Giant Bomb

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It's a website about video games! —Jeff Gerstmann

...charmingly garrulous... —The New Yorker

On his blog on March 5, 2008, and again on a broadcast of X-Play, Jeff Gerstmann, best known for his role in the Kane and Lynch debacle at Gamespot in 2007 (long story short- he was fired, essentially for giving an overly negative review to a game heavily featured in Gamespot advertising), revealed that he and Ryan Davis (an editor who had resigned in the aftermath of said debacle) had joined forces to create a new gaming Web site called Giant Bomb. Vinny Caravella and Brad Shoemaker, two other resigning Gamespot editors, joined them soon afterward. The site started as a simple blog while the actual layout was being constructed. It is now, in addition to featuring reviews and industry news, a wiki for anything related to gaming.

Giant Bomb had several sister sites that serve similar purposes including Screened for movies, Anime Vice for anime and manga, and Comic vine for comic books. As well as Tested which is not a media site but rather a foundry for technology inclined news. These websites, including Giant Bomb, were collected under the Whiskey Media banner. In March 2012, the Whiskey Media sites were sold to various companies, with Giant Bomb (and Comic Vine) being sold to CBS Interactive. The staff and site stay the same, only the owner is different.

The website can be found here.

Not related to Big Bulky Bomb.

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This Web Site Provides Examples of:

• American Accents: The Bombcast notably contains a strong variety of US accents: Ryan and Jeff sport Northern California accents, Brad's legendary smooth voice is of an Appalachian accent, and Vinny carries a Long Island/New Yorker accent.
• Berserk Button: Jeff went on an especially enraged rant during the Quick Look of Broken Steel, specifically about the ending of Fallout 3.
  • Net-speak used in games or real life tend to set them off. For the win indeed.
  • Exhibiting characteristics of The Stoner is a surefire way to get on their bad side.
• Buffy-Speak: In the titles of a few of their features, most notably "The We Just Thought To Do This Live Show" and "Video Thing".
• Butt Monkey: Brad Shoemaker, especially in the video for the NintendoDSi XL.

*Shoemaker takes off his blindfold and sees that Jeff and Ryan have made off with all of his things, including his wallet and the keys to his car.* Shoemaker: "Awwwww, not again..."

• • Matt Kessler, because he was the intern. The fact his internship is over has not changed this.
• Catch Phrase: Plenty. One is Shoemaker saying "There it is!" whenever something cool happens (in reference to this).
• Cluster F-Bomb: The Rogue Warrior Quick Look.
• Country Matters: Infamously averted by Caravella, who can Never Live It Down.
• Crate Expectations: Jeff Gerstmann shows us how it's done.

*Jeff axe-kicks a shipping crate and smashes the top in* Dave: I hope that totally wasn't something, what if somebody, this is why we don't have pretty things... Jeff: I...well... Ryan: And that didn't really help our cause any! Jeff: This is their fault for sending us a f-f-FUCKING CRATE! *Jeff smashes it again*

• • The best part? The crate's top wasn't nailed on, so they could have lifted it off at anytime.
• Crazy Awesome: Half the point of the site.
• Department of Redundancy Department: The annual Big Live Live Show Live. It's LIVE!
• Determinator: In the Game Room Quick Look for the week of 10/27/10, Jeff endures a glitchy server and the stench of sewage to buy and play three games.
• Dueling Endurance Runs: The GB crew split into two groups for their Deadly Premonition Endurance Run. The two teams are Shoemaker and Davis, and Persona 4 Endurance Run veterans Gerstmann and Caravella.
• Dueling Shows: For the 2011 Podcast Awards, Giant Bomb is one of several podcast shows trying to earn the most votes for the award, particularly against ESPN Podcast, The Instance and 4PlayerPodcast.
• Early Installment Weirdness: If you're used to how the staff looks now, it can be quite shocking to see how they looked in old Gamespot reviews. Ryan with no beard and bleached blonde hair, anyone? Or how about Brad with a full beard and shaggy hair?
• 8.8: Jeff caused a stir again when he Super Smash Bros Brawl 4 stars instead of a perfect 5.
• Ensemble Darkhorse: While playing Persona 4, Jeff and Vinny became extremely attached to Chie Satonaka, as well as the Fox and "Funky Student". Likewise, Kanji Tatsumi and Nanako became their Butt Monkeys (though still beloved in their own way).
  • As for the site itself, engineers Dave Snider and Drew Scanlon.
  • Since its origins in early 2012, the Giant Bomb Flight Club has been one, with the aforementioned Dave and Drew joining up with Vinny to mess with Track IR, joysticks, and all manner of strange Flight Simulators.
• Flipping the Bird: Jeff raises two middle fingers in the Motion Sports Quick Look. Ryan does the same in the QL of Wipeout 2.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: The original Bomcast crew: Vinny is sanguine, Ryan is choleric, Jeff is melancholic, and Brad is phlegmatic.
• Fun with Acronyms: TANG (This Ain't No Game), WU TANG (Wonderful Universe of TANG), and TNT (Thursday Night Throwdown).
• Gaming Clan: The Space Neon Lobsters in Star Trek Online.
  • And the Kessler Run in Star Wars: The Old Republic.
• Hey, It's That Guy!: When doing a Quick Look of the Fallout: New Vegas DLC "Old World Blues", they eventually realized 0 is Dr. Rusty Venture. The DLC is pretty blatant at pointing this out.
• Hurricane of Puns: Ryan and Vinny fly to Liverpool. Hilarity Ensues.
  • A discussion about Need for Speed as a contender for Most Improved Franchise of 2010 award quickly devolves into one of these.
• In-Series Nickname: Patrick "Trick, Tricky, Scoops" Klepek
• I Read That As: On his Twitter, Vinny commented that he misread Legend of Grimrock as Legend of Grimlock. It saddened him that this was not the case.
• I Want You to Meet An Old Friend of Mine: Rich Gallup and Alex Navarro have both been on the Bombcast multiple times. And good old Bob turns up while the crew are playing Starcraft 2 live. The latter eventually became a reviewer in the site.
• Let's Play:
  • The Endurance Runs:
    • Jeff Gerstmann and Vinny Caravella's Persona 4 Endurance Run.
    • Deadly Premonition, one by Brad and Ryan, and another by Vinny and Jeff.
    • Patrick and Ryan's playthrough of Chrono Trigger.
  • There are also the group's playthroughs of the final hours of The Matrix Online and Star Wars Galaxies, and the Star Trek Online Open Beta.
  • Quick Looks are pretty much mini-LPs.
  • Greg Kasavin also marathoned Skyrim for 12 hours, like he did for Oblivion back in their Gamespot days.
• Mood Whiplash: During the 2011 Game of the Year Deliberations;

