Maximum Power Up

Here it is, part 2 of the top 50 games of all time list! Already in part 1 we have covered classics for the Sega Megadrive, Commodore Amiga, Sony Playstation and more We had a great response to part 1 of episode 50 which covered a wide range of games. Obviously this hasn't been an easy task as there are many great games and we limited it to 5 games each. We hope you find some games in the final li...

Back in April this year we asked the listeners to help us put together the Maximum Power Up Top 50 games. Each of our hosts put forward their favourite games to get the list started and then with all the other listener votes the list stood at over 450 games! With the podcast covering new and old gaming we felt as though this episode is perfect to look at which games people see as faves. From Manic...

In this episode Paul interviews legendary games journalist Julian 'Jaz' Rignall. In over 30 years in the industry Jaz has worked on many well loved games magazines including Mean Machines, Zzap64, C&VG and more. Jaz made the most of massive surge of love for the emerging console market in the late 80's and early 90's which helped make the magazines he worked on so popular. There is plenty of talk...

The Persona series has been going for over 20 years and has featured on many consoles. What started off as a niche game series, Persona has gained quite a large following which has helped latest entry Persona 5 become a huge hit. Joining Julian for hosting duties on this episode is Sara Ruehlman, herself a massive fan of the series and the RPG genre in general. Join them as they look at the games...

In this episode Paul and Julian discuss their history playing the point and click genre. Back in the late 80's and throughout the 90's this time of game offered hit after hit for fans of the genre. Lucasarts led the way with great adventures such as Secret Of Monkey Island, Day Of The Tentacle, Full Throttle and many more. Each game gave the player an opportunity to enter a massive world full of c...

The Super Nintendo is often cited as many retro gamer's favourite console. Just looking at game prices on Ebay etc for Nintendo's 16bit marvel shows that demand isn't fading either. With many amazing games such as Super Mario World, Street Fighter 2, Pilotwings, Starfox and more, fans of any genre were spoilt by choice for the SNES. The machine's capabilities were also shown with the Super FX chip...

When thinking back to the 16 bit era, one software developer/publisher stands head and shoulders above the crowd across all platforms. With formidable output on both home consoles and the arcades, Konami built further upon their household name and brand they'd established during the Famicom/NES years. Konami's roster of games included strong titles from their back catalogue, (Gradius, Castlevania)...

SEGA Power magazine ran from 1989 until 1997 covering a lot of SEGA games over the years. Although there were many SEGA magazines available SEGA Power had a lot of fans, however in 1994 it went in a different direction. In this episode Paul is joined by Andy Lowe that became editor in the summer of 1994 and gave the magazine quite a shake up! Adding more comedy to the magazine with the features, r...

The Nintendo Famicom or Nintendo Entertainment System (for those of us in the west) was the companies first step into the home console market following their success with arcade machines and the much loved Game & Watch. Although it wasn't an over night success Nintendo's perseverance and cleaver positioning in the market the NES became a huge success and ushered in a new era that saw Nintendo beco...

Retro Gamer Magazine has bucked the trend in recent times, as many other print magazines close down or go fully digital the retro-themed monthly publication goes from strength to strength. Now in it's 12th year of existence, Retro Gamer Magazine shows no signs of slowing down, and every month features original content, exclusive developer interviews and reader interactions. Sections on the indie a...

Can you believe that the Wii is over 10 years old? TEN YEARS OLD?!  In late 2006  Nintendo decided it didn't to play the same game as Sony and Microsoft anymore,  instead they created a revolution! Gamers, grannies and the Redknapps could be  found waggling in their front room with the innovative controller. In this episode just as Nintendo attempt to crack the market again with Switch, join  host...

This year GamesMaster magazine turns 25 years old and is one of the last remaining games magazines on the shelves. Following on from the television show launched 25 years ago this month, the magazine gave fans something else to enjoy. In this episode Paul chats to four original staff from issue 1 of the magazine, Jim Douglas, Andy Lowe, Les Ellis and Ade Price. They discuss how the magazine came t...

In this latest episode Paul, Phil and Tom sit down to discuss some of their favourite games from 2002. With the Playstation 2, GameCube and X Box, gamers were spoilt for choice with classics such as GTA Vice City, Metroid Prime and many more. Hopefully we can inspire you to give games a second look that you may have missed buying first time round.. Some fantastic titles from the year have previous...

