iTunes Store Reviews

[Tim Spaeth]

I hate to be the kind of podcast producer that begs his forum members to rate and review his own show on iTunes, but we're 20 episodes in and we've nary a review on iTunes. Soooo...here I am.

Let's not call it "begging" though. Imploring? Urging? Desperately crying out for attention?

Here's the deal: If any of you subscribe to the show via iTunes and can spare five minutes to submit a review, we'd REALLY appreciate it. As we start promoting the show to a wider audience, it would be very helpful for prospective listeners to see that yes, other people do listen to the show, and yes, they are choosing to listen and are not being held captive in a cabin somewhere and forced to listen against their will.

I'm NOT asking you to automatically give us a beaming five-star review -- be honest, be critical, of course -- but it'd be great for the community to come out and support the show in a public venue outside this website.

Thanks very much for your love and support.

[eaps]

Happy to announce that I posted a 5 star review last night under the handle "TheRedX." (eaps was already taken).

I really enjoyed the latest podcast, especially the bit about how there is a lack of "creative" character designs. I agree that I'm less than inspired to be Drake or a big old bad guy with a gun with a chainsaw on it. I still play those games and they are fun, but they are a smaller part of my gaming diet because of the choices made by the developer to go down that path.

I think that if a developer wants to do an "everyman" character for us to play, at least give us good character creation tools so that we can put ourselves into the game more. KoToR is a great example where I had a character that basically looked like me and I felt like I went out and saved the galaxy. Godfather Blackhand was great too. There I was, with a pencil-thin moustache (a vast improvement over the real me), busting heads and extorting the butcher.

These generic characters serve a purpose, but I connected far more with the more whimsical characters that I've played. Playing as Manny in Grim Fandango? Awesome. Playing as a Katamari? Truly tranporting (no pun intended). For me, I love the whimsy.

As always, a great podcast.
Viel Glueck!

[Tim Spaeth]

Eaps, I appreciate it! Thanks much!!

[joetbd]

Stupid iTunes wants my credit card info before I can leave a review. And now I remember why I never made an iTunes account.

[Tim Spaeth]

Really? I had no idea you even had to have an account to leave a review. I guess they maintain just a bit of integrity that way. Well, I appreciate you trying, Joe.

[joetbd]

I've actually been poking around the site for a long time. But I never bothered joining or posting, because my past 15 years of experience with Internet forums has not been positive.

As for the podcast. I have listened to every gaming podcast I could find. And the Game Critics podcast is one of three, that did not eventually turn me off. Podcasts like giant bomb and drunken gamer are entertaining for a while. But eventually you've heard everything that they have to say.

Its like a listening to a morning radio shock jock. Some people find his shtick entertaining. But at a certain point, you know what he is going to say, before he says it.

[Chi Kong Lui]

Originally Posted by joetbd

As for the podcast. I have listened to every gaming podcast I could find. And the Game Critics podcast is one of three, that did not eventually turn me off. Podcasts like giant bomb and drunken gamer are entertaining for a while. But eventually you've heard everything that they have to say.

What are the other two that you still listen to? A Life Well Wasted is pretty interesting. I wouldn't necessarily call myself a fan, but he's doing stuff that's really different from what's out there.

Originally Posted by joetbd

Its like a listening to a morning radio shock jock. Some people find his shtick entertaining. But at a certain point, you know what he is going to say, before he says it.

I know what you mean. I use to listen to the Sherdog podcasts for my MMA fix pretty regularly, but the longer I listened, the more they started to annoy me.

I don't know if this is too local, but Z100 morning crew with Elvis Duran is really good. They talk the usual news smack, but they are just funny as hell. I think diversity among the panel is key and we're lucky in Tim, Mike, Brad and I have some wildly different tastes.

[joetbd]

Originally Posted by Chi Kong Lui

What are the other two that you still listen to?

Neither one is as "impressive" and artsy as A Life Well Wasted (which I did not include, because I dont really think of it as a regular podcast. In the same way Ken Burns Civil War series was not a regular TV show). But the shows I listen to regularly are kinda unique in their own way.

One is Retronauts. Every other podcast I can think of, off the top of my head, is all about what just came out. Retronauts is a bit too much about turn-based Japanese RPGs for my tastes (but they do it in such an adult way, I am not turned off when they talk about games I dont like). Aside from my JRPG aversion, its nice to look back and take the long view.

The other show is CagCast. The Cheap Ass Gamer podcast. It is the only weekly gaming show I listen to regularly. Its the only show Ive heard, where they play a ton of games but never pass themselves off as experts. Which is almost counterintuitive to the way the rest of the internet works.

Everyone that works at CAG has a day job. Listening to the podcast, I get the news, the new releases, and even rumor. But I dont have to put up with the ivory tower nerd rage.
The only claim to fame they ever bring up, is that they are the biggest gaming podcast, that is not backed by a larger parent company.

[joetbd]

PS- I dont like iTunes anyway.

I prefer direct downloads with RSS feeds.