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. MAR 17

    PPR 164

    It’s crazy how glued we are to our phones right? Maybe we should just treat phones the way the cast of Breaking Bad treats them, and just snap them in half every time we’re done with them! Either that, or  mean mug the SHIT out of Jimmy Fallon, either plan is equally cathartic and acceptable. We’re coming out with episode 164 of Press Pause Radio, and we’re here to talk about what we’ve all been playing as of late, along with some of  the latest news. On that front, George, Ed, Andrew, and special friend/ guest for the episode, KnittedFox of Sunken Treasures Games chew the fat over EA’s vile layoff of the Battlefield 6 team, thoughts on Nintendo Switch Online’s take on the Virtual Boy, Capcom terminating the voice actor for Mega Man over their Union contract and a few other odds and ends. In terms of what they’ve been playing, we chat about Final Fantasy Tactics, Dogpile, Marathon, Suika, Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom, Dungeons & Dragons, Resident Evil Requiem, Darius Gaiden, RumbleSlam, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Magic the Gathering set, and more! So grab a pint, put on your favorite shade of verdant apparel, and spend a few hours listening to your favorite group of chuckleheads talk about some games! Mail us at our new email Mailbag@presspauseradio.com, leave a voicemail at 42-GAMEZAP-4 (424-263-9274)‬, 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 our Twitch page and BlueSky, and finally take part in our Facebook and Steam group! This episode has been brought to you by our new friends at the SuperPod Network, be sure to check out all the other rad podcasts they host for Video Games and more! Finally, this episode was also brought to you by our new sponser, Dubby, a new, jitterless, friendlier energy drink made from a formula that contains a slew of vitamins, amino acids and nootropics including their patented NeuroFactor®. Click on the link listed or enter "PRESSPAUSERADIO" and get 10% off of your order right meow!

  2. FEB 26

    PPR 163

    HEY! LISTEN! Maybe don’t do that? Oh, you mean you want to figure it out on your own? Naaahhh, let’s pace you through an extensive explanation instead. Tutorialization in Video Games has always been a contentious topic that dates back way before yellow paint, and it was mouthy fairy in 1998 that directed your actions. Sometimes, it came in the form of a speaker box floating around in Dinosaur Land just waiting for a certain plumber to punch it for some information—it’s always been a thing. Even though video games have always had some sort of guidance system responsible for acclimating players to the gameplay, there are different viewpoints on how involved this training should be, and whether it’s a testament to the game design itself and its ability to naturally intuit players without a ham-fisted instruction process. Andrew, George, and Sean are going to dissect this topic for y’all in this ham-packed episode of Press Pause Radio, along with some passing thoughts on the state of Nintendo Pricing, the major corporate shakeup at Microsoft, and the big studio Sony had just laid off—it’s been an eventful time in gaming right now. So, Press “A” to get us going, and be sure not skip around like you already have the gist of everything as we get heavy into this special topic for you in episode 163 of Press Pause Radio. Mail us at our new email Mailbag@presspauseradio.com, leave a voicemail at 42-GAMEZAP-4 (424-263-9274)‬, 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 our Twitch page and BlueSky, and finally take part in our Facebook and Steam group!

  3. JAN 26

    PPR Presents The Golden Zonkies: Class of 2025

    Now 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 42-GAMEZAP-4 (424-263-9274)‬, 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 our Twitch page and BlueSky, and finally take part in our Facebook and Steam group!

  4. JAN 7

    PPR 162

    As 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 our Twitch page and Twitter, and finally take part in our Facebook and Steam group!

  5. 12/01/2025

    PPR 161

    Grifters 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 our Twitch page and Twitter, and finally take part in our Facebook and Steam group!

  6. 10/15/2025

    PPR 160

    Are 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 our Twitch page and Twitter, and finally take part in our Facebook and Steam group!

  7. 09/06/2025

    PPR 159

    Everything’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 our 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.