One Life Left's Podcast

One Life Left -- s05e16 -- #112 -- On the Fence

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 02:41:00 GMT

Lesser radio shows might think twice about podcasting an regretful hour of bickering, giggling and general idiocy (factual AND behavioural). But One Life Left sees it as an opportunity: this weekâs mistake is next weekâs hour long apology. Onwards! Also : ++ First details of the Christmas Party, which is on Friday 18th December in London. PLEASE COME. We have a venue and booze and everything ++ Microsoftâs Dan Maher neatly dances past all kinds of journalistic traps set by the cocksure One Life Left ex-ex-exclusive hunting team ++ One Life Left, youâre stupid! Farmville wasnât made by PlayFish. Please write in and tell us that some more. You know the address Two covers for music this episode: Hot ân Cold [Katy Perry] â Mudkipz The Fear [Lily Allen] â Bit the Medusa Ste is away for a week taking a partially-earned holiday , but Simon and Ann will be back next week, presumably with the apologies music on a loop. See you then! Team OLL xxx

One Life Left -- s05e15 -- #111 -- Biology and History

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 01:02:00 GMT

Warning: the following episode of One Life Left contains Biological / Historical terms some people may find offensive. Listener discretion is advised. As a dedicated listener to One Life Left you'll know we often go to great lengths to secure exclusives. In this case not just by having two Nintendo representatives as special guests on the show (Wii HD confirmed???) but by going back in time and getting Ste to Creatively Direct a game that's just been announced for Xbox Live and allowing Ann to give ask him ex-ex-exclusively about it. What game? Chime. Chime is the first game from One Big Game, a charity initiative led by tall, handsome ex-Guerilla guy Martin de Ronde. The idea is that a developer donates a game and some production time, is backed by donations from whatever other organisations publishing that game would require (QA, audio support, and so on) and all the proceeds from sales of the game go to charity. In this case the developer is Zoe Mode, the games studio where Ste is Creative Director. This week Ste had to do interviews with the press which left him a bit rattled by misquotes and even worse) misnaming. You could call it karma; Simon and Ann call it AMMUNITION. Also in One Life Left One One One: ++ Rob and Rob from Nintendo chat about new Mario, new Zelda and the Wii's virginity ++ OLL are generally furious at Activision for not getting invited to the Modern Warfare 2 party ++ Ann doesn't seem like herself. She's probably distracted by the play she's in at the moment, right? Music (uncredited in the show thanks to incompetence, genuine apologies): The Grand Scheme bu RushJet1 French Whores by misfitchris See you next week! Team OLL xxx

One Life Left -- s05e14 -- #110 -- Boys Own

Tue, 3 Nov 2009 14:14:00 GMT

Back in the studio after a midweek adventure to Nottingham GameCity. What happened? Who's missing? Was there an after party? And what happens next? Find out in this week's episode of One Life Left. Oh, and we talk about videogames, too. In #110: -- Nottingham GameCity postmortem, ie seven minutes of black holes and revelations. -- Why Ann's excited about being under 30 -- A grasping, fruitless search for the right word to describe all-male elf-on-elf action (suggestions?) Also reviews, features, music and more. Music in #110: I bid Ye Farewell by AndyExpandy. Do feel free to add us to Twitter / on Facebook / email us (especially important) / call us / send us videogames etc. We'll be back next week with a full team and special guest. See you! 2/3 of Team OLL xx

One Life Left -- s05e13 -- #109 -- Definitive List

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 23:56:00 GMT

Critical success: ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED (5g)! Next up, popularity. Research shows that means coming up with arbitrary games-related lists and getting them Dugg, and so it is that OLL brings in the help of a List Expert. Definitive? We'll see... ++ Lots of chat about Nottingham GameCity and the things we're going to do there ++ Not one but Two! Listener! Guests. You could have been one of them if you followed OLL on Twitter*. ++ A handful of salient points about the videogame industry engulfed in a morass of immaturity Probably not going to get the popularity this time, then. But still, Nottingham! GameCity is almost upon us and we are so, so excited about it. Hopefully lots of you will be there, either for our low key live show (lunchtime in the square), the chiptune masterclass (5pm at Muse) or One Night Left in the evening (8pm at Muse). And after that? Who knows. We're staying in the IBIS hotel but don't worry if you've already booked for the other one -- we've no idea where the after-party will be... Music in #109: White Tiger by Sabrepulse A Chiptune to Save the World by Syphus and Combat by Arman Bohn *And you lived close enough to Resonance, and you were free tonight, and you were checking your Twitter feed obsessively, and you wanted to. Obviously.

One Life Left -- s05e12 -- #108 -- Words and Awards

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 10:34:00 GMT

We went to the Games Media Awards. We took enthusiasm, mischief and pocket-sized bottles of vodka to spike our drinks. We were fifteen again and primed for trouble. And then...

No spoilers, obviously. No expectations, right? Also:

+ Mark Ward of Warner Bros pops in to talk about words, awards and Scribblenauts with Ann, with some success and many yelps of delight

+ Breaking news of the Craig the Rage project we've hinted at for a while and how you, yes you, can acquire it

+ Taliah makes her One Life Left comeback and brings a friend.

Music on #108:

Italo Night by YERZMYEY
All I Want (Unicorn Kid Cover) by Superspink!

I promised a new doyouinverts track on Twitter but that last-minute Craig news pushed it out of the show. It'll be on next week. Which will be our last show before AMAZING TIMES at Nottingham GameCity. See you there!

One Life Left -- s05e11 -- #107 -- Superstar DJs

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 10:28:00 GMT

One Life Left -- s05e11 -- #107 -- Superstar DJs

Superstars? Has the whole three-time award-nominees thing finally got to Team OLL? Not really; the superstars in #107 are in a special interview segment and the DJ part is to do with OLL's even at Nottingham Game City...

What else? Lots else, including:

* Simon does a little bit of spot character assassination on our GMA competitors

* Ann doesn't know how piracy works

* Ste forgets to record the show, hence the late podcast

Talking of the podcast, those of you who aren't subscribed on iTunes or on our Libsyn RSS feed won't have heard Ann Life Left (or the BAFTA special we put our last week). You should sort that out immediately because it's brilliant.

As mentioned at the top news of One Night Left, OLL's amazing event at Nottingham GameCity has leaked (courtesy of a huge poster in Nottingham and observant OLL listener Beth). We talk about it on the show and there'll be more info here later but please, keep the evening of the 30th free. It's going to be amazing.

Music on #107: Hiroshi and MoxoM ft Smiletron.

See you next week, by which time, with any luck, we'll be three time award-disgracers. Follow that action on Twitter (onelifeleft / steishere / byronicman / scanters). Bye!

Team OLL
xx

One Life Left -- x08 -- One Life Left Presents: David Braben - A Life in Videogames Live at BAFTA

Tue, 6 Oct 2009 18:44:00 GMT

David Braben did something great 25 years ago. Then he did some other great things. Then BAFTA asked him if he wanted to talk about all of these things in front of a microphone. Then BAFTA handed over the audio to One Life Left and here we are.

You should listen if you liked Elite, if you like videogames or if you have ears.

Find out about more BAFTA things at www.bafta.org.

Weâll be back next week and we are totally looking forward to it. Email team@onelifeleft.com!

Team

One Life Left -- x07 -- Ann Life Left #1

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 22:02:00 GMT

Two boys down and one girl left. But wait, isnât three the magic number? Thank goodness this isnât Europeâs only FM broadcasting maths radio show. Sadly this is a videogame radio show/podcast, and the boys with the knowledge are in America. So, for one week only, Ann Life Left invites two female friends on to talk games(ish).

We discover some girls really donât have the greatest gaming credentials.

We decide that doesnât matter.

We do the games industry a favour and solve the Top 10 Worst Things About Games.

Also, pretty much the best music ever played on OLL this week, all from 8bitcollective.com:

Womanizer â omgben

Halo â Pirates with Paper Hats

Hot N Cold â Play it Loud

Total Eclipse of the Heart â Chalices of the Past

Umbrella â electronicMESS

Very special show next week, then back the week after with a regular show. Whatâs regular? I donât think we know any more!

Ann + friends.

One Life Left -- s05e10 -- #106 -- Show Offs

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 23:22:00 GMT

We thought the show was off, you see. And then Ste put off his trip to the US by a week, Ann wasn't doing anything all that important, and, well, we're all show offs. So show on! Episode 106 contains the following unordered delights: ++ No Simon! Not that that's a treat, you understand, and we know you'll miss him terribly. But it's a major feature of this episode that's worth calling out for your attention. It's just Ann and Ste in the studio, no guests, no frills, plenty of rambling, several features and some music. Not as much music as we say at the start, but some nonetheless. ++ Those features include a brand new S.Minton track, Derek doing some minimal industrial economising this week, and the irrepressibly analytical Dr Avatar. No Taliah this week because Simon wanted to be around to 'explain'. Sinister. ++ A competition! I know! And the actual, genuine, honest-to-God One Life Left phone number which you can use to ACTUALLY, genuinely, honest-to-God phone us. So do that thing. Also news of next week's show which is going to be astonishing, a disaster or both. Music on #106: Something Happened When You Were Born by minusbaby and Olden Days by syphus. Do email us, add us on Twitter and most of all, tell your friends. There'll be special things going out for the next couple of weeks. We'll be back as a full team on the 12th October. See you then! Ste and Ann xx

One Life Left -- s05e09 -- #105 -- Emergency Services

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 23:42:00 GMT

Emergency Services because, like the rest of the world, this week OLL is talking about 999 and 911. What? No, we're not actually talking telephone numbers. We're discussing the dates that saved videoaming this week: Rock Band's 9/9/9 Beatlapocalypse and Guitar Hero 5's response on September 11th . That's right. Discussing. One Life Left #105 features that rarity for Europe's favourite / only videogame radio show, an actual serious discussion of videogames on the radio. We're just trying it out, don't be scared. Also in #105: + Lots of excellent features incuding Mathew Kumar's Best Worst Games, Dr Avatar's horrifying game injuries and the ever informative Week o' Wiki Wah Wah + Exclusive, if essentially sketchy, pre-information information on OLL's long-rumoured presence at Nottingham Game City + We finally reach the point where we can't even remember our own phone number Music in #105 is from 8bitcollective.com, tracks specifically by Derris-Kharlan and Chipzel. We're away for another couple of weeks now (Simon and Ste have to go to the US, Ann has to stay home and look after the cat). In the meantime we hope to put up some secret stuff. Even if we don't, please do write, tweet and call. Assuming you can find the number. We couldn't. love, Team OLL xxx

One Life Left -- s05e08 -- #104 -- Dream Cast

Tue, 8 Sep 2009 00:16:00 GMT

You want dreams? Easy. Go to sleep, go to sleep, go to sleep little listener. No! Wait! Not now! Wait until the episode's finished at least. Come on. Wake up. This isn't... Oh, fair enough. But if you ARE still awake here are some of the things in episode #104 that might keep you that way. + Dave Green (I'm Dave Green!) returns to teach Ann the joys of the BBC Micro and to chat enthusiastically about some exciting events he's organizing + Ann ex-ex-exclusives her news a little by announcing a new Sony handheld device! Although we're still not sure she noticed she was doing it. Look for the story on Kotaku tomorrow AM. + Features: Derek's back, Science Officer considers giant crabs and Craig 'The Rage' McClelland takes on Noel Fielding. Who wins? No spoilers! Also letters, reviews (in which Ste startles himself by noticing just how contrary he is), music from Sabrepulse and Henry Homesweet, and lots of somewhat unprofessional giggling. We had a lot of fun and we hope you enjoy listening. We'll be back in a week. Probably. See you then! xxx

One Life Left -- s05e07 -- #103 -- Broken News

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 00:18:00 GMT

No time to waste on snappy / elegant / laborious intros tonight. We're on the cusp of a three week break which means we've got three weeks worth of game-related nonsense to get through. So look! Urgency! Enthusiasm! Two guests! One Mic! Actual news! It's One Life Left!

