Giant Bomb Bomb-All

I deeply love Nextlander and a part of that is Vinny, Alex, and Brad are cool to chat with on discord.

There are times I really like Jess but she certainly rubs me the wrong way a lot. I’ve chalked a lot of it up to her interests not aligning with mine and her “grew up on the internet” personality. I also don’t give a sh*t about horror games.

I have basically not paid any attention to Giant Bomb at all for a long time now, and Nextlander is a 15 episode backlog on my podcast app, and I have many other podcasts that I will float to the top first. I think I just don't need video games coverage in my life anymore.

NSMike wrote:

I think I just don't need video games coverage in my life anymore.

Yeah, it's funny that I used to listen to like 10 video game podcasts off and on for ages. I'm now basically down to MinnMax, Game Junk and Nextlander and a couple others for year-end list episodes only, and even out of those 3 I will sometimes see what's being discussed and skip it. Gaming news is mostly dull so I don't really need multiple hot takes on the fact that there is a rumour that a best-selling game I still haven't gotten around to playing yet will have a sequel.

I also realistically will just not play the vast majority of what is being released. I've had more free time to play video games over the past year then I have had for over a decade, and it still amounts to completing 1 game a month being the best case scenario. So there's a limit to how much in-depth discussion for multiple titles I've already decided isn't my thing I'm willing to listen to.

My interest in video content has waned as well. So many movies and television shows I haven't gotten to. Watching someone else play a video game seems like I'm wasting time these days.

NSMike wrote:

I have basically not paid any attention to Giant Bomb at all for a long time now, and Nextlander is a 15 episode backlog on my podcast app, and I have many other podcasts that I will float to the top first. I think I just don't need video games coverage in my life anymore.

This is where I am. Random YouTube reviews of Switch games (which is mostly what I play anymore) seem to be enough.

I like the chapters on Nextlander... all I really want is the hot takes on the news anyway... Bombcast people haven't recommended a game I liked to me in years at this point.

Why can't I just get a gaming news podcast from some industry veterans with a little snark and some decent background.

manta173 wrote:

I like the chapters on Nextlander... all I really want is the hot takes on the news anyway... Bombcast people haven't recommended a game I liked to me in years at this point.

Why can't I just get a gaming news podcast from some industry veterans with a little snark and some decent background.

Is GameScoop still a thing on IGN? I haven't listened to anything IGN in years, but I seem to remember that was their jam.

I don't know if I have anyone anymore that I line up with in game tastes. So it really is more of if a combo of people on giant bomb like a game then maybe I will like it.

I tried some nextlander but I am not interested in long talks of video games and I don't care about most of the games coming out.

Now, food crimes. That should be a 5 hour weekly podcast.

I've almost dropped all my podcast except for gaming ones and those are Bombcast, Lextlander, and some Firescape. I guess I'm up to my neck in true crime and all the news shows are pretty damn boring when it's all about the DiNOs. Then some of my staples like Reply All have changed or just went away.

I listened to GB some years ago, after Ryan Davis' passing but when Jeff and Vinny were still on the same show. I had not been playing games for quite a while at that point, nor really paying much attention to them, which feels alien to me now notwithstanding that I still don't play a lot. But I eventually arrived at a similar point mentioned: I know I'm not going to play the vast majority of what's discussed, don't get all the references to presumed gaming history, and ultimately felt a frustration borne of gaming vicariously through the podcasters and having no fun of my own.

One podcast I think I'd listen to today, that I really miss, is Michael Abbott's Brainy Gamer.

For the record, I'm still listening to Fire Escape, which got me to play The Forgotten City, which would have otherwise flown under the radar for me. So I do still find some value in hearing about games from these podcasts. But Fire Escape is much more than just straight gaming. I enjoy the personalities on that show, too. I do really enjoy Vinny & Alex (and I've already expressed my distaste for Brad, but he's not the reason I've stopped listening), and can't express how much I appreciate their format decisions on Nextlander, especially the recap of what they talked about at the end of the gaming segment, but that show is still very much a lot of inside baseball, and less personality than Fire Escape by comparison.

I like listening to people I like talking about games I will never play because I will never play them.

Also I like hearing the news section affirming my opinion, i.e. hearing "well, Bobby Kotick is indeed totally sh*t" is nice. Not saying that's the greatest thing but there you go. Although acquisition talk dominating every show this week is going to be boring.

Voicemail Dump Truck is my favorite GB content atm. Typically never miss that.

Outside of that, I've been getting more mileage out of YT / Twitch streamers that follow more niche content and have entertaining personalities. Stuff like Tomato on Twitch and SplatterCat / Nookrium on YT.

Like others have said in the past, I'm really missing Idle Thumbs and Important If True.

Stupid Valve buying them and giving them a stable income.

I'm in a similar boat to other posters. I'm not sure if I'm burning out on gaming podcast generally, or on the Giant Bomb/NextLander format specifically. It's probably both.

Other posters have made me miss Idle Thumbs too. I've just downloaded one of the last episodes for a blast from the past. Was it really only 2018 when they stopped making it?

