Giant Bomb

The thing I miss about being on a podcast with Dan Ryckert is some of the things he'd ask. You know, things that you kind of learn in kindergarten, or just come to realize by, I don't know, living your life.

Anyway, when Dan and I came together to figure out our new show for Giant Bomb, we wanted to set ourselves up for those kinds of precious conversations. In fact, the conversation we had about what our show was going to be ultimately led to Dan asking me where grapes came from.

It was at that moment we realized: it must have been really fun being in school with Dan Ryckert. Perhaps we go back to school together? And that's kind of what we're going to do in our new 12-episode series, Bak 2 Skool. See what we did there is my last name is Bakalar and if you just say the first syllable in "Bakalar" it sounds like "back." Everything else there is spelled correctly. Guess who came up with the name?

Hello and welcome to the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight! I, @zombiepie, am once again your host as we look back at the latest community-created efforts from the last week. This week, a lot of new stuff hit the site.

• Jan and voice actor Matt Shipman started a new podcast series, Armed an Dangerous in which they recap four episodes of Power Rangers starting with the first season.
• The Two Minutes to Late Night crew debuted ALBUMMER! with the first episode panning Van Weezer.
• The first episode of The Very Online Show brought together Jeff Bakalar, Lucy James, and Tamoor Hussain to do a deep dive on M. Night Shyamalan nonsense.

VoidBurger will be debuting a new video essay series on the site called "Hot Takeouts" and the first episode will detail why they think the Super Mario Bros. movie should be made "canon" in the Mushroom Kingdom. VoidBurger is good people and you can check out their earlier works on their YouTube account. But, if you want a recommendation, might I suggest their retrospective on Phantasmagoria?

So what the hell is it? It's five comedians from the writer's room of Two Minutes to Late Night deep in conversation in a sort of "How Did This Get Made?" but for critically panned albums across various genres of music. For instance, the first episode takes a look at the latest Weezer album, Van Weezer, and asks, "But why?"

If you're not familiar with Two Minutes to Late Night you should fix that! What started off as a heavy metal themed late-night show has expanded into a series of Bedroom Covers that debuted early on in the pandemic, not just entertaining music fans who were staying home, but also helping musicians get paid when venues began to close down. They're also the minds behind some amazing sketches, like my personal favorite, Poseur Cops.

Hello and welcome to the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight! I, @zombiepie, am honored to be your host as we look back at the best community-created content on the site!

Well... STUFF IS HAPPENING! This week saw the debut of Guilty Treasures, a video series where Danny researches an obscure game that a Giant Bomb staff member loves and learns as much about it as possible. Here's a link to Episode #1: Target Earth!

The site also announced another show for Giant Bomb! Two Minutes To Late Night, the creators of a wild heavy-metal late-night show, are cooking up a new show for Giant Bomb, and it's coming real soon! They've been producing some other-worldly Bedroom Covers during the pandemic, including a now-ledgendary rendition of Rush's song Anthem. You can read more about it here, in a little publication called Rolling Stone.

We also got the first hint of the series Jeff B will be doing with Lucy James, and Tamoor Hussain. With all of this in mind, let's jump into the site-related housekeeping because there's a lot to review!

Hello and welcome to the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight! I, @zombiepie, am once again honored to be your host as we look back at the best community-created works from the past week!

First, July 21st marked Giant Bomb's 13th anniversary! It's crazy to think, but Jeff has been helming this ship for thirteen years! I know many of you joined after the site launched or maybe even joined recently, and that's okay! However you may have come to the site, we thank you for being here!

A theme you will notice in a little bit is how more premium is coming our way very soon! Regardless, feel free to share or comment what brought you to the site, and the first piece of Giant Bomb content that really leaped out to you. With that in mind, let's talk about the housekeeping items I have for this week.

Hello! Welcome to the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight. I, @zombiepie, am once again honored to be your host as we look back at the best user-created endeavors from the community!

First off, let's give Jean-Luc Seipke a huge round of applause. For the past two weeks he has been filling in for Jan and did an amazing job. As I mentioned last week, you can catch him over on Twitter if you are interested.

The bigger issue, however, are the general site issues this week. Especially during the Friday stream, people encountered 500 and 404 errors when trying to log into chat. If this happens to you again, try refreshing and see if chat comes up. If it does, hopefully you should see the video! Likewise, people have noticed the front page of the site seems to be buggy with announcements of streams that are not actually up. If you notice this, let Giant Bomb know on Twitter, but be aware the engineers are working to address these issues as best they can.

