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cover art for Episode 39: Games Magazine Rivalries (with Dan Dawkins)

The Back Page: A Video Games Podcast

Episode 39: Games Magazine Rivalries (with Dan Dawkins)

Dan Dawkins, former editor of PSM2 and current Content Director of Games and Film at Future, joins us to discuss his long history in games media. You'll hear some of the best games magazine stories on this podcast yet, including encounters with Hideo Kojima and how PSM2 (and later PSM3) popularised the Let's Play format in a pre-YouTube age. 

This week's music is from the Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots soundtrack by Harry Gregson-Williams, Nobuko Toda, Shuichi Kobori and Kazuma Jinnouchi, the Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty soundtrack by Harry Gregson-Williams and the Ico soundtrack by Michiru Oshima, Koichi Yamazaki and Mitsukuni Murayama.

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