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[EmCeeGramr]

What's the new stuff you found weird MC? For the most part almost all of my problems were related to problems I've found inherent in Gamebryo games.

Mainly it had to do with the immortality issue. I understand the need for immortal NPCs, not every game can have New Vegas' story and gameplay structure. You need the player to be able to, you know, finish the game. That's why main quest givers or areas involved with main quests may invoke the necessary evil of immortality or disarmed players. (Though Morrowind had the whole, "Ooops! You've doomed us all. Oh well. Load last game or keep playing, your choice! " text box.)

Skyrim goes way overboard with this. Countless characters that are involved in a sidequest, be it a factional quest chain thing or something minor like a local spat in a city, cannot be harmed. These are not folks that are essential to the Dragonborn fulfilling his destiny and casting down Alduin. These are hobos, meadery owners, unimportant relations of important townsfolk, shopkeepers, etc. I once tried to rob a shop owner for a key, only to discover that the key didn't exist in their pocket. I assumed that maybe it would be on their corpse for some janky Gamebryo reason (the key doesn't exist until a faction sidequest dozens of hours later, btw). I tried to sneak into the shop at night and take out the employees and owner. Every one of them was invincible. They took damage, crouched down, then regenerated all health and either returned to attacking me or acted like they had forgotten what happened. At one point I attacked one, got a bounty placed on me, then "killed" him at which point a message popped up telling me that my bounty was removed because "the last witness had died." Then the dude got up and told me that he wanted privacy, get of out my house! like nothing had happened. It turns out he was part of a Thieves Guild quest later on.

Well, you know what? I would have been happier to get rid of the dude, discover little to no reward, and then hours down the road face an angry Thieves Guild quest giver telling me "Well you get no reward since you botched that up for us." Bethesda seems terrified of the idea of a casual audience doing something like I did and being confused when a FAILED: SUCH-AND-SUCH YOU HAVEN'T FOUND YET message appears on screen.




Oh, and that interface on PC! Am I right folks? I'll be here all week.

 

[obonicus]

What's the new stuff you found weird MC? For the most part almost all of my problems were related to problems I've found inherent in Gamebryo games.

The abundance of plot-immune NPCs is pretty new and honestly is very nearly a deal-breaker for the sort of 'make your own story' play Bethesda games encourage.

 

[Draft]

Finny is still the best but he let Dark Souls down.

 

[Jintor]

I'd no idea plot immunity went so far these days (I don't play games that way). yeesh.

 

[Foliorum Viridum]

It's not really something people started saying now. The poster you're replying to didn't like the game very much, and has said so in other GB threads. Most of the SR3 criticism comes from people who loved SR2 and felt the game removed some of the stuff they loved. The people who didn't like the game just haven't showed up in the OT much.

As to mediocre, that's a different strokes sort of thing. Keep in mind that a lot of the stuff you call mediocre is what the people who loved SR2 enjoyed the most.

Maybe I've just been paying attention to SR3 posts more since playing it myself, but in GB threads lately it's been hailed as something it's not mostly, I think.

 

[The Antitype]

I actually spat my beer out laughing when Jeff said that Dark Souls should come off the list because 'I don't think bad games should be on this list.'

Perfect.

Keep fighting the good fight, Jeff.

 

[Don]

Still can't figure out how LA Noir made it onto their top 10. It's like they tabled it and when they came back to it, it was locked in. Even Ryan said they could cut it.

L.A. Noire making the list was weird. Brad's defence of it wasn't all that great while both Patrick and Ryan gave pretty good reasons for taking it off.

For me personally L.A. Noire was up with Dragon Age 2 as my biggest disappointment of the year. I was really excited for it because it looked like a more realistic Ace Attorney game with some GTA open world elements mixed in but it all fell apart pretty quickly.

The Ace Attorney series does a really good job of making you feel satisfied at the end of each case which is something that L.A. Noire fails pretty badly at. A lot of the cases feel like they end too early and there are times during the game when it makes you choose between two people to arrest even though it's obvious that both of them are innocent. By having no fail states during the interrogations (which Brad brings up as a positive) it also means that sometimes you will finish a case without even knowing the whole story behind what really happened.

There are bunch of other little things in L.A. Noire that also stand out as being pretty weird like swinging on the chandelier or getting chased by the bulldozer.

 

[edgefusion]

I've finally gotten around to listening to the Day Five podcast and the arguments Brad is coming up with for Skyrim are just smh bad. That guys integrity is severely dashed as far as I'm concerned and I'm gonna have a real hard time trusting a word he has to say from now on. He just invents stuff because he wants Skyrim to be GOTY.

 

[witness]

After listening to this I really am not fond of Brad anymore......his arguments for Skyrim>Saints Row plus wanting to cut Arkham City out of the top 10 just infuriated me. Keep on keepin on Jeff and Vinny.

