Giant Bomb GOTY 2014 - Destiny Has Brought Us Here

Zefah said:
I can't really blame him. 2014 was pretty disappointing for the most part.

Obviously, a lot of people won't agree.
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There was a punch of cool stuff on PC.

If you were sticking to just stuff on consoles then I can understand being disappointed but so many neat games came out this year.

Next year we are going to get an abundance of AAA games but this year isn't as bad as people make it out to be.
 
Manbig said:
That's because Destiny has a TON of fundamental flaws while the best that Jeff could come up with for Mario Kart was that he just wasn't a fan of the genre.
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Yeah but if he was he could probably take it to task for the weakass battlemode, and its barebones single player component both of which were handwaved pretty quickly before Vinny started steering the discussion towards "Lets get the games someone is most passionate about". I just feel like the entire bottom three was placating people so the complaint of "Brad was just being catered to!" rings hollow to me
 
brad's brilliance at arguing and sneaky tactics is like the main thing that makes the game of the year stuff worth it, and i have completely different taste to brad.

jeff totally destroyed him this year, though. how on earth is call of duty number four. is it even better than destiny? i'm not really sure.
 
Manbig said:
I don't think people have issue with the fact that he likes Destiny. I just think that people have issue with the way he goes about it during these things. People like to make fun of cynical old man Jeff, but the depths that Brad goes with his hyperbolic nonsense during these is obviously going to rub some people the wrong way.

Outside of these things though, Brad is awesome. Yes, you can still enjoy Brad's stuff on the site and just heavily disagree with him on this one aspect.
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Brad doesn't need people to fight on his behalf, but we should be above personal insults is all I'm saying.
 
Lijik said:
Yeah but if he was he could probably take it to task for the weakass battlemode, and its barebones single player component both of which were handwaved pretty quickly before Vinny started steering the discussion towards "Lets get the games someone is most passionate about". I just feel like the entire bottom three was placating people so the complaint of "Brad was just being catered to!" rings hollow to me
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I think the primary difference is that Destiny was played by the majority of the people in the discussion with hours of playtime and investment and found wanting vs. The fact that outside the quick look, Brad and Jeff probably didn't play Mario Kart.
 
Aaron D. said:
This kind of struck me as well.

Dan merely mentions MK8 & SSBU and the whole room simultaneously erupts in groans & laughter. Alex & Patrick both say multiple times that they've no interest in going to bat for the two games. Yet Dan gets MK8 on the list and he's once again a hero and a Stand Up Guy.

Brad is drilled for almost an hour over Destiny and the game winds up on the list, yet he's somehow a monster because of it. So strange.

If anything, both Dan and Brad's arguments were entirely the same. Dan taking about the giant s**t-eating grin he's wearing every time he plays MK8. And Brad saying that Destiny is unreservedly the most fun he's had all year, bar none.

Frankly I think both of their arguments are winning arguments. And Giant Bomb is not Consumer Reports, it's a personality-driven game site. Their GOTY list is a culmination of the personalities that run that site.

I wouldn't have it any other way.
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I think the difference comes down to even if people don't like Mario Kart they recognize it's a well made game that has the usual Nintendo polish and quality. Their main arguments against Dan would come down to pretty much what Jeff said with "I don't like kart racers."

Destiny is a mechanically superb game but it has a LOT of flaws once you move past the base gameplay. Brad and Jeff (to a degree) were the only ones who weren't turned off by those flaws. Brad moved past them and found a game he loved, but the discussion for it wasn't as simple because their opinions won't easily break down into like or dislike of the genre, as it did for Mario Kart. Dan was fighting to get people to ignore their dislike for a genre and respect the quality of a game, where Brad was fighting to get people to understand what he saw in a game rather than only seeing it's flaws.
 
Surprised to see Destiny make the top 10, I was sure Jeff would do his utmost to make sure it didnt....but Alex was the only real opponent Brad faced

I was bummed to see Wolfenstein not make it...but opinions and all that. Jeff should be pleased that he managed to get CoD as high as it did

Pleased for Nintendo fans to get Bayo at #2, although it isn''t my type of game at all and doesnt look at all interesting to me

I guess I should check out Mordor though
 
Manbig said:
I don't think people have issue with the fact that he likes Destiny. I just think that people have issue with the way he goes about it during these things. People like to make fun of cynical old man Jeff, but the depths that Brad goes with his hyperbolic nonsense during these obviously is going to rub some people the wrong way.

