Maximum Power Up
A video gaming podcast that covers both retro gaming as well as modern systems. The show features discussion on various topics, reviews and more.
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Episode 120 - Rob Leane Interview
01/04/2024
Episode 120 - Rob Leane Interview
Chris Smith is joined by regular host Paul Monaghan and special guest Rob Leane, gaming editor for the Radio Times. We discuss Rob's career so far, the beloved status of Radio Times and how it came to have a gaming editor, as well as an extended discussion about Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and its implications for modern games jouralism. It's worth a listen to enjoy Paul forgetting that he is a host on this podcast, and instead take the opportunity to be interviewed for his work on Amiga Addict and Pixel Addict.
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Episode 119 - Maximum Catch Up
12/20/2023
Episode 119 - Maximum Catch Up
Chris and Paul once again realise almost another year has gone by since they last recorded. Join us as we catch up on the year just gone, and manage to almost entirely avoid talking about Christmas.
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Episode 118 - Gaming in 2023
02/13/2023
Episode 118 - Gaming in 2023
You wait weeks for a podcast, then two hours come along at once. Chris is joined by returning host Paul to look at their highlights from the games that have been announced for the year ahead. With a brief diversion to discuss the Amiga Mini, because there was no chance of them staying on topic.
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2022 End of Year Show
12/20/2022
2022 End of Year Show
Chris Smith the Newer is joined by returning hosts Jake and Tommy to discuss the last 12 months, and what they've been up to in life and videogames since Maximum Power Up last released an episode.
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Episode 116 - Atari Jaguar
11/10/2021
Episode 116 - Atari Jaguar
Chris Smith mk 2 is joined by returning host Tom Charnock to share fond memories of Atari’s much maligned console. They cover their own introductions to the console, and discuss their favourite games on the platform. As always, if you enjoy this episode, please take the time to leave us a review on iTunes, or wherever else you choose to listen to your podcasts. If you want to continue the conversation, or give us any feedback, feel free to contact us on any of the socials below:
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Episode 115: Making Of Tomb Raider & SEGA Powered
10/20/2021
Episode 115: Making Of Tomb Raider & SEGA Powered
This episode features two interviews discussing two new print productions. First up is Daryl Baxter who has written the Making Of Tomb Raider book. This book covers the stories behind the making of the first two games by Core Design. The book features over 20 interviews with people who worked on the game and Daryl also shares other things we can expect from this labour of love. Secondly is an interview with the team of SEGA Powered. This new monthly print magazine has recently been funded on Kickstarter and is due for release in November. Paul who is also part of the project sits down to speak to the rest of the team and asks them to tell everyone what we can expect from the magazine. Dean Mortlock, Neil Randall and Marc Jowett share some of their experiences in the world of magazines as well as discuss a few of their favourite SEGA games. The Making Of Tomb Raider book can be found here: And the Kickstarter for SEGA Powered can be found here, as we release this episode there is still a little time left to back:
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Episode 114: Ashley Day Interview - From GamesTM to Team17
08/21/2021
Episode 114: Ashley Day Interview - From GamesTM to Team17
Our latest guest is Ashley Day, currently employed by Team17. Over this three hour chat we discuss all aspects of his career. Starting out writing for GamesTM, Ashley discusses his love of games mags and the challenges faced in his time on the magazine including getting interviews. In 2012 he moved to Nintendo working in Digital Marketing which involved coming up with some fantastic ideas to help drive Nintendo franchises. Now at Team17 he shares a few thoughts on a childhood dream working for a local company, the A500 Mini featuring several Team17 games plus more. We hope you enjoy the show and thanks to Ashley for his time.
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Episode 113: Maximum Power Up Meets The Back Page Podcast
07/29/2021
Episode 113: Maximum Power Up Meets The Back Page Podcast
This episode we are joined by two guests, both writers and they also produce their own podcast. Samuel Roberts and Matthew Castle join Paul to discuss their career working on games magazines. Both starting in the mid '00's we cover more recent gaming discussing the PS3, PS4, Wii, DS, X360 etc. Working on Official Nintendo Magazine, NGamer, X360 Magazine, PC Gamer and more game us lots of memories to chat about. There are some great stories shared including trips away, challenges of ending magazines and Samuel's experience with The Walking Dead. We hope you enjoy the show and thanks for listening.
