Giant Bombcast Giant Bomb's Game of the Year 2015: Day One

The clothes and armour in the Witcher do sometimes look a bit silly, but I like how they don't just rip off the standard LOTR fantasy aesthetic, and instead give things a more practical medieval feel. Of course clothes looked dumb and baggy when they were made by hand without synthetic polymers.

Also, I could have sworn that they've already been corrected multiple times on the erroneous belief that Cities: Skylines has any connection to Cities XL.

@humanity: it's game if the year, not interactive fmv thing if the year

@humanity: it's game of the year, not interactive fmv thing if the year

Probably mentioned but Cities Skylines has absolutely nothing to do with the Cities XL series beyond having 'Cities' in the title. It's a spinoff of Cities in Motion.

You can't trademark 'Cities' I guess.

Yea. After a while I hit a wall in meatboy because I suck at platformers but I think Ori balanced not hitting that wall but still being challenging perfectly.

I think MGS5 gets short-changed a little bit in the best-looking discussion. Its animations are absolutely fanastic, and while the environments are a little bland, they are appropriate for the setting. I'm happy Ori got plenty of love, though.

Kinda shocked how they were saying Witcher 3 isn't a technical power house. I played it and Metal Gear back to back and the difference was so shocking that I thought MGS had reset my settings from Max to medium.

Amazing how much dedication you guys put into the whole YouTube aesthetic - going as far as to make fake accounts to post YouTube quality comments, now thats dedication.

@sammo21: No hyperbole there at all my friend, Syndicate is one of the most innovative and well made FPS games of the last 5 years. Their concepts of shooting and on-the-fly hacking worked incredibly well and it was all set to some really cool designs. I can't think of any other shooter that did anything even marginally as innovative. New Order which was another phenomenal FPS game, was still very much a point-and-shoot affair.

I was upset there was no mention of Cel Damage HD until I realized it came out last year. Now I just feel old.

@humanity: Except that the story was bland, the characters bad, the shooting average, the weapons were bland, etc, etc. Doing only one thing very well doesn't make the entire product good imo. The hacking was well done but no matter what Jeff says its pretty much the same thing in BLOPSIII. You can argue that Syndicate had some more interesting powers compared to BLOPSIII but the hacking is done the same and is just as on the fly. I think its perfectly fine to say that Syndicate is your favorite but at the same time being able to admit hyperbole in describing it.

@sammo21: Shooting is a matter of personal taste really. I thought the shooting was excellent in the way it integrated the use of DART vision, making it more than just a side gimmick you turned on every hour or so for solving environmental puzzles. Weapon variety was also sufficient for me with some cool twists on the classics. The gun that curved around surfaces was especially neat as were some of the later entries and they all had fun secondaries. The shotgun especially had a really nice, crisp punchiness to it - I'd say even more satisfying than the New Order "mega shotgun" but personally I thought all the guns in that game were a little too big.

To the point, no I still don't think it's hyperbole. I don't think the hacking in BO3 is integrated into the gameplay nearly as well, and the gameplay, the story and characters are a lot more bland than Syndicate. Now I realize I'm stating this as a big sci-fi/cyberpunk enthusiast, but the enemy variety in Syndicate and the way you utilized hacking, dart overlay and specific weapons to take them out were all superior to the rather straightforward "dump" philosophy of Black Ops. I genuinely feel that the movement, the signature Starbreeze first person feel, the gun handling and variety as well as the core systems all make Syndicate one of the best first person shooters of the past 10 years - and when compared to it's contemporaries I don't think that is a heavy exaggeration. My memory might be shaky so if you can name several other shooters that were equally unique and offered more than just holding down the triggers with your crosshairs on the baddies then I'd love to hear them as I'd be more than happy to try them out myself!

Of course as always, subjective this, subjective that, so unless I take the internet-jerk approach and say my opinion is more right than yours there is no right answer here, but that is my honest level headed opinion on the matter which is why I share Jeff's seemingly comical enthusiasm for the game.