In more positive news, Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 turned thirteen this week and the community cannot stop talking about the Steam Deck! With all of this in mind, let's jump into the site-related housekeeping!

Hello, everyone! Welcome to the latest episode of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight. I, @zombiepie, am once again honored to be your host as we look back at the best community-created efforts from the past week. First, I want to apologize for something that another community member brought up last week. The previous edition of the Spotlight should have mentioned that last weekend marked the 8th year anniversary of Ryan Davis's passing. Ryan was instrumental in the site's founding and a key pillar of its rise. In the Tweets section you will find a handful of tributes and dedications to Ryan. Feel free to use the comments to share any of your favorite Ryan moments. With that in mind, both GrubbSanx and Borne to Run are in full production! If you are a premium member, you can watch the full versions of the first two episodes of GrubbSnax RIGHT NOW! With that in mind, let's jump into the site-related housekeeping!

If you missed it today on the Bombcast, we are going to be launching two new shows on Giant Bomb within the next week! First up, launching this Thursday, is Grubbsnax, our weekly interactive gaming industry news show hosted by Jeff Grubb, a reporter who's got arguably the best flow in the business. Tune in LIVE on Thursdays at 10am PT/1pm ET to check out the first episode! Each show will feature a Q&A portion where Premium members have access to ask Grubb whatever is on their minds about the games biz.

Hello and welcome to the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight! I, @zombiepie, am once again honored to be your host as we look back at the best user-created works from the last week. Well, the first "generation" of new Giant Bomb shows have been revealed and some have even graced the site. Jeff Grubb's news in review show debuted and is available for everyone to watch and enjoy on the site. Danny is all set to debut two shows, and one of them will launch very soon. None of this is to say that these shows are all Giant Bomb has planned for the community. During July, keep an eye out for a new show from Tamoor Hussain, Lucy James, and Jeff Bakalar as well as a brand new series from Dan Ryckert and Jeff Bakalar.

Hello and welcome to the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight! I, @zombiepie, am once again honored to be your host as we look back and enjoy the best user-created works from the previous week. Whelp, we certainly survived E3 2021. The event has come and gone and despite all of the digital-only weirdness, it mostly succeeded in what it set out to do. It got people talking about video games and provided a handful of major companies a platform to showcase their best stuff. It was certainly awkward at time, but I would take that awkwardness over not having any form of E3. The other big highlight of the week was Giant Bomb's collaboration with GameSpot to raise money for the AbleGamers Charity. Many thanks for those who were able to donate, and many more thanks to RedVentures chipping in to help the event get past its fundraising goal, but more on that in a little bit. With all of that in mind, let's jump into the site-related housekeeping!

Hello and welcome to the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight! I, @zombiepie, am once again honored to be your host as we look back at the wonderful things from the Giant Bomb community! First, E3 came and went and I'm sorry about the lack of a Spotlight last week! E3 2021 was a lot to take in and required everyone's attention.

Speaking of which, 2021 wasn't able to kill E3 even after hitting the event twice with a car. We have a special E3 dedicated area for those of you wondering where to find the community discussion threads for the various conferences. Please be aware, the Giant Bomb staff did NOT talk over every conference and the same could be said about our community discussion threads. Also, it goes without saying that this week had a great deal of important announcements related to this site and its former staff. In fact, let's jump right into in the site-related housekeeping.

Hello and welcome to the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight! I, @zombiepie, am once again honored to be your host as we look back at the best user-created offerings from the week.

Yo... E3 2021 is less than one week away. Let that sink in for a bit. In less than one week, we are all going to be sitting in front of our computer screens and judging the quality of video game announcements made by companies that have scrutinized their digital presentations for months. I, for one, am looking forward to it. However, please remember to keep things civil and calm on the site. Additionally, more details about Giant Bomb's plans are coming soon. With that in mind, let's jump into the site-related housekeeping!

After taking a year off for... reasons, the E3 Banner Contest is returning for a twelfth installment. Since 2009, the moderators here have held a contest challenges anyone in the GB Community to create E3 banners that will be placed at the top of each press conference's discussion thread in the forums.

This year's E3 is a little over a week away, and it is obviously going to be a bit different than the last twenty-five. On top of that, as of this posting (June 2), we don't have a complete schedule of presentations, but that ain't gonna stop us from making some jpegs and gifs.

That means we're going to be doing this year's contest a little bit by the seat of our pants. So, make sure to carefully read the rules below. Once you've done that, feel free to start making beautiful, awesome, terrible, and/or funny stuff. Then, just post your creations in the comments. Whether you're a Photoshop master or can't find the color blue in MS Paint, you could win!

