Hello and welcome to the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight and I, @zombiepie, am once again honored to be your host. This week was another eventful one for the Giant Bomb Community. Firstly, the community was sheepishly buzzing about Clash Royale after Brad mentioned it on the Bombcast. Then the community directed its attention towards the more traditional targets of Salt and Sanctuary as well as Trackmania Turbo. That and y’all are still clearly talking about Tom Clancy’s The Division and Stardew Valley. However, with that aside let’s get on to a bit of Giant Bomb related housekeeping!
- As you are hopefully already aware of there is new merchandise in the Giant Bomb Emporium! Go and get yourself a glow in the dark t-shirt, retro styled hat, and/or Giant Bomb East themed poster.
- A few weeks ago I mentioned that site engineer @wcarle is actively working on improving the wiki. This week he mentioned that more details on those improvements will be revealed latter this week. The “beta” for the new wiki is also planned to launch soon.
- Friend of the site Patrick Klepek created a YouTube video that chronicles his ill-fated bet with Dan Ryckert from his loss in Mario Maker, to the loss of his goatee.
- Speaking of YouTube, Dan has recently begun streaming his follies in Stardew Valley over the weekends. If did not manage to catch any of these streams when they went live, he has luckily been archiving them to his YouTube Channel. Here’s the first stream where Dan manages to reach level 100 in the mines.
Clip(s) of the Week
Giant Bomb TV Intros: Project B.E.A.S.T. Enterprise! (By: @somestickguy_)
It’s been a long road, but somestickguy_ has managed to sync clips from Project B.E.A.S.T. to the Star Trek: Enterprise theme song. No one inform Mr. Rorie of this feat.
Best of Giant Bomb’s Persona 4 Endurance Run–03 (Parts 031 to 045) (By: @clagnaught)
“Popularity leads to intimacy” is just one of the hilarious Persona 4 Endurance Run moments that Clagnaught captured on his latest “Best of” video for the iconic feature.
Giant Bomb HD Remix – Endurance Run: Persona 4 – Part 04 (By: @stordoff)
Speaking of Persona 4, part four of stordoff’s effort to convert the Persona 4 Endurance Run to HD video is up! Check it out and enjoy.
Giant Bomb Galleria
Banner – Cartoon Dan and Jeff Meet Mario Maker (By: keithstack)
keithstack on Tumblr made this Dan and Jeff related fanart inspired by the most recent episode of Giant Bomb Makes Mario.
Community Activities
Clash Royale Giant Bomb Team (By: @evilshredder)
There’s been a growing amount of talk related to Clash Royale on Giant Bomb. So learn how you can join the Giant Bomb community team in the game over here!
Best of Blogs
Yet Another Japan Travel Blog (But Mostly About Portable Games!)(By: @audiobusting)
audioBusting had the pleasure of visiting and traveling to Japan recently and shares what that was like, as well as all of the portable games that he played during the trip, over here.
The Time I Joined A Pack Of Hunters In The Division (By: @oldmanlight)
OldManLight recently joined a pack of Hunters in Tom Clancy’s The Division, and shares his adventures whilst doing so, as well as what that entailed, on his latest blog.
A Personal Video Game Retrospective (1986-2015) 1998 (By: @riostarwind)
RioStarwind continues his retrospective of all of the years in gaming that he has lived through. This week’s blog is all about the notable games from 1998.
Deep Interview: Get to Know the Endurance Runners: JeffRud and GoodSpaceGuy (By: @thatpinguino)
Giant Bomb Moderator ThatPinguino recently interviewed another batch of pending participants in the Giant Bomb Community Endurance Run! Give it a listen whenever you have the time.
Weekly Update #16 -March 15, 2016 (By: @qreedence)
qreedence talks about his time with Alice: Madness Returns as well as The Longest Journey on his latest “Weekly Update” blog.
