2K Games Game Reviews
Review Borderlands 4 (PS5) - A Chaotic Return That Shoots Straight, Even if Its Performance Stutters
Bold and brash
Any franchise that’s been around for over 15 years and spanned three console generations is going to have its ups, downs, and remasters. Borderlands is no exception, and you’d be hard pressed to convince anyone that things have been looking up after a ho-hum Tiny Tina spinoff, the dreadful New Tales from the Borderlands that...
Review Mafia: The Old Country (PS5) - Historical Crime Story Runs Out of Ammo
An offer you maybe can refuse
At a time when games take the best part of a decade to make, Mafia: The Old Country presents an antidote with a more streamlined, story-focused single player campaign. Unfortunately, it also demonstrates the potential pitfalls of a project like this, with a largely repetitive romp that somehow manages to outstay its...
Review Sid Meier's Civilization VII (PS5) - Legendary Strategy Series Builds a Brand New Foundation
Settle down
Firaxis' flagship series returns with Sid Meier’s Civilization VII, and, for the first time in the series’ history, it;s released simultaneously across all platforms, including the PS5. For the uninitiated, Civilization (Civ for short) is the quintessential 4X (eXplore, eXpand, eXplot, eXterminate) game where the objective is to...
Review Borderlands 3 (PS5) - Looting and Shooting Is Back and Better Than Ever
Don't forget to like, follow, and obey
Republished on Wednesday, 15th February, 2023: We're bringing this review back from the archives following the announcement of February 2023's PS Plus Extra and Premium lineup. The original text follows. Borderlands 3 is one of those rare games where you most likely knew if you would be purchasing it or not...
Review The Quarry (PS5) - Maybe Until Dawn Was Just a Fluke
One foot in the grave
Republished on Wednesday, 15th February, 2023: We're bringing this review back from the archives following the announcement of February 2023's PS Plus Extra and Premium lineup. The original text follows. Whether it likes it or not, Supermassive Games will always have its titles compared to Until Dawn. The British developer...
Review Mafia: Definitive Edition - This Is How You Do a Remake
Scarf ace
Republished on Wednesday, 1st February, 2023: We're bringing this review back from the archives following the announcement of February 2023's PS Plus line up. The original text follows. After the complete and utter disaster that was Mafia II: Definitive Edition, the only way was up for its prequel. Mafia: Defin
Review Marvel's Midnight Suns (PS5) - Heroic Social Strategy Experiment Is Almost Super
A kind of Magik
In an era of samey mainstream games, Marvel’s Midnight Suns sticks out like a Spider-Man cosplay in a white collar working place. While this heroic effort from iconic XCOM developer Firaxis pulls liberally from a spectrum of different sources – the likes of Slay the Spire, Metal Gear Acid, and even Fire Emblem: Three Houses all...
Review New Tales From The Borderlands (PS5) - No Tale, Too Much Borderlands
Fails from the Borderlands
There’s an argument to be made that 2014’s Tales from the Borderlands is actually the best game in the Borderlands series. Now, hold on. Don’t go typing up your angry comments just yet. Hear us out. Sometimes you just want a capital V capital G Video Game that’s about running and jumping and shooting and looting...
Review Tiny Tina's Wonderlands (PS5) - Borderlands Fantasy Spin-Off Can't Quite Find the Magic
No time to dice
If you read our review of Borderlands 3, then you've basically read our review of Tiny Tina's Wonderlands, only this game isn't as good. We're just doing it again in different words, and we're a little more weary this time around. Nothing of much consequence has changed between the two games. The budget is lower, clearly, and the...
Dicey Dungeons (& Dragons)
Republished on Wednesday 26th January, 2022: We're bringing this review back from the archives following the announcement of February 2022's PS Plus lineup. The original text follows. Just in time to gear us up for the 2022 launch of Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, one of the best Borderlands expansions ever is back to dazzle...
Review Mafia II: Definitive Edition - There's Nothing Definitive About This Awful Remaster
Throw away the key
Mafia II deserves better than this. Originally released for PlayStation 3 in 2010, it was by no means the greatest of its time. However, ten years later, anything the game got right has been thwarted by the technical disaster that is Mafia II: Definitive Edition. This remaster fails on all fronts. From an atrociously bad frame...
Review Mafia III - Gripping Presentation Marred by Repetitive Missions
An offer you might want to refuse
Republished on Tuesday, 19th May, 2020: We're bringing this review back from the archives following the announcement of Mafia III: Definitive Edition. The original text follows. 1968 was a turbulent year in United States history. With both the Vietnam War in full swing, and the assassination of Martin Luther King...
Review Mafia II - Stunning Period Setting Undone Only by Restrictive Open World
Godfatherly love
Republished on Tuesday, 19th May, 2020: We're bringing this review back from the archives following the announcement of Mafia II: Definitive Edition. The original text follows. Protagonist Vito Scaletta is a typical mobster: he's a criminal, a low-life, and a murderer -- but you can't help but fall in love with him. Despite being...
Review BioShock: The Collection - Return to Rapture and Columbia in This Solid Set of Remasters
As above, so below
Republished on Wednesday 29th January 2020: We're bringing this review back from the archives following the announcement of February's PlayStation Plus lineup. The original text follows. When it was released in 2007, BioShock was hailed as a masterpiece by the gaming press and remains to this day a high watermark for the...
