Arcade Attack Retro Gaming Podcast

Did the infamous Polybius arcade game ever exist? Does the Madden curse actually stop footballers in their track? Was the Sonic 3 soundtrack actually written by Michael Jackson? And can you save Aerith's life in Final Fantasy VII? *Warning - this podcast contains adult themes so the little uns probably shouldn't be present. Or maybe so, it's up to you!* Oh you'd better believe there's a second vol...

Faran Thomason worked across 3 of the largest video game companies of all time; Atari, SEGA and Nintendo. Faran shares some great stories including working on the Atari Jaguar, Mortal Kombat 3 and loads of insight on all 3 companies. This week's guest may be the only person we've ever interviewed who's worked for Atari, Nintendo and SEGA - the magic three! Faran Thomason kindly gave us some of his...

Why on earth do we do this to ourselves?! Ha ha! It's of course a pleasure every time! This week we tackle the Mortal Kombat Movies... Rob summons every ounce of strength to bring forward this critique of both movies with lots of trivia thrown in for good measure. One of the team is dragged along against his will (guess who) so it's up to the others to convince him they're both worth watching. Or...

Enjoy our rundown of the top 25 SEGA Mega Drive / Genesis video games ever released. From Sonic 2 to Street Fighter, Gunstar Heroes to Shinobi. Plus a few strange choices to get your blood boiling. We expect nothing less than an almighty ton of vitriol from you and the entire retro gaming community! Our Amiga Top 25 went so well we thought we'd do it again with our favourite console and without Ti...

Forgive the long title, I really couldn't think of a way to shorten it, ha ha! We haven't put Chris off since last week so he's back to chat comic book heroes/villains and favourite comic-based video games with us. But not before Rob tells us a bit of comic book history and how they and video games are a match made in heaven. Enjoy our look at some of the best video games based around our favourit...

Chris McAuley is a Northern Irish born author, comic book and gaming columnist who has now branched out from talking about comics to helping create them. An acclaimed colourist for 2000 AD and Marvel he has worked on flagship titles such as Judge Dredd, Roy of the Rovers and Hulkverines. He now works on the official Stoker Dracula comics. We thought it's about time we introduced you to our second-...

Adrian's guest this week is Sami Vanhatalo of Max Payne and Alan Wake fame! The Remedy co-founder chats about almost his entire back catalogue, what he really thinks about the Max Payne movie, whether there's scope for more games in the series and also updates us on Sociable Soccer - the spiritual successor to Sensible Soccer which he's working on with Sensible Software legend Jon Hare. Fancy disc...

Double Dragon the Movie is a 1994 martial arts family film based on the beat-em up series of the same name. Starring Mark Dacascos and Scott Wolf as brothers Jimmy and Billy Lee, along with Alyssa Milano (Commando) as Marian Delario and Robert Patrick (Terminator 2 fame) as antagonist Koga Shuko. Double Dragon gets the Arcade Attack movie review treatment. The things we do for you lot! We've all h...

Stylishly late to the party as ever, here's our take on Resident Evil 3 old and new.  Keith (who else) guides us through the PlayStation original and what he (re)makes of 2020's effort. And we try not to draw parallels between Jill's fight in Raccoon City and current events. Try. Fancy discussing this podcast? Fancy suggesting a topic of conversation? Please tweet us @ arcadeattackUK  or catch us...

Warning: This pod contains adult themes, adult language and not our usual lovely selves (mostly our lovely selves). It's the moment you've been waiting for! Indeed, Rob throws everything he's got into supporting Streets of Rage 3 much to Dylan's disgust (he'll blame it on the beer, we'd probably say Dyl was just being an ass, ha ha!) The gang turn to Adrian to guide the discussion about Remake, wh...

The first of our Streets of Rage double bill features the seminal Streets of Rage and its bigger, badder sequel. You'll have to wait until next week for Dyl and Rob's bickering about SOR3, Ade's take on SOR Remake, and what Dyl makes of SOR4 (as no one else could be bothered to play it!) Just another brawler? Just another Final Fight clone? The Streets of Rage series brought a few more things to t...

Eric Chahi created the Amiga classic Another World (Out of This World), Future Wars, Heart of Darkness and Paper Beast. In this interview Éric looks at how he developed one of the most iconic games of all time and what inspires him to make such original video games. Adrian loves Another World. Hell, all of us (except Rob, grrrr) do! And he's shown that persistence pays off. After months of harassm...

