Features

Blizzard’s announcement of their latest mobile title, Diablo Immortal, shook many fans of the series to their core. For better or worse, Diablo Immortal on Blizzard’s to-do list and that is a fact that its detractors must learn to live with. They can, of course, simply elect to not spend any money on it if they…

It’s safe to say that Fallout 76 has been one of the year’s most controversial releases, plagued with issues ranging from internal bugs, to botched preorder incentives and now a serious privacy and security breach. One of the most recent of the controversies, before the, y’know, significant data breach, was the PR minefield regarding a canvas…

The AU Review has partnered with our friends at Alienware Australia to give away three double passes to the Gfinity Elite Series Finals this weekend! All the finals action will go down at the Gfinity esports arena at Sydney’s Hoyts Entertainment Quarter on Saturday, December 15 and Sunday, December 16. Be there live as Sydney…

This year marks the second year that The Games Awards have celebrated an ‘Ongoing game’ award, beginning last year and being won by Overwatch, to recognise “A trend towards games that continue to entertain long after their release and continue to grow and evolve with their players”, as last years presented made out on stage….

Decisions made by major developers have made this year have indicated Steam’s uncontested reign as the dominant PC gaming storefront may be coming to an end. This week, a conversation has sprung up around the Epic Games Store and the value it offers developers when selling their games. Does Valve finally have direct competition? To call Steam…

Think about all the video games you’ve played. Now think about how many of those titles didn’t have a grappling hook in them and how lame that was. The grappling hook is one of the most iconic tropes in video games history. It has such longevity that people are still making games built around it…

From what I’ve seen, 2018 has proven to be one thing, above a whole lot of other things: the year of the Role-Playing Game. Between releases like Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire, Vampyr, Octopath: Traveler, Monster Hunter World, and new studio attempts at RPG’s like Ubisoft’s Assassins Creed Odyssey and Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption 2, we have been…

I have a crippling desire to look good in video games. It’s an unfathomably stupid impulse, but creating the most beautiful possible avatar in any given game is a habit I regularly give in to. I am certain I am not alone in this. To preface this piece – the two games I really threw…

There’s been a debate for years (among those for whom these things are a concern) regarding the apparent superiority of PC gaming over console gaming — desires for higher frame rates, better graphics and wider variety of titles drive the debate, but something that’s prevalent within each argument is cost, from peripherals to internal hardware….

When Netflix announced that they would be taking on The Witcher as a TV series, fan excitement was overwhelming. Since then, Henry Cavill has been confirmed as playing the big man Geralt himself, with a character reveal recently shown off on Twitter. Get your first look at Henry Cavill in The Witcher! pic.twitter.com/1O2eWS1MkP — Netflix (@netflix)…

Warcraft III: Reforged is coming, and it’s easily one of the most exciting announcements BlizzCon has had in years. Fans have been waiting years for this particular reveal, to the extent that some began creating mods for Starcraft II that would allow them to play out their Warcraft III fantasies to their hearts content. However,…

As the medium has grown in complexity and ambition, the debate over whether or not video games can be considered art has continued unabated. The mixture of media elements that influence game development, from gameplay to graphics, art, sound design and narrative all lend themselves to the idea that games can be considered art, but…

If you haven’t noticed by now, the eSports industry is on an exciting growth trajectory that won’t be slowing down anytime soon. Less and less people on the outside looking in are seeing eSports as a niche interest or trend, but a legitimate, lucrative and very, very entertaining sport that could easily eclipse traditional sports…

For the second time in a row, PAX Aus 2018 has managed to blow me away yet again with the overwhelming presence of indie titles on display. With so many fantastic ideas coming to fruition and the increasing number of titles being made within Melbourne, I couldn’t help but jump back into the madness and…

Back in late September, Ken Levine, one of the driving forces behind the Bioshock series posted this to Twitter during Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Attonement. Today is the Jewish day of atonement, it seems. So I’m here to apologize for the naked Atlas boss battle at the end of BioShock. pic.twitter.com/UeaEWV717Q — Ken Levine (@levine) September…

