I summarise the Mobcast (among others) for CastMedium.com and usually look for articles people mention in podcasts. Thanks for including those links. As I had to search for them anyway, here are some more links:

The review (which I didn't think was that unclear. And 7.5 is a good score, anyhow -- it's halfway between mediocre and perfect!) http://uk.gamespot.com/ps3/action/ratchetclank/review.html?tag=rvwBody

That Insomniac podcast: http://www.insomniacgames.com/blogcast/podcasts/entry/1500515

AJ's Batman post: http://kotaku.com/5435473/batman-comic-book-writer-advocates-more-video-game-violence

Thanks, Alex!

First time listening - my BF recommended me to this podcast. liked it a lot! Definitely interesting to hear a variety of opinions on the different subjects...subjects that I don't often hear about on pretty much any other podcast. Or even subjects I've heard a lot of with interesting thoughts on ( have heard that same Metroid discussion to DEATH but despite being sick of hearing about it, still thought you guy's discussion was interesting and listened.) 

I especially liked the conversation about emotional responses to games. For any number of reasons I get really attached to stuff in games, to the point of being terrified or crying or elated or whathaveyou. It's something that's always really fascinated me about video games and the people who play them.

The talk about the Ratchet review really reminded me of a pet peeve of mine, and that's devs that get a little too upset over review scores. I say this as an artist, someone who wants to create games. I can understand that games are like a dev's "baby", it's almost like a part of them. It just seems like every time they approach either fans or reviewers about it, everything ends in big problems for both parties. Giving a reviewer a hard time about a review score seems a bit unprofessional. I know it might impact sales but...I don't know. It just seems like something devs shouldn't do - calling out a reviewer or fans by name or forum (etc etc) like that. I wonder if that's just me.

It's kind of funny how divisive XII and XIII are to fans. I'm a longtime fan since VI, it's my favorite, and I've played all the main series of FF's and then some, but I feel like the series needs to keep trying new innovations because JRPG's are growing stale. At the same time, there are a lot of FF fans who don't feel that way.

Anyway, off to go listen to some of the back catalog of 'casts. I really look forward to more interesting conversations!

edit: HOLY WHOA that comment came out longer than I thought it did. WHOOPS.

I think AJ is totally off base regarding her attitude about reviews. I think I'll read them (or not, as the case may be) with a whole new perspective! The way she describes the process to review a game seems absolutely useless. Every game is good to someone.

Andre was on point, so what the hell is he not reviewing games for?

I'm partial toward Kieron Gillen's "[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_journalism#New_Games_Journalism]new games journalism[/url]," which is sort of what we do here at Bitmob. I'd prefer reviewers find a voice and express their opinions on a game without thinking about a "target audience." That's reviewing games merely as products -- not as culture.

I'm much more likely to follow reviewers who inject their personality into their writing -- I find that they're much more insightful and their reviews are much more informative than what A.J. describes as the ideal way to review games. 

I think a hybridized approach is probably best. The review process should evaluate the product as a product if that is what's at stake with the game. If a game is egregiously broken, then I think that there is a base audience you should write to and that the reviewer is obligated to report that.

Something else that many film critics grapple with is how to judge films that "do what they do well." I think this is what A.J. was gesturing toward with regard to the idea of a hypothetically "good" Barbie game. For myself, I would need to keep in mind the target audience for Barbie because no matter how good a Barbie game is, I don't want to play it. I would enter with an unfair bias toward the brand, and I would need to strip that away and ask if it does what it's trying to do well. The easiest way to do this is by trying to imagine what someone who's into that stuff might think of it.

If a game is transcendental with regard to its mechanics in any way, I feel that the reviewer should try to do more like what Rob is suggesting. I'd much rather read about someone's experiences with Uncharted 2 than read another bulleted list of what's so great about it.

Saying that reviewers should focus on the qualities of a game or their experiences with the game, one or the other, seems a bit reductive to me. Games are unique because they are computer applications first. If they don't work as an application, they have little chance of transcending into something more significant (there are some rare instances where this has happened). Once, they do transcend, however, it becomes easier to evaluate them as you would any other work of art.

I think it's easier these days to leave the game-as-functioning-computer-program out of reviews, but I do see the value in what you said James. I think there was a need for this at one point. Even as recent as the early oughts, EGM was able to deliver in the written format what you couldn't get elsewhere.

With demos and videos, the nuts and bolts are much more easily understood by a prospective audience, and that frees up the critic to do what he/she will.

The most recent example of review failure, for me at least, was No More Heroes. Ever review I encountered did what a bunch of video could have: they explained that this was a perfectly functional open world game, without a whoel lot of open-worldiness. I understood the motorcycle mechanics, the mini-games, the hack and slash gameplay. What I needed, and no one did this, was tell me that it was absolutely dogshit. I will point out that no one did the complete opposite, insofar that they explained it was a wholly worthwhile experience. Going into the game, I had half-a-dozen appraisals of the what the game did, but nothing prepared me for what the game actually was.

James, I don't mean to exclude a discussion of mechanics and whether they work within the context of the game itself in new games journalism. Certainly, at a functional level, we'd want that within reviews. But what we're generally missing is a critical literary analysis, and that's exactly what Abbie Heppe's Metroid: Other M review provided.

Whether or not you enjoy the game's content (i.e., a "Barbie" or mech game, for instance) shouldn't matter to your ability to judge how a game's systems interact, and whether those system are fun in-and-of themselves. All too often, reviews neglect such commentary.