Good evening, 47. Your destination is the quaint British city of Bath. Your target is Matthew Castle. Former journalist turned podcast baron and his morally corrupt associate, Samuel Roberts. Known as the Two Giant Men of Somerset, they turned small-time magazine careers into a thriving, low-effort media business, blackmailing their own followers into funding an extravagant lifestyle of meats and sandwiches. Both are due to switch on the city’s Christmas lights, celebrating their dubious contributions to journalism. I’m sure you’ll leave a present or two in their stock in 47. After all, they do say print is dead. Hello, welcome to the 100th episode of The Back Page Video Games Podcast. I’m Samuel Roberts and I’m joined as ever by Matthew Castle. Hello. Matthew, we made it to episode 100 of the podcast, and we’re finally rewarding our listeners’ patience with the one thing they’ve all been asking for, which is a clip show made up of old episodes. How are you feeling about that? Very excited. Matthew, are you a fan of the classic clip show format, as seen on US sitcoms as a way to extend a sort of series run to get it to syndication? You a fan of that format? I’m a huge fan. I mean, my favorite episode of Alias is the episode towards the end of season one, where they recap the whole of season one for an episode as a court case. Some would say that’s where my love of games court originated from, where I saw the power of the law for just total bullshit. Yeah, that actually was a great clip show, to be honest. I was there thinking, what is the best clip show? And that’s got to be up there. I think The Simpsons, one hosted by Troy McClure, the 138th episode spectacular, that’s up there as well. It’s always the hugely phoned in energy of the bits between the clips, where they’re like, we need some kind of framework, so it will be like all the guys at Cheers are having a bet to see who can remember the weirdest thing that happened in Cheers or something. And you’re like, man alive, you were on holiday that week. So you must agree then that this is a good way to reward our listeners’ loyalty for following us for 100 episodes of I think around half a million downloads at this point, or at least close to it. Wowzers. Yes, I think it’s something like 465 when I checked. Oh, maybe it’s 365. I don’t remember. Anyway, it’s quite high, so that’s good. So that’s still less than one copy of official PlayStation 1 sold. Yep, exactly. Good for us. But hey, it’s solid enough. So I think that’s a good way to reward loyalty, don’t you? Clips from old episodes. I think that’s exactly what people have been asking for. If you don’t like a Clip Show, then you don’t like life. Yep, exactly. So Matthew, is there anything you’re about to share about the clips that we’re about to listen to? We’ve dug into the archives here to pick out some true highlights. I think our listeners will remember these well. Anything you want to comment on from this batch? Yeah, it was super tough because there’s so many episodes I’ve really enjoyed doing, but I think these were the ones which I think a lot of these are things where when you think back across it, the first thing that comes to mind will probably be one of these clips. Yeah, I think so. Okay, let’s kick off with our first clip then Matthew. This is from episode number where we ranked all 316 WarioWare games. That was micro games rather. Oh jeez, yeah. Quite an undertaking, wasn’t it? That was ludicrous. But yeah, roll the clip. Oh, okay, right. Welcome to our seven of the best WarioWare micro games. Top 10, at last, the deepest, most thematically resonant takes on WarioWare that we can muster. So Matthew, number 10 in our WarioWare micro games ranking is Nighttime Allergies. Do you remember this micro game? The official Wiki breakdown of this describes there is a woman named as Baroness Drip with a long strand of mucus hanging out of her nose. The player must repeatedly mash the button to make Baroness Drip sniff the mucus back into her nose. If the player waits too long, the strand will get longer and eventually break off, causing the game to be lost. Right. Yeah, so the first time I saw this, I wanted to well up how beautiful the sprite art is. What an absolutely striking image this is of a woman snorting in some snot. In the French version of the game, its name translated as Evening Beauty. Wow. What does throw me is that actually when they remade this game for Wear-O-Wear Gold, they put twists on them, as I’ve now repeated about 150 times this episode. And weirdly, the twist they added on this is a man comes in called Pierre, and he looks a lot like my stepdad. I see. Does he also have snot? Yeah, you have to do twice as much button pressing for them both to… You have to get his snot in, then her snot in. But he really does look like my stepdad in like five years time. It’s how I imagine he’ll look. Do you think he’s punching above his weight, getting it on with Baroness What’s-her-face? Do you think that’s… He’s punching above his weight there? What do you reckon? I don’t know what to say to that. This is a very cursed and weird avenue you’ve taken us down. Don’t know how we got here, really. I think we should reverse the fuck out of it. Yeah, okay, sure. Let’s move on to our number nine, then. Oh dear. Deep into the podcast madness here. So this is a tough one for me, this one. So my number nine is The Legend of Zelda. And now, this is best known as Link Walks Into a Cave, okay? It’s like, it’s a classic, you know? And like, I put to you, Matthew Castle, that this is the best Zelda game ever made. This is raw, sort of beautiful game design at its purest. You walk into a cave. Sometimes it’s in front of the cave, sometimes it’s slightly to the side of the cave. Does anything say adventure like that? Like walking into a cave in different directions? I think this is like seminal Nintendo thoughts. This sounds like a troll worthy of our Discord. This sounds like some of the nonsense I have to read on there. That is absolutely ludicrous. Matthew, some people say that episode was torturous and that we didn’t take the subject seriously. We’re completely out of our depth. And to those critics, I say we got mentioned in The Guardian, so get fucked. And they specifically mentioned that episode. Yeah, they did. It was a real favorite of them. And it was the other one, the BBC. They liked the podcast, didn’t they? Yeah, the BBC loved it. Yeah, fantastic. Okay, so our second clip, Matthew, just to sort of rewind all the way back to, I can’t remember where this one was, but yeah, it’s episode. The Yushinaka Games Draft. So we’ll cut to that now. Here are the categories. There’s a lot of debate off air about this, as there always is with the draft categories. Before we get into them, how are you feeling about doing Yushinaka as a draft? I can’t believe we’re doing Yushinaka before we do N64. That seems obscene to me, but there you go. I feel like we are fighting over a real couple of scraps. Like 10 brackets is tough. Some of these are super difficult. Okay, bracket one, we’ve got best game featuring Sonic the Hedgehog. Bracket two, best game not featuring Sonic the Hedgehog. Bracket three, best MMO. Bracket four, best game featuring a giant egg. Bracket five, best game not featuring a giant egg. Bracket six, best Wii game no one played. Bracket seven, best Street Pass game. Bracket eight, the overrated Saturn game category. Oh man, that could be many, many games. Bracket nine, best game featuring an animal carrying guns. Yeah. Bracket 10, best Yuji Naka grudge. Because Matthew insisted we have another avenue to tell the story about the Luigi’s Mansion 3Q. That is a very important story. People like that story. It’s a great story. I’ve told that 18 times on this podcast and people still dig it. Okay, do you want to do the coin toss, Matthew? What do you want to go for? Heads. Okay, and it’s tails. Oh, okay. Oh Matthew, you can either begin or you can… I want to go first. I feel like you’re trying to paint me into a corner with best game featuring animal carrying guns. There is no list of mine which is going to feature Shadow the Hedgehog. So, I did have a question of… Do you think Billy Hatcher is like a chicken boy? He’s kind of an animal and he throws eggs. Arguably, the egg is nature’s bullet. Yeah, I think I’ll let you have that one, I think, on a technicality. I think that’s… Oh, nice. You’re pushing the categorical rules there. But yeah, I’ll let you have it in this instance. Yeah, so best game featuring animal carrying guns, Billy Hatcher and his giant egg. I think this also, you know, sets you up for a bit of a fall. Good luck in best game featuring a giant egg category. I mean, you say that, Matthew, but I actually have… I have a great pick for that one. Is it my turn? Yeah. Okay, bracket four, best game featuring a giant egg. I’ve got Sonic the Hedgehog 2, which features a big robot called Death Egg. Oh. Fucking yes, mate. Fucking. Yes. Do you have good memories of the Yuji Nakadrawium? I didn’t know there were that many Rodear the Sky Soldiers stands out there in our listener base, but there we go. I wasn’t surprised, to be honest. That’s exactly the kind of bullshit that they like, isn’t it? Yeah. Okay, good. So next up, Matthew, we’re going to episode… Judge Castle rules on the worst guest mics, sentencing existing real life games industry personnel to death for having the audacity to take out an entire evening to come on our podcast and have bad microphones. That works in two levels because they record using audacity. Let’s get into it. I hope none of them take this personally, that we’re ruling on them being turned into wine or whatever it is we’re doing. What’s the method of punishment again? They’re back in Michael Caine’s tank, and the irony being that the sound quality from within side a water filled tank is still better than some of these bad bloody mics. Okay, so first up Matthew, we’ve got Kessa McDonald, who I saw at Gamescom and said she really likes the podcast Matthew, so maybe she could be leading in here. This is Kessa who got us into The Guardian, you know, got us all that cred. But what’s the microphone situation like? So this one was confusing because her mic was so quiet. Like, I had to sort of guess how to react during some of the episode. I was sort of going, and hoping that what she was saying wasn’t like some traumatic story about being in the games industry. I just assumed it was all light-hearted and full of banter. But the final audio was fine, so it’s kind of got to balance those two things. I really don’t think we can put Kessa in the tank. I think there’d be an uproar about that, though it would open up that very lucrative games editor position on The Guardian. Do you think you got a shot at that one? Or would they think you’re a bit too old school? No, probably not. I’ve just drowned too many people to be seen as legitimate there. Yeah. Do you think, like a hiring editor from The Guardian could listen to an episode of this podcast and think, that man needs to join our organisation? Do you think that’s even possible? Well, I have written for them, so they’re not that above me. That’s true. I did have a couple of little special shout outs for this one, which wasn’t so much mic quality but like energy that set me on edge. Tim Clark had a lot of New York noise in the background, so my mind was constantly wondering to like what New York must be like. Also Andy Kelly’s Dreamcast episode, because he told us that he was recording it in a camper van outside a house. Oh yeah, that was pretty strange. So I was again constantly aware that he was outside and it felt strangely vulnerable. There was like a horror film element to that. That someone could have been inches away and we wouldn’t know. I just, I don’t know. I like guests to record from inside the sort of safety of a house. I mean, really, like some of the worst might work ever was in some of our early episodes, I feel. So, oh, oh shit. Does this mean I could get, I’m going to get drowned for that time I had the gain on too high in best in 2022 predictions. You were fucking livid. That was bad. Well, I was thinking more our first few episodes where we recorded them in person, like both in the same room. And then I couldn’t work out how to get the two audio files to like link up. So there was always like a slight echo, which is why we decided to start recording a part in the end. But definitely didn’t break COVID laws to record those episodes, right, Matthew? I don’t think we did. I think that was in a pocket where you were allowed to see each other. I don’t know about that. What? I think we broke the law at the time. No we didn’t. Yes we did. I think we did. This podcast wasn’t born out of an illegal act. It was like a speakeasy, a podcast speakeasy. Did you skulking? Yeah I walked up like a solid snake. Oh man. Oh I should have removed that then. No I think we should keep it in. I think it technically counts because we were bubbling, right? Oh that’s how we did it. Yeah. Right yeah. So we’re technically okay. That almost turned into real courts, didn’t it? Quite a weird concept for an episode that one. Yeah, I would say so. Something else that was quite weird. Do you remember the time we briefly became a TikTok meme? Oh yeah. They took our PC gaming draft bust up and started