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Episode 112: Tim Ponting Interview
06/21/2021
Episode 112: Tim Ponting Interview
Our 42nd magazine related guest is Tim Ponting. Paul spoke to Tim about his career in games magazines and PR. Starting out on drumming magazine Rhythm, he soon joined Dennis Publishing on the much loved magazine Zero. He shares some memories of being editor and the challenges he faced against other magazines, coverdisks and more. From there we go onto his time on PC Zone and how the industry changed, the rivalry with PC Gamer, and what it was like to work with the late Felix Dennis. Finally we cover his time on Official Dreamcast mag, PR role at Activision which led to an amazing Call Of Duty 2 event plus much more. We hope you enjoy the interview and thanks to Tim for his time.
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Episode 111: Keith Stuart Interview
05/23/2021
Episode 111: Keith Stuart Interview
Paul is joined by best selling author and journalist, Keith Stuart. Keith started his career in the 90's at Big Red Software helping write game manuals. However in 1995 previous MPU guest Jason Brookes gave him his first games magazine role on Edge. We discussed his memories of working on Edge at such an important time in the games industry. As well as this we discuss his work on DC-UK and how the mag upset Sega. Also covered is how he began writing for The Guardian and how that role evolved as well as taking the leap into writing novels (his latest Frequency Of Us recently released). We hope you enjoy the show and thanks to Keith for his time.
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Bonus Episode: Pandemic Pod - Coronavirus and Robin
03/15/2021
Bonus Episode: Pandemic Pod - Coronavirus and Robin
The same motley crew as the last bonus episode return for another pandemic related show, as Chris, Chris, Jake and Arron do their best to appear like they still have it together as we approach the anniversary of the pandemic. As ever, this show is as much about life as anything else, but if you just want the games chatter, I'd skip the first 20 minutes. . As ever, if you like the episode or have any feedback, we'd love it if you'd hit us up on the socials and leave reviews. More importantly though, stay safe everyone and look after each other. We'll be okay.
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Episode 109: Marcus Dyson Interview
03/07/2021
Episode 109: Marcus Dyson Interview
There is plenty for Commodore Amiga fans in this episode. Paul sits down to speak to Marcus Dyson who spent 4 years on Amiga Format, as well as some time at Team 17. Starting in 1990 at Future Publishing Marcus started off as an artist for the magazine before moving to editor. He shares some of his memories as well as challenges faced on the magazine at that time. We discuss reviews, cover disks, fave games and more. In 1994 Marcus moved onto Team 17 helping bring several well known Amiga titles to other systems including Worms. He shared some great stories with us including the Tower Assault FMV film for CD32. We also cover how SPOnG website came about and what the original aim for it was. A massive thank you to Marcus for his time and we hope you enjoy the interview.
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Episode 108: John Davison Interview
01/13/2021
Episode 108: John Davison Interview
Our latest interview is with VP of IGN, John Davison. John started his career in the games industry over 30 years ago with his first fulltime role on Games-X magazine. John shares the challenges he faced on a weekly games magazine before moving onto Megadrive Advanced Gaming, PC Zone and more. We discuss how PC Zone became one of the leading PC magazines and some of the standout features in the mag. Moving onto his time in America we cover EGM, GamePro, Metacritic, 1Up podcast, Gamespot and loads more! To finish we briefly mention his most recent role at IGN. A massive thank you to John for his time and we hope you enjoy the show.
