VGC's Andy Robinson is this week's guest. Andy discusses his days on PC Zone and CVG, and why he's made the effort to built relationships with Japanese game developers in the last few years.

This week's music is from the Yooka-Laylee soundtrack by Grant Kirkhope, David Wise and Steve Burke.

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

What we've been playing lately that doesn't feature Leon S Kennedy. Games discussed: Reanimal, Dark Auction, Marathon, Yakuza Kiwami 3 + Dark Ties, Pokémon LeafGreen, Paranormasight: The Mermaid’s Curse, Dragon Quest VII: Reimagined, Romeo is a Dead Man, Wild Blue Skies, Denshattack!, Dusk Index Gion.

The two Pokémon-themed media projects mentioned in this episode – Matt Reynolds' One More Catch and James Batchelor's history of the series.

Music in this week's episode is from the Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen soundtrack by Go Ichinose, Junichi Masuda and Morikazu Aoki, and the Dark Auction soundtrack by Yuko Komiyama, Tsukasa Masuko and others.

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

A deep dive into the year's first big game (sorry, Mario Tennis). Section one is spoiler-free, and the much shorter section two has clearly marked spoilers. But, you still might want to listen to this after you've played the game if you want to experience everything fresh.

Pretty much everything discussed in the first hour is in Capcom's marketing materials for the game. 

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

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

Our first draft episode of the year is here! Who can pick the best levels out of Samuel, Matthew, Dave and Ash? You decide. Vote for the winner in the announcements channel of the Discord.

This week's music is from the Sonic 2 soundtrack by Masato Nakamura, the Grand Theft Auto V soundtrack by Tangerine Dream and Woody Jackson, the Super Mario 64 soundtrack by Koji Kondo and the Mario Kart World soundtrack by Atsuko Asahi, Maasa Miyoshi, Takuhiro Honda and Yutaro Takakuwa.

These are the categories if you need a refresh:

1. First-person shooter level (singleplayer)
2. First-person shooter level (multiplayer)
3. Lightgun stage
4. Multiplayer level (can't be an fps)
5. Platforming level
6. Mission in an open world or larger game
7. Bonus level
8. Boss battle
9. Worst level and location I'd doom my worst enemy to live in 
10. Free pick

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

Five years later, The Guardian's Keza MacDonald returns to the podcast to talk about her new book, Super Nintendo (UK link here, US link here). We then close out with Keza's quickfire list of the 10 most underrated Nintendo games.

This week's music is from the Diddy Kong Racing soundtrack by David Wise. 

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

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

A mop up of some neat games we missed from 2025, plus Matthew's thoughts on the newest game from Inkle.

Games discussed: TR-49, Skate Story, POPUCOM, Wheel World, Earthion, Routine, The Séance of Blake Manor, Demonschool and The Berlin Apartment. 

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

What makes a 9/10 game not a 10/10 game? Why do video games end up bad? Which NPC would you least like to be stuck in a lift with? What food do they serve at the hypothetical Matthew Castle-themed cafe in Shibuya? These are some of the questions tackled in our first mailbag episode of 2026.

Feel free to submit future mailbag questions in the Discord, or to [email protected]. 

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

26 (or so) predictions about 2026, based on nothing whatsoever. Plus: our 2025 predictions revisited, and our 5 picks for this year's fantasy draft.

This week's music is from the Trauma Center: Second Opinion soundtrack by Kenichi Tsuchiya and Shingo Yasumoto. 

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