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Giant Bomb GOTY 2014 - Destiny Has Brought Us Here

I disagree completely about Mordor doing things better than its competitors.

The combat isn't as good as Batman and the traversal isn't as good as Assassin's Creed. With Batman I felt compelled to do every challenge room and really master the intricacies of everything. Similarly, the world is a flat barren wasteland that just isn't that fun to climb around by comparison to the grand architecture in Paris.

It's a jack of all trades and master of none. Combine that with the absolutely atrocious storyline that bastardizes the Lord of The Rings universe and the insulting final boss fight and I just don't the game really is all that great.

The love for the thing just kinda baffles me.

Yea they were painting a bleaker image of AC for the intent of justifying the lofty pedestal they want Mordor to reside on. Their memories of AC seemed really hazy and clouded by a few occasional irritations with traversal that I regularly found were shared with Mordor. No matter, ultimately dragging another game through the mud just to inherently justify the strength of another was unnecessary in this case.
 
If they had included iOS as a console for the exlusives category, they would also have had to check what games are out for Android right then. Most of them probably aren't, but you know.
 
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Bring on Mordor GOTY.
 
Jeffs top 10

mind blown

really? in what way? If you follow the podcasts (longest portions of their content where we witness their weekly genuine tastes) Jeff's should be one of the easiest since he has many minutes sharing his thoughts.

And besides COD (I dont play mp games), my list is not so different. Mordor, Far Cry, Bayonetta on the top
 
Giant Bomb GOTY awards, the awards for people who can't make up their minds so they come up with 50 different "categories" so they don't have to leave anyone out. Seriously, does there really need to be an award for every single thing? Seems like an excuse to get people to watch 10 hours of people talking.
 
really? in what way? If you follow the podcasts (longest portions of their content where we witness their weekly genuine tastes) Jeff's should be one of the easiest since he has many minutes sharing his thoughts.

And besides COD (I dont play mp games), my list is not so different. Mordor, Far Cry, Bayonetta on the top

Yeah, his list isn't surprising at all. I think most people in this thread predicted CoD as his no. 1 based on how much he has played and enjoyed that game. Jeff loves a good CoD game, always has (at least since Modern Warfare!).

Giant Bomb GOTY awards, the awards for people who can't make up their minds so they come up with 50 different "categories" so they don't have to leave anyone out. Seriously, does there really need to be an award for every single thing? Seems like an excuse to get people to watch 10 hours of people talking.

It's all in good fun.
 
That's what always happens in these deliberations though.

Yeah but it also happened in the Mordor quick look, which featured two people who haven't played the recent AC games saying the climbing is better in Mordor when it is basically the same except you can't take fall damage and their are less things to climb.
 
Yeah but it also happened in the Mordor quick look, which featured two people who haven't played the recent AC games saying the climbing is better in Mordor when it is basically the same except you can't take fall damage and their are less things to climb.

Maybe they just feel that way? Also, I think at least Brad played some of AC4, but gave up on it pretty fast because he remembered that he doesn't like those games very much.
 
Giant Bomb GOTY awards, the awards for people who can't make up their minds so they come up with 50 different "categories" so they don't have to leave anyone out. Seriously, does there really need to be an award for every single thing? Seems like an excuse to get people to watch 10 hours of people talking.
It's a good excuse.
 
I haven't listened to their reasoning but Infamous and Drive club not being up there are just as mystifying based on posts I've read in this thread.

I think DriveClub falls under the "most graphics" banner they often use for realistic looking games like that. That's how they regarded Battlefield 4 last year. At a certain point you're just looking at games which just have the most time and budget to create something that looks that good in a realistic setting.

I like that as a position. I'm a fan of DriveClub (voted it my #2 GAF GOTY) and it's the best looking game I've played this year by some distance, but I'm perfectly down with something that brings more art direction and style to the table winning best graphics.

DriveClub being so heavily disregarded from other categories is annoying, but that's an argument for another time, and not one anyone else at GB seems to want to challenge Jeff over.
 
I wanna run something by people re: Destiny, because I feel like Jeff is out of his goddamn mind / coming from a weird place regarding that game's expectations.

As a non-Bungie superfan, the only times I saw Destiny was basically at big keynotes at E3 and such. I didn't watch/see many trailers, I don't follow vidocs, I'm talking like, big mainstream Destiny coverage. All I saw of it was the stage presentations, and it looked nice, but at no point did I get the sense that Bungie were promising THE BEST GAME EVERRRR or whatever Jeff says they were doing. So when Destiny came out, for me, it was kind of a nice surprise: Not the best game ever, but it did some really neat, innovate cross-genre stuff, it looks amazing and the gunplay is terrific. Sure, it's light on content, but even so you can easily play it for 100 hours if you're into loot games before you exhaust all the content, which isn't bad for such a novel thing, and a lot more than I get out of most games.

If it's not for you, it's not for you, but I never got the sense that Destiny was buzzed to be The Best Thing Ever. And really, if you're letting your expectations get set by the PR Hype Machine to that extent, I feel like you're a sucker, and you should know better, especially if you're Jeff Gerstmann, with all his industry experience. And ESPECIALLY with how cagey Bungie was being with showing gameplay before launch, that should've been a sign for someone like Jeff not to expect the best. I feel like he's not calling Destiny most disappointing game of the year, but he's calling Bungie's marketing Most Overzealous Marketing of the year, you know?