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Episode 107: Gary Whitta Interview
12/22/2020
Episode 107: Gary Whitta Interview
This episode we are joined by a huge guest! Gary Whitta joins Paul to discuss his career in games journalism, writing Hollywood screenplays, Animal Crossing talkshows and more! Covering a 30 year plus career, Gary started off on Commodore User being an owner of the Amiga which helped get his big break on magazines. He shares several stories about his time on Games-X, The One, ACE, CVG and more. However the main magazine that changed so much for him was PC Gamer which he edited in the UK before eventually moving to America and taking over on the US version. He shares a lot of the challenges he faced in America before trying his hand at writing screenplays for Hollywood. We briefly discuss Book Of Eli, After Earth and a little film called Star Wars Rogue One. Finally we cover how 2020 lockdown life led to his Animal Crossing talkshow and how crazy it has been to have several big name guests. We hope you enjoy the show.
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Bonus Episode: Pandemic Pod - Covid Hard with a Vengeance
12/13/2020
Bonus Episode: Pandemic Pod - Covid Hard with a Vengeance
In this third pandemic related bonus episode, the two Chris Smiths are joined by Jake and Arron for as they check in on each other, and talk life, games and a bit about the new systems. Oh and some of the hottest takes on the PS3 since 2006... As ever, if you like the episode or have any feedback, we'd love it if you'd hit us up on the socials and leave reviews. However, self-care is more important. Look after yourselves and each other first. We'll be okay.
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Episode 106: Tim Weaver Interview
11/05/2020
Episode 106: Tim Weaver Interview
Tim Weaver has been writing for decades. Currently he has 10 David Raker novels under his belt, a very popular crime/ thriller series. He started his career at Future Publishing back in 1996 on Nintnedo magazine Total! Tim shares the early days on the mag as well as other Snes magazine Super Play before he went on to work on the magazine that gave him his happiest years - N64 Magazine. N64 mag still has so many fans today and was the go to magazine for N64 owners. As well as sharing stories and experiences here we also cover NGC, Arcade, Xbox World magazines plus more. Tim goes into detail about the challenges he had on certain magazines over the years also before needing a new challenge as a full-time author. We do discuss his novels as well as his podcast "Missing" from a few years ago. We hope you enjoy the interview and thanks to Tim for his time.
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Episode 105: Better Call Paul(s)
10/11/2020
Episode 105: Better Call Paul(s)
In this episode Paul sits down to discuss CVG magazine and more with Paul Glancey and also another Paul, this time Davies! Yes three people on one call all called Paul (that's a mouthful). Paul Glancey makes his MPU debut to take us through some key moments of his career. Starting on Zzap64, working with Jaz Rignall he soon got into the swing of things and followed Jaz to EMAP and CVG magazine. He tells us about learning the ropes, a few fave games as well as working on Megatech, Mean Machines and more. Paul Davies returns to the show to speak more in depth about his time on Nintendo Magazine System and CVG. It was great to hear both Paul's share their experiences and crossed paths at EMAP. We hope you enjoy the show and thanks to PG and PD for their time.
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Episode 104: Chris Scullion Interview
09/25/2020
Episode 104: Chris Scullion Interview
Chris Scullion joins us this episode to discuss his career as a games writer. Starting on Official Nintendo Magazine in 2006, he has also written for the online versions of N Gamer and CVG as well as being a regular contributor to Nintendo Life. When he joined ONM the Gamecube was on the way out but the Wii would go on to become one of Nintendo's most popular consoles. We discuss some key moments in his career, meeting some well known names, certain games reviews for Sonic titles and much more. Chris shares some honest thoughts in our conversation especially how CVG ended! Finally we also discuss his work on the NES and SNES Encyclopedias and his future plans for follow up books. We hope you enjoy the interview and thanks to Chris for his time.
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Episode 103: Paul McNally Interview
09/09/2020
Episode 103: Paul McNally Interview
In this episode Paul interviews Paul McNally about his career in videogames journalism and much more. Paul started his career on ST Action under the guidance of previous guest Nick Clarkson. Working up-to editor he stayed there until the magazine began to wind down in a challenging market for the ST. Staying at Europress publishing he also worked on Mega Action, Bad Influence (both the mag and show) before the company was bought by IDG Media. We discuss some mags for the first time with a guest such as Playstation Pro (and it's laddish covers), GamePro UK and others. Paul shares some great stories about games events with the guys from Loaded magazine, an unplanned trip to Mexico and much more! This interview has a lot so we hope you enjoy it.
