Well you're in luck, because if there's one thing the internet has given us it's hundred and hundreds of shitty video game podcasts. Enjoy!
I've been okay with Idle Thumbs lately, but the beginning of this last episode when they're talking about Cart whatever was kind of brutal.
I think they said a while back that it was Nick who was the catalyst for most of the truly funny / random shit that occurred in the original series, but he sparked most of it "off-air". Can we un-fuck Nick Breckon? Fuck Sean Vannerman.
I thought that talking about whether they were anticipating Zombii U or Far Cry 3 less for 20 minutes during the Giant Bombcast Surprise of the Year discussion was the most inane discussion I'd heard in a while, but then they started talking about the best Miiverse Community of the year.
The former was annoying, the latter was self-aware and managed to land squarely on the spectrum between interesting and amusing.
I dunno, I skipped most of it after they started talking about how awesome it was that people were drawing pictures of characters from movies on the Netflix channel.
Just finished Giant Bomb's GotY Podcast deathmarch. They seemed much more mellow this year, and there was no filibustering. I find nothing controversial about their overall GotY pick (nor any of the runner-ups), but there were a couple of things in general that struck me as odd: Oh, spoilers for the podcasts, below, I guess. 1. Dishonored was almost unheard from. They had it on their overall big list, but it got cut almost immediately with no opposition. Weird, because I loved that game and many others seem to as well. Including the Giant Bomb folks. 2. What the hell with all the Space Team stuff? I don't think it actually won anything, but it came close. Definitely suffering from the recency effect. Overall, good stuff. Much more collaborative and smooth than last year.
I agree, Jamie. The GotY podcasts were quite a bit more low-key than in the past, and most of the fighting was over games on the bottom of the list. I think that is partly the result of just how disappointing almost all AAA games were this year. I stlll enjoyed my time listening, but I do miss the contention of years past.
Nobody on GiantBomb besides Patrick liked it. Which I can understand - I picked it up on Boxing Day and played through a couple of levels, but the interesting gameplay and awesome art design is totally let down by the bad writing and bad acting. There's no narrative thrust to get me to finish the game. Well, that and I've decided to masochistically smash my head against Dark Souls.
I think the fact that the top 3 picked itself helped enormously. At the same time there were individual picks in the top 10, most notably Jeff's pick of Syndicate, which has appeared almost nowhere else and Vinny's of Sleeping Dogs.
I don't understand how you can talk for 10 hours about the best games of 2012 and not mention Guild Wars 2 once. Do those guys all just hate everything MMORPG?
They're not big MMO'ers, no. Their picks are always greatly influenced by their own tastes, and none of them really play a lot of MMO's. I'm fine with that, it's the Giant Bomb GotY awards, not *the* GotY awards.
I'm fine with it not winning anything - it's just weird that one of the bigger releases of the year doesn't even get mentioned once.
Is ignoring MMOs endemic to the gaming press outside of publications dedicated to the genre? I imagine that those jobs don't allow for someone to sink 100 (or more) hours into too many games. They're probably always feeling the pressure to churn to the next thing in their inbox. Then again, Jeff did apparently play a lot of Phantasy Star Online (or whatever) recently...
I was fine with the GotY podcasts and was, for the most part, pleasantly surprised that Brad kept calm and didn't shit up any discussions. What surprised me is how Jeff would pop in there and just hold his ground on the weirdest stuff. It's like he wanted to be this year's Brad. I was annoyed at how often he felt the need to knock on Mark of the Ninja, despite the fact that nobody else agreed with him. But then in the very last episode Brad pulled a Brad with his comment 'I don't care what's in first, but Walking Dead is in second'. He liked it enough that he's okay with it beating either X-Com or FarCry 3, but not both. I know he had his problem with his game saves, but it came across as a little petty.
That was the least awful set of Giant bomb GotY podcasts ever. My only gripe with them is that I think they unfairly harped on Mass Effect 3's DLC strategy. Was From Ashes kind of neat? Sure, but I pretty much ignored it because I didn't really love the character. Was Leviathan great? Yes, but it came out six months after the main game, so why are they suggesting it was indefensible not to include it in the main game? It just felt like they focused endlessly on DLC that, in theory, could maybe have been part of the main game if the main game got delayed even further, as though the main game was incomplete without it. Consequently, they overlooked just how much game there was, and how good that game was, without any of the DLC. Indeed, the worst parts of Mass Effect 3 were in the base game and were in no way improved by any of the DLC (ending aside, and I thought they did a reasonable job of not getting overwrought about the ending).