And hidden like ruthless game tigers amongst the wild jungle of news, music, reviews and gossip you'll find on this week's show...

+ Pat Garrett, king of vg247.com, brings the HARD FACTS and RUTHLESS BREAKING NEWS and some PRESSURED GUESSWORK

+ Mathew Kumar, gaming journalist and Best Worst Game contributor brings the GOSSIP, ARROGANCE and doesn't RUIN OUR RADIO SHOW LIKE HE RUINED SOMEONE'S PODCAST*

+ Craig the Rage visits The Big Chill, the doyouinverts are Coming Out and Dr Avatar has some bad news for Kirby

There's also a bonus Taliah for podcast listeners (we ran out of time during the hour). Apologies if you notice some sound problems this week -- there were a few problems with the desk which Resonance are going to fix over the next few weeks. And that's why we're not here until September, too, but we might put some secret things up on iTunes. If you're not subscribed, sort that out immediately.

Other things to do while you're waiting for us to restart:

- Call / write / follow us on twitter (@steishere, @byronicman, @scanters, @onelifeleft)

- Find someone for Ann to Tw-interview and let her know

- Get OLL in the London Lite (or, frankly, anywhere we don't belong)

- Link us on your super popular blog! Or website! Or livejournal! Do the kids still use Livejournal? Is that cool? Oh God

- Suggest some guests! I think Stephen Fry's a bit busy, though

- Send us email on a subject of your choosing. The address is in the show

- Start an international games industry OLL-sponsored fight. Uh oh!

That's it. See you soon!

Ste, Ann, Simon and The One Life Left Team
xx

*Made it ^x more awesome.

One Life Left -- s05e06 -- #102 -- OLL, O.B.E.

Mon, 3 Aug 2009 23:40:00 GMT

Not to be competitive, here, but how many videogame radio shows can say they've had an Officer of the British Empire as their weekly superguest? We're betting one. And, what ho, chaps, it's this one:

Ian Livingstone, President 4 Lyfe of Eidos, Fighting Fantasy hero and founder of Games Workshop stops by the Resonance FM studios for a chat with the team about life, games, and turning to page 73 to find out.

In this week's show:
* Controversy! As Ian Livingstone DECLARES outright favouritism for a system!
* Intrigue! As Taliah meets a boy!
* Predictability! As Ann 'gets' Twitter, after some explanation.

Plus news, reviews, letters (there was a prize this week so get writing), music (Hash Pipe / Seal of Quality and Charizard / Zantos!), etc.

You'll note a little bit of The Bike Show at the start of the podcast. It is, obviously, One Life Left's favourite show about bikes ever, ever but it's also worth listening to even if you've no interest in the subject. That's one of the things we've always hoped to do with OLL. It's definitely true here. Try it.

See you!

One Life Left -- s05e05 -- #101 -- Standing Room Only

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 23:28:00 GMT

Summertime and the living is easy. The radio presenting not so much, thanks to the hottest studio since the bad old days of '06 and an impromptu physical challenge. Welcome to a giggly, grouchy, fractious, slightly unbalanced One Life Left. In this week's show: * Returning special guest Leo Tan pops in to tell us about The Gathering, Capcom's nerd sanctuary in London where One Life Left plan to drink and play games for free! * More diaphragm than ever! As the team attempt to complete the whole show standing up as if they were four Chris Moyles, except somewhat more tolerable * Twitter! Wah wah wah twitter this wah wah wah onelifeleft / steishere / byronicman / scanters wah wah wah wah wah. Also you might notice some L/R balance issues, especially in the theme at the end. Stick with it though, there's an Easter Egg there. Music on 101: PLEASE SEND US INTERESTING THINGS. Either phonecalls, emails, letters or whatever. Your contributions (and those of our amazing feature contributors, and the music, and the other bits that aren't us) make the show. So go, go, go.

One Life Left -- s05e04 -- #100 -- End of a Century

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 00:49:00 GMT

Hello. Welcome to a very special One Life Left. Why? Because -- OMG -- we're 100. Numbers aside, we've always been 'special', haven't we? And this is every bit as special as our previous, metaphorically and occasionally literally unbroadcastable hours with features, news, reviews, music and game-related nonsense aplenty. In this week's show: * The team sing! It's OK, they get that bit done with pretty early on. The cake comes later. That's not even a lie, * Superguest Jon Hare, creator of Sensible Soccer, one of the greatest videogames of all time, tells us about his new projects, * We actually play Best Worst Game, promise. Also new stuff from Dr Avatar and The Doyouinverts. Music on 100: Cruisin' Mah '95 Pimpmobile by Kulor Le Road To Bordeaux by Thomas Armstrong Facebook / Twitter / Email / Call us (details in the show). We'll see you next week and for a while after that, we hope.

One Life Left -- s05e03 -- #99 -- 99 Not Out

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 00:34:00 GMT

It's been a busy seven days for tawdry, frivolous news, which means it's up to Ann to raise the bar. Can she do it? No, obviously not, but listen to her try: for the third time in four weeks, it's ALL NEW! One! Life! Left!

In this week's show

* Ann gets giggly about celebrity death,

* An official response from the Lego Game Team concerning last week's proposal,

* And the team introduce themselves for the first. Time. Ever.

Plus new features, old features, reviews, music, and a few minor technical glitches. You might also be able to see some video of us somewhere. I'm unclear on how that works. Hm.

Music on 99:

Suspension by Smiletron
I Breath in Black and White by 4Mat
Beat It (Wavedude Remix) by MJ

Facebook / Twitter / Email / Call us about our Episode 100 special. We might see you at Develop, right? Good.

One Life Left -- s05e02 -- #98 -- Trauma Center

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 23:06:00 GMT

It takes a special kind of show to carry off two comebacks in three weeks but here we are. After a one-week hiatus to take stock, hire and fire, One Life Left returns rejuvenated, reshaped. All three presenters are back, too. Seriously, someone needs to have a word with HR. Still, One Life Left isn't just Ste, Simon and Ann doing their best to make silence sound inviting. The show would be nothing without fabulous features submitted by listeners, and Episode 2 contains some of the very best. There are the beloved regulars, of course, and the return of two Season 4 favourites, but there's also something brand new sneaks in at the end. Consider the Trauma in the title is a clue. Elsewhere, OLL's brave experiment in listener interaction continues. The thing about listener interaction is that it requires participation from both parties. The first party -- the broadcaster -- requests the interaction. The second party -- the listener, that's you -- responds in kind. Phone us, please. The number is in the show and Ann is waiting for your call. Music in #98: Leave Everything / Move On by Covox Sparks by Cornbeast Soulja Boy! Crank those pink squares! by Jay Lever Email: team@onelifeleft.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/onelifeleft Search for us on Facebook and join our page / group

One Life Left -- s05e01 -- #97 -- Guess Who's Back?

Tue, 9 Jun 2009 01:03:00 GMT

One Life Left -- s05e01 -- #97 -- Guess Who's Back?

Guess who's back, guess who's back, guess who's back, guess who's back...

For the newcomers: One Life Left is back. What? Oh! It's a radio show about videogames. It's presented by Ste Curran, Simon Byron and Ann Scantlebury. Ste and Simon both work in the videogame industry and have done forever. Ann, after close to a hundred episodes, now knows what a videogame is. We assume. Possibly.

We broadcast on FM radio, courtesy of the brilliant Resonance FM, in the United Kingdom on Monday evenings and podcast the show later that night. We don't talk about videogames all the time and we try to be inclusive. Lots of our listeners don't play videogames all that much, just like Ann. Some of them don't play at all.

For the veterans: Oh, wow. Tonight was totally fun and we've missed you. Promise.

Season 5 Episode 1 contains: Ste, Ann, Simon and a very special guest. News about videogames, Music that sounds like videogames, four tiny features loosely themed around videogames. Lots of chat about E3, some chat about Ann's cat. That sort of thing.

Music in s05e01: Three Kings by Swampyboy, Relapse and Corecontax (apologies for failing to credit the final two in the show), 8 Bit De La Mort by the incomparable Jungle Fiction, and Raw Footage Trash80 Remix by Leeni.

Other stuff: Hey! You! Please write to us / call us / tweet us / whatever. You're a huge part of why we do this and it's genuinely awesome to be back. The next show is in two weeks' time and after that return to our usual a weekly schedule. We've lots of new features and guests and surprises to come over the next 23 episodes.

One more thing: OLL is completely independent and relies on word of mouth to bring in new listeners. If you listen to the show and like it all we ask is that you tell your friends. Then they'll tell their friends, they'll tell their friends and pretty soon we'll be able to tell the whole world about Ann's cat. Thanks! And see you in a fortnight (or less, if you follow our Twitter / go on our forum / etc).

Bye!

OLL xx

One Life Left Presents: Nolan Bushnell âMy Life In Videogamesâ recorded at BAFTA

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 21:31:00 GMT

Itâs another One Life Left special, as we meet Nolan âthe father of videogamesâ Bushnell ahead of his brilliant BAFTA presentation: âMy life in videogames.â

After a quick interview, weâve the full, unedited session, so you can experience the event as if you were there. Turn off your mobile phones!

Laugh! As Nolan reveals secrets behind the development of Pong!

Cry! As Bushnell reveals some of the things he did wrong when developing the Atari 2600.

Pretend youâre blind and deaf! When you realise the videos werenât recorded, so you have to imagine what they were like.

It was a top evening, and one youâre all able to enjoy thanks to BAFTAâs generosity.

Keep an eye on the BAFTA site for more brilliant games-events worth attending.

Weâre hoping to do more specials throughout the year, so make sure youâre subscribed through iTunes or the RSS button on the side. Itâs our gift to you, because we love you.

One Life Left -- s04e24 -- #96 -- Poole Over

Thu, 12 Mar 2009 01:48:00 GMT

Season Finales are meant to offer closure, but What mortal could write an ending for a season that's included all-star contributions from Joe Cornish, Iain Lee and Simon Byron's niece? Only one man: it's official OLL literary expert Steven Poole, author of Trigger Happy, the definitive book about videogames!

Steven's bar-raising appearance not withstanding, what else can you expect from the last episode of OLL for a little while? There's a spectacular three-way song fight between Season 3's most tuneful contributors. There's what Ann declared before the show to be her 'worst news ever', no small feat. There are reviews, there are chiptunes, there are small sobs as we say goodbye. Boo! Hoo!

There's also reference to these awesome listener-contributed remixes which we didn't have time to play:

Spencer Lee's "No Butts"
Blinn's "OLL Amiga Mashup"

Amazing. Thanks, chaps. And thanks to SteVader too, who rescued this show after someone (not us, obviously) broke the Resonance backup machine.

Other Music on #96

The Doctor's in Danger: Mahamajama
Hotncold: Bit The Medusa
The Kat and Marie Waltz: Orenji

And with that One Life Life Season 4 is done, done, done. New listeners, don't fret: twenty-four episodes of varying quality are available on this website or iTunes right now (you can even go back as far as the start of Season 3 if you really want). Old listeners, don't fret either. We'll be back. In a little while. Maybe in less time than you expect.

