Category Archives: Gaming

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare PS4 review

Call of Duty: Advance Warfare ups the ante to bring us an eyeball-bursting, nose-bleed inducing visual frenzy.

You’ve got to admire Activision’s balls in publishing a dead-pan first-person shooter that shamelessly dares to feature hover-tanks, rocket-boots and jetpacks. This is the Call of Duty franchise backed into a corner and going batshit crazy.

And I so wanted to take a steaming dump on it.

You see, I’ve watched as the Call of Duty series as it has transitioned from a fairly-historically accurate WW2 shooter onto the modern battlefield and beyond- stopping just short of laser guns and spaceships. Each entry having to outdo the last and in turn each getting slightly more ridiculous than the one before. Continue reading Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare PS4 review

Dragon Age: Inquisition PC review

I recently had the joy of taking a hatchet to a massive Dragon Age: Inquisition review to get it down to a publishable size. Instead of just throwing all those words away I decided to clean them up and mount them here on Vic B’Stard’s State of Play. Enjoy.

EA Games has swapped Sims and sports for sword and sandals with the new fantasy role-playing game from Bioware, Dragon Age: Inquisition. Continue reading Dragon Age: Inquisition PC review

Melbourne welcomes its Star Citizens

Earlier this month Melbourne’s PAX Australia 2014 was a celebration of independent video-game development. Whilst not exhibiting at the actual show, the master of million-dollar independent games design, Chris Roberts was in town.

Star Citizen, Chris Roberts’ ambitious space combat/trading adventure game, has entered the Guinness Book of Records for the Most Crowd-funded Project (Overall), having secured $39,680,576 from fans as of 4 March 2014.

Right now that figure stands at $61,448,595, sorry… $61,448,830. The game’s website dynamically updates and they’ve earned some more money since I started writing this article. Continue reading Melbourne welcomes its Star Citizens

Assassin’s Creed Unity Notre Dame Edition Unboxing

So this year I opted to review the last-gen Assassin’s Creed Rogue, leaving me to savior the new-gen entry, Assassin’s Creed Unity in my own time.

I’m quite partial to getting the collector’s edition versions of my favourite video-game releases. With Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed games being possibly my number one franchise, I never miss out on picking up their premium releases when I can. Continue reading Assassin’s Creed Unity Notre Dame Edition Unboxing

Halo: The Master Chief Collection Xbox One review

I was lucky enough to be sitting in the audience at The Galen Center in LA as Halo: The Master Chief Collection was unveiled to an unsuspecting audience at the Xbox E3 media briefing. Of course, the crowd went wild.

A few short months later and here we are, 343 Industries and Microsoft Studios have just delivered four of the most influential games in Xbox history. Each one remastered on the Xbox One for a new audience to enjoy and for the old hands to experience again, albeit with updated visuals. Continue reading Halo: The Master Chief Collection Xbox One review

Civilization: Beyond Earth PC review

In the future the word is dying. For the human race to survive the best and the brightest are sent to the stars to start a new civilisation beyond Earth. Or so it goes in the rather poignant intro video to Civilization: Beyond Earth, the latest turn-based strategy game from Firaxis.

Sid Meier’s Civilization games are legendary and pretty much genre defining. Intelligent and engrossing, with each new iteration the series gets even more refined. Continue reading Civilization: Beyond Earth PC review

Never Alone developer interview: Jonathan Gregoire

At PAX Australia 2014 Microsoft were demoing some of their upcoming ID@Xbox titles. The ID@Xbox programme allows independent developers to self-publish their games on the Xbox One platform.

I caught up with Jonathan Gregoire to chat about Upper One Games’ beautiful-looking indie title Never Alone, a game created in collaboration with the indigenous people of Alaska. Continue reading Never Alone developer interview: Jonathan Gregoire

Looking back at PAX Australia 2014

Last week, for three days, the Melbourne Convention Centre played host to PAX Australia 2014- a game expo with a difference. I was there taking in the sights and sounds of what is probably Australasia’s greatest festival of gaming culture.

Born from the video gaming-related online comic-strip by Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins the Penny Arcade eXpos have traditionally only been held in the US. The US hosts three PAX shows a year, PAX Prime in Washington (the show’s original location), PAX East in Boston and for the first time this year, PAX South in San Antonio. Last year’s Melbourne show was the first PAX to be held out of the US. Continue reading Looking back at PAX Australia 2014