Geek of Oz

Continuing from Part 1 , here’s the rest of the schweet schtuff I got my hands on at Bandai Namco: Project CARS PC, Xbox One, PS4 - November 2014 Wii U - 2015 The best way of summarising the crowd-funded Project CARS  is that it is to racing games what Dark Souls is to fantasy games. No perceivable story – not that it needs one – but whoa-on-a-stick is there a ton of customisation, tracks, cars, difficulty settings, AI settings and weather presets. You could probably drive a go-kart around Bathurst’s Mt Panorama on high difficulty against   overly-aggressive AI competitors, with realistic tyre-ruining sand and an encroaching rainstorm, given the amount of flexibility there is in the gameplay setup. Actually, that’s exactly what we did do. Mt Panorama. In go-karts. With rain coming. While I can definitely recommend Project CARS  for driving enthusiasts, particularly those who were unimpressed by recent Forza and Gran Turismo offerings, the on...

For those of you who love beer, pizza and competitive Mario Kart (which I hope is everyone) you’d better polish up those red turtle shells, grab a handful of lighting and get your butt to this awesome event! PRESS PLAY will be a retro themed night combining various forms of live entertainment: Gaming, music, art and fashion into one jam packed night of excitement. The central focus of PRESS PLAY will be the Mario Kart Nintendo 64 tournament, consisting of 16 teams of 4. The night will also feature music from a selection of popular DJ’s and live art from Mr. Sweet & Bethany Smith as well as prizes for best dressed (Gaming/Retro themed). There will also be gaming consoles for casual gamers to partake in. Sponsored by Red Bull, Little Creatures Brewery, Domino’s Pizza and The Gamesmen, which means that there will be FREE food & beverages for patrons. All important details are as follows: PRESS PLAY @ SPECTRUM Location: 34 Oxford Street, Darlinghurst,...

Director Lasse Hallstrom’s latest film, The Hundred-Foot Journey is an utterly charming, visually stunning and genuinely heart-warming tale of family, love, ambition and the culinary world. The film follows the journey of the Kadam family who are led from their native India by tragic circumstance to start afresh overseas with their family-run restaurant business. They end up in the south of France, in an incredibly picturesque French village called Saint-Antonin-Noble-Val, where fate indicates that they should open up their restaurant “Maison Mumbai”, despite the close-minded locals, who aren’t keen on the notion of an Indian restaurant in their very French town. Fate also says that they should set up their family business on the site of a deserted restaurant, which happens to be directly opposite a high-class, Michelin star French restaurant, “Le Saule Pleureur” run by the immaculate Helen Mirren as Madame Mallory ( The Queen, The Debt ). The ensemble cast is terrific, al...

LOW #1 (Released 30th of July) Story by: Rick Remender, Art by: Greg Tocchini Chris: Low is best described as Finding Nemo meets BioShock, if the opening issue is any indication. It does take most of its page count to get to the central thrust of the narrative, but once it does it manages, much like one character does to another near the end, to really hook you in. I’ll admit my initial desire to read Low was because of its cover. No other reason; I had no idea the story was about an underwater colony of humans looking for a new world, nor that it would end with the two children of our parental protagonists getting captured by a guy stealing a genetically-encoded Big Daddy suit. I just saw that cover by Greg Tocchini and my jaw dropped. It’s the kind of art Fiona Staples might make if she lived in Rapture. While it’s not as attention-grabbing as its cover, Low still manages the task of giving me enough story to make me want seconds. It’s a narrati...

First of all, I’d like to once again thank Bandai Namco and their Sydney studio for giving me the chance to check this advance stuff out last week. They’re a rad crowd, and had some fantastic games on offer. Second, all these games are good. Seriously. No, I’m not secretly being paid millions of dollars by Bandai Namco, I’m being honest. As a gamer I’m quite hard to please, and despite a few hiccups and one particular game that wasn’t my thang, yo, the offerings on hand were all excellent. It behoves one to at least give them each a look; chances are you, like me, might find something you didn’t know you wanted until you played it. So, in no particular order, here’s the first lot of gems I got my hands on: Tales of Xillia 2 PS3 - August 2014 I don’t know about the rest of you, but I was mighty disappointed by Final Fantasy XIII . As a fan of many of FF’s preceding entries it was disheartening to see the gameplay chopped down to almost nothing and the story pared ...