Podcasts by andyjohnson.xyz

Words about books, boardgames, music, film and videogames by Andy Johnson.

Further podcasts by Andy Johnson

Podcast on the topic Videospiele

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#56 Taylor Sheridan, last screenwriter on the frontier from 2022-02-21T18:00

In a few short years, Taylor Sheridan has been transformed from a bit-part actor on Sons of Anarchy into a major power player. Today’s screenwriters are almost anonymous, but Sheridan h...

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#55 Hell hath fury: 6(66) belated notes on Doom Eternal (2020) from 2022-02-14T17:00

Next month marks the second anniversary of Doom Eternal, which arrived just as the COVID-19 pandemic struck. The two have in some ways have followed a similar course since then, regular...

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#54 Read This: Damnation Alley (1969) by Roger Zelazny from 2022-02-07T17:00

Vast stretches of radioactive desert; rampaging biker gangs; vehicles and towns built out of scavenged parts; crumbling ruins populated by cannibals or mutants. The post-nuclear wasteland is one...

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#53 Empires, demons and the Covenant: what I played in January 2022 from 2022-01-31T17:00

2022 has arrived, and with it the promise of lots of new games and the first update of what I've been playing in the new year. I recently wrote about Listen

#48 The Ten Best Books I Read in 2021 from 2021-12-18T16:00

It’s time for my annual round-up of the best books I read during the year. As in 2019 and 2020, I aimed to read 50 books and managed to do so. Once again I primarily read sci-fi, which is reflec...

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#47 Snakes, demons and steambots: what I played in November 2021 from 2021-12-03T16:00

For me, November has been a month of two halves - split between the time before my new PC arrived, and the time afterwards. Games I played in both phases are represented in this, my second month...

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#46 Read This: The Kraken Wakes (1953) by John Wyndham from 2021-11-11T21:00

How will the world end? It’s a question that has occupied the minds of many SF writers over the years, but few have become as closely associated with it as John Wyndham.

While they wer...

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#45 Cards, robots and an angry viking: games roundup October 2021 from 2021-10-30T09:00

In the first entry in a monthly series, I share some quick reflections on five games I played in October 2021, both new and old. In this edition: Eastward, Inscryption, REKKR: Sunke...

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#44 Ten Reasons to Try Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning from 2021-09-17T20:00

Kingdoms of Amalur is now something of a cult classic, and its recent remaster is something to be celebrated. Here is a sprawling, epic RPG which manages to be accessible and fun - and ...
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#43 An Action Canon No. 3: Flash Point (2007) from 2021-09-06T19:00

Flash Point combines the talents of director Wilson Yip and star Donnie Yen, two of the foremost individuals who kept the fire of Hong Kong action cinema burning in the 2000s. The two h...
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#42 Soul on the Agenda: Chairmen of the Board in Ten Songs from 2021-08-24T19:00

Chairmen of the Board may just be one of the most underrated soul vocal groups of the 1970s, little-known outside their enduring pop hit “Give Me Just a Little More Time”. The Chairmen had a br...
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#41 More Than"War": Edwin Starr in Ten Songs from 2021-08-11T20:00

Over 50 years later, Edwin Starr's version of "War" is one of the most recognisable and popular recordings from the glory years of soul and funk - thanks in part to frequent airp...
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#40 Read This: Four Ways to Forgiveness (1995) by Ursula K. Le Guin from 2021-07-27T19:00

Following the publication of The Dispossessed (1974), Ursula K. Le Guin ceased to write new stories in her Hainish universe. In the following years, she wrote some of the books which ar...
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#39 Read This - The Star Trek: Destiny trilogy (2008) by David Mack from 2021-06-23T18:00

Originally published in late 2008, the Destiny trilogy is a major linchpin of Star Trek tie-in fiction. This hugely ambitious series combines characters, ships and backstory fr...
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#38 Divided we fall - Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 (2005) from 2021-06-16T19:00

In the glut of World War II shooters that followed in the wake of Saving Private Ryanand Band of Brothers, it could be difficult for a game to be distinctive. With their first ...
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#37 Why Red Alert 3 is the crowning glory of Command&Conquer’s second decade from 2021-03-29T19:00

In 2006, EA proudly presented a collected set of all of the Command & Conquer games released in the series' first decade. The second decade was far less successful, however, wi...
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#36 An Action Canon No. 2: Raw Deal (1986) from 2021-03-22T14:00

