Gaming Podcasts

I listen to Listen Up! (formerly 1up Yours!) and...that it's. I tried a couple others but they were annoying and/or terrible. I really like Garnett Lee* and John Davison.

*Even though he falls on the completely wrong side of the Guitar Hero/Rock Band war.

I listen to Giant Bombcast and Listen Up only, mostly because it's interesting personalities discussing the news of the week and telling stories and generally having a good time.

I used to LOVE Listen Up/1up Yours, but all this iPhone shit is really getting on my nerves. It is still the place to go for unofficial "official" confirmation on rumors (PSPGo! I'm looking at you). When Davison gets pissed, its fantastic. When they talk about the old days, Davison is fantastic. The guests (or recently, Sam Kennedy) are usually decent at worst. Garnett is such a tool, though, that it kinda takes me out of it. We get it, bro- you worked for Gamestop, and they're evil.

Can't get into Giant Bomb. I like Shoemaker and Gerstmann's opinions a lot, but the show just seems too stream-of-consciousness to me.

Garnett is the weak link, John is the strong link. Kind of an interesting dynamic.

I think it's mostly because Garnett is a big softie. I like that he's not Super Jaded Internerd all the time. It adds a good balance to pretty much everyone else.

David Ellis can be incredibly annoying.

Been a long time fan of the 1Up podcasts. I can't deal with IGN anymore.

Listen Up! is shit compared to what it was back around...Jesus, when the PS3 and Wii had just come out. I still listen to it every week, but that's mostly because a 2 1/2 hour long podcast fits into my weekend jogging schedule quite neatly. And at least Bettenhausen isn't there anymore. What an annoying, self-righteous cock.

Bombcast is fun. It's quite silly. I wasn't a fan of the personalities at first, but everything they do on the site, all the Endurance Runs and Quick Looks and around the office videos make them seem like people who play video games, not just assholes who get payed to complain about them.

RebelFM's Game Club is good, if only because it's excellent encouragement to get off your ass and play some forgotten gems. The main podcast is too long and fighty and amateur.

Mobcast is pretty good and quite different in format. It's Dan Hsu and (mostly) other former EGM/1Upers. It's 4/5 guys who each bring a single question and then they round table discuss it. No "what you've been playing," no news. It's quite a nice change of pace.

And, by far, the best video game podcast out there is A Life Well Wasted. Done like This American Life, but focused on video games and the culture around them, it's expertly edited by the very funny Robert Ashley. It's done about once a month and is quite worth it.

One that I am shocked is not really interesting is Out of the Game, which has several former GFW Live personalities and other quality voices on it but it's waaaaay to up it's own ass. Same with the video podcast Co-Op, made by the dudes who used to do the 1up Show and it has the exact same problems that show had. The game discussion segments are great. The "acting" and "comedy" and "story" bits suck massive amounts of dick.

I listen to the IGN Three Red Lights podcast occasionally, but it's not like they actually talk about games. That'd be ridiculous.

I listed primarily to Giant Bombcast, Gamers with Jobs' Conference Call, and Three Moves Ahead, which is strategy-focussed. All three of them are awesome

I forgot, I'm also a huge Halo mark so I listen to the Bungie Podcast whenever it's new.

Idle Thumbs is pretty good, as well as the aforementioned Giant Bombcast.

These are the two gaming podcasts/vidcasts that I keep up with. I actually like the regular RebelFM episodes as well as the Game Club ones, although I will admit that they love to get on pointless tangents a lot.

Co-Op is awesome. Sometimes the interstitial bits fall flat, and sometimes they are pretty great (for some reason I like the ones on food they've done a couple times). If I don't like the interstitials, I just skip to the next game coverage segment. I love the roundtable format they use when reviewing/discussing games. The reviews usually give a bunch of insight (often from different perspectives) that is different than what you get in all the written and video reviews from major sites like IGN, Gamespot, etc.

Speaking of reviews, I also like the video reviews from GameTrailers. They are usually very well done, standard-style reviews (complete with number score) that cover most of what you'd want to know about any particular game.

Edit: I forgot to add that A Life Well Wasted is great.

Gaming podcasts are what turned me off of Destructoid. Those are what made me realize that the people over there are immature idiots.

