The Back Page: A Video Games Podcast

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.

Our guest this week is PC Gamer Senior Editor Wes Fenlon, who talks to us about his career in games media, his newsletter Read Only Memo, and Nintendo during the GameCube/GBA episode. You'll also hear about some of the differences between UK and US games media, and a quick therapy session for Samuel's benefit. A lot of ground is covered in this one – enjoy! This week's music is from Cubivore, probably? Matthew edited this one and didn't say where the music came from – and at the time of writing he's on a train to Belgium, so who really knows. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Two large gentlemen replay MGS3 and discuss where the upcoming remake could make improvements. Then, in section 2, we rank the bosses of this all-time classic. Spoilers follow for a game that's nearly 20 years old. This week's music is from the Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater soundtrack by Harry Gregson-Williams and Hibino Norihiko. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Samuel and Matthew revisit the classic Square Enix/Squaresoft RPG series this week. Well, the bits they know about, anyway. Plus, hear what Matthew thinks of Final Fantasy XVI, which just launched on PS5. This week's music is from the Final Fantasy XV soundtrack by Yoko Shimomura, the Final Fantasy XVI soundtrack by Masayoshi Soken, the Final Fantasy XIII soundtrack by Masashi Hamauzu and the Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers soundtrack by Hidenori Iwasaki, Ryo Yamazaki and Kumi Tanioka. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this month's PC Gaming Classics pod, Jeremy and Phil tackle 1997's Fallout, arguably the most important PC RPG of that decade. They delve into its creation, how its DNA filtered down to Bethesda's subsequent entries, and engage in another round of Review Wars (the voting for that one has closed, for those reading this on the free feed). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From Doordash ads to a game that looks 90% like BioShock Infinite, these were our highlights from the past week of game reveals. Forgive some tired podcasting as we melt slightly in British weather.This week's music is from the Persona 3 soundtrack by Shoji Meguro. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Edge Deputy Editor Chris Schilling joins us for this week's episode. Hear about his career in games media, as well as the creation of the widely respected magazine. And yes: we talk about what it means when Edge awards a game a 10. Enjoy. This week's music is from the Advance Wars soundtrack by Taishi Senda. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Is the Xbox 360 the greatest console ever made? That's one of the questions we tackle on this episode before competing to pick the 10 best games on this celebrated platform across a variety of categories. Vote for the winner of the draft in our pinned tweet @BackPagePod. And remember, it's just a bit of fun! Except for the bits where we talk shit and take what the other person says very personally.Samuel won this draft in the end, after Matthew initially took a strong lead.This week's music is from the Mirror's Edge soundtrack by Solar Fields. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

More listeners' pre-owned purchases go on trial in this latest version of the much despised Games Court podcast format. Enjoy, and deepest apologies. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Matthew has played 40 hours of the new Zelda, Samuel has played 10. How are they getting on? Expect very light spoilers for Tears of the Kingdom in this episode, and expect us to revisit this Nintendo epic in more detail at a later date. This week's music is from The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom soundtrack by Manaka Kataoka, Maasa Miyoshi, Masato Ohashi and Tsukasa Usui. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Everything except Zelda is discussed in this week's episode! It's a 'what we've been playing' joint, featuring Star Wars: Jedi Survivor, Arkane's Redfall and Mad Max (2015), among other things. We also answer a ton of mailbag questions, some of which we might've answered before – who knows! It's a low energy 6/10 pod, recorded on a Bank Holiday, but don't worry: next week's Zelda pod should be a good one. This week's music is from the Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Future Redeemed soundtrack. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode 2 of our Patreon-funded miniseries is now live! Jeremy Peel and Phil Iwaniuk take a deep dive into Westwood's Blade Runner adventure game. Note that the Review Wars segment mentioned in this episode has already been voted on by our Twitter followers – hear about the result in the next episode in June. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Monster collecting RPG Cassette Beasts just launched on Steam via PC and Game Pass, and on May 25th it'll also launch on Xbox and Nintendo Switch. To celebrate, returning pod guest Jay Baylis (the cursed Sonic and Pokémon episodes) talks us through the creation of the game.This week's music is from the Cassette Beasts soundtrack by Joel Baylis. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

