Joe Martin – Product Marketing for Startups

Update: Unlimited Hyperbole is no longer available. There are two episodes preserved by the Thief community on Youtube which are linked in the episode index, however other episodes have since been lost to time.

This week Unlimited Hyperbole explores the  topic of “My Favourite Game” from a new angle as Gaming Daily Editor Craig Lager talks about Morrowind, Skyrim and the long process of admitting you’ve got a new favourite after years of being dedicated to a single title.

Along the way Craig talks about how the Elder Scrolls series has changed over time, why he refused to review The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and how he intensively curates his experience of the world using mods such as Frostfall. What’s Craig’s favourite experience from within Skyrim and why is he oddly embarrassed to have such a new game as his favourite? Listen to Episode Two of Unlimited Hyperbole to find out!

Unlimited Hyperbole is a weekly podcast about videogames and the stories we tell about them. The show is divided into seasons of five episodes, each of which has a topic that’s used as a prompt when interviewing special guests. This season we’re talking about “My Favourite Game” – but for more information about the podcast itself, read after the jump.

So.

One thing that’s worth noting is that I’m not releasing episodes in the order they were recorded, as I’m trying to set a balance between tone and guests. The first episode was actually one of the last to be recorded in the current stockpile, while Craig was the first to show any interest in being a guest at all. We spent an hour and a half recording on a long weekend about two months ago, though only it was condensed down into just 15 minutes for this episode.

Part of the reason I’m releasing Craig’s episode next is that it’s a lot more upbeat than the previous episode. The feedback which came in after Episode One revealed not everyone liked the way my dreary monotone combined with classical piano. A few people also complained about the sound quality, though others insisted it was fine. Either way, this episode uses different music and is re-encoded at a much higher bit-rate after some tutelage from Sasha. My voice just sounds that way however, so you’ll have to learn to deal with it.

Episode One was enormously successful, eclipsing my expectations for an initial release. It featured in RPS’ Sunday Papers on the same day as hitting Reddit’s front page and the SomethingAwful forums, so thanks to anyone who helped with that. Even just sharing episodes with your friends or taking the time to write an iTunes review can give the series a noticeable boost and is a great way to support the show, so please consider it if you like what you hear.

As for Episode Two, it should hopefully speak for itself, but one thing I think is really interesting is the unusual way that Craig has about talking about games. Paul and Joe, who focus-grouped episodes for me, picked up on this as well, saying: “Craig has this way of talking about games he really likes….as if they’re people he knows, rather than just things he enjoys.”

Thanks to Harriet Jones, Paul Goodhead, Joe Percy and Sasha Muller