This man gets PAID to talk to about videogames

[BRP]

http://podcast.the1upnetwork.com/fla.../LUP040309.mp3

Skip to to 39:30-52. Stop when they finally tell him to shut up/end his turn(like after 10 mins). I wouldn't suggest listening to anything more.

All of these assholes have a very distorted view, but he is by far the most amusing.

[Bootsy Collins]

Nice

http://www.splendicity.com/shoeblitz...-dona-boot.jpg

[Day]

These boots are made for faggots

[BRP]

I can't think of any good podcasts for ANYTHING.

[Colenzo]

These boots are made for faggots

and thats just what they'll do

[Colenzo]

one of these days these boots are gonna, faggot all over you

[_chuchu]

lol

[Day]

that was implied in every boot post

[Ruuz]

I liked the LM-17 podcast. That was pretty funny.

[Tempyst]

I can't think of any good podcasts for ANYTHING.

jimmy pardo's podcast "never not funny" is really good if you're into stand up comedy, though only the first 20 minutes of each episode is free

Never Not Funny

but yeah most podcasts are atrocious

[Athas]

You don't have a girlfriend.

[BRP]

"I don't know if I can get my hands around this boner" was probably the only intentionally funny part out of the whole thing. To the podcast's credit it certainly isn't the funniest line.

[BRP]

Gaming journalism is one of the saddest fucking things out there.

To be honest I think all journalism is destined to suck at least a little, Journalist are people who think after they begin writing(or to say: think in order to write), they do not think long before they write. It would seem most do not think all. Just fucking robots regurgitating what the PR said and, if we are lucky, things they picked up(but do not understand) from experts on a message board or something.

Yes, I know this is a heavy generalization. (And I ain't hating on them as people - we all have our jobs)

What I am trying to get across is that I would trust someone like Sirlin writing about street fighter ( Game Design, Psychology, Flow, and Mastery - Blog - A Few Things About Street Fighter�4 ) because he thinks about it before writing comes into consideration. He started thinking about it decades ago. In contrast to that is the videogame journalist who writes about Street Fighter 4 because he has to in order to make money. Pick any damn SF4 review and measure the difference in their criticism. Need I say more?

Same could be said for the bloggers. Those who fancy themselves above/freer than/better than/etc professional journalist. They who write in order to stay relevant / constant / satisfy their ADD fanbase. One of the biggest tips of blogging is "Post often, everyday if possible" in order to keep people interested. This is no different than those who write for money.

The only thing I really seek out to read in the gaming press are reviews written by experts. So that means a fighter review written by a fighter expert like Sirlin. I would trust my gangsta faggot brother's opinion about Madden(if he could shape it into something comprehensible) before IGN because he plays Madden like a fucking beast of the apocalypse, not unlike Sirlin and SFII. And would you believe that the only time I found Dan Hsu interesting was when he was writing about Game Journalism itself? Wish I could say he wasn't a hypocrite.

Podcasts like I posted are only valuable for their comedy.


EDIT: stream of conscious rants are the best.

EDIT: this isn't a stream of conscious is it? whatever the fuck.

[BRP]

Jeff Gerstmann, Giant Bomb: I think that, for a good stretch of years there, there was something that could pass for the one correct, objective way to do this. When gaming itself was a niche, it seemed like everyone had much wider interests, genre-wise. Nowadays, just to give an example, my opinion on sports games is fairly useless because I haven't stayed current with the genre. Even if I happen to like the game, is my take on Madden NFL 09 meaningful to someone who's played the game every year for the past two decades? A review that starts out with "I don't normally like this kind of game, but boy, this one's great" doesn't serve the person that's likely to be the core audience for that review. I'm not even sure if that review serves anyone at all.

1. The message you have entered is too short. Please lengthen your message to at least 1 characters.

fucking forums, i just wanted to post a quote.

[Shiroikage]

Video game journalism is people who can't write interviewing people who can't talk for people who can't read.

[Charismatic]

Video game journalism is people who can't write interviewing people who can't talk for people who can't read.

Almost but not quite.
Video game journalism is *shit.

