Remember the announcement we promised to make last week and then didn't? The one we said we'd make this week if you read the descriptions, which I assume you do because you're reading this? Well get this: we actually make that announcement this week. It is awesome and concerns how you can participate in a festive One Live Left (sic). Just as awesome is that we remembered to tell you that, and not just that. We remembered to tell you everything.

That's right. Everything. For the first time in Season 3 every single thing we promise both to you and to ourselves actually happens. It's all here, from the announcements we need to make, the jingles we're meant to play and the musical discs we've decided to spin right through to playing every single feature we've got scribbled down in front of us on the running order. We even remember to run a hugely special competition in addition to the rollover Ann Art (that's always special, of course). We almost don't remember to do a Top 5 but Ste pushes it through. And Ann remembers to put her top back on at the end of the show. J/K LOL.

So. What does One Life Left make of the Jade Raymond 'thing'? Find out here. Could people care less that Nintendo have been slagged off by Greenpeace? Find out here. What is the actual difference between the two classical categories of pornography? Find out here. Can Ann play Fur Elise on a Nintendo SP? Find out here. And which apparently-gone ex-contributor makes their unexpected reappearance in episode 56? Find. Out. Here.

Enjoy. The flash player should be back and working this week. Letters on a biblical theme (or whatever, really) to the usual address. Those of you who follow the instructions in the episode should expect some kind of missive on Friday.

If all goes to plan next week's episode will be a special recorded from the OLL bunker so if you've got anything you think we should deal with or apologise for make sure to let us know before we do that, i.e. before Saturday at 2pm. If all doesn't go to plan Simon and Ann will be doing a Ste-less show live next Tuesday as he will be at GDC in Lyon. Bonne chance, Team.

Join our Facebook Group for reasons revealed in the episode by clicking here, or identify yourself as a fan to others on that same slightly-too-ubiquitous-for-comfort-now site by clicking here. Our MySpace is here (poor old MySpace: once it seemed like the world would be theirs, but now it is the new Friendster, which makes Friendster the new actually-meeting-people, which is just so over).

Music in #56: Virt -- Across Rooftops , Pixelh8 -- Girl Fight and Beats for Beginners -- Lazer Beams For Eyes (Beats vs ZZZ Remix) (and the regular awesome contributions from Iain Cook, Simon Parkin, thedoyouinverts, Uglifruit, Nick Parton and The Lost Levels).

In One Life Left's experience* there are three sorts of letters that come in card-backed brown paper envelopes.

1) Signed contracts from the BBC offering million pounds to transfer our special brand of broadcast magic to Radio 4,

2) Legal threats from easily offended games industry professionals who we might have erm accidentally defamed or you know whatever,

3) Glossy, black and white spy photos of the team being touched in and / or touching at least four separate places.

Imagine the rush when we arrived at the studio to find a brown, card-backed envelope waiting for us. Real post! Addressed to us c/o Resonance! Without us ever giving out the address! This could be great! Or terrible!

Experience the thrill with us as we bite our lips and open it live on air.

Oh yeah, there's other stuff that's actually games-related too. For example, Dan Griliopoulos, Reviews Editor at Official Xbox Magazine as recently as last week and now A Free Man, breaks his monastic silence on the things that matter. Like how you really pronounce Koch, whether Mass Effect is just one long corridor after another, and what happens when games journalists stop journalising.

Actually, it's something of a reviews special this week as we cover Call of Duty 3, Super Mario Galaxy, that new Metroid one on the Wii which one would assume is exactly like every other 3D Metroid game ie a lifetime of scanning, Zoo Tycoon on the DS (?!) and whatever Ann's been playing. Ann? Ann?

Oh whatever. Ignore her, ane enjoy the two comebacks from people you might have thought gone forever, and the moment when finally, finally, we get someone on the phone.

Important things we forgot to do across the hour of :

1) The Jade Raymond thing. We'll do that next week.

