RPS Feature Listen to our natter
The festival of dumb explosions known as E3 is over, but that won’t stop us. The RPS podcast, the Electronic Wireless Show, goes deep into the show, picking out our favourite games, the oddest moments, and best rats (spoiler: it was the one crushed by a shelf in the Resident Evil 2 trailer). We’re also introducing two new voices this week. Who are these strange people? Read the rest of this entry »
Way, way back at the beginning of Kickstarter, I threw some money at a new podcast called Idle Thumbs. I didn’t know this would lead to Steve Gaynor going on to become One Of Those Big Game Names, but it didn’t matter because it seemed like a really cool concept made by cool people. Idle Thumbs became a podcast network and now, after two excellent seasons, Gaynor’s show Tone Control has come to an end. The final episode is excellent, but all of the episodes are worth remembering and revisiting, as the lessons and stories of game developers talking about game design are fascinating and oddly timeless.
RPS Feature Listen to our reckons
You better not shout, you better not cry, you better not expect the Elder Scrolls VI to be announced in front of an LA audience I’m tellin’ you why. E3 2018 is coming to town!
Yes, and with it, so come the takes. The RPS podcast, the Electronic Wireless Show, wants in on this. So here are some of our predictions, hopes and fears for this year’s dreaded multimedia assault on the nervous system. Read the rest of this entry »
RPS Feature Listen to these gunshots
Wait, didn’t we already answer this question? Never mind, the RPS podcast, the Electronic Wireless Show, is not content with our list of the top 50 first-person shooters. Well, they’re mostly fine with it (lists are stupid) but they still want to hash out this ageless question the old-fashioned way. By interrogating each other over the internet. Read the rest of this entry »
RPS Feature Listen to Mr Pesto
You look a little tired, friend. Let me just adjust this slider for you. There, wide awake. Now you’ve got some energy, how about listening to the RPS podcast, the Electronic Wireless Show? This week we’re talking about character creation. Which games spoil us with choice? And why do we always end up creating the same sneaky elf? Read the rest of this entry »
RPS Feature Listen to these dads
The dadification of games continues. So we’re going full Dad this week on the RPS podcast, the Electronic Wireless Show, as we’ve been asked to talk about the games we play with our children.
Alec’s daughter is excited by the unlockable characters in Rayman Legends (and she’s also strangely fascinated by Battletech). John’s son is a bit younger and likes to watch his dad diving in Abzu and Subnautica (but also manages to sneak glimpses of God of War’s quiet moments on the TV – naughty!). Brendan doesn’t have children, only a cat. She can’t stand games and thinks they are a waste of time. Read the rest of this entry »
RPS Feature Listen now to warm your bones
Bit nippy in here, isn’t it? Let’s throw another game on the fire and warm ourselves with some electro-soup. Yes, it’s the RPS podcast, the Electronic Wireless Show, and this week we’re talking about freezing cold city-builder Frostpunk. Katharine lost a third of her people to cold when she forgot to turn the heat on, while Brendan dug up his society’s dead because he “needed the space”. Matt is horrified by these tales, but soon proves he’s just as horrible when he completes our Frostpunk-themed ethical dilemma quiz. Read the rest of this entry »
RPS Feature Listen now, meatbags
Perhaps ~~you’re~~ the robot? Did you ever think of that, huh? No, it’s fine, you’re a human, a human who likes the RPS podcast, the Electronic Wireless Show. This week, we’re chatting about our favourite mechanoids, cyberfolk and rust-buckets. Alec likes the robo-ostrich from World of Warcraft, a bird capable of great speed (and good for showing off). Brendan is fond of the abandoned bots of Hackmud, and their tragicomic existence on a humanless earth. Meanwhile, John loves little BUD of Grow Home and his wobbly walking animations.
Speaking of large, bi-pedal machines, we’ve also been playing strategy mech-em-up Battletech. Well, Alec has. He’s been stomping around, slowly firing missiles. But is it any good? Read the rest of this entry »
RPS Feature Listen and get Rezzed
It’s a podcast special! Astrid Johnson takes us through the halls of London game show EGX Rezzed, on a search for oddities and weirdness. And she finds plenty of both. There’s Stereopolis, a game projected onto a disc of frosted glass, or Wobble Garden, which is played entirely by twanging a bunch of springy door stoppers (pictured above).
It’s an overview of the show for those who couldn’t make it this year. We also learn about the plane tinkering of Above, two-player sausage-dog cooperation in Phogs, and Disco Elysium, an isometric RPG featuring an alcoholic detective having an unconscious argument with his lizard brain. And then there’s the tale of Fernando’s chicken… Read the rest of this entry »
RPS Feature Listen to us with your brain turned off
Oh no. Somebody sound the “journalists discussing journalism” klaxon. Rattle it as loudly and furiously as possible, because the RPS podcast, the Electronic Wireless Show, is talking about how being a critic changes the way we play. Don’t blame us, blame listener Aleksei, who sent in the theme as a suggestion. But please also forgive Adam, because it’s his last showing on the podcast (he’s leaving RPS next week) so he deserves a bit of self-indulgence. Read the rest of this entry »
RPS Feature Listen now to our great story
Sit down at the boiling pot, stranger. Let me tell you a tale. A sordid tale, full of fascinating lands and captivating characters. A story of wonder and flame, strangeness and warmth. Would you like to hear it? Great. Just play this rubbish cover shooter for a half hour. I’ll start the introduction when you hit the first checkpoint.
