SG Flix is back with another podcasting masterpiece. In this dose of Sarcastic Gamer’s movie podcast, Jitterbug and Yoshifett rot their brains with Our Idiot Brother, Tron Legacy, The Brick, and Limitless, discuss trailers for Chronicle, Goon, The Dictator and much more. In case you’re wondering why we haven’t accompanied the rest of the staff to their new home, we hope to make that move sometime in the next few weeks.

Check back in a next week because the gang will be discussing The Prophecy.

Feel free to stop by the forums and talk about movies with us.

Here’s the RSS feed.  Leave an iTunes review and subscribe here.  Download the show here.

Here it is! The Final missing piece of SG Flix’s “Be Kind Rewind” of Big Trouble In Little China. Sorry it took us so long to wrap this up, we kept getting caught up on how dreamy Kurt Russell is. Join us next week for an all new adventure!

Feel free to stop by the forums and talk about movies with us.

Here’s the RSS feed.  Leave an iTunes review and subscribe here.  Download the show here.

The Brown show is back to excite your cochlea. This week DogsDie, Smelly Pirate and Yoshifett nerd out about the PSV, Gamerinformer’s GOTY, gaming as an adult, and much more. Listen up, and find out what Brown can do for you.

MPORTANT: Please note that the Sarcastic Gamer Brown is on its OWN iTunes and RSS feed. Please be sure to subscribe to the new Brown Show feed in iTunes or RSS. If you insist, you can always just download the mp3. If you are currently using a computer with iTunes on it, would you mind heading over there and leaving us some feedback? Thanks for the Diggs!

Welcome back for part two of SG Flix’s “Be Kind Rewind” of Big Trouble In Little China. The exciting conclusion of this long winded BKR will be out in a few days.

Feel free to stop by the forums and talk about movies with us.

Here’s the RSS feed.  Leave an iTunes review and subscribe here.  Download the show here.

The Blu show is back to tell you the good news about Sony. January is a slow news month, but Rothbart, PacMan Polar Bear and Frawlz scrounged enough news bits to discuss Sony closing BigBig studio, Foxconn’s nets, AT&T’s 3G Vita price plans, a roomah, and a few more nuggets of Sony goodness. There’s bonus content for SG iphone and android app users.

We appreciate you guys taking time out of your day every week to listen to our show. For your convenience, you can simply download the MP3 by clicking HERE or if you’re one of those “set it and forget it” types, you can subscribe via iTunes, RSS, or Zune and stay in “real time.”

If you do use iTunes, we’d love to hear what you think about our show. A great way to show your support is by leaving us feedback on iTunes. Remember, you can also email us at any time at PlayStationPodcast@SarcasticGamer.com! You can also call and leave us a voicemail at 1-805-8SGBLUE (regular long distance charges apply.)

SG Flix had hoped to bring back to original format this week, but audio issues forced us to postpone. We still have another delicious BKR for you to enjoy. In this week’s Be Kind Rewind: Dave, Jitterbug and Yoshifett frolic through the 80′s cult classic, Big Trouble In Little China.  Still recovering from 25 hours of Star Wars, the crew went 3 episodes deep with this movie.

Feel free to stop by the forums and talk about movies with us.

Here’s the RSS feed.  Leave an iTunes review and subscribe here.  Download the show here.

The Brown show is back to vibrate your speaker box. This week DogsDie, Smelly Pirate and Yoshifett nerd out about ipad games, Uncharted 3, disappointments of 2011, and much more. There’s bonus content for SG ipod and android app users. Listen up, and find out what Brown can do for you.

MPORTANT: Please note that the Sarcastic Gamer Brown is on its OWN iTunes and RSS feed. Please be sure to subscribe to the new Brown Show feed in iTunes or RSS. If you insist, you can always just download the mp3. If you are currently using a computer with iTunes on it, would you mind heading over there and leaving us some feedback? Thanks for the Diggs!

Sarcastic Gamer.  Let me say that again.  Sarcastic Gamer.  That name has always and will always bring back great memories.  I’m not normally sentimental and sappy, but I’m making an exception here.  For the past three years, I’ve had the opportunity NAY the privilege to podcast for a great little gaming website.  And now it’s time to move on to the next endeavor.

Let me take you on a wee journey.  Back in early 2008, I was listening to Gamercast Network’s Video Game Show podcast.  I heard a short promo talking about Sarcastic Gamer’s Red Show and decided to have a listen.  That was around episode 7 or 8.  I loved the casual gaming talk and was happy to find the website had the same atmosphere.

That is what always drove me back to Sarcastic Gamer.  We never generally didn’t take things too seriously.  We had fun while we created content that, thankfully, others found enjoyable to consume.