2) The Facebook 'secret' thing. We will probably just announce this on Facebook this week even though we forgot to trail it. But we'll talk about it next week for sure.

3) A 'write to us about this'   for the letters section. Jesus Christ, it's not rocket science. Next week, next week.

4) Credit the music. It was CFCF's remix of Justice's D.A.N.C.E. and 6955's awesome 'Museum'.

Thanks for listening. Join us next week for more things we haven't really thought through, including attempted Skype-with-a-Developer nonsense and a non-Ann-art related competition and ANOTHER feature resurrection. See you!

* Imagination

Sort of handy links:
One Life Left Facebook Group
One Life Left Myspace
One Life Left Forum
And email us at team@onelifeleft.com about anything, really.

If Ste sounds angry it's because he had a terrible sandwich in Costa before the show. If Ann sounds angry it's because she's trying to work out what 'bitchkrieg' means. If Simon sounds angry it's because Ste is gesturing. Levels are a bit all over the place again this week, apologies for that.

First things first. As mentioned last episode, the One Life Left team is a (wo?)man down in #54. Don't let that put you off. Why?

Bang! A more-than-capable, super hot OLL Substitute who once almost KILLED Simon!

Zip! An interview with new game superstar Keith Chegwin!

Kapow! Exclusive videogame gossip, exclusive to our exclusive show. Exclusively!

Ka-ching! David McCarthy's Reviewing Masterclass continues to blow the secrets behind games reviewing wide open!

Whoosh! Ann visits the Sex Pistols!

Etc! Brilliant music, awesome news, amazing features, acceptable letters, ill-considered competitions and a very special review!

Of course, there's lots more inside the podcast for you to discover. So much so that we actually ended up with three things we didn't play this week because we didn't have time. It'd be a bit of a waste to slot them into the podcast so they'll be part of next week's show.

Which will therefore include the return of two amazing features, our continued attempts to get a guest on the phone, a sweet competition prize and we imagine not a single word about Super Mario Galaxy. We'll all be sick of it by then, right?

Right?

Right?

See you in a week.

Extra links:

Facebook (the race to 300 -- and to exceed our host station's total --  is ON)
Weird Facebook 'Company' thing (it puts an OLL badge on your profile!!!!!!)
MySpace (we really need to update this, don't we? Be our friend anyway)
Forum (for sarcastic game discussion and barely related)
Email Us (with whatever's on your mind -- suggest a theme for thee week after next's letters section)

Tasks:

Tell your friends. Tell your forums. Tell the world. Thank you.

We'll be honest because hey, we're 53 episodes in and we think we've known you long enough to trust you, to call you a friend: you almost didn't get to hear this episode. At 9.05pm on Tuesday the 6th November the OLL team found itself in Trouble and the sort of Trouble which gets a capital to distinguish it from the kind of trouble when Simon tricks Ann into saying rude words. Yes, this was Trouble: One Life Left's precious, intricately constructed show was fast disintegrating in the turbulent wake of the previous studio occupants. Who were still around. And didn't seem in any hurry to leave.

Why wouldn't they leave? Why was the studio covered in lager and wires and coats and... tissues? Why were there tissues on the floor? It wasn't really The Team's fault, not this time, but it was six minutes, seven minutes, eight minutes past nine and things were going badly. Really badly. By nine minutes past they'd degenerated. Broken equipment, curious lights blinking on and off, level needles dancing as if posessed and headphones that didn't so much add clarity as obscure what little sound we were generating. Simon had already uttered the word we've heard too many times already, the word no-one wants to hear -- unbroadcastable -- but we were broadcasting, Oh God we were already broadcasting.

The only thing to do? Take a breath, apologise to the live audience and reboot, reset, restart. You are listening to Resonance 104.4FM. It's... Just after ten past nine. And that means it's time for One Life Left.

