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Giant bomb "dot com" official thread 12 - anime + waluigi discussion webzone

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Good to see Brad still calling things he hasn't seen/played dumb. Poor Hellraiser. And it would make sense that Jeff hates horror movies if he only watches the terrible 5th sequels.

Edit: Many people disliked Prometheus because of the writing being horrid and the characters doing very silly things. It wasn't because people were pissed about alien lore.

Giant bomb movie talk is the worst.
 
Is it bad that my reaction to him putting on Arma was "You can't figure out how to interrogate a guy but you're going to play this..all right."?

Haha....yeah. Dunno why people give him shit over MGS3, when Drew is more of a classic gamer and avionic simulation player.

Terrordome section was awesome. That game looks really legit.
 

- J - D -

Member
Jeff could not seem less enthused during the Battlefield Hardline QL, which makes for a boring watch. Bless Drew, he at least tried to ask questions, spout quips, and keep it interesting.
 
I hope Jeff brings in a game.com once, remember seeing Resident Evil 2 being listed for it on IGN way back and that was all I ever heard of it. I should grab one.
 

Kelas

The Beastie Boys are the first hip hop group in years to have something to say
30 mins into the hardline quicklook and the story mode looks kinda junky. One scripted action sequence, one scripted car chase, a forced walking sequence with barely any gameplay, and a lot of boring, cliche ridden dialogue.
 
Holy crap that retro arcade game Brad brought in is freaking amazing. I wanna buy an oculus just so I could show it to my brother, he would freaking love this. Oh my god, wow. That is amazing.
 

deleted

Member
I was watching the Cities Skylines Quicklook and I noticed how I really don't like how unprepared Giantbomb has become for most of it's Quicklooks.

Since I played it before, it was easier to spot here, but they spent maybe around 10 minutes total with the game, before starting the Quicklook and they were severely mis- and uninformed about the game. They didn't know how to install and use mods, they didn't know anything about the basic toolset the game provides, didn't understand basic parts of the UI like the zoning tools, didn't care to read how offices work etc.

They still have a good team with Vinny and Alex that are mostly informed enough about what they play to provide some insight to the game, like the Offworld Trading Company or the Darkest Dungeon Unifinished.
But man, the gap in quality is becoming jarring.
Had I watched some Quicklooks as the only source of information about a game, I would not have bought several games due to these videos being flat out wrong about elementary functionality about the game at times, which could easily be fixed by reading a little bit into a game, or actually playing it for about 1 or 2 hours before making a video about it.
This is different from not liking a game they played, which is fine by me, but this is pretty much unprofessional for them - especially if you have a direct comparison with how good they can still be and how good they were in the past with these things.
 

Tan

Member
I was watching the Cities Skylines Quicklook and I noticed how I really don't like how unprepared Giantbomb has become for most of it's Quicklooks.

Since I played it before, it was easier to spot here, but they spent maybe around 10 minutes total with the game, before starting the Quicklook and they were severely mis- and uninformed about the game. They didn't know how to install and use mods, they didn't know anything about the basic toolset the game provides, didn't understand basic parts of the UI like the zoning tools, didn't care to read how offices work etc.

They still have a good team with Vinny and Alex that are mostly informed enough about what they play to provide some insight to the game, like the Offworld Trading Company or the Darkest Dungeon Unifinished.
But man, the gap in quality is becoming jarring.
Had I watched some Quicklooks as the only source of information about a game, I would not have bought several games due to these videos being flat out wrong about elementary functionality about the game at times, which could easily be fixed by reading a little bit into a game, or actually playing it for about 1 or 2 hours before making a video about it.
This is different from not liking a game they played, which is fine by me, but this is pretty much unprofessional for them - especially if you have a direct comparison with how good they can still be and how good they were in the past with these things.

Yeah the Alex and Vinny quick looks have been consistently more informative lately. The one's that Dan drives are usually better too.
 
What a great UPF. Drew's Arma thing wasn't so hot, but they all seemed to be into the fighting game, Lynx is cool and Brad's thing was just amazing. Really makes me want to see that thing with a Rift, maybe the emulated scanlines work a bit better in VR, too? As Jeff said it would be great if it kept emulating the games (at least a few closest ones) in the background. Adding your own music would be great, too.
 
I was watching the Cities Skylines Quicklook and I noticed how I really don't like how unprepared Giantbomb has become for most of it's Quicklooks.