Why? Well, we talk about that at the end of the show. But the abbreviated version: make sure you're subscribed on iTunes or following our RSS Feed. We'll be running some exclusive subscriber content over our break. And we'll still be broadcasting new content on Resonance 104.4 FM.

One final note: if you've ever considered doing a feature for OLL now is the time to suggest it. We'll be launching season five with a new lineup of contributors and one of them could be you. You should know the address to email by now.

Bye! And don't forget to write / tweet / facebook / stalk,

love,

Ste, Simon and Ann
xxx

One Life Left -- s04e23 -- #95 -- Authority Complex

Wed, 4 Mar 2009 00:13:00 GMT

OLL faces up to the challenge of a Simon-less show this week in the only way it knows how: by packing in half a dozen features, keeping the libel to a minimum and staying well inside our comfort zone. News. Reviews. Authoritative commentary. Youâll find half-assed attempts at all of those in the penultimate episode of Season 4! Our run of excellent guests continues, too. Dave Green (Iâm Dave Green) joins us in the studio to teach us about some more retro hardware. Thereâs some improvised music and a listener competition, and Ann has a special request for email mischief. Also brilliant returns for Best Worst Game, Odds On OâD and Game For A Laugh. We are fortunate to have them all. You might find thereâs some stereo imbalance during some of the recorded features this week. Apparently one of the CD players is a bit off-kilter. Some post-production tinkering only resulted in multiple Audacity crashes â weâll try and fix it in the live broadcast next week. Itâs our finale! Do join us (and our special guest)! Music on #95: Swapping Harpoons with Ron Moss â Poke-1,170 8-Bit Symmetrical Girl â Chalices Of The Past

One Life Left -- s04e22 -- #94 -- Ha Ha Bonk

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 01:35:00 GMT

What goes ha ha bonk? Thatâs right, itâs the sound of the OLL team laughing their heads off at this weekâs guest: comedy writer, stand-up performer and irreligious troll Christina Martin! Also, Ann and Simon giggling as Ste bangs his face on his mic again. Either way (both ways, actually) itâs OLL #94!

Look, weâre twenty-two episodes into this season and you should really know the drill by now. We can probably be a bit less formal. Maybe even try bullet points. Ninety-four features the following things, in no particular order:

News. Reviews. Music. Obviously.

TWO brilliant, brilliant, exclusive, exclusive new songs.

Discussion including â but not limited to â Christian game reviews, The King of Kong, and a comprehensive answer to the question, âAre university games courses worth the effort?â

Sorry about the delay to the podcast. The team are feeling a bit under the weather this week but hope to have their collective health back together for next weekâs penultimate episode of season 4. What happens after that? The last one, of course. Duh. See you!

Songs in #94:

Skins Theme Remix by Pandotrix
Red Flowers by Hurrigame Boy
Talking to Animals by Swampyboy

(Itâs possible one of these didnât make it onto the podcast because of TECHNICAL ISSUES but if youâre curious theyâre all available at the brilliant 8bitcollective website).

One Life Left -- s04e21 -- #93 -- EU/AU

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 00:57:00 GMT

Desk checked: check. Guests checked: check. Live in three... two... one...
Oops. With Ste in America selling the rights to USA Life Left, itâs down to Simon and Ann to hold the show together. But following an anarchic Bike Show, thereâs little time. Itâs fair to say there are more errors with the desk in the first 10 minutes than the first 10 minutes of any show. But we muddle through as only One Life Left knows how: poorly.

Joined by Eurogamer editor Tom Bramwell and a genuine, actual One Listener Left from the other side of the world, itâs kind-of business as usual: if the usual is a broken studio recorder (thanks for saving the show, Derek Williams!), friendly racism, and quite a lot of actual chat about videogames and that.

Features include Derek Williams (thanks!), Mathew Kumar (thanks!) and a special As Seen On TV (hmmm), but the highlight has to be three-and-a-half minutes of Craig âThe Rageâ. Astonishing stuff, whichâll long be remembered after the theme rolls.

Music includes: something from Street Fighter II (or III) HD Turbo Nutter Graphics Edition, a brilliant reader-submitted song, and a dance remix of the Marble Madness theme.

Join us next week when weâll be welcoming yet another SuperGuest. And the return of Ste, whoâll no doubt have a go at us for not making up an icon or nothing when we were only doing our best, which is patently not good enough.

Hats off!

(PS: Massive, massive thanks to Derek Williams whoâs tirelessly pieced together bits from an intermittent feed to ensure this appears in your ears in some capacity. As such, the quality varies â the Internetâs fault, not Derekâs â but itâs uploaded here because surely itâs better than not being uploaded here at all. Thanks Derek!)

team@onelifeleft.com

One Life Left -- s04e20 -- #92 -- Tan Man

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 23:25:00 GMT

Just... a... few... minutes... more...

Nope, that's enough waiting - after an extended, weather-enforced hiatus, TEAM OLL is back, back, back, BACK!

Wait! Back, back, back, BACK!?

Yep, four backs â and three tits â in the studio this week, as we continue our series of SuperGuests by welcoming Leo Tan, the Best Man At Street Fighter In The Country, to the warm and cosy confines of Resonance FM HQ.

(Incidentally, does anyone know if The Bike Show made it in to work last week? We bet they did, the swots. We were too busy rolling round in the snow and putting carrots in the middle of snowmen to bother turning up to the office.)

Laugh! As we, umâ

Cry! As we, errâ

Groove! As we, wellâ

WHO CARES whatâs in the show? Plug your earphones in, kick back, and relax as we entertain in the way only we know how: not very well. Enjoy!

(NB: Simon here. I thought Ste was going to put this up, but heâs gone to America. I donât know whether he intended to, and no doubt Iâve buggered up bits of it, but I thought it best we get this delivered to your iTunze ay-ass-ay-pee, what with the fact we werenât on air last week. Heâll shout at me when he returns. Heâs like that. Itâs why I wear makeup and long sleeves. But heâs not back for 10 days or so. Next week, itâll be just me and Ann and no SuperGuest so please, please, please send letters, jokes, features and songs to team@onelifeleft.com. Thankyouloveyou. X)

Songs in this episode:

#1: Some. I can't remember. I'm sure Ste says what they are.

#2: See above.

One Life Left -- s04e19 -- #91 -- Bond Life

Tue, 27 Jan 2009 01:50:00 GMT

"Goldeneye,â sang Tina Turner. "I found his weakness. Goldeneye, he'll do what I please.â She wasn"t singing about One Life Left, but she might as well have been. We're weak, he"s pleasing: it's this week"s special guest, Martin Hollis, Producer and Director of N64 classic Goldeneye!

Why's Martin on the show? Well, listen and you"ll find out, doofus. But if you're impatient, here"s the prÃcis. It's to fend off questions about his current projects. What does Martin think about working with the next generation of videogame hardware? Is it true Nintendo are thinking about porting Facebook to the DS? And is he really working on the spiritual successor to Goldeneye right now?

Elsewhere, in a minor news coup, Ann reveals the exact launch year of the PS4 and the Xbox-wait-a-minute-I-can-do-this, Derek complains there aren"t enough games for him to sell in January and The Rage is missing, presumed poached. There's also some excellent music, a triplet of reviews and plenty of unprofessional bickering.

One Life Left! No time for sweetness -- but a bitter kiss will bring us to our knees. Thanks, Tina.

Music on #91:

How To Kill a Man From Outer Space // SAVESTATES

Arctic // CFCF

Glitch Test // Vastik Root

See you next week. And join our Twitter feed at /onelifeleft. Go!

One Life Left -- s04e18 -- #90 -- Lee Way

Tue, 20 Jan 2009 23:47:00 GMT

Following #89 was never going to be easy. If we could stop time we would but with all the crushing inevitability of a discrete, week-based counting system episode ninety of One Life Left arrives. The only solution? Another OLL Superguest. This week, we introduce our brand new comedy correspondent: itâs Iain Lee, from off the telly! And the radio! And the internet!

And now our bit of the radio and the internet, too (our TV showâs still at the pilot stage). Iain joins us to chat about how you make show about videogames for television and to help us demonstrate one way of making one for radio: donât talk about games very much. Itâs what OLL does best!

But donât worry, secret gamers; thereâs lots of chat about your super shameful hobby, too. Alongside news and reviews we have Mathew Kumar delivering another Best Worst Game, while Odds On guides you gently through another way gambling relates to gaming. And sound the NEW FEATURE siren! Give your warmest welcome to Game for a Laugh, OLLâs new, regular phone-based quest.

Thereâs also the return of the One Life Left Game Show. Itâs Ann vs Iain, of course. Who wins? Listen to #90 now to find out.

Music this episode:

Chiptune Superstar // She

Arcade Catastrophe // ZibraZibra (thanks, Hikari!)

Sorry Slash I Love You // ChippedTeethSmashedElbows

One Life Left -- s04e17 -- #89 -- Yo Joe

Tue, 13 Jan 2009 10:55:00 GMT

It begins with an interview because, hey, we don't let just anyone guest on One Life Left, much less give them the coveted title of OLL's Resident Film Expert. It's a formality, though, and post-theme we welcome our new colleague: spoiler warning! It's Joe Cornish, the tall half of TV / Radio / Multimedia's Adam & Joe. O. M. G! Read more below. Aside from the special guest star it's business as usual this week -- music, news, reviews, and one brand new feature that seems to work out pretty well. It's probably best you just listen, really. Oh! And if this is your first One Life Left here are some primer notes (there's a more detailed history in the About section). -- We broadcast across London on the brilliant Resonance FM live every Monday evening, then we podcast the show the day after. We are Ste, Simon and Ann. Hi! -- We're a radio show about videogames but not like that. You should be able to enjoy One Life Left even if you haven't picked up a joypad in weeks, months, years or ever. Um, that's our intention, anyway. -- We mix inane chat with music that sounds like videogames and features from brilliant regular contributors, including Craig 'The Rage' McClellan (our resident gaming poet) and Derek Williams (a market-stall trader in Doncaster who plays a synth and tells us what's been selling this week). -- We've been doing this for nearly three years and we welcome (and encourage) listener contributions. You can join our growing guerilla army in our Facebook group, on our forum, or by subscribing to our podcast on iTunes for free. Please do that. Here's a link to the start of Season 4 so you can catch up. Music in #89: Tetra Star -- Robots Need Love Too MC Chris -- Nrrrd Grrrl (Schizmo's Chiptune Remix) Nullsleep -- Salvation for a Broken Heart and Taliah, of course. See you next week when we'll be joined by another brilliant guest. Who? There's a clue in the show. Jeu Fini!

One Life Left -- s04e16 -- #88 -- Two Out Of Three Ainât Bad

Tue, 6 Jan 2009 12:01:00 GMT

It's a reasonably Happy New Year as two-thirds of One Life Left mark their first day back in the office with resolutions, chat, songs, mistakes and one off-the-cuff comment we regret (cut from this podcast; you really should try and listen live).

Yes, OLL is back with a bang, though not as big a bang as it would be had Ste returned from his holidays in time. He's stuck in Lapland, arguing with Father Christmas about the existence of Peter Molyneux.

So cue emergency call to I'm Dave Green, who ably fills Simon's shoes whilst Simon occupies Ste's red high heels and pretty dress.

This week's show is filled to the brim with actual gaming chat about games, a special "best-of" 2008's news special with Ann (who's ill), a special Derek Williams' Free Market Economy with Derek Williams (who's poorly), a very special Craig "The Rage" McClellan with Craig "The Rage" McClellan (who's sick), a distraught Taliah, and, well, spoilers etc.

