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[Mister Negative]

I dunno man, playing a racing game at 30 fps is pretty crappy.

 

[Basileus777]

I dunno man, playing a racing game at 30 fps is pretty crappy.

It's at least a very noticeable drop-off when the game usually runs at 60 fps.

 

[Myggen]

It's hard to tell what is meant seriously and what isn't, that whole thing just was a clusterfuck of Smash for Jeff with the whole: its too chaotic, the game is only fun when its chaotic. The added jab, even if in jest, just didn't really feel right when the whole segment was a mess.

MK8 drops to 30FPS which is likely what Alex means when he says he doesn't like how it feels but to call it an unplayable mess was complete hyperbole. In that part I felt like Dan had no idea what Alex was even saying. But yes, you're right that it didn't have Jeff or Brad doing much chiming in.

It's just that Jeff has called people who take competitive Smash seriously "crazy" since the scene started, and he's never been serious about it. Of course he's not insulting people who like a game he doesn't like, he's not a fanboy. And the Smash conversation really comes down to Jeff liking Melee, but thinking that's enough. Brad has never really been into Smash. Except for Dan, no one of the others on the staff has much love for Smash in general. So it was always going to get dismissed by most.

Anyways, the full list goes up soon.

 

[AngryMoth]

Looking at the staff top 10s so far seems like mordor is clear favourite to take the big one, although I hope they give it to bayo 2. I have an irrational disinterest in Mordor, when they announced they were splitting the Hobit into 3 films it completely killed my interest in anything middle earth going forward.

 

[Vena]

How is the moveset not incredibly basic? Every character uses the exact same control scheme and there is little to no variation between them? I don't think that's an insane criticism, that's just the way it is.

In terms of how they control? Yes there's nothing particularly different between characters, every character has tilts, smashes, and specials. But in the way they play? Are you going to tell me that Shulk plays anything at all like Bowser Jr? The movesets are not even remotely the same between characters.

As for the iterations between games, I don't see why Smash Brothers should get a free pass because it has four years in between each game.

Seven years. And the breadth of the movesets changes with every game... it changes as much as, if not more, than Street Fighter, Soul Calibre, and Dead or Alive.

It's just that Jeff has called people who take competitive Smash seriously "crazy" since the scene started, and he's never been serious about it. Of course he's not insulting people who like a game he doesn't like, he's not a fanboy. And the Smash conversation really comes down to Jeff liking Melee, but thinking that's enough. Brad has never really been into Smash. Except for Dan, no one of the others on the staff has much love for Smash in general. So it was always going to get dismissed by most.

Anyways, the full list goes up soon.

See I haven't followed GB that long so I didn't know about how he called people since the scene started. If that's the case then okay. (I was alittle kid when Melee came out, lol.)

That said, I don't think most of them dismissed it when Dan actually did call for that vote around the table on who actually dislikes Smash.

 

[Chris R]

Good to see that at least Brad got it right.

I'd vote Dota 2 for my GOTY here on NeoGAF if I knew that it would be counted 100%

 

[danm999]

Of course they got the award for winning the award. To have it feel like a begrudgingly (that part comes in more when they get to the "would you recommend a WiiU" part) handed out award doesn't take away from there simply being no competition.

We'll have to agree to disagree because I don't think anything that Jeff said about the strength of Nintendo's library was begrudging, even if he doesn't like Smash.

 

[A Pretty Panda]

If anything, I'd expect a lot more differences in between each title with that much time being spent on it.

I don't think they actually spent 6 years developing that game

 

[ShockingAlberto]

I think if you can predict whether or not people will like a game based on publisher, it's kind of a problem.

Though I don't see why people are in such a rush to dismiss it, honestly. Jeff has always had a chip on his shoulder regarding Nintendo games during Game of the Year time. They're quiet, ignorable annoyances during the year, but he doesn't think they belong in discussion of best games anymore. You take the good with the bad with Giant Bomb - if you even think it's bad, really. This could be an aspect of the site that appeals to you, I don't know.

At the end of the day, none of it actually matters. We treat it as valid discussion because we hoist game of the year as some sort of decider or validation. Giant Bomb GOTY especially has never really meant anything. The Game of the Year winners, including actual Game of the Year, do not get more conversation or reverence than anything else. XCOM was Game of the Year two years ago, there was maybe one conversation about the expansion, no one's replaying it for fun, and it's never really held up by anyone at GB as a paragon of gaming in its generation (even though it should, theoretically, be one of the eight games that is). Their Game of the Year last year was basically "Well, this is a good game, I guess let's use this."

