One Life Left's Podcast

Due to circumstances beyond our control (his football kit was still in the wash) Ste couldn't make it in today, so naturally we got on to hypothetical phone to ask our hypothetical friends at Hookshot Lnc if we could borrow Parko to be a guest presenter. The language we heard down the phone we literally unbroadcastable (although that doesn't appear to stop them having a podcast) so we had to turn to Gav Murphy from Regular Features instead. Which actually turned out to be such a good idea that we're now pretending the call to Hookshot Lnc was actually a hypothetical one.   And as well as Gav we had a Super-Special Guest in the form of Rising Star Games' Yen Hau. Despite failing in his role as product marketing manager by not bringing in any food, he did manage to give us some Deadly Premonition t-shirts that we'll give away next week to the best letters.   We also told you about our excellent Christmas Party which looks likely to be our best ever. Mostly because we're doing some actual planning this time

It's not often we have someone on the show who started in videogames around the same time as Simon, usually because they've seen Simon with his top off so often that they refuse to be near him again, but SSG Steve Boxer is a man who is prepared to take that risk. We ask him what it is like to work under a leader/dessert eater like Keith Stuart at the Guardian and the difficulties that were had working under a maker of rudie magazines*. We also told an ENTIRELY HYPOTHETICAL story about Keith Stuart's GTA5 interview. And at least Steve had somewhere to go after the show as he had been invited to the Codblopsii event. All we had to do was to watch Ste walk around London in his Stockport County kit muttering to himself about Taylor Swift and Westfield. Come on PRs, invite us to your new launch parties, we're totally prepared to sell ourselves for some tiny hamburgers and sixty dollars. And that's to share between us. Cheerio! Team OLL x  * We're trying to not attract the attentions of work filters. Links: h

There's one thing we pride ourselves on at One Life Left and it's our professionalism. Actually, that might be an over-exaggeration, but we enjoy being Europe's only Videogame FM Radio Show as it means we have to show a bit more class than those AM radio or internet only shows. There's always a chance that a SSG could ruin things for us, so we make sure that they are well informed about the three rules of radio. If they break any of those then we could be in trouble. Lucky then that there's no chance our SSSSG (Super-Sub Super-Special Guest) Hamish Todd from Girih Games would break those rules and cause us any problems right? Of course not. Instead Hamish tells us about how easy it is to not finish stuff and how Jonathan Blow is an inspiration when designing games (which goes against one of Simon's personal rules of videogame radio). We also possibly uncover an explanation as to why Ron Atkinson (breaker of rule number 3) kept referring to a footballing move as 'eyebrows'. As well as this we have our regula

In a land of distrust, and a time of hashtags, the destiny of a great videogame empire rests on the shoulders of a young radio show and podcast. Its name... One Life Left. Although we should probably give grudging respect to our two Super-Special Guests who also help us discuss how videogame journalism is going to the dogs. In the corner of the fine upstanding British Game Press we have Rob Crossley, Associate Editor from CVG. He talks about the differences between the trade press and the consumer press. SPOILERS: There aren't many differences nowadays as long as you're interested in paint. In the other corner representing American Gaming Journalism we have Leigh Alexander, Editor-at-large at Gamasutra and part-time Weather Girl. As well as telling us how the UK and US games press differs, she informs us about Wuzzles and gives us tips on the best way to get a free PS3. And because of what's happening in journalism it means we can't go on about our karaoke as much as we usually do. We know, we've got sad f

We'll admit it, losing the GMA this year hit us hard. People take loss in different ways and we decided to imagine it was a happier time. Say three years ago when people actually liked us enough to give us awards. Or send in letters. One person who still likes us is Paul Kercal, our Super-Special Guest for this week's episode. He cheered us up by doing some amazing drawings on his numerous tablets, which we'll be uploading to the website soon. It was also interesting to hear how he first met Simon, which may have been the first 'first meeting of Simon' story that could actually be broadcast on the radio. But how did Ann first meet Ste? The truth (as imagined by Simon) will be heard in this episode. There's also a birthday shout-out to Friend of the Show Leigh Alexander who will also be attending our Videogame Karaoke that is happening this Thursday at 9pm in Nottingham (as long as you're reading this before the event has started). It all adds up to another excellent episode of One Life Left! Well, apart fr

