Gaming in New Zealand. Reviews, Walkthroughs, News

India vs Australia final live score: In a dazzling display of cricket prowess, India secured their spot in the 2023 World Cup final after a commanding victory over New Zealand, triumphing by 70 runs in the semi-final clash at Mumbai's Wankhede Stadium on Wednesday, November 15. The stage is set for an epic showdown at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad on Sunday, November 19, where India will face off against the formidable Australia in the 50-over World Cup final.

It's been a pretty good year for New Zealand studio Black Salt Games. The company's debut release, Dredge, launched to critical acclaim and recently topped 1 million sales, smashing internal expectations.

Microsoft kicked off its two-day annual Ignite conference in Seattle on November 15. At the keynote, CEO Satya Nadella made several key announcements, from rebranding Bing Chat and building custom AI chips to a new Windows AI Studio. As evident, artificial intelligence (AI) was the highlight on the first day of the conference, with Microsoft incorporating this technology into its suite of products such as Bing Chat, Copilot, Windows AI Studio, and Copilot Studio.

IND vs NZ World Cup semi-final LIVE: After a perfect run through the initial matches, India have entered the semi-final of the ICC Men's Cricket World Cup. Having played 9 games and winning them all, the Men in Blue are one of the favourites to win this year's tournament, taking full benefit of the home advantage. Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Mohammed Shami, and Jasprit Bumrah have been the standout players of the Indian team. Sanding in their way is a faltering New Zealand side that has won just one of their last five matches. However, they will be looking to set things right against India.

Threat Zone Three is the most difficult area in Modern Warfare Zombies and getting there is quite the challenge. Luckily, players have already discovered a secret portal in Threat Zone One that allows them to skip the proverbial hike to Mordor.

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 is less than a day from launching, but a common early access exploit has allowed thousands of players to get a headstart on the competition. It’s a yearly event in CoD, but fans have grown tired of the shenanigans.

Call of Duty spawns are always a little wonky on launch day, but they're rarely as entertaining as this Modern Warfare 3 bug. Some console folk hopping into multiplayer early (presumably employing the good ol' New Zealand region switch trick) are getting swept up in a nonstop bullet barrage as the map Quarry will sometimes spawn every player in the lobby at the same spot.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 launches on November 10, but fans have found a way to play the game a day early. There’s no need to purchase multiple copies or even mess with complicated online account settings. It’s all linked to consoles.

Despite increasing concerns about the ethical risks posed by rapidly developing AI applications, employers are paying little attention to the issue in recruiting, an OECD study said Monday.

It’s finally November and, with Black Friday approaching at a rapid pace, it’s no surprise that we’re already seeing some good deals popping up here and there. This year’s Black Friday officially kicks off on November 24 and will be the perfect opportunity to score some great Black Friday gaming deals.

Earlier this year, Sony unveiled two new PlayStation accessories in the form of the Pulse Explore wireless earbuds and the Pulse Elite wireless headset, and now, the company has confirmed when both of them will be releasing.

The franchise is returning with , an upcoming game for iOS and Android that explores new corners of the story. games stand out from other Action RPGs with crossover elements from Disney films and Square Enix's franchise, although its increasingly plentiful helping of original narrative and characters have helped it grow into a complex work of its own. is far from the first title to act as a spinoff to the numbered games, but it is the first action RPG since 2019's

The option to view Twitter/X without ads is finally here, but it’ll cost you $16 per month. 

We’re back in another Call of Duty life cycle and this time it’s for the remake of Modern Warfare 3. However, there’s still a ton of time between and November 10th, and if you played the last few betas, you’re probably super excited. If you can’t wait till then, there may be a trick to get into earlier than most. This guide will how to use a certain trick so you can COD MW3’s campaign a little early. 

By Jay Peters, a news editor who writes about technology, video games, and virtual worlds. He’s submitted several accepted emoji proposals to the Unicode Consortium.

The intensity of the Sun's activity has been rising in the last few months, and it is expected to increase even more as we approach the solar maximum. During this period, solar activity is at its peak, resulting in more solar flares, CMEs, solar storms and geomagnetic storms. All these solar phenomena hold the potential to cause damage on Earth. Technological instruments are especially at risk during these events, resulting in power blackouts and even disruption of radio communication.

