Mondays from September 5th, 10pm,
Dave
The first episode is currently online on UKTV Play.
Edit: As promised, this is the post made last Monday bumped up for the television premiere.
Dave has started a trend recently of putting the first episode of their new series’ up a week before it gets broadcast as a sort of preview. This is both great – get to see new shows early – and aggravating – I’d prefer to have most of the discussion in one place and this splits the audience. So the solution I’ve decided upon is to do this Show Discussion post as normal, and then next Monday when it goes out on “proper” telly I will move the post so it’s top of the front page again. Ingenious and elegant, a bit like me really. I would suggest you take non-Go 8 Bit chat to the post beneath so people can discuss away in this one.
And so we come to the sort of show Dave does really quite well, get a bunch of celebs and comics together and get them to do something structured they’d probably find fun and film the results. Like Taskmaster, Go 8 Bit is another Edinburgh show that’s travelled and been adapted for television, and also like Taskmaster the people who came up with it have been relegated for someone who might be a bit more of an audience draw. In this case Steve McNeil and Sam Pamphilon (for it is they) are regular team captains joined by various celebrity guests to play video games, each episode apparently ending in game played as a real life lifesize version. Because the show has a science and technology bent only Dara O Briain could be drafted in to host.
We’re excited by the prospect of Ellie Gibson providing the commentary, one of my all-time favourite games writers back in her Eurogamer days and now one half of the Scummy Mummies and I’ve internet known technical bloke King Rob Sedgebeer for probably the best part of twenty years (Christ) and he recommended the show to me years ago so I’m quite pleased for everyone it seems to be coming together.
But, crucially, is it actually any good or is it just internet nerds shouting louder than it actually deserves because it might be a bit “niche” and that’s what they do? Let us know what you think in the comments.
If you enjoy this, you might enjoy Arcade Pit which I’ve been getting into lately, an internet gameshow about videogames both the knowledge of and playing. If you’re willing to roll with the in-jokes and shouting you might enjoy it as well. It’s quite well made for a homemade thing albeit quite lo-fi, not quite the slickest thing but that’s part of the fun.
I liked it. It wasn’t embarrassed about games, which is surprisingly rare in a games show – everyone was clearly a genuine enthusiast. The balance of actual competing and chat was about right, and the games mix was good.
Bad points: FPS games are still a pile of shit as a spectator sport; in head-to-heads we hardly ever got to see both screens at once so you had no idea who was winning; the victory condition on the Bust-A-Move segment was rubbish and the “Makey Makey” thing was a bit cringey.
Overall, a solid 8.6 out of 11.
This is effectively the case with UKTV’s entire output now.
Yeah as effectively a panel show on gaming culture I enjoyed it. And I really liked the rotating stage and music.
But in terms of the editing of gaming challenges I feel like we’ve actually gone several steps backwards over shows even twenty years ago. For a start it’s really important to point out what the winning condition is and how you achieve it (I actually have no idea why Susan won at the end as it looked like David had more points, if it’s meant to be Survival then it’s quite important to say that). Where it IS a points based thing, Gamesmaster used to do quite a useful thing of magnifying the relevant bit of the screen so we can see the important bit. I have not played Battlefront, I would not know how you got points or where it would say on screen how many you’ve got. In fact I’d even suggest it took too long for the commentary to warm up, probably not until Tekken was it consistantly insightful/funny/both. I know the tone is set to fun, but if you’re also having a competitive vibe then we need to know what the competition is.
I also think that despite how big modern tellies are the split screen has to be used more cleverly, I basically had no idea what was going on for Chuckie Egg at all. I’ve got a 40 inch telly sitting about 9-10 ft away, I dread to think what that’s going to be like on something smaller. Side by side both screens together couldn’t have taken up more than 60%.
I quite like that it’s the only studio recording to positively encourage you to keep your phones on. The scoring system is a bit meh (it might have been more fun if you could only win the percentage that backed you) but it’s not really that sort of a show so seems pointless getting upset about it.
I enjoyed it and look forward to the series, but my gut isn’t suggesting Taskmaster style hit. I think it should pull in a good advertiser friendly audience though.
