Kaboom!

And just like that, The Bomb blew. Giant Bomb (dot) com has finally opened the doors to the final site, and it's absolutely fantastic. The site's got a few creaks owing to the huge load we're putting on it, but it's standing up better than I expected. Things are getting done.

The site looks attractive and it's laid out very well. The whole thing also has a very social atmosphere to it, it's friendly and communal - the content, largely collaborative. The forums are just getting started and already we're getting on very well.

The site's video player is also very good, attractive and simple, keeps out of the way. Very nice.

We may have just knocked the servers over there...Whoops.

Oh, there it goes. Back now.

Anyway, staying up for the site proved to be worth it. I guarantee if I'd gone to bed, I'd have slept past the launch and wouldn't have gotten to see the site until the afternoon. That would have been unacceptable.

I'm making a bunch of friends in the Live Stream chatroom. This is going to be fun.

Well, the site's now getting over the earlier crashes where it would completely fail to resolve as the load on the servers decreases - a lot of the users in America for example are heading to bed so the server's aren't taking such a huge hit.

There are lingering issues, with quite a few bugs and glitches yet to be sorted, but there don't seem to be any show stoppers. So far, it's a relatively smooth launch.

Can't wait for the next Bombcast.

Bomb Watch Starts Here

Giant Bomb's Jeff Gerstmann today e-mailed anyone who had sent an e-mail to one of the Giant Bomb addresses (Notable the Beta Signup Address). It formalises the site's launch as being imminent, a fact already made abundently clear by the blog having been replaced with a teasing image and a "Landing shortly" message.

The most important part of the message reads:

This e-mail is being sent to let you know that we're getting very close to the beta launch of giantbomb.com -- if you want to be extra-certain that you secure your username of choice, you should start taking occasional looks at the site to see if it's up yet. You will not receive a second e-mail from us, as we're solely focused on the site itself.

So what will you be able to do on Giant Bomb?

Explore a database that already contains...
Entries for over 72,000 releases.
Pages for nearly 90,000 people involved in the creation of video games.
Almost 600 character pages!
Something like 580 pages for gaming franchises!
Dude, I don't know, how about I just write "and much, much more" here and we move on?
Don't forget, you'll be able to edit and add to all of these things!

And of course, we'll have message boards. Tens of thousands of message boards! Way too many message boards! Everything from the PlayStation 3 to hamburgers will have a message board associated with it. In fact, every single page in the database, including consoles, franchises, games, objects, characters, people, and concepts will all have a friendly message board right at the bottom. But don't worry about getting lost or missing out on a conversation. Messages from all boards are easily found in our forum index.

This extract of course excludes the instructions, but they're fairly obvious anyway.

So now, we begin the Bomb Watch. I have arranged for my browser (Firefox 3, Mac OS X 10.5.4, a rock slid and generally excellent browser and platform) set up to reload Giant Bomb (dot) com at set intervals, so excited am I to get into the site.

Unfortunately, I'm also way too excited. I'm afraid to sleep in case I miss it. I mean, even tonight, I really don't want to risk it, even though I'm almost 100% the site won't launch until something like 6PM BST on Monday the 21st of July (At the earliest).

And so, for as long as I'm awake, I'm going to be updating round the clock. I'll Tweet status updates at regular intervals and come the launch, I'll tweet my progress registering, then writeup impressions of the site her on All Your Time.

And yes, I fully intend to contribute as much as I can to anything Disney-Related (Exception: Chronicles of Narnia, we'll get to that little mistake someday).

Speaking of, how awesome does Pure look? For some reason, I'm all-the-way pumped for that game. Maybe cos it's a Disney-made insane off-road racer. We all know I love Disney and Excite Truck, Pure combines them. Naturally, I'll be nabbing the 360 version.

Anywho, where was I? Oh yes, The Bomb. I gotta tell ya, I really need this site. As it stands, the only gaming community I frequent is all but dead in the sections I read. I mean, I visit 1Up and GameSpot, but not their communities (Forums). 1Up's folks were very hostile (Generally, they were some kind souls) to those of us displaced from GameSpot (The site as a whole, not just the forums) after The 29th. GameSpot's forums I just found insular and not very fun.