Vrikk wrote:

Like others have said in the past, I'm really missing Idle Thumbs and Important If True.

Stupid Valve buying them and giving them a stable income.

Somewhere on whatever voice solutions Valve has for team chat, on servers we will never access, I like to think that there are 100+ episodes of IT and IiT.

On the other hand, it seems like Valve likes to buy people and have them not work, but rather wax philosophical on game design. It seems like a good job if you can get it.

Aaron D. wrote:

Voicemail Dump Truck is my favorite GB content atm.

It's a whole lot of hot garbage, which I love GB for.

NSMike wrote:

For the record, I'm still listening to Fire Escape

I very much prefer to have a video version of the podcasts, and paying the Patreon amount for that is just not in the cards for me right now.

As for this week's GiantBomb content, it's GOTY week. Not sure what it looks like but excited to listen to some of their views.

I still quite enjoy the Bombcast:

and I listen to Nextlander when I remember, usually on the weekends. Their joint PAX panel with Fire Escape showed up recently, and I gave it a good faith effort, but eventually it descended into Rykert complaining that he couldn't find a Pizza Hut in New York or something, and I remembered "Oh yeah!" and turned it off.

Some weird marketing ideas for that Mach-E.

trueheart78 wrote:

As for this week's GiantBomb content, it's GOTY week. Not sure what it looks like but excited to listen to some of their views.

It starts very strong.

SpacePProtean wrote:
trueheart78 wrote:

As for this week's GiantBomb content, it's GOTY week. Not sure what it looks like but excited to listen to some of their views.

It starts very strong.

Yes. Yes it does.

I am still shocked by Jeff's personal GOTY. I won't spoil it, but I think it may say something about the year in games, or the place he is in, or about his increasingly melancholy views.

UpToIsomorphism wrote:

I am still shocked by Jeff's personal GOTY. I won't spoil it, but I think it may say something about the year in games, or the place he is in, or about his increasingly melancholy views.

I'm assuming it's either a phone clicker, another cut-and-paste Call of Duty game, or something completely out of left field because he continues to become more and more of a grumpy old man.

I mean, he refused to play Inscryption because it has cards in it, even after people said it's different, and that he should at least play the first Act since that's the part that people were raving about.

His response? "Card games are f*cking terrible."

For someone that is incredibly annoyed by games that do not try to be inventive (which I understand since he's been in the business for decades), I would assume something that potentially has some cool in it would be worth at least a couple hours so you can say "yeah, it has some nice aspects to it, but I still get hung up on card battling."

Vrikk wrote:
UpToIsomorphism wrote:

I am still shocked by Jeff's personal GOTY. I won't spoil it, but I think it may say something about the year in games, or the place he is in, or about his increasingly melancholy views.

I'm assuming it's either a phone clicker, another cut-and-paste Call of Duty game, or something completely out of left field because he continues to become more and more of a grumpy old man.

I mean, he refused to play Inscryption because it has cards in it, even after people said it's different, and that he should at least play the first Act since that's the part that people were raving about.

His response? "Card games are f*cking terrible."

For someone that is incredibly annoyed by games that do not try to be inventive (which I understand since he's been in the business for decades), I would assume something that potentially has some cool in it would be worth at least a couple hours so you can say "yeah, it has some nice aspects to it, but I still get hung up on card battling."

Nope.

Spoiler:

Halo Infinite, which he reviewed and gave 4/5 stars.

Heh, I'm with him on the card thing. I tried Inscryption, hoping all the frog fractions comparisons meant the card game would eventually go away, but I played for a while, and it didn't, so I stopped. I asked people who played it if the card game goes away at some point and got a hard no, so I was done.

UpToIsomorphism wrote:

I am still shocked by Jeff's personal GOTY. I won't spoil it, but I think it may say something about the year in games, or the place he is in, or about his increasingly melancholy views.

His depression runs deep. Gotta be, right?

The very first time I listened to a Bombcast back in 2015 or so I got the impression that Jeff was burnt out on the whole industry/his job. Being in your 40s with (2?) kids and a mortgage makes it tough to leave a job, which probably doesn't help the feeling of burn out.

I am still blown away by the Letter of the Year award. Such a wonderful way to start the GOTY Discussion.

trueheart78 wrote:

I am still blown away by the Letter of the Year award. Such a wonderful way to start the GOTY Discussion.

I haven’t listened but is this like the Apology of the Year award from 2014ish?

Vector wrote:
trueheart78 wrote:

I am still blown away by the Letter of the Year award. Such a wonderful way to start the GOTY Discussion.

I haven’t listened but is this like the Apology of the Year award from 2014ish?

Nope. Literally, like "F" or "E" or "Z".

trueheart78 wrote:
Vector wrote:
trueheart78 wrote:

I am still blown away by the Letter of the Year award. Such a wonderful way to start the GOTY Discussion.

I haven’t listened but is this like the Apology of the Year award from 2014ish?

Nope. Literally, like "F" or "E" or "Z".

A hint:

The people discussing the award are Jeff, Jeff, Jan, Jason, and Jess