Ind vs Nz: Today is an exciting day for cricket fans as India and New Zealand face off in the ICC World Cup 2023. The match is happening in Dharamshala, and it's expected to be a thrilling contest between the two top teams. India won the toss and decided to bowl first.

Twitter has been teasing, testing, and launching different subscription tiers since Elon Musk took over the company last year, but he's not done yet.

Everybody needs to cut loose every once in a while… especially pirates. The pirate lifestyle is freeing, of course, but it can also be monotonous. That’s why holidays like Calypso’s birthday are so important to slow down and really properly celebrate.

Marvel's Spider-Man 2 comes out today and the community has gone into lockdown to avoid those pesky spoilers.

For weeks, it has been known that X (formerly Twitter) would introduce multiple tiers as part of its subscription known as X Premium. It is just one of the several changes that the microblogging platform has undergone since Elon Musk's acquisition. Although the majority of Musk's moves have been called draconian by users, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO has not shied away from enforcing them, with the aim of making X a super app that competes with China's WeChat. In the latest announcement, Musk has now revealed that the tiers of the X Premium subscription could be coming soon.

Since the day of its launch, Meta's latest addition to its social media apps i.e. Threads, is continuously in the news. First due to its amazing initial popularity and then the quickly receding user count. Worryingly, for Meta, after the grand launch and increase in the number of Threads users, the excitement quickly slowed down after some time. There was a huge reduction in the number of active users on the platform. Since then, Meta has been rolling out useful updates and now, it is looking to promote it in other ways too in order to amplify the number of active users on the platform.

It's almost time for everyone to leap into Spider-Man 2.

No, Marvel's Spider-Man 2's fast-travel hold-to-confirm prompt is not hiding a load point. It could have been even faster, but developer Insomniac made the decision to value player usability over speed and scoring points on the internet.

Twitter owner Elon Musk has come up with a bold new plan to rid the platform of bots and attract legitimate new users: Charging new subscribers $1 per year for access.

China stands accused of stealing intellectual property and using artificial intelligence to hack and spy on other nations at an unprecedented scale.

Marvel's Spider-Man 2 is releasing this Friday, 20th October, and developer Insomniac has said you should download the game's launch day patch to get the best experience possible.

Ever since Elon Musk took over X (formerly Twitter), it has undergone a myriad of changes. In a bid to make it a super app that can compete with China's WeChat, the microblogging platform has received several new features, alongside a complete rebranding that resulted in Larry the Bird being replaced by an X. However, not all users are happy with the multitude of changes being introduced on the platform, with several of them calling these moves draconian. Just recently, it was announced that X would bring a 3-tier subscription model to its X Premium.

In the future, new users to Twitter/X may have to fork over $1 per year to tweet. 

In the year and a half since the season 1 finale of Our Flag Means Death left awkward pirate captains Stede Bonnet (Rhys Darby) and Edward “Blackbeard” Teach (Thor: Ragnarok and Thor: Love and Thunderdirector Taika Waititi) emotionally staggered and physically separated, the show’s vocal, expressive fandom seems to have steadily grown, getting louder, more organized, and more excited for the second season with every passing month.

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Space Rock Games has raised $1.2 million for a video game studio working on a game called Criminals Within.

Despite multiple close calls, we have been quite lucky when it comes to solar storms. Even as multiple solar flares have erupted over the last 10 days, only one released a coronal mass ejection (CME) that made its way to the Earth. However, things can now change with the latest eruption that took place in the sunspot region AR3452. The NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory detected the eruption, and as per reports, it took place on the eastern limb of the Sun. If there was any CME directed towards the Sun, there would be another solar storm event in the next 48 hours.

NZ vs NED World Cup live score and streaming: The ICC Men's Cricket World Cup 2023 is off to a thrilling start. The tournament kicked off on October 5 with New Zealand's amazing victory over England. In the following matches, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and India have all won a match each. This year, the ICC Men's Cricket World Cup 2023 is taking place in India, making the Men in Blue one of the favourites to win it on their home soil. The next encounter is between New Zealand and the Netherlands. Going into the match, New Zealand will be considered favourites, fresh from a victory against England, while the Netherlands will be hoping to bounce back from their earlier loss against Pakistan.

