My Perfect Console with Simon Parkin

My guest today is Sooz Kempner, an English actress, pianist, singer and award-winning stand-up comedian. Born into a showbiz dynasty – the family dog appeared in an advertisment for Nissan, and their cat, Boris, played Jonesy in Aliens – she moved to Ayia Napa to work as a Christina Aguilera tribute act.After she returned to England she began a post-graduate course at Royal College of Music, performing stand-up in her spare time. In 2010 she graduated from the RCM and promptly won Best Newcomer at the Musical Comedy Awards.Since then, she has toured extensively, performed eight solo shows at the Edinburgh Fringe and launched two hit podcasts, Mystery on the Rocks, a true crime and cocktails comedy show and the UK's official podcast for the rock group Queen. A born performer and talented mimic, her impressions of Liza Minnelli, Nadine Dorries and Liz Truss routinely go viral online. She is currently touring the UK with her latest show, titled PlayStation – a nostalgic look back at growing up through the nineties.Play the console:Sonic the Hedgehog 2Dr Robotnik's Mean Bean MachineTekken 3Tomb Raider III: Adventures of Lara CroftOddworld: Abe's OddyseeThank you for listening to My Perfect Console. Please consider becoming a Patreon supporter; your small monthly subscription will help to make the podcast sustainable for the long term, and you'll receive bonus content, and access to the My Perfect Console community: https://www.patreon.com/myperfectconsoleBecome a My Perfect Console supporter and receive a range of benefits at www.patreon.com/myperfectconsole Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest today is Kelsey Lewin, co-director of the Video Game History Foundation, the non-profit dedicated to preserving, celebrating, and teaching the history of video games.In 2017, after graduating college, my guest helped curate an Atari-themed pop-up exhibition at the Portland Retro Gaming Expo. Two years later Game Informer enlisted her as a volunteer to digitize the magazine’s entire archive at its Minnesota headquarters. After five weeks of intense work, she became the Video Game History Foundation’s co-director.Described by the New Yorker as “compact and laser focussed”, since then she has sifted through thousands of old documents, discs, magazines, and prototypes in an effort to rescue the video game medium’s history from oblivion.“Once institutions can see that putting effort and funding behind video game preservation in a useful, sustainable way is possible — I think they’ll do it,” she recently wrote.  “We’re working on it, but the work is just beginning.”Play the console:Pokémon CrystalAnimal CrossingDance Dance Revolution SuperNovaXenoblade ChroniclesMonster Hunter 4 UltimateThank you for listening to My Perfect Console. Please consider becoming a Patreon supporter; your small monthly subscription will help to make the podcast sustainable for the long term, and you'll receive bonus content, and access to the My Perfect Console community: https://www.patreon.com/myperfectconsoleBecome a My Perfect Console supporter and receive a range of benefits at www.patreon.com/myperfectconsole Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest today is Danny Pudi, an American comedian and actor, who played the role of Abed Nadir in the long-running American sitcom Community. Born in Chicago, Illinois to a Polish mother and an Indian father, he studied communication and theatre at Marquette University in Milwaukee having won the inaugural Chris Farley Scholarship – an award that led him to perform improv comedy alongside Dave Chappelle.In 2005 he moved to Los Angeles, and starred in several sitcom pilots before joining the cast of Community, in which he starred for six seasons. In 2017 my guest voiced Huey in the reboot of DuckTales. He has also provided cameo appearances in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and Star Trek Beyond, as well as appearing in TV advertisements for the Far Cry series.He currently plays Brad Bakshi, the head of the monetization department at a video game studio in the TV series Mythic Quest: Raven's Banquet.Play the console:GauntletNHLPA Hockey '93Mortal Kombat IIProfessor Layton and the Curious VillageThe Legend of Zelda: Breath of the WildThank you for listening to My Perfect Console. Please consider becoming a Patreon supporter; your small monthly subscription will help to make the podcast sustainable for the long term, and you'll receive bonus content, and access to the My Perfect Console community: https://www.patreon.com/myperfectconsoleBecome a My Perfect Console supporter and receive a range of benefits at www.patreon.com/myperfectconsole Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest today is Tetsuya Mizucguchi, the Japanese designer of some of the most transcendent music-themed video games yet made.He graduated with a degree in media aesthetics from Nihon University, then, inspired by a photograph of a virtual reality headset made by NASA, joined Sega hoping to