Bombin' the A.M. With Scoops and the Wolf: 09/27/2013

This thing has an intro music?!

Not a bad way to start a friday.

So let's focus on torture and misogyny and ignore that fact that you kill hundreds of people

I bet they talk about GTA:V. Who want this bet???

This argument only makes sense if you're also saying it's all problematic.

YEAAAAAA BUDDY

@patrickklepek: Yes that is exactly the point

Summary of Tom Bissell article: "I'm too old to have fun."

Yay, I guess...

Right, but then you're also saying "if we don't criticize all of it, we can't criticize any of it," which I don't think follows or makes any points made regarding other parts of GTA V less salient. We can acknowledge the cognitive dissonance video games engage in with regards to violence--a much larger, systemic issue rooted in video games using conflict as a primary motivation--and still have a conversation about other parts.

Richard Christie loves October and Halloween season far more than Patrick.

I got 99 ghost problems, but Patrick aint one.

Maybe I'm just a bad person, but I liked that torture scene in GTA V. I thought it was kinda fun, and given the context of what was happening, kinda funny...

Bombin' the AM needs it's own classy radio jingle to start the show.

Bombin' the AM > Troy and Abed In The Morning

@porjos: Naw man. Needs "Radio-Jeff" blasting your ears over a rocking guitar riff.

I hated it personally, I didn't wanna do it, maybe because I find it easy to see myself in physical pain and I don't like that at all.

Isn't that the topic of discussion almost constantly in video games and GTA? I feel like focusing on specific things will yield better results/discussion.

Seems the Nosgoth situation is like if fans only got The Bureau and XCOM Enemy Unknown never came out. I can feel for Legacy of Kain fans.

Yea that Need For Speed movie trailer just seemed really weird to me.

"tips fedora"

Patrick, are you feeling euphoric?

@patrickklepek: I don't feel like there is a balance, gratuitous violence isn't typically a topic of serious discussion on most gaming sites maybe because of how common place violence is in games. Misogyny just seems like the flavor of the day for hot topics. It seems like video games garner a criticism from the media that most other mediums like films or novels are spared. I'd like some examples of the overt misogyny that so many gaming journalist seemed to experience in GTA 5.

@patrickklepek I understand the problem with how woman are sometimes portrayed in video games, but I think the fact that this is still a heavily male driven industry needs to be acknowledged. This is not saying that woman can't be represented more respectably, such as in The Last of Us or Bioshock Infinite this year, but when you have mostly males in charge of writing women into games, there is a certain amount to be expected to be lost in translation.

Also, I think that it is important that people are allowed to create games and characters as they envision them. To shoehorn in elements, whether it's dealing with racism, misogyny, etc. just to make it more PC or avoid the risk of offending people seems dishonest, and an even bigger issue.

I think people should just let people make the games they want, and not play the ones that don't speak to them how they desire.

I actually don't disagree with this. But when you create something, you also open it to criticism. When you criticize something, you are not necessarily saying it should change. You're just commenting on it.

@patrickklepek: Good point. Now go film a Spookin' with Scoops!

Criticism is fine. It is like how we can Criticize reviews in return in a sensible manner. My only problem with the Polygon and Gamespot Review of GTA V is that the Reviewers felt strongly about misogyny writing several paragraphs on it which is totally fine because it is their opinion but still felt the need to score it a 9.5 and a 9 Respectively and not lower if that is the issue they came away from the game. This adds to my opinion that scoring reviews is some what broken but i understand why scores are used in reviews.

@jimmyfenix: It's important to take into consideration who is reviewing a game. One of the reasons I stick exclusively to Giant Bomb is because for the most part, I have similar opinions about games as most of the staff. I wish Vinny would review games, because it is absolutely ridiculous how similar our tastes are. Either way, there are people out there who take much more away from the reviews you mentioned than say IGN's, or even Jeff's. Too many different people out there for each review to speak to everyone.

There's torture talk? I won't play GTA V, can someone tell me what happens? With a spoiler block?

I'm just curious if it's any worse than what happens in Metal Gear Solid 3. Because that was pretty intense.

i think part of the anxiety people (myself included) have with criticism is people are seeing the underlying pattern this year, where enough outrage happens on X topic or on X person, the devs either speak out about it or it influences future projects/decisions.

criticism in the vain or the intent of just having a conversation about an aspect/theme of a game is fine and im sure thats what you ultimately want as well.

i think it just feels like some of the criticism in its declarative tone is more about demanding change when its more just commentary.

at the end of the day, people just want awesome games, AAA or indie, in the way the creator intended, and with no compromise due to peer pressure.

@csl316: They didn't go in depth in today's episode but if you don't what the controversy is it is basically this.