 

[IamMattFox]

Their top five is the same as my top Portal and Bastion flip-flopped and no Saints Row since I haven't played it.

I approve.

 

[Fjordson]

Finally marathoned the last episode last night. Awesome listen. Pretty epic arguments there towards the end, and lmao @ the games Russian roulette they had going on.

I need to play Dead Space 2, they seemed to really dig it. I enjoyed the first one, but 2 somehow slipped under my radar. Also, L.A. Noire on the list was a nice surprise. I'm one of the five people on Earth (including Brad and Ryan) who really liked that game.

In total, definitely the best round of GOTY content for GB yet.

 

[Papercuts]

L.A. Noire making the list was weird. Brad's defence of it wasn't all that great while both Patrick and Ryan gave pretty good reasons for taking it off.

For me personally L.A. Noire was up with Dragon Age 2 as my biggest disappointment of the year. I was really excited for it because it looked like a more realistic Ace Attorney game with some GTA open world elements mixed in but it all fell apart pretty quickly.

The Ace Attorney series does a really good job of making you feel satisfied at the end of each case which is something that L.A. Noire fails pretty badly at. A lot of the cases feel like they end too early and there are times during the game when it makes you choose between two people to arrest even though it's obvious that both of them are innocent. By having no fail states during the interrogations (which Brad brings up as a positive) it also means that sometimes you will finish a case without even knowing the whole story behind what really happened.

There are bunch of other little things in L.A. Noire that also stand out as being pretty weird like swinging on the chandelier or getting chased by the bulldozer.

Not to mention the real screw up here, is that the game still punishes you for picking the "wrong" person of the two, even if you can deduct a more likely reasoning for one of them to be guilty. You'll get a shitty grade for not doing what the game wants, and regardless of how badly you mess up each case, you still progress through the story and become the well known awesome detective rising the ranks.

I get mad just thinking about the game. It's boring, full of broken mechanics, nothing the player inputs into the story matters...it's just such a pointless game.

 

[matrix-cat]

Ryan (and Patrick) mentioned that facial animation in LA Noire couldn't be used for other games, what did they mean by that?

I think it's mostly due to the way it forces the actor to sit in a chair, unmoving, while thirty-something cameras point at them. The system captures their facial movements perfectly, but only their facial movements. It's why characters in LA Noire have eerily realistic faces but the same old stiff bodies as every other Rockstar game. I don't know that it necessarily couldn't be used for other games, but when you consider that studios like Naughty Dog like to get their voice acting and motion capture done at the same time by having the actors actually act out the scenes it doesn't really jibe.

There's also the fact that the LA Noire tech captures the actor's exact facial features, so the character has to look like the actor. It wouldn't work for games where the characters aren't human, or where the art style isn't an exact recreation of the real world, and it makes it so that you need to hire a different actor for every character in the game unless you want a bunch of clones running around.

Not to mention the real screw up here, is that the game still punishes you for picking the "wrong" person of the two, even if you can deduct a more likely reasoning for one of them to be guilty.

I think that speaks to the larger problem with the game, which is that the 'interrogations' are really just four or five questions, each of which has only one possible answer. You open your notebook, select a question, then you make your choice. If it's right you get the good jingle and some more information, if it's wrong the bad jingle. It's just a shitty way of approaching the concept. The idea that you can't ask a question again after going back and finding more evidence, despite the fact that the suspect is sitting in a cell at your mercy, is absolutely ridiculous and glaringly video-game-y.

I'd really like to know what the Truth/Doubt/Lie options were actually called when they were recording dialogue for that game, because Truth, Doubt and Lie are really poor descriptors of what you're actually doing in that game. You shouldn't be marked wrong for expressing doubt at a suspect that you know isn't telling the truth, and half the time choosing 'Lie' is actually pressing them for more information.

 

[PasteyMF]

I used to like Brad Shoemaker, then I took an arrow to the knee and listened to his filibuster of Skyrim as GOTY. Shame on you Brad, shame.

 

[bucknuticus]

Have only listened to days 1-3 so far and really seems like its always coming down to Brad being stubborn and not moving anything and expecting others always to move theres without making a good argument why. Reading this thread seems like im in store for more of that.

 

[Fox318]

I really wish Jeff and Ryan went back to look at SR2. It has many of the things they were praising the 3rd for having and more.

 

[edgefusion]

Have only listened to days 1-3 so far and really seems like its always coming down to Brad being stubborn and not moving anything and expecting others always to move theres without making a good argument why. Reading this thread seems like im in store for more of that.

I just hope Brad takes note of at least some of the backlash, his behaviour kind of ruined the GOTY deliberations for me. I really enjoy the GB personalities and was looking forward to seeing what they would pick but Brad controls the entire process and squashes any of that individuality.

 

[Majine]

When are they back from the holiday?

