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 important site-related news and best community creations from the previous week.
First and foremost, I want to thank all of you that streamed, donated, and tuned into the site's community streams last week for Extra Life. The community streams alone were able to raise $45,000; that's half of Giant Bomb's team goal entirely from you and this community! That's incredible! Nonetheless, it does seem like we have a couple of pages that still need your help nabbing their first donation, so, if you could do me a massive favor, check out the team page and send $2 to $5 to any page still looking for its first donation!
Now, I know some of you are curious about Giant Bomb's Extra Life programming for Extra Life now that the community streams are out of the way. At 1pm Central time, Dan, Grubb, Mike, Kayla, and Shawn will be broadcasting LIVE from Minnesota until late into the night! You can catch the action on Twitch and YouTube and site's efforts are encouraging all donations to make the team do ridiculous shenanigans be sent to Dan's Extra Life page. And of course, be prepared for unannounced guests to make things especially fun!
In terms of the site, Chuck is busy working away on the upcoming migration and this week announced that the beta site was open to all to at least check out! If this is your first time looking at the new site and you have input to share, drop a comment over here.
For those of you that watched Giant Bomb's talk over for the Super Mario Galaxy Movie Direct, you know that the video was impacted by copyright issues. It's luckily back up on YouTube if you missed it and want to listen to the staff's thoughts about the event and film in question.
And we will round this Spotlight off with another reminder about the upcoming site migration. For everyone logged in and reading this feature, you are in the clear about maintaining your usernames. What is important is communicating with everyone you know that might have moved on or have not used their site accounts in a while that they need to log into their Giant Bomb site accounts between now and the end of the year. If you really want to check to see if you're all squared away .
If after clicking this link, you get immediately re-directed to the homepage, that means there's nothing you need to do. You'll only see a disclaimer with a button to click if you haven't already opted into the account transfer process.
Extra Life 2025
- Staff/Site Extra Life Stream Details – 1 PM Central Time on YouTube & Twitch!
- Dan's Donation Page – When time comes to support Dan in all of his crazy shenanigans, this is where you should send them! He has a donation goal of $10,000! dan will be streaming on the 15th. Any and all donation incentives that Dan and company share or discuss during the stream should be sent here!
- Vincent Caravella's Donation Page – I don't know, this guy seems suspicious. He has a weird spaceman avatar and set their donation goal to be the same as Dan's I guess if you donated to his page it wouldn't be the end of the world. And before you ask, I don't know when Vinny plans to stream and what it will involve.
- Giant Bomb Extra Life Team Page – Extra Life doesn't wipe out pages until the start of 2026, so even if you can't stream during Game Day, if you do stream at all, please consider joining the team and seeing if you can get a few of your viewers to chip in a few dollars. Also, it would be great if every member on the team had at least one donation before the end of the year!
- My Team Captain Extra Life Page – If you have enjoyed the Community Spotlight feature or appreciated the hard work that went into curating all of the Extra Life community streams during Game Day, consider donating to my page.
Bluesky
https://bsky.app/profile/picklegiraffe.bsky.social/post/3m5edbp3dvc2g
https://bsky.app/profile/robert1988uk.bsky.social/post/3m5lrqgsvfk2h
https://bsky.app/profile/chucktowski.com/post/3m5ejhntxm22h
https://bsky.app/profile/lexluddy.xyz/post/3m5hhlzryz22t
Video
Raptor's Delight (COMPLETE Season 11) – An Animated Giant Bomb Blight Club Series (By: Pickle Giraffe)
Your long wait for a new edition of Giant Bomb Blight Club Animated is OVER! As always, huge props to Pickle Giraffe for making this and you can tell they put in a ton of effort into including even more references and jokes in the backgrounds. Honestly, see how many you can catch in this video!
Activities
The GB Album Club 104 – Tunnel Vision by Beach Bunny (Finale!) (By: @unclejam23)
It's time for the FINAL album for this season of the Giant Bomb Album of the Week Club! The group is rounding things off with a BANGER by listening to Tunnel Vision by Beach Bunny! However, if any of you are in the mood to be a part of a music listening club, now's the time to drop a comment to be part of the fun!
Keeper Is The 11th Game Of UGPGC Year 4. Mark All Spoilers. Finish By December 1st, 2025! (By: @bigsocrates)
It won by a landslide, but the next game pick for the Game of the Month Club is Keeper by Double Fine Productions, Inc.! Was the game worth the years of radio silence from Double Fine all of these years? Join the fun and join the conversation about the game over here!
Blogs
Hottest Mess 2025: Part 3 (The Final Candidates) (By: @allthedinos)
It's time to settle the final nominees for “Hottest Mess of 2025” for community voting! Share your nominees over here! Let's be real… it's Microsoft, riiiiiight??? Can you think of a single bigger hottest mess than the implosion of their hardware division and recurring studio closures this year?
