The Character Unlock Podcast

Welcome back to our regularly scheduled programming.

After a mammoth E3 last week, the Character Unlock guys are back to doing what they do: playing video games and talking an unlimited amount of nonsense. This week is no different.

This episode, hosts John Miller and Andrew Brooker forego a news section – nothing much happened anyway – and jump straight into what they’ve been playing since the end of the Electronic Entertainment Expo. Having garnered some help in the form of a Twitter poll, the CU audience decided which of Brooker’s half finished games he should get out the way first. As it turned out, he was destined to spend two solid days finishing off Guerrilla Games’ open-world action/adventure Horizon: Zero Dawn. And boy does he speak at length about it. Similarly, after months of pestering, John finally got his teeth into Dontnod’s time bending Life is Strange; and the pair try to talk about it without spoiling anything. No mean feat, I can promise you that.

GTA V’s latest online update and the re-release of the criminally underrated Bulletstorm bring up the rear for this week’s gaming chat. Oh, and the lads argue about who is recommending what freebies this episode. All in a day’s work.

Join us back here in a couple of weeks for more foolishness from our hosts, and maybe even some gaming chat. Until then, follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

The end is here!

Join our hosts as they take apart the last of this year’s E3 press conferences.  This episode, we focus on Nintendo who, as has become tradition, have foregone the big stage for a pre-recorded show.

That means that we were treated to a super-short advert fest and not much else. Reggie introduced us to a few new games and detailed some E-Sports tournaments they have upcoming over the coming months.  And not an awful lot else.

Lots of Japanese games, as expected, with Xenoblade and Fire Emblem getting everyone’s attention.  With Arms, Mario Odyssey and Kirby brining up the rear.

And that’s it.  A bit of a damp squib show to end the conferences.  We hope you’ve enjoyed the last few days with us.  We’ll be back next week for our regularly scheduled programme.

There is a light at the end of this tunnel.  As the guys sit an go through the second to last showcase of 2017’s E3; the light can barely be seen as the tired, squinting eyes of our hosts are barely open.

It’s 4am, and we’ve got games to talk about.  Loads of games.

Everything from the new God of War to the Uncharted expansion is trailered and talked about by our flagging hosts.  Desperately trying to stay awake as Sony did nothing to help them out, with only Horizon DLC trailers and an extended Spiderman demo to keep them going.

Join them later on tonight as they finish up their marathon podcast sessions with Nintendo’s showcase.

As day three of E3 starts up and the guys have managed to get a few hours kip… it’s time for the Ubisoft conference.

As tiredness and hay fever appear to be getting the better of the boys, join them in going through the developer’s advert-fest for 2017.

Assassin’s Creed Origins makes it’s expected appearance. As does The Crew 2, Just Dance and the latest, much delayed South Park sequel.

Surprises hit in the form of a Pirate filled naval combat game, a Rabbids and Mario collaboration and an expansion for the thought dead Steep.

The lads seem to come out of this one happier than any of the other shows so far this year.  Keep up-to-date with their thoughts as the conferences wind themselves up over the next 24 hours.

Seriously.  This can’t be healthy.

With only two hours sleep, we are back covering this year’s E3 press conferences.  This time, it’s fan favourite – but not John favourite – publisher Bethesda.

Quickly getting the records for latest ever E3 presser and the shortest ever E3 conference, join the lads as they pick apart the Skyrim publisher’s outing.

Quake, Wolfenstein, Fallout and Dishonored all get a showing, pretty much as we predicted in our preview show last week.  No real surprises this year, but plenty to get excited about.

With around 14 hours until the next show, the guys are going to get some kip before they crack into Ubisoft’s press conference.  Join the conversation with us on Twitter (@characterunlock) and follow the live tweeting goodness.

Until tonight…

The E3 Hype train continues today as Microsoft’s Xbox Showcase rolls into town.

Join the lads as they pull apart what could be the most important conference of the week as Microsoft formally announce the name of what we’ve all come to know as Project Scorpio.

The newly named Xbox One X provides all of this episode’s talking points as we got a list of new games coming for the new machine.  Old favourites, new favourites and even a surprise or two.

And the most important announcement?  A new… Porsche?? No, we didn’t understand it either.

Keep up to date with us on Twitter and follow us as we suffer through the rest of E3 week for you, the listener.

