#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!

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#3 ExtraLife Radio

It's been a long time since I put out a Podcast Review but I am obliged to cover Extralife Radio, not only because it is very awesome but I recently made a donation to the show. Making a donation means that your name gets read out at the top of the show, so I've posted a short clip from show #197 where the legendary Scott Johnson says my name- woah!

More after the jump...

I'll keep the review itself pretty short as it seems that the show is planning to end after episode 200 (technically one episode away, #199 was just released!). It's a big shame as it is a great show, one of the podcasts I really look forward to listening to.

But I've just realised I haven't mentioned what the show is about! OMG! At its essence, the show brings together three webcomics in a discussion over the week's "geek" news, whether that be recent film releases, video game previews, comic-related stuff etc. They include some personal stories as well, plus there's also a fair amount of banter thrown in too for good measure. The host is Scott Johnson of myextralife.com fame and he is the regular participant (as well as host, did I mention that?!), hence why he has lended the name to the radio show/podcast. The two other most regular appearances are from Brian from comicscoasttocoast.com and missiondeep.com and O(bsidian) from commissionedcomic.com. There are of course other guests on the shows, most notable Randy Jordan (aka Randy Deluxe) from the Instance (a WoW themed podcast which Scott also runs) who joins in to throw in his two cents usually about films as he's a massive film buff.

In short, it's a great show, more often than not released on a weekly basis, has a duration of just over a hour most times (although it can vary) which is great for my commutes. In addition to plugging the podcast, go check out their individual websites if you're into webcomics at all, it's very funny stuff. While initially I couldn't stand O at the start who always seems to cut across people and comes across as obnoxious; now I can fully appreciate what he brings to the table, plus more often than not he mixes it up to cause conflict and doesn't really mean a lot of it. That being said, I probably like O's comic the most. Scott's comic is what got me into the podcast and that was through his comic because of all the wow-themed comics he did many years ago when I was a World of Warcraft junkie (free at last!)

In conclusion, it's a fun, light-hearted show where three like-minded individuals come together to chat and joke about all stuff geeky which suits me down to the ground. I wholeheartedly recommend it!

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Podcast Review #2 Jonathan Ross

Continuing on my blog quest to highlight some of the great (and not so great) podcasts that I've checked out. Please take note of the Jonathan Ross podcast.
Now technically this isn't a podcast in the truest sense, it is actual just an cut-down version of his radio show on Radio 2 on Saturday mornings. Now this personally is great for me. I've been a fan of his talk show on BBC1 on Friday evenings since it came out, and always wanted to check out his radio show, but truth be told I'm not really much of a radio fan.

Now this podcast is only really for those who are already fans of Jonathan Ross, I can understand if some people are put off by his brash, vulgar and often sex-oriented humour. Myself I think it's great, cannot get enough of it. The best interviews he does are with people that are not afraid to poke fun at themselves, and often Jonathan Ross will overstep the line in terms of acceptable questioning. Now, the talk show concentrated on the interviews with his guests, it was a talk show after all, but he also did do small features, often a new product that has come out or a personal story from the previous week. The radio show itself has a fairer balance against the interviews so again I'm all in favour of that. From what I can tell, it is simply the music from the radio show which has been cut out and the rest has been left to form the podcast. This is really smart as I would not want to listen to music that doesn't interest me (most likely) just to reach some of the banter. Instead the podcast takes all the good bits from the radio show and concentrates it into a single offering. I imagine the Chris Moles podcast to be in a similar vein.

On the surface there isn't a lot to the show, a fair bit of banter between Ross and his co-host (whose name I forget), but thankfully his co-host doesn't talk that much. The other part of the show are the interviews with his guests and even though I'm unsure of who they are all the time, it still proves entertaining. I guess that's the crucial thing, it has to be entertaining, and in my opinion, Jonathan Ross delivers every week, I almost always find his anecdotes hilarious, warming, or the combination of the two.

The podcast itself clocks in at around 40mins so it's the perfect companion for a commute, you just have to make sure you're ok with seemingly bursting into laughter in public places. I wholeheartedly recommend it, Jonathan Ross never touches on potentially controversial subjects, it's all kept quite light and jovial. Go Check it out!

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Podcast Review #2 <br/>Jonathan Ross

Continuing on my blog quest to highlight some of the great (and not so great) podcasts that I've checked out. Please take note of the Jonathan Ross podcast.
Now technically this isn't a podcast in the truest sense, it is actual just an cut-down version of his radio show on Radio 2 on Saturday mornings. Now this personally is great for me. I've been a fan of his talk show on BBC1 on Friday evenings since it came out, and always wanted to check out his radio show, but truth be told I'm not really much of a radio fan.

