Maximum Power Up – Details, episodes & analysis

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.

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.