Giant Bomb Fan Club

[evilwallpaper]

Just now, Mafro said:

I think it's pretty telling how many people have fallen off Giant Bomb here and elsewhere with the lack of GOTY discussion. What on earth is Jess' problem with Immortality? And what was with it basically being cut to not upset her despite being in two peoples top ten?

 

The way Jess has talked about Immortality and Sam Barlow with such hatred has finally made me stop listening to Giant Bomb. Its fine to shit on something thats acctually bad or a person is acctually terrible, but it just seems to all boil down to some bitter silent hill fan shit.

 

Its a shame, I liked most of what she brought to the team.

[deerokus]

It seems like she has some sort of personal issue with Sam Barlow for no apparent reason. Because he made a silent hill game she didn't like, I assume? I can understand not liking the game, it's artsy and arguably a bit self-indulgent, definitely not for everyone, but her venomous reaction is something else. Belongs on Tumblr or whatever.

 

As for GOTY, I'm not sure who would want to know what half of those folk liked. And they've got no guest lists this year, presumably because they don't have any friends willing to do it.

[Benny]

"Reviews are ads"

 

 

No wait. I'm sorry, let me read that again...

 

Spoiler

 

[Chindie]

I look forward to the next advert I see that says 'this product is alright, I guess. Technically a bit rough but does the job, kinda, 6/10'.

[Calashnikov]

I think Jess tried to dress up the Sam Barlow hate by making his work out to be misogynistic in some sort of woke-pandering strategy, but failed to read the room in that, actually, arty intellectual (i.e. woke) people tend to see a lot of merit in his work, and she's just doubled down in a ball of flames. She does my nut in, and her "rise" is pretty much why I've bailed. I kinda like a good few folk still on it, but can't stand her at all.

 

I guess it's another thing she can put on her bio besides "I really like Silent Hill, me." But then I come in here and find out it's probably because of Silent Hill anyway  

[Benny]

Sounds like a very weird take indeed. I guess it's not surprising also if you think your job is to write ads for people that you would end up approaching the act of criticism with an antagonistic immaturity.

[Gambit]

2 hours ago, deerokus said:

As for GOTY, I'm not sure who would want to know what half of those folk liked. And they've got no guest lists this year, presumably because they don't have any friends willing to do it.

 

I remember the guest lists being Alex Navarro's department, so I'm guessing nobody else could be arsed to do it when he left.

 

Speaking of, so much was made about the core team when Jeff left but so far what exactly has Dan been doing? I understand he had a recent family tragedy but before that he seemed more interested in Fire Escape and his Twitch channel rather than the job he's paid to do. And the rare stuff I have seen him on there's nobody who can reign in his bullshit so it's spectacularly irritating.

 

I've not listened to any of the GOTY stuff as I really don't care about the site anymore. More interested in hearing Jeff talk to be honest. 

[Gambit]

1 minute ago, Benny said:

Sounds like a very weird take indeed. I guess it's not surprising also if you think your job is to write ads for people that you would end up approaching the act of criticism with an antagonistic immaturity.

 

And I think that the issue with current GB. Nobody left their is actually good at the critical aspect of discussing games

 

[Mafro]

3 hours ago, evilwallpaper said:

 

The way Jess has talked about Immortality and Sam Barlow with such hatred has finally made me stop listening to Giant Bomb. Its fine to shit on something thats acctually bad or a person is acctually terrible, but it just seems to all boil down to some bitter silent hill fan shit.

 

Its a shame, I liked most of what she brought to the team.

 

2 hours ago, deerokus said:

It seems like she has some sort of personal issue with Sam Barlow for no apparent reason. Because he made a silent hill game she didn't like, I assume? I can understand not liking the game, it's artsy and arguably a bit self-indulgent, definitely not for everyone, but her venomous reaction is something else. Belongs on Tumblr or whatever.

 

As for GOTY, I'm not sure who would want to know what half of those folk liked. And they've got no guest lists this year, presumably because they don't have any friends willing to do it.

 

Petty nonsense like that makes me immediately ignore anything she has to say as a critic.

