The funny thing is that the podcasts are made specifically to show how arbitrary it all is.
Giant Bomb GOTY 2014 - Destiny Has Brought Us Here
- Thread starter daydream
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The funny thing is that the podcasts are made specifically to show how arbitrary it all is.
ShockingAlberto
Member
I don't know if it says anything about being jaded, but everyone saying that Jeff does a good job of expressing how he feels about games...might be wrong? Because no one had any sense that he enjoyed Destiny over the last four months. But he apparently did.
It's always easier to say what you dislike about something than what you like about it, which is why a lot of things come off as negative when the reviewer themselves liked it. That might have been Jeff and Destiny.
It's always easier to say what you dislike about something than what you like about it, which is why a lot of things come off as negative when the reviewer themselves liked it. That might have been Jeff and Destiny.
petethepanda
Member
Finally watching the day five video.
I just don't get Mordor, I can't remember the last time I've been on such a different page than everyone with a game as popular as this.
It's a lockdown
I just don't get Mordor, I can't remember the last time I've been on such a different page than everyone with a game as popular as this.
Basileus777
Member
He always came off as a tsundere about Destiny to me. If he hated it so much he wouldn't have kept playing it.
BreezyLimbo
Banned
I knew Jeff enjoyed Destiny, and I called it out earlier that him and Brad would team up on Destiny(Granted I was aiming for Destiny at #1..).
Destiny is a fun game. Anyone who's played this knows this. However, everyone who's played it is probably frustrated at the lack of things to do and content as well. It's a juxtaposition of feelings, essentially. It's a pretty damn good game with a lack of content, and unlike other games, it can be fixed over time.
Lostconfused
Member
As pointed out on the podcast itself there is a lack of good content. Since quiet the large portion of the content that is in the game right now is shit.
Destiny is a good game with a lack of content. You know what are some good games without a lack of content? Wolfenstein, Divinity, Smash Bros, Transistor, Alien Isolation, Tropical Freeze, Luftrausers, etc.
Without the marketing and the Bungie pedigree Destiny would be nothing. Brad and Jeff would have played it for a couple of hours and said it was bullshit. Jeff especially forced himself to play it to see if he could get into it, and only then he barely liked it.
HOWEVA!
Since this is a Giant Bomb top ten, and Brad is a big part of Giant Bomb, I'm ok with it being in the top ten. He obviously loved Destiny (for whatever bullshit reason), so that alone is enough to earn a spot.
Ultimately this list doesn't mean anything. Mordor won because that's the game everyone played that didn't suck, but I don't get the sense that anyone really "loved" it. The individual top ten lists they put on the site were much more interesting. That's where games are going anyway. Content that's more personal, and less "objectively good".
Without the marketing and the Bungie pedigree Destiny would be nothing. Brad and Jeff would have played it for a couple of hours and said it was bullshit. Jeff especially forced himself to play it to see if he could get into it, and only then he barely liked it.
HOWEVA!
Since this is a Giant Bomb top ten, and Brad is a big part of Giant Bomb, I'm ok with it being in the top ten. He obviously loved Destiny (for whatever bullshit reason), so that alone is enough to earn a spot.
Ultimately this list doesn't mean anything. Mordor won because that's the game everyone played that didn't suck, but I don't get the sense that anyone really "loved" it. The individual top ten lists they put on the site were much more interesting. That's where games are going anyway. Content that's more personal, and less "objectively good".
BlastProcessing
Member
I can only speak to my own problems with the game. To me it felt exactly like a game like Vindictus. Good combat feel, but only a few, heavily instanced, environments you run over and over again held together by a strikingly dead feeling hub city.
There is a part on the Moon where Dinklage-bot says something to the effect of "These caves seem to go on forever, we will never see all of them". The Third time I heard him say that I thought: "Well no shit we won't see all of them because we keep rerunning the same freaking path!". The game had no sense of discovery or exploration.
Bungie has said that their inspiration to design a game around replayable levels comes from them observing that Halo fans would endlessly play the campaign. I did that because those levels where fun! They were unique with awesome set pieces, interesting vehicles, and crazy physics. They were wonderful combat toyboxes. I replayed them because they were fun, not because I wanted helium.
Remember how in the very first tutorial bit there are trip mines? And then they are never ever seen again? That first bit actually felt designed. Enemies darted around in the shadows to build tension. The whole level built on itself and had a sense of flow. It really feels like it came from a different game.
Also, it's not even the lack of open communication, it's the fact that they designed levels that don't even begin to require any communication at all. The game feels lifeless. Alex put it very well when he said it felt bored with itself. The Bosses are all just massive damage sponges. How many times was the objective to hit a button and then hold an area while a timer ticked? Parts of the game felt more like a gear check than the combat puzzles that Bungie is known for.
