Giant Bomb
Encyclopedia
Giant Bomb is an American
video game website
and wiki
that includes gaming news, reviews, commentary, and video, created by former GameSpot
editors Jeff Gerstmann
and Ryan Davis in collaboration with Whiskey Media
. The website was voted by Time Magazine
as one of the Top 50 websites of 2011.
After being fired from his position as Editorial Director of GameSpot
, Gerstmann began working with a team of web engineers in Sausalito, California
to create a new video game website. His intent was to create "a fun video game website" that would not heavily cover the business side of the game industry. The site's core editorial staff includes former GameSpot Editors Gerstmann, Davis, Alex Navarro, Brad Shoemaker and Vinny Caravella as well as Patrick Klepek, formerly of G4
, and Drew Scanlon. Giant Bomb was unveiled on March 6, 2008 as a blog
; the full site launched on July 20, 2008. The Giant Bomb office was originally located in Sausalito and is, as of June 26, 2011, located in San Francisco.
The Giant Bomb staff reports on video game news and reviews new releases. Their weekly podcast
, the Giant Bombcast, is posted on Tuesdays and covers recent news and releases in the video game industry, as well as happenings around the office. Giant Bomb produces a number of regular video series, most notably Quick Looks, 20-60 minute unedited previews, the Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4
Endurance Run, which ran for 155 weekday episodes over eight months and This Ain't No Game, a weekly series produced by Davis, in which he reviewed movies based on video games.
The website features a video game wiki-database
, open to editing by all registered users.
was terminated from his position as the Editorial Director of GameSpot
on November 28, 2007. Immediately after his termination, rumors began to circulate around the Internet that his dismissal was a result of external pressure from Eidos Interactive
, the studio behind the video game Kane & Lynch: Dead Men
. A game Gerstmann had recently given a negative review while Eidos had Kane & Lynch: Dead Men advertising on the website. Both GameSpot and their parent company CNET Networks stated that his dismissal was unrelated to the review. Ryan Davis announced his departure from GameSpot in February 2008, citing Gerstmann's firing as one of his reasons for leaving.
Gerstmann considered his options after his dismissal, eventually deciding he did not wish to work in game development or public relations
. He began to work with Shelby Bonnie's Whiskey Media to begin developing a new site. In the process of deciding on the name for the website, over seventy different domain name
s were considered. Gerstmann wanted the website name to be catchy and original, saying there were too many video game websites with the word "game" in them. In addition to Davis, who recorded early episodes of the site's podcast, the Giant Bombcast with Gerstmann, former GameSpot editors Brad Shoemaker and Vinny Caravella joined the site in June 2008. Giant Bomb started as a Wordpress
blog
, which opened on March 5, 2008. The full site launched on July 20, 2008.
Talking with Tyler Wilde of GamesRadar
, Gerstmann said that their intent was not to make a site that would compete with GameSpot, but rather create "a really great and fun video game website…that we like and that we would use, and that users will have a blast using as well."
Unlike most video game websites, Giant Bomb did not heavily cover industry news from a business perspective. During an interview on X-Play
, Gerstmann said that he thought video game websites had become too focused on the business side of games, and that game news had become "stale" in the process. "We want to get out there and talk about games, because we like games…and it seems like there's an audience out there, and they like games…and their needs aren't being met by what's out there right now."
This situation only got worse within gaming journalism and in 2011, Gerstmann commented that the industry was now "not getting as much news from the news sites as [it] used to, but the post count from these sites just seems to go higher and higher." With this in mind, Giant Bomb hired "seasoned newsman" Patrick Klepek, in order to establish its own brand of "honest, original reporting" news. Klepek, known for breaking the story of the 2010 employee firings, departures and lawsuits between Infinity Ward and Activision began working for Giant Bomb in April, 2011.
, an online media company based in San Francisco, California
. The technology that runs Giant Bomb, as well its sister sites Tested, Screened, Comic Vine and Anime Vice, includes the web framework Django, the database management system
PostgreSQL
, Solr, and MooTools
, a Javascript
framework. Prior to the announcement of Giant Bomb, Davis and Gerstmann produced the Arrow Pointing Down Podcast, which ran for three episodes during February and March 2008. The first episode of the Giant Bombcast was released on March 11, 2008, and starred Davis and Gerstmann. Shoemaker and Caravella joined the regular cast on June 3, 2008. In the months leading up to the launch of the full site, the How to Build a Bomb video series followed the staff during the pre-launch development phase of the website.
(developers of LA Noire) and its work practices. Additional editorials and interviews by Klepek about gaming ethics, experiences and impact include the noteworthy story of one person who detailed the mental processes of Asperger syndrome
and how his time playing video games differs from the average gamer. An article in July 2011 about the 'Game Trekking' concept (world travel-influenced game creation), featured an interview with founder Jordan Magnuson and his "notgame", The Killer. The Killer was based on his travels in Cambodia
and his observations of a nation still recovering from its time as the Democratic Kampuchea
under the Khmer Rouge
regime, led by Pol Pot
over 30 years ago. Following the 2011 Evo Championship Series in which Rising Star award winner, 8 year-old Noah Solis made the top 48 players in Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds
, Klepek interview Solis and his father Moises Solis who praised video games alongside education
in avoiding Los Angeles organized crime.
title Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
. Metacritic lists Giant Bomb as having over 500 reviews in its records, with more than 300 of them positive, more than 150 being mixed and over 70 of them being negative. Of those reviews, 30% are higher than the average critic, 2% the same and 68% are lower.
