By Jamie Kennett

What more is there to say? The fabled DayZ standalone, a thing of legend until now, has been released today. 

For the price of £20 the game is now available on Steam, but this comes with a very important disclaimer...

This is only an early-access pure alpha version of the game. There's still a long way to go until an official release. I recommend you only take the trip back to Chernarus if you're a serious DayZ fan and you want to support its development as much as you can.

Still though, even a game as alpha as this can't be any worse than when the original DayZ mod for Arma II first came out. Hackers beaming you into the sky willy-nilly and watching you plummet to your death is worse than anything developer Dean Hall can throw at us now.

By Jamie Kennett and Luke Kirby

Scramble! Scramble! The Steam Autumn Sale (or Spring Sale if you're in the antipodes) is on, from now until the 3rd of December (next Tuesday). So if you're a PC gamer, you best get on the Store and start spending. If ever there's a time to expand your games library, its now. I never buy PC games unless its during a Steam sale, and need I explain why? Games like Skyrim are a mere £3 right now. Three pounds.

On the other side of "Read more", Luke gives some pro tips on what to buy and when.

By Jamie Kennett

Before I begin, permit me to say that this is not DayZ; this is a mod based on DayZ. Yes that does mean it's a mod of a mod, but this no-nonsense post-Soviet zombie survival game is all the better for it.

DayZero is a free-to-play online multiplayer mod for ARMA 2 (requires Operation Arrowhead) which is basically a game in its own right. I've lost many an hour/day to the simplistically brilliant gameplay of this virtual human drama, and I've never regretted it. It's by far the most thrilling game I've ever played. Here's why.

By Jamie Kennett


The fastest-selling video game of all time is dubbed "Game of the Year" by the elders of video gaming at the prestigious Golden Joystick Awards. Needless to say I'm not surprised...

By Jamie Kennett

Last Tuesday saw the release of the latest instalment in the Creative Assembly’s genre-defying strategy series; Total War. After the 19th century Japan of the previous game, Shogun 2, the latest one takes us back to that old crowd-pleaser; Ancient Rome. Total War: Rome II is set during the same period of the infamous nation’s history as its predecessor from 2004, being that the player oversees control of the faction from the late 3rd Century BC -towards the end of the Roman Republic- and well into the establishment of the world-changing Roman Empire. Utilising the same game engine as the honourable Shogun 2, whilst at the same time revisiting some of the [better] gameplay from the first Rome game, there is many a good feature of this latest release, and only a few bad ones. Read on for the rest, naturally.

By Jamie Kennett

Last week Rockstar Games released another trailer in a spate of marketing material that’s been flowing to us since the start of the summer. GTA Online is the multiplayer component of the new and much anticipated instalment of the game that epitomises gaming; Grand Theft Auto. It seems that this time around they’ve actually managed to do a good job of the multiplayer side of things, and aren’t going to make a complete hash of it like they did with, say, GTA IV. Here’s a number of reasons why GTA IV was terrible, and why GTA V isn’t only going to be the greatest single-player game ever made, but why it’s also going to be one of the finest multiplayer experiences a lot of us will have ever had to date.

By Jamie Kennett

To quote the Dude, “new s*** has come to light!” With the three trailers Rockstar released last week, covered by yours truly here, and the number of articles that have begun springing up all over our rivals’ sites since then, I’ve managed to obtain a pretty good idea* of what GTA V itself is all about. This is no longer what we expect to be in the game; this is what we know is in the game. Let’s start with the map itself.

*I use those words lightly; I’m a walking encyclopaedia of GTA.

By Jamie Kennett

In my last update on GTA V, I said there would be “more to come [this] week”. Well, it turns out I was right; yesterday Rockstar Games released three trailers in one go! Each depicting one of the playable characters from the new instalment (Michael, Trevor, and Franklin), the trailers give us another massive insight into the world of GTA V-era Los Santos and a further taste of some of things we’ll be experiencing as the three protagonists. Now, some people don’t care about the characters themselves. For some people all they care about is whether or not they can drive 100mph down a busy sidewalk and not get blood all up the front of their shiny new Aston. For me, however, the characters come first. So if you’re like me, you’ll want to read on.

By Jamie Kennett

Some of you won’t have a clue what I’m talking about. You’ll be sitting in your seat right now thinking, “what is he talking about?” I bet that’s what you’re doing; I could put money on it. You’re either staring blankly at the screen or you’re trying to work what Kifflom is. It’s not even a word, is it? Oh contraire! For fellow hardcore GTA fans out there, Kifflom is just as recognisable now as it was eight-and-a-half years ago when it first appeared in San Andreas. For everyone else, I may have some explaining to do…

Kifflom was/is the deity of a religious cult known as the Epsilon Program that appeared in GTA: San Andreas in 2004. An obvious spoof of similar “religions” such as Scientology, the cult and its reclusive leader Chris Formage were mentioned a lot on San Andreas’ in-game radio network, but it never physically appeared in the game itself. It seemed largely insignificant to the story or the actual gameplay, and at the time it was just add another level to the atmosphere of the world that was Rockstar Game’s spoof of Nineties’ California.

By Jamie Kennett

Rockstar Games has sent us all another little present in the run-up to GTA V; they have just released a pair of artworks for the game, which is set to arrive in stores on the 17th of September. The two artworks, collectively called Cash and Carry, respectively depict two of the three playable characters in the game; veteran bank robber Michael and semi-legitimate repo man Franklin.