A few of you may have noticed that our Tim has been releasing vids counting down our favourite Amiga games. Spoiler alert: they're all here! We chat to Tim about how this came about, his crazy algorithm times our individual choices, and voila! An AA Top 25! We also get to know a little bit more about the man himself! Fancy discussing this podcast? Fancy suggesting a topic of conversation? Please t...

From Defender to Robotron: 2084, Stargate to Smash TV, Eugene Jarvis' work continues to entertain us to this very day. And his current outfit Raw Thrills goes from strength to strength in the industry that we love the most, everything he touches seemingly turns to gold. Please enjoy this interview with a true gaming legend. Warning: this podcast contains strong language so probably best to listen...

How innovative was the Nintendo Wii!? Everyone seemed to own one and play Wii Sports. Why was this Nintendo console so popular? Plus, why was the Wii U such a failure? Enjoy our chat about both of these divisive game consoles. So here is the last of our pre-coviddy lockdown backlog podcasts and it's quite apt that we discuss the console that really brought people together. Even your grandparents....

Resident Evil 2 candles that smell of rotting flesh, Royal Mail stamps based on the UK's most popular video games such as Worms and Sensible Soccer and a blue Sonic curry! We cover all these and lots more in our rundown of some of the craziest gaming merchandise ever released. Don't worry, this one (and next week's pod) were recorded in a much simpler time. A time when people could hang out in the...

Lemmings, Grand Theft Auto, Shadow of the Beast and Hired Guns. Just some of the classic titles that Mike Dailly worked on. The DMA Design legend shares some great stories and how he helped create two of gaming's most important series! We did it! We finally got him! The GTA and Lemmings creator has been a friend of ours on social media for many years but he's an incredibly busy man. Our Adrian, ev...

Is Half Life 2 the best PC FPS ever made? Valve really created a classic with this brilliant sequel. The games development, story and facts are all discussed. Plus we also look at Half-Life: Alyx and Half-Life 3. Another remote podcast just to keep things ticking over! Adrian gets the boys to chat about the wondrous Half-Life 2, a game so good it's won more awards than I have appendages! The game'...

This week, Adrian has a lovely chat with Dr David Doak! David is mostly known for his work with the Rare team that created GoldenEye and Perfect Dark. Dr Doak also went on to create TimeSplitters. Is he the true king of the fps genre? He talks to Adrian about how this opportunity came about, converting GoldenEye from a rail shooter to a first-person shooter, rubbing shoulders with the stars and cr...

What are the best multiplayer video games ever made? Mario Kart, Mortal Kombat, GoldenEye or even Micro Machines? Well, imagine you are stuck in a bunker with 3 friends and you need 5 games to keep you all from going insane. That is the challenge in our latest podcast. In bad taste? Probably. But we're here to keep your spirits up as much as you do ours! The AA boys are trapped in Dylan's undergro...

How can you play all your classic SEGA Mega Drive and Nintendo SNES carts? What is the best way to play your gaming back catalogue? We look at the consoles and devices that can bring retro back in all it's glory. Dylan has a good cathart and talks about a bunch of other alternative retro consoles from his beloved Retro Trio to the Retron 5 and handheld options. We try out and review the Mega SG in...

Mike Clarke was Psygnosis' trusted sound guru. A lot of their hit titles like the WipEout and Lemmings games were given the gloss they deserved from this man.  His stories about how the company worked are fascinating but the main flavour is brought by the Walker game that never was. Yes, there was a PS3 Walker game in the pipeline and Mike divulges all. He even let us use music that he created for...

Before Shadow of the Colossus and The Last Guardian, Fumito Ueda created one of the best games to grace the PlayStation 2; Ico. This award-winning action-adventure title that inspired many future gaming classics gets the full Arcade Attack treatment. Back of the box makes its return as Adrian takes us through the creation and gameplay of one of the most (ahem) iconic games on the PS2. No Rob, it I...

Virtua Racing became one of the most influential arcade games of all time. SEGA's arcade racer laid the foundations for many subsequent 3D racing titles. The racing classic gets the full Arcade Attack treatment and the various console ports are discussed. What game blew you away the most at first sight? Rob throws his cap to the crowd this week and dives into Sega’s 90’s arcade peak to talk about...

Age of Empires (AoE) is one of the most important video games ever made. The series had sold 15 million units even before the third instalment! Matt Pritchard was a key cog in the Ensemble machine for the first two AoE games, his programming expertise vital in making them what they were.  Lots of AoE chat and he also touches on his time at Valve and what Half Life 3 could have been (maybe still wi...