In My Perfect Console, Simon Parkin, award-winning writer for the New Yorker and The Observer newspaper's video game critic invites a well-known guest from the worlds of gaming, film and television, music, comedy and more to pick the five video games they would like to immortalise on their very own fictional games machine. They discuss those five games in chronological order of release, interspersed with biographical chat about the guest’s life and career –– a lens that often leads to new and unexpected insights.
"Thoroughly modern and ahead of its time...a gift." - NEW YORK'S VULTURE
"Charming, insightful." -- THE GUARDIAN.
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Part #2 of a collection of some of our favourite clips from My Perfect Console episodes released in 2024. Be attitude for gains. https://plus.acast.com/s/my-perfect-console . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Enjoy this collection of some of our favourite clips from My Perfect Console episodes released in 2024. Be attitude for gains. https://plus.acast.com/s/my-perfect-console . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
A special episode with the winner of the My Perfect Console of the Year award, as voted by the listeners to the show. Be attitude for gains. https://plus.acast.com/s/my-perfect-console . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Has 2024 been a good year for video games? Host Simon Parkin and comedian Glenn Moore each pick their five favourites of the year. Will any of their choices overlap? Will the game in the top spot start with a vowel? Be attitude for gains. https://plus.acast.com/s/my-perfect-console . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
My guest today is G. T. Karber, the innovative crime writer and creator of the Murdle series of puzzle books. The son of a judge and a civil rights attorney, he studied mathematics and English literature at the University of Arkansas , then took a Masters at the USC School of Cinematic Arts . It was while he was working on a project in a coffee shop that he scribbled down a crime-themed puzzle on a napkin for a friend. He later put the puzzle online, then added another. Two weeks later his now a...
Billy Basso is an American creator of video games. Born in Chicago, he studied film, then earned his masters in Computer Science at DePaul University . After a stint working as a video editor, he moved into game development, first making educational games for schools in Chicago, and later at NetherRealm Studios , where he worked on smartphone versions of Mortal Kombat and Injustice . In May this year, my guest published Animal Well , a game which he started to work on in his spare tim...
In this special correspondence edition, Simon reads out your correspondence and answers your questions. Which ten games have been picked in the first 100 episodes more than any others? What are the best Christmas-themed video games? What are the best video game sound effects of all time? Who are the video game industry's true founding fathers (or mothers)? And a special teaser for Simon's next book project. Be attitude for gains. https://plus.acast.com/s/my-perfect-console . Hosted on Acast. See...
Jordan Mechner is an American author, game designer, graphic novelist and screenwriter. While a student at Yale University he designed and programmed the martial arts game Karateka . To create the animations in the game he pioneered a rotoscoping process to capture Super 8 film footage of his friends and family members. My guest further developed this technique for his next game. Prince of Persia became a best-seller, then a series, then, in 2010, a film produced by Jerry Bruckheimer ...
Andy Macnamars is the former editor-in-chief of Game Informer. He joined the bi-monthly magazine for its launch in 1991 as an editorial assistant. Within eighteen months he had been promoted to editor’s seat, which he the occupied for 25 years, growing the magazine’s readership from around 60,000 subscribers to, at its height, eight million, making it one of the most widely read publications anywhere. In 2020 he left Game Informer following a round of layoffs and joined Electro...
Corrine and John are the director and creative director of Dragon Age: The Veilguard . Corinne Busche majored in digital animation at the University of Utah . In 2006 she joined the studio now known as EA Saltlake , working through the ranks to become a Design Director for The Sims series. John Epler studied English language and literature at the University of Alberta . After graduating, he was selling televisions when he applied to be a tester at Biowar...
My guest today is the American voice-actor and activist Sarah Elmaleh. As a student at Wesleyan University she performed in a variety of theatrical productions and radio plays, spending a portion of her studies at the British American Drama Academy in Oxford. After graduating she moved to Brooklyn, New York, and was working as a stage actor when she fell in with the city's game development scene, and decided to commit her life to the art form. She moved to Los Angeles and began voicing character...
My guest today is the founder and director of ZeniMax Online Studio, Matt Firor. After studying history at George Washington University , he co-founded the developer Interesting Systems Inc ., where he created a MUD-style text adventure titled Darkness Falls . In 1995 he co-founded Mythic Entertainment , where he produced pioneering online games such as Godzilla Online , Aliens Online , Starship Troopers: Battlespace , and, in 2001, the massively multiplayer online role-playing game Dark Age of ...
My guest today is a French film director and pioneer in the world of digital imaging. Born in Paris, he studied architecture and medicine at university before joining the film industry. He co-founded Duran Duboi , a postproduction house that created visual effects for music videos by artists including Prince , Madonna , Lenny Kravitz , and Boy George . As a VFX pioneer, he formed a close collaboration with the director Jean-Pierre Jeunet , with whom he worked ...
My guest today is Hannah Nicklin, a British writer and narrative designer for video games. After studying Drama at Loughborough University , and Playwriting at the University of Birmingham , she returned to Loughborough for a doctorate in interactive design as anti-capitalist practice. After several years working as a poet, theatre-maker, and academic, in 2019 she moved into games full time: writing, narrative designing and co-producing Mutazione , the most nominated game in the 2020 IGF awards....
My guest today is the award-winning humourist, writer, and presenter Danny Wallace. Born in Dundee, Scotland, he published his first professional video game review at the age of thirteen while conducting work experience for Sega Power , a magazine that subsequently offered him a job. At 22, after graduating from The University of Westminster , he became a BBC comedy producer at, working on hit series such as Dead Ringers and The Mighty Boosh . In 2003 he published Join Me , a book about how he a...
My guest today is Nainita Desai, the British composer for film, television and video games. Born and raised in London by her Indian parents, she earned a degree in mathematics, then studied sound design at the National Film and Television School . She started her career as a sound designer on the films Little Buddha , Lessons of Darkness and Death Machine , before branching into composition for television, including, among hundreds of others, the Oscar -nominated For Sama , the hit Netflix serie...
My guest today is the American video game designer and programmer Eugene Jarvis. Born in California, he studied computer science at Berkeley , where, in the basement of the physics laboratory, he played the early video game Spacewar . After graduating he worked for Hewlitt Packard , but quit after three days to join Atari , where he began programming for some of the first computerised pinball machines. In the late seventies he joined Williams where he and a colleague came up with the idea for a ...
My guest today is the German filmmaker Uwe Boll. Born in Wermelskirchen he decided he wanted to direct films at the age of ten, after seeing Marlon Brando star in Mutiny on the Bounty . It wasn’t until he was in his mid-thirties, however, that he directed his first major motion picture, Blackwoods , a psychological thriller that a critic for the New York Times described as ‘smart and diabolical’. It was, however, his adaptations of video games for which he made his name. House of the Dead , Alon...
My guest today is the American video game artist and designer, Derek Yu. Born in Pasadena, California in the early eighties, he started mapping out games on graph paper when he was still a child. After graduating college with a degree in computer science, he moved to San Francisco to work as a freelance illustrator. In 2007 he developed a satirical run-and-gun freeware game titled “ I’m O.K – A Murder Simulator ”, a response to a challenge set down by the notorious critic of video games, (and pr...
In this special correspondence edition, host Simon Parkin reads out listeners' correspondence and answers your questions. Hear Simon discuss the recent, headline-making episode with former PlayStation President Chris Deering, listener responses to the controversy, as well as discussion of what term we should use to describe the genre formerly known as 'Metroidvania', Maddy Thorson's grey label platforms, and much, much more. Be attitude for gains. https://plus.acast.com/s/my-perfect-consol...
My guest today is an American businessman and the former and first president of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe , Chris Deering. Raised in Boston, Massachusetts to immigrant parents, my guest had a strict upbringing. Despite the disadvantages he faced, he graduated with distinction with a degree in computer science at Boston College , then studied marketing at Harvard Business School . He first worked for the razor-manufacturer Gillette , rising to the rank of head of worldwide shaving, then ...
My guest today is Eliot Higgins, a British citizen journalist and founder of Bellingcat , a website that specialises in open-source intelligence. In 2012, while unemployed, he became involved in online discussions about the conflict in Syria, where few journalists were able to operate. Despite having little prior interest in the region, he began to study videos of the conflict, and started a blog on which he analysed geodata and weaponry. This work exposed atrocities and helped establish an evid...
In this special episode, Simon is joined by comedian Glenn Moore to discuss the subject of July's My Perfect Console 'Game Club', The Messenger . Throughout July 2024, Glenn and Simon, along with many of you, the listeners, played through the 2018 platformer The Messenger, a game chosen by Abu Salim during his episode of My Perfect Console. Glenn and Simon discuss their experiences with the game, with input from you the listeners. They also talk about how Glenn managed to break his N...
My guest today is Maddy Thorson, a Canadian writer and designer for video games. At the age of 14, she obtained a copy of GameMaker , software on which she learned to make simple games. After studying computer science at Grande Prairie Regional College in Alberta, she moved to Vancouver and there rented a house in which she and her friends began working on a multiplayer combat game featuring four archers. TowerFall Ascension , became a huge hit. The following year, my guest took part in a game j...
My guest today is Holly Gramazio, a writer, curator, and game designer. Born in Australia, she earned her PhD in Creative Writing at the University of Adelaide , then moved to London where she founded the Somerset House -based games festival Now Play This , an annual celebration of experimental games. In 2019 she wrote the script for Dicey Dungeons , a game that subsequently sold 850,000 copies and won the Indiecade Grand Jury Prize . In April this year, Vintage Books published her debut novel “...
In this special episode, five My Perfect Console supporters share the games they would like to put on their ideal, fictional games machine, and the reasons behind their choices. If you would like to share your console with the My Perfect Console audience, head to www.patreon.com/myperfectconsole where you can become a supporter and receive a raft of these and other benefits. Be attitude for gains. https://plus.acast.com/s/my-perfect-console . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more infor...
My guest today is Luke Muscat, the Australian video game designer behind some of the best-known smart phone games yet made. After graduating from Queensland University of Technology with a degree in IT and Games, he joined Halfbrick Studio , a game developer in Brisbane that specialised in games licensed from film and TV. There he designed a simple yet compelling iPhone game in which players must slice fruit thrown into the air by swiping the device's touch screen with their finger. Fruit Ninja ...
A special episode to celebrate the life and work of Brett Jones , an artist and animator for video games, film and television who passed away in July. Jones worked on the seminal N64 movie tie-in game, Goldeneye 007, which successfully brought the first person shooter genre to consoles. He made instrumental contributions to its sequel, Perfect Dark , then left the games industry to create VFX for film and television, contributing work to The Last Jedi , Guardians of the Galaxy , and Dr Who . Thi...
My guest today is the American video game developer Steve Meretzky. Born and raised in Yonkers, New York, he attended MIT , where he earned a degree in construction management. In 1981, after two years spent working in the construction industry, a friend asked him if he would like to become a tester for Infocom , a publisher that specialised in interactive fiction. He agreed and was soon invited to write a game of his own, the science fiction game Planetfall . After he included a reference to Do...
My guest today is an English writer for video games, TV, film, comics, and books. Born into a literary household – her father was the celebrated fantasy novelist Terry Pratchett –– she studied journalism at the University of Arts in London. After graduating she joined the staff of PC Zone , where she worked her way up from editorial assistant to the role of section editor. In 2002 she left journalism to write video games, soon earning a BAFTA nomination for her work on Heavenly Sword . In 2013 s...