Wow, I really want to make a movie about Gerstmann-gate...It's a great story for the screen. I saw a YouTube video which recast a JFK (One of my all-time favourie movies) trailer as a traler for JFG, a ficticious movie about Gerstmann-gate (Using JFK footage and dialogue for illustrative purposes), and it was very cool. I definitely think Jeff's story would be good for the screen.

Perhaps a book first, that's howit typically works...Oh well. If it's not been done by the time I can do it, I will. If anyone else is planning to do it and wants help (Writing, directing, any creative stuff really) drop me a line, I have some ideas how it could work.

Anyway, I'm rambling. Onward to The Bomb!

Jens Has Blown

Calling It

Okay, I'm prepared to call the Mac mini 2008 Update for August. Prediction: new CPUs, new motherboards, new graphics (Newer GMA), larger hard drives possible new design. May be modular.

Next, we're calling Barack Obama the Democratic Nominee for President of the United States, sitting as he does just 10 Delegates shy with 30 Pledged Delegates up for grabs total tonight in two Primaries he is believed to have bought and paid for.

With that out of the way, we can move on to the forthcoming Giant Bombcast in which Jeff Gerstmann and Ryan Davis are expected to reveal something major about Giant Bomb (dot) com I have a suspicion about what it is.

First, I'm half hoping, half expecting, the duo to announce registration and potentially the forums for the site are open, or opening this week. This would be great, the Giant Bomb fans are hugely devoted but currently the main communication medium for us in comments.

Forums would allow the community to blossom. And for once, I would be around at the incepton of a multiformat games website's forums meaning I wouldn't get lost amidst the kind of crap at GameSpot and IGN (I could never be bothered digging through that rubbish only to have the snobs snub me).

Secondly, with a probability of 65% or better, I expect the pair to announce a launch date for the Giant Bomb site - the day they're "blowing up".

Furthermore, I'd say this date will be at most 14 days ahead of E3 - which starts July 15. That is, I epect it to be launched no later than the start of July. I'm hoping for late June, but I'm realistic.

On an unrelated side note, Demi Lovato kicks ass.

Now then, I have an update on Multiplayer Magazine. My partner in crime WizzKid and I have made a decision about what will power the site and I have made a choice about hosting.

As time marches on, we'll be discussing it more and more. One of our current to dos is having our graphics team design a logo and setting a colour scheme for the site. Meanwhile, I'm going to be using some of my upcoming free time to begin getting the Multiplayer Content Specifications written up. I've written content philosophies before, but this one is entirely new - the previous one was based primarily on the first, itself fairly standard though with some unique twists.

The MCS will be pretty comprehensive, since it will be necessary to provide guidelines for all content types.

Anyway, I'm pretty tired. Night.

Jens Out

Jeff Gerstmann is back and he's got a new trick

Jeff Gerstmann is ten times as slick as the last time, the last time you saw him, now you can see why the internet adores him. You might think his new trick is...

Anyway, abandoning the Magical Trevor riff before I have to do any major thinking, the one and only Jeff "You can't beat 100%" Gerstmann, who you might remember as the guy at GameSpot for the majority of his eleven year tenure there, is coming back to the internet after a brief spell on arch-nemesis television.

Of course, since Jeff was dispatched from Cnet's GameSpot, a lot has happened. First, Ryan Davis and Alex Navarro left, whittling GameSpot's key personalities down to Ryan MacDonald, Brian Eckberg, Kevin VanOrd and Brad Shoemaker. And two of them (VanOrd and Eckberg) could well be the next to go.

Navarro and Davis had teamed up with Jeff for a podcast associated with Ryan Davis's blog "Arrow Pointing Down". Now, Davis and Gerstmann (And probably Navarro, though that is unconfirmed) have commenced the soft-launch of their new home.

The Casfesisonal (Casual-Professional, menaing it adopts a casual friendly atmosphere with a professional staff doing professional reviews and news coverage in a friendly tone) Giant Bomb (dot com)

And I for one couldn't be happier. The new site, complete with a video series about setting up such a site called How to Build a Bomb, is an exciting development set to go full scale this summer.

