The Giant Bomb Quick Look Thread 2

The last time Jeff did the Brad voice on the Bombcast it definitely sounded Aussie. I can't recall previous instances of it, though.
 
I thought that the origin of Brad's "Emails!" came from the fact that Brad would perk up at the email section of the podcast because it indicated that the podcast recording was almost done.
 
SmithnCo said:
Glad they got Vinny/Jeff on the sports QLs, I'd probably skip them otherwise.
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Yeah, having someone who knew anything about the sports would totally ruin them.

I still love the Bombcast where Jeff and Ryan were discussing whether or not the Browns were still a team, and they decided that they weren't. Not saying they were wrong.
 
Yaboosh said:
Yeah, having someone who knew anything about the sports would totally ruin them.

I still love the Bombcast where Jeff and Ryan were discussing whether or not the Browns were still a team, and they decided that they weren't. Not saying they were wrong.
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Which bombcast was that? I need that.
 
Alucrid said:
No idea Giroux made the NHL 13 cover, fuck yeah Flyers
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giroux_medium.gif
 
There was a quick look where Brad was using a 3DS I believe, and it came pre-loaded with a drawing of him.

Was it Colours 3D? I can't find a quick look for that game, so must not be that.
 
Game looks great. Jeff seemed a little annoyed throughout the Quick Look.

Maybe he just played too much of the first game, but as someone who only casually played the first - this seems like there is enough improvements and varied environments for me to give it a go.
 
Hoo-doo said:
Just me or does the HD setting still look very very low-res?
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Since they started using their own player, videos have looked crap on my PC. It was fine on YouTube. (However, Tested's embedded YouTube stuff those looked terrible for a while too. It's fine now)

There is something really weird going on with Flash players. Some of them are fine, others are really pixelated. Giant Bomb's videos are all pixelated. I just tested it on Safari on a MBA, same problem. The only non-pixelated way I can watch GB videos consistently is on my iPad, which presumably uses the HTML5 player.

(I also had this same pixelation on all BBC videos apart from when using IE... this has now been resolved). What is going on?
 
Pazuzu9 said:
Since they started using their own player, videos have looked crap on my PC. It was fine on YouTube. (However, Tested's embedded YouTube stuff those looked terrible for a while too. It's fine now)

There is something really weird going on with Flash players. Some of them are fine, others are really pixelated. Giant Bomb's videos are all pixelated. I just tested it on Safari on a MBA, same problem. The only non-pixelated way I can watch GB videos consistently is on my iPad, which presumably uses the HTML5 player.

(I also had this same pixelation on all BBC videos apart from when using IE... this has now been resolved). What is going on?
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Lack of Anti-aliasing/smoothing.

The Giant Bomb flash player is Gamespot's old one which doesn't have it. Their redesign has an all-new player, so hopefully that will take care of that.
 
Posting this here instead of the main thread, but I feel like this QL of Borderlands 2 exemplifies exactly what I don't like about Jeff, and in part to the majority of the crew, which is how they cannot seem to articulate themselves on specific issues. I wish I had more examples but this QL in particular stood out to me. I feel like I understand the base level of criticism Jeff levels with the game but he doesn't go into any detail and specifics about what he precisely doesn't like about the game and it just feels... bad.

I'm not saying he is a crappy journalist or anything but when he has difficulty explaining his problems with a game it makes you consider how his views on other gaming sites as well and how credible they are.
 
I kinda got the sense that Jeff actually seemed mad that the game is more balanced. He was no longer able to throw a turret out to heal and regen ammo, and he went on about the choices having heavy tradeoffs that can fuck you over.
 
Wunder said:
Posting this here instead of the main thread, but I feel like this QL of Borderlands 2 exemplifies exactly what I don't like about Jeff, and in part to the majority of the crew, which is how they cannot seem to articulate themselves on specific issues. I wish I had more examples but this QL in particular stood out to me. I feel like I understand the base level of criticism Jeff levels with the game but he doesn't go into any detail and specifics about what he precisely doesn't like about the game and it just feels... bad.

