Podcasts have been dominating my life the last year or so. Whether I’m watching over my little baby, hanging out at home, or driving in my car, I’ve usually got an earbud or two plugged in and a podcast going in the background. Since ranking things is something I absolutely love to do when I’m invested in something, I figured I’d take the time to rank the podcasts I’m listening to, from best to worst. Are you ready for this epic smackdown? I sure hope so. Let’s start off with #1, and let the drama ensue!
#1:
The Survivor Historians Podcast
Hosted by Mario Lanza, Jay Fischer, Mike Bloom, and Paul Asleson
This is the podcast that kicked things off for me last year. One of my favorite activities during the warmer months was to take my baby out for long walks in the neighborhood. At first, I just walked and pushed the stroller without listening to anything, but after a few weeks of doing this I figured I’d check out a podcast or two to keep my mind occupied. I brought this idea up on Facebook and someone suggested to me The Survivor Historians podcast since I was such a big fan of the show. And that’s what I did. I started at the beginning, a combination episode that talked about several seasons. The podcast immediately hooked me because two of the hosts were people I’d encountered in the online Survivor community – Mario Lanza and Beatles (who never returned to the podcast after the very first episode).
As soon as I started this podcast I knew instantly I was going to be a big fan. Listening to the hosts talk about a subject I loved and seeing their sense of humor and chemistry with one another got me hooked right off the bat. I liked the fact that they spoke openly and that they weren’t necessarily PC like everyone tends to be these days. I loved the talk of BJs in Borneo and old ladies falling and Zoe deepthroating Snickers bars, and all that fun stuff.
As I continued to listen to the podcast, I began to feel more and more like I knew and was friends with the hosts, and I was just a silent observer during their conversations - which is a sign of a great podcast. Early in the podcast’s run they held a contest for a new host when one of them moved to Germany and couldn’t participate anymore. It’s too bad I was several years too late because I would have loved to audition!
The podcast got me reinvested in the show, too. Initially I didn’t have any plans to rewatch Survivor from the beginning since I had just finished a ten-year rewatch in 2020. But the podcast got me so interested in the older seasons that I fired them up and followed along.
I made it all the way through Survivor Panama (Exile Island) before winter came. I was going to keep listening to the podcast, but it “wasn’t the same” listening to it at home or in the car. I associated it with walking the baby, which obviously wasn’t happening during the frigid winter months. So now I am on hiatus from both the podcast and my rewatch of the show. I plan to resume both when the weather gets warmer and I can start taking the baby out again. Cook Islands, here we come!
The break actually turned out great because in the meantime I’ve discovered Australian Survivor and I’ve been obsessed with that for a while now. I anticipate that once I’m all caught up with that show, it will almost be summer time and I can return to US Survivor and the Historians podcast once again.
See, everything does have a way of coming together in the end.
#2:
Worth it or Worthless: A Retro Game Podcast
Hosted by Dan and Jordan
Worth it or Worthless is the second podcast that I started listening to, which was shortly after I began the Survivor Historians. It’s funny that they are 1 and 2 on my list. You always think fondly upon your firsts, amiright?
In this podcast, the two hosts (Dan and Jordan) play through an old game from Dan’s retro collection, talk about what the game does and doesn’t do well, and then make the determination if the game is worth it or worthless by today’s standards – according to what the game is selling for in present times. I like the dynamic between Dan and Jordan, two life long friends. Dan is the one who grew up more of a “hardcore” gamer, while Jordan is more of a casual gamer. A lot of the games they play are co-op, and one of the running jokes is how Dan is always so much better at the games. Another running joke I enjoy is how Dan usually has some well thought out criticism of the games, while Jordan tends to nitpick the cutscenes and the lore of each game. Dan’s exasperated sigh followed by the way he simply says “Jordan” when Jordan starts one of these rants is always just so funny to me.
One thing I love about this podcast is how much it has improved since it first began. The very first episode of the podcast was from August of 2018. Where I am now in the podcast (episode 47) it is July of 2020. In those two years, they’ve added things like trivia questions and listener feedback – and each episode ends with some fun music inspired by or directly pulled from the game they just played.
While I don’t agree with their assessments of every game (they say Mario 2 and Sonic 3 suck… wtf?), I do love the banter between the two hosts as they share their memories of the game and then what their thoughts were after they played it again in present times. Often when determining if a game is worth it or not, they’ll compare it to the price of a burrito at Chipotle and whether or not the game would be worth playing against the cost of a burrito.
