Player Attack

Player Attack is back for 2018! Season 6 of Australia's independent video game tv series will continue to bring you all the latest in gaming news, plus interviews, reviews and features from the world of video games.

This week's episode is kind of all over the place, even by our standards.

If you loved playing old school twitch-based shooter Heretic back in the day, have we got a treat for you. Angelo caught up with the team from Indefatigable to find out a bit more about Amid Evil - a brand new Unreal Engine FPS that plays like an homage to the genre, due to hit early access any day now.

Nate and the crew from 2 Hour Steam are back, and this week they're settling in to find out whether Osiris: New Dawn is worth your hard-earned pennies. It's been in early access for nearly 18 months now, but is this open-world sci-fi survival game really any closer to release?

...and then, for something completely different, Jessica would like to take a moment to tell you all about the game she played most over summer. It's not necessarily one of the big-name blockbusters, and it's certainly copped a lot of flak for some fairly uninspired gameplay mechanics, but she loves Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp so very much, and she just had to tell someone about it!

...plus, of course, we have all the latest in gaming news - this is Player Attack!

http://www.playerattack.com

This week on Player Attack, we've gotta go fast.

Nate and his friends have spent spent two hours with The Escapists 2, trying to figure out a few things. Are they any good at breaking out of prison? Can they work together as a team? Is the game worth your money? (Spoiler: No, not really, and yes!)

Angelo sits down with local Adelaide developer Carmine Fantarella in the latest Player A-Chat, to discuss his brand new project - Icebox: SpeedGunner. We've been following the game for a while now, and it's lovely to see it finally available to an adoring public. You can grab it right now on Steam!

And Jessica has paid a visit to Slayaway Camp, perhaps the most adorable game to ever feature a serial killer preying on a bunch of teenagers. With its clunky voxel art-style, obvious and abiding love of 80 schlock horror films, and challenging but-not-too-difficult-gameplay, this one is worth a look for puzzle fans.

...plus, of course, we have all the latest in gaming news - this is Player Attack!

http://www.playerattack.com

This week on Player Attack, it's a fight to the death.

2017 might just go down in history as the year of the last-man-standing games. There's an ongoing debate over who was first, who deserves the most accolades, and whether everybody should just read more Japanese best-sellers... but today, we checked out two of the biggest names.

Nate and three of his friends spend some time wandering around PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, in this week's instalment of Two Hour Steam. All four are dropped onto an island, with a warzone that keeps shrinking. Will they choose to refund their money, or hang onto this one in the hope of more chicken dinners?

Jessica (with a little help from Mythor) prefers the stylised cartoon graphics of Epic Games' latest, Fortnite. The team's just released the Battle Royale expansion for the game, which adds a very familiar play mode to the already-awesome survival experience. Is it a blatant rip-off though, or does it add enough new stuff to the genre?

And if all this Lord of the Flies stuff isn't for you, then come along with us as we revisit Hybrid World Adelaide - a futurist festival held in Adelaide earlier this month. Kids were invited to rebuild iconic locations in a Minecraft masterclass with Wyld, and other students faced off in the world's first LAN League of Legends tournament for high schools.

...plus, of course, we have all the latest in gaming news - this is Player Attack!

http://www.playerattack.com

This week on Player Attack, we're thinking of the children.

Firstly - obviously - in our review of brand new "parenting simulator" Think of the Children, out now through Surprise Attack Games. It's the sort of fast-paced, frenetic action we last saw in Overcooked - but is it as good? Isn't it kind of creepy to be, basically, killing kids?

Janet Gaeta (formerly Janet Carr) is also thinking of the children. She's one of the creative directors working on new technology festival Hybrid World Adelaide, which hits the Tonsley Innovation Precinct (the old Mitsubishi site) October 4-8. The event features a world-first League of Legends LAN competition for high school students, a chance to literally build the future in Minecraft, and opportunities for people to learn how to code or fly their own drone.

If you can't get there, don't fret - Angelo has a lengthy interview with Janet as part of Player A-Chat, and we've got a decent chunk of it right here for your viewing pleasure.

...plus, of course, we have all the latest in gaming news - this is Player Attack!

http://www.playerattack.com

This week on Player Attack, we're solving mysteries and learning about casting.

Just a few years ago, Alex Hughes knew nothing about eSports casting - and now, he's one of the most sought-after Smite commentators in the world! We caught up with HughZ while he was in Adelaide recently and found out not only how he got started casting, but also why he thinks Hi-Rez has made a game just for him.

For something completely different, Jessica has returned from a sightseeing mission to the mysterious location that is Rusty Lake. This surreal setting is home to nine games in the Cube Escape series, plus two standalone premium offerings, Rusty Lake: Roots and Rusty Lake Hotel. A little bit point-and-click, a little bit Twin Peaks, you'll find out why this is our new favourite holiday destination.