Outside of these things though, Brad is awesome. Yes, you can still enjoy Brad's stuff on the site and just heavily disagree with him on this one aspect.
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You can find anybody who is sitting down to argue over games for several hours annoying - these GOTY podcasts have always been cringeworthy for me to listen to for how grating it is to hear people justifying liking one game over another. Which I believe Jeff has always stated in the past a big reason why they do the podcasts, to show how ridiculous, and to some extent pointless, the entire process is.

Heck I even found Vinny annoying when he would constantly feel the need to reiterate how awesome all these games are how not picking them doesn't mean they are bad. And I never thought I'd be critical of him over anything!
 
Manbig said:
I dunno... This year has been a pretty rough one. Between all of the major broken releases, to the disappointing releases, to even the several games that got pushed back to 2015, I'd say it has been a pretty bad year. Usually one expects, and gets better this far into a console launch.
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It was a bad year, the worst year of the decade for games IMO. But thinking back to previous Bombcasts this year, I can't even remember him praising a game. Actually, I think that's why the Bombcast in a large part has moved away from game talk.

Zefah said:
Your comment definitely read like you think he *should* like more games.
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Don't get me wrong, that is what I was implying. In no way do I think there's an invisible threshold he needs to meet for the amount of games he likes in a year, but as someone who's been in the industry for decades, he should have better arguments for the games that he dislikes than the ones he provided this year. Jeff could write a dissertation on what's wrong with Destiny, we've seen this time and time again. For other games, it's like there's some sort of self fulfilling prophecy. He doesn't think he's going to like it, plays it for a handful of minutes,and puts it down. He put down Hearthstone so much during the deliberations, but never got past the tutorial. He has every right to do so, but I think he needs to step further out of his comfort zone. That's what I admire about Patrick so much, he would go out of his way to play games that he wouldn't seek traditionally, and in a large part he seemed to enjoy them. Jeff is my favorite GB personality, but he could be so much more.
 
2 Slice Toaster said:
You can find anybody who is sitting down to argue over games for several hours annoying - these GOTY podcasts have always been cringeworthy for me to listen to for how grating it is to hear people justifying liking one game over another. Which I believe Jeff has always stated in the past a big reason why they do the podcasts, to show how ridiculous, and to some extent pointless, the entire process is.
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I don't disagree with you.

I just think that stuff like "Destiny has satisfying loot" and "Skyrim's Radiant Quest system felt like magic" is a bit beyond the dumb shit that the other guys have said.
 
I'm not sure if reverse filibustering is a thing, but it seemed like the less Brad talked about Destiny, the more they seemed to swing around on letting it into the top 10. Amazing he got in there with only Jeff's tepid support.
 
2 Slice Toaster said:
You can find anybody who is sitting down to argue over games for several hours annoying - these GOTY podcasts have always been cringeworthy for me to listen to for how grating it is to hear people justifying liking one game over another. Which I believe Jeff has always stated in the past a big reason why they do the podcasts, to show how ridiculous, and to some extent pointless, the entire process is.
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You say this, but it's very obvious to me a few people on staff care a lot about which games get into the top 10.
 
Since when did they decide against majority rule in these things? Did Brad just decide on the spot he wasn't going allow Destiny to be voted out?

Also, poor Drew.
 
Aaron D. said:
This kind of struck me as well.

Dan merely mentions MK8 & SSBU and the whole room simultaneously erupts in groans & laughter. Alex & Patrick both say multiple times that they've no interest in going to bat for the two games. Yet Dan gets MK8 on the list and he's once again a hero and a Stand Up Guy.

Brad is drilled for almost an hour over Destiny and the game winds up on the list, yet he's somehow a monster because of it. So strange.

If anything, both Dan and Brad's arguments were entirely the same. Dan taking about the giant s**t-eating grin he's wearing every time he plays MK8. And Brad saying that Destiny is unreservedly the most fun he's had all year, bar none.

Frankly I think both of their arguments are winning arguments. And Giant Bomb is not Consumer Reports, it's a personality-driven game site. Their GOTY list is a culmination of the personalities that run that site.

I wouldn't have it any other way.
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I get that its the game he liked the most but man that argument went on for like an hour. Just way too long and then shitting on other games the way he did didn't help. I don't think Dan did that. He just said, the game is a lot of fun and is a well made cart racer and should be acknowledged. I think that's the major difference.
 
So i just woke up and saw the news about Patrick. We all cant say we didnt see this coming after his move to Chicago. He will be missed.

At the end of the article he wrote about it though he made a comment at the end which makes it sound like Brad might be following later on. Which is seriously hope isnt the case, atleast not very soon.

Both of these guys are amazing at what they do and Giant Bomb wont be the same without them. I hope Patrick finds a great place that he will like to work at and can still be vocal with the community.

