When my roommate snores, yes, I do.
Sorta left that part out.
Knowing a ton of non native English speakers, Chen did much better than I thought he would and thought he composed him adequately. He could’ve been interrupted many times by the other casters but wasn’t and they often went back to him for more discussion. His story about his online dating experience was pretty funny too.
I’ve been slow getting through the GiantBomb E3 podcasts, but I am through the portion of the first one where Jonathan Blow talks about some of the hurdles to getting a game onto XBLA. It was an interesting discussion for sure and I thought some of his gripes seemed a little petty, but by far the worst part was hearing him say “right?” after every sentence. Are you making a statement or asking a question? ARGH!
Fortunately, the third day Bombcast was blissfully awkwardness-free. No kind of tense arguing between an independent developer and the company that released his game for him. No wahjah as the rest of the room goes out of their way to include one guy (which is my biggest complaint there - I just felt embarrassed for him the entire time, and that dating story missed the joke in that that was not a prank - that was a crazy person). Just some dudes talking about stuff and enjoying each other’s company.
I’ve also picked up the Joystiq podcast on a tentative basis. I love Justin and Travis McElroy on their podcast (My Brother My Brother and Me), so I’ll give them a shot here. I remember dropping it at one point in the distant past because it made me want to smash things, but we’ll see.
I tend to develop hang-ups for these podcast personalities the more I listen, and I DID indeed notice the “right?” frequently dropped. I also get irritated by the intern on PC Gamer (Lucas) as his voice makes him sound, bored, arrogant, and douchey all at once. That’s not fair to him, he can’t help how he sounds when he talks, but it grates on my nerves nonetheless. I also don’t like Alex Nevarro for much the same reason, though in his case he sometimes actually IS bored, arrogant, and douchey. :)
Back when Jonathan Blow was doing the Braid podcast victory tour it was pretty unbearable. I liked hearing his perspective on things even though he tends to come off as a bit arrogant, but the constant, “right?” killed me.
I don’t listen to the PC Gamer podcast, but your description made me think of Arthur Gies waaaay back when I used to listen to RebelFM. Of course I think Gies not only sounded arrogant and douchey, but was a bit arrogant and douchey. I tend to like Alex Navarro, but I can see what you’re saying about the sound of his voice. His delivery tends to be a bit snide.
Taking a break from GiantBomb, I started listening to the Weekend Confirmed reunion spectacular. Luke Smith was his same old snide self. Honestly, is there anything in the world that makes that guy happy. Luke reminds me of Shawn Elliott in that they both appear to hate the industry they work in and the people that consume their products. I guess it’s tough lugging around so much genius, huh?
Weirdly, Garnett seemed to pickup on and mirror Luke’s dourness. His reaction to the Tomb Raider demo surprised me with its negativity. I think that game looks pretty cool and certainly was not deserving of the attitude he gave it.
Finally, I just got to John Davison’s take on Vita. His problem with it seems to be that it includes too much cool stuff. Huh? I’ll have to hear him out on that, I guess.
As one of those guys who’s always bitching and complaining about things that he theoretically likes, I’ll try to defend my position on it, I guess. Praising things is boring, rarely useful, and almost never entertaining, because drawing one’s attention to the things that were done right in a product where things were done wrong is probably less useful for making the next product better than explaining what it was that went wrong and how it might have been better. It’s also one hell of a lot funnier to rip on the things that got screwed up than it is to sit around and fellate a product that you really like, and that is the way that it feels in my head (I realize, of course, that there’s a pretty big excluded middle there, but not for me there isn’t). I think that this is probably the way that a lot of comedians experience the world - you reflexively see what’s wrong with things all the time, whether you want to or not. That would at least explain some of the utterly screwed up personal lives.
It doesn’t mean that you don’t love the thing that you’re beating with a length of pipe, though. Statler and Waldorf showed up every night and bitched the whole time, after all.
That’s not really what I’m talking about with those guys. It’s more of a deep seated disdain for videogames in general and the folks that play them. Which is fine except both of them derive their livings from the videogame industry. They appear to think they’re too smart and cool for videogames, which is weird for two guys that wrote about and now develop videogames.
Quaro
4129
Shawn hasn’t really podcasted since he started making games, but I recall him being positive and excited from time to time – about a crazy mod or whatever that was trying something completely new, or some indy zombie shooter or whatever.
