"We’re just a few guys who love playing and talking about video games. Won’t you come join us?"
Top Down Perspective is a video game podcast hosted by Sean Booker, a game journalist (his reviews can be found here
); Paul "Exfauxsure" Fleck, who cohosts this podcast along with others (most of which is here and here); and Jonathan "ProtonJon" Wheeler, a YouTuber who makes Let's Play videos and streams regularly, discuss what they've played that week, and current gaming news.
Now, this might be all standard so far, but it seems something stands out, as the podcast has gained a cult following that has slowly but surely grown, and as it has grown, more focus on that community has occurred. For example, each weekly edition of the podcast feature viewer submitted questions, and occasionally the community gets together to play various games.
The community has even developed a name to represent itself, the fans of the TDP podcast will on occasion refer to themselves as "The Overhead Viewers" in keeping with the name of the podcast.
Link to the podcast can be found here, and here, and can be watched live here. You can check and/or follow their twitter for when they will go live.
The Overhead Viewers understand this podcast contains the following trope examples:
- Accentuate the Negative: If someone hates a game, you can bet they're always going to either have a snide comment ready about it right away or go off on an eviscerating rant about it. Jon's favorite target is Yoshi's New Island, while Sean takes any opportunity to put down Kid Icarus: Uprising and Code Name: S.T.E.A.M.
- Audience Participation: Before being released in podcast/video format, the show is streamed on Twitch, where they always interact with the chat. They also end every show by answering viewer questions submitted to them via Twitter, the show's email address, (rarely) Facebook, and (even more rarely) handwritten letters sent to Jon's P.O. box.
- Butt-Monkey: For a while after they got bored of the game, the group loved dumping on the way the characters in Tomodachi Life act, mocking some of their phrases incessantly (especially "I've been working on my funny face!").
- Whenever someone is not on for the show, the remaining hosts will playfully make fun of them for whatever they're doing instead of the Podcast.
- Catchphrase:
- Whenever Paul doesn't like some sort of practice, he has a tendency to describe it as "gross."
- "It's so dumb!" is a phrase that tends to crop up often whenever one of the hosts is describing something either awesome yet stupid or legitimately bad.
- Sean, when asking Jon or Paul to describe a picture or video they are looking at, more or less always says, "Paint us a word picture."
- Collector of the Strange: The three often talk about amiibo collecting and trying to track down amiibos, especially when new waves are released. Jon in particular quests to acquire eight Captain Falcons.
- Four-Philosophy Ensemble: Featuring your 3 hosts.....and the chat if you watch it live, which, like the Power Trio, doesn't always have them taking permanent roles:
- The Cynic: Everyone, including chat at times: "That's so dumb!" Though sometimes it seems like it suits Paul best.
- The McCoy (Optimist): Perhaps hilariously, sometimes their shock and/or disgust at some things the internet does can show in the exact same fashion as it does when they are being Cynical: "That's Gross, and dumb!" but this often seems to apply best to Sean. Chat is particularly unsubtle at times in this regard.
- The Kirk (Realist): In a potentially surprising contrast to his solo videos, The Runaway Guys, and other places he shows in video and.or audio form, Jon is often the one who ends up having a different opinion in between, and having the other 2 agree with him, though again, all 3 have done this on occasion.
- The Ditherer (Conflicted): Sometimes the 3 are't quite sure what to make of a game they played that week for various reasons, this is understandable, especially if they haven't finshed the game in question. But this obviously applies to chat, always, because everyone is one of the other 3, and they all mix together, one day the overhead veiwers might make a hivemind, but for now, it sometimes bickers with itself, but you didn't expect anything different, did you? (It's a better twich chat then most though, we promise!)
- Gushing About Shows You Like: When all three hosts like a game, you can bet they'll go on at length about it. Three games in particular they've loved to highlight are Ghost Trick, Shovel Knight, and Rusty's Real Deal Baseball.
- Jump Scare: Among Paul's trademark least favorite tropes in horror games (and media in general). He recounts in one podcast an incident where he was streaming Five Nights at Freddy's and was legitimately traumatized by the jump scare that occurs when you lose.
- Large Ham: Significantly downplayed compared to his Let's Plays, Jon still sometimes brings a large ham to the table when surprised. Sean very rarely is a large ham or ever raises his voice.
- Power Trio: Like any other gaming trio (especially The Runaway Guys, which Jon is also in.), though significantly Down Played, as elements of other trios sometimes sneak in. Don't expect anything but a calm atmosphere most of the time.
- Special Guest: More are promised to be in the podcast, but so far the following people have been a guest, in order:
- Paul aka Exfauxsure, before he become a permanent host, after Nathan decided to bow out from the podcast for various reasons.
- The guy who directs the Hot Pepper Gaming channel.
- Nathan aka Kraznor when he decided to pop in once after stepping down as a co-host.
- Hank "Iam3DHomer", a speedrunner, who regularly co-hosts with Paul on their own podcast, Burning Barrel, when Sean was away in Europe.
- Technically Lucahjin by messing around behind Jon when she was staying at his apartment.
- Allan Schumacher of BioWare was a guest host when Jon had his wisdom teeth removed.
