Video Games

I told you. I bloody told you Warcraft III was coming back. During their keynote address at BlizzCon 2018, Blizzard Entertainment’s classic games team took to the stage to talk about what they’d been working on since completing last year’s StarCraft Remastered. Warcraft III Reforged revives the classic RTS series that gave birth to an…

Despite Blizzard’s clear warnings that fans should “temper their expectations” regarding any announcements made at BlizzCon this year, the internet has gone nuclear over Diablo Immortal, a fully fledged version of the popular ARPG for iOS and Android mobiles. The announcement came at the end of today’s BlizzCon keynote address/show-and-tell and it was hard not…

If you haven’t noticed by now, the eSports industry is on an exciting growth trajectory that won’t be slowing down anytime soon. Less and less people on the outside looking in are seeing eSports as a niche interest or trend, but a legitimate, lucrative and very, very entertaining sport that could easily eclipse traditional sports…

The NBA Playgrounds series is back once again for its second attempt at a slam dunk, with a fun, charming and old school approach rarely seen since the good old days of NBA Jam. I’m happy to say that NBA 2K Playgrounds 2 is an improvement over its predecessor in almost every single way, with…

Dark Souls Remastered finally makes its way onto the Nintendo Switch after bringing its most polished iteration of the game to date on those respective consoles. I am glad to say that Dark Souls Remastered’s latest outing is as good as it’s ever been, bringing players back to the world of Lordan; and being able…

For Honor made a few splashes when it debuted in early 2017, showing off some impressive combat mechanics topped off with a varied and intriguing mix of knights, vikings and samurai all duking it out for territorial supremacy. While I had enjoyed For Honor immensely, I won’t lie when I say I fell off the…

And now, a take that may be controversial: Diablo 3 is way better on console than it is on PC. No seriously, hear me out on this one. While Diablo 3 has been available on the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 for some time, this is the game’s first appearance on the Nintendo Switch or,…

For the second time in a row, PAX Aus 2018 has managed to blow me away yet again with the overwhelming presence of indie titles on display. With so many fantastic ideas coming to fruition and the increasing number of titles being made within Melbourne, I couldn’t help but jump back into the madness and…

For those old enough to have played Resident Evil 2 the first time around (or perhaps later in one of its numerous ports), there will be a lot about Capcom’s ground-up remaster that will feel familiar. There will also be a lot that is wholly new. In updating a twenty year old game for a…

Back in late September, Ken Levine, one of the driving forces behind the Bioshock series posted this to Twitter during Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Attonement. Today is the Jewish day of atonement, it seems. So I’m here to apologize for the naked Atlas boss battle at the end of BioShock. pic.twitter.com/UeaEWV717Q — Ken Levine (@levine) September…

It’s no secret that PAX Aus is one of the most talked about events in Australian games industry calendar. With that being said, you can imagine it’s quite busy, with three days of non-stop action for fans from across the nation and the world. With an overwhelming amount of AAA titles, indie marvels and everything…

With PAX Australia done and dusted, there comes time for introspection and assessment. Dozens of games from across the industry made appearances on the show floor, with some leaving far more of an impression than others. What follows is a run down of the best that PAX had to offer, and the games that shone…

We could be ready to see something monumental on the horizon from Blizzard. Here’s the low down – Blizzard’s annual festival-like event, BlizzCon is kicking off on November 2. Blizzard takes that time to celebrate its different games — Starcraft II, Overwtch, Heroes of the Storm, World of Warcraft, Diablo and Hearthstone, and to celebrate the…

The LEGO franchise has become one of the least surprising in gaming – not because it’s become stagnant, but because it’s managed to hit the perfect balance of action, adventure and comedy within its titles. The franchise’s newest entry, LEGO DC Super-Villains hits all the same notes as usual, alongside some welcome new ones. Character…

With PAX Australia 2018 right around the corner, Aussie gamers are soon to be flooded with heaps of great new content. From Aussie indies to the best of the rest, we take a look at some of the most eye-catching games featured at PAX, and what we’re looking forward to most. Necrobarista, Route 59 Necrobarista…

