JM1
4541
Ease up, tiger. Their podcast isn’t aimed at them, it’s aimed at the people they hope to entertain - gamers, most of whom consume some kind of media produced by these guys, be it at GameShark or on the blog. As we are that audience, feedback (good or bad) is entirely within our rights. Just like you’re allowed to praise them without getting all protective.
On to happier things: the recent listener Q&A episode on Three Moves Ahead was fantastic. What sets this podcast ahead of the rest is the feeling that everyone involved is absolutely an expert in their field and that they know how to express complex opinions on their chosen genre. As Brian says, sometimes I have little interest in the game(s) they discuss but I can listen to them for hours because of how well they get their knowledge across to the listener. The Q&A episode had smart questions with even smarter answers that allowed Troy and Rob to just do their thing.
And personally I hope the GTS gang keeps going. I went back and sampled some of their earliest podcasts and they’ve definitely improved over time and with experience.
On an unrelated note, are the Giant Bomb guys not doing their GOTY deliberation podcasts? I haven’t heard anything about it and didn’t they do them by this time last year? Maybe waiting for that Star Wars MMO to do its thing?
Lake
4543
I think the first day of the 2010 version did not post until December 27 so we have a few weeks.
I am so torn right now. On the one hand, I flipped on the television in my office that is permanently tuned to Comedy Central so that I can properly record programming through the analog loophole because Comcast is too stupid to understand that they need to turn off the copy once flag on a channel that comes with basic cable, and there was Garnett Lee talking at me about vidya games with a bigass GameFly thing running down the side of the screen. When the christ did THAT happen?
On the other hand, if it was any time recent, apparently professionals in the field agree with me that his haircut makes him look like he just gave a pair of scissors to a chimp in a wind tunnel, because it was nowhere to be seen. Absorb their wisdom, Mr. Lee.
I seem to recall the game deliberations being later last year. According to my iTunes listing, they released a bunch on Dec 24th.
I can’t wait for this year’s version of last year’s seventeen hour long argument over whether Minerva’s Den or Lair of the Shadow Broker should be best DLC.
Yeah, it’s usually what they post between Christmas and New Years while most everyone is out for the holidays.
Man, Brad hasn’t had any big moments like last year’s best DLC, but it feels like almost every goddam category he’s got something he wants to whine about.
Then again, I guess I’m the only guy in the world who’d stick DA2 under Biggest Surprise rather than Biggest Disappointment. I mean, I thought DA1 was some serious poop, so having DA2 be any good was a bit of a shocker to me. Also, c’mon guys, DA2 is the first sign that not everything Bioware touches turns to gold? So you guys were big fans of Neverwinter Nights 1’s default story? Or Jade Empire? Really?
JonRowe
4550
Uggh. That sucks, I watched their video countdown and was very disappointed. I’ll have to listen to the podcast, but this was the year for Volition to win something for their awesome games. They should have fought harder! But, to be fair, Skyrim is pretty great too. Kind of a they already got theirs feeling with Bethesda. But it’s their website, and overall their top 10 was very good, if not in a perfect order for my tastes.
it took them an hour to decide on those two. I don’t think it’s an unfair result.
It really drives home how meaningless these GOTY lists are, hearing the GB deliberate. When half the people at the table haven’t even played a game, so it’s not considered, you realize how silly the entire process is. Fun, but the lists mean absolutely nothing. Not just Giant Bomb, but I’m sure it’s largely the same for every site that runs them.
Finished listening to the Giant Bomb GotY debates. I don’t really care about how the games end up ranking since I think the debates and discussion are what I find most interesting and entertaining. But I have to say that I was pretty annoyed by the SR3 vs. Skyrim showdown. Brad used the exact same tactics he did in the Minerva’s Den debate last year --just refusing to back down and answering every legitimate point made by the opposition with “No, that’s not true” or “That’s not a big deal.” Jeff’s point that the game was frequently broken and then broken some more by the patches seemed pretty unassailable to me and that argument had JUST been used to cut Mortal Kombat. But Brad just kept coming back with “The game is awesome. That’s the price you pay for so much awesome.” And I’m surprised that nobody really made a stink over Skyrim’s UI problems since that’s a consistent point of criticism. Those two things seem like enough to bump it from the #1 spot.
In the end, though, I’m not disappointed that Skyrim won since I love the crap out of that game and played it a LOT. (Though I can say the same of SR3 and think it lacks the big shortcomings described above). I’m just not amused by listening to an argument that’s only won because one person refuses to concede until everyone else thinks it’s just not worth it to keep going.
Loved the rest of the debates, though. And I think I’ve played more of the winning games than in a long time.
Jesus, that sounds shitty enough that I almost don’t want to finish the podcast. It was bad enough that while none of the first four had as much misery as that one Best DLC deliberation last year, Brad managed a pretty steady amount of whining every time in just about every episode. It’s amazing how much he could bitch just to make sure something made it into the top three even if it didn’t win ‘best’. Knowing that he throws off their top ten by bitching until no one cares? Ugh.
Yup, it’s awful and a downer, and keeps shifting the conversation back to the same crappy gear.
liminal
4557
Mass Effect 2 wasn’t robbed. It did the robbing when it topped the Fifth Annual GotY Awards. Dragon Age came out in 2009.
Oh, that’s right. Bioshock 2 was the one Tom was pushing for and F:NV was the one he was super pissy about doing so well.
Oh well, Batman was still robbed and my thoughts on DA still stand. For me.
And along the lines of my original issue with the podcasts, I find it do bizarre to eat them repeatedly slam Saints Row 2. They consider SR3 a biggest surprise candidate because of how unimpressed they were with sr and SR2. It’s just very much against any consensus I’ve ever experienced, but all five seem to agree.
Edit: obviously posted from a phone. I do not condone eating the giant bomb team.
Manresa
4559
Idle Thumbs may be coming back!
First, Chris Remo tweeted this on Dec. 16:
chrisremo Chris Remo
As some of you know, I have moved back to San Francisco, the city of my birth and an awesome all around place. Fun stuff to talk about soon!
Then the idlethumbs.net homepage was redesigned, and Jake Rodkin posted this on the forums:
One change you guys won’t notice is that we’ve also completely re-done everything under the hood. Yes, though invisible to you, Idle Thumbs is powered by an all new and vastly improved content management system. Huge thanks as always to Doug Tabacco for a ton of amazing web backend work, and thanks also to Mike Watson for helping code up the frontend. As to why we’d fully rip out the underlying backend just to build an archive site… who knows?
http://www.idlethumbs.net/forums/showthread.php?t=7964
Somethings up.
Woohoo! “Space Asshole” FTW!
