a specific piece of loot. The target audience is rich people with no time. The main problem with time savers is that the experience can feel overlong and grindy and you never know how much the game was tuned to push you in the direction of spending, but still, the system doesn't feel predatory to me in most instances because as long as the game is complete able in a reasonable amount of time then there isn't a continued impetus to spend.

The boxes in overwatch have rare items that are easy to go "oh I just want that one thing!!" with and get ensnared in. Especially since the more you play the more boxes and loot you stare at and when you don't get something you get frustrated at how long it takes to level. It kind of has a dual purpose of addicting you to playing and spending more and there isn't a clear point at which it will stop.

The worst of all I think are the free to play games that have items that are both highly coveted and essential to gameplay. I played a lot of Marvel Puzzle Quest and it was easy to want some digital card so bad that you were playing more than is healthy and wanting to spend to make it happen. Of course there is never lasting joy in getting whatever bullshit thing because new better cards were constantly devaluing whatever you had. And $100 doesn't get you much in that game. I never spent money on the game but I was in a line group with some people to take advantage of the clan system and some people there had spent more than they could afford on a couple occasions and openly lamented being stuck in a joyless loop with it and that shit sucks.

I think overall the idea of "cosmetics good, gameplay affecting bad" is overly focused on the experience of a hypothetical player that isn't spending and doesn't want to. It doesn't engage with a lot of the component parts that go into the mental math of calling some of these games gross.

I think there's a valid discussion to be had about changes that could be made to the industry in order to prioritize consumers and developers over company profits, but discussions almost invariably stop at similar points as the "let's bring costs down and pay people more" comment that Ben brought up. If it's going to be touched on, go for it. Have that talk. Bring up solutions. Otherwise, what's the point? We all know profit-making can be scummy.

Storage Wars actually had a character that would often bring some sort of gimmick to be better at seeing what was inside a box. I remember him bringing a drone with a camera once. Sadly, the drone crashed into the box and could not be used after that. He also brought a very big guy with him once. Also a very small guy to peek underneath stuff. He might have brought nightvision goggles once too.

@brad

I watched Blade Runner for the first time last week. The Final cut is indeed the version to watch. It's not much different from the Directors Cut, but some mistakes were fixed ( numbers that didn't match, Deckard having a cut on his face for no reason, A stunt-woman's face being visible). There's also a bit more blood in one scene, and you get to see Harrison Ford's nose being pulled. The one thing that people go to the Director's cut for, is that most scenes are a bit brighter, while the final cut contains some of that orange / teal gradient, and is darker. Also, the sky in the last scene of the director's cut is straight up blue, while it's cloudy and murky in the Final Cut.

The ending was altered in the Director's Cut already, and so Final Cut has the same ending. It's not a definitive answer, but the kind of subtle answer that makes you think about it after the movie finishes and then hits you with what is implied.

Google Play has it .

I find the whole morality thing a bit odd considering these are orcs. Evil, genocidal, insane killers who want to wipe out all life on middle earth just for the hell of it. Basically an army of Hitlers. I would agree and appreciate this sentiment in other cases, like a gta game for example. Where you can kill innocent bystanders and police "for the hell of it". But in this instance, just find it odd.

I find Ben's argument of the morality a bit of a weak statement as it sounds like the arguments used by others used within the video game scare like with the night trap. Just because it is done in a video game doesn't mean it will be emulated in real life or influence in anyway. It is fiction.

Lets look at GTA, because I steal a car in GTA and ruin someone's life, isn't that also gross? I just ruined that person's life. I bet they had a family. I bet they worked really hard for it. No it's not because it's fiction. It's part of a mechanic in the story. That's an essential part of the game too. These 'Ideas' I find also quite odd that Ben is stating and I don't think they hold too much water. I also didn't hear this criticism from anywhere when it was getting game of the year awards either.

@genocidalkitten: Games like Overwatch & Dota amplify that need to buy a new cosmetic by virtue of them being online games. If there's a new arcana released in dota, you will probably see a ton of people playing that hero to look at their new purchase. Which means that you spend a lot of games looking at other people's fancy spell-effects and particles. In mordor, you're alone. You never have to compare your guy with someone else's guy. You wouldn't know what you're 'missing out on' unless you actively engage with the lootboxes.

shits on fire yo

That's the rub. Why can't games just have a storefront where players can buy the items directly without the lootboxes? Obviously those in charge know that the lootbox system has a psychological power that can open more wallets due to the slot-machine, manipulative nature of it. In a nutshell - the blind box system as a whole is gross, cosmetic or not.

