Good Game is starting back up next week, in five days to be precise! The new season kicks off with a one hour special at 8.30 this coming Tuesday, but alongside the weekly edition of the show, the Good Game team is also launching something new: Good Game Pocket, a daily show available online and on iView. With a new show comes a new host: Michael “Hingers” Hing. We caught up with Hingers and asked him a few important questions.
Actually, we didn’t. We asked him a ton of questions about video games. I guess that’s important if you’re going to host a show about video games.
1. What’s the first video game you ever played?
In the early 90’s, maybe it was 1990, my dad brought home an IBM computer with a little 286 processor in it, to do work at home. Foolishly, the guy he bought it off installed both Snake AND Space Invaders on it, and as a result this man unwittingly set me on a path that saw me drop out of uni and achieve very little. So really, it’s my dad’s fault I don’t have a real job. Probably.
There was a weird bug in this particular version of Space Invaders that meant if you played with the mouse (as opposed to keyboard) and held down the left button (as opposed to repeatedly clicking), it would just infinity fire lasers into the ether, mowing down the marauding aliens.
And combining that with the counter-intuitive “shoot-through-your-own-shields” strategy that my older brother Chris taught me, meant the game just became a bit of a tedious marathon. Seeing which one of us could sit at the computer the longest, watching the high scores rack up. I don’t remember it ever actually being enjoyable, but I do remember the undying hunger to beat Chris. In many ways, I think I’m still playing games in order to beat my older brother – and to be clear, not beat the man he grew into , but beat the ten year old who still exists in my mind. I see him now, mocking my stubby, not-yet-fully-formed child fingers, and their poor motor skills.
2. What’s the last video game you played?
This morning we got to take a first look at Project Cars for the show. I’m not much of a racing guy. Upon reflection, I could well be the worst racing guy. I kind of just crashed my way around a few courses and struggled in the wet – I don’t even know if I finished a race. it was a real disgrace. In fact, it got to a point where our editor John (who happens to be a very keen and competitive racer) got so frustrated he just kicked me out of the chair. It wasn’t a great day for my pride. I’m vaguely concerned that if that footage surfaces the RTA might rescind my actual driver’s license.
3. What video game can’t you stop playing?
Hmm.. the big one for me over the past decade has been WoW. I played it from launch and through the glory days of vanilla. I got very addicted to PvP back then and I think my girlfriend at the time came close to planning an intervention. It was kind of a low point.
I planned on quitting after BC came out, and then again after Lich King, and after Cata, and after Mists and now I’m playing WoD and it’s probably time I admit that WoW is in my life to stay, even if all my friends have sworn off it and my guild disbanded years ago and it barely resembles the game I fell in love with in 2004.
I was thinking the other day about how you so rarely meet anyone who’s into WoW anymore. There are apparently 10 million subscribers but no one is ever keen to talk about it. They’re always about to quit, or they’ve just quit because they had a moment of clarity or they’re thinking about re-subbing but they’re worried or something but I dunno – I feel like I’ve just spent a decade building and crafting and levelling my warlock and I can’t just abandon him now. I think maybe I’ve fallen victim to a terrible sunk-cost fallacy.
4. What video game do you love that everyone hates
Ugh, this is so lame, but I really love SimCity. And I know it’s the dorkiest game for the biggest dorks who ever dorked. I know. I don’t even play it for the cool wilful destruction of towns. I’m just really into tax rates and supply chains and traffic management. I play it with the graphics turned down and the sound off. I just load up a city and listen to a podcast while I slowly tinker and watch numbers tick over. Now that I’m seeing these words written out in front of me it seems even sadder than I imagined, haha. My goodness, am I uncool?
5. What video game do you hate that everyone loves?
I don’t know about a specific game, but I am terrible at shooters. I played a lot of Quake and the first Team Fortress mod early on, and would occasionally get motion sickness. Eventually I stopped playing shooters and even now that they’re less nauseating I find some of the more full on violent ones a bit too confronting for my tastes.
6. What video game would you take to a desert island?
Starcraft 2. My goodness. What a beautiful game.
7. What’s your favourite video game of all time?
It’d probably be Starcraft 2 or Brood War. All the Brood War hipsters would say Brood War is more balanced, but I feel like that’s kind of unfair. Like, I assume Blizzard’ll spend years balancing Legacy of the Void like they did with Brood War, so we’re kinda in limbo now with the game. So, I guess I’ll say Brood War, but I’m one of the few (potentially naive) people who has high hopes for Legacy of the Void.
8. What was the most disappointing game of all time?
I still remember the visceral heart-break that was the Nintendo Spiderman game in like 1995. I never even owned it. I just remember my friend Jonno got it for his birthday and I raced over to his house to play it. We booted it up and it was so far below what we imagined that Spiderman became a code word for disappointment between us in high school. “How was Dave’s Party?” “Ahhh, no one really showed, it was kind of a Spiderman”.