Wake up, wake up, podcast listners! It was all just a bad dream, those bad things never happened, those bad people were never here and this is One Life Left, rattled but reinvigorated. News, features, music, bad jokes and bickering. The results and restart of Ann Art. David McCarthy helpfully provides some instructions for would-be games reviewers. Derek, faithful Derek gives us his Firework Market Economy and there's a tribute poem to much-missed Craig 'The Rage' McClellan. Oh, and we get round to reviewing some videogames in an actual reviews section this week, although we're really mostly distracted by repeated attempts to Skype with Broken Sword creator Charles Cecil (we'll pick this up next week).

Apologies once again to those who endured the first ten minutes live. If you were being extremely charitable you could called it 'Exclusive material' and claim it had been 'Released to dedicated live as a show of gratitude'. Actually it was doe-eyed terror reflected in the headlights of an SUV driven by the spirts of selfishness and incompetence. You almost didn't hear this episode. Still more apologies in advance to those of you who'll wish you hadn't. We'll be back to normal (?) in #54, except with one of the team missing for the first time in Season 3. Who? Tune in in a week to find out and enjoy their temporary replacement (though I wouldn't exactly recommend you listen live).

Other things we need to say:

Join our Facebook and help push us up past 200 users and beyond.
Be so 2006 and friend us on Myspace (and look at our friends who are mostly chiptune music)
Look out for Ann at the Sex Pistols press conference
Chat on the OLL forum
Email us, email us, email us
Link us from other places if you can -- your journal, your blog, your favourite forum
Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or via the RSS feed
OLL Christmas announcement coming soon...

Celebrity is a curse: just ask Keeley Hazell, the Page 3 stunnah hired to front (lol) EA's Simpsons game at the London Games Festival. Work's exhausting when you have to keep your top on, which is why One Life Left operates a clothing-optional policy inside the studio; after all, there's precious little chance to catch your breath when you're Europe's only videogame radio show. The One Life Left private jet (the tube) taxis in to the most glamorous part of the capital (London Bridge station) and the team saunter (stumble) into Resonance FM's state-of-the-art studio.  They're fresh (?!) from performing One Live Left at Nottingham Gamecity, ready (!!) to deliver a third show in just over a week. Let's see how Ann's news (!!!?!?!?!) stands up to the strain, shall we?

Also: letters, reviews (singular), music, the Top Five (now with its own theme), informal Page 3 gossip, and Odds On OD on the brink. Plus the last ever Craig 'The Rage' McClellan -- at least for now. Oh, and bonus instructions for all our regular Google Image Searchers on how to find a new picture of Ann on the internet. You'll have to listen for that.

If you were lucky enough to hear this episode live when it was originally broadcast you'll have heard Experience Points and Ann Fiction in the left channel only which, as Simon pointed out at the time, is a bit like having the girls lean in and whisper in your ear. It's fixed now but you might notice some glitching, which is a lot like having me fumble around with dodgy audio connections near your ear. Sorry.

Also a bonus Free Market Economy which was missing from the Resonance transmission because of British broadcasting regulations concerning taste and decency*.

If you enjoy One Life Left please tell your friends, your family, your favourite forums. Join our facebook: we're raising a private army and it's going pretty well. But most of all email us to let us know. We thrive on attention, because that's how celebrity works. Just ask Keeley Hazell.

*Because of a bad CD burn. Sorry Derek!

There is a legend that states that should One Life Left ever produce a radio show that is less professional than the last then the house of Scantlebury will fall. It’s half eleven on Tuesday night, just after Episode 3 of Season 3 and as far as we know she’s fine – she’d text if she wasn’t, wouldn’t she? – so let’s assume we’ve continued our slow tramp up the quality mountain and made some definite improvements. In order:

 

1)      A new ‘Corrections and Clarifications’ section designed for us to make amends to you, the listener, for all our lies and half-truths. Please use responsibly.

 

2)      Live gossip from the videogame BAFTAS, text-messaged in from an insider spy

3)      Another astonishing secret expert guest who comes with his own theme tune. In all caps: who PLAYS HIS OWN THEME TUNE LIVE.