reenacting it. Weird, but was quite nice to be relevant to the youth for once. Yeah, not technically an episode, but I feel we sort of own the content. And my tantrum about Tyfire had to be worth something. So let’s roll the clip. So what’s your second pick, Matthew? Oh man, there are so many good things. Yeah, it’s really good. It’s really hard to narrow some of these things down. I’m going to get the category out the way that I’m struggling the most with, cause I literally don’t have anything for it. Which is sim, and I’m going to take Star Wars TIE Fighter. Oh, that sucks. That was the game I played so much this week, ready to take it. I feel bad because I’ve never even played it. Ha ha. Jesus Christ. Ha ha. The Mailbags The mailbags, Matthew. Some have called that a very lazy format of ours, right? They’ve yielded any number of insightful and inane questions, but some have left deeper scars than others. So let’s, should we cut to a episode? What have I many mailbags? Yeah, let’s do it. So Matthew, do you want to read out this one? Hi M&S, S&M, two giant men. I’m writing this while inside Matthew’s house in Bath. Only kidding. Or am I? What would you do in this scenario? Eugene, Eugene Nacar has challenged you both to a game of paintball and has arranged for Bath to be closed down. You battle throughout the city center, leaving permanent paint marks throughout landmarks like the Roman Bards, the Little Theatre and the gym where the KFC used to be. However, Matthew has now shot him in the cheek and he’s gone home in a moot. No. Now we get to the question. What meat product do you buy him from JC’s kitchen to win back his affection, which has remained open throughout this ordeal? PS. I bought a copy of Dead Space 3 for £16.28. Except for Samuel’s laugh, which stops me from getting some shut-eye. I only listen to The Back Page at 4am on Monday mornings. That’s from It’s MrPants69. I’ve got to say, I’ve absolutely had it with the Eugene Acker questions on this podcast, Matthew. People are like, oh, what if Eugene Acker moved into your house for two weeks? And it’s like, this is all people ask about now is our relationship with a fictitious version of Eugene Acker. And now it’s like, what if Eugene Acker was in fucking John Wick 4, and John Wick 4 was set in Bath? I mean, the most plausible bit of this is the idea that he would be shot in the cheek then go home in a mood. That bit, I can really sort of… Oh, that’s got powerful Nacker energy. Very sour man. Famously so. I’ll tell you what I do like about these letters though, is that where they pretend to know Bath, they’ve obviously done a Google search. I mean, Roman Baths, that’s pretty high up. Little theatre, you know, that’s a bit more specific. Sim Fantastic Mr Fox though. However, kudos for the gym where the KFC used to be. Yeah, that’s a deep cut that is. There’s now another KFC in a different location. That’s like Bath Deep Law at this point, do you know what I mean? I love that they did replace a KFC with a gym. You can’t think of two things more far apart. Yeah, that’s it. And when I saw no one going into that gym, I felt like vengeful, I felt like fire in my heart. I was like, yeah, fuck you. You don’t deserve people because you took chicken away from me. I like the idea that someone’s muscle memory might take them there for KFC only to discover a running machine, which is the opposite of a Tower Zinger burger. Yeah, for sure. Arguably. Yeah, I would say so. And dumb bells are like KFC hot wings, right? Like that’s the equivalent. So how do you feel about the Deluge of Yuji Naka questions, Matthew? Are you as fucking sick of it as I am? It’s probably our fault for doing the Yuji Naka draft. Right. Like fundamentally, I think that’s probably where we signed up for this particular thing. That was a great episode. I was surprised by how rich your takes on Phantasy Star Online 2 were. Like it was, you went so deep for a game I didn’t even know you’d played, do you know what I mean? So finally, Matthew, bought Dead Space 3 for £16.28. I know this is not a Games Corp, but what’s Judge Castle, Daddy Castle’s take on this one? I can sort of understand if you’re trying to like complete the collection and there’s a bit of Dead Space excitement at the moment because of the Dead Space remake that’s just been announced. So it’s also just not a very good game and I can’t really sign off on that. Yeah. Oh, did you read about those Silent Hill rumours? There’s fucking 80 rumours a week at the moment that Konami is doing something with Silent Hill. I don’t believe it’ll ever happen, honestly. I think a lot of people are going to have a lot of egg on their face when that comes to nothing. Yep, absolutely. Very quickly then, Best JC’s Kitchen for the hundredth time on this podcast. It’s got to be the bubble and squeak, the bubble box with the chicken and a bit of the old, what’s it called? Mint and yoghurt and peri-peri. Those things combined, that’s fucking top notch thoughts. That is the correct answer. I do get upset when readers go to bath and go to JC’s Kitchen and then have a rap. Oh, you got so close. You know, you’ve made the trip, you’ve found him on the mythical Bog Island only to fall at the final hurdle and not get the bubble and squeak. Yep, absolutely. Yeah. So next question. Who is your favourite playable mammal in the Tekken series? Oh, great clip, Matthew. Like my own children, if I had them, the listeners often need some tough love. Like when I told off Balladeer for being the Nintendo police. That was funny. Matthew, do you remember when we recorded lyrics to the theme tune? We had a competition to see which of us could write better lyrics. Yeah, but in the end, we chose not to use the lyrics. Do you remember why that was? Were they problematic? I think they were just like dog shit. Oh yeah, that’s why. Yeah, now I remember. It’s, I will say, an incredibly difficult tune to sing lyrics to. Yeah, I say so, but you know, it was a valiant effort. But after 10 episodes, we thought we’d drop the idea due to public outcry and cancelled Patreon pledges. So, okay, let’s roll the two bits of music. It’s a show where we repeat a lot, my anecdotes are quickly running out, I can’t help it, it’s the price of simply getting older. Oh, and now here comes old Michael Caine, drowning me for all this oral pain. And that would suck. Play it again, Big Sammy. So Matthew, next up, we’ve got a clip from one of our signature magazine deep dives. We prided ourselves on looking at magazine covers and digging into some of our favorite writing. Now, arguably, there came a point where we were scraping the barrel a bit, like in this one, which was episode. Reviews we have no real opinion of. Let’s get to the clip. My first review score I have no opinion on is a Green Lantern Rise of the Manhunters, four out of 10 in X360 magazine, a 2011 vintage. I don’t have too much to say about this one. Any thoughts yourself? I haven’t played it, assuming it’s scored generally around here. Yeah, you know, it was not very good. Sort of DC time, sort of like didn’t have much to say, tied into a film that no one liked. It was like four, four out of 10. What’s your first one? I got Secret Files Tunguska, the point and click game that gave 63, reminded me a bit of Monkey Island, Broken Sword, but not really as good as either of those. I said it was fun enough for a rent. Could you even rent a DS game? Is that a DS game? Could you rent? That’s, yeah, that’s almost too interesting for this episode concept. Could you rent a game in 2008? Yeah, that’s not what we’re doing here. This is, sorry, we’re having too many opinions. Sorry, I didn’t really get it. We present some highlights from the time Big Sammy Holdings and Matthew Castle Productions flew to GDC in San Francisco to present talks on thriving in the red hot world of games publishing. I can’t believe that they let us in to talk to a crowd of people. Good fun while it lasted. Yeah, I just want to say thanks to the GDC Vault for letting us have the rights to these talks because usually these things are kind of protected. You can usually view them for educational purposes and that is primarily what these video recordings are for. But in this case, we got special permission to run them on the podcast. So let’s play the clips. Okay, thank you for coming out. I’m Sammy Roberts. I’m the CEO and president and VP creative at Big Sammy Holdings. Reason, capital, strategy. These are the things you need to eliminate from your life to succeed in games publishing. Contempt, high blood pressure, a time machine to kidnap Capcom employees from 2006. If you’re not prepared to make that happen, you have no place in this fucking industry. Hello, I’m Matthew Castle from Matthew Castle Productions. Here to tell you about five mistakes I won’t be making again. Number one, putting Shootakumi in charge of the Forza series. You ever tried to interrogate a 1990 Subaru legacy? We were lucky to even get that Edge 4. Number two, I made a very powerful enemy in Barack Obama. Listen, Randy Newman had put Winch operator on his CV. This is partially on him for lying, probably more on me for not scrutinising him better. Number three, I lost so much of my life to posting myself to users of my subscription service. I returned a stranger to my wife and most of the people I visited were out. I spent so many hours in sorting offices. Number four, man cannot live on pick and mix alone. You do not want to know how I learnt this or indeed what the foam banana can do to the human gut and no, do not ask me in the Q&A portion. Finally, number five, do not spend a billion dollars on a reboot of Jurassic Park Trespasser. The appetite just isn’t there. Thank you. Finally, Matthew, last clip for this 100th episode spectacular. Do you remember the time in episode when we were talking about Dino Crisis 3 and then the Phantom Thieves from Persona 5 stole our hearts and forced us to confess our sins to each other? Oh yeah, how could I possibly forget? Let’s jump to that now. I have a podcast confession, Sam. I’ve got a couple myself, Matthew. What’s yours? The vacuum cleaner anecdote about the police doing a line up of vacuum cleaners. Yeah. I’m afraid that was misremembered. My mother got in touch with me and told me that she told me to that as a joke, and I had folded that into my memories as something that happened. Oh no, that did seem very unlikely, didn’t it? It did, but it seemed like gold at the time, and I genuinely believed it, so I would like to apologize for that. I’ve got a podcast confession myself, Matthew. What is it? My dad doesn’t play an oboe. He plays the clarinet, which is marginally less funny an instrument than the oboe. I don’t know. He’s still locked in a room playing an instrument and the saboteur, which is really the gold of the idea. The saboteur bit is true. Do you have another confession? Yeah, I have another confession. Before we did the PS Vita draft, I crowdsourced loads of ideas from the PlayStation Access team so that I wouldn’t look bad on the episode. Oh, geez, that explains a lot, to be honest. I shouldn’t have lost that one. That’s fucking injustice, that was. I’ve got another confession for you. It’s less podcast-related and more just like general. When I was about 14, went to this campsite in Spain, and there was this kid there, it’s a jolly little kid. He was next door, next camper van, played football for a bit, accidentally trod on his foot. Came out later, he was a lot less jolly, and he had a cast on his foot where I trod on it. I didn’t tell anyone about that for years, and I thought I’ve committed a terrible thing here. Breaking a boy is worse than cheating on a GameStraft. I’d say they, 50-50, personally. Do you have another confession? Whenever we do a GameStraft episode, I send a WhatsApp to my really large extended family, telling them to vote for me. Oh, is that actually true? That is actually true. And that is not surprising at all. This is, fuck, we are through the looking glass here, people. Yeah, I just, I knew it, I’ve seen it happen too many times. How fucking big is this WhatsApp? It’s siblings and their partners and I don’t know, like 20 people? Okay, I’ve got one last podcast confession, Matthew. Even though we say this is not a horny podcast, sometimes I think it might be. Well, I’m guilty of that too. And if that’s wrong, I don’t want to be right. Thank Oh, that’s the end of the Clip Show, Matthew. A wild ride there through two years of history to celebrate 100 episodes of The Back Page. How are you feeling about it? God, we’ve made some good episodes. It doesn’t stop here, gang. So next week, we’re back with Jay Bayliss and the best Digimon games. So we’ll see you then. BackpagePod on Twitter, patreon.com/backpagepod. Where can people find you, Matthew? MrBazzill underscore pesto. Cool, yeah, and catch you real soon, buddy. The real podcast is on the back of the CD case, Matthew. Oh, there you go. What a classic twist. Yeah, people made it in the end, hopefully, past this. Imagine this is your first episode, right? You listen to all those dogshit attempts at improvisational comedy, which you and I were both like, does this even fucking work as it was going? And I don’t know if it does. And I ripped off two Dan Harmon shows in coming up with this idea of a fake clip show. I ripped off