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Giant Bomb |OT33| LOOK AT THAT CORN!

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oti

Banned
Didn't Watch Dogs 2 flop? At least I don't think it sold that well. If AC isn't a key franchise Watch_Dogs is done.
I also don't think we'll ever see a new Just Cause or Evil Within.
Volition probably has to make Saint's Row V if they want to stay around at this point.

Ubisoft's sales expectations for AC are pretty low, relatively speaking. At their E3 it was "just another game" on their lineup. Their games lately have been successes though, especially Ghost Recon, so I'm wondering what else Guillemot has cooking. Their shares almost doubled in value over the last year too.

The Division is also getting new content all the time so I'd expect a very ambitious sequel to be on its way.
 

daveo42

Banned
I'm actually wondering what the future will bring for Assassin's Creed. Ubisoft is sending clear signals they don't consider it to be their key franchise anymore. I would also wonder about games such as Saints Row, Just Cause, The Evil Within. Just game franchises that are AAA by definition and yet seem pretty far away from GTA, CoD and Destiny.

Also, what about Watch Dogs?

Watch Dogs 2 undersold thanks to public perception of the first game being a miserable pile. Just Cause only got a sequel (and is clearly not a AAA game) because SE recognized the fan community, then made a piss poor game. Saint's Row peaked at 3 and Volition seems to be unable to make anything anymore but Saint's Row games, even though they should have moved on. Because they can't or won't sales have dropped. Evil Within as far as I can remember, sold okay but not at the same level as other tentpole releases. I see that series as more of a AA game tbh.
 
Interesting that Dan liked South Park. I was listening to Patrick on Waypoint Radio and he said it was really really bad. I'll probably play it still, but not for a while.
 
I really liked Stick of Truth and am about 5 hours into the new one and have found it aggressively unfunny and pretty damn boring. I am hoping it picks up soon otherwise I might just give up on it.
 
Interesting that Dan liked South Park. I was listening to Patrick on Waypoint Radio and he said it was really really bad. I'll probably play it still, but not for a while.

So far the reception to the game seems to be more positive than not. Not a fan of South Park but I'm happy for its fans and from reading the review, it seems alright.
 

Catvoca

Banned
I really liked Stick of Truth and am about 5 hours into the new one and have found it aggressively unfunny and pretty damn boring. I am hoping it picks up soon otherwise I might just give up on it.

This is basically what Patrick's take was.

The majority of the reception has been positive.

I've read several reviews that said they didn't think it was funny, but you're right, the majority of them seemed to like it.
 

killroy87

Member
I really liked Stick of Truth and am about 5 hours into the new one and have found it aggressively unfunny and pretty damn boring. I am hoping it picks up soon otherwise I might just give up on it.

Yeah, I saw Patrick's tweet about it. Haven't heard his thoughts yet, but I'll try and listen. For anyone who has, does he actually not enjoy the game, or is his beef mainly with jokes in bad taste?
 
This is basically what Patrick's take was.

Interesting. I think I'll give it a listen to hear more.

I also don't think it helps that I am playing three different turn based combat games (Mario, Divinity, and this) and even though South Park probably has more depth then Mario, I found Mario a lot of fun to play. And Divinity is, well, a very different beast. South Park's gameplay just isn't doing anything for me this time around.
 

Strax

Member
SP TFBW systems might be too bloated but unless you are playing on hard it doesn't really come in play that much.

my only exposure to South Park was playing a shitty N64 game where you could piss in snowballs before you threw them

even my child brain thought that was dumb

I've never understood the dislike for that game. For a licensed game in 1998, c'mon.
I'd rather play that than Donkey Kong 64 or Turok.
 

BTA

Member
You make that joke like “Why South Park is hurting our culture” couldn’t be a 100% accurate article.

