Poll: Have the Game Grumps hit a slump?

[Professor Lupin Madblood]

In fact, earlier today I decided to give them another go. I searched through their more recent videos for a game I'm interested in (which is pretty rare now), and found that they started playing Bayonetta. Hooray, I thought. And within minutes, they're talking about irrelevant stuff and skipping all the cutscenes. Seriously, they skipped the intro cutscene for Bayonetta. Why would you do that? I dunno.

Yeah, the Bayonetta videos are some of their worst offenders. What struck me the most, though, was the tangential conversation they had about Metal Gear Rising, where this conversation took place:

Jon: "Yeah, I love Metal Gear Rising. It's so great."
Arin: "Yeah, me too. I always made a point of going back and doing the optional combat things because the combat was so enjoyable."
Jon: "Optional what?"
Arin: "Optional combat things. Sometimes you'd be going through an area, and Boris would pop up and say that there was this optional combat encounter you could do a little bit behind you if you wanted extra points and stuff."
Jon: "Oh, wow, I completely missed that. I must have just been mashing through it."

IF YOU LIKE THE GAME SO MUCH, WHY WOULD YOU MASH THROUGH ANY OF IT

GNGEGRNGRNNGNRNGNANANDSNGNSDFAJKSLDHFAKLSJHJKLENASFDGNRRRRRRRRRRRR

 

[Ieyke]

The Grumps themselves are the same. It's the games they're playing that are getting worse.

You can tell the quality of their episodes is based on the games they play, since they've occasionally gotten into a slump in the past with certain games.
Likewise, you can see their grumpin' quality dramatically improve recently as they randomly play games they're really into (Shovel Knight, Pocky & Rocky, Castlevania, Strider, You Don't Know Jack).

Sonic '06 is still their best series overall, but they've become largely jaded to the game's overall badness, so they spend a lot of time not even paying much attention to the game. That's fine with me, TBH. I love podcasts of interesting geeks just rambling about interesting random stuff and telling stories, and that's basically what Game Grumps becomes at the times when the Grumps aren't paying attention to the games they're playing.
That said, when Sonic '06 inevitably DOES throw the Grumps a MASSIVE curveball, it's almost invariably the funniest shit in the world - like when they had to fight Sonic as Silver and Arin went powercrazy with revenge. That was a joke with a set up that came 87 episodes before the punchline. We didn't see it coming, the Grumps didn't see it coming, and it was TOTALLY worth it.
I think that basically validated the ENTIRE game.
Truly, it is a Biblical-scale pilgrimage and test of their gaming mettle.



My ONLY complaints regarding Game Grumps are:
- They ignore the game's explanations of things crucial to understanding how to proceed faaaar too often....and then blame the game for being bad at being obvious. I understand that Arin wishes every game was as good at teaching as MegaMan X, but that game's a masterpiece, and the majority of games simply AREN'T that well made.
- Jon is terrible at something so simple as NOT repeating the same two exact button presses over and over and over and over and over and over to no avail, when simply pressing any of the other 6 buttons on the controller would suddenly reveal a whole panoply of other powers to facilitate progress.
- They're running out of games that make for good episodes. They need to branch out more often from just NES and SNES games, but they kinda rely on people sending them games for that...

 

[MASTACHIEFPWN]

It seems they totally abandoned their usual work, which was really good, for this. So yeah. Great.

They're constantly insisting that isn't the case, but... I mean, Pokeawesome 2 and Sequalitis Zelda have been "coming out soon" since, what, August? And if we make it through summer, we'll have had ONE Jontron in the past YEAR.

Can't say I blame them though. I mean, if you could make roughly the same money by either writing, filming/animating, and editing a 20 minute video or hanging out with your best friend playing video games, what would you do?

I'd like it if they took the summer off. Cool down a bit, work on their other stuff, come back fresh in the fall.

Jontron put another video out like a month ago or so.


OT: Ehh, it's been about the same, overall. I usually watch it for one offs, I have trouble getting into their longer series'. Even though I did watch sonic 06 up until they beat the main campaign, and got bored with it after that.

 

[PunkRex]

I'd argue they're about the same, its more of just a laugh for me, although I do wish they would talk more about the games they play... and maybe give newer games a try, although this is a complaint I have about the gaming community in general.

 

[Treaos Serrare]

I'm not sure about Jon but I know Arin does a lot of other shit besides grumps stuff and his own channel, I'm waiting very impatiently on detective grimorie (which arin stars in as a the voice of one of the characters).

they have been doing stuff on a lot of fairly obscure games and that is aggravating I really want them to continue the animal crossing series they started, and it would be really interesting if they did some PSone stuff like gallerians or silent hill

 

[Benpasko]

they have been doing stuff on a lot of fairly obscure games and that is aggravating I really want them to continue the animal crossing series they started, and it would be really interesting if they did some PSone stuff like gallerians or silent hill

Gallerians would go poorly. "What do these bars mean, this game is so unintuitive."
GG only really do well when playing a platformer.

 

[Crispee]

I like them personally, their enthusiasm for anything they talk about always interests me and their chemistry and occasional one liners never fail to make me smile despite the fact that they often sound like complete morons, which I don't believe they are.

I do concede they're in massive need of quality control though, I'll enjoy any episode, but I'll only rewatch it about half the time because that's generally the probability of something funny happening in my opinion. I think it would be preferred by a lot of people if they actually edited their videos to skip out the unfunny parts, though I suppose the unpredictability is both the main appeal and the main turn off.

