Video Games

Australia has been absolutely spoiled with the eSports scene as of late. With people like Scott Kennedy (Custa) representing us on the world stage at the Overwatch League, for the LA Valiant, with the recently sponsored JB Hi-Fi Melbourne eSports open happening, and the even more recent Quake eSports event at PAX Melbourne, not to…

id Software’s Doom, the progenitor of the first person shooter genre as we know it, turns 25 today. A game that was so uniquely itself that the term First Person Shooter was invented so we could stop called them “Doom clones,” Doom is an indelible component in the gaming landscape. To commemorate the 25 year…

It’s been 20 years since Masahiro Sakurai became the architect of one of the riskiest experiments in Nintendo’s history. Super Smash Bros‘ dramatic origin story is well known — Sakurai had an idea for a four-player fighting game featuring Nintendo characters. Sakurai was acutely aware that getting Nintendo to approve a game about their beloved…

This year marks the second year that The Games Awards have celebrated an ‘Ongoing game’ award, beginning last year and being won by Overwatch, to recognise “A trend towards games that continue to entertain long after their release and continue to grow and evolve with their players”, as last years presented made out on stage….

Decisions made by major developers have made this year have indicated Steam’s uncontested reign as the dominant PC gaming storefront may be coming to an end. This week, a conversation has sprung up around the Epic Games Store and the value it offers developers when selling their games. Does Valve finally have direct competition? To call Steam…

Only two years ago, I reviewed Just Cause 3 for what was then the AU’s film and TV masthead, The Iris. In writing that review, I learned an important lesson about the link between taking your time and offering responsible critique. What a great opportunity to reaffirm that lesson, I thought when our review copy…

Civilization VI was already complicated game long before the decision was made to port it to console. A great game to be sure, but a very complicated one. Civ has long made its home on the PC. The game’s overall complexity and forest of nested menus made a jump to console seem all but impossible….

Battlefield V is goddamned pretty. It’s something I’ve continually murmured to myself while reviewing DICE’s latest entry in their longrunning shooter franchise. Nobody is capable of squeezing the visual juice out of EA’s Frostbite engine quite as well as they can. The game they have constructed with it isn’t just one of the best Battlefield…

The biggest fear I had following Bethesda’s announcement of Fallout 76 was that the move to an online would blow up in their faces. Adding real people to the equation has always been one of fastest ways to ruin any gaming experience. But, from time to time, it’s also the best way to create unique,…

When your company, a video game developer known for a very niche, though long-running series, is cut loose from its home at a well-known publisher, there is good reason to believe you’ll never make a game again. This was the nightmare scenario that played out for Hitman developer IO interactive when Square-Enix decided to remove…

Think about all the video games you’ve played. Now think about how many of those titles didn’t have a grappling hook in them and how lame that was. The grappling hook is one of the most iconic tropes in video games history. It has such longevity that people are still making games built around it…

From what I’ve seen, 2018 has proven to be one thing, above a whole lot of other things: the year of the Role-Playing Game. Between releases like Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire, Vampyr, Octopath: Traveler, Monster Hunter World, and new studio attempts at RPG’s like Ubisoft’s Assassins Creed Odyssey and Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption 2, we have been…

I have a crippling desire to look good in video games. It’s an unfathomably stupid impulse, but creating the most beautiful possible avatar in any given game is a habit I regularly give in to. I am certain I am not alone in this. To preface this piece – the two games I really threw…

Warning, this article contains spoilers for Red Dead Redemption 2, read at your own peril Red Dead Redemption 2 is likely to be “Game of the Year” from a tonne of different award ceremonies; it’s a juggernaut of design, deep in conception and brilliant in execution, to the pain of talented developers who have worked…

There’s been a debate for years (among those for whom these things are a concern) regarding the apparent superiority of PC gaming over console gaming — desires for higher frame rates, better graphics and wider variety of titles drive the debate, but something that’s prevalent within each argument is cost, from peripherals to internal hardware….