We're in full preparation for the GMAs which for most nominees means they're getting speeches ready in case they win, but in our case we're just doing lots of press-ups with our tops off to get ready to push over various gaming luminaries. If you're going there be warned: you could be on our list. (There is no list, we just push over people who get within range if we've had enough to drink). Luckily our super-special guests Ben Hogg and Daniela Pietrosanu from board game distributors Esdevium didn't need to be pushed into coming on our show. They were won over by our possibly award-winning professionalism such as Ste turning up literally as we were going on air, Ann cracking up at one of her own jokes and Simon. We did get lots of good board gaming ideas and got annoyed at those licensing deals that mean we can't buy the Uncharted board game over here. Perhaps we should ask Lord Sir Charles Cecil to buy us one when he's over in America picking up his Kickstarter millions. Annoyingly Ann forgot to ask Ben an

The full team is back this week and no substitutions were allowed this week. Ann fancied a day off, but she knew that people depend on her for her in depth video game news that you can't get anywhere else. Except perhaps Europegamer (although they never end their news stories on an incredibly funny joke). There was also no Super-Special Guest so this allowed the team to look at the biggest gaming stories in more detail. Which were mostly about us, obviously. Not only did we go through last week's Videogame Karaoke but we also announced that there will be another Videogame Karaoke at Not'num GameCity along with lots of Videogame based drink. Keep Thursday October 25th free. Unless you're Ann and tell everyone (incorrectly) that it was the Wednesday. Another big story is that City of Heroes is still closing and being fans of the underdogs (especially if they are also fans of us and send us songs to play on the show) we put our name behind the campaign to keep it open. We fully expect NCSoft to reverse their d

Ste makes his return this week so that means we have a full compliment of presenters. But wait... Simon looks different. For one thing he's got his top on which is a first for 2012. Oh, it turns out Simon couldn't make it so he hired Guardian games journalist Keith Stuart to be his replacement. Which raises all kinds of questions about why Ste didn't need a replacement but Simon did. Does this mean Ste is irreplaceable? As with most things, we don't know. We do know that our Super-Special Guest is worthy of that title as we welcome Paul Presley into the studio. He currently looks after the quarterly and three-monthly Continue magazine, but also has been round enough to have seen Simon when Simon first started in the industry. We get a bit of gossip about young Simon from Paul, however the majority of tales are still not suitable for the airwaves. Keith gives us a bit of a preview for his How To Be A Games Journalist event (which will have finished by the time the podcast is up) by telling us the top five wo

With no Ste in the studio today it means that all bets (and tops) are off. It also means that the show will go more smoothly than usual and the typical Curran errors will disappear. Well, sort of. Luckily we didn't make an error in booking Adrian Barrett of Silverball Studios to become a Super-Special Guest. Not only is he an expert with the silver ball, but he's also an expert with the oval shaped ball (as long as it's during the night time and in Oxford). He tells us how you get authorisation from Nintendo to make a Mario game and also his other dreams, illusions and fantasies about pinball. If you remember the old Pro Pinball games then get over to his Kickstarter page now where Silverball are trying to remaster Pro Pinball for pretty much every system going. Simon explains how he's progressed from pushing Phil Fish over in bars to pushing the general public out of very tall cranes in the interests of PR. But he also manages to get Doctor Avatar and Derek Williams mixed up. However, now we think about it

We've often been accused of being biased in our reviews and particularly with our reviews scores. People have laid the unfounded claim that we're in the pocket of the evil corporations (and sometimes of the equally evil indies). One particularly hurtful charge said that we were puppets of the gaming industry. But thanks to Edgar and Bryce of the Salle Pierre Lamy podcast we have seen that being a puppet isn't so bad. Especially if you drink lots of risky beforehand. Yes, in a FM-broadcast videogames radio show EXCLUSIVE! we have puppets as our Super Special Guests. Who were actually some of our most coherent guests for a long time. Edgar and Bryce even brought in a competition prize for you listeners to win so they easily fit into our top three SSGs who were made of fabric. This is also the only podcast where you will learn the definitive differences between Cross-bye, cross-play, share shaves, use vita as a ps3 controller, ps minis and ps1 back catalogue. Please remember our easy to learn method and im