I'm not saying he is a crappy journalist or anything but when he has difficulty explaining his problems with a game it makes you consider how his views on other gaming sites as well and how credible they are.
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Yep. Something I got annoyed by years ago. Patrick has the same problem (see Skyward Sword).
 
Wunder said:
Posting this here instead of the main thread, but I feel like this QL of Borderlands 2 exemplifies exactly what I don't like about Jeff, and in part to the majority of the crew, which is how they cannot seem to articulate themselves on specific issues. I wish I had more examples but this QL in particular stood out to me. I feel like I understand the base level of criticism Jeff levels with the game but he doesn't go into any detail and specifics about what he precisely doesn't like about the game and it just feels... bad.
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I'm pretty sure his preface of "I've played over 200 hours of the first Borderlands" spelt out his specific issue with it pretty clearly. He's obviously fatigued by the base game and wasn't compelled by what the story had to offer, and yet the gameplay itself is without inherent fault so it isn't a bad game. I don't see what's so vague about his position there. It would be another thing if he were then also telling everyone not to buy the game, but that isn't the case.
 
Papercuts said:
I kinda got the sense that Jeff actually seemed mad that the game is more balanced. He was no longer able to throw a turret out to heal and regen ammo, and he went on about the choices having heavy tradeoffs that can fuck you over.
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Yeah I definitely had a sense of that, and it brings to memory his MMO discussions as well. For someone that has a lot of problems with MMOs and how they function, he seems to go quite in-depth into a lot of them and also seems to have a problem with what he exactly wants from the game. He likes Phantasy Star Online, but he also hates grinding and being forced to party up to advance. I thought that GW2 would've been the perfect game for him since it allows for an individual experience while giving the player a 'MMO' feel, where you have hundreds of players running around you doing their own thing but you aren't forced to follow them to level up.


I should be doing hw said:
I'm pretty sure his preface of "I've played over 200 hours of the first Borderlands" spelt out his specific issue with it pretty clearly. He's obviously fatigued by the base game and wasn't compelled by what the story had to offer, and yet the gameplay itself is without inherent fault so it isn't a bad game. I don't see what's so vague about his position there. It would be another thing if he were then also telling everyone not to buy the game, but that isn't the case.
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I think my issue is maybe that he didn't really give suggestions or list what he would like instead? I guess that's not really the job of the consumer or journalist but I thought for someone who was so invested in the first game and had a very specific idea of how it should play that he'd have a better idea of things to change and improve upon.
 
Aaron said:
Try reading the review? I think Jeff makes his problems with BL2 pretty clear.
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Really? I thought Jeff explained his position in the Quick Look more than in the review, the review just seemed like an overview of the new mechanics and a few points of dislikes from the likes of Handsome Jack, tad overuse of the old characters and a few unfunny gags.

Jeff Gerstmann said:
As such, the game's barebones story, lackluster AI, and insufficient player trading options are real disappointments that prevent the game from reaching its full potential.
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This is from his Borderlands review and I feel like Borderlands 2 delivers on every aspect of that, and it didn't even seem like he hated any of that stuff!

Jeff G said:
Borderlands 2 is a better game in most of the ways that matter, but some of that is brought down by the familiarity of the experience.
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This is from the last paragraph of his BL2 review and is sort of the key part of his review, in my opinion. He talks about his obsession with Borderlands and the couple hundred hours he put into that game but then he doesn't delve into the details. Why doesn't he like that they've improved the story, AI and multiplayer experience while adding in new upgrades to the grenade and shield systems? Is it because it didn't go far enough? Didn't go in a different direction? I find myself wanting more from his review, just like he wants more from Borderlands 2.
 
Wunder said:
Really? I thought Jeff explained his position in the Quick Look more than in the review, the review just seemed like an overview of the new mechanics and a few points of dislikes from the likes of Handsome Jack, tad overuse of the old characters and a few unfunny gags.



