The #NOTplaying Podcast

E3 is well underway so here are our haphazard predictions before we're proven any more wrong than we already have! Stay tuned to our twitter account during the major press conferences this week for live twittering galore! It's all about E3 this week on the #NOTplaying Podcast! Contact us on Email at: notplayingpodcast@gmail.com Follow us on Twitter: @notplayingpod You can find the show notes for t...

It's a bumper-sized VR edition of the #NOTplaying Podcast this week as Patrick describes some of the mind-blowing experiences he's had since owning Valve's new VR kit. Rob's been round to have a go too, so it's not a complete monologue. It came close though... such is the power of the HTC Vive! Budget Cuts Demo http://store.steampowered.com/app/459860/?snr=1_7_7_230_150_8 Space Pirate Trainer http...

On this week's show we're descending back into hell with Id's latest resurrection of the classic Doom franchise, we check in on Elite Dangerous once more on the eve of their 2.1 Engineers expansion and ponder whether or not we'll be getting involved in any of this Overwatch business. All this & more on another game-packed #NOTplaying Podcast! Doom http://doom.com/en-us/ Elite Dangerous https://www...

On this week's #NOTplaying Podcast Rob, Patrick & Adam share their thoughts on the recent Assassin's Creed movie trailer, the directions in which the Battlefield & Call of Duty franchises are going and the announcement of new games in the Titanfall & Civilization series. First trailer for Assassin's Creed movie https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/4iyuku/assassins_creed_2016_new_trailer_jimmy_...

We had some technical and scheduling difficulties this week so for the first time in a long while (ever?) it's just Rob on his own going through some of the more salient news stories of the past few weeks and a few of the more interesting games unveiled at Pax East. Understandably, we've kept it mercifully brief, but have no fear: the next few episodes of the #NOTplaying Podcast will be even more...

On this week's show we're just talking about some things we've been playing. Rob's been hammering though his pile of shame and Patrick's been checking in on some more VR stuff now that the Oculus has launched (not that either of us have it yet). It's all about the games on this week's #NOTplaying Podcast! Grow Home http://store.steampowered.com/app/323320/ Dishonored DLC http://store.steampowered....

Oculus headsets aren't any closer to being delivered to those who pre-ordered yet, but the Oculus Store IS available to Dev Kit users - our Patrick being one of them - so on this week's #NOTplaying Podcast we're talking about some of the system's launch games and the overall user-experience of the store itself. Lucky's Tale http://www.playfulcorp.com/#lucky Project CARS http://www.projectcarsgame....

At the time of writing Patrick has actually received his HTC Vive, but at the time of recording both headsets were suffering from problematic launches. The Oculus Rift isn't expected to arrive for most people until the end of May/early June, so this has given all of us plenty of time to reassess our decisions on which headset we want, or if we even want one at all. Perhaps it might even be worth s...

On this week's show Rob tells Patrick about all the things he missed at this year's EGX Rezzed event in London, including his hands on with both the HTC Vive and new Oculus Rift headset, a Developer talk with the makers of Firewatch and a whole bunch of indie games of varying quality that he managed to try out while he was waiting to play with Valve & Oculus' cutting edge tech. It's all about EGX...

Following on from our thoughts on the beta a few weeks back, this week's 'ubi-show' is mostly focussed on the full release of Ubisoft and Massive's ambitious MMO Looter Shooter, The Division. We also discuss the controversy surrounding Far Cry Primal's reappropriation of the Far Cry 4 map and the fun Iain's been having with the HTC Vive. All this and more on an especially ubi-licious #NOTplaying P...

It's another news-focussed show this week, but one that is more squarely focussed on actual games than all the crazy VR hardware stuff we often go on about. First up there's the highly encouraging news of the great Warren Spector coming back to game development after a spell in Education, specifically to collaborate with the guys at Otherside Entertainment on the spiritual successors to some of hi...

With the consumer version of the Oculus Rift finally out in the wild it would seem the age of Virtual Reality is finally upon us and with Sony able to bring their own version of the technology to market at such a reduced RRP later this year, it doesn't seem like it will be going away any time soon! Meanwhile, Microsoft have been shaking things up with the unification of the Windows and Xbox platfo...