Black Salt Games' eldritch fishing adventure Dredge has sold over 1 million copies since launching in March 2023.

PAK vs NED live score and streaming: The ICC Men's Cricket World Cup kicked off yesterday with an exciting encounter between England and New Zealand. New Zealand took the victory by 9 wickets, courtesy of centuries by Devon Conway and Rachin Ravindra. In today's match, Pakistan face the Netherlands. The Pakistani team would be hoping to perform better in the ICC Men's Cricket World Cup than they did in the Asia Cup, which India won. Going into the match, Pakistan are favourites, having won all their 6 encounters against the Netherlands, but the Dutch might spring a surprise.

Season 2 of David Jenkins’ pirate comedy-romance-drama Our Flag Means Death has finally premiered on Max, with an opening three-episode arc that’s guaranteed to get the series’ fandom buzzing. The third episode in particular ends with a sequence that feels like it was intentionally crafted to inspire the crowds of fan artists who have turned the series into an obsession. Polygon talked to the series’ VFX supervisor, David Van Dyke, about what went into shooting that sequence — and how James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water helped out.

If you've been in the US your whole life, you're probably not aware of how popular the sport of cricket is globally. Around 2.5 billion people count themselves as fans, and Thursday marks the beginning of the most important event on the calendar: the ICC Cricket World Cup.

The new Sony Pictures Core will give PS Plus Premium and Deluxe subscribers access to a curated list of films to stream.

Our friends at Sony Pictures Entertainment produce a lot of fantastic films, and today, I’m pleased to tell you about our new collaboration to provide the PlayStation community with access to some of these memorable movies on PS5 and PS4 consoles.

A new Sony Pictures app has been added to PS4 and PS5, offering free movies to PS Plus Premium and Deluxe subscribers.

The Hollow Knight: Silksong community is once again going feral after a single Xbox tweet alluded to the game.

Everyone loves a superhero. And One Punch Man is a superhero like no other, surpassing more than 30 million copies of the Japanese manga and becoming a cultural hit all over the world.

Assassin's Creed Mirage is prepping to release this week, and before that, we've received global launch timings for the same. Ubisoft tweeted an infographic listing different timezones that point toward a staggered release — meaning the game unlocks at different times across the world. On console, the ninth-century Baghdad-set title goes live at midnight local time on October 5, which means the more impatient players can try changing their system's location to New Zealand to try and get in early. So far, the release schedule is straightforward, with preloading already live across PC, Xbox, and PlayStation. However, the PC unlock is a tad confusing, with some regions getting a headstart by as much as a day.

Fountain, a provider of hiring automation software for frontline workforces, considers India as one of the "big hubs" in this space, a top company official said. The company is present in the US, UK, France, Germany as well as in South Africa, India, New Zealand and a few other countries. "The big hubs are India, UK and France," Founder and CEO of the company Sean Behr told PTI. "Fountain focuses exclusively on the blue collar and gray collar workforce. A vast majority of people ... don't ...do PowerPoint or Excel, they do things on the frontlines of our economy," Behr said, adding that hiring and retaining workers in the blue and grey collar economy has never been more difficult.

Twitter has reportedly removed an option to report election misinformation.

Pokémon Go has quietly raised prices for in-game currency bundles in a number of regions, including the UK.

We're thrilled to announce the return of GamesBeat Next, hosted in San Francisco this October, where we will explore the theme of «Playing the Edge.» Apply to speak here and learn more about sponsorship opportunities here. At the event, we will also announce 25 top game startups as the 2024 Game Changers. Apply or nominate today!

In the ever-evolving world of the Flesh and Bloodtrading card game, where warriors and technologists battle for supremacy, the upcoming expansion set, Bright Lights, introduces a new take on equipment cards. It will completely change the way players build decks around new and old Mechanologist heroes.

