Video Games

Destruction AllStars

Destruction AllStars Review: Return of the weekend rental

In a year like 2021, I think Destruction AllStars is the video game vibe we may all be looking for. Last year, Animal Crossing: New Horizons gave us solace, somewhere peaceful to retreat to as the world fell apart. Among Us would later change that vibe to something more aggressive. It allowed us to reconnect through…

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Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart

Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart launching in June, drops brand new trailer

Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart has a release date. Insomniac’s latest will arrive June 11, 2021, according to a new post on the official PlayStation Blog. “When the evil Dr. Nefarious uses a device that can access alternate dimensions to find a galaxy where he always wins, Ratchet and Clank are separated,” the post reads….

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Hearthstone

Hearthstone adds its own new WOW Classic-style format

Hearthstone fans are celebrating the announcement of a new Classic Format game mode that mimics what the game was like at launch. Classic Format uses only the original 240 cards that Hearthstone launched with. Any changes made to these cards since launch are rolled back. Warsong Commander will once again grant all your minions Charge….

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Mass Effect Legendary Edition

Mass Effect Legendary Edition will launch in May

The long-awaited Mass Effect Legendary Edition will launch on May 14, 2020. Mass Effect Legendary Edition will include content from all three mainline Mass Effect games, remastered and running at 4K60FPS HDR. All three games have received a visual facelift, with “remastered character models and tens of thousands of up-rezzed textures. Improvements to shaders and…

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The Medium

The Medium Review: Paranormal parallels

I wish I liked The Medium more than I do. Polish studio Bloober Team have attempted to parlay their talent for horror, glacially-paced exploration, and strong writing into a single title. The result is a game with a great hook, caught somewhere between a Silent Hill throwback and a walking simulator.  Sadly, despite its detailed…

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Hitman 3 Review: Mission complete

Three years have passed since Square Enix abruptly cut ties with Hitman 3 developer IO Interactive. The good news is that there appears to have been some measure of reconciliation. Though IO is self-publishing Hitman 3 in many territories, Square Enix is the publishing partner for Hitman 3 in Oceania. Without getting into specifics, reconciliation…

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Ubisoft Massive

Ubisoft Massive building open-world Star Wars adventure

Yesterday brought a tease about an Indiana Jones game at Bethesda. Today we have a Star Wars game landing at Ubisoft. It would appear the new LucasFilm Games division is on a bit of a roll. Announced in an interview with Wired, an untitled, open-world Star Wars project is underway at Ubisoft Massive, creators of…

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Indiana Jones

Bethesda teases new Indiana Jones game from Wolfenstein dev

It took the new LucasFilm Games division just 24 hours to announce a new Indiana Jones game. The still-untitled game has landed at Wolfenstein: The New Colossus developer MachineGames. Its parent company Bethesda, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Microsoft, shared a teaser video on its social media accounts. It then clarified that the game is still in…

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The best Christmas gifts in Australia for 2020

Christmas is almost here, and given the year we’ve just had, it’s go hard or go home. This holiday season is – pending none of 2020’s indulgent curve-balls – going to have a lot riding on it. It’ll be like cannoning-balling into that perfectly temperature controller pool after trudging through the Sahara, and hearing those…

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PlayStation 5

PlayStation 5 Review: Welcome to the new age

The PlayStation 5 is the direct successor to the most successful video game console of all time. Success has been Sony’s watchword for the past seven years as its popular PlayStation 4 smashed industry records. It seemed that the system could do no wrong. A library of smash-hit first-party titles. A design that still feels…

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Cyberpunk 2077: 5 Things We Can’t Wait to See

For longer than we’d care to admit, Cyberpunk 2077 has been on our minds. First revealed way back 2013, the wait for release has been long and occasionally frustrating. Thankfully, the worst appears to be behind us: following multiple delays in 2020 alone, Cyberpunk 2077 is now set to launch next week, December 10th. The…

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Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War Review: True to Tradition, Through Thick and Thin

Like the sudden lift in temperature that tells you summer is on its way, the arrival of Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War tells you exactly what time of year it is. Developer Treyarch takes its flagship Call of Duty series to the early 1980’s, determined to bring down the iron curtain with nothing but…

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HyperX Cloud Stinger Core Wireless Review: Long name, strong sound

The HyperX Cloud Stinger Core Wireless has one of the longer names of any headphones I’ve ever reviewed. It’s also one of the most well-appointed, no-fuss, next-gen ready gaming headsets on the market right now. HyperX is a PC peripheral maker that likes to keep things simple. It prefers clean designs, good build quality, and…

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Immortals: Fenyx Rising Review: Next to godliness

Immortals Fenyx RIsing learned a lot from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. This is not to say it should be compared to BotW — those comparisons don’t go very far and would be unfair at best. Immortals uses BotW’s mechanical trappings as a platform to say something else. It isn’t interested in a…

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Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity Review: AKA The Bokoblin Grind

Age of Calamity is the latest in the Hyrule Warriors series, revolving around The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. I don’t know about you, but I’ve spent the whole of 2020 waiting for more sequel news. And I’m gutted that I haven’t heard anything yet. While Age of Calamity may act as somewhat…

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Watch Cyberpunk 2077 in action on Playstation 4 Pro and PS5 via backwards compatibility

