The Community Spotlight 2024.11.16

Welcome to the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight! I, @zombiepie, am once again honored to be your host as we look at the important site-related news as well as the best community creations from the previous week.

We are nearing the end of the year, and with that comes the earliest inklings of GOTY season. As for the site’s plans, all we know currently is that there will be a “Giant Bomb Couch” event on December 11, which is the night before The Game Awards. It will not be a ticketed event open to public like last year though.

Jan still is committed to rescheduling his “Silent Jan” Extra Life stream, but there’s no official date or time for that at this moment. However, know that Jan is very serious when he says he is a “Jan of my word” and will do the stream at some point in the future.

There aren’t any major updates about TurboShawn’s update regarding the fact that the RSS feed situation is not in a good spot. For those that missed it last week, the best the site and team can do at this point is to allow everyone to at least download the episode from the site and add it manually to your podcast app.

When it comes to social media, you’ll notice that the Spotlight’s “Tweets” is still here. If there’s a groundswell of interest in canning this section, I’ll do it, but I don’t have a viable alternative as the site’s WYSIWYG editor doesn’t recognize Blusesky, Threads, and/or Mastodon. So, if you don’t want embedded media Tweets on the Spotlight, which I would completely respect, the entire section has to go completely with no replacement. I will however point out that the staff are increasingly trending towards Bluesky and if that continues, I will see if we can at least have media posts from their work on the site, but that would be no easy task give the aging nature of the text editor. Nonetheless, here are all of the staff’s Bluesky accounts if you don’t already have them:

However, if you are in need for some community-based positivity in your life this week, we have an interesting user-based update to share. Bowl-of-Lentils has been collecting magazine ads for Falcom games for years and has finally uploaded a good number of them onto their Giant Bomb account. You can view them in the following gallery and while they’re not organized they do have tags that list the source of each ad.

Tweets

Art

Banksy x Blight Club (By:@Pickle_Giraffe)

Lucy’s misadventures with Skull Island: Rise of Kong continue and Pickle_Giraffe is busy making another episode of her progress, but as a teaser they imagined Lucy’s gorilla suit shenanigans serving as the basis of a Banksy work of street art.

Jeff Grubb Is Just Modern Jey Uso (By: @kone)

How are we still feeling about Jeff Grubb’s Extra Life-based haircut? After looking at it again, Kone made the apt point that it reminded them of modern era Jey Uso and they followed through on that comparison with this work of Photoshop-based goodness.

Activities

Unsanctioned Unofficial Game Pass Game Club Voting Thread For Cycle Starting November 18 2024 +

Still Wakes The Deep Is The 23rd Game Of UUGPGC Year 3! Finish By November 18! Mark All Spoilers!(By: @bigsocrates)

It’s time again to fire away your picks for the next edition of the Giant Bomb Game Pass Game Club! Here’s a list of nominees and don’t forget that you can vote for two that you’d like the group to play in the future!

Also, don’t forget that Still Wakes the Deep is still being tapped as the current pick for the Game Pass Game Club! If you have any thoughts about its mix of realism with cosmic horror, drop a comment!

Blogs

The Great Schism: A Halo 2 Retrospective (By: @gamer_152)

Halo 2 recently celebrated its 20th anniversary and senior and former staff at Bungie have come forward to say that the game almost “broke” them. Moderator gamer_152 sought to figure out why and what exactly Bungie employees said about the game and its strained development.

Indie Game Of The Week 396: Sheepo +

Anyway, Here’s WonderSwan (Part Ten) (By: @mento)

Moderator Mento is back with a new edition of their “Indie Game of the Week” feature and this episode takes on Sheepo by Kyle Thompson! What does it mean when people call it a “pacifist metroidvania?” Read to find out!

Mento is also back with another entry in their retrospective on the WonderSwan! It’s time to get a bit wacky with this episode because it discusses Rhyme Rider Kerorican and Chocobo no Fushigi na Dungeon!

