Giant Bomb Bomb-All

kuddles wrote:

As I predicted, Abby is much better this year about explaining and describing her opinions.

Yeah, the criticisms of her last year (not necessarily here) always seemed to not take into account that she's new to doing this and in a room with a bunch of people who have been developing their game critiquing vocabulary for -- in some cases -- decades.

That said, as someone who is always hyper aware of vocal tics, both her and Alex saying "like" for every fifth word is driving me up the bloody wall.

Dammit, and now that you've mentioned it I won't be able to not hear it!

I've actually listened to very little of the GOTY stuff the past few years because I found their format to be more about why games weren't that great and I just found it exhausting. This year has been a welcome change.

billt721 wrote:
kuddles wrote:

That said, as someone who is always hyper aware of vocal tics, both her and Alex saying "like" for every fifth word is driving me up the bloody wall.

Dammit, and now that you've mentioned it I won't be able to not hear it!

As someone born and raised in California that stuff just flows off me like water off a duck's back.

Yeah, it's just something I always notice. My own mother adds "and he said" to every single sentence when she tells any story and I just bear through it even though it's hard to focus on anything else.

And yes, I like this "year in review" format much better. While some of the categories they cut could be fun, it usually led to you hearing the exact same discussion multiple times over five days.

Eastwardflea wrote:

And if the mom didn't die the story would've never happened.

Alt-take, ignoring the sexism component:
Authors of stories have infinite expanse of potential ways to motivate characters and stories. It isn't easy to make good on that potential, but "fridging the wife" is a writer effectively giving up. It would seem more appropriate in the older Gods of Warses because those are supposed to be narrative garbage. New God of War is at least presenting itself as maybe attempting to have a writer, so an immediate paint-by-numbers motivation is a juvenile let down.

As for verbal tics, I'm just thankful the East Coast crew has dropped their collective "I would say..." from prefacing every sentence to every third sentence.

Danjo Olivaw wrote:
Eastwardflea wrote:

And if the mom didn't die the story would've never happened.

Alt-take, ignoring the sexism component:
Authors of stories have infinite expanse of potential ways to motivate characters and stories. It isn't easy to make good on that potential, but "fridging the wife" is a writer effectively giving up. It would seem more appropriate in the older Gods of Warses because those are supposed to be narrative garbage. New God of War is at least presenting itself as maybe attempting to have a writer, so an immediate paint-by-numbers motivation is a juvenile let down.

As for verbal tics, I'm just thankful the East Coast crew has dropped their collective "I would say..." from prefacing every sentence to every third sentence.

Fridging the wife is definitely a new term to me. I honestly didn't know this was a thing learn something new everyday

Fridging has been a term for that particular bit of narrative laziness for I think almost 20 years.

I believe there was a website dedicated to cataloging instances of it.

It's still new to me

Delerat wrote:

I haven't played it, but from what I understood, every woman in the game was killed at some point. While games, especially the God of War series, are noted for a lot of death, it stands out when every woman in the game is killed, or to use another word, victimized.

The death of Kratos is wife as a motivating factor is definitely problematic. There is one other main female character in the game (also notable) but she is very much alive at the end of the game.

maverickz wrote:

http://www.lby3.com/wir/

That's the one I remember!

Man just read some of those.

Ms. Marvel I/Warbird (mind-controlled, impregnated by rape, powers and memories stolen, cosmic-powered then depowered, alcoholic - SHEESH!)

What the f*ck?

And stuff like that is everywhere.

Not at all surprising that women are tired of seeing it over and over and over throughout so many bits of media.

It's a little disappointing that Vinny's response to Abby was anything other than "Yeah, fair enough"

Are they not posting write-ups for the actual category results this year? I did my annual "actually open the website and read through whatever caught my eye" this morning and didn't see any results posts, just the deliberations and individual lists.

zeroKFE wrote:

Are they not posting write-ups for the actual category results this year? I did my annual "actually open the website and read through whatever caught my eye" this morning and didn't see any results posts, just the deliberations and individual lists.

