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 site-related news and best community creations from the previous week.
An important announcement about site programming is that for those of you that missed it, Grubb’s “Grubb Bag” feature this week was one of a handful of selectable options for their streaming content on the site and people voted for it to be one of his contributions this week. Voting for future programming will possibly take place in the “Premium-General” section of the Giant Bomb Discord.
Giant Bomb will be participating in the Hard Drive Presents: A Woke And Gay Charity Stream but the game they play for this charity effort is currently up to a community vote. You can find the ballot on the Giant Bomb Discord in the “News” section. Currently, it sure seems like Mike will be playing The Lion King on the SNES.
In terms of updates about the site, we should address a topic that seems to keep coming up. Due to the program’s staffing, Giant Bomb will no longer be hosting JeffJeff’s Bizarre Adventure. The podcast has resumed, but it’s offsite and you will likely need to subscribe to a new Spotify or Apple Podcast feed rather than the RSS Free or Premium Feed on Giant Bomb.
In better news, huge props to Cody_Summers over on the Discord automating a system for helping people making community best of videos. They set up a weekly task on an AWS to grab a bunch of times from a Google sheet submitted by a form that collates all the submissions and creates one video from them. If you want to submit clips to help them out, here’s the link. If you want to examine the code they have made thus far, here’s the link to the current GitHub page.
Former Giant Bomb employee and site designer Dan Auer recently posted that while they are happy with their current flow of contract work, they are still on the hunt for a full-time lead/manager role. For reference, Dan is person behind much of the site’s current design and iconography including the last few bomb logos and is “good people” as we might say.
Bakalar’s webcomic project, What Lies Below, is officially out and you can feel free to give the first three episodes a gander while also participating in guiding the story for later episodes and seasons by taking part in the comic’s Community Quests.
Art
Giant Bomb x Uma Musume (By: @kone)
Kone is back with new works of Photoshop that are bound to give you nightmares. With Jan infecting the rest of Giant Bomb with Uma Musume Pretty Derby, Kone imagined the staff with horse girls they think match their personalities the best.
Likewise, they also had a go at grafting Mike into Pimp My Ride, the most recent incarnation of Blight Club, and feel like they would have made for a “perfect” Pimp My Ride recipient during the TV show’s heyday as evident in this bio they made for them using a screencap from the game.
Pimp Hints (By: Lazycon, “Boneless” Dial, Greg Pivo, and el_paolo_loco)
A new Giant Bomb meme has just dropped thanks to Dan playing Pimp My Ride for Blight Club. Various members of the Giant Bomb Discord, which I have included an invite link to above, have taken the game’s “Pimp Hint” screen and replacing the normal hints with funny Giant Bomb goofs.
Bluesky
https://bsky.app/profile/dirtbagqueer.rocks/post/3ltlc6wq3ak26
https://bsky.app/profile/spacetwinks.bsky.social/post/3ltcv7k3n3c2j
https://bsky.app/profile/picklegiraffe.bsky.social/post/3ltnxyelb222c
https://bsky.app/profile/picklegiraffe.bsky.social/post/3ltgikroovk2j
https://bsky.app/profile/jearum.bsky.social/post/3ltog6b3yek2x
Videos
SONIC vs. RASCAL – (COMPLETE Season 9) – Animated Giant Bomb Blight Club Series (By: PickleGiraffe)
PickleGiraffe is back baybee! This time they have a complete “season” animating the contentious rivalry between Sonic and Rascal with this edition of their Animated Giant Bomb Blight Club series. Give it a watch and see how many Giant Bomb references you can count before the end of the video!
Activities
The GB Album Club 089 – Judgment Night Soundtrack by Various Artists (By: @unclejam23)
The latest pick for Giant Bomb’s Album of the Week Club is the Judgment Night Soundtrack Immortal Records and Epic Soundtrax! Is this an all-time movie soundtrack album? Many people hold this specific soundtrack in high regard, but is that reputation warranted? Share away!
The Alters Is The 7th Game Of UUGPGC Year 4! Finish By August 1! Mark All Spoilers! (By: @bigsocrates)
Once again, The Alters has been selected by the Giant Bomb Game of the Month Club as its next game pick, but it should be noted that voting closed before the AI art stuff broke. As a result, all forms of discussion about that and the game itself are welcomed in the thread linked above.
The GBTrainers Club For Uma Musume Pretty Derby (By: @propagandapanda)
Don’t tell Jan, but there’s a new thread getting folks to join a GBTrainers Club for Uma Musume Pretty Derby! Now that the mobile game that went viral is getting and English language version, does anyone want to race horse girls together?
Blogs
Retro JRPG Review – Legend of Legaia (Part 1): Man… PS1 JRPGs Were A Vibe (By: @zombiepie)
Remember how many JRPGs came out on the PS1? It was a general cornucopia of games with an almost unrelenting stream of JRPGs and this week moderator ZombiePie decided to check out one of the more interesting games that came out during that Golden Age, Legend of Legaia! If you have any fond memories of the game, let out a yelp on their blog!
