Go 8 bit , Dara O Briain etc - The Bear and Badger

MattyJ

I like this show. I view it as something like Question of Sport or whatever, where it's a show about a subject matter I'm interested in and treats it with respect. They've shown quite a wide variety of games from all different eras. Sure they do the whole jokey, light entertainment thing, but let's face it: this could be far, far worse.

nick_md

Diluted Dante wrote:

Based on his Metal Gear routine, and the Gears tale he told on some TV show, I suspect he'd be just as bad.

God I remember that, he was talking about the Berserker encounter in the first game, pretty sure he said he never did get past it.

That's level 1 or 2 right?

Just not good enough. I will watch more episodes and snort in derision. I may also scoff.

nick_md

MattyJ wrote:

I like this show. I view it as something like Question of Sport or whatever, where it's a show about a subject matter I'm interested in and treats it with respect. They've shown quite a wide variety of games from all different eras. Sure they do the whole jokey, light entertainment thing, but let's face it: this could be far, far worse.

They tend to have sporting experts/personalities/pros on that tho eh?

Skondo

As long as they try and make it an entertainment show that features videogames it may have some legs. I'm not expressing that terribly well, but in the same way that Top Gear was/is an entertainment show that features cars. Top Gear was more about the guests, chat and events than the cars themselves. Can't speak about new Top Gear as I only saw a few minutes.

Mrs Skondo actually enjoyed the hopeless Track and Field challenge yesterday and she doesn't do videogames at all.

I have huge respect for Akabusi as an athlete, but Christ he's irritating. Also Russell Howard is not the worst thing on TV, he's pretty close, but he's not the worst. I refer to my previous comments regarding Holly Walsh.

MattyJ

Yeah they do, and they could get a gaming 'pro' on to play as well I guess? The two captains are supposed to be good at games...

optimark_prime

I've enjoyed the mix of games so far, at least they don't seem bothered about which era they're from.

Yossarian

nick_md wrote:

MattyJ wrote:

I like this show. I view it as something like Question of Sport or whatever, where it's a show about a subject matter I'm interested in and treats it with respect. They've shown quite a wide variety of games from all different eras. Sure they do the whole jokey, light entertainment thing, but let's face it: this could be far, far worse.

They tend to have sporting experts/personalities/pros on that tho eh?

They have pros on that answering questions about their sports, not playing them in a tediously professional manner.

Tempy

The problem with being "good at games" is that its very rare that someone, outside of like maybe Dubs or whatever, is actually genuinely good at all games. Being good at games in the mainstream is like, being able to innately understand control simple schemes and parse the game's conveyance of instruction and objective at you.

retroking1981

The mix of games has been the best thing about it.

The captains should be genuine decent gamers, the guests can be shit and have that comedy value.

Dara seems interested but his knowledge is lacking a bit as a host.

nick_md

Tempy wrote:

The problem with being "good at games" is that its very rare that someone, outside of like maybe Dubs or whatever, is actually genuinely good at all games. Being good at games in the mainstream is like, being able to innately understand control simple schemes and parse the game's conveyance of instruction and objective at you.

I dunno, people tend to be of a similar level across most games I find.

I go back again to my earlier comment: have one sick head and one celeb on each team. Sorted. Best of both.

Bob

bless him, I don't suppose he has an awful lot of time to keep as up to date as he'd like.

We should invite him to join here.. He just needs to know nearly everything looks shit and what does and doesn't have private lobbies and to believe in TLG and his knowledge will be tip top.

Yossarian

nick_md wrote:

Tempy wrote:

The problem with being "good at games" is that its very rare that someone, outside of like maybe Dubs or whatever, is actually genuinely good at all games. Being good at games in the mainstream is like, being able to innately understand control simple schemes and parse the game's conveyance of instruction and objective at you.

I dunno, people tend to be of a similar level across most games I find.

I go back again to my earlier comment: have one sick head and one celeb on each team. Sorted. Best of both.

So a show where each week celebs turn up to be pwned at games? Sounds great.

nick_md

Use your imagination a bit: team games, celeb v celeb then pro v pro etc etc.

Diluted Dante

I wouldn't say people generally have a similar skill across games at all. Games within a genre maybe, but someone good at Halo won't automatically be good at FIFA, or Rock Band Street Fighter or Hexic.

Yossarian

nick_md wrote:

pro v pro.

Just shoot me now.

[Deleted User]

Im sure this has been posted in the past but it is an interesting retrospective on Gamesmaster and why Dave Perry isn't coming back.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-06-04-gamesmaster-the-inside-story

Diluted Dante

Up Up Down Down is a good place to look. Not a pro gamer, but someone good on camera who knows about games, can talk all night long, bringing on well known people (to the audience) who have an interest in games.

nick_md

I mean, most comedy panel shows will have a pro (comedian) as the team captain, with one or two non pros either side, no? It's a pretty standard format.

nick_md

Diluted Dante wrote:

I wouldn't say people generally have a similar skill across games at all. Games within a genre maybe, but someone good at Halo won't automatically be good at FIFA, or Rock Band Street Fighter or Hexic.

