Wooh! Will Smith and Norman Chan (formerly of Maximum PC and PC Gamer) joined the Giant Bomb podcast this week to talk about their new site, Tested.com. I am really missing those guys on the Maximum PC podcast, though. I guess to compensate for the loss, I will have to subscribe to Tested’s own cast.
Zune users! Submit the Tested.com podcast feed for inclusion in Zune Marketplace: http://www.tested.com/podcast-xml/
Open your Zune software. Go to Marketplace. Go to Podcasts. Click “submit a podcast” and enter the feed address.
Huh. So the lumberjack and the…the…the Norman made a site together. Interesting. I’ll have to check that out. Guess it’s about time to add all those new podcasts to my list.
They are both part of Whiskey Media, that provides the same backend for both sites. Tested is similar to GiantBomb, selected editorial content with lots of videos, check out the taking apart the IPad one. I think the editors have some ownership of site but I’m not sure, also I very rarely see ads on the sites so I wonder how longer they can keep that up, they are providing lots of video.
Wow, my ears must be defective–I always heard Norm’s last name as Chen.
It’s never sounded like Chen to me. I’m glad to have them in my podcast list; I didn’t realize what they were up to until this week, though my ears did prick up last week when Norm had a cameo on Giant Bomb.
I guess this sort of ignorance is inevitable when you only listen to podcasts and don’t read sites at all.
Kryten
3006
One of the tested.com guys (sorry, haven’t figured out the voices yet) casually dropped into the Bombcast that Gary Whitta will be on the tested.com podcast next week, so there’s that to look forward to. The Scrabble story was hilarious.
Admittedly, I never really go to most sites for the podcasts I listen to (other than Qt3 and Gamers with Jobs). Still, I think my misapprehension of the spelling may have a lot to do with what linguists call (I think) an assimilation of vowel sounds. It’s what leads people to write “bigger then” instead of “bigger than” without batting an eye. When I say then and than, (or Chen and Chan), the quality of the two vowels is quite different (the a being much more open), and in fact the “a” in Chan takes just a hair longer to say than the other vowel. I think in some parts of the country, this distinction is being lost with younger people (I’m 49). Similarly, some people pronounce “sale” and “sell” almost the same, so much so that one often sees that phenomenon manifest itself in writing as well (“blah blah blah for sell”).
Sweet, the Idle Thumbs talked about my website on their last podcast. Though I’m not quite sure what the hell they were talking about.
JZigish
3009
Hehe, yeah I heard that. But hey it sounded like steve liked it!
Garnett’s rather transparent effort to further ESPN-ize “Four Minute Warning” with a points system was ill-conceived. The gimmick only works when you can the persistent score on a screen to keep track of who’s winning. Besides, I liked FMW better when it was a special event and not a regular feature.
(But if we ARE going to score them, they all should have received a big fat zero for claiming the high point of the Star Wars flight sim games was X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter; TIE Fighter proper, X-Wing Alliance, and even Jump to Lightspeed were all vastly superior titles.)
I just finished the second Weekend Confirmed and the third is already out. Staying home to work one day last week really threw off my listening schedule. Speaking of Weekend Confirmed, Jeff Cannata is dreamy.
You might try Totally Rad Show, then, which is Cannata’s real show. They cover most stuff in the popular culture - movies, games, television, some comics, a different idiotic random segment each week that I skip through, and cetera. Full cast is Dan Trachtenberg (some failure-to-be at doing movies, judging by his interests and what he talks about), Cannata, and Alex Albrecht of DiggNation fame. I honestly can’t stand him on there, nor Trachtenberg, for reasons that I can’t put my finger on. I think he probably said something I disagreed with strongly the first time I saw him say anything and now shouting at the screen about how wrong he is whenever he says anything wrong is just what I do with that show now.
On the plus side, it makes folding the laundry every Monday more interesting.
