Player 2's Podcasts

A bit of an odd one, this fortnight. A mix of Tim forgetting about an encroaching holiday season and everyone (both at Player 2 and, seemingly, the rest of the entire world) being sick, we ended up recording early with a skeleton crew. That is to say, Ken showed up to save all of our hides. This basically gave Ken an excuse to talk about how good that new Top Gun movie is instead of a videogame (s...

Food. Seriously, how good is it? This week's host Matt is all about food. Cooking, preparing, eating. Food is life. So with Matt in charge and really wanting to talk about food after spending the day cooking an American 4th of July feast, that is what the team did. Although being a gaming podcast we do link the two together to talk about all things food and video games. There is a strong history o...

It was a bit bumpy and all-over-the place, but this year's E3-only-not-really-E3 was, if anything, perhaps better than expected. Nobody covering it seems to have gotten doxed, either, so that's an added bonus. While following everything was a little draining, many folk at Player 2 did their darndest.  Of course, those who did their absolute best probably need some more sleep as a result of the abs...

E3 is dead! Long live E3! Surely enough, E3 is insisting that it is in fact not dead, but as stubborn as those cries are, the voice behind them is weak and we're pretty sure also coming from an UCU room. The season, however, is looking to live on. Sony has bestowed a State of Play video on us already, and our crew give their initial impressions of this, as well as taking few stabs at what the othe...

As Australia emerges from nearly a decade of darkness, bleary eyed, tepidly tip-toing into the sunlight; cautiously checking for landmines lest the suddenly greener grass turn out to be a mirage, Player 2's PixelCast has turned eight-four, and so we've taken a hard right and steered directly into games that paint a future of chaos, destruction or utter dispiriting bleakness. Or possibly a mix of t...

Gaming is getting strange. So strange, in fact, that editor-man himself, Matt Hewson, has had to come back down to Earth from whatever satellites he's been bouncing around to try and make heads and/or tails of it all. Whoever thought that you might offload such respectable IP as Deus Ex and Tomb Raider so that you could blow all of it on a bunch of scammy JPEGs? Somebody at Square Enix, apparently...

We're all about the silver and bronze medals this episode, pouring one out for the also rans that did pretty well but have managed to get left out of much of the retro love the envelopes the YouTubes, magazines and websites of the current era. Be warned, however, as Tim has a new enabler: Nick Getley has joined the crew and brough a whole munch of Sega kid vibes along with him. Fortunately for eve...

Full fat once again, this episode ditches the skim milk and returns to your ears with Ken hosting and Tim and Steve following in tow. They've been sitting on the sofa (or, erm, at a desk) and playing videogames over the past couple of weeks, or at least they were when gaming news bombs weren't dropping all around them. Seriously - what a wild couple of news weeks! Rarely do we get so much outside...

We’re coming in slim ‘n light, here. After a few episodes got a bit away from us in terms of length, we’re really reigning things in again here. It’s probably just a one-off product of circumstance, mind. Tim and Ken found themselves alone, mics set nice and low and uncomfortably romantic mood lighting surrounding them. So they just decided to talk a bit about what they’ve been playing. Well, okay...

The games, they are suddenly a-coming, and we’re all struggling to keep our lives in order and under control. Time is now meaningless, everyone has somehow logged 900 hours into Elden Ring and we let Steve run the first half of the episode for almost a full hour because we honestly couldn’t tell if it was already midnight, or just three minutes past when we started. Ken and Tim sit in on the spare...

We're still in the first quarter, and already 2022 has stared some pretty shitty years right in the eye and, without blinking, shrugged and given a wholly earnest "hold my beer". As such, when thrust back into the host chair, Tim decided it may be time to look back rather than forwards. This episode, then, is dedicated to the year 1991. But also kind of 1990 and 1992, because international release...

Hewso is back! Maybe. At the very least, he's back for this episode to talk about playing games before his wrist is slashed open and all of his tendons knitted together into a slippery, wet skipping rope. Or possibly just more mundane surgery. One or the other. Appropriately, though, he won't be doing the procedure on himself at home, and so it's fitting that Ken leads him and Tim through a trip d...