Let's say for argument there are 5 tiers of ability, for the most part I don't think anyone moves more than a tier or so either way from game to game. That's what I've found anyway, in a group of 20+ we know who's going to be in the top section, who middle, who gash etc. Anecdotal I suppose.

Yossarian

nick_md wrote:

I mean, most comedy panel shows will have a pro (comedian) as the team captain, with one or two non pros either side, no? It's a pretty standard format.

That's exactly the format they use.

nick_md

Are you doing this deliberately?

It works for other shows because comedy is the subject matter. For this show the expert element of a team should come from someone who knows games.

I give up.

Yossarian

Comedy is pretty much never the subject matter, it's usually current affairs, or the ability to spot lies, or opinion polls, or words and numbers games. The team captains are rarely journalists, police interrogators, heads of polling companies or Scrabble champions. Why? Because it'd be as tedious as fuck.

Dark Soldier

nick_md wrote:

Are you doing this deliberately?

It works for other shows because comedy is the subject matter. For this show the expert element of a team should come from someone who knows games.

I give up.

No real point in team experts when you've got the lass filling that role.

nick_md

Yossarian wrote:

Comedy is pretty much never the subject matter, it's usually current affairs, or the ability to spot lies, or opinion polls, or words and numbers games. The team captains are rarely journalists, police interrogators, heads of polling companies or Scrabble champions. Why? Because it'd be as tedious as fuck.

This is tedious as fuck.

I guess we can agree that we want different things for a show centred around videogames and leave it at that.

nick_md

Dark Soldier wrote:

nick_md wrote:

Are you doing this deliberately? It works for other shows because comedy is the subject matter. For this show the expert element of a team should come from someone who knows games. I give up.

No real point in team experts when you've got the lass filling that role.

She doesn't get involved though no?

Any road, positions clear.

Diluted Dante

I don't think knowing games means you have to be a pro gamer. Sean Hughes wasn't a pro musician (I'm not sure he was even amateur), and he did fine on Buzzcocks.

Personally, I think you just need basic competency. You need knowledge about things like systems and history, and be able to translate that to a wider audience, even if you aren't a leet haxxor yourself.

nick_md

Aye, I can drop the word pro in favour of just having someone competence.

[Deleted User]

I watched a few episodes of GamesMaster last night. Watching ep 3 of Go 8 Bit now.

Competence is definitely the key word.
GamesMaster had a kid (that would become Big Boy Barry) come on to collect 150 rings on a Sonic stage. He had obviously been practising a bit, asked them to up the challenge to 160 and smashed it. It was impressive to watch but easy to understand.

Alternatively I have just watched Rachel Riley destroy Russel Howard on SF2 by spamming kick with a character that happens to work well if you spam kick and your opponent doesn't know what fireball is. The studio enjoyed it but anyone with a vague understanding of the game can tell what was happening.
Followed by Temple Run as her favourite game that she was utter, utter shit at.
The build up to gameplay ratio was way off, I think the first two challenges added up to about 90 seconds of gameplay.

Yossarian

I found the SF segment, and especially the reaction to it, to be most entertaining.

[Deleted User]

A couple of things people have mentioned are getting close to one area of Go 8 Bit where I think a slight tweak would make an improvement. We weren't told at the start of the run who the captains are, and why they are captains. It wasn't until half way through the Bob Mortimer episode that there was even mention that one has more experience with games than the other. The way the show currently runs, we don't see much of them, their personalities.

That said, I'd agree that the content to filler ratio is off. Yoss wont like this, but that's largely because the contestants are shit, and it's demonstrably not entertaining to watch that. The Flick Kick challenge, for example; if it was entertaining to watch people be shit at that, they would've done more rounds to fill the time they clearly hoped it would fill, and would have filled if they booked folk who can actually play.

The problem is, the current set up is a really bad advert for videogames. If my dad watched the show, it would further cement his suspicion that I am wasting my life by playing these stupid things; it's making every game so far look like a shambolic mess.

The parallel that keeps coming into my head is ceilidh dancing. At a wedding, when a group of people who have never done a Strip the Willow or Eightsome Reel give it a bash, they have fun for a while (at the expense of those who know what they're doing) and those watching have fun for a while. But if you get a hall full of folk who know what they're doing, everyone has fun, and it's exhilarating to watch. Also look at things like Masterchef or Bake Off; yes, it can be entertaining to see something go wrong, but only in the context of others succeeding. If it was all just folk fucking up, it wouldn't last.

Skondo wrote:

Top Gear

You're onto something here, Skondo. A magazine programme with funny, knowledgable discussion of a few videogame news items, a review or two of games or hardware, a celebrity on to take part in a challenge... I'd watch that.

Howdy, Stranger!

Categories