In 2017 terms, this means scenarios involving gender identity, political correctness, and racist cops, among others. Yet in casting their net wide, Parker and Stone never really dwell too long on any one issue or make any meaningful statements. Rednecks in pickup trucks attack you after you state your sexual identity, and PC Principal takes great offense at microaggressions, teaching you how to physically retaliate against them in battle. One mission has you working for the cops and arresting a clearly unarmed black man while he's on his exercise bike. Major issues are reflected in the game, but it doesn't seem terribly interested in saying anything about them. It feels like they wanted to check those boxes and get back to the superhero story, which, for better or for worse, is certainly a very South Park way of handling this kind of subject matter.

I know his review isn’t alone in this but it’s bizarre to see comments like this in a review without any criticism of this being... y’know, bad? Like not only is it making hurtful jokes but it doesn’t actually even intend to have a point to them.

I just listened to the 1099 episode with Dan and he specifically talked about not wanting to talk about politics like he does other topics because he knows he’s ignorant in that area, which I can respect, but... this is kinda just that, in the end.
 

Catvoca

Banned
Yeah, I saw Patrick's tweet about it. Haven't heard his thoughts yet, but I'll try and listen. For anyone who has, does he actually not enjoy the game, or is his beef mainly with jokes in bad taste?

He didn't really talk about finding it distasteful other than some vague comments about SP feeling out of place in the current political climate and him liking it when he was a kid but growing out of it. I think they'd talked about the show previously and don't want o repeat themselves. It was more that he thought the game was terribly unfunny (he mentioned the shitting mini game as an example), and he thought the new RPG mechanics seemed bad.

He also said something along the lines of "people should play this game to see how a videogame sequel can get everything wrong" and it pivoted into a conversation about why playing bad games can give you a new perspective on good games.

I mean they had to let someone who doesn't think too much about things review it to be in line with SP's audience

Goddamn.
 

Joeku

Member
Yeah, I saw Patrick's tweet about it. Haven't heard his thoughts yet, but I'll try and listen. For anyone who has, does he actually not enjoy the game, or is his beef mainly with jokes in bad taste?

He didn't particularly like the game part either, and thought much higher of how self-referentially RPG the first one was, unlike this grid-based strategy thing.
 
You guys aren't optimizing for social enough. Make it something like "Inside the Secret World of South Park: The Fractured But Whole, Where the Only Thing It Won't Mock is Itself"

Alternate title: "How South Park: The Fractured But Whole Wants to Make You Feel Bad for Caring About Gender"
 

drabnon

Member
I wonder why Ubisoft didn’t put the South Park games on Switch. They seem to have a good relationship with Nintendo and the game looks well suited for the console.
 

freetacos

Member
You make that joke like “Why South Park is hurting our culture” couldn’t be a 100% accurate article.



I know his review isn’t alone in this but it’s bizarre to see comments like this in a review without any criticism of this being... y’know, bad? Like not only is it making hurtful jokes but it doesn’t actually even intend to have a point to them.

I just listened to the 1099 episode with Dan and he specifically talked about not wanting to talk about politics like he does other topics because he knows he’s ignorant in that area, which I can respect, but... this is kinda just that, in the end.

What if that's not a huge sticking point to Dan, though? You mentioned he doesn't get too much into politics because he feels ignorant on the issue, so maybe a game that has surface-level discussion on these issues is completely fine with him?

In the review, he at least mentions South Park doesn't delve deep into these issues, so anyone that will have a problem with that is at least informed that that's how the game is.
 

killroy87

Member
Unrelated to the South Park thing: Remember that time Patrick was a legit Youtube-ass YouTuber, with an intro and everything?

Man, that was funny.
 
Microtransactions just got a whole lot scummier: Activision-Blizzard has patented a way to use them in multiplayer matchmaking.

I am curious what absurd fishing term will be co-opted to describe these players in marketing.

Things are gonna get really buck wild when AAA devs start incorporating some hardcore machine learning models into their microtransaction systems (if they aren't already). You could train that shit on a by-player basis to predict exactly when to upsell you on loot boxes, how to adjust the difficulty / reward curve to maximize profit, all sorts of nasty stuff.
 

BTA

Member
What if that's not a huge sticking point to Dan, though? You mentioned he doesn't get too much into politics because he feels ignorant on the issue, so maybe a game that has surface-level discussion on these issues is completely fine with him?

