podcasts

lately i've been listening to some podcasts at work. it started when i tried out the penny arcade podcast, which i liked so much that i listened to every episode basically straight in a row. this is still my favorite podcast of all the ones i've checked out. it's basically just gabe and tycho talking about whatever for 1-2 hours, and somewhere in the middle they come up with the idea for the comic for the next day. i pretty much think they're some of the funniest people alive, so hearing them ramble on forever is just awesome. not to mention... the gratuitously flowery way that tycho writes his posts? yeah, he talks like that too. awesome.

Once i ran out of those (*sob*), I eventually looked around for some other sources. I tried the Major Nelson podcast, which was fine. I mean, it had content. in fact, it had content i wouldn't find in some of the podcasts i went to later, for example, an interview with one of the mass effect 2 developers. that's kind of cool. of course, this one is an official microsoft podcast of sorts, so you won't hear major nelson, e, etc. talking about the kinds of crazy things gabe and tycho do. not only that, the tone is way more businesslike (in comparison, i guess). each of the speakers goes around taking turns talking about various things with some discussion. they have "segments". you certainly won't hear them all bust up laughing and shouting for a minute straight over some absurd scenario. oh well.

don't get me wrong; i like major nelson fine. i think he's a big ol teddy bear.

Then I took a break for a while. Last week someone at work linked to the destructoid podcast, or "podtoid", as they call it. I initially listened specifically for a particular section, but ended up listening through the rest of it and liking it. Since then i've started listening from way back, and i'm continuing to like it. i like that it's way more informal than some other podcasts. i'm not sure what i think about here being 4-6 people on the air. sometimes it gets a bit out of hand. certainly if you can't tell them apart some of the jokes are lacking context (because they spend about a quarter of the time making fun of each other).

what I do like is that all of the speakers seem pretty intelligent. a lot of the show is one person sparking a discussion, then all the members going around discussing it for another half hour or something. i've heard several really good discussions on there. they also all have somewhat conflicting views and tastes, so it's not all of them just agreeing, which I tended to find in other places.

they have three sections of each podcast, mainly: game of the week; perhaps some topic; and listener questions. game of the week is each person talking about what they've been playing that week. usually this ends up getting into what they like and dislike about it, and what other members like and dislike about it. sometimes then they talk about some particular agreed-upon topic for a while, which can be good. then they answer reader questions, which again sparks more discussion.

they're usually insulting each other and laughing and hollering a lot. it seems to be a pretty fun time. when the sports dude starts talking about sports, i totally zone out, though. also, all i can imagine is kutner from house (warning: spoilers) whenever he's talking.

destructoid is part of the gamercast network, so i browsed there a little. i was curious what girls would talk about on these, so i tried the sarcastic gamer pink podcast. i listened for about 10 minutes before turning it off. i don't know if it would have gotten better after that, but I could not stand the incessant loopy giggling that permeated it.

i read game informer, so i had this wild and crazy idea that maybe they have a podast. indeed, they do. I checked that out too. I gotta say, it felt quite a bit like the major nelson podcast. is that how most podcasts are? again, it had kind of high quality content associated with it, which probably comes from being a very well established piece of gaming journalism. they were able to talk about halo reach and their various impressions, from visiting the bungie studios. good content, not as interesting tone. i rate the discussion aspects somewhere between MN and dtoid.

yeah, these are all gaming podcasts. i like games. what can i say?

on a tangential note, i really really hate it when i see a sign for "the best gaming around!" but oh wait, they're talking about gambling. sheesh.