I think the discussion of why they feel the way they feel is totally valid. It's a personality-centered site and this is a thread specifically about those discussions. It just doesn't actually hold much weight and, two days from now, when everyone forgets about this thread or goes back to community, this probably won't get any actual thought or weight in the future.

 

[Vena]

We'll have to agree to disagree because I don't think anything that Jeff said about the strength of Nintendo's library was begrudging, even if he doesn't like Smash.

That's fine. It was a sentiment I felt, I don't need you to agree with me.

 

[Vire]

In terms of how they control? Yes there's nothing particularly different between characters, every character has tilts, smashes, and specials. But in the way they play? Are you going to tell me that Shulk plays anything at all like Bowser Jr? The movesets are not even remotely the same between characters.



Seven years. And the breadth of the movesets changes with every game... it changes as much as, if not more, than Street Fighter, Soul Calibre, and Dead or Alive.



See I haven't followed GB that long so I didn't know about how he called people since the scene started. If that's the case then okay. (I was alittle kid when Melee came out, lol.)

That said, I don't think most of them dismissed it when Dan actually did call for that vote around the table on who actually dislikes Smash.

I used the wrong term when referring to the control scheme. Sorry for that, but you understood what I meant! For the average player like Brad, this means that there is little to master or the lack of ownership of a particular fighter.

And 7 years - 4 years, I don't really see what difference it makes, I would have liked to see more positive and interesting changes (particularly in the feature set).

Why can't we have a really cool single player campaign like the Mortal Kombat 9? Or a really robust level editor (the one in now is really bare bones and in some ways worse than what we had before). In terms of actual gameplay, Brawl had the addition of Final Smashes, I'm not seeing anything in here with remotely the same impact on moment to moment gameplay. So I definitely feel like it's valid criticism that the Smash series feels stagnant.

 

[nckillthegrimace]

How is the moveset not incredibly basic? Every character uses the exact same control scheme and there is little to no variation between them? I don't think that's an insane criticism, that's just the way it is.

Characters arbitrarily controlling differently is backwards. Like I can use Ibuki in SFIV but I can't use Chun-Li because none of my investment carries over to a charge character. It discourages trying out new characters and locks players into a very thin slice of the game's content. It's bad design.

Conversely, I can control ever character in Smash once I know how to control one of them. And it's not like this makes the characters all the same. On the contrary, there are some crazy variations between the characters.

 

[PedroLumpy]

I do kinda wish Brad and Jeff went a little deeper into their Smash hate.

Like if you had told me Watchdogs had beaten Destiny for most disappointing, my jaw would drop. But since I listened to the podcast first I could understand how they got there. But I'm still curious about Smash after listening to the podcast.

 

[Vena]

I used the wrong term when referring to the control scheme. Sorry for that, but you understood what I meant! For the average player like Brad, this means that there is little to master or the lack of ownership of a particular fighter.

Some would argue that's the charm of Smash over other fighters and why its basically its own genre of fighter/party game hybrid. That you can apply a basic fundamental rule-set to every character but the way those controls work per character changes for a different experience without having to learn a new thirty-button combo.

Smash is (for the most part, Melee is a bit of an oddball with certain aspects of it) built on the concept of the most depth from the least (needless) complexity.

And 7 years - 4 years, I don't really see what difference it makes, I would have liked to see more positive and interesting changes (particularly in the feature set).

Why can't we have a really cool single player campaign like the Mortal Kombat 9? Or a really robust level editor (the one in now is really bare bones and in some ways worse than what we had before). Brawl had the addition of Final Smashes, I'm not seeing anything in here with remotely the same impact on moment to moment gameplay. So I definitely feel like it's valid criticism that the Smash series feels stagnant.

Sm4sh added custom movesets, which is an actually rather gigantic change to the game. Every title has added features and some older features have gone away like the "story mode". This is more a question of what you expect from a fighter/party game like this... Sm4sh is definitely the one with the biggest feature set that's aimed at multiplayer:competitive/party even if it doesn't quite match the Melee mechanics. This came at a sacrifice of Brawl's Subspace Emissary which... wasn't very good to begin with.

 

[Curufinwe]

I think if you can predict whether or not people will like a game based on publisher, it's kind of a problem.

