Podcasts (I loathe the term) CAN do things written text can't, but they often fail so badly because they merely try to do what written text can do better.
Audio is more personal (as in connecting the speaker with the listener) than text, because it is better at conveying sarcasm, emotion and character. That's why discussions work well in audio -- rather than reading through everyone's exact argument and counter-argument, you can catch the gist of it without having to think a lot -- although the arguments become more open for rhetorical trickery which would be easily recognised as such in written form.
Interviews, however, don't, because written interviews are not exact transcriptions, but heavily edited to filter out all the noise and (ideally) only show the interesting bits.
With reviews it depends. If you want an acurate, edited and re-edited description, go for the text. If you want a personal view, go for the audio.
The problem isn't so much with the medium as with the participants. But this is a problem with gaming journalism in general.
Audio books aren't intrinsically evil, btw. They're just a different experience altogether. There's a difference between listening to a narration and reading it. Personally, I'd say that reading can be far more "immersive" (hah) than listening, especially because the quality of the latter experience heavily depends on the speaker as well as the story.
Audio is more personal (as in connecting the speaker with the listener) than text, because it is better at conveying sarcasm, emotion and character. That's why discussions work well in audio -- rather than reading through everyone's exact argument and counter-argument, you can catch the gist of it without having to think a lot -- although the arguments become more open for rhetorical trickery which would be easily recognised as such in written form.
Interviews, however, don't, because written interviews are not exact transcriptions, but heavily edited to filter out all the noise and (ideally) only show the interesting bits.
With reviews it depends. If you want an acurate, edited and re-edited description, go for the text. If you want a personal view, go for the audio.
The problem isn't so much with the medium as with the participants. But this is a problem with gaming journalism in general.
Audio books aren't intrinsically evil, btw. They're just a different experience altogether. There's a difference between listening to a narration and reading it. Personally, I'd say that reading can be far more "immersive" (hah) than listening, especially because the quality of the latter experience heavily depends on the speaker as well as the story.