Quick Look: Plants vs Zombies: Battle for Neighborville

Jeff stopped doing Quicklooks?

gb east always introduce themselves on QLs. very rude, west coast

I remember walking around a hub in Garden Warfare 2, so that's not new. What's new though is that the hub is now a social space.

Luigi and sadness

One thing I can confirm as an Irishman is that Potatoes are vegetables.

The fact that the corn character has little corncob-buttcheeks is making me uncomfortable.

So much fucking style in this game... Also I kinda wanted Jeff on this quicklook to talk about the way they use this engine and whatnot

I'm surprised they let you spend all that time customizing the look of your character while the game is going, I would be pretty upset with my teammate if they were picking the right hat in the middle of a match!

Is beef squashing like waffle stomping?

This is a very good and fun game, kids are loving it.

The first two games were great, but both of them got really lopsided after just a few weeks due to overpowered classes, and sadly the developers seemed to do very little to counter it.

This looks like a lot of fun. I liked the first one quite a bit but skipped the second. Might have to look at this one.

I've never understood why Steam Punk illicits such a strong negative reaction in some people.

I'm talking talking about normal rational people too. It's the internet. People will go off half cocked on literally anything. But those people usually typically aren't worth listening too for obvious reasons.

Steam Punk however can often turn otherwise easy going people, who wouldn't typically start spouting vitriol because people like a thing they don't, into baseline forum/comments/twitter trolls.

Ben here immediately going "Fuck Steam Punk" at the drop of a dime would seem out of character for him... if it wasn't Steam Punk.

People have inexplicably strong opinions about Steam Punk. Same goes for the folks who just fucking *love* it.

It's baffling. It's such an innocuous aesthetic. "What if they invented slightly more advanced technology sooner" as a setting. Also goggles. Who cares? Even if that's not your jam, who cares? You just don"t see people getting angry about it in the same way when it comes to any other genre. Sci-fi, fantasy, western, zombie fiction, horror, etc. People certainly dislike those things. But Steam Punk? "Fuck Steampunk" every single time.

It's fascinating in that very human way of being utterly irrational yet super wide spread. If it's just a runaway meme I wonder it's origin.

This looks so clean! I love the graphics and like Brad said they did a great job with the engine here. I've always been a huge fan of the Frostbite engine and couldn't believe how good Battlefield 4 looks for being an early adopter of that engine.

Yeah the chopped down the class bloat a ton, so hopefully the balance is better.

@tevor_the_third: I'm sure a large factor is that steampunk is *everywhere* and, undoubtedly to many people's minds, trite, overdone and iterative. It's the same phenomenon that "fuck zombie games" and "fuck world-war-two" games experienced.

Then you have weirdos like me who are grumpy that steampunk cribbed off the cyberpunk aesthetic, without any of the societal criticism, existential questioning or counter-culture that is fundamental to the genre. Steampunk is all flash and no substance and "Oh ho, I glued my watch to this top-hat and now I'm good to go!"

In short, get off my virtual-lawn, you damn steam-kids!

It still shocks me how good the GW games are. I rolled my eyes so hard when they announced GW1, but I came to love them, maybe even more than the original PvZ (which is an all-timer for me).

As for steampunk... c'mon, y'all, it's innocuous and fun! Overdone? Sure. Often boiled down to "let's put a cog on something that doesn't have cogs"? Yuuup. But nothing wrong with some airship pirates and goggles now and then. Also, there are some really good bands in the steampunk space.

I'd love some dog-sized steampunk-ish goggles.

yo that's a stargate

is stargate finally back

Usually I want to vomit when Giant Bomb discuss cheese for any length of time, but this one didn’t bother me. Must be because Nacho Dan wasn’t involved.

@tevor_the_third: It's not as innocuous as it seems. It can feel to some people like an attempt at reputation laundering the height of racist imperialism as regards to industrial Britain.

I personally can't get enough of it but I see where people are coming from. Imagine if we had games about alternate reality technological Confederate States of America or some shit. Isn't always going to apeall to everyone.