David Smith is the former games and technology editor at The AU Review. He has previously written for PC World Australia. You can find him on Twitter at @RhunWords.
When the blue shell hits, please try not to have a meltdown in public. Mario Kart Tour, the latest entry in the storied racing franchise, is coming to iOS and Android mobiles in September. The game seeks to provide a complete Mario Kart experience for your mobile with the iconic tracks, items and Nintendo racers…
Read More
Fans of Gears 5 will treated to a pretty special night in Melbourne next week when Gears Ink kicks off in Docklands. The one night only Gears Ink pop up event will be hitting LA, London, Berlin, Paris, Mexico City and Melbourne throughout September. Melbourne’s turn is on Thursday, September 5 from 7pm-10pm. The event,…
Read More
After suffering something of a false start at its cinematic-only E3 reveal in June, Marvel’s Avengers has finally pulled back the curtain with a lengthy look at gameplay. The trailer clocks in at just shy of 20 minutes, and focuses on what appears to be the early part of the game, beginning with Thor fighting…
Read More
Damsel is the debut title from Brisbane-based developer Screwtape Studios, and a that weilds is distaste for corporate culture like a cudjel. It’s a balletic, side-scrolling arcade shooter about a special agent on a mission to investigate Red Mist, a drink created by a corporation owned and run by literal, actual vampires. Damsel’s pulpy, comic…
Read More
This one feels like it’s been a long time coming. Spider-Man and Ratchet & Clank developer Insomniac Games have been acquired by Sony. The acquisition makes Insomniac a first-party PlayStation developer within Sony Worldwide Studios. Insomniac’s history with Sony goes back as far as the PlayStation 1. It’s a company responisble for numerous Sony exclusives…
Read More
The Coalition has used Gamescom 2019 to lift the curtain on the few remaining details surrounding Gears 5 ahead of its September 10 launch. One of the most vaunted aspects of its Gamescom appearance was the reveal of Horde, the return of a beloved multiplayer mode from earlier Gears of War games. The trailer promised the…
Read More
Microsoft’s Intellimouse brand has been around a really long time. For much of its life, the Intellimouse has been found at the cheaper end of the hardware scale, the kind of mouse your dad would buy when purchasing a $450 laptop on Boxing Day. Knowing that this was likely the target audience for their device,…
Read More
I never used to be the kind of person who was interested in collecting coloured or limited edition controllers, but that’s all changed in the last hardware generation. Both PlayStation and Xbox regularly release beautiful, stylish new controllers and every one of them demands I buy them immediately. Perfect example: look at these beautiful new…
Read More
Here’s a video game truism for you: Given a long enough timeline, all games in the Civilization tradition will eventually find their way into a sci-fi setting. The Age of Wonders series is no exception, using its fourth full instalment to trade high fantasy for science fantasy. This is not to suggest that it strays…
Read More
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…
Read More
For the first few hours, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order feels very much of a time and place — specifically 2006, which was when the previous installment was released. My first impression was of a game that felt rather samey, and a touch clunky at times. Critically, and despite its 13 year hiatus,…
Read More
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…
Read More
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…
Read More
Another month, another bundle of kick-ass PS4 freebies from your buds at PlayStation. Following on from last month’s Horizon Chase Turbo and last-minute sub-in Detroit: Become Human, two new titles step up to the plate for August. Starting August 5, you’ll be jumping into WipEout Omega Collection and Sniper Elite 4. WipEout Omega Collection is…
Read More
Another month, another four-pack of free games for Xbox One owners. August tees up some of the Xbox One’s bigger releases for later this year and continues a thread from last month’s Games With Gold titles. You’ll be able to grab Gears of War 4 in its entirety, for the entire month of August, for…
Read More
PlayStation’s Winter Sale has begun, taking steep discounts — as much as 60% — off some of the PS4’s greatest and most popular games. If there’s one thing we know for sure, it’s that gamers love a discount. Everything from 2019 new releases to platform exclusives and must-haves have been discounted. Instant classics and platform…