Welcome to the RPS podcast, the Electronic Wireless Show. This week we’re discussing some great stories that come packaged with terrible games. Read the rest of this entry »
RPS Feature Listen or we'll make you listen
“I love to shoot the men!” you shout, as you pump 100 bullets into the prostrate torso of a dead soldier in Far Cry 5. “I’m so glad there are no cutscenes to–
THWOCK.
“Oh no.”
And lo, the lord delivered unto ye a sermon of the highest tedium, and the Four Ubisoft Writers of the Apocalypse rode over the earth and reaped the souls of all humanity with pointless exposition and dull characterisation. It was a bad time. But it’s not the only strong game let down by a bad tale. The latest episode of the RPS podcast, the Electronic Wireless Show, is unable to discuss all the offenders, but we can take a punt.
RPS Feature Listen to our name-dropping
♪♫ When you go to San Fraaaanciscooo, be sure to wear a lanyard with ‘Media’ inscribed on it round youuur nnnneck ♪♫ That’s what Adam, John and Brendan sang to each other as they gleefully skipped through the streets of California’s tram-infested hill city. The crew were in town for the yearly Game Developer’s Conference where they spoke to developers, played games, and gambled on the results of the annual awards show. Now they’re back and ready to tell you all about their Stateside adventures on the latest RPS podcast, the Electronic Wireless Show. Read the rest of this entry »
RPS Feature Listen to the ratcast
Leave no rodent behind – that’s the motto of the RPS podcast, the Electronic Wireless Show. With the release of Warhammer: Vermintide 2, we decided to celebrate the lovable dirtbag of videogames. The lowly, filthy, wonderful rat. Whether you are murdering five of them in cold blood for an RPG hotel owner, or pledging your sword to a disgusting subterranean monarch, there’s room in your heart for the humble rat.
And your intestine. And lung. Basically, shove over, organs. Make room for the rats.
RPS Feature Listen now, chum
Hello chum! Sit down and have a nice glass of water and a pack of Bombay mix. That’s how we greet our closest friends on the RPS podcast, the Electronic Wireless Show. This week, best pals John and Brendan discuss how friendship is handled in videogames, and what characters felt most like close buddies. John felt a kinship with Alistair from Dragon Age: Origins, and sees Lydia from Skyrim as Wilson the football from Castaway. Whereas Brendan felt a habitual closeness to the undead woman in Dark Souls who sold him poisonous arrows. Takes all sorts, really.
RPS Feature Listen now for warmth
The blizzards of Siberia have gone on holiday to the United Kingdom this week. But the RPS podcast, the Electronic Wireless Show, doesn’t do snow days. The pod squad have trekked hard through the whiteout (from their bedrooms to their computers) to gather on their respective microphones. To what end? Well, to talk about the weather. Blizzards, thunderclouds, sandstorms and, er, night-time? In videogames, it all counts.
RPS Feature Listen now for exposition
You’d think we could agree on four simple letters. But nothing is ever straightforward on RPS podcast, the Electronic Wireless Show. This week the gang are talking JRPGs, or Japanese role-playing games to use some real words for human people. Does a game have to be made in Japan to be defined as an JRPG? Or does it just need some bright colours and lots of turn-based battles? Maybe it only needs a boss behind a boss (and then another boss behind that one)? Come with us into the petty world of the genre bouncer, as we examine the shoes of dozens of games and decide whether or not they’re allowed into the JRPG nightclub.
RPS Feature Listen now... or don't?
All right, picture this. There’s five podcasts tied to a train track, and you’re on a train speeding toward them. On another track, there’s just one podcast, the Electronic Wireless Show. Do you swap tracks and kill one podcast to save the other five? Or do you forge ahead? Take your time, it’s a difficult moral choice – exactly our topic this week. Think hard about it. No, listen, you should think about it very carefully. No, listen–
I know, but–
You can’t just p–
Ha ha, okay, stop the train. Joke’s over.
Stop the train.
STOP THE TRAIN FOR THE LOVE OF GOD STOP THE TR– Read the rest of this entry »
RPS Feature Listen now or be monstered
They lurk, they creep, they skulk and weep. Monsters in videogames can be as simple as a big spiky cyclops ball, or as unsettling as a sobbing woman in a rainy alleyway. This week on the RPS podcast, the Electronic Wireless Show, the team is talking about their favourites, from flaming skulls to digitally possessed diving suits, and the clever ways in which game monsters inspire heebies, jeebies, creeps and sometimes even willies. Read the rest of this entry »
RPS Feature Listen or be unmade
Welcome to the freshly relaunched RPS podcast, the Electronic Wireless Show! You might think this is episode 31, but actually it’s episode 1 again. We’re rebooting it, even though we just did that last year. We’ve started by making it more accessible. Instead of three of us chatting about videogames between snippets of jaunty music, there’s just a sad man saying “Sonic the Hedgehog” over and over. We’re confident you’ll like it. Read the rest of this entry »
