The Back Page: A Video Games Podcast - podcast cover

The Back Page: A Video Games Podcast

Samuel Roberts and Matthew Castlewww.buzzsprout.com
Games media writers Matthew Castle (NGamer, Rock Paper Shotgun) and Samuel Roberts (PC Gamer, gamesTM, TechRadar) talk about video games and their years covering them professionally. Our logo is by John Strike, and our theme tune is by Barry 'Epoch' Topping (@nostoppingepoch on Twitter).

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Episodes

Nintendo Top 50 Part 2: Assembling the Longlist

The Godfather Part II of podcasts is here! In this episode, we fire through every major Nintendo series and compile a longlist of games to populate our top 50 first-party list. Tune in next week for the third and final part – The Godfather Part III of podcasts, perhaps, where we'll arrange the top 50 on air. Does this mean that Sofia Coppola is Wario? Possibly. This week's music is from the Last Window: The Secret of Cape West soundtrack by Satoshi Okubo. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy f...

Aug 02, 20242 hr 7 min

Nintendo Top 50 Part 1: The Art of List Making and ONM's Final Top 100

Part one of our three-part effort to create a Nintendo top 50 list is here! This episode explores the process of making list features when you're working on a magazine or website, and the compromises and decisions that lead to the final result. Then, in the second half of the episode, we revisit the top 100 first-party Nintendo games from the final issue of ONM back in 2014, where Matthew explains the choices made. This sets the stage for what comes next... Look out for parts two and three acros...

Jul 26, 20241 hr 25 min

Episode 185: From The Miller Report to Wrestling (with Simon Miller)

Our guest this week is wrestler, video personality, consultant and all-round good guy Simon Miller! Simon discusses his days running NRevolution magazine alone, working on X360 Magazine with Samuel, creating The Miller Report at VideoGamer and watching THQ burn from the inside in the early 2010s. It's quite a career! This week's music is from The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past soundtrack by Koji Kondo. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....

Jul 12, 20241 hr 22 min

The Back Page Election – Whoever Wins, You Lose!

Whoever wins, you lose! Vote for the winner in the Back Page Announcements channel. This week's music is from the Bayonetta soundtrack by Norihiko Hibino, Takahiro Izutani, Masami Ueda, Hiroshi Yamaguchi, Rei Kondoh, Takayasu Sodeoka, Erina Niwa, Yoshitaka Suzuki and Naoto Tanaka. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jul 05, 20241 hr 23 min

Episode 182: Games Court – Big Sammy European Extreme Edition

The worst format in podcasting is back! For the first time since 2021, Samuel runs his pre-owned purchases past Judge Castle. This week's music is from The World Ends With You soundtrack by Takeharu Ishimoto. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jun 21, 20241 hr 58 min

Episode 181: Top 10 Most Anticipated Games

With a hangover from 90 June livestreams, Matthew and Samuel each deliver their 10 favourites from the hype season. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jun 14, 20241 hr 29 min

Episode 180: The PlayStation Portable Draft (with Retro Gamer's Darran Jones)

Matthew gets a well-deserved week off! Samuel's former colleague, Retro Gamer editor Darran Jones, steps into the draft dojo to celebrate Sony's first gaming handheld device. You get about 30 minutes of Darran talking about his career, then an hour of background preamble on the PSP, followed by 90 minutes of draft. Apologies in advance for the length, but hopefully it's a good listen! Vote for the winner @backpagepod on Twitter. This week's music is from the LocoRoco soundtrack by Nobuyuki Shimi...

Jun 07, 20243 hr

Episode 179: From EGM to BitSummit (with James Mielke)

US games media royalty James Mielke (EGM, 1Up, GMR) is our guest this week. Hear about James' journey from comic book artist during Marvel's bankruptcy to becoming a key editor on a host of important media outlets throughout the '00s. Bonus: this episode contains another excellent Hideo Kojima interview anecdote. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

May 31, 20241 hr 47 min

Episode 178: The '00s Games Magazine Quiz and Mailbag

We each try and guess five mystery games based on snippets from their reviews in '00s games magazines. Feel free to play along! After that, enjoy our considered answers to a whole heap of questions, from the Nintendo Switch 2 to the ideal game based on Thunderbirds. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

May 24, 20241 hr 25 min

Episode 177: The Game Soundtracks Draft

Two Giant Men, 20 categories, dubious rules! Time for another draft episode, this time on the subject of video game soundtracks. Vote for the winner in the announcements channel of the Discord . Most of the music used in the episode is credited in real-time, but the track in the break is an orchestral Phoenix Wright arrangement by Noriyuki Iwadare. Here are the categories we select from: Album Categories 1. RPG 2. Indie game 3. Shooter (FPS or otherwise) 4. Platformer 5. Game soundtrack where mu...

May 17, 20242 hr 38 min

Episode 175: From Mysteries To Metroidvanias (with Stuart Turton)

Matthew speaks to one of his favourite authors, Stuart Turton . Hear about his exhausting creative process (seriously, you won't believe it), and what it takes to write a novel – including his latest, The Last Murder at the End of the World. Then, in part two, hear more about Stu's love of video games, which runs incredibly deep. Samuel is away for this one. Matthew gets the name of the podcast slightly wrong at the start, but don't hold it against him. This week's music is from the Return of th...

May 03, 20241 hr 51 min

Episode 174: From OPM to Rolling Stone to IGN (with Rachel Weber)

This week's guest is IGN Managing Editor Rachel Weber, who probably has the most varied and fascinating career in games media of anyone who's appeared on the podcast so far. Hear about her transatlantic journey from OPM during the PS3 launch days to GamesIndustry.biz , Rolling Stone's Glixel channel and GamesRadar, before she landed at IGN. This week's music is from the Lost: Via Domus soundtrack by Michael Giacchino. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....