Just popped up on my feeds

Here's What Won https://www.giantbomb.com/articles/h...

The fact that Brad and Alex kept trying to keep RDR2 on the Style category after removing DBZ for reasons that completely fit RDR2 (based on a previous media, aping a style well rather than developing a new style, sh*t menus) was freaking infuriating.

bnpederson wrote:

The fact that Brad and Alex kept trying to keep RDR2 on the Style category after removing DBZ for reasons that completely fit RDR2 (based on a previous media, aping a style well rather than developing a new style, sh*t menus) was freaking infuriating.

I feel like most arguments in defense of Red Dead have felt that way so far. I have not played that game some maybe I am missing something.

ahhh tasty GOTY takes, I love 'em

Brad is generally infuriating. I like him less than Dan anymore.

I dunno, Jeff's continual petty chrulishness over seemingly over Red Dead's very existence really soured me. And I don't rank that game especially high myself.

LOL. As of last year, I've started skipping the top ten part, both because my different taste means I could not care less about most of the games they are arguing about, and because it inevitably comes off as petty. I knew Jeff in particular would have a confrontational mood due to his dislike of RDR and God of War, two of the frontrunners.

Also, even without listening to that part, I find all the negative comments about Red Dead 2 frustrating because most of them sound like why I've hated Rockstar games since GTA IV so it's weird that this is the time it bothers people.

Everyone has their threshold for that stuff, but I'm in the same boat. Those games feel bad, but also they try to do too many things. I'd rather they come out a year earlier with way less features. I don't need to play sh*tty tennis in GTA 5.

Anywho, just finished Day 4 and I'm totally won over by this format. They keep a lot of the spoilery stuff out of the first three days and now I feel better skipping the parts about the games I care about for spoilers.
I didn't find Jeff that annoying, but I know he hyperbolizes a bit and has valid points for not liking RDR2. Brad however tends to bring extreme hyperbole. Putting "name 10 games better than Brothers" aside, he is very much a victim to how he feels about things in the moment. Hope there isn't too much to endure in Day 5.

Abby really grew a lot from last year. I'm proud of her. She still has a bit to go, but overall her arguments and detailing of why she liked a game beyond "it was fun a lot" was great. I felt like I understood why she wanted a game on or off a list.

Ben was the All Star to me this time around though. He was incredibly good at moving a debate forward to try to break a stand-off. Usually he's in the background for me, but this year he kept the glue of these proceedings together.

Also, I am continually amazed at Jeff's complete lack of patience in gaming, and Brad's love of stonewalling for a game he likes. Just... magical. Never change.

Vrikk wrote:

Also, I am continually amazed at Jeff's complete lack of patience in gaming, and Brad's love of stonewalling for a game he likes. Just... magical. Never change.

Sometimes I find it strange how Brad and Jeff have spent the longest time being critics and yet they could not have less nuance in their opinions (even more so than Dan), with them finding 90% of the games they talk about either bad on every level or amazing on every level.

But I feel like I'm in a similar place so I'm not one to talk. Most games (or books or albums or TV shows) either grab me nearly completely within the first few hours or turn me off with it's flaws within the first few hours and forcing my way past it almost never leads to a different opinion. So I suppose I can empathize with the impotent rage that must build up when something that blew you away that year is being immediately dismissed by everyone else in the room as not worth talking about, or conversely something you think is terrible is being fawned over for hours and has the potential of being on a "best of a year" list that is somewhat attached to your name.

Maybe they need some kind of extended sabbatical. I worked on one thing for a dozen years straight, and stepping away from it for several months definitely helped me both regain perspective and feel recharged going back to it.

The happiest I see Jeff talking/playing games are the retro stuff from the 80's & 90's or games that play off that nostalgia. The passion he has for that stuff makes it stand out all the more when he's talking/playing most recent games. While I grew up on that stuff I have zero interest in ever going back. Different strokes though.

