4Player Podcast

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


A live show about video games.

The 4Player Podcast is a daily web show and podcast run by Brad Simons, David Liao, Nick Henderson and Travis Granger (formally), with special guest appearances by Juan Pantoja (formerly), Matt Hill (formerly), Mike Azzato (formerly), Bob Webb, Aryton Travina (Japancast), Daniel Dae Lee (Japancast), Carlos Ottino, Nolan Hedstrom, Joseph Petrick, Chris Davis, Mike Pittman and Jack Claxton. The podcast was originally started by Brad and David as East vs. West, but evolved into the 4Player Podcast after being joined by Travis and Nick.

Any combination of the four plus one or two guests will record a weekly podcast discussing new video games, the state of the video game industry as a whole, and their hopes for new games coming out. On top of that, they also record Dinner Time Podcasts (recorded while out to eat), Revival Podcasts (centering on an older game), and Top Five podcasts (each of the podcasters giving their "top five" of a certain subject). The Cocktail Time Podcast was a side podcast created and hosted by Joseph, with the participants (usually Nick, Carlos and Nolan) focusing their discussions on the video game industry, all the while drinking alcoholic beverages.

The podcast wraps up with the 4Player Minute, with each player stating a shameful secret (something they did recently that they are ashamed of), sweaty palms (something game-related that they are worried about), and hype (something game-related that they are excited about). David hosts his own mini-segment, known as chatter of the week, where he gives an honorable mention to a chatter who contacts him via e-mail. Brad's own unofficial segment is the "Fuck You Of the Week," where he chooses one particular person who is worthy of a Take That. Occasionally, at the end of a podcast, Brad would host his own mini-show called "Cooking With Brad", where he eats/drinks random snacks whenever he's hungry. Games that they're about to broadcast on the feed are addressed by Brad in another mini-segment called "This Week On the Feed".

They held a sister channel called Japancast, where they broadcast anime and music videos, hosted by Juan and Matt, with David, Aryton and Daniel as guest-hosts. With Matt in college, Juan working at two jobs and the other two being MIA, Japancast is rarely used anymore, other than a backup channel for 4PP when they get issues on JTV issues. The main station of 4PP is in Austin, Texas, though they're known for broadcasting at different hotels, usually whenever they're at an E3 convention.

Notably, 4PP has won Podcast Awards for three years in a row (2009 - 2011), beating out Giant Bomb (their toughest rival), Hot-Blooded Gaming, The Instance and ESPN Podcast, among others.

They also have a Twitter and a Facebook page [dead link].

Tropes used in 4Player Podcast include:
  • Aborted Arc: "Ask Brad", where he answered questions submitted by fans. It lasted all of two episodes before it was dropped.
  • Accentuate the Negative: Brad does this quite a lot.
    • Travis also dislikes Gears of War, flat-out calling it a shitty game, while saying that the sequel was "probably just as shitty" (he did like the Lancer gun, though), but that's mostly because he's frustrated with the cover system concept in general.
    • Nick also severely disliked the Halo series, primarily because of Hype Backlash with the Master Chief, whom he viewed as a Creator's Pet. To be fair, he became interested in the series lore once he played ODST, but he failed to point out that the Rookie himself was basically the Chief as an ODST, only mute.
  • A God Am I: Nobunaga considers himself one. He even has his own Tomb of Rapture!

Travis: What am I to you? A GOD!!!

'Travis: "Who do you think you are, Jacob? I will FIND you, and I will END you!"

  • Big No: David has one during a playthrough of Superman 64, when he just misses a car he's supposed to stop and can't catch up.

David: I stopped it-NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Jack: [realizes, in aiming mode, that the boss fired at him as he was shooting] No...! [gets hit] NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!