What everyone else said. I enjoyed it; crucially, it felt credible. Susan Calman was just as great value as we were all hoping. Ellie and Dara were great. The little game context/introduction segments were respectful and entertaining. Watching the games was fun. These are the important things that the show got right, which is 90% of the battle.
The last 10% could be improved upon. The rotating of the stage was fun the first time and felt like filler later; similarly, the audience voting percentage shot dragged. That’s a weird thing to say as I never minded pretty much exactly the same thing in You Bet!; maybe YB‘s was more interesting because it mattered to the scoring, or because Matthew Kelly filled it more entertainingly, or because we were encouraged to play along at home and think about the challenge in a way that is more interesting than “who will win this challenge?” The countdowns made no sense – they weren’t counting down to the immediate start of the game, they were counting down to a logo, some indeterminate (but short) period of time before the start of the game.
Totally agree with the comments about direction, use of screen real estate and commentary. Lose the “Go 8-Bit” mics when it’s clear that they have no purpose whatsoever beyond aesthetics. Quite a few rough edges, then; this did have the feel of a late stage pilot rather than the finished product and I fear that we might be stuck with these small flaws for series one thought hopefully they might get sorted out for a second series. Crucially, the heart of the show is in the right place, in a show that is more about heart than head, and everything else can be dragged into line.
> I fear that we might be stuck with these small flaws for series one
Broadcast order is definitely not the same as recording order, if that’s a key sign to that effect.
Yeah, the rotating set must have seemed like a cool idea, but after the first time you see it, you’ve kinda seen it. And it took over 10 seconds of screen time to do it every time.
Surely just a separate area of the studio for them to walk to would have sufficed. Or screens in front of their seats? Did they just have money to burn?
I think it’s the best use of a rotating set piece since Runway.
Moment of Truth’s sofa?
I rather liked the turntables on Krypton Factor 1995 version; hated more or less everything after the commercial break; but the first half was nice.
Having now put some thought into it, there are a surprising number of gameshows with turntables.
Obviously the greatest use of a rotating area in a gameshow is Numberwang.
Is Countdown still rotating? I thought the numbers board was on the back of the letters.
Sort-of related news, especially relevant to Brig. A channel I follow on YouTube has uploaded the first episode of the 3rd series of What’s Up Doc, and it was this series that debuted Joe Razz
It’ll take a bit of sarching to find the Joe Razz bits, but the episode is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQDaB438KeQ
JOE RAZZ!
I grew up with Hugo the Danish Joe Razz, who was hugely popular in Germany, and I prefer that version by far. You should watch an episode of Die Hugo Show and skip the hosting bits (they are really boring, even if you understand every single bit, the hosts were just there to spread a little fun). I think I just like Hugo’s 2D Look, that makes the games a bit simpler, although they are more complex (e.g. featuring maps you had to look at while playing the game).
And there was another interactive phone game in the early 2000s in Germany in ZDFs kids slot Tivi. It was called Nelly Net(t) and ran for almost five years. Although there have apparently somerimes been more than 500,000 viewers, you can’t find it anywhere. I hope to get the old PC game at some point… I don’t remember any games from this one, although I loved it. I was exactly the target group at that time though.
Oh we had Hugo in the UK, he was the character used before Joe Razz.
Joe Razz used a lot in Spain, I believe.
we had it in Italy too
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jSHU7uuvt0
but the most successful phone game here was The Lion Trophy Show
THEME
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGYmZmoQ-AI
GAMEPLAY
Thanks for that! That’s super Dragon’s Lair, with ever such a tiny hint of Adventure Call, both of which are entirely welcome things.
Laughably shameless product placement ahoy! Remember kids, if you want to be a hero, don’t forget to shovel chocolate and caramel wafers down your neck too.
I do *really* like this, unfortunately it’s the type of really like where the little niggles really stand out.
Gibson is great, I was a bit worried before that she was going to go down the “Joe Wilkinson on Catsdown” road of just being extremely contrary, but she is in fact 5000% cleverer than that. Her VT scripts seem a bit off though (not as deadpan as she is otherwise).