4)      A competition! An actual competition! To win exclusive Ann memorabilia!

5)      Intermittent (and unnecessary) barracking of both Jeff Minter and The Hoosiers

6)      A curiously-enraged Derek Williams

7)      The podcast appearing a record 116 minutes after broadcast.

 

Plus all the usual stuff: music, letters, inside jokes and highly regarded (or at least regarded) features.

 

Thanks to Kotaku and The Guardian for the coverage this week. If you have any more places you think OLL should be, please do us the grandest of favours and let them know (and then let us know that they know). It’s always lovely to hear from you about anything else, too. You should know the email address by now.

 

What else? This Thursday is OLL’s very special* appearance at Nottingham Gamecity. We have no idea what that’s going to be like but please, come and say hi and enjoy a drink with us afterwards. Friday is the OLL affiliated curry-evening and Saturday is Ste’s talk about his Mum. Sunday we’re doing Handheld of a sort at the London Games Fringe thing at 333; more info on that in the show you’re no doubt already subscribed to.

 

Subscribers may get a secret gift later in the week. We’re not sure yet.

 

We’ll be adding pictures to our Facebook group later this week (Ann’s in charge) so if you haven’t joined that maybe you should. Our MySpace friends page is a good place to find all that music that Simon hates so much. And the One Life Left Forum has lots of people talking about videogame pants and much more besides. See you there.

It's Episode 50!

Already?

Episode 50!

Where does the time go?

Episode 50!

It seems like only yesterday etc. and so on.

Episode 50. A half century of episodes. If you have made it this far, well done. If you are new, well. Good luck. We'll make it through this together.

Because this is One Life Left and that is how we do things: together, through thick and thin, audio shambles and occasionally otherwise. Episode 50! Or by another way of counting the second episode of series three and we're already into the swing of things with news, music, letters and gossip-based coverage of the Games Media Awards. OLL was nominated, remember! Did we win? Find out inside, where old features return, new features continue and the One Life Left crew stumble through their fiftieth hour of radio nonsense.

Oh! And a very, very special studio guest completes the lineup.

So download, please enjoy, keep listening (subscribe at iTunes to make us especially happy) and email us to let us know your thoughts. Oh, and  we would totally appreciate it if you tell a friend or your favourite forum. See you next week.

We're back. Oh, how we're back.

How are we back? With a new studio, a new series, a new (post-watershed!) timeslot, and a newly-rejuvenated team back from holidays all over the world and ready for a fresh, super professional start. You'd hope so, at least. In reality we're the same as ever, working with unnervingly unfamilar equipment and full of the giggles. We'll calm down. Well, again, you'd hope so. We are the only videogame show in Europe in the world, after all. Citation needed.

Still, listen: there's new game music and new game jokes and new game features, with more to come over the next few weeks. We're newly award-nominated, too. The only thing we're really lacking is new news. If you want to point Ann in the direction of some, do email her.

We also have a new producer. He is called Robin. If you hear us talking about Robin, that is who we are talking about. We miss and love Patrick and Kristin but they are dead now.

(They are not dead.)

Some minor housekeeping. Shows from this point in will be broadcast wholly unedited. We have a brilliant new solid-state recording device that allows us to do that quickly and easily, so what you hear in this MP3 is exactly what went out at 9pm on Tuesday on London's Resonance FM to the delight / consternation / confusion of literally dozens of listeners.

We need letters for next week. Please email us at the address in the show or with the contact form on this site and say hi. Also: we haven't issued any press releases about the relaunch yet but if you want to tell people about us please do. We'd quite like Season 3 to hit #1 on iTunes again so we can talk about how we hit #1 on iTunes again.

Expect more exciting One Life Left developments over the next few weeks. And don't miss us at Nottingham Game City -- we'll be doing another live broadcast from there, just like the brilliant one we did at Develop except for hopefully literally broadcastable.