I don't like the God of War games, but I don't think referring to a good metacritic score is a bad way to show that you're not the only one that thinks a game is decent. And just because a bunch of people go see Transformers movies doesn't mean anything in this context, a less faulty analogy would be if Transformers movies generally rated well among critics, like the God of War games do. Alex seems to be weirdly trying to get the last word in on all these conversations, hold your ground @danryckert .

Also Syndicate rules.

Hi everyone! I did these timestamps a little after the podcasts were out, but I kinda forgot to put them on the site? I know Myggen posted them here, but just in case it's a few pages back, here they are again:

00:01:39 - Podcast starts, with little shoutouts to previous GOTY talks

00:04:58 - The categories are announced: 2015's Old Game of the Year, Best Surprise, Least Necessary HD Remaster, Best Looking Game

00:06:13 - 2015's Old Game of the Year.

• 00:08:26 - Grand Theft Auto V
• 00:11:03 - Syndicate (not the AC one)
• 00:13:16 - Starcraft II
• 00:15:51 - The Pinball Arcade
• 00:18:32 - Marvel Heroes 2015
• 00:20:48 - Rare Replay
• 00:23:46 - Phantasy Star II
• 00:24:48 - Digital Combat Simulator
• 00:25:29 - Syndicate (still not the AC one)
• 00:26:31 - Elite: Dangerous
• 00:30:19 - Pathologic Classic HD
• 00:32:04 - Destiny
• 00:36:19 - Final discussion (Austin jokingly burns Jeff at 42:31)

00:45:40 - Best Surprise.

• 00:46:18 - Bloodborne
• 00:48:10 - Guitar Hero Live
• 00:54:29 - Rocket League
• 00:56:20 - Ori and the Blind Forest and Axiom Verge
• 00:58:51 - Assassin's Creed Syndicate
• 01:00:43 - Super Mario Maker
• 01:02:39 - Armello
• 01:03:14 - Ronin
• 01:04:46 - Pillars of Eternity
• 01:05:34 - Undertale (spoilers for some weird/cool enemies)
• 01:13:43 - Her Story
• 01:14:08 - Until Dawn (minor spoilers)
• 01:16:51 - Cradle
• 01:17:25 - Rebel Galaxy
• 01:18:19 - Contradiction - Spot The Liar!
• 01:21:37 - Cibele
• 01:25:14 - Hacknet (spoilers)
• 01:26:44 - Cities: Skylines
• 01:28:50 - Dying Light
• 01:30:59 - Final discussion

01:34:07 - Least Necessary HD Remaster.

• 01:36:24 - Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster on PS4
• 01:37:19 - Prototype Biohazard Bundle
• 01:38:21 - Saints Row 4: Re-Elected
• 01:39:11 - Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection
• 01:39:28 - God of War III Remastered
• 01:40:55 - Gears of War: Ultimate Edition
• 01:41:25 - Final discussion (Deadpool is talked about here)

01:45:26 - Best Looking Game.

• 01:46:26 - Rebel Galaxy
• 01:46:35 - The Order: 1886
• 01:47:10 - Broken Age Act 2
• 01:47:49 - Armello
• 01:47:55 - Halo 5: Guardians and Fallout 4
• 01:49:01 - Just Cause 3
• 01:49:30 - Mad Max
• 01:50:00 - Splatoon
• 01:51:38 - Tormentum - Dark Sorrow
• 01:52:47 - SOMA
• 01:53:52 - Assassin's Creed Syndicate
• 01:54:31 - The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
• 01:55:11 - Grow Home
• 01:56:18 - Xenocross
• 01:57:01 - Until Dawn
• 01:58:05 - Cradle
• 01:59:54 - Batman: Arkham Knight
• 02:02:55 - Star Wars Battlefront
• 02:05:56 - Rise of the Tomb Raider
• 02:07:35 - Yoshi's Woolly World
• 02:11:00 - Ori and the Blind Forest
• 02:14:03 - Final discussion

02:25:18 - The day is done!

Why was MGS V not in any category?!

Dan! What were you doing back then? C'mon man! Who can we count on to keep Snake's legacy alive?!