This reminds me all too much like when 1UP fell apart and people like Shane Bettenhousen found new jobs out of the community spotlight. That was a very sad day for the fans and I would hate to see something like that happen again.

Good Luck Patrick! We will follow you wherever you go.
 
squadr0n said:
At the end of the article he wrote about it though he made a comment at the end which makes it sound like Brad might be following later on. Which is seriously hope isnt the case, atleast not very soon.
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Quite a few people seem to be reading into this, but I don't think it's anything more than the difficulty of writing a public farewell combined with Patrick's general awkwardness. Same with the slightly snidey comment to Dan too.
 
One thing I missed that should have made Please Stop were season passes. Its a cynical way for developers and publishers to get more revenue for content that is usually not good enough for the base game.

I fully expect a company like Ubisoft or EA to try to ask for a $60 season pass soon. If not this year, definitely this generation.
 
Tripon said:
One thing I missed that should have made Please Stop were season passes. Its a cynical way for developers and publishers to get more revenue for content that is usually not good enough for the base game.
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I would go a step further and just say DLC in general. Bring back the days of yore with expansion packs, at least they had decent content as a whole and not at the expense of cutting content from the base game and selling it in pieces.
 
Kensuke said:
You say this, but it's very obvious to me a few people on staff care a lot about which games get into the top 10.
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I didn't mean to imply they don't care, quite the opposite really! I think all of them are particularly passionate about the games in their top 10 lists, and all of them came into this hoping to shape the discussion so that they could get the particular games they feel are special acknowledged. The process of coming up with that list, which involves long intense arguments about games not all of them have played, or at the very least spent varying amounts of times on, and may have completely different appeal to each of them, is a ridiculous and fascinating one. Its equal parts entertainment and frustration for the audience, every year, which is why I both look forward to and dread it every year.

I'm always surprised when people talk about how jaded and dispassionate Jeff is when he demonstrates how much he cares about the games he does like by battling so hard to get them props every year.
 
Tainted said:
I would go a step further and just say DLC in general. Bring back the days of yore with expansion packs, at least they had decent content as a whole and not at the expense of cutting content from the base game and selling it in pieces.
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I think it is naive to some degree to think that some expansions weren't comprised of content that was originally intended to be in the first release and was either cut from the base game to sell in the expansion, or at best not complete when the game went gold and was given funding to be completed as part of the expansion.

Publishers are no more cynical now than they were back then, just the available delivery mechanisms have changed.
 
squadr0n said:
At the end of the article he wrote about it though he made a comment at the end which makes it sound like Brad might be following later on. Which is seriously hope isnt the case, atleast not very soon.
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I really hope that isn't the case. With Patrick gone, Vinny and Alex on the other side of the country and Ryan sadly no longer with us....there needs to be someone in the GB crew with that argumentative streak who can challenge someone like Jeff around the office.

Not a slant against Jeff at all...its that type of passion the site needs. I find Dan, Drew and Jason (when he isnt in the control room) to be a little submissive and agreeable. Although I am impressed with how Dan fought for Nintendo in this years goty
 
2 Slice Toaster said:
Publishers are no more cynical now than they were back then, just the available delivery mechanisms have changed.
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Yes, you are right ... I guess it's just way more obvious nowadays when content is cut and added in because it happens alot earlier (and most cases before the game has shipped) which really grinds my gears.
 
Fox318 said:
I can't believe they have jazzpunk over divinity
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Take a look at all of their personal top 10's. Only Patrick had Divinity in his list, whereas 3 others (Jeff, Vinny & Alex) had Jazzpunk. It made sense

Hellsing321 said:
Jeff's Destiny Heel turn is a thing of beauty.
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I know right. At the start of the podcast he was like "Theres no way the runner up of most disappointing game for 2014 can make it into the top 10 list" ...to "Destiny is better than half the games left on this list"

Just shows you how much disdain Jeff had for 2014 games
 
eot said:
If one person likes a game enough I don't see why they can't put it on there. I mean Jeff got Syndicate on one year, and there are also plenty of games he thinks are shit that do end up on their lists. The only weird thing about it is that they generally take games off when only one of them has played them, but that seems like a more favourable situation than everyone having played it and most of them hating it hehe.
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As someone who's put 400+ hours into Destiny, I get both arguments for and against it. It being on the list is a representation of Brad's conflicted love-hate relationship with the game. A lot of the list is a mix of consensus games and individual staff darlings. Destiny falls into the latter category, but so does CoD for Jeff and MK8 for Dan, largely.

I'm no Destiny apologist, but I'm with team Brad here. It's the best "bad" game I played all year. No. 10 seems fair.
 
