Giant Bomb Thread The Third: #TeamBrad

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Has it been just me for the past several months (not sure exactly how long, but it's been a while now...) or has everyone else been experience the completely shitty performance of all things video related on Giantbomb?

Been a subscriber since it's started, but now the service feels completely useless, with the exception of the few subscriber only videos, because video streaming, and downloading is complete crap for me on the site. Every video I wanna watch for GB now, I'm better off watching on their youtube channel, because videos don't stream at a decent rate where it won't stutter constantly, and videos download at a rate so slow, that if I wanted to download one quick look, I MIGHT be able to watch it the following day if I don't do anything else on the site.

I don't know if this is a widespread issue. Has Dave or anyone else on the site commented on this? I don't really participate with the GB community much outside of the thread here on gaf.

Do you use Google DNS? Jeff has previously said that if you do, you'll get degraded performance for whatever reason currently.
 
The SP of Binary domain was way more interesting that anything in Gears 3. The Gears 3 kind of was a chore to play.

Having gotten further into Binary Domain, I think the characters and story in BD is more interesting, but I prefer Gears' gameplay.
 
Maybe not clunky, but very slow. Not just in movement, but in weapon switching, wall sticking, and pretty much anything you try to do. It's like the guys as constantly wading through mud.
Sure, I'll give you that. Personally, I don't have a problem with it even if I prefer the more dynamic movement of BD.
At least Vanquish plays fantastically and has a much more likeable story and premise, as over the top as it is.
C'mon. As much as I love Vanquish, the story is utter garbage.
 
Having gotten further into Binary Domain, I think the characters and story in BD is more interesting, but I prefer Gears' gameplay.

How far are you? The story and characters are grand. It's by the Yakuza team so no surprise in that dept.

As for Vanquish, I've mentioned it before but the story felt a lot like a parody of Western shooters in general.
 
How far are you? The story and characters are grand. It's by the Yakuza team so no surprise in that dept.

As for Vanquish, I've mentioned it before but the story felt a lot like a parody of Western shooters in general.

The sewage plant/pipeline/elevator.

Ironically Big Bo, who seems to be everyone's favorite character, is my least favorite. Then again, I don't think he trusts me. I do quite like Charlie, though.
 
vanquish's story is an okay degree of stupid but it isn't a masterpiece like the one in resident evil 4. i expected more from mikami.
 
I'd rather people accept that the story and writing are utter shit and irredeemable. Indoctrination theory gives Bioware too much credit.

The worst part of the Indoctrination Theory isn't that it's dumb and desperate, it's that the believers somehow think "but nothing actually happened, the end" is deep.
Sure, I'll give you that. Personally, I don't have a problem with it even if I prefer the more dynamic movement of BD.

C'mon. As much as I love Vanquish, the story is utter garbage.
It's the best kind of garbage.
 
The worst part of the Indoctrination Theory isn't that it's dumb and desperate, it's that the believers somehow think "but nothing actually happened, the end" is deep.

I admit that I haven't paid attention to the Indoc folks since the Extended Cut went out, but I thought they had the belief that Bioware was secretly holding back the real ending and would release it at some point?
 
The sewage plant/pipeline/elevator.

Ironically Big Bo, who seems to be everyone's favorite character, is my least favorite. Then again, I don't think he trusts me. I do quite like Charlie, though.

Ah, more fun awaits! The sewage plant was the weakest part of the game to me.
 
Having gotten further into Binary Domain, I think the characters and story in BD is more interesting, but I prefer Gears' gameplay.

For me the gameplay was completely interchangeable. I think Gears only really trumps it in the multiplayer department. I think I mostly disliked Gears 3 because I did not like the Lambent as enemies. Somehow fighting against those was not that fun. The enemies in BD are just great.
 
The worst part of the Indoctrination Theory isn't that it's dumb and desperate, it's that the believers somehow think "but nothing actually happened, the end" is deep.

I think the sad truth is, it's not that they thought it was deep but having no real ending was better than the lore damaging ending that they were stuck with.
If the ending to Shepherd's story simply wasn't satisfying or amounted to nothing but the repercussions were limited to the Mass Effect trilogy, it wouldn't be so bad. At least the best part of Mass Effect, the universe, would have been left in a state in which other stories could be told. At least in its pre-extended form (I really need to watch the extended ending so I can see if it limits the damage a bit), the ending wrecked just about everything thing that made the universe interesting and did it in a completely unsatisfying way,
so wishing nothing actually happened was a better conclusion.
 
