ActionButton.net Podcasts

When I first read Tim Roger's work on Insert Credit 4-5 years ago it was a breath of fresh air for me. It was some of the first writing on games that veered towards the Lance Bangs style of reviews that for some reason I never realized was missing from video games. While I didn't always agree with or even enjoy reading his work, at least it was something different. I realize that he's not the only one out there doing exceptional and unique games criticism, but good or bad, he's the first person I think of.

For about five months now, he and others have been posting reviews at ActionButton.net and again, it's hit or miss but always a good read. Just today I noticed that they have a podcast section. It's essentially just the reviews read by someone entitled Charles Hartley and it's great. His style of reading very odd, almost as if any pauses that might have occurred during the recording were edited out and the first few seconds have you suspecting that maybe(just maybe) these are actually being read by some speech synthesis program trying to sound like Agent Smith. It also reminds me of the book-on-tape version of Neuromancer read by William Gibson himself who spits out his own words with in a near beat-poet style delivery. Again, it's wonderful.

I feel that's it's actually better than reading the reviews themselves. Check out the one for Saints Row and see what you think.