One thing we're certainly not spoilerising is the identity of our incredibly incredible special guest next week, who's reasonably certain he'll make it. A few clues inside; join the speculation on the forum, but whatever you do, do send us stuff to ask him or her (it's him).

Music this week is:

â An excellent Super Shinobi/Madonna mashup by Brian Flanagan (cut short on the show: download the full version from the site shortly)
â Fever, by show-saver Spencer Lee
â The loading music to a classic C64 s-s-s-shmup by Rob Hubbard.

Apologies to those who sent musical contributions (and we're unsure of whether we can name); we should have played your songs, but Simon panicked at the desk and forgot his running order. They're in the bank, so to speak.

Normal service will be resumed next week, when Stephen! returns, just in time to welcome (hopefully!) our very, very, very special guest.

One Life Left -- x05 -- Christmas Special '08 -- Christmas Mixtape

Thu, 25 Dec 2008 03:40:00 GMT

Hello! As you probably already know, OLLâs Christmas gift to you isnât a show, but a mixtape of sorts, badly-put-together by Ste. The tracklist is below. Itâs probably best not to read it if you havenât listened yet, because itâs best to be surprised. But when you have, check back here and visit the page of the artist you love and buy something from them. Itâs about time, right?

Happy Christmas, and see you on January 5^th!

OLL Theme // Iain Cook

Killing In The Name // Uoki-Toki

Breaking Wave // Random

Chip 2 Bit // Trash80

Salut! France // Errors

99 Problems // Jay-Z vs Combat Dave

Girl Gamers (Live) // Craig âThe Rageâ McClellan (+ Derek Williams on Synths)

I Love Love You // Guitar Vader

It Dies // Mr. Miyagi

Sexy Back // Justin vs Combat Dave

Space Music // Sexy Synthesizer

Technologic // Daft Punk

Playerd // Copy

Door (Covox Remix) // Ram Rider

Kicks // She

CRIMEWave (LAZRtag HARDer Remix) // Crystal Castles vs Health

Free Market Economy (Live) // Derek Williams

Sponsored By Destiny // Slagsmalsklubben

Put That Pussy On Me // Spank Rock vs CFCF

The Crystal Cat // Dan Deacon

Heartbleeps // Hiroshi

You Take My Breath Away // The Knife

Umbrella // Rihanna vs electronicMESS

Star Child // gwEm and Counter Reset

One Life Left -- s04e15 -- #87 -- Snow Business

Tue, 16 Dec 2008 11:32:00 GMT

Itâs 6.15pm, in the studio and weâre all set up, missing one guest. Ste makes the call. Hey Ellie Gibson of Eurogamer Dot Net! Where are you? âHey Ste! Iâm in Soho!â Are you still on for the show tonight? âYes, totally. Itâs an 8pm start isnât it?â Uh oh. No, Ellie, youâve got 45 minutes. Pause. âItâs OK, Iâll be there!â

So begins Ellieâs sprint across town which, just like Steâs in episode #81, is perfectly timed and finishes with ten seconds remaining the showâs 30-second theme tune. Thatâs why weâre a bit giggly at the start of the very festive #87 and thatâs why her mic doesnât work. We deal! We absolutely deal. We would not have been able to deal with that last week.

Oh, last week.

On to this week, and the last episode of this year. Itâs the most feature-packed episode of One Life Left this season with very special Christmas editions of Free Market Economy, Best Worst Games, and a new, exclusive doyouinverts Christmas single. Thereâs also the return of a classic One Life Left feature that hasnât appeared for at least a season and some brilliant Christmas music, including:

SNOBLIND â Receptors

Unironic Christmas Medley â Savestates

Last Christmas (hot digi remix) â Goto80 (a brilliant but essentially emergency choice that I think we played last year)

Weâll see you next year. Do email us in the meantime and keep watching the site for Christmas blogs and things. Happy Christmas, Happy New Year, Happy everything.

Ste, Simon and Ann
xxx

One Life Left -- s04e14 -- #86 -- Math Problem

Wed, 10 Dec 2008 01:03:00 GMT

It's Simon's last show before Christmas! So what better way to celebrate than with a return to One Life Left values of old: awkward silences, and dozens of technical errors. Welcome to the world's greatest videogame radio show. So what have we learnt? Firstly, that we shouldn't let Ste drink for three days and arrive at the show a physical and emotional mess, incapable of working even the most basic elements of the desk, let alone delivering any kind of insight into the gaming industry. Secondly that if we absolutely have to do that, we shouldn't do it in front of Brammers, Eurogamer's Editor. And thirdly sometimes apologies just don't cut it. Seriously, sorry. This is not the best episode and if it's your first you should probably click back a few although there are, as ever, some highlights. Taliah! Best Worst Games! Sweet music! Off-air libel! An introductory I'm Dave Green joke cut off by Ste's seratonin-deficient incompetence! Oh God. Music on #86: Heartbleeps by Hiroshi Heathens (8-bit mix) by Bracken Ryu the Red Nosed Ninja by Doctor Octoroc Sorry. Sorry! (And sorry this is late, too. For obvious reasons.) See you next week!

One Life Left -- s04e13 -- #85 -- Bucks Fizz

Tue, 2 Dec 2008 12:50:00 GMT

Bucks Fizz -- champagne cut with orange juice for reasons of cost masked by reasons of taste; the sort of drink you have at a company party just before everyone gets fired or a wedding where there's nothing to celebrate. And this is the episode just after the One Life Left Christmas Party, and the apologies section is back. Uh oh...

Whatever! The past is the past, literally unbroadcastable or otherwise, and the future is here right now. Five features, including a new song by some time best-friend-of-the-show Spencer Lee and a Very Christmas Craig The Rage.

And today marks an important point in One Life Left's history -- the launch of our very first CD, as press-released on Eurogamer here. You can buy it from Amazon here. Please buy it from Amazon. It is seven quid. Buy it now! BUY IT NOW. Then we can make another one.

Apologies for the broken mic problems near the end, which stopped Ste from being as enthusiastic as he'd like about Think Quick.

Music on #85:

Umbrella by electronicMESS
The Opposite of Sick of You by Think Quick

See you!

One Life Left -- s04e12 -- #84 -- Terrain Man

Mon, 24 Nov 2008 23:23:00 GMT

Weâre halfway through Season 4 (like the day after the summer solstice itâs all downhill from here) but if you think weâre getting complacent, thing again: One Life Left #84 is a special episode with a special guest. But whoâs the guest? And whatâs the occasion?

Itâs Rock Paper Shotgunâs very own Kieron Gillen! And itâs Simon Byronâs birthday, so he has the night off. Consequently this episode of OLL may sound a little bit different (weâve not had to edit out any slander for a start, and we talk about video games quite a lot) but you can still expect the same quality of Xeroxed news, half-hearted reviews, games industry gossip and improbably brilliant features.

Download the episode from here and as always, tell everyone you love to do the same.

Crucuially (and youâll hear this throughout the show) this is the last episode of One Life Left before our Christmas Party. It is HUGELY IMPORTANT you attend, whether this is the first episode youâve listened to or the last. Weâll be recording a show, live, and an audience will make that better, but the radio partâs only a fraction of the dayâs events; thereâs our CD launch, live music performances, your chance to make friends / make enemies / make out with some games industry legends. Itâs free. And itâll be brilliant. I have no idea why you arenât writing it in your diary already.

Oh, you are? Sweet! Itâs at The Blue Posts on Rupert St, Soho, and itâll be going on from 2pm until late, late, late. Weâll see you there, and for the after party, and the after-after party, and etc.

One Life Left -- s04e11 -- #83 -- Troll Booth

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 02:37:00 GMT

Om nom nom nom? What? No! The OTHER kind of troll, the one that resides on the internet and says naughty things to gain a lol-some reaction. That's what OLL's big mouth feels like this week. But who are we trolling, and why?

Oh, no-one, deliberately, obviously. We're nice! We love everyone, even the gaming industry legends we insult. That's why we promise to keep the really salacious anecdotes to the off-air stuff at the OLL party. But the best kind of troll is the accidental one, the off-hand quip you regret later, and while there's no apology section this week we expect we'll need one in #84. Sorry! Sorry.

OLL #83 also contains no less than five separate features, the continuation of some threads from episodes past and some excellent listener-letters. If you want to be on next week's show you're welcome to send us stuff, of course. Otherwise just tune in, silently listening, and enjoy. It is a fun one, we think.

Also, keep an eye on the blog for more BONUS CONTENT from presenters and contributors alike.

Music in #83:

Hello by Uoki-Toki
In the Year 200X by 8-Bit Metal
I Don't Want To Set The World On Fire

Special thanks to Derek, who's struggling through computer problems to maintain his excellent contribution record.

ALSO. RSVP to our party. It is going to be awesome.

One Life Left -- s04e10 -- #82 -- Party Favour

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 23:16:00 GMT

No last-minute dramas this week, except that the show before ran on for three minutes into our slot and we were outraged. And which week is this? It's week in which Simon organised one party but mostly One Life Left got excited about another one. It's show #82. And we'll let the actual content of the show reveal itself to you, with all the features, news, reviews and music waiting for you like a girl on stage awkwardly awaiting carnal instruction. No spoilers, except to say we do actually genuinely talk quite a lot about videogames in this one. I know! We were quite surprised too. Especially Ann. Most pertinently, the Facebook party page for people who want to join us at our once-a-year Christmas bash on Saturday 29th of November is here. If you are reading this then you are genuinely invited. We want to see you there. You will have fun. Music in #82: Not a lot, really, but the one chiptune thing we played is worth it... Sexy Synthesizer -- Follow Me Love Machine -- Girls Aloud I'll leave you to guess which one that is. Oh, and two contributions from our friends, of course. No spoilers. See you next week!

One Life Left -- s04e09 -- #81 -- Rush Hour

Tue, 4 Nov 2008 00:42:00 GMT

No time for a long explanation here because 1/3 of One Life Left is getting a flight to Lyon in a few hours, which leaves precious little time for sleep / lying awake, regretting all the things you said today. But we should explain why there's three minutes missing from this week's show... Public transport. Ste left Brighton in plenty of time to reach the Resonance FM studios but a series of problems on the British rail network (four separate issues, detail fans) left him fighting his way through rush hour as Ann and Simon broke out the emergency CDs. Ste made it with seconds to spare -- the theme was about fifteen seconds in -- but, as a few weeks ago, we weren't set up to record. So that's why the show starts just after Ann's pleas with Simon not to talk about what she got up to on Friday night at Nottingham Game City. Some of our listeners will already know. The rest will have to put together pieces from the fragments of information here, in episode 81 of Europe's favourite tenuously-related-to-videogames show, One Life Left. Music: Spring // Resplendent / Downey Illusional Hop // Anthony Lofton & Joshua Morse Glasgow Mega-Snake // Mogwai That's it. See you next week. Oh, and please come to our party on the 29th of November. It's going to be brilliant and you'll be able to buy a CD! Srsly.

One Life Left -- s04e08 -- #80 -- Mother's Day

Tue, 28 Oct 2008 00:35:00 GMT

We're One Life Left's parents and we love all our children, but our eightieth (recognised) child was certainly born under a bad sign. Seconds before the show started we were shouted at by our beautiful engineer, Maria, for a crime we didn't commit, so we shouted back; and then, when the show finally started, two of the mics weren't working. The only person who could save us? Maria. Uh oh!

But save us she did and so, beginning with an early hit of mood-music to cover up the tense sounds of an audio caesarian, episode eight of season four pukes and mewls its way into your ears. This episode: Craig, Derek, Mathew and Taliah all entertain with winning contributions, a couple of engagements for you to add to your diaries, some news of some NEW OLL merchandise and a very, very, very special guest.