For me the gameplay was completely interchangeable. I think Gears only really trumps it in the multiplayer department. I think I mostly disliked Gears 3 because I did not like the Lambent as enemies. Somehow fighting against those was not that fun. The enemies in BD are just great.

I found the enemies in Gears more responsive to being hit. Yes, you can blow away parts of robots and all that in BD, but being hit doesn't faze them to the extent that it did in Gears. Basically, I find it much harder to suppress enemies.

It also doesn't help that enemies are massive bullet sponges until you upgrade your gun.
 
Mass Effect ending question:
Everyone always says that the aliens are all going to starve since they are stranded near Earth. Is there no technology in Mass Effect for synthesizing food? I'd think that those fleets would be self sustaining with the level of tech everybody has. I honestly haven't read enough of the codex/other stuff to know either way.
 
Gears reigns as TPS king.

Binary Domain is a hell of an outing from Japan though. Vanquish comes in a third for me.
Do this with (ME3 spoilerz)
Wrex still alive
and behold the gaming moment of 2012.
Oh god, I forgot about that scene too. Renegade Shepard is truly the devil.
 
Mass Effect ending question:
Everyone always says that the aliens are all going to starve since they are stranded near Earth. Is there no technology in Mass Effect for synthesizing food? I'd think that those fleets would be self sustaining with the level of tech everybody has. I honestly haven't read enough of the codex/other stuff to know either way.

This has been addressed in the Extended Cut. It's no longer an issue.
 
I know a lot of people are getting really bored hearing about ME, but I can't believe how much I'm looking forward to listening to the podcast and hearing almost an hour of spoilery discussion about ME3.
 
I know a lot of people are getting really bored hearing about ME, but I can't believe how much I'm looking forward to listening to the podcast and hearing almost an hour of spoilery discussion about ME3.

It's been a long time coming. Brad was the roadblock!
 
On the topic of games GB duders play..

Just finished SR3. Once I actually booked through the main story and ignore every sidequest the game started becoming fun, but goddamn I felt like I was massively overhyped. It can be funny but it was kind of a chore to play through.
 
That's what I would say about Skyrim.

I wouldn't really call skyrim funny, or at least not intentionally funny. :P

I actually enjoyed skyrim's combat quite a bit, or at least I enjoyed summoning two dremora lords to run around and wreck shop.
 
That sounds safe.

I'm really curious about that change. Was it driven by Bioware writers going WTF are we doing? Or was it driven by EA asking Bioware why they just put a bullet in the head of their biggest franchise?

Let's recall that we have Casey Hudson on record as saying that he envisioned all future Mass Effect games taking place before the end of ME3. He clearly wanted that to be the ending for the entire franchise.
 
I'm all for making massive, irreversible changes to the universe if they did it an interesting way. It was done with a finger snap and it seemed that the devs didn't even realize the repercussions of the whole thing based on how the rest of the ending plays out.

Hell, seeing them try to continue the franchise after having all the mass relays destroyed would be super interesting, assuming that didn't just have faux-mass relays magically come into the picture.
 
So was the implication originally that
everyone would be forced to live on Earth from that point

No the implication is that
the writers never thought out the implications of the ending and they simply wanted to destroy the symbol of the series for dramatic effect.

Again, I return to Casey Hudson stating that was the end of the series. Not just the trilogy, but the entire franchise. He wanted anything in the future to take place before the end of ME3.
 
So was the implication originally that
everyone would be forced to live on Earth from that point

No,
a huge portion of each specie's military fleets and the Quarians would be stuck in our solar system. Other species would be stuck in whatever system or cluster they were in. Space travel and communication across systems would be almost impossible in any kind of reasonable time without just recreating the Mass Relays or something that achieves the same goal.
Again, I don't think they even thought it out that far though. It's not mentioned or reflected on. It's just the inevitable repercussion.
 
No,
a huge portion of each specie's military fleets and the Quarians would be stuck in our solar system. Other species would be stuck in whatever system or cluster they were in. Space travel and communication across systems would be almost impossible in any kind of reasonable time without just recreating the Mass Relays or something that achieves the same goal.
Again, I don't think they even thought it out that far though. It's not mentioned or reflected on. It's just the inevitable repercussion.

One thing I thought of, but not sure if accurate:
That just having one rebuilt Mass Relay wasn't enough, that you'd need another Mass Relay to "go to" So, they'd need to communicate with people on the other end, to make a relay as well. Making it even more difficult.
 
One thing I thought of, but not sure if accurate:
That just having one rebuilt Mass Relay wasn't enough, that you'd need another Mass Relay to "go to" So, they'd need to communicate with people on the other end, to make a relay as well. Making it even more difficult.