Hello and welcome to the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight. I, @zombiepie, am once again honored to be your host as we look back at the wonderful things the community has been up to the past week.

Holy shit! It is finally starting to hit me that E3 is just two weeks away. I don't know about you, but I don't know if I am emotionally or physically ready for it. It's been a long year, and I know everyone is tired of hearing that, but even if E3 2021 will be all digital, I cannot help but think about everything that comes with the "E3 bundle" regardless of which version you are getting. Similar to last week, the staff and site are still shoring up their plans for the event. As you can hopefully tell from the screencap above, it will be an interesting affair for all involved. With that in mind, let's jump into the site-related housekeeping!

Hello and welcome to the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight! Well, it certainly was "something" to see the Community Spotlight on the front-page well into the week. I want to thank all of you who shared how you are feeling about the site and its state, especially those of you who shared your thoughts in a civil and respectful manner. It's important for everyone to know sharing that you are concerned or disappointed with the staff leavings isn't something I, or the rest of the moderation team plan to prohibit on the forums or elsewhere. This is a weird time to be a Giant Bomb fan and it's okay if you don't feel as engaged with the site. Just remember that the people who are still here care for the site and want you to know they are planning big things, especially with E3 2021 right around the corner. Though, your guess is as good as mine in terms of predicting how E3 works as an industry event this year. With that in mind, let's jump into the site-related housekeeping!

Hello and welcome to the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight and I, @zombiepie, am once again honored to be your host as we look back at the week that was on and around Giant Bomb. First, I want to share a big "thank you" to the outpour of support the last episode of the Spotlight got. It was truly heartwarming to see users both new and old come out of the woodwork to share their lover for the site and their feelings about Vinny, Alex, and Brad. In the days that followed their final appearance as staff, it has really set-in that the site no longer has them. It's different. The site is different. Yes, things were bound to be different, but it's so difficult to express the mixture of excitement and concern about the uncharted waters Giant Bomb is about to explore without sounding like an inconsiderate jerk or total buzzkill.

I speak for myself and my fellow moderators that it is appreciated to all of you who have expressed this bundle of conflicting emotions in a way that has avoided rumor mongering, speculation, or "fantasy booking." This sort of commentary does not help anyone, especially those who you would like to see join the site. With that in mind, let's jump into the site-related housekeeping.

Hello and welcome to the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight. I, @zombiepie, am once again honored to be your host as we look back at the week that once was. Before I share how the recent events have made me feel I wish to emphasize how hard the introduction to this Spotlight was for me to write. I scrutinized over three drafts trying to avoid the usual soundbites and tropes. To call the exits of Alex, Vinny, and Brad an "end of an era" does not do things justice. All of them helped pioneer the identity of what this website stood for over a decade. Many of you are users of this site and members of this community because of them.

As Jeff put it, it fucking sucks that they are leaving, but you have to respect their decision to leave and wish them the best. The countless hours of entertainment they have provided and the in-depth discussions and coverage of this industry and hobby will not go away. That they remained committed to this site for as long as they did, is something we should all be grateful for, and something we should never forget.

Hello, everyone. Welcome to the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight. I, @zombiepie, am once again honored to your host as we look at another wonderful edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight! It's hard to think, but we have officially started a new month! Video games are starting to come out even though we are slowly but surely transitioning into the season of Summer. People seem to be enjoying Returnal and New Pokémon Snap, and if you are one of them don't forget to share how you feel about the games on the site! Otherwise, it was another quiet week on the site with most people still enamored by Jeff perusing the many items in his garage. With that in mind, let's jump into the site-related housekeeping.

Hello and welcome to the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight and I, @zombiepie, am once again honored to be your host this week! Well, video games are finally starting to come out, but at a trickle. A lot of people on the site are buzzing about the re-release of NieR Replicant and many more can't wait to get their hands on Resident Evil Village and New Pokémon Snap. It is a welcomed change of course after the new releases almost entirely seized up making things "dry" for those of us that follow contemporary games.

Regardless, I want to thank all of you who tuned into the bonus streams for the Giant Bomb Community Endurance Run! The team SMASHED its $15,000 fundraising goal thanks to last weekend's streams! So, many thanks to those who donated and participated and here's to next year! For those of you who may have missed the event, don't worry. You can still donate to the team page, which I linked earlier. Pencils of Promise does not delete team or individual donation pages between years. So, donate whenever you can if you were not in a financial position to do so when the GBCER was running! With all of that in mind, let's jump into the site-related housekeeping!

