We’d like to tell you about our favorite sequels of all time. Won’t you join us? Plus exclusive behind-the-scenes tales of the GameCritics website relaunch! Oooh, juicy! Starring Chi Kong Lui, Brad Gallaway, Richard Naik, Richard Naik’s Respiratory System, and Tim Spaeth.
Download: Right click here and select “Save Target As…”
Subscribe: iTunes | RSS
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.
Latest posts by Tim Spaeth (see all)
- GameCritics.com Radio 2018 GOTY Celebration - January 12, 2019
- GameCritics.com Radio 2017 Holiday Awards Spectacular - January 13, 2018
- GameCritics.com Radio Episode 5: The Switch and Zelda - April 7, 2017
A few games that might get less attention: Nier 2 looks pretty good, they’ve shown mostly only combat, but does that does look pretty good, as well as the character design. Attack on Titan looks a little bit insane, with giant naked people – as the enemies – running around cities. Gears of war 4 looks to have nearly the exact same weapons and enemies , which in my opinion is a big mistake. Hoping that We Happy Few can sustain that strong beginning, even if the whole game only lasts a couple of hours. I hope Forza horizon 3… Read more »
Hey, beautiful people! We are recording our annual E3 wrap-up show this weekend. As you know, this is an important service because very few Internet outlets discuss E3. If you have any topics or specific games you’d like us to comment on, please post them here!
I’d like to hear thoughts on the new Zelda. Haven’t played a new entry in the series since Wind Waker, but this one has piqued my interest. From what I’ve read and the videos I’ve seen, Breath of the Wild seems so different from past Zelda games, but just enough familiarity.
Would be interested in thoughts on the “new” consoles. Are they needed? Why so soon? Good or bad for the home console market?
No David Cage hate segment please! Feel free to direct your hostility towards Nintendo 😉
Also interested in why I need a new console already, as frogofdeath mentions above.
I second the people here mentioning Borderlands, but one of the best improvements in a series of sequels was seen in the Timesplitters series. The first one was pure mechanics. The second one added a bit of story and improved graphics with improved gameplay, and the third one tied it all together into a tight, fun, time-travel story with the tight, pre-Halo FPS gameplay expected of Free Radical at the time.
Loved hearing you guys talk about MGS2 (Including richards talk) the first two mgs games are extremely self aware of its content and context and thats why i love it to bits. The analysis of mgs2 has been done to death (the superbunnyhop video does it really well). The plant chapter seems to rely on short lived gimmicks to connect main plot points together (freezing bomb disposal, dir microphone, scenarios from mgs1) and makes repeat playthroughs a chore until the next plot point. And then once an ally twist occurs the game goes on a rollercoaster ride of pretentious but… Read more »
Lost Planet 3 arrived in the post today. That better be good 😉
Mention of Saints Row IV made me begin the game last night. Only a couple events into the game so far, but it is quite enjoyable. Beyond the “super powers” it seems very similar to the third game, but I spent way too much time with Saints Row III, so no complaints from me. While I’ve never been a huge fan of the Street Fighter series, or fighting games in general, I fully agree with Street Fighter II. The comment about making you forget about the original entry is spot on. Street Fighter definitely begins with the second entry. I… Read more »
Tims motivation of the theme of this podcast – the treadmill release of games that don’t drive the series forward, in this case being God of War 3 – will get a partial defence from myself. For me, God of 3 is definitely “guilty” of Tim’s complaints against it, but some of it’s positives is that it did refine and tune the combat very well. And the combat itself is still pretty satisfying and does still stand out against most modern 3d melee fighters. And no one else does scale like that at all. God of War 3 has a… Read more »
Re: Lost planet 3, I tried to play it thanks to Brad’s (incessant) recommendation and found it disappointing. Don’t get me wrong; Brad’s praises are deserved: the story is interesting, deep and different. But all of it is coated in this thick layer of “to to the bright marker, shoot into the monster’s glowing bits for 15 minutes and go back” gameplay that just bored me to death.