I think that was mostly Jeff, and it was getting on my nerves how he has this weird hatred of ME3 for having an inferior "journey" and having story resolutions that were too "tidy". The ending was dumb, and Brad's spot on that it's a shame how the DLC improved the game so incredibly much and many people didn't experience that, but in the end it's still an extremely good game and everyone on the podcast except Jeff seemed to agree on that point. Jeff going on about how the multi is "just another horde mode" and refusing to entertain any discussion about how the different classes make it into NOT just another horde mode was the best example of that.
I just started the final day of GOTY podcasts this morning, but so far Jeff's harping on Mass Effect 3 has been the pervading theme this year. Well that and WalkingDeadWalkingDeadWalkingDead. Jeff clearly has a grudge against ME3 and he ends up sounding extremely petty about the whole thing. I mean, I've used the word betrayed to describe how I felt about ME3, referring exclusively to the ending, and even I thought his unceasing criticism and diminishment of ME3 was way over the top. His dismissal of the multiplayer was ridiculous and I'm glad the others didn't let him get away with it. I also thought his crabbing about them tying up all of the important stories was beyond stupid. Can you imagine his bitching if they'd left a major story thread hanging? The focus on ME3's DLC seemed to affect everyone on the podcast. I agree that it was fucked not to include From Ashes on the disc, or at least as a free preorder bonus for all editions of the game. Fine. But that, plus the apparent quality of the Leviathan DLC, weirdly seemed to count ME3 out of a lot of discussions for awards. Well that and Jeff's unceasing hate on against the game.
Meh I agree with him that they do tend to wrap up every open story thread in 3 with a neat little bow. Then totally unravel that in the ending (and hey I accepted the ending as it was!) and then tried to retcon it to pieces so much that I don't even really know how ME3 ends anymore. Patrick was hating on it just as much although he also was hating on FC3 to a ridiculous degree. I also think Jeff pretty much shoehorned Syndicate into that list for no reason. I liked the game but come on.
I liked how they put Frog Fractions into damn near every category and when they realised that they couldn't justify having it win any of them, made a category just for it to win.
Old GFW Radio fans should listen to Idle Thumbs this week, Shawn Elliott is on being Shawn Elliott, and his personality jives well with the current cast, even if he over talks them pretty hard (don't mind we he does it to Vanneman, do mind elsewhere.)
I enjoyed Nick's return in an earlier ep, too. He didn't say a lot but the episode was funnier, snappier, and less Vannemanned. Which is just as well as the previous eps were dreadful navel gazing shite.
I'd never heard Shawn Elliot before, I approve. Smart and insightful without being painfully pretentious, except that part where he and someone else used the word "quotidian" in a sentence. And no, they didn't know how to pronounce it correctly either. That's one of those words that should only ever be written, just say "ordinary" or "everyday" or something. Man. Still, last few episodes of thumbs have been a big improvement. My favorite podcast moment of the last few weeks was Gerstmann's all too brief impression of a washed up Master Chief running a used car lot full of warthogs.
Unless Google, MW, and Free Dictionary all have the incorrect pronunciation up, he said it correctly. It's a pretty bitchin' word.
Speaking of Shawn Elliott, according to my reader subscription to this feed that I still apparently have even though I haven't listened to an episode in over a year, both Jeff Green and Shawn Elliott are on the latest episode of Rebel FM.
Yeah, its a good episode as RebelFMs go. But to head the unspoken question off at the pass, those who didn't like RebelFM in the past wouldn't like the average episode now. The reasons you all had to not listen in the past are still there (I like RebelFM, but I also still listen to The Geekbox despite the Pavlovian rage response that the Fitch brothers illicit in me). Also, last weeks Gianbombcast was the best in quite a while.
They had me howling with Jeff's impersonation of a strung out Drobot making collect calls from a correctional institution.
I thought it was kind of weird how he'd mix in something dumb and/or crude every now and then (some stuff at the beginning and the JustinRPG songs - which don't get me wrong, I looked up mid-podcast and enjoyed...) with the smart and insightful, but overall he was good.
Yeah, it's what he does. I'm just glad he stopped doing his retarded janitor character. I appreciated that at one point Chris Remo was hailing a taxi to Up His Butt-town when talking about how Waking Mars failed to convert frammistans to beamer jams and Shawn pulled him back from the precipice and said 'why does it need to do that?' Chris backed away so quickly it was almost as if he was afraid of saying something uncool.
One day they will stop talking about Walking Mars / Cart Life / Real Lives / Thirty Flights of Loving. One day.