Welcome to the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight. I, @zombiepie, am once again honored to be your host as we look back at the best user-generated efforts from the last week. For those of you that tuned in to the Giant Bomb Community Endurance Run, a hearty thanks is in store for you! The charity effort nearly raised its lofty goal of $15,000! If you missed out on the fun, don't worry. You can still donate to the team page and to any team members! If you could, check out some of the streamers that did not reach their fundraising goals and help them get a little bit closer! The link to the team page are included in the site-related housekeeping. Beyond that, it was a relatively quiet week with new releases coming out in a trickle. Something tells me this year's "Summer Game Drought" will be especially brutal. Let's jump into the site-related housekeeping!

Hello and welcome to a very charitable-focused edition of the Giant bomb Community Spotlight and I, @zombiepie, am once again honored to be your host as we look back at the best community offerings from the previous week. Yup, this is the weekend of the Giant Bomb Community Endurance Run! You will find a special section dedicated to the Giant Bomb Community Endurance Run, but many thanks to those of you who have donated! As many of you already known, I will be one of MANY participants in the Spring charity drive and if you can, here's a link to my personal donation page. If you cannot donate, please promote and spread news of the event to everyone you know! Also, if you are reading this after the event has ended, don't worry, you can donate to any GBCER participant's page until the end of the year! With all of that in mind, let's jump into the site-related housekeeping!

Folks, I'm copy/pasting @thatpinguino's lovely forum post to make sure it's on the homepage and everyone knows that this weekend is the Community Endurance Run! We'll be live all weekend, starting after UPF! Abby has some plans to start us off with, I'll be streeaming around midnight Pacific (Help me finish off Horizon: Zero Dawn!), and there are plenty of other wonderful streams going on all weekend!

Guess who's back, back again? The Giant Bomb Community Endurance Run is back! Tell a friend!

This year the Community Endurance Run is going to kick off on April the 9th and run through Sunday April 11th.

Several awesome members of the Giantbomb community are going to be streaming a wide variety of video games and video game-like things on Explosiveruns.com in order to raise money for charity!

Hello and welcome to the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight. I, @zombiepie, am once again honored to be your host as we look back at the best user-created offerings from the last week! Well, I am now fully vaccinated. As a member of the teaching profession I was able to get both doses and while there may have been bumps along the way, I am eternally grateful to those in the medical profession that both helped in creating the vaccine and in distributing it. I say all of this as a reminder of everyone's personal duty to get vaccinated whenever possible and with the support of their medical practitioner. Yes, getting the vaccine does not entitle you to no longer invest in social distancing or face mask mandates. However, this pandemic highlights a grave need for everyone to fight against vaccine hesitancy and stand in support of science. Certainly, more can be done to distribute the vaccine equitably and it is a travesty that communities that most need it are struggling to get it. Yet, by working together there is hope and it is through that collective effort that I end my introduction as we transition to the site-related housekeeping.

Hello and welcome to the latest edition to the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight and I, @zombiepie, am once again honored to be your host as we look back at the best user-created works from the Giant Bomb community around the web! Well, that was certainly a week! With the pandemic-induced game drought starting to settle in, the community and staff of Giant Bomb still found ways to keep things exciting!

We have a trio of community activities for people to join and a ton of discussion threads about topics both new and old. Also, we are only two weeks away from the Giant Bomb Community Endurance Run, the Spring user-run charity drive! Speaking of which, I want to thank the two people who donated to my GBCER charity page! If you have enjoyed the Spotlights over the many years I have authored them, please consider donating to my page! Obviously, don't break the bank and small donations are greatly appreciated! With that in mind, let's jump into the site-related housekeeping!

Hello and welcome to the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight and I, @zombiepie, am once again honored to be your host as we look back at the best community offerings from the previous week. There were a number of big moments this week worth reviewing. First, a huge thank you to all of the users that have wished Vinny a speedy recovery after his surgery. If you have yet to wish him the best, feel free to use the first link in the housekeeping section. Second, many thanks to those that have reached out to Jan about how to help the influx of violence directed at Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the United States. Below you will find a resource guide they recommend everyone check out.

Finally, last week marked the official "start" of the Giant Bomb Community Endurance Run! For those that do not know, the GBCER is the community-run charity event and you can read all about how to join the fun or donate. For reference, I am a member of the GBCER, and if you have enjoyed this Spotlight feature over the many years I have done it, please consider donating to my charity page. Small donations are more than welcomed if you can't spare a lot right now.