This is a super fun podcast. It’s sweet, it’s charming. Dan and Jordan’s long-lasting friendship is evident in the way they talk to each other, and it makes you want to be friends with them as well. Funny – even though I’ve been listening to them for nearly a year now I still have no idea what either one looks like. I definitely recommend this to anyone interested in retro gaming podcasts.
#3:
The Retrograde: A Video Game Podcast
Hosted by Andrew Bascom and Mikey Ehrenworth
This is another podcast I started listening to in 2021 as I would take my baby for a walk each day in his stroller. I’m not sure what led me to this podcast – I think I just searched for “retro video games” in Podbean, and boom The Retrograde came up. Admittedly, I wasn’t sold on this one immediately. The hosts seemed a little too “spastic” for me. Very high energy, almost as if they were trying too hard to be entertaining. Each podcast starts with the hosts bantering for about 20 to 30 minutes before they actually get to talking about the game in the episode’s title. For example, in one of the first episodes of this podcast they talked about the new Jumanji movie along with some other strangely off-topic things before they ever got to the actual game they were supposed to be reviewing itself. This was a little off-putting for me. A few of the earlier episodes were completely non-game related too. They’d talk about Marvel movies and they’d rank them in order of worst to best, they held a Pokemon fantasy draft, that kind of thing.
The premise of the podcast is that they pick a retro game to play – and then they give it a ranking (based solely on nostalgia) of what they would have ranked the game when it first came out. Each score is somewhere from a 1 to 4. Since there are two hosts, the highest possible total is an 8. Then they play the game and again give it a score of 1 through 4, this time based on playing it in the present times. So the score is out of a possible 16 points, or bits as they like to say.
The thing I don’t like about this podcast is how harsh they are on some of these older games. According to these guys, Star Fox 64, Wolfenstein 3D, Sonic the Hedgehog, and many other games that I would consider “classics” suck. They always say that the controls are outdated and make the games impossible to play. I can tell you from personal experience: I have played through all three of these games in the last few years and I think they are just as good now as they were before. I didn’t have any problems with the controls whatsoever. In a way, it almost seems like they are blaming the game for them sucking at the game. I know, I know. If they ever actually read this post they will probably deny this, but hey I call it like I see it.
Despite this, I still absolutely love this podcast. While I once considered their energy “spastic” it has now begun to grow on me as a listener. These guys are absolutely hilarious, and even if I don’t always agree with their verdicts on these games, I still can’t wait to see what they have to say about them. A running gag that I enjoy is when they talk to “Producer Elliott.” In the early episodes they’d always ask this mysterious individual questions, to which they’d get no response. Then they’d joke about Producer Elliott being asleep. As the podcast has went on, Producer Elliott has actually turned into a real person (what sounds like a woman) and they find creative ways to get her involved in the podcast – like researching and looking things up on the spot. I don’t know why, but I just always really enjoy these interactions.
Andrew and Mikey still occasionally do off-topic things (like they recently had a Street Fighter character draft, and they’ve been talking a lot about “new” games like Spider Man and God of War) but that doesn’t bother me either. I look forward to listening to these podcasts and genuinely get excited when I fire up a new one. If I had made this ranking just 3 or 4 months ago, this podcast likely would have been several spots below where it is now. But it is rising fast.
Another thing for me to get excited about is that even though I’ve only listened to 24 of their podcasts, they have published over 200 of them in real time. So I just have a TON of them to listen to. That’ll give me and Mikey and Andrew even more chances to “bond” in the upcoming years. I am so, so excited about that. Don’t be surprised if this podcast moves into my top 2 at some point in the future.
#4:
Collateral Gaming Video Game Podcast
Hosted by Ashley and Dakota Chancellor
This is another podcast that I randomly found while searching Podbean for gaming podcasts. Apparently this is an offshoot of a different podcast called Collateral Cinema – and they often have Collateral Cinema people on these episodes - most notably Bo, a guy who who sounds drunk half the time and who never actually plays any of the games. He just said in one of the last podcasts I listened to that he was born in 1982, which is funny because that's my birth year as well. Happy 40th, my dude. I am not familiar with Collateral Cinema on the whole, however, and have not listened to any of their podcasts yet. Maybe I will in the future?
What is different about this podcast from the other gaming podcasts I listen to is that it is not solely focused on retro games. They’ve had episodes for games like No Man’s Sky, The Last of Us, Spider-Man, Red Dead Redemption 2, Subnautica, PT: Silent Hills, among many other games that I would consider new or newer.
