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.
One of the gaming industry’s worst kept secrets might finally be about to step into the light. It’s been common knowledge that Gearbox has been hard at work on a new entry in the Borderlands series for several years now. Despite never formally confirming anything, the project has seen it all — leaks, tech demos,…
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We’ve known for a while that PAX Australia, the nation’s biggest gaming convention, will return to the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre for its seventh consecutive year. However, in a break from previous years, the show will shift slightly from its traditional late-October slot to the middle of the month. The show’s new dates are…
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The more of them I play, the more I’ve come to understand that From Software’s catalogue of games are not for me. My Souls-loving friends assure me there will be a moment of clarity, a a beautiful instant suspended in time where the final piece of the Souls puzzle snaps into place. In that moment, they say…
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God, Trials Rising is good. At its heart, a physics-based puzzle game that wears the trappings of extreme sports. It’s the modern equivalent of the old Dirt Bike games on Mac from the 90’s, a formula that has grown more showy and complex over time but retains their “get up and try again” spirit. Indeed,…
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Intel Extreme Masters Sydney 2019 is a mere two months away. Boasting a $250,000 prize pool, IEM Sydney is Australia’s premiere esports tournament, attracting some of the biggest names in competitive gaming from here at home and around the world. To date, a total of five teams have been invited to compete in this year’s…
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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…
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I love getting a new Civilization expansion. Each one is a near-complete revision of the game as the community has come to know it, a wave of changes large and small that address mechanical shortfalls and community concerns, while adding complex new systems into its existing web of other complex systems. With Civilization VI: Gathering…
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I’ll preface this review by saying that despite owning a Sega Mega Drive, I never played either of the original ToeJam & Earl games in their heyday. I also never played the series’ abortive third entry on the original Xbox either, though I understand that this is probably for the best. Well may you say,…
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Ape Out is not a terribly long game, but it is a fun one. It’s an entertaining and creative riff on the format popularised by Hotline Miami, a barbarous explosion of violence that belies its more rhythm-based gameplay. You play an angry, caged gorilla ready to throw off the shackles of oppression and embark on…
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Claiming Final Fantasy IX is your favourite of the PSOne era FF titles is a bit like saying Ringo is your favourite Beatle — most people think you’re a wanker and that there are far better musicians in the group. But what Ringo fans know is that he’s often unfairly overlooked. Sure, he’s responsible for…
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I have started and deleted this review three times in the week and a bit since our review codes arrived. It’s been a long time since I’ve found myself so conflicted about a game I’m reviewing, but Anthem has had me doubling back a lot, second guessing myself. The nutshell version is that I like…
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Observer walks a line between cyberpunk, noir and psychological horror that displays a deep love of all three genres, drawing its most obvious inspirations from films like Alphaville, Ghost in the Shell and Blade Runner. The story follows cyborg detective (or Observer) Daniel Lazarski, played by Blade Runner’s Rutger Hauer. Daniel Lazarski is your quintessential hard-boiled detective; as analytical…
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It’s hard to believe this is the second Tetris review I’ve written in three months. Even harder to believe, the franchise’s raw adaptability. Like the patterns its falling blocks create, Tetris seems able to change its shape at will, wholly altering the core experience with the addition of a single extra mechanic. Tetris Effect leveraged…
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I think we all knew, deep down, that Crackdown 3 was never going to be anything special. Years of delays don’t seem to have given developer Sumo Digital the space they needed to build on even the original game’s most basic concepts. It seems content to replicate the parts of the original that worked best…
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Crackdown 3 is a game about an agency of highly trained, superpowered cops taking back the city of New Providence from the claws of an evil corporate empire called Terranova. Each sector of the city is overseen by a different brutal crimelord under Terranova’s control. The game’s main campaign has the player baiting these supervillains…
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Aragami: Shadow Edition is a rather clever blend of modern stealth elements and old school action-adventure. Its most obvious mechanical influence seems to be Tenchu: Stealth Assassins with a little of Splinter Cell‘s shadow cover thrown in for good measure. It adopts an animated look reminiscent of Okami. Indeed, like Okami, Aragami is steeped in…
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I haven’t enjoyed any title in the Battle Royale genre before Apex Legends. Not one. To date, my firmly held opinion has been that BR is a multiplayer mode that has risen well above its station, lacking the substance required to be a genre unto itself. Apex Legends not only changed my opinion on Battle…
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There are only four good skateboarding video games, and the OlliOlli series are two of them.* Roll7’s OlliOlli and its follow-up OlliOlli 2: Welcome to Olliwood are side-scrolling skateboarding titles that are all about putting the sickest runs together and racking up massive score multipliers. Both games have a deceptively simple 2D look that belie…
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Activision Blizzard has laid off 800 people, a total 8% of the company’s entire workforce after ~only~ making an extra $100 million in profit last year. As retrenched employees began to tweet that they were out of a job, Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick told shareholders the company had experienced a record year, raking in…
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Astroneer has a lot in common with No Man’s Sky. It has a lot of the same ideas, the same goals, but its ambition is much smaller. This is in no way a bad thing. There’s less flying around the galaxy looking for planets and more spending time on planets, mining deep into their crust…
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You’d have to look pretty far and wide to find a serious streamer that doesn’t use one of Elgato’s Stream Deck devices. The desk-mounted broadcast enhancement device allows users to bind custom functions to its face buttons, making certain tasks like activating overlays or switching between cameras while streaming that much easier. One of the…
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I really like HyperX’s keyboards. I’m on record as a fan of their gear. The thing is, I’ve really only had experience with their top-of-the-line mechanical boards. The HyperX Alloy Core RGB gaming keyboard is not one of these top-of-the-line boards. But just because it isn’t a mechanical board doesn’t mean it isn’t worth your…
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On paper, the HyperX Fury RGB SSD sounds like a really impressive little hard drive. Up to 550/440MB/s of sequential read/write, and lots of lovely, fully customisable onboard LEDs for those who like their desktop lit up like Dutch new year. In practice, however, it leaves quite a bit to be desired. The Fury RGB…
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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…
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It’s been 16 years since the release of Intelligent Systems’ Advance Wars 2, widely considered one of the greatest turn-based strategy titles ever made, and 11 years since Advance Wars: Dark Conflict (titled Days of Ruin in the US). The intervening period saw the popularity of Intelligent’s Fire Emblem series explode in the West, an unexpected turn…
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Gamification in the tech industry is nothing new. Apps like Habitica have taken even the most mundane tasks like ticking items off a checklist and turned them into a role playing game in which you, personally, are the star. You might think that’s pretty full on, but hold on a sec because it gets way…
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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…
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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…
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The following admission may be considered scandalous by Resident Evil devotees: My first experience with the series was when Resident Evil 2 was first ported to the Nintendo 64. It was no small feat getting the game to run on the N64, given the storage limitations presented by its cartridges. FMV cutscenes and large amounts…
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Gris is pretty special experience. It’s a game with a lot to say, but never actually says a word out loud. Instead, Gris uses its strident, beautiful art style to convey its every thought — linework, animation and colour all have a part to play in this story about finding your way back from a…
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