Hello everyone and welcome to the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight and I, @zombiepie, am once again honored to be your host as we look back at the best user-created offerings from the Giant Bomb Community! As we will review in a little bit, the biggest news from last week is that Giant Bomb is reprinting old t-shirts for a second time! Below you will find links to the thread where you can file requests, and it represents an exciting opportunity to older users on the site. To overseas users who are prevented from joining the fun, the site is exploring its options. However, the big thing I feel like needs to be mentioned is that not every t-shirt in the past can or should be re-printed. Over on Twitter and Reddit, for example, a lot of people have been requesting that the "China Don't Care" shirt be reprinted. I just... I just cannot fathom anyone not realizing why this is never going to happen. Please, for the love of God, read the news and understand that context is everything. I understand many of these requests are coming from a place of love for Ryan, but there are other ways to show how much he meant to you. With that out of the way, let's review the announcements because we have a lot this week!

Hello and welcome to the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight and I, @zombiepie, am once again honored to be your host as we loo back at the best user-created endeavors from the past week. For whatever reasons, there were no user reviews or lists to report from the community. As a result, I have cut the sections, but they will return in the future should any notable reviews or lists from community members pop up. Likewise, last week's Spotlight got absolutely slobberknockered by spambots. If you enjoy this feature please, show your support in the comments. I know a lot of people are frustrated about the spambot situation, but please remember to flag spam posts but DO NOT reply or comment in them. With all of that in mind, let's jump into the site-related housekeeping!

Hello and welcome to another edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight and I, @zombiepie, am once again honored to be your host as we look back at the wonderful community creations from the last week. Holy crap! For whatever reason, and I'm not judging, the community wrote up a storm this week! Outside of the Christmas and GOTY themed editions of the Community Spotlight, this might be the most I have ever written for a Spotlight in a long while. But, I love it! Having more community content to share is not a bad problem to have. However, I do want to ask all of you to try seeking out one blog on the Spotlight and taking the time to thank the writer. Some of these blogs are still looking for their first comment of support and that one comment can mean the world to a lot of people. With that in mind, let's jump into the site-related housekeeping!

Hello everyone and welcome to the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight and I, @zombiepie, am once again honored to be your host as we look back at the best user-generated offerings from the last week! This time we have a little bit of everything for the third week of February! Tweets, blogs, threads, and even admirable wiki pages!

Speaking of user-generated goodness, I was recently made aware that I became the most commented blogger on the site. It's weird to think, and it only took me about thirteen years, but indeed, I am only one of two users on the site with over 10,000 blog comments. Though, @mento has everyone beat when it comes to the number of published blogs on the site by a country mile. Regardless, all hail your new "king," and if you got that classic Giant Bomb forum reference, then good for you. I mention all of this to encourage each of you to keep the written word alive on the site even if the number of comments or views might be discouraging. To write without commendation is as admirable as writing with commendation and the process of jotting down your thoughts and ideas is so liberating. All this meditative musing aside, let's jump into the housekeeping.

Hello everyone and welcome to the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight and I, @zombiepie, am once again honored to be your host as we look back at the best user-created works from the last week! It will be a topic that comes up during the Tweets section, but the Persona 4 Endurance Run celebrated its 12th anniversary. It is often difficult to point to when Giant Bomb "BECAME" Giant Bomb, but the Persona 4 Endurance Run is certainly up there as a driving influence on the site's direction. Likewise, I know that there are many of you who joined the site and community in response to Giant Bomb's Persona 4 series. Also, it's kind of wild to think about how deeply influential the Persona 4 Endurance Run was over the current landscape of video game editorial content.

Hello everyone and welcome to the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight and I, @zombiepie, am honored to be your host as we look back on the best user-generated offerings the past week. First, I just want to thank everyone for the warm response last week! The "final" GOTY Spotlights are always a pain to make and seeing people come out to show their appreciation means a lot to me. Again, from the bottom of my heart, thank you. That said, we are returning to the "normal" format of the Spotlight. If you end up making a belated GOTY list or blog, I will still happily showcase it, but within the usual categories. With all of that in mind, let's jump into the site-related housekeeping.

