The old [Giant Bomb] thread!

Steev

Giant Bomb. It's a website! About video games!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SG_8XHk5JDk

Giant Bomb came into existence about 9 years ago after Jeff Gerstmann was fired from Gamespot. A number of his coworkers left shortly afterwards, and a few months later Giant Bomb came into being.

It's known for its podcasts:
The Giant Bombcast
The Giant Beastcast

But they also have a lot of great video content on there. It's hard for me to narrow it down, so here's a Best of Giant Bomb 2016 that they recently posted:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fsnrpmy3vk

Here's the crew as it stands in September 2017:

West Coast:

Jeff Gerstmann


Brad Shoemaker


Jason Oestreicher


Ben Pack


East Coast:
Alex Navarro


Vinny Caravella


Dan Ryckert


Abby Russell


Former staff:

Patrick Klepek


Austin Walker


Drew Scanlon


And last but not least,
Ryan Davis (R.I.P.)


This thread is for the discussion of Giant Bomb content and its staff. And occasionally about its former staff's activities because they're still cool people!

Steev

This is the first thread I've created in G&T since 2009! It looks like the OP from the previous Giant Bomb thread isn't a regular here anymore, so I figured I'd give it a shot.

Anyway, I haven't paid any attention to their Game of the Year podcasts or anything like that, but I'm sure many of you have!

What I did see today was that Jeff posted this tweet:

https://twitter.com/jeffgerstmann/status/816729469696155648

Sounds like they'll get a new hire this year! I'm still sad that Austin left.

KetBra

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZmazUv-4mI

Hitman is pretty good you guys. The bookending on this video is pretty great, too.

SyphonBlue

Jesus has it seriously been 9 years already

Commodore75

Podcast episode 462 is up. Any spoilers leaking into it (from the GotY deliberations)?

cooljammer00

Commodore75 wrote: »

Podcast episode 462 is up. Any spoilers leaking into it (from the GotY deliberations)?

What game won GOTY.

They also talk a bit about Frog Fractions 2

Knight_

I wonder if there is a post somewhere that has every time they played Hitman on stream this year, since I don't recognize a few of those moments.

cooljammer00

Knight_ wrote: »

I wonder if there is a post somewhere that has every time they played Hitman on stream this year, since I don't recognize a few of those moments.

Probably a mixture of QLCrew.com and http://www.giantbomb.com/hitman/3030-45150/videos/

Steev

Jar Time With Jeff has had a distinct lack of jars lately!

FuriousJodo

Also, I'm surprised they don't just turn those into Premium Podcasts too or something - seems like it would work well in that feed.

KetBra

Watching the game of the year stuff and of fucking course Dan is going to bat hard for Soldier 76 and Reaper

I like you Dan but sometimes...

FuriousJodo

Dan also refuses to drink sugary cereal milk despite liking sugar cereal. He likes sugar in milk but doesn't like sugar in milk.

Knight_

Drinking the remains of cereal milk is at least half the reason to eat cereal.

FuriousJodo

Like, it's just milk that taste exactly like the delicious cereal you were already eating. It's glorious.

Shadowfire

Props to Jeff Bakalar for the CES real talk.

"A screen you can roll up on your wall like a poster. That's never coming out.
There's an 8k display here. That'll never be for sale."

SniperGuy

Anyone remember which bombcast had dan talking about metal gear going to space and him not being in favor?

edit: Found it, 459

Shadowfire

Shadowfire wrote: »

Props to Jeff Bakalar for the CES real talk.

"A screen you can roll up on your wall like a poster. That's never coming out.
There's an 8k display here. That'll never be for sale."

......

Well, I guess I spoke too soon. That LG display that sticks to your wall like a poster? Best Buy's taking pre-orders on it. There was a bit of discussion about it today on our internal forums...

Blech.

KetBra

I mean...

That's pretty damn cool.

~The future~

DiannaoChong

FuriousJodo wrote: »

Dan also refuses to drink sugary cereal milk despite liking sugar cereal. He likes sugar in milk but doesn't like sugar in milk.

I'm with Dan on this one, milk is a delivery method and labor saving feature of pairing it with cereal. The left over milk is fucking gross and only useful if you are going to add more cereal.

But I find regular milk by itself to be disgusting anyways.

cooljammer00

But that's the thing. Dan likes milk, and he likes cereal.

The only part of his reasoning that even made a bit of sense was that he does not care for the texture of cereal milk because it reminds him of rotten milk he drank once. He did say on Twitter that he is willing to try the Momofuku stuff that is basically cereal powder and milk

Matt Bodega on the other hand, being the food monster that he is, is "siding" with Dan because he doesn't think cereal and milk go together. Even Dan is staying far away from this unwanted ally.