Inching closer to the long-awaited release of the game of the year, Cyberpunk 2077 developer CD Projekt has dropped a new taster of gameplay. The new footage features a look at PlayStation 4 Pro and PlayStation 5 versions through backwards compatibility, the 6-minute gameplay captures a section of the Nomad Lifepath, one of three playable…

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Interview: Call of Duty Black Ops: Cold War devs on next-gen, and what’s next

We recently sat down with a number developers from the Call of Duty Black Ops: Cold War team at Treyarch and Raven Software. Among them: Lead Game Designer Matt Scronce, Lead Designer on weapons, equipment and gameplay Tony Flame, and Creative Director at Raven Dan Vondrak, whose team crafted this year’s campaign. Our conversation touched…

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Interview: Visual Concept’s Erick Boenisch and Mike Wang Outline NBA 2K21‘s New Next-Gen Modes

We recently had the chance to chat to Executive Producer Erick Boenisch and Gameplay Director Mike Wang of Visual Concepts to outline some of the new modes and mechanics making their way to the next-generation build of NBA 2K21. Built from the ground up, this edition will bring with it a deeper WNBA presence in…

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eFootball PES 2021: Season Update Review: New Year, Same Solid Football

The Pro Evolution Soccer series has always been a personal favourite of mine, and while I love the exciting modes and interesting iterations that FIFA brings to the table, I have always admired the PES series for it’s tactical nature, and solid gameplay. eFootball PES 2021: Season Update has been aptly named, as it’s basically…

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Assassin's Creed Valhalla

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla Review: An axe to the face is not very stealthy

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is a game that feels like it’s a little at war with itself. The intersection of its warring Viking heroes and its lineage as a stealth-centric action title are at odds with each other. While it works hard to bridge that philosophical divide, this dissonance suffuses the entire game and ultimately weakens…

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Mario Kart Home Circuit Review: Nintendo push AR further with an inventive new way to play

Anyone can see what Nintendo is trying to do with Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit, and for all it’s faults, the experiment feels necessary as we move forward in the gaming industry. The console wars between Xbox and PlayStation are just about to explode, and from what we’ve seen, the competition will be fiercer than…

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Spider-Man: Miles Morales Review: A Web of Style and Substance

Spider-Man is my favourite Marvel superhero, and because Miles Morales is also Spider-Man, he’s my favourite too. Miles’ first appearance was in Ultimate Fallout #4 in August 2011. Created by writer Brian Michael Bendis and artist Sara Pichelli, the character struck an immediate chord with readers. His popularity was a bit of a surprise —…

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Xbox One

Two Days to Retirement: The life and times of the Xbox One

For the last seven years, the Xbox One has been one of the internet’s favourite punching bags. The machine that Xbox debuted at Microsoft’s Redmond campus ahead of E3 2013 was suffering an identity crisis. It was a video game console that focused on everything BUT video games. Against a resurgent and clear-minded PlayStation, the…

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Xbox Series X

Xbox Series X Review: Back in the game at last

The pain of being publicly humbled suffuses every part of the Xbox Series X. Its predecessor’s missteps inform every facet of its design, from its outer shell to the operating system that powers it. After seven long years of being trampled by the competition, Xbox is finally getting up off the mat. It has taken…

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NBA 2K21 Introduces ‘The W’ for the Next Generation

NBA 2K21’s next generation counterpart will be introducing ‘The W’, a new portion of the game dedicated to the WNBA. Narrated by WNBA legend Candace Parker, the trailer revealed a new fully fledged career mode, which allows players to take their own custom created character through the ranks of the WNBA. It’s worth noting that…

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Pikmin 3 Deluxe Review: Revisit one of the Wii U’s greatest moments

Pikmin 3 is an excellent game. An exceptional one even; perhaps the best possible expression of the cutsey, puzzle-strategy since the first one was released in 2001. Any Nintendo owner worth their salt scrambled for a copy when the original Pikmin 3 when it was released for the Wii U in 2013, and hold fond…

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Watch Dogs Legion

Watch Dogs Legion Review: Life hacked

Watch Dogs Legion feels like the game the series has been striving to become since its inception. It’s a game with some of the biggest, boldest ideas to come out of Ubisoft in years. It is also a game that has clearly had to make some concessions in order to execute on these ideas. Merry…

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Assassin's Creed

Netflix announces Assassin’s Creed live action series

Netflix has announced a new live action original series based on Assassin’s Creed. It will work with game publisher Ubisoft to create AC shows across live action, animation, and anime, Deadline reports. Executive producers Jason Altman and Danielle Krenik from Ubisoft Film & Television currently oversee the project. It is on the hunt for a…

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Cyberpunk 2077

Cyberpunk 2077 has been delayed again, if you can believe it

Cyberpunk 2077 has been delayed. Again. Its release date moves from November 19 to December 10. According to developer CD Projekt Red, the reason for the delay has to do with quality assurance. Currently, as many as nine internal builds of Cyberpunk 2077 require testing for compatibility and optimisation. This is a lot of work,…

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Immortals: Fenyx Rising Preview: Wild at heart

Immortals: Fenyx Rising is Ubisoft’s first original AAA IP in god only knows how long. Ubi has a built a reputation as a publisher that likes a safe bet. Ubi’s franchises are guaranteed to sell. This makes launching new IP a big risk. That it comes at the dawn of a new hardware cycle is…

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