While these hosts may not be as charismatic as Dan and Jordan or Mikey and Andrew, they make up for it in their knowledge and passion of the games they play. So many of these games I have absolutely zero interest in playing or replaying, but the way they talk about them completely changes my mind. I also enjoy how we get small little details into the lives of the hosts, like when Ashley became a father (which is poignant for me because I recently became a father too) and other life events that are happening with them. It makes you think more of them than just some person who solely exists to make podcasts. They have their own lives and things happening outside of this. They also say at the start of nearly every episode that it is a 420 friendly podcast, which makes me chuckle a bit.
There’s no inside jokes or really anything that makes this podcast stand out from the 3 that are ahead of it on my list. I guess I can add that one thing I really enjoy is how they often intersperse long clips of cutscenes from games throughout the podcast. My favorite example of this is when they played the audio from the Last of Us intro, when Joel’s daughter dies. Way to make me cry in my car, guys!
If you simply want to listen to a bunch of guys talk about video games, then this is the podcast for you. There’s just something comforting about these episodes that I love. It’s become my “drive home from work” podcast that I listen to every week.
Oh before I move on, to answer a question you had in one of your podcasts: no you don’t have Texas accents – at least from my Wisconsin-based viewpoints. You all just sound like any other people.
#5:
The Leftovers – Post Show Recaps
Hosted by Josh Wigler and Antonio Mazzaro
Hey, a podcast that isn’t gaming related! I just finished watching through the Leftovers for the first time about 2 months ago – and I absolutely loved the show. It may go down as one of my top 5 TV shows of all time, I loved it that much. I wasn’t quite ready to move on from the show (irony anyone?) so I searched through Podbean to see if there were any podcasts dedicated to the Leftovers. And that’s how I discovered this one.
From what I can gather, this isn’t the first time these hosts have worked together. They’ve periodically mentioned their recaps of the show The Strain, as well as being in some kind of podcasting network where Rob Cesternino is involved. Kind of funny, because Rob Cesternino was a guest on the Survivor Historians once – and I am also aware of “Rob Has a Podcast” although I have never listened to it before. It may be one of the first podcasts I have ever heard of (period) so kudos to you, Rob, for being a trendsetter. I tried adding Rob has a Podcast to my Podbean queue, but it doesn’t start from the very beginning so I took it off. I’m one of those people that won’t watch/play/listen to something unless it’s from the very beginning. It’s an OCD thing, I think.
ANYWAY, this is a really great podcast. I like the chemistry between the two hosts. Antonio sounds exactly like a guy I work with named Ed, so I can’t get Ed’s image out of my head when listening to this podcast, almost as if Ed was a host himself. I love listening to their progression as they’ve gone from “The Leftovers is okay” into season two where they now seem to be huge fans of the show. They’ve offered a lot of insightful commentary on the show and they’ve brought up Easter Eggs and things happening in the background that I never would have noticed before (which is one of the main reasons I started listening to this – so yay for that!).
I love their humor. They make me laugh so much each episode. Their enthusiasm for “The BBA” aka the Big Bald Asshole aka Dean is just hilarious to me for some reason. I remember Dean had been AWOL for a few episodes in season 1, and when he returned they were all excited like “It’s the BBA! Our buddy! I missed him, did you miss him?”. That made me laugh so much. My only complaint is that they agree on everything, always. I can’t count how many times one of them says “I think you’re totally right” each and every episode. It would be nice to see some conflict or differing opinions from time to time, but I am not going to whine too much about this.
Fantastic podcast, and I always look forward to listening to more. If you are curious where I am right now – I am on the recap of Season 2 Episode 4.
#6:
Arcade Attack Retro Gaming Podcast
Hosted by Keith, Adrian, Dylan, and James
I’ll admit, I absolutely hated this podcast when I first started listening to it. I almost removed it from my subscriptions completely, but I am glad I didn’t. The earlier episodes were a bit chaotic as they hadn’t quite figured things out yet. The audio was bad, people were talking over one another, they were making references I didn’t understand, and their British accents reminded me too much of Dan and Phil – a couple of YouTubers my wife was unhealthily obsessed with several years back.
The more I listened to this podcast, the more it began to grow on me – to the point where I now look forward to listening to each episode. I love the personal stories these guys share, like what games and what systems they grew up with. The conversation is just really genuine and heartfelt. I think they even realized about 20 episodes in that they hadn’t introduced themselves or explained who they were when the podcast first started, so they dedicated an entire episode around themselves and their gaming histories. I really liked that, and I think that episode was the turning point for me becoming a fan of them.
