Podcast/video recommendation, to listen while gaming

[meiam]

I generally like to have something playing while I'm gaming. Ideally it's something that I can easily tune in and out of as I get more or less focused on the game I'm playing. My best example of this is red letter media best of the worst series, where they watch B-movie and then review/rant about them for an hour, but I've watched all their stuff at this point. But most video have a strong focus on the video aspect (duh) which I tend to miss since I'm watching what I'm playing instead, so I think a podcast might make more senses.

Feel free to pimp w/e podcast you listen to even if it doesn't really fall within that definition.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

Just based on what you already like, there's 12 seasons of Mystery Science Theatre 3000 floating around. They take bad movies and crack jokes about them, it's a good time, usually from a place of love. The premise is that an evil scientist has trapped a hapless rube on a space station to mentally torture as a way to figure out how to break the will of earth and take over. Said hapless rube can't just escape back to earth because he used components of the space station to build robot friends.

Good chunk of that is on YouTube, both on official channels and legal pirates.

It's a culture thing: old episodes were passed around on tapes which helped its early popularity and nobody stopped, so nobody really cares to issue DMCAs unless the original rights holders object. Happened to a few Japanese movies where the Japanese rights holders and the show's right holders had differing ideas about what the contracts said. Long story short, early on a lot of US legal departments played fast and loose with foreign media rights. Not the show runner's fault, they thought everything was kosher too.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Just based on what you already like, there's 12 seasons of Mystery Science Theatre 3000 floating around. They take bad movies and crack jokes about them, it's a good time, usually from a place of love. The premise is that an evil scientist has trapped a hapless rube on a space station to mentally torture as a way to figure out how to break the will of earth and take over. Said hapless rube can't just escape back to earth because he used components of the space station to build robot friends.

Good chunk of that is on YouTube, both on official channels and legal pirates.

It's a culture thing: old episodes were passed around on tapes which helped its early popularity and nobody stopped, so nobody really cares to issue DMCAs unless the original rights holders object. Happened to a few Japanese movies where the Japanese rights holders and the show's right holders had differing ideas about what the contracts said. Long story short, early on a lot of US legal departments played fast and loose with foreign media rights. Not the show runner's fault, they thought everything was kosher too.

I watch these sometimes when I'm playing roguelikes or something repetitive without much story.

 

[meiam]

While I like the best of the worst series, it's more that I find the format lend itself really well to watching while playing rather than I'm looking for B movie review/comment. The episodes are sorta made up of many small skits within a easy to understand narrative (the movie they're talking about). So if I miss a part of a topic they're talking about, because I just had to focus on the game more, then it's easy to jump back into the video since they'll move on to something else within a few minutes.

 

[Xprimentyl]

I'll always recommend the Lore podcast. As the name suggests, it covers lore, myths and traditional tales from around the world. Though, I'm not sure how well it works as background distraction as many of the stories take you down the "what the hell??" road and command attention.

Also Serial. The first season is what made it noteworthy becoming the [at the time] most listened-to podcast in history, but you really need to pay attention to it to follow the intrigue.

TL;DR? I can't help you.

 

[Zykon TheLich]

I wouldn't listen to podcasts while gaming. Driving is another matter.

I listen to the triforce podcast. Lewis, Pyrion and Sips from the Yogscast talking mostly about random bullshit, not much gaming. Being British and the same age with similar interests there's a lot I resonate with.

Also the bugle. John Oliver used to be on it with Andy Zaltzman until he made it big, now Andy has a rotation of regular guests from US, UK, Aus and India. Mostly political/current events satire. And terrible puns.

 

[BrawlMan]

Woolie and Pat's Castle Super Beasts.

 

[EvilRoy]

For podcasts I would suggest:

• Distractables
  • Markiplier Lordminion777 and Muyskerm tell lighthearted comedic stories and do verbal bits around a theme each episode. I use it for what you describe because its a nice light thing to listen to, but nothing anybody is saying is so critical that you can't just tune out and ignore it whenever things on your game get interesting. Its mostly just disconnected improv comedy.
• The Magnus Archives (first two or three seasons only)
  • A compendium of spooky stories read by the Archivist who is a pencil pusher by day with a secret past as a drama/theater kid in Primary school that leads him to read the spooky stories in his best voices and inflections. The whole series is great, but the first two or three seasons have pretty minimal overarching story elements or internal references so you can clock out of an episode and clock back into another one without really needing to worry about having missed much. I personally never found the show that scary but the stories are all engaging and if nothing else the characters and voices are pretty decent.
• Welcome to Nightvale (first year or two)
  • Pretty similar to Magnus, the podcast is a small community radio show read by a host with a nice voice. Not much for overarching story elements for the first couple years, but the story does get more and more involved over time. The premise is that this is a town in the US desert where all conspiracy theories are true, and everyone is ok with it. The stories don't have any spook factor for the most part, they're just interesting to listen to.
• Stellar Firma
  • A comedic podcast about a deeply messed up person called Trexil Geistman, and his clone David 7 designing/selling built-to-order planets to alien clients. The Earth blew up or whatever, and humans became the preeminent planet builders of the universe, like the guys from Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Trexil sucks at it and he's pretty batty. David 7 will die if the planets suck and he knows that. So the stories are vaguely connected episodes of David 7 trying to desperately wrangle Trexil into doing his job properly, all in the name of surviving another day.

For youtube videos:

• Overly Sarcastic Productions
  • These guys do a bunch of series on tropes, myths, and history. The visuals are a nice addition but not critical to enjoying the content. Lighthearted interest stuff that doesn't require significant investment.
• SuperGreatFriend
  • Dude has a really level, controlled voice and doesn't really react to even the worst kind of jump scares. He plays terrible games and good games, but he doesn't typically edit anything down so there's a fairly slow pace to his videos.
• Our very own Yahtzee
  • He did a series on his own youtube channel where he and a friend talk about whatever over boring video games that works well for background noise. Also, Zero Punctuation (slowed to .75 speed) can be a nice distraction as well.

 

[Mister Mumbler]

So, when I do feel like listening to a podcast, the comedian Bill Burr has a bi-weekly podcast he does called the Monday (and Thursday, a shorter show capped with a re-run of a previous show) Morning Podcast. He rambles about sports such as football or motorcycle racing, and sometimes has guests including his wife. He also does a show every now and again with Bert Kreischer. I also tend to put on stand-up in general (Chappelle's classic Killing Them Softly is still up in full on Youtube), as I have a few Carlin specials and a Pryor one on CD. Outside of that, I tend to put on music that I have if I need something to listen to.

 

[Mister Mumbler]

So another recommendation: if you're a fan of It's Always Sunny, the main three characters/creators (Rob McElhenney, Charlie Day, and Glenn Howerton) have started doing a podcast where they talk about how they made each episode of the show and ramble about other things too.

 

[meiam]

So another recommendation: if you're a fan of It's Always Sunny, the main three characters/creators (Rob McElhenney, Charlie Day, and Glenn Howerton) have started doing a podcast where they talk about how they made each episode of the show and ramble about other things too.

Never watched the show (being on my watchlist for an embarrassingly long time) but it seems like that would work really well for the purpose, I might try it out even without having watched it.