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Published February 14, 2008

Hey kids, Happy Valentine’s Day!

Since I already celebrated with the lady last weekend, I’m free tonight to finish up my podcast blog! Here we go!

So now that I’ve covered the 1up podcasts I listen to, let’s talk a little bit about the IGN ones. Most of these casts are sorted into platform, which coincides with ign.com and their separate platform channels. What I really like about these podcasts though, is that everyone that appears on them is very non-biased towards other systems, and pretty much tell it like it is, despite what you might think. Greg Miller from the Playstation channel didn’t buy a system till a few weeks ago, because he didn’t think it was worth it. Hillary Goldstein from the 360 channel talked for about 20 minutes two weeks ago about why he thought the 360 was in pretty hot water, from an industry standpoint. And Matt Cassamasina has been on record talking about how he was very interested in joining the 360 channel during the first few days of the Wii. Overall, the podcasts are pretty good and everyone on here has a pretty great sense of humor. Let’s go into a little more depth:

IGN.com – Wii-k in Review with Matt Cassamasina and Mark Bozon – Probably my least favorite of all of IGN’s game podcasts, Wii-K in review is a 2-man show, with an occasional guest appearance like IGN.com’s Peer Schneider or the lovely Jessica Chobot. The format of the show is pretty simple – they go over a topic and then take questions at the end. For “technical reasons” they claim that the show can never run over an hour (or their computer will blow up or something), but basically it just seems to me that there’s so much else going on in the lives of these two that they never want to put in the extra effort past that 1 hour mark. They’re very frank about reader questions and the entire IGN rating system itself, which can be good…sometimes. Although the information on here is usually pretty quality, I can’t help but sense a very nonchalant and slightly arrogant attitude that screams “I’m doing what I’m doing and if you disagree, I don’t give a flying f*ck.” Luckily, I agree with the way they handle things.

IGN.com – Three Red Lights with Hillary Goldstein, Erik Brudvig, and Nate Ahearn the-jeff-bell.jpgThese guys are awesome. Although fans were pretty pissed at them going on a Lost tangent a few weeks ago, the Three Red Lights cast really knows how to make a podcast fun, yet still be very informative. They’ve done crazy things like calling their fans and prank calling other IGN members, and they start off each show by reading a list of red-ringed 360 owners from that past week and then taking a moment of silence. Another amazing item to note about this show is the fourth member, Jeff Bell, (The name of Microsoft’s corporate vice president), who in this case is simply a service bell named Jeff Bell, who gets rung every time someone says one of a few key phrases, or sounds like they’re plugging any kind of game, company or service. Absolutely worth listening to.

IGN.com – Podcast Beyond with Chris Roper, Greg Miller, Ryan clements and Jeff Haynes – This is probably my all around favorite podcast to listen to. These guys are very smart, get their points across quickly, and really really know how to have fun. I especially want to point out my favorite cast member, Greg Miller, whose energy on every show is just through-the-freaking-roof, and says so many crazy things you just can’t help but laugh. Plus, every segment on the show (The Roper Report, The IGN list of PSP and PS3 releases, and Topic of the Week) has its own little theme song, and every time someone says the word “beyond,” it gets shouted by every cast member on the show. It’s like listening to a podcast of Pee-wee’s Playhouse, but just overly incredible. The only downside of Podcast Beyond (BEYOND!…see, they have me doing it too.) is that the show is a little short, mainly because Chris Roper likes to cut out the “extra fluff.” That’s ok though, there’s plenty of fluff to keep me happy. Man I love these guys.

Player One Podcast with Chris Johnston, Greg Sewart and frequent guest splayer-one.jpgtar Phil Theobald – A cast of ex-EGM employees makes up Player One Podcast, which is usually a very straight-forward, almost quiet podcast. A few of the items that separate Player One from the rest of the crowd are 1.) They skype/channel in everyone from different parts of North America, and 2.) They have a “game club” every week, almost like a book club, except they all play a classic game available on current next-gen consoles that they discuss every week. While the discussion always involves a high degree of insulting each other, the opinions expressed here are usually very insightful. Rumble Pack friend Hargrada was mentioned on here two weeks ago, so I can’t dislike them, right? I seriously find their podcast very enjoyable, and love to hear their perspectives on items that, being about ten years younger, I have completely different opinions and memories about.

Well there ya have it folks! Those are the majority of podcasts that I listen to every week, please feel free to listen along and tell me what you think. All of them are available through itunes or through their respective websites, so take a listen!

Catch ya next week –

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