Wait till you get to Brad’s Destiny filibuster.
Quaro
4942
The GOTY podcasts were always like that, in my memory. They spent like two hours arguing over a Mass Effect DLC.
My favorite podcast continues to be http://crateandcrowbar.com/ – great mix of game impressions and design discussion, AAA and little-known indie games.
I second this. It and the GWJ podcast are probably my faves. I like Idle Thumbs but I wish they’d do more descriptive show notes instead of some vague impressionistic thing. You have no idea going in what they’ll be talking about.
Brad actually kinda backs off, mostly here, at least compared to prior years.
I’m on Day 3, and they’re doing Best Debut, and Navarro wants to mention Hearthstone and Gerstmann finally sounds like a guy who’s ready to toss the guy out a window. “I just wanted to note my conscientious objection to it not being included,” says Navarro, being just annoying as shit.
“OK. Congratulations. Whatever.” I wanted to high five Gerstmann right through my iPhone.
The Bombcast remains my favorite podcast, and I typically love their GOTY debates, but I didn’t really care for this year. Maybe it’s because there didn’t end up to be very many games I genuinely loved this year, and those that I did (Gods Will Be Watching, Valiant Hearts, Dark Souls II) were largely dismissed out of hand, so I just wasn’t very invested.
I’ve never heard any of the GOTY podcasts on Giant Bomb, but from the few other podcasts I’ve heard from them, I’m really surprised that Brad is so passionate about certain games. The whole reason I can’t stand the Giant Bomb podcast is because Brad’s cynicism towards game is so toxic. I actually hate games after listening to Brad talk about games. Just his whole demeanor towards how formulaic games are, and how he categorizes them and puts them in boxes, and it’s just all so clinical and cynical, and ugh. I don’t know how he feels that way about games, and yet continues to be in the industry he’s in.
But if he argues so passionately about some of these games in GOTY podcasts, then maybe I was wrong about him.
Navvaro has annoyed the shit out of me for years, and I always cringe when he’s on the podcast. I really miss Vinny and Patrick and now I see Patrick is leaving GB entirely, which is a bummer (though neither of those have been on the podcast for some time). Brad and Jeff still get me to listen every week (by and large) but the new guy with the very odd views on life, the universe, and how to be a human (Dan) I find more annoying than enchanting.
EDIT - Also, it’s been bothering me for months how the bomb cast crew is embracing that it takes 45 minutes of talking about shit like wrestling before they get to the game discussion, and then a large chunk of it boils down to “just watch the quick look for more of our thoughts”.
I DO love this podcast though, but it used to be the very best.
Busbecq
4949
I thought this year’s Giantbomb GOTY podcasts were the most congenial they’ve ever been.
LMN8R
4950
My problem with Giant Bomb’s GOTY podcasts (and all GOTY coverage) is that they all feel the need to rush things this year instead of waiting until a little into next year. Why not? It’s not like there’s anything coming out in January, why not take that time to finish playing stuff you want to instead of bitching on podcasts that you wish you could have?
Imagine if the Oscars were held on December 31st. How ridiculous would that be?
Didn’t say it wasn’t congenial. That’s just you projecting.
It’s quite congenial. It just feels like being at that 4:30 meeting and one dude just keeps going on and on and trying to hard and everyone else is too polite to say much, except at the margins bits of frustration escape.
Vesper
4952
The website shows what games they talk about so that’s considerably more useful.
Wait for it, how else do you think Destiny got into the Top 10.
RickH
4954
Every time I have tried to listen to this podcast, I have given up before they talked about any games. Too much blather about wrestling or energy drinks or inside jokes I don’t get. Worse than the IGN Playstation podcast, and that one is marginal.
This kind of hints at the main problem with the GB podcast and crew now. They’ve so completely committed to their paid content and subscribers at this point–which can’t be an enormous group, I wouldn’t think–that they’ve become exponentially more insular. Which is bad, because this was always a fairly insular podcast. If you’re a podcast casting a wide net for a big audience, I think you have to be aware (if you’re in and around SF especially) that you need to cast a wide net as much as possible. While the dudebro clubhouse trappings can be fun, occasionally you’d better get off your front porch.
Giant Bomb seems to have become this thing where everything is what’s on the front porch, and nowhere else. The in-jokes have become so “in”, that they’ve lost meaning outside the context. How many times am I going to hear about Velvet Sundown on this year’s podcast? Or WWE Supercard? More to the point, how many discussions went to “When we played this at PAX…”
When the humor of your podcast has devolved largely into an area in which “Cool story, bro” is a perfectly legit response, you’ve lost the tune.
The bumpage of this thread reminded me to mention that Part 2 of Soren and Rob Pardo popped up a few weeks ago. Fascinating stuff behind the scenes at Blizzard.
Huh. It’s actually felt to me like the amount of time on the Bombcast dedicated to games had increased noticeably over the past year–at least since Ryan’s death.
I think the real difference is the non-gaming discussions aren’t as much fun with both Ryan and Vinny missing. It was fun for a while getting a glimpse of Dan’s bizarre world view but that’s mostly over.
Aleck
4959
I really, really miss Ryan. I’m not sure if I would have liked him as a real world person (just because I don’t know him in that context), but he was an amazing podcast host who really tied the crew together. I’m glad to see them finding a new groove, but w/o Ryan and Vinny it really feels like a very different podcast.
I hate to finally admit it “out loud” (so to speak) but I agree - it hasn’t been the same since, especially once Vinny left. Dan usually just makes my eyes hurt from rolling them so much when he opens his mouth, and none of them seem to actually be “gamers” all that much. They are gamers now like my brother in law is, in that he games but when I ask about something he’s really only played a few games in the last few months, because he’s busy, and he rarely plays anything I’m interested in.
