PPR Presents Golden Zonkies: Class of 2024

ell, we should have guessed that it wouldn’t be a Golden Zonkies episode without a troubled production to delay the release! Some traditions really do die hard! Anyway—our sincerest apologies for the delay, the Golden Zonkie class of 2024 is officially here!

Unfortunately, 2024 saw more of the same crap that permeated 2023. The games industry layoffs didn’t slow down, unionization efforts have a long way to go, technical shortcomings have handily proven that we’re not ready for the all-digital landscape the industry is barreling towards, and in the best Oscar Isaac impression we can do—somehow Gamergate has returned….

Still—there were plenty of games to get excited about, and developments to look forward to, so without further ado, here’s the lowdown on Press Pause Radio’s Golden Zonkies special.

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, only, 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 five (we just happened to have played more killer games in 2023 than usual.)

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!

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PPR 154

ew year, same tardy nonsense—we recorded a few weeks ago, but life and technical issues got in the way of the production process, and for that, we sincerely apologize to y’all.

Before we get into the Golden Zonkies’ class of 2024, however, we wanted to have an old-school “PPR-ass PPR” round robin on a featured topic, and what better subject than the art and science behind video game box art?

Join George, Ed, and Andrew as they discuss the history, culture, and legacy of box art, such as the ever-changing motifs of design and the artists who famously brought them to life on shelves like George Opperman, Greg Martin, Bob Wakelin, Yoshitaka Amano, Tom DuBois, Ken Sugimori, Yoji Shinkawa, and more. Hell, have you ever thought about what the box of your favorite video game may have looked like in a different country? Raccoon Mario soaring against a yellow backdrop may be a Mount Rushmore type of pastiche here, but in Japan, the giant ensemble piece of characters against a teal palate is what tickles the nostalgia bone in that corner of the world, and that’s so weirdly fascinating don’t you think?

Every year that passes is another year closer to a fully digital media landscape, and while that can have huge ramifications on the preservation of software, something as innocuous as box art can sometimes be the little dumb thing that makes physical media truly that much more special. We hope you enjoy the latest episode of Press Pause Radio—and don’t forget to check out the next one, because we’ll be doing the Golden Zonkies for 2024 next!

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!

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PPR 153

ife has been pretty hectic for all of us, and even when we have in some time to play some games in between the bustle and hustle of day-to-day life, it’s been a little harder to find time in the day to talk about what we’ve been playing amongst ourselves…

So for that, we’re really sorry about the delay with this week’s episode, but hey, we’re pretty excited to say it was a real doozy to chat it up for the show because we brought a good friend to record with us!

This week’s episode of Press Pause Radio, we asked Game journo luminary and current editor-in-chief of Electronic Gaming Monthly, Mollie L. Patterson to join the cast of Ed, George, and Sean for another edition of What’s-in-Your-Console and a bit of news impressions on the side!

In Episode 153 of Press Pause Radio, the gang discusses Nintendo Alarmo, Taito Arcade Kits, PlayStation 5 Pro, Eliminate Down, Elsie, Metaphor: ReFantazio, UFO 50, Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland, Tutankham, El Viento, Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, Magic: The Gathering, Actraiser, UN Squadron, Super Mario Bros. Wonder, the state of the United States Healthcare system, and a whole lot more!

So mail in your ballots, gear up for winter flood of holiday releases, and get ready to jot down your game-of-the-year candidates because the Golden Zonkies are coming up super soon!

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!

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PPR 152

s real as Bobby Braddock’s melodic soliloquy "Time Marches On" gets, we are now on the other side of another digital sunset as Microsoft closes down the Xbox 360 Marketplace. The term "sunset" may not be the right choice here, though with all of Microsoft’s confusing cross-pollination between the last couple of Xbox generations, this “sunset” comes off more like a hasty “sweep under the rug” where front-end accessibility to the iconic storefront can still be accessed through weird exploits that are reminiscent of a secret-menu at your local drive-thru.

The latest episode of Press Pause Radio is a full round-table of PPR pundits as George, Andrew, Ed, and Sean pour their hearts out on a post-mortem look at the Xbox 360 Marketplace and the ups and downs of what the service did in its prime and the legacy it holds into this weird twilight-esque second life on the Xbox One/Series era of Xbox Live. We also wax nostalgic on all the choice cuts the store had to offer, whether it was a delisted Konami Arcade port, a SEGA gem, or the HD re-release of the only decent thing that Doug TenNapel has ever done with his miserable existence—we get heavy into the gems that players could only find on the Xbox 360 Marketplace, and explore how these games helped shape Xbox into the household name that it is today.

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!

