Genre: Self-described geeks, video game enthusiast, "two guys"
Vibe: Radio show format, reductive, yelly
Sample iTunes review: "They seem like good guys, and they like games, but I can get that from anybody in my gaming group."
To begin this project, I committed myself to breaking my promise to never listen to another podcast with the word "geek" in its the name again. Unfortunately, Ryan Scott, former Games for Windows and Electronic Gaming Monthly editor, is taking his time publishing a second episode of The Geekbox. Cajoled into actually going outside to exercise on Sunday, I filled my shuffle with whatever looked vaguely interesting on iTunes. I'll get to the others eventually, but let's start with geek stuff, as I told myself I would.
Geeknights is an ambitious and long-running project. A self-described late-night show for geeks, the podcasters' goal is to create an original show four nights a week related to all things considered geeky. Their subjects are Science, Gaming, Comics/Anime, and they run a miscellaneous podcast at the end of the week. I've avoided it before, but couldn't remember why. I picked up an episode devoted to Fallout 3 and found out.
The last time I distanced myself from the word "geek", it was because I couldn't listen to a bunch of self-described geeks not know what they were talking about. And while it's clear from listening to just one episode that these guys have a wide breadth of esoteric and not particularly useful knowledge (definitively "geeky"), the same complaint applies here. They devote a large portion of their show to something that's a) no longer really that outside of popular culture--there were billboards up for Fallout 3 in major cities for months, and it was reviewed in the New York Times--and b) they are willfully reductive about it.
Here are the highlights of their Fallout 3 sucks argument:
- It is a role-playing game and not an action game (they refused to use the turn-based targeting system)
- They didn't understand the skill system (if you can't develop two alternative problem-solving skills by level 20, you're doing it wrong)
- There is downloadable content coming, and that's, like, charging more for stuff because they can (false: downloadable content is the only way publishers can keep players from selling their games to Gamestop or buying the game used, an excellent move in my opinion)
- 800 Microsoft points is the equivalent of $20 (the economy is not that bad yet)
- It's not like the other Fallouts, where you could keep playing after the end (falser: you could not, and you would have known this if you finished one)
- The other Fallouts were like Diablo but slow (you're just a bad person)
Or to put a less geeky spin on it, Geeknights Tuesdays is a prime example of why most people I know would never commit to doing a podcast. They're afraid they'd be this annoying. It's also why most people I know don't listen to them.
To be fair, I got the impression from this episode and their web page that perhaps videogames are not Geeknights' area of expertise. So I will catch up on a full week an report back. But until then, The Geekbox can't come soon enough.