"Nobody gives Schwarzenegger a raw deal!" On April 1, Arnold's 1986 flop actioner directed by John Irvin will get another chance to impress, when it is added to Netflix. This epis...
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#35 On Her Majesty’s Sordid Service: Watching The Sandbaggers from 2021-03-07T19:00

In 2003, the New York Times published an article casting judgement on which show was “the best spy series in television history.” The writer, Terence Rafferty, wasn’t thinking of the th...
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#34 Read This: The Dispossessed (1974) by Ursula K. Le Guin from 2021-02-19T11:00

Resuming my exploration of the Hainish cycle by Ursula K. Le Guin, I reach The Dispossessed (1974). One of her most acclaimed books, it won the Hugo, Locus and Nebula Awards fo...
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#33 An Action Canon No. 1: RoboCop (1987) from 2021-02-05T19:00

"An Action Canon" is a new series which looks at some of the best and most important action movies of all time, and explores why they have a crucial place in the genre's history. ...
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#32 Shadowrun Returns and the Case for"Shallow"RPGs from 2021-01-09T19:00

Funded by a hugely successful kickstarter in 2012, Shadowrun Returns is that rare thing - an RPG which can be finished in a modest amount of time. This short piece looks at the appeal o...
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#31 Seeing in the New Year with Strange Days from 2021-01-01T15:00

Kathryn Bigelow's 1995 cyberpunk thriller Strange Days was a major flop, and seriously damaged her career. Watched 25 years later to see in the New Year, the movie is more relevant...
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#30 How Tomb Raider: Underworld Brought Lara Croft Full Circle from 2020-12-02T21:00

In this conclusion to a three-part series looking at Crystal Dynamics' first trilogy of Tomb Raider games, we explore the final game - Underworld. A slightly haphzard effo...
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#29 How Tomb Raider: Anniversary Took Lara Croft Back to Basics from 2020-11-23T19:00

Part two of a three-part series on the Tomb Raider: Legend trilogy (2006 - 2008).

Tomb Raider: Anniversary represents a unique fusion of two eras of the Tomb Raide...
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#28 How Tomb Raider: Legend Saved Lara Croft from 2020-11-16T21:00

In 2004, the Tomb Raider series was in a bad place. The critical failure of The Angel of Darkness led publisher Eidos to sack Core Design from the series, and bring in another ...
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#27 Racing as Revelation in Art of Rally from 2020-10-30T19:00

There is a grand tradition of rally video games, stretching back into the 1980s. Released for a host of platforms, they have varied in their approach to realism and their relationship to officia...
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#26 How to Read Michael Moorcock's Elric Saga: Part II from 2020-10-24T14:00

My overview of Michael Moorcock’s epic Elric saga continues, and concludes, with this second part. The guide covers the eight main novels in the sequence in their internal chronological order; t...
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#25 Read This: The Word for World is Forest (1972) by Ursula K. Le Guin from 2020-10-16T19:00

By 1972, Ursula K. Le Guin was increasingly being seen as one of the most important writers of science fiction and fantasy. Following from 2020-09-25T18:00
Michael Moorcock is one of speculative fiction's greatest ever authors, and Elric of Melniboné is one of the key characters in British fantasy fiction. However, the series' tortured ch...
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#21 Book Review: Downbelow Station (1981) by C.J. Cherryh from 2020-09-19T20:00

C.J. Cherryh's 1981 novel Downbelow Station won the Hugo Award for Best Novel, becoming the first book published by DAW Books to achieve this feat. A part of the long-running Allia...
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#20 Realms Deep 2020 Showed That Boomer Shooters Are Here to Stay from 2020-09-11T18:00

On September 5 and 6, 3D Realms masterminded an online game show dedicated almost entirely to retro-style FPS games. This episode runs down some of the highlights from Realms Deep 2020, and what...
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#19 Ursula K. LeGuin's Worlds of Exile and Illusion from 2020-09-06T16:00

Ursula K. LeGuin is best known for her award-winning sci-fi novels The Left Hand of Darkness (1969) and The Disposessed (1974). These are both part of her loose "Hainish c...
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#18: Book Review: The Jakarta Method by Vincent Bevins from 2020-08-28T20:00

Vincent Bevins' remarkable book The Jakarta Method is an unsettling but hugely informative look at the history of anticommunist violence in the 20th century. Focusing primarily on ...
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#17: Destroy All Monsters - In Praise of King of Tokyo from 2020-08-23T19:00

