Why You Should Care| Features

Feature: Why You Should Care Subscribe to this RSS feed

Author: Lindsay Young
Digg This!
Comments

Don't worry about combing through all the wasteful eight-page reviews, text-heavy driftwood-shaped stories, and uninspiring ego-inspired rants. Why You Should Care highlights only the best (and asinine) riffs about gaming from your favorite sites.

This week: Gaming personalities tune into podcasting; tired of watching web videos; the art of reviewing games is old school; dumb, dumb stories; and ultimate showdown.

Cast Your Podcasting Vote

It's the newest way to relay messages of game knowledge to anyone who actually cares. No music found here--only personalities that think you'll like how they sound and what they have to say.

IGN
http://www.ign.com/index/podcasts.html

Care Factor: The on-air personalities (which vary with every cast) sound like they're trying to sell you a brand new Pinto, and you'll love it. The salesman pitch overshadows the great interviews.

1up
http://podcasts.1up.com/

Care Factor: Since when did gaming become so serious? It's like listening to NPR, but studies show: people respond better with a woman's voice than a man's.

GameSpot
http://www.gamespot.com/features/6142603/index.html

Care Factor: Please, please get rid of the horrible intro. Your seriousness mirrors 1up--try not being so dry and maybe you'll attract more listeners.

GamePro
http://www.gamepro.com/gamepro/domestic/games/news/51128.shtml

Care Factor: They're a little late to the...er, game, but better late then never. The first cast illustrates why gaming personalities are just normal, fun-loving guys without an attitude. Now let's hope the brand new mics improves the quality of future casts.

Lights, Camera...Games

Not many sites offer true web video casting that strays away from the usual previews and reviews format. Come on, can't we get more sites to give us original video content?

Yahoo! Games
http://videogames.yahoo.com/videos?page=0

Care Factor: The host's magnetic personalities draw you to watch the otherwise oh-hum segments. I love the interview questions, but do we really care about a book review this week?

1up
http://the1upshow.1up.com/

Care Factor: Do I see a bit of West Wing in this video series? Ah, drama with video game journalists--just what we need. How about just skipping the melodramatic character studies and get on to the games?

Necessary Reads

GameDaily
http://biz.gamedaily.com/industry/media/?id=11632

Sites like GameRankings, MetaCritic, and Games.net follow the review aggregation model. But do they take away from the credibility of individual review scores?

Sam Kennedy's Blog
http://www.1up.com/do/blogEntry?bId=6368277&publicUserId=4561231

More about reviews, but this time The Big Cheese at 1up discusses his take on the morals and ethics that go into reviewing a game.

Gaming-Age
http://www.gaming-age.com/news/2006/1/19-39

A gaming enthusiast site takes on the Associated Press. See why game journalism should be perceived as true journalism.

Fat Babies
http://www.fatbabies.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=3190

For better or worse, the site is old, but the forums keep on ticking at Fat Babies. Check out the compelling forum topic, Five Biggest Jerks in Gaming.

1up
http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3145949

This is a great roundtable about, Are Developers Embracing Nintendo's Next-Gen Vision?

The Escapist
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/28/12

See why CheapAssGamer.com is such a success. As always, The Escapist prose is top-notch...now if only it could do something about the design and layout.

Dumb Reads

IGN
http://revolution.ign.com/articles/682/682294p1.html

Why would anyone want to read about a speculation piece about, of all things, Nintendo Revolution's Interface? Why?!

1up
http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3147078

The poor interns at 1up just don't get any respect. To the full-time staff: at least give your interns a meaningful piece to write about instead of this junk, Ten Things To Do With That 360 Power Supply.