The site regularly posts Quick Looks (also known as Quick Look EX or Quick Look Road Show in cases where developers participate or when filmed on-location), videos showing unedited gameplay footage of a single game, featuring commentary from staff members playing the game, or simply watching another play. The feature has been used to profile highly anticipated games, give mention to lesser-known games, or to intentionally showcase bad games for humorous purposes. Quick Looks by Giant Bomb of lesser-known games are often more publicized by their respective developers or communities, such as the fighting game community, as a sign of mainstream
recognition. A similar, albeit rarer, type of video aired on the site is the Ask Me Anything series, consisting of two or more members discussing an upcoming game over pre-recorded footage. In this case a video producer can pause, rewind, fast-forward and slow down parts of the video for emphasis.
This Ain't No Game (or TANG) and its 2010 spin-off The Wonderful Universe of This Ain't No Game (WUTANG) was a weekly series in which editor Ryan Davis reviews movies based on video games and movies with video game elements respectively. Davis' intention to, "challenge [himself] to watch and assess every video-game movie ever made." To assess each title, Davis considers both how it stands on its own as a film, and how well it "evoke[s] the spirit of the game it's based on". The title of the series is derived from a slogan used to promote the game-based movie Super Mario Bros.
: "This ain't no game, it's a live-action thrill ride!" The first episode of TANG, which covered Double Dragon
, was released on February 11, 2009. Despite TANG criticizing the Mortal Kombat: Annihilation
film, Mortal Kombat
co-creator Ed Boon
still judged the episode in question to be kind to it, considering its critical response.
The Endurance Run was a daily video feature in which Vinny Caravella and Jeff Gerstmann played the PlayStation 2
role-playing game
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4
in real time, with their own commentary over the video. The idea for the Endurance Run stemmed from Gerstmann and Caravella's own interest in playing Persona 4, a game they were both curious about but didn't have time to play. The series' fiftieth episode was commemorated with a behind-the-scenes
video discussing the origins of the series. Gerstmann and Caravella completed the game in over one hundred hours, although the last saved game time counter read 99:59 hours, not counting time lost due to deaths.
Dual Endurance Runs began in April and ran through to end of May, 2010, when Gerstmann and Caravella (referred to as "Team VJ") and Davis and Shoemaker ("Team BR") played the Xbox 360
budget action-adventure game Deadly Premonition. After the show ended, Deadly Premonition creator Hidetaka "SWERY" Suehiro
visited Giant Bomb.
Speaking at sister-site Tested's 24 hour charity podcast (for Child's Play
), Davis and Patrick Klepek revealed themselves as the players of the 3rd Endurance Run and that they would be playing the Super Nintendo Entertainment System
release of Chrono Trigger
.
In July 2009 and January 2010, Giant Bomb ran two MMORPG shows, Not Like This (a quote from the first Matrix
movie, the final words of the character Switch before she is killed), which explored the final hours of the MMORPG
The Matrix Online
, and Set Phasers to Fun, a playthrough of the Star Trek Online
beta. The shows featured real-time comments of both game's qualities, humorous glitches and discussions of the Star Trek
and The Matrix
franchises.
The final episodes, which featured the 'end of the world' when the MxO servers were shut down and the end of Star Trek Online testing before the game's release, were streamed live on Justin.tv
. Their positive outlook of the Star Trek Online beta in particular led to Gerstmann purchasing a lifetime subscription of the game.
Members of the team play a game for users to watch and interact via Justin.tv
. Players are encouraged to add "GBTNT" to their PlayStation Network and Xbox Live
accounts to play multi-player with them. In the case of recently released games, developers may appear on the show, such as Uber Entertainment during the Monday Night Combat episode, who participated after learning of it through Twitter
. Double Fine appeared at the Giant Bomb studio at the Whiskey Media offices for the North American release episode of Trenched
, now known as Iron Brigade.
, released on Tuesdays and recorded on Mondays. The show is hosted by Davis, with weekly guests Gerstmann, Caravella, and Shoemaker. The show's weekly format includes discussion of games played over the weekend, industry news, recently-released games, and e-mails sent in by listeners. The site's staff have also recorded shows in Tokyo
, Japan for the Tokyo Game Show
, as well as during the Electronic Entertainment Expo and the Penny Arcade Expo
.
awards features multiple podcasts which are live-recordings of the staff's deliberations. Additional comical awards created by Giant Bomb include "The Northies - Best Performance by Nolan North
in a video game", of which the 2010 winner was Mafia II
, following a scene in which North talks to himself, playing the role of two pedestrians at once. During the awards week, top 10 games of the year videos are posted from each staff member.
, saying that "building a community of people...is a big part of what Giant Bomb is all about". There are also General, Bombcast and Off-Topic boards plus several related to site maintenance.
, which opened with the full site launched in July 2008, is editable by registered users of the site. Users with more than 1000 "wiki points" may submit changes to the wiki without moderator approval, and users with more than 5000 points are able to create new pages without moderator approval. There are eight types of wiki pages: games, franchises, characters, locations, objects, concepts, people, and companies. "Concept" is considered a miscellaneous category, containing gameplay concepts, species, or character abilities.
guides which include, but are not limited to, FAQS, walkthoughs and archives. Users have access to dynamic tables of contents, as well as image inserting, YouTube
video embedding and other HTML code.