A few months later, I submitted a Fiction Friday article as my application to become a staff member on the site.  I was accepted and was WAY TOO EXCITED.  I’d be working alongside Doc? Dave? Rothbart? Frawlz? Pacman? These guys were in my ears every day and now I’d be getting emails and phone calls from them.  DUDE!  Shortly after, the site announced that they were opening a podcast channel for anyone and everyone that wanted to submit content.  I had never done a podcast before but was crazy enthusiastic to give it a whirl.  I called up my brother (Smelly Pirate), a former coworker that I had spent hours upon hours with in Call of Duty and Gears of War (Saint Mantooth), and another good friend of mine that I perform improv comedy with (Don Marco).  The result was the Panda Watch Podcast.

Fast forward over three years later and we have recorded over 130 episodes (Panda Watch, Humpday Update and SG Brown), produced over 80 parody songs, and made exponentially more friends along the way.  And quite honestly, that’s the part that matters the most to me.  The grind of podcasting every single week is taxing.  But it’s all worth it, knowing that our listeners are enjoying our content.

You, the listener and reader, are why we are NOT stopping the show.  More songs are yet to come.  More bathroom humor.  More Don Marco.  More Brown.  The name may change but everything else will remain the same.  And it’s because of you guys.  Thank you for being so accepting of our silly little show.  Off the top of my head, thank you to TamarindLAZ (first bud!), Fisherman, ChickenX, Sir Firo, Blinkcard, Mahagna, Fisherman (yes twice…you deserve bro), Mcnally3000, MTaylo050, jvmaxwell (AKA i5-2500k!), stingo, NMReign, JJMAC (old school yo), heyfling, hollitz, MercenaryR56, DarkTAO, KCohere.  If I left you out, I apologize.  Nothin but love for ya.

To my cohosts that I’m actually continuing to record episodes with… Thanks for putting up with me!  I know that every few months I go from “accusing everyone that you’re not doing enough for the show” to “Can I quit doing this every week?”  You are my Rispiradone.  And for that I am thankful … also, you guys SERIOUSLY need to pick up the freaking slack on pre-made content. Stop slacking.  I WILL send an email.  YOU KNOW I’LL DO IT.

Thanks for everything SG.  See ya on the flip side.

After four years of fun, it is with a heavy heart that I find myself, entirely by my own choice, departing Sarcastic Gamer. Though I am comforted by being able to continue working with the great team of staff that I met through SG, it still saddens me that it has come to this.

To say Sarcastic Gamer saved my life is perhaps a little overly melodramatic … but not by much! It is certainly fair to say that it had a massively positive effect on my life, and I will be eternally grateful to Doc and Dave for the chances they have given me and the friendships they have enabled me to share.

Sarcastic Gamer was the first time in my life that I was given conclusive proof that the internet could be used to make real life friends. To be bluntly honest, friends have never been too hard to come by in my life. Either because I’ve just been lucky or because making new friends is not that difficult a thing to do for someone as easy-going and friendly as I pride myself on being. However, good friendships are extremely valuable to me. Part of the reason that I joined a gaming community was that the majority of my close friends were not as much of a *cringe* hardcore gamer */cringe* as I was. I really enjoyed just chatting about games on the forums with people, even a long while before I was posting on the front page. Regua was the first person on the forums (before either of us were staff) that I regarded as a friend and have since gone on to add a number of other staff and forum members to that list. I fully expect a vast number of the friendships I have formed, both locally and around the globe, to continue for the rest of my life.

I started on SG as the resident comic artist, which I always found amusing, given that I can’t draw. This started a trend, as I then went on to start writing for the site (when I couldn’t write) and then went on to podcast (when I couldn’t podcast). A lesson in never letting something that you can’t do stop you from doing it! With a good bit of work, help from those around me and a lot of practice, I feel that I grew into any role that I threw myself into. I certainly do not think I became an expert in any of the fields, but I have at least elevated my skills to the point where I had a good, rewarding time producing the content with the people I got to work with. I was always thankful that people were kind enough to regularly comment that they enjoyed my work. I am truly grateful for the multitude of positive comments I have had over the years.  They are the fuel that feeds my creative fire. Despite the general warnings of “that is just the way that internet commentors are,” I have always been fortunate that the overwhelming majority of comments on my work have been, almost alarmingly, positive. On the odd occasion that was not the case, it was usually as I had been misguided down the path of being an internet troll. I long ago accepted that this was the quick, lazy, childish way to get ahead in the internet. Many people have, and will continue to have, success with it. And good luck to those that do. It was not suited to the way I like to conduct myself in life and is not the best way for me to contribute to the world.