Interdimensional Cable from Rick and Morty and the fake clip show they did in Community. So, that’s good. So Matthew, we thought we’d do some real Episode 100 Reflections, because obviously there’s some interesting stuff to reveal about the history of the podcast here that we haven’t talked about before. And I think that we deserve, I know this is quite a kind of a nostalgia wank podcast anyway, allegedly. And so maybe we do a little bit too much self-indulgent stuff anyway, but I think it’s good to have a bit of reflection. What about you? Yeah, I think so. So I think it’s allowed, you know, we’ve put in the time, got it to a hundred. I feel like if ever you can take your foot off the gas for some slightly self-indulgent dog bullshit. I always said dog shit. Very different energy. Slightly self-indulgent bullshit. I think it’s episode 100. Yeah, I think you’re right. So yeah, yeah, this a hundred episodes, how are you feeling about reaching it Matthew? Did you ever think we’d get to this point? Do you remember how you felt when we started? My memory of it is that it almost didn’t make it out of the gate because we were so full of self-doubt about the first recording that I think we even had an exchange of like, are we even gonna do this? Yeah, I think I said to you that, because we didn’t put out episode one by itself, what we did was we kept our mouth shut about it, put episode one out so it looked like it came out one week and then put out episode two, which was game review scores we got wrong, which I knew was the one, that was the idea to like really click people in and that felt like the thing that made it work. Is that sort of how you reflect on that bit of how it came together? Yeah, I think so. Yeah, because, yeah, the first one was, you know, it’s fine, but we were like, we’d gone, we didn’t record like a pilot or anything. We kind of went straight into it and hoped that it would work. Breaking several COVID laws, allegedly, at the same time. I don’t really remember it. And yeah, yeah, so like, I’m glad we did push through those original self-doubts, because I think that’s quite typically us of like, oh, no one will want this or no one will, you know, this shouldn’t be, this shouldn’t be a thing. And, you know, that we put, that episode two finally had an idea that we actually wanted to do is also very us. Yeah. It’s a very chaotic way of doing it. It’s like, episode two is the one where like, the kind of the idea of the podcast really lives. The first one is, well, I don’t know, but we’re doing it. Well, I like the idea that like, when people could first discover it, they had those two episodes to compliment each other. They had, here’s some like, commentary on some new games consoles that we actually have that proved to be very hard to get hold of. And, you know, doing some trad podcast stuff. And then here’s the idea that’s a little bit more Russ. And then the whole podcast is constantly flipped between those two different things, I feel, where we’re sort of reacting to stuff and ultimately doing things that we enjoy, you know, and that may not have any contemporary relevance, but that people enjoy hearing about anyway. So you sort of, the DNA of it was there, you know. Yeah, absolutely. And it really was like, the recording set up to begin with was quite bad because I don’t really know how to set out mics properly. So my recording system is, I have a mic in a kind of overturned coffee table lined with pillows and you came round as our, into our bubble as agreed. And I’d set up a similar set up for you. So even though we were in the same room, we both had our heads buried in these like weird pillow boxes. I was fucking sweating because I was in a tiny room with a giant man and I’m also a giant man. It was not a good environment to record in. And weirdly, the whole thing got a lot more kind of personable once we started recording apart. Yeah, I think it became a little less intense because we did it through necessity, right? Because there was, well, I know, because I guess we were still technically bubbled, but the UK did go into lockdown. Yeah, so it was a little bit of like, talking about the origins of the podcast, Matthew, because I have a memory of being in a pub with you in January 2020, saying to you and Catherine, oh, should we do a podcast, you know, and then suggesting a bunch of stuff. And then I don’t feel like I entirely won you round. And then I felt like I had to kind of keep pitching at you until it became sort of a pandemic era distraction. And that’s not me putting guilt on you, because you at the time were in the games press. And so you had a job where you were doing this stuff all day. You probably didn’t want to think about it outside of work. So do you remember that time? Yeah, I thought it was like, oh yeah, that would be a sort of fun idea. And, you know, it stemmed from the fact that we liked hanging out at the pub and talking about nonsense. And it was like, oh, maybe someone else would listen to this nonsense and enjoy it. Yeah, like the thing that changed me, and this makes it sound really cynical, was the whole redundancy thing. Which like, I suddenly had spare time. I was suddenly outside the industry. I didn’t really have anything to do. But that makes it sound like, I didn’t have anything better to do than record a podcast with you. But also like, I just do, I do take a long time. But I like to think that’s like, when I’m in on something, like I am in on it, and sort of throw myself into it. And maybe that’s why I’m quite picky about what I do throw myself into, because I don’t want to like, you know, commit to the wrong project. I think you’re also worried that like, does the world need another podcast with two white guys on it? Which was a real valid concern. But I suppose like, what did emerge is that there aren’t that many UK games podcasts. Like there’s a lot of US ones, but you know. Yeah, I mean, yeah, there are, you know, there are loads of great ones. And there’s loads of people I like who do podcasts, but definitely like the scene and the conversation seems like dominated by US pods. I guess, yeah, it wasn’t so much the kind of, you know, because I thought our perspective, you know, we were like a little older and we had an angle on it, which helped. I think that was probably the big changing factor was that once we sort of zoned in on the games magazine angle or like tapping into like our experiences and that specific time period, even though it’s quite a weird pitch. And as a pitch you think, well, this will only appeal to like, it’s just got quite a finite reach on it. Like there’s a reason most people do what you’ve been playing in news. It’s cause most people want to know about kind of contemporary games. I was definitely nervous as well early on about like it being too retro. I didn’t want to do a retro podcast. I don’t consider myself like a retro gamer. And I don’t have a good enough memory for a lot of it as well. So I feel like if you present yourself as a retro gaming podcast, you’re suddenly in the realms of Jeremy Parrish and whatnot, who are so on top of their shit that you don’t want to be seen to be competing in that space. Oh yeah, because those guys have such ridiculous deep knowledge of a game that only came out in Japan, who made it 25 years ago or whatever. And I don’t have that knowledge either. I think I’ve got a pretty good game, pretty deep games knowledge, but it definitely all crystallizes around PS2 era onwards. So that’s where most of the content for this podcast comes from. For me, Matthew, there were two things at work. I wanted to talk about working in Games Press for let’s say 13 years in the end, I think 12 years, like a long time. And I knew that that would be interesting to someone, even if it was just people we knew. Because I think the way that games media is often talked about is ethics and things like that. That’s what people argue about on social media or whether you can review like a Harry Potter game. That sort of stuff. To talk about games media in a way that was a little bit more like, oh, why do you do it? And like, what’s fun about it? And what was fun about it in an age before like SEO and affiliate deals and things like that. And like, that’s what, and I think that then informed the sensibilities of how we talked about games. So the other problem to it for me was, I want to talk about Onomusha 2 eventually on a podcast. And those two things were kind of at work a little bit in bringing it to life. But I don’t know, like we say we’re not really… You, I remember you specifically talking about Onomusha 2 at the pub, probably as part of the conversation, we were like, oh, this would be a good podcast. Like Onomusha 2 is like a quite a key text in the creation of the podcast, I feel. But the other thing was discovering the big picture, right? And like all the episode ideas they did during the pandemic were like, this new streaming film is out and here’s five films of the same genre to talk about, or of course The Draughts, which we did lift wholesale. Although I think we definitely put our own spin on it, but yeah. Yeah, for sure. Weirdly, I think that podcast, I came to it in the lockdown. But if you go back to some earlier stuff, it is a bit more like industry focused and a bit more like this is what’s happening. And I feel like the lack of movies kind of almost forced them to change it. I discovered it just as it changed into exactly what I wanted. Which was something a bit more about, we have a pretty good film knowledge. We’ve had like a weird amount of access to things. And so that allows us to kind of talk about maybe a little more than the sort of man on the street would be able to. And like that’s enough. Like that’s the middle ground between I’m kind of retro God who knows everything. And, you know, I don’t know anything at all. Like we’re in, you know, we’ve had a passing relationship with a lot of stuff, which is like a fine place to kind of come from. I think so. And another thing I don’t think we were ahead of as such, but we were maybe in line with was that like, the discussion of what is retro, what has kind of turned to DS 360 PS3 era a bit more in recent years. And so stuff where we do have the deeper knowledge because we worked on it professionally, that stuff is kind of what people like hearing about and thinking about in a way that when I was on X360 in 2009, like every, it felt like every retro gamer cover was like a SNES era kind of cover, you know? So I think that happened at the same time. I think that just what was new just became retro and obviously becomes more so with each passing year. But I gotta say, I don’t think that we’d ever get to two years. I didn’t think we’d ever launch a Patreon. I thought it would end before then. I thought it’d end after like 50 episodes or something. And then, yeah, and I didn’t think we’d make money that supports it and justifies me spending a whole month playing God of War games, which is what I did last month. So… I did think we’d needle each other too much at some point and just bust up and that would be it. I think I worried about needling you too much because I’m the one who’s always like, can you fill this in? Can you write this? Can you do this? And I feel so bad about that, but… That’s because you all are like a very efficient person and I’m not, you know, this is very much like, you know, we ran our magazines differently. I think you were a lot more on top of stuff and a lot more organized and I’m a sort of agent of chaos. So when these two things come together, you’ve got like a taste firsthand of what it’s like to work with me, which is pretty tough. Yeah, it’s honestly been fine, to be honest. Like you all, that’s the thing, once you’re in, like you say, you always turn up and you always do it. And like, I don’t think it’s a small thing that you’ve edited half of these podcasts and I’ve edited the other half. So it’s a massive time commitment we’ve put into it. That’s why having the Patreon now feels good, because it feels like I’m being paid for like the work I already did to get it to this point, you know? And then also all the work we’re doing now. It’s just really satisfying that people care enough to actually bother, you know what I mean? Helping it, that’s very flattering really. But that’s because we kind of built something with its own identity, I think ultimately. And that’s just like, I guess that speaks to people. Should we mention the Diana Burnwood thing at the start? Should we talk about that? Yeah. Yeah. So yes, I had this idea of like, what if we had a fake Hitman briefing and then found that Jane Perry, the voice actress who was the main character in Returnal and obviously has played Diana in Hitman. You could, yeah, like pay for her services to make her cameo essentially. And she very kindly just read out exactly what I wrote. Were you a fan of my dialogue there, Matthew? I thought it was amazing. Like I thought a great audition piece for IO the next time one of their writing jobs comes up. I think one of them does follow the podcast. So yeah, drop me a line if you want me to write for fucking James Bond or whatever. That’d be great. Yeah, I actually, yeah, like she really did it, did it just as she’s got such a great voice. It was so specific what you gave her. I would have been like, what