Press Pause Radio - Podcast

Press Pause Radio

Press Pause Radio is a podcast created by video game fans, for video game fans. We discuss every aspect of the video game industry and culture, as well as interact with our ever growing community.

  1. JAN 26

    PPR Presents Golden Zonkies: Class of 2025

    ow that 2025 has finished swirling its nasty self into the shower drain of time, we’re ready to jump into the  "Düo-Dusé" fresh! (yeah, George is still calling it that) and begin our annual “Game of the Year” feature for 2025, the Golden Zonkies! We’re not going to lie—the selection was vast this year, and there was a LOT to choose from,  especially during a year where brand new hardware dropped from Nintendo! Still, I think we came away with some choice picks, and we hope you enjoy the deliberation as we present to you, the Golden Zonkies: Class of 2025. In case y’all don’t remember the updated flow from the last couple of years, we have changed up our format and have done away with categories!  Now, bear in mind that we’re still giving our prestigious mark of excellence, a Golden Zonkey, to the games that are deserving of recognition, but we’re not doing so by a respective genre or category. Instead, we will be giving them out in a personal list format by each of us in the podcast, and we’ll be spending time discussing why we picked the titles we did within a countdown of three. Also, the biggest change to the process is that we will no longer limit nominations to the titles that were released that same year, but instead, games that we had the opportunity to play that year, because honestly, it gave a somewhat stressful deliberation process a much-needed shot of levity for us to play with for Golden Zonkies!  Normally, we would have done a roundtable of games that were worth a quick mention from the year, but we decided to mention them in passing instead, along with some not-so-honorable-mentions (we also chose a few more not mentioned on the show to include in the post!) We will then award the “Golden Zonkey of The Year” in a unanimous vote that was similar to the previous format, and conclude the show from there. With that being said, thanks again for tuning into our Game of the Year special, and for just listening, watching, or reading anything done by us. We’re hoping to make 2025 a banner year for Press Pause Radio, so stick around and enjoy! Mail us at our new email Mailbag@presspauseradio.com, leave a voicemail at 469-PPR-TALK, and be sure to stop by at our Forums if you haven’t already registered and post your thoughts about the show. Finally, make sure to rate and subscribe to us on iTunes and YouTube, follow us on Twitch page and Twitter, and finally take part in our Facebook and Steam group!

  2. JAN 7

    PPR 162

    s we all leave the holiday behind and officially ring in 2026, or whatever the hell George was calling it (we think it was the "Düo-Dusé"). We thought it would be neat to look at the holiday season under a lens, and think about the “comfort games” that come with the season. Think about all of the arguments or justifications you’ve heard for whether or not a film or album is a Xmas-coded production? Like, beyond all of the Die Hard or The Thin Man shitposts, there are pieces of media that folks just associate with the holidays, even when they’re not centrally focused on the jolly time—and some choice picks that don’t even do that much. We all assign these arbitrary associations between literature and film around yuletides and such, so why not video games too? To ensure we really get some spirit out of this topic, we’ve asked some wonderful folks to appear on the episode, and give us their thoughts on the matter, as well as the games that they associate with the season of giving. Join Andrew and George as they have the pleasure of inviting Emily and Kate of No Small Games, and Rick of Pixel Project Radio to ham it up over this silly little query on what we all like to enjoy on our screens during a heart-warming and arguably anaphylactic event every year in December. Mail us at our new email Mailbag@presspauseradio.com, leave a voicemail at 469-PPR-TALK, and be sure to stop by at our Forums if you haven’t already registered and post your thoughts about the show. Finally, make sure to rate and subscribe to us on iTunes and YouTube, follow us on Twitch page and Twitter, and finally take part in our Facebook and Steam group!

