Video Games

Borderlands: Legendary Collection Review: A Worthy Return to Pandora

Borderlands remains one of the most important staples in recent gaming memory, as the granddaddy of looter shooters. Sure, many have learned, but none have quite mastered this unique blend of first-person gunplay, humour and exploration in the same way that Borderlands does. By now, most of us scavenged the land of Pandora, in search…

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The Last of Us Part II

Audio Settings: Songs to prepare you for The Last of Us Part II

The Last of Us Part II is almost upon us (finally!). One of the most anticipated video games of the last seven years, it promises to take the story of Ellie and Joel in an entirely new direction. Its soundtrack features licensed tracks from folk acts like Crooked Still and Shawn James, but the main…

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51 Worldwide Classics Review: Nintendo’s mini-game compilation jackpot

2006’s DS classic Clubhouse Games was a huge hit, to absolutely no one’s surprise. The perfect marriage for handheld gaming, it stylishly bought together a comprehensive index of 42 classic card and board games which have been etched into history for a good reason. Everything from Chess and Blackjack to Ludo and Solitaire was included,…

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Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition Review: Everything a remaster should be

When Xenoblade Chronicles was originally released for the Nintendo Wii in 2010-12, it felt like a tectonic shift in the way we talked about JRPGs. Suddenly, people were talking about the niche genre’s shiny new, universally acclaimed story as the genre’s pinnacle, as if Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest franchises never existed. The deep-world of…

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BioShock Collection Review: Big Daddy goes portable

Beloved first-person shooter BioShock has finally arrived on the Nintendo Switch. The Bioshock Collection combines all three games in a single package, along with all available DLC. The BioShock collection has been available on current platforms since 2016. And now here we are, BioShock playable on-the-go… Big Daddy… Chasing you… anywhere you go… Oh lord….

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5 things we love from today’s The Last of Us Part II State of Play

The Last of Us Part II is finally, actually, nearly here and the hype is building. It is the subject of the latest episode of PlayStation’s State of Play series, offering fans an in-depth look at one of the most anticipated games of the year. There’s a lot to break down here. Let’s talk about…

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BlizzCon

BlizzCon 2020 cancelled, will move online next year

Blizzard Entertainment has confirmed that BlizzCon 2020 will not go ahead owing to the COVID-19 pandemic. BlizzCon is an annual fan convention at which Blizzard usually makes its biggest announcements and hosts its largest esports competitions. In a post on its official blog, Blizzard stated that it had “come to the very difficult decision to…

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HyperX Cloud Flight S Review: Take flight

It’s been a minute since I’ve reviewed a Hyper X headset. Over the last few years, HyperX have gone from a PC hardware manufacturer famous for high performance memory and gaming drives, to a real contender in the peripheral space. With the Cloud Flight S, the latest premium tier addition to their lineup, HyperX looks…

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Saints Row the Third Remastered Review: Praise be to Volition

It’s not enough to simply write that the new remaster of Saints Row: The Third features, and is defined by, substantial “graphical enhancements”. The off-the-wall Volition title, the one where they decoupled the series from “GTA clone” criticism and carved their own successful niche, has gone through a complete overhaul. And it’s fucking gorgeous. We’re…

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Mafia II: Definitive Edition Review: Back in business

Hindsight really is 2020. Mafia II: Definitive Edition has become the latest in a slew of remakes and remasters to fill out this very strange year’s release calendar. Originally released in 2010, Mafia II is a fairly standard crime family story. You play as migrant son Vito Scaletta, freshly returned to the fictional Empire City…

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Paper Mario

Paper Mario: The Origami King coming to Switch in July

Paper Mario, the king of Mario RPGs, is finally back. Mario, Luigi and Princess Peach are on their way to the kingdom’s annual origami festival, but something is amiss. Peach seems to be acting a bit strange. You might say her character has suddenly become … paper thin. All of this is surely the work…

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GTA 5

GTA 5 is free right now on the Epic Games Store

GTA 5, one of the most popular and successful video games of all time, is free right now on the Epic Games Store. The reason the game has had such a dramatic cut in price is due to the Epic Mega Sale, a mid-year event that applies significant discounts to popular games. Throughout each week…

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18 minutes of gorgeous Ghost of Tsushima gameplay

Today’s new PlayStation State of Play broadcast was all about Ghost of Tsushima. Ghost of Tsushima is an open-world action-adventure game set in Feudal Japan. It follows a wandering samurai named Jin, who wages a solitary war against Mongols invading the island of Tsushima. In short, it’s exactly the sort of game PlayStation look for…

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Unreal Engine 5

New Unreal Engine 5 demo promises eye-popping PS5 visuals

Epic Games have unveiled Unreal Engine 5, the next iteration of their popular software development kit. The trailer, released this morning on social media, shows a lengthy real-time demo that spotlights two new systems — Lumen and Nanite. Lumen is a new system for dynamic global illumination. Its job is calculating how light should look…

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Mafia Trilogy

Mafia Trilogy announced, full reveal coming May 20

2K Games has announced Mafia Trilogy, an apparent collection of all three mainline Mafia titles. This would include the original Mafia, Mafia II and 2016’s Mafia III. All we have to go on right now is the teaser trailer. The most interesting part is that footage from Mafia II lookin’ real good. You can check…

