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I got Spotify for Christmas and have been listening to podcasts. I am out of touch with most current games as I tend to stick with old stuff. So the podcasts are a lot of gushing praise about how this is the greatest and that is awesome, etc.

Then I listened to this- http://acrosstheboard.libsyn.com/episode-15-dan-the-abandoner-ethics-and-integrity-a-discussion-real-talk-with-isaac-childres-and-efka-of-no-pun-included


It helped explain how I have much less enthusiasm for a game about moving clouds to alter crop yields than the host of certain podcasts. Seriously, they were praising a game about cloud movement........................

I like Tabletop Minions and have never noticed him being biased. There has to be more out there.

Can anyone suggest an honest and impartial podcast where I can learn about games from an objective point of view and NOT just an endless stream of trying to convince me to back another kick starter.

I am not looking for someone to rip a game apart, but just help a consumer to make choices.

And finally, I think if someone is going to do a playthrough or a "how to play" they should know the rules first. It is kind of pointless to try to learn a game from someone on youtube who is thumbing through the rules and learning it themselves. And usually getting a lot of things wrong in the process.

Thanks in advance.

Can't help you with your main question, unfortunately. However, I can say that what we're seeing is the simple reality that most competent companies doing Kickstarters or releasing new stuff will reach out to well-known podcasters or YouTube channels for reviews, previews and playthroughs. That makes getting genuinely objective information quite difficult.

Tabletop Minions are among the best I've found too as they also release content frequently.

For 40k despite Spikey Bits being a trashy site their podcast, The Long War, is often objective. They do like to tell it like it is, although they are a little annoying sometimes (Kenny in particular).

TT minions is a bit everywhere for my liking; @wayniac: I agreed with everything you said, Spikey bits does a good job copy and paste other people’s content, Kenny thinks his 1 day airbrushing IK is da gak, while it’s a very amateur job.

OP: I think frontline gaming is decent at their weekly ‘signals from the frontline’, they get the rules right. There are individual faction podcasts/YouTube channels, can you provide what you are looking for?(army/game system)

I’m liking 2+toughness for AoS content, Mordian Glory for anything IG, Arch for anything 40k accurately presented lore, plus he’s a character; SS82 and winterSEO for amazing above TT quality batrep; there is a good 40k 24/7 radio on twitch for painting purposes.

Usually if you narrow down your search a bit you will find what you’re after.

There are some really decent ones out there. Gaming wise I tend to enjoy Eye of Horus and Sons of Heresy - both are far more open and honst, where some other podcasts are far too sterile/corporate (some very big names in podcasting as well).

I can only put up with so much of what I would consider the "Motor Trend" of any subject. Motor Trend used to have this god awful TV show where they just did luke-warm vanilla reviews of every single car they encountered because they were getting X money from the manufacturers...resulting in essentially, feth-all useful information for people who liked cars.

I prefer the "group of dudes discussing gaming and being honest" over anything else. I've stopped listening to many of the bigger podcasts because they became too successful and you just hear the corporate/polite/PC creep in all of them.

Anyone that has advertising, sponsors, free samples, or anything like that really is going to have some bias inherently built in. In order to get the early scoop and cool interviews, you have to be willing to brown nose a bit.

That said, even the small groups can have large amounts of bias. Some people just like a certain game or setting or company and will overlook flaws that objectively are quite obvious.

It's like anything else really. In order to get a good grip on something you've got to listen to a wide variety of sources and form your own opinion from that, understanding that all sources have some sort of bias, even you. Every so often you get lucky and find a reviewer or source that closely matches your values, but usually you need to look at a variety.

kenofyork wrote:
I like Tabletop Minions and have never noticed him being biased. There has to be more out there.

Can anyone suggest an honest and impartial podcast where I can learn about games from an objective point of view and NOT just an endless stream of trying to convince me to back another kick starter.

I am not looking for someone to rip a game apart, but just help a consumer to make choices.

I think you are out of luck here. No reviewer is unbiased. Some may feel like they are unbiased to you if a lot of their biases overlap with yours (you are just used to that type of bias being the norm). But that should make their opinions on something be more useful for you when it comes to the quality of a game (as you would have similar wants/needs in a game). But there's still some sort of bias. That can be stuff like having a preference for certain levels of complexity in a game or simply to the type of game they prefer. Of course that might lead to stagnant recommendations where you never see anything that differs too much from all the games you already have.

The most "Impartial" information about a game would be to read the rules yourself, look at what's in the box, and then decide if you like it. Otherwise look for reviewers who have a similar taste as you. Those should have more recommendations that fit your preferences than somebody who likes completely different games. If you like Tabletop Minions then crawl a bit through their social media and look into the stuff they link to (that's not their own). Those links should lead you to some other people with similar tastes. If those are not enough do the same in their social media feed.

In the end if you want a recommendation then—besides the most basic information (type of game, what's inside the box, rules)—you are looking for somebody's opinion on those bits. And those can differ considerably.

Thanks for the answers.

Mostly I like to find out about how a game plays and what are some of the key features. I tend to avoid games with restrictive command and control for example. Simply explaining that a game uses a mechanism for this would be good.

A reviewer simply gushing about how awesome a product is with little or no actual details is of little use.

I recently got heavily in to Heroes of Black Reach, and then back tracked and purchased every product for Heroes of Normandie and other games in the same system.

This will be converted to minis with 3D printed models for Space Marines and Orks. Knowing that the game is a minis game without minis, and is sized to hold 15mm minis on the counters, is a gigantic selling point for me. It does however have a command and control mechanism that will be house ruled in some manner.

So I am quite happy at the moment with my new hobby purchases. I will look in to some of the suggested podcasts. But it looks like Spiky Bits charges $5 per month, so that one is out.