There's one thing One Life Left is famed for and that's being the UK's only FM videogames radioshow. Except apparently we're not anymore. But we are back, Back, BACK! with an all-new episode of your favourite gaming podcast. Except apparently we're not anymore. (We're assuming you've pushed us up to being your favourite podcast overall right?) And this is a bumper episode as we have Simon P on the show! Luckily we're not desperate enough to have Parko back as a guest, but we have the creator of Fluid Football, Simon Prytherch as a Super Special Guest. He helps us understand the changes in Steam's Greenlight. Why didn't we get the exclusive on what colour light Steam were going to use? Our powers are fading. You could be excused for thinking that Simon would be enough for one show. But our listeners deserve more so we got Matt and John from Harmonix on the show. They seemed to feel that they were the better dancers as they'd been on a tour of Asia showing off the fourth-wall breaking, time-travelling Dance C

It's the third OLL Golld and haven't we come far over these three episodes? Well, we've been on holiday so we've gone far but we're not sure if that counts. Either way you're guaranteed some excellent features in this episode as Raina goes to Funspot, Odds On gives tips and Chiara is still trying to get out of rural Japan. Exciting right? This episode contains features from the episodes originally aired on 12/06/2006 and 19/06/2006. God, we were so young then :( Cheerio!Team OLL x Tracklist: 12/06/2006 - Ms. Snacman12/06/2006 - Craig 'the Rage' McClelland12/06/2006 - Raina Lee12/06/2006 - Professor Game/Doctor Watch12/06/2006 - Odds On OD12/06/2006 - Chiara19/06/2006 - Professor Game/Doctor Watch19/06/2006 - Craig 'the Rage' McClelland19/06/2006 - Raina Lee19/06/2006 - Odds On OD19/06/2006 - Chiara19/06/2006 - Derek Williams Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We've had no complaints about last week's best of episode (not even from Parko - we must be doing something wrong) so we'll stick with it again. This week we've got the features from the episodes broadcast on 22/05/2006, 29/05/2006 and 05/06/2006. It's the same contributors as last week except we also have Chiara making her debut. We sent her to Japan to become One Life Left's Japanese Contributor but Ann got the tickets mixed up so she never actually got to Tokyo. Whatever happened to Chiara? We kind of forgot, we hope she's ok :( Anyway, hopefully you'll enjoy hearing Odds On OD make predictions about the Wii, Raina Lee talking about her blossoming love-life, Doctor Watch's camping and Ms. Snacman cooking. And there's Derek and Craig showing that even six years back they were as amazing as they are now. Is that a compliment or are we saying they've showed no signs of improvement? It was meant as a compliment. Unless Parko thinks we're writing about him again, in which case it definitely wasn't. Cheerio!T

So we're on holiday again. But this time we've tried to provide some holiday cover by delving into our archives.Do you remember when we buried that time capsule in the OLL Garden? It was next to that six foot hole that we've kept there in case so-called friends decide to appear on the Eurogamer podcast. Anyway, we recently went back to it and found that some of the features were literally ok to put on a holiday podcast.And here it is. The first ever appearances of Odds on OD, Derek Williams and Craig 'The Rage' McClelland along with some people you might not have heard of. Hopefully it's of interest to you. Let us know either way via Twitter, Facebook, e-mail or on the website.Cheerio!Team OLL xTracklist:24/04/2006 Professor Game and Doctor Watch24/04/2006 Odds On OD24/04/2006 Derek Williams01/05/2006 Professor Game and Doctor Watch01/05/2006 Odds On OD01/05/2006 Derek Williams08/05/2006 Craig 'The Rage' McClelland08/05/2006 Odds On OD08/05/2006 Raina Lee08/05/2006 Ms Snacman08/05/2006 Professor Game and Doct

It's a rather over-used phrase but One Life Left is back. And this time we're back for good and there's no way that we're going to go on an immediate three week break due to misunderstandings. Oh. We promise that we'll do a full October. (Although we won't mention what year just in case we can't raise the bail for Simon again)Anyway, at least this is an excellent show to go on a break with and we think it will be considered the real Olympic closing ceremony. But unlike the BBC we don't go on about the games for all of the show. No, in fact there's a bumper news section which almost takes up half the show. Eurogamer must be proud.And we have a superb super-special guest in the New Statesman's Helen Lewis (or should that be Shoe Statesman?). Is she able to defend her obviously-incorrect theory that the score of seven out of ten should be outlawed? What does she think of the term 'Girlfriend mode'? Who does she think is better out of Justin Bieber and *Nsync? What shoe would she like someone to turn into? And di

