Video Games

Remember Roller Coaster Tycoon? Man, that game was awesome. Building crazed, malevolent roller coasters specifically to make anyone who dared ride them barf up a lung the moment it ended? Brilliant. It’s clear that the people at Frontier Games have played a lot of Roller Coaster Tycoon because Screamride is both an ardent homage to…

Dragon Ball Xenoverse is the latest in a line of over a hundred video games based on Akira Toriyama’s enduring manga and wildly popular anime adaptation, Dragon Ball Z. With the best and most true-to-the-anime visuals of any DBZ title to date, and a story that messes with the established DBZ story, you could be…

Nintendo’s recent foray into more mobile games has been cause for jubilation for some long-time fans, determined for Nintendo to survive in an industry more cutthroat than ever before, and dismay for others who would prefer Nintendo not dive into the cheap-and-cheerful world of mobile gaming. This new willingness from Nintendo to embrace cheaper and…

What can you say about The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask that hasn’t already been said? As the first Zelda title to follow the revolutionary The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask had it had its work cut out for it. Pushing the Nintendo 64 hardware to its limit, Majora’s Mask dared to…

The Total War series is a venerable one. Releasing one game after another over the last 15 years, it remains willfully experimental, seeking a way to combine real-time strategy with turn-based strategy into one cohesive whole. Total War: Attila not without its problems but, like its namesake, it’s more than willing to take a few…

Evolve is one of those games that feels like it’s been in the pipeline for a really long time. Developed by Turtle Rock Studios, the team behind Valve’s multiplayer zombie shoot-em-up Left 4 Dead, it sees a sci-fi future (plainly influenced by 80’s sci-fi films like Predator and Aliens) in which a squad of four…

It’s a testament to the power of the Playstation 3 that in 2015 – over 8 years after it was first released – new games continue to be released for Sony’s popular console. Though most games set for 2015 are essentially ports of games that are next gen ready, the odd release is exclusive to…

Now that we’re emerging from the essentially gameless month that is always January – aka the time where you get to beat all the games you received for Christmas – we’re starting to get excited about the year ahead. And so we thought we’d bring you a list of some of the games we’re looking…

Life is Strange – Episode One, like its protagonist Max, is kind of a weird kid. Part Twin Peaks, part Juno, with just a pinch of Veronica Mars, it borrows liberally from the episodic point-and-click formula that’s been so successful for Telltale Games. It does, however, try to present something we haven’t seen in the…

In about 24 hours, EA is opening up a multiplayer beta mode for the highly anticipated game Battlefield: Hardline, which is being officially released across just about all consoles on March 17th. The beta period – which is only open for five days – gives the public the chance to road test three of the…

Disney’s Fantasia: Music Evolved feels like a bit of a strange beast when you first encounter it – it’s a Kinect-controlled game based on Fantasia, Walt Disney’s 1940 love note to classical music. But this feeling of uncertainty lasts only as long as it takes to get into your first song which is where the…

Ultimate Ears is expanding their already impressive line of mobile speakers with the introduction of the UE MEGABOOM. This is the real deal, fronting the next generation of portable wireless speakers that don’t skip on sound quality. With a list of features from easy wireless updates to a 20 hour rechargable battery life, the UE MEGABOOM is made for convenient use that ‘blasts freakishly amazing sound!’

Recommended for use with the new Sony Xperia Z3 Smartphone, the Sony Digital Noise Cancelling Headset (RRP AU$79, MDR-NC31EM) brings together high quality sound with digital noise cancelling technology for an affordable price. Audio Quality Firstly, let’s talk about the audio quality. Putting it simply: it’s solid. With frequency response from 20Hz to 20,000Hz, it…

The latest Australian Video Games release dates… 2018 JULY 3/7/18 Jurassic World Evolution (PS4, XBO, PC) 6/7/18 The Lost Child (PS4, NS) Ys XIII: Lacrimosa of Dana (NS) 12/7/18 Shining Resonance Refrain (PS4, XBO, NS) 13/7/18 Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker (NS, 3DS) Earthfall (PS4, XBO, Hero Defense(PS4) Octopath Traveller (NS) Runbow Deluxe Edition (PS4) Nintendo…

It’s been an amazing – and often record-breaking – year in video games, but as usual there are a pile of favourites that stick out amongst the rest. So, it’s time we look back at the ones we consider as part of that list. Here now are the 15 games we think are the best…

If you, gentle reader, are anything like me then you might spend an inordinate amount of time lamenting the near-extinction of couch co-op as a multiplayer component. All but gone are the days of having a few friends over and playing a game together on the same screen, in the same room, competitively or cooperatively….