I've already made it one of my most key hit ups in my daily bookmark run and I can't wait to see what it evolves into. I'm also excited to watch How to Build a Bomb. This kind of skunkworks really appeals to me, not least because I'm a huge fan of Gerstmann and Davis's work.

And also because I might have a little something up my sleeve for lauching late this year.

Let's Play,
Jens

Kane and Lynch: Dead Men

We've already discussed that this game lost Jeff Gerstmann, Mr. GameSpot, his job. However implausible it may be, that's what happened. Here's the thing though...When Kane and Lynch got a 6 and was described as an "ugly, ugly game", I wasn't in the least bit surprised. If you were, you're nuts.

GameSpot's advertising deal with this shitty game was apparent long before "readers [could] skin the entire site with Kane, Lynch or with Kane and Lynch...Together". GameSpot's Video Game game show featured the game as Round 3, Owned in its final episode of the season.

It sucked then too. Alex Navarro and his colleague Justin Calvert were clearly not having a good time with the game's controls. Everyone playing it (Which included 2 members of the development and/or PR teams - it's hard to tell if people are really "developers" these days) were making an assload of mistakes thanks to sloppy controls.

It also looked like crap. In the immortal words of that same Alex Navarro (Regarding RoboCop on Xbox), "This looks like crap. [It plays] a lot like crap too".

But it's hard to see where the hype for this game actually built up. It was at E3 and it looked and played like crap there too. In a year that has seen Halo 3, Super Mario Galaxy, Call of Duty 4, Half-Life 2: The Orange Box, Mass Effect and Bioshock amongst many more great, modern games, Kane and Lynch is an un commonly old-fashioned film wannabe.

Were it made from a movie as a cash-in, it would be exactly what you expect. instead, Eidos wants to make a movie from it. The Angry Video Game Nerd says when you take a great movie, you get a shitty game and when you take a not-so-great game you get a slightly less shitty game. How does that work for making games into movies? I sincerely doubt you just flip the first half of the statement.

I can see some promise in the Kane and Lynch concept, which is probably the only reason sites like 1Up gave it the time of day at E3, but the execution is shameful. It's 10 minutes of good concept wrapped in 10 hours of shitty gameplay. Think of it as being like Michael Bay's Pearl Harbor (Half an hour of great action wrapped in 3 hours of tedium).

So, Eidos, tell me. Did you really expect this game to get a good review?

You did, huh?

Even though it is and has clearly been shit for months?

Why, pray tell, then did you expect a good review?

Oh, of course.

Josh Larson & Stephen Colvin promised you.

Jens Out

Jeff Gerstmann and why Ziff Davis pwns CNet

Yesterday, Jeff Gerstmann, Editorial Director of CNet's GameSpot and (Since the departure of the huge asset that was Rich Gallup) host of GameSpot's Live Weekly video show On The Spot. Gerstmann ascended to the role of head honcho at GameSpot following the departure of Greg Kasavin, former Editor-In-Chief.

He took over hosting of GameSpot's On The Spot as he was formerly Rich's number two on that show. After a shaky first episode, he got it together and along with Ryan Davis managed to put together a generally good show.

Jeff has been a fixture at GameSpot for 10 years. He is GameSpot. They put him in charge and allowed him to renovate the review system in a bold, abstract way which - despite some unpopularity amongst certain quarters of the GameSpot community - was generally seen as a pretty good system. I have heard reviewers wondering what everyone's problem with it was pointing out that movie reviews carry half as many different possible scores and they are not criticised for it.

As a critic myself, I agree. As someone who has twice held positions similar to Gerstmann's role, I agree. In fact, in that position, I used scales with half the GameSpot system. Never hurt us.

Why then was Jeff Gerstmann, a key CNet and GameSpot asset, who had been appointed the leader and face of GameSpot, summarily fired on the day he was due to appear live in front of millions of gamers worldwide?

Current information points to one thing. Kane and Lynch.

Gerstmann gave Eidos's Kane and Lynch a 6.0. Eidos, who had splashed out on an over-the-top advertising campaign on GameSpot (Which mimicked that given to Halo 3, an easily more deserving title), were none too pleased.

However, apparently this only prompted a change to link the adverts instead to the game's site and not the review.

