Giant Bombcast 580: Where Is Kidd Thunder?

What if Mortal Kombat featured cute little puppies that tore each other to shreds? And you saw their guts and eyeballs flying everywhere? Sound less fun?

That is a beautiful thumbnail

Kidd Thunder was in Injustice 2

@oddballs: Depends... does one of them have ice ninja powers?

He's probably hanging out with his homie, Fire Building.

@oddballs: I would buy that several times over, just for the over-the-top-ness. But ONLY if the puppies are ultra cute right up until the killing blow, and then they get demonic faces or something in that area as they rip apart the other one.

@oddballs: I'm guessing you never saw Happy Tree Friends?

When's the Bray Wyatt talk?

No aftershow?

Literally every time I hear people talk about this game I just think of this.

@admiral_crunch: Oh shit you have reminded me of Happy Tree Friends. Now I have to rewatch Happy Tree Friends so thanks?

From reddit: (Ninja Theory "leak")

"For those who can’t see the screenshot:

.story focused 4 player co-op sci fi game with emphasis on melee combat.

.each character can pick different abilities for secondary attacks (guns, traps, lasso).

.6 unique locations, 18 levels (3 per location, around 90 minutes of playtime).

. Each location ends with a boss fight similar to those in God of War.

.runs on UE4 (like Hellblade) but is faster paced

.longest project yet, has been in development for 6 years, is aiming to release early 2020 for Windows 10 PC and Xbox."

https://www.reddit.com/r/xboxone/comments/beohyy/rumour_potential_leak_of_ninja_theorys_next_game/

So they join MS and it's a MP/CoOp, live-service game? What a waste of MS's money. This is NOT what I wanted from MS's expansion of their first party - at least not from Ninja Theory (which seems to have focused on SP games in the past with an interest story).

EDIT - removed cancerous bit, was rather... emotional about NJ's next game being some coop-service game. Still think that, if true, is a shitty thing and defiantly not what I was hoping for as their first game with financial security and most likely larger budgets.

Is that parasite eve tentacle hentai? *snorts and pushes up glasses*

Sorry, but a person (or restaurant) being gullible doesn't mean they deserve to be fucked over by a liar and thief.

Now that fella had to make elaborate pictures & videos of the meals under the watchful eye of the restaurant staff right?

It's stuff like that , that secretly makes me wish that all those social media sites were gone overnight and people couldn't point to a number to showcase how important they are. If you want to eat the food, you pay the price. Especially in a world where you can straight up spend money to make the follower number bigger it shouldn't matter. I'm watching someone sell instagram followers for 0,35$ per 1000. A like is 1 cent per 1000. These numbers are meaningless, it's not worth bending over backwards for. Sure, if influencers are important to your business, proactively identify key partners & look into doing something with these people you have selected. But to go about things with the idea that any influencers should be catered to because that might be good for business in the future sounds quite nebulous.

Also, Ben said something about how Smash Melee is at it's endgame and dying. is that true and in what way? No money in the scene? Lack of players? Lack of tournaments? Like in the general internet parlance it seems like once a game loses more players than it attracts it's called out as dying, but that just means that the scene becomes a bit more niche. Like i've seen people say that Starcraft 2 & Dota are dying, despite having healthy tournaments & viewership.

I am just now realizing that, despite having put a couple hundred hours into MK:X, I never even started the story mode. I guess my choices are ether blast through it before starting in on the MK:11 story, or just not doing that one either.

after the netflix doc gets released and PPMD comes back Melee will be bigger than ever.

@onemanarmyy: Melee is just a solved game. It is still popular and will likely continue to be with its base, but its metagame and the scene around it is stagnant. The trash fire high school drama the Melee community constantly finds itself in is more entertaining than the game itself at this point, at least for me.

Jump to 42 minutes to skip MK11 talk.

Well this was an unpleasant thumbnail to see on the front page without warning.