Since I played it before, it was easier to spot here, but they spent maybe around 10 minutes total with the game, before starting the Quicklook and they were severely mis- and uninformed about the game. They didn't know how to install and use mods, they didn't know anything about the basic toolset the game provides, didn't understand basic parts of the UI like the zoning tools, didn't care to read how offices work etc.

They still have a good team with Vinny and Alex that are mostly informed enough about what they play to provide some insight to the game, like the Offworld Trading Company or the Darkest Dungeon Unifinished.
But man, the gap in quality is becoming jarring.
Had I watched some Quicklooks as the only source of information about a game, I would not have bought several games due to these videos being flat out wrong about elementary functionality about the game at times, which could easily be fixed by reading a little bit into a game, or actually playing it for about 1 or 2 hours before making a video about it.
This is different from not liking a game they played, which is fine by me, but this is pretty much unprofessional for them - especially if you have a direct comparison with how good they can still be and how good they were in the past with these things.
Aren't quick looks in essence supposed to be them going almost blindly into the game, so we get their impressions naturally?
 
Aren't quick looks in essence supposed to be them going almost blindly into the game, so we get their impressions naturally?

Yeah. Some games they prepare for(Order, Project Steam, Hardline), but it's basically from the perspective of 'Well what if Joe picks up a game and plays it?'

With bigger games they tend to have some experience with it already, but smaller games with indies sometimes they spend a little bit on it before doing the QL.
 
The Video Sausage panel was really good. It even had excellent Q&A.

Aren't quick looks in essence supposed to be them going almost blindly into the game, so we get their impressions naturally?
If they're fumbling with the UI in a city builder because they didn't play it more than 5 minutes, it doesn't make for especially useful video. Jeff didn't even know there was a brush tool for zoning.
 
Yeah. Some games they prepare for(Order, Project Steam, Hardline), but it's basically from the perspective of 'Well what if Joe picks up a game and plays it?'

With bigger games they tend to have some experience with it already, but smaller games with indies sometimes they spend a little bit on it before doing the QL.

The problem is that Joe (any Joe I know, at least) would read the tutorial tip for the zoning tool in a city builder. Naturally they don't want to spend time in a QL doing that, but it really just takes reading that paragraph of text to figure out what your possibilities with zoning are.
 
The problem is that Joe (any Joe I know, at least) would read the tutorial tooltip for the zoning tool in a city builder. Naturally they don't want to spend time in a QL doing that, but it really just takes reading that paragraph of text to figure out what your possibilities with zoning are.

Man fuck reading tutorials. Me and my friends always pick the hardest difficulty and just jump in.
 
I hope Jeff brings in a game.com once, remember seeing Resident Evil 2 being listed for it on IGN way back and that was all I ever heard of it. I should grab one.

Even if he brought one in, it would be tough to pick up on camera. The Game.com's screen was worse than the original Game Boy's. Anything with graphics more detailed or more animated than the system's built-in Solitaire game and bundled Lights Out game would be plagued by blurry movement, disappearing sprites, and difficult-to-see textures.

Ashens did a Game.com review back in 2011, and a follow-up in 2012 with 5 more games (including RE2).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tIBIny4L6E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWKfNqjjd2g

And Benj Edwards wrote a few blog posts about his experiences with it at launch (1, 2). Interestingly enough, Tiger followed up the Game.com with a redesign, the Game.com Pocket Pro/Pocket, with a slightly better screen (the Pocket Pro has a frontlight, the Pocket doesn't), smaller size, and it only took 2 batteries instead of 4. So if you're interested in finding a Game.com, the Pocket Pro might be something to keep in mind, even if it is tougher to find.
 

deleted

Member
Aren't quick looks in essence supposed to be them going almost blindly into the game, so we get their impressions naturally?

IMO they are there to provide insight to a game you haven't played yet or are looking forward to - if they are missing insight to the game and haven't played it yet, how can they possibly provide it?
A simple gameplay trailer would often show more mechanics than they do in a (sadly nowadays more often happening) bad Quicklook, which means, they often haven't even watched those... The Cities Skylines Gameplay trailer shows off the brush for zoning and is 2 minutes long e.g.

Yeah the Alex and Vinny quick looks have been consistently more informative lately. The one's that Dan drives are usually better too.

Yep, like I said, when they are good, they make me want to buy a game, I didn't know anything about before, like Offworld Trading Company, where a trailer couldn't possibly dive into the complex mechanisms at work, but the Quicklook delivered in explaining the basic functionality needed to understand the game and what it tries to achieve.

