While Tim takes some time off to enjoy his new son, we present our very first bonus episode! In these deleted scenes from Episode 14, you'll hear a great segment on how casual games relate to Heather Chaplin’s GDC rant, and then we try to answer that classic gaming question “What is the Citizen Kane of Video Games?” Our answers will shock and amaze you. Featuring Chi Kong Lui, Mike Bracken, David Stone, and the very sleepy Tim Spaeth.
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Topic and Game References:
- Gears of War 2
- Tetris
- Xenosaga 2
- Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty
- Wing Commander
- Civilization
Please send feedback and mailbag questions to podcast (at) gamecritics (dot) com.
Cleveland native Tim Spaeth grew up in a happy household – a household with a father whose major client happened to be an Atari games distributor. This led directly to Tim's first nickname: "The kid who got Atari games before anyone else." Indeed, he knew Pac-Man and E.T. were colossal bombs weeks before the rest of the world, and the resulting celebrity brought him great pleasure.
Through the years every aspect of Tim's life has been touched by gaming. He mastered typing thanks to Space Quest, honed his poker skills on The Sierra Network, and learned to hate after a particularly traumatic game of Tecmo Super Bowl.
Today, Tim lives in Chicago with his three kids and strives to find that perfect balance between family, career, and Warcraft. He enjoys broadcasting, martial arts, rock and roll, growing and shaving his beard, singing show tunes to the homeless, and losing at Mario Kart to his lovely, talented, and amazing girlfriend.
In late 2008, Tim became the producer and host of the GameCritics.com Podcast, and he's thrilled to be bringing GameCritics' unique editorial voice to a brand new medium.
Through the years every aspect of Tim's life has been touched by gaming. He mastered typing thanks to Space Quest, honed his poker skills on The Sierra Network, and learned to hate after a particularly traumatic game of Tecmo Super Bowl.
Today, Tim lives in Chicago with his three kids and strives to find that perfect balance between family, career, and Warcraft. He enjoys broadcasting, martial arts, rock and roll, growing and shaving his beard, singing show tunes to the homeless, and losing at Mario Kart to his lovely, talented, and amazing girlfriend.
In late 2008, Tim became the producer and host of the GameCritics.com Podcast, and he's thrilled to be bringing GameCritics' unique editorial voice to a brand new medium.
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[quote=Chi Kong Lui][quote=shun]Please tell me I thought wrong. I’d like to think that women who are into gaming are just as hungry for the complexities offered in the non-casual gaming market as men are.[/quote] I’m not sure what gave you that impression since the whole thing starts with Dave talking about how much his wife enjoys Gears of War 2 on Insane Mode and I talked about how I twittered with a woman who was a enjoyed playing Onechanbara. [/quote] I haven’t listened to the podcast for 2 days since, so my memory may be a bit hazy at this… Read more »
[quote=shun]Please tell me I thought wrong. I’d like to think that women who are into gaming are just as hungry for the complexities offered in the non-casual gaming market as men are.[/quote] I’m not sure what gave you that impression since the whole thing starts with Dave talking about how much his wife enjoys Gears of War 2 on Insane Mode and I talked about how I twittered with a woman who was a enjoyed playing Onechanbara.
There’s one thing about your refutation of Heather Chaplin’s tirade that bothers me, and it’s in the part where you guys said that there are casual gaming segment in the market that she’s ignoring. The issue I have with this is that it seems you are dichotomizing “hardcore” and “casual” games as exclusives for “male” and “female”, respectively. That is, “casual games” are the kind women want.
Please tell me I thought wrong. I’d like to think that women who are into gaming are just as hungry for the complexities offered in the non-casual gaming market as men are.
I pondered that game too – it’s one of my favourites of all time, and I replay it WAAAAYYY too much. But I had to dock it for the voice acting and horrible “plotting.” I know, there had to be something driving the game forward, but it’s not “flawless” like Citizen Kane.
That was a big part of the discussion, separating the wheat and chaff of gaming. As you heard, it’s really hard to even determine what that exactly is.
The assumption in this discussion is that electronic gaming is the only form of gaming, when in fact games have been around much, much longer. So the question I have is not what is the Citizen Kane of gaming, but what is the Go of film? In a few thousand years and I seriously doubt anyone will even know what Citizen Kane was. Pretty sure people will still be playing Chess and Go however.
But as far as single-player electronic games go, my vote for the paragon of medium would be SotC.