With Samuel away, Matthew and returning special guest Rich Stanton from PC Gamer build a hall of fame from Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami's body of work. This week's music is from the Resident Evil: Director's Cut by Makoto Tomozawa, Koichi Hiroki and Masami Ueda. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Our popular series of best of lists returns with the 2015 edition, featuring two top 10s of the year's best games. Hear about Matthew and Samuel's burgeoning friendship during a press trip to Germany, and forgive us as we get tired towards the end of this episode since we recorded it on a Sunday night. This week's music is from the Fallout 4 soundtrack by Inon Zur and the Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number soundtrack by The Green Kingdom (aka Mike Cottone). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Samuel assembles a power ranking of the video games based on the Star Wars movies, and Matthew politely humours him. This week's music is from the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic soundtrack by Jeremy Soule and The Force Unleashed soundtrack by Mark Griskey. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We're taking a week off, but we're pleased to present free feed listeners with PC Gaming Classics, a miniseries funded by our kind Patreon supporters. Co-hosted by Phil Iwaniuk and Jeremy Peel, this first episode focuses on System Shock 2. We'll roll out the rest of the episodes each month, and we'll be back next Friday with an episode on the best Star Wars games. This week's music is from the System Shock 2 soundtrack by Josh Randall, Ramin Djawadi and Eric Brosius. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this week's episode, Samuel suffers from jetlag and Matthew suffers from living as we recount what we've been playing lately – everything except Resident Evil 4 Remake, anyway. Games discussed this week include Celeste, Diablo 4, Tchia, Resident Evil 1 Remake and a slew of PSVR 2 stuff. We'll return with our next regular episode on April 14th, though Patreon folk will get a new XL episode in the meantime on the best Mario moments.This week's music is from the Final Fantasy X soundtrack by Nobuo Uematsu, Masashi Hamauzu and Junya Nakano. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We've both finished Resident Evil 4 Remake, which is out now! The original was an era-defining game for us, so what's the deal with this one? There are two parts here: a non-spoilery section then a more spoiler-y one. We hope you like it. This week's music is from the Resident Evil 4 soundtrack by Misao Senbongi and Shusaku Uchiyama. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Will Porter, former PC Zone editor turned game developer, is our guest this week. Hear about Zone's epic rivalry with PC Gamer and how it gradually died down over time, and learn about how Will ended writing for games like Alien: Isolation and Mafia: Definitive Edition. This week's music is from the Mafia: Definitive Edition soundtrack by Jesse Harlin. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The draft is back! Matthew and Samuel compete to pick the 10 best Capcom games from the developer/publisher's extensive and dazzling library. If you like fighting games, apologies in advance. Samuel won this draft.This week's music is from the Devil May Cry 5 soundtrack by Casey Edwards and Ali Edwards, and the Onimusha 2: Samurai's Destiny soundtrack by Taro Iwashiro. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this week's shorter episode, Matthew fires through a whole bunch of recommendations to check out on 3DS and Wii U before their respective eShops close on March 27th. The full list can be found on Patreon.com/backpagepod if you miss any of it.This week's music is from the Affordable Space Adventures soundtrack by Harry Damm. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Our task this week is to construct a 10-game hall of fame (or perhaps hall of infamy?) for the Nintendo Wii U. Joining us to assemble the list is Team17's Ashley Day, formerly of Nintendo UK and gamesTM magazine. It's a good episode, and hopefully fair to a weird console that's rightly been mined to form the backbone of the Nintendo Switch's killer library. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this week's episode, we go deep on The Last of Us. We recall our original thoughts on the game from back in 2013 and give our verdict on the HBO show so far. Plus, Matthew talks us through his thoughts on the PS5 remake of the game. Apologies for the half-remembered bits. We'll explain the spoiler rules in the episode. This week's music is from The Last of Us soundtrack by Gustavo Santaolalla. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Former ONM editor and Mobilegamer.biz founder Neil Long is this week's guest. Learn what it was like to run the official UK magazine during the dominance of the Wii and DS era – including a few horror stories he'd probably rather forget. This week's music is from the Dragon Quest 6 soundtrack by Koichi Sugiyama. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi-Fi Rush, GoldenEye 007 and Fire Emblem: Engage are among the games we've been playing lately – those are the focus of this episode, along with a barrage of listeners questions that vary between insightful and nonsensical. This week's music is from the GoldenEye 007 soundtrack by Graeme Norgate, Grant Kirkhope and Robin Beanland. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

