Claim OwnershipThe Back Page: A Video Games Podcast
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© 2022 The Back Page: A Video Games Podcast
Description
Games media writers Matthew Castle (NGamer, Rock Paper Shotgun) and Samuel Roberts (PC Gamer, gamesTM, TechRadar) talk about video games and their years covering them professionally. Our logo is by John Strike, and our theme tune is by Barry 'Epoch' Topping (@nostoppingepoch on Twitter).
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273 Episodes
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What makes a 9/10 game not a 10/10 game? Why do video games end up bad? Which NPC would you least like to be stuck in a lift with? What food do they serve at the hypothetical Matthew Castle-themed cafe in Shibuya? These are some of the questions tackled in our first mailbag episode of 2026.Feel free to submit future mailbag questions in the Discord, or to backpagesgames@gmail.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
26 (or so) predictions about 2026, based on nothing whatsoever. Plus: our 2025 predictions revisited, and our 5 picks for this year's fantasy draft.This week's music is from the Trauma Center: Second Opinion soundtrack by Kenichi Tsuchiya and Shingo Yasumoto. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Two top 10 lists of the best games from 2025. This week's music is from the Promise Mascot Agency soundtrack by Peter McCaughan and Ryo Koike.Want to play Matthew's number 3? Head here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Need a video game awards show with dumb categories no company would ever sponsor? We've got your back, once again.Thanks to all our returning guests from this year for dropping in! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
This episode is all about the games that hit players with emotional gut punches. You get 50 minutes of nice preamble with returning guest, indie developer Lucy Blundell, then 1 hour+ of our combined 15 top emotional moments in games.After the 50-minute mark, this episode features spoilers (some light, some heavy) for these games: Like A Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name, Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth, Final Fantasy X, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, Final Fantasy VII (and the remakes), Botany Manor, Ori and the Blind Forest (just the intro), The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings, Xenoblade Chronicles 3, Fable 2, What Remains of Edith Finch, Halo: Reach, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening and Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy.But...most of it is pretty topline, and it's well worth a listen. Find Lucy's latest game VIDEOVERSE on PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo Switch.This week's music is from the Final Fantasy X soundtrack by Nobuo Uematsu, Masashi Hamauzu and Junya Nakano. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Cassette Beasts developer and all-round great video game thinker Jay Baylis joins us once again! In time for the release of Metroid Prime 4, Matthew and Jay each share their top 5 games in Nintendo's series.This is the Critical Hit article Jay mentioned on Metroid's possible influences. This week's music is from the Metroid: Zero Mission soundtrack by Kenji Yamamoto and Minako Hamano. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
The podcast eats itself! The Back Page finally dedicates a whole episode to its namesake. How do back page jokes go wrong? And what about the less frequent times when they go well? Returning guest Phil Savage, Global Editor-in-Chief of PC Gamer, helps us examine the creation of these gags. There's also a 20-minute bit on ARC Raiders near the start if that's your sort of thing.This week's music is from the Yakuza 0 soundtrack by Hidenori Shoji. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
The drafts return! Four giant men compete to pick the best games on the Mega Drive (or Genesis, if you're American), SNES and Neo Geo across 8 categories – plus a 9th bonus category specifically for the Amiga.This week's music is from the Streets of Rage 2 soundtrack by Yuzo Koshiro and the Chrono Trigger soundtrack by Yasunori Mitsuda (not Rick Astley). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
1This week's guest is Matt Leone, former Special Projects Editor at Polygon. Hear all about his new website Design Room, and his work on the oral history of Final Fantasy VII and and Shadow of the Colossus. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
A deep dive into an all-time classic on Wii. We'll do this again on Monday for Super Mario Galaxy 2, exclusively for Patreon XL Tier members!This week's music is from the Super Mario Galaxy soundtrack by Koji Kondo and Mahito Yokota. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Games discussed: Dispatch, Absolum, The Séance of Blake Manor, Ninja Gaiden 4, Hell is Us.Then, Samuel butchering a bunch of Zelda quiz questions. It has to be heard to be believed. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
A deep dive on the demos we tried during Steam Next Fest, hopefully giving you a few things for your wishlist consideration.Samuel's games: Reanimal, Birdcage, Lumines Arise, The Killing Stone, Evil Egg, Skate Story, Ambrosia Sky, Cairn.Matthew's games: CiniCross, No More Work For Ito, Opus: Prism Peak, The Remake of the End of the Greatest RPG of All Time, The Seance of Blake Manor.We won't list the duds, but one was Bubsy 4D. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Following our moderately good episode about games set in Britain earlier this year, we assemble a list of the 10 key games set in Japan. Did we get it wrong? Probably. Plus: a mini 'What We've Been Playing' episode about two recent download games we've been digging!This week's music is from the Persona 4 soundtrack by Shoji Meguro. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Matthew has Covid! Poor chap. At least he got through all six seasons of Justified while recovering. Here are the games discussed this week: Silent Hill f, Ghost of Yotei, Baby Steps, No, I am not a human, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and the latest Golden Idol DLC. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Music podcaster and former games journalist Jon Denton is our guest this week! Hear about Jon's journey from gamesTM to being pals with The Weeknd.This week's music is from the Super Mario World soundtrack by Koji Kondo. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
A massive year for games, a bleak year for at least one giant man. One of our oldest and most popular podcast formats is back, more than two years after our 2016 episode!This week's music is from the Yakuza 0 soundtrack by Kensuke Inage and Yoshihiro Arai. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
It's another mailbag. Topics discussed: Mr Kipling's Angel Slices, why Tomb Raider keeps needing reboots, Nintendo's struggles on the GameCube, Steve Martin and matching sandwiches to video games. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
If you enjoy this episode, consider supporting us so we can make more Two Giant Men episodes just like it!As voted for by the listeners, we revisit Rockstar Vancouver's 2006 ode to high school life – as well as our own cursed teenage years.This week's music is from the amazing Bully soundtrack by Shawn Lee, which we neglected to talk about in the episode. Thanks to Michael 'BanyaBat' for the edits.These are the two articles mentioned in the episode – Samuel Horti's Bully piece and Game Informer's Bully 2 piece. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
The stack of games we've been chewing through lately, plus our reactions to the 007 First Light footage released this week. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Our quarterly four-person draft is here! The Two Giant Men are joined by two further giant men as we compete to pick the best 11 games from some of our favourite Japanese game developers. To mix things up, expect a couple of twists on the usual draft format...This week's music is from the Street Fighter 2 soundtrack by Yoko Shimomura and Isao Abe. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Never played the Wii U but loved thos podcast. So funny and interesting.
RE That GTA Casino heist, it's a lot easier if you nip up the road to a roof that has a persistent helicopter spawn. Much, much easier with that!