If you’re into the eSports scene in Australia, you’ve probably heard of the Gfinity Elite Series, hosted by Alienware. If not, here’s a quick rundown – it’s a competitive series running games of Rocket League, CS:GO and Street Fight V, to seek out and identify potential pro players that could use some sponsorship and be brought…

Everybody’s favourite flaming 90’s mascot is back (again) in Spyro Reignited Trilogy, a collection of the first three entries in the franchise (and the only ones worth playing). Charting Spyro’s adventures across the Dragon Kingdom, Avalar and the Forgotten Worlds, the trilogy is presented in shiny remastered format, breathing life back into what had become…

Pokémon Let’s Go Pikachu/Eevee had its fair share of doubters when it was first announced. A very small but very loud minority decried every new announcement, complaining that the new title would be too easy and kid-friendly. Ironically, it’s this ease and accessibility that makes the title shine so brightly. Essentially, Let’s Go is a…

Tetris Effect is extremely good and you should play it. I’m not burying the lede on this one. Tetris Effect is one of the best and most inventive entries the long-running puzzle series has seen in years, and if you are in any way interested in Tetris then you need to pick this up. Tetris…

Armello, the fantasy-steeped digital board game by Melbourne studio League of Geeks is very, very good. We’ve known this for a while. The game is available on almost every platfom there is and if you haven’t availed yourself of its strategic, card-based suspense and dice-roll intrigue since its launch 2015 then you really should. Conveniently,…

When Netflix announced that they would be taking on The Witcher as a TV series, fan excitement was overwhelming. Since then, Henry Cavill has been confirmed as playing the big man Geralt himself, with a character reveal recently shown off on Twitter. Get your first look at Henry Cavill in The Witcher! pic.twitter.com/1O2eWS1MkP — Netflix (@netflix)…

Feeling old yet? Everybody’s favourite purple dragon Spyro turns 20 today, and to celebrate his birthday – and the release of the highly anticipated Spyro Reignited Trilogy, baking sensations Raymond Tan and Vickie Liu have teamed up for a one-of-a-kind Spyro cake. Baked with cassis grape swiss meringue buttercream, chocolate shards and delicate isomalt sugar…

Warcraft III: Reforged is coming, and it’s easily one of the most exciting announcements BlizzCon has had in years. Fans have been waiting years for this particular reveal, to the extent that some began creating mods for Starcraft II that would allow them to play out their Warcraft III fantasies to their hearts content. However,…

The Lego Harry Potter game franchise first launched in 2010, and has since been adapted and remastered for nearly every device imaginable. This includes, but is not limited to, Nintendo DS, PlayStation Portable, iOS, OS X and Android. To be made available on literally everything is the mark of a true great, and with the release…

As the medium has grown in complexity and ambition, the debate over whether or not video games can be considered art has continued unabated. The mixture of media elements that influence game development, from gameplay to graphics, art, sound design and narrative all lend themselves to the idea that games can be considered art, but…

My Hero One’s Justice is a game designed purely for the My Hero Academia faithful, not because it’s inaccessible, but because the story begins at the halfway mark, picking up our protagonist Midoriya’s journey from his internship with hero Gran Torino – about the halfway mark of season two for those that follow the anime….

The Elder Scrolls Online, first launched in 2014, has leapt from strength to strength in recent years having since launched multiple new content packs, including the gargantuan Morrowind and Summerset expansions in 2017 and 2018 respectively. At PAX Australia, we had the chance to sit down with Elder Scrolls Online’s Game Director, Matt Firor, to…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sZsk8VHY2g New details have emerged surrounding Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, notably, you can play as infamous Mario level-hazard, Piranha Plant. https://twitter.com/Tetra_Flora/status/1058108258706186240 Piranha plant will be available to players who purchase early – either those who register their game card before January 31st 2019, or to those who buy digital versions. On top of this, Inceneroar…

Call of Cthulhu is not a game that belongs on the modern generation of consoles. It’s clunky, muddy and technically unpolished – yet, there’s something surprisingly cunning about it, because it uses its own murk to great effect. When textures cut in and out of focus or objects seem to disappear, it only adds to…

I don’t exactly know how one reviews a piece of media as expansive as Red Dead Redemption 2. To call it a game is the correct descriptor, but it also doesn’t feel like it quite encapsulates the enormity of what Rockstar have accomplished. Red Dead Redemption 2 is an open world Western set in the very…