Weekend Confirmed finally hits. Can it live up to the hype?

In the spirit of full disclosure, let me start off by saying the Jeff Cannata was one of my college housemates. We did plays together, we went on road trips together, we even moved to LA together those many years ago. So I am obviously, a little biased when I say that I have nothing but respect and love for the guy. He is one of the most intelligent, insightful, enthusiastic people I know.

When he started doing the Totally Rad Show it just felt like such a perfect fit for him. And the show's hordes of fans were well deserved.



The show is a little heavy on the Movie subject matter for my tastes, which is why I was so excited to hear that Jeff was planning on starting a game-centric podcast with former 1Up editor Garnett Lee, now of Shack News.

When Garentt was on the 4 Guys 1Up show, I always the passionate counter point to the l33t cynicism that seemed to underpin most of the opinions of the other editors on that show. I really couldn't wait to what Jeff and Garnett would bring to the table. Now the show has been out for a few episodes. It's still finding it's voice, but I feel that I've heard enough that an informed critique is at least possible.

So what do I think of weekend confirmed? Well, let me tell you.

Let's start with the hosts. Jeff, is bringing it home about how I'd have expected. If I had to describe Jeff's editorial voice, it'd be by saying that he is "insightful" or maybe "analytical". Have a discussion on almost any topic with Jeff and he will always strive to look at it from a different perspective. He constantly strives to achieve a unique understanding of whatever it is he is talking about. The standard arguments "take" on things is rarely enough for Jeff. He constantly attempts to find a deeper, truer meaning. And I'd say that most of his contributions to Weekend Confirmed are along these lines. From his impassioned arguments for the iPad to his surprising arguments against Microsoft game room. In either case I have to say he made me think about the subject in a different light than I had at first blush.

Garnett's role is surprisingly different. This feels like much more his "god damned show" than 4 guys 1Up ever did. Even though he was ostensibly the host of the 1Up show, it always felt like Garnett's grip on the proceedings was somewhat tenuous. With personalities like Shane and John Davison, throwing their weight around it often felt like a show without a true "guiding personality". On Weekend Confirmed Garnett comes of as much more comfortable, and seems to be "running the show" a lot more directly than on 1Up where it was more like herding cats. Interestingly, in the dialog Garnett comes off a lot more of the grizzled cynical game industry type, which is an interesting switch from his "role" at 1Up.

The third host Brian Leahy is the host with whom I am least familiar. I admit that I wasn't much of a shack news reader before this podcast, so I think that this is the first time I've ever come across much of Leahy's work, so my opinion on him is based solely on what I've heard in Weekend Confirmed. Brian basically occupies the same role that Ryan Scott had on the old GFW Radio show. And that is of the extremely jaded PC Gaming elitist. I'll be curious to listen to more of Weekend Confirmed to see if Brian is more open minded than he initially appears to be.

But what about the show itself? What do I think about that? Well let's start off with what I like. First off, I love the personalities on the show, I am very interested to hear these guys talk about games, industry news, and trade shows. The inside baseball kind of stuff, I just think they're all intelligent, informed, and insightful, so the discussions are a great listen. My only hope is that they really chew into this even harder. I miss the old Next Gen podcast with Gary Whitta and John Davison. That show was an NPR level of discourse about the game industry. Ever since that show's demise there hasn't been a replacement and I think /hope that Weekend Confirmed can pick up the mantle of in depth discourse about the video game industry.

Also, I like the segmented nature of the show, I think that the classic "4 Guys 1 Up" style of show, meaning the "what ya been playin, news, new relesaes, emails" format is kind of dated. Everyone is doing this now. I would say that it has been perfected by the Bombcast guys. Anyone else doin a podcast needs a new take. And I think the Game Informer show style of themed segments is a great direction to go in. I really hope that Weekend confirmed take it even further and not get to tied into a rigidly defined structure. I'd love to hear these guys talk about specific big releases, news stories, and trade shows in great detail. So that rather than having it be something where the "next segment" is always "4 minute warning" it would be more like "The next segment we're going to talk about Ubisoft's DRM problems".

