Tales from the Backlog
A video games podcast where Dave Jackson and guests break down and discuss the games they play. Each episode looks at one game in depth, focusing on mechanics, story, music and other aspects, with no spoilers until a clearly marked spoiler wall in the middle.
Episodes
October 8, 2025 • 126 mins
Support my work on Patreon- https://patreon.com/realdavejackson
Join the Tales from the Backlog Discord server- https://discord.gg/kAqSBb6jH2
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It's been a real joy working my way through the Silent Hill series alongside doing this show, starting all the way back in episode 10(!) with Silent Hill 2. Today, I'm playing the sequel to Silent Hill 1, which is NOT Silent Hill 2.....
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October 1, 2025 • 122 mins
Support my work on Patreon- https://patreon.com/realdavejackson
Join the Tales from the Backlog Discord server- https://discord.gg/kAqSBb6jH2
Buy me a coffee on Ko-fi- https://ko-fi.com/realdavejackson
This year, we're kicking off horror month with a first- a visual novel! It's the first one I've covered on the show, though I enjoy them from time to time, and Slay the Princess (Black Tabby Games, 2023) is certainly an interesting o...
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September 24, 2025 • 135 mins
Support my work on Patreon- https://patreon.com/realdavejackson
Join the Tales from the Backlog Discord server- https://discord.gg/kAqSBb6jH2
Buy me a coffee on Ko-fi- https://ko-fi.com/realdavejackson
Sometimes, all it takes to grab your attention is a single screenshot, and Ultros (Hadoque, Kepler Interactive, 2024) is definitely one of those games. Every screenshot drips with color and is so rich with detail, it beckons you to c...
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September 17, 2025 • 119 mins
Support my work on Patreon- https://patreon.com/realdavejackson
Join the Tales from the Backlog Discord server- https://discord.gg/kAqSBb6jH2
Buy me a coffee on Ko-fi- https://ko-fi.com/realdavejackson
There are more than enough sports games to go around out there, but the culture of sports does not begin and end on the field of play. There is an entire culture surrounding sports, and I've never played a game that tackles that cult...
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September 10, 2025 • 88 mins
Support my work on Patreon- https://patreon.com/realdavejackson
Join the Tales from the Backlog Discord server- https://discord.gg/kAqSBb6jH2
Buy me a coffee on Ko-fi- https://ko-fi.com/realdavejackson
Sometimes a game you'd never heard of will break out with a 90+ on the review aggregator websites and immediately turn heads, and that's exactly what happened to me with Bionic Bay (Mureena Oy, Psychoflow Studio, 2025). One screensho...
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September 3, 2025 • 158 mins
Support my work on Patreon- https://patreon.com/realdavejackson
Join the Tales from the Backlog Discord server- https://discord.gg/kAqSBb6jH2
Buy me a coffee on Ko-fi- https://ko-fi.com/realdavejackson
Everybody has that game they played a hundred times as a kid and therefore can't be objective about anymore, and for us, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past is NOT one of those! Both my guest Ty and I both tried the game at vario...
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August 27, 2025 • 170 mins
Support my work on Patreon- https://patreon.com/realdavejackson
Join the Tales from the Backlog Discord server- https://discord.gg/V3ZHz3vYQR
Buy me a coffee on Ko-fi- https://ko-fi.com/realdavejackson
Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden (Don't Nod, 2023) represents a different type of game that Don't Nod has been making alongside their popular choice-based narrative games like Life is Strange and Lost Records: Bloom and Rage. With 2018'...
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August 20, 2025 • 161 mins
Support my work on Patreon- https://patreon.com/realdavejackson
Join the Tales from the Backlog Discord server- https://discord.gg/kAqSBb6jH2
Buy me a coffee on Ko-fi- https://ko-fi.com/realdavejackson
You know a game is good when it kicks off a new round of discourse about genre names, right? Regardless, Blue Prince (Dogubomb, 2025) is the latest hit in a type of knowledge-is-power game that is really appealing to certain types of...
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August 13, 2025 • 160 mins
Support my work on Patreon- https://patreon.com/realdavejackson
Join the Tales from the Backlog Discord server- https://discord.gg/kAqSBb6jH2
Buy me a coffee on Ko-fi- https://ko-fi.com/realdavejackson
A good friend of mine likes to say "every game is somebody's favorite game", but I'm always intrigued when some oddball picks enter those conversations, and DoubleFine's Psychonauts is mentioned often enough that I felt like I had to...