Among many others, I think Resident Evil 4 deserves a mention.
Darn it. Great pick, can’t believe I forgot about it.
This was one of those shows I wish I’d actually been on — because lord knows I love me some sequels, The obvious stuff for me is Final Fantasy (VI and XI in particular) and PSO (if we’re technically counting that as a sequel, and I am, so too bad…), but I’ve got a special fondness for Super Castlevania (and Symphony of the Night), as well as Borderlands 2. Link to the Past would make my list, as would Super Mario Bros. 3 (and World — and probably Galaxy 2 if I’d played more than ten minutes of it to… Read more »
“I’ll stick up for Bioshock 2, as well — even though I think I’m an outlier on that one. Personally, I think it’s my favourite of the trilogy.”
Holy shit, me too. 2 It’s the only Bioshock I still have on rotation.
I’m afraid a show on bad ending series could take too long. Could be fun though.
Bioshock 2! Loved setting up those trap rooms. I would guess the majority of its detractors never actually played it.
Bioshock 2 is on my “to play” list, just need to find a relatively cheap copy. Within the series I also think Infinite is a better game than the first entry. While I enjoyed both games, I had more fun playing Infinite than Bioshock. It may have something to do with the fact that I played Infinite first.
I can see how playing the newer game first might cause that issue — it’s hard to go backwards in gaming.
Dead Space 2 and Borderlands 2 were on my short list. Sometimes I change my opinions just so Brad will like me more, but then he dinged me on Modern Warfare, so it seems I just can’t win with the man.
I’m playing through the remastered Uncharted 2 right now and I can see how what it does environmentally would have been stunning in 2009. Coming to it after 2013’s Tomb Raider it’s not quite so impressive but overall, man, I really love Uncharted. And I still have 2.5 games to go!
Thank god someone else on this show loves Uncharted.
Still have to finish listening to the show (my daily commute isn’t long enough ;-)) but as roughly 25% of the active userbase of the old forums I wonder: can the archived date be found anywhere online at some point? Regarding sequels: we need more Kojima, hence I throw Metal Gear 2 into the ring (the MSX version, not the NES crazyness). Metal Gear 2 is improving on every level over the first game, and adds some interesting twists and first attempts on telling a greater story, other than “there is Metal Gear, destroy!”. And since it’s Kojima, you also… Read more »
Congrats and thanks to Ricard again for the easy to read and use new site. Any Idea how long it took Richard ? Could you put man hours number to it ? Did you climb more than 4.6km of code to get it running ? Agree with Warwick with Dead Space 2. A brand new fun mechanic of dismembering limbs from enemies and using them against the same enemy is fun forever and has not been imitated since, which I find shockingly believable since it is the video game industry. DS 2 also had perfect tension balance between a powerful… Read more »
There’s very little custom code on my part actually. I spent the majority of time configuring and tweaking things. That may not sound like a lot but the time you spend doing little stuff like that really adds up. I’m glad it’s finally done 🙂
Borderlands 2 would have definitely made my list — I still go back and play that in small bursts when I’m bored. It’s one of those games we’ll all be talking about fondly in two decades’ time I’m sure.
Look, I’m pretty sure I tried Lost Planet 3 but couldn’t get past the 1st level. Something with the mechanics and controls just did not gel for me and really bugged me to the point of giving up on it.
Dead Space 2: Fantastic new action sequences while still having creepy tense sections like the original, and an awesome new character in Ellie that not only doesn’t take any bullshit, gets her eye ripped out by a psychotic, but in the end, she also risks her life to save Isaac.
…and then they made Dead Space 3 🙁
Awesome show! No idea what the noise is, but it didn’t bother me. I f’ing loved Tim’s breakdown what counts as a sequel.
Before anyone asks, yes all the background noise is me. We had to switch to a new recording method right before the show since Skype was crapping out on us, and unbeknownst to me my mic was live the entire time while everyone else was on a push to talk setup. My apologies.