Giant Bomb Bomb-All

MMA Jeff looks hilariously like the old Mulder head on child Mulder body from last night's X-Files.

I've said this before but it frustrates me to no end that Rorie can't make a statement without immediately walking it back at the first sign of resistance.

He's a great community manager though.

Grubber788 wrote:

I've said this before but it frustrates me to no end that Rorie can't make a statement without immediately walking it back at the first sign of resistance.

He's a great community manager though.

Perhaps these two things are related. Being strident and opinionated doesn't always lead to good moderation.

I miss the podcast that Rorie and Alex used to do together when they were at Screened.

Danny's on this week's Beastcast, so I'm looking forward to listening to that.

JeremyK wrote:

I miss the podcast that Rorie and Alex used to do together when they were at Screened.

Yeah, that movie podcast was actually the reason I first subscribed to Giant Bomb. Rorie and Alex worked really well together and I didn't have to worry about haters because most of them would never listen to a podcast with Rorie and Alex. :p

LarryC wrote:

I find it difficult to listen to because there's a whole lot of people talking over each other. It's incredibly annoying.

Yeah, I am a new listener and considering just dropping it because I am used to people actually taking turns and not just trying to talk over each other. Its probably not my thing.

In the 13 Deadly Sims vid, Alex claimed he had never owned cargo shorts...

Buuuuullsh*t, Alex was into metal deep in the Nu period, the most cargo shorty of all musical forms.

Apparently Jeff Gerstman and Dan Ryckert are starting a Dragon Ball Kai discussion podcast. First episode drops Monday. This should be interesting.

I just hope it's worthwhile, and just not them nitpicking it to death since anime is 100% not their thing (so far in their lives... maybe this is their turning point). I also don't know how well DBZ holds up, but to be honest I've not watched Kai. Cutting out a lot of fluff may have helped it.

I've noticed that whether or not they like the subject dictates if they will nitpick a thing to death or just ignore all the flaws.

I've never watched any DBZ. I'm on the fence between not caring about a podcast about DBZ, and being curious to see their reaction to something that I know nothing about.

As someone whose general feeling on DBZ historically has probably been aligned much with Jeff's, but also found myself borrowing Kai from a friend and starting it just after playing 20 hours or so of FighterZ...

I think they did a pretty good job on the first episode of All Systems Goku.

It's far more measured a conversation than I think some seem to be expecting.

On the other hand... The Exquisite Corps contains a moment now that made me say "WHAT? NO WHY WOULD YOU" to the screen before trailing off and realizing that it is just another in a long line of examples of GB folks straight up not reading the words that the game is putting on the screen for them.

The only time in enjoy The Exquisite Corps is when Alex is playing. Abby's refusal to read or accept randomness and Dan's...exact same qualities plus arrogance makes it really tough to watch 2/3s of the time.

I know Kai is where they removed all the filler episodes but I think my greatest problem with the original anime was always the dragged out bs even in the main plot. Seemed like the last 5-10 minutes of an episode was always replayed in the first 5-10 minutes of the next episode.

Plus it just generally dragged out everything even in the stuff that wasn't replayed. I was really irritated by it all then again I was 16 or so when I watched Dragonball Z so part of it could have been my general ADD at the time. I wonder if I should give Kai a chance at some point. Where is it available to stream?

Edit: Regarding Giantbomb not reading prompts and explanations I think it's a really tough thing to do when you're actively streaming gameplay while trying to create good content. I've noticed this a lot with streamers in general and it always drove me nuts. Then I tried playing a game as a friend was watching me stream while asking questions in chat and I felt like I missed everything the game was trying to tell me.

All Systems Goku is exactly what I want. I know more Dragon Ball minutia than is probably good for me-- I run a new media company with deep roots in the DB fandom so it's kind of non-optional-- so hearing the perspective of a couple guys whose only knowledge is having played a bunch of the games and whatever they could osmose from friends whose only knowledge is dim memories of the original Toonami run is amazing.

The highlight of the hour was hearing Jeff say that he always assumed it was pronounced "sigh-an" (the correct Japanese pronunciation), but they're clearly saying "Say-an" (a persistent dub-ism that won't go away) so he must have been getting it wrong all these years.

There's something in my cold black heart that derives no end of joy from hearing people be good-naturedly wrong but being able to do nothing about it. It's freeing somehow to know that, yes, I COULD hunt them up on Twitter and correct them, but I would just get ignored along with the flood of people who are no doubt already doing it even as I think this, and that moreover, none of it matters.

