Giant Bombcast 468: It's Always Sunny Above the Clouds

Jason!

Hope there's some talk about the Zelda DLC situation here, I think the reaction is pretty overblown.

Drew pilot stories!

The conversations the crew always has about CoD is dishonest and frustrating. I know they aren't trying to deceive people but it'd be nice if they mentioned the fact that Infinite Warfare is the best-selling game of 2016. Instead they let their bias take over and treat the game like an objective failure. I'm not a fan and didn't bother to even play it, but this still bothers me just from the perspective of it feels like they aren't doing their job of properly informing their audience (which should at least be the goal of a news section).

It's annoying when I read elsewhere about the objective facts of something and then I realize I only had a wrong impression because of how the GB crew presented their opinion over the facts. That being said, Activision probably also isn't happy with the critical reception and Overwatch may be the best-selling game of 2016 but since Battle.net doesn't get tracked we'll never know. But the fact still stands that Infinite Warfare is an enormous success and best-selling retail game of 2016. No disrespect to the crew and I love the show but something to keep in mind when stating personal opinion during news section.

Aww yea new Bombcast!

@quid_pro_bono: I think it's because people are jumping to conclusions based on the worst examples of season passes and DLC from other developers.

Nintendo so far has a pretty decent track record for any DLC they've made. Mario Kart 8 comes to mind as expanding the game significantly for a very good price.

I dont know if Jason has made it to the fourth region in Nioh yet, but the level design gets so much better later on. The hidden village for instance!

Thank you for Bombcast

The manliest of men :-D

@quid_pro_bono: it's crazy that so many people are assuming it's content cut from the game. Granted I have not played it but the game looks absolutely massive and Nintendo have a good track record with dlc so I'll absolutely give them the benefit of the doubt.

The one thing that did give me pause is the hard mode being paid dlc. If it's a remixed mode then that's fine but if it's just enemies have more health and you take more damage, then that's shitty.

time for some bombcast

Super Smash Bros also is a good example, seven DLC characters and a bunch of stages/costumes, I think you can get it all as a bundle for like $25?

jeef gerstman

Does anyone have a link to the drew and jeff memes mentioned in this episode?

Find someone who talks about you the way Drew Scanlon talks about airplanes.

I havent seen the GIF of Drew and I already checked his Twitter. Can someone post it here?

Does anyone know what website Jeff was talking about for all of the bootleg stuff? I would assume it's some sub-site of Alibaba but I'd like to know more. I'm not above buying weird cheap crap!

@alvarofaraujo: on Twitter gif search just look up 'confused blinking'

i have the same kicks as Jason and also have super sensitive feet. If you have a Skechers Outlet nearby the shoes are called Arcades or something like that and are under $40.

They have memory foam soles which are fantastic.. unless you get caught in the rain in them. I got rained on before a Blink-182 concert and they were still soaked the next morning

RE: South Park games: Ubisoft bought the rights to Stick of Truth during the THQ collapse, and Obsidian was originally making the game for THQ, so I'd assume that when Ubisoft needed to make a new deal with South Park Studios, they opted to take whatever they could from Obsidian (if SPS owned any of the tech made for the game as part of the original deal) and just do it in house.

@gvalo: That doesn't work. Just gifs of Andy Richter blinking with a confused look on his face.

Shoutout to the chat guy that named the premium series about Jason's feet:

Dark Soles

@lonelyspacepanda: Very good post.

I love Drew's piloting updates. I can see him doing barrel rolls in a red baron one day.

@lonelyspacepanda: cursory searches tell me sales are down 50% from black ops 3, but then there's an article saying it's still the best selling *console* game of 2016. little hard to know which to believe, but i still get the overall impression that reception for IW was less than warm. still want to play that SP campaign someday; from what i hear it's pretty rad.

just curious do you have a source for it being the best selling game of 2016, hopefully with actual statistics? not doubting you, before you think that.

Not a word about For Honor or Sniper Elite 4 in the news section? Seems like an appropriate time for some AAA level releases. (they're both great btw, did co-op in both with my bro all night).

