1961

I’m not sure, honestly. There were times I actually had difficulty understanding what he was saying because he seemed to be swearing more than not.

1962

WARNING: POST CONTAINS PERSONA 4 SPOILERS, SORT OF.

Now that I’m caught up on the ER, I’m totally with Jon here. Charlie asks Chie to be his girlfriend, she accepts, and then it never comes up again. Sure, now Chie’s got better stats, whatever. It’s pretty stupid that it doesn’t result in any different dialogs from Chie, or her mentioning it to anyone else, or it coming up at the summer festival. Which itself was a goddam waste of time. An unskippable fifteen minute sequence just so we can see what a douchebag Teddie is? I’m with Vinny. Kill that bear.

The whole dating sim thing really does seem to be wholly removed from every other aspect of the game except to get the S-links up for Persona mashing. It doesn’t even carry over into the story parts of the game which, despite my earlier interest, are so JRPG I guess I never need to play it. I mean, it’s not like my playthrough will be at all different from Vinny and Jeff’s.

So we’ve got Charlie who is only making friends with people for one reason. To get his S-links up. It even says ‘Rise is of the Lovers arcana. Since you have the Persona Tomchick you might get along well with her.’ suggesting that the only reason to spend time with anyone is to up your stats. The guy’s a sociopath. It boggles my mind that he’s got so many people dedicated to him when he’s got less personality than Gordon Freeman.

The only ending I think I could possibly be satisfied with is it turning out that Charlie is his own shadow, which is why he can enter the TV world unharmed. He’s come into the real world to gather together enough S-links that he can conquer all of the Personas, making him a living god. He’ll then break open the TVs and unleash shadows on the real world, where he will rule as the living embodiment of all Personas.

The final battle is you playing as Chie, Kanji, Teddie, Yosuke, Naoto and Yuki-chan to defeat Charlie. It’s all very trippy.

…anyway, uh, back to actual podcasts.

Listen Up, that show isn’t worth downloading anymore, what what?

1963

I haven’t listened to it yet, but if it’s Scott Sharkey you’re talking about then yes, he does hate everything that everyone else likes. What I find annoying about the guy is that he doesn’t let ignorance on a topic stop him from commenting about it, usually in a negative way.

1964

Scott Sharkey is the hipster douchebag of video games. I don’t know how much of it is an act and how much of it is genuine, though. That certainly is the character he plays on podcasts. If you can laugh at that - and a great deal of my laughing is actually AT his various and sundry varieties of ignorant hate speech - he’s okay. Otherwise, he’ll probably make you want to stab your eardrums with rusty hatpins.

1965

Hipster douchebag is a good way to put it. I’ve said this before, but watching him smoke during his 1upShow appearances sort of told me all I needed to know about the guy. He smokes like someone that just does it to look cool as opposed to someone that really wants lung cancer. He puffs and blows with no inhale of toxic fumes at all. He looks like one of those assholes that only “smokes” when he’s plastered and then starts bumming cigarettes from people.

1966

In defense of Scott Sharkey I usually like is podcast appearances in retronauts and like to ear him talk about indie games and read the freeloader blog, also at GDC he did a podcast with indie developers that I liked. That being said I found this appearance on Listen Up was very bad, besides the swearing that was over the top even for him the most annoying was the constant interruptions when others were talking, it’s very important in a podcast that people know when to stop and listen so the conversation is fluid to the listener and there isn’t constant overlap. I don’t know if he was drunk or something but a very unfortunate appearance. But I hope he comes back in the future for a more and redeems himself. In fact on the 4th chair issue they should just keep it changing and don’t commit on anyone in particular

1967

My understanding of 1UpYours/ListenUp is that everybody is always drunk.

And I honestly don’t hate the guy. I listen to Good Grief in large part because he’s on it. But you have to admit that he basically plays that one guy you know that the blog Stuff White People Like is basically about. Except that he’s so hip that he rejects all that hip stuff and embraces edgy things like smoking. You know - the sort of guy that would only listen to low-fi music and only see independent films about gay cowboys eating pudding not because he likes CDs that sound like a tin guitar shop getting run over by a bulldozer, or even because he likes pudding OR gay cowboys, but because they contribute to raising his perceived coolness stat.

