The Back Page: A Video Games Podcast

Former gamesTM features editor Matt Handrahan is our guest this week. Having spent a decade working on GamesIndustry.biz, he's now Portfolio Director at Kepler Interactive.The most recent game he worked on? Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, which you might have heard of. This episode, though, gets into the far more important business of discussing the price of pints in Bournemouth's Sixty Million Postcards pub circa 2007.

A delightfully unusual episode with a guest we like a lot. Matthew Castle lore fans are in for a treat.

Matthew is fetching koalas for Chvrches in Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, while Samuel is having year 11 lunchtime PTSD in Sloclap's football game Rematch. It's another WWBP episode!Games discussed: Death Stranding 2: On The Beach, Rematch, Date Everything, MindsEye, Pipstrello and the Cursed Yoyo, Helldivers 2

Finally, after a belated PS5 release, we dive deep into MachineGames' 2024 GOTY contender Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. The first half is spoiler-free, then the second half goes deeper into the story with some fun bonus nonsense to boot (wait until you hear Matthew's pitch for The Fugitive tie-in game).This week's music is from the Indiana Jones and the Great Circle soundtrack by Gordy Haab. 

It's a bloody mailbag! Please save your shrugs for the end. Thanks for all the questions, as ever.This week's music is from the Hotline Miami soundtrack by Perturbator. 

A new Nintendo console is here. Matthew is truly submerged in the Switch 2 experience, while Samuel has merely dipped a toe in the water. Here's how we're finding it so far.This week's music is from the Mario Kart World soundtrack by Atsuko Asahi, Maasa Miyoshi, Takuhiro Honda and Yutaro Takakuwa.

It's Matthew hosting the pod solo this week, and his guest is Geraint Evans, formerly of N64 magazine, NGC and Gamesmaster. These days, he's working at the publisher PQube.This week's music is from the Phantasy Star Online Episodes 1 + 2 soundtracks by Hideaki Kobayashi and Fumie Kumatani. 

Matthew has almost finished the new Doom game, while Samuel has done about half of it – so that's the focus of this week's episode. Matthew also explains his appreciation of the new MercurySteam game, Blades of Fire, and digs deep into his never-ending playthrough of The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy on Switch.This week's music is from The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy soundtrack by Masafumi Takada and Jun Fukuda.

57 minutes and 13 seconds – that's the timestamp you want for all the game chatter, including two top 10 lists of the best games of 2005. Skip all the bullshit!For everyone else? Enjoy tales of college woes and secret freezer politics. Nonsense podcasting awaits.This week's music is from the Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater soundtrack by Harry Gregson-Williams.