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Maximum Power Up

A video gaming podcast that covers both retro gaming as well as modern systems. The show features discussion on various topics, reviews and more.
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Maximum Power Up
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Now displaying: 2020
Dec 22, 2020

This episode we are joined by a huge guest! Gary Whitta joins Paul to discuss his career in games journalism, writing Hollywood screenplays, Animal Crossing talkshows and more!

Covering a 30 year plus career, Gary started off on Commodore User being an owner of the Amiga which helped get his big break on magazines. He shares several stories about his time on Games-X, The One, ACE, CVG and more. However the main magazine that changed so much for him was PC Gamer which he edited in the UK before eventually moving to America and taking over on the US version.

He shares a lot of the challenges he faced in America before trying his hand at writing screenplays for Hollywood. We briefly discuss Book Of Eli, After Earth and a little film called Star Wars Rogue One.

Finally we cover how 2020 lockdown life led to his Animal Crossing talkshow and how crazy it has been to have several big name guests.

We hope you enjoy the show.

Dec 13, 2020

In this third pandemic related bonus episode, the two Chris Smiths are joined by Jake and Arron for as they check in on each other, and talk life, games and a bit about the new systems. Oh and some of the hottest takes on the PS3 since 2006...

As ever, if you like the episode or have any feedback, we'd love it if you'd hit us up on the socials and leave reviews. However, self-care is more important. Look after yourselves and each other first. We'll be okay.

Nov 5, 2020

Tim Weaver has been writing for decades. Currently he has 10 David Raker novels under his belt, a very popular crime/ thriller series.

He started his career at Future Publishing back in 1996 on Nintnedo magazine Total! Tim shares the early days on the mag as well as other Snes magazine Super Play before he went on to work on the magazine that gave him his happiest years - N64 Magazine.

N64 mag still has so many fans today and was the go to magazine for N64 owners. As well as sharing stories and experiences here we also cover NGC, Arcade, Xbox World magazines plus more. Tim goes into detail about the challenges he had on certain magazines over the years also before needing a new challenge as a full-time author.

We do discuss his novels as well as his podcast "Missing" from a few years ago.

We hope you enjoy the interview and thanks to Tim for his time.

Oct 11, 2020

In this episode Paul sits down to discuss CVG magazine and more with Paul Glancey and also another Paul, this time Davies! Yes three people on one call all called Paul (that's a mouthful).

Paul Glancey makes his MPU debut to take us through some key moments of his career. Starting on Zzap64, working with Jaz Rignall he soon got into the swing of things and followed Jaz to EMAP and CVG magazine. He tells us about learning the ropes, a few fave games as well as working on Megatech, Mean Machines and more.

Paul Davies returns to the show to speak more in depth about his time on Nintendo Magazine System and CVG. It was great to hear both Paul's share their experiences and crossed paths at EMAP.

We hope you enjoy the show and thanks to PG and PD for their time.

Sep 25, 2020

Chris Scullion joins us this episode to discuss his career as a games writer. Starting on Official Nintendo Magazine in 2006, he has also written for the online versions of N Gamer and CVG as well as being a regular contributor to Nintendo Life.

When he joined ONM the Gamecube was on the way out but the Wii would go on to become one of Nintendo's most popular consoles. We discuss some key moments in his career, meeting some well known names, certain games reviews for Sonic titles and much more.

Chris shares some honest thoughts in our conversation especially how CVG ended! Finally we also discuss his work on the NES and SNES Encyclopedias and his future plans for follow up books.

We hope you enjoy the interview and thanks to Chris for his time.

Sep 9, 2020

In this episode Paul interviews Paul McNally about his career in videogames journalism and much more.

Paul started his career on ST Action under the guidance of previous guest Nick Clarkson. Working up-to editor he stayed there until the magazine began to wind down in a challenging market for the ST.

Staying at Europress publishing he also worked on Mega Action, Bad Influence (both the mag and show) before the company was bought by IDG Media.

We discuss some mags for the first time with a guest such as Playstation Pro (and it's laddish covers), GamePro UK and others. Paul shares some great stories about games events with the guys from Loaded magazine, an unplanned trip to Mexico and much more!