The Lego series’ core gameplay loop is extremely familiar by now. You jump from character to character and smash your way through a series of levels, punching baddies and solving rather basic puzzles in order to proceed. Obsessive collecting of lego studs is rewarded with unlockable characters, vehicles and even stages. This loop has seen…

Telltale’s second offering of the holiday season is the product of their fruitful partnership with Warner Bros on The Wolf Among Us earlier this year. This new adventure title, Game of Thrones: A Telltale Games Series – based on HBO’s wildly successful fantasy series of the same name – offers immense value both to fans…

LittleBigPlanet 3 is the first main title in Sony’s long-running series of creativity-focused platformers not to be developed by series creators Media Molecule. Developers Sumo Digital have been tasked with taking Sackboy on it’s latest adventure and, though they do a respectable job for the most part, LittleBigPlanet 3 still falls short of everything it…

The Wii U’s most hotly anticipated title is finally here. Super Smash Bros. for Wii U has been a very long time coming indeed and for fans of the series keen to beat their friends up all over again, it’s everything you ever wanted from a Smash Bros title and much, much more.

The second of three Telltale Games releases this holiday season, the first episode of Tales from the Borderlands is a step in a different direction for the developer. Usually preferring slower-paced story-telling with a focus on dialogue, “Zer0 Sum” smashes theatrically through the walls of Telltale’s comfort zone and takes you on a pacey, action-oriented…

I’m kind of a comic book nut. When Telltale Games announced that they were releasing a noir point-and-click adventure based on Bill Willingham’s FABLES series of graphic novels, I was pretty excited. Though The Wolf Among Us released earlier this year in it’s entirety on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC, the game has just seen…

Where do you start with a game like Dragon Age: Inquisition? Bioware have unleashed on an unprepared world a game with so much to see and do that it defies belief. Bioware have taken the lessons they learned from Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age II and their mechanically similar Mass Effect series and applied them…

I am what could be called an Assassin’s Creed apologist. I’ve defended the series against hyper-critical friends and co-workers, I even managed to find things to like about Assassin’s Creed III — and everyone hated that one. Where many have grown weary of the series since it became a yearly franchise, I’ve continued to look…

Halo: The Master Chief Collection is an anthology title comprised of all four games starring the enduringly popular one-man-army (and unofficial Xbox mascot) Master Chief. For Halo fans anxiously awaiting the next entry in the series, Halo 5: Guardians, the Master Chief Collection offers a comprehensive stroll down memory lane in the interim. This collection…

EA Sports has released a brand new, official trailer for FIFA 15‘s Ultimate Team features, which you can watch below. The trailer shows the trill of the game, with the opportunity to put together the best team in the world. FIFA 15 out now on Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3 and PC….

Sunset Overdrive is Californian developer Insomniac Games (noted for PlayStation exclusives like Ratchet & Clank and Resistance) first Xbox One exclusive, a frantic, idiosyncratic, open-world third-person shooter that pulls elements from a number of different games and combines them, with a twisted sense of humour, to create something that feels quite fresh and different.

Sony have just released their latest smartphone in Australia, the anticipated Xperia Z3, some six months after they made waves with their last model. The updates focus on the entertainment factor (in particular its use as a remote screen for the Playstation 4) as well as a slimmer, lighter and improved ergonomic designs. Screen and…

On first inspection, Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor wasn’t a title that interested me overmuch when it was announced last year. It looked too derivative of games like Assassin’s Creed or Batman: Arkham City, with its parkour-happy ranger and free-flow combat. This year’s holiday season games crop has been very good at subverting expectations, though, and…

When The Creative Assembly (the Total War series) announced their decision to create a survival horror game based on Ridley Scott’s 1979 sci fi masterpiece Alien, the sour taste of Aliens: Colonial Marines was still strong in our mouths. It was difficult to view the decision as anything other than a profound mistake. Thankfully, The…