Gaming

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No Straight Roads – Byte Size Review (PC)

Barrie Clarke 1095 Views ,  ,  , 

In No Straight Roads self confessed hard core rockers Mayday and Zuke are out to take down the powers of Vinyl City and their music of choice, EDM!

As a big rock fan myself it is easy to side with our rocking duo and take the fight to the evil EDM empire.

There is only one small problem with the pair who are collectively known as the Indie rock band Bunk Bed Junction. That is that their music, in my opinion, is not even remotely rock.

Ignoring that small point, lets rock on and take down that nasty EDM!

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JBL Quantum
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JBL QUANTUM Wireless 600, review

Richard Armitt 2161 Views ,  ,  ,  , 

JBL ANZ very kindly supplied us with a set of Wireless 600 headphones to celebrate their Australian launch last week. Over the course of this year they have made a big impact in New Zealand with their gaming range and we have been able to review some of the range previously.

Of course JBL are not only known for their Gaming Headsets, as part of the Harman Karman Group they are responsible for a range of lifestyle audio devices too. Some of which will be finding their way to Australasia soon.

The Wireless 600 is a set that is easy to put on, the packaged (braided) cables make it simple to swap out from PS4, to Mac, to Xbox to Switch. I am happy with it and will be making the most of them.

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10 annoying things in video games
GamingFeature ArticleNintendoPC / MacPS VitaPS3PS4PS5Xbox OneXbox Series Xxbox360

10 annoying things in video games

Richard Armitt 2320 Views ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  , 

The Top 10 annoying things in video games.

There are Top 10 lists for all sorts of things, but today it hit me there’s a list we don’t speak of. So here it is, in no particular order.

01: Pointless Boss Fights.
02: Non dodge-able Attacks.
03: The End of Level vehicle run.
04: Choices, choices, annoying choices.
05: Buying Loot from an NPC, then finding something better.
06: Busy Work.
07: Racing in non-racing games is annoying.
08: Learning the ropes with an established character.
09: The A.I. never drives.
10: Backtracking by design.

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Avengers Assembled
GamingGame ReviewsPS4Xbox One

Marvel’s Avengers, PS4 Review

Dylan Burns 1297 Views ,  ,  ,  ,  , 

The best choice Crystal Dynamics made with Marvel’s Avengers was to have the story told from an outside perspective. The Avengers of this universe are already established heroes, legends amid a festival of fanfare and merchandise. The subjects of enthusiastic fan fiction, which is how the main protagonist of this game, Kamala Khan, is introduced.

Her and her adorable dad are on an Avengers Quinjet, alongside fellow writing competition winners. Given the opportunity to rub shoulders with the desultory heroes themselves on their impressive Helicarrier. Kamala encounters several of the Avengers as a young fangirl, geeking out at collecting comic books to gain entry to the VIP area, after which all hell breaks loose and the Avengers are swiftly dealt a master blow that sees their reputation in tatters, their assets seized by the government and the team itself thrown to the wind.

Marvel’s Avengers is a perfectly enjoyable, if not particularly well assembled, superhero action title with looter-shooter influences. A well written main story will give you ten hours of enjoyment.

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Descenders - All Downhill From Here
GamingByte Size ReviewPS4Video ContentXbox One

Descenders, Byte Size. (reviewed on PS4)

Gerard Campbell 2479 Views ,  ,  ,  , 

There aren’t a lot of video games like Descenders about mountain biking, a sport that I like to partake in as often as time allows.

Perhaps my favourite mountain biking game – and I’m slightly biased here because I backed it on Kickstarter – is Lonely Mountains Downhill, which was made by a small German development studio and it really is marvellous fun, with a gorgeous visual aesthetic and “Just one more go” game play.

Descenders comes from Dutch development studio Ragesquid and while it’s not much in the looks department – to be honest, it wouldn’t look out of place on the PlayStation 3. It does have an addictive quality about it as you test your mountain bike mettle on a variety of downhill mountain bike tracks.

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Windbound
GamingGame ReviewsPS4Switch ConsoleXbox One

Windbound (Playstation 4)

Guy 1735 Views ,  ,  , 

Stranded on a desert island, what do you bring? As much as I would love to say…. “a PS4 and a copy of Windbound”, alas I cannot.  Its beautiful art style and fun sailing mechanics, have been scuttled by the tough rogue-like penalties and clunky combat encounters.

Windbound is a survival game built around rouge-like mechanics and procedurally generated islands. Anyone who has played “Don’t Starve” will have a very good understanding of the design philosophy.

