Player 2's Podcasts

It's that time of year, folks, PAX time. Well, to be truthful, PAX has been and gone, but as is tradition, the team on the ground has gotten together to wax lyrical about all the cool stuff they saw. Join Matt, Jess, Stephen and Jenn as they take you through the highs and lows of PAX Aus 2026 and even make some suggestions as to how the event could be improved for next year. From tabletop to indies, it's all here, so grab a cuppa and relive the madness of the PAX weekend with the P2 Crew. Theme Music: Visitors from Dreams by Mathieu Stempell Dma-Sc Cast Matthew Hewson Jess Zammit Jenn Christodoulou Stephen del Prado

It feels like the last fortnight or so has been spent largely recalling how Halo used to be a near culture-defining event. Sure enough, the games produced under the stewardship of 343/Halo Studios were all perfectly fine games, it's hard to argue that the franchise has failed to hit as it did under Bungie. So, passing it on to some Call of Duty stuff (and leaving a bunch of other people without work in the process), well, we're not sure about that. Is there a better match out there, shy of Sony not gutting Bungie and selling the studio back to Xbox? That's at least a part of what Matt, Rob, and Tim are here to discuss. A part. Things have been pretty bleak these past years (most of the decade, really), and so in an attempt to make it a little bit more fun we have gone and simply thought of some waysided or mistreated franchises that we have some remaining affection for and pondered which studios we might like to see given the duty of breathing in some new life. Games: Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve, Star Wars: Galactic Racer, Resident Evil Requiem Theme Music: Visitors from Dreams by Mathieu Stempell Dma-Sc Break Music: Neonature by Alexander Brandon, Bryan Rudge, Dan Gardopée, Michiel van den Bos, Reeves Gabrels Cast Rob Caporetto Tim Henderson Matthew Hewson

We're waist-deep into September now, and as such the games just won't stop coming. It's almost a relief that we've missed out on a couple of the bigger ones for now. That doesn't really mean we have excessive time to just breathe, though, as this episode will help to testify: once again, we've dropped the usual topic from the back end of the show in service of simply being able to get discussion about a couple more actual video games in. Tim's back in charge, recording from a cardboard box while hiding from... nobody in particular, actually. He's backed up my Rob and Hewso, bringing with them a mix of the extremely retro and the bleeding new, respectively. There's Master System in this one! Surely that makes this unmistakably an Australian show. Or Brazilian, we suppose, although none of us really smell good enough to pull that one off. Games: Marvel's Wolverine, Razing Core, MGS4, Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave, Rayman Legends Retold Theme Music: Visitors from Dreams by Mathieu Stempell DMA-SC Break Music: Disconnected by Ben Briggs Cast Rob Caporetto Tim Henderson Matthew Hewson

Welcome to the gaming lion’s den that is September. We’re not two weeks in, and already games are spilling from what isn’t so much a leak as a gaping hole. We now all know what the remake of Ocarina of Time looks like, and we’re all… just… so… tired. At least there’s plenty to play. As such, that’s what this episode is about, really. We eschewed the typical topic format and have instead just allowed Matt and Tim to wax on about the stuff they’ve been playing. There’s no shortage of it. Honestly, next episode could realistically follow a similar cadence. Games: Onimusha, Hot Wheels: Infinite Rush, The Blood of Dawnwalker, MGS Delta Theme Music: Visitors from Dreams by Mathieu Stempell Dma-Sc Break Music: Cassie’s Fortune by Daniel Caton Cast Matt Hewson Tim Henderson

We've made an active choice to look at things a bit more warmly this episode. Make no mistake - the games industry continues to be an absolute mess, but there's no need for each and every topic that we do to concern itself with whatever news or event is happening at any given time. Thusly, this fortnight sees us look back to our heady days in the school yard. Or, more specifically, that period of our lives when we were very much not in the school yard. For real, it's just occurring to me that nobody mentioned a single portable game. The reason for this is fairly simple: we've dedicated this episode to the games that were most influential on us during the formative years of K-12. Tim and Rob are here as usual, but Jenn has also come along to tease them with how she was still just a tyke when the freaking PlayStation 2 came out! Whatever. It created a good spread, likely including some games you've never heard of before. Games: Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy, Mortal Shell 2, FF7: Rebirth Theme Music: Visitors from Dreams by Mathieu Stempell Dma-Sc Break Music: Deliverance of the Heart by Jillian Aversa, zircon Cast Rob Caporetto Tim Henderson Jenn don't-try-and-find-me-I-(smartly)-hide-from-social-media