Support NeoGAF

[Maiden Voyage]

On another note, this is the third time I've tried to watch Giant Bomb. While I appreciate what is clearly their genuine opinion; they all look so broken and beat down.

They were in the office at 5am. For Jeff that means leaving the house at 4am. You'd probably be tired too.

 

[fwpx]

have they changed the Hardware ? there wehre lights on in the background.
had they contact with sony ?

you are *completely* missing the point.

 

[kiguel182]

I nearly linked to the post. I probably should have

I knew that sounded familiar! But these days is just hard to tell.

 

[kiguel182]

Giant Bomb play games like normal people play games every day.

I don't whoop and holler when I sit down to play something either.

People like that their personality on camera is not contrived in any way. They don't need to fake enthusiasm. If they find jokes and laughter it comes naturally along the way, as if they were a group of friends not streaming.

GAF likes to pretend games are life altering events for everyone involved. It's just a hobby, sometimes it's entertaining, sometimes its frustrating.

Great summary of why Giant Bomb is great. They just play like normal people and talk about games like normal people without taking everything so serious.

Also, they have awesome situational humour.

 

[Tadale]

Giant Bomb play games like normal people play games every day.

I don't whoop and holler when I sit down to play something either.

People like that their personality on camera is not contrived in any way. They don't need to fake enthusiasm. If they find jokes and laughter it comes naturally along the way, as if they were a group of friends not streaming.

GAF likes to pretend games are life altering events for everyone involved. It's just a hobby, sometimes it's entertaining, sometimes its frustrating.

As an adult, I really appreciate this about Giant Bomb. I hope we can keep at least one major games media outlet for the not-so-young.

 

[Aaron D.]

The majority of their content is still mostly hilarious and them genuinely having fun. Their event/product live streams tend to bring in people who are interested in the event or product, not Giant Bomb, and thus they're judging them on relatively niche content in the grand scheme of things. Things that require either pre-release hype (not their thing) or for the hardware/software to be good (it wasn't for them in this case)

When a game or hardware comes out and it lives up to expectations they're excitable as fuck. Just look at the Mario Maker videos, or Jeff's experiences with Gears of War 4, Rez Area X (on PSVR), Rec Room on the Vive, Hitman etc. They're regularly very enthusiastic about games. They're only jaded if you're watching them deal with something they're not enjoying. And this livestream was made worse by the fact that they were up at 3am, live at 5am, and they had hardware issues and Jeff was made to feel sick.

Giant Bomb play games like normal people play games every day.

I don't whoop and holler when I sit down to play something either.

People like that their personality on camera is not contrived in any way. They don't need to fake enthusiasm. If they find jokes and laughter it comes naturally along the way, as if they were a group of friends not streaming.

GAF likes to pretend games are life altering events for everyone involved. It's just a hobby, sometimes it's entertaining, sometimes its frustrating.

These two posts nicely sum up why I respect the Giant Bomb crew.

They may not be for everyone, but damned if they don't come off as AUTHENTIC above all else. They're happy & funny when they're genuinely excited about something. They're sober & rational in reaction to content that does not work for them. Either way you're getting the real deal. Not some manufactured hype.

It's a shame some take offence when personal tastes and opinions don't line up with their own. Somehow absurdly creating the need to character-assassinate the messenger. It's so embarrassing to watch. (Though if I'm being completely honest, a tad entertaining in a voyeuristic train-wreck kind of way.)

Either way, the inability to separate other's opinion from one's own has always baffled me. Giant Bomb have always been straight-shooters, and I'll always respect them for that.

 

[Slurmer]

They were in the office at 5am. For Jeff that means leaving the house at 4am. You'd probably be tired too.

Yeah I'm East Coast and saw it pop up on twitch and said to my girlfriend "there's no way this is live right now."

We both thought they all came off well for as early as it was. It was a good and informative stream; some people are just upset that GBs thoughts aren't meshing with their preconceived notions of PSVR I guess.

 

[Maiden Voyage]

Yeah I'm East Coast and saw it pop up on twitch and said to my girlfriend "there's no way this is live right now."

We both thought they all came off well for as early as it was. It was a good and informative stream; some people are just upset that GBs thoughts aren't meshing with their preconceived notions of PSVR I guess.

It seems every release GB is in someone else's pocket and if they're not adding to hype culture, then they are jaded. I'd think an outlet that was measured in their opinion would be celebrated.

 

[Chorazin]

I love the GB guys, the GF and I watch their videos all the time. All the stuff about PSVR is definitely giving me pause, but since my GF is beyond hyped for it we're keeping the pre-order and hoping it works better for us. It also helps that we're splitting the cost.

 

[Brandon F]

I loved the blank "facepalm-esque" expression on everyone's faces directed at Dan during this section of the stream. As Dan kept getting louder and sounding more and more naive to the joke, you could just tell how much Jeff wanted to slap the kid silly.

 

[Curufinwe]

Yeah I'm East Coast and saw it pop up on twitch and said to my girlfriend "there's no way this is live right now."

We both thought they all came off well for as early as it was. It was a good and informative stream; some people are just upset that GBs thoughts aren't meshing with their preconceived notions of PSVR I guess.

It's quite silly to blame it all on preconceived notions when the review thread is full of other sites that didn't have anywhere close to the problems Giant Bomb did. The overwhelming consensus is what GB's thoughts aren't meshing with.

 

[The Jackdog]

It's quite silly to blame it all on preconceived notions when the review thread is full of other sites that didn't have anywhere close to the problems Giant Bomb did. The overwhelming consensus is what GB's thoughts aren't meshing with.

review thread also has people with the same issues

 

[OrbitalBeard]

On another note, this is the third time I've tried to watch Giant Bomb. While I appreciate what is clearly their genuine opinion; they all look so broken and beat down. What on Earth made them so jaded about gaming? I remember watching them play Truck Simulato, Metal Gear Solid and the like where it was hilarious with them genuinely having fun. However their more recent stuff seems like they hate what they're doing.