The primary form of promoting the service is Whiskey Media's annual Big Live Live Show: Live, an 8 hour live-stream event featuring all of Whiskey Media's websites. Previous guests on the Giant Bomb segments have included Double Fine Productions who announced the global rebrand of their video game Trenched, to Iron Brigade. Capcom
's Seth Killian brought a version of the then unreleased Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3
for a live Quick Look and then commentated on matches in which Noah Solis consecutively defeated each of Giant Bomb's interns. Harmonix have appeared two years in a row, demoing Dance Central and Dance Central 2.
Included in the service is the ability to view videos in 720p HD and download them, a mobile version of the site in HTML-5 and an extra weekly live stream show, the 'Whiskey Media Happy Hour.'
of Time Magazine described Giant Bomb as having, "news, reviews and video — all looser, funnier and more opinionated than much of the stuff on game sites owned by larger media companies." Buckner and Garcia of Pac-Man Fever
fame wrote a song about Giant Bomb to release with their 2nd set of songs from the Pac-Man Fever album, to be released on the Rock Band Network
.
Sky News
referenced Giant Bomb in 2009 when reporting about the Japanese "molestation simulation" video game, RapeLay
after Amazon.com
banned it from being sold on its website. The Giant Bombcast podcast is regularly in the iTunes
Store Top 10 Podcasts for Games & Hobbies. The Battle.net
website ran a Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty news story when Shoemaker and video producer Drew Scanlon visited South Korea
during the GOMTV Global Starcraft II League
Finals in November 2010.
Shoemaker and Scanlon recorded footage on the studio in which the broadcasted finals took place and interviewed the English "shoutcasters" and the tournament winner NesTea. An additional video featured a tour of the oGs and Team Liquid
's living quarters and interviews with its players.
Review aggregate scores website Metacritic
acknowledges Giant Bomb as a regarded website in video gaming, including it in it's group of publications used to make its aggregate scores.
Initially plans were made to split the Giant Bombcast in half with non-paid subscription members only listening to the second half a week later after its release. This decision was reversed after fans cited an article by Dave Snider which had said that no content that was currently free would become paid content.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
video game website
Website
A website, also written as Web site, web site, or simply site, is a collection of related web pages containing images, videos or other digital assets. A website is hosted on at least one web server, accessible via a network such as the Internet or a private local area network through an Internet...
and wiki
Wiki
A wiki is a website that allows the creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor. Wikis are typically powered by wiki software and are often used collaboratively by multiple users. Examples include...
that includes gaming news, reviews, commentary, and video, created by former GameSpot
GameSpot
GameSpot is a video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information. The site was launched in May 1, 1996 by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. It was purchased by ZDNet, a brand which was later purchased by CNET Networks. CBS Interactive, which...
editors Jeff Gerstmann
Jeff Gerstmann
Jeff Gerstmann is an American video game journalist and former editorial director of the gaming website GameSpot and the founder of the gaming website Giant Bomb. He began working at GameSpot in the fall of 1996, around the launch of VideoGameSpot when GameSpot separated PC and console games into...
and Ryan Davis in collaboration with Whiskey Media
Whiskey Media
Whiskey Media is an independent American online media company founded by CNET co-founder Shelby Bonnie. It is the parent company of Giant Bomb, Comic Vine, Anime Vice, Tested and Screened. Whiskey Media websites are wiki community based, while maintaining an editorial staff. The company's target...
. The website was voted by Time Magazine
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
as one of the Top 50 websites of 2011.
After being fired from his position as Editorial Director of GameSpot
GameSpot
GameSpot is a video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information. The site was launched in May 1, 1996 by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. It was purchased by ZDNet, a brand which was later purchased by CNET Networks. CBS Interactive, which...
, Gerstmann began working with a team of web engineers in Sausalito, California
Sausalito, California
Sausalito is a San Francisco Bay Area city, in Marin County, California, United States. Sausalito is south-southeast of San Rafael, at an elevation of 13 feet . The population was 7,061 as of the 2010 census. The community is situated near the northern end of the Golden Gate Bridge, and prior to...
to create a new video game website. His intent was to create "a fun video game website" that would not heavily cover the business side of the game industry. The site's core editorial staff includes former GameSpot Editors Gerstmann, Davis, Alex Navarro, Brad Shoemaker and Vinny Caravella as well as Patrick Klepek, formerly of G4
G4 (TV channel)
G4, also known as G4 TV, is an American cable- and satellite-television channel originally geared primarily toward young adult viewers, originally based on the world of video games...
, and Drew Scanlon. Giant Bomb was unveiled on March 6, 2008 as a blog
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
; the full site launched on July 20, 2008. The Giant Bomb office was originally located in Sausalito and is, as of June 26, 2011, located in San Francisco.
The Giant Bomb staff reports on video game news and reviews new releases. Their weekly podcast
Podcast
A podcast is a series of digital media files that are released episodically and often downloaded through web syndication...
, the Giant Bombcast, is posted on Tuesdays and covers recent news and releases in the video game industry, as well as happenings around the office. Giant Bomb produces a number of regular video series, most notably Quick Looks, 20-60 minute unedited previews, the Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4, originally released in Japan as simply , is a role-playing video game developed and published by Atlus for Sony's PlayStation 2, and chronologically the fifth installment in the Shin Megami Tensei: Persona series. Persona 4 was released in Japan in July 2008, North...
Endurance Run, which ran for 155 weekday episodes over eight months and This Ain't No Game, a weekly series produced by Davis, in which he reviewed movies based on video games.
