No agenda this week beyond a few of my favorite clips, some chat about the podcast’s high and low points and what we’d like to see in the coming year of podcasts. Learn about Tom’s other podcasts, Bruce Geryk’s origin story, whether or not Julian is a game reviewer and how Rob makes his girlfriend cry.
Lots of self congratulation, too, so if you don’t like that sort of thing, maybe you shouldn’t listen.
Congratulations on your first year, looking forward to another great one!
Happy Anniversary folks, I’ve been hooked ever since I stumbled onto the best strategy podcast in Troy’s House. Erm.. I’ve worded that a bit funny.
Sadly I have to say, I think “Bell Curve of Fondness” has a much more esoteric swing to it, than the “Chick parabola”.
I think a show on game geneology would be fascinating. If we could throw up some examples of top of the shelf games, and elucidate their evolution – that would make for intriguing listening. Obviously it would have to be a bit more than just Starcraft -> Starcraft 2. :)
BTW the RPS boys seem to suggest that Starcraft 2 is a bit “micro” heavy. I hope not. My old mans fat fingers are a bit too slow nowadays.
Since Bruce wasn’t around, I’ll leave you with his spooky and unnerving spine tingler “Hello Gamers!” (voiced like a pod person from the film Dark Crystal).
Oh I forgot to ask, can Julian list out those Rheina Knizia’s iPhone games, I believe he said 11.. because I’ve been collecting them and I’ve only got 8 so far..
Poison
Knights of Charlemagne
Monumental
Topas
Ingenious
Robot Master
Money
Roto
One Move Behind – Year One | RobZacny.com // Feb 24, 2010 at 9:02 am
[…] Goodfellow celebrated the anniversary of Three Moves Ahead with Episode 53 last night, and we spent an hour or so talking about the last year and our relationship to the podcast. My own […]
Happy Anniversary! As the guy once said who brought me to 3MA: “I am not really a strategy gamer, but I listen to every episode”. Word (although I AM more or less a strategy fan)!
Hope you guys won’t run out of topics, but as it was said: In-depth-RE-Views (!) are always a way, esp. when remembering Bruce’s comment about how patching etc. usually changes games today.
Now I’ll check out more of this Greed Corp. Seems a lot less time consuming than Panzer General: Allied Assault.
Your comments about what Bruce brings to the table are dead on. Maybe doing an episode about board gaming (Dominion FTW!) would get him engaged and positive…
Ditto what Punning Pundit said. Also, listening to this episode motivated me to go back and download all of the earlier episodes that I missed, starting with #2. Speaking of which, I’m having trouble finding the link to that Mark Steyn book… ;-)
I don’t think the Mark Walker episode was bad. I liked the episode, and felt that Bruce was fair. Walker was just a little too defensive, and there was little focus on what made this game system different from the number crunching ASL. I think that the criticisms from that episode would make it a better game.
I hope there is more tabletop/board/war gaming in the future, especially when topics run dry. You could look up Joe Steadman, formerly of the Dice Tower, to be a guest. Have just him, Julian, and Bruce: it would be a bunch of crotchety ASLers ranting for an hour, and I would enjoy that.
The problem with the Mark Walker episode wasn’t that Julian and Bruce were critical of the state of the game but rather that they were really freaking rude about it. I’m amazed that Julian refused to recognize just how unpleasant he was to the show’s guest. It was seriously uncool.
Well deserved accolades to the whole crew!
As for the future, I recommend more game replays (maybe matched by screenshots on this site).
You can number me as one of your new listeners. I was linked here a few days ago and have burned through about a third of the podcasts since then. I love what you guys are doing (being a long time fan of the late Tom vs. Bruce is just the icing on the cake), so as long as you guys keep doing this, I’ll be here.
Glad you put the podcast together, Troy and Crew. Here’s to another stellar year to come. And then some. Kudos!
Congratulations etc etc. as above :)
I thought it was interesting when you were discussing about the Mark Walker episode vs. the Armada 2526 episode (I forget the designers name). As journalists (or whatever Tom wants to call you guys), you are supposed to be critical. Maybe Julian was being mean, I can’t remember exactly how it went down, but you are supposed to be picking the game apart and discussing its weaknesses.
The Armarda episode, on the other hand, I thought that was embarrassing. Granted, it is tough to criticise someone who seems shy of defending himself, and obviously different characters are going to invite different styles (the reason Julian kept hammering points home was because Walker was unwilling to admit he was wrong perhaps). None the less, you should still be critiquing the games faults, especially if it is basically done. Sure, lead him in to explaining the points you liked, but also lead him in to defending the bits you didn’t like.
On more topics, I prefer the episodes where you use the games as a platform to discuss a more general topic. Firstly, most of the time I simply haven’t played the games you are talking about so when you dive in to specifics, until Troy reminds you all to explain to the listeners, I haven’t got a clue! Also, between you you have such a wide variety of knowledge, that by restricting it to one game, you limit what you can actually discuss.
I loved Julian’s idea of AI in strategy games, and I think there are loads of topics like that. Just work through the elements of all the different types of strategy games that you mention in the review (AI, maps, single player, skirmishes, game play mechanics [resource systems, diplomacy…]…) There are still loads of general topics. Seeming as you are all interesting people, you could even do less strategy-ey topics (I know you won’t feel entirely comfortable) but do things like strategy journalism, your opinions on reviewing games,…
Tracking the gang, IV « Game.Dirt. // Mar 1, 2010 at 5:02 pm
[…] Troy Goodfellow reviews Napoleon Total War for 1Up, and puts together the Three Moves Ahead Episode 53: One Year Anniversary Show. […]
Congratulations on making it to one year, guys.
I support the notion of mentioning more tabletop stuff here and there, and you could also use a bump up in audio quality.
Still, I very much enjoy the show and as wish you the best.
Regarding subjects: As I’m now podcasting my way through the third year of my show, don’t worry about it- things will come along, especially as you are all professional writers and get plenty of games for free :)