Hottest Mess 2025: Part 2 (July Check-In) (By: @allthedinos)
2025 is past its halfway point and that means a check-in with the leading candidates for Giant Bomb ‘s Community Choice: “Hottest Mess Award!” The leading candidates are *checks notes* the US government’s tech tariffs and Microsoft’s massive batch of layoffs. If you think there is a better candidate, feel free to join their conversation!
You Are Here: Travelling the Globe in Geoguessr (By: @gamer_152)
What is the appeal or “game juice” in travelling the world through Geoguessr? Is there a science to this viral sensation and what sorts of skills and inductive reasoning can you actually practice from playing it? Those questions and more are at the center of Gamer_152’s blogs this week.
Game OVA Season 4: Episode 3 — Sonic Soldier Borgman +
Indie Game of the Week 427: Mouthwashing (By: @mento)
It’s time for another retro anime OVA-to-video game retrospective with Moderator Mento and this time they looked at Cyborg Hunter/Sonic Soldier Borgman (Chou-on Senshi Borgman)! If like me, you had never heard of this IP, then this is a highly educational read.
The Early Evolution of Sound and Music in Video Games: 1991 (By: @alianger)
alianger is back talking about the long and interesting evolution of video game music and this time they have an extensive write-up about the major developments in sound design and video game music from 1991! Whether it be Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time or Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge, read all about the titles and figures from that year that shaped how games sound today!
Discussion Threads
Can Nintendo just have a normal week that isn’t super anti-consumer for once?
Nintendo Gonna Nintendo: Switch 1 Game Vouchers Are Ending On January 30th, 2026 (By: @zombiepie)
Nintendo revealed that their Game Voucher program for the Switch 1 will be discontinuing on January 30th 2026. That means one of the few way to reliably buy Switch games not at MSRP is going away with no known replacement for the foreseeable future. Any thoughts about this news?
Thoughts About Disney Remakes (By: @loloy0101)
Inspired by none other than Mike and his brother, we have a discussion thread debating the best Disney Remakes the past ten years. Are there any live action remakes you don’t mind watching or don’t think are as bad as other claim?
What’s With All The Negativity Surrounding The Switch 2? (By: @topcyclist)
Has anyone else noticed a shift towards negative discourse surrounding the Nintendo Switch 2? Do you blame the jump in game price, stock issues, used game policies, or something else for people becoming more sour about the Switch 2 and is this something more games can resolve?
Do you stan any of these Disney remake movies?
Hot Take Prediction Thread Second Half Of 2025 Edition (By: @treethan)
We officially have less than half of the year left, so, with that in mind, what are your HOT TAKE PREDICTIONS for the rest of 2025? Are you still holding out on a game announcement that still isn’t confirmed for 2025? Are there any future 2025 release you think wont pan out? Share away with your fellow community members in the thread above!
Krafton Just Fired The Senior Leads Of Unknown Worlds And Replaced Them With The CEO For The Callisto Protocol Studio(By: @zombiepie)
It might be a news item from last week, but considering how many updates have hit since news first broke, it seemed apt to re-promote our thread discussing Krafton firing the co-founders behind Unknown Worlds. With the game being delayed to 2026, Krafton accused of using shady tactics to avoid a payout, and Unknown World’s former co-founders now suing Krafton for defamation, is this rising as a Hottest Mess candidate?
Who would have predicted that Subnautica 2 would be one of the messier game developments of 2025?
Blight Club Games Wishlist (By: @xmarty97)
Looks like Dan’s hilarious incarnation of Blight Club featuring Pimp My Ride has people in the community mulling over other Blight Club candidates from that era! Are there any 360/PS3 games or games from genres not represented in Blight Club thus far worth consideration? Share your ideas as well!
Lists
Are you up for the task of making a list of 100 games you think are the best of the 21st Century?
Most Nostalgic Games For Me (By: @odysseyrpg)
While reviewing the results of Giant Bomb’s Best Games of the 21st Century, OdysseyRPG couldn’t help but think about the games they are most nostalgic about and turned that very idea into a list! When you reviewed the results of Giant Bomb’s competition, did you rekindle your nostalgia for any games?
Tearhead’s Top 100 Games of the Century (By: @tearhead)
tearhead also took to Giant Bomb in response to its “Top 100 Games of the 21st Century” results and decided to tackle the heavy task of filling out a complete 100-game list of what they think are the century’s best! Do any of you feel up to the challenge of making a list of 100 games you think are the best of the 21st century?
Reviews
How can one mess up Strider’s formula? Read danryback’s review this week to find out!
@danryback‘s has a retro game review of Strider Returns: Journey from Darkness! Read why they think it’s be one of the most disappointing video game sequels ever while they share their befuddlement with how it ruined the Strider formula.
Wiki Of The Week
If you don’t like the name, blame Mento and not Marino or I. This is on him.
So, we here in the Giant Bomb Wiki Moderation Team heard all of you HATED the term “Metroidbrania.” As a result, we (i.e., Mento) have decided to use the term “Research Action” to describe or categorize games like Blue Prince, The Witness, or Antichamber that stymie progress via the collection of knowledge rather than via items or equipment scattered around a map you need to pick up. Do you love or hate this alternative term? Share away!