I think it was Dan that said it was like a car game with amazing handling and terrible tracks. I would agree with that. There are fundamental design decisions that made the game unpalatable to me. I have a few friends who kept playing it because they found the metagame of getting the best loot compelling, but that no amount of tweaking the RNG is going to fix Destiny for me. Especially when it seems that everybody rolls the same end-game gear. Great, so I grind my ass off just so I can be like everybody else. Wonderful.
This is even before we talk about how the plot feels gutted out of the game. Why does the game have different races and factions, but has nothing that differentiates them in any way? Like, why does it make any sense to have Awoken as a playable race? Why doesn't anybody even mention it when you play as an Awoken? Not even the freakin Awoken Queen! Gah! I really really would love to see a post mortem on Destiny in a few years.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
The amazing part is that they made one piece of equipment so powerful that everyone, regardless of class, is just building their characters around trying to get that weapon. They refuse to acknowledge how it's breaking the game too, which drives "gear snobbery" where if you don't have this one gun, suddenly you are considered a worthless player.
Trust me. I'm a PhD
Member
B-b-baka. He just wanted Rahool-senpai to notice him...^^
Trust me. I'm a PhD
Member
I wouldn't call "Because it's fun" as a "bullshit" reason; in the end isn't that literally why people play games in the first place?
Edit: Double posting...
call_kotaku
Member
As an outside observer, Destiny just looks like someone at a factory decided to lace all their tofu burgers with cocaine, and then all the customers are saying "even though this tastes bad I don't know why I can't get enough of it, they must be doing something right". A lot of the stuff in that game just makes me think "didn't we exile mechanics like this to the f2p mobile market?"
I feel like if they were so confident in their "game feel" they wouldn't have placed such an enormous grind tax on it. Granted, there's some sort of grind in just about every game now, but I just wonder if the game would've been received more positively or negatively if it didn't try to trickle the breadth of its content.
I feel like if they were so confident in their "game feel" they wouldn't have placed such an enormous grind tax on it. Granted, there's some sort of grind in just about every game now, but I just wonder if the game would've been received more positively or negatively if it didn't try to trickle the breadth of its content.
sammyCYBORG
Member
If I love a game, I know it at least halfway through.
Basileus777
Member
There are plenty of games that have disappointed me with poor pacing or a bad ending. At some point I'd say if the game wasn't compelling enough to get you to finish it, it doesn't belong on a best of list.
call_kotaku
Member
If we held it to that standard it might just end up being "the 10 games I completed this year" for a lot of the bomb crew. I don't think they finish very many games outside the ones they have to review considering how many they have to play, and a lot of them might not be new games especially for someone like Drew or Jason who isn't part of the editorial staff.
Basileus777
Member
I'd be ok with that. I don't think you should be ranking games you haven't finished to begin with.
Mazdaspeed
Member
It's his list of games that he enjoyed. I don't see why you should tell him that his reasons aren't good enough for his own list!
it's a best games they've played list. Ain't got nothin' there about finishing em!
Basileus777
Member
I don't find a list of games you've played for an hour or two to be particularly interesting.
Why not? Who is the he you are talking about anyway?
Jex
Member
He's been complaining about the game for months so for him to suddenly step up and support it at all felt bizarre. I now understand that he most enjoyed it to some considerable extent but it feels like he never really expressed that clearly at any point and his vocal ranting against the game was fairly powerful.
It isn't very interesting and is simply going through the motions for the sake of it.
I'm listening to the GOTY podcast. God, listening to Jeff say he wants new and fresh things and Mario Kart 8 "is the same shit" only about an hour after he said he's going to make Call of Duty his number #1. I feel like that game and Dragon Age he has just a grudge against. He doesn't like it so that's it, it sucks, end of story.
Yep if Destiny had the content (that wasn't just grindy) and a good story (rather than just defend area missions) it would of easily been GOTY this year.
War Peaceman
You're a big guy.
I don't care whether he liked or disliked certain games, but Jeff did a terrible job at explaining why he held these opinions. On some level he is playing the GOTY metagame, but he never effectively articulated his enjoyment or distaste for particular games.
As it is, MK8 is as well executed a game as you get. It looks good, plays well, has been well serviced by DLC and online play. If you don't like kart racing, fine. But the reasoning is off. I'd be fine if it was excluded on the basis of rewarding original games and ideas but that is inconsistent with the rest of the list. Dragon Age he disliked for the ending, bugs and for problematic combat, which seems reasonable (I haven't played it).
By contrast, I have much more love for Driveclub than MK8 but that was rightly excluded by virtue of it being dysfunctional at launch and having to play catch up.
But big thanks to GB for the great content this year, loved the theme.
I don't know about that. Both Vinny and Dan had Shadow of Mordor in their top game and Vinny refused to entertain moving Mordor away from 1st. Vinny even took the supposed break to rearrange the Top 10 list to make sure Mordor was on top.
Vinny was the secret final boss this year.
Jeff is the unluckiest Dragon Age owner considering the amount of times he mentions bugs. Again during this week's podcast he mentioned experiencing more bugs the night before after the game was mentioned.
