Review: Cyberpunk 2077 is more glitch than game

It was all set to be the biggest game of the year, but Cyberpunk 2077’s release has been overshadowed by technical hitches and multiple controversies. Sam Brooks reviews. Before you talk about actually playing Cyberpunk 2077, there are a myriad of other things you have to talk about first. More internet ink has been spilled … Read more

Review: Assassin’s Creed Valhalla fails to make colonisation fun

In the mood for some good old fashioned pillaging? Then play Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla. But if you want to have a good time while doing so, probably look elsewhere. As a New Zealander who hails from a different colonised nation, it should be some weird kind of reverse revenge fantasy to colonise Britain. To do … Read more

Why the jigsaw puzzle is 2020’s greatest stress buster

Rebecca Wadey writes for Ensemble on the meditative pre-bed puzzle routine that has helped her through a messed-up year.  My obsession with jigsaw puzzles started innocently enough, as most obsessions do. Initially it was a means to get off social media, and the inane scrolling one does discreetly while their family are watching yet another … Read more

Here’s why you still remember how to play Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 20 years later

Did you pull off a kickflip this past weekend like it was nothing? You shouldn’t be surprised, because games and memory are linked much closer than you think. If you’re a millennial who had access to a gaming console in the late 90s, chances are you played Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. And chances are you … Read more

Review: No Straight Roads is more fun to watch than it is to play

While musically and visually on point, much-anticipated indie game No Straight Roads is all sensory overload and little substance. I’ll give No Straight Roads one thing: I’ve never played a game where the title screen music was so good that even when I quit the game, frustrated, it lured me back in. No Straight Roads, … Read more

The Wellington studio behind this year’s cutest (and most inclusive) dating sim

Do you like cute dogs? Do you like cute people? Wellington-based Starcolt Studios’ first game, Best Friend Forever, might just be the one for you.  When you think game studio, you picture dark rooms with menacingly beeping black machines with Tron blue lights, not a lovely office that shares a floor with a counselling service. … Read more

Review: Ghost of Tsushima is a slick conclusion to the PS4’s lifecycle

Another PS4 exclusive, another game about the cost of violence. Sam Brooks reviews Ghost of Tsushima, the last big exclusive of the console. A lot of gamers have been calling for a game like Ghost of Tsushima since Assassin’s Creed started moving into different time periods and locations across the globe. They wanted an Assassin’s … Read more

Review: The Last of Us Part II is great for what it means, not for what it is

The greatness of The Last of Us Part II lies not in the gameplay, but for the conversations it will start, writes Sam Brooks. Major spoilers for The Last of Us follow, but no spoilers for The Last of Us Part II. In the seven years since the release of The Last of Us, the … Read more

What a video game about a futuristic Tauranga can tell us about our present

A new first-person photography game set in a dystopian Tauranga under lockdown is the best work of Māori science-fiction this decade, writes Dan Taipua. Umurangi Generation is a first-person photography game set din the shitty future. Designed and developed by Naphtali Faulkner (aka Veselekov) the game has you move about a futuristic Tauranga and surrounding … Read more

There and back again: The bill targeting workers’ right in the screen industry

A bill is currently being read in parliament that could radically shift employee rights in the screen and gaming industries. Mickey Treadwell writes on the implications of the bill. On March 3, the innocuous sounding Screen Industry Workers Bill quietly passed its first reading. The bill, which has garnered little attention outside of game development … Read more

Turnip for what? Two calming months of Animal Crossing: New Horizons

For the last two months, Animal Crossing’s gentle version of agrarian economics has taken over our gaming consoles, and the internet at large. Sam Brooks looks back at the game that became a lockdown sensation. Animal Crossing: New Horizons came out for the Nintendo Switch on March 20. In the two months since, I’ve never … Read more

Review: The Final Fantasy VII Remake is the definitive version of Final Fantasy VII

After five years, the Final Fantasy VII Remake has finally appeared. Sam Brooks reviews the highly anticipated remake, looking back while leaping forward.  Remakes have been around so long as we’ve been making art. We’re used to them, whether they’re new retellings of old myths, covers of old songs, or complete reimaginings of old films. … Read more

A lifelong superfan finally gets to play the Final Fantasy VII remake

A few weeks ago, Final Fantasy VII superfan Sam Brooks got to play five hours of the new remake. He interviews the game’s director, Yoshinori Kitase, and reports back on why the game isn’t just a remake, but so much more. The opening moments of Final Fantasy VII are hard to forget. We pan across … Read more

While Weta gets $41m a year, the game industry gets nothing but empty words

The minister of economic development is trumpeting news that gaming is on track to be a billion dollar industry in New Zealand. Meanwhile Dean Hall, CEO of Dunedin-based gaming developer Rocketwerkz, is waiting for the government to do more than issue glowing press releases. When the NZ Herald spoke to me about the lack of … Read more

Confessions of a late-in-life video game obsessive

Summer reissue: A few years ago, deep into middle age, Britta Stabenow found solace in the world of gaming. Now she’s part of a passionate community: those who love, and collect, video games. This post was originally published on 27 June, 2019. I’ll always be a video game collector, that will never change. But the … Read more

Review: Indie game Gris builds glorious beauty out of simple foundations

Sam Brooks reviews Gris, the stunning game from Devolver Digital that gamifies and makes beautiful that one universal process: grief. A girl lies on a massive stone hand. Her world is full of colour – radiant reds, bruised blues, yearning yellows. She opens her mouth and sings in a high fluttery soprano, and seem to float … Read more

Review: Pokemon Sword and Shield finally reach the next stage of evolution

Sam Brooks reviews the latest generation of the Pokémon games which finally hits the big-ish screen. “I love Pokémon but I wish I could play it on my TV.” I’ve been playing Pokémon for 20 years and that’s been the main thing I’ve heard from my fellow Pokémon friends/fans. The games have been engrossing, addictive and entertaining … Read more