New Zealanders are renown worldwide as being a fairly easy-going and laid-back bunch. There’s not much that’ll rattle a kiwi.

Talking about South African rugby will raise the temperature a bit, but New Zealand has nearly got over the 1995 Rugby World Cup final. The French government’s terrorist bombing of the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland Harbour back in 1985 will also cause a bit of a stir and not really a topic for polite conversion.

Messing with the Haka is also a big no-no. Continue reading Rabbids Rugby 2011 Haka video released →

When I was kid back in the day, picking up a new game was a big thing for me. The game cassette would be packed in hard behind a concertinaed pamphlet that would expand to reveal the game manual. It the days before, actual video game graphics, when a vampire would simply be represented by a pair of quotation marks, the manual was an invaluable catalyst for the players imagination. Without reading the game’s back story and plot the player was simple chasing pound-signs around the screen with an asterisk. After reading the obligatory prose on page one of the manual, the player understood that the asterisk-knight was, in fact chasing down pound-sign-snakes.

Even now, when I pick up game, the first thing that I do (if I can’t immediately put on and play it) is open the manual and take a look at the gaming delights that await me. Continue reading Gears of War 3 RTFM?* →

I was intending to spend the week playing the most excellent Dead Island (which I’ve now tuned to perfection on my PC, honing it into the perfect zombie apocalypse simulator). After that I wanted to get on with Deus Ex: Human Revolution, which has been gathering dust for a week. The rest of the time was to be split between finishing off Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood on the Xbox 360 and a bit of The Witcher 2 on PC.

Sadly (or rather not), it wasn’t to be.

First a call from Techday.com, could I review the PS3 Assassin’s Creed Revelations multiplayer beta? As I’d been playing it the previous week, no worries there. You can check out what I thought of the Assassin’s Creed Revelations multiplayer beta over at Game Console.  Then Game Culture NZ sent over a some codes for the Xbox Live Arcade RPG Crimson Alliance for a review. All good.

Things then started to get a bit busy. Continue reading Vic B’Stard’s week in review: The Gunstringer, El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron and Gears of War 3 →

I loved the first Gears of War, right up to the last bit, which I never bothered to finish (to my shame).

Gears 2 on the other hand just pissed me off. I was a bit late to the party, but even then I just didn’t get into it. It failed to engage me. I enjoyed a bit of Horde, but other than that my Gears of War 2 Collector Edition has sat gathering dust. I’ve tried to give it another go a few times, but I’ve since been spoiled by the likes of Killzone 2 and Halo Reach (Killzone 3 still sits in my “shit, why the hell haven’t I played this bloody game yet?” pile along with Fallout: New Vegas).

This morning a review copy of Gear 3 turned up on my doorstep, a game that I’ve no interest in playing at all. So I scribbled out my name and address with a black marker, circled the Microsoft PR company’s details and wrote “return to sender” on the front in big fat capitals before slamming it in the post box. Bugger this, I’m too busy playing The Gunstringer on Kinect to be bothered with Marcus Fenix’s latest splatterfest. Continue reading First impressions: Gears of War 3 – the first five minutes →

Hands up who thinks that the PS3 earpiece/mic is a bit shite.

It may be wireless as all that, but the way it hangs limply from your ear makes you look like a reject from the early 2000s, when pricks would walk around the supermarket with bluetooth headsets in their lugholes. Like anyone is that busy. Continue reading Posh-looking Sony PlayStation wireless stereo headset coming soon →

It’s been a few weeks now since my last daily gaming news item for Game Console on Techday.com.

My new-found spare time has enabled me to get on with tieing up loose end in the likes of Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and Batman: Arkham City in preparation for the imminent arrive of their sequels. I’ve also had a chance for some quality time playing the fantastic Deus Ex: Human Revolution and The Witcher 2: Assassin’s of Kings, a game that I overlooked when first released. Continue reading Game Culture NZ →

Assassin’s Creed multiplayer fans used to sitting in empty game lobbies in the hope of finding a game can rejoice this weekend.

Ubisoft has released a closed beta of their Assassin’s Creed Revelations multiplayer game for New Zealand PlayStation Plus subscribers. Stating today (3 September), eligible PlayStation 3 owners can download the 2.5GB file from the PlayStation Network. Continue reading Assassin’s Creed Revelations available now on PS3 →

LA Noire developer, Team Bondi has apparenty gone into administration.

UK gaming vetrans, Computer and Video Games are reporting that according to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission the Aussie developer went under on 26th August. Continue reading L.A. No more →