 

[JackEtc]

I haven't watch the final day's video or listened to the last day's podcast, but I just watched the top 10 Giant Bomb video, and I'm really surprised that #2 and #1 weren't reversed.

 

[IamMattFox]

When are they back from the holiday?

I think this week.

Jeff said on a Bombcast or something a while ago that he'd be taking an extra week (or two?) of vacation though.

 

[vaelic]

After listening to this I really am not fond of Brad anymore......his arguments for Skyrim>Saints Row plus wanting to cut Arkham City out of the top 10 just infuriated me. Keep on keepin on Jeff and Vinny.

did he ruin your life?

 

[kylej]

I used to like Brad Shoemaker, then I took an arrow to the knee and listened to his filibuster of Skyrim as GOTY. Shame on you Brad, shame.

sick meme usage bro. I laughed!!!

 

[Fox318]

I think this week.

Jeff said on a Bombcast or something a while ago that he'd be taking an extra week (or two?) of vacation though.

He is leaving Giantbomb to start a Dubstep Whiskey Media site.

 

[ashbash159]

Just finished Saints Row: The Third. Jeff hyped the game up way too much for me to enjoy it anywhere near how much he did. Of course it is still an amazing game but best game of the year? There's way better games than SR3.

 

[Ghost23]

I was quite disappointed when I heard Zelda didn't even crack the top 13 or so.

 

[DaBuddaDa]

Jeff said on a Bombcast or something a while ago that he'd be taking an extra week (or two?) of vacation though.

Understandable: Blitz comes out Tuesday.

 

[IamMattFox]

Understandable: Blitz comes out Tuesday.

Haha. Does it? I'm kind of interested in it due to extreme nostalgia.

It'll be fun to hear Jeff talk about it when he gets back, at least.

 

[Majine]

He is leaving Giantbomb to start a Dubstep Whiskey Media site.

Is there a songlist for the Giant Bomb Trackmania 2 server?

 

[CrunchinJelly]

Understandable: Blitz comes out Tuesday.

New Skylanders figures out, too.

 

[RomanticHeroX]

I was quite disappointed when I heard Zelda didn't even crack the top 13 or so.

It tied for 11.

 

[Xander51]

I just hope Brad takes note of at least some of the backlash, his behaviour kind of ruined the GOTY deliberations for me. I really enjoy the GB personalities and was looking forward to seeing what they would pick but Brad controls the entire process and squashes any of that individuality.

Agreed. He got surprisingly over-passionate and whiny towards the end. I usually respect his opinions, but I felt like his argument was more about "You guys have got to be kidding me about SR3" than anything substantive or analytical. He seems to have a general disdain for open world crime games that also came out a little during the old GTA IV vs. Metal Gear debate, but I thought he was more even-handed and interesting to listen to back then.

 

[brianmcdoogle]

As long as we're airing grievances , I thought Brad's refusal to acknowledge Francis York Morgan last year was the worst. Doesn't matter if the game sucked and Brad almost couldn't finish the game because he did so poorly near the end boss, but York was the most interesting character of the year, darn it!

 

[Vyse The Legend]

Just finished Saints Row: The Third. Jeff hyped the game up way too much for me to enjoy it anywhere near how much he did. Of course it is still an amazing game but best game of the year? There's way better games than SR3.

There were way better games than Skyrim too. It's all subjective. However, in this particular debate, one side definitely articulated their points better. For that reason alone, SR should've won.

 

[Htown]

He reads and posts in this thread, so I'm pretty sure he's aware of how people are reacting.

I'm not sure he should care.

Yeah, his arguments were kind of terrible towards the end, but it was that part that was annoying, not his behavior itself.

 

[Lumpy Onion]

Meh had to stop listening after that fucking Catherine spoiler. Now I probably won't even buy the game now that I know the punchline. Seeing as I have yet to even play SR3 or finish most of the games they were talking about I didn't want to ruin anything else. Still had fun listening to the previous days though.

 

[KarmaCow]

That Catherine spoiler is like the least surprising thing ever.

 

[Data West]

That Catherine spoiler is like the least surprising thing ever.

GAF thinks everything is a spoiler now. Legit spoilers have lost all sway. It's gotten to the point that I feel like I have to spoiler mark that a game has an uzi in it

 

[elrechazado]

Meh had to stop listening after that fucking Catherine spoiler. Now I probably won't even buy the game now that I know the punchline. Seeing as I have yet to even play SR3 or finish most of the games they were talking about I didn't want to ruin anything else. Still had fun listening to the previous days though.

You heard the five days of spoiler warnings and spoilery casts before this, right?

 

[Dany]

I hope that after this year, they don't change a thing about their process.

 

[StuBurns]

GAF thinks everything is a spoiler now. Legit spoilers have lost all sway. It's gotten to the point that I feel like I have to spoiler mark that a game has an uzi in it

The Cathy spoiler was nothing like that whatsoever.

