#4 What ever became of the likely (1UP) lads...

It's pretty common knowledge in gaming circles that 1UP got bought by UGO, coinciding with the end of the magazine EGM. Also a high proportion of the 1UP staff were laid off, and a consequence of that as far as the Podcast Reviews is concerned is the unfortunate death of many cherished podcasts that I held dear - also I'm annoyed that I wrote a huge post over the Christmas break concerning the 4 podcasts of theirs which, for the most part, are no longer about.

Fortunately, these 1UPers which I had so readily welcomed into my heart, would not go down without a fight, and they have now established new podcasts/shows and this post is a little look at them, passing on the links to help these guys out.

The guys, Philip Kollar and Nick Suttner, formerly of 1UP FM have started up a very similar audio-only podcast with the rather apt name Rebel.fm. Joining these two are Anthony Gallegos and Arthur Gies, resurrecting their old website eat-sleep-game.com.
The podcast takes a very similar form to the old 1UP FM podcast, they have a chat about what they've been playing, what reviews/articles they've written, very familiar ground. The episodes so far have centered on a particular topic e.g. storytelling in video games, one the initial discussion is got out of the way.

The Rebel.fm guys are also keeping up the tradition of the backlog, now branded the Rebel.FM Game Club. For those not familiar with the concept, the guys revisit an old game and have in-depth conversations about the game's mechanics, its impact etc more often than not spread over a number of weeks. The Game Club episodes are now being made separate, as opposed to tagged onto the end of the regular episodes - especially good if the look of a 2hour+ podcast is daunting.
Very recently Nick Suttner has landed a job at Sony and is leaving the podcast, which is a shame, I liked what he brought to the podcast so we'll see how that affects the dynamic and whether I will continue to subscribe...

The Geekbox (found over at geekbox.net) is an interesting podcast as it doesn't strictly cover just video games as such, and more often than not is a lot of geeky banter between friends over film, TV, comics, not to mention a fairly heavy coverage/thoughts over Lost. The geekbox features Ryan Scott who is joined by Karen Chu, Andrew Fitch, Greg Ford and Master Higgins, who owns the comic book store in which they record each week.
I've never checked out the Games for Windows podcast back in the 1UP days so I can't say if it's a huge departure - the general consensus is that these guys are sticking with the format that they know best. Whilst not strictly about video games, it's more of a geeky culture podcast so I'm very keen to keep on listening.


The 1UP Show was a weekly half-hour I very much looked forward to, an alternative and conversation-led look at the latest previews, releases etc.
Matt Chandronait and Ryan O’Donnell are continuing to put out a regular video offering in the form of a new show Co-op which can be found over at Area5.tv - the name being taken from their favourite level from Rez. Their new work can also be found over on YouTube and Vimeo - If you like what you see then please subscribe/show your love on these sites too as it's all helping their exposure.
This was the last of the rebirths to happen, obviously bogged down with the logistics of sorting out their own recording equipment and editing hardware + software but it's finally here, they're a couple of episodes in and as long as they have a funny short-story running through each episode, just like the 1UP Show, then I'm a happy boy - the latest had Ryan's valentine plans spoiled by the other guys taking up space in their place with all the recording and editing, I laughed a lot.
These guys also mentioned a possible charge for a HD version so it'll be interested to see how that develops.

I guess the most important thing is if you a gamer then check out these new offerings - they need your support as at the moment, so digg, subscribe etc if you like what they do - they're pretty much winging it off people's kind donations. I'm not saying that I will endorse these podcasts blindly, but a lot of the familiar names and faces that I've come to love and admire are still at the helm, so there's some reassurance that they intend to keep the quality up. Plus, at the moment, there's a lot of cross-pollination going on, with a lot of these guys guesting in each other podcasts - it's one big family!