The Back Page: A Video Games Podcast

US games media royalty James Mielke (EGM, 1Up, GMR) is our guest this week. Hear about James' journey from comic book artist during Marvel's bankruptcy to becoming a key editor on a host of important media outlets throughout the '00s. Bonus: this episode contains another excellent Hideo Kojima interview anecdote. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We each try and guess five mystery games based on snippets from their reviews in '00s games magazines. Feel free to play along! After that, enjoy our considered answers to a whole heap of questions, from the Nintendo Switch 2 to the ideal game based on Thunderbirds.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Two Giant Men, 20 categories, dubious rules! Time for another draft episode, this time on the subject of video game soundtracks. Vote for the winner in the announcements channel of the Discord.Most of the music used in the episode is credited in real-time, but the track in the break is an orchestral Phoenix Wright arrangement by Noriyuki Iwadare.Here are the categories we select from:Album Categories1. RPG2. Indie game3. Shooter (FPS or otherwise)4. Platformer5. Game soundtrack where music plays a key role in the gameplay6. Fighting game7. Bleep bloop (retro game soundtrack - 16 bit or earlier)8. '90s as fuck9. Cult favourite10. Free pickTrack Categories1. Theme tune that rips2. Battle theme that rips3. Earworm of any description4. Features lyrics5. Ambient open world or world map music6. Rhythm action favourite7. The Yoko Shimomura category for a piano absolutely popping off8. Boss theme that rips9. Free pick10. The Game Over category (this must play at your funeral) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Here's what we've been playing lately: Stellar Blade, Animal Well, Octopath Traveler 2, Dark Forces Remaster and Pepper Grinder. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Matthew speaks to one of his favourite authors, Stuart Turton. Hear about his exhausting creative process (seriously, you won't believe it), and what it takes to write a novel – including his latest, The Last Murder at the End of the World. Then, in part two, hear more about Stu's love of video games, which runs incredibly deep.Samuel is away for this one. Matthew gets the name of the podcast slightly wrong at the start, but don't hold it against him.This week's music is from the Return of the Obra Dinn soundtrack by Lucas Pope. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week's guest is IGN Managing Editor Rachel Weber, who probably has the most varied and fascinating career in games media of anyone who's appeared on the podcast so far. Hear about her transatlantic journey from OPM during the PS3 launch days to GamesIndustry.biz, Rolling Stone's Glixel channel and GamesRadar, before she landed at IGN.This week's music is from the Lost: Via Domus soundtrack by Michael Giacchino. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

27 listeners' game purchases go on trial before the morally dubious Judge Castle. Can the defendants' even more compromised lawyer, Samuel Roberts, get them off (not in that way)? The worst format in British podcasting returns. This week's music is 'PIMP' by Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band, as well as the Games Court theme by listener Adam Saucier. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Two top 10 lists of the best games of 2003, and loads of bullshit about Matthew's mini-fridge and Samuel's week of work experience in the fire brigade. The games chat starts at 1 hour and 27 minutes if you'd just like the lists without the nonsense.This week's music is from The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker soundtrack by Kenta Nagata, Hajime Wakai, Toru Minegishi and Koji Kondo.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What we've been playing lately, featuring Dragon's Dogma 2, Rise of the Ronin and Helldivers 2, as well as some old Command and Conquer nonsense and listener questions. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Former PC Gamer Senior Reporter Steven Messner is our guest this week! Hear about his epic reports of goings on in EVE Online and other MMOs – and that time the bastard Samuel Roberts betrayed him. This week's music is from the Harvest Moon 64 soundtrack by Tsuyoshi Tanaka. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We needed a sudden week off! Enjoy this 2022 episode on the best 7/10 games, the result of our amazing Patreon support. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Matthew played 70 hours of FF7 Rebirth, while Samuel played a measly 14 hours. How's it going so far? Expect mostly spoiler-free chat in this episode – we explain how we approached spoilers right at the start to put your mind at ease.This week's music is from the FF7 Rebirth soundtrack by Mitsuto Suzuki and Masashi Hamauzu. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week's guest is former Edge editor Alex Wiltshire. Hear about his era of the magazine, as well as his time working at Hello Games and Mojang.This week's music is from the New Super Mario Bros soundtrack by Asuka Hayazaki, Hajime Wakai and Koji Kondo. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Matthew has finally become a big FF7 head, ploughing through Remake in January and now being 50 hours deep into Rebirth. Hear his (spoiler-free) thoughts on the newer game in this episode. Plus! Samuel plays Balatro and the Tomb Raider remaster, while Matthew also squeezes some Helldivers 2 into this episode. This week's music is from the FF7 Rebirth soundtrack by Mitsuto Suzuki and Masashi Hamauzu. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Time for our first draft episode of 2024! It's the turn of the PlayStation, one of the most important consoles in history. Listen to the episode, then vote on who picked the best 10 games in the pinned tweet @BackPagePod on Twitter.This week's music is from the R4: Ridge Racer Type 4 soundtrack by Kohta Takahashi, Hiroshi Okubo and Asuka Sakai, plus the Tekken 3 soundtrack by Nobuyoshi Sano and Keiichi Okabe. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