After a long break, we're back with two top 10 lists from a year gone by – this time, 2014. Expect a mixture of mag recollections and deep analysis of the games that mattered (and some that didn't). This week's music is from the Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney soundtrack by Tomohito Nishiura and Yasumasa Kitagawa, the Kalimba soundtrack by Magnus Damgaard, Lennart Kiel and Asger Kirkemann Strandby, and the Mario Kart 8 soundtrack by Shiho Fujii, Atsuko Asahi, Ryo Nagamatsu, Yasuaki Iwata and Kenta Nagata. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Our most interminable podcast format, Games Court, returns! 18 listeners' pre-owned games purchases go on trial in front of the corrupt Judge Castle, who delivers shaky justice from the courtroom of his dubious island nation. From Zelda on the CD-i to Jasper Carrott's Golden Balls on Wii and DS, it's an absolute treasure trove of nonsense this week. Sorry again for the continued existence of Games Court. This week's music is from the No More Heroes soundtrack by Masafumi Takada and Jun Fukuda. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From Indiana Jones to a Nintendo Switch successor, it's time for 23 more ridiculous predictions founded on no basis of fact whatsoever.This week's music is from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild soundtrack by Manaka Kataoka, Yasuaki Iwata and Hajime Wakai. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Easing ourselves back in to another year of podcasting, we tackle more than 20 listener questions – from our favourite videogame box art to the best games we never finished. Samuel was suffering with Covid during this episode, so it's a slightly gentler one than normal. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this week's episode, we're taking a bit of time off! So enjoy this sample of our Patreon content – one of 18 additional episodes funded by our supporters at Patreon.com/BackPagePod. See you next week when regular service resumes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2022 was undoubtedly a blockbuster-deprived year, but it was still a strong 12 months for games in many other ways. Our two top 10 lists reflect that state of affairs. Enjoy this nearly 3-hour rundown of our favourites from 2022, which is our last new games pod of the year as we take a short break ahead of January's episodes (though free feed listeners still have something cool to look forward to next week). Thank you for your support, and happy holidays! This week's music is from the Norco soundtrack by Andy G. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this week's episode, we each try to assemble the 'dream' RPG party across 14 categories. Predictably, we each created nightmares instead. Matthew won this draft, if you're coming to this episode late.This week's music is from the Final Fantasy VIII soundtrack by Nobuo Uematsu. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Three-time special guest Andy Kelly is back to discuss his exit from games media after 18 years – and to share eight review scores he feels he got slightly wrong from his time working on PSM2/3, PC Gamer and The Gamer. Matthew and Samuel, meanwhile, shed some light on their own decisions to move on in years past.This week's music is from the Disco Elysium soundtrack by British Sea Power. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Did someone buy Capcom this year? Did Nightdive remaster the N64 South Park FPS? Did Samuel play FF14? We revisit our 22 predictions from the start of the year to see just how wrong we were – though a couple did pay off. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Matthew and Samuel both played God of War Ragnarök. But Matthew actually finished it! Enjoy this almost entirely spoiler-free take on the year's big blockbuster. If you want to know nothing about Ragnarök, consider putting this one on hold – but it doesn't spoil anything more than a review would. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.