We still don't have a Simon this week, and there's not even another Simon to replace him so it's just Ann and Ste hosting today. This means that tops stay firmly on, but Ste does get his legs out for the listeners.And perhaps it's the air to his knees that caused him to temporarily confuse our Super-Special Guest Brynley Gibson with Britney Spears, although Brynley wearing the schoolgirl outfit didn't help.What did help was Brynley bringing in Art Academy, the latest game he has executive produced for Headstrong Games. Ann hasn't picked up a pencil or pen since her last Ann Art feature so she needed some tips and tricks which Art Academy provided.That means that Ann Art has returned so if you can identify all of her videogame drawings from Ste and Brynley's descriptions then e-mail us and you could win a prize.But surely having a show with all these features and Derek Williams and Dr. Avatar means you have already won?Cheerio!Team OLL xLinks:https://twitter.com/brynleygibson/http://www.kongregate.com/games/Ir

Finally, everything is back to normal. No legal issues causing us to miss a week, no trips to Sweden or San Francisco breaking up the series. So let's have a roll call. Ste? Check. Ann? Check. Simon? Check - wait - you look different Simon. For one thing you have your top on. And you also have a Pong tattoo on your arm.Oh, of course! Simon Byron had booked the day off for holiday so instead we welcome EOTS/FOTS/SSG/G Simon 'Parko' Parkin. He explains the differences between writing for Eurogamer and writing for the Guardian in such a way that it's likely he won't be employed by either of them anymore. But they should keep him employed as we think his failed poetry method of reviewing is great.The features this week are the excellent Derek Williams, Craig 'The Rage' McClelland and Duncan Timiney. That is: they're all excellent. Not just Derek. Please don't send in any more letters of complaint. Unless they're about Parko.Our listeners sent in a load of prospective tattoos for Parko to add to the Pong one. Whic

Ok, so in our last episode the guest cancelled on us (but we had the excellent Mike Bithell to replace him). Luckily we had no problems this week, well apart from from Ste nearly missing the show due to the trains being English and therefore rubbish. And we suppose not having a show last week could be classed as a problem. Unfortunately our legal team have stressed that we can't reveal why it was cancelled, all we can do is say that the London 2012 Olympics Committee have yet to announce the Official Videogaming FM Radio Show of the London 2012 Olympic Games. Luckily our Super-Special Guest had no problems getting into the studio, which meant that we were happy to have New Star Games' Simon Read on the show. We took him on a tour of how his excellent iOS/Android/PC game New Star Soccer is rated around the world. He also dropped a few EXCLUSIVES! for us, but these EXCLUSIVES! are now becoming second nature for us. And along with our Super-Special Guest, we had Derek Williams, the welcome return of Doctor Ava

It's another amazing episode of One Life Left this week and we're proud to announce that Randy Pitchford is on our to show talk about Borderlands 2 and - sorry, what? He'd rather spend more time with his family? What are we going to do now? Who would be stupid enough to come on our show and the very last minute? Perhaps we could ask Danny Wallace, if he wasn't too busy ignoring his roots... It's another amazing episode of One Life Left and we're proud to announce the welcome return of FOTS and helmer of the excellent Thomas Was Alone, Mike Bithell. Well, he helmed it, but it was mostly our idea. You'll find out in the show if Ste can manage to stop Mike talking about himself and 'his' game for one minute. Tsk, anyone would think he was the guest or something. And slowly but surely the regular features are starting to return. As well as Derek Williams, we see the season returns of Craig 'The Rage' McLelland and Duncan 'Week O' Wiki Wah Wah' Timiney. So there's your OLL guarantee of excellence (no claims can

Oh my God we're back again. You could argue that last week we said we were back, but this is the proper launch of season 8. It must be because Derek Williams is back with a new Free Market Economy. And not only is Derek back, but we have a Super Special-Guest on the show in the form of Kanye Zone's Michael Frederickson. Admittedly he was on the show about five episodes back, but by our calculations (and our long break) that means it was around October 2011. Why not go on Michael's game and try to make it a dime day? Ann gives us one of her best jokes ever, see if your opinion matches with hers. She and Michael also give us first-hand knowledge of the Hitman advert controversy, whilst Ste tells us of a big secret in the world of Tetris. Cheerio!Team OLL x Links:http://twitter.com/#!/mfredericksonhttp://www.kanyezone.comhttp://soundcloud.com/derekfme Playlist:Kubbi - Juggernaut (http://chipmusic.org/kubbi/music/juggernaut)nonfinite - If Desperation Was Enough (http://chipmusic.org/nonfinite/music/if-desper