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Gaming portfolio
Gameplanet is New Zealand’s number-one destination for gamers and arguably the country’s premier gaming media outlet. My involvement with Gameplanet began with production/presenting duties on an episode of the Telefrag video series before extending to a couple of editorial features and a preview of Mass Effect 3 (that was syndicated by New Zealand’s number-one online news outlet, Stuff).
- Adding value: are digital subscriptions the futue?
- Carrier Command: Gaea Mission – first impressions
- Star Wars 1313 – first impressions
- Transformers: Fall of Cybertron – first impressions
- Video – Highlights from the Xbox 360 E3 press event
- Video – Highlights from the PlayStation 3 E3 press event
- Halo 4 first impressions
- Injustice: Gods Among Us first impressions
- Call of Duty: Black Ops II producer interview – Daniel Suarez (video)
- Halo 4 interview – Frank O’Connor (video)
- Telefrag: PlayMaker, Gears of War 3, Red Faction: Armageddon
- Editorial feature: Negotiating the Broken Streets: Gaming’s New Cold War
- Editorial feature: Generation Next: The Future of Consoles
- Preview: Mass Effect 3
- Review: Resident Evil: Revelations
- Review: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
- God of War: Ascension preview/interview feature
- The Unfinished Swan preview/interview feature
- PlayStation All-Stars: Battle Royale news piece
- God of War: Ascension news piece
- XBLA sets new revenue record, doubles last year’s figures
- The Splatters developer speaks on the difficulties of the XBLA marketplace
- Monaco is no stealth game, says creator
For an exhaustive list of my contributions to XBLAFans, click here.
From late 2008 until May 2011, I was fortunate enough to hold the editorial role at Game Console, for a time New Zealand’s only dedicated gaming magazine. The brand has been around in a number of forms for some years now, firstly as a free A4-sized magazine distributed for free at video-rental stores nationwide. At the time I came on-board with publisher Action Media (later renamed TechDay), Game Console was simply a supplement/section of popular consumer-technology magazine NetGuide. Eventually we were able to relaunch Game Console in the unusual format of a 64-page, A5 (small, reference-sized) magazine. It was an incredible experience, and in many ways it was a dream job, but it presented its own set of serious challenges. I’m proud of what myself and a small team of contributors achieved with Game Console, particularly given the lack of resources and the infrequent editorial opportunities. Unfortunately, though, one month shy of the one-year anniversary of Game Console’s relaunch as a standalone publication, TechDay decided to cease the printed publication. Below is a sample of my work on both the magazine and its associated website over that period. If you’re having trouble reading the magazine articles in your browser, you can right click the links and “save link as” to your desktop to view them in a more readable size.
Click here to read a digital version of the April 2011 issue in its entirety.
Editorials
- April 2011 – Portal 2 and innovation in the first-person shooter space
- March 2011 – The next generation of portable consoles
Features and interviews
- Interview with Hans Lo, senior producer of NetherRealm Studios’ Mortal Kombat – December 2010/January 2011: pages one and two, three and four
- Nintendo 3DS announcement feature – March 2011: pages one and two, three and four, five
- Sony “NGP” announcement feature – March 2011: pages one and two, three and four
- The Best Gaming Gadgets of CES 2011 – March 2011: pages one and two, three and four
- Retro Corner – The NES’ Blaster Master – February 2011: page one
- Legends of Mythology – God of War III developer interview – May 2010: pages one and two
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Reviews and previews
- September 2010 – Halo: Reach preview: pages one and two, three and four
- September 2010 – Transformers: War for Cybertron review: pages one and two, three and four
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News
- The lowdown on the Xperia Play – March 2011: pages one and two
- Sidhe announces Rugby Challenge – December 2010: page one
- Kiwi developer presents Path of Exile at Penny Arcade Expo – October 2010: pages one and two
- xLAN’s a wrap for 2010 – August 2010: pages one and two
From the web
- Editorial – A Digital Future, May 2011
- Retro Corner – Resident Evil, May 2011
- Mortal Kombat review, April 2011
Mass Effect 3 producer interview
For a brief while, I contributed to popular New Zealand gaming magazine Gamefreaks during parts of 2007 and 2008. Funnily enough, this was my first foray into gaming journalism; I’d been writing about one passion for a few years already by this stage, but for whatever reason it simply hadn’t occurred to me that I could write about my life-long favourite hobby. Given my background, they trusted me enough to take a punt on me. I loved writing for Gamefreaks, and it cemented video-game journalism as my passion. Fairly early on I was offered the opportunity to fly to Sydney to meet Ubisoft’s Patrice Desiliets at a preview event for Assassin’s Creed, the flexibility of my full-time job at TVNZ captioning working to my favour. While I lived in Melbourne, Australia for a brief three months, I also covered the Game On! travelling video-game museum for Gamefreaks! I was in talks with the editor about contributing once again upon my return to New Zealand, but it wasn’t long before the unmissable opportunity to edit the competition surfaced. Sadly, that was the end of my relationship with Gamefreaks other than bumping into the gang at media events. Like Game Console, it’s now online only, meaning there are currently no locally produced gaming magazines published in New Zealand.
- Assassin’s Creed preview with Patrice Desiliets (please forgive a few errors made at the editorial stage, including my misspelled surname
) - Mass Effect review
- Assassin’s Creed review
- Hands-on preview: PlayStation Vita
- Uncharted 3 interview: Naughty Dog’s Keith Guerette
- BarCraft Auckland feature
NZHerald.co.nz is the website for New Zealand’s most-read daily newspaper.
- Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time interview/preview feature
- PlayStation All-Stars: Battle Royale interview/preview feature
- LittleBigPlanet Karting preview/interview feature

Stuff.co.nz is New Zealand’s most visited news website. Through syndication arrangements with Gameplanet and PC World NZ, some of my work has occasionally featured here.