My 50 Most Anticipated Games of 2016 – Part Four (#10-#1) (By: @devoureroftime)
DevourerOfTime completes his four-part series of games to watch out for in 2016 with this final entry. Check out his series and see if you missed anything to look forward to this year.
How Stardew Valley Utilizes Grind (In a Good Way) (By: @darth_navster)
Darth_Navster theorizes why he thinks Stardew Valley utilizes “grind” to its best possible advantage introspective blog post related to the game.
Playing Catch-Up (By: @mooseymcman)
MooseyMcMan has some interesting summative thoughts regarding Broforce and Rebel Galaxy, and you can check them out over here.
Sunday Summaries 03/13/2016 & Zeldistillation: Indies and Zelda (By: @mento)
Giant Bomb Community Moderator Mento provides a summary of his fantastic work on the Giant Bomb wiki, as well as a summary of what he’s been playing. He also looked at how Indie developers will create their own affordable spins on Zelda by focusing on certain aspects of Nintendo’s series.
Call of Duty Retrospective: Lines of Sight (By: @bushpusherr)
bushpusherr has been enjoying the Call of Duty franchise as a sniper for a decade now. Discover what continues to draw him in, and what concerns him about the future, on his write up this week.
Join the Discussion
Trackmania Turbo Open Beta Discussion Thread (By: @blastprocessing)
If any of you play around with the TrackManiaTrackmania Turbo open beta feel free to share your thoughts about the game on this community discussion thread.
The Division Challenging Difficulty Mission Discussion Thread (By: @yummylee)
Have any of you tried out the challenging difficulty missions in Tom Clancy’s The Division? Join the community discussion about the missions, and share how you managed to complete them, over here.
Rate and Discuss Your Dark Zone Experience (By: @oldmanlight)
Where do you stand regarding “The Dark Zone” in Tom Clancy’s The Division? Rate and discuss your experience with it thus far with the rest of the Giant Bomb Community.
Which Trendsetting Game Has Been The Worst For The Industry? (By: @liquiddragon)
Which “trendsetting” games do you think have had the worst impact on the video game industry? Vote and discuss your dubious “pick” over here.
Salt and Sanctuary Community Discussion Thread (By: @spaceinsomniac)
Salt and Sanctuary is now on PS4! Join the community discussion about the game, and share your thoughts about it
Useful User Reviews
- @bassman2112 shares why he felt “deflated” and bored with The Division by its twentieth or so hour.
- @shivermetimbers shares why he feels like he got his “money’s worth” out of The Division, but not a penny more.
- @dinoracha shares why he found Superhot to be a slick and challenging game worth checking out on his exhaustive review for the game.
- @moonlightmoth explains why she found DiRT Rally to be a riotous racing experience worth playing, on her review of the game.
Lovable Lists
Best of 2003 (By: @ryanodonnell)
ryanodonnell was 16 years old when it was 2003, and he holds that year in high regard when it comes to video games. As a result he’s gone ahead and listed his favorite games from that year on this list.
Life of a Burned Out Gamer – 2015 Games (By: @thesilentgod)
TheSilentGod feels like he burned himself out on video games in 2015, and you can see why on his latest list over here.
Wonderful Wikis
Pokkén Tournament
If you had asked me five years ago if there would be a Pokémon fighting game…I would have beleived you, but combining Pokémon with Tekken? That’s just downright bonkers! However, here we are with Pokken Tournament, the fighting game that is way better than it has any right to be.
Fighter’s History: Mizoguchi Kiki Ippatsu!!
The weird Super Famicom game for this week is this console-exclusive sequel to Fighter’s History. Mizoguchi is a man who loves his fried octopus and is willing to beat up anyone who disagrees, even if they happen to be anAtomic Runner or everyone’s favorite fire-breathing Russian strongman Karnov. Just Data East being Data East.
White Day: A Labyrinth Named School
Our wiki page meticulously details how big of an improvement the mobile and VR versions of White Day: A Labyrinth Named School are compared to its original release.