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Episode 102: Martyn Carroll Interview
08/31/2020
Episode 102: Martyn Carroll Interview
In this latest interview, we speak to original Retro Gamer magazine editor Martyn Carroll. We cover several magazines for the first time on the podcast as Martyn shares his early experiences of the magazine industry. It wasn't a games magazine he started on however. As a rabid horror fan his first published work was in long running horror magazine, Darkside. From here we discuss trying to get work on games magazines at Paragon Publishing before starting a job up North at Live Publishing in Macclesfield. Martyn tells us about how Live attempted to grow their magazine output from just PC mags and into the world of PlayStation and more, however this eventually caused problems. We cover his time on Tipstation mag as well as PSG 24/7 - both magazines not previously covered on the show. Retro Gamer magazine has been going for almost 17 years now from it's launch in 2004. We talk about how the idea of the magazine was pitched and those early days of having no staff to help write the mag. As it became more popular it soon became a monthly magazine but before long Live Publishing were in trouble.... We hope you enjoy the interview and a massive thanks to Martyn for his time.
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Episode 101: Listeners Choice Mega Drive
08/16/2020
Episode 101: Listeners Choice Mega Drive
This episode we revisit the "listener choice" format, previously used on our Dreamcast, Game Boy and Commodore 64 shows. Back before the world went mad, we asked our listeners to share their five favourite SEGA Mega Drive games with us, which we then got Paul to count up and combine to create a Top 10 of the most popular ones. Join Chris Smith v2 and Tom Charnock as they tackle the listeners top 10 Mega Drive games, and try to find new things to say about a list that holds few surprises. They mostly seem to manage this by just going wildly off-topic. Enjoy! Do get in touch on the usual channels to say hello or to give us any feedback. If you enjoy our work, it would be great if you could drop us a review on iTunes, they really do help us get the show out there.
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Episode 100: The Episode 100 Show
07/26/2020
Episode 100: The Episode 100 Show
In this episode we celebrate 100 episodes of Maximum Power Up. Since the show started in 2015 we have covered a mixture of modern and retrogaming. Most of the team share their experiences of making the podcast, fave episodes, games played etc. Even though it does take a lot of work we are very happy to have great listeners that have helped the show grow. It has been brilliant to have had the chance to have on so many guests from the games industry and many well known games magazines. Hearing their stories has always been a highlight. We have become well known as the podcast for lovers of games magazines and there are more interviews to come. We hope you enjoy the episode and here is to many more.
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Bonus Episode: Games That Weren't
07/13/2020
Bonus Episode: Games That Weren't
In this bonus episode we have two guests, Frank Gasking and Sam Dyer. Frank runs the excellent and informative website Games That Weren't for the last 20 years. Sam is known for his excellent work over at Bitmap Books. Games That Weren't features many games that were due to be released but for various reasons didn't happen. Frank has spent years speaking to the people that worked on these games and systems and is now taking it to the next level. Working with Sam at Bitmap Books, Games That Weren't is coming out as a book. At over 600 pages it covers over 80 games from 1975-2015 it covers unreleased titles for arcade, home computers, consoles and more. We discuss a few things that you can expect to see in the book and why you should preorder it for the release this August. Follow the link here https://www.bitmapbooks.co.uk/products/the-games-that-werent
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Episode 99: Dominik Diamond Interview
06/14/2020
Episode 99: Dominik Diamond Interview
In this episode we are very happy to have Dominik Diamond on the show. For many gamers in the 90's he was the face of gaming on television as the host of GamesMaster. The show covered so many amazing challenges, features and more. We discuss some of Dominik's favourite memories of the show, guests that were on, commentators and more. We also talk about his other games television show from the mid 00's, "When Games Attack", gaming in general and even discuss his love for Glasgow Celtic Football Club. We hope you enjoy the show and do check out Dominik's Twitch show Mon-Fri 5pm UK time.
