GameOnAUS's Reviews
I think how much you’re going to enjoy this significantly depends on how much you’ve enjoyed the previous Asgard elements of the game. If you really like them, then having 30+ hours in that world will be a welcome addition to what must surely be one of the biggest open-world single-player video games in history at this point, and it is pretty cool to feel like a Norse warrior-god as you travel around the realm smiting people foolish enough to get between you and that quest marker. If, however, you find the mythological aspects of the game to be a bit ‘meh’, you can safely pass this one over – I mean, it’s not like there’s a shortage of stuff to do/find/explore in the rest of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, after all.
For the world and the combat alone, it’s an open world game worthy of your time. Flaws aside, it was a lot of fun and delivers an enjoyable experience for fans of the occult and open world adventure.
Gran Turismo 7 is a technological marvel and a top-gear motorsports game to boot. It’s a love-letter to car culture, automotive technology, design, and history, and if you have any sort of interest in cars or racing games, this should be very much in the digital garage that is your PlayStation’s storage drive.
Horizon Forbidden West is an absolute treasure that is not only a welcome sequel to Horizon Zero Dawn, but also arguably one of the best games to grace the PlayStation 5 thus far – with a solid claim to being the best native PS5 game yet.
If you’ve already got the most recent Uncharted games, the upgraded lighting effects and framerates etc aren’t enough to make this collection worth getting (especially at AUD$75!) – but if you missed them games previously, this is definitely the best way to experience them on your PS5 while we wait for confirmation as to whether there’s actually an Uncharted 5 in development…
Serious Sam: Siberian Mayhem is more of the chaos, mayhem and classic one-liners, but some recurring issues from Serious Sam 4 reared their heads marring the experience. Whilst the environments looked incredible in parts and it still impresses me how they can support the sheer volume of baddies on screen at once, there were constant reminders of issues. Chapters 4 and 5 were standouts though with good levels of humour and bloody gory action, leaving me wanting more once the credits rolled.
With friends, this is a great, casual-but-challenging FPS co-op shooter experience that offers a familiar experience with a new twist and manages to establish its own space in the genre, too. It’s not going to be for everyone, but I like what the developers have done here and I hope they continue to grow and support Rainbow Six: Extraction for some time to come yet, so the game can reach its full potential.
Blackwind is a decent hack-and-slash action game with fast agile gameplay and a good mix of puzzles and platform sections. The story and cartoon-stylised cutscenes were enough to keep me invested in wanting to find out what happens next, and the voice acting was great. I often fought against the camera angle, particularly when trying to be precise with platform jumping sections, but the combat and execution takedown animations was great fun.
Pagan: Control is a fantastic look into the mind and history of Far Cry 4’s villain, Pagan Min. You certainly see how events from his past has shaped him into who he was.
Riders Republic is a big step up from Steep in many ways and is a whole lot of fun with multiple disciplines and biomes to keep your interest at an all time high. With banging music tracks and plenty of sights to explore, the game has a long life ahead, particularly with seasonal content and just the sheer variety on offer.
The events of Halo Infinite certainly round out the key story elements of Halo 4 and Halo 5: Guardians for me. I loved the emotional hits that Master Chief takes, which has been a mainstay from across the series. I felt the game dragged out in certain points and ammo was a pain like previous Halo games, but the open world exploration was a great addition to the series.
I spent over 5 hours in Firewatch and loved every minute as I got more intrigued by the story as events unfolded. The ultimate outcome of the story is quite grim, so fair warning to anyone playing with kids watching towards the end. It’s a great game for those times where you want to play something but don’t want to worry too much about multiplayer or difficult gameplay mechanics. The story left me thinking long after playing and I highly recommend checking the game out on Xbox Game Pass.
Chorus’ fluid, fast and action packed combat is so satisfying and the visuals are stunning. As much as I enjoyed the main story, the side quests and random encounters helped me explore more of each of the amazingly detailed systems and find more component upgrades for my ship. I highly recommend this game for space combat shooter fans and PC players can play a demo on Steam or Epic to try it out.
How great is it that we have games like My Friend Peppa Pig where kids can be watching the TV show, then jump straight into a game where they can have fun in this non-violent interactive sandbox within Peppa’s world. This is certainly aimed at those kids who are fans of the TV show with easy navigation and fun puzzles.
While aimed at younger gamers, Blaze and the Monster Machines: Axle City Racers is great racing fun for the whole family. In single player or split-screen co-op, the familiar voices and vehicles from the TV show can be played in short and simple races to keep the kids’ attention.
PJ Masks: Heroes of the Night is a great video game adaptation of the TV show allowing you play out some new adventures as these characters. The levels are short but are appropriate for children aged 3-7 who have an interest in the show.
Battlefield 2042 has moments of brilliance in the base game and Battlefield Portal certainly hits all my nostalgia strings, but I can’t help but feel this needed another six months of refinement, especially with cross-play.
Tails of Iron is a fantastic action RPG with great hand-drawn art and challenging souls-like combat.
On a next-gen console and an 8K TV, the dinosaurs look absolutely amazing and there is a surprisingly relaxing time to be had watching them going about their dinosaur lives, eating and drinking and wandering around. At least, that’s how it always starts. Then later there’s running and screaming – especially if you don’t keep your dinosaurs content or the power grid fails and the bigger, nastier, more carnivorous ones get out of their enclosures and decide to snack on some guests instead of the goats you’ve so generously been providing them.
Faraday Protocol is definitely in a league of its own.