Review Borderlands 3: Moxxi's Heist of the Handsome Jackpot - Gearbox's Solid DLC Streak Continues
This is Vegas
Despite splitting opinion wherever it goes, there is one thing you cannot deny about Borderlands 3. Developer Gearbox Software consistently goes above and beyond when it comes to post-launch support and its latest looter shooter is no different. Two in-game events have already come and gone since the game's September 2019 release, but...
Review Civilization VI - The Best Strategy Game on PS4
Everybody wants to rule the world
In the year 1886, Greece was a world superpower thanks to unparalleled scientific discovery and widespread cultural influence. Sparta was home to great scientists like Sir Isaac Newton, and world wonders such as the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Edgar Allen Poe wrote The Raven there, while gazing out of his hotel...
Review Borderlands: The Handsome Collection - All the Looting and Shooting You Could Ask For
Claptrap compilation
Republished on Wednesday 29th May 2019: We're bringing this review back from the archives following the announcement of June's PlayStation Plus lineup. The original text follows. It's becoming a familiar tale of late: a much loved game from the previous generation shows up on your new and shiny gaming apparatus, dressed up, and...
Review Borderlands 2 VR - A Handsome Adaptation
You don't know Jack
Sony’s not stupid, and it seems to recognise that titles like The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Borderlands 2 VR need to exist in order to get potential PlayStation VR adopters through the door. While headset veterans will accurately argue that it’s the titles like Astro Bot Rescue Mission and Beat Saber that really shine in...
Loving the alien
Republished on Wednesday 30th May 2018: We're bringing this review back from the archives following the announcement of June's PlayStation Plus lineup. The original text follows. When aliens landed on Earth in 2012 strategy game XCOM: Enemy Unknown, it was up to you to unite the people of our planet against the invading...
Review Carnival Games VR (PS4)
Infinite bore fair
Ah, this is just what PlayStation VR needed: a minigame collection. And not just any superficial smorgasbord of banal activities either, but the granddaddy of the genre: Carnival Games VR. Those of you who hold on to haunting thoughts like a manic depressive in a mental health institute may remember this 2K Games published series...
Genre blended meta growth
Back in 2014, Gearbox Software head honcho Randy Pitchford incomprehensibly described Battleborn as an "FPS; hobby-grade co-op campaign; genre-blended, multi-mode competitive e-sports; meta-growth, choice epic Battleborn Heroes". While no one could quite decipher just what he was going on about, it was safe to assume that...
Play your f***ing class
In a generation littered with server issues, campaign length fears, and a heightened interest in getting more for your money, it seems odd that a title would launch with some online-only multiplayer modes, no real campaign, and more DLC than you can probably afford. That's exactly what Evolve has done. However, this...
Review Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel (PlayStation 3)
You don’t know Jack
The first two Borderlands games brought loot to first person shooters in a huge way, and in the process, proved to be massive hits with gamers. Now, with the arrival of Borderlands: The Pre Sequel, original developer Gearbox Software have taken a backseat, allowing 2K Australia to fire up the gun generator for another outing,...
Review The Bureau: XCOM Declassified (PlayStation 3)
Should've remained classified
Serving as a prequel of sorts to the long-running XCOM series, The Bureau: XCOM Declassified attempts to fuse the strategic elements of turn-based tactical alien zap-em-up XCOM: Enemy Unknown with a third-person shooter. Unfortunately, while there are glimmers of entertainment, the concept doesn't quite coalesce into a...
Review BioShock Infinite (PlayStation 3)
Queen Elizabeth
Columbia doesn’t feel all that familiar at first. Zachary Hale Comstock’s secluded slice of Americana promptly presents itself as a sunbaked tapestry of carnival attractions and hallowed gardens; a blue skied paradise basking in the ideals of a prophet bold enough to secede from the sodom of the corruption lurking below, and set...
Review XCOM: Enemy Unknown (PlayStation 3)
Martian orders
Sgt Brown, purposefully named after a personal friend and modelled to appear in much the same way, was a competent, proficient warrior out on the battlefield. In the face of unimaginable terror, combating his own nerves on an alien-infested Earth, without question, his fortitude and intensity remained true. Yet, it was his lack of...
Review Borderlands 2 (PlayStation 3)
Pandora's box
Borderlands 2 should ship with a health warning crudely emblazoned on its cover: “Warning, may cause the onset of severe obsessive compulsive disorder.” We’ve never been the most laidback individuals, but Gearbox’s latest Diablo-meets-Doom first-person shooter unearths the very worst in our compulsive natures. Only yesterday we...
Review Spec Ops: The Line (PlayStation 3)
“Death toll – too many”
Imagine this: somewhere in the seemingly endless sands of Dubai, two innocent civilians are being held at gunpoint, along with an informant holding delicate information that you desperately need. But you’re not the only one in pursuit of this vital data, and the hostages’ lives are being bartered for it. Looking...
Review The Darkness II (PlayStation 3)
Are you afraid of the dark?
We’ve all been in a situation where two hands are not enough: we pop pencils behind our ears and grip paper in our mouth, cursing through muffled breath about our awkward plight. Jackie Estacado, the protagonist of 2K’s The Darkness franchise, doesn’t have that problem. Armed with two standard anatomical limbs and a...
Review Top Spin 4 (PlayStation 3)
Balls in your court
Motion controllers and tennis games have seemed the perfect match ever since Wii Sports put a plastic Remote in your hand and told you to be Roger Federer. Regrettably, since then, few titles — if any — have come close to matching Nintendo's pack-in when it comes to intuitive controls and the all-important fun factor: EA's...