The problem is that Joe (any Joe I know, at least) would read the tutorial tip for the zoning tool in a city builder. Naturally they don't want to spend time in a QL doing that, but it really just takes reading that paragraph of text to figure out what your possibilities with zoning are.

Exactly - so it would make sense for them to know about the different zoning tools beforehand to show some of them off in the Quicklook, since they are basic features. It would have been great if they went about it by saying: 'This you might know from SimCity, but depending on the job you want to do, you also have a brush for smaller areas or you can zone an big area by click and drag' - the Joe now knows how the game is different from SimCity and what kind of options he has from the beginning on. Here it was like: 'So how can I zone in a smaller area? - Mhh, I don't know, let's move on' - 'Where is my installed mod? - Well... I don't know, let's do something different' - 5 minutes of googling beforehand would have cleared that up.
Saying things like 'The streets carry electricity' while it's not true and learned in the first few minutes with the game is just confusing for someone who doesn't know anything about the game.
Not knowing how curved streets work... etc. etc. is just bad from a professional point of view for someone who wants to make a living by running a site that provides information about games.
 

danm999

Member
IMO they are there to provide insight to a game you haven't played yet or are looking forward to - if they are missing insight to the game and haven't played it yet, how can they possibly provide it?

I don't think there's any single purpose for a Quick Look honestly. If they had to play every game to the extent they could give extensive insight into it, we probably wouldn't get very many Quick Looks.

In the end it kind of depends on the game honestly.

Me personally? Some Quick Looks I'm looking for insight, some I'm looking to just see what the hell a game is, some I'm looking to see a bad game break the Quick Lookers (and that's usually been an Alex/Vinny or Drew/Dan play horror game combo) and some I'm not concerned with the game in the slightest and I'm there for the personalities.
 

tchocky

Member
30 mins into the hardline quicklook and the story mode looks kinda junky. One scripted action sequence, one scripted car chase, a forced walking sequence with barely any gameplay, and a lot of boring, cliche ridden dialogue.

The very very dark sneaking around the neighbourhood section reminded me of the Far Cry 3 tutorial, throw a stone to distract this guy, sneak past this group etc. I have wanted a buddy cop game for a while but Battlefield is not the franchise for it.
 

deleted

Member
I don't think there's any single purpose for a Quick Look honestly. If they had to play every game to the extent they could give extensive insight into it, we probably wouldn't get very many Quick Looks.

In the end it kind of depends on the game honestly.

Me personally? Some Quick Looks I'm looking for insight, some I'm looking to just see what the hell a game is, some I'm looking to see a bad game break the Quick Lookers (and that's usually been an Alex/Vinny or Drew/Dan play horror game combo) and some I'm not concerned with the game in the slightest and I'm there for the personalities.

It doesn't have to be extensive insight, but even if they are going to show only 20 minutes from the beginning of a game, I want them to know what they are showing in these 20 minutes and not figuring it out during the quicklook or even worse giving wrong statements about the game.

This is different from Quicklook to Quicklook of course, some will be much more fun than others, some will show much more of a game than others, but at least be somewhat prepared please.
 

danm999

Member
It doesn't have to be extensive insight, but even if they are going to show only 20 minutes from the beginning of a game, I want them to know what they are showing in these 20 minutes and not figuring it out during the quicklook or even worse giving wrong statements about the game.

This is different from Quicklook to Quicklook of course, some will be much more fun than others, some will show much more of a game than others, but at least be somewhat prepared please.

I dunno I find Quick Looks where there's been a lot of preparation beforehand and the person playing knowing exactly what they're getting kind of stilted.

Obviously they need to strive to never give out incorrect information, but I don't think it's necessary they have played every game beforehand. It's not, after all, a review.
 

Jintor

Member
I dunno I find Quick Looks where there's been a lot of preparation beforehand and the person playing knowing exactly what they're getting kind of stilted.

Obviously they need to strive to never give out incorrect information, but I don't think it's necessary they have played every game beforehand. It's not, after all, a review.

yeah but something like 'power runs along roads' in cities skyline is... I don't know, not understanding the ammo/shield/health system of a FPS? It's pretty basic.
 

deleted

Member
I dunno I find Quick Looks where there's been a lot of preparation beforehand and the person playing knowing exactly what they're getting kind of stilted.

Obviously they need to strive to never give out incorrect information, but I don't think it's necessary they have played every game beforehand. It's not, after all, a review.

