Million Dollar Abby: II

The timing of our banner ads when that review went up always made me laugh.

Hurray! I thought this was dead! Welcome back Horse(?) Abby!

Bonus points for the comments section making sense of the world for a change as well. Though I think that may break some kind of internet bylaw.

The rule of thirds is the golden ratio applied in the movie frame so Dan was right.

Some very deep talks on this one, enjoyed it very much! Thanks for opening up on your lives!

I'm pretty sure The Golden Ratio is about spinning steel balls, fighting men that turn into dinosaurs, and finding Jesus' magical corpse. I was a major in JoJo.

I am very happy that this series is back! You can do it, Abby!

Funny how they were talking about their customer service experiences and getting angry emails, and Dan probably just got a thousand when he talked about his "film degree"

@tomydingo: It's especially annoying if you know what he said about it in his anxiety book

My favorite J.K. Simmons character is Peanut M&M.

Man, everything nowadays is either about Dan or wrestling.

"It's like Whiplash" dan says as a positive thing

edit: boy I sure hate hearing dans white man opinions about anything about life. Boy they are so bad and he got lucky with everything. Not to say he hasn't worked for things because the man has written a lot of reviews. I love dan but he does not even begin to understand his privilege.

Oh boy, Dan is certainly something special. And no doubt that luck has helped that man.

Thanks for ruining this video for me, Dan. You're really good at your job.

Dan has written five books and wrote hundreds of free reviews before hustling his way onto the Game Informer staff. Maybe think a little before talking about how lucky and privileged he is.

Agreed. Also Face/Off and The Rock are okay movies, but not nearly as great as he holds them.

@bobeta: that's not really what privileged means though. A black student just had the campus police called on them for falling asleep in a student lounge and Dan managed to bullshit his way into a college degree while barely showing up for class and all the while bragging about it. THAT'S privilege. I love Dan, but it is what it is.

I don't think anyone in this thread is questioning his work ethic in his chosen profession; Abby actually explicitly said in this video that wasn't the issue. However, white dude gloating about how he skipped classes all the time and partied his way through college, still managing to get a degree by gaming the system by doing things like getting A's selling Power Hour DVDs sounds like the very definition of a "privileged" experience. That being said, I will give Dan credit and say that what a lot of people attribute to him being "lucky" probably has a lot to do with him always having a really positive attitude, which can be very helpful in most situations.

I love when Abby just gives it to Dan about his schooling.

also worth noting- dan said the privilege of goofing and drinking his way through college put him 86k in the hole.

i'm not defending the man's cavalier attitude towards education, nor his ostensible obliviousness towards his obvious good fortune and station (the man knows what he's doing when he, in his own words, 'riles up the chat'). but it's not like his actions didn't, at the very least, have financial consequences. it's very clear based on his upbringing that he's not a trust fund kid.

frankly i'm more bummed about the state of american education, employment and income disparity than dan's privilege when we have what's effectively society-mandated personal debt that in no way differentiates individuals in the job market. if you do a thing because you have to do a thing, you're always going to have individuals who coast through (and are enabled to do so purely because they were born into a privileged situation). that reality is deeply aggravating- but what's more aggravating to me is that the cost of education continues to increase while the value diminishes.

@mellotronrules: certainly, but I think the two issues can exist on their own. The debt issue can be there and the privilege issue can be there (if anything, it becomes even worse when you consider people of color take on massive amounts of debt and don't have said privilege). American higher education is a mess, that much is for sure.

I would be a little disheartened to think that Dan would be doing this to rile the chat in this particular instance. Again, I love Dan, I even love heel Dan. The Black Mesa QL is maybe one of my favorites. But like, I don't like to think that Dan would purposefully gloat about his education experience just to basically troll people that are members. I think he is genuinely too well-meaning of a person to do that.

@sethmode: 100%.

don't get me wrong- he's making light of circumstances that for some are a deeply stressful and unending struggle. you'd think he'd know better, and it's an ignorant-ass thing to do. to say 'i don't believe in luck' is like saying 'i don't believe in income inequality.'

but personally i've kinda stopped being angry at people who are in a position to not care about college (this attitude is prevalent at all levels of education) and am more pissed at a society that insists 1) college is intrinsically valuable, 2) college is a necessity to participate in the economy, and most of all 3) college must be expensive. the experience undeniably has a value- but the cost/benefit ratio isn't what it's sold as.