Would be cool if Drew took a go-pro or something with him :3

Nope:

Sources: Vgchartz and Steam Spy (though you have to go twelve pages deep to even find COD).

Even if you add all the sales together, it still gets beat by Battlefield 1 (which sold like double what COD did on PC) by almost 600,00 (11,209,253 vs 10,617,177), and gets absolutely smashed by Pokemon Sun/Moon and Fifa. Also both GTA V and Black Ops III (old games) sold more on PS4 in 2016 than Infinite Warfare did on Xbox One. That's legitimately terrible.

It's cool if you like COD or whatever, but please don't go around acting like Giant Bomb are lying to people by being down on the franchise.

If the Activision CEO says Cod underperformed, I'm willing to believe that

If Jason's already feeling the repetition in Nioh while he's only in the fifth level right now I really doubt his love for the game will last for its length. Because that game is LONG. Which is a shame, since there's some awesome bosses in the latter half.

What did Jason say exactly one minute in, there?

@tgjessie: "...Drinking my energy drink".

Jeff seems to be "moving stuff around" in his house every weekend. How much stuff can one man have!?

Yea but you also unlocg good stuff later.

@eggieinbasket: AliExpress most likely

Talking of miniature arcade cabinets, I had one of these:

It was the first game (a Moon Cresta knock-off, basically) I remember beating.

Over and over and over again.

The nostalgia in Brad and Jeff's voices at 2:15:13 is palpable.

This will probably be an unpopular opinion but I'm starting to feel a little retro discussion fatigue. About 40 minutes in of talking about retro arcades and games and I was excited to hear Jason talk about Nioh which I'm currently playing.. and then Drew starts talking about that old signal converter.

Don't get me wrong, it's interesting to hear that stuff from time to time, but you can only hold so much interest in a conversation about games and times you have absolutely no connection to, and between Jeff's home show, game tapes, demo discs, blue bombing and Contra there has been a lot of retro oriented content.

Just my two cents though, I realize that with time the content might flip again. I'm just a little tired of looking back at the moment.

@eggieinbasket: I just typed in the phrase Jeff mentioned and it came up first thing.

If I could make a single change to Steam, it would be to enable a "Stop suggesting this game. I already own it. I actually buy games at places other than Steam. Leave me alone!" option.

There are already a number of issues with how Steam promotes or suggests stuff, but it repeatedly recommends items that I've already purchased from Amazon, GoG, GMG, retail locations, etc. My only recourse is to ignore the suggestion, but then I'v'e seen it start skewing my results - I think it flags me as disliking that game or genre, rather than suggesting similar titles to the one I already own.

Goombas have no arms, but can clearly manipulate things psychokineticly. Like a Homestar Runner for example.

The smearing to GameCube controller is the worst thing this site has done. It's the best controller yet devised and I won't hear different.

@ripelivejam: It's straight from the NPD which is what tracks retail sales for many years now. Different sites reported on it but they are the source: http://venturebeat.com/2017/01/19/2016-npd-call-of-duty-no-1-battlefield-no-2-on-2016s-list-of-best-selling-games/

It's kind of a mess though since Origin, Battlenet and other digital platforms aren't included. It's likely up to the platform holders themselves and they must feel there is more to lose than gain by sharing that info (which is why Valve don't care and share Steam's sales figures). So it's possible BF1 is the real #1 or even Overwatch. Whatever the case, the point still stands that Infinite Warfare is far from being a failure.

@megabattimus: Interesting it'd be so different from NPD which I believe is more reputable. I remember hearing VGchartz pulls out estimates and are wildly inaccurate, to the point where most game sites have rules against using them as a source. Regardless, far from a failure. Not arguing there hasn't been a downward streak for the series but it's still pushing major numbers.

"The Hedgehogs I have seen on the Internet" is a great autobiography name.

I had a pet hedgehog named Sonic when I was in 2nd grade.

I... guess I'll go get a vasectomy...

Also, hedgehogs can get diarrhea and die from dehydration by pooping too much. Sonic pooped too fast.

EDIT: I guess many living things can die that way, but I think hedgehogs are especially susceptible to it.