It’s no secret that PAX Aus is one of the most talked about events in Australian games industry calendar. With that being said, you can imagine it’s quite busy, with three days of non-stop action for fans from across the nation and the world. With an overwhelming amount of AAA titles, indie marvels and everything…

With PAX Australia done and dusted, there comes time for introspection and assessment. Dozens of games from across the industry made appearances on the show floor, with some leaving far more of an impression than others. What follows is a run down of the best that PAX had to offer, and the games that shone…

We could be ready to see something monumental on the horizon from Blizzard. Here’s the low down – Blizzard’s annual festival-like event, BlizzCon is kicking off on November 2. Blizzard takes that time to celebrate its different games — Starcraft II, Overwtch, Heroes of the Storm, World of Warcraft, Diablo and Hearthstone, and to celebrate the…

With PAX Australia 2018 right around the corner, Aussie gamers are soon to be flooded with heaps of great new content. From Aussie indies to the best of the rest, we take a look at some of the most eye-catching games featured at PAX, and what we’re looking forward to most. Necrobarista, Route 59 Necrobarista…

Developers being chewed up and spat out by the global video games industry is a topic that’s been cropping up a lot over the past months. As news of renowned studios closing their doors, sky-high developer turnover and, just as of this week, employees working 100 hour weeks in an effort to get major releases…

Last week, something occurred in the AAA gaming space that you don’t see every day. Players who pre-order their games digitally across Xbox, PC and PS4 are often extended the luxury of preloading games. Preloading is the process of downloading a game prior to its street date. You can’t play a pre-loaded game right away, the…

In 2010, Gabe Newell joined Sony at E3, in one of the most controversial crossovers of all time, to announce cross platform play between PS3 and PC for their then-forthcoming title, Portal 2. Newell also noted that he and the gathered throng were seeing a shift in the games industry. Video: Kahleb Olsson “Entertainment-as-a-product to…

Assassins Creed Odyssey launched last Friday, and to celebrate the launch of the game, Ubisoft held a parkour-themed event in Metcalfe Park in Pyrmont, Sydney. The Assassin’s Creed Challenge was a massive parkour course set up by Ubisoft’s Sydney team, featuring professional free-runners, cosplayers, and 16 booths in which to play the E3 build of…

Epic Games’ Fortnite has quickly taken the world by storm following the launch of its Battle Royale mode in September last year. Its meteoric rise was bolstered by its rapid expansion to other platforms — initially on Windows PC, Mac OSX, Xbox One and PlayStation 4, and now on iOS and Android devices. Fortnite‘s popularity…

At this point in time, Epic Games’ Fortnite needs no introduction. Frequently demonised and lambasted in mainstream media, Fortnite‘s PvP Battle Royale mode has become a scapegoat for everything wrong with modern gaming. Tales of addicted children, provoked violence and money lost to microtransactions are rampant, and it paints a picture of an incredibly violent…

Gaming Matters – part of the annual All That Matters conference – took off in Singapore yesterday with Kevin Lin, co-founder of the ever-growing streaming platform, Twitch, having a chat with CH Kim, the producer of one of the biggest battle royale games today: PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, better known as PUBG. Being in game development for…

When Bethesda first teased Fallout 76 earlier this year, people were absolutely thrilled. A new Fallout game within just three years of a mainline title? Unheard of. Was this a follow up to Fallout 4 or a project by an external developer, like Fallout: New Vegas? But then the game was announced. An online, multiplayer-only version…

An Immersive, Interactive experience brings with it the opportunity for Players to make  their own decisions, choose their own paths, play with the freedom they want – but is it problematic when the player is thrust into playing an Angry Protagonist? The above video is from the gameplay showcase of DOOM Eternal, developed by id…

This year at Gamescom, the Video Games Live orchestra performed selected arrangements from the Overwatch original soundtrack. The performance was amazing, its heroic themes accompanied by some of the game’s iconic cinematic shorts. A video game soundtrack played live, particularly by a full orchestra, is something that’s only come into vogue in the last decade…

Seasons is one of the latest expansion packs for 2014’s The Sims 4, and much like its predecessors, it integrates brand new, year-round weather features, new activities, career paths, furniture and more. In terms of added features, Seasons is an essential expansion, providing a structured calendar complete with themed seasonal events such as Love Day,…