MachineCAST
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"There's more to life than the MachineCAST, and that's why you listen to it. Thank you very much for listening, and have a great weekend."
—Kit Harrison, as he ends every episode.
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The MachineCAST (or 'CAST for short) is a weekly video gaming podcast by British writer Kit Harrison that goes out on Fridays. Content varies between rants in which Kit dissects a story from the week's gaming news and his opinions on a select few news articles or upcoming games.
It's hosted on YouTube, and is twinned with Musings of a British Gamer (MoaBG), Harrison's blog. Every December, Kit also hosts a six-part awards show called the MachineAWARDS, which bestows a variety of honours upon that year's games. 2009's Game of the Year was Modern Warfare 2, 2010's was Splinter Cell Conviction.
Tropes used in MachineCAST include:
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: After an 8-minute rant on Fox News' opinion of Bulletstorm, Kit's last counter-argument is that the phrase "There's a Bulletstorm on the horizon", which opened the article, "wasn't even funny".
- British Accents: Very much so.
- Cloudcuckoolander: The two Sony executives in Episode 14, (one of which wears a sombrero) who get drunk and design Son'ys new handheld concept, the NGP.
- Color Coded for Your Convenience: The 'CAST and MoaBG both have very distinctive black and red colour schemes, and the MachineAWARDS has black and purple.
- Deadpan Snarker: In spades; the content of an episode tends to vary between serious news content to seething rants to anecdotes about sombrero-wearing Sony executives with literally no pause for breath or change in Kit's chirpy tone.
- Determinator: Harrison; every episode is recorded in one continuous take with no subsequent editing.
- Every Episode Ending: "...And have a great weekend."
- Iconic Logo: A styilised version of Harrison wearing a headset mic.
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Played with. Every episode is numbered, but each also has a title; see Shout-Out below.
- Insistent Terminology: It's "MachineCAST", not "MachineCast" or "Machinecast".
- Musings of a British Gamer, Harrison's blog, is abbreviated MoaBG and officially pronounced "mower-bee-gee".
- Motor Mouth: He usually speaks at a steady pace, but in some of his more recent rants (particularly against Fox's treatment of Bulletstorm), Kit is often angered to the point where he's practically tripping over his own words.
- Quintessential British Gentleman: Kit doesn't swear in any of his content.
- Real Song Theme Tune: Pendulum's "Showdown" (which starts every episode) and "The Other Side" (which ends it).
- Schedule Slip: Liable to this if Harrison is busy on a Friday evening. One 'CAST is always missed to make way for the Machine AWARDS, which take up 6 videos on 6 consecutive days.
- Shout-Out: Many of the episode names are references to catchphrases, memes or other media.
- The MachineAWARDS logos count in some respects too: the symbol for "Best Looking Game" is the "Bliss" wallpaper for Windows XP. Likewise, "Franchise Saving Grace" is a picture of Colonel Radec from Killzone 2, the game Kit stated would have won had he thought of the AWARD in 2009.