The #NOTplaying Podcast

E3 might not be happening this year, but we still have plenty to discuss this month, including release dates for Starfield and the much delayed Suicide Squad Kill the Justice League. We've also all been going a bit gooey over Sony's recent Final Fantasy focussed State of Play, so expect much more on that game when it releases in just a couple of short months time! And Rob's been having...

After a few understandably slow years it's quite refreshing to have not 1 but 2 significant game releases this early in the year, not to mention some timely updates from the main players in our delightful hobby. These haven't been without controversy though, with the games media understandably frustrated by Microsoft's shadowdrop release of Bethesda and Tango Gameworks' rhythm-action mashup, Hi-Fi...

The moratorium on saying 'Happy New Year' may be up, but we're still only in January so there's time for us to finally share our favourite games of 2022. Well, Rob did anyway. The others have their excuses, but you can wait for them to explain themselves. We're also forecasting the year ahead as is usual for this time in the calendar and also sharing some games we were playing just before the holi...

In this most festive and final episode of 2022 we pick out some of our highlights from Geoff Keighley's annual advert (and also awards show) extravaganza, catch up on the latest from Microsoft's epic buyout of Activision & weigh in with our opinions on the divisive Forspoken Demo that recently hit PSN. And following on from last year's success, Will is back with another cryptic quiz, highlight...

It's not often we all find ourselves in the same room these days, especially given recent events, but as luck would have it, Will happened to be in town around the time our latest episode was due, so we were able to sit round a mike round Rob's and shoot the shit in person. We were also joined by long term friend of the show and #NOTlistening collaborator, Ash. Top of the list is probably the rece...

Bit of a news-heavy episode this month as we chronicle the inevitable demise of Google Stadia, a slew of announcements from the far-east via Tokyo Game Show, Nintendo Direct & Sony's recent State of Play, while in the west Disney un-delay Midnight Suns and Ubisoft let rip with a absolute cavalcade of information regarding the future of the Assassin's Creed franchise. Meanwhile in actual g...

We didn't think we had a lot to get into this week, but in a moment of supreme scheduling cock-ups we found ourselves recording actually during Geoff Keighley's Gamescom opening night extravaganza, so the miniscule amount of news we did have was ultimately interrupted by a number of unexcepted megatons, including a release date for Return to Monkey Island, which we will likely be talking about mor...

Sorry for the delay on this episode, but we've all been a bit in the wars lately with various bouts of lingering covid and it's been so hot this week that we plain forgot to put the episode out despite it being in the can for a few days... And it took a while for us to get round to recording our thoughts on what used to consitute E3 in years past, so this one is actually quite brief compared to ou...

While the last few weeks has seemed a bit quiet on the game release front compared to the bloodbath in February, we've let rather a lot of news stack up this time. Leading the charge is Sony, with the recently restructured digital membership offerings and a couple of State of Play's covering Hogwarts Legacy and the imminent side-scrolling cousin to Ghost of Tsushima, Trek to Yomi. There's also the...

There's no getting around it, February was a lot. Not 1, not 2, but 3 massive open world games, more multi-billion dollar studio acquisitions and - of course - more delays. In this week's episode we analyse the fallout only to discover that all three of us are playing the same thing, although that may not be for very long given that one that it is! All this & more on an utterly bunged-up-with-...

Quite a bumper episode this week, since we thought it would be enough to go through which games we are looking forward to in 2022 should they actually come out, but then Microsoft thought they would kick the year off with the absolute megaton of them deciding to purchase the troubled Activision/Blizzard. What ramifications will this have on the industry? And how good will this be for gamers? All t...

Sorry you've had to wait until 2022 for our end of 2021 wrap-up, but this festive period was double festive given the completely unfestive nature of the last one. So while Rob's been battling his backlog to offer up the most comprehensive top 3 possible, Will's been creating a brainteasing quiz for us all to suffer through and Marcus... well, Marcus has had enough of his own challenges recently th...