  • Black Comedy Rape: Implied in this video [1]. Also counts as a Big No.
  • Black Sheep: Brad and Mike view this of Mass Effect 3. Nick might agree, but he's never voiced it.
  • Broken Base: Between the site goers and the youtubers.
    • JTV chatters and Twitter/Facebook Chatters.
  • Butt Monkey: Nick got made fun of quite a lot, mostly at the hands of Travis, and made an easy target partially because of his height. There are a surprisingly large number of videos on youtube in which Nick is a "bottom." But as seen below, they're still friends. Happens less often now that Travis is absent.
  • Catch Phrase: Each of the four main guys has at least one or two.
    • David
      • "Somebody highlight that shit so I can watch it any time I want!"
      • "CHEEEEEVOOOOOS!"
    • Brad
    • Nick
      • "Hello, I'm Nick Henderson of the 4Player Podcast, and this is Podcast number [insert number here]."
      • "What a bag of dicks."
    • Travis
      • "HELLOOOO, I AM NOBUNAGA, AND THIS IS MY QUEST!"
      • "BOOM SAID THE BLIND MAN!"
    • Joseph
  • Cluster F-Bomb
  • Comedic/Heroic Sociopathy: If an open sandbox game such as GTA is being played, expect a lot of this from Brad.
  • Continuity Nod: Revenge on Condemned Bear!
  • Creator Backlash: The infamous Scooter Brothers video. The fans love it. Brad regrets ever letting it be posted.

Brad: Are you people stupid? This is a dumb clip! Look at this! 2.5 million for this crap?

Brad: [throwing people out of a window] I LOVE PREVENTING MURDERS!

Nick: Nevermind, David, I misunderstood the plan.
David: What do you mean? What was the plan?
Nick: [pause] Give m... give me a minute.
David: HAHAHAHAHAAAAHAAHA!
Nick: Goddamnit, David!

NOBUNAGA: MY NAME IS NOBUNAGA AND FENDER BENDER IS MY SON! FUCK JESUS! WHAT DID HE KNOW?! HE DIED! FENDER BENDER IS FOREVER WITH ME! FENDER BENDER, YOU ARE A MAN!

Nick: Don't forget to subscribe to us on iTunes and visit our website at 4playerpodcast.com!

  • Shipping: Strange enough, there is a Travis/David slash fic out there.

Travis: David's the gay one though; I'm the straight one that walks away.
Brad: It makes sense. Somehow I think David would initiate that relationship.
Travis: Me too.

  • So Bad It's Good: Not the show itself; this is how Brad and David view The Tester.
  • Spin-Off: Japancast, which focuses on Japanese games, animation, film, television and music. It had its own Five-Man Band in the form of Juan, David, Matt, Aryton and Daniel, with the first two as the most frequent broadcasters, Matt as a Guest Star Party Member and the other two as writers/bloggers. Since most of them are busy elsewhere, Japancast was mostly dormant for quite a while, though David remains a regular broadcaster at the original channel. Nowadays, due to copyright issues with another channel with the same name, Japancast was renamed into New School Kaidan (NSK for short), and it's now hosted by David with Daniel and Aryton; it's easy to think of NSK as a Spiritual Successor to Japancast.
    • A lesser-known spin-off broadcast was Travis' original profile, Visimicus, also known as The Trio of Gaming. Hosted by Travis, the channel was formed because Travis wanted to broadcast in his hometown just before he went to college, so he brought Japancast alumni Matt (then-college hopeful) and his friend Sean into the equation. The channel was suspended due to Travis showing meatspin on the live feed, but he created a new account called Travis4pp as compensation.
  • The Stoic: Pittman is a hell of a lot calmer than any of the others.
  • Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Subverted with Carlos. He's still a Butt Monkey, but he's far more of a Deadpan Snarker than Juan.
  • Take Over the World: Nobunaga's intended goal, but it's never outright stated.
  • There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Nico on a bike. The first comment explains.
  • The Scrappy: Each of them has a game that they revile to the core, but all of them disliked Final Fantasy XIII.
  • This Is for Emphasis, Bitch: Brad does this while playing Infamous.

Brad: "Can't catch me. I'm the fucking gingerbread man, bitch."