the fuck is this? Like, what is it? I don’t get any of this, but she sort of, yeah, she really committed to it. She didn’t even question it. I had to like, you have to pay extra, right? To go over the basic word limit of cameo, because you can sort of just say, oh, I want to wish my mate Gary a happy birthday. And then they just read it out and that’s fine. But like here, I didn’t know there were no instructions, no context, just like a block of text. And then I spent like 25 quid extra to add a block more text. It’s so neat. It’s so, it’s very sinister thing to ask a stranger to record in hindsight. It’s just like, here is a very like, it’s the fact it just wasn’t like, hi, hello, I love this. It’s just do this. I left her out. But it wasn’t even do this. It was just in speech marks and the whole thing. And that was it. There’s no further context. I didn’t even say in the style of a Diana Burnwood mission briefing. It was just everything she said, I wrote down and there was no other information. She just saw that text and was like, I know what this is. This is so close to actual Hitman writing. I know this. It’s just a very, very odd thing. Yeah. You too are skinny, you want to do. But yeah, I mean, kudos to her. What a super, super impressive. I hope iOS didn’t come off first for copyright infringement. People ask for that all the time, as you might expect. Plus, you know, she’s just, you know, sort of like making that dollar and giving people happiness a nice service, isn’t it? I was there thinking, that’s pretty good. They also got David Bateson, the voice actor of 47. I was so tempted to get him to record something. He’s going to sting to this. But then I thought, do you know what? I don’t think I could write 47 dialogue as much. There’s not much of it, is there? That’s the thing with him. He wouldn’t give a monologue at the end of a level. Exactly. So yes, that was just like the big idea I had of, oh, wouldn’t that be fun if we could do this? I don’t even know if there’s any kind of rule stopping us from using it on a podcast. I assume she doesn’t mind, but I’ll tweet about her. I’ll tweet out our Cameo page anyway, just to sort of show support, because it was really amazing that she did that so, so well. So yeah. And it only cost us $4,000. Okay, so Matthew, what are each of our favorite episodes? I was kind of curious to hear what yours were. Zelda is a really obvious one. We just talked about that on the Excel episode, but is there any other episode that you have an affinity for? Yeah, the Zelda and Kirby ones I really enjoyed, just because, I don’t know, going back into the things I was reading for them and playing those games, playing Nintendo games intensively for what felt like work and reading the Iwata Asks just put me into the mindset of being back on the mags for a couple of days. It felt like, oh, there was a time where my brain normally functioned like this and had this weight of like Nintendo knowledge in it. Cause I’ll be honest, it doesn’t all the time. You know, like those episodes are very carefully prepared for, you know, I couldn’t have done that off the cuff. So when people are like, wow, they know so much about X and you’re like, yeah, with a bit of like, on my part, with a lot of like refreshing and reminding, but yeah, they were good. Yeah, like I was worried the Zelda one was gonna upset people with like my sort of bullshit dismissal of Link to the Past, but that’s okay. Seems that we’re past that. That’s probably a demographic thing more than anything. Other episodes I really liked. Obviously I love it whenever a guest gives us their time comes on, but you know, not, it feels bad to single a couple out, but like the Simon Parkin episode and the Dan Dawkins episode are just absolute, absolutely killer. We’re hoping to have Simon on again next year. We’ve got a good subject in mind, so fingers crossed, should be good. Yeah, I mean, yeah, like with Simon, like, you know, I know Simon, okay, from, you know, events and seeing him at things, but that’s probably the longest we’ve just sort of sat there and talked about something. Oh yeah, I always have this- No, you go for it. I always have this thing in my head as well, like people who I didn’t know when I was in the industry, but like had a significant amount more prestige than me, and I have no idea what they make of me or what I make. Like the answer is they don’t think about you because they’ve got their own lives to go with. That’s the truth of it, but I had that element a little bit with Simon where I’m like, well, I’ve never met, I think maybe I’ve met Simon once very briefly, I think, at like a GMA style event, but like, yeah, that’s it. That’s that thing of, oh, I have no idea what he makes of the podcast or whatever. Will he get what it is? And he comes on and he totally does, you know, and it’s just really nice. Yeah, so that was great. And likewise with Dan, obviously Dan, I’ve talked to loads, you know, I used to work with him, work with him very closely. But even then, you know, like, you know, Dan has quite a powerful job now at Future and is, you know, very like business focused and has a lot, and it’s just really nice to hear him just like revert to sort of PSM Dan mode and be able to talk about all that mad stuff. Like that’s just very sort of satisfying to hear. And again, just takes me back to like being in the office and hearing those voices and hearing those stories. So, very fond of those. Yeah, Tim and Dan are both brand directors. They’re like borderline execs now. So like it was really cool to have them on. That was cool. Yeah, that was cool. Well, I’ve got a few more, but like… So the episode I think I did the most research for was the Sonic episode. Like I did quite a good, I think, deep dive on the history of the series in that one. It took maybe slightly more research than I wanted it to, but I did feel like I sort of delivered on it. And it was fun to do an episode on something that I think like I was mocking while sort of praising at the same time. And that was fun as well, because I like episodes where it leans on something I already know, but then it forces me to learn about something I didn’t know, which is I hadn’t… I’d never finished Sonic CD or Sonic 3 and Knuckles. So I just blasted through both of those to make that episode, and it was… I think it’s really good as a result. I guess like a relatively early one now, because I think it was the beginning of last year. The episode with Phil was really good. Phil was a great guest. That was one of our first proper deep dive episodes, and I think that was properly great. And Yakuza has just turned into a series that people really adore. I will say, a recent one, the XXL we did on Star Wars, Matthew, I thought was one of our best podcasts ever. I thought that was really, really good. I’ve listened to that a couple of times back, and like… Wow, really? Yeah, I think it’s because you and I… I think because we don’t talk about film that much, and people don’t ask us to, obviously, because we make a games podcast. When we do, we have so many bottled up opinions or years worth of takes to launder, you know what I mean? I love the drafts as well. Do you like the drafts? You still a big fan of the drafts? Yeah, I do like the drafts. I need to have the right drafts. The drafts are ones which I never know how they’re gonna go. And ones that I sometimes really look forward to don’t land quite as well for me, and ones that I have less skin in the game, I end up being way more invested in. Weirdly, I really enjoyed the Vita draft. But I enjoyed the research and the work, because I actually had to play quite a lot of stuff because I’d only really dabbled with Vita and PSP and trying to fill in the gaps. So I had some reasonable takes of what I might end up with. That’s the other nightmare things with drafts. We’ve definitely mentioned this before, but the amount of wasted research in a draft where you’re prepped to talk about something if you get it, and if you don’t get it, and the other person gets it, you don’t wanna be like, yeah, it’s amazing because of these reasons. And if neither of us picks it, you’re like, well, that was a huge waste of time. Yeah, there was also the thing where, there’s a few different elements to balance up with the drafts as well. Like the second PC gaming draft, I feel like I should have been more of an asshole to you than I was to make a better podcast. Cause the first one was, I think people would agree that’s one of our best episodes. Like me losing out on TIE Fighter was considered like a very good moment. But I think that because I felt like, I felt like in the moment with the second one, I was winning. I felt as soon as I got Half-Life and Deus Ex, I thought this is tough for Matthew to get out of a little bit. I didn’t feel like putting the boot in. But afterwards I was thinking, well, maybe I should have put the boot in to get a better episode. So there’s a little bit of that weighing up that goes on with the podcast. It’s not like I’m worried about upsetting our friendship or anything, but it’s like, how frosty do I make it? Do I make it unsustainably frosty? Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Well, we both are genuinely thin-skinned, I think. In some ways. I know we joke about it, but we are. Like, I definitely am. And no offence, I think you are a bit too. No, no, I am. But for some things I am, and then other things I’m not. Do you know what I mean? Like, I have pride in weird, specific stuff, but then things that should matter, I don’t have pride in. I think we’ve had bits of those episodes where we’ve, like, accidentally gotten close to genuinely getting under each other’s skin. Like, I genuinely meant it when I said I felt GameCube had a bigger footprint than Xbox in the UK because I didn’t know anyone with an Xbox. And, like, that was, like, I think that was a rare moment of, like, a genuine, like, violent disagreement between us that I actually had to tone down in the edit. It’s because you caught me right before I started Frontier and I was incredibly tense. And, like, it was right around the time that happened that I started my new job. And I was like, right, I’m leaving media. I have to fuck it. I have to not fuck this. I have to, like, do it well. And then, like, I was just not in the mood for it on the day. But I had to do it anyway. But then I was also thinking that podcasts are so conceptually flawed, because why did I set the task of doing that when, like, so many of our listeners like the GameCube and people and the original Xbox didn’t sell very well? It was just like… It was such a fucking uphill battle. I don’t know what I was thinking. But yeah, it’s good game picks. But yeah, probably is fair. Like, the thin skin thing is true. Someone said, like, oh, you’re an overweight loser millennial with no house. I wouldn’t care if someone said that to me. But someone said, yeah, I read your review of Final Fantasy X HD on PC Gamer. And I’ve got to say, I thought the text was a bit dry. I’d be like, oh, fucking come around your house and fucking beat you up with fucking brick. And that’s where you get under my skin. It’s weird and dumb. I don’t care about meaningful things, just meaningless things. In the PC draft, I felt like you were genuinely attached to your Alpha Centauri pick. And when people were, like, just totally disinterested in it, I think that genuinely pissed you off. I could sense that I had genuinely annoyed you in a way, which was quite funny, but I was also like, I shouldn’t needle him on this. Yeah, it’s like how, I suppose the thing that kicked this off was the GoldenEye Perfect Dark Pick, right? That was the first bit of podcast shithousery that really went down in the making of this podcast. And that, I thought, first of all, it did expose it, yes, we should have done the snake draft from the start. It was actually unfair to do it that way, because that was like, the snake draft it prevents that from happening. Yeah. Well, it should do, but I think I actually still did it to you again with Mario Galaxy on the GameCube, didn’t I? Did that happen? I don’t know. Oh, it’s too many bad memories I’ve kind of pushed into my head, to be honest. So yeah, there is that risk sometimes, but I don’t know, the other thing is, I do like the drafts, but I do, like you, I like them being well researched. So I think one reason I’ve put off the Game Boy one in my head that we talked about doing is, oh, I think that’s gonna take like two weekends to like fucking go through that library and properly know what it is, and that’s an uphill battle. So what’s some more favorites of yours? Yeah, because you have to have at least two picks for every game, every category. Yeah, and plus, because we want to roll all Game Boy games into one draft, that’s Game Boy Advance Color and original Game Boy, that’s fucking so many games. Yeah, that’s tough, that is tough. Let’s just do a simpler draft, shouldn’t we, that just doesn’t fucking do our nut in. Stop making life so difficult, guys. Absolutely. So what’s the more famous of yours, Matthew? I actually really liked the Mass Effect episode when we talked about the companion rankings. I thought that was, again, that balance I’m talking about of just the right amount of actual knowledge and where things get hazy is