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Giant Bomb GoTY 2016- Agent 47, take out that Doom Marine

OneUh8

Member
SUUUPER late to the thread, but just wanted to say that I thought the final GOTY discussion was pretty boring. I was expecting a long discussion considering how good this year was in gaming. Instead it felt like everyone just had no interest in any more discussion and it felt rushed. Easily the worst last day since I have been listening.
 

mnz

Unconfirmed Member
I think Austin's filibuster might've been a little too successful last year and that's why we got two or three games this year where people just put their foot down and wouldn't move. Kinda made for a bad discussion.
 

renzolama

Member
The end of the year talks are to celebrate the things that games did throughout the year. Limiting that to the obvious winners of a category not only tightens the breadth of games, but also they'd have spent nearly a third of the whole runtime fellating Doom, instead of a quarter of it.

Hearing bits of the Virginia OST is what convinced me to finally play it, and considering how prominent that fantastic OST is, I'm glad Vinny(?) brought it up.

Or maybe they would have spent more time delving into it's shortcomings. You don't really know because that opportunity wasn't available. When you limit the depth of the discussions by increasing the breadth then you end up focusing only on the most obvious surface layer of whatever you're discussing. I'm not arguing that there isn't value in creating more exposure for some less-recognizable games, such as the example you point out, I'm just saying that in the current format all they really have time to do is rehash the same shallow discussions that have already occurred rather than digging in deeper.
 

Joeku

Member
I love Vinny's weird/off the beaten path recommendations. I'm still thankful that GOTY 2014 got me to try The Fall. I was so psyched about Virginia, bought it, and it immediately made me physically ill, and that bummed me out so much. Something about the framerate or FOV just didn't sit right with me, and could only play for 15 mins at a time before I started feeling super super nauseated.

Yeah, I'm not one to get sick in first-person games but I could tell that it would destroy some people.

Or maybe they would have spent more time delving into it's shortcomings. You don't really know because that opportunity wasn't available. When you limit the depth of the discussions by increasing the breadth then you end up focusing only on the most obvious surface layer of whatever you're discussing. I'm not arguing that there isn't value in creating more exposure for some less-recognizable games, such as the example you point out, I'm just saying that in the current format all they really have time to do is rehash the same shallow discussions that have already occurred rather than digging in deeper.

I said Doom specifically because I meant Doom. The only shortcomings they went into they went into when they didn't want it to win: like Snapmap and the multiplayer, and how they were extraneous and bad, respectively. In every other case, it was continual blindfolded fellatio to whatever aspect of Doom they could attach to a category. And I don't mean that in a judgey way, I get their excitement. I love Doom. Did it ever get brought up in a category and not make the top three?

They sit in that tiny room and record a dozen hours of speaking into microphones over the course of a couple days. There's no way that they're going to subtract calling out the little things that one of them liked just to make sure they play devil's advocate on every other game, nor should there be. I agree completely with what they did with the bottom of the top 10; get the passion in there. This is in a similar vein.

For what it's worth, I would really go for intricate, spoiler-filled teardown podcasts on particular games, especially if Alex is on it. Given how weirdly thoughtful Dan can be sometimes and how Vinny Forrest Gumps his way into revealing a game's core, GBeast could maybe do something like that. Gotycasts have to cover twelve months of games though.
 
Listened to the whole thing...I thought the rationale for leaving Uncharted off was insane, tbh. Most all of them obviously had strong feelings for it, had already made passionate cases for it, and it placed in two of their awards...yet when the top 10 comes up it's just a platform for everybody's pet games. I don't get the point of that, they already have their own individual lists. Why even bother with a site list? Or why not just give everybody one slot in the top 10, which is what ended up happening anyway?

I mean, I do like that they base it on discussion and making a case rather than just a vote, but this just felt like they'd gone in with a directive not to let things get acrimonious and Alex and Dan were going to cry if their games that nobody else liked weren't on the list. Austin won his filibuster because of how articulate he was. Brad's Destiny battle at least had grounding in the fact that both he and Jeff had poured a ton of hours into it, and that gunplay was so damn good it set a new bar that still hasn't been topped in gaming's most competitive space. Alex's argument at it's core seemed to be "I'm a drummer and this is my drummer game, don't make me back down." As a listener, nothing about that really makes me feel satisfied about the proceedings, or leaves me thinking that what the group as a whole actually considered the best games won.

I also hated that they didn't allow Rez because it wasn't 100% new. I mean, so what? They were obviously more excited by it than most games throughout the year, and it was clearly doing something quite meaningfully new. Why put up an arbitrary barrier like that? I get that they didn't want the list to be everybody fighting for their favourite rehashes from 6 years ago, but that sort of thing would work itself out in the discussions.
 

Risible

Member
I think Austin's filibuster might've been a little too successful last year and that's why we got two or three games this year where people just put their foot down and wouldn't move. Kinda made for a bad discussion.

Yup. Austin's filibuster was RIDICULOUS. I like him, but it was kinda a dick move.

I've been playing Doom, and while it's OK, it winning an award for Best Story is fucking LAUGHABLE. GB you so crazy.
 
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