GameCritics.com Podcast Episode 1

Please post questions to be answered on-air in our future mailbag segment in the comments area here. You can also send questions to podcast (at) gamecritics (dot) com. Thank you.

no to drugs but yes to killing and prostitution? are you stupid? marijuana usage is not a bad thing. have you ever done marijuana? Let me guess, no. most closed minded review ever. and why the fuck are you so cheap? you need a job.

Video games should be reviewed as art instead of products, and in order to do that, reviewers need to not be worried about prices. that guy who reviewed saints row 2 (brad) is DEFINITELY a "should i buy this game or not" reviewer.

...I thought potheads were supposed to be mellow and laid back?

Hey guys!

Great podcast, since I listen to a lot of gaming podcasts I must say the tone of this one is a bit of a fresh air. A lot of your competitors have unfortunately adopted a less mature approach and focusing merely on the standard layout of gaming podcast that have evolved: What are we playing, news, a review or two, listener email..and also making them far too long to keep you interested and a lot of irrelevent nonsense and inside jokes.
I guess I appreciate a more roundtable-type discussion around gaming industry and going for more insightful perspectives and interesting topics. Serious gaming journalism and looking at it more like an artform than just entertainment is needed more than ever when the economic significance of gaming and the gaming industry is growing, relative to other forms of popular culture.

Anyway, just my thoughts, keep up the good work!

not being irrationally afraid of something does not make me a pothead newb

Brad, I was sorry to hear of your disappointment in SR2. Like you, I was underwhelmed by GTAIV, and found SR1 to be a game you could actually enjoy rather than endure. I'm finding SR2 to be an absolute blast. After about 15 hours of play, I still haven't wrapped my mind around how much content Volition packed into this game, both in terms of things to do and also random-ass wackiness. Also, while GTAIV's story was turgid and borderline nonsensical, SR2's (and SR1's) is deceptively complex, and I really like how the developers pointed the genre back in the direction of the problems of corporations and capitalism (of which drug dealing is just one form).

About that drug dealing and use: I don't see SR2 pushing the pretense of getting the player to identify with or like any of the characters. Everyone in Stilwater is bad, and on some level they know it; as the real estate developer says in the Septic Avenger activity, "It's Stilwater! Everyone expects to be hit by a truck at least once" ('cos they deserve it, including him). This premise is *great* for kind of game, because you don't have to twist yourself into a flesh pretzel to justify all the violence you, as a player, inevitably end up committing, even if you're trying to be good. Point being that in context, I don't think it's such a big deal, and I wouldn't want anyone who listens to the podcast the thing the game was a drug-taking simulator, which would be a distortion.

Fantastic selection of examples in the last segment, most of which I have never played and look forward to. It is so refreshing to hear game critics discuss, extensively and confidently, about emotional impact in gaming just as they would among themselves, without the constraints of the traditional written formula. For me this is the moment where you confirm your relevance among the community (blog entries tended to fall a little short, reviews to be caught up in technical or gameplay issues...), and I will be proud to listen again.