They've been around the industry for a long time, so they're not going to get excited about every new thing that comes around. It's actually refreshing to have a gaming outlet like this.

And it's not like they don't get excited about games. Super Mario Maker turned them all into giddy children last year.

 

[Brandon F]

I'm legitimately shocked at how bad that screen stutter is (the zooming in and out) and how bad the tracking system seems to be. Good on them for trying it in several different conditions to determine what was making it so janky. I'm kinda glad I cancelled my pre-order now. Seems a bit too early to jump on to the VR console game train.

On another note, this is the third time I've tried to watch Giant Bomb. While I appreciate what is clearly their genuine opinion; they all look so broken and beat down. What on Earth made them so jaded about gaming? I remember watching them play Truck Simulato, Metal Gear Solid and the like where it was hilarious with them genuinely having fun. However their more recent stuff seems like they hate what they're doing.

You can take a look at the Vive stream, particularly at the start, and you can immediately tell how fascinated, thrilled, and excited they were experiencing that unit during the launch stream. The lack of compelling software did wear them down over the course of the many hours, but initially they had complete buy-in.

It seemed very clear that given the issues with the PSVR unit they were having sapped away their emotional investment very quickly(especially given Brad and Jeff had similar issues testing the units prior to the stream).

It reminded me of getting a PS1 at the midnight launch in the 90's and the bundled controller had a defect where the d-pad did not function correctly(up and left did not work at all). Took the wind completely out of my sails until a few days later when I was able to finally get a replacement controller.

 

[Wereroku]

review thread also has people with the same issues

Other people in the review thread had the world pulsing issue? Because that is the only gamebreaking problem. The controller drift is a problem but it won't make people violently ill.

A lot of the major sites - Kotaku, Game Informer, GameSpot, Eurogamer - have been less than enthusiastic about recommending PSVR before waiting to see how stuff shakes out.

Overwhelming is going a bit far.

The overwhelming majority did not encounter the severe problems GB did. There has been no footage that matched the problems they were having except for the controller drift that has been reported and is caused by the single point of tracking.

 

[MassiveNights]

It's quite silly to blame it all on preconceived notions when the review thread is full of other sites that didn't have anywhere close to the problems Giant Bomb did. The overwhelming consensus is what GB's thoughts aren't meshing with.

A lot of the major sites - Kotaku, Game Informer, GameSpot, Eurogamer, Tested - have been less than enthusiastic about recommending PSVR before waiting to see how stuff shakes out.

Granted there are positive impressions too but overwhelming is going a bit far, especially when its some of the most trusted names weighing in with caution.

 

[Moreche]

I suppose all of us as customers will find out for ourselves in a week, how bad this issue is.
I don't understand why GB are getting flak over this, they've reported on an issue they're having whether it's their own VR unit or widespread we'll find out soon enough.

 

[Durante]

The controller drift is a problem but it won't make people violently ill.

That particular point Is also a problem people predicted ages ago based on simple technical reality.

(And were frequently shouted down with sermons by a few particular posters with questionable motivations)

 

[xenorevlis]

Hmm, this might be the most logical explanation yet for the issues.

Edit: it doesn't explain Brad's issues though, he had a different background and quite non-uniform.

I did mention the bright lights behind them.

You think that's what it is? If that's the case couldnt they just change the colors of the lights?

I'm not certain. Could be hardware or software issues, but the lights are very bright which can interfere with tracking lit objects consistently.

 

[chromatic9]

As an adult, I really appreciate this about Giant Bomb. I hope we can keep at least one major games media outlet for the not-so-young.

Exactly.

They do have a laugh as well. For anyone sceptical go watch the VR rodeo of Rec Room.

People like Huber will freak out over turning on a light switch. If you want someone to confirm your bias and freak out on camera over any VR experience then go watch jacksepticeye.

 

[pizzacat]

As an adult, I really appreciate this about Giant Bomb. I hope we can keep at least one major games media outlet for the not-so-young.

if these old people cant tell me when to be excited and when not to then they should go!

 

[bender]

Vive uses a lighthouse system. You have 2 lighthouses that emit lasers across the room at certain intervals of time and the sensors are on the headset (and any tracked object, like a controller). This makes possible a very exact calculation of the position in space for the tracked objects and a very low latency. There are also a lot of things in place to counter the drift and jitter.

This was one of the interesting reads about how it works, I don't know if maybe there are better articles now:

http://doc-ok.org/?p=1478

Rift uses an infrared camera and also a magnetometer, a gyroscope and an accelerometer for correction. It seems to do a much better position calculation than PSVR's camera..

Just wanted to say thank you for this post. Much appreciated.

 

[Slurmer]

It's quite silly to blame it all on preconceived notions when the review thread is full of other sites that didn't have anywhere close to the problems Giant Bomb did. The overwhelming consensus is what GB's thoughts aren't meshing with.

Someone else said it already, but I don't think their opinion/experience straying from the consensus should make anyone bewildered or upset. I mean, I really don't think any of the GB guys are just trying to be "edgy" or anti-sony or anything ridiculous like that.

This is strictly my view and opinion:

There is a fervor behind VR that has a lot of people excited, and I think when there is excitement like that it can sway reviewers into overlooking issues and consumers into dismissing criticism. GB being open and up front with their criticisms in the face of all the VR hype is personally helpful to me as a consumer, as I will now exercise a little more caution before jumping onboard.