Giant Bomb Fan Club

[Naysonymous]

Is Gerstmann on the Beastcast this week or have they just cut and pasted his audio in from the Bombcast? 

[Trumpets]

You can feel Brad's frustration in the latest Bombcast, as he wants to have a fanboy conversation about how great Zelda is, but jaded-to-fuck Jeff, even though he likes the game, keeps steering the conversation to its tiny, niggling, negative aspects. Of course its fine to point that stuff out, but he's such an Eeyore he just brings the whole mood down.

 

 

[deerokus]

How dare Jeff do his job! 

[Radish]

1 hour ago, Trumpets said:

You can feel Brad's frustration in the latest Bombcast, as he wants to have a fanboy conversation about how great Zelda is, but jaded-to-fuck Jeff, even though he likes the game, keeps steering the conversation to its tiny, niggling, negative aspects. Of course its fine to point that stuff out, but he's such an Eeyore he just brings the whole mood down.

 

Brad also revealed on Thursday's premium stream that he was at most 10 hours into Zelda, so probably only five or six hours in when they recorded the Bombcast. From the way he was going on about it I thought he was deep into the game but he's barely scratched the surface of it. I'd much rather hear a level discussion about something rather than someone fanboying out over something they've only played for a few hours. 

 

Plus his responses to Jeff's criticisms just annoyed me.

 

"I've explored but I just haven't found much of interest"

"You're exploring wrong!"

 

"the menu is a bit fiddly"

"it only takes seconds!"
"yes, but the hold mechanic and having to cook things individually, plus inventory-full messages, are a bit frustrating"

"its muscle memory!"

 

"I've already found that it's just not worth my time to investigate/kill every camp as I often come out worse in terms of items thanks to the weapon degradation"

"I've not had that at all!" (with his 5 hours of playtime). 

 

For me it just goes back to Brad's inability to articulate why something is good. You can hear his relief when someone else brings up a point and he can go "that's what I meant! It's because of X or Y". His enthusiasm did make me excited to go home and play some more Zelda but it was hardly expert critique. I also appreciated Will for basically being the middle ground. 

[Harsin]

I get the feeling that Zelda is going to end up being one of those great games that generates such an obnoxiously zealous fanbase that it starts to actually put you off the game. Where any suggestion that the game may have some negatives as well as all the positives and is not just a perfect golden cartridge, delivered from the heavens by Baby Jesus riding Pegasus,  is treated like suggesting that you're not fussed on some chapters of the Koran at an ISIS branch meeting. See also: Resident Evil 4.

[Chow]

20 minutes ago, Radish said:

 

Brad also revealed on Thursday's premium stream that he was at most 10 hours into Zelda, so probably only five or six hours in when they recorded the Bombcast. From the way he was going on about it I thought he was deep into the game but he's barely scratched the surface of it. I'd much rather hear a level discussion about something rather than someone fanboying out over something they've only played for a few hours. 

 

Plus his responses to Jeff's criticisms just annoyed me.

 

"I've explored but I just haven't found much of interest"

"You're exploring wrong!"

 

"the menu is a bit fiddly"

"it only takes seconds!"
"yes, but the hold mechanic and having to cook things individually, plus inventory-full messages, are a bit frustrating"

"its muscle memory!"

 

"I've already found that it's just not worth my time to investigate/kill every camp as I often come out worse in terms of items thanks to the weapon degradation"

"I've not had that at all!" (with his 5 hours of playtime). 

 

For me it just goes back to Brad's inability to articulate why something is good. You can hear his relief when someone else brings up a point and he can go "that's what I meant! It's because of X or Y". His enthusiasm did make me excited to go home and play some more Zelda but it was hardly expert critique. I also appreciated Will for basically being the middle ground. 

 

 

Brad is almost at his worst when it comes to talking about games from an objective viewpoint. If he likes a game, he will jump through any hoops necessary to paper over any cracks and try to make the game sound like it is sheer perfection. If he doesn't like said game, then each of those cracks "breaks the game" or "ruins the experience". As a games reviewer/'journalist' he's pretty shit these days. For me, a Brad seal of approval often means it's a game that I can avoid and not really miss out on much.

 

@Harsin you've basically just described any Zelda game there. I posted about the review scores for Breath of the Wild on reddit, and mentioned how they should be taken with a pinch of salt because Zelda games always get a bump in their scores. Just look at Skyward Sword and Twilight Princess, with a 95% and 93% metacritic. There's no way that either of those games deserved 9/10, let alone 10/10. Immediately got called out for hating Japan, or being some kid who never played Nintendo games. Fanboys gon' fanboy.