Richard Garfield's boardgame King of Tokyo had sold 750,000 copies even before its second edition was released in 2016. This episode looks at what made this classic dice-rolling game a hit,...
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#16: More Than Box-Office Dynamite - The Professionals (1966) from 2020-07-31T16:00

Featuring Lee Marvin, Burt Lancaster, Robert Ryan, Woody Strode and Claudia Cardinale, The Professionals was one of the biggest Westerns of the 1960s. Packed with explosive action and a...
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#15: Notes From Underground - The Dark Places of Metro 2033 from 2020-07-17T20:00

The survival FPS Metro 2033, developed by Kiev-based 4A Games, is a triumph of environmental storytelling. This episode explores the game's depiction of a society forced to survive...
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#14: Never Say Die - Black Sabbath in the Late'70s from 2020-07-13T19:00

During the late '70s, Black Sabbath found themselves in a challenging position. Suspicious of their management, burned out on coke, and with new music styles springing up around them, they ...
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#13 Re-Learning War: Hostile Waters from 2020-06-29T21:00

Released in 2001 and developed by Rage Software, Hostile Waters has been called "one of the best games you've never played". This episode examines this unusual hybrid of ...
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#12 Walter Hill's Magnificent Seven from 2020-06-12T17:00

Walter Hill began his career as a film director in 1975, and up until 1984 released a string of seven terrific action, thriller and Western movies. Some, including The Driver, The W...
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#11 Hard to Be a God - Populous: The Beginning from 2020-06-05T18:00

With Populous: The Beginning, beloved British games developer Bullfrog produced one of their last great games - an innovative and literally groundbreaking hybrid of the god game and the...
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#10 Enemy at the Gates: Stronghold from 2020-05-29T18:00

Fledgling British games developer Firefly Studios hit the strategy world like a battering ram with their 2001 castle-constructing sim Stronghold. A novel combination of city-building an...
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#9 Hong Kong Action Movies: A Brief Introduction from 2020-05-24T11:00

During its peak period, Hong Kong was the world's third-largest movie producer, exceeded in productivity only by the US and India. At that time, its tremendous success rested on its output ...
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#8 Doom Hope: Jookabox in Lockdown from 2020-05-16T10:00

David "Moose" Adamson's musical project Jookabox lasted from just 2007 to 2011, but made some truly odd and otherworldly albums which make for perfect lockdown listening. Inspired...
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#7 Policing an Alien Nation - XCOM: Chimera Squad from 2020-05-05T17:00

XCOM: Chimera Squad was announced and swiftly released in April 2020. Set five years after XCOM 2, it is set in City 31 - where humans, aliens and hybrids are attempting to liv...
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#6 Sense of Perspective: Sonic 3D Blast from 2020-04-28T17:00

One of the more divisive entries in the series, Sonic 3D Blast is an unusual isometric adventure for everyone's favourite blue hedghog. This short retrospective makes the case that...
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#5 Deathworld by Harry Harrison from 2020-04-28T17:00

Published in 1960, Harry Harrison's novel Deathworld launched a trilogy and has been an influence on numerous later works including Avatar. This action-packed but thoughtf...
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#4 Earthlight by Arthur C. Clarke from 2020-04-21T17:00

A brief look at the novel Earthlight (1955) by Arthur C. Clarke. The story is set on the Earth's moon, in the relatively near future. Humans have colonised much of the Solar System...
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#3 Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days by Alastair Reynolds from 2020-04-14T16:00

A look at the book Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days (2003) by British sci-fi author Alastair Reynolds. The first novella "Diamond Dogs", concerns the exploration of a deadly tower...
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#2 Kings of the Depths: Aquatica Boardgame Review from 2020-04-07T16:00

A capsule review of Aquatica, the undersea-themed boardgame launched by Russian company Cosmodrome Games at SPIEL 2019.
S...
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#1 (Another) Return to Castle Wolfenstein from 2020-03-31T16:00

Developed by Gray Matter and released in 2001, Return to Castle Wolfenstein was a triumphant return for the series that helped popularise the first-person shooter. This retrospective ta...
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#1 (Another) Return to Castle Wolfenstein from 2020-03-31T16:00

Developed by Gray Matter and released in 2001, Return to Castle Wolfenstein was a triumphant return for the series that helped popularise the first-person shooter. This retrospective ta...
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