The Back Page: A Video Games Podcast

Samuel finally played Cyberpunk 2077 properly, and had a (mostly) good time! This episode interrogates CD Projekt RED's RPG/shooter, two years after release and firmly outside the shadow of the marketing campaign that made it such a headache to write about in the first place. This week's music is from the Cyberpunk 2077 soundtrack by P. T. Adamczyk, Marcin Przybyłowicz and Paul Leonard-Morgan. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A Plague Tale: Requiem, FF7 Remake, Stay Out Of The House and Taiji are among the games discussed in our first 'what we've been playing' episode in two months. Plus: 80 minutes of listener questions are answered, from the irrelevant to the insightful. Enjoy!This week's music is from the Gradius Advance soundtrack by Shigemitsu Goto, Hirofumi Sano and Kaori Takazoe. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ahead of the release of Ragnarök, we rank all the God of War games from 2005's original up to the 2018 PS4 entry – minus the odd Facebook game or mobile title. Enjoy. Once the new one drops, we'll discuss where it places in a future episode. This week's music is from the God of War 2 soundtrack by Cris Velasco, Ron Fish, Gerard Marino and Mike Reagan. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The wonderful 101st episode of The Back Page attempts to build a 5-game hall of fame from the entire PlatinumGames catalogue. Plus, Matthew has been reviewing Bayonetta 3 on Switch – hear his thoughts on the latest (but perhaps not greatest) entry in the hack-and-slash brawler series.This week's music is from the Bayonetta 2 soundtrack by Norihiko Hibino, Takahiro Izutani, Masami Ueda, Hiroshi Yamaguchi, Rei Kondoh, Naofumi Harada, Satoshi Igarashi, Hitomi Kurokawa and Takayasu Sodeoka. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's a clip show. Enjoy the clips.Thanks so much for listening and supporting us. Here's to 100 more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Indie developer Lucy Blundell (One Night Stand, the upcoming VIDEOVERSE) joins us to discuss one of Matthew's favourite genres: the (usually) non-horny visual novel.This week's music is from the 428: Shibuya Scramble soundtrack by Naoki Sato and Hideki Sakamoto. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We're joined by Ben Hanson of MinnMax on this episode, who shares a bunch of great stories from his many years making videos for Game Informer's elaborate cover features. Hear about the times he visited Kojima Productions and Square Enix, among other studios. This week's music is from the Final Fantasy XV soundtrack by Yoko Shimomura. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

More listeners' pre-owned purchases go on trial this week, from classic JRPGs to a hilariously rough PS3-era shooter – and a grim fate awaits anyone who gets on the wrong side of Judge Big Sammy.Apologies in advance if you hate Games Court. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From The Getaway to Sleeping Dogs, this week Judge Matthew Castle puts the open world games that followed in GTA 3's wake on trial. Jeremy Peel returns to help make the cast for Driv3r, among other games.This week's music is from the Driv3r soundtrack by Marc Canham. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From Monkey Island to Full Throttle, we try to boil down the complete library of Lucasarts adventure games into five representative titles – building a hall of fame, the concept of which we stole from a film podcast we like. Former GamesTM editor Ashley Day joins us for this one. Note that our originally scheduled episode, GTA clones on trial, is now coming next week.This week's music is from The Secret of Monkey Island soundtrack by Michael Land and Patrick Mundy. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Matthew talks us through his many hours agonising over a Splatoon 3 review in this week's episode, which features a detailed breakdown of what's new (or not) in Nintendo's latest online shooter. Plus, we break down key examples of new Nintendo series from the past year and explain what they represent in the overall breadth of its output.This week's music is from Bayonetta 2. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Saints Row, Arcade Paradise, Symphony of War, Ryse: Son of Rome, Splatoon 3, Star Wars: Rogue Squadron and Escape Academy are among the games discussed in this month's episode. Plus: we try and clear a mountain of your listener questions with increasing weariness.This week's music is from the Rogue Squadron soundtrack by Chris Hulsbeck. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's draft revenge time! Who can pick the 10 best games released during the years 2000-2005? Vote for the winner @backpagepod on Twitter. We'll update this episode description when a winner has been declared.This week's music is from the Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 soundtrack by Frank Klepacki. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week's guest is former Edge editor Nathan Brown, who now runs the newsletter Hit Points (support his Substack at hitpoints.substack.com). Hear what goes into an Edge [10], as well as thoughts on Destiny, E3, Street Fighter and the world of videogame consulting.This week's music is from the Destiny soundtrack by Marty O'Donnell and Michael Salvatori and the Street Fighter II soundtrack by Yoko Shimomura and Isao Abe. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Samuel and Matthew ask each other to guess the game based on quotes taken from '90s games magazines – then answer a whole suite of listener questions in part two.This week's music is from Final Fantasy VIII, composed by Nobuo Uematsu. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Is Valve's handheld PC all it's cracked up to be? Yes! In this episode we celebrate its strengths, highlight its limitations and discuss the games we've been playing on it. This week's music is all from our theme tune's composer, Barry Topping (@nostoppingepoch). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Slightly later than usual, RockPaperShotgun EIC Katharine Castle rejoins us to discuss the Xenoblade Chronicles series in enormous detail. Hear Matthew's thoughts on Xenoblade Chronicles 3 after 140 hours of playing it, and enjoy a great new quiz known as 'Xenoblade ingredient or '90s drug slang?'.This week's music is from the Xenoblade Chronicles 2 soundtrack by Kenji Hiramatsu and the Xenoblade Chronicles X soundtrack by Hiroyuki Sawano. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Two top 10 lists of the best games of 2013, in our usual style. Don't miss our episodes on the best games of 2006-2012 if you haven't heard them already.This week's music is from the Grand Theft Auto V soundtrack by Tangerine Dream and Woody Jackson, and crikey, what a banging piece of music 'No Happy Endings' is. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We undertake another grand project: building a library of the very best games for the Nintendo Switch, starting with 5 (technically 6) of our absolute favourites. Want to know what those are? Listen to the episode, or find the games we discussed in this episode below...Ready?Spoilers!Here we go...Super Mario Odyssey, Metroid Dread, Astral Chain, Into the Breach and Ori and the Blind Forest/Ori and the Will of the Wisps.This week's music is from the Super Mario Odyssey soundtrack by Naoto Kubo, Shiho Fujii and Koji Kondo. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, Sniper Elite 5 and TMNT: Shredder's Revenge are discussed in this round-up of games we've been playing this month.Our theme tune, which plays in full this week at the very end, is from Barry Topping as ever. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

More listeners go on trial for bad pre-owned games purchases – this time with Judge Big Sammy making the verdicts. As ever, games court delivers zero nutritional value, but we have some laughs along the way.Our theme tune comes from the brilliant Barry Topping, composer of Paradise Killer. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

PC Gamer's Phil Savage rejoins us for an episode all about Bungie's Destiny. Hate Destiny? Fair enough! You may still enjoy the first 24 minutes of this podcast for general games chatter. For Destiny players, prepare for two hours of chatter from a genuine expert that goes deep into the series' history – including the top 5 Destiny 2 guns, and the top 5 things to do in the game. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Matthew is away this week! Returning guest Jeremy Peel kindly steps in to replace him, as we count down our 10 personal most anticipated games, based on whatever E3 was this year – from Redfall to Final Fantasy 16. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Samuel and Matthew each compete to pick the 10 best PC games released in the years 1990 to 1999 – the poll is closed now but Matthew won this one.This week's music is from the Command & Conquer: Red Alert soundtrack by Frank Klepacki. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Returning guest Andy Kelly joins us to discuss his love of Sega's Dreamcast, and his new Alien: Isolation book, Perfect Organism, which you can back on Unbound: https://unbound.com/books/perfect-organism/This week's music is from the Shenmue soundtrack by Takenobu Mitsuyoshi and Yuzo Koshiro. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Centennial Case, Tunic, Gears Tactics, Eternal Threads and Little Cities are among the games we discuss in this week's episode, which was painfully recorded across three evenings. This week's music is from The Centennial Case soundtrack by Yuki Hayashi. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week's guest is Tim Clark, brand director of PC Gamer with a long history of working on the official PlayStation magazines. Get ready for another top-drawer story about Hideo Kojima, among many other tales from games media history. This week's music is from the Killer7 soundtrack by Masafumi Takada. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this week's episode, Samuel catalogues the Star Wars games that exist between simple notions like light and dark – these are the 6 and 7/10 Star Wars games that are nonetheless interesting in a bunch of ways. A full best Star Wars games episode is coming later this year, so look forward to that.This week's music is from the Star Wars: The Force Unleashed soundtrack by Mark Griskey. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Former Edge editor Jen Simpkins joins us to discuss some highlights of her years working in games media, and how she ended up working with the bright minds of the Dreams community at Media Molecule.Find the Playdate drawing Jen mentioned attached to the corresponding episode post on Patreon. Looksley's Line-Up is the DSi game mentioned early in the episode. Find the GameDeveloper.com article Jen mentioned here: https://www.gamedeveloper.com/marketing/ad-infinitum-handling-community-curation-on-a-cosmic-scale-in-dreamsThis week's music is from the Persona 5 soundtrack by Shoji Meguro. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's another mailbag episode, with about 20 minutes of what we've been playing at the start as a chaser. It's probably too long, yet again, but it covers everything from our favourite TV genres to trends in games that we miss. Enjoy!One factual error in this episode: Sunset Overdrive was released in 2014 rather than 2015.Our theme tune is by Barry 'Epoch' Topping (@nostoppingepoch on Twitter). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this week's episode, we revisit all three Max Payne games. Section 1 is about Remedy's creation of the third-person shooter series that popularised bullet time, while section 2 covers Rockstar's effort to contemporise the character in Max Payne 3. Hopefully you'll agree we do Max justice.Then, the final section has to be heard to be believed.This week's music is from the Max Payne soundtrack by Kärtsy Hatakka and Kimmo Kajasto, and the Max Payne 3 soundtrack by HEALTH. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

IGN's Joe Skrebels joins us for another round of indie game recommendations – and 20 minutes of very welcome Dragon's Dogma chat. 15 more games enter our hall of fame in this episode. Hopefully you'll hear about something you've never played before. This week's music is from the Thumper soundtrack by Brian Gibson. Our theme tune is by Barry 'Epoch' Topping. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Two top 10 lists of the best games of 2012, in our usual style. Love the podcast and want more? Head to patreon.com/backpagepod to unlock two additional episodes a month.This week's music is from the Catherine soundtrack by Shoji Meguro, and the Kid Icarus: Uprising soundtrack by Motoi Sakuraba, Yuzo Koshiro, Masafumi Takada, Noriyuki Iwadare, Yasunori Mitsuda and Takahiro Nishi. Our theme tune is by Barry 'Epoch' Topping. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The top 5 Kirby games, and detailed thoughts on Kirby and the Forgotten Land for Nintendo Switch. Enjoy! This week's music is from the Kirby and the Forgotten Land soundtrack by Yuuta Ogasawara, Hirokazu Ando, Jun Ishikawa and Yuki Shimooka, and the Kirby's Epic Yarn soundtrack by Tomoya Tomita. Our theme tune is by Barry 'Epoch' Topping (@nostoppingepoch). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's a simple 'what we've been playing' episode, featuring Ghostwire: Tokyo, Kirby and the Forgotten Land, Tunic, Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy and Monster Train – not to mention a ton of listener questions about random nonsense. This week's music is from the Tunic soundtrack by Terence Lee and Janice Kwan, and our excellent theme tune is by Barry 'Epoch' Topping (@NoStoppingEpoch on Twitter). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Who can pick the 10 best PS Vita games in our latest draft episode? And who will pick the best PSone and PSP games to supplement their selections? Matthew and Samuel compete to build the best library for Sony's fan-favourite handheld device.This week's music is from Hotline Miami by Scattle, and our theme tune is by Barry 'Epoch' Topping. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Judge Castle returns to decide whether 18 or so listeners must die as a result of dodgy secondhand eBay purchases. This episode is slightly too long, but hopefully you'll be amused. This week's music comes from Barry Topping, composer on the brilliant Paradise Killer — it's our brand new theme tune! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Samuel and Matthew have played Elden Ring for a combined 37 hours – here's what they think so far. This week's music is from the Elden Ring soundtrack by Yuka Kitamura. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Matthew's seen the Uncharted movie, which is a nice excuse for a deep dive into one of our favourite PlayStation series. This week's music is from the Uncharted 4: A Thief's End soundtrack by Henry Jackman, and the Uncharted 1-3 soundtracks by Greg Edmonson. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jon Hicks, formerly of Official Xbox Magazine, joins us to revisit the 360 era through his experiences of the time. This week's music is from the Halo: Reach soundtrack by Michael Salvatori and Marty O'Donnell. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Matthew Castle Productions and Big Sammy Holdings are each taking on Game Pass. Who built the best gaming subscription service? Matthew won this one.This week's music is from the Snatcher soundtrack by Konami Kukeiha Club, The Sims 4 soundtrack by Ilan Eshkeri and the Kid Icarus: Uprising soundtrack by Motoi Sakuraba, Yuzo Koshiro, Masafumi Takada, Noriyuki Iwadare, Yasunori Mitsuda and Takahiro Nishi. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dying Light 2, Windjammers 2, Resident Evil 4 VR, NEO: The World Ends With You and more are discussed in this episode about what we've been playing in 2022 so far. This week's music is from the Unpacking soundtrack by Jeff van Dyck and the Windjammers 2 soundtrack by Seiichi Hamada, Hiroaki Yoshida, Harumi Fujita and Sylvain Hellio. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Cassette Beasts co-developer Jay Baylis joins us to discuss the long history of Pokémon games, subjecting Matthew to his idea of torture. Hear about the best games in the series across different categories from a genuine expert.This week's music is from the Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl soundtrack by Shota Kageyama, Junichi Masuda, Go Ichinose, Hitomi Sato and Morikazu Aoki, the Pokémon Alpha Sapphire and Omega Ruby soundtrack by Shota Kageyama, Minako Adachi, Hideaki Kuroda and Hitomi Sato, and the Super Smash Bros Ultimate soundtrack by Shota Kageyama, Go Ichinose, Hitomi Sato, Junichi Masuda and Minako Adachi. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Another overly long mailbag episode is here! 25 of your questions about gaming (yes, and Bath restaurants) answered. This week's music is from the TimeSplitters 2 soundtrack by Graeme Norgate and The Secret of Monkey Island soundtrack by Michael Land and Patrick Mundy. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Matthew and Samuel compete to pick the 10 best Wii games – the same game cannot be picked more than once. Samuel won this draft, by 67% to 33%.This week's music is from the Wii Sports Resort soundtrack by Ryo Nagamatsu, the Super Mario Galaxy 2 soundtrack by Mahito Yokota, Ryo Nagamatsu and Koji Kondo, and The Last Story soundtrack by Nobuo Uematsu. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Samuel and Matthew each pick 11 predictions for the year ahead in gaming, all based on absolutely no information whatsoever. It's a light episode, and Samuel's audio is a bit crap. Sorry about that.This week's music is from the Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 soundtrack by Frank Klepacki and the Xenoblade Chronicles soundtrack by Ace+. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Our GOTY episode is here! Two top 10 lists of the best games released in 2021, with almost no crossover between the selections. Enjoy. This week's music is from the Bowser's Fury soundtrack by Daisuke Matsuoka and James Phillipsen, the Rhythm Doctor soundtrack by fizzd, Winston Lee and foxiand, and The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles soundtrack by Yasumasa Kitagawa and Hiromitsu Maeba. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring movie turns 20 years old, we revisit every game based on the films from Peter Jackson. From The Two Towers to The Third Age, there are some real gems in among the 7/10 tie-ins.This week's music is from The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers on GBA, based on the music of Howard Shore, and the Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor and Middle-earth: Shadow of War soundtracks by Garry Schyman and Nathan Grigg. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Back in episode 7, we made 21 gaming predictions about 2021. How right or wrong were we? In this episode, we put ourselves on trial, discussing everything from N64 games on Switch to PS5 haptics. It's a silly episode, like all of them. Enjoy. This week's music is from the Binary Domain soundtrack by Mitsuharu Fukuyama and the Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory soundtrack by Yoko Shimomura. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What else we've been playing in 2021, including Luigi's Mansion 3, Resident Evil 3 Remake and more. This week's music is from the 428: Shibuya Scramble soundtrack by Naoki Sato, Hideki Sakamoto and Shingo Yasumoto and the Deus Ex soundtrack by Alexander Brandon, Dan Gardopée and Michiel van den Bos. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.