Though I don't see why people are in such a rush to dismiss it, honestly. Jeff has always had a chip on his shoulder regarding Nintendo games during Game of the Year time. They're quiet, ignorable annoyances during the year, but he doesn't think they belong in discussion of best games anymore. You take the good with the bad with Giant Bomb - if you even think it's bad, really. This could be an aspect of the site that appeals to you, I don't know.

At the end of the day, none of it actually matters. We treat it as valid discussion because we hoist game of the year as some sort of decider or validation. Giant Bomb GOTY especially has never really meant anything. The Game of the Year winners, including actual Game of the Year, do not get more conversation or reverence than anything else. XCOM was Game of the Year two years ago, there was maybe one conversation about the expansion, no one's replaying it for fun, and it's never really held up by anyone at GB as a paragon of gaming in its generation (even though it should, theoretically, be one of the eight games that is). Their Game of the Year last year was basically "Well, this is a good game, I guess let's use this."

I think the discussion of why they feel the way they feel is totally valid. It's a personality-centered site and this is a thread specifically about those discussions. It just doesn't actually hold much weight and, two days from now, when everyone forgets about this thread or goes back to community, this probably won't get any actual thought or weight in the future.

That's sad. Enemy Within was awesome.

 

[XANDER CAGE]

I used the wrong term when referring to the control scheme. Sorry for that, but you understood what I meant! For the average player like Brad, this means that there is little to master or the lack of ownership of a particular fighter.

And 7 years - 4 years, I don't really see what difference it makes, I would have liked to see more positive and interesting changes (particularly in the feature set).

Why can't we have a really cool single player campaign like the Mortal Kombat 9? Or a really robust level editor (the one in now is really bare bones and in some ways worse than what we had before). Brawl had the addition of Final Smashes, I'm not seeing anything in here with remotely the same impact on moment to moment gameplay. So I definitely feel like it's valid criticism that the Smash series feels stagnant.

That's like saying Street Fighter 3 is stagnant compared to 2 because it's still about two people fighting on a 2D plane. Generally, in fighting games, new rosters -are- the big significant changes, and characters in Smash are incredibly diverse. I totally understand where you're coming from in terms of the games not changing much to outsiders, but that isn't some kind of nugget of truth Brad has whittled down to - it's just his opinion as someone who doesn't have much of an interest in the series. Smash has changed about as much as any good series of fighters, perhaps more than most.

Also Smash had a "cool single player campaign" once. It sucked, but they do add that sort of thing between games. The way you're describing it Nintendo is just plopping out roster updates each time which just isn't true. They add a lot of new features between Smash games.

 

[LurkerPrime]

Nintendo is one of the few things that can totally annihilate Jeff's ability to reason. It's frustrating, but also sorta neat.

DotA 2 is probably the Shoemaker equivalent.

 

[Slamtastic]

I do kinda wish Brad and Jeff went a little deeper into their Smash hate.

Like if you had told me Watchdogs had beaten Destiny for most disappointing, my jaw would drop. But since I listened to the podcast first I could understand how they got there. But I'm still curious about Smash after listening to the podcast.

Default Smash is too chaotic, hard to see what's going on, random elements marginalize player skill.

If you disable those elements and try to force the game into a competitive experience, the question is begged of why you don't just play a game designed as such from the start, instead of going against the wishes of the designer (Sakurai's clear stance on what Smash is. Namco managing to pressure him into removing tripping doesn't negate that by including it in the first place he made his statement on taking Smash more seriously than it deserves).

 

[Vire]

Some would argue that's the charm of Smash over other fighters and why its basically its own genre of fighter/party game hybrid. That you can apply a basic fundamental rule-set to every character but the way those controls work per character changes for a different experience without having to learn a new thirty-button combo.



Sm4sh added custom movesets, which is an actually rather gigantic change to the game. Every title has added features and some older features have gone away like the "story mode". This is more a question of what you expect from a fighter/party game like this... Sm4sh is definitely the one with the biggest feature set that's aimed at multiplayer:competitive/party even if it doesn't quite match the Melee mechanics. This came at a sacrifice of Brawl's Subspace Emissary which... wasn't very good to begin with.

To be clear, I'm not saying Smash should change its control scheme. It's part of what makes it unique, I'm just explaining why Brad and company might not like it.

I am however serious when saying that I feel that the new Smash feels kinda boring for someone who is a little tired of the formula like myself. I think part of it also is that the leap in visuals from Brawl to the Wii U version just isn't that exciting. It feels like the smallest jump so far, so I can't even really get excited about that.