In August of last year, Private Division and New Zealand-based studio Weta Workshop that they were collaborating on a new game set in the Lord of the Rings universe. That game has now been officially unveiled as Tales of the Shire: A Lord of the Rings Game.

I’ve never been to New Zealand, much less to the preserved set of Hobbiton from Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movies in the real town of Matamata. But until I actually pull off that globe-trotting trip, Tales of the Shire, a new game from Private Division and Wētā Workshop, might tide me over.

Tales of the Shire is a cozy new game set in The Lord of the Rings universe and it's coming out sometime next year. Developed by Wētā Workshop, the New Zealand-based special effects and props company that worked on Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movie trilogy, and published by Private Division, Tales of the Shire promises to let players live their best cozy Hobbit life. 

The spirit of Tolkien's Shire has always lent itself to the cozy game aesthetic. It's been a dream of those with a love of all things that grow for some time but finally, someone has decided to turn their hand at a cozy Shire game. And it's not just any old game studio taking the lead here. Tales of the Shire will be coming straight from the hands of the official Lord of the Rings special effects studio, Wētā Workshop, in New Zealand.

Weta Workshop is entering the video games industry with a new video game based on The Lord of the Rings, named Tales of the Shire.

The scourge of Cosy/Cozy Gaming has finally come for Middle-earth, and more specifically the Shire, which I guess was pretty cosy/cozy to begin with. Wētā Workshop and Private Division have announced Tales of the Shire, a "heart-warming" experience that will release on PC in 2024. I've got a live action trailer for you, in which a young person doodles pictures of Hobbits, while seated at a desk intriguingly strewn with modern appliances such as laptops and assorted Lord of the Rings paraphernalia. The book she's doodling in contains sketches of celebrated locations such as the Green Dragon pub in Bywater, and there are drawings of dolls, Hobbit-holes and onions. Take a peek!

A new Lord of the Rings game, Tales of the Shire, has been announced for PC and consoles.

Today, New Zealand studio Wētā Workshop unveiled Tales of the Shire, its previously announced game set in Middle-earth. Not much has been shared about it other than the fact it'll be a 'cozy and heartwarming' game, as evidenced by the artwork and the teaser trailer. It's likely players will be asked to tend to their Hobbit farms and gardens rather than fighting orcs.

Imagine unravelling a mystery, one fantastical two-dimensional world at a time.

Microsoft has very visibly gone on a spending spree over the past decade, buying up more than a dozen development studios through acquisitions of ZeniMax Media, Obsidian Entertainment, Double Fine Productions, InXile Entertainment, and others. Microsoft hopes to soon close its $68.7 billion buyout of Activision Blizzard.

Solar activity has been on the rise, with recent developments stoking concerns about potential repercussions for our planet. On September 17th, as predicted, Earth was hit by a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) that was spewed out by the Sun earlier. While the initial impact did not trigger a geomagnetic storm, there's a possibility of minor G1-class storms being sparked today in the coming hours as Earth continues to traverse through the CME.

More solar activity has been detected on the Sun, and it could spell bad news for the Earth. Currently, there is a coronal mass ejection (CME) that is traveling towards us and is likely to strike the planet on Sunday, September 17. But before it can even hit us, more solar flares have erupted on the Sun. Two different M-class solar flares were detected exploding on the notorious sunspot region AR3429 which has already caused multiple solar flares so far. The extreme radiation from the solar flares sparked radio blackouts on the Earth, and scientists are now looking into the fact whether another CME was hurled towards the Earth and if it can spark another solar storm.

Pokemon has always inspired fan art, whether it be recreations of beloved creatures, or new dreamed-up critters and evolutions. The Pokemon Company is celebrating all the beautiful art fans create by bringing back the Pokemon TCG Illustration Contest. This year, the theme is “Magical Pokemon Moments.”

After a couple of days of furious game developer reactions, game engine company Unity have backtracked a teensy bit on their plan to charge developers who meet certain revenue and copies-sold thresholds a "runtime fee" for every installation of their game.

This review of Next Goal Wins comes from the film’s premiere at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival. The film will be released in November.

