Hyper is Australia's leading multi-format gaming magazine. It consistently delivers all the information a gamer could want on all the next-generation consoles, handhelds, mobile phones and PC gaming as well as the latest Blu-Ray movie release.
For as long as I can remember I've been an avid fan of fantasy. As soon as I could read my head was stuck in a book and my brain was consumed with heroic deeds, fantastical creatures and the triumph of good over evil. When I was around 10, the Borrible trilogy by Michael de Larrabeiti changed my view of fantasy. It was my first experience with contemporary or urban fantasy and instead of a cut and dry differentiation between good and evil, the Borribles themselves were militaristic vagabonds and thieves and their greatest enemy, the British govenrment, may have been dictatorial and xenophobic but they were portrayed not as evil but instead as misguided. From then on my understanding of fantasy broadened and I no longer saw much appeal…
Videogame movies don't have the best reputations. They're either terrible or they're brilliantly terrible, and your interpretation of their value invariably hinges on how close you are to the source material. Street Fighter fans find it tough to like the Jean Claude Van Damme vehicle despite it having some genuinely brilliant moments. It doesn't help that films based on games are invariably bad – the only movie with a Rotten Tomatoes score over 40% is Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within – which means they generally only deliver fan service to a group they usually don't understand in the first place. Warcraft will hopefully be different – although it's come a long way to get there. As Blizzard has tried desperately to find a way to bring the fantasy series to…
“LEGION IS SET TO BE A MASSIVE HEROIC POWER FANTASY FROM CHARACTER CREATION TO FINAL RAID” PLATFORM: PC • CATEGORY: MMO EXPANSION • DEVELOPER: BLIZZARD • PUBLISHER: BLIZZARD • DUE: 2016 Every month it seems like someone's telling us that World of Warcraft is dying – the latest round of pronouncements coming after it was revealed that WoW has recently dropped to the lowest number of subscribers since 2005. That sounds a little dire without numbers attached. Even though the numbers have dwindled, World of Warcraft still has 5.5 million subscribers. Guild Wars 2 currently boasts around 7 million subscribers but due to the buy-to-play model, the ongoing revenue from the game is much less. The numbers may be down but the game isn’t dying. Not by a long shot.…
“WHAT STARTS OFF AS A SMATTERING OF INITIAL UNLOCKS EXPANDS TO HUNDREDS OF PASSIVE AND ACTIVE SKILLS” PLATFORM: XBOX ONE, PS4, PC • CATEGORY: ACTION • DEVELOPER: TECHLAND • PUBLISHER: TECHLAND • DUE: TBA When Hellraid missed its 2015 release window, it was widely speculated that the game had been canned. Techland was quick to put an end to the rumours, declaring that Hellraid is still very much alive, albeit in need of additional development time as it didn’t meet the developer’s expectations. Outside of the delay caused by the jump from Chrome Engine 5 to 6, it’s a smart move by Techland to hopefully help further differentiate Hellraid from similar fantasy-themed dungeon crawlers. Beyond this, it will also make Hellraid feel less like a mod for Dead Island –…
The Grim Patron Warrior nearly killed Hearthstone. Popular streamers either quit the game or outright said they were only playing it because it was their job. “It was not a dominant deck in terms of win percentage anywhere,” explained Hamilton Chu, one of the Executive Producers on Hearthstone. We were sitting on a level above Blizzcon, up away from the show floor. “Up until fairly high level it was a losing deck. It was actually a very difficult deck to play. Up in Legend it was minorly winning and then the best handful of players in the world had it. They did quite well with it because it’s... well it’s actually pretty powerful.” For five mana, a player can summon a minion called the Grim Patron with three attack and…
“COMBAT IS CURRENTLY UNPLAYABLE, WITH SHODDY SOUNDS AND ANIMATIONS THE LEAST DAMNING ISSUES” PLATFORM: PC • CATEGORY: RPG • DEVELOPER: PORTALARIUM • PUBLISHER: PORTALARIUM • DUE: TBA There’s a lot of promise in Richard “Lord British” Garriott’s latest game, Shroud of the Avatar. That is, if you read the original Kickstarter pitch, or the laundry list of intended features on the Steam page. The reality, though, is Shroud of the Avatar isn’t close to being finished and, given it’s been in pre-alpha since Early Access release in November 2014, it isn’t likely to be close to finished anytime soon. In fact, there’s a capitalised warning from developer Portalarium that comes just shy of telling you to not buy the ambitious MMO in its current form. Outside of the normal pre-alpha…
