• My Perfect Console with Simon Parkin

  • By: Simon Parkin
  • Podcast

My Perfect Console with Simon Parkin

By: Simon Parkin
  • Summary

  • In My Perfect Console, Simon Parkin, award-winning writer for the New Yorker and The Observer newspaper's video game critic invites a well-known guest from the worlds of gaming, film and television, music, comedy and more to pick the five video games they would like to immortalise on their very own fictional games machine. They discuss those five games in chronological order of release, interspersed with biographical chat about the guest’s life and career –– a lens that often leads to new and unexpected insights.


    "Thoroughly modern and ahead of its time...a gift." - NEW YORK'S VULTURE

    "Charming, insightful." -- THE GUARDIAN.

    TIME OUT'S 50 Best Podcasts.


    (Note: Episode descriptions may contain affiliate links).

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    Simon Parkin
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Episodes
  • Danny Wallace, writer & broadcaster (Yes Man, Assassin's Creed series).
    Oct 15 2024

    My guest today is the award-winning humourist, writer, and presenter Danny Wallace. Born in Dundee, Scotland, he published his first professional video game review at the age of thirteen while conducting work experience for Sega Power, a magazine that subsequently offered him a job. At 22, after graduating from The University of Westminster, he became a BBC comedy producer at, working on hit series such as Dead Ringers and The Mighty Boosh.


    In 2003 he published Join Me, a book about how he accidentally started a cult. His next book, Yes Man charted a six-month-long experiment in which he said “yes” to everything. It later became a blockbuster film starring Jim Carrey in the lead role. A regular guest on radio and television panel shows, he has remained deeply involved in video games too, providing the narration for the hit indie game Thomas Was Alone, and writing and starring in several Assassin’s Creed game, work for which received an outstanding achievement award from the Writer’s Guild of America.

    Be attitude for gains. https://plus.acast.com/s/my-perfect-console.


    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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    1 hr and 7 mins
  • Nainita Desai, composer (Immortality, Call of Duty, Tales of Kenzera: Zau).
    Oct 8 2024

    My guest today is Nainita Desai, the British composer for film, television and video games. Born and raised in London by her Indian parents, she earned a degree in mathematics, then studied sound design at the National Film and Television School. She started her career as a sound designer on the films Little Buddha, Lessons of Darkness and Death Machine, before branching into composition for television, including, among hundreds of others, the Oscar-nominated For Sama, the hit Netflix series American Murder and the BBC drama series Unprecedented.


    In 2022 she won the Emmy for ‘Outstanding Music Composition’ for her work on The Reason I Jump, a film that explores the experiences of non-speaking autistic people around the world. More recently she has entered the world of video games, composing the scores for Telling Lies, Immortality, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, and, most recently, Tales of Kenzera: Zau for which she has been nominated for a World Soundtrack Award.

    Be attitude for gains. https://plus.acast.com/s/my-perfect-console.


    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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    1 hr and 14 mins
  • Eugene Jarvis, gamemaker (Defender, Robotron: 2084, Smash TV).
    Oct 1 2024

    My guest today is the American video game designer and programmer Eugene Jarvis. Born in California, he studied computer science at Berkeley, where, in the basement of the physics laboratory, he played the early video game Spacewar. After graduating he worked for Hewlitt Packard, but quit after three days to join Atari, where he began programming for some of the first computerised pinball machines.


    In the late seventies he joined Williams where he and a colleague came up with the idea for a side-scrolling arcade game set on an alien planet. Defender became a hit in the arcades; the game has grossed more than $1.5 billion since 1981. More hitsfollowed: Robotron 2084 –– the first twin-stick shooter -- Smash TV and Cruis’n USA. In 2008, my guest was named DePaul University's first Game Designer in Residence. He remains the only game-maker to have one of his creations featured on a U.S. postage stamp.

    Be attitude for gains. https://plus.acast.com/s/my-perfect-console.


    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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    1 hr and 16 mins

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