Previews

From the first, the biggest question I’ve had about Watch Dogs Legion was if it could capitalise on its ambitious concept. It presents a dystopian vision of London held hostage under a fascist paramilitary rule. DedSec, the prolific hacker collective is working to destabilise the regime but they’re having a rough go of it. Numbers…

With the next generation of consoles looming, developer Visual Concepts has decided to shed some light on the current generation’s version of NBA 2K21, highlighting some new and improved features, updated modes and revamped locations. While much of the next-gen version is still under wraps, our sneak peak has given us a positive feeling about…

Though still in production at the time of writing, the Mafia: Definitive Edition remaster feels like it’s stretched between two extremes. It wants to pay homage to a well-liked yarn, ensuring players in the modern era can still experience Tommy Angelo’s rise to power. But it also has to translate game design and mechanics from…

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 are the video game equivalent of The Beatles. Even if you’ve never actively played them before, you still know a lot about them by pure cultural osmosis. I could ask you about Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater and, if you care about video games at all, you could likely tell me something…

After proving their bona fides with The Golf Club series, developer HB Studios has gone all in. PGA Tour 2K21 aims to return the humble golf sim to the glory days of Tiger Woods PGA Tour 14, with real-life courses and real-life golfers in the mix. Unline any of these real-life golfers, I am not very…

With the way Marvel’s MCU has come to dominate the movie landscape, and AAA superhero games such as Marvel’s Spider-Man breaking sales records, there’s been a lot of interest in Square Enix’s take on Marvel’s Avengers. We got our hands on roughly three hours of gameplay in this week’s Closed Beta, and while there’s plenty…

Microsoft Flight Simulator feels really good and is happy to meet you where you are, regardless of whether you’re a long-time fan of the series or a complete aviation novice, and that’s all you need to know. End of preview? No? I’ve still got another 1700 words to fill? Okay, no, no it’s fine, I…

Aggressively blending real-time strategy and first-person shooter elements works, on paper. Disintegration is the latest title to hybridise the two genres, promising a new kind of gameplay that, while interesting, lacks the necessary depth to truly set it apart from novel sci-fi games of the past. Driving the hype behind this game is the involvement…

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…

I never expected jumping back into the role of Doomslayer was going to be a walk in the park, but the level of non-stop carnage and breathless, rhythmic gameplay still caught me off guard. It’s been years since I rage-quit the acclaimed 2016 iteration of Doom (I’ll pick it up again, one day), but even…

When your goal is to remake a game like Final Fantasy VII, where do you even begin? Lets set aside its legendary status and the pressure of delivering on such a project. Consider instead the more intricate moving parts — its characters, mechanics and systems, its visuals, art direction, and score. Its sheer size presents…

Warcraft III has loomed large in my mind ever since its launch in 2002. A natural evolution of the real-time strategy games that birthed the franchise, Warcraft III turned the genre on its ear. The introduction of hero units, named characters more powerful than a typical soldier, made it unique within the genre. To see Blizzard…

After a barrage of impressive indie titles, I simply had to make another top 5 to round out the rest. So without further ado, let me bring to you the top 5 overall games from the PAX Aus 2019 floor. Keep in mind, we only got to see or play brief moments of the final…

It’s no secret that Marvel’s Avengers appearance at PAX Aus 2019 was one of the biggest, if not the biggest title on the show floor; so you just know we had to hit it up. My 20 minutes with Marvel’s Avengers was an eye opening experience to say the least, as I had shared some…

PAX Rising has always satisfied my craving for new and inventive experiences, and this year is no different. So once again, I decided to roam the floor and dive into as many indie titles as I can, picking out my top 5 indie titles from PAX Aus 2019. Keep in mind, these are not reviews…

Biomutant was extremely weird, and the PAX build was rather janky but that didn’t change one important factor: I think I love it. Biomutant is a game about survival as a tiny mammalian mutant that looks a bit like a koala. Surviving on what seems to be a version of Earth that suffered some massive…

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare has sparked both anticipation and controversy since its reveal earlier this year. With multiplayer gameplay revealed for the first time last month, gamers are still left with one question; how does it feel in the hands? While the official release is still a while away, the beta has answered many…

The Ghost Recon franchise returns yet again, giving gamers a tactical option in a world full of run-and-gun looter shooters. I must say that I rather enjoyed Ghost Recon Wildlands, boasting a large, if a little bland open world, and a truckload of content to complete. Gameplay was tight, responsive and ‘tactical’ in its nature….

In early May, I was among the first in the world to play Borderlands 3 at the official gameplay reveal event in Los Angeles. That preview gave us access to two of the game’s four classes — the muscular Siren Amara and the cloak-and-dagger Operative Zane. We were promised then that we’d get to spend…

In the last few years, I’ve watched on as friends with happy, Super Nintendo-infused childhoods got to grips with the SNES Mini. The SNES Mini is a recreation of Nintendo’s legendary machine that is as elegant as it is functional — a curatorial showcase of its greatest titles, controllers that were made of the same…

Monster Hunter World: Iceborne feels like it’s got a lot it wants to do. It has the unenviable task of expanding and refining a game that is known for its high level of technical and mechanical complexity. Fans keep coming back to the series because they love that complexity. Thus a lot of fans are…

On the list of most ridiculous things that have ever happened to me, being flown to the other side of the world to play a video game for an hour and a half may take the cake. On Monday, 2K Games ANZ flew a small pack of journos and influencers to Los Angeles to be…

All Misfortune Ramirez Hernandez wants is to be happy. With an abusive father and an alcoholic mother, her life isn’t all sunshine and rainbows – but perhaps a bit of glitter will solve her problems. Little Misfortune is the newest game from Swedish studio Killmonday Games, developer of one of our favourite creepy point-and-click adventures,…

Entering the world of Hob is a magical experience. With no dialogue, a minimalist soundtrack and a towering, robotic companion as your only companion, the world is beautiful – but empty. The wind whistles through the grass, trees sway and the earth breathes, but you appear to be the only humanoid around. It’s a world…

FromSoftware are good at making games writers nervous. We head along to these hands-on previews with our heads held high (metaphorically, many of us have terrible posture), confident in our ability to kick some serious digital ass and wow any observers with our mad skills. Demon’s Souls? A cake walk. Bloodbourne? Orphan of Kos was…

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…

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…

I’ve had questions about Anthem ever since it was announced. It’s been about a year and a half since Anthem was first announced and my questions are finally getting some answers. While EA’s desire for an ongoing MMO shooter in the Destiny mould was understandable, it was the tapping of legendary RPG studio Bioware to create…

I’d been playing Far Cry New Dawn for about an hour when a dusty neuron in the back of my brain began to fire, two thoughts connecting in real time. New Dawn is a spin-off title in the Far Cry series, but is a direct sequel to 2018’s Far Cry 5. The cynical view of…

Ukrainian developer 4A Games have spent the last decade doggedly chasing the perfect adaptation of Metro, Dmitri Glukhovsky’s series of post-apocalyptic science fiction novels. In Metro 2033 and Metro: Last Light, 4A gave it everything they had, attempting to execute on their vision with the tools and funding at their disposal. They met with differing degrees of success but…