The Back Page: A Video Games Podcast

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.

In this episode, Samuel ranks the seven mainline Halo games to date, and both Samuel and Matthew weigh in on the wonders of Halo Infinite multiplayer.This week's music is from the Halo: Reach soundtrack by Martin O'Donnell and Michael Salvatori and the Halo 5: Guardians soundtrack by Kazuma Jinnouchi. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Who can build the best hypothetical mini console, Matthew, representing GameCube, or Samuel, representing the original Xbox? As both consoles have turned 20 years old, in this episode we'll revisit the libraries of each in a competitive format. Wondering who won this one? It was Matthew, with around 60% of the vote.This week's music is from the Super Mario Sunshine soundtrack by Koji Kondo and Shinobu Tanaka, the Metroid Prime soundtrack by Kenji Yamamoto and Kouichi Kyuma, The Simpsons: Hit and Run soundtrack by Marc Baril, Jeff Tymoschuk and Allan Levy, and the Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne soundtrack by Kärtsy Hatakka and Kimmo Kajasto. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The latest in our series of flashback episodes focuses on a year that brought us Batman: Arkham City, Skyrim and The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. Matthew and Samuel each pick their 10 favourite games from 2011, and throw in a whole host of honourable mentions. This episode's music is from The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim soundtrack, the Pullblox soundtrack by Shoh Murakami and the Xenoblade Chronicles soundtrack by Yoko Shimomura. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty released 20 years ago this week. In this episode, PC Gamer's Rich Stanton joins us to discuss the game's themes and legacy as a PS2 classic.This week's music is from the Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty soundtrack by Harry Gregson-Williams, Rika Muranaka and Carla White. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In our episode 50 special, Matthew and Samuel talk through the entire process of making a games magazine from start to finish, including 15 things that can go wrong. Plus: our thoughts on the GTA Trilogy Definitive Edition, early GOTY chatter and much more. This week's music is from the Apex Legends soundtrack by Stephen Barton, the Metroid Dread soundtrack by Kenji Yamamoto and the Returnal soundtrack by The Haxan Cloak. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's Halloween! Horror expert and presenter Louise Blain joins us to pick out 15 cool spooky games, from Eternal Darkness to Silent Hill 4: The Room. This week's music is from the Silent Hill 4: The Room soundtrack by Akira Yamaoka and the Stories Untold soundtrack by Omar Khan. Here's a link to the PC Gamer piece Samuel mentions in this episode: https://www.pcgamer.com/how-a-spooky-game-about-being-alone-on-a-server-launched-an-accidental-arg/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Steve Burns, formerly of Videogamer.com, joins us to discuss Grand Theft Auto III as Rockstar North's groundbreaking open world game turns 20 years old. Hear about its impact on games at the time, its best moments and how GTA would evolve in subsequent entries. This week's music is from the Grand Theft Auto III soundtrack by Craig Conner and Stuart Ross. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

GameSpot's Tamoor Hussain kindly joins us to discuss his career from CVG to working in the US, and to help us rank the Batman: Arkham games to mark the tenth anniversary of Arkham City. This week's music is from the Batman: Arkham Knight soundtrack by Nick Arundel and David Buckley, and the Batman: Arkham City and Arkham Asylum soundtracks by Nick Arundel and Ron Fish. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Judge Matthew Castle puts 16 of our listeners on trial for bad secondhand games purchases, and public defence attorney Samuel Roberts has been assigned to defend them. Who will live and who will die? Plus, hear about our favourite arcade games in this week's episode. This week's music is from The Testament of Sherlock Holmes soundtrack by Alexandre Dudko and the Metroid: Other M soundtrack by Kuniaki Haishima. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Our guest this week is journalist and author Simon Parkin. Hear how Simon broke the news of Hideo Kojima's departure from Konami, among many other fascinating industry stories, and learn how he turned reviewing GBA games into a career writing for The New Yorker. This week's music is from the Gunstar Heroes soundtrack by Norio Hanzawa, the Final Fantasy VII soundtrack by Nobuo Uematsu and the Segagaga soundtrack by Tsuyoshi Kaneko. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

To mark the 25th anniversary of the N64's release in North America, Matthew and Samuel each compete to pick the 10 best games on the system for a hypothetical N64 Mini console. After you've heard our selections, you can vote for the winner @BackPagePod on Twitter until the end of September. Note that this episode was recorded before Nintendo confirmed N64 games were coming to the Switch Online service.The winner of this episode was Matthew Castle.This week's music is from the Rogue Squadron soundtrack by Chris Hülsbeck, the Super Smash Bros. soundtrack by Hirokazu Ando and the Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon soundtrack by Shigeru Araki, Yusuke Kato, Saiko Miki and Yasumasa Kitagawa. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We've finished Deathloop! Enjoy spoiler-free impressions of Arkane's latest game from Samuel, Matthew and our guest, the brilliant freelance writer Jeremy Peel. In hour two, hear about the history of the immersive sim, with chatter about Deus Ex, Thief and more games that defined Deathloop's lineage. This week's music is from the Deathloop soundtrack by Tom Salta and Ross Tregenza, the Deus Ex soundtrack by Alexander Brandon, Michiel van den Bos and Dan Gardopee, and the Deus Ex: Human Revolution soundtrack by Michael McCann. Here's where Warren Spector's definition of the immersive sim comes from: https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/postmortem-ion-storm-s-i-deus-ex-i-Here's Jeremy's oral history of Deus Ex: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/deus-ex-at-20-the-oral-history-of-a-pivotal-pc-game Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Two very different top 10 lists from 2010, one of the best years of gaming in modern memory. The usual mix of magazine memories and news from the time. That's it! Enjoy. This week's music is from the Red Dead Redemption soundtrack by Bill Elm & Woody Jackson, the Halo Reach soundtrack by Marty O'Donnell, the Alan Wake soundtrack by Poets of the Fall and Petri Alanko, and the Super Mario Galaxy 2 soundtrack by Mahito Yokota, Ryo Nagamatsu and Koji Kondo. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Judge Matthew Castle will decide if defendant Samuel Roberts lives or dies over a series of dodgy games purchases! Enjoy this sequel to our 15th episode from back in March, and hear our thoughts on Deathloop (after 7 hours with a preview build) and No More Heroes 3. This week's music is from Silent Hill: Shattered Memories by Akira Yamaoka, the No More Heroes 3 soundtrack by Nobuaki Kaneko, Jun Fukuda and Kazuhiro "MEEBEE" Abo, and the Phoenix Wright: Trials and Tribulation soundtrack by Noriyuki Iwadare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Katharine Castle of Rock Paper Shotgun returns to the podcast this week, as we each recommend five indie games we like. That's 15 recommendations in total! Plus: another baffling listener question about Yuji Naka. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.