After a few years of fun times and hard work, a number of great gaming opportunities came my way. Being Dragon punched in the face by the man that made Street Fighter (the awesome Ono-san) was a definite highlight. As was being driven round a racetrack by a man formally known as “The Stig” in a Porsche being chased by two Need for Speed style Lamborghini cop cars. That kind of thing doesn’t happen every day. That may even be a level above what I get to do in video games! Then there was visiting BioWare’s studios in Edmonton, Alberta. While I will always fondly remember my first visit to a gaming studio (to go see the lovely people at Relentless Software), visiting Canada was special. BioWare have made some of my favourite games of all time and getting to visit the place where all that magic was made, in a strange far away snow covered land, was very much the epic blogging quest of my dreams. And I lived through it. Then blogged and podcasted about it, so everyone else could BASICALLY share in my adventures.

I got a lot from Sarcastic Gamer, and I like to think I gave a lot back. I would like to reiterate my deeply humble gratitude to Doc and Dave for the invitation to be Sarcastic with them. It has been an absolute blast that has changed my life forever. Goodbye seems oddly inappropriate and words, not for the last time, fail me. So, I’ll leave you with a semi-appropriate quote from one of my favourite authors: “So long and thanks for all the fish.”

NB: 107 small kittens were harmed in the making of this resignation post.

Editor’s note: SmellyPirate says goodbye by sharing one of his favorite articles from the SG archives.  Where we’re going, we don’t need buns.

A few weeks ago, purveyor of greasy fare Kentucky Fried Chicken unleashed its latest attempt to fast-track consumers to early graves: the Double Down sandwich.  The chain restaurant’s newest fat bomb arrived in my lap in the form of two pieces of bacon, two slices of cheese and the Colonel’s secret sauce, all wedged between two breaded, white-meat chicken fillets. KFC has bucked fast-food norms with this caloric beast by ditching the carb-heavy buns altogether.

The Double Down sandwich is, admittedly, quite delicious. Just be prepared to ingest 540 calories, 32 grams of fat and 1,380 milligrams of sodium. Yikes!

What can I say about this … this … monstrosity?  If I was 17 years old, this would be the kind of sandwich that I would buy at least three times a week.  I mean, who really wants to bother with hamburger buns? Merely a load of empty calories.  And yet, as I ate the Double Down, I felt a peculiar sense of gluttonous guilt.  It was, interestingly enough, akin to the feeling I get as a 31-year-old gamer on a five-hour marathon, neglecting family, friends and bodily functions.

And then I realized that the only time in my adult life that I have been able to gorge on video games without being overwrought with self-loathing and guilt was Oct. 17, 2009.  Extra Life transformed a mindless orgy of junk food and video games into a benevolent act of defiance against pediatric cancer.

So, KFC (or Doc) convince me that eating this sandwich will somehow heal sick children, resurrect dead kittens or facilitate the replacement of DeathByWaffle’s nipples, and I will eat it as much as my colon will allow.  Otherwise, it is simply too much of a caloric indulgence to justify repeated consumption.

Verdict: rental

I joined SG in 2007 after seeing the PS3 parody “How You Killed Your Brand” on Youtube.  I was looking for a great community and some new friends to play with on XBOX live, and I knew this was the new home for me. I started listening to the podcasts and became a big fan of what the people here were doing.

Nine months later I dragged my wife  to meet the staff (Hey Frawlz!) at PAX and watch Doc, Dave and Lono podcast live in a hotel meeting room with free pizza and prizes. A few SG game nights later, I had met more of the staff and made even more friends that I have been gaming with to this day.

After hosting my own community cast “The Resonator,” I was asked to join the SG staff to run the community casts in which I got to meet many community members and podcasters (Jitterbug!) and get a chance to work with the staff on various projects which included an awesome Christmas special.

When Lono left SG for a while, he recruited me to co-host and edit Respawn Radio. I am still thankful to this day to have that opportunity to podcast with him and other various co-hosts and guests. As a middle child between warring parents, I remained on SG staff and was glad to be part of bringing Respawn Radio to SG. Although things did not end well on Respawn Radio for me (no hard feelings now) the support of our community and fans made it all worth while.

Now is the time that I am embarking on new journeys in life. One of these is grad school, in which I will be busier than ever juggling job, family and school all at the same time while trying my best to maintain my passion for gaming. The other journey is one with some of the best people I have had the pleasure of working with here at SG. I look forward to many more good times ahead with this crew on this upcoming new adventure.