Fun stream! Thanks folks.

leans in, what the fuck. Dans 1 year younger than me?.....mind blown, its the magnificent beard.

I enjoyed the stream but having just graduated college the heavy dose of reality was a bit of a downer. I have no idea what I want to do now

People are too precious about college and other's experiences. Chill. College degrees can be hard. Not going to college can be hard, too. Also, both can be easy.

@dwerkmd: I don't think anyone here is being too precious about anything, or saying that outliers for anything don't exist. It's very weird to me that a reaction to what I think is a reasonable discussion here is that people are being too precious.

@sethmode: It's a general statement. Hence why I didn't quote any conversations in this comment section. I simply feel that, in general, people tend to get themselves spun up and insulted over experiences that others had that don't line up with their own experiences.

@dwerkmd: Okay, fair enough, but I guess I am not sure what value such a generalized statement adds? Other than to make people feel bad for feeling a certain way about this? I think the people that have weighed in on this topic have made good points on both sides and I'm not sure anyone has gotten themselves "spun up" or "insulted" about anything. There's a pretty big gulf between being socially aware and insulted, in my opinion.

I don't get nostalgia I guess, I look at these games as quaint relics but compared to something like Assassin's Creed: Origins (which I"m fiending on the dlc of lately and it's sooo goood) this i just barely a game. Jeff and Dan have so much love for old games but despite being Dan's age the older something is the less I enjoy it. To each their own, great vid as Abby and Alex offset Dan's college trolling beautifully.

This was peak Dan, excellent stuff.

I'm not super woke or anything, but I don't know if having a successful white straight man constantly bragging about how easy life has been for him is the best look for Giant Bomb in 2018. Well at least he's not doing the "normal guy" routine anymore, so I'm happy about that.

A lot of older games have crisp, precision gameplay, because they couldn't have much else. Like how older game music has very strong thematic melodies, with recognizable patterns, whereas newer game music uses so many layers of lush instrumentation that you can't pick out a lead "voice" a lot of the time. Like the Beverly Hills Cop soundtracks vs the MCU soundtracks.

There are still games with crisp, moment-to-moment gameplay, but it's a matter of taste. For example, I much prefer fighting games to MOBAs.

Also, it's clear that nostalgia isn't the only factor here, considering how much Abby is enjoying the game.

It's about time someone called Dan out on his "College is easy" idiocy and I'm glad Abby finally told him off.

I mean it more in reference to Dan's "perfect game" list being all old 8 or 16 bit Nintendo games that don't hold a candle to modern games for me. I guess the fact that I've never been a big Nintendo fan will heavily color my opinion, but those games aren't "perfect" and his usage of words can be maddening at times.

That's something everyone can agree on.

In which we learn that the University of Kansas film school is complete bullshit.

I fucking love how Abby has no patience for Dan's "coast through college" bullshit.

Shame they're sticking with the classic version of Punch-Out, which has been played to death at this point. Should've played the Wii version!

@alex You got to where you are not only by dumb luck but by being a good dude and a hard worker.

@jazzcatte: I was wondering where part 1 was. Then i just realised it was ages ago!

The irony is Dan trolled the Civil Engineering class but actually apparently learnt something he still remembers, compared to his film degree where he seems to have actively avoided learning anything.

I don't know if it says more about Dan's place on this site or this video feature's general level of interest that this comments section is basically dominated by discussion of Dan's bad opinions about luck and his higher education, and almost no comments are actually about Punch-Out or Abby's playing thereof.

@steveurkel: Yeah, kind of says it all.

@bisonhero: I can really only speak for myself, but I thought the content was great. And I love Dan. And I'm thrilled that most people aren't here analyzing Abby's playing of the game because literally nothing is worse in the comments than that, and that's in games even like XCOM.

To some degree, I think it's something of a boon that people are focusing on a random conversation piece.

New video series coming up after E3? Does that mean that Blue freakin' Bombin' is coming back soon? That would be sweet. Gotta complete the series!

What are all the horse jokes referencing?

@bombzinski: Rocky was the Italian Stallion in the Rocky movies, so Abby is the American Mare.

I'm glad they didn't give up on this series. Abby did well beating Bald Bull, and she'll definitely get Piston Honda next time.

Really loved this. (I gotta play this at some point. Maybe the 3DS version.)