Player 2's Podcasts

This year just keeps on powering on. Assassin's Creed, Blue Prince, Avowed, Doom, Expedition 33... all of that is now on the rear-view mirror as we somehow rocket towards the second half of 2025. Despite this episode being recorded a full week ahead of the typical schedule, we're still able to bring you hands-on talk of Death Stranding 2 and Borderlands 4! Keeping things new and shiny, we take the...

Somewhere on the wind there is a whisper that a new Nintendo is out in the wild now. You'd barely guess it, though, which feels extra strange considering that it's setting new sales records already. Availability, we guess. Anyway, that's a long way of saying that the Switch 2 is out, but we don't really spend a whole lot of time talking about it. Instead, we talk about... some games on other platf...

Holy hell how are we at this point in the year already. Not only is this episode dropping on the same day as a whole new generation console release, but the focus of topic is Summer Game Fest, probably better known as Keigh3 to those old enough to forget what carrying a sandwich around in a lunchbox most days of the week was like. Gurargh! Will we anticipate things correctly? Tune in next time to...

Oh, how the sets of ten keep on rolling by. With no surprise travel happening this time, we recorded this one on a normal timeframe and hasn't (knock on wood) missed any stories about XBoxes suddenly costing 20% more or some nonsense. Rather, we're looking back at the wow factor that shifting generations can bring. Or, at least, used to bring. It doesn't happen a whole lot these days. But just thi...

Recorded early so that Tim could go traipsing halfway around the world, it only made sense that we focus in on the rise and rise of portable gaming. Afterall, how much big news could possibly drop if we put a show in the can a couple of weeks earlier than usual? Quite a bit, apparently, but caught in the time vortex as well it's not like Hewso knows any better. Dude's just chillin' in the corner p...

Money-money-money, money-money-money... moooneeeey! Y'all hear that? That's the sound of everything being too damn expensive! Seriously, it's getting to the point where Tim is contemplating sending eggs to the U.S. for profit to fix what buying a PS5 Pro did to his savings. Never mind that those consoles have just gone up in price in Australia. Tim isn't in charge this time around, though. In this...

Ahoy! What's this? A new Nintendo console, you say? Everybody knows about it and is already talking about it, you say? Well... would it really hurt to let an additional four people into your eardrums to reflect on the floodgates of Switch 2 opening up and rambling on about what the near future for this console may bring. Unsurprisingly, this is a bit of a long one. The four people in question? Tim...

Ah! Those were the days! Nothing sucked then: games worked out of the box, everybody got along and shovelware wasn’t a thing. Or… maybe not? Surprisingly, resident retro-head Rob Caporetto heads up an episode of the PixelCast that is largely about pondering just how much rose tint we’ve all had applied to our glasses. He’s joined by Renee and Tim as they waver back and forth, occasionally falling...

Recorded fresh on Mar10 day, the 155th Player 2 PixelCast is all about trying to whittle down a list of Switch games. Specifically, the ten games we feel that are the most quintessential to Nintendo's mega-success story. Does the crew include the games you most think should be there? Probably. Do they include every game you want to be put there? Almost certainly not. Blame Tim, then. We put him in...

So many things have happened this year, at once shocking and not-at-all surprising. Planes landing upside down? Yeah, that just about checks out at this point. It's a handy time to be helming a site that's primary purpose is reporting on and writing about videogames.  But even that is a quagmire when it comes to predicting things. Nonetheless, Matt, Tim and Shaun spend this episode giving it a red...

There has been a lot of talk over the past year or so that this current console generation (and era in gaming in general) has been somewhat disappointing. While it's true that there have been some stellar games post-pandemic, and even some all-timers (Elden Ring, Tears of the Kingdom, Baldur's Gate 3), it's hard to feel that the cadence of quality has dropped. Is it largely in out rose-coloured im...

By a small act of mercy, our first episode for 2025 squeaked out mere hours before Nintendo caved and dropped a svelte video showing off (what we mostly already knew about) the Switch 2 at long last. It would have landed earlier, and Matt now has a second arsehole as punishment. We did mention in that episode that the leaks were very clearly legit, and that held up nicely... and has allowed the Pi...

