The #NOTplaying Podcast

It's that time of year again, kicking off with Sony's latest State of Play, through to Geoff Keighley's latest round of announcements and culminating in a pretty strong showing from Xbox, assuming they don't close half the studios whose games they were showcasing before the year is out. But when isn't it a tumultous time in the games industry? At least we have the long awaited...

A very Japanese flavoured episode this week with Will trying out the other big open world samurai game from last year and Rob just back from his travels to the actual real land of the rising sun! We've also sampled Capcom's latest and Marcus attempts to explain why netcode is advertised as a feature in fighting games. It's a whole new world of fun on this week's #NOTplaying Podcast...

It's been a tumultuous first few weeks in videogames this year, with chip shortages delaying consoles and the Xbox leadership doing a runner, so we had to bring our recording scheduling forward to cover it all. The inevitable march of new releases has definitely peaked too with the most unlikeliest of additions to Rob's rotation in the form of cat-tastic Mewgenics, which combines tradition...

We really have made the most out of this first and most longest of months to maximise our tardiness in kicking off 2026 and we still have some laundry to air before even that can happen with Rob first having to deliver his ultimate verdict on 2025. We also look back on our predictions for 2025 before making some new ones for 2026, followed by our take on the recent Xbox Developer Showcase & wh...

No running order this week, but we knew discussion of this year's Game Awards would dominate this episode so we decided to roll with it. We're saving our full bingo card powered review of the year for after Christmas, but until then enjoy this feast of announcement dissections and who knows? Maybe at least one of us might have played this year's winner, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 by t...

Apologies for our time away from the airwaves, but we've had a pretty hectic summer to contend with, and that's not even including the carnage caused by Mr Donkey Kong in his debut Switch 2 offering: Donkey Kong Bananza. We've also had summer sales dropping the price of Ubisoft's latest Assassination adventure, Assassin's Creed Shadows, to an acceptable enough price for both Ro...

It's all kicking off this week on the #NOTplaying Podcast, with not just the unholy avalanche of game announcements we usually brace for this time of year, but a whole new console launch too! So quite apart from the usual duking it out between Xbox Showcases and Sony State of Plays, and the barrel-scrapping nonsense of the Summer Game Fest and PC Gaming Show events, there's the ever so not...

There's only really one big story this week and that was the grand reveal and pre-order drama of Nintendo's highly anticipated new console. Suffice it to say, Rob & Will managed to get their pre-orders in, so expect a whole bunch of Switch 2 related coverage later this year. Meanwhile, the gamepass tsunami rages on, Will was looking forward to Atomfall so much he completely devoured it, while...

We had all the news from Microsoft last episode, so we figured Sony might have dropped some by the time we reconvened and sure enough we've not only a fairly jam-packed State of Play, but an equally lengthy Death Stranding 2 panel from SXSW featuring Kojima himself! Our main event this week though is the launch of Monster Hunter Wilds, which Marcus has been consumed with recently and will like...

Here we are at last with our first proper episode of 2025, but it's far from business as usual with the first official reveal of Nintendo's imaginatively titled Switch 2, which means it can't be long now until Rob get's all his games back - and this time in glorious 4K! There's also been another Xbox Developer Direct to reassure us that 2025 won't revolve around the release...

Happy New Year all! We hope you got all the videogames you wanted and most importantly some well earned time to enjoy them! We certainly did, in the gift of Machine Games' remarkable Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, which really didn't need to be anywhere near as good as it turned out in the end. So good in fact to receive full honours from at least one of us in our regular games of the year se...

After that disaster-piece of an episode last time around, we thought we'd try super hard to make this one a success, it could be argued even, that we overcompensated. Rob even took one for the team and shelled out an exorbitant sum for a PS5 Pro just to make up for it. He's even had to play Star: Wars: Outlaws in it's newly patched 60FPS + DLC glory. Oh and the new Dragon Age. It's been a tough ol...

