Out of the Game is back after a lengthy hiatus. The first half is spent talking about the works of Malcolm Gladwell and his motion recent collection of essays, What the Dog Saw. Everyone seems to find his thought process engrossing, but N’Gai has a few bones to pick with his examples and execution of theories. If you haven’t read his work before, Outliers or The Tipping Point are great places to start.
The second half is much more chaotic with a huge range of topics. N’Gai talks about his approach to the SATs as a lad, and Jeff...
It’s a 3-man show this week with Jeff out for this one. Starting with movies, District 9 takes up good portion of the beginning of the show with Robert finally getting around to seeing it. The impressions are positive all-around with some misgivings about the buddy-flick nature of the last 1/3. Shawn predicts that this will turn into a trilogy.
The discussion stays in the realm of movies with the central topic turning towards special effects and CG versus practical executions. Uncharted 2 starts the game talk, but they are holding off the...
Jeff, Shawn, N’Gai and Robert are back together as what seems to be the regular Out of the Game crew now. Uncharted 2 reviews start off the discussion with Shawn especially disheartened by the ever-present problem of people getting worked up over and focusing on scores. Anthony’s GameSpy review exemplifies the core problem here, but Shawn also points out a post over at GameThirst.
Jeff’s game, MySim Agents, was released and 1UP happened to give it one of the worst scores from the press. Jeff has a few things to say and even calls...
The Beatles: Rock Band receives yet more talk at the beginning of this episode. With the whole crew being huge music fans you can easily guess that it has gone over extremely well. That is not to say that there isn’t a lot of thoughtful discussion going on here though with Shawn going into a pontification about how these types of games can/do affect brain development.
Leading out from the the Beatles the group touches on the Kurt Cobain/Guitar Hero 5 situation and this evolves into a discussion about revisionist history in games and other ...
It’s just Jeff, N’Gai and Shawn this week and it is a tight group. The guys touch on PAX stuff before moving onto TV shows that they love and try to get others to give a chance. The Wire is a universal mention and N’Gai talks about Oz and Deadwood with Jeff pushing Buffy The Vampire Slayer. If you haven’t watched Deadwood, you really are depriving yourself. N’Gai then tries to add 24 to the discussion as another good one, but Shawn is not buying it at all.
The conversation then turns to World of Warcraft and...
A discussion about Avatar, and the recently released trailer, starts this week’s episode. The reactions are mixed, but N’Gai goes into James Cameron’s filmography and points out how he is particularly adept at throwing in some social commentary that elevates the characters within his movies, so hopefully a lot of that just couldn’t be squeezed into the trailer.
The guys share some Shadow Complex impressions before getting into the big discussion about the recent issues involved with Orson Scott Card, his anti-gay rights...
No Robert or Luke this week, but Jeff, N’Gai and Shawn are here and they are touching on a whole myriad of topics. Almost all of the topics this week are centered around movies, and the Alien sequel with Ridley Scott returning to direct, has the group somewhat interested, but not convinced about its potential quality.
The discussion moves from sequels to remakes and back throughout the discussion. Games come up here as well, but the talk is spawned by news that Toy Story 3 is on the way. N’Gai has a good insight in Pixar when he...
The guys are finally back with another episode, but in typical fashion, it is not the full crew. We get Jeff, N’Gai and Shawn on this one so there is not too much to complain about. It will be nice to have Luke back soon though.
There is very little game talk here with the guys taking the first half to talk about recent current events. There are more than a few opinions about Michael Jackson and his recent demise.
Things do go into the gaming territory with some discussion about the general transition to the development side of things...
Out of the Game continues to be a fresh take on the gaming scene. Shawn is back talking about not going to E3 this year and what impact that had on his experience. N’Gai and Robert were at E3 and provide their views on being there and what changes the increasingly broadcasted nature of the show demand.
There is a lot more actual game talk on this episode when compared to previous podcasts. N’Gai is really feeling the potential of motion controls, especially Microsoft’s offering where Shawn and Robert aren’t quite as...
Thought provoking as always, the out of the game crew is back, but they are missing 2 key members this week, Shawn Elliot and Luke Smith. Jeff, N’Gai and Robert manage to hold their own and bring out some interesting discussion, especially going into the second half.
The topic of generation gaps come in with the fact that Jeff spends a lot of time hanging out with his teenage daughter. He talks about recently getting into the Buffy series and how he watches it with his wife and daughter. Robert points out that times seem to be changing...
Out of the Game may be missing Shawn Elliot and Robert Ashley this week, but that doesn’t mean it is any less thought provoking and chock-full of interesting pontifications.
The guys start out talk about disappointments in follow-ups to fan favorite series and how and why that happens. This is spurred by the fact that Star Trek has been successfully rebooted and leads into a discussion about the Star Wars prequels and Matrix series.
If you haven’t read the story over at Jeff’s blog, he had a moment of heroism on Saturday. As...
There is a lot of high level discussion going on here as is pretty usual with the Out of the Game crew. Shawn and N’Gai have been reading the book “How We Decide,” which is about how our brains work as it pertains to making decisions under different circumstances. They tie it into games as well so there is quite a lot of good stuff here.
One of thing this leads into is gaming and how attention and environment can affect our play. The observation is made that sometimes when you are in a context where you are somewhat distracted...
Today is another great day in the world of podcasts as we get another episode of Out of the Game. The whole podcast being based on a “what you have been consuming” concept is really intriguing. It could definitely not be, but with thoughtful, intelligent people like this on the podcast it breeds some brilliant discussion and insight.
The first segment starts out on the topic of food and eating habits growing up. It is something that many of us now in our 20s and 30s are getting a sense of in our own lives as separate from the norms...
The second episode of the newest gaming podcast on the block with a dream team of former editors and one freelancer is out and it’s even better than the first. Shawn Elliot has taken the reigns this time and the topics stick a lot closer to gaming since GDC has just wrapped up.
Since most of this group is now in game development in some manner almost everyone has something to say in regards to the events of the past week. OnLive gets discussed here and there are some pretty wide ranging takes. Everyone seems genuinely interested in seeing...
Wanted to get this out as soon as possible. The details of this new cast aren’t known, but this first episode has a stellar cast. Give it a listen. Will update with more information soon.
Update:
Let’s get this clear right up front: this podcast is not really about games. It’s a group of well-spoken, thoughtful people who were once in games journalism sharing and discussing their views.
The main topic starting off this one is how social networks have shaped how we interact and deal with others in our life. This leads...
