Video Games

The Lego Movie 2 Videogame is based on a movie not yet released in Australia. Despite the heavy involvement of Australia’s Animal Logic animation studio in the production of The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part, the release date is still firmly on March 28th, nearly two months after the official United States release. For…

Kirby has always been the spark of joy in the occasionally cheerless games landscape. I mean, how can he not be? He’s a literal ball of cute pink fluff, and in this cotton-themed adventure, he’s every bit the pure, shining saviour of games that he should be. Kirby is wholesome, Kirby is brilliant, Kirby is…

I went into my preview of Days Gone with a lot of questions. The handful of trailers PlayStation had released since its announcement gave me neither a feel for the game, or what it was setting out to do. The short time I spent with it answered quite a few of them, most positively. I…

I love getting a new Civilization expansion. Each one is a near-complete revision of the game as the community has come to know it, a wave of changes large and small that address mechanical shortfalls and community concerns, while adding complex new systems into its existing web of other complex systems. With Civilization VI: Gathering…

Devil May Cry 5 is a game that might never have existed without its vocal fanbase. While I enjoyed the DmC reboot of 2013, probably more so than most, I missed the original game series sorely. The announcement of the main franchise’s return had me drooling the minute I saw it, and after all this…

Before I start this review, I’d like to begin with a eulogy. The last time I reviewed a Sims game, I told the story of the vampire Solomon, and the object of his affection – a cantankerous and evasive scarecrow. I had intended to continue their ill-fated love story in this article, but unfortunately, during…

I’ll preface this review by saying that despite owning a Sega Mega Drive, I never played either of the original ToeJam & Earl games in their heyday. I also never played the series’ abortive third entry on the original Xbox either, though I understand that this is probably for the best. Well may you say,…

Ape Out is not a terribly long game, but it is a fun one. It’s an entertaining and creative riff on the format popularised by Hotline Miami, a barbarous explosion of violence that belies its more rhythm-based gameplay. You play an angry, caged gorilla ready to throw off the shackles of oppression and embark on…

As a major racing fan, it’s no secret that developer Codemasters is quickly becoming the king of racing games, nearly perfecting the Formula 1 racing series. Dirt Rally 2.0 is absolutely no exception, proving to be not only one of the best rally games from Codemasters, but one of the best rally games of all…

Claiming Final Fantasy IX is your favourite of the PSOne era FF titles is a bit like saying Ringo is your favourite Beatle — most people think you’re a wanker and that there are far better musicians in the group. But what Ringo fans know is that he’s often unfairly overlooked. Sure, he’s responsible for…

Those (everyone) who saw it coming when Game Freak announced that they would be working on a set of mainline Pokemon titles for Nintendo Switch have finally got the revelation that they’ve been waiting for. We all clamored over each other for the fairly recent Pokemon Let’s Go titles, and now it seems that we’ve…

I have started and deleted this review three times in the week and a bit since our review codes arrived. It’s been a long time since I’ve found myself so conflicted about a game I’m reviewing, but Anthem has had me doubling back a lot, second guessing myself. The nutshell version is that I like…

Observer walks a line between cyberpunk, noir and psychological horror that displays a deep love of all three genres, drawing its most obvious inspirations from films like Alphaville, Ghost in the Shell and Blade Runner. The story follows cyborg detective (or Observer) Daniel Lazarski, played by Blade Runner’s Rutger Hauer. Daniel Lazarski is your quintessential hard-boiled detective; as analytical…

It’s hard to believe this is the second Tetris review I’ve written in three months. Even harder to believe, the franchise’s raw adaptability. Like the patterns its falling blocks create, Tetris seems able to change its shape at will, wholly altering the core experience with the addition of a single extra mechanic. Tetris Effect leveraged…

Most of us went through a Shonen Jump phase at one point or another in our lives, whether it was inspired by Naruto, Goku, Ichigo or any of the other dozens of characters that have shined in the magazine over the years. Jump Force brings their worlds back to life, leveraging the nostalgia and dedication…

