What’s On:
EYECON 2016
Been looking forward to the Easter long weekend but found yourself nothing to do? Well then, grab a group of friends and head on over to this year’s EYECON Roleplaying and Gaming Convention. Taking place at St Scholastica’s College in Glebe from Friday March 25 – Monday March 28, EYECON is your best opportunity to take part in pre-prepared games from helpful volunteer game masters. From regular table-top titles, free-forms (like live action games or LARPs), card games and more, you can choose to rely on old favourites or even try your hand at something new. Tickets are only $6 for three-hour sessions.
B1G Day In
Get excited, because local gaming favourite, The Nerd Cave, is gearing up to host its tenth B1G Day In. For the unacquainted, this is the best day of the month to visit the pop culture mecca, where game lovers can pay a measly $15 and play absolutely everything on offer for the entire day. Even better, the event is 18+, meaning BYO is welcomed in the upstairs area. You join in on the action from 12pm on Saturday March 19.
If you think you’ve got what it takes to enter the local competitive scene, why not try your luck at the first ever ELEAGUE.gg Bring Your Own PC (BYOPC) LAN party. Kicking off at the Australian Technology Park, for $40 you can enjoy a blistering 1000/1000 internet connection and compete for over $5,000 in prize money. It all takes place from 10am on Saturday March 19, so start training now.
Reviews:
Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 2 (PS4, XBO, PC)
When the original Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare was announced, people weren’t entirely sure how to react. Here was an incredibly popular tower defence series going to be reworked as… a multiplayer third-person shooter? Yet although many critics were incredibly surprised by the announcement, they were even more surprised by the fact that the final product was so well thought out and, in many ways, a highly enjoyable romp. Two years later and PopCap Games has now cultivated its success into Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 2.
The most immediate change that fans of the original will notice is the Backyard Battleground – a single map that not only houses both bases for the two factions, but also acts as a complete 3D hub. It gives you a decent amount of ground to cover as you can either run about firing at enemies, take part in mini-games or gain access to the game’s other core features, like customisation and multiplayer matchmaking.
Also helping keep things fresh is the inclusion of six brand new classes on both sides of the battle. Team Zombies, for example, now has an unassumingly small zombie imp who is capable of summoning a devastating mech on the battlefield, while the Plants have employed the help of a rose who, via her magic wand, can turn the undead into goats.
Thankfully, there’s a lot more to do with all these newbies now, PopCap answering the pleas of fans for more single player content. Acting as a pseudo-campaign, a wealth of solo missions generally take the form of glorified multiplayer matches, but they’re enjoyable nonetheless – especially with often ridiculous and dramatic closing acts. On the opposite end of the spectrum, multiplayer remains as fast and positively insane as the original. Most of the basic modes carry over from the last iteration and although none are trying to reinvent the wheel, it’s always fast, fluid and (thankfully) rarely poses annoying connection issues. PopCap is constantly trying to work on rebalancing issues, but it does mean that some matches can skew wildly in one camp’s favour depending on the prominence of particular classes.
As a whole, though, Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 2 will never outdo Battlefield, or Call Of Duty, but it never intended to in the first place. This is pure light-hearted entertainment that never takes itself too seriously, making it both comparatively easy to pick up and play, as well as ideal family entertainment. Sure it might be a title that gamers never really asked for, but who really cares, if it can be this much fun?
★★★★☆
Firewatch (PS4, PC)
From afar, Firewatch probably looks like an incredibly bland, uninspiring and downright boring indie title. In reality, however, it’s so much more.
You play as Henry, a man who takes a job as a fire ranger in Wyoming to both run from his marriage and be alone with his thoughts. The thing is, he ends up spending a great deal of his time chatting with his boss – an early 40s woman named Delilah. Over the days and months that quickly follow, the two develop a rapport – until strange things start occurring nearby.
To say much more would be a disservice to the four-hour journey, but rest assured, it’s a journey you’ll almost certainly want to go on. Exploration plays a large role in developer Campo Santo’s adventure, but it’s even more focused on the conversations that accompany you there and the characterisation that pushes you onward.
Proceedings do unfortunately take a relatively sharp turn with a rather disappointing and limp ending, but it’s not a deal-breaker by any stretch – despite threatening to derail all of the good that came before it. Get past that, though, and you’ll have one of 2016’s best indie games yet.
★★★★½