where things maybe get a bit sillier or you kind of, the half remembered versions of these characters in these stories is often more enjoyable than the actual thing. So like, you know, just our idea of those characters made me laugh a lot of the time. And I think that was the birth of an old horny podcast as well. Oh, actually talking about Miranda. That’s where it came from, yeah. Yeah, that’s funny because I can say that. Sorry, go on. Yeah, I feel like the Bioware games are good games for us that we actually haven’t lent on a huge amount as well. Like it’s, you know, that could almost be a kind of a bit like a Hitman or a Yakuza or a various Nintendo series for us. You know, it’s kind of up there, I think. Yeah, I just want them to make one good one in the modern age, Matthew. That’s all I ask. Yeah, it would make it easier, wouldn’t it? I still want to do it. I think ages ago, I mentioned to you wanting to do like a RPG party draft where we build our dream RPG party from like all RPGs. So it’s like all companion characters and the categories would be like the different classes that you want represented. So like you have to have a healer, a tank, whatever, maybe some like archetypes in there or some other tropes. And you have to kind of hit them all. I think that could be that could be really fun. I think RPG companions to me are just endless sort of well. Well, we can do that anytime. But as long as you don’t mind me picking JRPG ones, otherwise I’ll struggle to get through that draft. Oh, yeah. I probably more I probably mean like more JRPGs to be honest. Who’s ready for some bad Final Fantasy X impersonations? That’s what I’ll be doing. You know, it’s funny you say that, Matthew, because one of the episodes, not to jump the gun here, because this is another question I’m going to ask you, is an episode I definitely want to do next year. Is like a Dragon Age pod similar to the Mass Effect pod. And I want to give myself an excuse to play through those games again. Because I never finished Inquisition. I only played the first couple of sections of it. And then I’ve not played the others for like 10 years. So yeah, I think an excuse to go back to those and blast through them might be quite fun. It’d be nice if EA just re-released them, but what can you do? They are a long game pass. So yeah. Any other favorites, Matthew? There are things that I remember like weird pockets of conversation rather than like entire episodes. I couldn’t even place where they came from. You know, like I can’t remember where we talked about our fictional companies and their fictional E3s. Oh, that was like the game developer draft episode, the first one we did, I think. Right. Well, that was really good fun. I really enjoyed all that stuff. I really liked our Hitman levels as well, which I think was a Patreon thing. Yeah, it was. And I think the Diner dialogue at the start about the Bath Christmas lights was a reference to that episode, right? Oh, right. I’m afraid that I’ve used money to connect the Back Page to the Hitman lore permanently. I’ve created that connection, I’m afraid. Sorry about that. That’s fine. People have to do with it. If you aren’t a Patreon and want an excuse to become one, or are a Patreon and haven’t listened to all the Patreon episodes, that Hitman one’s got some amazing bullshit in it. Yeah, that’s good. I think both our Hitman pods were good. I think if we, I’m assuming we’ll do a second year of Patreon pods, Matthew, but I think we talked about doing something based on the original Hitman games, like the older ones. Yeah, I think maybe our favourite levels or favourite kills, but from everything pre-2016. Yeah, there was that one guy in our Discord who was like, oh, this level, the original Hitman that no one liked is fucking amazing. And we were like, wow, OK, so we’ve got all kinds in our Discord. What about least favourites, Matthew? Well, I was going to say that you didn’t mention either of the best games of the different year episodes. Those to me are like the kind of hallmark gold standard episodes for us. Oh yeah, they are good. They’re fucking long, hard to make, but they are good. Yeah, they are really good. I always get quite stressed out making those though, because there’s sort of like a lot of like heart versus, you know, they are all heart choices, but there are some like major sort of brain picks sort of gnawing away at you. And you feel like, oh, I really want to talk about Let’s Tap, but that means I can’t talk about like something which is a legitimate masterpiece. And not in a kind of contrarian way, but you just want the podcast to be more interesting. I don’t want to just stick all the interesting stuff in honourable mentions. So there’s a little bit of that. They are good though. My only worry is that we get into like as they go on, some of the like life stories around them get a bit bleaker. I tend to cut those down quite a lot when we put them out though. I sort of tend to keep the jolly bits and like, depends if you catch us on the wrong day, because when they were started they were like, oh, it’s a staff writer, blah, blah, blah. Then it’s like, 2014, I’m overweight and very sad. And you’re like, yeah. So yeah, we’ve got that sort of thought too. And this is just because it sort of sticks with me that it was one of the biggest things I had to chop down ever in an edit was the what we’ve been playing Centennial Files. Oh yeah. That felt like, talk about thin skinned. I have never been more boring about a game than I have about the Centennial Files. A game about Japanese mystery, mystery writing, like literally my dream game. And it just broke me. Like I could hear you like shriveling as we recorded it. It was like, oh, I’ve got to get out of this thing. Why can’t I find a succinct line on it? I don’t know if I’d written my review at the time, so I didn’t really have set thoughts. I’m definitely at my worst talking about games that I’m playing for the first time and I’ve yet to put my thoughts down in words. Yeah, you are quite interesting and you’re quite careful with your words, whereas I’m definitely more in the vein of, okay, I’ve played this, here’s a load of bullshit observations I’ve come up with on the fly about it. And I’ll just fire through those and then I’ll be fine. But you’ll be like, okay, we’re 20 minutes in to the Centennial Case. Like, let’s go, lads, kind of thing. Also, you talk about us both being thin skinned. When I mentioned the Centennial Case edit on the subsequent episodes, you went, oh, fuck off. I don’t want to talk about the Centennial Case anymore. And that was really funny. I don’t know if you remember that, but yeah. Yeah, so like, not, yeah. I mean, that’s, yeah, that was bad. Sometimes you can be like, the game scores are quite stressful. So the funny thing about game score, a bit like I was saying with the draft, you never know if they’re going to like, land. And the ones you have like, no faith in, end up being really good. And the ones you’re excited for end up being bad. And like, when you’re, like, certain formulas seem to be like, appearing out of it. And I guess you sort of felt like you were being sort of pandered to it at times in some of the entries, which kind of made it feel a bit uneven. You know, I didn’t really know what to do with that. You know, it’s kind of like you almost want something. If it’s all a bit weird and zany, then sort of like none of it sort of stands out. It almost needs to have like peaks and troughs. So, yeah, that’s that’s what I would like wrestle with. Because I know people really, I know some people really like the format. And like, when those episodes like bang, they really bang in a surprising fun way. But they’re also kind of very easy to go wrong. Do you think we were bailed out by the pubes story in that last one? Oh, 100 percent. Like it was, there were some good bits. The Lord Brisby thing was pretty funny, I thought. But like, yeah, that’s good. But I definitely like, I was struggling because that was a Monday night we recorded it. And like, I don’t blame the listeners for this, but it’s really hard to send in a sincere Games Court entry when we’re this deep into the Games Court law, you know? So people are kind of trying to play along with it. But you and I just want to hear, oh, you know, I just bought some like, yeah, I just bought three copies of Chrono Cross for like 800 quid or whatever. And we’re like, oh, fucking guilty, drowning, Michael Cade. Oh, no, all that stuff. And so it’s hard. I used to have that. I had this when I used to do a podcast called The Rotating Platform with Mark Green and Alan Madrell formerly of N64 and NGC. And we had this section called Games Arc, Space Arc, sorry, which was the idea of like, we’re building a games collection to take into space because the Earth is like failing in the future. It was kind of a bleak set up. But a lot of people, but a bit like Gamescore, most of the magic was in the kind of fictional story of what was happening to Earth and what life was like on the Space Arc. And it became more about that than the actual game picks. And if it ever landed a bit flat, that whole section was just death. Because you’re like, oh man, this is either flying or it’s nothing. That’s quite tough. It’s lovely that people get excited to it. And that’s the thing, when people are excited for something, you feel like it always has to deliver and then you get very self-conscious about it. I think the last few Gamescores have all been pretty good. I can’t remember the last one where I thought, oh, this is a bit weaker, because there was that one where both of us did speeches. I think that was the first one where I was a judge and I did a speech and you were the lawyer. That was pretty fun, I think. Yeah, my least favorite ones. I feel bad anytime we’ve just done a mailbag and it’s got nothing else attached. I feel like that’s a bit of a cop-out. People do enjoy the mailbags, but I do like that now we did that 90s GameSmack quiz. That was really fun. We combined that with letters. That was fun. We could do that again at some point. And we also do the What We’ve Been Playing now, which tends to be where the listener questions go. But do you think that’s a cop-out doing a mailbag, Matthew? No, I mean, some people like the format and some people like to have their interaction. And again, you occasionally get a question which just triggers something and is gold. I’m always happy to answer questions about what it was like to be on Mags. I love talking about all that stuff. But I think we sometimes force the deep lore a bit too much. Yeah, that possibly is true. So yeah, what about the Destiny episode, Matthew? Big fan of that one? You’ve listened to all of that? I haven’t listened to that. Yeah, I like making… People might have noticed by now, it’s like a recurring joke of mine to point out that Matthew hasn’t listened to the Destiny episode and that he probably wouldn’t enjoy it if he did. That’s like… I’m sure it’s great. And I’m eternally thankful to Phil for stepping in and Jeremy for stepping in the week before. I’m really glad we have this unbroken record, that it wasn’t finally me that broke the release schedule. I was ready. I had the one man on Amoosha 2 part of my back pocket, Matthew. That was always there. So what’s the episode you still really want to do more than any other? Again, I mentioned it a couple of times. My brother does this fantasy review draft thing with his friends. We’re at the start of the year. They basically draft the games that are coming out that year. And then at the end of the year, they add all the meta critics of those games together. So it’s what you think is going to perform best, which I know is slightly, almost morally murky waters when I still contribute to scores and things. Not that I can make that much of a dent, but my brother, whenever I see him, he will inevitably nag me about, I scored one of his games too low, or I scored one of his friend’s games too high, or he’ll be like, I saw you previewed X game, how’s that shaping up? I’ll try and get the inside skinny. Not that he can actually change anything. They get a few opportunities through the year to redraft or get in a couple of games, which if games get announced, you can bid for them with a pot of money. It sounds really complicated, I’m going to be honest. I kind of like the idea of that. Sounds really complicated, I’m going to be honest. It does sound complicated, but I think a simplified version where we just pick what we think are the things. Because the other thing that they do is, they bet against, you bet against a couple of games, where the worse they do, the more points you get. Because that’s the other thing, if you pick a game, if you bet against a game that then does really well, it absolutely nukes you. I like that idea of, again, it’s shady territory when I review games and you work for a publisher, which is probably why we won’t end up doing this. I like the idea of us looking across the year and going, yeah, I think that’s the one that’s going to, like, pivot. Well, we’ve finally figured out why Matthew goes for two. They’re three out of five. That’s good. Oh, well, hardly. I mean, that’s done. I think he did have that, and he sent me an angry text saying, oh, screw you, you know. And it’s like, well, it doesn’t