  3. 12/01/2025

    PPR 161

    rifters everywhere, all the grifters the eye can see—usually surrounded by an extra set of fingers or image diffusion to give their position away! We all miss the “halcyon” (and mind you, there are some heavyweight lifting behind those air-quotes) days of 2020 when the only bull-shitters trying to pass off a fugazi were bakers and their silly-ass cake art. Is that a Nintendo GameCube or a Cake? Is that my neighbor’s dog? It looks a little weird, right? Then, before you could feel assured that this was in fact the pooch next door, the neighbor posted an elaborately layered confection that turned out to be, yeah, you guessed it, cake—cue Ron Howard’s narrative barb as you wallow in your poor judgment. But yeah, wasn’t shit just simpler then? It’s a good thing we have video games to get us through the absurdity of 2025, because there’s less AI involved with them somehow. This week’s episode is another, you guessed it, What’s-in-your-console episode because 2025 has been bountiful with the waves upon waves of interaction distraction for the winter season. We have a full table this week as George, Ed, Andrew, and Sean round out the bench to talk about all of the games juicing their serotonin, and some neat hardware talk too to boot! We’re talking Animal Crossing: New Horizon, Birdcage, MegaBonk, Absolum, Ghost of Yōtei, Tech Romancer, Metroid Dread, Parasite Eve, Hades II, Arc Raiders, Pokémon Legends: Z-A, Tech Romancer, Super Mariomon, Parasite Eve, Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, Final Fantasy XI, and more! For the hardware talk, Ed goes into some incredible detail with the Supergun setup he built with the BeharBros. Hayabusa and various electrical components to house a number of arcade boards like the Capcom CPS1 boards, Taito X System boards, IGS PolyGameMaster boards, Neo•Geo MVS boards, and more! Georgie, on the other hand, has some way less cool tech to discuss as he took the plunge on the ASUS ROG Xbox Ally X, and discussed the various hits and misses of the handheld with us on the show (spoiler, there were a few more misses than hits in the shared impressions.) This episode was definitely a long-boy™, but gosh dang darn dammit, do we think it was certainly a goodie! Be sure to enjoy during one of the many long commutes ahead during these trying Holiday times we’re all surviving in! Mail us at our new email Mailbag@presspauseradio.com, leave a voicemail at 469-PPR-TALK, and be sure to stop by at our Forums if you haven’t already registered and post your thoughts about the show. Finally, make sure to rate and subscribe to us on iTunes and YouTube, follow us on Twitch page and Twitter, and finally take part in our Facebook and Steam group!

  4. 10/15/2025

    PPR 160

    re beards still neat? We wonder, mainly because we’re older and less hip—plus we noticed the significant lack of facial hair upon the plastic grimace of Labubus, so shit’s been tripping us up to say the least. Or maybe it’s all of these heavy-hitter video game releases that are stacking up in October that have got us slipping up because HOO-boy are there some blockbuster titles appearing on shelves this month, and we’re desperately trying to keep up with it all. Join Ed, George, and Andrew as they dish on the latest news of the concerning buyout of EA, Microsoft’s ludicrous price hikes across the market, and the main topic for the episode, what we’ve all been playing in yet another edition of “What’s in your Console?” The list spans to Borderlands 4, Hollowknight: Silksong, Sonic Wings Reunion, Silent Hill f, Skate, Tokyo Jungle, Super Mario Galaxy 2, Hades II, Persona 3 Aegis, Persona 4 Golden, Persona 5 Royale, Lost Soul Aside, and a ton of Magic: The Gathering talk that’s filled with all of the oogling and speccing you could hope for! Come for the unqualified cosmetology opinions, stay for the gluttony of software we’re stuffing ourselves with. Shit, we’re not even ready for Ghost of Yōtei, Pokémon Legends: Z-A, Ninja Gaiden 4, or…  Mail us at our new email Mailbag@presspauseradio.com, leave a voicemail at 469-PPR-TALK, and be sure to stop by at our Forums if you haven’t already registered and post your thoughts about the show. Finally, make sure to rate and subscribe to us on iTunes and YouTube, follow us on Twitch page and Twitter, and finally take part in our Facebook and Steam group!