A good portion of my Game Grumps enjoyment come from the fan-made Game Grumps Animated videos that I see all over the internet, where some intrepid viewers have found a funny moment within Game Grumps and matched it to some complimentary humorous visuals as opposed to some gameplay footage that might be irrelevant to what they're saying.

I find Game Grumps is completely impossible for me personally to hate or critique however, it feels more akin to insulting a friend for not entertaining you when you're hanging out rather objectively critiquing written or otherwise prepared comedy.

 

[Meatspinner]

i'm hoping egoraptor stops making game grumps so he can make his own videos and animations.

HOW LONG DO WE HAVE TO WAIT FOR SEQUELITIS FOR MGS 1 VS 2 WHY!

Well this came out yesterday so...

 

[Voulan]

The only time I get annoyed at them is if they go off topic from the game, which usually means they then don't know what to do and spend a good episode running about being confused. I get annoyed with any lets player that misses the obvious though. But I really wish they'd comment more on Sonic '06 instead of talking about random things. There's comedy gold there, and they're missing it all.

 

[Rednog]

I stopped watching them around November/December because their stuff just started turning into an endless regurgitation of their memes.
They were good in small bits, but once you've seen a few episodes it's pretty much the same damn thing over and over.

 

[Z of the Na'vi]

I stopped watching them a long time ago as well. I enjoy Egoraptor's material as well as JonTron's, but on their own separate channels.

I would much rather be actually playing games than watching them being played.

 

[DRTJR]

It has always been unfunny, and generally lacking in quality.

 

[Treaos Serrare]

they have been doing stuff on a lot of fairly obscure games and that is aggravating I really want them to continue the animal crossing series they started, and it would be really interesting if they did some PSone stuff like gallerians or silent hill

Gallerians would go poorly. "What do these bars mean, this game is so unintuitive."
GG only really do well when playing a platformer.

true they would probably complain but that game and the first SH have so many WTF moments in them it would be fun to see jon or arin freak out over them

 

[-Dragmire-]

I watched the Megaman 7 run and the few secret of mana eps but that's it. I want egoraptor to get into voice acting, he's a skilled artist but I think he's a better VA. The main reason I listened to game grumps was to hear him talk in character for whatever reason. The show wasn't that entertaining for me beyond that.

 

[Darren716]

I feel that they are getting too repetitive and they play the "pretending to be stupid" card far too often especially Jon since it seems Arin can't say a single thing with a word that has a double meaning without having Jon make some sort of drawn out joke about him thinking Arin meant the other meaning of the word ex. Arin's comment about digging Sonic's mech designs and Jon asking him if he used a shovel.

 

[uncanny474]

Barry is literally the only thing saving that show. He had me choking to death during the Donkey Kong episode of Nintendo Land, and he's been hilarious even in the recent episodes of Sonic '06.

I don't like Jontron, I like Egoraptor only as a game designer (I dislike that weird surrealist humor thing he does; no I don't know the name for it), so the only comedic talent there is Barry.

That said, I've seen almost every one of their episodes and the first episode of all but like two of their series. Honestly, though, that's more a testament to my overwhelming inability to do anything constructive than it is praise of the show. I'll watch until they finish Sonic '06 because I'm invested in them finishing. After that, I'm going to force myself to unsubscribe and spend time watching vids I actually enjoy.

 

[Neverhoodian]

I've been watching Grep on a regular basis since day one. I still find them funny for the most part.

For me, the Grumps are at their best when they're reacting to the games they're playing. However, they're starting to spend more time going off on unrelated tangents, practically ignoring what goes on in the game. I often find myself scratching my head thinking how in the world they could have possibly missed this or that crazy event that literally just occurred before their eyes.

This may be due to the possibility that the "newness" factor has worn off for both the Grumps and their viewers. I think Jon and Arin were still in "entertainer mode" during the early episodes when things were still new and uncertain, but now it's just part of their daily routine. Consequently, they've begun acting more like their normal selves outside of Youtube Land. Also, the viewers have become familiar with the general routine of the show as well, so it's become more difficult to elicit the same hilarity as before. Jokes tend to be funniest the first time around, after all.

Also, is it just me, or are they bringing up gross and unappetizing subjects more often? I like to eat dinner while watching episodes, but it can be difficult sometimes when they're talking about poop, jizz and "butt babies."

 

[jollybarracuda]

Nah, I think it's just because they aren't "new" on the scene anymore, so that initial burst of amazing has become a routine thing. Nothing wrong with it being routine, mind you. I doubt their channel would do well if they only released an episode a week, but it does mean that we come to expect Game Grumps episodes, which can sometimes be interpreted as them losing steam, when it's really just them becoming the norm.

So I think they're still as strong as ever, and I still get a good laugh out of their videos.

 

[Scarecrow]

I wouldn't say so. I know this is going to sound condescending or weak, but...I think the fans expect too much. They expect them to be Jon-Tron and Egoraptor from Sequilties, when really they are just...Jon and Arin. Also, the games they play are either extremely well known, in which case there is very little left to say about them, or so completely bizarre that nothing can be said.

Personally, I enjoy listening to them talk about their "normal" lives. It might just be the kind of person I am, but I just like listening to real stories and the like...plus they make it funny on their own. It's very funny, obviously...but in the way everybody seems to expect.

 

[Random Encounter]

I've been watching since it first aired and it seems like I'm just watching it out of habit now rather than because I enjoy the show. I don't know if it's worse now or if the novelty has just worn off but I've grown bored with it.