Now this podcast is only really for those who are already fans of Jonathan Ross, I can understand if some people are put off by his brash, vulgar and often sex-oriented humour. Myself I think it's great, cannot get enough of it. The best interviews he does are with people that are not afraid to poke fun at themselves, and often Jonathan Ross will overstep the line in terms of acceptable questioning. Now, the talk show concentrated on the interviews with his guests, it was a talk show after all, but he also did do small features, often a new product that has come out or a personal story from the previous week. The radio show itself has a fairer balance against the interviews so again I'm all in favour of that. From what I can tell, it is simply the music from the radio show which has been cut out and the rest has been left to form the podcast. This is really smart as I would not want to listen to music that doesn't interest me (most likely) just to reach some of the banter. Instead the podcast takes all the good bits from the radio show and concentrates it into a single offering. I imagine the Chris Moles podcast to be in a similar vein.

On the surface there isn't a lot to the show, a fair bit of banter between Ross and his co-host (whose name I forget), but thankfully his co-host doesn't talk that much. The other part of the show are the interviews with his guests and even though I'm unsure of who they are all the time, it still proves entertaining. I guess that's the crucial thing, it has to be entertaining, and in my opinion, Jonathan Ross delivers every week, I almost always find his anecdotes hilarious, warming, or the combination of the two.

The podcast itself clocks in at around 40mins so it's the perfect companion for a commute, you just have to make sure you're ok with seemingly bursting into laughter in public places. I wholeheartedly recommend it, Jonathan Ross never touches on potentially controversial subjects, it's all kept quite light and jovial. Go Check it out!

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Podcast Review #1Diggnation

I've mentioned several times in the past that I've quite recently got into podcasts in a big way. Now podcasts come in two forms, audio only and video podcasts. Audio podcasts have been a great help on my lengthy commute to and from work, and the video podcasts offer an alternative to TV, and some (not all, unfortunately) are often just as, if not more entertaining than their counterpart shows. The real beauty with podcasts is that it's all free content! If you were sitting on the fence on whether to try these out then that should really sell it to you. I should be more vocal to appreciate the time and effort that goes into producing them.
An obvious place to start would be with the first few podcasts, the ones that got me hooked and enticed me to check out others. Looking back I'm tempted to say the first one would be Extra Life Radio, thanks to being a fan of Scott Johnson's comics and curiosity making me check the other stuff he's produced. I'll review that one later, but the first video podcast was of course Diggnation.

Again, it seems while visiting a site, curiosity tempted me to check out what else is going on around the site, so the question(s) should be: What is the Diggnation podcast all about?


It's probably best to start with a quick mention of Digg.com. For those not in the know, it's a site comprised of user-submitted stories where members will "digg" a story to increase it's value or rank (whichever makes more sense to you) and the highly valued stories make the frontpage. It's beginnings were based mainly with tech stories, but now pretty much anything will appear on the site. I have a Digg widget as part of the blog and I can be found on Digg at digg.com/users/Jimiminar. Anyways, it's a cool site and checking out the Podcast category of the site for highly rated podcasts and Diggnation pretty much tops the list. Now, Diggnation is a look at some of the week's highly rated user-submitted stories on the site Digg.com (that's D, i, double g, dot com). Now that's either an exact quote of the introduction at the top of every show or a very close para phrasal (is that a word?). It shows how much of the show I've watched.

Yeah, so what the show ultimately boils down to a video podcast of Kevin Rose (co-founder of Digg) and Alex Albrecht (Dude! What a legend) sitting on a couch with their laptops, having a chat over some stories they've picked from the last week, while usually having a beer or three. While that doesn't sound like much on the surface it just works in my opinion. At first, it's quite cool checking out what are predominantly tech and/or offbeat news, the banter the Alex and Kevin have are almost always funny and entertaining. What's even better is when they go off-topic and we get an insight into their lives, chatting about girls, online products/services or cool places to live/visit/go eat in the San Francisco area.

Now, I'm probably not doing the show justice but it's something I thoroughly enjoy and like all revision3 shows it is available in HD. The show clocks in at approximately an hour, so it's pretty cool to stick it on when I get back in from work. The duo go through a handful of stories, usually in the order of 5 or 6, and wrap up the show with a couple of emails. They usually feature one picture email (i.e. an email with a picture attached). Now the requirement to have the picture featured on the show is to either be a hot/cute laydee or be wearing a Diggnation tee (which I still need to sort out), or for the ultimate picture be a hot laydee wearing a Diggnation tee woah!

To sum up, Diggnation is a video podcast (available in HD) with an obvious tech/geek leaning. Now, the quality of the shows is pretty much dependent on the stories which are selected, so some shows can be better than others, but a high quality is maintained. I think the show hinges on the hosts as it is basically two guys sitting on a couch for an hour. Thankfully both Kevin and Alex are genuinely funny and entertaining, which ensures the show is the success it is. It's become as popular as it has for those very reasons. It's quite difficult to convince someone to go watch something and really enjoy it. I've given a gist of what the podcast is all about, although seeing is really believing and if the above sounds interesting, then check it out.

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