The website features a video game wiki-database
Wiki
A wiki is a website that allows the creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor. Wikis are typically powered by wiki software and are often used collaboratively by multiple users. Examples include...
, open to editing by all registered users.
History and development
Jeff GerstmannJeff Gerstmann
Jeff Gerstmann is an American video game journalist and former editorial director of the gaming website GameSpot and the founder of the gaming website Giant Bomb. He began working at GameSpot in the fall of 1996, around the launch of VideoGameSpot when GameSpot separated PC and console games into...
was terminated from his position as the Editorial Director of GameSpot
GameSpot
GameSpot is a video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information. The site was launched in May 1, 1996 by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. It was purchased by ZDNet, a brand which was later purchased by CNET Networks. CBS Interactive, which...
on November 28, 2007. Immediately after his termination, rumors began to circulate around the Internet that his dismissal was a result of external pressure from Eidos Interactive
Eidos Interactive
Eidos Interactive Ltd. is a British video game publisher and is a label of Square Enix Europe. As an independent company Eidos plc was headquartered in the Wimbledon Bridge House in Wimbledon, London Borough of Merton....
, the studio behind the video game Kane & Lynch: Dead Men
Kane & Lynch: Dead Men
Kane & Lynch: Dead Men is a cooperative third-person shooter developed by IO Interactive and published by Eidos Interactive for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The mobile phone version was developed by Kiloo and published by Eidos Mobile...
. A game Gerstmann had recently given a negative review while Eidos had Kane & Lynch: Dead Men advertising on the website. Both GameSpot and their parent company CNET Networks stated that his dismissal was unrelated to the review. Ryan Davis announced his departure from GameSpot in February 2008, citing Gerstmann's firing as one of his reasons for leaving.
Gerstmann considered his options after his dismissal, eventually deciding he did not wish to work in game development or public relations
Public relations
Public relations is the actions of a corporation, store, government, individual, etc., in promoting goodwill between itself and the public, the community, employees, customers, etc....
. He began to work with Shelby Bonnie's Whiskey Media to begin developing a new site. In the process of deciding on the name for the website, over seventy different domain name
Domain name
A domain name is an identification string that defines a realm of administrative autonomy, authority, or control in the Internet. Domain names are formed by the rules and procedures of the Domain Name System ....
s were considered. Gerstmann wanted the website name to be catchy and original, saying there were too many video game websites with the word "game" in them. In addition to Davis, who recorded early episodes of the site's podcast, the Giant Bombcast with Gerstmann, former GameSpot editors Brad Shoemaker and Vinny Caravella joined the site in June 2008. Giant Bomb started as a Wordpress
WordPress
WordPress is a free and open source blogging tool and publishing platform powered by PHP and MySQL. It is often customized into a content management system . It has many features including a plug-in architecture and a template system. WordPress is used by over 14.7% of Alexa Internet's "top 1...
blog
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
, which opened on March 5, 2008. The full site launched on July 20, 2008.
Talking with Tyler Wilde of GamesRadar
GamesRadar
GamesRadar is a multi-format video game website featuring regular news, previews, reviews, videos, and guides. It is owned and operated simultaneously in the UK and US by worldwide publisher Future Publishing...
, Gerstmann said that their intent was not to make a site that would compete with GameSpot, but rather create "a really great and fun video game website…that we like and that we would use, and that users will have a blast using as well."
Unlike most video game websites, Giant Bomb did not heavily cover industry news from a business perspective. During an interview on X-Play
X-Play
X-Play is a TV program about video games, known for its reviews and comedy skits...
, Gerstmann said that he thought video game websites had become too focused on the business side of games, and that game news had become "stale" in the process. "We want to get out there and talk about games, because we like games…and it seems like there's an audience out there, and they like games…and their needs aren't being met by what's out there right now."
This situation only got worse within gaming journalism and in 2011, Gerstmann commented that the industry was now "not getting as much news from the news sites as [it] used to, but the post count from these sites just seems to go higher and higher." With this in mind, Giant Bomb hired "seasoned newsman" Patrick Klepek, in order to establish its own brand of "honest, original reporting" news. Klepek, known for breaking the story of the 2010 employee firings, departures and lawsuits between Infinity Ward and Activision began working for Giant Bomb in April, 2011.
Development
Giant Bomb was designed by Whiskey MediaWhiskey Media
Whiskey Media is an independent American online media company founded by CNET co-founder Shelby Bonnie. It is the parent company of Giant Bomb, Comic Vine, Anime Vice, Tested and Screened. Whiskey Media websites are wiki community based, while maintaining an editorial staff. The company's target...
, an online media company based in San Francisco, California
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...
. The technology that runs Giant Bomb, as well its sister sites Tested, Screened, Comic Vine and Anime Vice, includes the web framework Django, the database management system
Database management system
A database management system is a software package with computer programs that control the creation, maintenance, and use of a database. It allows organizations to conveniently develop databases for various applications by database administrators and other specialists. A database is an integrated...
PostgreSQL
PostgreSQL
PostgreSQL, often simply Postgres, is an object-relational database management system available for many platforms including Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, MS Windows and Mac OS X. It is released under the PostgreSQL License, which is an MIT-style license, and is thus free and open source software...
, Solr, and MooTools
MooTools
MooTools is a lightweight, object-oriented, web-application framework for JavaScript, written in JavaScript. It is released under the free, open-source MIT License...