Dara I think is better here than on the more competition-y Robotwars, this is basically MTW but with a different set for him.
The ‘feel’ of the show is spot on, I love the positivity and enthusiasm shown to all of the games, even the naff ones. I hope they feature some weird contemporary games through the series, it would be a bit amiss to always do weird old with mainstream contemporary.
I love the audience involvement, I love the hint of self-deprecation running through everything (helped a lot by Ellie).
The fact the scoring is bs doesn’t bother me in the slightest. It is bs though.
Sometimes having the players go one-at-a-time is better. Cf taskmaster where (imo) the live task is often the weakest.
The rotation ‘gag’ would work better if it was unannounced ala Jimmy’s skits on Catsdown.
For me, having “commentators” over games that naturally had the participants talking to each other felt off. I also would have liked (eg on Tekken as someone who just doesn’t get fighting games) the commentary to be a little more insightful.
I don’t think it’s quiiiiite level with taskmaster but I do really really like it.
I don’t know how “weird” it is, but I gather VR features eventually.
Ktane in ep2. was pretty much the sort of “off-the-beaten-track” thing I was getting at.
An interesting piece on bringing videogames to television, featuring a lot of Go 8 Bit stuff:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016-09-05-the-state-of-video-game-tv
Tangentally, Taskmaster S3 from 4th October.
https://www.comedy.co.uk/tv/taskmaster/episodes/3/1/
Hoorah! Fingers crossed for another 2 x 5 next year, and for many more years to come. Dave are promoting the show relatively (though not particularly absolutely) heavily on the tube down here so fingers crossed that it’s a brand that they want to really push.
There are only so many games that could be played, but enough to keep going for, ooh, ninety years or so.
I might have to revise “it’ll do well but it won’t do as well as Taskmaster” guess, first ep scored 0.35m (without +1) which is very good and only slightly under what a TM first-run gets.
TM tends to consolidate to 600-800k in 7-Day.
Having just watched it via someone naughtily uploading it to a video website with an international viewing audience, it makes me wish I was still doing the podcast so I could have a chat about it. In general I’m positive on it though, will probably make an effort to find at least 1 or 2 more episodes once they’re broadcast.
The rotating set, for all its gimmicky-ness (did a producer make them add it as a gimmick?) is at least well designed: Ellie is in prime commentary position next to the screen, and the little sprite faces are on the backs of the sofas so the audience can see who’s who. They even light up for who’s playing (and possibly in relevant colours? like the guy playing King whose name I forget right now, his lit up blue for that game to match King’s top)
Agreed with needing to make it clearer on the win conditions though, or at least better layout on the split screen shots. What Brig said above about Battlefront, it felt like Susan just won by killing Luke enough times rather than collecting something like they insisted it was. I couldn’t find the counter for the collectibles either. Oh well, that’s what you get when you have to shoehorn in a game you’ve been paid to put on the show.
Not sure what the point was of the audience voting via smartphone though, another thing exec-mandated I guess. Nothing wrong with a good old fashioned keypad really!
Random discussion topic for those who’ve bothered to read this far: what would you pick as your “favourite game” to play as a head to head contest? I think I’d go all contrarian and say something like Final Fantasy VII just to see what challenge they’d make out of it, if they didn’t outright refuse it. Maybe both players have to fight Guard Scorpion from the same save file?
It’d be DDR. I’m LITERALLY unstoppable.
I’ve always loved video games and never managed to be much good at them.
I’d probably pick Manic Miner.
GSN had a game show called Throut & Neck, hosted by Rebecca Grant where contestants used their touch tone phone to play games featuring the titular characters. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEkZvm8vZ1Y
My son is 12 and wants to watch this, what age is this suitable for? On the UK TV Play website it says it is PG but was on at 10:00pm.
There’s some light rudeness and reference to body parts (a discussion about chickens laying eggs uses the word ‘bumgina’, an oblique reference to a vibrator towards the end) but PG seems about right. 10pm is Dave Primetime more than anything.