After some dense episodes, allow us this brief respite to answer a slew of listener questions. Who should play Link in the Zelda movie? Which song would we sing for Hideo Kojima during karaoke? What happened to the mythical 'boys across the river'? Learn all this, and more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Beloved guest Jeremy Peel drops by to discuss his new Patreon project, The Peel Perspective, as well as the art of writing a magazine or website feature about video games. Did we nail this episode? Ack, not *quite*. As Matthew put it after the edit, it's fine. We didn't entirely have the right energy for it this week, nor did we have a tight enough plan to conquer such a big subject in the second half. Always lovely to have Jeremy back on, though. This week's music is from the System Shock remake by Jonathan Peros.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Two top 10 lists of our favourite games from 2002 (based on UK releases)...and a slew of ridiculous anecdotes about working in Homebase and studying GCSE Drama. This week's music is from the Super Mario Sunshine soundtrack by Koji Kondo and Shinobu Tanaka, and the Ico soundtrack by Michiru Oshima, Koichi Yamazaki and Mitsukuni Murayama. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Returning guest Ashley Day tells us about his love of the Sega Saturn, then gives us his ten favourite Sega developed (or published) games of all time. Spoiler alert: Football Manager 2009 doesn't make the cut. This week's music is from the Shining Force 3 soundtrack by Motoi Sakuraba. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We've been playing The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered, Marvel's Midnight Suns, Suicide Squad Kills The Justice League, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown (just the demo, mind), Assassin's Creed Nexus and Foamstars in this far-reaching episode. Some nutritious games waffle to cancel out last week's nonsense mailbag episode.Enjoy! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

After several solid episodes in a row, The Back Page crashes down to Earth with a mailbag crammed with irrelevant questions about food. But you do get to hear about the famous person Matthew went to school with... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

After last week's belting return with the GOTY episode, it's time for something with far less meat on the bones as we roll out some bullshit gaming predictions for 2024.This week's music is from the Persona 3 soundtrack by Shoji Meguro and the Nier: Automata soundtrack by Keiichi Okabe, Keigo Hoashi and Kuniyuki Takahashi. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Our biggest episode of the year is here! Two top 10 lists of the best games of the year. More than three hours of pod, slightly later than planned (sorry about that).  Thanks so much for your patience while we took a much-needed break – but now we're back! Expect a full plan of what we're making in January in the next few days, including the return of the XL and XXL episodes. This week's music is from the Cobalt Core soundtrack by Aaron Cherof.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

After a short break, we're back with a fun (allegedly) holiday special to see out the year – featuring special guests, our favourite Christmas-themed games and the Back Page alternative GOTY awards.This week's music is from Bayonetta Origins, Final Fantasy 16, Fable 2 and Bully. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From the XL Tier on Patreon.com/backpagepod – it's our rundown of the best James Bond movies. Enjoy! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The 25 best Metal Gear moments across the entire series, with listener favourite guest Rich Stanton! If you enjoy this episode, this is the sort of thing we cook up on Patreon.com/backpagepod. We'll be back with regular episodes in late December. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's Matthew's first time through the original Final Fantasy 7. Ahead of the release of Rebirth in 2024, he explains what the hell is going on in disc one of this 26 year-old RPG, right up to the death of Aerith (and to a lesser extent, Cait Sith).This is our last new podcast for three weeks! Thanks for listening all year – we'll be back soon. Free feed listeners can look forward to a couple of Patreon samplers. This week's music is from the Final Fantasy 7 soundtrack by Nobuo Uematsu. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Samuel and Matthew compete to pick the best selection of 10 licensed games, and discuss the wildly inconsistent history of games based on movies, TV shows, books and more. Matthew won this draft.This week's music is from the Blade Runner game soundtrack by Vangelis and Frank Klepacki. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The latest on what we've been playing, featuring Alan Wake 2, Chants of Senaar, Super Mario Wonder, The Talos Principle 2, the PlayStation Portal and the Oculus Quest 3. Plus: the last mailbag of the year! Who knows how this one ended up being so bloody long. This week's music is from the Chants of Senaar soundtrack by Thomas Brunet. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week's guest is comedian, writer and streaming superstar Ellie Gibson, who talks us through her career at Eurogamer during the heyday of the PS3 and 360 era of games media. This week's music is from the Sky Odyssey soundtrack by Kow Otani. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A deep dive on the year's biggest PlayStation game with Dave Scarborough, sometime features editor of gamesTM. This week's music is by John Paesano from the Marvel's Spider-Man 2 soundtrack. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

