Category Archives: podcasts

My Favorite Game Reviewers

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There are several game reviewers who are responsible for getting this 50+ year old mom into the world of gaming. One is Alex Shaw (and his team of merry friends) who create fascinating, often hilarious podcasts. I LOVE their discussions of the Mass Effect series. Thank you so much Alex, Sharon, and friends for hours of enjoyment.

http://digitaldrift.podbean.com/category/mass-effect/

Dan Floyd of Extra Credits teamed up with James Portnow to give the infamously difficult Dark Souls games a try. Dan’s series, informally known as Dan Sucks at Dark Souls, gave me the courage to try the game myself. I mean really, could I do any worse than this?

Dark Souls # 10 — Loot Runs

Thank you Dan and James for hours and hours of pain despair fun.

And finally, there’s Noah Caldwell-Gervais.

When I was in high school I had a class called “The Rise and Fall of Practically Everything”. The class met for two hours a day and combined history, art, and literature. We wrote essays and term papers and created art projects; in my case I learned calligraphy and made my own illuminated manuscript!

Imagine if the smartest guy in the Rise and Fall class spent hours writing an eloquent, well-thought-out essay, and then used the essay as narration for a video. A video about gaming. That’s what Noah’s videos are like. I feel my brain expanding every time I listen to one. (I treat Noah’s long videos like podcasts, and have them playing while I do something else.)

Thanks Noah for expanding my brain, and challenging me to be a better writer.

Here’s the most recent of Noah’s videos —

My favorite interview so far

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I’ve been listening to the Top Score podcasts, and this is my favorite one so far. The composer Ben Prunte was self-taught, and worked a lot of other jobs while he learned his craft as a musician. He said it took 10 years before he got good at it!

For Ben, the glamour of scoring video games did not come without effort. While working alternately as a janitor, Google diagnostician, and volunteer coordinator, he dedicated his spare time to honing his craft. After years of improvement, he received a call from the developer of the new game Faster Than Light (FTL). They asked for a score, and Ben’s life changed forever.

http://www.infiniteguest.org/top-score/2015/01/ben-prunty/

The music-writing software he uses is called Cubase, which has been around for a long time.

Here is a playlist of the soundtrack he wrote for the game FTL. I really like it, I think because it reminds me of the electronic music I listened to back in the 70s.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFSHrnqQyV4&list=PLDWrj6ynqDMGiREzFXF_JkuwBi3-pUKJH