I don't understand why people keep accusing Jeff of doing a Desitny heel turn, when it clearly started to crumble down when Vinny began pitying Brad.

Although in honesty, the most shocking thing about this list is not Destiny being no. 10, but Mario Kart actually making it on the list. Bravo Dan.

And while I understand people's disdain towards Destiny, I kind of understand where Brad's coming from. I've never played Desitny, but I was in a similar position where Dark Souls 2 ended being one of my biggest disappointments this year and I still logged over 100 hours into that game and had fun doing so. Most disappointing doesn't mean a game still doesn't have merits.
 
The only issue I have with Destiny is that so many of the crew actively disliked it. Pretty much all of them liked Wolfenstein, and two of them were pretty into Divinity (third being Vinny who had only played some), and only Jeff kind of wasn't into it.

Dan, Drew, Patrick, Jason and Alex all really disliked Destiny. The other two games had nowhere near that level of disdain from anyone.
 
sjack said:
I don't understand why people keep accusing Jeff of doing a Desitny heel turn, when it clearly started to crumble down when Vinny began pitying Brad.
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I was a bit disappointed that Drew didn't fight a little harder to get his #1 game on the list....but I think my the 4hr mark, most of them just wanted it to end and were too tired to fight
 
Tainted said:
I was a bit disappointed that Drew didn't fight a little harder to get his #1 game on the list....but I think my the 4hr mark, most of them just wanted it to end and were too tired to fight
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Oh definitely. I don't even understand why he bothers turning up to these when his opinion is completely disregarded and he doesn't put up much of a fight. I found it really annoying when Brad was complaining that they didn't let him put a game he was passionate about into the top 10, when Wolfenstein was Drew's no. 1
 
Boy, some of the decisions this crew has been making over the past year is really shaking up my thoughts on them. Saying Binding of Isaac isn't a good dual-stick shooter and putting Jazzpunk over Divinity are both just ridiculous.
 
d1rtn4p said:
Boy, some of the decisions this crew has been making over the past year is really shaking up my thoughts on them. Saying Binding of Isaac isn't a good dual-stick shooter and putting Jazzpunk over Divinity are both just ridiculous.
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I couldn't stand Binding. I love dual stick shooters. Opinions!
 
Finished it.

I can't say that I'm really happy with the outcome, and much of it seems kinda too influenced by Brad's unhealthy love for Destiny. Yes, MK8 is the eighth main entry of the franchise, but it is actually backed up by reviews by both critics and fans as being a very good game while the same just can't be said for Destiny. Jeff and Brad talking about MK8 reached Gamefaq's levels of ignorance which is kind of shocking; I mean, listening to them for years kinda prepared me for many outcomes, but some of the arguments they tried to use to discredit MK8 while trying to push both COD and Destiny were unbelievably weak, especially for Jeff.

That being said: big kudos to Alex for fighting the good fight. I don't follow Alex' opinions on games that much, but it felt like he was the only one speaking up against the Destiny madness. I just don't think the game belongs there at all, especially when the majority of the crew is against it.

I dunno man, GOTY are serious business and yadda yadda yadda.
 
d1rtn4p said:
Boy, some of the decisions this crew has been making over the past year is really shaking up my thoughts on them. Saying Binding of Isaac isn't a good dual-stick shooter and putting Jazzpunk over Divinity are both just ridiculous.
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I love Binding of Isaac, simply love it....and Patrick put up a good fight for it but noone else in the office liked or played it enough to back him at all.

BoI is a slow burn and it takes alot of time to learn its nuances (which is sort of the same argument it could be said for Destiny), but Patrick was all alone on that one.
 
I have never exclaimed 'Oh just fuck off' at a podcast more often than I did hearing Brad shit on Wolfenstein whilst bigging up Destiny. Unbelievable nonsense being spouted throughout that tirade.
 
ta155 said:
I have never exclaimed 'Oh just fuck off' at a podcast more often than I did hearing Brad shit on Wolfenstein whilst bigging up Destiny. Unbelievable nonsense being spouted throughout that tirade.
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Welcome to Giant Bomb GOTY. lol

After the Saints Row/Skyrim debacle, I just listen for the schadenfreude now.
 
ta155 said:
Oh God, that Saints Row/Skyrim debate was just mind numbing. At least those were two undeniably great games!
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I just love how I still remember that debate all these years later. I was literally in shock when I heard it... and every year, Brad does it with a game, and Vinny inevitable gives in because Brad is "passionate", and then they move on. It's great. lol
 
Haven't listened to the podcast yet but...Destiny being on the list at all has to have just been a concession to Brad, right?
 
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