In this episode, we take a look at 2023 indie gem Cassette Beasts, an RPG that has you recording monsters onto cassettes and using them to battle rangers and archangels on your quest to escape the mysterious island you now call home. Better then Pokemon? Let's find out!

We also touch on what little we currently know of the recently announced Switch 2 and kill some time with a little video game movie chat.

Ok, so we're a little light in terms of variety of content this month, but the Cassette Beasts discussion is well worth your time!

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Our end of year special is upon us nice and early this year! NiGHTS Into Dreams on the Sega Saturn is being played in a particularly lengthy book club segment this time, as we go fairly indepth on all aspects of the Sonic Team classic - we also touch on Christmas NiGHTS and the Wii sequel too.

Plus, the highlight of the Pod 'em Up year - our 2024 book club awards, in which we rank the games we've been playing all year, via our patented and ever complicated points system!

Oh and we give a few minutes to that other, less exciting Game Awards too.

Apologies for very short notice, but Ollie will be doing some streaming on Friday 20th December at around 6pm GMT over on http://twitch.tv/podemup! Please pop in if you can, as he'll be playing Sonic 3 & Knuckles to celebrate the game's 30th anniversary this year, and will also be chatting about his old website, Zone: 0 - celebrating 20 years since starting that project. If you missed it, it'll also be uploaded to: https://www.youtube.com/@PodEmUp

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We're celebrating our 64th episode with not one, not two, but THREE (count 'em) games in this bumper edition of the book club this month, across the Commodore 64 and Nintendo 64 systems!

Mayhem in Monsterland reveals what the C64 is truly capable of, and Spacestation Silicon Valley provides some great puzzles and silliness. 1985's quaint British platformer Monty on the Run, however, brings us the highlight of the show, in which Tibbs attempts to explain to Ollie what's so great about the game's Game Over screen.

As if that weren't enough, Sega is as inconsistent as ever this episode, as we praise Sonic X Shadow Generations, but bemoan their upcoming, and unexplained Steam delistings. We also ponder Nintendo's plans for backwards compatibility in the next gen, and smell something fishy about that SuperSega FPGA console..

Plus, look out for Vampire Survivors, Buckshot Roulette, and we discover some weird WWE crossovers and tie-ins!

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You can (and should) now get follow us on Bluesky! podemup.bsky.social

We're pointing and clicking once again this month, this time with Broken Sword II: The Smoking Mirror, for PS1 and PC!

Plus, we discuss the ridiculous price tag of the PS5 Pro, the Plucky Squire, Rugrats, wrestling, tabletop dishwashing and slippery knives!

Incoming Indie:

Fading Skies - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/distantbluegames/fading-skies

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We're earning some serious kudos (...) with our latest book club pick - the Dreamcast's stylish racing masterpiece that's not afraid to throw some cheesy tunes at you - it's Metropolis Street Racer!

Plus, we answer the following questions:

- How can Europeans stop killing games?

- Will Mad Max ever understand the meaning of friendship?

- What is the correct way to fuss a cat?

Find out in episode 62 of Pod 'em Up!

Links:

- EU petition to save games from obsolescence: https://www.stopkillinggames.com/

- koROBO: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tinywonderstudio/korobo/

- Rad Venture: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/radventure/rad-venture

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This month our friend Rik is back - this time as guest co-host - to discuss classic point-and-click adventure (and head-scratch 'em-up) Discworld II: Missing Presumed..!? for PC, PlayStation and Saturn.

Also found elsewhere in this show, Dave the Diver, Forza Horizon 4 and AstroBot!

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Celebrating both our 60th episode and our 6th birthday, this edition of the podcast hosts Corn Kidz 64 in the book club - a recent PC/Switch 3D collect-a-thon platformer that harks back to the N64 era in a highly convincing manner.

Other games that we touch on include Hi-fi Rush, Penny's Big Breakaway, Samba de Amigo: Party Central and Super Star Path. Plus Ollie weighs in on the Knuckles TV series.

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We're now on Youtube Podcasts! https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnSPu4iz27jyAuI02w5-0n5OxfQkishqf

In the book club, we play Ape Escape - the PS1 game that showed 1999 that it needed to invest in that shiny new DualShock controller, after all. Or maybe not, let's see.

Plus, Nintendo goes head to head with Yuzu and.. wins, almost immediately, and Tibbs tells us about the recent Tomb Raider remastered games.

We'll level with you - due to various reasons, it's not exactly our best episode, this one. But hopefully our self deprecating humour about the whole thing turns it into an enjoyable car crash. If it's possible to enjoy a car crash. Which it isn't.

Look, it's late, and I'm tired.

Incoming Indie:

Yellow Taxi Goes Vroom - https://thoseawesomeguys.com/games/yellow-taxi-goes-vroom/

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