Thoughts?
It was hyped, both by Bungie and by the public, way more than what you're describing.

But Jeff's disappointment I think stems from two things. How it feels like there are huge chunks missing from the game (and there are signs that point to that being the case) and the potential Jeff sees in it because there are certain things in it that work. It's not a case of it simply not being for him, it's pretty easy to write off a game or genre you wholeheartedly despise. But Jeff loves shooters and sees what the game could have been.

I forget who said it on a previous Bombcast, but someone mentioned how interesting it would be to get some behind the scenes insight into what went on during Destiny's development. Seeing the final product alludes to some major issues and reworking that (for some) really hurt the game.

Giant Bomb GOTY awards, the awards for people who can't make up their minds so they come up with 50 different "categories" so they don't have to leave anyone out. Seriously, does there really need to be an award for every single thing? Seems like an excuse to get people to watch 10 hours of people talking.
Eh, like I've said in years past, the actual awards aren't really meant to be serious in my opinion. All of this is just a fun excuse to hear the whole crew put out their opinions on what came out during the year.
 
Giant Bomb GOTY awards, the awards for people who can't make up their minds so they come up with 50 different "categories" so they don't have to leave anyone out. Seriously, does there really need to be an award for every single thing? Seems like an excuse to get people to watch 10 hours of people talking.

The Oscars should also only have only one category.
 
Giant Bomb GOTY awards, the awards for people who can't make up their minds so they come up with 50 different "categories" so they don't have to leave anyone out. Seriously, does there really need to be an award for every single thing? Seems like an excuse to get people to watch 10 hours of people talking.

I find them pretty unique and appealing for people who search for different things in games. If you are a sucker for art, for example, those 3 games (on best looking) must be on your radar and you (general consumer) probably wouldnt pay much attention to them (besides destiny).

In the end, they have the traditional top ten, also
 
Man if award shows only had one award instead of all of this useless shit like "Best Costume Design" or "Best Comedic Actor" theyd be so much more watchable. Just tell me "THE BEST" and be done with it tbh
Whats the best in music this year? It was the album art for this one single. Done.
 
What?

It can't be best looking because Generation X?

Can you please elaborate on this...

I mean that they emphasize their best looking category to encompass everything about a game's aesthetic, and in the past they've pointed out SO's tone (which aesthetically translates to character and some world design) to be one of its weak spots.

I'm not slighting SO, I'm just elaborating on why I think it wouldn't win that award from Giant Bomb.

Plus, SO's graphics just aren't the greatest :P
 
Man if award shows only had one award instead of all of this useless shit like "Best Costume Design" or "Best Comedic Actor" theyd be so much more watchable. Just tell me "THE BEST" and be done with it tbh
Whats the best in music this year? It was the album art for this one single. Done.


To be fair, I don't the person is referring to "Best Soundtrack or Best Visuals" as the useless awards.

Something like Best Exclusives is an unnecessary award that is mainly just serves as console warrior flame bait for forum posters. Thankfully this year there was a far and away winner, but imagine if it was some close race between Xbox and PS, we would never hear the end of this shit.

Just a bad category.
 
To be fair, I don't the person is referring to "Best Soundtrack or Best Visuals" as the useless awards.

Something like Best Exclusives is an unnecessary award that is mainly just serves as console warrior flame bait for forum posters. Thankfully this year there was a far and away winner, but imagine if it was some close race between Xbox and PS, we would never hear the end of this shit.

Just a bad category.

That's one award category. I think he was referring to more than that.

Anyways, day 4 stuff is up.
 
To be fair, I don't the person is referring to "Best Soundtrack or Best Visuals" as the useless awards.

Something like Best Exclusives is an unnecessary award that is mainly just serves as console warrior flame bait for forum posters. Thankfully this year there was a far and away winner, but imagine if it was some close race between Xbox and PS, we would never hear the end of this shit.

Just a bad category.

Eh, these arent meant to be taken seriously in any capacity. Its just an excuse to argue about videogames. Its like NeoGAF in podcast form.
 
Surprised Nuclear Throne took best early access experience. the experience now is basically the same as early access, they've just added some extras to the mechanics. I agree with the logic though, about them updating the game so regularly since it first went up. I figured with all the Gang Beasts they have played it would take the win.
 
As someone who started Bayonetta 2 yesterday, that doesn't seem right at all. The intro wasn't out of the ordinary going by the series' standards.

Okay, but you have to admit chapter one, where you chase down a little boy, is less impressive than fighting on top of a jet and a train and engaging an enormous dragon wrapped around a skyscraper.
 
OP updated! Short one today means big one tomorrow. It should be
3:31:28
long, if I did my math correctly.

Of course, I will be totally off and it will be embarassing and oh god...
 
There are people making video games right now who are watching Jeff's segment in today's recap who are just SCREAMING. "THAT WAS MY GAME! THAT WA- I SPENT 11 MONTHS ON THAT THING! WE WERE ANNOUNCING TOMORROW!!!"
 
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