[HarryBizzle]

My recollection of "post OOT" Zelda games (not including MM):

 

Wind Waker - derided at launch for being unfinished. Wii U version came out and everyone shat themselves with glee and apparently it's one of the best games ever.

Twilight Princess - reviewed well at launch but largely accepted to be an OOT retread. Now it seems people kind of like it again.

Skyward Sword - everyone loved it and it was a massive change up for the series. Now everyone seems to hate it. I couldn't get on with the combat and I thought the main boss was rubbish but other than that it seemed great and had some truly fantastic dungeons.

 

 

So with all that I am keeping my expectations in check with BOTW. I expect it will be great but not banking on it being the transcendent experience people think it is. I don't think it's beyond criticism and a few of Jeff's points seem to be his standard "I get annoyed at all and any minor obstacle or inconvenience" and some seemed valid.

[Chow]

I wonder how much of Jeff's moaning about minor stuff is to offset Dan and Brad ignoring/overlooking/making excuses for most negatives about a game they like.

[HarryBizzle]

I think he's just a moaner. He's big on games "feeling good" and it often seems like if there's the slightest bit of resistance he gives up.

[Nespresso]

I haven't listened to the bombcast yet but by going on what's posted here that all sounds incredibly petty. They should just agree that BotW is the best game ever and that they will lock it for the GOTY of 2017. If it's not I'll riot.

[Mr. Gerbik]

As has already been established, Yakuza 0 is GotY

[Trumpets]

There will be a

3 hours ago, deerokus said:

How dare Jeff do his job! 

 

The point is that he likes the game a lot and he still can't stop moaning. He's a contrarian by nature so when the others realy like something he pushes against it, even when he also likes it.

 

That's not doing your job: that's being a pain in the arse.

[HarryBizzle]

Jeff definitely gets a small, subconscious kick out of telling people who like something he thinks "that's a bad game."

[flight]

29 minutes ago, Trumpets said:

The point is that he likes the game a lot and he still can't stop moaning. He's a contrarian by nature so when the others realy like something he pushes against it, even when he also likes it.

 

Pretty much. As someone who's played a lot of BOTW, most of Jeff's criticisms were so laughably trivial that he must have been looking for something to bring up. His comments on not finding anything while exploring were bizarre, frankly.

 

Whatever, it's just Jeff being Jeff and Brad's flailing was pretty funny. 

 

Jeff's usually amusing when he goes after gaming's sacred cows. I remember him talking about all the hate he got for calling Shenmue, 'A forklift simulator for assholes.' 

[deerokus]

Shenmue is more like a sacred doner kebab from a dubious-looking van at a third rate music festival. 

 

I suppose without it we would not get this year's best game, though. 

[Chow]

5 hours ago, flight said:

 

Pretty much. As someone who's played a lot of BOTW, most of Jeff's criticisms were so laughably trivial that he must have been looking for something to bring up. His comments on not finding anything while exploring were bizarre, frankly.

 

Whatever, it's just Jeff being Jeff and Brad's flailing was pretty funny. 

 

Jeff's usually amusing when he goes after gaming's sacred cows. I remember him talking about all the hate he got for calling Shenmue, 'A forklift simulator for assholes.' 

 

Yeah, but Shenmue is actually shit though.

[ryodi]

19 hours ago, deerokus said:

It's a pity, I like quite a lot of the people involved in Waypoint - both Danielle Riendeau and Rob Zacny are great and - but I don't like that podcast at all unfortunately. 

 

I like Mike Diver's stuff and he must have wondered what hit him when Vice Gaming suddenly turned into Waypoint. The UK Waypoint Podcast is great though and is way less pretentious than the US one, I don't think he's said 'deep dive' once.

[deerokus]

Oh yeah, that one is good. Shame it isn't more frequent. 

[imp]

2 hours ago, ryodi said:

 

I like Mike Diver's stuff and he must have wondered what hit him when Vice Gaming suddenly turned into Waypoint. The UK Waypoint Podcast is great though and is way less pretentious than the US one, I don't think he's said 'deep dive' once.

 

Mike Diver was actually behind turning Vice Gaming into Waypoint, so probably not.

[HarryBizzle]

Jeff moaning about the framerate in Horizon Zero Dawn. 