This interview has a lot so we hope you enjoy it.

Aug 31, 2020
In this latest interview, we speak to original Retro Gamer magazine editor Martyn Carroll. We cover several magazines for the first time on the podcast as Martyn shares his early experiences of the magazine industry.
 
It wasn't a games magazine he started on however. As a rabid horror fan his first published work was in long running horror magazine, Darkside. From here we discuss trying to get work on games magazines at Paragon Publishing before starting a job up North at Live Publishing in Macclesfield.
 
Martyn tells us about how Live attempted to grow their magazine output from just PC mags and into the world of PlayStation and more, however this eventually caused problems. We cover his time on Tipstation mag as well as PSG 24/7 - both magazines not previously covered on the show. 
 
Retro Gamer magazine has been going for almost 17 years now from it's launch in 2004. We talk about how the idea of the magazine was pitched and those early days of having no staff to help write the mag. As it became more popular it soon became a monthly magazine but before long Live Publishing were in trouble....
 
We hope you enjoy the interview and a massive thanks to Martyn for his time.
Aug 16, 2020

This episode we revisit the "listener choice" format, previously used on our Dreamcast, Game Boy and Commodore 64 shows. Back before the world went mad, we asked our listeners to share their five favourite SEGA Mega Drive games with us, which we then got Paul to count up and combine to create a Top 10 of the most popular ones.

Join Chris Smith v2 and Tom Charnock as they tackle the listeners top 10 Mega Drive games, and try to find new things to say about a list that holds few surprises. They mostly seem to manage this by just going wildly off-topic. Enjoy!

Do get in touch on the usual channels to say hello or to give us any feedback. If you enjoy our work, it would be great if you could drop us a review on iTunes, they really do help us get the show out there.

Jul 26, 2020

In this episode we celebrate 100 episodes of Maximum Power Up. Since the show started in 2015 we have covered a mixture of modern and retrogaming.

Most of the team share their experiences of making the podcast, fave episodes, games played etc. Even though it does take a lot of work we are very happy to have great listeners that have helped the show grow.

It has been brilliant to have had the chance to have on so many guests from the games industry and many well known games magazines. Hearing their stories has always been a highlight. We have become well known as the podcast for lovers of games magazines and there are more interviews to come.

We hope you enjoy the episode and here is to many more.

 

Jul 13, 2020

In this bonus episode we have two guests, Frank Gasking and Sam Dyer. Frank runs the excellent and informative website Games That Weren't for the last 20 years.

Sam is known for his excellent work over at Bitmap Books.

Games That Weren't features many games that were due to be released but for various reasons didn't happen. Frank has spent years speaking to the people that worked on these games and systems and is now taking it to the next level.

Working with Sam at Bitmap Books, Games That Weren't is coming out as a book.  At over 600 pages it covers over 80 games from 1975-2015 it covers unreleased titles for arcade, home computers, consoles and more. 

We discuss a few things that you can expect to see in the book and why you should preorder it for the release this August.

Follow the link here

https://www.bitmapbooks.co.uk/products/the-games-that-werent

Jun 14, 2020

In this episode we are very happy to have Dominik Diamond on the show.

For many gamers in the 90's he was the face of gaming on television as the host of GamesMaster. The show covered so many amazing challenges, features and more. We discuss some of Dominik's favourite memories of the show, guests that were on, commentators and more.

We also talk about his other games television show from the mid 00's, "When Games Attack", gaming in general and even discuss his love for Glasgow Celtic Football Club.

We hope you enjoy the show and do check out Dominik's Twitch show Mon-Fri 5pm UK time.

 

Jun 8, 2020

The Maximum Power up team for another special bonus episode as Lockdown 2020 continues.

In this new Pandemic Pod, the team discuss the two "big hitters" Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Streets of Rage 4, and also share what else they've been up to.

As ever, if you like the episode or have any feedback, we'd love it if you'd hit us up on the socials and leave reviews. However, self-care is more important. Look after yourselves and each other first. We'll be okay.

May 21, 2020

We are delighted to have Danny Wallace on the show discussing his career.

In this 90 minute chat we discuss how he started out doing work experience on Sega Power magazine before being taken on by Future and had several years on much loved mags Super Play, Total and a return to Sega Power.