KetBra

Dan not liking things for arbitrary reasons that make no sense is not exactly new.

This is the same guy that does not like crabs despite never actually seeing one

Shadowfire

KetBra wrote: »

I mean...

That's pretty damn cool.

~The future~

Eh... it's kinda cool, but the thing sticks to the wall with no room behind, and the ribbon cable for power isn't in-wall rated, so...

reVerse

KetBra wrote: »

Dan not liking things for arbitrary reasons that make no sense is not exactly new.

This is the same guy that does not like crabs despite never actually seeing one

Well, in all fairness, who wants to stare at anyone's pubic hair for that long?

KetBra

Shadowfire wrote: »

KetBra wrote: »

I mean...

That's pretty damn cool.

~The future~

Eh... it's kinda cool, but the thing sticks to the wall with no room behind, and the ribbon cable for power isn't in-wall rated, so...

I mean, sure.

But that's a quibble.

FuriousJodo

Man, what if you apply that tv to your wall and it's even slightly crooked.

BRIAN BLESSED

Probably set the rest of the goddamn house at the same angle because fuck that shit

Zilla360

Nu-Beast and the Saga of Fireboylt:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCd7y-iGDdo

GONG-00

Papa Vinny and Dan doing a presumably daily run of Contra (sans Konami code) is a pleasant surprise to find this morning.

KetBra

GONG-00 wrote: »

Papa Vinny and Dan doing a presumably daily run of Contra (sans Konami code) is a pleasant surprise to find this morning.

It's actually a series wherin they talk about what the Iran-Contra affair is.

GONG-00

KetBra wrote: »

GONG-00 wrote: »

Papa Vinny and Dan doing a presumably daily run of Contra (sans Konami code) is a pleasant surprise to find this morning.

It's actually a series wherin they talk about what the Iran-Contra affair is.

.
In that case, it is a stand alone episode the length of one of Jeff's Giant Bomb Gaming Minute recordings.

DiannaoChong

Watching Vinny react to the music in stardew valley during that video was amazing.

*silence in the game for like 15 minutes*
"Dan. you turned the music off in this game? you submitted it for music of the year"
"No it just only plays when you get up"
*winter theme plays the next in game day(its barely audible/anything music wise)*
"you fought for this game to be best music of the year Dan. what?"

You could see him getting incredulous and pissed at the same time. That and their commitment to camera bits has been great.

Genji-Gloves

New thread smell..

Loved all the Xmas content, filled in the blanks over the holiday. Enjoyed the heated debates over certain games as well.

Maddoc

GONG-00 wrote: »

Papa Vinny and Dan doing a presumably daily run of Contra (sans Konami code) is a pleasant surprise to find this morning.

It's secretly a feature to teach Dan how to play co-op videogames like a normal human being.

Jars

next up: battletoads co-op

cooljammer00

Mode B, with friendly fire on.

Genji-Gloves

2016 was a good year for games and giant bomb. I miss Austin still but Dan should fit in nicely with the beast crew or at least does at the moment.

I loved the Hitmas episode, was entertaining to watch the guys try their best with the Mexico rules they played under.

cooljammer00

I can't wait for the new hires, especially since the plan seems to be a new editor for GBWest, and a new video duder for GBEast so Vinny has more free time in front of the camera.

Jeff has said that one/both of the new hires will be more junior positions than the hires they've made in the past, but I assume that's cause the new video guy might be doing more of the grunt work and not being as much of a personality to start? Then again, Patrick was never really supposed to be on camera either.

Knight_

I imagine they want someone more junior so they won't instantly get poached by someone else.

FuriousJodo

Probably easier to afford two juniors, and I think they also just want some younger folks in general to maybe appeal to a younger generation of duder.

Undead Scottsman

SteevL wrote: »

And last but not least,
Ryan Davis (R.I.P.)

I saw the RIP first and was going to giggle at saying Alexis or Dave were dead, given we haven't seen them in ages, but then I saw the name and got sad becaue I forgot Ryan passed away.

SatanIsMyMotor

I have a Giant Bomb theory. Not a pants on head theory but a guess as to their ongoing strategy because I think Jeff is a smart guy and has been hinting as much.

I think we're going to see GBeast turn into the primary entertainment area of the business. Vinny and Dan in particular are at their best when they're playing a game on a stream (and Alex can easily get on that train). Simply put it's their key strength and I think this is already being evidenced by the types of content coming from that side of business (Blue Bombin, Shenmue, Contra, the upcoming Yakuza, etc.).

While the west coast crew is still quite good on camera and I don't see video content going away by any stretch I think the locus of journalism power really sits with that group of fellas. Jeff has outright said he wants to do more interview stuff and I think some of the content that came out over the holiday was them testing the waters a bit.