Exaggerating for effect? You bet.
LurkerPrime
Member
Wasn't he playing DAI on Xbox One? That version has seemed far and away the buggiest, from my completely objective observations.
Using design similar to Destiny wasn't going to help its chances either. You know, "Diablo design," as Brad would say.
I dunno, he's playing the Xbox One version which I've heard from people online and offline has been exceptionally buggy. I don't think it's all in his head either, Bioware was getting the stability patches for PC and PS4 out much faster than Xbox, suggesting there's something a bit more problematic going on there.
Personally the PC version has worked well real for me though, apart from some texture pop in that's caused by my SLI.
Also, when they filmed this that big fix patch had not been rolled out.
Don't mind me. Just catching up on this thread.
This one got me good.
acheron_xl
Member
Jeff always seems to have very strong, black and white opinions (see also: Yoshi's Island) and I get the sense that he lets his seniority do the talking. He has his opinions, and any other opinion can just fuck right off because he's the boss.
Not that I mind.
They've straight up ignored platforms in the past when giving out GotY awards (Skyrim on PS3 comes to mind) but none of the crew seemed to care enough to mention that DA:I isn't nearly as broken as Jeff makes it out to be.
Not surprised about Destiny sneaking in the top 10, the game is like a perfect storm designed specifically to suck Brad in - loot driven co-op, a sustained internet backlash and anti-consumer practises.
Rest of the crew were smart enough to realise Brad would practically lay down his life for the game.
Rest of the crew were smart enough to realise Brad would practically lay down his life for the game.
Infinite Justice
Member
But he did though.
the impression was always that the game placed him between a rock and a hard place where he loved the core aka shooting etc but everything else around it was fucking trash (which is surprising for a Bungie game). He mentions the bad stuff most of the time because they are fucking bad.
Its unfortunate that the other games just didn't grab him enough to overthrow Destiny's core that he likes so much hence why he supported it. Also the fact the other guys didn't stick to their guns as well (Wolfenstein should have made it).
War Peaceman
You're a big guy.
Pretty much. I don't share his taste but he's great, especially when he goes in hard on a deserved target or is enthusiastic about something. It is just a bit frustrating for the goty casts.
Typographenia
Member
In Drew's case, I get the feeling that he wouldn't necessarily have ten full games he completed for a list. He's not like the other members of staff where games take up a significant amount of his free time.
Yep.
NumberThree
Member
"Top 10 games shorter than 10 hours"
Antiwhippy
the holder of the trombone
"Top 8 games I crammed between DOTA 2 and destiny."
chromatic9
Member
Call of Duty has changed the way it plays. It's done the Titanfall fast movement and verticality thing but much better in his eyes and he's enjoyed playing it a lot. He's said a few times this year if they move back to old style Call of Duty they would mess it up.
I would say this Call of Duty formula starts in the 2007 game Modern Warfare. Probably the best one since. Jeff said if you told him his favorite game would be COD this year he wouldn't believe you. It's all in the podcast.
We have many devs making first person shooters and side scrollers today. You can change a lot and repackage them into something new when some of it is similar, even a COD game, hence why we come back. We don't have many devs making Kart Racers, its a slippery slope to go down but these seem a little more simple and unchanging, like its par for the course for Nintendo to add one to their console and be well executed, great keep on doing it. I liked MK in 1992 but don't care anymore for more Mario Karts or even Kart Racers. A platformer can come out tomorrow and I'm interested to find out more about it. There's many aspects that interest or not. You can point the stick to practically all games but its just the way it is.
CosmicQueso
Member
Having listened to every bombcast in the past year, not one thing was super surprising, aside from the late Jazzpunk love.
During the deliberations, sure. But he did share the reasons behind his opinions many times through the year. The deliberations aren't intended as audience facing, so going back to reiterate reasons behind positions would be a waste of time, as the people in the room know the reasons already, yeah?
During the deliberations, sure. But he did share the reasons behind his opinions many times through the year. The deliberations aren't intended as audience facing, so going back to reiterate reasons behind positions would be a waste of time, as the people in the room know the reasons already, yeah?
I don't really agree. All throughout the GOTY podcast we hear about Jeff just plain losing interest in games like Shovel Knight and never going back to them. Destiny he kept going back to over and over again, because there was something about it. Jeff has said numerous times over the past few months that if the game around the core mechanics of Destiny wasn't bullshit he would have loved it
If there was a ton of games he liked this year it would have been different, but his love for Destiny's core shooting mechanics was stronger than his hate for the grinding, lack of content, etc. when it came to putting the game over stuff he was just meh on.
Exactly. The only reason we continue to hear Jeff shit on Destiny week after week is because Jeff kept going back to play Destiny week after week.
I don't know. I thought Destiny had better loot and multiplayer raids. Might just be me, though.
ShockingAlberto
Member
He didn't, though. Brad kept dragging him back in for content and he always found it frustrating. He didn't react to it any better than Mario Party.