xbox one

Resident Evil Village Review: Small town screamer

When most Resident Evil fans think of the series and a village setting, they likely think of the great Resident Evil 4. This comparison is something Resident Evil Village, the eighth mainline entry in the venerable survival horror series, freely trades upon. The old ways Set several years after the events of Resident Evil VII:…

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It Takes Two

It Takes Two Review: Relationships are a two player game

It Takes Two is a charming, cooperative adventure game by Hazelight Studios. The game centers on Cody and Mae, an estranged couple beaten down by the complexities of their unfulfilling lives. Their dreams, individually and together, are unrealised. The passion of their early relationship is long extinguished. The slim thread that has kept their relationship…

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Diablo 2 Resurrected technical alpha

Diablo 2 Resurrected Technical Alpha Impressions: Preserved in amber

The first thing you notice about the0 Diablo 2 Resurrected technical alpha is the way it looks just the way you remember it. The (by today’s standards) low-res models and environments have given way to a crisp, clean visual overhaul. It’s exactly the kind of remaster a community like the one that clings to Diablo…

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Outriders

Outriders Review: A Top-Tier Looter Shooter

From the moment we played the Outriders demo, our impression was of a functional and addictive looter shooter. Strong shooting and interesting powers overshadowed the demo’s repetitive mission structures and unrewarding grind. These are, of course, issues that affect the best in the genre. And, as a complete package, Outriders does indeed reflect the best…

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Disco Elysium refused classification

Disco Elysium: The Final Cut refused classification in Australia

Disco Elysium: The Final Cut has been refused classification by the Australian Classification Board. The ban comes a little over a week ahead of the game’s March 30th release date. Refusal to give the game a classification — a rating from G to R18+ — effectively bans the game from sale here. The ruling was handed…

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Outriders

Outriders Demo Impressions: A Strong Start

On the surface, Outriders may seem like your average looter shooter. In many ways, it is. Outriders feels like an iteration of recent looter shooter RPG titles like Destiny 2 or The Division. It’s filled with mechanics and systems we’ve seen many times before. In saying that, there is still plenty to love about Outriders’…

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Fornite Lazarbeam

Fortnite‘s Lazarbeam skin puts the humble Aussie tradie in the spotlight

Fortnite adds cool new skins every other day, but the Lazarbeam skin is especially cool. The newest in the Icon Series line features Australian YouTuber Lannan “Lazarbeam” Eacott in quintessential tradie garb. When real-world Fortnite players like fellow Aussies Loserfruit and Lachlan have their likenesses recreated in-game, they opt for a fashionable look. Cool clothes,…

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Mass Effect Legendary Edition

Mass Effect Legendary Edition will launch in May

The long-awaited Mass Effect Legendary Edition will launch on May 14, 2020. Mass Effect Legendary Edition will include content from all three mainline Mass Effect games, remastered and running at 4K60FPS HDR. All three games have received a visual facelift, with “remastered character models and tens of thousands of up-rezzed textures. Improvements to shaders and…

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Cyberpunk 2077: 5 Things We Can’t Wait to See

For longer than we’d care to admit, Cyberpunk 2077 has been on our minds. First revealed way back 2013, the wait for release has been long and occasionally frustrating. Thankfully, the worst appears to be behind us: following multiple delays in 2020 alone, Cyberpunk 2077 is now set to launch next week, December 10th. The…

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Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War Review: True to Tradition, Through Thick and Thin

Like the sudden lift in temperature that tells you summer is on its way, the arrival of Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War tells you exactly what time of year it is. Developer Treyarch takes its flagship Call of Duty series to the early 1980’s, determined to bring down the iron curtain with nothing but…

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Immortals: Fenyx Rising Review: Next to godliness

Immortals Fenyx RIsing learned a lot from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. This is not to say it should be compared to BotW — those comparisons don’t go very far and would be unfair at best. Immortals uses BotW’s mechanical trappings as a platform to say something else. It isn’t interested in a…

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eFootball PES 2021: Season Update Review: New Year, Same Solid Football

The Pro Evolution Soccer series has always been a personal favourite of mine, and while I love the exciting modes and interesting iterations that FIFA brings to the table, I have always admired the PES series for it’s tactical nature, and solid gameplay. eFootball PES 2021: Season Update has been aptly named, as it’s basically…

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Assassin's Creed Valhalla

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla Review: An axe to the face is not very stealthy

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is a game that feels like it’s a little at war with itself. The intersection of its warring Viking heroes and its lineage as a stealth-centric action title are at odds with each other. While it works hard to bridge that philosophical divide, this dissonance suffuses the entire game and ultimately weakens…

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Xbox One

Two Days to Retirement: The life and times of the Xbox One

For the last seven years, the Xbox One has been one of the internet’s favourite punching bags. The machine that Xbox debuted at Microsoft’s Redmond campus ahead of E3 2013 was suffering an identity crisis. It was a video game console that focused on everything BUT video games. Against a resurgent and clear-minded PlayStation, the…

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Watch Dogs Legion

Watch Dogs Legion Review: Life hacked

Watch Dogs Legion feels like the game the series has been striving to become since its inception. It’s a game with some of the biggest, boldest ideas to come out of Ubisoft in years. It is also a game that has clearly had to make some concessions in order to execute on these ideas. Merry…