IGN's Simon Cardy joins us to celebrate the history of Remedy's games, including Max Payne, Alan Wake and even Quantum Break, as Alan Wake 2 finally becomes a reality. There's also a lot of fun chatter about Simon's work on IGN that you'll hopefully enjoy! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Rob Pearson of PlayStation Access is our guest this week. Hear about Rob's unusual journey to YouTube fame via print media, and how Charlie Brooker and Jon Blyth inspired his hugely popular top 7 features. This week's music is from the Final Fantasy IX soundtrack by Nobuo Uematsu. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From GTA 3 to Silent Hill 2, 2001 was one of the best years in the history of games. In this episode, we each construct top 10s while sharing pointless details of our mixed fortunes as teenagers. This week's music is from the Silent Hill 2 soundtrack by Akira Yamaoka. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We've firmly entered silly season, and Matthew has finished Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty. Does it change his take on the CD Projekt RED FPS/RPG? Find out in this episode, along with his early thoughts on Assassin's Creed Mirage, Samuel's thoughts on Resi 4's Separate Ways DLC, and both our thoughts on indie sensation Cocoon. This week's music is from the Assassin's Creed Mirage soundtrack by Brendan Angelides. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

People Can Fly's Jamie Smith tells us about his career and things you only realise about games when you actually make them for a living. Then, in the last section, Jamie poses a series of impossible game design questions to both of us – see how we fare as backseat game designers! This week's music is from the Call of Duty: Vanguard soundtrack by Bear McCreary. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

PC Gaming Classics reaches its conclusion (for now) as Jeremy and Phil pit Half-Life against Quake in the longest episode to date. Phil won the Review Wars segment of this one. We hope you enjoyed this miniseries, and we're excited to see what Jeremy and Phil record next. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The penultimate episode of Jeremy Peel and Phil Iwaniuk's PC Gaming Classics series finally lands on the free feed, investigating Trespasser: Jurassic Park, an all-timer Back Page draft pick. Thanks to Jeremy and Phil for their hard work on this one! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We've each played 25 hours of Starfield – here's what we thought. This week's music is from the Starfield soundtrack by Inon Zur. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Happy, you sickos? It's the latest entry in our bizarre Games Court format. 20 listeners submit their pre-owned game purchases (and lengthy life stories) to Judge Castle. Those found guilty will die...by Pikmin. This week's music is by listener Adam Saucier. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Matthew and Samuel compete to pick the 15 best Nintendo DS games – after an extremely long preamble. Vote for the winner in the pinned tweet @backpagepod on Twitter! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Matthew is ill! Forgive us while we delay the DS draft a week and take it easy with a 'what we've been playing' pod. Matthew has played 10 hours of Sea of Stars, so we discuss that, the Doom mod My House, Armored Core 6, Paranormasight and Dredge.This week's music is from the Doom 2 soundtrack by Bobby Prince. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We answer a lot of listener questions in this week's episode. It's fun for the first hour, it sags in the second, but gets it back just at the end. A 6/10 episode. Thank you for your polite tolerance! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

One of our oldest and most popular episode formats returns as we count down the best games of 2016, a year that brought good news for everyone! Except Microsoft. And Nintendo. Everything from Uncharted 4 to Inside gets discussed in this bumper episode – alongside our (fairly dour) memories of the time working on magazines. Plus, hear all about Matthew's shattered knee at Gamescom yet again. Note that there's a factual error in this episode: Samuel says they should make Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo perpetually available on modern formats including Steam, which it is. Last year's Capcom Fighting Collection features it, with online play!This week's music is from the Hitman soundtrack by Niels Bye Nielsen and the Phoenix Wright: Spirit of Justice soundtrack by Noriyuki Iwadare, Toshihiko Horiyama and Masami Onodera. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

With Baldur's Gate 3 taking over the world, genre expert Jeremy Peel returns to discuss how RPGs have evolved since the days of the Infinity Engine games.This week's music is from the Dragon Age: Origins soundtrack by Inon Zur. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A simple but cheerful 'what we've been playing' joint this week, featuring Exoprimal, Telltale's comeback game The Expanse, 1998's Parasite Eve, Pikmin 4 and Viewfinder.This week's music is from the Pikmin 4 soundtrack by Kenta Nagata, Asuka Hayazaki and Soshi Abe. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Former Edge editor Margaret Robertson joins us to discuss working on the magazine from 2003-2007 and her career in game development. It's a good one, but then we always say that.Check out Margaret's game in Fortnite, Fast Feud, at 2057-0506-7371, and follow her @marga_retro on Twitter. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jeremy Peel and Phil Iwaniuk take on the original X-Com: UFO Defense – or UFO: Enemy Unknown – as it was known in Europe. This miniseries was funded by our pals at Patreon.com/backpagepod! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Matthew and Samuel compete to pick the best 10 games (and one HD collection) that represent the PS3's somewhat inconsistent library. Voting is closed, but Samuel won this draft by around 62% to 38%.This week's music is from the Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots soundtrack by Harry Gregson-Williams. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Kick back, take a seat! Pour yourself a tall glass of water. It's a simple update on what we've been playing lately, featuring Final Fantasy 16, Trepang 2, Master Detective Archives: Rain Code and Baldur's Gate 3. Plus: answers to a dozen or so listener questions.This week's music is from the Final Fantasy 16 soundtrack by Masayoshi Soken. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.