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August 6, 2025 • 116 mins
Support my work on Patreon- https://patreon.com/realdavejackson
Join the Tales from the Backlog Discord server- https://discord.gg/kAqSBb6jH2
Buy me a coffee on Ko-fi- https://ko-fi.com/realdavejackson
Hazelight Studios were already on the map before their Game of the Year winner It Takes Two, but that game was so much fun that everyone, including me, was waiting to see what their next offering would be like. And it turns out, 2025...
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July 30, 2025 • 161 mins
Support my work on Patreon (https://patreon.com/realdavejackson)
Join the Tales from the Backlog Discord server (https://discord.gg/bptGyEWbk7)
Buy me a coffee on Ko-fi (https://ko-fi.com/realdavejackson)
I didn't hear about Dragon Quest for a very long time, probably an embarrassingly long time, and once I played one, I didn't....get it. It all seemed too plain, too simple, too lacking in complexity, and while a part of me was rel...
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July 23, 2025 • 157 mins
Support my work on Patreon (https://patreon.com/realdavejackson)
Join the Tales from the Backlog Discord server! (https://discord.gg/bptGyEWbk7)
Buy me a coffee on Ko-fi (https://ko-fi.com/realdavejackson)
Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio has risen to the gaming mainstream with its beloved Like a Dragon series, and when a hot streak occurs, a heat check often follows, and there is no bigger heat check than a game where you play through a Hawai...
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July 16, 2025 • 187 mins
*Spoiler section includes some spoilers for key moments and/or themes in Nier Automata, Persona 5 Royal and Metaphor ReFantazio.
Support my work on Patreon (https://patreon.com/realdavejackson)
Join the Tales from the Backlog Discord server! (https://discord.gg/bptGyEWbk7)
Buy me a coffee on Ko-fi (https://ko-fi.com/realdavejackson)!
Once or twice a year, a game will hook me so strongly that not only can I not stop playing it, I c...
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July 9, 2025 • 104 mins
Support my work on Patreon (https://patreon.com/realdavejackson)
Two podcasters entered the room on a collision course, one with a backlog the size of a mobster's rap sheet, the other with one foot in the past. There was only one way out of this mess- one podcast to end them all. The subject was an old friend, if you consider a man out of options a friend. A man with a thirst for revenge that nothing could quench- Max Payne.
Guest ...
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July 2, 2025 • 116 mins
Support my work on Patreon (https://patreon.com/realdavejackson)
As a lifelong Indiana Jones agnostic, there was no way that MachineGames would make an Indiana Jones game I would care about, right? Right? Well, it certainly looked that way when the first gameplay trailer for Indiana Jones and the Great Circle dropped. But then I started hearing my activation phrases start to bounce around- "this is like Hitman", "this is like Disho...
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June 25, 2025 • 115 mins
Support my work on Patreon (https://patreon.com/realdavejackson)
Strange Scaffold is a rare game studio that gets as much, or maybe even more, positive attention for their workplace ethos and number of releases per year as they do for their games themselves. I found myself in that same position, with great respect for their process, but no experience with the games themselves....until now! El Paso, Elsewhere is an emotional take on...
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June 18, 2025 • 156 mins
Support my work on Patreon (https://patreon.com/realdavejackson)
I was admittedly very late to the King's Field and Shadow Tower bandwagons, energized by my love for FromSoftware's modern titles and a desire to dig into their history some more. However, I didn't anticipate loving those games so much that I wanted more like them, and that's where Kira LLC's Lunacid (2023) entered the fray. Lunacid is a fantastic game, leaning more o...
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June 11, 2025 • 146 mins
Support my work on Patreon (https://patreon.com/realdavejackson)
Some games just grab your attention from the first trailer, and South of Midnight is one of those games. A breathtaking art style and a gothic Southern fantasy setting? South of Midnight jumped straight to the top of my to-play list, and it did not disappoint.
Guest info: Kate Sánchez of But Why Tho?
* Check out all of the writing and reporting on But Why Tho? https:...
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June 4, 2025 • 197 mins
Support my work on Patreon- https://patreon.com/realdavejackson
Persona games are a tough sell for a guy who does a weekly podcast like this, so thank you to my wonderful patrons for voting Persona 4 Golden onto the show. While it has all of the pacing issues that you would expect an 80 hour game to have, I thought this is, in some ways, the best of the Persona 4/5/Metaphor trio that I've played in the last five years. Tune in to t...
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May 28, 2025 • 139 mins
What if Resident Evil 1 was just puzzles? What if it was also about eccentric artists and how they view their art and the creative process vs how their work is perceived? Lorelei and the Laser Eyes (Simogo, 2024) is that game! Tune in to find out how we felt about it!
Guest Info: Jesse Guarascia
* Find Jesse's work on Noclip's YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@NoclipDocs
* Support Noclip on Patreon https://www.patreon.com/cw...
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