, a Javascript
JavaScript
JavaScript is a prototype-based scripting language that is dynamic, weakly typed and has first-class functions. It is a multi-paradigm language, supporting object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles....
framework. Prior to the announcement of Giant Bomb, Davis and Gerstmann produced the Arrow Pointing Down Podcast, which ran for three episodes during February and March 2008. The first episode of the Giant Bombcast was released on March 11, 2008, and starred Davis and Gerstmann. Shoemaker and Caravella joined the regular cast on June 3, 2008. In the months leading up to the launch of the full site, the How to Build a Bomb video series followed the staff during the pre-launch development phase of the website.
News
Giant Bomb's news is written by News Editor Patrick Klepek and writer Alex Navarro. Articles produced aren't limited to general gaming news, they include investigative journalistic pieces about the industry, such as the controversy surrounding Team BondiTeam Bondi
Team Bondi was an Australian independent third-party game developer. The company was founded by Brendan McNamara, who was the former Director of Development for Sony Computer Entertainment’s Team Soho Studio in London and writer and director of The Getaway.-History:Team Bondi was founded in 2003...
(developers of LA Noire) and its work practices. Additional editorials and interviews by Klepek about gaming ethics, experiences and impact include the noteworthy story of one person who detailed the mental processes of Asperger syndrome
Asperger syndrome
Asperger's syndrome that is characterized by significant difficulties in social interaction, alongside restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior and interests. It differs from other autism spectrum disorders by its relative preservation of linguistic and cognitive development...
and how his time playing video games differs from the average gamer. An article in July 2011 about the 'Game Trekking' concept (world travel-influenced game creation), featured an interview with founder Jordan Magnuson and his "notgame", The Killer. The Killer was based on his travels in Cambodia
Cambodia
Cambodia , officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia...
and his observations of a nation still recovering from its time as the Democratic Kampuchea
Democratic Kampuchea
The Khmer Rouge period refers to the rule of Pol Pot, Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary, Son Sen, Khieu Samphan and the Khmer Rouge Communist party over Cambodia, which the Khmer Rouge renamed as Democratic Kampuchea....
under the Khmer Rouge
Khmer Rouge
The Khmer Rouge literally translated as Red Cambodians was the name given to the followers of the Communist Party of Kampuchea, who were the ruling party in Cambodia from 1975 to 1979, led by Pol Pot, Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary, Son Sen and Khieu Samphan...
regime, led by Pol Pot
Pol Pot
Saloth Sar , better known as Pol Pot, , was a Cambodian Maoist revolutionary who led the Khmer Rouge from 1963 until his death in 1998. From 1976 to 1979, he served as the Prime Minister of Democratic Kampuchea....
over 30 years ago. Following the 2011 Evo Championship Series in which Rising Star award winner, 8 year-old Noah Solis made the top 48 players in Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds
Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds
is a crossover fighting game developed by Capcom. It features Capcom's own characters and characters from American comic book company Marvel Comics. It is the fifth installment of the Marvel vs...
, Klepek interview Solis and his father Moises Solis who praised video games alongside education
Education
Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...
in avoiding Los Angeles organized crime.
Reviews
Video games on Giant Bomb are rated on a scale of one to five stars, with five stars being the highest rating a game can receive and one star the lowest. Video reviews were first introduced on Giant Bomb on June 20, 2008 with Shoemaker's review of the PlayStation 3PlayStation 3
The is the third home video game console produced by Sony Computer Entertainment and the successor to the PlayStation 2 as part of the PlayStation series. The PlayStation 3 competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...
title Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
is a video game developed by Kojima Productions for the PlayStation 3 console. The game was directed by Hideo Kojima and made its worldwide release on June 12, 2008, ten years after the release of Metal Gear Solid and twenty years after the North American release of Metal Gear.Guns of the Patriots...
. Metacritic lists Giant Bomb as having over 500 reviews in its records, with more than 300 of them positive, more than 150 being mixed and over 70 of them being negative. Of those reviews, 30% are higher than the average critic, 2% the same and 68% are lower.
Quick Look
The site regularly posts Quick Looks (also known as Quick Look EX or Quick Look Road Show in cases where developers participate or when filmed on-location), videos showing unedited gameplay footage of a single game, featuring commentary from staff members playing the game, or simply watching another play. The feature has been used to profile highly anticipated games, give mention to lesser-known games, or to intentionally showcase bad games for humorous purposes. Quick Looks by Giant Bomb of lesser-known games are often more publicized by their respective developers or communities, such as the fighting game community, as a sign of mainstream
Mainstream
Mainstream is, generally, the common current thought of the majority. However, the mainstream is far from cohesive; rather the concept is often considered a cultural construct....
recognition. A similar, albeit rarer, type of video aired on the site is the Ask Me Anything series, consisting of two or more members discussing an upcoming game over pre-recorded footage. In this case a video producer can pause, rewind, fast-forward and slow down parts of the video for emphasis.
This Ain't No Game
This Ain't No Game (or TANG) and its 2010 spin-off The Wonderful Universe of This Ain't No Game (WUTANG) was a weekly series in which editor Ryan Davis reviews movies based on video games and movies with video game elements respectively. Davis' intention to, "challenge [himself] to watch and assess every video-game movie ever made." To assess each title, Davis considers both how it stands on its own as a film, and how well it "evoke[s] the spirit of the game it's based on". The title of the series is derived from a slogan used to promote the game-based movie Super Mario Bros.