We love playing games on the #NOTplaying Podcast, but sometimes we also like getting into the guts of our favourite game engines and creating our own stuff. This time, Matt's been getting to grips with the ARK Dev Kit and learning how to build his own map for the game. Patrick also weighs in with his own experience and Rob wonders if he will ever find the time to create anything of his own when he...

On this week's show we're talking about another wildly diverse pair of games. First, Patrick's being playing Ubisoft's pseudo-indie curiosity Gone Home, proving the company has more up their sleeves than excessively open worlds, while Rob's been weathering the punishment of Firaxis's XCOM 2, which changes up the formula enough to be the best kind of sequel. It's another game-packed #NOTplaying Pod...

On the eve of it's release, what better time to talk about our recent time with Ubisoft's latest open world shooter, The Division, or at least it's closed beta, which occurred a few weeks back. Can Ubisoft's answer to Destiny work in a contemporary context or will this wind up being yet another bloated collect-o-thon? Speaking of which, Lara Croft is back and finally on the PC in eye-meltingly glo...

If you've been listening to this show for any length of time you'll be aware that there are certain things we value in our videogames. Many of these elements are epitomised by Campo Santo's Firewatch, which places an emphasis on characterisation, storytelling and immersion. With a fantastic art-style and some world class voice-acting, this first person experience takes the blueprint established by...

It's been a fairly light few weeks as far as news goes (that we care about anyway), but we've nevertheless cherry picked a few morsels to go through this week, including Bethesda's plans for Fallout 4 DLC, EA's promise of new Mass Effect & Titanfall before the end of the financial year and the continuing nonsense of Peter Molyneux & 22 Cans' embarrassment of a kickstarter campaign, Godus. All this...

2016 is off to a fine start with these two sublime independent releases. Darkest Dungeon has been available via Steam early access throughout 2015 and despite various uproars from it's community, the stress-filled rogue-like party-based RPG seems to have stuck the landing for it's final 'Version 1' release. Pony Island on the other hand, seems to have come from out of nowhere to drive people up th...

We haven't done a straight news show for quite a few weeks now so you'll have to forgive us if some of this is a bit old. We couldn't let some of this pass us by without throwing our oars in though so prepare yourself for some commentary on some cherry-picked morsels of gaming culture from the past couple of months, including Square Enix's decision to make the next Hitman game properly episodic, E...

Last week we gave you our belated predictions on how much the consumer-ready Oculus Rift would cost at launch at and how much we would be willing to pay for it. We won't blow our trumpets too hard, but suffice it to say that pre-orders have been made ;) Will we keep them though? HTC Vive pre-orders begin on Feb 29th, a good month before Oculus starts shipping, so it's seems perfectly possible to s...

We're a few weeks into 2016 now and already there seems to be loads of interesting games coming out. So what better time to go through what's on the slate this year and what games we're particularly looking forward to. Oh and of course 2016 is supposed to be the year VR really happens, so feel free to listen (laugh) along to our predictions on the Oculus Rift launch price (disclaimer: this was rec...

No more messing about - this week's show is the main event and after much deliberation, what we consider to be the best videogames of the past 12 months. The games that have stood out, taken up most of our free time or inspired us. The games that make this show worth doing. While 2015 was arguably dominated by some huge open world games, there were some pleasant surprises along the way, so without...

We've recorded our Top 5 Games of the Year Discussion, but before that, we thought we'd share our thoughts on some of the games that didn't quite make the cut. Some, because despite being excellent, were horribly buggy on release, some simply didn't come out in 2015, but we spent an awful lot of time playing them. And then there were a few that we only just got our hands on or were noteworthy if n...

Hearthstone's not a new game by any stretch, but it's one that definitely been on Rob's regular rotation since the iPhone version went live earlier in 2015 and since Matt was on the show (and is also a keen player) it was a good opportunity to talk about the state of the game as it is now and how we're all getting on with it. It's all about the cards on this week's #NOTplaying Podcast! Hearthstone...

Some more pre-GOTY discussion chat from just before Christmas, this time about two arguable 'Game of the Year' contenders. Rob just about kept up with Life is Strange as it was released throughout 2015, but Iain has only just caught up with it, so we thought it worth revisiting. And since Matt was on the show, it seemed like a good time for him to explain why he's spent - quite literally - hundred...