  5. 09/06/2025

    PPR 159

    verything’s an Ad nowadays (#notanAd) and the constant outpour of late-stage capitalism getting pumped out through our screens and on our pages has objectively reached a point of Ad nauseam (sorry, we just couldn’t resist.) In all seriousness, though, if there’s one form of entertainment that’s fueled by marketing magic more than any other medium, it’s video games, and there are generations upon generations of material to take a look back at and examine the expansive world of Video Game advertisements via printed ads and broadcast commercials. Join George, Sean, Andrew, and special guest Peter Skerrit as they examine nearly 50 years of promotional material and discuss some of the memorable, or more accurately, psychologically impactful ads that have embedded themselves deep into the minds of these middle-aged game junkies. From the edgy attack Ads of the 90’s to the arthouse schlock of the late aughts, we’ve got all of the deep cuts for you, as we can’t help but feel nostalgic for the shameless sales pitches of old and the levels of showmanship that Video Game advertisements used to have back then before giving up and paying Geoff Keighley a bunch of money to hock their stuff for them. Mail us at our new email Mailbag@presspauseradio.com, leave a voicemail at 469-PPR-TALK, and be sure to stop by at our Forums if you haven’t already registered and post your thoughts about the show. Finally, make sure to rate and subscribe to us on iTunes and YouTube, follow us on Twitch page and Twitter, and finally take part in our Facebook and Steam group!

  6. 06/11/2025

    PPR 157

    t’s finally here! At the top of what was arguably the most chaotic week for video games in 2025, the Nintendo Switch 2 is available now, and we’re going to spend this whole episode talking about our first impressions of it. The roundtable of chairs for the show this go-around features George, Andrew, and a very special guest, Greg Sewart, one of the Co-hosts of the esteemed Player One Podcast, and Electronic Gaming Monthly alumni, and we don’t waste any time dishing it up on Nintendo’s new thingy. From the technical performance between its handheld mode and docked mode to the ergonomic feel and system calibration, the crew tries to cover every granular detail they can about the system, the new features available, and the only real launch title released for the platform, Mario Kart World. Is it worth the hype (or more importantly, the price?) Who knows! We’re here to gush and gripe about the damn thing and share our initial thoughts so far on the successor to a nine-year-old (yes, you read that right) platform, and the roller-coaster of emotions we’ve experienced with Nintendo’s aging hybrid console leading up to this point. We Hope you enjoy the show, and please be sure to subscribe to the Player One Podcast if you haven’t already! Mail us at our new email Mailbag@presspauseradio.com, leave a voicemail at 469-PPR-TALK, and be sure to stop by at our Forums if you haven’t already registered and post your thoughts about the show. Finally, make sure to rate and subscribe to us on iTunes and YouTube, follow us on Twitch page and Twitter, and finally take part in our Facebook and Steam group!

  7. 05/13/2025

    PPR 156

    ew recording platform, who dis’? Yeah, we’re all a bit excited over some of the new tech we have to produce the show, and we’re all trying to do everything we can to enjoy it while it’s still fresh and shiny in this latest episode of Press Pause Radio. This session is much more casual than the last few episodes as the cast tries to parse out the tumultuous news cycle that came to pass over the last two weeks.  George, Ed, and Andrew are on the cans and take the time to discuss various layoffs and terminations seen from Electronic Arts, Polygon, and Giant Bomb (luckily, one of those unfortunate deals got some of the best news ever after the episode was long recorded and sent into production.) There’s also a quick recap of Nintendo Switch 2 Direct, and some thoughts on Grand Theft Auto VI getting delayed in 2026. Afterwards, the crew talks about the gamers they’ve been playing, like Rock Band Rivals, Clair Obscur Expedition 33, Division 2, Fantavision 202X, Promise Mascot Agency, Humanity, PSVR 2, Pokémon Brown Version 20th Anniversary Edition, Persona 3 Reload, and a shit ton more! We hope y’all enjoy the show because we’re gearing up for a whole lot more in the coming months! Mail us at our new email Mailbag@presspauseradio.com, leave a voicemail at 469-PPR-TALK, and be sure to stop by at our Forums if you haven’t already registered and post your thoughts about the show. Finally, make sure to rate and subscribe to us on iTunes and YouTube, follow us on Twitch page and Twitter, and finally take part in our Facebook and Steam group!

4.4
out of 5
35 Ratings

About

Press Pause Radio is a podcast created by video game fans, for video game fans. We discuss every aspect of the video game industry and culture, as well as interact with our ever growing community.