We can only apologise for this one. If it wasn't connections dropping or random things banging around, it was furiously typing to look things up. It's all a bit of a mess this week sadly :( Amidst the Chaos however, we were able to lay down our highlights from the most recent online presentations from Microsoft & Sony, as well our thoughts on a couple of cool indie games which recently came ou...

We're back! After an extended summer break in which Rob actually succumbed to the great videogame staff cull of 2024 and therefore played the most disgusting amount of actual videogames possible. And who can blame him the summer took so long to actually begin, but begin it finally did and off went Marcus and Will a frolicking... So yeah - it's mostly Rob who's bringing the games this w...

E3 might be dead, but we still got a boat load of trailers last weekend and as usual we're here to talk all about it. We all loved the look of Ubisoft's imminent Star Wars Outlaws, which got two enormous gameplay reveals at their conference, while Monster Hunter Wilds cut through with it's unique beasts and intense weather conditions. Not to mention a whole host of surprises we cover a...

We don't normally bang on about TV shows (We'd be a man down if we did), but while we have been playing some new stuff, the biggest single event in videogames for the past month or so would have to be the miraculous conversion of Bethesda's beloved videogame series into passive televisual entertainment and who are we to argue with the alleged 65 million people who watched it! Back in a...

So much for a fallow year, for here we are with a brand new potential GOTY contender EACH! And so early in the year we are too! As was very well signposted in our last episode, Marcus has finally polished off 2020's FFVII Remake just in time for it's follow-up, Rebirth, which he has so far been sacrificing sleep for, Will has been diving into hell, with sleeper hit of the year, Helldivers...

2024 is off to quite a start with extensive showcases from both Microsoft and Sony within the first few weeks of the year as well as a genuine GOTY contender in Ubisoft's latest refresh of the Prince of Persia franchise, which goes back to it's roots in a supremely slick take on the classic 2D 'metroidvania' action platforming genre. Will's also had the chance to finish God of...

We were all a bit too busy and/or poorly to get this done over the Xmas break, but we're back in the game now to deliver Rob's Games of 2024, Will's annual Quiz & a special report on the Skull & Bones beta from Marcus. It's that time again, for our review of 2023 and our thoughts on the year to come! Contact us on Email at: notplayingpodcast@gmail.com Follow us on Twitter:...

The games are coming thick and fast as we approach the end of another year in gaming. And it only feels right that such an incredible 12 months should come to such a crescendo, with Rob having already completed Spider-Man 2 since last episode and moving straight on to Alan Wake 2. On the other hand, Will still hasn't settled on his 'perfect character' to finish Baldur's Gate 3 with...

We're emerging from underneath a gigantic pile of gaming rubble this week to share our thoughts on just a handful of titles amidst the current tidal wave of autumn releases. First up is the almost podcast shattering paradox of Starfield, then we've got the latest (albeit significantly paired back) installment of Assassin's Creed and even Marcus has something new to play in From Softwar...

On this week's show we're catching the last rays of summer from the comfort of Rob's sofa once again as we meet up in person for a change to discuss our usual winning combo of recent gaming news and the games what we have recently been playing. And this time around we're talking Baldur's Gate 3, which recently exited it's state of early access to equally insane amounts of a...

Rob was going utterly insane at Marcus for buying a copy of Final Fantasy XVI without anything to play it on, but it turned out to be an elaborate hilarious joke! For Marcus has actually joined the PS5 space race after all! Listen on for our thoughts on Square's latest entry in their long running franchise! Meanwhile, Will has been performing open heart surgery on Nazi's from distance, in...

E3 may not have happened again in 2023, but it's still that time of year again where we are inundated with showcases and trailers. All the main platform holders more than delivered, with Microsoft devoting almost half of their 90+ minute event to the monolithic Starfield and Sony showing off a good 15 minutes of the imminent full sequel to Spider-man. There's even a surprise news story to...

Games games and more GAMES. That's all we're talking about this week simply because that's all we have time for, aside from perhaps a quick update on the whole Microsoft Activision saga, which likely will continue to rage on for the rest of 2023. Like I just said though, there's no time for that though on a episode that features likely more than one GOTY contender and there can be...