[stir fry]

The thing is I wouldn't mind listening to a spirited debate over whether or not Immortality is itself complicit in the exploitation it's trying to cast a critical eye on. But I guess the kind of debate current GB would provide would be one sided, or at the least not willing to really get into the weeds on that stuff. I think that's a shame.

 

I'm not unsympathetic to the view Jess has of the game, while not completely in agreement. But I dunno, some of Jess' hyperfixations are intense and tend to smother out possibility of some interesting discussion. Again, not something I'm unsympathetic to as I can be the same way myself, but to opt out of chatting about the game at all isn't the move imo

[Isaac]

Every time I see this thread bumped I expect it to be a story about how they are closing the site.

 

I don't see how it continues to be a running concern.

[Gambit]

17 minutes ago, Isaac said:

Every time I see this thread bumped I expect it to be a story about how they are closing the site.

 

I don't see how it continues to be a running concern.

 

The site either gets shuttered this year or completely folded into Gamespot. This is my prediction.

[Flub]

I get the feeling they're trying to attract a younger audience which isn't a bad goal. I just don't think they'll manage it to the extent they still are a going concern. The site had a unique "Gaming with a bunch of your mates" vibe and it's pretty much lost that now.

[Mafro]

2 hours ago, Flub said:

I get the feeling they're trying to attract a younger audience which isn't a bad goal. I just don't think they'll manage it to the extent they still are a going concern. The site had a unique "Gaming with a bunch of your mates" vibe and it's pretty much lost that now.

 

There isn't anyone there I'd want to be mates with.

[Gambit]

Nah, I'd happily play a few rounds of Street Fighter with Jason.

[stir fry]

Jan, Jason and Jeff B are all cool dudes.

[bear]

2 hours ago, Flub said:

I get the feeling they're trying to attract a younger audience which isn't a bad goal. I just don't think they'll manage it to the extent they still are a going concern. The site had a unique "Gaming with a bunch of your mates" vibe and it's pretty much lost that now.

That vibe died during the COVID lockdown period to be fair, that isn't meant as a criticism just a natural consequence of the way things were. 

 

I think there's a fixation on creating content so that there's a regular stream of content but quality is suffering.

 

For instance, I'd seen some of Grubbs articles over the years as a natural side effect of who I followed on Twitter but I didn't start following him until after I read his Stadia review which I felt did the best job of summing up the flaws with Google's offering. A lot of other reviews fixated on the technical but his didn't and instead spoke, correctly I reckon, about how the biggest challenge was trying to entice customers into a new closed garden while they weren't offering new experiences. His How Games Make Money podcast was good, maybe over edited, and wasn't like a lot of other podcasts I've heard. Heck, I even liked his weekly rumour and innuendo show for Giantbomb before he started full time. 

 

With all that said, I rarely listen to his daily show and him doing zany or goofy stuff like playing Bubsy feels forced and isn't a good use of him.

 

From reading his stuff on Gamesbeat I know he is a decent writer and was hoping that going to Giantbomb would see him move towards doing more in depth writing or work instead of having to churn out multiple articles everyday but that hasn't happened and instead of those articles we get Game Mess Mornings segments.  

 

 

Jess defining so much of the way she presents herself around the idea she loves Silent Hill is just weird. 

[Flub]

5 minutes ago, bear said:

That vibe died during the COVID lockdown period to be fair, that isn't meant as a criticism just a natural consequence of the way things were. 

 

 

 

Oh yeah totally but I think a big part of the downfall is people getting burnt out working for a company that just wants the line to go up. It must be soul destroying.

[Chindie]

In fairness the content was struggling even before the pandemic. Just during the pandemic the content dropped off a cliff.

 

The quick looks dropped off, the random bits like mailbags and the like, Ranking of Fighters just stopped, etc etc, and then the pandemic killed everything. About the only thing that worked during the lockdowns was Alex's drumming streams, which is basically cheating as it was just a weekly radio show.

 

Fuck knows what it is now.

[Gambit]

"This Year In Giant Bomb" section really shows up current GB this holiday season. They've already done the GOTY podcasts, there seems to be no Christmas themed special pre-recorded videos, apart from one thing on Boxing Day. Awful. 

