Bethesda have now released the first of two substantial expansions for shooter Rage 2, rolling out a brand new story, region and enemy faction tied into Rise of the Ghosts. Said to push up the game’s already bonkers narrative, this new stretch appears to play heavily on the more action-heavy parts of the game with…
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Call of Duty: Modern Warfare has sparked both anticipation and controversy since its reveal earlier this year. With multiplayer gameplay revealed for the first time last month, gamers are still left with one question; how does it feel in the hands? While the official release is still a while away, the beta has answered many…
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In today’s gaming landscape, you might be forgiven for never having heard of Dark Souls, but you would definitely be hard pressed to find someone who hasn’t played a game either directly inspired or affected by it. Enter The Surge 2, a tactical hack- and-slash experience that follows hot off the heels of its predecessor,…
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Dino Verano has a long career in games, working as a producer on numerous Activision titles. He’s also someone who understands the value of community in helping to polish and balance a game ahead of launch thanks to his prior career in quality assurance. Now a producer and team lead on Infinity Ward’s Call of…
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The NBA 2K series has become for many, including myself, the definitive basketball gaming experience. While each iteration tries to evolve in interesting ways, NBA 2K20 remains an evolutionary experience rather than a revolutionary one. In many ways, NBA 2K20 is superior to any of its predecessors, presenting stellar basketball gameplay paired with authentic presentation…
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My relationship with Borderlands might be different from that of other people, I don’t know. What I do know is that, contrary to a lot of other games I tend to like, I don’t come to Borderlands for the story or the characters or the world. I show up because Gearbox Software makes an idiot…
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When most people think of Gears of War, they’re probably not thinking about high fashion. For games about blood and guns with chainsaws attached, jewelry seems like an odd merchandising vertical to explore — but finding an unexpected point of connection and running with it has become Xbox Australia’s signature approach to promoting new games….
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The common thread that runs through the Xbox’s two biggest exclusive franchises is that they are no longer being made by the developers that created them. The Halo series has been under the stewardship of 343 Industries since Halo 4, and the Gears franchise has been with The Coalition since Epic wrapped on Gears of…
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Ideally, a good expansion pack extends the life of a game with something new. That something new could be an addition to the story, a new area to visit, or new moves and mechanics. Monster Hunter World: Iceborne goes all in, throwing a truly staggering amount of fresh content at returning players. Here’s the thing…
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I really love the spirit of what Supermassive Games is trying to do with Man of Medan. The first episode in The Dark Pictures Anthology, a compendium of short-form video game horror stories, Man of Medan is cut from the same cloth as Supermassive’s 2015 effort Until Dawn but shrinks its scope and scale to better…
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It’s time to get primal. Unleash your inner Hominoidea and become one with your senses. In Minecraft, you begin by punching trees. In DayZ, if you make it off the beach, you start rummaging for weapons. In Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey you begin as a scared, lonely ape in a dense forest with nothing but…
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Rad marks another genre turn for developer Double Fine, the studio behind classics like Psychonauts, Grim Fandango and Broken Age. Inkeeping with Double Fine studio lead Tim Schafer‘s abstract sense of humour, Rad is an imaginitive, colourful and wonderfully wacky rogue-like dungeon crawler. Bursting with colour and character, Rad might not be the best game…
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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,…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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Let’s face it. The release of Wolfenstein: Youngblood has been predictably depressing. Angry men whining that the game has a SJW agenda. Angry men whining that it’s putting politics in their gaming. Angry men just being, you know. Angry men. And 2019 is peak angry internet man season, let’s be real. Parcel out a gleaming…
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F1 2019 is in many ways, still the best Formula 1 racing game on the planet. But in doing so, it slows down its revolutionary formula for an evolutionary approach. While it makes enough changes year-to-year for this to remain a stellar instalment, I can’t help but feel it already had perfected things a year…
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The surrealistic horrors imagined by New England author H. P. Lovecraft have always bled into the open plans of fantasy, which is why the eccentric writer has long been such a heavy influence on the video game world. With survival-horror picking up massively in popularity, especially since The Last of Us, his indelible prints have…
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I’m a huge fan of the fighting game genre. Mortal Kombat, Tekken, Street Fighter, Soul Calibur. You name it, I love it. But Samurai Shodown, a venerable SNK franchise I had heard of but never played, had eluded me. Part reboot, part sequel, the latest entry in the long-running series (which reduces the title back…
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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…
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It’s hard to believe it’s been 20 years since the Crash Team Racing released on the original PlayStation, a game determined to set itself apart from genre titan Mario Kart. Thankfully, Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled recaptures the experience of playing CTR again for the first time, bursting with flavour, variety and fun, and packed with…
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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…
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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)…
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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…
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Ubisoft has formally announced Watch Dogs Legion during their E3 2019 press briefing, the third entry in their open-world action franchise about hackers and the surveillance state. Legion takes the series out of United States for the first time, heading across the pond to London. The choice of London is a pertinent one — the…
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Ghostwire: Tokyo, a new paranormal horror title from Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami has been announced during Bethesda’s press brief at E3 2019. The teaser features a series of creepy Tokyo environs, and sets the sombre, creeping tone along with a few extremely creepy looking characters and enemies. No release date has been announced…
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