work on a similar project. A keen sports car enthusiast, he developed the arcade racing game Sega Rally Championship then, during a research trip in Switzerland, attended a dance music concert and found himself in a crowd of tens of thousands. Seeing how the music, lights and bodies moved together, set him on a new path toward making full-sensory digital experiences.In 2001 he released Rez, a trance-themed game in which players shoot down computer viruses in time to the beat; it is today widely regarded as one of the high points of digital expression. “I still feel like I am in the middle of my career,” he once told me. “I’ve only achieved half of what I want to. And I have not lost my excitement about games.”Play the console:PongXenon 2: MegablastG-LOC: Air BattleRezLuminesThank you for listening to My Perfect Console. Please consider becoming a Patreon supporter; your small monthly subscription will help to make the podcast sustainable for the long term, and you'll receive bonus content, and access to the My Perfect Console community: https://www.patreon.com/myperfectconsoleBecome a My Perfect Console supporter and receive a range of benefits at www.patreon.com/myperfectconsole Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest today is Iain Cook, a Scottish musician, producer, and pop star. In 2003, while studying at the University of Strathclyde in Scotland, he met Martin Doherty, who asked my guest to produce a record for his band. The two remained friends, and later played together in the post rock group Aereogramme.In 2007, after Aereogramme disbanded, my guest bought himself an analogue synthaser. Four years later he and Doherty joined up with the music journalist and singer Lauren Mayberry to form the synth pop group Chvrches.After gaining word of mouth attention online, Chvrches released their debut single, The Mother We Share, which broke into the UK singles chart. Since then, the band have toured the world, played to millions, released four studio albums and, in 2019, provided a song to Death Stranding, Hideo Kojima’s game about a post-apocalyptic delivery man.Play the console:DoDonPachi DaiOuJouStreet Fighter IVFinal Fantasy XIVMario Kart 8 DeluxeTetris EffectThank you for listening to My Perfect Console. Please consider becoming a Patreon supporter; your small monthly subscription will help to make the podcast sustainable for the long term, and you'll receive bonus content, and access to the My Perfect Console community: https://www.patreon.com/myperfectconsoleBecome a My Perfect Console supporter and receive a range of benefits at www.patreon.com/myperfectconsole Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest today is Ellie Gibson, an award--winning journalist, presenter, and one half of the comedy double act Scummy Mummies. Born in South London, my guest joined Sony in 2001 and there wrote the manuals for first-party PlayStation games.She moved into journalism, covering games for a variety of publications, including Eurogamer, The Guardian, Metro, and Vice. In 2013 she met aspiring comic Helen Thorn and together the pair decided to form a double-act to celebrate the scummier side of parenting.Since then, they have toured the UK to packed-out venues and launched of the world’s most popular parenting podcasts examining everything from mental health, to politics, wine to sex. My guest has continued to play games, however, appeared as a co-presenter on Dara O’ Briain’s Go 8-bit TV series and via streaming marathons on Twitch.Play the console:The NewZealand StoryTomb Raider (1996)Jak and Daxter: The Precursor LegacyAssassin's Creed ValhallaPowerWash SimulatorThank you for listening to My Perfect Console. Please consider becoming a Patreon supporter; your small monthly subscription will help to make the podcast sustainable for the long term, and you'll receive bonus content, and access to the My Perfect Console community: https://www.patreon.com/myperfectconsoleBecome a My Perfect Console supporter and receive a range of benefits at www.patreon.com/myperfectconsole Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest today is the Pulitzer Prize-winning American investigative journalist Ronan Farrow. Born in New York City he earned his degree in philosophy at just fifteen. While a teenager he served as a UNICEF Spokesperson for Youth, advocating for children and women caught up in the Darfur crisis in Sudan. In 2009, at 22 years old, he became a special advisor to the Obama administration, then a Rhodes Scholar, earning his PhD in political science at Magdalen College, Oxford.It was his work detailing allegations of sexual misconduct against the movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, published in the New Yorker, that situated my guest in the centre of the global spotlight, however. His reporting has had profound effects, both within the film industry, and further afield.Through all of this, video games have been a constant. “I love video games,” he told the New York Times in 2021. “Big nerd here."Play the console:RivenDeus