9. What video game are you most looking forward to in 2015?
Maybe Legacy of the Void will drop this year? Maybe? There are always rumours. Every year, I look forward to the new FIFA when it comes out and my FUT club (AC Illawong) becomes barren and useless again. Y’know what, there’s a chance I’ll buy a Wii U just to play The Legend of Zelda. That looks amazing.
Comments
40 responses to “Meet Good Game’s Newest Host. He Likes Starcraft. A Lot.”
with question 4 im guessing he means the latest simcity because there is nothing “dorky” about liking the simcity franchise
Hey Mark…where’s question 2??
It’s there, just not in bold.
So it is. Formatting error on his part I guess…Oh well
Always felt Wii U was kinda under-served on this show. More of the same then?
I wish the new bloke all the best!
I think most of the Nintendo games end up being covered on GG SP
Most nintendo games are covered on GG SP.
So do we still get Darren, Bajo, Hex and Goose ? Or is someone getting the boot./
They will stay
It sounds like he is the new host for a new show format, the rest stays the same
Damn, I was hoping for P-Nutz.
#StillBetterThanHex
Uncool man even if your just kidding.
Drama aside Hex has been a fairly cool host. Props for where it’s due I say
Sorry man, just a huge Jungy fan, I personally like the P-Nutz section more than the Good Game nowadays.
Dirty confession: I haven’t watched the show since @junglist was on it.
It’s still good, yeah?
I guess it depends. I don’t mind it, but i think there reviews are very sheep like, but i hear others disagree…
Yeah I found that too Troguel2, I will give that comment the same score you give it 😉
I will give that comment +/- 0.5 rubber chickens…
I see what you did there 🙂
*taps side of nose*
Yeah pretty much gave it up the same time, gave it a chance, but nah, can’t get over the ‘yeah i thought that too’ constantly during reviews. “Whats that? You gave it score X? I’ll give it score X +/- 0.5”.
Also I can’t stand Bajo now, he really needs to tone down his “i’m a hyperactive clown” routine…
I lol’d at that, so true. It’s like he used to be appropriately self conscious about it, but he’s been on TV for years now so he’s more comfortable with his schtick
f’kn oath, mate. He acts like an utter twat & drags things away from the games because they focus on him wanting to either be silly, have an aside or have a sketch centred around him.
Was hoping that he’d be gone & that they could be a little more serious & have less time wasted on “in-between” segments.
Though he has improved a bit & taken more of David Stratton’s method of reviewing.
Yeah how about that review of Metro Last Light where they complained about dystopian environments…. threw in a hole lot of cutting to cats… and then a month later praised Last of Us dystopian environments.
When Junglist was there, Bajo was funny, as his sole goal was to entertain the audience. Now though, he seems like he is trying way, way, too hard to impress Hex. Watch it to see those stupid noises he does just to make her giggle.
Hah I’m so glad to find out I wasn’t the only one who noticed they rarely ever differ on their scores. Hex is basically just a female clone of Bajo, they even have the same mannerisms in their speech.
I’d have been more suprised if others HADN’T noticed mate, it’s pretty easy to pick up when, seriously, like 90% of the reviews have the two scores within +/-0.5 points of each other. It makes me wonder why they bothered with the two hosts and two review scores, better to just have one review for each game and do twice as many games, than pretending you have two different points of views that are nigh identical
It’s the ABC…. Groupthink or die
Nah, totally different vibe since Junglist left.
http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20140501181347/creepypasta/images/f/f6/Grumpy_Cat.jpg
I haven’t watched it since he was replaced by Hex, can’t stand her.
“Y’know what, there’s a chance I’ll buy a Wii U just to play The Legend of Zelda”
Seriously, you should have to own every current system just to qualify to be on the show at all.
That is exactly what i do with simcity
What, no Snack Report?
A few years ago this show was one of my favorite to watch
Since Junglist left this show has lost all credibility as a proper review show especially with the appeal to the kiddie audience (GG SP). Nothing against Stephanie Hex but she seems more apart of the cosplay / anime / console scene than broad range hardcore gaming.
These gaming reviewers or should i say actors just read off the autocue and doubtfully play any of the games they review to give a true representation .
They very rarely criticise any game and always give scores so similar the points are like 0.5 – 1 between Bajo & Hex
Wow this guys going shake it up………… So what else is on?
The show kind of devolved so it was all only about that robot, Minecraft and randomly calling everyone a noob.
Does this mean we might actually have something worthwhile in regards to eSports reporting considering this guys penchant for StarCraft?
BW for best game ever? Smart man right there.
I love how Spiderman was a code word for disappointment. 😛
Man I’m in love with HEX
I stopped watching after the Asian girl left….. and when HEX started….. this show was a lot better before management turned it into a little kids show. cannot stand watching it now as im talked to like a child trying to catch up on gaming….. do they realise how much of a huge audience left when they went to this format? idiots at ABC everything gets turned into a dumbed down kids show. and don’t get me started on that talking robot. my god are they aiming for 6 to 10 year olds? to me Junglist and Bajo were like a gamers HG and ROY! bring them back I say, let hex do SP with that robot and some other cosplay freak. I want real game reviews by real gamers and I want to be talked to like a friggin adult not a child. ABC suxass