Welcome! Welcome, one and all, to the trash fire that is 2022. It’s only February and already everything is completely nuts. A mix of a raging pandemic, busted online infastructure and the domino effects of both of these have resulted in us returning a couple of weeks later than planned, but we fully intend to power forward with out regular schedule for the rest of the year now that we’ve gotten o...

It is time to ring the bell on another year from hell It’s time to finally slow down, sleep and lay   But don’t relax just yet, you see I have a bet That 2021 still has a curveball to send your way   Just as you were feeling kind of sappy, overall, just all-round happy A demon in disguise comes to make you pay   You see Jolly Old Saint Nick has been replaced by a giant prick And he is here to once...

And just like that, the year is almost over. It’s been a wild ride, at once too fast, yet also far too long. For our last (regular) episode of the PixelCast for 2021, then, Ken has decided that we should take a look back at what has been the sequel to 2020: a year at once more hopeful, but then, somehow, probably even worse? A pretty bad sequel by any standards, even considering what it was coming...

The air is getting colder. Or, err… warmer. Depends on where you live, I suppose. The point, then, is that the year is coming to a close and (at least for those who have taken appropriate precautions) the world is starting to open up a bit. Tim could even theoretically go home for Christmas. It would cost at least double what it did in the past, and probably get him a worse flight. But he could th...

When the cat’s away, the mice will play. Or something like that, only more watered-down. Hewso is out stuck in the middle of nowhere, a place where the trees are nice, but the internet still uses a phone line, and as such Stephen has sneaked in and stolen the hosting chair for our seventy-second episode. Somehow, the show got by without turning into a full blown celebration of cardboard. Maybe it’...

Break out the champagne! Indulge extra cheese on your pizza! Replace the All Bran with Fruit Loops! It’s time to celebrate because Ken has returned to the PixelCast! You care about that, right? You can tell each of as apart from each other right? … Right? Well, Tim and Steve care, at the very least. Even the temporary loss of their third chair during the topic didn’t dampen their spirits! They may...

To mark our 70th episode we have something special. Matt is on hosting duties and is joined by the entire P2 editorial team of Jess, Stephen and Paul and the reason we all got together for this episode is none other than PAX Aus. This episode was recorded originally to appear on the PAX AUS Online radio station during PAX AUS last weekend. The PAX organisers and major sponsor Audio Technica asked...

Believe it or not, the Player 2 crew has a series of interests that aren’t video games. Some of them even involve leaving the house! Or at least they did, back when that was a thing that you could do. In any case, this episode of one of those that come around once or twice a year where we try and spread out the love to other interests in our lives. That was a nice time. Not that video games have b...

Call it arrogance, call it confidence, call it… whatever you like, really. One way or the other, Sony is showing its stuff off on its own terms, and the corporation has succeeded in getting our little podcast to devote an inordinate amount of time to said titles as a result. Either that, or it’s just been a slow news week. Hewso is back in charge this week, and he has brought a robust crew along t...

After getting shot numerous times, Tim hid behind a building few a few seconds to heal his wounds while he activated his landmark instincts and followed the glowing points to an alternate entrance to the train station. Thus, he was able to safely get home just in time to host this here episode about how games do (or don’t) contextualise abilities and mechanics within their worlds and fictions. Oh,...

Australia is continuing its inevitable-feeling spiral from the top to the bottom of the pile for worldwide Covid response, and as such leader-man Hewso has started to ponder if people who haven’t played a game beyond a random smartphone match-three title in many years (or indeed ever) are perhaps looking at our favourite hobby as something to kill some of lockdown’s monotony with. He’s joined by T...

Shit has well and truly hit the fan, and heaven only knows when the good folk of Australia’s most populated state will be able to freely swing by a mate’s house to blow a megatonne of dust off of a PS2 and go absolutely nuts with all of those SingStar discs that they forgot they owned. This episode, then, is dedicated to games that can be played online and that shine best by bringing the people pl...

New blood alert! Do you like fresh voices? We certainly hope so! We’ve let  Chris Button  and his soothing tones take over for this one, and he’s brought other new talent to the fold with him. Seriously, Tim is just kind of stuffed in a back corner over there cursing his dust allergy. The new people in question? Screen Hub’s  Jini Maxwell  and streamer-with-awesome-name  Pastelsparkles . Just to k...