 

I remember Jeff saying he always liked the podcasts and videos being released over Christmas time because he knew that some people really struggled during this time, dealing with family and the like. It served as a nice distraction.

[Chindie]

The annual game of the year coverage where they made bizarre little skits that ran across the week and did recaps if the days podcast results were some of the best internet content ever.

[Scribblor]

They stopped that a year or two before the pandemic, didn't they? I don't think the lack of specialtacular videos is new.

 

Agree that they were fantastic though!

[Chindie]

Yeah they absolutely got worse over time - they dropped the 'wider concept' skit thing around 2016 I think and switched to the crew just fucking around in various games (stuff like a couple of hours of rotating players on Rock Band) which just wasn't as good. Better than nothing but the stuff they were doing before was just so fun and seemed like a lot of creative people having a laugh. And then they couldn't be arsed.

 

Generally though their video output absolutely tanked from about... 2018 or so? As said above. They just didn't do much anymore. And then the pandemic absolutely killed it. I'm sure in that period there were still good things they paywalled but the impression really seemed to be they just didn't do much anymore. Even things like Quick Looks, they scaled back and seemed like they'd barely even played some of the stuff they were demoing.

 

A terrible shame. There's a solid... 8/9 years were they were peerless.

[Simmy]

When was the sofa ditched in favour of that news desk ?

 

If my memory serves correctly that was the beginning of the end.

[dave7g]

I tried to give the GOTY a chance but there was at least 10 people shouting meme jokes over each other at the start so I gave up. I have no doubt Elden Ring won everything because of Tam.

[Couch Corpse]

Here's Dan's top 100 all time.

 

Mike Tyson's Punch Out)!

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past

Metal Gear Solid

Super Mario World

Soul Calibur

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Super Mario Odyssey

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater

Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty

Super Mario Bros. 3

Elden Ring

Super Mario Galaxy 2

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3

Goldeneye 007

Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2

Super Mario Galaxy

Super Mario 64

The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

Mario Party 2

The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds

Twisted Metal 2: World Tour

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

Super Mario Maker

Super Mario Bros. 2

WarioWare, Inc: Mega Microgame$

MYF No Mercy

Super Mario Sunshine

Red Dead Redemption

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots

Resident Evil 4

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island

Contra Hard Corps

Super Puzzle Fighter 11 Turbo

Mortal Kombat 2

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe

NFL Blitz

NBA Jam: Tournament Edition

Super Mario 3D World: Bowser's Fury

Star Fox 64

NBA Street Vol. 2

Devil May Cry 3

Punch-out!! (Wii)

Wii Sports

Mario Kart: Double Dash

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

Metroid Prime

Stardew Valley

Rock Band 2

Batman: Arkham Asylum

WCW/NWO Revenge

The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker

Vampire Survivors

Mega Man 2

God of War 2

Hades

Perfect Dark

Picross 3D: Round Two

Hitman 2

SSX Tricky

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

Resident Evil Remake

Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest

Shadow of the Colossus

Super Mario Bros.

Burnout 3: Takedown

Street Fighter IV

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance

Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal

Super Street Fighter 11 Turbo

Resident Evil 2 Remake

Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Outer Wilds

Command & Conquer: Red Alert

Ken Griffey Jr. Presents Major League Baseball

Tekken 3

Metroid Dread

Super Metroid

Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction

Journey

Dead Cells

Sonic the Hedgehog 2

Tetris Effect

Death Stranding

Gitaroo Man

Katamari Damacy

Gears of War 2

Halo 3

Astro's Playroom

Fortnite

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

The Legend of Zelda: Minish Cap

Super Smash Bros. Melee

Portal 2

Bioshock

Quackshot: A Donald Duck Bullshit

Shenmue

 

 

[Kayin Amoh]

Tetris Effect below everything else on that list that's above it?

 

Lists were a mistake.

[Benny]

I'm as much a Nintendo apologist as the next Polecat, but that's a very Nintendo heavy list.

 

And it includes Fortnite

[makkuwata]

Final Fantasy Tactics advance, just to make a statement.

 

The gift that keeps on giving for Drew…

[dave7g]

Elden Ring no. 12?

 

Nah