Latest News And Features

A lot of people are pumped for The Last Of Us' release on June 14th - and with good reason. Naughty Dog's latest game looks outstanding, a blend of horror, survival and action wrapped up in Naughty Dog's traditionally beautiful detail and environments. And if you're super-pumped, the Official PlayStation Blog has announced the Season Pass for the game, through which you can get discounted access to the three DLC packs designed for it.

The DLC comes in the form of two multiplayer expansions and one single player expansion - a first for Naughty Dog. While we don't yet know what either the single or the multiplayer expansions will entail, they should be decent based on Naughty Dog's track record. Purchasing the season pass will also get you access to several 'Day 1 Bonuses' (note that confusingly these don't come with a pre-order of the game through Sony's "Day 1 Digital" system) including increased crafting and healing speed, 9mm reload speed and Rifle capacity upgradaes and an exclusive 90 minute 'Making of The Last Of Us' documentary.

In the meantime if you'd like to watch something without having to wait two weeks, the fans at Manifest Films have uploaded the first installment of their The Last Of Us inspired live action web-series What Remains. It's brilliantly done, shattering my conception of what fan films are capable of, so check it out embedded below. It's only available through Vimeo however, so it is metered content. Are you looking forward to The Last Of Us? Are you going to grab the season pass? What did you think of What Remains? Let's talk about it in the comments below!

Mark Ankucic from Dusty Cartridge joins the show this week as we go full house for the Xbox One launch! Junglist, Joaby, Jae, Luke and Heathy all round the table to go through the Xbox reveal beat by beat. The team chats about the games they've been playing - or haven't, in Jung's case - going through Call of Juarez: Gunslinger, Metro Last Light, DayZ Epoch, Persona 4 Arena, Deadly Premonition Director's Cut, The Last of Us and more. They also go through all the news of the week, and yeah, you guessed it - this super long episode goes for 3 and a half hours and it contains coarse language.

The GA Podcast Episode 179 - Anchor Chick

You can grab the latest episode of The GAP right here or from iTunes if that's your thing. You can also check The GAP out on Facebook if that's your thing!

Yes, it's that time again - time to break out your wallet to hand over as much or as little money as you like for a stack of quality games. And this latest Humble Bundle is one heck of a pack - featuring something for just about everyone. Arty games are covered with Dear Esther and Thomas Is Alone, metroidvania-esque fans get the excellent Capsized, puzzle fans have 2D Boy's Little Inferno and even MOBA fans get some loving with the platforming MOBA Awesomenauts.

As usual, paying any amount of money will get you DRM free copies of each of the games available for PC, Mac and Linux, while a single dollar will also get you the Steam Keys. And if you pay more than the average (currently sitting at $5.69) you'll also get the free-form musical exploration thing Proteus and the outstanding and brutal Hotline Miami.

You can grab The Humble Bundle 8 from the official site and you can watch a video wrap up of all of the games involved embedded below - it's currently available through Youtube, so it is metered content, but we'll be sure to update this post once it hits our video library. I would grab The Humble Bundle 8 but I already own every single game in it, even the ones I never wanted like Proteus and Dear Esther. How about you, are you grabbing it? Let us know in the comments below!

Rayman Legends was one of the surprise hits of Ubisoft's conference at E3 last year, and now as we approach another E3 we have learned via press release that Rayman Legends will also be available on another system - the PlayStation Vita. Yes, along with the PlayStation 3, Wii U and Xbox 360 versions, Rayman Legends will launch on the PS Vita on August 29th.

The PS Vita version comes with all of the original content, and throws in five new maps designed to be played with Murfy - the popular little greenbottle fly who we first saw back at E3 2012 helping the other players via use of a rhythm game. While Murfy is controlled by the TouchPad on the Wii U, on the PS Vita he is controlled by use of the rear touch panel. Naturally the game will also have multiplayer, with leaderboards and additional content expected in the future.

You can watch the latest trailer for Rayman Legends embedded below or in our videos library - going full screen for HD of course. I have to say, I'm a bit torn on this - I loved playing Rayman Origins on my PS Vita, but I'd much prefer to play this on the Wii U with some friends. Of course, that would mean meeting people and being vaguely tolerable, but I can fake it for an hour or two. Are you looking forward to Rayman Legends, and which system will you grab it on? Let us know in the comments below!

Kicking off on the NeoGAF forums, gamers from across the world have banded together to message Sony, asking them not to follow Microsoft's used game policy and to keep the PlayStation 4's internet requirements similar to the current generation - i.e., minimal. With that in mind, twitter users began using the hashtags #PS4USEDGAMES and #PS4NoDRM, sending messages to Sony executives like Shuhei Yoshida, John Koller and Guy Longworth in an attempt to have their voices heard.

The campaign began after Geoff Keighley explained to watchers of Bonus Round that his sources said Sony would be implementing some form of used game DRM. A NeoGAF user named famousmortimer (hooray for Mr Show) claimed he had sources saying otherwise - while nothing was set in stone, Sony saw the backlash against Microsoft's console reveal and planned to go a different direction. Sony employees appear to have taken note, although naturally they haven't been inspired to announce their plans for used games. They also really like the word passion, with every executive and employee responding to the outpouring saying 'I love PlayStation's passionate fans!' or some variation on that.