And gossip, reviews, news, Simon Byron's Memoirs, etc.

Music in #80:

Destiny's Child // Say My Name by Copy
Niji No Kawa by she
Animal Crossing Traveling OC ReMix by Kaijin
Bright Tomorrow by Fuck Buttons

Blogs about contents to come later in the week, hopefully. And OLL at GameCity, of course. See you all on Thursday?

One Life Left -- s04e07 -- #79 -- No Prizes

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 23:02:00 GMT

No prizes for naming this week's guest after the first, ooh, three words of the show. No prizes for working out what's up with Ann's voice, either, particularly if you've been reading our blog. And, if you were lucky enough to attend the GMAs last Thursday, no prizes for guessing what most of this week's apology section concerns. Uh oh, it's OLL #79: the post-party regret.

But the show isn't just about red faces, recollection immediately followed by regret. There's also the bits in between, the features and news and jingles and stuff. You know, the good stuff: Craig 'The Rage' McClellan takes on the Nintendo DS, Taliah looks at Ridge Racer and Mathew Kumar recalls Seaman on the Dreamcast.

And, midway through, just after the letters section and essentially out of nowhere, we announce OLL's next public gathering and invite you all. We'll do a proper blog about that this week but for now please accept our audio invite. You should come. It promises to be awesome. There might even be prizes.

We also play some astonishingly good music on #79:

Sun Lights Stars (Covox Remix) by Ram Rider
Earthbound -- Twoson Hits The Road -- OC Remix by djpretzel
Coloris by She.

And, you know, everything else.

Please enjoy -- protest on our forum if you don't, or even if you do -- and we'll see you in a week (and maybe *see* you in ten days). Exciting times!

One Life Left -- s04e06 -- #78 -- Broken Record

Tue, 14 Oct 2008 20:23:00 GMT

We've never been afraid of tempting fate -- would we self-herald as Britain's favourite videogame radio show if we were? -- but the news we received this morning might make a weaker team opt for humility and caution over bravado in the future. Still, we wouldn't be One Life Left if we weren't big-mouthed idiots so please enjoy our 78th hour of published regret.

Inside you'll find, amongst other joys, the return of our gambling contributor Odds On O'D and a brand new doyouinverts track inspired by one of One Life Left's favourite websites. There's also five pieces of expertly-stolen gaming news, some new music and Ste talks about how he went to Tokyo by mentioning SHIBUYA a lot.

Also apologies. Genuine apologies.

Please write to us. You'll note midway through the show we make a plea for your help. We will replace that plea later in the week so keep reading for an update on that. For now, enjoy our hour and keep your fingers crossed for us on Thursday.

Music in #78: Sonic the Hedgehog Metamorphic Rock by Darkesword
One Car Family by 240 Interceptor
Monsieur Revee by best-friend-of-One-Life-Left Spencer
and, as mentioned, more from the doyouinverts.

Apologies for the (jetlag-related) delay. See you soon.

One Life Left -- s04e05 -- #77 -- Illegal Alien

Tue, 7 Oct 2008 06:29:00 GMT

This show is sponsored by: www.myspace.com/spencerlikesme

CD prepared? Check. Guests â or co-presenter â in studio? Check. Over-ambitious list of things to chat about? Check. Studio door locked just in case The Man tries to interrupt the maverick broadcast? Check. Memory card inserted into the memory card machine so the show can be recorded and podcast if thatâs a verb? Check. Record pushed?

With Ste away in Japan, good ship One Life Left is left in the (dis)able(d) hands of Simon, Ann and guest co-host Tom BrammersMcBramwell from off of Eurogamer.net.

Ste's List Of Things To Do is largely ignored as we ramble our way through radio exclusives such as:

SHOCK PRACTISES OF SCUMBAG HARDWARE MANUFACTURERS WHO WANT YOUR GAMES TO BE BROKEN!
NINTENDO BEING SCUMBAGS!
A PEADOPHILIAC SONG COMPOSED USING A GAME BOY A BIT!
THE FIRST LOOK AT A NEW PIECE OF HARDWARE WHICH IS DIFFICULT TO DO ON THE RADIO!

Then: The Phone! After all, when better to experiment with technology than when the desk is being driven by someone who's only driven a desk once before, and that
went very badly? I know: now.

Still, it seems to go reasonably okay, until the shock twist at the end of the show, when at which point literally â literally â all seems lost.

This episode is bought to you â unedited - thanks to One Life Left best friend Spencer Lee. Who not only provides one of the show's audio high points, but saves this episode. Literally.

Thanks Spencer. OLL salutes you. Thank him here: www.myspace.com/spencerlikesme. Thanks also to Derek, whou would have been there if Spencer wasnât.

Oh, music:
Knights of Cydonia 8bit (ripped from YouTube)
Agony theme, Psygnosis
Two listener contributions
Lemmings Rap 7inch, SFX
Commando them, Rob Hubbard

One Life Left -- s04e04 -- #76 -- Desk Job

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 21:37:00 GMT

In which Simon assumes control of the One Life Left radio bus, Ste cowers in the front seat and peers between his fingers, and Ann makes out with boys on the back seat.

Welcome to #76, in which three important announcements are made. Weâll blog them in detail later in the week but I donât think itâs a spoiler to those announcements concern:

i) The WINNER of One Life Leftâs most popular competition ever, to name a Beer at Nottingham Game City

ii) One Life Leftâs amazing, unique, ill-advised event at Nottingham Game City

iii) Steâs absence next week.

Which is why Simonâs driving this week. To learn, you know. It wouldnât be One Life Left if the preparation wasnât ill-considered and last-minute.

To alleviate the pressure / add to the complexity, we have a guest for the first time in Season 4. Ellie âGibboâ Gibson returns to the airwaves to amuse, entertain and talk about videogames. We are lucky to have her. We (abruptly) welcome a new feature, too â âThe Best Worst Games Youâve Never Playedâ by Mathew Kumar. Weâre looking for a jingle for that segment so if you can provide, get in touch. And the regulars are all present and correct too â poetry, gambling, chart musings and more.

Music this week:

The Suspense Is Killing Me â Boy 8-Bit
Shempi â Ratatat
Electric Touch (Mighty Mi / Stev1der Mix) â Kanye West v. MGMT
Toejam & Earl Bumpinâ OC Remix

Ok. See you soon!

Ste, Simon and Ann xxx

One Life Left -- s04e03 -- #75 -- Saddle Up

Mon, 22 Sep 2008 22:16:00 GMT

Yo, gaming tough guys the broadcast / podcast world over, know this: One Life Left has never been afraid of making enemies. Our independence allows us that freedom. We can say what we want about whoever we want and still be sure we'll continue to not receive free things in the post (please send us free things in the post). We're a videogame show with principles. Our main principle is that because we don't have the opportunity to sell out you can be sure that we haven't.

So yeah, we're tough. Last week on the blog, though, we chose to pick on the wrong people. We stepped outside our videogame comfort zone and chose to pick on men with bikes. And this week, The Bike Show acted exactly how you might imagine The Bike Show would: with grace and humour, inviting us on to the last five minutes of their (professionally produced, diligently prepared, also podcast) show. You join us just after our unexpected backie, three presenters giddy from a magical bike ride through Resonance FM.

So, allow us a moment to calm down and then enjoy the news, the features, the music (see below) and the epic, astonishing letters section featuring actual post. And enjoy the post-production too, since this is a recut of Season 4, Episode 3, largely deglitched. If you feel like you're missing out you should really tune in live but actually, this time the podcast listeners get the better deal: the new feature (no spoilers) is here in full, the victim of a dodgy last-minute CD burn in the FM-broadcast show. It is excellent.

With luck we'll have another new feature next show and our first guest of the season. Maybe even the Nottingham announcement we've been teasing you with for some time. Do enter the competition, and write to us using our contact for or at the address in the show -- your letters are consistently brilliant and make us happy.

Music: Thank You Mario But Our Princess Is In Another Castle / the Mountain Goats and Kaki King
PUBLIKUM / Stay Ali
Magical 8bit Tour / YMCK
Street Fighter II Sly Thai Guy OC Remix / Kaijin

All to be added to our music links page imminently. Do let people know about the show if you think they should know about the show and keep checking the blog for irregular / nonsenseical updates. We'll see you in a week.

One Life Left -- s04e02 -- #74 -- Second Hand

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 22:54:00 GMT

A rambling preamble in lieu of the one that we can't do now we're back on Resonance: You know, knowing your own mind isn't as easy as it sounds. You need to know something about everything. But there are lots of everythings in the world and you're expected to have something to say about them all. Sometimes you already hold an opinion on something, sometimes the opinion you hold emerges when you begin to speak and sometimes you arrive at the point where you need to have an opinion and you're still none the wiser on what that opinion should be. Like, for example, when you're considering second hand games, or zoo animals, or whether you should go to the park alone.

ENOUGH. Features, music, news, gossip, nonsense, regret, vague attempts to get listeners arrested. The second episode of series two was plagued by technical problems most of which have mysteriously vanished for the podcast. If you are that hot for awkward silences, miscued tracks and giggles I suggest you tune in for the live broadcast (7pm, Monday evenings, Resonance FM). Some things can't be fixed in post: there is no still no telephone guest so if you're tuning in for the promised hot phone chat you'll have to wait until next week. And we still don't talk about games enough.

Songs for #74:

Kickle's Processional -- The Depreciation Guild
Arkanoid 1999 (2000 Remix) -- Chris Abbott
TLC / No Scrubs -- Copy
Breaking Out (Demo) -- The Protomen

Oh, and you only have three days left to vote. We are not going to win this vote without some kind of Titanic effort, so go find a cruiseship and crash it into iceberg. Metaphorically. If you loved us you'd do that. We'd do it for you.

Subscribe on iTunes, write to us, join our Facebook group, all that kind of thing. Thanks!

One Life Left -- s04e01 -- #73 -- Wave Hello

Mon, 8 Sep 2008 23:08:00 GMT

Kick, punch, you all rememberâ

Hello. Weâre back. It has been too long, except itâs like weâve never been away.

News. Music. Reviews. Five features. Three overexcited presenters. Gossip and rumour, salacious implication, momentary regret, six shrugged shoulders and quickly on to something different.

Today: new engineers, new babies, new plans, the red ring of death, Atari, Nottingham GameCity, songs to fall in love to and repeated pleas for you all to email gma@intentmedia.co.uk and vote for us in the GMAs. Do that, do that now. We are the rank outsiders but it would be excellent if we beat the BBC, and all that might take is a couple of clicks from you.

Enough. Click to listen, go on iTunes to subscribe, explore the new website, send us an email and join our Facebook. This is One Life Left. We are back, and we will be hanging out with you for a while, if you donât mind. Tell the world.

One Life Left -- s03e24 -- #72 -- Any Other Business

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 00:50:00 GMT

Itâs the last episode of Season 3 of One Life Left and we have an agenda. That agenda: to tidy up all the loose ends from the other shows in Season 3, to apologise and move on. Itâs a departure from our previous (unwritten) agendas which, for Simon at least, mostly involve swearing and libel. But Simon isnât here. In his place, no-longer-a-mystery-guest Jonathan Smith, who calms Annâs nerves with a steely gaze and fearless hands. That will make more sense after youâve heard the news.