Wow so much Mortal Kombat talk. It went on forever, biased but I can't remember last time they talked about a game this much

They said Ash was rumored for MK11 DLC....I was horribly confused for a second. I was thinking Pokemon Ash...not Evil Dead hahahaha. Though, Pokemon Ash would be alright too.

Re: Hagane: Super Nintendo chronicler SNESdrunk has covered this: the Blockbuster story seems to be a myth, at least for this title. You can find ads in gaming magazines listing the title for sale through mail order at the time of and for a good while after the game's release, and no mention of any exclusivity deal can be found in the magazine coverage of the game during its debut. This follow-up video details SNESdrunk's quest to obtain further information on the "Blockbuster exclusive" story and also traces its possible origins (possibly a Classic Game Review YouTube video from 2009). Note that Hagane is not, in fact, listed in that GamesRadar article that Brad mentions, and the author of that article himself admits that he's basically just guessing at the titles involved, as info on Blockbuster exclusives is untrustworthy and clouded.

Perhaps there's a piece of a puzzle out there we're missing, but the story doesn't look accurate at the current time.

(If I send this in via e-mail, it'll just get snowed under, so here's hoping someone takes a look at the comments.)

ETA:Photo of boxed Hagane cart with EB Games price tag. The tag could have been transferred, but the "Blockbuster exclusive" story is looking even less likely...

ETA2:Full-page ad for Hagane in June 1995 EGM. Nail in the coffin, I'd say.

@faridmon: Destiny or the "new" Battle Royale game.

Really happy to hear Jeff talk about the grind. It does the exact same thing that Shadow of War did, which was take what made MK special (secrets, water cooler talk, fun little surprises) and locks it behind a grind that undermines the feel of the game. I was excited for this, after the disappointment of MKX. The return to the goofy silly roots of the series and seeing some of those classic characters again had me really excited. Now I probably won't play it, ever. I want to go in the Krypt and unlock a cool skin and do some fatalities without having to worry about what's on sale or what I'm saving up one of my currencies for. I just want to play this game and have fun with my brother.

Curse them for talking excitedly and in depth about something they like! Bit contradictory considering how many complain when they don't like game X.

Really curious about that Iron Man VR thing. People have been talking it up quite a bit.

Have to say it, I am as fascinated with MK's story after watching Brad the other day, as I am put off by the choreographed cheesy gore.

Except for the 11 year old in me, and I am Amazed there is still 11 year old in me!

I once saw a restaurant that had a sign that said something like, "If you're leaving us a Yelp review feel free to go fuck yourself" and honestly I've never respected a business more.

40min is honestly not that long. Think with Destiny 2 it went up to an hour.

Katana zero got done dirty wtf

Hearing about MK11's currency fuck up is disappointing. I hear Ed boon say there would be no micro transactions, but they turned the crypt into a mobile game style economy. I also don't get Jeff saying it would be okay if you could spend money to bypass this stuff, because its the norm. That would make it far more egregious. As the system is now, sounds like they wanted to dabble in these awful practices without getting as much potential backlash. Pretty gross none the less

@dontatme: I mean, zain having good ideas for the puff matchup is not learning the hbox matchup, which is the actual problem, which is what Ben was saying with that whole thing. His point isn't that puff is some unwinnable matchup, but that hbox is so good that his style of puff has basically zero counterplay at this point. Hell even at pount, mango looked red hot all top 8 even sending hbox to losers, and as soon as hbox got to grands it was BUSASS against mango for two sets straight.

Also putting view counts is 100% irrelevant due to the fact that it factors nothing in other than "look at my big number please like my game". That's some twitch chat logic that doesn't mean anything for the actual life of the game itself.

I really enjoyed melee in the past and still do somewhat, but to act like its some extremely healthy game, and not dying at least a little bit, in 2019 is delusional

@immortalsaiyan

I came away with the feeling that Jeff didn't say it would be okay if you could bypass the roadblocks by spending money, but that the existance of that option would at least explain why that stuff got implemented in the game. To frustrate the player into spending money. Without the ability to spend your way past the bullshit, it's just an annoying timesink that doesn't benefit the player, nor the developer.