Ryan: I'm gonna put [my hands] in glue then put broken glass on the tops of my hands so that we can fight about Giantbomb's-- Patrick: Game of the Year: Catherine! Jeff: "Fuck, *incoherent yelling*, goddamnit." Ryan: "--Top 10 Games of 2011. It's gonna be something fierce." Brad: "Not game of the year: Track Mania." Jeff: "Uhhh." Vinny: "Wearin' my Dark Souls shirt." Ryan: "We'll see you guys soon." Jeff: "Burn in your Dark Souls shirt."

• • *cue happy break music*
• Name's the Same: Tested's Will Smith, who sometimes pops up on the Giant Bombcast, is in no way related to the actor. Not that this hasn't stopped Ryan Davis from joking that they're the same person.
• Overly Long Gag: While Game Room in and of itself could be a considered an Overly Long Gag orchestrated by Microsoft to rob Jeff Gerstmann of all his money, the Game Room Quick Look for the week of 12/22/10 ends with a series of elaborate jokes about the game Venetian Blinds.
• Pretentious Latin Motto: "Colluctatio Cervus Reperio Excellantia" for the 2010 Game of the Year stuff. It means something like "Find the Excellence in the Wrestling Deer" (in reference to Luchadeer).
• Running Gag: Starting from the Persona 4 Endurance Run, all protagonists in Quick Looks of Shin Megami Tensei games are named variations of "Charlie Tunoku" (Charie Tuna, Chuck Tuna and Charlene, to name a few).
  • Brad's tendency to die whenever he's on camera.
  • Jeff searching for "broken avatars" in Game Room. One time, there were even two at once!
  • For the Chrono Trigger Endurance Run, when given the chance to rename characters, Ryan simply changes the first letter of the name to B. This leads to names like Brono, Bobo and Brog.
  • Due to an incident while playing Daggerfall in which nearly a half-hour spent in the character creator was lost due to them forgetting that autosave hadn't been invented yet, Vinny constantly implores Dave to save the game whenever they are recording a Quick Look or a Random PC Game video.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: While doing a Quick Look for Jurassic: The Hunted, Ryan got so disgusted with the line "What the Foxtrot is going on here?" that he left in the middle of it all and had Brad take his place.
  • In the second episode of the NintenDownload X-press, Jeff tricks Vinny and Brad into guesting by making them think they were recording a Bombcast. When they realize they've been duped, they angrily storm out of the podcast room, leaving Jeff sad and alone.
• Spin-Off: All aboard the NintenDownload X-press! Created when the Nintendo downloads section of the Bombcast was canceled, the NDX is the underground podcast that sticks it to the man as Jeff Gerstmann brings the thunder as he reads the descriptions of Nintendo's download only titles!
• Too Dumb to Live: In the Persona 4 Endurance Run, they decided to auto-fight against high-evasion enemies with Hama. They got hit by one, and lost an hour of grinding.
• Video Game Movies Suck: Ryan Davis' This Ain't No Game segment explores many of the most terrible video game to film adaptations.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: The Quick Look of New Super Mario Bros Wii by Jeff, Ryan, Vinny, and Brad is spent by them raging at each other for getting each other killed.

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Duder, it's over!