The news which, because you demanded it, includes a post-news-section gossip with someone who attended the Rock Band conference. Extra news, only a week late! Fear not, though, because we manage to get through a lot in our final hour-and-five minutes. We have two phone guests. We have four features. We have two incredible WORLD EXCLUSIVE REVIEWS, a scoop so great any other podcast would be issuing press releases right this second: one of Grand Theft Auto IV and one of Lego Indiana Jones. Beat that Major Nelson! Or anyone else we care to pick a fight with, frankly.

And then, at the very end of the episode, something truly awesome: some Other Business. You can wait for that. Do wait. It will be worth it.

Any Other Business could refer to another part of the episode too, which is almost entirely unedited. You will notice the part where it is particularly unedited. It would have been almost effortless to cut it out but we have left that in because we found it funny. It is super indulgent but hey, this is the last show, and perhaps gives those who werenât ever able to make it to a preamble a taste of what that was like, i.e. surprises, muffled noises, nonsense and giggling.

The sound on #72 might be a little worse than on previous shows. Weâve had a few problems with the desk today, to the extent that for a couple of hours it looked like the show wasnât going to happen. Weâre going to refit studio OLL shortly. Weâre looking for way to fund that. Weâre thinking of selling t-shirts! Or Annâs hair.

And thatâs it. Thank you to all our guests and contributors, thank you to Resonance FM and to Eurogamer and thank you all so much for putting up with us this season. It has been a genuine pleasure. Weâll see you soon, we hope â if not in Malmo or at the (recently postponed) One Life Left Wrap Party then for Season Four. Keep checking onelifeleft.com, thetriforce.com or our Facebook page for details on that. Weâll let you know as soon as we do.

Love,

The One Life Left Team

xxx

PS: If you didn't know by now, we have a last.fm group! That's new, and a brilliant way to compare notes on awesome music with other listeners. We are very close to the 500 mark on Facebook, so help us surpass that by clicking here, or identify yourself as a fan to others on that same site by clicking here. Our MySpace is here -- clicking around our friends list there is a good way to find out about the bands on the show. The OLL forum is here and if you want to email us with letters or things to play you can do so at the address in the show: team at one life left.com.

One Life Left -- s03e23 -- #71 -- Telephonic Spree

Tue, 8 Apr 2008 23:49:00 GMT

Those of you who can think as far back as the start of Season 3 might remember that we often promised to call people and never ever got around to it, mostly because it took about a dozen episodes for Resonance to get around to installing the phone. We make up for that today by using our Skype phone on no less than four occasions! To varying degrees of success, as you'll find out.

What else can we reveal without spoilers? Well, contrary to our hastily penned trailer on Eurogamer there aren't any reviews this week -- blame the fight we had about Riff last week and not wanting to turn Simon's last episode of the season into another row. But to compensate the news section contains actual news, an OLL regular returns to debut new material, Derek's still Derek and Craig 'The Rage' McClelland continues to hurt.

The show is presented almost completely unedited* so you'll please forgive the minor errors. Post production could have fixed them all, e.g. by highlighting the whole One Listener Left section and pressing delete, but we're all about honesty. Also laziness. We do forget to call someone as Simon mentions at the end of the show but perhaps we'll remedy that next week.

By we I mean Ann and Ste, because Simon's off on holiday now. He'll be back for the OLL wrap party which is tentatively scheduled for the 26th of April in London somewhere (we're seeking a venue, so write in if you can help with that). Ann and Ste will return next Tuesday for the OLL Season 3 Finale with a very special copresenter. Please join us then.

Oh, music: It's quite a musical episode. A Lemmings remix by a friend of a listener, a track from ex-OLL-standards Colon Openbracket, a quick blast of a new CFCF remix (vs Sally Shapiro) and a Mega Man II remix by Johan Agebjorn.

Hey! We have a last.fm group! That's new. Also, please join our Facebook Group and help us push on to the 500 mark by clicking here, or identify yourself as a fan to others on that same site by clicking here. Our MySpace is here -- clicking around our friends list there is a good way to find out about the bands on the show. The OLL forum is here and if you want to email us with letters or things to play you can do so at the address in the show: team at one life left.com.

*Of course it doesn't have the half hour preamble in which we checked the mics, Ann made us drinks and Simon called Simon's sister and talked about celebrity conquests. For that sort of thing you'll have to listen live. Sorry!

One Life Left -- s03e22 -- #70 -- Event Horizon

Wed, 2 Apr 2008 01:05:00 GMT

Maybe you'll have noticed by now but episode 70 of OLL clocks in at well over 63 minutes. That means it's the longest One Life Left ever, assuming you don't count the Christmas Party which you shouldn't because that was essentially unlistenable, if not literally unbroadcastable.

But despite loosening our belts by five whole percent we still didn't manage to squeeze in all the OLL fatness we'd planned. Sure, we got the features done -- three contributors make the most of their spots in the audio sunlight (can you have audio sunlight?) (no.) -- and the news is there as always. There are more reviews than ever, live section One Listener Left, no obvious libel and another game-person hunting mission. Plus there are two important, exciting event announcements, one of which is revealed below so hey, SPOILER WARNING. You might want to listen and then come back.

Spoiler buffer zone for those slow to decelerate. We missed things! It's such a packed show. Sorry about that. We didn't miss them deliberately. We will carry them over to next week, no worries. If you are expecting a better letters section or the best Ann Fic ever you will have to wait a little while. Oh, and we also didn't mention the very special guest coming to our party.

What party? Well, on April the 26th we'll be doing another One Live Left from a pub in London. There'll be live performances from feature contributors, special guests, prizes, music, booze and dancing. Venue to be announced but it will be brilliant and you should come. More details to follow. See you next week.

Join our Facebook Group and help us push on to the 500 mark by clicking here, or identify yourself as a fan to others on that same site by clicking here. Our MySpace is here -- clicking around our friends list there is a good way to find out about the bands on the show. The OLL forum is here and if you want to email us with letters or things to play you can do so at the address in the show: team at one life left.com.

One Life Left -- s03e21 -- #69 -- Mistakes and Regrets

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 00:57:00 GMT

Those of you who tune in live to the preamble might be surprised to hear that actually, all things considered, OLL is pretty well prepared. We have a list of things that we need to get through and a rough schedule detailing how we're going to do it.

So, everything's in order for One Life Left #69, right? We have the news (check), some reviews (check), features from OLL's beloved contributors (check) including a very special never-before-broadcast snippet from the OLL archives (check). We don't have any letters but we'll do an appearl for some midway through the show and I'm sure that'll work out (check).

We do have some music, though (check). And we have a vague plan to track someone down that may or may not come to fruition (check), we're going to talk to a listener and give away a game, phone one of Eurogamer and we're going to say something so unbelievable and irresponsible in the first ten minutes that we'll need to edit it out in post production (check). Wait, what was that last one?

Never mind, I'm sure it's going to be fine.

Two things for you to do over the next week.

1) Write to us, because our Inbox was pretty empty this week.

2) Partake in Simon's Wikipedia challenge, as revealed halfway through the show.

You could combine them. That would be efficient.

Join our Facebook Group and help us push on to the 500 mark by clicking here, or identify yourself as a fan to others on that same site by clicking here. Our MySpace is here -- clicking around our friends list there is a good way to find out about the bands on the show. The OLL forum is here and if you want to email us with letters or things to play you can do so at the address in the show: team at one life left.com.

One Life Left -- s03e20 -- #68 -- Dolled Up

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 23:17:00 GMT

Like a perfect adventure game it begins with a quest: a listener who wants us to make something happen. And it finishes with... Well, you'll have to listen, won't you?

But while the narrative road that runs through One Life Left #68 is untested and overgrown with hazardous distractions, the journey still takes us to some familar places. There's the palatial, long-standing Casa Derek, of course; the glorious peaks and gloomy valleys of The Rage; Ray Silvergun's bonsai gardens; and Mount Odds On O'D. That's not an imperative. Please don't try.

There's also Ann's adventuorous news, Simon's adventurous backchat, Ste's 'adventurous' handling of the desk* and a genuinely adventurous guest who tries to avoid talking about some super secret game-related stuff and ends up talking about cocks instead. We'll have more of that sort of thing next week. I mean the game-related stuff. Well, either, really.

What else? Oh, just listen. Incidentally, #68 is the 20th episode in Season 3, which means we're truly on the home straight now. There are four more live 'standard' episodes this season. We'll talk about our plans for after that next week, I think. See you then.

Join our Facebook Group and help us push on to the 500 mark by clicking here, or identify yourself as a fan to others on that same site by clicking here. Our MySpace is here -- clicking around our friends list there is a good way to find out about the bands on the show. The OLL forum is here and if you want to email us with letters or things to play you can do so at the address in the show: team at one life left.com.

One Life Left -- s03e19 -- #67 -- Present and Correct

Wed, 5 Mar 2008 00:55:00 GMT

Present because there are presents, correct because there were no major sound problems this week. Simple.

So simple and trouble free that there are, for the first time ever, two phone guests. In fact there were four but the other two (Simonâs Mum and another listener) were part of the pre-show preamble which we meander through for about half an hour before we hit 8pm and hit record. Thatâs right: those 30 minutes are lost forever, except in the heads of the 60-odd privileged listeners who were unfortunate enough to tune in a bit early.

In addition to those guests we have all kinds of minifeatures, some reviews that actually almost touch on being actual reviews, lots of game music remixes (though not, youâll note, Annâs idea of remixes), an interview with a band who donât sound very sure they know what videogames are, and a competition that youâre going to have real difficulty winning. Another reason to listen live if you can.

There is no One Life Left next week. Steâs off to LA, Simonâs off to see Muse and Annâs going to cram like sheâs in a High School movie montage. Weâll return for episode 20 at 8pm on the 19^th of March refreshed and rejuvenated with at least one announcement. Exciting.

Music in 67: My Brain by Mr Glide, Bootstrap by Pluxus, Candy by God knows who ft. some Japanese girls, Zelda 3: A Link To The Piano by Zoola, and that might be it. Actually Iâm not CERTAIN we played the Pluxus track but if we didnât we intended to and we will soon.

Join our Facebook Group and help us push on to the 500 mark by clicking here, or identify yourself as a fan to others on that same site by clicking here. Our MySpace is here -- clicking around our friends list there is a good way to find out about the bands on the show. The OLL forum is here and if you want to email us with letters or things to play you can do so at the address in the show: team at one life left.com.

One Life Left -- s03e18 -- #66 -- Fuzzy Logic

Sun, 2 Mar 2008 15:02:00 GMT

Welcome to the severely delayed OLL #66. Delayed because the audio quality within is, uhm, what's the technical term for this? Ruined. Let us say ruined. Because something, some technical thing, went wrong two minutes into the show and we're still not exactly sure what it was. Everything seems to be fine now but we'll need you all to be alert next week if it happens again.

So in many ways this episode is actually worse than last week's test but it could have been worse. It has been lovingly stitched back together by OLL engineer James Scott and we offer our unreserved thanks to him. There are many reasons why you should be grateful too. The majority of those are the features, of course: Craig, Derek, Odds on, Taliah and Ray Silvergun producing spectacular work for our Eurogamer debut. There's also a new feature: One Listener Left, in which you can participate if you listen live during the next show.

That will be on Tuesday at 8pm. There will be preamble* and cake before that from around 7.30pm. Visit the website then for a link to the stream as soon as it goes live. Oh! It's probably wise to point out at this point we will be taking a week off after this in order to (try to) fix the studio problem permanently. Good luck with THAT, Ste.

*Thankfully as listeners were quick to point out all the idiotic nonsense before the show was in perfect quality, leading us to believe that Studio One Life Left is sentient and taking delight in taking the piss.

