With a few thrusts of the needle, it was done. After a gruelling 40 hours with Hollow Knight: Silksong, piloting Hornet as she navigated its world and defeated unique bosses who demand precision, I had beaten its final boss and the game. Or so I thought. Delighted with my achievement, I quickly posted a note… Read more »
It wasn’t until late on a Wednesday afternoon, three days into the Game Connect Asia Pacific (GCAP) conference that the penny finally dropped. Sitting in on an industry veteran discussion – or as they put it, “survivor’s panel” – I got an inkling as to why there was such a sense of business-as-usual for the… Read more »
I’ve never worked so hard to earn a t-shirt. The plan was simple: Arrive at PAX as a group as early as possible on Sunday, its quietest day. Make a beeline when the doors open at 10am for the Final Fantasy XIV stall. Get to the front of the queue. Beat the boss, win a… Read more »
Video game publisher Electronic Arts (EA), one of the biggest video game companies in the world behind games such as The Sims and Battlefield, has been sold to a consortium of buyers for US$55 billion (about A$83 billion). It is potentially the largest-ever buyout funded by private equity firms. Not AI, nor mining or banking,… Read more »
One month in and This Week In Videogames, launched by an Australian content creator, is off to a roaring start. In an industry full of busy people, Edmond Tran has to be among the busiest. For the past month, Tran has been working as an editorial Swiss Army knife for the new gaming news website… Read more »
This month, the Australian-made video game Silksong became one of the most played titles worldwide. Created by Team Cherry, a three-person indie studio in Adelaide, the sequel to 2017’s Hollow Knight shows how small studios can capture global attention. Its success matters not just for its artistry but because it demonstrates why video games are… Read more »
Operating for 20 years, Australia Plays has become a globally influential gaming survey authority. But it now faces new challenges as its data matures. Bond University’s Professor Jeffrey Brand is calm, collected and ready to go. There’s no sense of nervousness or trepidation on a media call discussing his research into Australia’s gaming population. He… Read more »
It beggars belief that holding the world record for speedrunning Pokémon HeartGold can come down to how quickly you catch a rare Magikarp. It’s a notoriously pathetic monster, mocked both in-game and in the long-running anime series. But in HeartGold there’s an incredibly rare variant that’s set at level 50. Capturing it, and boosting it… Read more »
It took almost eight years for the downloadable content turned into a fully-fledged title to go from idea to release. A determined fandom and a vacuum of information created its own brand of gaming community conspiracy theories around the title. With less than a few breadcrumbs of information, the game remarkably sustained a full near-decade… Read more »
Frustration thrives as the promise of AI-empowered games gives way to redundancies, diminished job satisfaction and player boycotts. Solo Australian developer Joe Gibbs is excited about how artificial intelligence (AI) will transform his game. Partnering with an AI company, Gibbs intends to implement a dynamic branching story system into his real-time strategy game, Fall of… Read more »
No spoilers here, but a tough time initially learning to play as DK gives way to one of the best closing segments of a game that I’ve played. The bananas are stacked against Donkey Kong Bananza. This is a fantastic platformer, up there with the highs and delights seen in Super Mario Odyssey—possibly even surpassing… Read more »
It was crushing seeing two of my favourite video game characters reduced to receptionists. Diddy and Dixie Kong absolutely carry their own fandom. They had their own games back in the ’90s. But in the latest game, Donkey Kong Bananza, Nintendo made a decision to focus mainly on the big ape himself this time around,… Read more »
The Australian government incidentally commissioned one of the country’s largest studies into the matter… and it wasn’t even focused on gaming. There’s a curious wrinkle with all of the studies that illustrate just how many people game: they are funded by the gaming industry or by peak bodies within it. Such is the case in… Read more »
A short and solid survival game that will get you thinking about your life choices, and then leave you at a crossroads about AI-use in games. We’ve all had moments where we wonder about the path not taken. What if I stayed? What if we didn’t break up? What if I took that job? Hypotheticals… Read more »
Nintendo can remotely disable Switch 2 consoles for modding or piracy, potentially challenging Australian consumer protection laws. A month out from the console launch, and players around the world are still finding new and exciting things about the Switch 2 console. But for some users, particularly those in gaming’s more technical communities, they’re discovering Nintendo’s… Read more »
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