This is from his Borderlands review and I feel like Borderlands 2 delivers on every aspect of that, and it didn't even seem like he hated any of that stuff!



This is from the last paragraph of his BL2 review and is sort of the key part of his review, in my opinion. He talks about his obsession with Borderlands and the couple hundred hours he put into that game but then he doesn't delve into the details. Why doesn't he like that they've improved the story, AI and multiplayer experience while adding in new upgrades to the grenade and shield systems? Is it because it didn't go far enough? Didn't go in a different direction? I find myself wanting more from his review, just like he wants more from Borderlands 2.
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Even if you believe Gearbox improved on all of that stuff (which I don't as I'm still getting constant AI bugs in Borderlands 2), those fixes alone aren't enough for a sequel to automatically be great.

The fact quite a few outlets are giving Borderlands 2 amazing praise is a seriously disheartening aspect of this industry - it's like this generation has trained reviewers to automatically expect barely iterative sequels.

I can't speak for Jeff, but playing Borderlands 2 just leaves me with this feeling that if this game was released 10 years ago, it would have been an expansion pack for the original Borderlands.
 
Zaph said:
Even if you believe Gearbox improved on all of that stuff (which I don't as I'm still getting constant AI bugs in Borderlands 2), those fixes alone aren't enough for a sequel to automatically be great.

The fact quite a few outlets are giving Borderlands 2 amazing praise is a seriously disheartening aspect of this industry - it's like this generation has trained reviewers to automatically expect barely iterative sequels.

I can't speak for Jeff, but playing Borderlands 2 just leaves me with this feeling that if this game was released 10 years ago, it would have been an expansion pack for the original Borderlands.
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Great point! I haven't played BL2 yet, still waiting for it to unlock over at my area of the world - but from what I've seen from streams, reviews and friends it definitely sounds a bit like that. The grenades and shields getting their own 'generator' and having manufacturers feel different seem cool, but at the end of the day, aren't you still just shooting people? Of course I don't want to dampen my experience before I actually play it but it seems like Jeff's main problem was that it didn't switch up the experience too much? Maybe I'm reading too much into this stuff at this point.
 
It is literally more borderlands, only the enemy variation, behaviour, quest design, world design and weapon variety are now way better. Nothing more, nothing less. It isn't as surprising as the first, but I think having a sequel that tries to improve on the first instead of reinventing the wheel is fine. Especially seeing that it isn't as if the first borderlands wasn't reiterated to hell and back, if you don't count the DLCs.

]Quick Look: FTL (Brad, Jeff) 24:56
 
Zaph said:
Even if you believe Gearbox improved on all of that stuff (which I don't as I'm still getting constant AI bugs in Borderlands 2), those fixes alone aren't enough for a sequel to automatically be great.

The fact quite a few outlets are giving Borderlands 2 amazing praise is a seriously disheartening aspect of this industry - it's like this generation has trained reviewers to automatically expect barely iterative sequels.

I can't speak for Jeff, but playing Borderlands 2 just leaves me with this feeling that if this game was released 10 years ago, it would have been an expansion pack for the original Borderlands.
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We've had iterative sequels in the past and I think there is more than enough in Borderlands 2 to be considered a full sequel. However, I agree that they were conservative with their changes, more just fixing some of the more glaring issues of the predecessor, definitely nothing revolutionary (my biggest complaint is the lack of armor type gear).

From my limited time with the game, I think Jeff's over familiarity complaints are completely valid and even though the game came out 3 years ago, they were putting out DLC long after that. People that were really into Borderlands were still playing it much more recently, so it makes sense that, without more significant changes to the formula, they could quickly burnout with this sequel.

For me, I only played 1 piece of the DLC and not completely, so coming back, it's a nice change of pace compared to what I've been playing and I'm having a good time. I can definitely appreciate Jeff's point of view and the point of view of those that agree with him, though.
 
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