matter, because everyone else said it’s the same game, 10 out of 10, because, you know, that’s what we do in this day and age. That’s good. The important thing is that no one’s bitter about it. That’s what matters. No, I’m not bitter about it. Another one I’d really like to do is, I’d love to do a massive PS2 redraft with special guests. Yeah, it feels like, because all the people we want on that one have kids. That’s like the tough part, isn’t it? But maybe we’re overthinking it. We just need to grab some people. I don’t know. Yeah, but that library is so rich that two people can never really push each other into the danger zone. But I think if you did it with four people, I think then all of a sudden you are actually in the realms of you are going to start missing out on some good stuff. Yeah, that’s true. Like the mind games just become way more interesting than with two people. Like some of the platforms we’ve done, you know, it’s quite hard to get two games. Saying that, I did pick fucking Red Faction in my PS2 craft. So, like, I pushed into that territory when there was only one person. God knows what I’d do with two others there. Yeah, that’s the thing. Like there is, like, I would say there’s about 30, like 10 or 9 out of 10 PS2 games, like the seminal ones. And then, like, after that, it’s like you have 8 out of 10s, basically, like, about 100 of them. Like, it’s weird. Like the PS2 does have amazing games, but, like, it’s not an infinite supply when you properly get down to it. And, like, when you’re doing draft picks, you still want those flagship games that represent a genre. Like, you know, Silent Hill 2 will always be a better pick than Silent Hill 3, but Silent Hill 3 is still a great and interesting game. And so, and Silent Hill 4 might be an interesting pick for someone. So, like, the problem is where it becomes like, oh, I’ve got the one Silent Hill game that everyone fucking bangs on about, and therefore that’s the only one. And then someone’s like, I’ve picked fucking Dragon Ball Budo Kai 3 or whatever. And you’re like, oh, God, this has all gone wrong. But I would like to do it for sure, because, yeah, I think it’s loads to be missed out. I don’t think either of us picked… Did either of us pick Akami or God Hand? I don’t know. I think I picked God Hand, but I don’t think anyone picked Akami, for example. Would you include Red Faction in the 100 games that are A-outs? Well, do you know what? I don’t have a problem with Red Faction. I don’t think it’s, like, great, but I think it’s like, I consider it like a launch-era shooter. Like, I don’t think of it as, like… But I suppose what is an essential shooter on PS2? Like, there aren’t that many… It’s before the FPS gets really good. I mean, didn’t you pick Time Splitters 2 in one draft? You did, didn’t you? It was a craven attempt to win favor of Oracle. That’s the one FPS on PS2 that’s really worth a damn. But then I’d probably remix the categories that we did again to, like, completely change them, so we don’t pick just the same stuff. Like, I might do something like Light Gun Shooter or something like that, and pick Vampire, Vampire Knight, you know what I mean? So, yeah, like, that would be good. Is there any other kind of drafts you sort of had in mind? Do you want to do a 360 draft at some point, when we’re a bit further out from the best games of different year episodes? Yeah. Though, again, like, PS2, almost too big. Maybe a guest needed. Yeah, that’s good. It would be good to just… Maybe we should dip our toe in the water of, like, having three people do a draft and then see where we end up, like, having Jeremy on or something. Poor Jeremy. Yeah, oh, I just feel bad about pulling poor, decent Jeremy into the middle of our bullshit. Like, coming into a game’s court is one thing. Coming into, you know, secretly quite vindictive draft is another. Yeah, I suppose so. But then, like, some of them really do end up being quite fun and sort of throw away. But yeah. You almost want someone else who is very thin skinned. Like, because that’s where the magic lies, is someone getting genuinely upset. Yeah, for sure. I think, like, PS3 and 360 drafts are ones we’ll do at some point, like, in the future. PS4 and Xbox One are just too boring, I’m afraid. Like, you look at the library and it just gets too homogenized by that era because you’ve got digital downloads and stuff, so it’s just not quite as colourful and fun. But we might do, maybe we’ll do more genre ones, Matthew, and, like, you mentioned the companion draft there. Like, that’s the sort of thing we might do. We might go a bit more cross-genre, cross-games, cross, like, ideas and games or something. Yeah, the Uji Naka draft. You don’t want to step on the toes of IGN UK do, like, they build, like, a Frankenstein game, which is kind of like a draft. Right, right. Where they draft elements to make a game in a genre. So, like, an open world game, you know, like, they each have to pick a city, and then they each have to pick, like, a celebrity voice talent to voice the game or whatever. So, you know, don’t want to tread on their toes. Exactly. A few more pods I’d like to do. I’d like to do a Metroid Games episode, Matthew. Yeah. That’d be cool to do with Jay next year. I want to do an episode with Jay about how to make a video game from start to finish, because I think that would be really good. I don’t really want to make the Digimon Games episode. By the way, that was a joke. Dragon Age. Witcher. I’d like to do something on Witcher at some point. Again, that’s going to require a lot of replaying and stuff, but there is a next-gen version coming out soon, so a good excuse. Yeah, just those and a lot more sort of bullshit, really. I’d like to do more Hall of Fame. We’ll probably do a Kojima Hall of Fame at some point, but probably a bit further out from the Metal Gear episode that we did. I think it would be quite fun to talk about some of his other games a little bit. Yeah, and I think in December, we’re going to do a Final Fantasy VII pod, Matthew, to mark Crisis Corps coming out. And I can steer on that one where you make wry remarks on the side, so that should be good. So Matthew, we have a few fun things to close out the podcast. So it’s the 100th episode, and we’re going to reveal some of the other titles we had for the name of the podcast because there was a spreadsheet once upon a time where we tried to come up with names for this. The Back Page was your suggestion, and I thought it was really good. For reasons I’ve mentioned before, it kind of alludes at the looking back nature a little bit. There’s a magazine element to it, and the Back Page is where you found all the jokey bullshit in the mags. So it was perfect. Perfect title, I thought. There’s a football podcast called The Back Page Podcast as well. Yeah, and this one… Which I think we managed to muscle out of. SEO. Yeah. Yeah, I think it’s like Australians yelling at each other about sports, and that’s what it is. So, yeah. So some of these other titles, Matthew, should I read this first one? Because I think it was mine. Yeah, this was yours. I never knew if this was real or not. This was kind of a joke, but it actually tallies quite nicely with what the podcast became. My first one I put in there was The Thick with Two Cs, old games magazine men podcast. Now, you know, I don’t… Again, me using thick is probably a bit embarrassing there, but it was just to kind of kick us off, you know? There are no bad ideas. It was 2020, it was ages ago. Exactly, we all fucking been indoors for like eight months, just like watching Westworld. We’d just lost our shit, you know what I mean? This next one I think was yours, Matthew? The Back Section. The Back Section. Oh dear. Well, like the back section of a magazine. Yeah, I suppose, like, the thing is, the back page is still not strictly a video games thing, right? The back section, that’s a magazine term. Yeah, the back section. It’s the back section of the magazine. It’s like where all the random shit goes, which is what this podcast is. I think these are all yours, actually, Matthew. Do you want to read out your next one? Free gifts. Is that a reference to the shady free gifts thing? Maybe we should have called it, what, Worth Seven Pounds or whatever that joke is. No, like, well, free gifts, because podcasts are free, and it’s like a gift to you. Of course, I buy the payroll now, they’re not free. Yeah, back compat chat. I quite like that, but it’s too retro. You were just worried about it being too retro, weren’t you? Yeah, that was that. Well, I had that. I also just had backwards compatible, because that was the classic thing of like, pick a gaming term, and your podcast is just called that. That seems to be a way of doing it. Well, actually now, lesser case, but that used to be the kind of cliche, wasn’t it, of just like, take a thing and insert credit or something, and that would do the job. Polygon, you know. Update required. Which I think is good. I actually really like, that’s probably my second favourite. Please restart system. Yeah, which I think is exactly what you said to me when I originally pitched this. Oh no, that’s so bad, I’m just making the same jokes I did two years ago. Well, I like the idea of like, it refers to, you know, what happens a lot in games. You put a game in and it needs to change. And also like that we’re a bit older and like we need to update, we’re not cutting edge anymore. I don’t know. We’re already in our 30s, Jesus. Yeah, but in gamer years that’s like old as fuck. Well, just because we don’t go to TwitchCon and fucking talk about warzone on TikTok where it makes us ancient. I fucking play, you know, like Tiny Ken. I play Immortality. Oh, yeah. Just what all the kids are into, Tiny Ken. I don’t know why I went with that one. I’ve not even fucking played that. Play Norco. The kids love Norco, Matthew. Have you cried streaming Stray? No, that’s true. That’s a true sign that you’re a youngster. Is Stray a good game or meme? That’s like a big question that I’ve had before I pick it up. Have you decided, Matthew, you’ve got a cat, haven’t you? You like cats. Yeah, yeah, it’s fine. Like, it’s fine. Right, right. You know, it’s quite nice. The cat looks quite nice, but it is a little bit like the cat game. Right, right. That’s one meaningless thing to say. It’s a little bit like the cat game. This has turned back into one of our skits from the beginning of this episode. The Stray Podcast. The last one was Patch Notes Podcast, which that was a real grasping at straws of, oh, this is a gaming term that hasn’t been used elsewhere. I was thinking Patch Notes Upgrades, all that kind of stuff. I think Back Page was the right name. I think so, yeah. I think I did put Jesus Christ at the end of that list in this document we’re using. Those are fine. The thing is that I couldn’t really think of anything good, because I think all the good titles are sort of taken. I always thought Game Spy was a great name for a website. I always loved that. Just really straightforward. It has Game in the title. But yeah, you don’t want it to be too generic. The Back Page implied the print media thing. It was the right choice. But yeah, could have come with some more contemporary terms, like enter rest mode, Matthew, and things like that. Well, that’s the thing. This period where we were coming up the name was the slightly nervous period where neither of us wanted to say anything, which would be ridiculed by the other. And we hadn’t got used to working with each other. We were friends and all of a sudden it was having to put… I’m not saying you put much on the line by suggesting a name, but you didn’t want to suggest something so bad that the other person was like, this person’s a fucking idiot. I don’t want to make a podcast with them. Look how bad their names are. So every one of these names was entered with extreme trepidation. This is a lesson from personal history. I always think that it’s better to suggest a bad idea than not suggest an idea at all and shoot other people’s ideas down. Anyone I’ve ever worked with like that, I just can’t be doing with them because I think if you’re going to shoot something down, you have to at least counter suggest something that’s as good as it. You know what I mean? That’s a good rule of thumb. So that’s why I don’t really make fun of them. I’m only laughing at them now because we’re doing episode 100. No, but I remember at the time typing these in being like, oh God, I know this sucks, but I’ve got to contribute something. It got us to where we were going, so that’s all that matters. So one last thing I was going to ask Matthew before we get into the, I suppose something we promised a long time ago. We’ll talk about that in a second. What’s your favorite video game of all time? That felt like a good thing to ask on episode 100. Something substantial, something that’s not like a comedy skit, something that’s not a load of self-indulgent wank about podcasts you may or may not have listened to. What’s your favorite game of all time? Annoyingly, it changes all the time, which I know is a bit of a clichéd answer, and it tends to be what was pulled to the forefront of my mind most recently. It’s a bit skewed at the moment because I did a lot of reading and a little bit of replaying for the Zelda episode. Basically, whenever