A Winner Is You

Ah, it's time to relax and you know what that means. A glass of wine, your favourite easy chair. And, of course, this podcast playing on your home stereo. It's the first of our double feature episodes - two smaller(ish) games with a tenuous link crammed together for double the listening pleasure. In May 2022, ID Software's seminally splendid shooter Wolfenstein 3D turns 30 years-old. F...

Elden Ring is a sprawling, fantastical and relentlessly punishing video game. So much so that it can make you go a little crazy, and that seems to have been the case with your intrepid hosts here. Let's just say we're filled with piss and vinegar for this one! Just a warning, this podcast will not cover the lore of these games, especially as many people on YouTube have already. We will, ho...

Happy birthday, SOTN! We're back to close off our very short Metroidvania season with what we both believe to be the superior of the 'progenitor' titles in the genre. We discuss the game's strongest points, the story, the enemies, the inverted castle (spoiler?) and how disappointing the PS4 remake is (typical Konami, amirite?) among many other absolutely definitely fascinating topi...

Just when you thought the last AWIY pod was in captivity and the airwaves were at peace, here we are! We've wrenched ourselves away from Elden Ring long enough to bring you a stone cold classic - 1994's Super Metroid. We don't need to explain to you just how important and iconic this game is, but the interesting element to this pod is that David has never played any Metroid games befor...

Hello, hollow children, and welcome back to AWIY. This episode, we're celebrating the recent 10th birthday of a game we believe to be a bit of an underrated classic: Sega's Binary Domain. We chat about our surprise at it getting the 60fps boost on Xbox Series consoles, its wacky premise and even wackier story, its rock-solid gameplay and interesting dismemberment mechanics, the characters,...

Welcome, challengers. Pop yourself down at the table, light your candle, draw your cards (ignore the talking ones) and get ready for a lovely ol' game of Inscryption. Daniel Mullins' 2021 masterpiece was an absolute delight for us to play (when we weren't banging out heads against it like the idiots we are), and is a very early contender for our game of the year. Yeah, we do those awar...

Lock all your doors, put your feet up, light a small bundle of paper and chuck it into your back garden, watch the flames rise, and listen to our latest episode all about Campo Santo's 2016 mystery game, Firewatch. We discuss the game's unacceptably poor state on Xbox Series consoles (despite having just arrived on Game Pass in 2022) and whether it still holds up today to play it. Obviousl...

We decided to start the new year off with a nice, harmless bit of fun as we played through Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart to while away the winter days. It turns out, we really weren't that impressed with it and our attempt at a positive start to 2022 was somewhat misguided! We chat about the underdeveloped and unfunny story, the disappointing use of the SSD tech to make what is essentially a...

Ladies and gentlemen, take your seats and relax - it's time for the A Winner Is You Game of the Year Awards for 2021. We're doing our GOTY show a little differently to most, as we only considered games we'd covered on the podcast in 2021 for the majority of the awards. The categories for this year are:Best Story, Best Gameplay, Most Bullshit, Best Surprise, Best 2021 Non-Podcast Game,...

We close out our 2021 with arguably the biggest game of the year - Halo Infinite. It's finally here after all the delays, all the memes and all the hype, and it's... yeah, it's pretty good innit. We discuss the beautiful combat, the missed opportunity of the open world, the weird story decisions surrounding the Cortana angle, and that wonderful grappling hook. Is this the ultimate Halo...

It's been 20 years since the hugely influential Max Payne first released. That means 20 years of film noir-aping, Slow-mo-diving, metaphor-chewing, fourth wall-breaking, painkiller-popping action. Join us for a raucous ride through the game's story as we discuss the numerous plot twists, unrelenting action, bullet time brilliance and debate whether the whole thing still holds up today. Oh,...

Ahoy mateys! Get out your trusty insurance catalogues and dust off your time-travelling pocket watches as we investigate the mysterious Return of the Obra Dinn. Lucas Pope's sophomore effort is a brain-busting bonanza of beguiling blunders on the high seas, and its presentation and premise is one that is truly unique and just a little bit frustrating at times! Fear not, because we present to y...