Excuse me. What's that. Look... my clock is obfuscated by a half empty bottle of rum that I stole from Hewso when he wasn't at home. No, he doesn't know how I got in. No, he didn't even know that I was there. Yes, mentioning it here where he can see it is probably a mistake. No, I don't know what the date or time. Did you not hear me about the clock! Well... yup... it sure is 2025. Great start to...

Sleigh bells ring, carolers sing and the village is festive and bright But deep in our heart, we know that won’t last and we are all due for a fright When the season arrives, it comes with surprise, and not a welcome one at that The old cranky bastard storms through our lives while wearing that bloody red hat He has shown up tonight, to put up a fight and end our Christmas cheer He is not here for...

And so another year draws to a close and the PixelCast crew huddles together around their… microphones… that are plugged into computers in different cities and even countries. And, honestly, only Tim is somewhere that could be described as cold right now. He’s not alone, of course – Rob and Hewso are also present to bring the heat. Or possibly be attacked by it. Good ‘ol Aussie Christmas, hey? In...

Ever set yourself up for a BBQ only to realise that your meat isn't really all that well seasoned and... wait... I'm being told that this is, in fact, not what this episode. No, this one is about that time I was led to believe that Grand Theft Auto 3 was a revolutionary gaming experience in a truly immersive world when what it actually delivered was garbage combat that made the already uninteresti...

Ever liked a game that the whole rest of the world just seemed to turn its back on? Well, not to worry – we’ve got your back. Well, unless the game was Loadstar: The Legend of Tully Bodine. That game just plain sucks. But in all seriousness, this episode is about celebrating the games that we loved despite not having managed to uphold the greatest reputation in the wider world. Hewso is in charge...

With PAX Australia now firmly in the rearview mirror for 2024, we thought that we might take a moment to consider what it is that actually keeps on drawing us to conventions, year in, year out. Both our panel members and the conventions themselves have changed somewhat notably over the years, and we are painfully aware that it’s not the ’90s any longer. As perhaps the only Player 2 regular to have...

For some reason, Hewso thought it might be a good idea to invite a bunch of freaks and weirdos into his hotel room while PAX was going on in Melbourne. Fine choice of city; questionable choice of behaviour. In any case, this is an unusual episode in the sense that it doesn’t follow the exact format of 90% of our shows, but it’s also usual in the sense that Matt basically always does something like...

With the way things are going in the world, getting stuck on a deserted tropical island or some unmapped alpine mountain my almost seem desirable. It’d probably hurt your gaming a bit, though. That said, imagination can be a fun thing to flex, and so we set some rules to discuss our desert island top 5 titles. This proved to be a pretty fun experiment, as the crossover between our absolutely most...

Who knows, by the time this is published and you're listening to it everything that there could possibly be to know about what we'll simply call the 'Switch 2' may have been leaked and everyone has already moved on to Microsoft officially announcing some kind of XBox handheld or branded partnership with other handheld gaming PCs. It's hard to keep pace with the speed of console news right now. Whi...

Big fish, little fish, cardboard box! Big fish, little fish, cardboard box! Ahem. Sorry. To strain this into a truly tortured metaphor, some games are big, some are little, and for a sizable part of the 90s they mostly came in cardboard boxes. Nintendo didn't give that shit up until the Gamecube. Anyway, with the world going (rightly) nuts over Astro Bot , an apparently smaller game that has becom...

Nein, Geoffory! Nein, nein, nein! We don’t need any more of these stage shows! Yes, your dress sneakers are lovely (and, I hope, comfortable), but it’s just been a couple of months since we last did this and we don’t always need multiple drinks after dessert. Nonetheless, the Keighly opening light extravaganza of trailers and flashing lights has successfully invaded Cologne, Germany, and with it a...

At the beginning of this century, Shenmue was listed in the ( honestly pretty corrupt ) Guinness Book of World Records as the most expensive videogame ever developed, with its protracted development cost sitting at around $80 million. Fast forward to the current generation, and Spiderman 2 is sitting at an eye-watering $300 million, over three times what its predecessor cost to develop. Is it any...

After looking at the flakey ashes left by our previous episodes, people’s dreams fluttering and dissolving in the air as the literal value of their words dissipates before our very eyes, we figured we needed to shift gears and try and find something at least a little greener to focus on for this one. Where did we land, exactly?  To put it very simply, we landed on the rise and rise of PC gaming. T...