What seems to be fact is that Gerstmann's video review (Below), which does little more than summarise the points of his text review in his usual casual, likable and irreverent style, was the last straw for CNet's paymasters.



The corporate overlords that run CNet have pulled the video review from GameSpot's site and Gerstmann is now no longer a GameSpot employee.

GameSpot posted no reviews, did not broadcast On The Spot and did indeed do very little of anything yesterday. Rumours abound that the staff are "skittish" - they all seem to have been very much Jeff's men for one thing. For another, they likely approved the review since that is how GameSpot roll.

Furthermore, they can likely see their readers slipping through their fingers. Their journalistic integrity has been wiped away. CNet has sent the message that GameSpot reviews can be bought, editors fired at an advertisers request...What's next?

Furthermore, Gerstmann's exit follows an exodus of key people from the GameSpot team. First to go was Carrie Gouskos. Gouskos was de facto number 2 to Gallup in the GameSpot Live team, at least to the public (Gallup answered to Ryan MacDonald). She was one of the 3 faces of On the Spot (Along with Gallup and Gerstmann) and ran relief for Gallup during live events like E3.

She left to work on the development of Warhammer Online.

After Gouskos, the next big name to leave the GameSpot team (One who went to work at EA on Command & Conquer 3 - and presumably its sequels etc.), was Editor-In-Chief Greg Kasavin. Greg was the boss, He was very much in charge. Respected and liked by all.

Following his departure, there was no clear leader. 2 men, Gerstmann and MacDonald, appeared to have a power share. Gerstmann controlled Editorial content, whilst MacDonald was in charge of GameSpot Live. It was a departure, but the team worked.

The last big name to go, before Jeff, was of course Rich Gallup. Gallup, the face of GameSpot left without a job to go to. He literally walked, apparently to get married back on the East Coast.

If you're a suspicious guy like me, this makes no sense.

Gerstmann was a huge asset, Gallup was huge talent who they let go - seemingly without a fight. But more pressing than these curiosities is the why.

With 3 key people leaving and one of the absolute most important being fired, it begs the question.

What's really going on inside CNet? Did Kasavin and Gallup Leave because they were unhappy with their corporate overlords? It now seems conceivable. Think about it, there could be a huge amount of turmoil in there.

Gallup might have been happy to walk, unhappy with conditions. Kasavin might have been tired of the way CNet was treating him. Gerstmann stood his ground. They shot him down without a second thought.

No other explanation is logical than this: CNet and GameSpot are bitter enemies. Why else would CNet offload the popular head of GameSpot, alienating staff and fans, with the only reasonable explanation anyone can find being a video review of an advertised game. Without warning. On the day he was due to host the site's flagship show?

Until CNet provide answers, this is the view I'm sticking with.

Another key matter: Who replaces Gerstmann?

Assuming half the staff doesn't simply quit in disgust, CNet will likely continue their habit of promoting from within GameSpot. But then, who can they pick? The popular choice would be Alex Navarro. But Navarro is Jeff's man through and through. I doubt they would name him.

As is Ryan Davis, the probable second choice. Brian Eckberg would be best left to sports, to liaise with SportsGamer.Com, which GameSpot now own. So who could they put in Jeff's place?

Noone other than those 3 is an obvious choice. Brad Shoemaker is a wild card candidate, but that would seem to entail promoting over the heads of others and at any rate, he too appears to be a Jeff man. Even simply expanding MacDonald's duties is not going to work - he carpooled to work with Jeff and Alex every day, he's "one of them" from CNet's point of view.

So CNet will have to name someone new. They'll either poach someone from 1Up or IGN, or else name someone from CNet. Should the latter happen, make no mistake, GameSpot is screwed. We've already discussed the possible friction, the staff wouldn't like a corporate move like that were the friction real.

Update: CNet opted to name Ricardo Torres, a senior staffer who'd taken a slightly backroom role in recent times as Jeff's de facto successor.

You might think I'm being melodramatic. But I'm deadly serious here. This is bad news.

Jeff is great. Check out his band here

I'll be watching Tournament TV tonight. After that, I'm going to have to consider leaving GameSpot in protest unless some good explanation is given for this mess.

Jens Out