Apr 26, 20241 hr 22 min

Episode 173: Games Court Returns!

27 listeners' game purchases go on trial before the morally dubious Judge Castle. Can the defendants' even more compromised lawyer, Samuel Roberts, get them off (not in that way)? The worst format in British podcasting returns. This week's music is 'PIMP' by Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band, as well as the Games Court theme by listener Adam Saucier. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Apr 19, 20242 hr 2 min

Episode 172: The Best Games of 2003

Two top 10 lists of the best games of 2003, and loads of bullshit about Matthew's mini-fridge and Samuel's week of work experience in the fire brigade. The games chat starts at 1 hour and 27 minutes if you'd just like the lists without the nonsense. This week's music is from The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker soundtrack by Kenta Nagata, Hajime Wakai, Toru Minegishi and Koji Kondo. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....

Apr 12, 20243 hr 2 min

Episode 170: The Time Samuel Wronged A Freelancer (with Steven Messner)

Former PC Gamer Senior Reporter Steven Messner is our guest this week! Hear about his epic reports of goings on in EVE Online and other MMOs – and that time the bastard Samuel Roberts betrayed him. This week's music is from the Harvest Moon 64 soundtrack by Tsuyoshi Tanaka. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mar 29, 20241 hr 52 min

The Best 7/10 Games

We needed a sudden week off! Enjoy this 2022 episode on the best 7/10 games, the result of our amazing Patreon support. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mar 22, 20242 hr 27 min

Episode 169: Two Giant Men Play Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth

Matthew played 70 hours of FF7 Rebirth, while Samuel played a measly 14 hours. How's it going so far? Expect mostly spoiler-free chat in this episode – we explain how we approached spoilers right at the start to put your mind at ease. This week's music is from the FF7 Rebirth soundtrack by Mitsuto Suzuki and Masashi Hamauzu. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mar 15, 20241 hr 28 min

Episode 168: We Collected Another Edge Editor (with Alex Wiltshire)

This week's guest is former Edge editor Alex Wiltshire. Hear about his era of the magazine, as well as his time working at Hello Games and Mojang. This week's music is from the New Super Mario Bros soundtrack by Asuka Hayazaki, Hajime Wakai and Koji Kondo. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mar 08, 20241 hr 40 min

Episode 167: What We've Been Playing (FF7 Rebirth, FF7 Remake, Balatro, Tomb Raider)

Matthew has finally become a big FF7 head, ploughing through Remake in January and now being 50 hours deep into Rebirth. Hear his (spoiler-free) thoughts on the newer game in this episode. Plus! Samuel plays Balatro and the Tomb Raider remaster, while Matthew also squeezes some Helldivers 2 into this episode. This week's music is from the FF7 Rebirth soundtrack by Mitsuto Suzuki and Masashi Hamauzu. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....

Mar 01, 20241 hr 16 min

Episode 166: The PlayStation Draft

Time for our first draft episode of 2024! It's the turn of the PlayStation, one of the most important consoles in history. Listen to the episode, then vote on who picked the best 10 games in the pinned tweet @BackPagePod on Twitter. This week's music is from the R4: Ridge Racer Type 4 soundtrack by Kohta Takahashi, Hiroshi Okubo and Asuka Sakai, plus the Tekken 3 soundtrack by Nobuyoshi Sano and Keiichi Okabe. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....

Feb 23, 20242 hr 28 min

Episode 165: The Cursed February Mailbag

After some dense episodes, allow us this brief respite to answer a slew of listener questions. Who should play Link in the Zelda movie? Which song would we sing for Hideo Kojima during karaoke? What happened to the mythical 'boys across the river'? Learn all this, and more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Feb 16, 20241 hr 4 min

Episode 164: How To Write A Feature About Games (with Jeremy Peel)

Beloved guest Jeremy Peel drops by to discuss his new Patreon project, The Peel Perspective, as well as the art of writing a magazine or website feature about video games. Did we nail this episode? Ack, not *quite*. As Matthew put it after the edit, it's fine . We didn't entirely have the right energy for it this week, nor did we have a tight enough plan to conquer such a big subject in the second half. Always lovely to have Jeremy back on, though. This week's music is from the System Shock rema...

Feb 09, 20241 hr 52 min

Episode 163: The Best Games of 2002

Two top 10 lists of our favourite games from 2002 (based on UK releases)...and a slew of ridiculous anecdotes about working in Homebase and studying GCSE Drama. This week's music is from the Super Mario Sunshine soundtrack by Koji Kondo and Shinobu Tanaka, and the Ico soundtrack by Michiru Oshima, Koichi Yamazaki and Mitsukuni Murayama. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Feb 02, 20242 hr 55 min

Episode 162: Top 10 Sega Games (with Ashley Day)

Returning guest Ashley Day tells us about his love of the Sega Saturn, then gives us his ten favourite Sega developed (or published) games of all time. Spoiler alert: Football Manager 2009 doesn't make the cut. This week's music is from the Shining Force 3 soundtrack by Motoi Sakuraba. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jan 26, 20242 hr 21 min

Episode 161: What We've Been Playing (Suicide Squad, TLOU2 Remastered, Marvel's Midnight Suns)

We've been playing The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered, Marvel's Midnight Suns, Suicide Squad Kills The Justice League, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown (just the demo, mind), Assassin's Creed Nexus and Foamstars in this far-reaching episode. Some nutritious games waffle to cancel out last week's nonsense mailbag episode. Enjoy! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jan 19, 20241 hr 24 min

Episode 160: Dubious Mailbag

After several solid episodes in a row, The Back Page crashes down to Earth with a mailbag crammed with irrelevant questions about food. But you do get to hear about the famous person Matthew went to school with... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jan 12, 20241 hr 3 min
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