For a review they should have played through a game completely - for a Quick Look you have one person who prepared a bit for the segment and one who comes in completely blind and takes the point of view of the audience where he can ask questions that would occur when you don't know the game.
 

danm999

Member
For a review they should have played through a game completely - for a Quick Look you have one person who prepared a bit for the segment and one who comes in completely blind and takes the point of view of the audience where he can ask questions that would occur when you don't know the game.

Maybe I'm biased because I just watched the Euro Truck Simulator QL this afternoon, and I think the sheer confusion and chaos that emerged in that thing is a joy.

For something like Cities Skyline that is more complicated they probably should have had someone who knew the systems, but I do not think that needs to be a mandatory requirement for all QLs.
 

Myggen

Member
I was watching the Cities Skylines Quicklook and I noticed how I really don't like how unprepared Giantbomb has become for most of it's Quicklooks.

Since I played it before, it was easier to spot here, but they spent maybe around 10 minutes total with the game, before starting the Quicklook and they were severely mis- and uninformed about the game. They didn't know how to install and use mods, they didn't know anything about the basic toolset the game provides, didn't understand basic parts of the UI like the zoning tools, didn't care to read how offices work etc.

They still have a good team with Vinny and Alex that are mostly informed enough about what they play to provide some insight to the game, like the Offworld Trading Company or the Darkest Dungeon Unifinished.
But man, the gap in quality is becoming jarring.
Had I watched some Quicklooks as the only source of information about a game, I would not have bought several games due to these videos being flat out wrong about elementary functionality about the game at times, which could easily be fixed by reading a little bit into a game, or actually playing it for about 1 or 2 hours before making a video about it.
This is different from not liking a game they played, which is fine by me, but this is pretty much unprofessional for them - especially if you have a direct comparison with how good they can still be and how good they were in the past with these things.

That's literally how it has been since they started doing QLs, so it's a feature not a bug. QLs have always been a mix of first impressions (like Cities and Battlefield Hardline) and "expert" takes on a game (Ori and DmC as recent examples of that), with a lot more first impressions. That's why Jeff has always been wary about QLs replacing reviews, because they're mostly first impressions and thus can be uninformed. Jeff was upfront about having played virtually nothing of Cities before the QL, so it was pretty much a first impression

You might argue that Cities is so complex that it's not suited for a first impression QL, but that doesn't mean that they were "good... in the past with these things." This is literally how QLs have always been, and people have complained about it from time to time when a first impression somehow misrepresents a game they like. By expecting them to come prepared to every QL or Unfinished they play you're expecting today's QLs to be something the format has never been, and comparing today's QLs to QLs of the past that never existed.

Vinny/Alex are coming more prepared to QLs of random shit than GB has ever been, really. But that's probably because they have the time, given that they just produce a handful of QLs at the moment given their studio situation. They'll probably go back to the standard way of doing things when they're up and running.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't expect more if you feel they're misinformed about shit, but I'm saying that first impressions have been the norm for QLs for years now. You even hear them say from time to time that they didn't play anything of a game because they wanted to experience it fresh on video.
 

Rapstah

Member
For as much praise as the Euro Truck Simulator 2 QL gets, it's actually a really good game (!!!) and I'm sure the QL led to thousands of people basically dismissing it as wacky shit. Now, for Euro Truck Simulator that's probably fine, since none of those people would have even heard of the game otherwise.
 
I really like that sometimes Jason just yells stuff from the control room

I liked it when he had the voice of god setup in the past.

Interesting UPF. Not the most hilarious one they've ever done but I think everyone except Drew had an interesting game to play. I saw Terrordome in the past from the SBF and since they're more into fighting games, you could see how some of the characters worked a bit better, but the game is still great to see.

The Lynx segment was fascinating. I've never seen or heard of it before. Furthest console back that I knew about was the Sega Genesis/Game Gear.

Then there's that classic arcade. I loved it, but I think they overdid the filter on the screens as Jeff commented. If that could be adjusted/removed, that would be the best. Made me wish there were arcades around me somewhere. One thing they didn't really touch on was how there were no backlights on the Gameboys, and you had to find just the right position to be able to see (most notable when Brad picked up the first one). That's a dumb and amazing detail that sold me on that thing.
 

LiK

Member
P4 ER DONE!

That was fun. I don't think they ever did something with this feel ever again for future Ers and LPs. Pretty sad that we may never get another Jeff/Vinny ER either. Oh wells.
 
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