[Shiroikage]

Almost but not quite.
Video game journalism is *shit.

That's alright. That quote's not even about video game journalism.

[#686578]

You don't have a girlfriend.

Got his hand shot off in 'nam.

[BRP]

You can hate on the ones who don't take pride in their jobs yet supposedly love what they're doing. I won't knock you for that.

I don't think a lack of pride is always the problem. In fact a lot 'em put too much misplaced pride into it and that conjures up a bunch of bullshit in process. This pride makes them want to validate themselves in the face of movie, novel, etc critics. A lot of the artsy fartsy bullshit in the podcast is probably the result of that. That's not just bad though, it is funny bad!

I won't hate these guys...

If anyone draws my anger it is people like Morgan Webb. She comes on shows like Tyra's stupid little show and networks like (I think?) CNN being introduced as a "videogame expert." Good grief could she be any lower on that pyramid? My exposure to her began pretty late, but as far as I know she only got her position on X-Play because she was a pretty face idiot on Screensavers(RIP). Note: I like Adam Sessler fine.

Another group that pisses me off are the people who think non-experts are somehow better at explaining things to so-called "simple folk." An expert's insight is always more refined and useful(duh! right?). If what an expert writes doesn't interest you, then you are reading about the wrong genre/subgenre/series/etc. (Solution would be to take a step back and go a different route)

Everyone else can do SOMETHING right granted they are at least a little bit talented. I admit I am viciously critical of these people. Expertise must be thought as a spectrum. The farther from the middle you place on it the less or more useful your writing becomes. If expertise comes from effort and thought then pressure to spend less time is its enemy. And now I am pointlessly repeating myself.

It's nearly a blog entry, simply because he followed his passion and feelings more than anything else. He does lack some skill in terms of following proper grammatical and AP rules, but the spirit is there, and that's important.

Yeah, the same could be said for my forum rants like this one. I won't hold it against him, but like myself he is probably limiting his ability to get points across. It is probably a bigger deal in his case, I am just a lowly forum troll.

Now concerning his review: (which I haven't read previously)

Personally, I am neither for nor against spending time unlocking characters, but I'd rather...

This line bothered me because it is pretty indecisive. He nails it on the head why having to unlock characters would be a bad thing, so perhaps he should just say it is a bad thing.

Every attack moves at a certain speed...

...And similar efforts to explain the basics. I know he is probably trying to ease the information for people who don't understand, but he is doing it at the cost of the review's focus. Maybe such an explanation would be best suited else where(to be harsh: something like a wiki article.) The way I see it: people who would find this information useful already understand the genre 101 basics like frame rate. To contrast: his introduction to Trial mode is fair.

This is probably my biggest complaint. At least he isn't saying anything stupid.

I see that he also found the Sirlin write-up to be worth a read. It is too bad he didn't bring up more of those problems that would seem obvious to even casual players(like super vs ultra inputs.)

Everything he says that would be easier to grasp for people who don't understand fighters is dead-on. Example: Lobby problems. It makes me think he is purposefully lowering the quality of his writing for the more complex issues. I mean some of these are issues that even "simple" players will encounter.

That is my full criticism of his review. I wouldn't count him out, but this review doesn't have me in its audience(and I love the fightan'.)

EDIT: I do realize how blog-post-ish it is. I actually think he could probably do better.

EDIT: I don't mean to put too much importance on a complete explanation of details(like Sirlin's.) If that's how I come across I apologize. I do see stuff like 1-paragraph reviews working.

My issue here is the inclusion of useless detail. His complaint about difficult linkers is very useful, but could do without the explanation of frame-rate/recovery and trying to justify it. On the other hand he could have added useful information like just how difficult they are(1/60 of a second) if wanted to make his review more detailed. If he wanted to go further he could explain why that's a bad thing. At that point he will approaching Sirlin's write-up in terms of detail.

[BRP]

Also Kohan, I can't find the thread... but Last Remnant has some pretty badass songs(opening menu theme, "Finale", "One Step", and some others) that must be added to the TNL stream.

EDIT: Devil May Sly just came on. Now I got to go play Godhand, fuck.