Windows PC

Games Review: State of Decay 2 (Xbox One, 2018): All work, no play

There is an easy way to tell if State of Decay 2 is going to be your thing or not. How do you react when you realise a game feels like bloody hard work? Do you dig in or do you check out? If you tend to dig in, then chances are you’ll find loads…

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Gotta go fast: The Crew 2 closed beta kicks off May 31

After being delayed earlier in the year, The Crew 2‘s release date now creeps ever closer which means its time to start those good, good server stress tests. That means a chance to play a little bit of the game early starting on May 31 when The Crew 2‘s closed beta officially opens. Signups for…

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Games Interview: Blizzard’s Alan Dabiri on Heroes of the Storm‘s Dark Nexus event

With Heroes of the Storm‘s Dark Nexus event now in full swing, players are getting to see a side of the game they’ve never gotten a piece of before — one with lore, one that attempts to explain the bizarre confluence of characters and events that make up the game’s central conflicts. With so much…

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Games Review: Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire (PC, 2018): Forgotten Realm

A non-trivial amount of my time as a teenager was spent playing Black Isle Studios RPGs. The entry point for many into the Forgotten Realms campaign setting that is the focus of Fifth Edition Dungeons & Dragons, games like Baldur’s Gate and Icewind Dale remain important industry touchstones. The foundations they laid for creating complex…

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Games Review: Total War Saga: Thrones of Britannia (PC, 2018): The shape of wars to come

Don’t let the new title fool you. Total War Saga: Thrones of Britannia is still a fully-fledged entry in Creative Assembly’s long-running series of historical strategy games. But where older Total War titles have selected a particular real world empire or historical era to focus on, Total War Saga narrows its scope. It focuses not…

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Heroes of the Storm‘s new Dark Nexus event finally opens the door to lore

Heroes of the Storm, the hero brawler/MOBA title that mashes all of Blizzard’s most popular heroes together like action figures in a toy box, hasn’t ever really felt the need to explain itself. This set it apart from other Blizzard games where lore and backstory have always played a crucial part in keeping players hooked….

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Games Preview: State of Decay 2 (Xbox One/PC, 2018): Survival of the fittest

“When we announced State of Decay 2 last year, we were prepared for cries of ‘Do we really need another zombie game?’” says Undead Labs founder Jeff Strain during his short intro to our little group of games journos at Soultrap Bar in Surry Hills. “Our answer was yes.” It’s the kind of emphatic ‘yes’ I’ve…

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Games Review: TT Isle of Man: Ride on the Edge (PS4, 2018): Gotta go fast

I imagine almost everyone who’s ever ridden a motorcycle has heard the same worried refrain from their mum about how motorcycles claim thousands of lives on the road every year. For those who decide to put mum’s mind at rest and stick to a car, TT: Isle of Man is a great consolation prize, an…

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Tech Review: Razer Nommo Chroma 2.0 Desk Speakers: The sound of cannonfire

You review enough gadgets and speakers and eventually you get a sense for The Order of Things. You can tell a lot about a device just from looking at the promo images — you get an idea of their size, the design philosophy and where their predicted strengths and weaknesses will lie. And sometimes they…

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Games Review: Extinction (PS4, 2018): A Giant Disappointment

Extinction offers up an interesting premise that I was personally drawn to. Being a fan of The Shadow of the Colossus, which this game seems to borrow elements from, it seemed like a no-brainer. What we get however, is an underdeveloped pot of mediocrity that pulls off a few neat tricks, while ultimately crumbling under…

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World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth launches August 14

World of Warcraft‘s seventh expansion pack, Battle for Azeroth, will let slip the dogs of war on August 14 bringing with it a slew of new locations, new races and new mechanics.

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Games Review: Far Cry 5 (PS4, 2018): Ain’t no easy way out

Far Cry 5 has been something of a curiosity since it was announced. While an unquestionably brave move to set this new installment of the 14 year old franchise in the United States, many were curious about the game’s motives — given the political and social turmoil in which the US currently finds itself, would…

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Games Review: Sea of Thieves (Xbox One, 2018): Pirates could happen to anyone

As I write this, three days after a rather bumpy launch, its clear that Sea of Thieves is a bit of a mixed bag. There are things that I love about it, there are things that I don’t love about it and there are things that I feel are not particularly well understood by those who…

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Games Review: Assassin’s Creed Origins: Curse of the Pharaohs DLC (Xbox One X, 2018): Zoinks, gang, it’s a mummy

It’s been around six months sine Assassin’s Creed Origins arrived and in that time, the game has proven itself to be one with legs. With Curse of the Pharaohs, the game’s latest and largest DLC expansion to date, Ubisoft looks to keep Bayek’s adventure rolling with a trip to Thebes.