I have listened to this yesterday so i might be wrong about this, but that was the general idea i came away with.

Yeah, as it is, it's just baffling, which I agree with Jeff on. They're not trying to get you to spend money (because you can't), they just want you to spend... time I guess? To what end?

That said, they just did a Kombat Kast outlining some changes that should go live by next week. They're seriously changing the towers (making negative modifiers trigger less, you can block them, lower boss health), and are doing "something" about the economy, seemingly raising the rewards from towers and stuff. They're also giving away a buttload of the 3 in-game currencies + some premium currency while they sort it out.

They also laid out how the Krypt actually works (which was most important to me), which is that the chests are randomized when you first go in the Krypt, but once you unlock everything, everyone will have gotten the same stuff. So it's not 100% random, and there is an end to it without having to do the restocking chests thing Jeff mentions. There are a bunch of unlocks only from towers/AI battles (and leaderboard rank which is kinda fucked), but it's still better than people were saying.

They seem to be listening to feedback, which is good, but I finished the story and now I'm just not gonna play the game until this is settled.

@epidehl: You are right. I bet that is the tone he meant. As the system is its just a mess. It has all the trappings of a mobile game trying to trick you out of your money, but without the money options. I guess they thought this would make it somehow ok? Its a baffling decision. I don't see it getting fixed fully ever because its sound baked into the fabric of the games design. Unfortunate. We've lost another game to this BS.

@dontatme

I mean, as I said before just stating a view count for tournaments factors literally nothing into it, especially if you try to tout it having more viewers than ultimate. The smash community loves to cherry pick numbers but never consider time zones, who’s playing at those times, etc. for instance allow me to cherry pick and remind you during that ENTIRE tournament except for top 8 ultimate blew melee out of the water. But again, that’s not important

People say melee is dying because it’s fucking extremely predictable and to be honest, the people shouting about the meta shifting are just delaying the inevitable. If your definition of “living” in let’s say a handful of years is having strong local scenes with the few crts left in existence then yes, melee will never die

Also the golden state example is like a laughably bad one but I don’t really feel like having this discussion because I know you don’t care to actually be honest about this shit, so see ya

Edit: for the record, a good part of me still enjoys melee. I’m just not chilling with my head in the sand pretending it’s so cool and varied nowadays and that the meta is shifting and all that. Top 8s at significant tourneys will always be some combination of Fox/falco, Marth, ics, pika, and maybe puff. You’re not gonna see leffen whip out his mewtwo to win evo. That isn’t exciting to me anymore.

@faridmon: breath of the wild springs to mind

honestly at this point i just gotta stop getting my hopes up that someday, maybe, the bombcast/beastcast will mention the fact that ronda fucking rousey is in this game. i thought jeff was gonna go into it when he said mk11 had a "black cloud" hanging over it but he was just talking about the microtransactions

It's been mentioned before and is in this very episode too though.

yknow what, fair, someone else pointed out to me that alex did bring it up on the beastcast a few months prior. and yeah, they talk about her, but only to the extent that she did bad VA work, unless i missed something. idk i might be making a mountain out of a molehill, the entire thing is just leaving a bad taste in my mouth

@brad in case you're still wondering, the reason Sub-Zero is human in MKX is because Quan Chi resurrected the characters in their most useful form. But they skip over how he broke from being a Revenant. probably the same thing they did with Jax though

Jeff: Mortal Kombat 11 is my Avengers Endgame.

...Oh my god, he just summed up every emotion I was feeling about the end of Mortal Kombat in one sentence.

I'm usually not one to make corrections, but there is actually unranked online play in MK11, which I've been having a lot of great fun with! Anyway, great episode, and MK11's my Endgame too.