In this latest episode Paul sits down with Nathan McCree, composer of the iconic Tomb Raider games for the Sony PlayStation. We look back on his career in the games industry starting at CORE Design in the early 90's working on Chuck Rock 2 and other titles before Tomb Raider. Nathan discusses the style of music he had in mind for the game and how these ideas progressed over the original trilogy fo...

Welcome to the latest episode of the show. This time Paul is joined by new team member Julian Hill of Boxed Pixels fame. They sit down to discuss the extremely popular Amiga - the fantastic home computer that was in so many homes with an amazing line up of games. Covering so many genres the Amiga covered it all from platformers such as Robocod, Superfrog to sim games such as Theme Park, Populous a...

On rail shooters is a gaming genre that seems to divide opinion. Some love them for the simplistic hi octane arcade style action, while others see them as nothing more than monotonous gallery shooters. No game in the genre exemplifies this point more than Rez. On initial release it was met with a very mixed response. The title has since retained a cult status among fans an has stood the test of ti...

Welcome to the latest episode of Maximum Power Up podcast. In this episode Paul and Phil sit down to discuss some of their favourite arcade games growing up. The arcade was always seen as a gaming paradise for gamers in the 80's & 90's full of gamesyou wanted to play at home. Although many arcade favourites got home ports they were often nowhere near as good as the arcade version. So, we hope you...

In this latest episode of Maximum Power Up, hosts Phil, Jake and Amy get together to show the Nintendo Wii U, a criminally undervalued system, some much needed love & try and convince those who may have dismissed the system a second look before the NX arrives. Many have been put off by the Gamepad, which initially confused consumers on what it actually was. Many thought that it was a new controlle...

This episode is rammed with Nintendo chat as we discuss the much loved Super Play magazine for the Super Nintendo that ran for 47 issues as well as a one off special Super Play Gold.  Paul is joined by Chris as well as two special guests - ex Super Play artist Wil Overton and Damien McFerran from the excellent Nintendolife website. The panel discuss the magazine and what made it so special and muc...

Valve is one of the most well-known and respected developers around today, and their first game, Half-Life spawned one of gaming's biggest franchises. When it hit the PC in 1998, Half-Life wowed critics and went on to become one of the most popular first person shooters ever released for both PC and console. A seamless mix of first person shooting action and science fiction storytelling, the adven...

In our latest episode Paul and Chris are joined by Kincl from Hyperplay RPG fanzine and Julian Hill who runs the Boxed Pixels website.  All four of them are big fans of the RPG (Role Playing Game) genre. They sit down to discuss the genre in some detail including a few of their favourite games, what makes a great RPG, early memories of getting into the genre and more. Some classic games such as Fi...

The controversy surrounding the launch of the SEGA Saturn not only took the media by surprise but also alienated a large amount of retailers. In short the launch was a disaster However even with the consoles glaring short comings, the SEGA Saturn it has gone on to be a much loved system of the retro gaming community. In this latest episode Phil & Chris have a look at the what makes the SEGA Saturn...

Every console has stand out, must own, games but some great titles unfortunately slipped under the radar. In this episode Paul, Phil and Chris sit down to discuss some of their favourite games that in their opinion are hidden gems. Hopefully some of the games mentioned here will inspire you to go back and check out some of the great titles that, for whatever reason, never stuck a cord with fans th...

In this episode Paul & Tom interview retrogaming magazine legend Steve Jarratt. Steve worked on many well known magazines in the 80's and 90's including Zzap64, Edge, Total, Commodore Format and more including launching the Official Playstation Magazine.  Steve discusses his career, as well as working with Sam Dyer and Bitmap Books. He also gives his honest opinions on the current gaming industry...

This episode the team discuss the Nintendo GameCube. Although not as popular as the Playstation 2, the GameCube had a wealth of great games for it. As well as the usual Nintendo series you would expect such as Zelda, Mario, Metroid etc there were many other games that were worth checking out such as Pikmin, Eternal Darkness and many more.  Paul, Phil, Jake and new host Amy discuss their favourite...