There have been a few straight copies of Niantic’s mega-successful Pokémon Go (yes, people still play it; someone trade me a Mewtwo please) but none quite as odd as this one. Follow JC Go!, an augmented reality adventure app inspired by the same people that bought you Catholicism (the religion, not the game), has been…

Oh Mega Man, such a treasured relic of the past, and one of the great gaming franchises of the 8-bit era. It was — is — one of the few series that could get away with being so repetitive and frustratingly difficult because there’s something about its simple premise and nostalgia-inducing schtick that just stuck…

Developers being chewed up and spat out by the global video games industry is a topic that’s been cropping up a lot over the past months. As news of renowned studios closing their doors, sky-high developer turnover and, just as of this week, employees working 100 hour weeks in an effort to get major releases…

Last week, something occurred in the AAA gaming space that you don’t see every day. Players who pre-order their games digitally across Xbox, PC and PS4 are often extended the luxury of preloading games. Preloading is the process of downloading a game prior to its street date. You can’t play a pre-loaded game right away, the…

I’m going to open this review with a comparison that may lose some of you right away. Sometimes, in order to learn and grow in a meaningful way, we have to cut a significant part of ourselves off. It may take us a while to work up the courage to make that change, it may…

In 2010, Gabe Newell joined Sony at E3, in one of the most controversial crossovers of all time, to announce cross platform play between PS3 and PC for their then-forthcoming title, Portal 2. Newell also noted that he and the gathered throng were seeing a shift in the games industry. Video: Kahleb Olsson “Entertainment-as-a-product to…

With only a week remaining until the launch of what is arguably the year’s biggest game, Rockstar Games have released the launch trailer for Red Dead Redemption 2. It’s another more cinematic glimpse at the game, hinting at trouble within Dutch’s gang and the game’s broader story.   From train robberies (and Arthur complaining that…

It’s a warm spring Tuesday when I arrive at the National Art School in Sydney. The School is located on the site of the old Darlinghurst Gaol and is steeped in the history of the area. Its connection to DICE’s Battlefield V, a multiplayer-centric first person shooter set in World War II, is a bit…

Veteran character actor Sean Bean has died a lot on-screen. Known for roles like Boromir in The Lord of the Rings and Ned Stark on Game of Thrones, old mate Sean always seems to bite it in the end. He’s died on film so many times that it’s become a bit of a running joke….

Thought that ‘toys to life’ video game fad was over? That the days of collecting Skylanders and Disney Infinity figures were behind you? Guess again. Starlink: Battle for Atlas marks developer Ubisoft Toronto’s first attempt at creating a fun, friendly, accessible spaceship combat-based experience for the young and old alike. While it’s not perfect, Starlink: Battle for…

One of the biggest competitions in Australian esports returns in early November. Gfinity Elite Season 2 returns to Sydney’s Entertainment Quarter in Moore Park from November 3 and will see teams from almost every major Australian city competing across of esports biggest titles. The Season 2 competition will comprise of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Street Fighter…

Luigi’s Mansion for GameCube was a masterpiece in-game design, becoming one of the best-selling titles of 2001 and leaving a legacy of greatness in its wake. With a long-awaited sequel released on 3DS in 2013 and another scheduled for Switch in 2019, it only made sense for the game to make a grand return. While…

When last year’s iteration of 2K’s WWE series came around, I was incredibly cynical about the title. For a long time, the games have followed largely the same formula, with a few graphical tweaks here and there. WWE 2K19 is different, representing a significant leap for the franchise – although, not enough of one to…

A quarter of Australian and New Zealand gamers rated their skills as being “pretty damn good” in Dell’s State of Gaming Survey. Were you one of them? Even if you weren’t, we reckon this competition might be for you. Dell has turned up the heat with its G Series laptops and we’ve got one to…

Annual gaming festival Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) is held in multiple cities around the world, and luckily for us Melbourne is one of them! These festivals combine table top gaming, arcade gaming and video gaming and host a stack of tournaments, panels and performances all in the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre. A unique aspect…