As well as this Danny shares his early experiences working with Ross Noble and on The Mighty Boosh at the start of their careers. Working in TV, being a best selling author, BAFTA winner for Thomas Was Alone and being a voice actor in Assassin's Creed series, gave us loads to discuss. Oh we also hear about his experiences working with Jim Carrey for the film Yes Man based on his best selling book.

We hope you enjoy the show and a massive thank you to Danny for his time.

May 12, 2020

Following on from episode 94 we continue our walk down memory lane looking at July to December 1998.

Many gamers see 1998 as one of the greatest years in gaming. All the main machines had several must own titles that were released. We share our experiences and memories playing Banjo Kazooie, Half-Life, Tekken 3 and many more.

We also discuss some of the major gaming news stories from each month and Chris shares his experiences of importing a Sega Dreamcast to end the year.

We hope you enjoy the show and where possible please leave an iTunes review.

 

Apr 16, 2020

In this episode we speak to Glen O'Connell about his career in the games industry as well as sports PR.

Starting out at Psygnosis  he shares some great experiences of visiting games magazines helping promote new titles and his early thoughts working in the industry. However when Sony were ready to launch the PlayStation things soon changed. Titles such as Wipeout had everyone wanting a piece of the Playstation. Glen discusses taking along import consoles to HMV etc to help create buzz.
 
As well as this we discuss his time in PR roles for EA and Rage Software where he met David Beckham, Wayne Rooney, Mr.T and many more well known sports stars.
 
Staying in PR with other companies he shares so many stories and some of the key moments in his career so far. 
 
We hope you enjoy the show and if possible leave us an iTunes review.
Apr 3, 2020

For this special bonus episode of the Maximum Power Up podcast, we have an almost full house* as the team gather to keep each other sane during Lockdown 2020.

What games do the team reach for in times of trouble? What games will they play over the coming weeks as they're "staying home" like responsible adults? What tips do they have for you, the listener, to help you get through this time? Does Paul even like videogames? Find out the answers to all this and more, in the Pandemic Pod.

As ever, if you like the episode or have any feedback, we'd love it if you'd hit us up on the socials and leave reviews. However, self-care is more important. Look after yourselves and each other first. We'll be okay.

*Jake and Tommy would have made it if kayjoon had his act together and invited them in time. Although editing six people was hard enough.

Mar 26, 2020
We are very happy to welcome David Wilson on the show for this new episode. David recently left Sony after almost 20 years as Head of UK PR and Director of Communications.
 
Starting in the games industry on classic gaming mags Your Sinclair and Zero, he shares some of his early memories playing and reviewing key games and the challenges faced working on games mags at that time. 
 
Moving on from magazines we cover his time at EA as Head of European PR for almost a decade including how he met Buzz Aldrin. Obviously discussing the Sony PlayStation brand gave us lots to discuss including the PS2, Vita, PSP and more.
 
We hope you enjoy the show and if possible please leave us an iTunes review as every one helps.
Feb 15, 2020
Is this one of the greatest years for games releases? Paul, Chris, Arron and Chris sit down to discuss if it truly is. The major players in the industry were still battling it out to be number one with each of the major consoles hitting their stride. The Nintendo 64 had 1080 Snowboarding and Banjo Kazooie. The Sega Saturn had Panzer Dragoon Saga and Burning Rangers, and finally the Sony PlayStation had Resident Evil 2 and Alundra.
 
So over 20 years ago what were we playing and buying? We look back on the news and reviews of the first half of 1998 and share our memories. 
 
Remember to look out for 1998 part 2 as we had to split up such a momentous year. Finally if you can spare a moment please leave us an iTunes review as everyone helps. Enjoy the show.
Jan 16, 2020

Once again Chris Smith mark 2 is joined by Paul & the other Chris Smith, with Arron coming along for the ride too. After the fairly well received Christmas episode, the boys are back with their highlights from 2019, and the old and new games they’re planning to play during 2020. They even manage to commit themselves to a few gaming resolutions that’ll probably be forgotten come February.

Please take the time to leave us a review on your podcast service of choice, and drop us any feedback via the usual socials.

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