Hello everyone and welcome to a very belated edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight and I, @zombiepie am once again honored to be your host as we look back and enjoy the last TWO weeks of user-created content on the site. For those of you that may not know, the Spotlight always goes on a short hiatus whenever GOTY rolls around. That said, I think we can agree that, given the circumstances, the staff did a bang up job with the bevy of guest lists on the site and hours worth of GOTY podcasting. I had a good laugh during some of the sillier categories and I know everyone has their favorite guest list this GOTY season and feel free to share it in the comments! Likewise, it is worth mentioning that last week marked Ben's last day as a member of the Giant Bomb staff. From the bottom of my heart, I want to thank Ben for all of the memories and the endless amount of content he provided. Whatever you end up doing, I wish you thing but the best. With that in mind, let's jump into the site housekeeping.

Hey everyone! These are the results of the community GOTY - the results of which (resultingly) have been resulted below. This year, 3884 of you submitted a top ten list, for a total of 29664 votes (not everyone always puts in ten games, which is fine!) on 1115 different games. Wow! Amazing!

It's a landslide! Everyone loves Hades, to the point where it has almost 75% more weighted votes than the #2 game, The Last of Us Part II. That is one of the biggest margins of victory I've ever seen in these polls! (God of War handily beat Red Dead Redemption II a few years back, but not by this much.) It's great when people love games, in my opinion. Games are fun and we should enjoy them; that's my motto. Doom Eternal is on this list as well! What a great game. Heck, they're all great games, Brent.

Brad Shoemaker hates discussing himself and would rather let the below list do the talking.

This year was shit.

What else can you say? 2020 was a crucible of such endless misery--fear and isolation, anger and injustice, loss of a magnitude that's impossible to reckon with--that the words above are all I could come up with. Without looking back, I imagine I've used the intro space in my last few top 10 lists to make a series of increasingly nervous "boy, what a year" jokes, but there's nothing to joke about anymore. Just a trail of wreckage and sorrow that's going to take a long time to repair.

Alex Navarro is an editor for Giant Bomb, and doesn't especially feel like writing a jokey bio this year. He's @alex_navarro on Twitter.

Vinny Caravella is starting to think they may never stop making video games. He's not sure if that means he might also never stop trying to order them in lists. He currently works at Giant Bomb from his basement surrounded by his collection of toys.

Jeff Gerstmann saw a dude skitching along the side of a minivan while he was going up the 5 this summer and it was the illest thing he's ever seen. You can send him questions for "Jeff Gerstmann Presents Jar Time 2021" by PM'ing the account "Jeff" on this very website.

Ya know, it's pretty funny that the Macintosh Plus single that released at the very end of 2019 asked the world (well, it asked the artist, at least) to go outside not long before we kinda had to stop going outside so much.

A lot has happened since then.

Before I get into my ten favorite games of the year, here's some other stuff about my year that was.

There's never been a better time to play video games.

This is a sentiment that hop scotches back and forth over the line of irony. 2020, for better or worse (mostly worse... almost entirely worse) was a year that had many of us in front of our screens all day every day. It should make sense, then, that this was a great year for video games.

Well it was, and it wasn't. A byproduct of being home all day made it really hard to focus and play one game unless it really gripped me. I found myself often confused between checking in on 2020's hottest games, swapping between old SNES games and putting like 100 hours into Overwatch for some reason?? There's tons of 2020 releases I need to put more time into next year, but the games from this year that I stuck with I loved totally.

I'm going to keep this short, because I discussed the hell out of these games and why I love them in the podcasts you can listen to.

Also, as a personal note, today is my last day as a Giant Bomb staffer. I'm extremely grateful for all the kind words I've received about my departure. Thanks for putting up with me <3.

Anyways, here's 10 video games I really loved this year. Honorable mentions include Paper Mario: The Origami King, ScourgeBringer, Bugsnax, Spellbreak, and Good Sudoku.

10. Maneater

Oh, Jawsie. My sweet, Jawsie. It’s been such am honor watching you grow from just a pup to the murderous killing machine intent on extracting revenge on your mother’s killer that you are today. We challenged and beat the apex predators from the bayou to the open ocean. We’ve chomped entire beaches full of people until the sand was stained red with blood. Heck, I was there for all your mutations; your early bone stage, the shadow phase, and the awkward bio-electric years. It was all good fun and you helped make this year bearable for a bit.

Chompfully yours,

Jason.

2020! The year when video cards were announced...but were then impossible to find! Someone named HotGirlVideos69 became the shadow queen behind game news leaks! The biggest release of the year somehow became Schrodinger's game, both on sale and not at the same time! What a year for events, which were eventful all year long. I am now done with my introductory paragraph and would like to discuss other things before returning to the subject of games.