It’s a topic-packed show this week, but we still managed to keep it under 30 minutes.
This last week has been a big one for the games press and podcast sector with Garnett Lee leaving 1UP for GameFly Media, and John Davison selling What They Play to IGN and going over to GamePro. We take this opportunity to speculate on the future of 1UP podcasts and then turn to the state of games journalism and what this means for both Garnett and John in their new positions.
In games we start off by talking about New Super Mario Bros.Wii but get sidetracked by a discussion about our approaches to finding multiplayer gaming opportunities. Similarly, the Uncharted 2 talk ends up being a call-back to our discussion about previews from 2 weeks ago. The show closes out with quick mentions of Epic Mickey and Zombieland.
Thanks for listening and let us know what you think in the comments– we’re good listeners, we promise.
Covered games and topics: Garnett Lee goes to GameFly, John Davison goes to GamePro, New Super Mario Bros.Wii, starting multiplayer games, Uncharted 2 and previews, Epic Mickey, Zombieland
Runtime – 31:21
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I really appreciate this podcast. Your thoughts about game journalists being somewhat out of touch when it comes to multiplayer gaming were perfect. I love that you shine a light on some of the more entrenched aspects of video game journalism.
Jupstin – Hey, thanks for listening.
I think Jon makes a good point that it’s pretty easy to find the communities to play in if you’re willing to make a little effort; so I acknowledge that there’s more I can be doing. But there is something annoying when people dismiss public games completely since I, and I imagine large parts of the community, are completely reliant on them.
Then again, if I had the choice, I would also avoid 99% of the people on Live, too. So, there’s that…
Felt a little weird about making too many plugs on the episode, so I’ll do it here. Been getting in a few games with the guys from the Idle Thumbs forums, who all seem to have the same general sense of humor that I do. In fact, just today I’ll be joining in on their weekly GTA4 play session, which has been a ton of fun. The other place I’ve been using for playing some Firefight and trying to get achievements is TrueAchievements.com. They recently set up a system for creating gaming session that people can sign up to be a part of, which has allowed me to meet a handful of new people who play with similar sensibilities as mine.
When the reviews for New Super Mario Bros. on the Wii start coming out I’ll be interested to hear how much negative marks are given for the game lacking online multi-player. I’m a huge SMB fan and while I’m really looking forward to playing it I’m seriously irked over the lack of online functionality. I have zero friends in real life with which to play this but I have lots of friends online with whom I would like to play. The problem isn’t so much that I don’t have friends who like Mario in the real world, its mainly that I’m not in college anymore and its simply not possible for me to set up freaking play dates. Shame on Nintendo for being so stubborn.