ExBloodborneOuter WildsDisco ElysiumThank you for listening to My Perfect Console. Please consider becoming a Patreon supporter; your small monthly subscription will help to make the podcast sustainable for the long term, and you'll receive bonus content, and access to the My Perfect Console community: https://www.patreon.com/myperfectconsoleBecome a My Perfect Console supporter and receive a range of benefits at www.patreon.com/myperfectconsole Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest today is Dan Vecchitto, the American creator of one of 2022’s funniest games. In Trombone Champ, you play as a trombonist and must blast your way through a setlist of classical pieces, national anthems, and traditional songs in a brilliant and riotously silly reinterpretation of Guitar Hero.After a journalist for PC Gamer posted a video of himself ruining Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony in the game last year, Trombone Champ became a viral sensation, propelling my guest and his wife collaborator into the spotlight. Colleen Wheeler of the International Trombone Association told the Guardian: “It is abundantly clear that this is the finest video game ever created.”Riding high on that success, my guest and his wife recently made a webgame to promote Gabrielle Zevin's smash hit novel ‘Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow’. “I don’t know why there’s not more comedy in games,” he once said. “Because games can be so funny.”Play the console:DoomKlik 'n' PlayReturn to ZorkWarcraft Worms 2Thank you for listening to My Perfect Console. Please consider becoming a Patreon supporter; your small monthly subscription will help to make the podcast sustainable for the long term, and you'll receive bonus content, and access to the My Perfect Console community: https://www.patreon.com/myperfectconsoleBecome a My Perfect Console supporter and receive a range of benefits at www.patreon.com/myperfectconsole Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest today is the legendary British video game designer, Charles Cecil. While a student at Manchester University, a friend invited him to write a text adventure which led him to work for the video game publishers US Gold and, later, Activision. In 1990 he co-founded Revolution Software in the North of England.After releasing Lure of the Temptress and Beneath a Steel Sky, he began work on Broken Sword, a world-spanning adventure game starring the American patent lawyer, George Stobbart and his French girlfriend, Nicole Collard, a freelance journalist. The game had a witty script, was beautifully illustrated, and featured a soundtrack by Barrington Pheloung, the composer of the Inspector Morse TV series, who my guest first met over a game of cricket.After Sony reluctantly brought the game to PlayStation, it became a smash hit, leading to a string of successful sequels. But the course has not always been easy. “The audience for adventure games is limited,” he once told me. “But that audience is incredibly loyal.”Play the console:GalaxianDay of the TentacleSuper Mario 64Grand Theft Auto IIIInsideThank you for listening to My Perfect Console. Please consider becoming a Patreon supporter; your small monthly subscription will help to make the podcast sustainable for the long term, and you'll receive bonus content, and access to the My Perfect Console community: https://www.patreon.com/myperfectconsoleBecome a My Perfect Console supporter and receive a range of benefits at www.patreon.com/myperfectconsole Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My guest today is Grace Curtis, a video game critic and one of the most exciting new voices in science fiction writing. Born in Newcastle-on-Tyne, she graduated from the UEA with a degree in English Literature with Creative Writing in 2019. Since then, she has worked as a freelance critic, contributing to Edge magazine and Eurogamer, and with the game publisher Future Friends, part of the team that helped bring you indie hits such as Vampire Survivors, Cloud Gardens and Heaven’s Vault.In 2023 she published her debut novel Frontier, a sci fi western set in the distant future when climate change has returned the Earth to a desert wasteland ruled over by gunslingers and horse thieves. Frontier is a tale of love, loss and laser guns. She is currently working on a second book for Hodder & Stoughton, Floating Hotel, described as ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel in Space’.Play the console:The Legend Of Zelda: Spirit TracksPortalUndertaleHyper Light DrifterDisco ElysiumThank you for listening to My Perfect Console. Please consider becoming a Patreon supporter; your small monthly subscription will help to make the podcast sustainable for the long term, and you'll receive bonus content, and access to the My Perfect Console community: https://www.patreon.com/myperfectconsoleBecome a My Perfect Console supporter and receive a range of benefits at www.patreon.com/myperfectconsole Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.