 

[Curufinwe]

The Cathy spoiler was nothing like that whatsoever.

Did that spoiler spoil every ending? It was hard to tell, but it seemed like all this year Patrick only ever talked about one of the endings and how bad it was.

 

[Gestahl]

Eh, it comes up more than that, though it's still pretty simple "we are forced to live in a ghetto and then people hate us for it... are we so different after all!?"

There's a book where some racist dude basically says, "Look at how well they've integrated in Riften, while they're lazy entitled layabouts in their Little Morrowind slum in Windhelm. Look at the Argonians, they're practically our children with their adorable hard work," or something else that sounds like it came from Free Republic or a Fox News comments section. Although it too gets a little too hamfisted at points (the author swings back and forth between the more insidious, far more public, and vastly more realistic thinly-veiled "concern" racism, to cartoon villain levels of straight up calling them inferior beings with no civilized society).

There's even an Dark Elf who acts like an Uncle Tom with all the subtlety of a South Park episode.

Hey yeah I just remembered I saw the Argonian hobo camp on the docks today, apparently beast men aren't welcome in most of Skyrim but especially Windhelm. It's a good thing my dinosaur man PC blends in well with all the blond haired and blue-eyed Nords, because no one seems to care much that I wander around their city unmolested

 

[Fjordson]

I think it's mostly due to the way it forces the actor to sit in a chair, unmoving, while thirty-something cameras point at them. The system captures their facial movements perfectly, but only their facial movements.

I think it was in reference to the problems facing the company behind the tech, Depth Analysis, because of all the issues with LAN's development and Brendan McNamara and the destruction of Team Bondi. Last I heard, Depth Analysis was still owed money for the tech being used in LAN, so I don't think they're really in a position to implement or develop it further right now.

And yeah, even I'll admit Cole's mood swings were rough. They fucked it up because I remember McNamara saying one of the options was originally Accuse or Force or something like that. When they ended up with Truth, Doubt, and Lie I guess they weren't able to go back and change those "Accuse" dialogue paths for whatever reason. Was pretty jarring at times.

 

[Officerrob]

Just finished Saints Row: The Third. Jeff hyped the game up way too much for me to enjoy it anywhere near how much he did. Of course it is still an amazing game but best game of the year? There's way better games than SR3.

That's your opinion and that's cool. The problem lies with Ryan voting against the game he put at #1 on his GOTY list for a game he barely played (and didn't crack his top 10). I have still yet to hear a rational argument at to what the fuck happened there

 

[MYeager]

That's your opinion and that's cool. The problem lies with Ryan voting against the game he put at #1 on his GOTY list for a game he barely played (and didn't crack his top 10). I have still yet to hear a rational argument at to what the fuck happened there

He thought the people arguing for Skyrim made better points than he had for SR3?

I've yet to hear a rational argument why anyone cares so damn much about it.

 

[Mechanized]

That's your opinion and that's cool. The problem lies with Ryan voting against the game he put at #1 on his GOTY list for a game he barely played (and didn't crack his top 10). I have still yet to hear a rational argument at to what the fuck happened there

Yeah I'm kinda over it already, but the sociopath narc Ryan "Judas" Davis owes people an explanation.
And if all he says is he didn't want to argue with Brad, I'd totally accept it.

 

[firehawk12]

Yeah I'm kinda over it already, but the sociopath narc Ryan "Judas" Davis owes people an explanation.
And if all he says is he didn't want to argue with Brad, I'd totally accept it.

Given how it all ended, I feel like that's exactly what happened.

 

[Duffyside]

Meh had to stop listening after that fucking Catherine spoiler. Now I probably won't even buy the game now that I know the punchline. Seeing as I have yet to even play SR3 or finish most of the games they were talking about I didn't want to ruin anything else. Still had fun listening to the previous days though.

Amazing how you were able to tell whether Patrick was using the letter "C" or "K" in his sentence.

 

[elrechazado]

He thought the people arguing for Skyrim made better points than he had for SR3?

I've yet to hear a rational argument why anyone cares so damn much about it.

Why would you even read the thread if you didn't care, or listen to the podcast, or anything? People "care" and post about it to the extent that it's interesting to follow the site and listen to their podcasts and anything else they do at all.

Why do people freak out that some people might want to discuss the results. Nobody can get a post in without some person running in to pull the "y u so mad????" nonsense.

It's interesting to discuss why they chose what they chose for the same reason that it's interesting to listen to them in the first place.

 

[EmCeeGramr]

Ryan decides to play Skyrim to see if he made the right choice but as he leaves the building a mysterious unmarked Lincoln Town Car hits him. For the next five weeks Giant Bomb holds a wrestling tournament to discover the culprit and the winner gets to face the guy who drove the car.