I don’t remember much swearing although that isn’t the same as there is no swearing.
I’ve opened this up to my Twitter audience if you’re happy to wait for more responses. I’d have little problem with my eleven-year-old nephew watching it but he grew up watching Family Guy so your mileage may vary.
“@BothersBar As a school bus driver, it is fine for a 12yo. The child will have seen waaay worse on phones at school.” @jopijedd
Really enjoyed this. Brought back some great memories. Not sure how many more innovative dance moves Dara can come up with every time the set spins though! As for suitability for a 12yo it was fine. On uktv the one swear word was bleeped. If they get the other references then thery already have that knowledge. May have to bust out my spectrum and play a bit of one man and his droid, my personal favourite, although I’m not sure it will connect to my TVs now!
Anyone else who usually uses subtitles, are yours present? Because mine aren’t…
Repeated Fridays at 8.
And Saturday at 6.
Suitable for tweens? I can see a few edit points for 6pm, but nothing that Gamesmaster didn’t do in its pomp.
To be honest, Go 8 Bit left me stone cold. Didn’t pass the six-laughs test, and the whole tone felt unduly snarky. Other commentators have covered the large pile of minor irritations.
Out of fairness, and just in case they’ve decided to start with a weak episode, I will watch another. Don’t see it being a regular date.
Second episode quite interesting. Portal 2 doesn’t lend itself to TV Game Challenge very well at all, but Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes actually worked much better than I anticipated. One much easier to follow than the other.
Both actually quite Crystal Maze-ish, it really shows how important direction is to getting across quite complex ideas.
392k/2.8% for episode two according to DS. That’s very very good.
Finally got around to watching the first episode of this, and I very badly wanted to like it, but I’m at best lukewarm about it. It’s not particularly good, but not bad either.
I love the concept of it, and I particularly liked how each game got a short bit of film that goes into its background and history, and the variety of games is very nice. I also quite like the set as well.
But in execution, there’s just so many little details that bug me about it. The rotating set was cool the first time it rotated, but by the third time it just felt like they were trying to stretch out the show. Same for the audience vote.
Then there’s the way they edited the gameplay itself, which just annoys the crap out of me. They abruptly cut between shots way too often, to the point where it’s hard to keep track of what’s actually happening in the game. They really should’ve gone with the Japanese variety show technique where they fade in the reaction shot in the corner without cutting away from the main film. Or they could just have a permanent split screen for challenges like blindfolded Tetris where the players’ interactions are a big part of it, especially since most of the time they were wasting so much real estate on the screen with nothing but background.
(Speaking of blindfolded Tetris, as the guy who’s currently the second result when you Google “blindfolded Tetris”, I’d just like to say: It’s even harder than it looks, eh?)
In summary, it’s a good concept and a good format, but there’s too much padding and the editing needs a lot of work.
Voting screen is notably shorter this time – Time spent spinning is slightly shorter – Show is becomming even more enjoyable.
386k 2.8% all-in last night which remains very good.
First ep consolidated to 600k, beating next best show (Suits) by over 125k. This is very good – low end of what Taskmaster gets when it gets going, and that’s the first episode.
In summary: very good.
So, one thing’s struck me.
Looking at the fourth game slot in each episode – the modern game slot – has each game in that slot been one where Sony has had some sort of marketing deal? It’s implicit with LBP, of course, and Rocket League had the initial Playstation Plus release while I’m sure there was some sort of exclusive marketing thing tied to Battlefront.
Curious if that’s an expediency thing; rather than having to pursue deals with various different PR agencies for the promotional slot, Dave can instead work with just one, and still get a reasonable variety of products across the series. If my suspicions are right, it *may* give us some scope to anticipate the sorts of titles that might appear in that slot over the next few weeks.
Now watch it be Super Mario 3D World next week and completely screw up my theory.
I’ve never voted in the UKGameShows poll before but I might do it this year just so I can vote for Rachel Riley playing Street Fighter II as Moment of the Year. Remarkable!
I’m off to see WiFi Wars tomorrow so look out for A Thing on that.