I download the 1UP podcast via RSS, but I rarely listen to it. Too long and rambling.

I'll have to check these out, they sound good. My biggest problem with most gaming podcasts is that they spend about an hour talking about what they've been playing. I don't care about that.

By far, my favorite gaming podcast is Broken Pixels, where three of the guys from 1Up sit around playing shitty games and ripping on them. It does have Bettenhausen, but I think Seanbaby makes up for him. They haven't made any new episodes since February though, so I think it may be dead.

Giant Bomb is fun, if a little too console-centric for my tastes. Idle Thumbs is also great if you can handle the silliness. It's more PC Gaming related which fits me great, too. Three Moves Ahead is good if you like strategy games. If you don't, you won't know what's going on half the time. And I too prefer Rebel FM's Game Club to their regular podcast. It's kind of fun having a timeframe in which to play a game.

I really enjoy the Penny Arcade podcast. Not the best place for actual gaming news but its always something entertaining to listen to. The biggest problem with them though is that the updates are pretty sporadic. Two weeks with six new ones and then three months with nothing.

I suppose I should throw out mine right here, but I'm not sure it's what you guys are looking for. www.burningewok.com We're on iTunes and Zune. We talk everything from movies, TV and video games. I think gaming is our most intensive thing, though... but we're fans. We aren't experts, and we don't have inside knowledge. It's basically a labor of love. We run a pretty clean cast, too. When LOST comes back on, we talk the hell out of that... so yeah, we're all over the place. Tonight's topic when record will be Gears of War 2 DLC, Call of Duty WAW, and Fallout 3 DLC... some of the stuff we talk about has been out a while, but we're looking for the audience that doesn't always get to every game right away (like us). For instance, we talked the hell out of Dead Space a few weeks ago. Our target is 30 or so dudes, with jobs, kids, and other responsibilities.

Other than that, I really enjoy 1UP, Rebel FM and Giant Bomb. I don't really need anything concise. I just like listening to people talk about the stuff I love with all the rambling nonsense included. If I didn't want that, I'd just read the sites. I know it's cool to be critical of EVERY fucking podcast out there, but really??? The all suck???

The problem - every one of these is about 75-85% similar to every other one. Because it's industry stuff, it's game site podcasts, everyone is talking about mostly the same games and mostly the same news. At that point, it has to become voice and personality. The reason I like the Bombcast (and Jcass, a year ago, I was in the same boat with you on your Bombcast feelings. But since then, I've visited their site quite often and enjoy the guys and the site much more and find the 'cast far more enjoyable.) is because it's 4 dudes that run the place. Yeah, there's an intern and some web guys, but that's it. So when they're talking, it's the guys from the site, it's the opinions and reviews and personalities that are that site, not just what some company has decided will be the voice for it.

IGN, Joystiq, Totally Rad Show and even, to a lesser extent, Idle Thumbs, RebelFM and Gamers With Jobs are difficult for me to listen to. They haven't risen above the "genericness" of the video game podcast. I don't necessarily agree with Jcass that they should all be like a radio show but they shouldn't all have nerd voice and all talk about the same goddamn things.

The CHUD Show is an excellent example on how a podcast can break the mold. Sure, it's a "movie" podcast, but there is no way in hell it's talking about the same stuff as a weekly "here's what we saw in theaters this weekend" podcast. It's weird and rambly and different and has (as long as Steve shows up) 3 distinct personalities and that is what separates it from your everyday shit.

And everyone should listen to A Life Well Wasted. Hey, look, the website.

I couldn't agree more with mediumdave's opinion of A Life Well Wasted. It's the best thing out there, by far... I just wish it was more often, but yeah... it's just one guy.

Where can I find Shawn or Jeff Green? I'm feeling nostalgic for the best gaming podcast ever, CGW.

It's not primarily gaming related but they're doing a semi-regular podcast called Out Of The Game along with N'Gai Croal, Luke Smith and Robert Ashley.

Holy fucking awesome. Why haven't I heard of that? That's all my favorite people.

Oh, and Jeff Green is now handling the official EA podcast. Give it a try, it's actually more fun than it sounds.

The reason you might not have heard about it is because so far...it ain't that great. It's mostly Shawn and N'Gai being up their own asses about stuff.