E3 is finally here. That means late nights, early mornings and far more caffeine than is healthy.

Let us begin this year’s festivities with EA Play. The first show of the conference gets underway with a flurry of old favourites and ends with a very anticipated title.

Hosts John Miller and Andrew Brooker dive into all the FIFAs, Maddens and Star Wars: Battlefronts that the publishing giant has to offer. Listen in to see what they thought.

Follow the guys on Twitter (@CharacterUnlock) to see their thoughts on this years show in real time.

It’s almost here! E3, the Electronic Entertainment Expo, the start of the next 12 months of marketing is finally upon us for 2017.

Hosts John Miller and Andrew Brooker will be spending a couple of hours talking all things E3, just like every other video game podcast, website, foghorn, whatever, right now. They cover everything in this preview episode, including what they would like to see at each show, the rituals they might or might not do every year for E3 and even throwing a few far out ideas that could (but absolutely won’t ever) happen.

Join the lads as they flip through each of the big companies Press conferences and try to figure out if it really is worth staying up until silly o’clock in the morning to watch a whole load of adverts.

Trying something a little bit different for the next few days: As the biggest event in gaming’s calendar rolls through, the guys will be following the events in as close to real time as they can possible handle. Keep an eye on our social media (@CharacterUnlock on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram) as the boys will be running live commentary on the shows as they happen. Prepare for snark a-plenty and an awful lot of tired gibberish. Keep those eyes peeled on the podcast feed too as our hosts will be throwing up quick episodes after each show giving their gut reactions to everything they’ve just seen.

You can of course come and join us on our social media pages to keep up with everything the guys have to say over the next few days and get involved in the conversation.

Summer is (kind of) here, and what better way to celebrate the amazing hot weather we’ve been blessed with than listening to a couple of guys chatting about playing video games indoors?

Welcome to the Character Unlock tangent-cast where ,in a surprisingly news heavy week that came with a ton of game playing too, hosts John Miller and Andrew Brooker seem to struggle to keep themselves on track. Desperately trying to talk seriously about the future of IO Interactive and their fan favourite Hitman IP, whilst trying to make sense of the Destiny 2 announcement and the Red Dead Redemption 2 delay, the guys have clearly found themselves with a heat induced attention deficit detour into conversations about coffee and deluxe ice cream trucks in Milton Keynes.

No. Sadly, we’re not joking.

The insanity continues when the pair sink their teeth into what they’ve been playing, including relatively in-depth chats about Darksiders: The Warmastered Edition and newly released superhero based beat-em-up Injustice 2. Somehow, they keep finding themselves dragged off topic. At one point, the lads find themselves in a conversation about the extended DC TV Universe and spicy pretzels. Consistency was not the order of the day for this episode.

Join us in a couple of weeks, the day before the gaming industry’s annual self-pleasuring festival E3 for our thoughts, predictions and plans for the busiest week in the gaming calendar.

The seals have been broken and the armies of Heaven, Hell and Earth are locked in a battle to decide the fate of all eternity. Answering the call, your hosts John Miller and Andrew Brooker are here to make sense of the chaos that has ravaged the Earth.

Ok, maybe things aren’t quite that bad, luckily, because no one wants these two to be the guys deciding the fate of humanity. I mean, it took the not-so-dynamic-duo three attempts and a ton of giggling like children to even get the episode off the ground this week – they ain’t ready for that kind of responsibility.

What they can do is kill an hour of your life by exploring the gaming news from the last couple of weeks and sharing the games they’ve been playing for the last fortnight. Newly leaked Assassin’s Creed games and recently confirmed not-dead Darksiders 3 are the main orders of the day as the lads get into what they do and don’t want from the jumpy, stubby, stealth series’ return. The pair get more than a little giddy at the thought of a return to the universe of The Four Horsemen.

Continuing his trek through the digital pile-of-shame, Brooker makes decent headway as he completes not one, not two, but three of his episodic game backlog. Meanwhile, John is inspired to start Batman and finally gets his hands on multi-Game-of-The-Year award winning online shooter, Overwatch.

What was good, what was bad, what bored them to tears and what left them shell-shocked and wanting more? Get this week’s episode in your ears for the answers to all these questions and more. Until next time, come say hello on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.