Yeah, they periodically do Out of the Game and Elliott is pretty enthusiastic during that show if they talk about games at all. Luke Smith can’t even bee bothered to Skype in for that anymore. To Brian’s point, it’s super boring to hear Elliott talk on games because he never mentions any negatives now that he’s employed at Irrational. Picking apart the games themselves is great. It was the feeling I got from him and Luke Smith that they both thought they were somehow above it all (it all being games and gamers) that bugged me.
Actually, now that you mention it, Aurhter was on … IGN? That or Gamespy just late last week and I didn’t really like him much, but I can’t remember what he said to illicit such a reaction from me.
Part of it I think is that I have so many podcasts to listen to, I tend to more easily get annoyed when I dislike someone a little already and they start spouting shit I just don’t agree with, like pissing on a game I thought was fun or over-running someone that’s talking with their lame opinions, for example. Also, I’m getting old and cranky. ;)
Not liking a participant has gotten me to stop listening to a few podcasts over the years. Greg Miller and Jeff Haynes both drove me from IGN podcasts. Gies killed Rebel FM for me. Corey Banks made me quit Gamers With Jobs even though I quite liked everyone else on the podcast. Also, back when I listened to 1up podcasts I refused to listen to anything that featured Tina Sanchez.
LOL - Corey Banks drove me from GWJ too. Well, that and the way one of them drag out their “ehhhhhhh” when struggling for a word to say. I still listen on occasion, but it’s usually the last one I get to, which means I haven’t heard it in months. I still listen to Greg Miller and IGN though, sometimes those guys will legitimately crack me up.
Gies is now more frequently on Gamespy Debriefings, which annoys me a little sometimes, but he’s usually a good fit. I still love the show, and I especially liked their commentary on TMNT 2: The Secret of the Ooze. The commentary runs the whole length of the flick, and beats the hell out of RiffTrax.
As for IGN, Miller is definitely calmer than he used to be. Jeff Haynes is long gone.
It would be impossible for anybody to be an actively “bad” fit for the debriefings while Bromley and Bizzle are holding court. The thing about Gies that tends to rub people the wrong way is the fact that his inexplicable continuous monotone makes it sound like he’s physically wiping his ass on any and every subject he takes up. Any time I hear him on the debriefings, he’s quickly shouted down by the other, noisier members of the crew, and since they never talk about games on that show anyway, it’s not like there’s anything to get terribly upset about, unless you really like Fazolli’s or Snob Hill or whatever it is they’re ripping on at the time.
Why is Chris Tilton a yearly fixture of Giant Bomb E3 now? I sort of find him boring.
I think he’s a friend of theirs. He’s also a very nice guy, and has pretty interesting thoughts on music/soundtracks (which is his profession).
Oh that’s a shame, I didn’t get that feeling from Shawn Elliot. As Quaro said he was excited from time to time, I would even say more than just from time to time. He would give Company of Heroes the love it deserved whenever he got the chance.
I thought he was pretty good even when he wasn’t criticizing something, he could explain in clear terms why something was cool. As an example, I remember the GFW podcast on Stalker, which was what sold me on the game.
I didn’t get that he hated the industry as a whole, just some things which were annoying, and usually rightly so (such as the gamification of everything, there was an excellent OOTG podcast on this).
Then again, there are a bunch of little things that can make a person seem unlikable or arrogant to one but not to another, so I get your point.
For my part, I usually get a feeling of pretentiousness from journalists or podcasters that try to be too serious about a subject. Not that there aren’t serious things to talk about in the industry, but sometimes they over analyze some subjects that don’t deserve being analyzed in so much detail.
It’s the feeling I get when some writers aggressively proclaim “VIDEO GAMES ARE ART” and start acting defensively even though no one attacked them.
The GFW radio conversations on the other hand felt more natural and sincere.
Me too. GWJ has developed a “B-Team” they rotate in every other week or so. It’s understandable as I’m sure the core crew is burnt out from doing weekly show for so long, but I usually delete those episodes straight away.
JM1
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Just started listening to the End-of-E3 episode.
Mitch was great last year with his entertainingly foul-mouthed rants - just on the right side of bearable - but Jason’s an excellent replacement. McMaster’s got a good sense of humour on him!