In the game you are forced by the FIB (FBI) To torture an informant to get information about a "So Called" Terrorist You need to use various methods Water boarding , Wrench the informant , Electrocute and pull the informants teeth out to get information . At the end of the scene the FBI officer tells you to kill him but your character lets the informant go secretly and drops him off at the airport explaining how the FBI uses torture for fun.

Not to get too into it but the torture scene in GTA really worked for me. Far from subtle like everything Rockstar writes, but for a game that functions as a critique of modern America underneath all the open world crime fun it's the most damning and raw that they get. Would like to hear what you guys think at some point.

OK, sure, anxiety--but show me any proof it's causing a reduction in artistic integrity? (Hotline Miami 2 doesn't count. The writer never asked the developers to change the content. Read the piece.)

dam got watch again fell asleep watching

You can't even sell a song using your name under NCAA rules

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/28/sports/wrestler-hoping-to-inspire-through-song-loses-eligibility.html?_r=0

If you want an idea of how crazy it has been, they recently eased off rules that said you could give your athletes bagels but they couldn't get free cream cheese. But now those are relaxed, unless YOU DARE TO MAKE A PIZZA BAGEL

http://college-football.si.com/2013/01/22/ncaa-bagel-rule-update/

So are you saying that the game is beyond criticism simply because 'violence'? That somehow that aspect alone is some form of 'get out of jail free' card from any degree of assessment regarding the content?

What if the Need for Speed movie was about Aron Paul just really wanting to see the movie Speed.

@gorillamopena: yep. I just graduated as a soccer player at the university of Washington and the NCAA was very strict about that specific rule. You could either have the bagel or the spread but you couldn't have both together because it constituted as a full meal.. Really bizzar shit..

@jimmyfenix: Thanks for the summary, duder.

So, Legacy of Kain... I loved those games so damn much. Soul Reaver 2 is one of the handful of games that I stayed up til sunrise to finish. But the last time I had any hope of a new LoK game is when they put the actual Soul Reaver into Tomb Raider: Legend (and to be fair, I've absolutely loved every Tomb Raider game Crystal Dynamics has done).

I hope this doesn't suck, but if it does..... "Cast him in."

Mutant League Football 2014. Think about it.

It seems that people seem to confuse 'Sexy' with 'Sexist' these days.

You guys need more Jeff on. You tend to keep it in your pants when he's around.

not gonna lie, college sports kinda piss me off. the few areas marked for student parking at my school get blocked off for alumni with RVs to park and tailgate 2 DAYS before the game. My ability to attend classes should not be effected by your sportsball. Between that and the fact that an important football player was in a class I was TA'ing, and he was extremely disruptive and rude, but I was told by the professor I was working with that we had to deal with it because this 'star' was bringing in a bunch of alumni 'donations' to the school.

You could say that I rather dislike college sports.

Alex's "woo"s are starting to sound less like a wolf and more like a very very confused Ric Flair

Awesome!!!

For me, the LoK games were never about the gameplay. In fact outside of a few cool things, the gameplay in most of those games wasn't very good. The story and VO work on the other hand was some of (if not the) best in it's time. The world was extremely fleshed out. Everything had a reason for being. Without hesitation I would spend money on a better looking, better playing LoK game.

@GTA V talk: The problem with the statement of "it hasn't grown with me" is after like, 21yo or so, that usually has an unspoken "old" at the end of it.

Also, it's GT fucking A, they ain't angels in those games. They are criminals. They are scum. That's the price one pays for games where you're the bad guy existing. It needs pointed out, (but doesn't need Spec Ops clumsy hamfisted head trauma stuck on there to "justify" it), and it makes video games vulnerable to that awful, degrading talk about violence in games.

@the Valve Triple Threat Bombatonfest 2013:

I'm catching up to this a day later, so your talk about it only being a controller being disappointing was kinda funny, Patrick. Thing was pretty damn wild for just a controller. ;)

@"Nosgoth":

Same as Syndicate. Same as Breath of Fire. Same as what Xcom almost became. Same as Shadowrun. It's best if they died a natural death, but no...the companies involved loose their shirts selling a product to people who either don't know the IP or don't want to know the IP in that form. As with BoF being in that list, I don't see this getting better for Gen 8; there's too much nostalgia to be milked via familiar imagery and motifs in freemium smartphone deals for it not to.

not sold on the steam os or the steam box time will tell but I kind of smell a flop coming.

SteamOS is extremely limited compared to Windows. It's designed to one thing really well.

Feels like this is almost a separate site to Giant Bomb, which is good. Great show, flowed really nicely.

Mastodon, fuck yeah Alex!!! \m/