I’ve watched TRS a couple of times. I always liked Cannata, but not really the other two guys, especially the blondish guy with the extremely douchey hair. I mean, unless he’s ironically trying to look like a douche, I don’t understand why he does that. I did think the segment where he got to go up with the Blue Angels was pretty cool though.
LMN8R
3014
Yeah, the “scoring” thing needs to go…other than that, another great podcast!
I’m curious though why people constantly bring up this idea that World of Warcraft should go to consoles. Outside of the exhorbitent issues they already discussed, they’re forgetting the tiny detail of financial benefit.
I mean, Billy’s argument for WoW on consoles is basically the exact reason why they wouldn’t do it - “I would switch to WoW on consoles and know a bunch of other people who would too!”. That’s the key right there - switch.
Why the hell would Blizzard invest millions of dollars and headaches porting a game when they wouldn’t have much chance to get a new audience? What’s the financial benefit when most people playing the console version would just be people who are already playing it on PC right now?
Agree that the points should go, but FMW works as a weekly event. Plus I like that they take questions from listeners and use them as points of discussion.
The X-Wing vs Tie Fighter debate will be decided when Lucasarts releases the series on Steam (I hope).
That would be Alex Albrecht, who kind of gets the joke and kind of doesn’t. His birthday gift was a large artistic portrait of himself looking stately, which he recognizes is funny, but I’m not sure he knows WHY it’s funny. Trachtenberg is the velcro-headed wannabe director that hosts all the movie segments and does a decent job and generally gets lots of stuff factually wrong all the rest of the time. He just irritates me on general principles. I assume he exudes some kind of phehormone that communicates over the web to the angry centers of my brain to try and convince me to throttle him. Cannata is mostly harmless - I just tend to get riled up whenever he tries to make a “Games As Art” case for anything, and it’s rare to hear him actually tee off on something he doesn’t like (which makes sense - pretty sure he picks the stuff they cover for that segment), and, just like the rest of them, I’ve caught him in factual inaccuracies and that bugs the everliving shit out of me. It’s possible that I’d like him better on his other podcast, which I have yet to add to the list because I am a bad and lazy person, but WILL get around to.
Enjoyed the latest Weekend Confirmed. Jeff Cannata is the only one who really rubs me the wrong way. He just seems like he kind of hates games. I mean he obviously doesn’t hate all games, but his comments about Just Cause 2 (specifically about the plot and dialogue) and other games being frustrating give me the impression that he only likes games that fit within a very specific set of parameters. By itself that’s fine but he doesn’t seem to realize that his taste in games isn’t everyone else’s taste in games. This is a problem with lots of people everywhere (including other podcasts), but Jeff seems to take it further than most.
kentdog
3018
(replies to multiple posts below)
I think the “Drunk with Power” scored section of Weekend Confirmed was a separate bit from the 4 Min Warning. I liked that it was something different, at least.
I think there would be a significant number of new players of WOW on the console(s). It’s just a wild guess, of course, but I wouldn’t be surprised if a large number of console owners don’t use their computers at all for gaming (mostly because the computer is for use by parents, or just for homework/internet?). I have no data to back that up, so it’s kind of pointless, but, hey, it’s the internet, what can I say?
They probably mentioned X-wing Vs. TIE fighter due to its multiplayer component, which I think would be a requirement for any new space flight game.
I’ve been a fan of the Totally Rad Show since its inception and I understand the complaints leveled here. Though I’m not sure how hair can be douchey.
I’m not sure what XenoCrash is saying about Jeff not realizing that his tastes aren’t everyones? Can you give an example of that (even from other podcasts, as you mention)? Personally, I like different takes on stuff. Though I definitely plan to check it out, I have the feeling I’m going to have the same issue with Just Cause 2, as my primary mode of play for most games is via the storyline/campaign. I rarely play games just to explore or mess around. I’m too dumb to come up with my own fun.
mtkafka
3019
kentdog
3020
Yes! Say what you want about Garnett being a great host, he is no Stewart Cheifet.
