In the crowded age of looter shooters, it is understandable that The Division 2 could scare off gamers with the worry of repetitive gameplay, an unfinished story, and an underwhelming lack of initial content. It is on that note I begin this review, as The Division 2 has managed to surpass its predecessor and stands…
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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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The Occupation immediately hit me with a refreshing change of pace. For a game of this nature, throwing you into the thick of a terrorist plot might seem like an action packed outing, but rather takes the subdued approach, opting for investigative intrigue over the running and gunning. It’s safe to say that The Occupation…
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The Lego Movie 2 Videogame is based on a movie not yet released in Australia. Despite the heavy involvement of Australia’s Animal Logic animation studio in the production of The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part, the release date is still firmly on March 28th, nearly two months after the official United States release. For…
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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’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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As a major racing fan, it’s no secret that developer Codemasters is quickly becoming the king of racing games, nearly perfecting the Formula 1 racing series. Dirt Rally 2.0 is absolutely no exception, proving to be not only one of the best rally games from Codemasters, but one of the best rally games of all…
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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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Most of us went through a Shonen Jump phase at one point or another in our lives, whether it was inspired by Naruto, Goku, Ichigo or any of the other dozens of characters that have shined in the magazine over the years. Jump Force brings their worlds back to life, leveraging the nostalgia and dedication…
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If I know one thing, it’s that the Far Cry series has always found its beauty amongst the insanity. From highlights like Far Cry 3, it’s safe to say the series had morphed from a tropical survival experience into an insane holiday of blood, hallucinations and chaos. Far Cry: New Dawn stands as a worthy…
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Now is as good a time as any for 4A Games’ Metro franchise to emerge from its dank subterranean setting and venture out into a terribly unforgiving post-apocalyptic Russia. It’s what series protagonist Artyom has strived for all these years after all, setting out on an ambitious adventure across harsh tundras, spooky desserts and mysterious…
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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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Over the last week, I’ve been playing God Eater 3. It’s a snappy, mayhem-filled romp where you take down titanic beasts called Aragami with your team of fellow God Eaters. The game is filled with cool swords, cool guns and cool combat. One might say it just oozes cool. But, I’m not actually here to…
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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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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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It might be fair to call Days Gone the PS4 exclusive most of us kind of forgot about. PlayStation’s stellar year of exclusives in 2018, coupled with the decision to skip the end-of-year PlayStation Experience event, meant going a long while between trailers and announcements. It dropped off the radar a bit. But with the…
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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…
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Since its announcement at The Game Awards late last year, fans have been waiting for a look at Mortal Kombat 11 in action. This morning’s reveal livestream dropped a raft of new trailers for the NetherRealm Studios fighter, all focused on gameplay and characters. Following on from 2015’s Mortal Kombat X, MK11 introduces a time travel…
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Choosing your favourite game of the year is hard. We’ve done it every year since we founded The AU Review’s games section in 2014, and it never gets any easier. In 2018, we played so many incredible games that it became impossible to list and number every last one of them, so we opted not…
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PlayStation Australia know that being a gamer in the summer is a bit rubbish. You have to have the windows open so its hard to see the TV during the day, which is no good. If you want to close the place up to create a little darkness, it means running the aircon while you…
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Only two years ago, I reviewed Just Cause 3 for what was then the AU’s film and TV masthead, The Iris. In writing that review, I learned an important lesson about the link between taking your time and offering responsible critique. What a great opportunity to reaffirm that lesson, I thought when our review copy…
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Battlefield V is goddamned pretty. It’s something I’ve continually murmured to myself while reviewing DICE’s latest entry in their longrunning shooter franchise. Nobody is capable of squeezing the visual juice out of EA’s Frostbite engine quite as well as they can. The game they have constructed with it isn’t just one of the best Battlefield…
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The biggest fear I had following Bethesda’s announcement of Fallout 76 was that the move to an online would blow up in their faces. Adding real people to the equation has always been one of fastest ways to ruin any gaming experience. But, from time to time, it’s also the best way to create unique,…
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When your company, a video game developer known for a very niche, though long-running series, is cut loose from its home at a well-known publisher, there is good reason to believe you’ll never make a game again. This was the nightmare scenario that played out for Hitman developer IO interactive when Square-Enix decided to remove…
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Tetris Effect is extremely good and you should play it. I’m not burying the lede on this one. Tetris Effect is one of the best and most inventive entries the long-running puzzle series has seen in years, and if you are in any way interested in Tetris then you need to pick this up. Tetris…
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Feeling old yet? Everybody’s favourite purple dragon Spyro turns 20 today, and to celebrate his birthday – and the release of the highly anticipated Spyro Reignited Trilogy, baking sensations Raymond Tan and Vickie Liu have teamed up for a one-of-a-kind Spyro cake. Baked with cassis grape swiss meringue buttercream, chocolate shards and delicate isomalt sugar…
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I don’t exactly know how one reviews a piece of media as expansive as Red Dead Redemption 2. To call it a game is the correct descriptor, but it also doesn’t feel like it quite encapsulates the enormity of what Rockstar have accomplished. Red Dead Redemption 2 is an open world Western set in the very…
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The NBA Playgrounds series is back once again for its second attempt at a slam dunk, with a fun, charming and old school approach rarely seen since the good old days of NBA Jam. I’m happy to say that NBA 2K Playgrounds 2 is an improvement over its predecessor in almost every single way, with…
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For Honor made a few splashes when it debuted in early 2017, showing off some impressive combat mechanics topped off with a varied and intriguing mix of knights, vikings and samurai all duking it out for territorial supremacy. While I had enjoyed For Honor immensely, I won’t lie when I say I fell off the…
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