Windbound initially presents as a sort of paired down version of Zelda: The Wind Waker. Which, let’s be honest is a great place to start. Windbound will not however, have the broad appeal of Zelda. I think it’s going to be an acquired taste for many gamers as they will need to be patient and forgiving lovers of rogue-likes, to find joy here.

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Railway Empire Complete Collection
GamingGame ReviewsPC / MacPS4Switch ConsoleXbox One

Railway Empire Complete Collection [reviewed on PC]

Gerard Campbell 1960 Views ,  ,  ,  , 

Railway Empire Complete Collection doesn’t know I’ve never been one of those people that has found trains fascinating. Sure, I’ve been on trains but for me they’ve always just been a means of getting from point A to point B. There’s no denying that the steam locomotive was a pivotal instrument in the industrial age of the late 19th Century.

Railway Empire, which first came out in 2017,  builds on that pivotal time period and publisher Kalypso have just released the Complete Collection. The definitive edition, I guess, that comes with two years worth of updates, as well as eight pieces of released DLC. Which let you set up train networks in Mexico, the Great Lakes, The Andes, Great Britain & Ireland, France, Germany, Northern Europe & Down Under.

I can see Railway Empire Complete Collection appealing obviously to people who love trains. As well as those gamers who love the city management/tycoon games where you get to micromanage every little aspect of what is going on. If this is you, you’ll find hours of enjoyment in this empire builder.

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Game PassGame ReviewsGamingPC / MacPS4Xbox One

Wasteland 3 Review (Xbox One X)

Barrie Clarke 1396 Views ,  ,  ,  , 

I have made no secret that 1988’s Wasteland from Interplay is my favourite game ever.

It was ground breaking for the good old Commodore 64 and saw many, many hours of play from me. It even accounts for my greatest gaming achievement. So to see a official sequel in Wasteland 2 was just fantastic. A third, Wasteland 3, well, it is definitely a highlight of an otherwise pretty shitty 2020. With names like Deth, Vargas, and Brygo bringing a big smile to my face.

I was ready to return to the Wasteland.

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FitBit Family
GamingHardwareHardware Reviews

The Fitbit Family just got three additions

Richard Armitt 1550 Views ,  ,  ,  ,  , 

The Fitbit Family has been something of a revelation in wearables over the last two years. Especially for those of us without Apple phones. Falling neatly into our Tech area we’ve had the opportunity to get Guy in a sweat with a couple of them. His recent feature on Active Zone Minutes (AZM) was well worth a look.

As a spectator of Fitbit in my family, I’ve been impressed. Now FitBit have launched three new models. No doubt after such an unprecedented year they’ll be on a lot of virtual Christmas Lists come December.

I haven’t worn a watch in decades. However there is enough tech squeezed into this series to make it damn sexy again!

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Tell Me Why
GamingByte Size ReviewPC / MacPS4Xbox One

Tell Me Why – XBOX review

Dylan Burns 1232 Views ,  , 

Guest contributor, Dylan Burns makes a welcome entrance:

One might see Tell Me Why (Chapter One) as DONTNOD’s distillation of everything they have learnt.

Sure, there’s DONTNOD’s distinctive sense of place and domestic design, as well as their ability to create the illusion of small town America, but when distilled down to what you actually do in this first chapter, the handful of location changes and flashbacks cannot hide the fact that this is quite a bare-bones offering. 

I was impressed by the first Life is Strange and a big fan of the deliberate mundanity of Life is Strange 2, but in Tell Me Why I found myself struggling to get through the languid pacing, boring dialogue and questionable characterisation. Rather than being intrigued, I just wanted the story to hurry up and happen, for the characters to do something other than wander about each location looking at things and remembering the past.

Due to the episodic nature of Tell Me Why, we’ve added Dylan’s review of the following chapters here.

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GamingGame PassGame ReviewsPC / MacVideo Content

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020: Come fly with me, let’s fly, let’s fly away

Gerard Campbell 3023 Views ,  ,  , 

I didn’t expect to love Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 as much as I did when I first started playing it but I do. I love it.

There’s just something therapeutic and relaxing about taking to the skies in a Cessna or a Daher TBM930 single-engine and just flying from point A to point B. Heck, often there is no point B involved at all. I often just found myself taking off from an airport, be it Christchurch, in New Zealand, or Tekapo or Brisbane or Melbourne and just flying around, looking at houses and seeing how close I can get to the ground before the plane’s warning klaxon does my head in.

I’ll be completely honest: I’m a hopeless pilot. My first few take-offs were sketchy af. They still are sometimes, actually.

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