Indie games are some of the most highly regarded video games on current gen consoles and the PC, and indie development studios represent a hot bed of talent when it comes to creating titles that are not restricted by the business goals of mainstream publishers.
With this in mind, regular Maximum Power Up hosts Phil and Tom get together in this latest episode to discuss their own experiences with the indie scene and then wax lyrical about some of their favourite games from independent developers. From the dark and dystopian world of Inside and the psychological nightmare of Layers of Fear; to the neon extraterrestrial delights of Sturmwind and the pixellated wonders of Hyper Light Drifter, sit back and relax as we talk about some of the finest experiences available from the indie scene.
Fully Illustrated’s Michael Heald realised a lifelong dream of becoming a bonefide game developer earlier in 2017 when his frst title Wulverblade hit the Nintendo Switch. Initially intended to be an Xbox One exclusive and years in the making, Wulverblade was picked up by Nintendo and upon release it garnered critical acclaim across the board for it’s engaging storyline and solid side-scrolling, old school beat ‘em up gameplay.
In this episode of Maximum Power Up, regular hosts Phil and Tom speak with Michael to discuss just what goes into creating a game of Wulverblade’s scope, and how hours of historical research, visiting Roman historical sites and getting stuck up a hill in a Land Rover all contributed to the development process.
In this episode Paul interviews Dave Perry that is most well known for his time on GamesMaster and Games World. As well as TV, Dave has worked on and launched many well known magazines.
We discuss his time on Sega Pro, launching Games World to tie in with the TV show, the problems launching Play due to Sony's strict ruling over the PlayStation magazine market and more.
Over the interview we also cover Dave's thoughts on gaming TV shows and his own gaming history. Finally we bring things up to date and discuss his upcoming gaming show Games Animal TV that he will be bringing to Revival 2018 in May.
We hope you enjoy the interview and please leave a review if you listen on iTunes. Also check out our YouTube channel for more gaming chat.
For all the details on Revival visit www.revivalretroevents.co.uk and for the Games Animal TV news on Facebook www.facebook.com/GamesAnimalTV/
In this Halloween Special episode, Phil and Amy delve in to the world of Survival Horror tacking an look at the much loved Resident Evil series. Starting way back with Sweet Home, and take us all the way through the main title games in the series. As well as discussing storylines and game play, they also look back on how they were first introduced to the series and drop in a few stories along the way!
Released in 1996 on the PlayStation Resident Evil is arguably considered, the birth of modern day Survival Horror genre. Created by Shinji Mikami and developed and published by Capcom, the series has been a massive success, with multiple main series games and numerous spin off titles.
We hope you enjoy!
In March 2005 Nintendo unleashed the DS. A brand new dual screen handheld with a user friendly touchscreen.
The DS soon became the gamer's handheld of choice with well known Nintendo titles such as Mario Kart, Animal Crossing and many more. Games companies were soon quick on the uptake to how the touch screen controls could enhance the games and a wide range of titles were seen as must buy.
In this episode Chris is joined by Paul and Darran Jones editor of Retro Gamer magazine. They discuss the impact the DS had in the industry, taking on the PSP, the DS Lite and DSI. We also suggest a few games worth hunting down that aren't the usual games suggested.
We hope you enjoy the show and maybe try a few of the titles we chat about yourselves.
In this episode Paul and Phil take a look at a few of their favorite sports games.This is a genre that is mainly seen as just a load of yearly updates, however dig a little deeper and there's a wealth of great games.
From the 8 bit systems to present day some classic games are discussed as well as a few lesser known titles. We have chosen games that have struck a chord with us over the years- great ideas in the game, rivalry with friends over some great multiplayer match ups and much more.
We hope you enjoy the episode and let us know which games you love! Thanks to everyone that tweeted about their fave sports games.
Maximum Power Up takes another look at the excellent Sony PlayStation 2. This time Paul is joined by Chris to discuss some of their favourite PS2 games. As well as this they talk about what makes the PS2 such a great console, the range of games for it, their memories of the machine and more.
Is the PS2 the greatest console of all-time?
That's a big question?
As usual please let us know your views on Facebook or Twitter.
In this episode Paul, Phil and Jake set themselves a challenge to buy games on a budget. With the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 being last gen there are loads of great bargains to be found. Using high street retailer CEX as a price guide the challenge was to buy 5 games for these formats only for under £15.
Easy! However no sports, singing or dancing type games were allowed or games with yearly updates. So who got the best deal? Only one way to find out....