...plus, of course, we have all the latest in gaming news - this is Player Attack!

http://www.playerattack.com

This week on Player Attack, we're bouncing off the walls.

Angelo sits down with Steve Heller from Surprise Attack and Pixels for Breakfast about his many-faceted 10 year career.

We look back at the history of video game classification - can you imagine a time where anyone could play any game they wanted? Won't somebody think of the children!

...and we take a few moments to jump into the sublimely ridiculous West of Loathing, just in case you'd been missing a stick-figure RPG with cowboys.

...plus, of course, we have all the latest in gaming news - this is Player Attack!

http://www.playerattack.com

This week on Player Attack, we're chatting to all sorts of fascinating people.

Want to know about retro video games? How to start collecting? Where to find the coolest stuff? Who to talk to about the best old-school treats? Retrospekt should be able to help you - we caught up with Marcus at AVCon and picked his brain about what the team's been up to recently (mad respekt!).

Also at AVCon, Angelo found Jen Taylor wandering the halls - while she's an accomplished stage actor (who visited Australia years ago to rehearse a play, no less), most people would know this lady as the voice of Princess Peach, Toad, or maybe your favourite blue AI: Cortana!

Bringing things back home again, the latest episode of Player A-Chat features Adelaide developer Philip Mayes. He draws back the curtain on the local industry, revealing that South Australia might not be the deadzone many people seem to believe it is!

...plus, of course, we have all the latest in gaming news - this is Player Attack!

http://www.playerattack.com

This week on Player Attack, we're finding out which Australians play video games, what they're playing, and why they're playing.

Digital Australia 2018 is the seventh study in a series of national research in Australia and New Zealand, conducted by Jeffrey Brand and his team at Bond University. We caught up with Professor Brand and turned the tables for a moment, asking *him* the big questions about what this year's report says about Aussies.

The report is fascinating reading, jam-packed with surprising statistics.

- the average age of the Australian gamer is now 34

- 97% of homes with children have computer games

- 80% of game households have more than one device for playing games

- 92% of players play with other people

- 50% of children have used games in their school curriculum

- 34% of adults have used games for work

- 84% of players say games help improve thinking skills

- 77% of people who play games in Australia are aged 18 years or older

- 46% of video game players are female

- 43% of Australians aged 65 and over play video games!

Would you like to know more? The full #DA18 report is available from the Interactive Games and Entertainment Association - for free! http://www.igea.net/

...plus, of course, we have all the latest in gaming news - this is Player Attack!

http://www.playerattack.com

This week on Player Attack, we're chatting with some locals.

AVCon is Adelaide's Anime and Video Game Festival, and one of the absolute highlights each year is checking out the wide variety of titles that make up The Indie Games Room. It's a curated collection of independently-developed games from Australia and New Zealand, and it's been a part of AVCon since 2008.

This year, we dropped in to chat with IGR coordinator Brad Barrett, and caught up with some of the local developers showing off their latest projects.

Of course, there were more than 50 games on show this year and we were only able to highlight a handful - for a full list, head to theindiegamesroom.com !

Featured games:

Bloodbeard's Revenge - https://www.facebook.com/bloodbeardsrevenge/

Think of the Children - http://www.thinkofthechildrengame.com/

Intergalactic Space Princess - http://www.spaceprincess.net/

Monadnock - https://monadnock.machinespirit.net/

...plus, of course, we have all the latest in gaming news - this is Player Attack!

http://www.playerattack.com

This week on Player Attack, we're off to AVCon to meet interesting people!

AVCon is Adelaide's Anime and Video Games Festival, an annual gathering that brings the South Australian community together to celebrate what makes them happy. Each year, an assortment of guests are also invited, drawn from across the realms of pop culture - and it's difficult to tell who has more fun, the attendees or the VIPs!

This year, we caught up with special AVCon guest Steve Downes - you might not recognise his face, but the moment he opens his voice, you'll know exactly who he is. A Los Angeles disc jockey for the better part of 40 years, he says his career suddenly skyrocketed (literally) when he was hand-picked for the role of Spartan John-117... that is, Master Chief, from the Halo series.

We also spent some time with one of the other guests in town for AVCon - Chris Pope, known to his fans as the Space Pope. His childhood dream was to become a game developer at Sierra, working on games like Space Quest. Fast-forward a few years, and even though Sierra is long gone, the Space Pope has teamed up with two of the original developers to create Space Venture - a spiritual successor to the series.

Did we mention he also held a world record for playing Pac-Man? This is a man of many talents!

...plus, of course, we have all the latest in gaming news - this is Player Attack!

http://www.playerattack.com