Good Game was an Australian video game review show broadcast on the ABC that started in 2006. At the time of its final season in 2017, it was hosted by Steven "Bajo" O'Donnell and Stephanie "Hex" Bendixsen with co-host Gus "Goose" Ronald.
It originally starred hosts Michael "Kapowski" Makowski and Jeremy "Junglist" Ray, but early in 2007 Kapowski resigned and was replaced by Bajo. Eventually, in late 2009, Junglist left amidst controversy, and his role was filled by Hex.
In 2010, it also stared Tracey "Rei" Lien, field reporter who looks at pressing issues in gaming, such as game art and even covering Child's Play in Australia. After Rei left to study in Europe at the end of the season, her segment was taken over by Jackson "Ajax" Gothe-Snape in 2011, and finally by Goose from 2012.
As well as reviews, it also included gaming news, a look back at the best and worst in gaming, a moment chosen to be a great moment in gaming and, inversely, finding a horrible game where they ask WTF? (What were they thinking?). It's basically everything that X-Play used to be, but better.
In 2010 a spinoff began airing on ABC Me, called Good Game: Spawn Point which is aimed at younger gamers and features more G and PG rated games, while the main show focused on more mature titles. Spawn Point also features a Robot Buddy called DARREN, who was added for the appeal of its younger audience.
Furthermore, two online mini-shows spawned in 2015 called Pocket, a daily show which featured first plays, news, interviews among other things, and Well Played, a news show that focused entirely on eSports. Pocket was originally hosted by Michael "Hingers" Hing and then by Nich "NichBoy" Richardson, while Well Played was, again, originally hosted by Hingers then later Angharad "Rad" Yeo. There's also a podcast starring mostly behind the scenes people that can be found here
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Unfortunately, at the start of 2017 it was announced that Good Game would not be returning after Hex and NichBoy were hired to host a rival gaming show on 7mate which was later revealed to be called screenPLAY (it didn't last long). Spawn Point still continues, initially with Goose and Rad jointly taking over Hex's role. Bajo left at the end of 2017 to pursue full-time streaming with newcomer Gemma "Gem" Driscoll replacing him. At the end of 2018, Goose announced his departure from the show, being replaced by Promoted Fanboy William "Will" Yates in 2019 who subsequently left the following year.
In 2019 Goose temporarily returned to produce content for the show's YouTube and Twitch channels, with other past and present hosts occasionally appearing as guests.
All of the above can be watched for free on YouTube here, and their Twitch channel can be found here. You'll greatly appreciate it.
In July 2020, a Spiritual Successor to the Pocket online shows, called Back Pocket, was created and is hosted by Good Game alumni Nichboy, Goose, Hex, Will and former production staff member Peter "Pierreth" Burns. Their Twitch can be found here.
Tropes used by this series:
- Broke the Rating Scale
- Despite giving deadly serious scores out of ten on every other game, Hex gave Robot Unicorn Attack a rating of 8971 Rubber Chickens. Bajo was "...not sure how to score it after that." In the end show summary, it have Bajo's score as a picture of a purple unicorn head.
- When reviewing Dear Esther:
Hex: I'm scoring this with this picture of a tree, which represents whatever score inside you that it manages to evoke.Bajo: Well I'm going to go for a wispy breeze out of 10.- They were unsure how to score Goat Simulator, so they gave it... random clips of goats. The end slate showing pictures of goats on the scoreboard.
- Bajo was very disappointed with the "A Matter of Family" DLC for Batman: Arkham Knight so he gave it Batman's tears out of 5.
- The HTC Vive tech-demo Trials on Tatooine received the rotting corpse of Jar Jar Binks from Bajo and a C-3PO from Hex (both out of 5).
- Butt-Monkey: Bajo.
- The Cameo: Hosts of At The Movies, David Stratton and Margaret Pomeranz, make various
hilarious cameos. Helps that At The Movies is on the same network. - Continuity Cavalcade: For their end-of-year special all the hosts make an appearance, including DARREN who seldom mentioned on the main show.
- Cosplay: Happens on occasion. One ep of Spawn Point had DARREN as a Companion Cube, Hex as Red Link and Bajo as Sonic.
- Catchphrase: DARREN's 'chaaaarging myyyy LAAAAAAASER!
- Le Film Artistique: Whenever the team review artsy games like Bientot Lete or NaissanceE, they don berets, the screen goes Deliberately Monochrome and punctuate the review with artsy nonsense in French.
- Four-Point Scale: The reason why the show switched from ratings out of 10 to star ratings out of 5 in 2015.
- Gamer Chick: Hex and Rei.
- Jerkass: One of the most memorable contributions from short lived side host Ajax was an instruction video on how to win video games by doing such things as pausing the game repeatedly, pausing to go to the toilet during tense moments, and generally being a jerk to the other players. Behaviour the show tends to otherwise discourage.
- Nerds Are Sexy: arguably, just about anybody on the show.
- Averted whenever Bajo takes his shirt off. The forums explode with disgust at his hairy man-belly.
- One-Steve Limit: Literally averted with Bajo and Hex's real names being Steven and Stephanie.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: The presenters use their Gamertags as opposed to their real names.
- Precision F-Strike: From the Goose IMO segment on entitlement and death threats:Goose: If you are ever considering sending a death threat, let's go through this little checklist first. Number one: "Should I send a death threat?" F(bleep) NO!
- Robot Names / Fun with Acronyms: DARREN
- Originally Data Analysing Robot for the Ruthless Extermination of Noobs.
- Currently Digital Assistant for the Research & Regulation of Excessive Noobery after he was "uploaded to the cloud".
- Show Within a Show: Totally Incompatible, on Spawn Point, is a Type 1.
- Trademark Favorite Food: Bajo really loves toasted cheese sandwiches, and sometime would be interrupted by from his actual duties on the show by his quest for the perfect toasted cheese sandwich.
- Zombie Infectee: In an undead-themed episode, along with reviews of Resident Evil 5, Silent Hill: Homecoming, Dead Rising: Chop 'till You Drop and House of the Dead: Overkill, Bajo is hinted to have become bitten, and shows gradual signs of infection throughout each review. By the last review, he has turned, and while not hostile, occasionally looks over at co-host Junglist in an interesting way, and even groans when he calls the phototaking system in Dead Rising stupid. By the end, he attacks Junglist offscreen, but he's all better by next week.
- Hilariously it works as an Actor Allusion for Bajo whose first major role in a film was as a zombie extra in Undead which was made by the creators of Daybreakers.