You know of GFW where Shawn would go on a total tangent and kinda talk down to the audience a bit? About how video games were gonna change the world and had touched him, not made him cry of course, that's for pussies and furries and people who enjoy Second Life, and how the structure of the where you bound the "crouch" key in an FPS in relation to the "fire" key said something about man's inhumanity to man. The guy who just went and told an epic tale of being a major dick (some say griefer, I say asshole) in some game and then told a story about ripping an epic shit off his high school roof? Yeah, it's mostly that bit where he goes on and on and on and on and then Robert Ashley is funny and Jeff Green says something.

Maybe if they were in the same room, but they're not. It's all Skyped in. And really twatty.

I take it you weren't a fan of GFW Radio too, then.

This. This is why I don't care for the "What I've been playing" stuff. It mostly just devolves into these guys (and sometimes girls) talking about what's happening in their lives, and I don't care about that. Maybe if I knew them, or if they explained a bit better.

MediumDave's point about the CHUD Show is dead on. Even when they're talking about something I know nothing about, I can find it out with a minimum of effort, and usually leads to a fairly entertaining movie. Most of the video game podcasts I've heard can take a page from them. Of course, I haven't tried Mobcast or A Life Well Wasted yet. Both of those are on my MP3 player now. Maybe they'll break the mold in the way I want.

Don't bother with Mega64, that podcast is fucking dull and irritating.

I actually loved GFW Radio. But I think that was because, ostensibly, it was Jeff Green's show. He was the GFW "boss." So while Shawn could have fun (and he mostly had fun on GFW. That's when I like him. When it's him and Robert Ashley and Anthony Giagos involved in shenanigans.) he still had someone to reign him in or, being in the same recording studio, give him a look that says, "OK, joker, let's let the other kids play." On Shawn's blog and Out of the Game, there is no guiding hand. So the stuff is mostly dominated by his video game pop philosophizing and I find that boring and, dare I say, pretentious. He just tries too hard to sound serious now that he makes video games instead of just playing them.

To his defense, he at least tries to speak somewhat differently about games and not stick to the 'here's what's coming out, here are the news, here are the videogame nerd jokes' thing most gaming podcasts do. But I can certainly see how too much of him might grate some people. He irritates me sometimes too.

You might even say he's more like Braid instead of like Portal as he's trying to be.

You know what? I would indeed say that. I mean, not out loud, in public or anything. But yeah. Good analogy.

I really like 'Out of the Game' so far, and last weeks talk about Andrew Ramsey (?) was mean spirited but really quite funny.

I still feel, at least when they were still making it, that Retronauts was the best gaming podcast out there. It was obviously about older games, but the hosts knew so much about the topic of discussion. Compare that to Destructoid's retro podcast, which is the exact opposite. Stay away from Destructoid podcasts at all costs.

Hrm, randomly stumbled upon a seemingly well-produced, This American Life type podcast called “A Life Well Wasted.” The opener was pretty good, about the death of EGM, brought back some memories at the very least:

http://alifewellwasted.com/2009/01/2...-death-of-egm/

I gotta say, I like that it doesn’t seem all that invested in talking about hot game X.

We've mentioned A Life Well Wasted a few times in this thread already. It is definitely worth listening to.

While that podcast is indeed great, I'm going to go out on a limb and guess you didn't read the thread.

ETA: Late on the draw.

Yeah, found the podcast, vaguely remembered the thread, and boom. But hey, there are worse reasons to foolishly bump a thread. ;-)

That podcast is so good (especially when compared to other gaming podcasts) that it's worth it. Imagine that, a guy who makes a podcast because he has something to say about videogames, instead of making one because he has to say something.

I haven't checked out all the good gaming podcasts mentioned in this thread, but the ones I'm familiar seem to have gotten even worse over the past few months to the point where they're accumulating in my iTunes folder unlistened. They're too long, the jokes are too inside baseball, and the topics only interest me sporadically. Although that's just a function of the subject matter-- if they talk about a sports game, no matter how entertaining it is I can't be bothered to pay attention.

Well, all of them except for G4TV's Feedback, which seems to be exactly what I want out of a weekly gaming podcast and seems to buck the trend.