Super Mario Bros. (film)
Super Mario Bros. is a 1993 American action film directed by Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel. Based on the Super Mario Bros.video game and its entire franchise, the film features Bob Hoskins, John Leguizamo, Dennis Hopper and Samantha Mathis. It tells the story of the Mario brothers, Mario and...
: "This ain't no game, it's a live-action thrill ride!" The first episode of TANG, which covered Double Dragon
Double Dragon (film)
Double Dragon is a 1994 live-action film loosely based on the Double Dragon video game series. This film was directed by James Yukich and stars Mark Dacascos and Scott Wolf as brothers Jimmy and Billy Lee, along with Alyssa Milano as Marian Delario and Robert Patrick as antagonist Koga Shuko...
, was released on February 11, 2009. Despite TANG criticizing the Mortal Kombat: Annihilation
Mortal Kombat: Annihilation
Mortal Kombat: Annihilation is a 1997 American martial arts action film that was the sequel to 1995's Mortal Kombat, and was directed by John R. Leonetti, who had served as the cinematographer for the previous film...
film, Mortal Kombat
Mortal Kombat (series)
Mortal Kombat, commonly abbreviated MK, is a science fantasy series of fighting games created by Ed Boon and John Tobias. The first four renditions and their updates were developed by Midway Games and initially released on arcade machines. The arcade titles were later picked up by Acclaim...
co-creator Ed Boon
Ed Boon
Edward J. Boon is an American video game programmer who had been employed for over 15 years at Midway. He now works for Warner Bros...
still judged the episode in question to be kind to it, considering its critical response.
Endurance Run
The Endurance Run was a daily video feature in which Vinny Caravella and Jeff Gerstmann played the PlayStation 2
PlayStation 2
The PlayStation 2 is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Sony as part of the PlayStation series. Its development was announced in March 1999 and it was first released on March 4, 2000, in Japan...
role-playing game
Role-playing game
A role-playing game is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal acting, or through a process of structured decision-making or character development...
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4, originally released in Japan as simply , is a role-playing video game developed and published by Atlus for Sony's PlayStation 2, and chronologically the fifth installment in the Shin Megami Tensei: Persona series. Persona 4 was released in Japan in July 2008, North...
in real time, with their own commentary over the video. The idea for the Endurance Run stemmed from Gerstmann and Caravella's own interest in playing Persona 4, a game they were both curious about but didn't have time to play. The series' fiftieth episode was commemorated with a behind-the-scenes
Making-of
In cinema, a making-of, also known as behind-the-scenes, is a documentary film that features the production of a film or television program...
video discussing the origins of the series. Gerstmann and Caravella completed the game in over one hundred hours, although the last saved game time counter read 99:59 hours, not counting time lost due to deaths.
Dual Endurance Runs began in April and ran through to end of May, 2010, when Gerstmann and Caravella (referred to as "Team VJ") and Davis and Shoemaker ("Team BR") played the Xbox 360
Xbox 360
The Xbox 360 is the second video game console produced by Microsoft and the successor to the Xbox. The Xbox 360 competes with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...
budget action-adventure game Deadly Premonition. After the show ended, Deadly Premonition creator Hidetaka "SWERY" Suehiro
Hidetaka Suehiro
, is a director and producer for Access Games. His most notable directing role was on Deadly Premonition for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, which gained him attention from many videogame websites and magazines...
visited Giant Bomb.
Speaking at sister-site Tested's 24 hour charity podcast (for Child's Play
Child's Play (charity)
Child's Play is a charitable organization founded by the authors of the popular computer and video games-based webcomic Penny Arcade that organizes worldwide toy drives to children's hospitals. Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins founded Child's Play in 2003 to improve the lives of sick children by...
), Davis and Patrick Klepek revealed themselves as the players of the 3rd Endurance Run and that they would be playing the Super Nintendo Entertainment System
Super Nintendo Entertainment System
The Super Nintendo Entertainment System is a 16-bit video game console that was released by Nintendo in North America, Europe, Australasia , and South America between 1990 and 1993. In Japan and Southeast Asia, the system is called the , or SFC for short...
release of Chrono Trigger
Chrono Trigger
is a role-playing video game developed and published by Square for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in 1995. Chrono Triggers development team included three designers that Square dubbed the "Dream Team": Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of Square's Final Fantasy series; Yuji Horii, a...
.
Limited Series
In July 2009 and January 2010, Giant Bomb ran two MMORPG shows, Not Like This (a quote from the first Matrix
The Matrix
The Matrix is a 1999 science fiction-action film written and directed by Larry and Andy Wachowski, starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano, and Hugo Weaving...
movie, the final words of the character Switch before she is killed), which explored the final hours of the MMORPG
MMORPG
Massively multiplayer online role-playing game is a genre of role-playing video games in which a very large number of players interact with one another within a virtual game world....
The Matrix Online
The Matrix Online
The Matrix Online was a massively multiplayer online game developed by Monolith Productions created by Richard Carroll. It was the official continuation of the storyline of the Matrix series of films. The game began closed beta-testing in June 2004 which was then opened for people who pre-ordered...
