Podcast / Nitro Game Injection

Nitro Game Injection is a live streaming internet-based radio show that "is dedicated to the promotion and preservation of video game music." It was created by Kyle "KyleJCrb" Crouse in 2003 and has been co-hosted by Larry "Liontamer" Oji since 2009, along with former co-hosts "SLiDER" (formerly Suraida) from 2011 to 2013 and Audun "Akumu" Sorlie in late 2007. After celebrating its 10th anniversary on March 15th, 2013, it officially became a Long Runner, and is one of the longest-running podcasts dedicated to video game music out there.

---

Tropes:

• Ascended Fangirl: SLiDER was originally a dedicated listener. She ended up being invited onto the show for episode #142 to fill in for Larry, returning for a few more before popular demand from fans led her to becoming a semi-regular co-host.
• Author Appeal:
  • Both NGI and Kyle's spinoff show GameFuel feature a disproportionate amount of rock and metal music over other genres.
  • Most every episode also has at least one song from a Sonic The Hedgehog or Mega Man game. If it doesn't, it's usually an episode with a particular theme, or Kyle just forgot to put one in. Eventually they just decided to embrace it and do a dedicated "Blue Hero" Mega Man/Sonic episode, which was kind of justified, because their guest that week was Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) and Mega Man (Archie Comics) comic writer Ian Flynn.
  • Machinae Supremacy is played often on NGI and is the artist of the opening song almost every week on GameFuel.
  • Kyle sets up the playlists every week, so this all can be blamed on him.
• Audience Participation: There is a live chat during the show, and the hosts will sometimes solicit questions for interview guests or interact with the chat in some way on the air. Especially invoked during the brentalfloss live Q&A segment.
• Black and Nerdy: Larry Oji. Not only does he love video game music, he is also a huge Professional Wrestling geek.
• Background Music: Used during host segments, of course. They generally use the music from classic 8- and 16-bit games.
• Catchphrase: Larry has a whole slew of "Larryisms."
  "Super-badass!"
  "For the lay-dayz!"
  "That's HOT!"
  "Nah man!"
  "MCRIIIIIIIIIB!"
  "Hell nah!"
  "Baller!"
  "Rollin' on dubs!"
  "Damn, son!"
  "Today's episode of Nitro Game Injection is sponsored by..."
  "That's how we do!"
  "Pretty dope!"
  • You could argue Kyle has a few of these, too.
  "Keep it here, this is Nitro Game Injection."
  • Doubles as a Shout-Out: Whenever game remixer VikingGuitar is mentioned, Kyle can't help but say "he's a cop, you idiot!" Because, well, he is.
  • The fake NGI cereal tie-in Nitro CRUNCH Injection has one:
  "It's like a nitro-boosted crunch INJECTED right into your mouth!"
• Cluster F-Bomb: Larry will occasionally drop one of these.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Larry appeared as an interviewee and a guest co-host during the Akumu era before becoming a permanent addition.
• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • The very first episode of the show was actually referred to on-air as "Yellow Dart Radio", with Kyle sometimes referring to himself as "The Yellow Dart", a tenuous Shout-Out to the nickname Strong Bad gives to a person named Kyle Smith in the "english paper" email. The earliest intro for the show featured a character called "The Nerdy Guy" (voiced by Microsoft Sam) answering an email, complete with gratuitous typing noises. Some of these early episodes also featured Kyle himself answering actual emails on the air in an attempt to be like Strong Bad. At least until he realized he wasn't witty or funny and nobody was sending him any emails. Not too much later, "The Yellow Dart" nickname was pretty much dropped.
  • The sound quality of the first 79 episodes sounds like it was recorded over a phone line (24-32kbps, to precise) because the stream server was hosted on Kyle's local connection, and that was the highest quality said connection could allow for while still maintaining a decent amount of listeners. With episode 80, the quality was raised to 80kbps when a dedicated stream hosting server was purchased. Later, the stream was upgraded to the 128kbps quality the show still broadcasts in today.
  • Kyle hosted the show by himself until episode 100. Arguably it became a very different show with the introduction of co-hosts, guests, and interviews, which is why Kyle created the GameFuel spinoff to preserve the music-centric format that fans still enjoyed.
