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EVE Online has somewhat of a reputation for being a cutthroat, unforgiving game. So is Dust 514, a first-person shooter running parallel to the EVE universe with cross-game interaction, financial consequences for death, a complicated levelling system, the ability to capture planets, manage inter-corporate wars and even influence the NPC factions. The whole thing seems inaccessible to anyone who hasn't played the game before. But is it? ...

Another Reason To Break Out The Vita The Vita, despite being probably the best portable gaming unit currently available, is having a rough time of it. The technology is impressive to be sure, and some games, like Gravity Rush and Persona 4 Golden are great games to play regardless of platform, but those games are few and far between. The rest of the time, Vita owners have...

Metro: Last Light was almost lost to gamers when THQ flashed a Game Over screen, but thankfully Deep Silver stepped up to make things right because it’s a bloody, terrifying and at times rather beautiful good time with a gun. The game finds a nice balance between stealth n’ machine gun FPS styles along with a spattering of surrealistic Silent Hill-style horror and a vividly unique world to create...

Know When to Hold ‘Em When Poker Night at the Inventory was released in 2010, Telltale Games was a relatively unknown developer. The company had a small but loyal following amongst the glorious PC master race due to episodic classics such as Sam and Max and Tales of Monkey Island, yet they were hardly a mainstream player. Things are much different...

Are You Ready For The Rad-ness? The typical kind of DLC gamers expect now is pretty pedestrian; some new skins for characters or weapons, or if you’re really lucky, a new, bite sized adventure that carries on the shenanigans of the core game that was originally purchased. Ubisoft however, have done something unusual; the latest add-on, downloadable content to last year’s Far Cry 3 has absolutely nothing...

If you haven’t been following the development of Defiance, roughly two years ago the SyFy channel finally got the ball rolling on their dream to create a trans-media event. They made a single universe split down the center of your television screen. Coming in through the cable box is a weekly, hour long science fiction show about a human-alien colony trying to survive in a dystopian version of St....

Although there's no shortage of massively-multiplayer online titles these days, Snail Games are hoping to draw in scores of new players with its new take on a traditional theme. Set during China's Ming dynasty, and centred upon the expansive and ever-popular wuxia fantasy, Age of Wushu features a classless permanent PvP sandbox environment with a large PvE component. Much like real martial arts, character progression is achieved with...

It’s pretty obvious just by reading the title that Army of Two: The Devil’s Cartel is meant to be played with a friend. You and your friend (or AI partner if you decide to go about this game alone) will work your way through each scenario, for the most part, together, and that’s the best part about this game. Playing with a friend is enjoyable; figuring out who is...

Poking The Beehive When Bioshock first landed on consoles many console veterans didn’t know what to expect. PC gamers, on the other hand, expected a dark, moody, atmospheric game that breathed life into its characters via audio recordings, and put players through a gaming experience by turns filled with unique mechanics and occasionally even threw out some scares. What no one expected was the level of uncompromising...

A Showdown Throwdown What happens when you take the best parts of 80s action movies and throw them in a blender with fast paced multiplayer and over the top violence? Chances are you would end up with something like The Showdown Effect from Arrowhead Games. The Magika makers have traded in Norse mythology for the dazzling neon of the 1980s in their new 2.5D side-scrolling shooter....

  Revisiting The Rage The tale of Kratos came to a pretty definitive conclusion with God of War III, but naturally, with a series this successful, it’s hard for Sony to walk away. As a result, we once more travel to the past of the god/family/everyone else killer to get a little more insight into what drives a man to such extremes. Mind...

Gears of War Judgment: An Extraordinary Rendition? Gears of War 3 was a rarity in blockbuster games, in that its ending provided a sense of closure. Epic’s decision to shut the door is understandable; over the course of two sequels, the successful formula was polished, tweaked, and embellished upon until the law of diminishing returns could be staved off no longer. Considering that the franchise seemed to...

For players who can remember a time when their gaming kicks came exclusively on cartridges rather than shiny, spinning discs of magic, the Castlevania series will always hold a special place in our hearts. It’s hard to call it the first horror game since I can’t imagine anyone but the most overprotected of children being frightened by a Castlevania experience, but along with Ghosts N’ Goblins it introduced gothic...

New Beginnings Reboots have been a pretty big thing in recent years. They have a singular purpose; taking an established property that is well known—and perhaps a tad too familiar to audiences by this point—and going back to the start. Reboots tinker with origins, change details and subsequently perceptions of the property, hopefully also changing the attitude of the audience, making a stale character seem new, fresh...

One of the prettiest shooter franchises in modern memory is back for another high jumping, car kicking, cloaking good time. Crysis 3 again has players nano-suiting it up as series protagonist "Prophet" returns to New York City 23 years after the events of Crysis 2. It's the city so nice the series has visited twice. This time around the bright lights of the city that never sleeps have been...

Omerta: City of Gangsters is the latest title from one of my favourite simulation developers Haemimont Games best known for their work on the Tropico series. Traditionally, Tropico is rife with political commentary and caricatures of political figures and ideals. Omerta: City of Gangsters on the other hand, is a bit of a different direction for the developer. This time, instead of skewering global politics, Hamimont Games has decided...

Real Men Wear Cybernetic High Heels   Hideo Kojima just won’t give up on Raiden. After a somewhat dubious debut as an effeminate, angsty product of child soldier training in Metal Gear Solid 2, the fans cried out in dismay as Raiden took centre stage over Snake. Things took a turn for the surprising when Raiden returned in Metal Gear Solid 4 as...

Is This Gonna’ Be A Stand Up Fight, Or A Bug Hunt? Few films have burned themselves into the delicate, collective pop culture consciousness of the 80s generation the way Aliens did. A blend of teasing, seductive science fiction, primal horror, and the kind of gun blazing action that only an 80s director would find plausible, it became the high watermark that every other SF/Action film would...

The allure of Skyrim has always been the ability to "speak" to dragons, and the Dragonborn DLC enhances and expands upon this concept in several valuable ways. This DLC packs a 10 + hour wallop, side quests not included, and it's certainly a larger departure than the bite-sized and inconsequential Hearthfire. Solstheim is rife with additional dungeons, mystery, and best of all, dragons. Dragonborn must be accesed...

Into The Swamp It’s hard to believe that we’re already on the third substantial piece of downloadable content for Borderlands 2. The game is a definite winner in the Value For Money category, and this new piece of content just adds to the value. This time out, the game brings back Sir Hammerlock and throws players into big, wild, untamed swamps and jungles to do a little...