Bombcasting from the start - am I crazy?

@ajamafalous said:

I did the same thing back when I decided to start listening to it.

I've been a member here for just under a year, but I'm ashamed to admit I just discovered how awesome the Bombcast is during E3 '11. I Started listenind religiously after that, but I feel like I missed a lot of cool (and crazy) stuff. So I'm picking up with the first Giant Bombcast and listening to all of them from the start. I've already listened to the 2009 and 2010 year end debates, but am going to listen to them again when they come up in order so I can hear how people's opinions evolved over the course of the year. I expect I can knock out 4 or 5 a week, plus keeping current.

So am I crazy?

Actually the beginning is sometime around 2005 on Gamespot's Hotspot, so just start from there. I'm pretty sure all of the usual suspects have appeared  there to discuss the release of the Xbox 360 and stuff.

I did this like beginning of last year, was a great decision. Right now I'm in the middle of doing it the The Hotspot until Jeff gets fired

I've been tempted to do the same. >.>

You're crazy, but also really lucky.

You're definitely crazy but I nevertheless wish you luck on this fool's endeavor!

Not at all. Around this time last year, I did the same thing. And this time this year, I have re-started again.

It's not crazy, assuming you have a schedule that allows it. If you're going to just spend hours sitting in your room listening to the Bombcast, then that's a bit much. But if you have a decent dialy commute or a job that let's you listen all day, you're set. I was able to get through most of them last summer when I was working, as I sat for hours in front of a microscope and needed some background noise. 

Go for it.  I did it a year or so ago.  It was a lot of fun to hear the guys opinions over the years.  Plus I tried some games I never would have without their discussions about them.

I think the early episodes with just Jeff and Ryan can be a little boring, slow, and overly focused on energy drinks, but Brad and Vinny come on sometime in June or July of 2008 and it becomes more like the delightful, four-person podcast we know today!

@NickL: I knew that much, I was just wondering if there was a reason for the name, or if it was just some random name they came up with. I always assumed Arrow Pointing Down was a reference to something but for the life of me I could not, and can not, figure it out.

@Sign said:

@NickL: I knew that much, I was just wondering if there was a reason for the name, or if it was just some random name they came up with. I always assumed Arrow Pointing Down was a reference to something but for the life of me I could not, and can not, figure it out.

Arrow pointing down is the name ryan chose for his blog that he created shortly after he quit at gamespot.

Whether the phrase has some deeper meaning to him personally, I guess he is the only one that can answer that.

@FreakAche: You can never have too many energy drinks!

@NickL: Thanks for the info, guess it will forever be a mystery.

yes you sicko

I've done this recently. I think I've got to about October of 2008 or so. Then I decided to watch the P4 Endurance run again which I managed to do in just over a week so about to go back to the bombcast again.

I always imagined Arrow Pointing Down to represent some kind of ratio, like 5-stars or 100%-raing ratio. I'm glad they went with Giantbomb though.

I've listened to all of the podcasts twice, it's good listening, and it helps you understand a lot of the inside jokes.

Listening since december 08

Actually the beginning is sometime around 2005 on Gamespot's Hotspot, so just start from there. I'm pretty sure all of the usual suspects have appeared  there to discuss the release of the Xbox 360 and stuff.

You're insane. I started listening during E309 or so, and then I eventually went back and listened to the important ones: ie Spoilercasts, first one, first official Bombcast, first episode with Brad and Vinny, GOTY, etc.

I did this a few months back it was pretty fun.

@The_Hiro_Abides said:

@ajamafalous said:

I did the same thing back when I decided to start listening to it.

@Pingwing: It's actually a pretty interesting thing to check out. Not only do you get to listen to awesome people like Greg Kasavin, Rich Gallup, Alex Navarro, Carrie Gouskos, Bob Colayco and such, it's all history, so it's really cool to see if their thinking matches up with the movings of the industry.

It's fun to go back and see the trajectory of their thinking and predictions, though if you just want the funny stuff you could probably listen to a "Best of" compilation. It's also funny seeing how they still stick to their corporate friendly cursing until somewhere around the middle of 2008, when they realize that they can say "Fuck" now. Imagine that, The Giant Bombcast without copious amounts of foul-mouthed cursing. Twas a strange world.

Yes, do something more educational. 

@Asmo917: Go for it. Be sure to grab them from the xml page, as the bombcast section on GiantBomb is missing some. They get lost in-between pages; I've reported it multiple times over the years, and it's still a problem.

I actually listen to the bombcasts on random (I set up an itunes playlist) while playing random games, it's awesome to go from a '10 podcast randomly to an '08 one.

@DarkDude: I finally got around to watching the Persona ER over this past summer. It was definitely pretty enjoyable to watch.