Also, to those that claim they're merely shortcuts for busy people....we had a perfectly fine system for this...Cheat codes

I appreciate Ben bringing up the more disquieting part of Shadow of War and the discussion that followed.

One shitty thing for me personally is that I'm someone who has always really enjoyed cosmetics and customization aspects in video games. Now it feels like that stuff is strictly relegated to loot boxes and nickel and diming schemes.

I wonder does Ben or anyone who feels uncomfortable dominating orcs have a problem with the mass murder aspect of this or any number of games? I guess its so accepted in the wider culture that people don't even notice, whereas some more original mechanic seems to provoke moral concern in some people

Ceaseless discharge is from Dark Souls,not Demon Souls you casual!

sorry.

@theht: is it really that disquieting compared to the usual violence you bestow upon your enemies in most video games? Not to mention open world titles full of truly innocent bystanders? Seems like a weird hang up all of a sudden after decades of wanton violence and murder.

As a dude who loves the bombcast, but doesn't and will never care about a handful of often discussed games, series and topics, I would greatly appreciate time stamps in the description of these shows.

@humanity: It's really not disquieting at all. I don't understand people leveraging this complaint against Shadow of War. Not every stupid game mechanic has to have parallels to real life--sometimes it's just a stupid game mechanic. Even if you take the enslavement of orcs at face value, in that universe they are the literal embodiment of evil. They don't have any redeeming qualities. You shouldn't feel any compassion for the plight of creatures that have the sole desire of killing everything that moves. I just don't understand this hangup that some people have with the "ethics" in this game.

@larmer: Well yeah its unfortunate, but Loot Boxes as we know them know only exist because people are buying them no matter what "the experts on the matter" say. Microtransactions in general exist because people have a high tolerance for them and marketing decisions does control the purchasing power a little bit here and there.

As it has happened many times before there will be more examples of games which will take microtransactions such as loot boxes to the extreme so people become more and more aware on how bad they really are. Things come and things go naturally by how things will be taken to the extremes and when the general tolerance about such things will shift.

@aromaticflower: I always felt that the strongest social commentary on a type of media doesn't come from the messages the game sends to the player alone, but how the player sees the game and evaluates certain things according to their own views. A lot of people don't like these discussions since for many games are just games and the thing that Ben states kinda proves that the discussion shifted a bit to the positive connotations that even AAA games can be seen as art and can be interpreted as such.

@humanity: Personally, I think that the discussion was more about the nature of art than talking about video games stuff. If we ever accept the notion that video games are art, then the question regarding the messages video games are telling us should called into question. Talking about violence and the intended message that violence sends to us should surely be part of the discussion, too. The question on whether or not Bens concerns were wholly justified to the message the game sends is something that has been tackled well enough in this podcast from what I can tell.

Best part of this podcast for me was walking to work at Cowgirl Creamery while Ben says he loves Mt. Tam

Well, to quite a few people -- not Tolkien fans, necessarily, since Shadow of war barely has any connection to actual Tolkien fiction at all -- orcs are just "ugly, cockney-speaking humans". They walk, talk, eat, sleep, and fight like humans; they complain about their bosses like humans and, of coure, they're voiced and mo-capped by real humans. Just like Ben clearly said in the podcast, it's impossible NOT to feel human empathy for creatures with human-like qualities.

This is a good thing, by the way - even though we can logically tell ourselves, "all NPCs are just graphics and lines of code", most humans still have an emotional reaction to human-like interactions, even in a video game or movie medium. The human conscience is largely founded on empathy and our ability to see a hint of our own selves in other beings.

"This ring is not tainted with the taint".

@dray2k: I don’t really see the distinction if they are art or not as either way it’s a product that shouldn’t be judged in a vacuum. A game is a game, and whether it’s art or not, there is a sense of levity attaches to anything it presents as it’s all fiction in service of our entertainment. Video games aren’t here to teach as how to behave in real life anymore than movies or music - it’s all an exaggerated fantasy. Games can definitely influence us in various ways, but they should never be taken serious enough to the point where someone would get confused about them trying to instruct us in our day to day behavior.