It has been an honor to be part of SG and to get to know and game with many of you. Thank all of you from the bottom of my heart for listening to our podcasts, reading my (few) articles, visiting with me on XBL and the forums and, finally, for some awesome memories at PAX including BBQs, parties, brew pubs, movies and karaoke. You can follow me @8bitBass on twitter for further life and updates. Goodbye SG and God Bless.

After nearly four years, I have decided to close this chapter of my life.  I’m not expecting this goodbye to make nearly as big a splash as the preceding ones, but there’s just one thing I need to say before I leave.

I’m here to say thank you.  Thank you to the owners of Sarcastic Gamer for giving me an opportunity to be a small part of a truly amazing community.  Thank you to my colleagues in arms, no matter how long they stuck around, who will always hold a special place in my heart.  Most of all, I want to thank you and every other member of the Sarcastic Gamer community.  Without you, I am just tossing words into a void.  No writer wants to be the crazy person talking to an empty room.

Through it all, I wrote straight from the heart.  I always gave my heartfelt opinion, and I never wrote to stir shit up.

I wanted to start conversation and make readers engage each other, respectfully, in spirited debate, but I also wanted to entertain readers and make them laugh.  If over these 3+ years I have never made you laugh or smile, then I failed miserably.  Sometimes I went off the rails and wrote like a bull in a china shop, but it was all for you – you and the rest of the SGC.

As for what the future holds … well, I promise that you’ll see me around.  I plan to leave the moniker (Havok) behind, but I hope that you will recognize my writing style, which is overrun by references to 1980s cartoons and former New York Knicks all-star center Patrick Ewing.  If not, just look for a byline of “Alex Saunders,” which is the name that my parents gave me once they found out that Elton John was already taken.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you.  Thank you for reading and thank you for supporting Sarcastic Gamer.  Goodbyes are always so hard, so it’s good that I’m not saying goodbye.

With love and Cheez-It crumbs on my lap,

Alex “Havok” Saunders

Photo credit: Comic Vine

Oh, hey. Yeah, remember me? I quit a little over a month ago.

I figured that there were a lot of questions as into “Y U HAV MASS EXODUS!?!?!?!” and I realized a lot of you wanted answers and even though I couldn’t lay it all out on the line easily, you all deserved a little bit more. I was writing and I was on podcasts and I was doing my thing with Sarcastic Gamer, but it seems it all came to a head in December, right? Knowing what would be on the horizon, I stepped down from Sarcastic Gamer because I knew I had a solid month that I could just RELAX and (Gasp!) play video games. I knew that whatever I was going to do next — and yes, there’s a plan — was going to be on hold for at least the end of the year, right? I could take a break. I’m pretty sure, through absolute transparency of this intention, that a lot of our writers felt exactly the same way. That’s when everyone noticed that the blog stopped churning, the reviews stopped coming and suddenly all you had were podcasts and very little explanation. There’s a good reason for that, I can assure you.

Behind-the-scenes at Sarcastic Gamer, things were getting complicated and to say it was as simple as all that is a disservice to those that have dealt with those problems for far longer than I had been around. While I was brought on by one of the owners due to my writing and obviously brash tendencies — most of the staff here have been around since the beginning. They’ve dealt with A LOT. Most of them have cut their teeth in on this very place that you all come to for snarkish behavior and silly outlooks on the hobbies you all know and love.

There’s only so much some people can take though, right? I’m sure you guys get it.

Despite my having only been with the site for a little less than a year, I came to absolutely love and appreciate the staff. They became VERY close and loving family — and you never, ever wanted anyone more on your side than these guys (And girls.) if you were having problems. Our email blasts were legendary, the threads of imagination and both turbulence were some of my best and worst days with SG and I seriously say with no uncertainty that it’s been the BEST experience of my seven year long career with games writing.

I hope you all know that it’s not the end though — like a family who has been through a lot, we regroup. We have to be, tight-lipped as Capn put it, about the whole business of where we’re all going to be in the future but please know — we WILL be around. Maybe it won’t be under the SG banner that you guys have come to daily (And we thank you for it!), but we will be there.

Make sure to keep an eye out on everyone’s respective Twitter feeds and stay posted for news on where we’re all headed — because we cannot wait to show you what we’ve got hidden up (Not under, I swear I’m not an Alien.) our sleeves.

Peace, Love & Headshots,

Candice

Stay frosty!

For those not looking to read a long goodbye, here’s the short version:

I am leaving Sarcastic Gamer. I will still be podcasting (Da Blu Show is foreva!) and writing, just not here. Tony Danza. Pineapple. Walrus.

For those who want to read my whimsical goodbye to the community I love and find out how to find me in the future, stick around. [continue reading →]