 

1. He seems to think the game only runs at 4K on a 4K TV when it's running in the same mode it was on his 1080p one.

2. The framerate is nigh on perfect. So much so that the Digital Foundry guy says it's not worth running in performance mode.

[rafaqat]

22 hours ago, Trumpets said:

You can feel Brad's frustration in the latest Bombcast, as he wants to have a fanboy conversation about how great Zelda is, but jaded-to-fuck Jeff, even though he likes the game, keeps steering the conversation to its tiny, niggling, negative aspects. Of course its fine to point that stuff out, but he's such an Eeyore he just brings the whole mood down.

 

 

 

21 hours ago, deerokus said:

How dare Jeff do his job! 

 

It's fine doing his job but I don't think he did it particularly well when going on about Ghost Recon Wildlands pissing and moaning about how the other 3 players were shit and didn't follow him etc, then admits that he didn't play it with a mic.  What's the fucking point of playing a co-op game like that where communication with team mates is a pretty big part of the experience and the dumb fucker couldn't even be bothered.  You could tell the rest of the crew just gave up at the point he said "oh I didn't use a mic"  Yeah fuck that guy!

[deerokus]

Nobody uses a mic in any game any more. 

[rafaqat]

9 minutes ago, deerokus said:

Nobody uses a mic in any game any more. 

 

That's fine but then don't moan that the other players aren't co-ordinating with you.  That's just lazy.

[Chow]

1 hour ago, HarryBizzle said:

Jeff moaning about the framerate in Horizon Zero Dawn. 

 

1. He seems to think the game only runs at 4K on a 4K TV when it's running in the same mode it was on his 1080p one.

2. The framerate is nigh on perfect. So much so that the Digital Foundry guy says it's not worth running in performance mode.

 

This shouldn't surprise you. Dan and Brad played Hitman for umpteen hours and still had no idea what half the icons on the screen meant or how to tell if a guard could see you, and it's a website where everybody seems to struggle with finding Settings/My Games & Apps on the Xbox One.

 

 

[ThePixelbarks]

1 hour ago, rafaqat said:

 

That's fine but then don't moan that the other players aren't co-ordinating with you.  That's just lazy.

 

They didn't follow the non vocal communications that he was giving. As in, he was marking points and objectives to go after, while his co-op "pals" were faffing around on other parts of the map alerting guards.

[Mr. Gerbik]

Unless you're playing with a group of friends, you'll find that only assholes use a mic

[Nespresso]

29 minutes ago, Pixelbark said:

 

They didn't follow the non vocal communications that he was giving. As in, he was marking points and objectives to go after, while his co-op "pals" were faffing around on other parts of the map alerting guards.

I certainly wouldn't "follow" some anti-social fuckwit in an online game where coordination is required lol. Jeff & Co have no idea how to engage with others online it seems.

 

Every time I hear them go on about online multiplayer games it's always "nah I just mute everyone" and this and that. I mean fair enough, half the population online are thick cunts but GB isn't exactly a shining beacon on how to conduct yourself online either. 

 

Mute the one person who's being an asshole and have fun with everyone else is what I always do.

 

[Chow]

12 minutes ago, Mr. Gerbik said:

Unless you're playing with a group of friends, you'll find that only assholes use a mic

 

That's true for the most part, but when playing The Division with randoms last year I found that there were a fair few people using their headsets on the Xbox One for reasons other than insulting somebody else's parentage/sexuality/upbringing. I ended up adding a few people to my friends list and played with them a fair bit. Same for Battlefield Bad Company 2 & Vegas 2. Had a laugh with some randoms on the Wildlands Beta as well. Even met some cool people on Halo 5.

 

Exactly @VN1X, mute the idiots and you'll end up finding some pretty decent people on comms, depending on the game anyway.

[Oz]

That poor guy just didn't know how to get into cover. We've all been there amirite? No? I find games that are darlings ala dark souls or witcher or Zelda just annoy the shit out of Jeff. But I agree it is his job to be contrarian rather than just being an echo chamber of every else. We could do with more of that both for balance in the coverage and for entertainment. 

[glb]

I liked Beastcast's approach to the Zelda niggles, taking the light-hearted approach about them without getting too bogged down as the west coast is prone to doing. Podcast just has so much more zip about it these days, was good hearing Jeff not being 'quite' as jaded (love his online multiplayer guy voice, first I've heard it since E3  )

 

Vinny really is a great host, knows when he's needed and when to just let things flow.