We are back again with the second part of our Super Nintendo episode. Following on from Paul, Julian and Alex's discussion about one of the gaming communities most treasured system, Phil, Chris and Amy present a further 15 games that set the system apart from its peers.
Join this episodes hosts on another retro gaming journey peppered with childhood stories and the ever controversial opinions of our beloved host Chris.
Here it is, part 2 of the top 50 games of all time list! Already in part 1 we have covered classics for the Sega Megadrive, Commodore Amiga, Sony Playstation and more
We had a great response to part 1 of episode 50 which covered a wide range of games. Obviously this hasn't been an easy task as there are many great games and we limited it to 5 games each. We hope you find some games in the final list of 50 that you agree with over the last episode and this one. Also please tell us your thoughts - which games were YOU expecting? Remember we haven't numbered this list we just took the 50 games with the most votes.
Thanks again to everyone that got involved as we love getting our listener's views.
Here's to the next 50 episodes!
Back in April this year we asked the listeners to help us put together the Maximum Power Up Top 50 games. Each of our hosts put forward their favourite games to get the list started and then with all the other listener votes the list stood at over 450 games!
With the podcast covering new and old gaming we felt as though this episode is perfect to look at which games people see as faves. From Manic Miner to Crash Bandicoot or Dungeon Master to Zelda, every genre and decade got votes.
The 50 games haven't been put into number order - some titles had the same amount of votes so we thought covering the 50 this way was better. So in part 1 we discuss 25 games between us the hosts. We hope you enjoy the show and please comment on Facebook, Twitter etc as we prepare part 2 for later this month.
In this episode Paul interviews legendary games journalist Julian 'Jaz' Rignall. In over 30 years in the industry Jaz has worked on many well loved games magazines including Mean Machines, Zzap64, C&VG and more.
Jaz made the most of massive surge of love for the emerging console market in the late 80's and early 90's which helped make the magazines he worked on so popular. There is plenty of talk about the Commodore 64, Sega Megadrive, Super Nintendo etc.
As well as the magazines we discuss his time working in America for Virgin Interactive, Game Pro, IGN and more.
We hope you enjoy the show and please leave us an Itunes review if possible. Also you can follow Jaz on Twitter @JazRignall
The Persona series has been going for over 20 years and has featured on many consoles. What started off as a niche game series, Persona has gained quite a large following which has helped latest entry Persona 5 become a huge hit.
Joining Julian for hosting duties on this episode is Sara Ruehlman, herself a massive fan of the series and the RPG genre in general. Join them as they look at the games and spin offs in the Persona series and find out what makes the games so popular and why Persona 5 is such a massive hit.
If you enjoyed Julian's insights don't forget that his BoxedPixels.co.uk website is updated every two weeks. You can also follow him on Twitter (@JulianHillUK).
Sara is a Japanese speaking American based in Pennsylvania. Her writing can be found on http://randomencountersjp.blogspot.co.uk but she is far more active on Twitter (@bejiita_buruma) where she regularly posts pictures of her extensive RPG collection.
Follow the show on Twitter @MaximumPowerUp and on Facebook www.facebook.com/MaximumPowerUp?ref=hl
Also for more features and discussion our website is www.maximumpowerup.com
In this episode Paul and Julian discuss their history playing the point and click genre. Back in the late 80's and throughout the 90's this time of game offered hit after hit for fans of the genre.
Lucasarts led the way with great adventures such as Secret Of Monkey Island, Day Of The Tentacle, Full Throttle and many more. Each game gave the player an opportunity to enter a massive world full of colourful characters and some fiendish puzzles in their quest to complete the game.
As well as Lucasarts there were other companies getting involved with the genre, Sierra, Delphine and others. Each of these companies brought their own style and iseas to the genre. Sadly with the industry changing as well as people's tastes, point and click games began to fade away.
Luckily for fans of the genre the Nintendo DS and Wii gave a new breath of life into the games and as well as this, Telltale games started picking up fantastic licenses for Walking Dead, Back To The Future and more. As well as this Broken Sword 5 has been very popular on PS4 and as well as this the legendary Ron Gilbert has returned with Thimbleweed Park in the style of a classic point and click adventure.
One thing is for sure - this adventure is far from over...
The Super Nintendo is often cited as many retro gamer's favourite console. Just looking at game prices on Ebay etc for Nintendo's 16bit marvel shows that demand isn't fading either.
With many amazing games such as Super Mario World, Street Fighter 2, Pilotwings, Starfox and more, fans of any genre were spoilt by choice for the SNES.
The machine's capabilities were also shown with the Super FX chip, Mode 7 and later with the amazing art style of Donkey Kong Country.