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Tony Hawk's Pro Skater

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 and 2 remaster launches in September

The Birdman has returned. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 and 2 finally remasters the first two games in the legendary series. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 and 2 launches on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC via the Epic Games Store on September 4, 2020. Fans who preorder the game get early access to a…

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Xbox 20/20

Every trailer from last night’s Xbox 20/20 broadcast

At 1am last night, Xbox began the most critical step on the path to launching a new console — they started talking about the games. The latest episode of Inside Xbox was the first stop on the Xbox 20/20 video tour and was all about the kind of third-party developer support fans can expect on…

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Predator: Hunting Grounds Review: I ain’t got time to bleed

If it bleeds, we can kill iT — unless it’s a beloved IP that bleeds money, in which case we can plumb it for nostalgia value. This has been the recent fate of the Predator franchise, which has enjoyed a recent resurgence 2018’s The Predator. Given the renewed interest, a video game tie-in makes a…

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Gears Tactics

Gears Tactics Review: A winning strategy

Gears Tactics is a smart bet on almost every level. The Gears of War franchise has reached the same point in its life as the Halo series — a point where it must diversify or die. For Halo, that moment came in the form of Halo Wars, an RTS that made use of the series’…

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Xbox 20/20

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla debuts bloody, brutal first trailer

Yesterday we brought you the announcement of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, the 12th mainline entry in the popular stealth action series. This morning, Ubisoft released the game’s first trailer. The four-minute cinematic sets a grim and bloody mood. Set in The Viking Ages between 793–1066 AD, Scandinavian forces have settled in England and have begun building…

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Assassin's Creed Valhalla

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is all about vikings and axes

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla will become the 12th entry in the popular stealth action series. Ubisoft announced Valhalla this morning via an art stream hosted by artist Bosslogic, real name Kode Abdo. The game moves the series from the isles of Ancient Greece seen in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey to somewhere more Scandinavian. Fans have been requesting a…

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The Last of Us Part II

The Last of Us Part II suffers major plot leaks, sets new release date

A number of major spoilers for The Last of Us Part II have leaked online. The leaks Videos showing pivotal moments from the game appeared online overnight. Those videos were quickly spun into detailed lists containing the game’s plot, characters, and ending. How accurate many of the details are, and how old the leaked footage…

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My Friend Pedro

My Friend Pedro Review: this John Wick-esque banana shooter rocks

After ridiculous amounts of hype on Switch and PC, wickedly over-the-top side-scrolling shooter My Friend Pedro has parkoured its way to the PS4. With it, the title has brought all the juicy adrenaline, fist-pumping acrobats, and stylish gunfights with it. Not bad for a game where you’re killing people because a weird floating banana told…

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All the video games you can play for free right now

Free games. Are there two more beautiful words in the English language? We’re no linguists, but we don’t reckon there are. As the world commits to staying at home in isolation, we naturally turn to video games as a way to pass the time. But as the economy crumbles and jobs disappear every day, it…

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XCOM Chimera Squad

XCOM Chimera Squad Review: The war at home

2K has moved incredibly quickly on XCOM Chimera Squad. It was announced out of the blue in mid-April, and launch day was only a week later. 12 hours after the announcement, I had a review copy installed on my home PC. Fast is Chimera Squad‘s watchword. It has a much higher resting heart rate than…

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Crysis Remastered

Crysis Remastered confirmed, coming to Switch

Crysis Remastered is coming. Confirmation came via a leak from its official site. At this time, the site has not gone live with the announcement. Here’s the blurb straight from the site: “Crysis Remastered brings new graphic features, high-quality textures, and the CRYENGINE’s native hardware – and API-agnostic ray tracing solution for PC, PlayStation, Xbox,…

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Gamescom

Gamescom 2020 cancelled, replaced with online event

Gamescom, the largest video games convention in the world, will not take place this year. The decision to cancel the 2020 event comes after the German government announced a ban on all major events until August 31. Gamescom was scheduled for August 22-24, meaning it only just fell within the bounds of the event ban….

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XCOM Chimera Squad

Surprise XCOM spin-off Chimera Squad arrives next week

We’ve been waiting for a new entry in the XCOM franchise to be announced for a while now. Following the announcement that XCOM 2 would be coming to Nintendo Switch in May, fans began to feel like maybe they wouldn’t be waiting long. We’re not sure even they could have predicted an announcement would come…

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Minecraft

Minecraft RTX looks like a totally different game

Minecraft is getting a bit of a makeover. The PC version of the ever-popular building game will soon support high end Nvidia RTX graphics cards. The update will allow the game to take advantage of the RTX series’ raytracing functionality. Raytracing, for those who aren’t familiar, is a new way of modeling in-game lighting. Rather…

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Minecraft Dungeons

Minecraft Dungeons Beta Preview: Building something big

I did not expect to have as much fun with Minecraft Dungeons as I have. I’ve been a fan of the Diablo-style ARPG for many years and one of my favourite things to do is inspecting new takes on the formula, poking around to see how they stack up to the genre’s eternal grandfather. It’s clear…

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