They are funny, they’re knowledgeable, and if I recall correctly they are about the same age as me (I was born in 1982) so they grew up with a lot of the same games that I did. I’m terrible with names, but one of the hosts has this really soft and comforting voice that I like to listen to. I love their intro music, and I also love how they use “Game over yeaaahhhhh!” from Daytona USA at the end of each episode.
I’m only on episode 28, and this podcast has 244 episodes currently available on Podbean. I’m curious to see where these guys will rank by the time I’m all caught up (which at my rate will be about 8 years).
#7:
Cartridge Club: The Game of the Month Podcast
Hosted by P1 and P2
Apologies for not knowing the actual names of the hosts. Are they ever referred to by their real names on the Podcast? I have no idea. All I know is that P1 sounds like my favorite YouTuber – somecallmejohnny. Every time I listen to this I just can’t shake the feeling that it’s really him in charge of the podcast, even though I know it is not.
This podcast took me a little while to get used to. The premise is not explained at all, you just have to figure it out as you listen. But apparently there is an online community called, you guessed it, The Cartridge Club, that collectively decides to pick a game to play each month and then at the end of the month they talk about the game for the podcast. P1 and P2 (who I think are brothers?) are the two mainstay hosts, but each episode the cohosts are different. I think there are up to 2 or 3 guests each month. What I love about the Cartridge Club is that each of these guests are highlighted every episode, and you get to find out about them and how you can find them online. Some have YouTube channels, some are streamers, some have blogs, etc. So this podcast is a good way for them to put their names out there, and I freaking love that. I’d love to be a Cartridge Club member one day, but again – my OCD dictates that I listen to these in chronological order before I do anything.
This podcast has really opened my eyes and has made me want to play some games that I previously had no interest in playing before. Each episode runs a bit on the long side, however. It feels like I’ve been listening to this podcast for months now, but I was shocked when I looked at their listing that I am only on Episode 13. Craziness! I thought for sure I was at least up to 20. And this podcast goes all the way back to 2015, so assuming they put one out every month it is going to be a loooooong time before I am ever caught up. I’m not complaining though. The more Cartridge Club episodes I can listen to, the better.
#8:
The Losers’ Club: A Stephen King Podcast
Hosted by a bunch of people whose names I don’t remember
I’m a massive Stephen King fan, so when I started listening to podcasts last year it made sense I’d seek out a King cast or two to add to my rotation. The Loser’s Club ended up being my first.
I enjoy this podcast a lot. The premise is that the hosts are reading through each King novel in order of publication, and then they spend an entire episode (or in some cases multiple episodes) dissecting the book. They look for Kingisms – which are basically recurring Stephen King tropes and phrases. They look for connections to his other works. My favorite section is always the “poundcake” section where they talk about King’s awkward sex scenes, sex references, or just other strange things in the book as they relate to poop, pee, and other bodily fluids. At the end of each episode they rate the book on a scale of 1 to 5 bright red Pennywise noses. I just finished the episode on the Dead Zone, which is the first novel to earn a perfect 5/5 from all the hosts. I don’t remember that book being so good. Makes me want to go back and read it again.
In fact, this whole podcast makes me want to revisit King’s works. I’ve read each of his books at least 2 times in my life (some of them like the Stand I’ve read 5 or more times) so it really says a lot that they are able to get me so interested in revisiting them. I love how seriously they take King, and how they defend him as being more than just a horror writer. I’ve been saying this for years so I definitely feel their struggle. There is so much more to King than people give him credit for.
I also like how they make note of King’s progress as a writer, and things that he seems to have learned from one book to the next. It’s really fascinating to listen to, in a way. The only reason this podcast doesn’t rank higher is once again because of the length of some of these episodes. For example The Stand was broken up into three parts, and each of these parts was three hours or more long. That’s like nine hours of listening to people talk about the Stand, which got a bit tiring for me. The hosts also come across as a bit pretentious sometimes. I can see them getting up on stage and reciting King quotes with the lights dimmed at some kind of campus book reading.
#9:
BoxTrick: A Retro Gaming Podcast
Hosted by ???
I just started listening to this podcast not too long ago. I don’t even know the hosts’ names yet, nor could I tell you really anything about their personalities – or if it is even the same people each week.