Music in #66: well, it's mostly fucked, isn't it? But Butterfly Kisses by The Depreciation Guild, Rhona by Acrnym (sic), and Pacman (Glass Cage OC Remix) by Israfel.

Join our Facebook Group and help us push on to the 500 mark by clicking here, or identify yourself as a fan to others on that same site by clicking here. Our MySpace is here -- clicking around our friends list there is a good way to find out about the bands on the show. The OLL forum is here and if you want to email us with letters or things to play you can do so at the address in the show: team at one life left.com.

One Life Left -- x04 -- Eurogamer Test Transmission -- Can You Hear Me Now?

Sun, 24 Feb 2008 20:12:00 GMT

Usual caveats for an OLL special: this is not a typical One Life Left if such a thing exists, and if this is your first time here you should probably go back a few episodes and start listening there. But if you're a veteran...

Presenting, an unexpected 'treat'as part of the build up to Tuesday's First Show On Eurogamer Radio: The OLL Test Transmission we recorded last week. This was really just meant to be a technical test but we decided the best way to do that was by doing the show exactly as we normally would. So we went onto A Popular Gaming Forum and asked them to help us out by listening. They listened! Sweet!

So yeah, it's quite dodgy at the start because we're still trying to find our way round the revamped Studio OLL (and you'll especially enjoy the major hiccup about 20 minutes in, which I've left in for illustrative purposes). But by the end it's fairly standard OLL stuff, mumbling, rambling and off-track discussion over chiptune music and Ann's disinterest. There's also a new live listener count which we expect to prove invaluable over the next few weeks.

Some notes that I'm not sure we mentioned during the show or that are worth repeating:

* The first proper broadcast is at 8pm on Tuesday. Be there. If you have technical problems let us know and we'll ask our new, awesome off-site engineer Mark.

* We're going to have the mics up during show preparation beforehand (perhaps from as early as 7.30PM). This stuff will not be podcast, obviously. We might have a Skype name for you to call in and say hello.

* Same goes for after the show. So if you want to hear all that you'll have to listen live.

* Podcast details stay the same. You don't have to resubscribe.

That's it. See you on Tuesday!

Music in #x04: Whatever I could find on iTunes in the heat of the moment, so: Sponsored by Destiny by Slagsmalsklubben, Machine by Mark Denardo and about half a second of something suitably overwrought by Desaparecidos.

While you're waiting for Tuesday's premiere, join our Facebook Group and help us push on to the 500 mark by clicking here, or identify yourself as a fan to others on that same site by clicking here. Our MySpace is here -- clicking around our friends list there is a good way to find out about the bands on the show. The OLL forum is here and if you want to email us with letters or things to play you can do so at the address in the show: team at one life left.com.

One Life Left -- s03e17 -- #65 -- The End of Radio

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 01:07:00 GMT

Is this thing on?

OK. You might think you've guessed the news by now. Listen on, listen on. At least as far as Ann's news, and then read on.

...

So. OLL #65, as well as carrying the weight of The Announcement, has all the stuff you'll have learnt to tolerate in the previous sixty-four episodes. There is A Stoic Lack of Interest with Ann Scantlebury. There is Belligerent Shouting with Simon Byron. And there is Panicked Fumbling with Ste Curran. That last sentence is the newspaper pull-quote on the poster of Ste's life.

There's gossip, a phone guest, a top five and an impromptu apology. There is poetry, brilliant, furious poetry. There the return of the doyouinverts. There is Derek! Derek! Derek! And we have news on Simon's Florida summit with Taliah.

It is One Life Left! There is gaming, content, nonsense and conjecture. But really the episode's all about the announcement and we are so goddamned excited about that that it's difficult to play this piece of text distant and cool.

Clarifications (and spoilers for those who'd rather hear us talk about it on the show first): for you, you right there, you, our favourite, it doesn't mean a great deal of change. In fact it barely means any change at all except that a) we're allowed to eat and drink in the studio again, b) guests get to sit on a couch, and c) FM listeners won't be able to pick up OLL but an awful lot more gamers will.

There are other advantages, too. Not least, and there is a hint of the future here, that the idea of live shows outside of our weekly slot on the schedule is no longer a dumb, unattainable dream. If World War III breaks out in a week's time and we want to tell you something live from the OLL studio we can.

Assuming you're still alive. Is it really broadcasting if there's no-one there to receive?

We will find out.

BROADCASTING DETAILS WILL APPEAR HERE THIS WEEKEND. CHECK BACK ON MONDAY TO FIND OUT WHAT'S GOING ON.

Music in #64: Farfar by Hugg & Pepp (for Simon's reaction), Can't Get You Out Of My Shed by Printed Circuit (for Ann), Kom Igen Komissarian by Slagsmalsklubben (for old time's sake) and The End of Radio by the brilliant, brilliant Shellac.

While you're waiting for our Change, join our Facebook Group and help us push on to the 500 mark by clicking here, or identify yourself as a fan to others on that same site by clicking here. Our MySpace is here -- clicking around our friends list there is a good way to find out about the bands on the show. The OLL forum is here and if you want to email us with letters or things to play you can do so at the address in the show: team at one life left.com.

One Life Left -- s03e15 -- #63 -- The Hardest Word

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 00:54:00 GMT

Can it ever be a good sign when you find the three minute apology backing music just isn't long enough?

In One Life Left #63 we try to make the best of it. Apology One is standard enough stuff, backed by our midi-synth version of Nirvana's Hallmark anthem. Apology Two? That occurs in the letters section where One Life Left responds to its first ever piece of hatemail. And Apology Three is the most special apology of all; so special, in fact, that we bring in a phone guest to help us.

We had to turn down our mics for the second part of the phone conversation because we were giggling. I am not sure that helped the sincerity of the apology. There is a relatively interesting point, slightly preachy point here which will probably make more sense after you've heard the show and the context of the third apology, so feel free to skip the next bit.

-

One Life Left is intended for adults. This isn't necessarily because we behave like adults (like Game Theory) or swear very much (like just about every other game podcast). It's because Simon and I speak from the position of two adults who have played and worked with videogames for twenty years and think they're ridiculous and brilliant and terrible; exactly the same things we think about the industry that pays our wages. So a lot of the stuff that we talk about is a naturally adult videogame fan's perspective, loaded with cynicism but still prone to bouts of childish glee.

So based on that we imagine that the bulk of our audience is in the 20-40 age bracket, as are we. That's backed up by the letters we receive and that's who the show's for. We kind of forget that there are other people out there too, forget that our audience isn't just those who explictly decide to download the podcast but that we're actually broadcasting across the whole of London, live, and forget that we probably should warn people who haven't experienced One Life Left before that:

a) Just because games are often for children doesn't mean a show about games is for children,
c) Children probably shouldn't listen to One Life Left, not least because they'll find it boring
b) We try to behave but sometimes, you know, things happen.

-

Anyway. One Life Left #63, like all the One Life Lefts before it, is almost entirely free of swearing (but not quite) and sort of somewhat free of bawdy humour (but, yeah, not really). It has lots of features, a review of the new Advance Wars where Ste tries very hard to do an ACTUAL review while sorting something out in the studio and some excellent new music. It also has a phone guest, as mentioned. This means we can use the phone and will try and use it at least once a week.

Next week: a very special studio guest, at least one new feature and Ann investigates CFCF's name. See you then.

Oh: while you're listening, join our Facebook Group and help us push up to 400 by clicking here, or identify yourself as a fan to others on that same site by clicking here. Our MySpace is here -- clicking around our friends list there is a good way to find out about the bands on the show. The OLL forum is here (and mostly talking about Advance Wars) and if you want to email us you can do so at the address in the show: team at one life left.com.

One Life Left -- s03e14 -- #62 -- Speccy Eight Eyes

Sat, 26 Jan 2008 18:55:00 GMT

Speccy because this week's One Life Left is a Spectrum Special, obviously, but eight eyes? Two eyes per person and none of us are wearing glasses which means this week we have a guest. It's One Life Left's resident expert, Dave Green, and he's here to talk Ann through a bit of gaming history. Enjoy the live loading sounds and try and play with the team as they guess what decades-old televisual delights Dave's brought with him in his big sack of retro.

He genuinely does have a big sack of retro. It took him a while to pack up and he made small talk with the Resonance FM show that follows us which is more than we've every managed. Turns out an expert in everything is an expert in smooth, too.

Sorry for the delay to this week's podcast. Straight after the show Ste went to Milan and left the uploading in Simon's more-than-capable hands. Unfortunately hands aren't enough in the modern age and first computers, then internet connection, then God-knows-what else let him down and led to a four-day-delay. If it happens again you'd do well to check the Facebook (you're a member by now, right? Or are you one of the people who left last week?) or One Life Left's sister blog, The Triforce Dot Com, for further updates.

So, listen, struggle past the slightly slow start and into an hour-and-a-minute of news, reviews, features, nostalgia, anecdotes and circuit bending. While you're listening, join our Facebook Group and make up for the leavers 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 and clicking around our friends list there is a good way to find out about the bands on the show. The OLL forum is here (and mostly talking about Advance Wars) and if you want to email us you can do so at the address in the show: team at one life left.com.

One Life Left -- s03e13 -- #61 -- Hot Coughy

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 00:49:00 GMT

Coughing: an action that the body takes to get rid of substances that are irritating the air passages. That's what Wikipedia has to say but, as typical with Thinngs Teenagers Know, it's missing the bigger picture. Let One Life Left help out by providing you with an audio example in episode 61. Coughing: an action that masks juicy bits of gossip, allowing the team to indulge in salacious industry rumour whilst keeping its communal throat clear.

Also Coughing: an action everyone gets to hear when Simon's clearing his throat while the mics are up. Oops.

Hey! Enough of Wikipedia, where the One Life Left hosts' profiles are under threat! Welcome to episode 13 of Season 3. Unlucky for some, in this case anyone expecting an Ann Art this week. There isn't any because Ann 'didn't do it'. We've put that in quotes because it's a quote and Ann's learning to be a journalist, as you'll hear in the first half of the show. Besides, we've got plenty to make up for the missing competition: a new feature, several regulars, news (when do we not have news?), reviews (of a sort), and the ever-excellent letters section marred by our muddling. Oh, and some brilliant new music.

And that's it, I think. Really, you might as well hit play (if you haven't already) and make your own mind up. Though it's probably best if you download the show and put it on your personal MP3 player of choice. Then you can listen to us while you walk around town. Everyone will thing you're listening to something hyper-hip and now and choice but you'll know better. And we have cover art these days and everything.

Tune in next week for a special guest, a one of a kind competition prize, a new feature and -- hopefully -- something new from Ann, if only a feigned interest in our subject matter. See you!

Join our Facebook Group and push us past Resonance FM's membership numbers (again -- we've already passed them once and last week we lost a member OMG OMG) 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 and clicking around our friends list there is a good way to find out about the bands on the show. The OLL forum is here (and is increasingly rowdy) and if you want to email us you can do so at the address in the show. Altogether now: team at...

One Life Left -- s03e12 -- #60 -- Hearing is Believing

Wed, 9 Jan 2008 01:38:00 GMT

Firstly Happy New Year. Enough smalltalk. This will be quite brief for reasons that will soon be obvious.

The podcast is uploading now. It is late and it is late because the podcast has been, um, in post-production for a little while. We've tried not to edit in Season 3, partially because it's a more honest way of living but mostly because we're lazy. But you will hear the problem a few minutes into the show: we forgot half of our backing music. So I've fixed that now (not disguised it, you'll note) but it's taken a while and here we are.

