JM1
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They were enthusiastic… but in the same way that kids with half-formed ideas about “a game that would be really really cool” who post on Gamedev are enthusiastic.
Plus don’t tell me you didn’t want the Steam joke to die long before it did! :)
I have a lot of affection for the Jumping the Shark crew, so I’m willing to go along with their jokes. I thought the Steam thing was fine. I was smiling while listening to it. It was a lot better than last week’s Bombcast, that’s for sure.
Yeah, I bailed about 15 minutes in. I get that they were in a tight spot with only two available hosts, but it was really an off episode. At least it wasn’t another “So, how awesome is your game? So awesome.” guest lineup, though.
JM1
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I smiled too! But after the 32nd hour of the joke, it got a little thin :P
The GameSpy debriefings are dead. Long live The Comedy Button, which is basically all of them plus some dude from Destructoid that isn’t Jim Sterling, so I’ve never heard of him. They have a Kickstarter page and they already made their funding goal, and apparently there are incentives for giving them money, so there you go.
Oh, man. That name really implies a heavier focus on exactly what wore me out regarding that show.
You shouldn’t try to apply turbo to a comedy button.
The latest Three Moves Ahead episode was pretty great. It’s about Combat Mission, featuring Ken Levine.
LMN8R
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I’m really glad I got into the Giant Bombcast during their extensive E3 mania. Jonathon Blow’s candid flow of information and unfiltered appearances by other industry folk really made me nostalgic for old 1UP Yours episodes, and were interesting and entertaining in their own right. I’ve continue listening to all the episodes since then, and genuinely enjoy their humor and the format of the show.
Don’t know why I waited so long to get into it, I always had this image of them being stereotypical “dudebros”, but they’re definitely not that. And it’s also nice hearing Patrick Kleppick regularly, as well as others who actually enjoy playing PC games without spreading nonsense about them.
I’ve been listening to the Inside Kids podcast and I haven’t been enjoying it very much. They speak about a very limited range of games (listen to the latest episode and cringe as they discuss Starcraft, a game that none of the cast seems to have heard of) and they don’t bring much analysis to their discussions beyond “it was awesome” or “it sucked.” The female member of the cast is to be the most hardcore gamer (she’s mentioned Day of Defeat and Super Meat Boy at least), but it feels like the male host and guests shut many of her discussions down.
It feels like a lot of the other Nerdist podcasts I’ve listened to in that the cast is funny but it’s evident they have a very superficial knowledge of their topic. In the best gaming podcasts I’ve heard (Giant Bombcast and the HotSpot before it; GFW Radio; Idle Thumbs) the humor emerged from a deep knowledge of and appreciation for gaming.
They’re not technically dudebros, they just speak with much more of a broey tone compared to most podcasts. Which is also probably largely due to the host whatsisface …
They also have a greater focus on more-arcadey, less-cerebral material.
And they seem to use this filter which gives all of their voices an unnatural bass. Everyone sounds as though they are talking from their gut.
In the context of a gaming podcast, what do you guys mean when you refer to “dudebro”? Just curious, I’m not super familiar with the term?
It’s an invented category of person gamers have created to look down upon. I guess they’re supposed to be like frat guys who only play Call of Duty and Madden, or something like that? So, it’s a way of delineating between those who share your interest in games in an approved manner, and those who share your interest in games in an apparently puerile manner. But like I said, it’s basically meaningless classification.
I think the general perception of them is best expressed by the fact that they did an entire podcast to discuss the story of Modern Warfare 2 when it released. As soon as it released. They’re more mainstream than some of the snootier gamers, which I’m fine with, because if everybody spent every second of every podcast singing the praises of some indie game I’ve never heard of and will never play I’d probably get a little extremely bored. That’s what we have shows like Idle Thumbs for. Or had, I guess, but still, you get the point.
Also, this week’s Jumping the Shark is fun. I mean, Bill is wrong as hell, but it’s still fun. Like, super wrong. As in, I’ve always kind of wanted a site that scored their reviews on the basis of how much the game was worth spending for. And then maybe you could dynamically link to the sales pages for those games at sites that were selling it at or below your target price. That seems like a kind of cool idea to me. And now I will certainly never make it since I’ve told the internet about it, but, on the plus side, maybe somebody else will, since I was really probably never going to do it anyway.
They also did entire podcasts dedicated to other games, like Spore. I don’t get the dudebro allegation. Maybe because they seemed really laid back? Dunno.
I’d say it is mostly in the context of other gaming podcasts. I also think they had that tone much more in the beginning of the podcast than of late. They seem much more tired, lately. Which, in light of the fact that they almost never do a show under two hours, makes sense.
In the beginning they had much more of a shock jock/morning zoo radio show vibe. Probably mostly an influence of the host, and I think there’s still a hint of that, but they’ve settled down.
They’ve also worked out a better flow to the humorous moments, so those seem less forced, more comfortable than they had initially.
If the Giantbombcast were true dudebros, I think the podcast on MW2 would be entirely about the multiplayer. I’d be surprised if more than 1/3 of COD players complete the campaign.
A couple of episodes ago, they did a show where they responded to emails right from the start. I thought it was a good format, especially since it’s the off season.
Otagan
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The week after that, they put a GG button in the middle of the table and let anyone hit it at any time to prompt the reading of an email. A little underutilized, but it still made for some amusing moments.
Ah, okay, thanks for the clarifications, fellas! Fancy interweb jargan is fancy. :)
I’m super behind on my 'casts this week because of camping last weekend, I’ve got 5 or 6 waiting for me. Though I’ll probably skip Weekend Confirmed, it may be some time before I can stomach Garnett Lee again.
This week’s WC was better. They had much of the Diablo 3 RMT discussion they should have had last week.