True,
but if they were willing to introduce unexplained space magic in the last 10 minutes of the trilogy, I'm sure they would just wave their hand again and, poof, problem solved. Unfortunately, that's the type of changes in tone that turns me off to the series.
Probably more than most other people, internal consistency is very important for me when experiencing a story. I'm willing to suspend my disbelief as long as the author stays consistent but if they suddenly shift tone or characters suddenly change personalities or established rules are inexplicably broken or changed with no rhyme or reason, it breaks the world and I'm pulled right out. Not to say Mass Effect was 100% consistent to that point but in my opinion, it did a relatively good job with some bumps along the way; the ending was a mile high sheer cliff I wasn't willing to climb. All made worse because, when I think about it, the Mass Effect universe was the only game universe I had any real investment in.
 
How far are you? The story and characters are grand. It's by the Yakuza team so no surprise in that dept.

Not even close. The story is crappy and they spend barely any time on it. The characters don't develop much through the story and there's no reason to care for any of them. And events throughout the game are super predictable. Every little bit is just so incredibly cliche and tiresome.

the game actually has some character instead of the cardboard personalities of the Gears dudes
Except every character in Binary Domain is one dimensional?

As for the gameplay, the only good part is how the robots tear apart. You're still just fighting the same robots with the same guns through the whole game. And your movement speed really does feel sluggish - it's super annoying. But since I've never got very far into any Gears game, I can't really compare. It's a much worse third person shooter than even something like Mass Effect 2 and 3 though.

It's a bad game.
 
Not even close. The story is crappy and they spend barely any time on it. The characters don't develop much through the story and there's no reason to care for any of them. And events throughout the game are super predictable. Every little bit is just so incredibly cliche and tiresome.


Except every character in Binary Domain is one dimensional?

As for the gameplay, the only good part is how the robots tear apart. You're still just fighting the same robots with the same guns through the whole game. And your movement speed really does feel sluggish - it's super annoying. But since I've never got very far into any Gears game, I can't really compare. It's a much worse third person shooter than even something like Mass Effect 2 and 3 though.

It's a bad game.

Tell us how you really feel.

But seriously, at this point I disagree with you because, as I've said, I quite like the characters. I'll admit to having issues with the combat, but I'm slowly getting over things.
 
Maybe not clunky, but very slow. Not just in movement, but in weapon switching, wall sticking, and pretty much anything you try to do. It's like the guys as constantly wading through mud.

The movement in Gears 1 was great. The default jog speed is slow is hell, but when you start moving mainly with the roadie run, wallbouncing, and the dive move, the game picks up pace. The movement while in cover is also far, far superior in Gears. It's amazing that devs still screw that up when Gears provided an example of how to do it perfectly 6 years ago.
 
Not even close. The story is crappy and they spend barely any time on it. The characters don't develop much through the story and there's no reason to care for any of them. And events throughout the game are super predictable. Every little bit is just so incredibly cliche and tiresome.


Except every character in Binary Domain is one dimensional?

As for the gameplay, the only good part is how the robots tear apart. You're still just fighting the same robots with the same guns through the whole game. And your movement speed really does feel sluggish - it's super annoying. But since I've never got very far into any Gears game, I can't really compare. It's a much worse third person shooter than even something like Mass Effect 2 and 3 though.

It's a bad game.

I will disagree with you 100%
 
I was going to disagree, but then I took an arrow to the knee ;)

jeffnotwant.gif
 
On a scale of "meh" to "very", how dumb would it be to listen to the GOTY podcast not having played ME3? I really want to but haven't had the time for a game like that, but I also know of a few minorly spoilery things, ie when the game came out Jeff tweeted that
his Shepard died, which isn't really that spoilery considering you could die at the end of 2
, plus everyone being butthurt about the ending or whatever. I don't want the entire game to be spoiled for me but wouldn't mind a few things as the game has already been out and talked about, and I always enjoy the GOTY podcasts.
 
On a scale of "meh" to "very", how dumb would it be to listen to the GOTY podcast not having played ME3? I really want to but haven't had the time for a game like that, but I also know of a few minorly spoilery things, ie when the game came out Jeff tweeted that
his Shepard died, which isn't really that spoilery considering you could die at the end of 2
, plus everyone being butthurt about the ending or whatever. I don't want the entire game to be spoiled for me but wouldn't mind a few things as the game has already been out and talked about, and I always enjoy the GOTY podcasts.

Probably going to be less spoilery than this weeks podcast.
 
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