Hello and welcome to the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight, and as always I, @zombiepie, am honored to be your host. So, first thing right off the bat we have a number of Giant Bomb birthdays worth recognizing. On Saturday, Austin celebrated his birthday, and Brad celebrated his last Monday. The final birthday worth celebrating was Giant Bomb's seventh anniversary! +250,000 Forums, +5,000 pages of topics, and +46,000 game pages later… here we are!
PAX Prime is coming up and the Giant Bomb team have reserved a nice place for Giant Bomb users to hang Thursday night (PAX Eve), BUT you have to RSVP and be over twenty-one to join.
There's also a job opening at CBSi for a web developer position.
Finally, there were a couple of kerfuffles regarding podcast streaming Apps for Android and iOS users. The engineers are having major issues with BeyondPod on the Android, and considered blocking use of the app. After talking with the developer the engineers have decided to hold off of blocking the app...for now. Then it was discovered that the PlayerFM app made everyone's username and password publicly visible in plain text. That problem has been rectified, but if you at any point used the app RESET YOUR PASSWORD IMMEDIATELY! With this all aside, let's get on with the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight!
Clip of the Week
It was an awesome but weird week when it came to Giant Bomb and Contradiction this week. The weirdness started when the creators of Contradiction created a thread thanking the Giant Bomb for supporting the game. This thread then resulted in “Jenks” and “Emma” from Contradiction creating Giant Bomb accounts to thank the staff and community, which then resulted in most of the rest of Contradiction's cast joining the Giant Bomb community! As you can see below Anarosa Eizaguirre (a.k.a. “Emma” from Contradiction) published a video thanking the Giant Bomb Community for their support of Contradiction:
The Giant Bomb Weekly Banner
- BANNER Play Gal Gun: Giant Bomb (By: @cosmicbacon) - For anyone that watched the last Unprofessional Fridays you know that Jeff played the second Gal Gun game...and it was just as creepy as the last one.
- Danjo Ka-Drew-ie (By: @teddie) In an effort to motivate Dan to make his proposed video series with Drew about Banjo Kazooie, user Teddie has created this work of art.
- Jeff Gerstmann Sketch - On Tumblr Joe Shefski mixed 1950s era Disney with Giant Bomb
Community Activities
Best of Blogs
- I Visited the Town from Contradiction and I Took Photos! (By: @karlpilkington) - It goes without saying that it has been a crazy week for Giant Bomb in regards to Contradiction, given that half of the actors in the game have created Giant Bomb accounts and all. BUT KarlPilkington has the noted distinction of having tracked the British township where the game was shot, and took photos to boot.
- Mento Gear Solid 4: Puns of the Patriots: Part One[Part Two, Part Three, and Part Four] & ST-urday #004: Federation Quest 1: B.S.S. Jane Seymour (By: @mento) - Mento has been blogging up a storm this week firstly with a blog series detailing his adventures with Metal Gear Solid 4, as Drew plays along with it. Mento also continued his retrospective on the Atari-ST with the obscure Federation Quest 1: B.S.S. Jane Seymour.
- Baby Deep Look: Lost Odyssey- Leveling From Within And Without & Lost in the Pajamas: Part 1- Hunting Darkness (By: @thatpinguino) - thatpinguino started the week off by playing something "wholesome" in the form of Pajama Sam, and then immediately moved onto the unflinchingly serious Lost Odyssey. Read all about what he thought of both games this week.
- Dynamic Theme Reviews 01: In Which Spoonman Wastes his Money so you Don't Have to (By: @spoonman671) - Spoonman671 ponied up the cash to buy up a handful of dynamic themes for the PS4, so read his reviews on them here.
- I Tried To Seek Adoulin, Instead I Found This: My Final Fantasy XI Experience (By: @audiobusting) - audioBusting made another attempt to play Final Fantasy XI again! Read how he accomplished the impossible over here, and how actually playing the game was like.
Join the Discussion
- Summer Games Done Quick Jul 26-Aug 1st (By: @demoskinos) - This week is is Summer Games Done Quick 2015! Learn everything you could possibly want to know about the event, and discuss the speedruns that you have seen, here.
- Hearthstone The Grand Tournament Discussion Thread (By: @acura_max) - Are any of you excited about the new Hearthstone expansion, The Grand Tournament? Even if you are not feel free to share your thoughts here.
- Final Fantasy XIV Heavensward Discussion Thread (By: @belegorm) - Do you have any thoughts related to Heavensward? Well feel free to share them with the GB FFXIV community, and Xavier Woods in spirit, over here.
- Unintentionally Scary Games (By: @fallen189) - What do you think are the scariest moments in non-horror video games? Discuss unintentionally scary games on this discussion thread.
- Favourite More-of-the-Same Sequels? (By: @beachthunder) - Is "more-of-the-same" really that bad? Name and discuss your favorite sequel that didn't reinvent the wheel over here.
- Why is Kreia in KOTOR II so Well Liked? (Spoilers!) (By: @mikemcn) - After Austin's profession of KOTOR II being his favorite game a nice debate regarding Kreia's characterization started, and you can join in as well. Is Kreia an interesting inversion of your prototypical villain, or just a cheap plot twist machine?
Lovable Lists
- My Top Ten Games of 2004 (By: @thesilentgod) - TheSilentGod went back to 2002 to list what he thinks were the best games of that year, which you can see here.
- Best Games of the 7th Generation (By: @monkeyking1969) - MonkeyKing1969 already feels nostalgic about the previous generation of consoles, and lists his favorite games here.
Wonderful Wikis
- Journey - Thatgamecompany's picturesque peregrination simulator was made available to PS4 owners this week, so be sure to revisit the dunes with our wonderfully detailed wiki page as your companion.
- Tetris: The Grand Master 2: The Absolute - SGDQ starts on the 26th, so familiarize yourself with some more of the odder games scheduled to feature on the streams via their wiki pages.
- Kirby Tilt 'n' Tumble
- Hello Kitty: Roller Rescue
- Stretch Panic
- Ikaruga - (One of the games that the TASBot will be "playing" this year.)
Useful User Reviews
- @sparky_buzzsaw explains why the iPad version of Contradiction: Spot the Liar! may be for anyone that has enjoyed GB East's coverage of the game.
- @vert_vermillion shares why he thinks Splatoon is a necessary component to any person's Wii U library over here.
- @dinoracha discusses why he wishes a better game had been grafted onto the good ideas of Dying Lighton this review.
- @jaypb08 really likes Super Metroid and discusses how Axiom Verge does and does not scratch his itch for another Super Metroid.
- @morecowbell24 decided to get a little on the "retro" side and played a good deal of Target Earth this week, and wrote a review of his overall thoughts on it.