I have listened to three episodes and had to give up in the show. They embrace insulting and attacking in both the games that they play as well as the reviews they give games they don’t like.
The last show I listened to, and I couldn’t finish, as the one where they re-ranked the BGG top 20 games. Every time they came across a game they didn’t like, it was described as though it was trash.
The worst offenses, however, occurred when they reviewed a game they had never played. Any other podcast that ranks games at least comes to the review with an informed opinion. The very least they could have done was go to BGG and read the blurb about the games in question. Their opinions of the games made it obvious that they only knew the games by name and reputation alone.
This was especially apparent when they reviewed Star Wars: Rebellion. They complained how many expansions it has as well as how the combat system is simply a tactical ships-on-a-table exercise. Rebellion only has one expansion, so I was confused until I realized that they were thinking of the Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game.
This lazy approach to the reviews occurred with almost every game that they had never played. The games were insulted, the designers insulted, and the games relegated to the bottom of the list since they had no interest in playing them and often had no knowledge of how the game played.
The final critique of this show is the extraordinary inconsistency with one of their primary complaints about some of the games they didn’t think deserved to be on the list: play time. They devote entire segments of their show promoting 18xx games. I would think the length of a game would not be much of a factor, but it apparently is.
I unfollowed the show after that episode. Their glee at tearing down games, designers, and, apparently, game opponents is simply too much a part of the show for me to enjoy it. The laziness and inconsistency of opinion when reviewing games is also a huge detriment. I hope they can do better in the future, but these attributes seem to be integral parts of themselves that they recognize and celebrate, so I don’t hold out much hope.
