The #NOTplaying Podcast

What would you like first? The good news or the bad news? Fear not listener, for you needn't decide! It's all been taken care of! On this week's episode we get the chaff out of the way first, with an update on the status of Ubisoft's broken-on-arrival Assassin's Creed Unity and the ultimately ill-fated kickstarter project that involved actually bleeding it's players out for charity. We check in on...

Turtle Rock & 2K's monster-packed asymmetrical co-op shooter, Evolve, should have actually been released by now, so it was interesting to see what state it was in during the 'Big Alpha' test a couple of weeks back. We've also been rummaging through the recently unveiled 'Internet Arcade' which features emulated versions of just about every classic arcade game ever made, before finally going from s...

It's a news blitzkrieg this week, but before that... WTF Ubisoft? What happened to Assassin's Creed: Unity? And how much longer will people tolerate broken games being released and sold at AAA prices? We also talk about the recently announced Overwatch coming next year from Blizzard, the sequel to one of our favourite games of recent times, Just Cause 3 and the new CO-OP mode for early access darl...

Some people play games for fun, some people play them to feel powerful and some people - like Patrick and Iain - enjoy games that generate a relentless feeling of dread and terror. Alien: Isolation is one game that seems specifically engineered for this purpose and while Oculus Rift isn't 'officially supported' the developers were considerate enough to leave portions of their VR experiment behind...

We've been somewhat neglectful of the news lately, what with all these great games coming out, so we're in catch-up mode this week. We cover some of the latest VR-focussed stories coming out of Carl Zeiss, Google & even NASA(!), the insane system requirements for Assassin's Creed Unity and the temptation of re-buying games both old (The recently remastered Lucasarts classics recently unveiled at G...

Frogwares and Focus have been chipping away at their franchise based on the world's greatest detective for a while now, each successive iteration gradually improving on the formula until this latest installment, Crimes & Punishments, recently released on consoles & PC. By all accounts it seems like they've created the most perfect Sherlock Holmes game to date. We also have time to talk about indie...

When Monolith first unveiled this latest entry in the post-Tolkien Middle Earth cannon our opinions were mixed to say the least. Sure, it's infamous Nemesis system sounded intriguing, but at the expensive of lifting mechanics wholesale from other beloved action franchises . As it turns out, Shadow of Mordor is innovative and darn right fun enough to negate it's plagiarism, reignite the Tolkien Myt...

Our EGX special kinda bumped our usual recording schedule by a week, so apologies for the tardiness and brevity of our usual output this time around. In our somewhat truncated news section, we discuss some pretty old news now really: the latest version of the Oculus Rift, codenamed Crescent Bay, those shiny new Nvidia 900 series video cards & the cancellation of Blizzard's long-rumoured WoW follow...

There’s plenty of news to discuss since our last episode, but we’re holding fire on that this week to bring you a report on the Eurogamer Event that took place recently at London’s Earls Court Exhibition Centre. We got to play some exciting things like Eve: Valkyrie and Alien: Isolation, watched some developer presentations of The Witcher 3 and Assassin’s Creed: Unity and were positively overwhelm...

Time for another one o’ them ‘what we haven’t NOT been playin’ type episodes, this week spearheaded by the old skool RPG monster that is Divinity; Original Sin, which despite it’s rough edges manages a refreshingly creative spin on the tried and tested genre. We revisit several arguable classics in the form of Crystal Dynamic’s recent Tomb Raider reboot, Pandemic’s swansong, The Saboteur and the e...

It's been a while since we've had time to talk about stuff we've actually been playing and now that both Iain and Patrick are DK2ed up, they've got lots to share on all the various 'experiences' this has afforded them. Rob's been playing the mobile gem that is 'Out There' and Adam's been loving the hell out of our collective 2013 game of the year, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, so we take time to r...

After his absence last week, Patrick was already bursting with news when Samsung revealed their own entry into the VR headset space: The Galaxy Note 4 powered Gear VR. We also found time to talk about the recently announced co-op multiplayer mode for Dragon Age: Inquisition, word of a PC/Next Gen version and sequel for Rockstar's Red Dead Redemption and some recently revealed gameplay footage of T...

As promised here's part 2 of our Gamescom coverage - so apologies if all of this is a bit old by now. To be fair the majority of this episode is all about Adam helping Rob work through his frustration about how much money Star Citizen has made through crowdfunding, while simultaneously brainwashing Iain into making his own pledge. We also salute the recently deceased Robin Williams, who is destine...

With Gamescom happening the other week we had so much news to talk about it ended up stretching across two whole episodes! We also had no Patrick this time, but Adam joined us towards the end of the episode to discuss Bioware's newly announced assymmetric action RPG, Shadow Realms and a few other things besides. Before that though was Microsoft's controversial exclusivity deal for Rise of the Tomb...

We actually had a whole bunch of games to discuss after the episode we skipped a couple of weeks ago, but well.. Patrick's Oculus Rift DK2 arrived so there was no escaping a conversation about that, which naturally led into the Elite: Dangerous Beta, the launch of which seems almost suspiciously coincidental. There was also just enough time at the end for a spoiler-free post-mortem on the recently...

So we're back after a week (and a bit - sorry about the delay!) off with a full house this time, to go over some of the more salient bits of news over the past couple of weeks, including Activision's recent earnings call and some release date shenanigans regarding Evolve and Shadows of Mordor. There's also been a few new game announcements, including a second Assassin's Creed title for 2014 (as if...

Due to the intense temperature in which we recorded this week's show, it ended up being our most naked and revealing yet! And what better lens through which to dissect the past couple of week's gaming news, including the Microsoft layoffs, those EA delays and some enlightening MMO statistics. Please note: due to us all being up to our necks in old and/or previously discussed games, there will be n...

On this week’s show it’s once again very much all about what we haven’t not been playing (Nope, that joke will never get old :S). Rob’s been battling his way through his Summer Steam Sale Haul, Adam’s been getting to grips with Assassin’s Creed for the first time (in both single player AND multiplayer), Patrick’s been whizzing around a VR pipe in Radial G and Iain’s retreated back to Azeroth. Agai...

E3 is but a distant memory, the Steam Summer Sale has been and gone and while there aren’t any major releases coming out for the next 2 or 3 months, that’s not going to stop publishers trying to make you part with your cash upfront while you don’t have any games to buy right now. Or so it would seem in the case of Alien: Isolation, which offers the tantalising opportunity of reliving the horror of...

At the time of this episode’s recording, Steam’s Annual Summer Sale was in full swing, blowing the cobwebs off a legion of great titles you might have missed, not to mention some generous discounts on recent games as well. After comparing the damage to our wallets (or not as the case may be) Patrick talks us through his experience of Wolfenstein: The New Order (which ironically got it’s price slas...

Call us superficial, but when we’re promised a certain level of visual fidelity and shown a game actually working and looking as it does 2 years out from release, and we have hardware capable enough to run it, you have to forgive us for being a bit miffed when the final product turns out to be so obviously downgraded. Such has been the story of Watch_Dogs and likely a great many other games to be...

On this week's show we dig into Star Citizen: Arena Commander, the first phase of Chris Robert's incomprehensibly enormous crowd-funded endeavour. We also get our first look at The Forest, which is also not quite finished yet. A Story about my Uncle and Among the Sleep are complete, but ironically not quite so good. I think it all makes sense if you listen... :S Star Citizen: Arena Commander https...

This week we are joined by a very good friend of the show, Adam Scott, to go through some of the biggest and best announcements of last week’s game-packed E3 in LA as well as the controversy stirred up by Ubisoft’s decision to not have a female protagonist in Assassin’s Creed: Unity. Other games mentioned include Hello Games’ impossibly ambitious and now Sony Exclusive, No Man’s Sky, Rise of the T...

There couldn’t really be a bigger game to feature on this inaugural edition of ‘What we haven’t not been playing’ (see what we did there?), for it happened to coincide with the release of Ubisoft’s famously delayed this-gen franchise, Watch_Dogs. We talk about our first impressions of the game before moving onto some other games we’ve been playing since we were last together, including The Banner...

#NOTplaying Episode 31 Yes. The name’s changed. We did warn you. So here it is: The first #NOTplaying Podcast. Or the 31st Game DumpCAST, but under a different name. It’s quite similar to the old show, but the intro’s a bit different. You probably get the idea. Unless you’re reading this on www.notlistening.co.uk - in which case this podcast is entirely new. Except there’s been 30 episodes already...