Also Smash had a "cool single player campaign" once. It sucked, but they do add that sort of thing between games. The way you're describing it Nintendo is just plopping out roster updates each time which just isn't true. They add a lot of new features between Smash games

I liked the concept of Subspace Emissary though, I just don't think it was executed well. I don't think that's reason to abandon it completely, I just think it needed a re-thinking. The gorgeous cutscenes and constant cameos from different series was really fun to watch!

 

[Keyser Soze]

DROP THE 4 HOUR CAST!

 

[nckillthegrimace]

I had a dream Dust (not the deviant art game, the EVE shooter) won GB goty, so I'm ready for anything.

 

[ShockingAlberto]

I had a dream Dust (not the deviant art game, the EVE shooter) won GB goty, so I'm ready for anything.

Dust was a well-liked game at GB.

It's also pretty good in general.

I would say, having not come out this year its chances are pretty low, but Dota 2 is Brad's GOTY so

 

[razgriz417]

Man everytime Mount your friends is brought in in the GOTY podcasts, I have to remember that Vinny's epic triumph during UPF happened after the recording

 

[Wunder]

my body is ready

edit: I'm not sure if I want to skip to the text recap and see if Myggen wins his bet or not or go through the whole thing.

 

[Anjin M]

About to go radio silent for the next few hours. See you all when I get this podcast stuffed into my ears.

 

[eot]

Dust was a well-liked game at GB.

It's also pretty good in general.

I would say, having not come out this year its chances are pretty low, but Dota 2 is Brad's GOTY so

The 2D game was, not the EVE shooter.

 

[Keyser Soze]

 

[clifftrapremover]

Can I just watch the video recaps or are the podcasts significantly better? Not sure I have the time to ingest each one...

 

[Gandie]

My god the podcast length.

 

[JayEH]

Over 4 hours for the last podcast. I would not expect anything less.

 

[Phediuk]

OH MY GOD IT'S 4 HOURS LONG

 

[Ohwiseone]

Not shocked by their game of the year.. Was hoping it was going to be something else.. But I won't complain.


EDIT: HOLY SHIT AT THE CAMEO..

 

[Dizzy-4U]

This is it. Let's go!

 

[A Pretty Panda]

Can I just watch the video recaps or are the podcasts significantly better? Not sure I have the time to ingest each one...

Video recaps just tell you which games won and what they look like. Podcasts show how they got to each winner

 

[strafer]

fuck that 4 hours...i have a life

Spoiler

no i dont

 

[AwakenedCloud]

4 hours... Is this real life?!

 

[Vire]

Oh my god... reading the top ten.

THIS PODCAST WILL BE GLORIOUS.

 

[TheExhaustedWalrus]

Haha,

Spoiler

dat Troy Baker cameo.

 

[Vena]

Oh my god... reading the top ten.

THIS PODCAST WILL BE GLORIOUS.

Where can we read the list without listening to the podcast?

 

[chogidogs]

Haha,

Spoiler

dat Troy Baker cameo.

HOLY SHIT IM DYING

 

[Jimmyfenix]

CONNER THARP FOR LIFE

 

[lazybones18]

Spoiler

Troy Baker was in Everything

 

[The Technomancer]

Four hours, jesus christ

 

[denshuu]

Time for a four hour lunch break. I'm ready.

 

[CosmicQueso]

What a great list of GOTY contenders. Worthy winner. Awesome year for games, despite the crap.

 

[LurkerPrime]

Four hours, jesus christ

The gods heard our prayers!

 

[Gandie]

From Dave Lang's list

Extra Game! I didn’t want to put this in my Top-10 because we did a tiny, tiny, tiny amount of work on it, but I really like Destiny.

What could that be?

 

[Servbot #42]

I haven't read the site but i'm so sure destiny won't make it into the top that i'm willing to platinum Heavy Rain if Destiny makes it into the top 10. No fucking way destiny makes it. Now if you'll excuse me i'll go listen to the podcast spoiler free.

 

[Vire]

Where can we read the list without listening to the podcast?

http://www.giantbomb.com/articles/giant-bomb-s-2014-game-of-the-year-awards-day-five/1100-5126/

Spoiler

Destiny made the Top 10

 

[SteveWinwood]

http://www.giantbomb.com/articles/giant-bomb-s-2014-game-of-the-year-awards-day-five/1100-5126/

Spoiler

Destiny made the Top 10

hilarious