Game culture, remembered by the people who helped build it.
Vic's Basement mixes developer interviews, media catch-ups, convention debriefs, and review segments with a deep memory for game culture. It suits viewers who care as much about production stories and old industry friendships as they do about new releases.
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Vic's Basement is a conversation show with one foot in current games coverage and the other in the long memory of games television. Its center of gravity is video games, but the range is wider than a release-calendar recap. Batman: Arkham Shadow, Summer Game Fest, PlayStation State of Play, Crash Bandicoot 2, Eternal Champions, Inside Out 2, and Electric Playground history all sit comfortably in the same orbit. The show is personal without becoming casual filler. Guests are often people with production scars, media mileage, or direct ties to memorable work. Ryan Payton talks through the storytelling and late-stage performance work behind Batman: Arkham Shadow. Andy Gavin traces the trial-and-error design of Crash Bandicoot 2 levels. Eric Wahlberg looks back on Sega, SegaSoft, heat.net, and the strange fun of defining games coverage before the format had hardened. That archival instinct matters. Vic's Basement is interested in how an industry felt while it was being made, not only what shipped. Convention panels and debriefs add another mode, bringing in figures such as Brittney Brombacher, Jake Baldino, Kevin Kenson, Michael Huber, and Daniel Bloodworth to sort through excitement, fatigue, preservation worries, and the mood around major showcases. Film coverage appears too, as in the Inside Out 2 review and Pixar interviews, where emotional storytelling becomes the focus. The show often returns to Electric Playground itself, including classic episode premieres, old wardrobes, early on-camera work, and former collaborators such as Kelly Benson. Its conversations are affectionate, memory-rich, and built on long professional relationships. They also keep circling back to craft: narrative structure, level design, live production, rehearsals, interviews, marketing, and the pressure of getting something ready before the deadline hits. The best fit is a listener who wants the human texture behind games and entertainment, especially from people who were there when important corners of the medium were still being invented.
Made for: For longtime games fans, games-media followers, and entertainment listeners who enjoy candid career stories, development history, and convention talk. It especially fits anyone with affection for Electric Playground-era coverage.
What sets it apart: Vic's Basement stands out through its mix of current industry conversation and deep personal archives. The guests are often connected to the work being discussed, so the show gets memories, process details, and old production stories that standard preview coverage misses.
Electric Playground's Victor Lucas discusses video games, movies, toys and all the happenings in the entertainment industry. The show periodically entertains special guests, including fellow EP hosts, down in Vic's 98-percent zombie-proof bunker. Don't miss it!
Based on 5 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Victor Lucas makes game history tangible by asking guests how creative choices, production realities, and changing technology shaped the work.
Victor Lucas turns game-industry interviews into a working history of how games and their surrounding media get made. His questions move easily between a specific design problem, a guest's career path, and the business conditions around the work.
Old game-industry friendships get you past the press release and into how the games were actually made.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
Victor Lucas and Ryan Payton discuss why Batman: Arkham Shadow's story stayed with Lucas.
Batman: Arkham Shadow stayed on Victor Lucas's mind after he stopped playing. Ryan Payton talks with him about the work behind that effect, including how he and the writers brought separate story threads together for the conclusion.
Eric Wahlberg recalls SegaSoft's unfulfilled promise and his playful early work on The Electric Playground.
Eric Wahlberg's years at Sega lead into the part of the conversation that stays with you: his move with his production team to SegaSoft, the company behind the online gaming service heat.net. The chance to work with Sega's characters helped persuade him to go.
Summer Game Fest talk gives way to industry worries and Vic's tender memory of working on Metal Gear Solid 4.
Summer Game Fest is close, but Vic's Basement is hardly in a celebratory mood. With Easy Allies' Daniel Bloodworth and Michael Huber, Vic talks through job losses and recent Xbox developments, explaining why game announcements are hard to get excited about while people in the…
Andy Gavin recalls the early levels and side-scrolling experiment that helped Naughty Dog find the fun in Crash Bandicoot.
Crash Bandicoot did not click the moment Naughty Dog put its character in a 3D world. Co-founder Andy Gavin tells Vic how early jungle and lava levels fell flat, even though parts survived into the shipped game.
Naomi Kyle and Victor talk gaming shows and the work behind live production.
Victor welcomes his friend Naomi Kyle to Vic's basement after appearing on her new show, This Week in Gaming. He wants a different kind of conversation, one that gives him room to get to know her better.
Game Informer's editors review new releases and debrief hands-on previews from events like Summer Game Fest.
Ryan Payton says Camouflage had $30,000 in the bank and 35 employees when VR became the studio's survival plan, and he ties that decision to a two-week road trip to find the next project.
Vic's Basement interviews Eric Wahlberg, a Sega veteran who says he started in 1992 after a roommate pointed him to a tester job.
Victor Lucas reviews Pixar's Inside Out 2 and discusses the film's emotional depth and new characters.
Victor Lucas hosts a roundtable discussion with three video game industry guests about their hits and misses from Summer Game Fest.
Michael Huber and Daniel Bloodworth use PlayStation's State of Play and Summer Game Fest timing to argue that the industry feels muted because of layoffs, closures, and too many showcases.
Andy Gavin and Vic talk through Naughty Dog’s start in 1982, when Gavin and Jason Rubin were about 12 and making Apple II games because $50 releases were out of reach.
Naomi Kyle, host of iHeartRadio's This Week in Gaming and former IGN Daily Fix host, joins Vic's Basement host Vic to trace her path from Quebec to Los Angeles.
Victor Lucas interviews former Electric Playground co-host Kelly Benson about her start on the show and their shared history in the entertainment industry.
Victor Lucas interviews two-thirds of Gamertag Radio about their podcast origins and upcoming Summer Game Fest events.
Victor Lucas interviews Andrew Alfonso, a Canadian game developer at Capcom in Osaka, about his career and the making of Street Fighter 6.
Victor Lucas interviews Ryan Payton about bringing Marvel's Iron Man VR to the Quest 2 platform.
Victor Lucas interviews YouTuber Justin about his Star Wars and gaming channels, discussing the new Lego Star Wars game.