The Back Page: A Video Games Podcast

We answer a lot of listener questions in this week's episode. It's fun for the first hour, it sags in the second, but gets it back just at the end. A 6/10 episode. Thank you for your polite tolerance! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

One of our oldest and most popular episode formats returns as we count down the best games of 2016, a year that brought good news for everyone! Except Microsoft. And Nintendo. Everything from Uncharted 4 to Inside gets discussed in this bumper episode – alongside our (fairly dour) memories of the time working on magazines. Plus, hear all about Matthew's shattered knee at Gamescom yet again. Note t...

With Baldur's Gate 3 taking over the world, genre expert Jeremy Peel returns to discuss how RPGs have evolved since the days of the Infinity Engine games. This week's music is from the Dragon Age: Origins soundtrack by Inon Zur. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A simple but cheerful 'what we've been playing' joint this week, featuring Exoprimal, Telltale's comeback game The Expanse, 1998's Parasite Eve, Pikmin 4 and Viewfinder. This week's music is from the Pikmin 4 soundtrack by Kenta Nagata, Asuka Hayazaki and Soshi Abe. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Former Edge editor Margaret Robertson joins us to discuss working on the magazine from 2003-2007 and her career in game development. It's a good one, but then we always say that. Check out Margaret's game in Fortnite, Fast Feud, at 2057-0506-7371, and follow her @marga_retro on Twitter. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jeremy Peel and Phil Iwaniuk take on the original X-Com: UFO Defense – or UFO: Enemy Unknown – as it was known in Europe. This miniseries was funded by our pals at Patreon.com/backpagepod! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Matthew and Samuel compete to pick the best 10 games (and one HD collection) that represent the PS3's somewhat inconsistent library. Voting is closed, but Samuel won this draft by around 62% to 38%. This week's music is from the Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots soundtrack by Harry Gregson-Williams. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Kick back, take a seat! Pour yourself a tall glass of water. It's a simple update on what we've been playing lately, featuring Final Fantasy 16, Trepang 2, Master Detective Archives: Rain Code and Baldur's Gate 3. Plus: answers to a dozen or so listener questions. This week's music is from the Final Fantasy 16 soundtrack by Masayoshi Soken. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more informati...

Our guest this week is PC Gamer Senior Editor Wes Fenlon, who talks to us about his career in games media, his newsletter Read Only Memo, and Nintendo during the GameCube/GBA episode. You'll also hear about some of the differences between UK and US games media, and a quick therapy session for Samuel's benefit. A lot of ground is covered in this one – enjoy! This week's music is from Cubivore, prob...

Two large gentlemen replay MGS3 and discuss where the upcoming remake could make improvements. Then, in section 2, we rank the bosses of this all-time classic. Spoilers follow for a game that's nearly 20 years old. This week's music is from the Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater soundtrack by Harry Gregson-Williams and Hibino Norihiko. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Samuel and Matthew revisit the classic Square Enix/Squaresoft RPG series this week. Well, the bits they know about, anyway. Plus, hear what Matthew thinks of Final Fantasy XVI, which just launched on PS5. This week's music is from the Final Fantasy XV soundtrack by Yoko Shimomura, the Final Fantasy XVI soundtrack by Masayoshi Soken, the Final Fantasy XIII soundtrack by Masashi Hamauzu and the Fina...

On this month's PC Gaming Classics pod, Jeremy and Phil tackle 1997's Fallout, arguably the most important PC RPG of that decade. They delve into its creation, how its DNA filtered down to Bethesda's subsequent entries, and engage in another round of Review Wars (the voting for that one has closed, for those reading this on the free feed). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more informatio...

From Doordash ads to a game that looks 90% like BioShock Infinite, these were our highlights from the past week of game reveals. Forgive some tired podcasting as we melt slightly in British weather. This week's music is from the Persona 3 soundtrack by Shoji Meguro. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Edge Deputy Editor Chris Schilling joins us for this week's episode. Hear about his career in games media, as well as the creation of the widely respected magazine. And yes: we talk about what it means when Edge awards a game a 10. Enjoy. This week's music is from the Advance Wars soundtrack by Taishi Senda. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Is the Xbox 360 the greatest console ever made? That's one of the questions we tackle on this episode before competing to pick the 10 best games on this celebrated platform across a variety of categories. Vote for the winner of the draft in our pinned tweet @BackPagePod. And remember, it's just a bit of fun! Except for the bits where we talk shit and take what the other person says very personally...

More listeners' pre-owned purchases go on trial in this latest version of the much despised Games Court podcast format. Enjoy, and deepest apologies. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Matthew has played 40 hours of the new Zelda, Samuel has played 10. How are they getting on? Expect very light spoilers for Tears of the Kingdom in this episode, and expect us to revisit this Nintendo epic in more detail at a later date. This week's music is from The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom soundtrack by Manaka Kataoka, Maasa Miyoshi, Masato Ohashi and Tsukasa Usui. Hosted on Acast....

Everything except Zelda is discussed in this week's episode! It's a 'what we've been playing' joint, featuring Star Wars: Jedi Survivor, Arkane's Redfall and Mad Max (2015), among other things. We also answer a ton of mailbag questions, some of which we might've answered before – who knows! It's a low energy 6/10 pod, recorded on a Bank Holiday, but don't worry: next week's Zelda pod should be a g...

Episode 2 of our Patreon-funded miniseries is now live! Jeremy Peel and Phil Iwaniuk take a deep dive into Westwood's Blade Runner adventure game. Note that the Review Wars segment mentioned in this episode has already been voted on by our Twitter followers – hear about the result in the next episode in June. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Monster collecting RPG Cassette Beasts just launched on Steam via PC and Game Pass, and on May 25th it'll also launch on Xbox and Nintendo Switch. To celebrate, returning pod guest Jay Baylis (the cursed Sonic and Pokémon episodes) talks us through the creation of the game. This week's music is from the Cassette Beasts soundtrack by Joel Baylis. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more info...

With Samuel away, Matthew and returning special guest Rich Stanton from PC Gamer build a hall of fame from Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami's body of work. This week's music is from the Resident Evil: Director's Cut by Makoto Tomozawa, Koichi Hiroki and Masami Ueda. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Our popular series of best of lists returns with the 2015 edition, featuring two top 10s of the year's best games. Hear about Matthew and Samuel's burgeoning friendship during a press trip to Germany, and forgive us as we get tired towards the end of this episode since we recorded it on a Sunday night. This week's music is from the Fallout 4 soundtrack by Inon Zur and the Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Nu...

Samuel assembles a power ranking of the video games based on the Star Wars movies, and Matthew politely humours him. This week's music is from the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic soundtrack by Jeremy Soule and The Force Unleashed soundtrack by Mark Griskey. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We're taking a week off, but we're pleased to present free feed listeners with PC Gaming Classics, a miniseries funded by our kind Patreon supporters. Co-hosted by Phil Iwaniuk and Jeremy Peel, this first episode focuses on System Shock 2. We'll roll out the rest of the episodes each month, and we'll be back next Friday with an episode on the best Star Wars games. This week's music is from the Sys...

In this week's episode, Samuel suffers from jetlag and Matthew suffers from living as we recount what we've been playing lately – everything except Resident Evil 4 Remake, anyway. Games discussed this week include Celeste, Diablo 4, Tchia, Resident Evil 1 Remake and a slew of PSVR 2 stuff. We'll return with our next regular episode on April 14th, though Patreon folk will get a new XL episode in th...