So this week's show was very much teased last time around because of the awkwardness of a certain game's release date falling on the same day we recorded. So here - finally - is our in-depth opinion on Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy as well as Will's thoughts on the closing moments of Far Cry 6, some recounting of our efforts to all finally group up on Aliens: Fireteam Elite and Rob's vain attem...

In what might be the worst bit of scheduling in this podcast's almost decade long history, we ended up recording this episode about 1 hour after the release of Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy. So you'll have to wait a few weeks for our opinion on that. There have been quite a few other releases though since we last spoke, so listen on for our thoughts on Far Cry 6, Aliens: Fireteam Elite & Back 4...

Even though new games are finally coming out again, Sony's latest console is still fairly bereft of them so this holiday season, we're getting some massive announcements instead so you can at least buy a PS5 in the knowledge that there will some day be a reason for it. Entitled cynicism aside, the announcement of not one but two Marvel-based Insomniac Games cannot be understated, whilst more foota...

We're back from a bit of summer break finally getting to enjoy the great outdoors, yet despite our galavanting we've still managed to play some games. There's also been a bit of news going on, which you will likely be well acquainted with by now, but you haven't heard what we think about it yet have you! So listen on... :) Contact us on Email at: notplayingpodcast@gmail.com Follow us on Twitter: @...

It's been fairly slim pickings on the new game front so far this year, but Sony at least had one card to play in the latest installment of Ratchet & Clank, which sees the lovable lombax and his mechanised pal span multiple realities in an adventure that truly harnesses the power of PS5. And as if that wasn't enough, they drop a State of Play on us deep-diving into the upcoming Horizon Forbidden We...

It's that time again, so buckle up babies as we go through our highlights of this year's slightly-more-organised-than-2020's-summer-of-games E3! While this year's event may still have been virtual, fairly light on release dates and once again a sony-free zone, there were still some notable glimpses into our gaming future. Microsoft once again claiming a massive piece of the pie post their bethesda...

As our last episode may have hinted there's a fair amount of Monster Hunter talk on this one. Rob even managed to squeeze a bit of time in with the demo so it's not a complete monologue from Marcus. There's also been some news, mostly about inevitable covid/anti-crunch related delays, but also this years videogaming BAFTAs which for the second year running we were unable to attend, but they went a...

Will might be in the midst of a between game slump, but his ears certainly pricked up upon news of Sony's next wave of VR tech, which we begrudgingly have to concede has been his call for the last 2 years or so of predictions we've run on this show. Meanwhile Rob is utterly dismayed by the firing of Bloodlines 2 developer, Hardsuit Labs, spelling almost certain doom for the project in question, bu...

On this week's show we're talking about Ubisoft's OTHER open world game loosely based around Greek Mythology, Immortals Fenyx Rising, Bloober Team's impressively creepy looking The Medium and Marcus is now comfortably back in the arms of Final Fantasy VII after realising that he could have spent 2020 playing that instead of stressing about what a shit year it was, proving that videogames really ar...

We ended up ranting so much on our last recording that we thought we might as well break this more news-orientated chat into it's own thing. Hardly surprising considering these very early game announcements all concern IP dating back to our childhoods: IO interactive making a Bond game? Machine games making a Indiana Jones game? And Ubisoft making an open-world single player Star Wars game? If the...

If this year goes to plan hopefully some of the games mentioned in this episode will come out before the end of it, as we once again cast our beady eyes over some of our most anticipated games to be released in the near future. Obviously, with things being as they are, take all of this with an enormous dollop of salt. Some of our picks are fanciful to say the least. If Kratos swings his blades bef...

It's been a rough year for most forms of media, but despite a few high profile delays and famously botched launches, for the most part videogames have thrived, with lockdown restrictions and increased free time due to homeworking, we've more time than ever before to escape into digital worlds while the real one burns around us. So it's that time of year once more where we count through our favouri...

While the world might be at a standstill, that hasn't made any difference to videogames, especially in a year that sees the launch of a new generation of consoles. One of which, we've finally got our sticky paws on. Well, Rob has at least. Not to be outdone however, Will's been holding up the ubisoft fort, having played a signifant amount of both Assassin's Creed Valhalla and Watch Dogs Legion. Tw...