we talk Zelda, I come out of it on a huge Zelda high, convinced that I love every Zelda game and that’s all I’ll ever love and that’s all I’m interested in. So right now, I would probably say Breath of the Wild. Right, right, yeah. Which is such a boring pick, but it’s also a totally sincere pick. And it’s something I said in that Patreon episode about the nature of that game and how it is an adventure and exploration space. The actual finite structure of that game is kind of the least important bit of it. Going into that game and it having a beginning and a middle and an end isn’t really why it exists. And because of that, it’s something you can always go back to and it’s always ready and waiting for you. Even with Married Galaxy, it’s not necessarily a dip in and play the occasional Galaxy. It’s going for the whole experience. The overall rush of the thing is what I love about Married Galaxy where I’m increasingly learning to cherish Breath of the Wild’s total flexibility and the fact that it’s quality no matter when or how you approach it. Yeah, that’s a good way of looking at it. I think I’d punish it slightly for it being trapped on my Wii U and my save games. Well, yeah, there is that too. That’s unfortunate. And it’s just that I really love my Switch at the moment. I love the OLED Switch. I was playing a lot of games in bed when I was ill with Covid and it made me feel like extra in love with it. And I’ve played some great other Switch games on it. So just everything gets a few bonus points. But, you know, I’d say normally like you’re talking about Breath of the Wild versus Mario Galaxy 1 and 2. I’d say it’s been Mario Galaxy 1 or 2 more than it’s been Breath of the Wild. But right now it’s Breath of the Wild, if that makes sense. It makes sense. Yeah. What about you? So, I would like you, I sort of ping pong with this because sometimes I think that when I’m giving an answer to a question like this, I feel the need to show myself as being slightly, like, I don’t know, to have some substance to my answer to sound slightly intellectual, just pick something that’s kind of systems-y and intelligent and like not something really daft or something that I just like, you know, love on a very like pure sort of level. But I think like the older I get, the less I care about that sort of things. And like, you know, this podcast has laid bare every bullshit take I’ve got from Resident Evil 6 being better than Resident Evil 7 to, you know, any kind of crap you can name has come up on this podcast. So I think that, like, I’d love to say, you know, Breath of the World is definitely up there. And like, Sekiro is definitely up there. You know, it was like a recent thing I became like, you know, besotted with. But like, Sekiro is the one I’d pick if I wanted to sound like, ooh, you know what I mean? Like, oh, that guy plays games. He knows modern games or whatever. But I really think that over time, it always comes back to Final Fantasy X. I just love that game more than any other game. And like, it’s such a comfortable world to slip into. I’ve just played, I’ve played through that game at least like eight times. I’ve seen it from start to finish so many times. And I know its world so well. I’ve got to save games on every single format from PC, Vita, Switch, PS4. I’ve got different saves on all those formats, which is really absurd. And so, yeah, I’m just such a, just it was the game that really defined, just ahead of GTA III, it was the game that defined owning a PS2 for me in like my teenage years. And so it’s just got a permanent place in my affections. It was the first Final Fantasy I properly played and then I went and played the rest of them off the back of that. So yeah, it’s 10, which means after all these years, I’m still out here defending Blitzball, which is really unforgivable. But do you play Blitzball every time you replay? I sometimes just play it just to play Blitzball, Matthew. I’ll just be like, oh, no, didn’t have a quick game of Blitzball. No one likes Blitzball apart from me. But yeah, it’s yeah, that for people who don’t know, it’s like an underwater football style game that is like kind of like an RPG, RPG football game. But the it’s actually like one of the most poorly explained mini games of all time. I’m incredibly hard to follow. And the game makes a very poor decision to make you lose a game during the story before you as your first experience of actually playing it. So it’s one of the worst introductions to a mini game ever. But I eventually understood it because I just plunged my hands into the filth of Blitzball and properly understood it, Matthew. So 10. Yeah, it’s fundamentally 10. Yeah. Well, there you go. So complete with the shoe puff. I’ve got so many like so much bullshit dialogue from that. Kind of like go on. Give us some of the other classics. Oh, God. Maybe I don’t. Maybe I was lying. I was lying all along. What else is there? You’ve never even played it. Oh, hi. I’m Tidus. Yeah, doesn’t sound very convincing, does it? There’s oh, God. Why am I struggling with this? There’s a bit like Auron says enough when he like knocks a guy out of the arena with this big powerful shooting star attack. That’s the thing that someone who likes one of his 10 would say. That sounds like a very lived in anecdote. I’ll take it. Yeah, that’s it. Like, I could do like impressions of Kamari, but the thing is the dialogue isn’t funny. So it’s like just there wouldn’t be any value in it. I’d just be just be empty calories for this podcast. The guy who says shoot puff is whatever the word is, is funny. Yeah. Like I’ll still say that to Catherine. I played this through with Catherine. It’s the only time I’ve played it. So, you know, we have our own little a few little in jokes from this. So, yeah, that’s quite nice. She really loves this game too. I think like what I love about this game is it really appealed to my very teenage kind of like our religion sucks attitude, which is, you know, the whole thing of the game is basically there’s a fake religion to safeguard this never ending torment upon the world that subjugates people into worshipping that religion. It’s a cycle they maintain, which is a really like bleak, bleak depiction of religion. I was super into that at the time, and I think there was just a really mournful tone that persists throughout this one. Just a sense of like, there is going to be a great sacrifice at the end of this in order to actually succeed, which I don’t even think like the other. I guess you have to say it was seven because Aerith dies. But like here is something that follows your entire journey that you know someone, someone is going to have to die in order to make this happen basically. So to destroy this big fucking whale that’s got a city on it and a city inside it, very confusing, isn’t it? Okay, so Final Fantasy X, that’s mine. I’m sure I’ll talk about it again at some point, Matthew, when we do a Final Fantasy pod. So to end, we did promise a long time ago, Matthew, that for episode 50, we were going to read out some bullshit we did in magazines years ago. So for context, I’ll explain my one, Matthew, then you can explain yours. So when I was 19, I went and saw GTA IV for the first time. I think it was like one of the first ever sort of like showings of it. Basically, they showed us two missions and then I had to come back and in half a day write an eight page or maybe ten page feature. And so I had to come up with box outs for every single spread, which are those little boxes you see in magazines. They populate the mag to kind of give it a bit more design. You know, it’s a bit bit rude to submit a feature without any box outs. All you do is really make an editor incredibly angry and never use you again. A bit of a freelance tip there. So for Play Magazine and GTA 4 Preview, I wrote this. What I would describe as Niko Bellic fan fiction where I basically took the events that we’d seen in the preview, which is all I knew about GTA 4 at that point, and wrote a diary in first person of Niko’s experience as a Liberty City. And for your for your amusement, I’m going to read that out. But Matthew’s got a similar article to read too, right? Yeah, I’ve got the copy. I haven’t looked at it in years. So in my head, it’s terrible. Maybe it’s great. Who knows? Yeah, I’ve got a terrible feeling that mine’s going to be like ten times worse than yours. And I’m going to look like an absolute fucking idiot. But well, you know, that’s the risk we run. That’s it. You know, you make fucking two grand a month. You’ve got to eat some shit sometimes. So let’s go grab the mag one sec. I’ve not looked at this in years. Loads dust, cursed ghosts, a whale from between the pages. I think I had to get this out of the plastic packaging and discard an ancient DVD cover mounted DVD for this. Okay. So before I read this, just to make this very clear, I only did this because I felt I had no choice. I think I was encouraged to do it by the editor, not to pin it entirely on him. And despite writing this, this was sent to press this way, so keep that in mind. Jesus, it’s so long. There’s so much of it. Okay. My day in Liberty City, told from the perspective of Nico Bellic. Oh, God, this is already so bad. Come on, it’s fine. 5:03 a.m. I’m in Star Junction, a fabled and vain part of this city. Fuck me, I was reading Frank Miller Batman at the time, clearly. This is so bad, Matthew. The lights of modern civilization try to cover the negatives, but I see them clearly with my own tired eyes. Jesus Christ. This is only one entry out of seven. I should meet McReary. He knows things about me, unsavoury things, that aren’t helpful elements of my past. That’s so poorly written, holy shit. He may own me for now, but it won’t be forever. I arrange to meet him at Castle Gardens, but I will meet little Jacob first for guns at Rotterdam Hill. The taxi service is a mere whistle away. Jesus Christ. Okay, that was the first one. There are six more, I think. I like the combination of incredibly specific location details and poetry filler. Yeah. These really are like Frank Miller Batman captions as well. Just so cringe. There’s so many more to go. 8:25 a.m. I take the cab to Twat, an internet cafeteria, and I find the irony of that title a little amusing. Jesus Christ. This is a pleasant break in events. I owe another favor. This time to a man who wants Goldberg dead. He is a lawyer, a different class of scum, and he co-owns a firm called Goldberg Ligner-Scheuster. I took a job interview, seeing it as the best way to get him alone. I send my CV via email and wait for a confirmation call, arranging it for this evening. This should be easy. 10:10 a.m. God, where did these times come from? I meet McGreery at Castle Gardens. The bastard treats me like dirt, but I shrug it off. No need to antagonize him. The Statue of Happiness is glistening in the glorious hanging sun, and I breathe in the fresh air of my mad surroundings. What does that mean? The goals are set and I have the tools for the job. This is a necessity. I don’t know what this is in that sentence. Scum like McGreery can only go so long without taking a fall. I leave while checking my guns for the task ahead. Thanks little Jacob, you are handy. You having fun there buddy? Remember, I was not the editor of the magazine. If someone submitted this to me as the editor, I would have blacklisted them. 11.31am. I’m in the location, doesn’t say what location, and McGreery rings. I will pose as a man representing McGreery, he says, and he gives me the target’s phone number so I can determine his position. I ring, stall him while I search, before I spot the man on the bench. Oh, this is like a different mission, I guess, if I didn’t explain that. I verify, wait for him to hang up, and then I move. This environment is open, but I cannot help it. The odds against me are spiralling. This won’t be easy. I run to him, see a brief look of fear, and shoot him in the face. The chase begins. I assume this is the chase, the police. 