• Everything Is Racist: Often invoked by Larry.
• Geek: The whole lot of them. Especially when it comes to gaming.
• Gratuitous Japanese:
  • There's usually at least one Japanese game composer mentioned in each episode, with the pronunciation typically being butchered by Kyle or Larry.
  • Invoked by SLiDER's former nickname "Suraida," which is Japanese for "Slider."
• Guest-Star Party Member: There have been a number of guest co-hosts on the show, usually related to the video game music scene in some way.
• Large Ham: Larry. With him, EVERY episode is sponsored by ham.
• Mascot:
  • Promotional images and art (such as at the top of this page) feature Ariane, a character created by Kyle and based heavily on Capcom's "reploid" concept from Mega Man X. She plays a Gibson SG, has really long hair, and has a motherfuckin' gun for a hand.
  • GameFuel's promotional art◊ uses another one of Kyle's characters, Dixileta. She's a counterpoint to Ariane, being kind of evil and all.
• Merchandise-Driven: The show now has its own fake cereal tie-in: Nitro CRUNCH Injection.
• Mood Whiplash:
  • During the eight anniversary episode, the usual lighthearted mood of the show was put on hold as former co-host Akumu returned to pay tribute to Fumapero, a doujin music arranger who had been missing and displaced after the devastating earthquake in Sendai, Japan. Luckily, she announced a few days later that she was okay and had returned home.
  • Happened again when Akumu, who was a close friend of game composer Ryu Umemoto, was brought back after Umemoto-san's death in 2011 (five months after said anniversary episode) to discuss his life and career as a tribute to him.
• National Stereotypes:
  • Sometimes used for comic effect, especially when Canadian jmr appeared on the show.
  • The crew often make some lighthearted fun of a few of the very Engrish names of songs or performers, particularly from the doujin scene.
• Needs More Love: invoked The entire premise of the show. From the FAQ on the website: "We have an undying love and appreciation for video game music, and the various arrangement/remix scenes surrounding it. We want to share this music with the world, and to give exposure to this great art form. We want to let you know about great musicians and arrangers that you may have never heard of to encourage you to check out more works from them. That is essentially why we have created these shows."
• No Indoor Voice: Larry is, according to himself, "a very loud black man." Even when he does try to be quiet, he's loud.
• Once an Episode:
  • Over Clocked Re Mix almost always gets mentioned, usually by Larry.
  • On most episodes since she's joined the show, SLiDER, the show's resident artist (and arguably the only host of the show with a tangible talent), takes a drawing challenge from one of the guys, or comes up with her own related to the episode. You can check out the results (and the rest of her art gallery) on her DeviantArt page.
• Only Known by Their Nickname:
  • SLiDER never goes by her real name on the air.
  • Larry very often refers to his girlfriend as simply "The Lady."
• Overly Long Gag:
  • The playlist of GameFuel #80 consisted entirely of thirty-nine remixes of Wily Stage 1 from Mega Man 2. Appropriately enough, it was titled "Endurance".
  • Invoked again with the 100th episode of GameFuel, featuring thirty-seven arrangements of Ice Cap Zone from Sonic the Hedgehog 3.
• Product Placement:
  • Played for laughs on many episodes with Larry, who more often than not consumes at least one food product during the show and proclaims that the episode is sponsored by whatever food he happens to be eating at the time. Even if it's not a branded product.
  • Lampshaded by SLiDER once when she proclaimed that an episode was sponsored by blueberry muffins.
  • Played straight with Over Clocked Re Mix. It's mentioned at least Once an Episode, which isn't so surprising considering Larry's position as Head Submissions Evaluator for OCR.
• Put on a Bus: For episode #100, Audun "AkumuHau" Sorlie joined the show as a new co-host. The show went on a lengthy hiatus after episode #112, and when it came back, nary a mention of Akumu was made and he was replaced by Larry. He has returned as a guest a few times, however.
• Refuge in Audacity: Par for the course during Akumu's run on the show.
• Self-Deprecation: Usually Kyle's schtick.
• Shameless Self-Promotion:
  • Larry, Head Submissions Evaluator of Over Clocked Re Mix, is never one to skip on a chance to bring up the site.
