It's all led up to this. Tim defends Too Human. Chi defends Dynasty Warriors. Who will live? Who will die? Find out in this, the second half of our "Out Of Our Comfort Zone" extravaganza. With Chi Kong Lui, Brad Gallaway, Mike Bracken, Richard Naik, and Tim "No Singing This Time" Spaeth.
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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
I don’t agree that cyborg vikings are stupid. They may very well be in this particular game’s handling of them (I don’t know, I haven’t played it… yet), but merging mythology with futuristic sci-fi sh*t is not a fundamentally flawed idea. Just look at the Hindu-god-astronauts in Roger Zelazny’s Lord of Light.
Just thinking out loud- Isn’t Peter Molyneux syndrome really Trip Hawkins syndrome? lest we forget-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaUZDqqdb_A
– this was a game system that didn’t just talk about literally decapitating it’s fans with it’s graphics, it actually did decapitate it’s fans with it’s graphics.
Getting it isn’t the problem. But do i want to get it?
It was only a complain on the idiotic demo policy.
Will have to ask a friend to download the demo for me.
I’d love to play a cyberpunk viking but since I don’t have a XBox this dream will remain unfulfilled 😉
@crackajack: you can get it for less than 10 bucks on amazon and I’m sure some copy of too human can be found in some bargain bin for a fiver or less…
great episode, thanks guys I think i will read Three Kingdoms (and the other 3 to 4 great novels of China) some day, but DW will hardly be something for me. Too Human sounds more interesting, Viking Cyborgs, yeah! But my (Austrian) XBox refuses to show me the Demo and on xbox.com/us it says i must be Gold member to download. No Too Human for me then. btw Also thanks to the lengthy GOTY articles on Deadly Premonition. I will have to read them now with more attention cause it will be released this month here and i might give… Read more »
Endarkens, Thanks for the lengthy comment. I’m glad to see this episode inspired such passionate and intelligent responses. I think gaming media often are obsessed with the “new” thing to the exclusion of older games, so I’m glad to see that we can talk about games that aren’t the hot new releases and connect with our audience in a meaningful way. John, Glad you enjoyed the show. I hope you’ll enjoy the rest of our ramblings going forward. I agree with the unfinished game idea regarding Too Human. I get the feeling that some parts of the game weren’t really… Read more »
First of all, I would like to thank you guys for this show, it’s the first I’ve listened to but certainly won’t be the last. It takes courage to openly defend something that you love, and also to have an open mind and willingness to explore the loves of others. I can trace the roots of the appeal of DW and TH back to my heritage of playing button mashing side scrolling beat-em-ups. I grew up in a seaside resort in the UK, so I got to spend a lot of time in arcades playing games like Final Fight, King… Read more »
[quote=Endarkens]So unfortunately I have to disagree with Chi for his fan sub comparison, the game is actually far more refined than the average hack and slash. The controls are relatively simple, So I have to disagree with the points off for lack of tutorial. Two attacks buttons, one button for charging your musou/desperation attack(or activating if its full), and a jump for your main buttons, the shoulder buttons, control ‘block,’ ‘map,’ ‘evade’ and ‘special command.’ Play the game for ten minutes, you’ll figure out what most of them are for. [/quote] While I agree that the game mechanics are refined,… Read more »
One of my friends had talked me into trying Too Human. he said it was a great game for customizing your character, something I liked to do. I gave it a try, and found much like most of you that i had a strong love/hate relationship with the game. I hated the stupid Valkyrie animation, it would have been cool the first time you died, but every freakin’ time? Come-on! lol. The game had an interesting story, but i think it would have been more appreciated if the levels were smaller. its been about two years for me, but there… Read more »
Y’know, I don’t really care about Too Human. My feelings on that game are pretty much identical to Brad’s.
BUT!
Hearing Tim explain his enthusiasm for game was like listening to myself talk about Drakengard. In both cases, you can’t really argue against the common criticisms, but they both are doing something so utterly unique that they can’t help but charm.
Tim, for bravely holding the rare “Ok, so maybe it sucks, but it’s also Awesome!” opinion on a videogame, I salute you.
I nearly wrecked my company vehicle, when Chi said the game would be remembered a 100 years from now, and Tim had his moment of excitement; That segment was beyond comedy gold. Once again, GC has put together an outstanding podcast. GC has one of the best podcasts on the net.
Excellent discussion guys and I agree with most of what you said about Too Human (which I for one loved). However, I do feel the need to add a little correction. Too Human was not in development for 9 years and I hate to hear it get ragged on for the long development cycle. It’s true that Silicon Knights (or more accurately Denis Dyack) had been working on it conceptually for almost a decade, but the game itself was not being developed. It also started and then stopped development, I believe, twice (they claim thanks to technological limitations of the… Read more »
Just wrapping up the Too Human portion of the podcast… (have not gotten to the DW section yet) This is so much fun. You go, Tim! I love it when people talk about games they have a real opinion about. Rather than merely commenting on the latest releases, simply for the sake of it. But I had to just stop, before the DW discussion, to make a comment. Tim… you want to see Too Human’s control scheme to become the standard? I could not disagree more. The ability to “look around” and examine my environment, thats one of the top… Read more »
Too Human versus Dynasty Warrior. What I’ve been waiting for since the invention of sliced bread. Batman versus Superman is for the weak. The heat is on. The stakes are high. The odds are low. The ins are out. Alliances will be forged and promises could be broken. Downloading now!
I’m really happy that I didn’t get overly defensive about game mechanics of DW on the show because it allowed me to stay focused on the macro cultural issues. But now that the show is live, I do want to go back and address some of those complaints my fellow podcasters made on the show. @Tim Spaeth, I’m disappointed that the show recording ran so long that we never had a chance to compare and contrast Too Human with Dynasty Warriors as we had originally intended. This would have been interesting because all the reasons that you cited why you… Read more »