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Bonus Episode - Pandemic Pod Returns
06/08/2020
Bonus Episode - Pandemic Pod Returns
The Maximum Power up team for another special bonus episode as Lockdown 2020 continues. In this new Pandemic Pod, the team discuss the two "big hitters" Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Streets of Rage 4, and also share what else they've been up to. As ever, if you like the episode or have any feedback, we'd love it if you'd hit us up on the socials and leave reviews. However, self-care is more important. Look after yourselves and each other first. We'll be okay.
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Episode 98: Danny Wallace Interview
05/21/2020
Episode 98: Danny Wallace Interview
We are delighted to have Danny Wallace on the show discussing his career. In this 90 minute chat we discuss how he started out doing work experience on Sega Power magazine before being taken on by Future and had several years on much loved mags Super Play, Total and a return to Sega Power. As well as this Danny shares his early experiences working with Ross Noble and on The Mighty Boosh at the start of their careers. Working in TV, being a best selling author, BAFTA winner for Thomas Was Alone and being a voice actor in Assassin's Creed series, gave us loads to discuss. Oh we also hear about his experiences working with Jim Carrey for the film Yes Man based on his best selling book. We hope you enjoy the show and a massive thank you to Danny for his time.
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Episode 97: 1998 Part 2
05/12/2020
Episode 97: 1998 Part 2
Following on from episode 94 we continue our walk down memory lane looking at July to December 1998. Many gamers see 1998 as one of the greatest years in gaming. All the main machines had several must own titles that were released. We share our experiences and memories playing Banjo Kazooie, Half-Life, Tekken 3 and many more. We also discuss some of the major gaming news stories from each month and Chris shares his experiences of importing a Sega Dreamcast to end the year. We hope you enjoy the show and where possible please leave an iTunes review.
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Episode 96: Glen O'Connell Interview
04/16/2020
Episode 96: Glen O'Connell Interview
In this episode we speak to Glen O'Connell about his career in the games industry as well as sports PR. Starting out at Psygnosis he shares some great experiences of visiting games magazines helping promote new titles and his early thoughts working in the industry. However when Sony were ready to launch the PlayStation things soon changed. Titles such as Wipeout had everyone wanting a piece of the Playstation. Glen discusses taking along import consoles to HMV etc to help create buzz. As well as this we discuss his time in PR roles for EA and Rage Software where he met David Beckham, Wayne Rooney, Mr.T and many more well known sports stars. Staying in PR with other companies he shares so many stories and some of the key moments in his career so far. We hope you enjoy the show and if possible leave us an iTunes review.
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Bonus Episode - Pandemic Pod
04/03/2020
Bonus Episode - Pandemic Pod
For this special bonus episode of the Maximum Power Up podcast, we have an almost full house* as the team gather to keep each other sane during Lockdown 2020. What games do the team reach for in times of trouble? What games will they play over the coming weeks as they're "staying home" like responsible adults? What tips do they have for you, the listener, to help you get through this time? Does Paul even like videogames? Find out the answers to all this and more, in the Pandemic Pod. As ever, if you like the episode or have any feedback, we'd love it if you'd hit us up on the socials and leave reviews. However, self-care is more important. Look after yourselves and each other first. We'll be okay. *Jake and Tommy would have made it if kayjoon had his act together and invited them in time. Although editing six people was hard enough.
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Episode 95: David Wilson Interview
03/26/2020
Episode 95: David Wilson Interview
We are very happy to welcome David Wilson on the show for this new episode. David recently left Sony after almost 20 years as Head of UK PR and Director of Communications. Starting in the games industry on classic gaming mags Your Sinclair and Zero, he shares some of his early memories playing and reviewing key games and the challenges faced working on games mags at that time. Moving on from magazines we cover his time at EA as Head of European PR for almost a decade including how he met Buzz Aldrin. Obviously discussing the Sony PlayStation brand gave us lots to discuss including the PS2, Vita, PSP and more. We hope you enjoy the show and if possible please leave us an iTunes review as every one helps.
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