  • Lampshaded in the website description for episode #118, in which it's suggested that the listener takes a shot every time Larry mentions OCR.
• Shout-Out: Guess what the title of episode #61 is.
• Special Guest:
  • A number of notable ones over the years, including:
  • Jake Kaufman, aka virt - composer of the soundtracks for Contra 4, Shantae, Scurge: Hive and numerous others.
  • Ian Flynn, aka IanPotto - current head writer of Archie's Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) and Mega Man (Archie Comics) comic lines. He is the most recurring guest, appearing on the show four times.
  • Mattias Häggström Gerdt, formerly Another Soundscape - Former Over Clocked Re Mix judge, soundtrack contributor to Super Street Fighter II HD ReMix and composer of Xbox Live Arcade hits Kaleidoscope, Artoon, and The Perfect Match.
  • Kenneth Keyn, aka Abadoss - Over Clocked Re Mix contributor and composer of the iPhone game Trenches.
  • Matthew Gregg, aka Maffew - Of Botchamania fame.
  • Andrew Aversa, aka zircon - Former Over Clocked Re Mix judge, soundtrack contributor to Super Street Fighter II HD ReMix and composer of XBLA indie games Return All Robots and Fittest.
  • Raheem Jarbo, aka Mega Ran - Nerdcore rapper who has become prominent rapping about Mega Man and Final Fantasy.
  • Christopher Tin - Composer of Baba Yetu, the main theme of Civilization IV, and the first composer to win a Grammy award for a video game composition.
  • Grant Henry, aka Stemage - Creator of Metroid Metal, and star and composer of the independent film For Catherine.
  • Brent Black, aka brentalfloss - Well-known for his With Lyrics game arrangements on YouTube and ScrewAttack.
  • AJ LoCascio - The voice of Marty McFly in Back to the Future: The Game by TellTale Games.
  • Daniel Baranowsky - OC Re Mix contributor and composer of indie darlings Super Meat Boy and Canabalt.
  • The Megas - Mega Man cover band, With Lyrics! Yes, almost all of the band was on the show.
  • Frank Klepacki - Composer most known for the Command & Conquer game series.
  • Chris Huelsbeck - World-renowned composer most known for his works on the Commodore home computers, including Turrican, R-Type, Jim Power, and The Great Giana Sisters.
• Spin-Off: Kyle's other show, GameFuel (no, not sponsored by Mountain Dew.) It more closely follows the format established by NGI when Kyle hosted the show by himself prior to episode #100. It features more of a focus on music (including listener requests) and less on banter. Both Larry and SLiDER have turned up on GameFuel before, as well as several other guests.
• Squick: Typical during the Akumu era, but crossed the line not once, not twice, but countless times during the episode when they interviewed SnappleMan.
• Straight Man and Wise Guy: Kyle is the Straight Man and Larry is the Wise Guy. They often play off each other in this way.
• The Hero: Larry, the charismatic on-air personality everyone loves.
• The Lancer: It may be Kyle's show, and he does do most of the behind-the-scenes work on it (including selecting the music played on every episode), but he usually allows the more well-spoken Larry to lead the discussion, especially during interviews. He's been known to refer to himself as the Jamie to Larry's Adam.
• The Quiet One: SLiDER doesn't say too much. Half the time it's because she's busy drawing something awesome.
• Theme Tune: Has gone through several Theme Tune phases: Sometimes the show has a recurring song (or a rotation of recurring songs) for several months, then it switches to simply starting the show with the first song on the playlist for the week, or a song that fits that particular episodes' theme. All songs that have been used are Real Song Theme Tunes from video games or video game remixes, including:
  • "Moon Over the Castle" from Gran Turismo (the very first song ever played on NGI, and the one most commonly associated with the show).
  • "Cataclysmic Clash" by Game Over, arranged from Mega Man 3.
  • "The Legendary Theme" from Gitaroo Man
  • various arrangements of "Fighting of the Spirit" from Tales of Phantasia
  • "That's The Way I Like It" from Sonic Adventure 2
  • In its early days, the show even used "The Star Spangled Banner" from the NASCAR Arcade soundtrack for awhile.
• Token Trio: Not intentionally evoked, but Kyle is the white guy, Larry is the black guy, and SLiDER is the Asian girl.
• Two Guys and a Girl: Without the plot and the romantic tension, as both Kyle and Larry are happily in relationships.
• Word Salad Title: How the hell does one inject nitro into games?

---