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Games Review: Burnout Paradise Remastered (Xbox One X, 2017): Throwback Thursday

If Burnout Paradise Remastered does anything, it makes the EA of 2008 look like a benevolent creativity incubator when compared to the strife-prone publisher of today. For one thing, the game is great fun. For another, its clear that developer Criterion was given the room they needed to properly execute on their vision. It’s a…

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Tech Review: Razer Wolverine Tournament Edition PC/Xbox One Controller: Pushing your buttons

When I was a kid, third party controllers were to be scoffed at. There was always one janky unofficial controller in the set that no-one wanted to use on Multiplayer Night. Times have changed though and the third-party peripheral market has never been quite this robust. Razer’s latest tilt at a high quality controller  is…

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Games Interview: A.o.T. 2 producer Hisashi Koinuma on lessons learned and taking the series in new directions

Attack on Titan has struck a chord with audiences, reaching a level of popularity at home and in the West that many of its contemporaries can only dream of. A video game adaptation was only a matter of time. With 2016’s successful A.o.T.: Wings of Freedom under their belts, developer Omega Force returns for the…

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One year after launch, For Honor just got dedicated servers

For those of you partial to a bit of For Honor in your downtime, life is about to get a lot more bearable. One year after the game’s launch,  Xbox One and PlayStation 4 will notice the game’s team-based, medieval-era multiplayer will run much more smoothly thanks to the rollout of dedicated servers around the…

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We are obsessed with the trailer for 3D Realms’ new shooter, Ion Maiden

3D Realms knows what they’re good at  — old school, fast-paced, gore-soaked 90’s shooters. Who better to create a genre throwback than one of the very developers who pioneered it — using their own original engine no less?

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Games Review: Metal Gear Survive (PS4, 2018) is tough to live through

To put it simply, Metal Gear Survive should not exist. Before evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of the title, one must first address the point of its existence in the first place. The Metal Gear series is famous for its stealth mechanics and intriguing story about the changing landscapes of technology in our world, topped…

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Overwatch‘s latest hero is Brigitte Lindholm — support/tank hyrbid and jill of all trades

After several days of teasers and speculation, Blizzard have revealed the latest hero joining the now 27-strong line up in Overwatch. Brigitte Lindholm, daughter of Swedish weapons master Torbjorn, is a tank/support hybrid, sporting one of the most unique kits of any character introduced so far.

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Assassin’s Creed Origins is about to become your one-stop educational guide to Ancient Egypt

The long-awaited Discovery Tour by Assassin’s Creed: Ancient Egypt content drop for Assassin’s Creed Origins will arrive tomorrow. The update bringing with it a feature that many players have asked for since the series inception — the ability to learn more about the game’s painstakingly recreated Ancient Egyptian history using its interactive setting.

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Games Review: Civilization VI: Rise and Fall (PC, 2018): Teamwork makes the dream work

Broadly speaking, whenever a game receives an expansion pack, they tend to take that word”expansion” rather literally. Typically what they bring to the table is more of everything you could already do in the base game. More units, more characters, more places to visit, things to do. Civilization expansions take a very different approach. They…

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Games Review: Fe (Xbox One, 2018): Beautiful, but oblique

You ever sit down with a game, settle in with it, familiarise yourself with the controls and prepare for the inevitable hook that will lead you on your quest? My experience with Fe was fine right up until the part where the hook was supposed to arrive. It never did. Forty minutes after booting the…

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Games Hands On: Dusk (PC, 2018): Bringing Quake back

Amongst the litany of genre revivals going on in the indie games space right now, there’s one or two that are appearing more than others — Metroidvanias and ultra-hard, skill-centric platformers. Both are born of genres with audiences long-starved starved for content, and it means that interest is high. But, if I may, there’s a…

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Good news — you can probably run Sea of Thieves on your potato laptop

By now its fairly common knowledge that Rare’s upcoming multiplayer pirate title Sea of Thieves would be launching on Xbox One and Windows 10. The question for PC owners after seeing the game in action during the recent beta, particularly those on lower spec machines, was “can my machine ever hope to run this thing?”…

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Games Review: Lost Sphear (PS4, 2018) finds its place amongst mundanity

Lost Sphear has finally been released on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and Windows PC. A successor of sorts to developer Tokyo RPG Factory’s fantastic I Am Setsuna, while it’s not all bad, its hard not to feel like Lost Sphear has lost the things that made Setsuna special.

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Games Preview: Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire: Old school RPG crunch and the deep, blue sea

One of the harder asks in this gig is playing a hundred hour RPG for a preview piece. Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire, like its predecessor and the historic Black Isle Studios RPGs that are its inspiration, is a deep and multifaceted creature which makes diving in without a tutorial a bit daunting. What I…

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You can play Rainbow Six Siege for free next weekend

Rainbow Six Siege has quietly become one of the more popular tactical shooters in recent memory.  Now set for a whole new year of content, Ubisoft is throwing the game’s doors open to everyone for a free weekend starting February 16.

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Overwatch Year of the Dog event begins next week

Overwatch‘s Lunar New Year event returns next week according to an announcement from the game’s official Twitter account. The seasonal event begins on February 9 in Australia.

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