Now, that is so precisely what he does on podcasts that I have to think that he’s doing at least some of it as an act. If I had to guess, I’d say that he and I would probably get along all right so long as he doesn’t punch me in the face for no good reason (which he always kind of looked like he might do), but I can definitely understand how his general Self-Conscious Ironic Indie Aura would irritate some people.

1968

If you don’t like him, you don’t like him no need to make up stuff to put him down. I don’t know him but I did ear a podcast where he talked about this issue of smoking where, has you did here, forum posters accused him of smoking in video for looking cool, apparently we are back to 70’s and 80’s, the reason is quite simple is nervous on camera and has any smoker cant tell you smoking is something they do when there nervous, a quite simple explanation. I certainly can understand that, not the smoking because I don’t smoke, but appearing on camera would make me very nervous.

1969

…only wear black, because it’s easier to seem interesting than to be interesting?

1970

Were you guys all bullied at school by people with nicer clothes than you or something? Christ.

Though yeah, while I agree with him fairly often when he’s on the podcast the swearing in the latest one was ridiculous. I don’t mind swearing if it accentuates emotion or whatever, but this wasn’t that.

1971

I didn’t make anything up. It is what it is. I only pointed out the way he smokes as a good analogy for how I perceive his whole personality to be, at least as much of it as I can see via his many podcast and 1upShow appearances.

1972

Insulting us seems like an odd tactic to take. I mean, have any of us insulted you for liking Sharkey? Have any of us suggested that perhaps you like him too much and you wish you had Sharkey babies? Or maybe a mouth full of Sharkey? That you wish there were two Sharkeys and you could be at the center of a Sharkey sandwich?

No, we haven’t, because we’re keeping the tone elevated. I swear, sometimes the internet just lets you down.

1973

I wear black on the outside, because black is how I feel on the inside.

Re: Sharkey: That was painful. It’s not so much that I care that he’s negative, more that he’s negative over seemingly arbitrary things. He’s the alexlitel of 1up.

He reminds me of how David Cross described working with Bob Oedenkirk during the Mr. Show days, where the rest of the staff was convinced that Bob had a wheel in his office with random things written on it - “cats”, or “sequins”, or “public transport” - and then he’d throw a dart at the wheel and that’s what he was going to be pissed off at for the rest of the day.

1974

I’m not insulting you, I’m insulting your tone. Ironically enough!

Well, not your tone. But still.

Honestly, you think accusing a guy of only smoking to look cool or presuming he has no thoughts of his own is keeping the tone elevated? Because to me, it seems like the same insecurity that leads people to use words like ‘hipster’ in the first place. If some guy wants to think he’s cool, you don’t need to be all ‘WOW THAT GUY THINKS HE’S REALLY COOL, WHAT A LOSER’.

You could, however, just say that he has sub-par speaking skills for a podcast, which would be both more constructive and based on something that we actually have evidence for. You don’t like the guy’s taste in games? Fine, talk about why you think he’s wrong, rather than saying he’s just trying to be quirky like an indie kid. That’s about as strong an argument as said indie kid saying you’ve all been suckered by the major labels.

I’m sure you weren’t really bullied at school.

1975

Naw, he’s pretty much that guy.

The passionate disinterest soaking his videos is exactly what I don’t want out of an enthusiast.

1976

I’m totally the black-wearing shitty-smoking cig-stealing hipster-twat stereotype Steve’s mocking.

Can I take offense?

KG

1977

I like Scott Sharkey, you take his opinions with a grain of salt, you go in and listen to him talk and you know that 75% of what he is saying is BS. I dunno, I get a kick out of people like him. I think they are funny.

That being said, I haven’t listened to the 1up yours yet, so I don’t know about this particular case.

1978

Yeah, I mean I only called people on this because I have impeccable hair and jeans to die for.

1979

Bu…but I like you Kieron. I took you up on your sex offer in another thread, remember?

1980

I normally don’t have a problem with Sharkey, but the latest Listen Up is ridiculous. I don’t know if he was having a bad day or something, but it was nearly constant cursing and lots of talking over other people.

Listen Up needs to institute a limit on the amount of drinking. I don’t know if he was drunk, but I got that vibe from him and we’ve seen in recent months how excessive drinking can derail an otherwise decent podcast.