Official Giant Bomb Thread Mostly for Complaining About Dan

[natellite]

On the other hand, I just had a thought - I completely understand the need, as someone with anxiety, to throw oneself wholeheartedly into opinions, into both self-aggrandizement and exultation of beliefs. It's the pendulum swinging in the other direction - saying "actually, I'm great, and everything I do is great, fuck you if you disagree" provides a brief, intoxicating moment of clarity through the fog that settles over your life and your sense of self. It doesn't excuse anything, and I'm not presuming to speak about why anyone does anything to deal with their own illness. But I can also see how that would progress from being a coping mechanism to just being a lifestyle choice, learned behavior.

 

Still wish he'd be a little more thoughtful about it, though.

[Reyturner]

If your happiness is nacho cheese on Oreos, America is perfect. 

[Gormongous]

I'm not Casey Malone, and I'm not about to try and change anyone's mind about anything on twitter. But if I were, I would say that highly socialized systems are way better at encouraging people to follow their dreams, because with a sophisticated system of social safety nets (say that five times fast) you can actually afford to fail, which is not a luxury afforded to everyone or indeed almost anyone in America. America encourages people to dream if and only if you already have the money to turn your dreams into a product while also vouchsafing your health and well-being. It turns out: That's a lot of money. It's way easier to be an indie dev in Canada or, say, Sweden than it is to be one in America.

 

Dan Ryckert has led a blessed life and has, apparently, known no hardship at the hands of a monolithically unsympathetic system. I can't fault him for that. But I don't really know why he felt the need to go to bat for our economic system against someone who was clearly upset about it - surely capitalism needs no defense, if it's all that it's cracked up to be. I just have a really hard time with how unthoughtful Dan apparently is.

 

I think where it falls down is that Dan's definition of capitalism appears to be something like  "in capitalism, unlike any other economic system, anyone can have any job they want and get rich doing it" and not the actual definition, which is that, in capitalism, everything is for sale and is worth only what its purchaser will pay for it. That's fine, I guess, in its own little way, because it's Dan's experience, but I totally agree with you that getting up on someone's Twitter feed with a "put up or get out" attitude because of that highly personal definition is completely uncalled for.

[Dewar]

On the other hand, I just had a thought - I completely understand the need, as someone with anxiety, to throw oneself wholeheartedly into opinions, into both self-aggrandizement and exultation of beliefs. It's the pendulum swinging in the other direction - saying "actually, I'm great, and everything I do is great, fuck you if you disagree" provides a brief, intoxicating moment of clarity through the fog that settles over your life and your sense of self. It doesn't excuse anything, and I'm not presuming to speak about why anyone does anything to deal with their own illness. But I can also see how that would progress from being a coping mechanism to just being a lifestyle choice, learned behavior.

 

Still wish he'd be a little more thoughtful about it, though.

That hit on a tender spot for me, though rather than "everything is great" I tend to go "that stuff doesn't matter" and shove it out of life so I don't stress about it. It's a really insightful thought.

[James]

The only big dreaming capitalism has taught me is entirely in terms of consumption.

[ratamero]

Jesus, Dan.

[Polish Hill]

I really like Dan but I think the only way to get some of this stuff through to him is in the format of a montage or put it into some Guns N' Roses lyrics.  Which is fine but maybe don't throw yourself headlong into potential arguments if you refuse to see another side or put much thought into any type of actual defense of your point.

[Professor Video Games]

As soon as Dan starts talking about anything other than video games (or maybe wrestling if that's your thing) it's best just to tune him out entirely if only for your own sanity's sake.

 

On the podcast, I think if Jeff forced himself to explain what he likes or finds interesting about a game instead of why it is "TERRIBLE" it would help things a lot. The dude's negativity is killing me.

[Reyturner]

the level of discourse on GB is, in general, very low. It's doubly frustrating since they are, ostensibly, some of the few people these days who make a living talking about video games. 

[tegan]

On the other hand, Dan suggested "Hideo Kojima's Waluigi World" on the latest Bombcast and now I don't think I can rest until I get to hear a David Hayter-voiced Waluigi babble on a bout "nanomushrooms."

[natellite]

Metal Cap?!

[JonCole]

oh my god dan's big live live show live nacho cheese presentation is a fucking war crime. the "yellow russian" practically made me vomit just watching it happen.

[thefncrow]

I'm really glad Jeff pulled out Syndicate for UPF today, because despite not getting to play with Jeff, the slight influx of people playing Syndicate made it possible for me to actually get in some multiplayer Syndicate for the first time in a while. 

 

That game is great.

[JonCole]

The Starbreeze game? Oh man, that sounds super interesting if so. Sad I missed it, really loved the single-player.

[thefncrow]

Yeah, the Starbreeze game.  He pulled it out for the multiplayer, which I feel was the best part of that game.  The single player campaign was a fun little shooter campaign, but there's something really great about the multiplayer.  The movement in that game felt great, the shooting felt amazing, and then combine that with these co-op missions where you were typically overwhelmed to where everyone had to kinda watch out for each other (at least on the harder difficulties).

 

It made me so sad when the multiplayer community for that game just died off.

[Dewar]

Man, I love that Dan cared enough about Kirkhope versus Wise that he put together a quiz for it for the Bombcast.

[Dr Wookie]

Man, I love that Dan cared enough about Kirkhope versus Wise that he put together a quiz for it for the Bombcast.

Yeah that was awesome! I got all of them right, including the tie breaker . I don't know much of Wise's music but I can recognise Kirkhope's stuff pretty much instantly it seems (apart from the tiebreaker, but I eventually recognised the tune). I'm pretty excited for Yuka-Laylee (sp?) in theory, but I'm not sure if I'm still in a place to enjoy that sort of game.

[tegan]

I'm honestly a little disappointed that Brad and Jeff agreed to do the quiz, because they should know by now that Dan will take any available out to prove that he's right about something. They literally got one question wrong each and he still concluded that it meant Wise was just as good as Kirkhope.

 

It's the same reason I secretly hope Dan loses every Mario Party Party.

[Dewar]

That was part of the joy of the whole thing for me I guess. Plus hearing someone on the podcast really excited about anything was a welcome change.

[natellite]

Also, how often do you hear someone on a games podcast get really excited about music and composers? I think it's really under-discussed - even on Idle Thumbs! The last time I remember Chris talking about music was when they were talking about Gone Home. It was a refreshing change, all things considered. Music has such an impact on the tone and reception of a game, I wish we knew more about what goes into making music for this medium.

[Cbirdsong]

I'd recommend the Top Score podcast, if you're not already aware of it.

[natellite]

I was not! Thank you!

[twmac]

I generally don't like music in games. Notable exceptions being Jet Set Radio, Spec Ops: The Line, Phantom Crash and Phantom Dust.

 

I think this stems from my parents getting annoyed by repetitive loops on stuff like the Megadrive so I had to turn sound off entirely. Then someone let me borrow their PlayStation and FF8 and I hated the music in it so much that I turned the volume off on my TV and just played my own music over the top. I did the same to Quake and Diablo on the PC by playing my own music via CD.

 

I loved the X360 because of its custom soundtracks and I don't think I can remember many soundtracks as a result.

 

I've been putting up with the poor support on Xbox One for custom soundtracks but now that I realise there is a free Radio option on Xbox Music I have started snapping it and playing that while turning all in-game music off. 

 

I am having the same problem with the Witcher 3 right now that I feel has a jarring score that I don't want to listen to. It really just needs Warren Ellis and Nick Cave.

[Reyturner]

Reveagance tho

[natellite]

rules of nature