2.05pm, it’s over. Escaping wasn’t easy, but I pray it will go down as a mere casualty with the law enforcement. Jesus, what does that mean? They were overbearing, tactical. This is a city that has seen more awful crimes than the one I committed today. It’s time to visit Perseus, a tailor, to repair the vault. What a gear change. Wow, I’ve never seen a city in such the grip of such war. Oh, but off to the clothes shop. The prices are extortionate, but I’ve been working hard enough to cover it. That’s good to know, isn’t it? Cheers, Nico. I have the shoes. I have the appropriate ammunition. To Mr. Goldberg, something wicked this way comes. Jesus Christ. Okay, last one. Oh, thank God. Got to the end of this. 4:59 p.m. The receptionist allows me to go through, possibly because of my efforts with the attire. This city is obsessed with appearance and veneer. That’s got the same meaning, so that’s fucking poor writing. Anyway, I find myself facing Goldberg, a pompous man who has lived too richly. Without remorse, I end his life soon after the interview begins. He liked my CV, though, in brackets. That’s alright. Out the window, he falls, and the receptionist spots me. Retrieving the files I need, I make my way to escape, only to find a swelling amount of justice blocking the way. The police are outside. Helicopters are spiraling overhead. What a swelling of justice that we refer to when we see multiple police all together. The police are outside. Helicopters are spiraling overhead. Will my story end here? Well, why would he have written the entry if that was what was happening? So I’ve got to put my diary down because I’ve been shot at. That’s it, Matthew. Listen, I can see what you were going for. Yeah. And, like, I can’t, yeah, you know, a little bit of Travis Bickle in there. I was 19 years old. She was only 19 years old. Yeah, I was 19 years old, Matthew. I didn’t know any better. I wouldn’t have, like, kept that in the mag if I was the editor, but I guess it was set on PDF Deadline Day, so… Mistakes or what? Yeah, it’s like, oh, man, you’ve really put me in a spot here, but… There you go. I haven’t got anything better, so I guess off to pretty good. I’ve got nothing better than swelling of justice, so… Yeah, I mean, that’s pretty right. Yeah, so, yeah, there you go. I’ve debased myself for the listeners, Matthew. Now it’s your turn, but I bet yours will be loads better. Oh, no. So, yeah, I haven’t been able to look at this, because in my head it’s terrible. I wrote a Hotel Dusk review. I thought I wrote it first person, but it’s maybe a very confusing extended metaphor about a game being a mysterious dame. Okay. Okay. Now the shoe’s on the other foot, my friend. Yeah, no. I can’t imagine that What’s-his-face will talk about Swelling of Justice, though. Here we go. This is a review of Hotel Dusk, so it’s both a narrative and also a piece of analysis. The NGamer gumshoe shuffled over to his desk and sunk into his swivel chair. Casting his tired eyes across his DS case files, he uttered a sigh of resignation. The cases were the same old story. Movie licensed dames with run-of-the-mill movie license problems. Collect some tokens for me. Battle my own responsive controls. What was the point? And that’s when she walked in. No ordinary broad. This is like already ten times better than mine. Fuck you. No ordinary broad. A sassy dame, dripping with style. Her name? Hotel Dusk Room 215. From the moment he met her, he knew she was special. She was frank and forward. Oh my word. There’s some ropey stuff in this. She was frank and forward, demanding to be rough handled. Cancelled. I don’t know if this is going to like to send us a misogyny so quickly, Matthew. It’s mimicking a style. I know it is. It’s like an old style. This is where the metaphor instantly becomes mad. She was frank and forward, demanding to be rough handled, turned on her side and read like a book across the DS’s two screens. This is the gumshoe’s first indicator that he was dealing with one literature savvy dame. Stop saying dame and broad, Matthew Castle of 2009. Bred on a diet of dying novels and pulp fiction, well versed in Spillane and Chandler. The second indicator was the sordid story she had to tell. The tale of an ex-cop-tailed serviceman hawking cleaning products by day with a tiny little sensitive material retrieval service on the side. Oh my god, this is really long. Hers was no ordinary hero. Carl Hyde was a smart-mouthed cynic intent on sneering at life from his home at the bottom of a bottle. He’s not an alcoholic in the game. I don’t even know where the fuck I got that from. I guess because they normally are in films, you know. Yeah, but it’s what bullshit? With every cruel jibe and act of shrugged indifference, the NGamer gumshoe warmed to Hyde. He was the first truly adult character they had counted in an age, the perfect foil to the usual bright and breezy sunshine and buttercup Nintendo types. Turning up at the titular getaway, Hyde had never expected to find such a twisted web of mystery, but within minutes he had already encountered a woman with one eye, a mysterious figure from his NYPD past, an enigmatic Stephen King-esque writer and a hotel suite that allegedly granted wishes. Merging the best of Philip Marlowe’s put-downs with the cherry pie-flavoured mystery of Twin Peaks, this was the most enticing case to land in NGamer’s lap for a long time. Baffling and acridice in there with Twin Peaks. Yeah. Mega-cancelled. It was then the gumshoe realised how ravishing the dame looked. Why do I keep saying dame? That’s not very you, because you are the most reserved, pretty, down-the-line PC chap I know. It was then the gumshoe realised just how ravishing the dame looked. Sure, he’d spent time with the text-heavy point-and-click adventures in the past, that cheap, GPA-ported floozy Phoenix Wright, for one. But none could compare to this beauty. Her characters were drawn in a black-and-white penciled style, ripped straight from a graphic novel, brought to life with jittery staccato animation, as if the pencil struggled to keep up with the huge range of character quirks and facial expressions each figure was blessed with. She was achingly stylish, a rare looker in a world too often populated by cold, static manga. Deep down the in-gamer gumshoe felt a pang of worry. Had he fallen for beauties in the past, that these had been flesh in the pan affairs, rarely home to the intelligence. This is so awful. Rarely home to the intelligence he yearned for in an adventure puzzling broad. I see you really stretching the metaphor there. Oh, this is terrible. The worst bit was when I talked about coming to the office and I turned her on her side and read her like a book. Rough handling her, Matthew. Oh dear. Reams and reams of nuanced dialogue could spill out of her, bubbling with character and not limited to mere plot progression. No matter how mysterious or tense the atmosphere grew, someone was always ready and willing to talk about children’s television state preparation or the chores of motherhood. Human speech captured perfectly in its shambolic glory. It was clear from the amount of talking she did that she wasn’t seeking quick bursts of action, but rather she wanted to take things easy. A real slow burner. Her tail was set over. it’s such a bad metaphor. Like, a woman is a game. How many pages is this? It’s just two. Tiny font. Her tail was set over the course of a single night at the hotel, but placing such temple and spatial constraints on her story, she evoked a sophisticated level of intimacy. By night’s end, the NGamer gumshoe had explored Hotel Dusk’s every nook and cranny, and any door and open further fed his curiosity. I’m gonna skip some of this, because it’s just me banging on about this metaphor just gets time. I don’t get to skip going to the fucking suit shop after having a shoot out with the police. There’s a very confusing bit where I talk about another code as another person. Oh God, that’s hard work. It was satisfying but vaguely familiar, and that’s when it hit the gumshoe. He had met this dame before, one and a half years ago, back when she went by the name of another code. It was so obvious to him now. Both were developed by Singh. Both employed the same slightly irritating form of bloopy lift music jazz. Hell, Hotel Dusk even recycled another code’s ingenious DSLid closing puzzles and dust-disposing, mic-blowing challenges. Last time they met, it was a whirlwind romance, an intense puzzling blast solved in a disappointing three hours. But now she was ready for a more meaningful 13-hour relationship. Sure, she occasionally lapsed into another code tricks, forcing unnecessary back-and-forth item collection and having players solve a pointless memory death to get to the next chapter. But some habits are hard to kick. And for her sheer storytelling pizzazz, he was willing to forgive her. What had irritated before was lost in a swirl of fascinating events and the urge to see it through to the end. She was a changed woman, mature and grossing, and infinitely better dressed. Yes, she was a game to die for. Now, I don’t think that’s nearly as bad as mine. The problem is, I think it would have been fine to do this like maybe an extended intro, but because it’s the entire review, it just means that you have to keep pulling it in more and more tenuous directions. It’s the bit where I said I rough-handed her, turned her on her side and opened her up like a book. It’s just fucking mad. That’s one of the maddest things I’ve ever… I can’t believe that went through a production editor and my editor. I think that’s one of those things where it’s like, well, you know, games media standards did change for the better in a lot of ways. But it wasn’t written. You wouldn’t write that now. But I just mean not the actual words, but I just mean the tone of it. These were male-dominated mags. We talked about this before. So it’s not implausible. I can see what you’re going for. I actually think that a lot of the observations you made were really good in the language up there. Oh, thanks. Don’t worry, buddy. It’s good. Is your last window review just as accomplished? No, that was really to the point. I don’t think I ever wrote another big gimmicky review like that. I think when I read it back, I just cringed myself inside out when I got the issue back and was like, I’m never doing that again. Like, yeah. I can’t really think of many gimmick reviews like that that do land. Whenever I see someone do it, I’m like, yikes. Even the best writers, I’m like, oh, bad, bad and embarrassed and I’m embarrassed for you. It’s tough. It’s tough because like… It is tough, but you know, if you’re going to be a, you know, break some molds, move the dial, you got to do these things. It is shocking that Rockstar didn’t hire me as a narrative designer off the back of that, isn’t it? I will say, I definitely think if I, you know, if you compare that to, I suppose, the dialogue I wrote for like, you know, the actress who played Diana Burnwood, Jane Perry, like it’s night and day. If I had another run at Nico Bellic, I’m sure it would be a lot better, but I should have been in the position where I had to even write that in the first place and someone should have taught me out of it. I lacked that positive influence in my life. Yeah, I think both of us, it was our attempt to mix the literary with the practicalities of game details. Where those two things meet, it instantly falls apart. A woman isn’t a game and a man in his diary doesn’t mention such specific locations and character names constantly as if to say, I made a note of these when I was playing. Yeah. Well, that was mortifying, but good content, I suppose, Matthew. So that was episode 100 of the podcast. Thank you so much for listening so far. Will we go another 100 episodes? I hope so. I certainly think we’ve got plenty in the tank, loads more to talk about. I definitely enjoyed the journey of learning about games I’ve ever played before on this, old and new. Do you think we’ve got another 100 on us, Matthew? What do you reckon? Yeah, hopefully. And I’d be interested what episode 200. Will we have a return of Clip Show? Who knows? Yeah, who knows? Or will this be a terrible mistake that we’ll never talk about ever again, much like our Nico Bellic and Hotel Dusk content there? It is ironic that we’ve book-ended this episode with just, like, mortifying acts of creativity. Yeah, maybe the Clip Show thing was a terrible idea. We should never have done it. I mean, who knows? Maybe you did strip all of this out, Matthew. We decided it was a no-go. I think some of it will live on. Yeah, some of it was alright, but I think it’s definitely like an editor’s hand to be taken to that, for sure. This is, like, classic. This is exactly what happens when you have, like, a big plan for a magazine. You’re like, we’re going to do this crazy thing, and inevitably when you get to it, you have, like, you leave it to a deadline, and then it’s like… Got two screenshots, you know? Yeah. So, yeah, this was like… If anything, this episode really does reflect what it is to make a magazine, because it’s kind of what it was like in real time. Yeah, exactly. I’m filled with regret, but I think some of it. Which skit do you think worked? I think the Eugene Acker one was probably the best one. What do you reckon? Yeah, I think the Wairo West stuff was fine. It’s all right. It’s all trailed off. We didn’t know where to end that one, did we? That was tough. I mean, we’ll see in the edit, man. We’ll see what happens. Either way, four days from when we’re recording this, there will be an episode 100 that you’re listening to right now. So, yes, thank you so much for your support. Even after listening to those terrible bits of writing at the end there, I think Matthew’s actually all right. You want to support us on Patreon, patreon.com/backpagepod, £4.50 a month. And you get two bonus podcasts a month. And very soon you’ll get our PC Gaming Classics mini-series, which is co-hosted by Jeremy Peel and Phila Wanyuk. We’re going to use a whole bunch of our Patreon money to basically fund them, making a six-episode mini-series that will initially be behind the paywall. We’ll eventually give them the rights to distribute themselves if they want to. But yes, that’s quite exciting. We hit two grand on Patreon. That’s really cool. Absolutely amazing. I hope people haven’t listened to this episode and regret that. Yeah, exactly. That’s it. Seemingly cancelled pledges to get off the back of this. Where can people find you on social media, Matthew? MrBazzill, underscore best day. Roberts. See you next week with a new episode.