In the review, he at least mentions South Park doesn't delve deep into these issues, so anyone that will have a problem with that is at least informed that that's how the game is.

I guess my feeling is if Giant Bomb as a whole wants to be taken seriously overall it’s not a great look to publish a review that doesn’t want to say anything about the game’s shitty takes despite mentioning them. The review acknowledges they’re there and... that’s it. Not commenting on it is political in itself.

Same reason it’s kinda laughable that Polygon relegates any mention of this stuff to a sidebar. If Waypoint posted something seriously praising the game while it contained this stuff I’d take issue with it too.
 

drabnon

Member
I guess my feeling is if Giant Bomb as a whole wants to be taken seriously overall it’s not a great look to publish a review that doesn’t want to say anything about the game’s shitty takes despite mentioning them.

Giant Bomb has never been about serious games discussion. Yes we do get that on the site but that has never been the aim, and reviews are not the focus of the site. I don’t understand how they aren’t “taken seriously overall” either, or why they would worry about that.
 

Fantastapotamus

Wrong about commas, wrong about everything
Unrelated to the South Park thing: Remember that time Patrick was a legit Youtube-ass YouTuber, with an intro and everything?

Man, that was funny.

I mean, last I've seen him he was wearing a comically oversized hat and call Austin "Dad" so I guess he reached the Twitch-ass Twitch streamer level?
Also this
 

Antiwhippy

the holder of the trombone
I mean you need to take it on a per reviewer basis.

And you already know that Dan isn't going to get serious about politics.
 

Joeku

Member
I guess my feeling is if Giant Bomb as a whole wants to be taken seriously overall it’s not a great look to publish a review that doesn’t want to say anything about the game’s shitty takes despite mentioning them. The review acknowledges they’re there and... that’s it. Not commenting on it is political in itself.

Same reason it’s kinda laughable that Polygon relegates any mention of this stuff to a sidebar. If Waypoint posted something seriously praising the game while it contained this stuff I’d take issue with it too.

Conversely, if there's anyone that's going to take a game that pokes at the behemoth that is modern politics and review it apolitically, it's Dan Ryckert.

And as far as being taken seriously goes, they're still game reviews. Polygon and Waypoint are still new things and the way that products of this medium get regularly analyzed still have a long way to go, and to be honest, with their voice, I don't know if Giant Bomb is the place to help get them there. These guys are mostly dinosaurs.

Not to say I wouldn't appreciate these things being talked about, just that I see why they are comfortable not doing that in the review.
 

BTA

Member
I mean you need to take it on a per reviewer basis.

And you already know that Dan isn't going to get serious about politics.

Conversely, if there's anyone that's going to take a game that pokes at the behemoth that is modern politics and review it apolitically, it's Dan Ryckert.

And as far as being taken seriously goes, they're still game reviews. Polygon and Waypoint are still new things and the way that products of this medium get regularly analyzed still have a long way to go, and to be honest, with their voice, I don't know if Giant Bomb is the place to help get them there. These guys are mostly dinosaurs.

Not to say I wouldn't appreciate these things being talked about, just that I see why they are comfortable not doing that in the review.

To try to be “apolitical” is to be political in a different way
and it’s the shitty South Park way
.

Which is to say if Dan’s not going to get serious about politics: maybe don’t have him review it.
 

freetacos

Member
I guess my feeling is if Giant Bomb as a whole wants to be taken seriously overall it’s not a great look to publish a review that doesn’t want to say anything about the game’s shitty takes despite mentioning them. The review acknowledges they’re there and... that’s it. Not commenting on it is political in itself.

Same reason it’s kinda laughable that Polygon relegates any mention of this stuff to a sidebar. If Waypoint posted something seriously praising the game while it contained this stuff I’d take issue with it too.

Aren't we as a gaming community continually trying to go further away from "this is Giant Bomb's review" and towards "this is a review by Dan Ryckert (knowing his taste in games) who works for Giant Bomb"?
 
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