SO, hearing is believing and the episode you're about to listen to has been DIGITALLY RECREATED for your pleasure as if we were a piece of virtual reality software from the early nineties. That's right: One Life Left is officially both in its time and ahead of its time. We are Pixar, using bleeding edge tech to enhance your entertainment experience. We are idiots, using technology to cover up for our incompetence.

Enough! The Christmas break is over and the team are back, back, back again. And with all that's happened having happened (has anything actually happened?) the gang can't possibly avoid talking about videogames for a full hour, right? So here's what happens. SPOILER WARNINGS: four of the regulars from last year return, as do plenty of in-studio features and lots of unexpected asides. Simon presents Ste with a reading from something unexpected, Ste brings in an unexpected toy, and Ann has unexpectedly played two games. Plus Christmas present chat, lots of letters, competition results, reviews reviews reviews, a couple of new songs and plenty more.

Right. Sorry to those who listened live. In another way you're tremendously lucky because you got OLL acoustic. See you next week.

Join our Facebook Group and push us past Resonance FM's membership numbers (again -- we've already passed them once) 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 and clicking around our friends list there is a good way to find out about the bands on the show. The OLL forum is here (now populated by users with festive names) and if you want to email us you can do so at the address in the show. Altogether now: team at...

One Life Left -- x03 -- Christmas Special '07 -- Festively Unbroadcastable

Fri, 28 Dec 2007 22:01:00 GMT

As you might have guessed by now (and those tuning into Resonance on the 23rd will have surmised) our One Life Left Christmas party it was literally unbroadcastable in the end. Fear not! We're sticking it here for you, essentially unedited. Because we said we would.

But why was the show literally unbroadcastable? Well, two reasons, really:

1) Technical!

Actually, thanks to our amazing on-site engineers Martin (whose voice is the first you hear after Ste's apology) and James we managed to overcome most of the problems. If it wasn't for them there wouldn't be anything for us to apologise for. In a good way, because we wouldn't have recorded anything more than the sound of The One Life Left Team sobbing into booze as our best-laid plans collapsed in front of literally dozens of listeners.

Still, despite their best efforts (and because of our dodgy technology) the audio quality here is poor.

Most of the show, particularly the news section, ended up masked by an irritating whine from somewhere in our hastily-rigged system of wires and pulleys. The magic of post-processing has reduced it in most places and all but eliminated it in others, but you'll notice some fluctuations in our voices. There's also some stop-startyness (technical term) mostly confined the song judging part, which is down to some kind of minidisc jutter as far as I can make out.

The most major problem, though, is that the minidisc recorder we were using is super-sensitive; despite our best efforts in pre-show fiddling the volume from our mics peaked throughout and so the show remains cursed with that hideous crackle the moment mics 1 and 2 go above whisper. Since mic 1 is the overly excitable-Ste and mic 2 is the mostly boistrous Simon... Well. You get used to it but it isn't exactly pleasant. Forewarned.

2) Performance-based!

We had an amazing time that afternoon and the atmosphere in the podcast reflects that. Will that raucous humour translate to people who weren't there? Hmm. There are certainly some brilliant bits -- if you find the whole thing too annoying at least skip forward to Craig 'The Rage''s live poetry, make sure you hear Ann's filthy fiction and yeah, you'll be hearing more clips from Derek Williams' four-song set in future OLL's -- but you may find the rest of it leaves you feeling like you're... Well, on the outside of a party looking in. Which you are.

Have I set your expectations low enough yet? It's not ALL bad. But for the technical issues someone better than us at audio editing could probably make an hour of typical OLL-standard radio out of this. Pad it out with music a bit, drop in a few of the pre-recorded features. Actually, probably by taking the 8-bit Peoples back catalogue, copying it over us in Audacity and then deleting our bit entirely. But regardless there's SOMETHING here, if only proof the event actually happened and encouragement for you to come to the next one. So do that. We have plans but we'll talk about them when we make our return for real. See you in January.

Join our Facebook Group and push us past Resonance FM's membership numbers by clicking here, or identify yourself as a fan to others on that same definitely-too-ubiquitous-for-comfort-now site by clicking here. Our MySpace is here and clicking around our friends list there is a good way to find out about the bands on the show. The OLL forum is here (now populated by users with festive names) and if you want to email us you can do so at the address in the show. Altogether now: team at...

One Life Left -- s03e11 -- #59 -- Stay

Wed, 19 Dec 2007 00:54:00 GMT

It's Christmas Time / There's no need to be afraid. Because Simon isn't here. Why? It doesn't matter. We can't answer questions about oft-inexplicable disappearences of One Life Left staff and family members. No, I'm not sure you understand that statement. We literally can't.

However explanations are completely unnecessary in this instance because the One Life Left Team is bolstered by the entirely explicable arrival of Tom Bramwell from Eurogamer! In a break with OLL's rudest convention he's allowed to contribute almost from the very start, i.e. to the news which is something of a relief as it gives Ste more time to play around with buttons so he can miscue jingles. It also actually adds some, you know, news analysis to the news section.

That's the weirdest thing about OLL59. We talk about videogames! I mean, often it's kind of accidental but Tom keeps drawing us back in -- Guitar Hero, Aquaria, why he's decided to hate Rockstar's Table Tennis without actually playing it. Even Ann take a more forthright and less disinterested role in the actual, you know, videogame bits of the show (and there are some this week). She even goes so far as to ask Tom some actual game-related questions, AND talks about a moment where she considered buying a game on a whim. Go Ann! In another 60 hours she'll be bitching about Smash Brothers mediocrity with the best of us.

The team -- all three of them, promise -- will be back in January. Subscribers (via iTunes or RSS) should expect a festive gift around about the 23rd, assuming it's broadcastable. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. We'll see you in 2008.

Join our Facebook Group and push us past Resonance FM's membership numbers 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 and clicking around our friends list there is a good way to find out about the bands on the show. The OLL forum is here (now populated by users with festive names) and if you want to email us you can do so at the address in the show. Altogether now: team at...

One Life Left -- s03e10 -- #58 -- Gin and Juice

Wed, 12 Dec 2007 01:28:00 GMT

Hello, welcome to - NO DON'T TOUCH THAT - to One Life Left, Europe's only - THAT'S MY EMAIL ACCOUNT STOP READING IT - videogame radio sho - LEAVE ANN ALONE -- radio show broadcasting on -- SIMON JUST... Oh. The End.

That's right. Goaded by a google (is that our collective noun? Email in please) of One Life Left listeners addressing things to the team 'and Simon', OLL's firey co-presenter is off the rails in OLL #58. And as much as it SOUNDS like the team are generally fractious and flirtatious here the issue came to the fore in the five minutes before the show started. See, Ste asked Simon to watch his levels. As in the levels on the desk which measure how loudly he's going off the rails.

Which means Simon spends the whole show shouting and interrupting and watching his levels, Ste spends the whole show stumbling through half-finished anecdotes all the time feeling he's picking his way down rainbow road and only delaying the moment he plumments, and Ann bats her eyelids a little, smiles so sweetly and considers the ways she could murder a man.

Still, Levelator's hopefully flattened the thing out a bit which means if you can pick your way through the mumbling and amateurish form you'll find Craig 'The Rage''s best poem ever, Taliah, Derek, plenty of letters, the four entries to OLL's PixelH8 competition and much, much more.

Most important thing to remember this week: it's the One Life Left Christmas Party on Saturday so do try and make it -- details on the Facebook but essentially The Blue Posts on Rupert St, Soho, London from 1pm to until we pass out.

That's it. See you in a week for the very last OLL of 2007 (festively broadcastable events not withstanding).

Join our Facebook Group for reasons discussed in this 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). The OLL forum is here and if you want to email us you can do so at this address.

One Life Left -- s03e09 -- #57 -- Just Like That

Mon, 3 Dec 2007 02:51:00 GMT

There's an informal code of conduct amongst the One Life Left Team to try and avoid doing anything on Tuesday evenings. So Ste's cancelled his weekly buff'n'tuff session at the gym, Ann no longer goes pole dancing at the gym or elsewhere and when Simon needs to break the legs of a games reviewer he makes sure to keep it to a weekend. It's recreation, after all. Essentially a sport.

But sometimes the unavoidable happens and Ste's at the mini-GDC in Lyon right now which means OLL #57 comes to you live (pre-recorded) from the One Life Left bunker, deep in the heart of West London. Recorded over a couple of hours on Saturday afternoon and pieced together over another dozen on Sunday, this is a bitty, peculiar edition of Europe's favourite (only) videogame radio show. It's not the episode you'd take out to meet your friends and family, to prepare them for our long life together. Sorry about that.

All that said it retains the easily imitated essence of One Life Left, notably reviews, news, features and music and lots and lots of inane chat. Actually at one point the chat gets dangerously close to non-inane (ane?) as the chaps discuss GamespotGerstmannGate and Ann sits quietly looping her headphone cable like the special girl she is. But don't worry. Before and after that we're gossiping with initials, doing DS magic tricks and making improptu phonecalls to our favourite PC gamer.

Music, magic, and music as magic. What more could you want?

Notes and queries: A broken cable meant we had to record in mono and several of the features were pasted in afterwards so please excuse the slightly confused reactions in some sections. We'd have apologised for this but when we tried the backing music was so peculiar it was literally unbroadcastable.

In fact the audio levels were messed up throughout the show BUT we've used something called Levelator to even it out. If the whole thing sounds dodgy it's because of that. If it sounds better it's because of that. I know for sure it's louder than usual.

Oh, and I had to cut out eight minutes across the hour so it'd fit in Resonance's broadcast slot. There is an unedited version that'll go on the DVD when we're super famous.

Join our Facebook Group for reasons discussed in this 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). The OLL forum is here and if you want to email us you can do so at this address.

One Life Left -- s03e08 -- #56 -- Softcore Romance

Wed, 28 Nov 2007 00:30:00 GMT

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).

One Life Left -- s03e07 -- #55 -- Poorly Performed

Wed, 21 Nov 2007 00:38:00 GMT

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.

One Life Left -- s03e06 -- #54 -- Keith and The Girl

Tue, 13 Nov 2007 23:54:00 GMT

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.

One Life Left -- s03e05 -- #53 -- Take Two

Wed, 7 Nov 2007 01:22:00 GMT

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...

One Life Left -- s03e04 -- #52 -- SafeSearch Off

Wed, 31 Oct 2007 00:17:00 GMT

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!

One Life Left -- s03e03 -- #51 -- Nothing Like Tempest

Tue, 23 Oct 2007 23:07:00 GMT

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. Itâs half eleven on Tuesday night, just after Episode 3 of Season 3 and as far as we know sheâs fine â sheâd text if she wasnât, wouldnât she? â so letâs assume weâve continued our slow tramp up the quality mountain and made some definite improvements. In order:

1) A new âCorrections and Clarificationsâ 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). Itâs always lovely to hear from you about anything else, too. You should know the email address by now.

What else? This Thursday is OLLâs very special* appearance at Nottingham Gamecity. We have no idea what thatâs 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 Steâs talk about his Mum. Sunday weâre doing Handheld of a sort at the London Games Fringe thing at 333; more info on that in the show youâre no doubt already subscribed to.

Subscribers may get a secret gift later in the week. Weâre not sure yet.

Weâll be adding pictures to our Facebook group later this week (Annâs in charge) so if you havenât 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.

One Life Left -- s03e02 -- #50 -- Three Separate Places

Tue, 16 Oct 2007 22:18:00 GMT

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.

One Life Left -- s03e01 -- #49 -- Back, Back, Back

Wed, 10 Oct 2007 00:26:00 GMT

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.