My first thought on seeing this campaign was 'this is futile.' And maybe it is. Publishers tend to have a much greater voice in what goes into a new console than users, and 'core gamers' are a much smaller group than casual gamers, so why would Sony care what we said anyway? But on the other hand, I want it to be different. I want Sony to announce that there will be no used game DRM, I want Nintendo to pump out a dozen awesome games in one fortnight and I want Microsoft to hold a press conference where they announce that the entire Xbox division had been knocked out and replaced by their evil twins. And if it doesn't work, if we end up with monstrously restrictive nonsense jamming up our consoles, then I'll just stop playing games on consoles. What do you think about all of this, do you think Sony will have used game DRM in the PlayStation 4? Let us know in the comments below.

Were you hoping to import an Xbox One from the US so you can get your sports and tv show watching on as soon as possible? Well guess what, it's freaking region locked. Of course. Speaking to Digital Trends, Microsoft confirmed that the console will feature region locking, meaning you can only use your console with games from the region it was bought in. This should be no surprise, given the Xbox 360 was region locked, but sometimes it is nice to dream that a company will try to please its customers, instead of its retail and publishing partners.




Of course, Microsoft aren't the only company who region lock their consoles - while the DS was blissfully free of corporate idiocy, Nintendo's home systems and the 3DS all feature similar 'regulatory guidelines'. Sony are the only company to have a different stance - the PlayStation 3, PSP and PlayStation Vita are capable of being region locked at the publisher's discretion, although to date very few companies have tried it (Atlus being the most famous example, with their region locking of P4 Arena.) Unfortunately it is not yet known whether the PlayStation 4 will follow the same course, in an interview with Giant Bomb Sony's Shuhei Yoshida offered no comment.

Yes, Peter Molyneux and 22 Cans' experiment Godus is finally over, an impressively tidy 180 days after it began back on November 6th last year. And the winner is young Bryan Henderson - an 18 year old boy from Edinburgh, Scotland, who, as he noted to Wired, tapped the last cube just one hour after he first signed up to start playing.

So what did Bryan win? Molyneux has been firm from the beginning that the person who tapped away the last cube would have their life changed, and it certainly seems to be true. In a video uploaded to Youtube by 22Cans after Bryan agreed to share his success, Molyneux explained that the prize was tied to 22Cans' next project, the Kickstarter-funded Godus. Bryan will be the god of the gods - his ideals and morals will shape what those playing Godus can do. More importantly, Bryan will also get a percentage of the money spent on Godus - the details are as of yet not known, but anytime people spend money on the god game - whether purchasing it or on some sort of awful DLC - Bryan will get a piece.

You can watch the winner's video for Godus embedded below - it is a Youtube video however, so it is metered content. I don't know what to expect from all this, but Joaby made an excellent suggestion on Twitter - starting a Kickstarter to get Bryan to be the worst god possible. He could alter a lot more lives that way. Did you ever play Curiosity and are you looking forward to seeing how things go with Godus? Let us know in the comments below.

Junglist is back for another episode of the 5 Inch Floppy! This week Junglist is checking Dust 514 - the free to play MMO 'FPS' from CCP Games, designed to tie into their grand Space MMO EVE Online. Junglist puts his expertise to work assessing the game from both a MMO and an FPS standpoint, and though I'm not going to give it all away on you, let's just say he isn't impressed. Why? Watch the episode and find out!

You can watch the 5 Inch Floppy embedded below or in our videos library - going full screen for HD of course. And as always, you can get more of your Junglist fix by checking out the 5 Inch Floppy on Facebook and the 5 Inch Floppy Blog and following TheJunglist on Twitter!

It's Friday! And Andy Wells is back with another excellent episode of The Weekly Update! This week Andy kicks off with the recently announced Gran Turismo 6, and the new season of GT Academy, kicking off in July. Andy then chats with Trickstar Games' Director - Mike Fegan - about Trickstar's upcoming Ashes Cricket 2013, about the way Trickstar are setting themselves apart from their Cricket competitors at Big Ant Games. He also talks with Peter Siddle - the Vice Captain of the Australian Cricket Team - about the lure of video games for sports stars.

Andy wraps up this week with a look at the biggest story this week - The Xbox One, chatting with Xbox Australia's Adam Pollington about the new console and how it affects the Xbox 360. You can watch The Weekly Update embedded below or in our videos library - and don't forget to go full screen for HD!

Rockstar today announced the Special and Collector's Editions available for Grand Theft Auto V, if you'd like to get some extra goodies when the game comes out on September 17th. Both come with a fancy steelbook case and a neat looking blueprint-style map covering the Los Santos and Blaine County areas - keeping in theme with GTA V's focus on heists, as Joaby explained in his excellent First Look.

The Special Edition, currently available at EB Games for $119, also comes with a boost for Michael, Trevor and Franklin's unique special abilites, a score of additional outfits and tattoos, stunt plane trials and access to the .50 pistol, the Bullpup shotgun and the hammer - a hammer.




The Collector's Edition has yet to be announced at retail in Australia, but it is expected to be available for pre-order soon. It comes with all of the content in the Special Edition and throws in additional physical content like a cap, a money bag. Sadly though, it's a realistic style security deposit bag with a fancy key, not a big round beige bag with a $ on it. The Collector's Edition also has additional digital content in the form of unique cars, and classic GTA characters for use in Grand Theft Auto Online's character creation.

I know some people don't like pre-ordering and I feel the same way usually - the idea of missing out on actual in-game content because I didn't throw money down beforehand is pretty rude. Nevertheless, I am pretty god damned tempted to get the Collector's Edition here. How about you? Let us know in the comments below!