Sure, and I agree it’s a fairly widely held impression, I just don’t really understand it, other than that there seems to be a common mindset among gamers that if you don’t like most if not all of the big releases then you’re a hater (see the frequent reactions to Tom’s negative reviews, for instance), rather than just a person with particular tastes.
Sounds like a radical overhaul is in the works.
In a statement, Giant Bomb founder Gerstmann said: “I’ve spent a lot of the last year thinking about what’s next for Giant Bomb and most of those roads lead to a full-on rethink of what it means to be a Website About Video Games in 2021. While I certainly would have loved to solve these challenges with my longtime friends and coworkers by my side, it just wasn’t meant to be. I wish Vinny, Alex, and Brad the best. Meanwhile, we have a pretty exciting opportunity to broaden our horizons, rethink every facet of our operation, and get to a place where we’re truly able to build that bomb all over again… or die trying.”
Speaking to the future of the site, the Giant Bomb team as a whole said: “There is a collective vision for what the future of Giant Bomb is and it involves both familiar and new faces. We’re already in talks with creators so that we can begin the next chapter. We’re fully aware that this marks a big change and we’re using this as an opportunity to rethink what this site is. It’s a chance to introduce new personalities from different backgrounds and explore categories and topics that we never have before.”
It’s good to hear that there’s genres and games that Jeff enjoys. I’m not that familiar with him in recent years. I only listened to the Giant Bombcast for about a year or so back when they first started, and then the yearly “Best of” ones where they talked about the best games of the year. And after a couple of years I stopped listening to those too because of Jeff.
It wasn’t that he disliked popular games. His criticisms were not like Tom’s, where Tom might disagree with the consensus that the narrative was good, or if the gameplay and the story were a good fit for one another, or if a certain game mechanic was enough to carry a game, etc. I just remember Jeff’s criticisms being really jaded and cynical, more along the lines of “it’s another game where you’re aiming at things and firing”, “it’s another game where you’re jumping on enemies heads and jumping to the next platform”, that type of thing, where it’s super-reductive and just very dismissive. It wasn’t any kind of intelligent critique of gameplay systems or characters or narrative or anything useful to me as a listener. I always thought, “wow, I hope one day Jeff finds a hobby or job that he likes”.
Random shout-out for QT3 from Jeff in this week’s Bombcast. Apparently we (or maybe the front pagers?) are the sort of people who run so deep in strategy games that we would call turn based games TBS.
I just found a tabletop roleplaying Actual Play podcast that I LOVE. It’s cyberpunk using the Fate system, and the players and GM do a great breezy job with the system.
But the real draw is their chemistry; they’re having a great time with each other, and it shows. They’ve played together for years, and they’re good at it; they laugh and joke and do it in character. They’re playful with their roles and the story, and use the Fate system to give each other awesome funny moments. It’s a podcast that makes me want to play with them, play more like them, and just play. It’s great.
It’s called The Neon Streets. The Neon Streets on Apple Podcasts
This week’s Ryckertism:
“St. Patrick’s Day, is that a religious thing?”
Oh God, one one of the new Giant Bomb podcasts is teaching Ryckert how things work. First episode: electricity.
Crate and Crowbar has switched to a Flophouse-esque one-week-on-one-week-off schedule, as well as officially going multi-platform, even though it hasn’t really been PC only for a while. The first true off-week episode aired today, and was a run-through of the entire Fast & Furious franchise, of which they are not fans. They had some great lines though:
“It’s like the Avengers movie, if they made the Avengers movie before they made the individual ones. And if the Avengers were cunts.”
The physics in the later movies are described as “Driveatar: the last Carbender”
I’m loving this Fast & Furious episode. They take the polar opposite tack of all series fans and hate these films. Their breakdowns are both hilarious and very well said. Great stuff.
Apparently, this week is the crossover 3MA episode that I never knew I wanted. Three Moves Ahead feat. A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry for an episode discussing “The State”. Contains some heavy references to several Paradox grand-strategy games (e.g., EU4, Vicky 2), as one might expect, but also broaches other games too.
I am in distress. I was looking for my old favourite Jumping The Shark shows, which I had meant to back up for a while, but it seems they are gone from the internet. GONE!
Anybody preserved them by any chance? @rhamorim?
Alas no, I had some on an old phone that is long since out of comission.
That sucks. Any chance they still monitor their contact form on NHS? I sent an inquiry anyway. I’d be happy to throw stuff up on web hosting and generate a feed if they’d make the mp3s available.
This is why I download most treasured podcasts to folders on hard drives that can never get deleted via autoupdate if the feed suddenly blanks.
I’d say try reaching out to Brandon, now of Divided by Werewolves. If anyone has files he might.
But I do think that many are lost for good.
I might have a full backup, actually, but I’ll have to check. I’ll probably know by tomorrow, and if I do, I have to figure out how I can make that available.
That’s amazing. Archive.org might be a solution, for the good of all humanity (and an excuse to drop a word to Bill, Brandon, Danielle and Todd to ask formally for permission ;D
I had a local backup that I’ve been unable to locate (yet), but there’s a really good chance I have a backup of that backup at work. I’ll know for sure tomorrow and then I’ll let you know.
Habemus backup!
All 12 GB of it. Though I don’t have a private server with that much space to make it available. Any ideas?
Hmm, I’m a little short too. I can share a Google Drive folder with you and make the folder link public so your uploads appear, which shouldn’t take up space in your account. Just send me an email address if you want to do that.