, and Set Phasers to Fun, a playthrough of the Star Trek Online
Star Trek Online
Star Trek Online, often abbreviated as STO, is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game developed by Cryptic Studios based on the popular Star Trek series created by Gene Roddenberry. The game is set in the 25th century, 30 years after the events of Star Trek Nemesis...
beta. The shows featured real-time comments of both game's qualities, humorous glitches and discussions of the Star Trek
Star Trek
Star Trek is an American science fiction entertainment franchise created by Gene Roddenberry. The core of Star Trek is its six television series: The Original Series, The Animated Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise...
and The Matrix
The Matrix (franchise)
The Matrix is a science fiction action franchise created by Andy and Larry Wachowski and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures. The series began with the 1999 film The Matrix and later spawned two sequels; The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions, both released in 2003, thus forming a trilogy...
franchises.
The final episodes, which featured the 'end of the world' when the MxO servers were shut down and the end of Star Trek Online testing before the game's release, were streamed live on Justin.tv
Justin.tv
Justin.tv is a website created by Justin Kan, Emmett Shear, Michael Seibel and Kyle Vogt in 2007 that allows anyone to broadcast video online. Justin.tv user accounts are called "channels", and users are encouraged to broadcast a wide variety of user-generated live video content, called...
. Their positive outlook of the Star Trek Online beta in particular led to Gerstmann purchasing a lifetime subscription of the game.
Thursday Night Throwdown
Members of the team play a game for users to watch and interact via Justin.tv
Justin.tv
Justin.tv is a website created by Justin Kan, Emmett Shear, Michael Seibel and Kyle Vogt in 2007 that allows anyone to broadcast video online. Justin.tv user accounts are called "channels", and users are encouraged to broadcast a wide variety of user-generated live video content, called...
. Players are encouraged to add "GBTNT" to their PlayStation Network and Xbox Live
Xbox Live
Xbox Live is an online multiplayer gaming and digital media delivery service created and operated by Microsoft Corporation. It is currently the only online gaming service on consoles that charges users a fee to play multiplayer gaming. It was first made available to the Xbox system in 2002...
accounts to play multi-player with them. In the case of recently released games, developers may appear on the show, such as Uber Entertainment during the Monday Night Combat episode, who participated after learning of it through Twitter
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
. Double Fine appeared at the Giant Bomb studio at the Whiskey Media offices for the North American release episode of Trenched
Trenched
Iron Brigade, formerly titled Trenched, is a video game developed by Double Fine Productions and published by Microsoft Studios as a downloadable Xbox Live Arcade title on the Xbox 360...
, now known as Iron Brigade.
Podcast
The Giant Bombcast (or the Bombcast) is Giant Bomb's weekly podcastPodcast
A podcast is a series of digital media files that are released episodically and often downloaded through web syndication...
, released on Tuesdays and recorded on Mondays. The show is hosted by Davis, with weekly guests Gerstmann, Caravella, and Shoemaker. The show's weekly format includes discussion of games played over the weekend, industry news, recently-released games, and e-mails sent in by listeners. The site's staff have also recorded shows in Tokyo
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...
, Japan for the Tokyo Game Show
Tokyo Game Show
The , commonly known as TGS, is a video game expo / convention held annually in the Makuhari Messe, in Chiba, Japan. It is presented by the Computer Entertainment Supplier's Association and the Nikkei Business Publications, Inc...
, as well as during the Electronic Entertainment Expo and the Penny Arcade Expo
Penny Arcade Expo
The Penny Arcade Expo is a semi-annual gamer festival held in Seattle and Boston. PAX was created by Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik, the authors of the Penny Arcade webcomic, because they wanted to attend a show that gave equal attention to console gamers, computer gamers, and tabletop...
.
Game of the Year Awards
The annual game of the yearGame of the Year
Game of the Year is a title awarded by various magazines, websites, and shows to a deserving game. Many are only for PC or console video games...
awards features multiple podcasts which are live-recordings of the staff's deliberations. Additional comical awards created by Giant Bomb include "The Northies - Best Performance by Nolan North
Nolan North
Nolan Ramsey North is an American actor and voice actor born in New Haven, Connecticut. He has been described as "the nearest thing the games industry has to a bona fide leading man."-Biography:...
in a video game", of which the 2010 winner was Mafia II
Mafia II
Mafia II is a third-person action-adventure video game, the sequel to Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven. It is developed by 2K Czech, previously known as Illusion Softworks, and is published by 2K Games...
, following a scene in which North talks to himself, playing the role of two pedestrians at once. During the awards week, top 10 games of the year videos are posted from each staff member.
| Game of the year award winners | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
EWLINE
|
Community content
Users on Giant Bomb have the ability to create blogs, keep track of their game collections, and add information to game entries. Additionally, the site has message boardsInternet forum
An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are at least temporarily archived...
, saying that "building a community of people...is a big part of what Giant Bomb is all about". There are also General, Bombcast and Off-Topic boards plus several related to site maintenance.
Wiki
The Giant Bomb wikiWiki
A wiki is a website that allows the creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor. Wikis are typically powered by wiki software and are often used collaboratively by multiple users. Examples include...
, which opened with the full site launched in July 2008, is editable by registered users of the site. Users with more than 1000 "wiki points" may submit changes to the wiki without moderator approval, and users with more than 5000 points are able to create new pages without moderator approval. There are eight types of wiki pages: games, franchises, characters, locations, objects, concepts, people, and companies. "Concept" is considered a miscellaneous category, containing gameplay concepts, species, or character abilities.