I've always found Jeff's tastes to be fickle but I think I clued into a big factor: He tends to like multiplayer shooters like COD and then sometimes gravitates towards something like Celeste, Superhot, Picross and Super Mario Maker. I think you're right in that they scratch the same itch as that retro stuff where he likes playing in the same level or the same familiar territory until it becomes second nature to him and he can zone out. Like how he will sometimes play retro games on camera and start talking because he's played the level so many times he doesn't need to pay attention, and will rarely try a different technique even if the one he uses isn't ideal, so long as it works.

That's probably why I rarely agree with him since I'm the kind of person who likes to play a more guided experience once to the end and then put down forever, and doesn't care for roguelikes.

That’s also why him taking to Nier last year was so surprising.

I'm now watching the Christmas video content and I was ready to get annoyed watching Rorie build his sim since he's really bad at listening. I did, but I also laughed more than I have in a long time. THEY LOOK NOTHING ALIKE!

I've been listening to the GB podcast for three years, and I wonder whether they'd benefit from using a different format for the GoTY ones. What works/is acceptable for 1 hour and fifteen minutes may work less well for 5 hours.

My main bugbears are:

(1) Talking over each other, and interrupting each other.

I'd favour Oscars-style time limits or little paddles with 'May I chime in here?' written on them.

(2) Not letting Abby Russell speak.

Linked to (1), I found that Abby tended to be cut off more than most. This comes across as boorish to me. In addition to time limits/paddles, perhaps agree an order for speaking so everyone can at least make their main points?

(2) Seeming disorganised

Too often, the individual comments seem totally unstructured; like they speaker has thought broadly about what they want to say, but not at all about how they want to say it. For those who watch the video, are the team using written notes?

At one point in the Game of the Year, Brad (I think) wanted to say something specific about RDR2, and forgot what it was. Write it down, no?

(3) Standard Introductions to each game

I find it particularly infuriating on the standard podcast when they talk about new games without telling you key information, such as Genre, Unique Features, Single/Multiplayer, etc. Instead, they tend to launch into how the game is played.

It would be nice if every game got a standard introduction that allowed every listener to know the basics of game under discussion.

I wouldn't want to destroy the spontaneity and spark, but sometimes it's very difficult to listen to. I wonder whether the team have ever re-listened to their GoTY podcasts with a 3rd party, and asked for feedback.

They've repeatedly stated that they're recording a series of meetings that they do in order to get their game of the year, not making a podcast meant to be easy to listen to. Introducing what sound like debate rules would go against that purpose.

bnpederson wrote:

They've repeatedly stated that they're recording a series of meetings that they do in order to get their game of the year, not making a podcast meant to be easy to listen to. Introducing what sound like debate rules would go against that purpose.

That's fair. But it doesn't follow that the meetings have to be free-for-alls. Nor does that mean that the participants should not be properly prepared, be clear and concise when they make their contributions, and be courteous enough to give each other space and time.

Like many GWJers, I attend lots of meetings during the working week, and I don't think any of them sound like the Giant Bomb ones.

Ultimately, the Giant Bomb crew are publishing these very long GoTY meetings to their subscribers in the expectation that they will listen to them. Making some concessions to improve to the listener experience doesn't seem unreasonable.

bnpederson wrote:

They've repeatedly stated that they're recording a series of meetings that they do in order to get their game of the year, not making a podcast meant to be easy to listen to. Introducing what sound like debate rules would go against that purpose.

I admit to not paying enough attention (or listen to enough of the Giant Bomb podcasts, tbh) to have heard this explanation before, but honestly, it rubs me the wrong way. What they DO end up producing is podcasts, and that fact is definitely not lost on the people in the room, because they're all wearing studio headphones with mics in front of them. There's no way that setting doesn't change the nature of the interaction from "meeting" to something else. I believe there are some who wouldn't really change what they say very much if the mics weren't in front of them (Jeff, maybe Brad), but the rest of the crew is nowhere near inured enough to being at that level of exposure without it constantly in mind.

I think they should either take deliberations completely private, or actually make podcasts.