All aboard the Winner Is You Express, as we delve deep into the atmospheric and mysterious world of Do My Best Games' 2016 zombie shooter/train conductor hit The Final Station. Let's discuss the elephant in the... train: We don't have the definitive theory on what the hell this game is about. We don't know for sure what the ending means, and we certainly weren't able to read al...

We're at that time of year where things are getting dark, cold and miserable, so come with us into a whole new galaxy where things are all bouncy and colourful and fun! It can only be a Mario game, eh? Super Mario Galaxy remains an absolute masterpiece, but is it as mindblowing or groundbreaking today as it was back in 2007? How do the controls hold up? How does the 3D All Stars version look a...

The scares continue (and end) with the second part of our month of horror games, just in time for Halloween, as we delve into the realm where no-one can hear your scream to play some Alien Isolation. Touted by many as the best survival horror game of the last generation, we have to admit that we probably found it more annoying than scary for the most part! What's not up for debate is the objec...

Introducing SPOOKTOBERFEST, our (hopefully) annual celebration of horror video games throughout the month of October. First up in this smorgasbord of scares is an underrated gem of a game from 1998 - Square's survival horror RPG Parasite Eve. We praise the game's mechanics,unique mixing of genres, and its ragtag bunch of characters, whilst lamenting the relentless difficulty spike of the e...

Please don't hate us for our brief hiatus, this game is just suuuper long! We decided to do a deep dive on a game that has been itching away at us since its less-than-earth-shattering release back in 2019 - Bend Studio's Days Gone. That's right, we went full on backlog busting with this one! We discuss the game's numerous issues - the story, the bland characters, the bugs and glitc...

There's not much more to say than this podcast celebrates the 30th birthday of one of the greatest games ever made. A practically flawless masterpiece that we will likely play forever. Despite that, we digress quite a lot in this pod, so if you're a fan of our shitey banter then you're in for a right ol' treat! Otherwise, tune in for the history of the game and its development and...

Modern game time again, as we throw open Death's Door nice and wide for a deep dive into Acid Nerve's Metroidvania/Zelda clone/Souls-like. We talk about what we loved and didn't like about this excellent indie title (surely a shout for some GOTY lists), discuss story beats and go through the game area-by-area to chat our experiences. There's also a bit of end-pod chat about the sec...

With the excitement surrounding the new beta for Back 4 Blood currently gripping the gaming landscape, we decided to take a trip back to where it all began to revisit the still-fantastic Left 4 Dead (and a bit of its brilliant sequel). We chat about the special infected and their various powers, the lore behind characters Bill, Francis, Louis and Zoe, and discuss our favourite moments in each of t...

Don't expect a relaxing episode, because this one's coming to you directly from the streets... of rage! We played through all four SoR games to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the original Mega Drive/Genesis classic that released on 2nd August 1991 (we got the date right this time). We're chatting all about the mechanics of each entry, the bosses and music, how the series has evolved...

The streets aren't quite ready to be filled with rage just yet (well, wait until the last segment of this episode), so we're filling in with some more top 5s, you know you love it. Starting off, we're finally giving the people what they want - the culmination of all the many weeks of Apex Legends digression comes to a head with our top 5 Apex Legends... legends. Mirage mains need not a...

Well, never believe everything you read on the internet, right? Somehow, somewhere, Alex read that Limbo was 10 years old this year. That is not correct (we read that on the internet). So, join us now in celebrating a happy 11th birthday to Limbo! We discuss the impact of the game, ugh, 11 years after its initial release and whether it still leaves the same glowing impression it always did. Does i...

We're still hungover from Sonic's birthday bash in the last episode, so we decided to try curing it with some hair of the hog. We basically just played an absolute scrote-load of Sonic games over the last couple weeks, all so we could bring you three more wonderful Top 5 lists. This time around, we are ranking the Top 5 Sonic Songs, so throw off your running cleats, stick on your dancing s...

Happy birthday to the Blue Blur! Yes, Sonic is officially not young any longer, although he's been through some tougher times than most of us before our 30th birthday.  Today is not about those tough times (well mostly), as we're here to celebrate the iconic Sega mascot and talk about the very first game released on the Mega Drive on 23rd June 1991. We'll also talk you through the back...