Austin Gallagher

Hard to even imagine how confusing this campaign must have been for the average punter, what a colossal fuck up

Thanks Rio! I see you've got your own noms so congrats to you as well :)

After about a year of writing reviews I threw my hat in for the Lizzies without really expecting to be nominated. Really pleased to be amongst some great local talents here covering the best industry in the world.

Glad I'm not reviewing Marathon cus it sure feels like negative reviews are going to be... Deeply unpopular with the game's target audience.

I wonder how loud of an uproar there will be from (likely small market of) people who've repositioned their libraries around their PCs and neglected grabbing a PS5, especially considering the consistent price hikes.

Likely a good long-term decision for the brand, regardless.

In these dark days I'm glad we can rely on one of the last bastions of reliable video game news. Dominoes.

Crimson Desert feels overstuffed to bursting, and in some ways that was very exciting. In others, a bit more of a mixed bag? Here's my thoughts from the preview;

Me, less than a month ago:

The churn of live-service releases to farewell jpegs isn’t just a shame for the individual games it affects; it's a broader cultural vandalism.

Years of work by talented artists result in jobs being lost and another game being thrown on the pile of free-to-play misfires.

There's plenty to critique about both Phil Spencer and Sarah Bond, but it sure doesn't bode well when the heir apparent to the Xbox throne just peaces out and we get a fucking AI booster in the top spot.

There's also an implicit acknowledgement of the audience of the cartoon where Prince Andrew apparently needs to be labelled for the point to be made

first they came for Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, and I said nothing, but i did laugh quite a lot

Lost Records: Bloom & Rage Tape 1 Review - You can't go home again There is a deliberate nature to Lost Records: Bloom & Rage. The game implores you to take it slow and appreciate the little things.

Each part were some of my favourite reviews to write of last year

Unfortunately our lives are hell and science has left us behind

Idk if Coeliac or just Gluten Intolerance, but if you're the latter there's a thing (in Australia at least) called GluteGuard that supposedly works approximately like this.

If you're coeliac tho we're unfortunately still shit outta luck

The entire live-service era has been disastrous for multiplayer gaming's ability to create cultural artefacts

Likely thing for the guy who wrote Deadpool & Wolverine to think tbh

Corporate consolidation is horrible, but have you considered that Master Chief would be a great dive tank?

They should just put John Halo in it if they're gonna be owned by Microsoft

Rolled credits on Cairn earlier today.

Few games connect you so physically with a player character, and the drama of skin, bone, and perserverance could not work in another medium.

I'm a climber, and while that elevates Cairn for me, it's still a one of a kind gem and universal recommendation.

As a coeliac can you please drop the title I'm fascinated by this it sounds hilarious

100%. There would be way more work involved in this but if this was a 6v6 game I think you'd absolutely be adding some much needed juice.

After a tumultuous lead-up to launch, Highguard shows promise The Game Awards much memed "one last thing" Highguard isn’t an immediate slam dunk, but it isn’t a total misfire either.

Seems like I'm more positive on Highguard than many others. There's stuff here I would love to see how it takes shape in 6+ months.

Should this be a 1.0 release after a TGA reveal? Probably not. Is it worth checking out and seeing if you vibe it, yeah. My impressions;

Unrelated to the critique thing - it's funny how I think I know exactly what game you're talking about.

Sometimes unfortunately you gotta lay it out plain on this side of the coin. It sucks, I take no joy in it, but if you don't you're not doing your job as a critic.

There's a kernal of something here, and I've broadly enjoyed what I've played so far — but that gear up phase feels so extremely 'first draft'. When it's actually firing on all cylinders w/ a good raid it's actually pretty good. Good enough to survive? An entirely different question.

My armchair dev suggestion is that I think you could reduce map size by about 20% and add an additional player to both teams and it would help that downtime problem. I don't dislike the 'soft' rounds, but I think you're not forced to compete for loot w/ enemies before the Shieldbreaker spawns.

Many eyes are rightfully on the US at the moment, but today in Australia we're marching as well. While it is for different causes, we stand together against the rise of fascism, racism, and right wing hate.

January 26 is not a day to celebrate. Always was, always will be, Aboriginal Land.

I regret to inform you that you can now find me in even more places than before.

The guy that runs the Reddit where people post about patting their cat on the butt like bongos has put his foot down