In this episode Paul is joined by fellow Super Nintendo fans Julian from the team and Alex Crowley AKA Nintendo Arcade. The guys discuss a few of their favourite games as well as chat about their early Super Nintendo memories. Also don't be surprised if a certain magazine gets a mention.....
As well as this Paul speaks to Sam Dyer from Bitmap Books about his upcoming Super Nintendo Visual Compendium Kickstarter which starts on Monday 10th April 2017.
When thinking back to the 16 bit era, one software developer/publisher stands head and shoulders above the crowd across all platforms. With formidable output on both home consoles and the arcades, Konami built further upon their household name and brand they’d established during the Famicom/NES years.
Konami’s roster of games included strong titles from their back catalogue, (Gradius, Castlevania) new IP and gaming in the likes of Axelay and Boktai, and licensed titles that were actually enjoyable (Animaniacs & Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles).
Were Konami at the peak of their powers during the 16 bit period? Do the games stand the test of time? Messrs Chris and Jake join Phil to bask in the glory of ‘arcade perfect’ conversions and off-beat, original titles in this homage to Konami.
SEGA Power magazine ran from 1989 until 1997 covering a lot of SEGA games over the years. Although there were many SEGA magazines available SEGA Power had a lot of fans, however in 1994 it went in a different direction.
In this episode Paul is joined by Andy Lowe that became editor in the summer of 1994 and gave the magazine quite a shake up! Adding more comedy to the magazine with the features, reviews and more it did split opinion with readers. Also joining Andy are Alison Binns (Harper) and Dean Mortlock to discuss what went on putting the magazine together in this era and share some interesting experiences.
The Nintendo Famicom or Nintendo Entertainment System (for those of us in the west) was the companies first step into the home console market following their success with arcade machines and the much loved Game & Watch. Although it wasn't an over night success Nintendo’s perseverance and cleaver positioning in the market the NES became a huge success and ushered in a new era that saw Nintendo become a global brand in gaming.
In this episode Phil, Jake and Alex discuss the birth of the Famicom, how it won over it’s audience and what games really made the system a must own for many people who had previously shunned gaming.
As well as this the guys discuss their favourite games that range from the most popular series’ which were first brought to gamers attention on the NES to some titles that were surprisingly left in Japan.
We hope you enjoy this episode as much as we did recording it and please check out our other shows at www.maximumpowerup.com
Retro Gamer Magazine has bucked the trend in recent times, as many other print magazines close down or go fully digital the retro-themed monthly publication goes from strength to strength.
Now in it's 12th year of existence, Retro Gamer Magazine shows no signs of slowing down, and every month features original content, exclusive developer interviews and reader interactions. Sections on the indie and home-brew scenes, mixed with reviews of all manner of gaming merchandise and new releases mean there is invariably something for everyone within its pages.
The magazine prides itself on bright, visually appealing page layouts and eye-catching cover designs, and is one of the most popular gaming magazines around.
In this latest edition of the Maximum Power Up podcast, regular hosts Phil and Tom sit down with Retro Gamer editor Darran Jones to discuss the history of the magazine, and some of Darran's enduring memories of being at the helm of such an influential periodical for so long.
Other topics discussed include how Retro Gamer continues to be a success a world where the move to digital is an ever-growing threat, and also how Retro Gamer's unique approach to retro topics of all kinds helps to keep the content fresh.
We hope you enjoy this episode as much as we did recording it and please check out our other shows at www.maximumpowerup.com
Can you believe that the Wii is over 10 years old? TEN YEARS OLD?! In late 2006 Nintendo decided it didn’t to play the same game as Sony and Microsoft anymore, instead they created a revolution! Gamers, grannies and the Redknapps could be found waggling in their front room with the innovative controller.
In this episode just as Nintendo attempt to crack the market again with Switch, join hosts Chris, Phil and Jake as they discuss the highs, the lows and the games that defined a generation.
We hope you enjoy this episode as much as we did recording it and please check out our other shows at www.maximumpowerup.com
This year GamesMaster magazine turns 25 years old and is one of the last remaining games magazines on the shelves. Following on from the television show launched 25 years ago this month, the magazine gave fans something else to enjoy.
In this episode Paul chats to four original staff from issue 1 of the magazine, Jim Douglas, Andy Lowe, Les Ellis and Ade Price. They discuss how the magazine came to market, what they wanted from the magazine, the infamous Sonic 2 review and much more.
We hope you enjoy this episode as much as we did recording it and please check out our other shows at www.maximumpowerup.com