I gotta say, Jeff playing a PS2 Garfield game is just mesmerizing. Most of it is I know just how bad and frustrating that type of crap 3D platformer can be. It's just some damn entertaining self-torture.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

I gotta say, Jeff playing a PS2 Garfield game is just mesmerizing. Most of it is I know just how bad and frustrating that type of crap 3D platformer can be. It's just some damn entertaining self-torture.

The "Mexican City" theme was driving me actually nuts. I'm not sure how he played the whole level without chewing his ears out.

If any Abby doubters remain, which I doubt, her solution to Drew's omission in her Sims show must have surely slayed them.

The XCOM round robin feature is one of my favorite features, but man, Dan has a horseshoe up his butt so big it might have belonged to a Clydesdale. I have never seen so much RNG luck....

Dan is a walking Luck Factory.

His ignorance and stupidity should have killed him long ago (in real life and XCom), yet somehow it works to his advantage in a major way.

It's basically how he lives his entire life, it seems.

He seemed to be in a stressed or bad mood. He doesn't usually rush that much through menus. Not sure what to chalk it up to.
Dan would have learned a very important lesson if he had permanently dismissed The Abomination instead of Gita Jackson.

Dan is super frustrating to watch when reading is involved, but at least he has internalized the idea that games have deterministic mechanics. Sometimes, at least.

Abby...still not sure. Her Sims series is amazing though.

I've never enjoyed The Sims series, so the video series based on it so far has no appeal, even after sitting through half of episodes 0 and 1. Is the game itself supposed to be enjoyable, or just annoying?

Kurrelgyre wrote:

I've never enjoyed The Sims series, so the video series based on it so far has no appeal, even after sitting through half of episodes 0 and 1. Is the game itself supposed to be enjoyable, or just annoying?

Normally it's enjoyable if you're into, well, the Sims. It's a virtual dollhouse where you are amused by the stupid things the AI does, including die in various ways. It can also be a storytelling medium, especially with mods to make it that way.

The way Abby's doing it is more chaotic because, by default, you pause the game a lot to issue orders and have a maximum of 8 people in any given household, so thirteen of them without pausing is absurdly hard. One bathroom definitely doesn't help, either.

But some people don't enjoy The Sims, so you might just want to skip it. I did the same thing with their PUBG streams since I don't really care about that game.

Watching Dan's slow motion transformation into liking anime is hilarious to watch.

Chaz wrote:

Watching Dan's slow motion transformation into liking anime is hilarious to watch.

All Systems Goku top notch so far.

And he just tweeted about how Bayonetta is awesome and he thinks maybe it might be anime?

I've never watched DBZ, but I listened to the first episode of ASG, and I think I need to find a site I can stream dubbed episodes in the background?

There's been a big enough push to turn it into the Giant Anime Cast so I won't really get into it here.

It's streamable at funimation but that's the original. Kai cuts out a lot and as much as I miss baseball Yamcha, Kai is the way to go.

There is no way to stream the beginning of Kai right now. So you're stuck with the DVD/BRDs or... alternatives.

FWIW, I restarted Kai and it's pretty wonderful.

oilypenguin wrote:

FWIW, I restarted Kai and it's pretty wonderful.

Can confirm, at least in that it's definitely the way to go. I'm several volumes into Kai now.

It still drags a little at times but is still night and day relative to the original version of the show.

Is Abby not pausing while doing the Sims because that's part of The Rules, or she's just not thinking to do it? I'm halfway through the first episode and found that a little frustrating. I'm not a huge fan of the decision to work to earn enough money to buy the thing to cause the death, the pace at which they are earning money by selling paintings seems untenable, but maybe the curve will pick up soon...I love the idea of this series, and Abby's Sims look incredible, but the first hour or so hasn't been what I'd hoped. Fingers crossed things will pick up and they'll figure out the best way to present this stuff.

Hang on for the second half of the episode. She eventually climbs the earning curve and starts making good money. I think she mentioned it at some point, but the curve looks bad at the beginning because everyone's painting skills are low, and it improves as they skill up.

Definitely stay tuned for

Spoiler:

Drew the food cart worker.

The pausing thing I think was a throwaway "rule" created on the fly at the beginning. I dunno, the chaos of 13 sims plus one bathroom plus no pausing is funny to me.