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Cyberpunk 2077

Cyberpunk 2077 has been delayed again, if you can believe it

Cyberpunk 2077 has been delayed. Again. Its release date moves from November 19 to December 10. According to developer CD Projekt Red, the reason for the delay has to do with quality assurance. Currently, as many as nine internal builds of Cyberpunk 2077 require testing for compatibility and optimisation. This is a lot of work,…

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Immortals: Fenyx Rising Preview: Wild at heart

Immortals: Fenyx Rising is Ubisoft’s first original AAA IP in god only knows how long. Ubi has a built a reputation as a publisher that likes a safe bet. Ubi’s franchises are guaranteed to sell. This makes launching new IP a big risk. That it comes at the dawn of a new hardware cycle is…

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Assassin's Creed Valhalla

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla Preview: Stealth is for the weak

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is a game named for the grand hall of the slain in Norse mythology, a beautiful place where fallen warriors arrive after death. Perhaps as a contrast, the game is set in the rainy, muddy, utterly miserable north of Britain in the year 873 CE. At the time the Vikings crossed into…

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Watch Dogs Legion

Watch Dogs Legion Preview: Systems on

From the first, the biggest question I’ve had about Watch Dogs Legion was if it could capitalise on its ambitious concept. It presents a dystopian vision of London held hostage under a fascist paramilitary rule. DedSec, the prolific hacker collective is working to destabilise the regime but they’re having a rough go of it. Numbers…

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WWE 2K Battlegrounds Review: A Shallow, Functional Brawler

As crammed as the name suggests, WWE 2K Battlegrounds introduces yet another entry to 2K’s “Grounds” series, off the heels of NBA 2K Playgrounds 2. The crux of these experiences revolves around the fact that they never take themselves too seriously. Over the top game play and stylised visuals keep this game from feeling like…

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Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 Review: The King has Returned

Oh how we’ve missed you, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. If you were a gamer in the mid to late 90’s, then you would have most definitely played a Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, I’m sure of it. But before we get stuck into this review, let’s start off with a fun fact; the original Tony Hawk’s…

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NBA 2K21 Review: Small Steps, Big Game

After a crazy year, it’s safe to say the NBA has followed suit, enduring a long suspension, resulting in the introduction of the NBA bubble, a facility located in Disneyland, Orlando, solely created to see through the completion of this season. It’s unfortunate that NBA 2K21 isn’t as much as a departure from the norm;…

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No Straight Roads: Grab your sunnies, we’re going to Vinyl City

No Straight Roads is a rhythm-based, action-adventure game created by Malaysian-based studio Metronomik, created by two cool dudes who worked on Final Fantasy XV and Street Fighter V respectively. Rock your way through Vinyl City as Mayday and Duke to rid the world of the EDM empire! I’ve been looking forward to playing this game…

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Marvel’s Avengers Review: World’s Greatest Grind

That Marvel’s Avengers released when it did could be considered great timing. With the MCU coming to a grinding halt, I was looking forward to this as a perfect replacement. But after a worrying beta filled with repetitive gameplay and awkward mission structure, Marvel’s Avengers left me with a few concerns. Its full release is…

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UFC 4 Review: The best UFC game to date, but not for the reasons you think

Much of the foundation EA’s UFC series that was laid back in 2014 has developed nicely, but each sequel, while an improvement, felt like an authentic experience that frustrated fans, and alienated others. Solid mechanics and slick visuals impressed, but a clunky ground game left fans like myself, sticking to strikes and knockouts to avoid…

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Project Cars 3 Review: Shifting Gears

My first few days with Project Cars 3 proved to be an incredibly polarising experience. I consider myself a true fan of racing sims, and while Project Cars 2 stands out as one of my favourites, Project Cars 3 does not; but not in the way you would think. It’s safe to say that Project…

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NBA 2K21 Preview: Small Steps Forward

With the next generation of consoles looming, developer Visual Concepts has decided to shed some light on the current generation’s version of NBA 2K21, highlighting some new and improved features, updated modes and revamped locations. While much of the next-gen version is still under wraps, our sneak peak has given us a positive feeling about…

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Mafia: Definitive Edition

Mafia: Definitive Edition Preview: Got the life

Though still in production at the time of writing, the Mafia: Definitive Edition remaster feels like it’s stretched between two extremes. It wants to pay homage to a well-liked yarn, ensuring players in the modern era can still experience Tommy Angelo’s rise to power. But it also has to translate game design and mechanics from…

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The AU’s Father’s Day Gift Guide: Xbox Edition

The Xbox One is a console with serious Dad Energy, and we say that with love. It’s full of military shooters and high-quality racing sims, the kind of games that get dads of all stripes a touch excited. If you’ve run out of ideas for Father’s Day gifts, look no further. We’ve got this handy…

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PGA Tour 2K21 Review: A Par is Born

Upon seeing PGA Tour 2K21’s reveal, I immediately thought back to all the great memories I had playing golfing games; a sport which I admittedly don’t care that much for. Be it Microsoft Golf, Tiger Woods’ PGA Tour, or even Outlaw Golf, (I bet you forgot that existed) there was something so satisfying about measuring…

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