I think we all knew, deep down, that Crackdown 3 was never going to be anything special. Years of delays don’t seem to have given developer Sumo Digital the space they needed to build on even the original game’s most basic concepts. It seems content to replicate the parts of the original that worked best…

Crackdown 3 is a game about an agency of highly trained, superpowered cops taking back the city of New Providence from the claws of an evil corporate empire called Terranova. Each sector of the city is overseen by a different brutal crimelord under Terranova’s control. The game’s main campaign has the player baiting these supervillains…

Aragami: Shadow Edition is a rather clever blend of modern stealth elements and old school action-adventure. Its most obvious mechanical influence seems to be Tenchu: Stealth Assassins with a little of Splinter Cell‘s shadow cover thrown in for good measure. It adopts an animated look reminiscent of Okami. Indeed, like Okami, Aragami is steeped in…

If I know one thing, it’s that the Far Cry series has always found its beauty amongst the insanity. From highlights like Far Cry 3, it’s safe to say the series had morphed from a tropical survival experience into an insane holiday of blood, hallucinations and chaos. Far Cry: New Dawn stands as a worthy…

Now is as good a time as any for 4A Games’ Metro franchise to emerge from its dank subterranean setting and venture out into a terribly unforgiving post-apocalyptic Russia. It’s what series protagonist Artyom has strived for all these years after all, setting out on an ambitious adventure across harsh tundras, spooky desserts and mysterious…

I haven’t enjoyed any title in the Battle Royale genre before Apex Legends. Not one. To date, my firmly held opinion has been that BR is a multiplayer mode that has risen well above its station, lacking the substance required to be a genre unto itself. Apex Legends not only changed my opinion on Battle…

The Stillness of the Wind is a melancholy tale and one that frequently had me in tears, even if it was hard to articulate why. The premise is simple — you play as Talma, an old woman who lives on a farm. As the years have gone by, the people in Talma’s life have left…

There are only four good skateboarding video games, and the OlliOlli series are two of them.* Roll7’s OlliOlli and its follow-up OlliOlli 2: Welcome to Olliwood are side-scrolling skateboarding titles that are all about putting the sickest runs together and racking up massive score multipliers. Both games have a deceptively simple 2D look that belie…

Activision Blizzard has laid off 800 people, a total 8% of the company’s entire workforce after ~only~ making an extra $100 million in profit last year. As retrenched employees began to tweet that they were out of a job, Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick told shareholders the company had experienced a record year, raking in…

Astroneer has a lot in common with No Man’s Sky. It has a lot of the same ideas, the same goals, but its ambition is much smaller. This is in no way a bad thing. There’s less flying around the galaxy looking for planets and more spending time on planets, mining deep into their crust…

The day has finally arrived. Almost 14 years after Kingdom Hearts II was released to critical acclaim on the PS2, its long awaited follow up Kingdom Hearts III is here. But fans of the series — which melded the Final Fantasy and Disney universes a decade before the company acquired the Marvel Cinematic Universe —…

I really like HyperX’s keyboards. I’m on record as a fan of their gear. The thing is, I’ve really only had experience with their top-of-the-line mechanical boards. The HyperX Alloy Core RGB gaming keyboard is not one of these top-of-the-line boards. But just because it isn’t a mechanical board doesn’t mean it isn’t worth your…

There was a time when point-and-click adventures ruled the roost, with companies like LucasArts churning out hit after hit between Maniac Mansion, The Secret of Monkey Island Grim Fandango and Full Throttle. Since the 1980s, video game technologies have advanced unbelievably, opening up a diverse range of options for gameplay, allowing sprawling open world adventures…

Over the last week, I’ve been playing God Eater 3. It’s a snappy, mayhem-filled romp where you take down titanic beasts called Aragami with your team of fellow God Eaters. The game is filled with cool swords, cool guns and cool combat. One might say it just oozes cool. But, I’m not actually here to…

If you haven’t checked in on the original Tom Clancy’s The Division in a while, it might surprise you to know that that game is in the best shape of its life right now. Numerous development studios within Ubisoft, including lead developer Massive Entertainment and multiplayer specialist Ubisoft Annecy, have regularly added new content throughout…