Quests
Users earn experience points and level up in a social gaming element that, "give users incentives to create more content," Quests allow users to gain experience and level-up by doing things as simple as posting a blog or making a list. The quests with a larger amount of points give hints towards wiki-database pages that users must find like "goofy scavenger hunt tasks."Guides
Giant Bomb allows all users to write and edit creative common licensedCreative Commons licenses
Creative Commons licenses are several copyright licenses that allow the distribution of copyrighted works. The licenses differ by several combinations that condition the terms of distribution. They were initially released on December 16, 2002 by Creative Commons, a U.S...
guides which include, but are not limited to, FAQS, walkthoughs and archives. Users have access to dynamic tables of contents, as well as image inserting, YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
video embedding and other HTML code.
Paid subscription service
Giant Bomb's subscription service launched in September 2010. In June 2011, Whiskey Media's Mike Tatum reported that they were nearing 10,000 paid subscription members.The primary form of promoting the service is Whiskey Media's annual Big Live Live Show: Live, an 8 hour live-stream event featuring all of Whiskey Media's websites. Previous guests on the Giant Bomb segments have included Double Fine Productions who announced the global rebrand of their video game Trenched, to Iron Brigade. Capcom
Capcom
is a Japanese developer and publisher of video games, known for creating multi-million-selling franchises such as Devil May Cry, Chaos Legion, Street Fighter, Mega Man and Resident Evil. Capcom developed and published Bionic Commando, Lost Planet and Dark Void too, but they are less known. Its...
's Seth Killian brought a version of the then unreleased Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3
Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3
is a crossover fighting game developed by Capcom. It is an updated version of Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds. After the events of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami disrupted the development schedule for downloadable content for the original game, the additional content was made into a...
for a live Quick Look and then commentated on matches in which Noah Solis consecutively defeated each of Giant Bomb's interns. Harmonix have appeared two years in a row, demoing Dance Central and Dance Central 2.
Included in the service is the ability to view videos in 720p HD and download them, a mobile version of the site in HTML-5 and an extra weekly live stream show, the 'Whiskey Media Happy Hour.'
Reception
In voting the website into its Top 50 websites of 2011, Harry McCrackenHarry McCracken
Harry McCracken is creator of Technologizer, a technology-oriented website. He also presently writes a weekly column with the same name for the TIME.com website. Harry is also a contributing editor at CNET....
of Time Magazine described Giant Bomb as having, "news, reviews and video — all looser, funnier and more opinionated than much of the stuff on game sites owned by larger media companies." Buckner and Garcia of Pac-Man Fever
Pac-Man Fever (song)
"Pac-Man Fever" is a hit single by Buckner & Garcia. Capitalizing on the video game craze of the early 1980s, the song, about the classic video game Pac-Man, peaked at #9 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the US in March 1982. That same month, it was certified Gold by the RIAA for over 1,000,000 units...
fame wrote a song about Giant Bomb to release with their 2nd set of songs from the Pac-Man Fever album, to be released on the Rock Band Network
Rock Band Network
The Rock Band Network is a downloadable content service designed by Harmonix Music Systems with the help of Microsoft to allow musical artists and record labels to make their music available as playable tracks for the Rock Band series of rhythm video games, starting with Rock Band 2...
.
Sky News
Sky News
Sky News is a 24-hour British and international satellite television news broadcaster with an emphasis on UK and international news stories.The service places emphasis on rolling news, including the latest breaking news. Sky News also hosts localised versions of the channel in Australia and in New...
referenced Giant Bomb in 2009 when reporting about the Japanese "molestation simulation" video game, RapeLay
RapeLay
is a 3D eroge video game made by Illusion, released on April 21, 2006 in Japan. Compared to Illusion's previous games, the main story is shorter, it features an improved 3D engine, and is mainly played through mouse control. The game centers on a male character who stalks and rapes a mother and her...
after Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
banned it from being sold on its website. The Giant Bombcast podcast is regularly in the iTunes
ITunes
iTunes is a media player computer program, used for playing, downloading, and organizing digital music and video files on desktop computers. It can also manage contents on iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad....
Store Top 10 Podcasts for Games & Hobbies. The Battle.net
Battle.net
Battle.net is a gaming service provided by Blizzard Entertainment. Battle.net was launched in November 30, 1996 with the release of Blizzard's action-RPG Diablo. Battle.net was the first online gaming service incorporated directly into the games that make use of it, in contrast to the external...
website ran a Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty news story when Shoemaker and video producer Drew Scanlon visited South Korea
South Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...
during the GOMTV Global Starcraft II League
GOMTV Global Starcraft II League
GOMTV Global Starcraft II League is a StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty tournament hosted by GomTV and Blizzard Entertainment in South Korea. There is an English stream available for non-Korean viewers. The tournament features two leagues, Code S and Code A...
Finals in November 2010.
Shoemaker and Scanlon recorded footage on the studio in which the broadcasted finals took place and interviewed the English "shoutcasters" and the tournament winner NesTea. An additional video featured a tour of the oGs and Team Liquid
Team Liquid
Team Liquid is a popular StarCraft news website and community, as well as a successful StarCraft team, founded by Victor Goossens and Joy Hoogeveen.-History:...
's living quarters and interviews with its players.
Review aggregate scores website Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
acknowledges Giant Bomb as a regarded website in video gaming, including it in it's group of publications used to make its aggregate scores.
Initially plans were made to split the Giant Bombcast in half with non-paid subscription members only listening to the second half a week later after its release. This decision was reversed after fans cited an article by Dave Snider which had said that no content that was currently free would become paid content.