64. Games Set at Christmas

Merry Christmas! To celebrate, we've got four games set during this festive period for you to vote on. It's the last pod and poll of the year, so make it count! Thanks for listening to us in 2025. We hope you have a great holiday and a happy new year, and we'll see you in 2026 for our GOTY special. Go vote on the Christmas games @vg_hof on Twitter and/or @vghof on BlueSky. Oh, and tell us your game of the year and we'll read it out next episode. Emails welcome, as always, to [email protected]

Let's get niche, baby! We're dipping out of our (and most people's, really) comfort zones to nominate some games outside of the 'Big Four' console manufacturers. Think SNK, NEC/Hudson Soft, Atari, Philips, 3DO Company... you get it. There's a huge number of bangers still available for their machines, some that defined the entire industry (and some that crashed it). The only rule is no home computers. Amiga (except the CD32), Spectrum and Commodore 64 (sorry, Steve), that means you're out. Vote for your favourite nominated game over @vg_hof on Twitter or @vghof on BlueSky and send us an email to [email protected]

We're back! After a brief hiatus (albeit one where we've recorded three pods and Alex just needs to get his arse in gear and edit them faster), we return to celebrate the golden era of gaming.That's right, it's time to dust off your SNES or Mega Drive (or Mega CD, TurboGrafx-16 or Neo Geo) and get 16-bits of glory in ya. So many classics to choose from, and we've got four bangin' nominees for you on this one.Go vote for the one you want in the Hall of Fame @VG_HOF on Twitter or @vghof on BlueSky. Send us an email to [email protected]

It's Halloween again, and you know what that means! Yes, it means nobody on the podcast aside from Alex will nominate anything even remotely spooky on our spooky special episode. Other things happen:Steve bails on yet another pod but almost makes up for it with a delicious pun in his phoned-in entrySimon hears a ghost (that didn't come out in the recording... or did it?)Alex steals Rob's pickSimon tries to remember a TV show to do with sexy animals or somethingThe Shagger returnsAndy Cole leaves Newcastle for a British record £7m fee, that has even less context than this when it comes up on the podGo now to @vg_hof on Twitter or @vghof on BlueSky to vote in the poll/like the post of the ghosty game you want in the HOF!Send emails to [email protected] but STOP BEING MEAN TO SIMON. First one to send us an email where they say something nice about Simon gets to nominate a 16-bit game for the next episode of the pod. I mean, it might not get in but you gotta shoot your shot.

This is an absolutely mad episode. Loads of fun was had, and we're sure you'll have fun too. Alex does maths. Steve does sailors (again). Rob really wants to stroke a dog. Simon celebrates a birthday.We also induct four previous poll losers directly into the Hall of Fame, set up all the categories for the next 9 episodes, and answer an email from a new listener. You can email us too! [email protected] help select the category we nominate games from in a couple of episodes time, all you need to do is go to @vg_hof on Twitter and/or @vghof on BlueSky and vote for it. See you next time for our Halloween special!

This should be right in our wheelhouse, eh? Well, to make sure we definitely hit our nominations out of the park, we enlisted Sega Mania Magazine creator, Tim Hugall, as a special guest! Because he's so good at making our words into amazing pages, we let Tim nominate three Sega games, with the rest of us voting one directly into the Hall of Fame.There's the usual four nominees for you to vote on as well, though. Just head over to @vg_hof on Twitter or @vghof on BlueSky and vote in the poll/like the post of your desired winner respectively. Send emails over to [email protected] as we'd love to have some nonsense to read in next episode's bonus induction special. Head to www.sega-mania.com to pre-order your copy of Sega Mania Magazine issue 9. We wrote it!

It's time to put up or shmup up, as we're nominating shoot 'em ups for the Hall of Fame. We decided to include games from the sub genres of horizontal and veritcal-scrolling shooters, twin stick shooters and run and gun games. When you've heard the pod, go to @vg_hof on Twitter or @vghof on BlueSky to vote for the game you want in the HOF!Thanks to ol' Jeff Bra for his questions! You can send your own questions for the pod to our social accounts, or email them to [email protected]

Fear not, haters of Smash and/or Nintendo (alright, Steve?), Smash Bros. has become a veritable video game museum. There are hundreds of games represented in the Big N's party fighter, so we had a huge range of wildly different games to nominate for the HOF in this one. When you've heard the episode, head on over to @vghof on BlueSky to like the post of the game you want, or vote in the poll @vg_hof on Twitter.Don't forget we love reading out your emails - send 'em over to [email protected]

Let's go back in time to a wonderful era in gaming. An era where the first person shooter was perfected, where the RTS was king, where Mario and Sonic never dared to tread. Where PC gaming was magnificent. We've got four classics for you to vote for in this episode, so go to @VG_HOF on Twitter and vote in the poll, or like the post of the game you want in on @vghof on BlueSky.Send emails to [email protected]

In the midst of this irritatingly annual heatwave, we bring you a podcast featuring sweaty lads with melting brains. You'll see what we mean. Bear with us, it's hot innit. We've got four PlayStation 1 games for you to vote on this time, and with classics like FFVII, Resident Evil 1 and 2, THPS and... er... Die Hard Trilogy already in the Hall of Fame, the lads had to delve a little deeper for nominations.Once you've heard our nominations, head over to @VG_HOF on Twitter (sorry, BlueSky polls are broken and useless atm) to vote. Please do say hi to us @vghof on BlueSky too, though. Send an email to [email protected]. Do it!