Four Years After Release The PS5 Stands Alone Atop The High Power Console Market, And Feels Like Just Another Device. +

Four Years After Release The Xbox Series X/S Feels Half Abandoned And Makes A Very Weak Case For Purchase (By: @bigsocrates)

bigsocrates muses how the PlayStation 5 firmly stands as your best option for a traditional “power house” console, but pointedly discusses why that this distinction feels oddly irrelevant.

Similarly, bigsocrates blogged about the four year anniversary of the Xbox Series X|S consoles and why they think, even with the rise of Game Pass, they both feel like half-realized hardware at this point.

What’s the Greatest Video Game: Manhunt (By: @imunbeatable80)

imunbeatable80 really decided to push themselves this week with their latest “What’s the Greatest Video Game” feature because this time they played Rockstar’s Manhunt! Does this game deserve the controversy that surrounds it?

I Want To Quickly Review Demos From The October 2024 Steam Next Fest Event – Part 2 (By: @zombiepie)

ZombiePie wraps up their spotlight on the game demos from October’s Next Fest that they tried out. Whether it be cozy RPGs like Keep Driving or retro throwback titles like Loco Motive, you can read all about the indie games they enjoyed the most during the event.

Discussion Threads

Microsoft Reveals “This Is An Xbox Campaign” Emphasizing How Many Devices Can Play Xbox Stuff (By: @bigsocrates)

How does everyone feel about the new “This is an Xbox” marketing campaign by Microsoft? Is its a needle mover, non-issue, or brand harmer? Share your thoughts about it, and Spencer’s recent interviews with the rest of the community.

PSA: Now Is Probably A Good Time To Upgrade Your Electronic Devices (By: @atheistpreacher)

Soooo… let’s be honest, how many of you are planning tech and video game hardware purchases before the market gets “messy” and prices skyrocket for political reasons? Are any of you concerned about tariff shock?

Thunderful Games (Which Makes The Steamworld Series Among Others) Announces Up To 100 Layoffs (By: @bigsocrates)

Thunderful, best known as the makers of the SteamWorld games, has announced it is laying off approximately 100 staff. Catch the news and share your thoughts as well as thoughts to the impacted staff.

Confused Perturbed & Uncertain (CPU)… How To Pick A CPU In 2024 (By: @skuski)

As the title might suggest, skuski is itching to upgrade their CPU but has been out of the computer hobbyist game long enough that they don’t know where to start especially with recurring reports that Intel’s high-end CPUs burn out and AMD’s Ryzen 9000 pricing being all over the place.

I Am Going To My First Royal Rumble! (By: @cubbielover)

Inspired by the likes of Dan Ryckert, Jan, Jeff Grubb , and Mike, cubbielover is going to go to their first ever Royal Rumble in February! Have any of you ever gone? Share advice if you have any and wish them the best!

Marvel Cinematic Universe: Phase Five Revisited (By: @monkeyking1969)

Next year, Marvel’s “Phase Five” programming and movie onslaught will come to an end. As you look at what came out and is set to conclude the initiative, what are your final thoughts? Most of what came out was undeniably good but doesn’t the brand feel diluted?

Lists

Oh No I Forgot 2024! (And Now Maybe That’s A Good Thing) (By: @slax)

It’s officially that time of the year when we all need to mull over the games we played and decide on which ones deserve to be on our GOTY lists. For Slax, they admit that the year was a slog both in the world of games and in real-life, and reviewed the games they played in the year from best to worst.

Hours Spent On 5 “Debuts” In 2024 (By: @infantpipoc)

For the first part of their GOTY 2024 content, infantpipoc felt like making a list that commends the games that were not based on pre-existing IPs. Here are the five debut games they liked.

Wiki Of The Week

Halo 2

With Halo 2 celebrating its 20th anniversary, it only makes sense to throw things back to it for this edition of the Wiki Of The Week! Whether it be its controversial decision to add dual-wielding or the perseverance of its online community, check out our AMAZING wiki page for the game and be surprised at what you could learn about the game!