Yesterday (Tuesday, September 12), it was announced that the game engine Unity will soon begin charging developers a monthly fee based on the number of installs their games have, in a move that has left many indie studios upset and frustrated.

PAX Australia is 10 years old this year, which means it is officially old enough to solve a mystery by cycling around with its friends while uncovering the town's dark secrets. It is also old enough to put on a gaming convention with a stacked lineup of exhibitors.

Yesterday, September 11, two M-class solar flares erupted on the Earth-facing side of the Sun, and the latter of the two managed to release a large coronal mass ejection (CME) into space. According to data from NASA's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), it erupted on the notorious sunspot region AR3429 that recently came into Earth's view. The CME was noted to be in the range of Earth's strike zone and could deliver a glancing blow to our planet sparking a solar storm. But will it hit?

Meta has started rolling out its Meta Quest v57 update for its Quest virtual reality headsets. The update brings a range of new features and upgrades for Quest users such as unsending image messages, horizon feed, and more. But one of the most important feature upgrades to come from the update is an improvement to the avatar creator, as the company adds better customization options for users to fine-tune their appearance. Users will now be able to do a bunch of customization previously not possible such as adding highlights to hair, using a slider to pick a specific base hair color, and even choosing the color of your eyebrows. This was a feature many had asked for in the past and Meta has finally delivered.

By Jay Peters, a news editor who writes about technology, video games, and virtual worlds. He’s submitted several accepted emoji proposals to the Unicode Consortium.

Good news for Instagram Threads users! The search feature that was being tested in Australia and New Zealand is now spreading to many English and Spanish-speaking countries. Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, the company behind Threads, shared this update. This means people in places like Argentina, India, Mexico, the United Kingdom, and the United States can now use the basic search function in Threads.

Microsoft is set to launch its abusive-voice reporting feature for Xbox consoles. Announced in July, it lets gamers submit inappropriate remarks heard while playing multiplayer titles. The system captures a 60-second clip saved to the console; you then have 24 hours to complete the report. The feature arrives this week in the September update for Xbox Series X/S and Xbox One. However, it’s initially limited to the “select English-language markets” of the US, UK, Canada, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand.

Microsoft has detailed Xbox’s September system update, which is rolling out this week.

By Tom Warren, a senior editor covering Microsoft, PC gaming, console, and tech. He founded WinRumors, a site dedicated to Microsoft news, before joining The Verge in 2012.

Game Pass subscribers are snapping up Starfield’s $35 early access upgrade.

As the school holidays wind to a close, and those heady weeks of FIFA games and lengthy RPG sessions fade into memory, my household has had one last gaming hurrah. I’ve been making my way through all of the things I saw at Gamescom, and carried on with some of them when I got home. Wayfinder has become the daily MMO hit, and I’ve been playing with my son in his first true stint of online gaming. Alongside that I’m still playing Baldur’s Gate 3, and I’m probably going to finish up just as the PS5 version appears. It’s safe to say it’s very, very good, and if you haven’t been able to play yet, you should be excited.

It’s impressive when someone manages to create a beloved game experience on their own; or at the very least with a small team. Such was the case with Stardew Valley , and its developer Eric Barone, also known by the pseudonym “ConcernedApe.” What’s even more impressive than that, though, is how that experience was converted into a highly coveted board game. While Stardew Valley: The Board Game was available for a limited run, it’s coming back very soon.

It’s taken a while, but Threads is finally adding the ability to search for content over the social media platform. 

The Stardew Valley board game is back in action as developer ConcernedApe announces pre-orders are about to begin. 

As Starfield's long-awaited launch approaches, Bethesda's Todd Howard has reportedly sent a memo to staffers that's become public. It's touching for the most part, though Howard doesn't miss the opportunity to let everyone know that he's aware people will be using the infamous New Zealand trick to play the game. 

Flesh and Blood, the upstart competitor to Magic: The Gathering, has built up a lot of steam since its launch in 2019. Primarily played as a two-player dueling game, it has a thriving competitive scene, with 4,000 stores worldwide helping promote its organized play program. But until now, the game hasn’t had an introductory boxed set geared toward more casual players.