Read More
If you’re hype for Ubisoft’s forthcoming games lineup, you’re going to want to get along to The Ubisoft Experience, a travelling fan event coming to Sydney this September. The show is, at its heart, a charity drive for the R U OK organisation who promote suicide awareness and prevention in Australia. Tickets for entry will…
Read More
Fire Emblem: Three Houses is made up of so many narrative and mechanical moving parts that it feels like it should be collapsing under its own weight. Instead, like one of its steely tactical field commanders, it never wavers in its vision or its confidence in itself. A far cry from the Fire Emblem games…
Read More
My Friend Pedro plays almost exactly like an old Xbox game called Total Overdose, which is to say that it sits somewhere between Max Payne and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. It’s a game about stylish murder, one that teaches you to look for ways to make the most of your carnage. It rewards effective play,…
Read More
“Him chonk,” I muttered, placing the Netgear Nighthawk Pro Graming XR700 on my desk. The promise of its data throughput loomed as large as the device itself, a hulking rectangular obelisk that devoured the remaining space on my desk. But it would have to wait. It was mid-June and the NBN was, at long last,…
Read More
July’s range of free titles in the Xbox Live Games with Gold program are a bit of a mixed bag — a pair of games considered era-defining master works within their genre, a cute, chaotic four-player multiplayer party game and also Meet the Robinsons, a game based on a Disney movie you’d forgotten about until…
Read More
It’s a very one-or-the-other month for PlayStation Plus subscription holders. July’s rotation of free games has been revealed and its sure to be polarising. Your titles are: Pro Evo Soccer 2019 and Horizon Chase Turbo. Some of you, those who don’t like sports games, are maybe feeling a bit deflated right now but we urge…
Read More
You don’t appreciate how many different kinds of Mario levels there are until you try to make one of your own. Super Mario Maker 2 had only been running on my Switch for about fifteen minutes, unfettered latitude to design the greatest Super Mario Bros title ever made at my fingertips, and I could already…
Read More
After almost 15 years of games buried deep in the criminal psyche, the Yakuza series makes an abrupt pivot to the other side of the law in Judgment, a spin-off title about a worn-down private detective working the mean streets of Kamurocho. A Japanese crime thriller with a few action and RPG aspects thrown in…
Read More
Void Bastards is an independent space shooter produced by Blue Manchu, a studio based right here in Aus. While it borrows liberally from numerous science fiction games, it shares a great deal of conceptual space with roguelikes in the vein of FTL. Indeed, if one were so inclined, it would be easy to view Void…
Read More
Listen, if you haven’t played Crypt of the NecroDancer then I think you should remedy this right away. One of the most enjoyable and inventive roguelike titles released in the last five years, NecroDancer married rhythm games with dungeon delving in a way that hooks the player and won’t let them go. It borrowed the…
Read More
Tomb Raider developer Crystal Dynamics have been hard at work on an Avengers game with Marvel for several years now. Their work on the title was so involved that it meant getting Eidos Montreal to help them complete 2018’s Shadow of the Tomb Raider. Avengers (we thought it would have a subtitle but it doesn’t)…
Read More
Square Enix have delivered what may have been the biggest shot of raw fan service out of any E3 presentation so far. The publisher’s E3 press briefing dedicated its opening twenty minutes to Final Fantasy VII Remake, and every second of it had fans in the audience screaming with delight. Hit the embed below and…
Read More
Years of silence from Square Enix had left fans to wonder if Final Fantasy VIII would ever find its way to current gen platforms. We have good news. A brand new remaster is on the way, updated for 4K resolution. No, this is not a trick. It’s not a beautiful dream. Here’s the proof, straight from…
Read More
Nintendo have confirmed that a sequel to 2017’s platform-defining, formula altering The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is in development. The announcement came at the end of one of the biggest E3 Nintendo Directs ever broadcast. The trailer promises a similar aesthetic and a direct continuation of the Breath of the Wild story….
Read More