All I know is that this is a retro gaming podcast where each episode isn’t necessarily based around one game. An episode title might be something like PS2 Hidden Gems or Best Tactical RPGs – and then they talk about a number of games that fall under these umbrellas. I love this because all my other podcasts tend to linger for a long time on each and every game they talk about – whereas this one is rapid fire jumping from game to game to game. I’ve been keeping a list of games they’ve talked about that I haven’t played yet that sound interesting to me. There are a bunch of really short episodes that range from 20 to 30 minutes long, so this podcast really feels like it moves along quickly. There are some longer episodes as well.
The only reason this doesn’t rank higher is because like I said I haven’t been listening to it for very long. I’m only 9 episodes in. I also don’t feel like I know anything about the hosts or their personalities. That’s one of the things that makes podcasts addicting is being able to vibe with the hosts, and I feel like BoxTrick has a lot of room to improve in that area.
#10
Stephen King Cast
Hosted by Constant Reader
I’m kind of getting tired of writing this ranking, so I’ll just touch briefly on the podcasts at the bottom. This podcast is similar to the Loser’s Club in that it follows King’s works in the order of publication. The host reads a summary of the book, discusses his feelings on the book, and then moves on. Sometimes he talks about each book's movie and TV adaptations as well.
This one ranks so low for me because it’s only one guy doing the podcast, and you can tell he’s just reading each podcast from a document he’s probably prepared in advance. There’s no humor. There are no cohosts to vibe off of. It’s just one guy reading from a piece of paper. I also feel as if the insight into these books that he offers isn't as deep as what you would get in The Losers Club. For example, the Losers dissected the Long Walk and offered many different meanings/interpretations of the book, whereas this podcast was just like "I don't think this book really has much to say" and that was it.
It sounds like I’m being a little harsh on this guy. Obviously, I wouldn’t listen to this podcast if I didn’t like it. It’s just not my favorite podcast in my rotation. This morning I listened to his Dead Zone adaptation episode, and the way he was so enthusiastic about it and was talking about Christopher Walken was quite charming. More episodes like this, please, and maybe you'll move up on my list.
#11
Hosted by Greg Polycn and Vanessa Richardson
When I first started listening to podcasts I wanted to really dive into some good true crime series, but apparently the selection on Podbean is quite limited. So I picked Serial Killers.
I can honestly say this is one of my least favorite podcasts. There are a lot of ads that play at the beginning and randomly in the middle of the podcast. The two hosts are kind of dry and lifeless. You can tell things are scripted and they’re not naturally “vibing” which is a word I like to use. Instead, they’ve prepared the podcast in advance and are just reciting what they’ve already written.
I didn’t know you could make serial killers boring, but this podcast manages to do the trick. Of all the podcasts in my rotation, this is the one I’ve zoned out on the most. A whole episode will play and I’ll have no idea what just happened. Aside from a few standout episodes this podcast has consistently been one of my least favorite. I’ll keep listening, but I don’t think its stock is going to improve anytime soon.
Random observation: to me, the man in this podcast sounds like the voice of the researcher who reads from the Necronomicon in the first Evil Dead movie. So it has that going for it.
#12:
Sega Saturn, SHIRO!
Hosted by Patrick, Dave, and Kay (Ka? K?)
Here we go, the least favorite podcast in my rotation. I first taught myself how to emulate Sega Saturn games a few months ago. This is one of my favorite gaming consoles of all time, and no one ever talks about it, so I wanted to see if there was a podcast dedicated to the Saturn. This is the one podcast that Podbean was able to find for me.
What I don’t like about this podcast is that they don’t spend enough time talking about the actual games for the Saturn. The hosts are big on modding and importing. They’re always talking about chips and processors and all these technical things that mean absolutely nothing to me. I swear someone brings up soldering in each and every episode I’ve listened to so far. That’s my beef with this podcast. It’s too heavy on the technical and too light on the actual games themselves. Also, the main host sounds like a pimply Slim Shady wannabe who hates Mr. Bones, and one of the cohosts has this annoying habit of sucking in his breath before every sentence. It is tough to listen to sometimes.
I’ve only listened to 7 of these episodes, and I don’t know how much further I can make it before I drop it from my rotation. I don't want to do that, because I listen to this podcast for Saturn recommendations. I just wish they talked about the games more.
(late edit: I just looked up a YouTube video of Patrick and he is completely different from what I pictured. Sorry about the pimply Slim Shady comment. It's funny how you picture someone in a podcast when listening to their voices sometimes)
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