The Year of the Linux Desktop… For Me Anyway (Part 2): Friendship Ended With CachyOS (By: @ben_h)
The past few months have cemented ben_h's decision to switch to Linux for everything, and not just gaming. But… let's talk about gaming on Linux. Somehow we live in a world/dimension where Microsoft's own video games games run better on Bazzite. Weird, right?
All Saturn Games In Order: August 1996 (Part 1) (By: @borgmaster)
borgmaster makes a glorious return to blogging with a rundown of half the games that released on the Sega Saturn in North America in August 1996! Yes… this is the blog where they talk about NiGHTS into Dreams…! It's honestly not that bad.
TMNT Rankings, Supplemental (By: @ford_dent)
Ford_Dent offers a fun “supplemental” to their rankings of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles video games. Shockingly, they announce they can no longer rank Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows as the “worst” TMNT game and instead offers Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan instead.
The Quest For The Worst Adventure Game Puzzle: The 11th Hour [Part 3] – The Microscope Puzzle Is Back, BAYBEE! (By: @zombiepie)
After a brief hiatus, ZombiePie is back and reviewing in meticulous detail every riddle and puzzle in The 11th Hour. This episode talks in depth about the game's reinterpretation of The 7th Guest's AWFUL microscope puzzle! Is it even worse in this game?
Moosey May Cry Part 3. (By: @mooseymcman)
After delving into the bottom of the barrel last week, it's time for MooseyMcMan's retrospective on the Devil May Cry franchise to jolt back to the stylish action combat you all know and love. That's right, it's time to talk about Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening. Does Moosey consider it a full return to form for the series? You'll have to read to find out!
Indie Game of the Week 445: Crypt Custodian (By: @mento)
For this edition of their “Indie Game of the Week” feature, Mento pens a review of Crypt Custodian! Read why they think it is the latest step in developer Kyle Thompson perfecting their craft and art aesthetic. Also how do you feel about the term “exploraction game?”
Discussion Threads
Valve Just Announced A new Steam Machine, Along With A New Steam Controller, And A VR Headset Called The Steam Frame (By: @ben_h)
There was big gaming hardware news this week, but it didn't come from Sony or Microsoft. Instead, it came from Valve. Get the details about the Steam Machine and their new VR headset and gaming controller in this thread and share your first impressions.
Whelp… Black Ops 7 Has AI Art Slop And Activision Is Standing By It (By: @zombiepie)
So, it finally happened! We finally got a AAA game where the developer, at least their creative directors, and publishers are standing by the use of Generative AI to make art assets in the game in question. For those unaware, Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 was called out for using AI art slop, and Activision is standing by it. This shit's never going to stop, is it?
Is There A Review Outlet Out There That Prioritizes Covering The Ownership And Longevity Of Games? (By: @gamelord12)
How are you all following which games get their servers pulled and when? What advice do you have for people concerned about ownership and data with online-only games? Is this a battle players can even win with Stop Killing Games still in its early phases?
What Should The NEW Endurance Run Game Be? (By: @doubledaddydan)
It's a topic that crops up every blue moon, but with the current staff reviving some legacy features, and this thread makes no promises, but if the new staff brought back the Endurance Run, what's a game from the past five to ten years you'd like to see them complete all the way?
BioWare Confirms They Are Actively Working On A New Mass Effect. They Only Have A Singular Teaser Image To Share (By: @zombiepie)
It was one of the more active discussion threads from last week, but this week it somewhat changed in topic. While last week the community was discussing the future of BioWare as a developer, this week they're talking about the viability of the Amazon series. As another user asked in the thread, if the TV show gets canned, is that it for the next Mass Effect?
Lists
2025 GOTY (By: @irishtuxedo)
GOTY 2025 (By: @silverelias)
Game of the Year 2025 (By: @smashsoul)
It's that time of the year again! It's time for everyone to whip up lists of their gaming highlights from the year! What are your favorite games from 2025 and for those that dabbled in the world of retro games, were there any classics that you rediscovered that were as good as the modern AAA releases in 2025?
Armoured (By: @modeofsadeness)
ModeOfSadeness is relatively new to the list-making game but is busy working on a list concept where they're trying to list out every single video game character that spends a majority of their in-game appearance wearing armor. If you can think of someone they missed, drop a comment!
User Reviews
@infantpipoc‘s Hades II review discusses why they couldn't help but consider it one of their gaming highlights of 2025 despite being largely cynical about the year in terms of video games.
Wiki Of The Week
It has since become a TITAN in the world of eSports, especially in Eastern Europe, but OG Counter Strike celebrated its 25th anniversary this month! As you grabble with that, don't forget to check out Giant Bomb's rad wiki page for the game which talks in depth about the game that started it all.