Kind of crazy. Old ass video game talk can be entertaining occasionally, but it's often very boring. However, there are some truly fantastic moments outside of video game talk on the Bombcast back catalogue. Also the bombcast is long as shit. Like 2 to 2 and a half hours per episode. That's alot to catch up on. Honestly you can get a lot of the best bombcast moments on youtube. I suggest doing that.

You are my hero.

I did this one summer, so much fun.

Currently been doing it on and off this year, I really enjoy it. I've gone a step further and i've started to play some of the games they were talking about in whatever cast I'm on. Its been slow but great. I love it when they make predictions and hint about games that are amazing or old news today. Like Jeff predicting the future with Duke Nukem coming out in 09 or the guys getting excited about fighting games making a comeback with SF4.

I started to listen to the older Bombcasts a couple months ago, but I remember stopping for some reason...Oh well! This topic is just more of a reason for me to start it back up again!

Time to listen to Ryan and Jeff discuss strange beverages!

Been there, done that.

Now I'm going for a second time around.

I did the same thing not long ago.

Tell us what you think

i did it last year so i guess we're both crazy. for a few months the bombcasts were my music basically

ill do it again eventually too so im double crazy

just finished my bombcasting session, been listening since 2009 but listened to them all up to be begining of 11 these past 4 weeks and it has been a joy!!!

but alphazone...well i just couldn't get into it at all, brad and vinny FTW!!!

As much as I enjoy the Bombcast, even the bombsquad can't make 3 year old news sound interesting.

Go for it if you feel up to it, though.

@Asmo917: When I first got to the community I felt like I had NO IDEA what these guys were all about. So I did what you plan to do, I listened to every Bombcast. All that time spent listening has translated into only good times and laughs. Enjoy the ride :)

@Mars_Cleric: I slowed down a bit last weekend, but I'm through May of '08 and still really enjoying this. I especially loved heaing the GTA IV praise, since it seems like everyone's opinion on that game went from over-the-top praise (which Ryan and Jeff addressed) to undeserved nit-picking the farther you got from launch, kind of like I've seen with LA Noire. It also reminded me that I put this down a little after launch and never went back to it, so that's my goal for 2012: finish GTA IV along with Oblivion and Skyrim (and others).

It was also really gratifying in one of the early podcasts to hear Jeff talk about the site's review philosophy. I really learned who Jeff was because of L'affaire Gerstmann and came here because of it. Without knowing his background beforehand, I've come to realize over the years that he and I have different tastes in game genres and what we look for in a title. I read his reviews, but I can read his two or three star review and think, "He's right on, this probably is bad to average," or, depending on what makes up the content of that review, "Everything he's written has merit, but what he's called out as bad or a flaw isn't going to bother me as much." It was great to hear Jeff essentially say that that was what they wanted to accomplish with GB's reviews, and I kind of got excited about going through that process again with Patrick when I saw he reviewed Resistance 3.

I was also kind of devastated when Alex left. I KNEW he was going to Harmonix at some point, but I never realized he was never an official part of the podcast like Brad and Vinny are now. And hearing Brad's first adjunct appearance was fun, along with Vinny's first, and I'm looking forward to hearing how the Ryan/Jeff/Vinny/BRad dynamic evolves.

Plus, I think the soundtracks to this year's EA Sports titles suck, so I love listening to these while I play a fair bit of NHL 12.

Good luck! That's a lot of podcasts. My listening schedule of podcasts was: Bombcast, CAGcast, Joystiq, Beyond, Gamescoop, ESPN Around the Horn, ESPN's PTI, We're Alive the Zombie Podcast, Smodcast (Kevin smith), and Shockwaves skullsessions. I listened to most things while driving Three months ago the stereo stopped working in the Jetta and I feel behind. I try using headphones at work but too many people stop to talk to me. It has helped that Bombcast are all over 2 hours now. LOL currently I listen to the Bombcast and the CAGcast. I'm still a month behind on those. I can't imagine listening to the Bombcast from ep #1 to now. If it's your only podcast then it might not be that hard.
I really need to replace the car stereo to get back into my other podcasts.

Two words. "Drill Bucket."

Go for it! I did that when Borderlands came out, tons of great podcasts as I played through that and Forza Motorsport 3.

@UnsolvedParadox: Ooh, thanks for the suggestions on games to play while listening! I normally hate to do that during anything other than sports games so I'm not missing dialogue or other clues. Even with Borderlands, which I love, I feel like the music helps add to the atmosphere...but after leveling my soldier to 55 and one of every other class to 20 on bot the 360 and PS3 (told you I LOVE Borderlands) I think I can do with some better listening material. Forza 4 + Bombcast will be great.

You know what word they say a lot? "Xbox." You know what that fucks with? My Kinect.

Not all the time, but if I happen to be menu surfing or if I leave the menus on and walk the dog or grab a drink, maybe 4 times out of 10 I'll come back to my Kinect hub. The first few times I thought my house was haunted. Then I put 2 and 2 together...