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PPR 151

t’s raining diss tracks y’all, and ain’t nobody safe from the rhyming raids of character assault up in this BEE-yotch that we call LYFE…

Alright, that’s enough cringe—with all of the harrowing news we’ve seen out of 2024, we’ve decided to try our hand at some levity with a brainstorm-fueled feature topic that we think can bring out the sort of trademark fun the video games are iconic for. In the same vein of fantasy booking your favorite sport, we’ve decided to come together and choose one intellectual property to revive for a modern-day release from twelve different companies who have either dabbled in publishing or development for that property and make a case for why that given franchise is worthy of a new game over any other dormant franchises that have also been left in the gaming past.

It’s the type of “think-tank” discussion that we haven’t had on the show in some time! Join Andrew, George, and special guest, Joie of Super RPG Friends and Cerulean Skies as we wax nostalgia in the future tense as we plead the importance of a ninth-generation rally for dozens of cult-classic properties for y’all in episode 151 of Press Pause Radio!

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!

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PPR 150

ey everyone, apologies for sitting on the production of the episode for as long as we did—a combination of schedule changes within our daily routines coupled with the rare moments of poop-socking that were granted for us to dump giant loads into new releases with near endless maws of content really fucked up our usual operational turn-around times. Nevertheless, that’s all over and done with as we’re here to catch up with 2024 and plug away at another new year of gaming (and the sad sad shit that’s unfortunately stuck on to it like childhood baggage it would seem.

Rest assured though, with the little money this outfit has ever seen in its fifteen year run so far, we’ve come nowhere NEAR the volume of corporate glut that was the Corporate budget for Milk from VICE management—holy shit is it wild y’all. Anyway, in this episode of Press Pause Radio, Ed, George, Andrew, and Sean all gather together to discuss the details of their precious screentime in another edition of “What’s in your Console “ and we get deep in our time with sharing with the class in this session of water cooler talk.

On docket for the show, you’ll hear about the Commodore 64 Mini, Lazy Jones, Scramble, The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters, Tatsujin, GameBoy mod work, Hori Fighting sticks, Helldivers II, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, Splatoon 3: Side Order, Mario VS Donkey Kong, Final Fantasy VII: Remake Intergrade, Contra: Operation Galuga, Palworld. Unicorn Overlord, the WiiU and so much more!

So be sure to get  your intake of Vitamin R and soak nearly 3 hours of ear candy from one of the oldest video game podcasts still kicking in the game—here’s episode 150 of Press Pause Radio!

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!

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PPR Presents The Golden Zonkies: Class Of 2023

ot to get too sidetracked but did y’all know that American Dad has aired for 13 seasons now? Shit’s kind of wild when you think about it. Anyway, better late than ever, here’s our annual Golden Zonkey Podcast special for the year 2023! We were able to fit a bunch of new games into our lineup, and of course, a bunch of old-ass ones too! Like, sure I guess it isn’t all that weird that George rolled a Texas Instruments Ti99/4a and Epoch Super CassetteVision into his lineup, but can y’all believe that Ed got a PS5 AND an Xbox One?! Andrew also picked up a friggin’ PlayDate—we are certainly wildn’ right meow y’all.

Despite all of the layoffs and chaotic mergers leaving behind more Valleys than Peaks in the Games Industry last year, there were still some genuinely massive achievements that deserve their flowers. Here’s to doing what we can to give back to the medium that brings our lives so much joy.

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, we’re still giving our prestigious mark of excellence, a Golden Zonkey, to the games that are deserving of recognition, only, we’re not doing 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 five (we just happened to have played more killer games in 2023 than usual.)

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.

Thanks again for listening to us gab on about our favorite time-wasters from last year. May we do what we can to capture both your ears AND eyes this on Press Pause Radio with all the neat shit we have in store—love ya!

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!

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PPR 149

here’s one thing to lose a job (it still sucks, there’s no denying that) but it’s a whole other level of despair when you lose a dream job—something you’re proud to call a career. In the year 2023 alone, there has been a reported 6,000 layoffs in the Games Industry since October of this year, and that’s not even accounting for some of the new figures that were announced the last two weeks either.

Mind you, this is also happening in a year where profits are supposedly reaching record-breaking highs, but what kind of success can that really account for when it’s done at the expense of disposed talent—this shit straight sucks.

So join Andrew and George as they discuss the harsh reality of the industry and the growing instability for job security across multiples professions in the industry, and what measures, steps, and activism we can accomplish from both the outside, and the inside of the industry (take a shot every time we say “unionize” it’ll be a hoot!)

Prior to that, we also talk about some of the games we’ve been playing like Bluey: The Video Game, Robocop, Void Stranger, and more—lots to unpack before we head into the Holiday! Enjoy the episode everyone.

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!

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