It's a little too early too make any final judgement as I feel like the guys are still figuring it out. For example, I'm not too sure about the newly introduced "Drunk With Power" segment as I feel it removes Garnett a little too much from the discussion (although it does help to cement Garnett as the 'host'' as opposed to 'one of the hosts'). But it's obvious that they are experimenting and that is a good thing.

I guess for me I'd hope that this show ends up being a cross between the Next Gen and Game Informer Podcasts. The hosts are great, and I think it has a lot of potential. If you haven't checked it out yet you can download the episodes here. If nothing else these guys definitely get me thinking about games that I haven't thought about in years. This week it was SSX 3, which I will have to dig out of the closet. I never did finish the WHOLE mountain.

I'd love to hear these guys do a retro podcast as well. "Childhood Confirmed"? "Nostalgia Confirmed"?

Just an idea.

Chemistry

Jeff just tweeted this to me. It's a student film that Steve Koncelik made which starred Jeff, Jerry, John and Aisatou (who sadly is not a friend of mine on face book, where are you Aisatou?). Anyway, this video has a pretty well edited soundtrack of electro songs that were big at the time, but it does not have the original soundtrack that jeff recorded on his Amiga with a bunch of old MOD files. Still it was a great blast from the past. Enjoy:
Stephen Koncelik - Chemistry from Stephen Koncelik on Vimeo.

Death Race. The first game to corrupt America's youth and corrode our great society.

So my buddy from the college days has a pretty great weekly video podcast called the Totally Rad Show. The show has made him a fairly internet famous, even allowing him to rub elbows with some of my heroes from the world of games industry journalism.

At any rate, I was on the phone today with my brother who was also a friend of Jeff's back in the old days. Anywhoo...my brother and I were talking about a recent episode of Jeff's show in which they discussed the recent 'drivin and shootin' film Death Race.

In their review they were talking about how it would be such a great video game. Actually Jeff invited me to see this movie with him, and it's too bad that I didn't go or else I could have made the joke that I'd been saving for just such an event. Which is basically that I'd say "not another video game movie!"

But this is a pretty obscure reference, which I'm not even sure Jeff would have understood, despite the fact that he is about the only other person I know of who can keep up with my constant nerd references and inside jokes.

So OK...keep up. Back in the 70s Roger Corman, famed horror film producer put out a little flick called Death Race 2000. This is the same flick which I would assume inspired the recent Death Race I haven't seen the newer version, but it's a safe bet to assume it's basically just "asplody" than the original but still just as "fun".

But we're getting ahead of ourselves here. Back in the 70s a little company called exidy created an Arcade machine based on the film which was simply called Death Race. By today's standards the game is primitive, basically imagine Atari's Gran Trak 10 with little stick Zombies for you to drive over:




However, Exidy helped to add to the game's gruesome atmosphere of the game by housing it in an arcade cabinet covered with creepy images of zombies, hot rods, and skeletons:



Long before the days of Mortal Kombat and Night Trap helped bring about the ESRB or Grand Theft Auto poured us some "Hot Coffee", Death Race was appearing on 60 minutes. Exidy tried to subdue the Parental outcry by claiming that the stick figures weren't humans but rather "ghouls", but eventually the game would have to be recalled.

So now flash forward to 2008. Ryan sees a preview for the new Death Race and thinks to himself, "ha it's another damn video game movie! too bad no one would get that joke." But maybe now, maybe my dear readers...you to can make that joke when you start seeing the film's DVD release being advertised at midnight on Spike TV. And like me you can look around hoping in vain that someone else will "get it".

Until then enjoy this video from the you tubes of some hot AZN CHIK and a NECK Bearded Bro playing death race around the :59 sec mark: