Press Pause Radio - Podcast

s real as Bobby Braddock’s melodic soliloquy "Time Marches On" gets, we are now on the other side of another digital sunset as Microsoft closes down the Xbox 360 Marketplace. The term "sunset" may not be the right choice here, though with all of Microsoft’s confusing cross-pollination between the last couple of Xbox generations, this “sunset” comes off more like a hasty “sweep under the rug” where front-end accessibility to the iconic storefront can still be accessed through weird exploits that are reminiscent of a secret-menu at your local drive-thru.

The latest episode of Press Pause Radio is a full round-table of PPR pundits as George, Andrew, Ed, and Sean pour their hearts out on a post-mortem look at the Xbox 360 Marketplace and the ups and downs of what the service did in its prime and the legacy it holds into this weird twilight-esque second life on the Xbox One/Series era of Xbox Live. We also wax nostalgic on all the choice cuts the store had to offer, whether it was a delisted Konami Arcade port, a SEGA gem, or the HD re-release of the only decent thing that Doug TenNapel has ever done with his miserable existence—we get heavy into the gems that players could only find on the Xbox 360 Marketplace, and explore how these games helped shape Xbox into the household name that it is today.

Mail us at our new email [email protected], leave a voicemail at 469-PPR-TALK, and be sure to stop by at our Forums if you haven’t already registered and post your thoughts about the show. Finally, make sure to rate and subscribe to us on iTunes and YouTube, follow us on Twitch page and Twitter, and finally take part in our Facebook and Steam group!

t’s raining diss tracks y’all, and ain’t nobody safe from the rhyming raids of character assault up in this BEE-yotch that we call LYFE…

Alright, that’s enough cringe—with all of the harrowing news we’ve seen out of 2024, we’ve decided to try our hand at some levity with a brainstorm-fueled feature topic that we think can bring out the sort of trademark fun the video games are iconic for. In the same vein of fantasy booking your favorite sport, we’ve decided to come together and choose one intellectual property to revive for a modern-day release from twelve different companies who have either dabbled in publishing or development for that property and make a case for why that given franchise is worthy of a new game over any other dormant franchises that have also been left in the gaming past.

It’s the type of “think-tank” discussion that we haven’t had on the show in some time! Join Andrew, George, and special guest, Joie of Super RPG Friends and Cerulean Skies as we wax nostalgia in the future tense as we plead the importance of a ninth-generation rally for dozens of cult-classic properties for y’all in episode 151 of Press Pause Radio!

Mail us at our new email [email protected], leave a voicemail at 469-PPR-TALK, and be sure to stop by at our Forums if you haven’t already registered and post your thoughts about the show. Finally, make sure to rate and subscribe to us on iTunes and YouTube, follow us on Twitch page and Twitter, and finally take part in our Facebook and Steam group!

ey everyone, apologies for sitting on the production of the episode for as long as we did—a combination of schedule changes within our daily routines coupled with the rare moments of poop-socking that were granted for us to dump giant loads into new releases with near endless maws of content really fucked up our usual operational turn-around times. Nevertheless, that’s all over and done with as we’re here to catch up with 2024 and plug away at another new year of gaming (and the sad sad shit that’s unfortunately stuck on to it like childhood baggage it would seem.

Rest assured though, with the little money this outfit has ever seen in its fifteen year run so far, we’ve come nowhere NEAR the volume of corporate glut that was the Corporate budget for Milk from VICE management—holy shit is it wild y’all. Anyway, in this episode of Press Pause Radio, Ed, George, Andrew, and Sean all gather together to discuss the details of their precious screentime in another edition of “What’s in your Console “ and we get deep in our time with sharing with the class in this session of water cooler talk.

On docket for the show, you’ll hear about the Commodore 64 Mini, Lazy Jones, Scramble, The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters, Tatsujin, GameBoy mod work, Hori Fighting sticks, Helldivers II, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, Splatoon 3: Side Order, Mario VS Donkey Kong, Final Fantasy VII: Remake Intergrade, Contra: Operation Galuga, Palworld. Unicorn Overlord, the WiiU and so much more!

So be sure to get  your intake of Vitamin R and soak nearly 3 hours of ear candy from one of the oldest video game podcasts still kicking in the game—here’s episode 150 of Press Pause Radio!

Mail us at our new email [email protected], leave a voicemail at 469-PPR-TALK, and be sure to stop by at our Forums if you haven’t already registered and post your thoughts about the show. Finally, make sure to rate and subscribe to us on iTunes and YouTube, follow us on Twitch page and Twitter, and finally take part in our Facebook and Steam group!

ot to get too sidetracked but did y’all know that American Dad has aired for 13 seasons now? Shit’s kind of wild when you think about it. Anyway, better late than ever, here’s our annual Golden Zonkey Podcast special for the year 2023! We were able to fit a bunch of new games into our lineup, and of course, a bunch of old-ass ones too! Like, sure I guess it isn’t all that weird that George rolled a Texas Instruments Ti99/4a and Epoch Super CassetteVision into his lineup, but can y’all believe that Ed got a PS5 AND an Xbox One?! Andrew also picked up a friggin’ PlayDate—we are certainly wildn’ right meow y’all.

Despite all of the layoffs and chaotic mergers leaving behind more Valleys than Peaks in the Games Industry last year, there were still some genuinely massive achievements that deserve their flowers. Here’s to doing what we can to give back to the medium that brings our lives so much joy.

In case y’all don’t remember the updated flow from the last couple of years, we have changed up our format and have done away with categories!  Now, bear in mind, we’re still giving our prestigious mark of excellence, a Golden Zonkey, to the games that are deserving of recognition, only, we’re not doing by a respective genre, or category. Instead, we will be giving them out in a personal list format by each of us in the podcast, and we’ll be spending time discussing why we picked the titles we did within a countdown of five (we just happened to have played more killer games in 2023 than usual.)

Also, the biggest change to the process is that we will no longer limit nominations to the titles that were released that same year but instead, games that we had the opportunity to play that year, because honestly—it gave a somewhat stressful deliberation process a much-needed shot of levity for us to play with for Golden Zonkies!

 Normally we would have done a roundtable of games that were worth a quick mention from the year, but we decided to mention them in passing instead, along with some not-so-honorable-mentions (we also chose a few more not mentioned on the show to include in the post!) We will then award the “Golden Zonkey of The Year” in a unanimous vote that was similar to the previous format, and conclude the show from there.

Thanks again for listening to us gab on about our favorite time-wasters from last year. May we do what we can to capture both your ears AND eyes this on Press Pause Radio with all the neat shit we have in store—love ya!

Mail us at our new email [email protected], leave a voicemail at 469-PPR-TALK, and be sure to stop by at our Forums if you haven’t already registered and post your thoughts about the show. Finally, make sure to rate and subscribe to us on iTunes and YouTube, follow us on Twitch page and Twitter, and finally take part in our Facebook and Steam group!

here’s one thing to lose a job (it still sucks, there’s no denying that) but it’s a whole other level of despair when you lose a dream job—something you’re proud to call a career. In the year 2023 alone, there has been a reported 6,000 layoffs in the Games Industry since October of this year, and that’s not even accounting for some of the new figures that were announced the last two weeks either.

Mind you, this is also happening in a year where profits are supposedly reaching record-breaking highs, but what kind of success can that really account for when it’s done at the expense of disposed talent—this shit straight sucks.

So join Andrew and George as they discuss the harsh reality of the industry and the growing instability for job security across multiples professions in the industry, and what measures, steps, and activism we can accomplish from both the outside, and the inside of the industry (take a shot every time we say “unionize” it’ll be a hoot!)

Prior to that, we also talk about some of the games we’ve been playing like Bluey: The Video Game, Robocop, Void Stranger, and more—lots to unpack before we head into the Holiday! Enjoy the episode everyone.

Mail us at our new email [email protected], leave a voicemail at 469-PPR-TALK, and be sure to stop by at our Forums if you haven’t already registered and post your thoughts about the show. Finally, make sure to rate and subscribe to us on iTunes and YouTube, follow us on Twitch page and Twitter, and finally take part in our Facebook and Steam group!

 tale as old as time, with a verse that has no clever rhyme—George really hates everything about flying.

Miserable flights aside though, PPR’s Bearded Beast is back from the Nihon, and regales us with stories of his travels, the sights who he took in, and the retro games he stumbled upon in his 10 day trip in Tokyo. Adding on to the conversation, this week’s cast of George, Andrew, and Sean get together to share their thoughts on the latest news, and games that have been inhabiting their consoles.

Sit back as we gab about the Atari 2600+, Nintendo Live, the SG-1000, Starfield, Atari’s purchase of AtariAge, Sony’s price hike on PS+ Plans, Baldur’s Gate 3, Final Fantasy XIV, Action 52, Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon, PSVR2, WrestleQuest, and a whole lot more.

We have a bunch of reviews coming down the pipeline for Press Pause Radio, and hopefully the final bend for the final steps for the new studio George has been working on the last couple of years. We’re almost there y’all—GET HYPE

Mail us at our new email [email protected], leave a voicemail at 469-PPR-TALK, and be sure to stop by at our Forums if you haven’t already registered and post your thoughts about the show. Finally, make sure to rate and subscribe to us on iTunes and YouTube, follow us on Twitch page and Twitter, and finally take part in our Facebook and Steam group!

t sure has been a while now hasn’t it? Well, we made sure to make it count with this new episode as we brought along John Unterseher from Super RPG Friends to round out this week’s table of chuckleheads!

In an effort to talk shop on all of the recent announcements that took place while also trying to keep things Water Cooler with what we’ve been  playing, we mixed it up a bit for this episode. John joins Andrew and George as they discuss which announcements made the most notable impression on us from Summer Gamefest block of announcements they’ve affectionately dubbed to be “Not E3” and then decide to steamroll right into what’s been in their consoles with 2023’s packed release schedule. Announcements of games to come along with games here and now ranging in Super Mario RPG, XDefiant, Project Octopath Traveler 2 , Persona 3 Reload, Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name, Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth, Pikmin 4, Super Mario Wonder, Sonic Superstars, Sand Land, Nicholas Cage, Mortal Kombat 1, AEW Fight Forever, and so much more.

So sit down and clean that off-lavender shake off your lip as we bring you Press Pause Radio Episode 147, also—you don’t look so hot, just how much of that shake did you wolf down?

Mail us at our new email [email protected], leave a voicemail at 469-PPR-TALK, and be sure to stop by at our Forums if you haven’t already registered and post your thoughts about the show. Finally, make sure to rate and subscribe to us on iTunes and YouTube, follow us on Twitch page and Twitter, and finally take part in our Facebook and Steam group!

here are some events that we’ve come expect with the certainty of a season change. Whether it’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, The Super Bowl, or The Oscars—these annual institutions have operated for most of our natural-born lives, and won’t go anywhere anytime soon. The Electronic Entertainment Expo, or E3 for short, used to be one of those long-standing institutions, but has recently seen come rough days the couple of years, and has decidedly skipped out on 2023 altogether.

While writing has been on the wall, the language that E3’s parent company, ESA, has used over the future of the showcase is a little too ambiguous for comfort, and it’s likely that we may not see the event come back in the near future, or ever. Despite it going out with more of a whimper than a bang, there have been a ton of memorable years in Video Gaming where the event hosted some truly historical announcements, cementing moments that still occupy our headspaces to this very day, and we’re going to spend this episode talking about that, and so much more.

Join Andrew and George as they take you on a Post-Mortem of what George called the “Met Gala” of the Video Games Industry as they discuss the up’s and down’s of the yearly trade-show, and all of the notable footnotes it’s had in its run, bizarre pageantry and all.

Mail us at our new email [email protected], leave a voicemail at 469-PPR-TALK, and be sure to stop by at our Forums if you haven’t already registered and post your thoughts about the show. Finally, make sure to rate and subscribe to us on iTunes and YouTube, follow us on Twitch page and Twitter, and finally take part in our Facebook and Steam group!

ANADA INVENTED FOOTBALL! That’s just one of the many things you’ll learn in this new episode of Press Pause Radio—aside from the fact that George also got a Vasectomy, that’s a thing too we guess.

We keep it pretty casual off the heels of the Golden Zonkies and just talk about the latest stuff we’ve all been playing. On tap for this session is Ed, Andrew, and George as they gab on about games like Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth, Tetris Effect, Moss, Baby Pac-Man, Wanted: Dead, Horizon Dawn: Forbidden West, Forespoken, Atari 50, Ninja Golf, Blood & Truth, Yggdra Union, and so much more.

So kick up a chair, grab some pretzels, and decompress from a long afternoon of socializing over Sports Ball as we share some thoughts and words over fast-paced start to our 2023 here at Press Pause Radio!

Mail us at our new email [email protected], leave a voicemail at 469-PPR-TALK, and be sure to stop by at our Forums if you haven’t already registered and post your thoughts about the show. Finally, make sure to rate and subscribe to us on iTunes and YouTube, follow us on Twitch page and Twitter, and finally take part in our Facebook and Steam group!

ow that we’ve torn all of the pages off of our 2022 Bluey licensed Calendars, we’ve jumped ahead into a whole new January filled with work, fatigue, and the occasional video game or two set the vibe to 2023 with. While we’ve definitely had some negative things to say about the last couple of years—we took a few steps to help steady ourselves against the increase chaos in our civilian lives, and in the process, those small sabbaticals we did take as a team have really did a lot to refresh both our minds, and our souls.

We finally took a big step forward with some of the equipment we were able to obtain, and we’re hoping to bring y’all that promised regular video content that we’ve been teasing the last couple of years. In the meantime, a new year means a new class of Golden Zonkies to pass out, including the Press Pause Radio Golden Zonkey for Game of the Year! So without further ado, let’s get into the unofficial rules of our official awards:

In case y’all don’t remember the updated flow from the last couple of years, we have changed up our format and have done away with categories!  Now, bear in mind, we’re still giving our prestigious mark of excellence, a Golden Zonkey, to the games that are deserving of recognition, only, we’re not doing by a respective genre, or category. Instead, we will be giving them out in a personal list format by each of us in the podcast, and we’ll be spending time discussing why we picked the titles we did within a countdown of three.

 Normally we would have done a roundtable of games that were worth a quick mention from the year, but we decided to mention them in passing instead, along with some not-so-honorable-mentions (we also chose a few more not mentioned on the show to include in the post!) We will then award the “Golden Zonkey of The Year” in a unanimous vote that was similar to the previous format, and conclude the show from there.

Thanks again for listening to us gab on about our favorite time-wasters from last year. May we do what we can to capture both your ears AND eyes this on Press Pause Radio with all the neat shit we have in store—love ya! 

Mail us at our new email [email protected], leave a voicemail at 469-PPR-TALK, and be sure to stop by at our Forums if you haven’t already registered and post your thoughts about the show. Finally, make sure to rate and subscribe to us on iTunes and YouTube, follow us on Twitch page and Twitter, and finally take part in our Facebook and Steam group!