Here are the best Australian-related games to check out this Australia Day

HERE a few suggestions for some other Australian-related games to check out this Australia Day from the air-conditioned comfort of the couch.

AUSTRALIA DAY is upon us, meaning it’s time to fire up the barbecue, crack open some cold beverages, and celebrate all the best things living in Australia offers.

Even better, Australia Day is a public holiday, so that means those of you with government or office jobs, strong unions, or in the good books of the rostering folks at work get to have the day off.

It’s probably going to be too hot to go outside — and even if it’s not, why take the chance? — so it’s an ideal chance to stay in the airconditioning and play Australian-related computer games. Surprisingly, however, there aren’t a vast number of games set in Australia or featuring Australians — most of the games with an Australian setting are sports games, which is understandable but also not everyone’s cup of bush tea either.

With that in mind, here’s a few suggestions for some other Australian-related games to check out this Australia Day:

FORZA HORIZON 3

Australians love their cars, which is understandable because we have a very large country in which to drive them — something Forza Horizon 3, released by Microsoft for the Xbox One last year, celebrates by letting players drive around Australia in cars few of us can afford and which would surely attract the attention of the police should we drive them in the way the game encourages.

Some of the iconic settings in the game’s open world include The Great Ocean Road, Surfers Paradise and Byron Bay, with a range of iconic Australian vehicles in the game as well.

What better way to see our country than from the comfort of your living room while behind the wheel of an awesome car and no worries about getting an expensive letter from Constable Camera if you decide to open the throttle up?

TEAM FORTRESS 2

A veritable classic among team-based first person shooters, this critically-acclaimed cartoon-aesthetic title from Valve software was released in 2007 and features a laid-back Outback-themed Australian professional sniper as one of the game’s nine character classes.

The entire game takes place in a world where Australia is the world’s dominant superpower, with the game world’s foremost businessmen best described as a cross between Crocodile Dundee and Ron Swanson.

For years it was the de facto team based first-person shooter and it’s still alive and well today. Even more attractively for those who want to maximise their refreshment budget, Team Fortress 2 is available for free on Valve’s Steam gaming service.

BATTLEFIELD 1

The Anzac Legend is a key part of the Australian identity, widely regarded as a pivotal element in the country’s history forged in the crucible of combat in appalling conditions on the Gallipoli Peninsula in what was then Ottoman Turkey from April 1915 to January 1916.

To this date, however, it’s only ever been shown in one computer game — EA Dice’s excellent historical first-person shooter Battlefield 1¸released on PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4 last year. One of the war stories puts you ashore at Gallipoli as a runner, fighting against the Ottomans in a story that manages to stay true to the Anzac mythos while still being entertaining and engaging.

Play as the ANZAC’s in Gallipoli in Battlefield 1.

MAD MAX

While the latest Mad Max film isn’t explicitly set in Australia, the other three movies in the franchise most certainly are and the titular character of “Mad” Max Rockatansky is definitely Australian, hence the inclusion of this 2015 game for PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4 here.

Developed by Avalanche studios, Mad Max is an open-world vehicular combat game with Max travelling about a post-apocalyptic wasteland extracting revenge on raiders and scavenging parts to build the ultimate car in the process. And let’s face it, who hasn’t secretly planned to spend the apocalypse doing just that?

BIOSHOCK

This gunfire-filled first-person merry undersea romp through Objectivist philosophy was one of the gold standards of games narrative for some time and partially developed by 2K Australia.

Released on PC and Xbox 360 in 2007 and on PlayStation 3 in 2008, one of the characters encountered in audio diaries later in the game is an Australian engineer who was working to bring down the underwater city’s leader when things went pear-shaped; one of the access codes for the area is the Australia Day date and there’s a large Australian flag in his workspace.

Also, you can shoot angry bees at your enemies, just in case you needed another reason to check the game out.

OVERWATCH

Blizzard’s phenomenally successful team-based first person shooter from 2016 has a diverse range of characters from several countries, including Australia — Junkrat, a pyromaniac explosives enthusiast, is an Australian, while his offsider Roadhog hails from parts unknown but has spent quite a bit of time in Australia wreaking havoc.

Unlike Team Fortress 2, Overwatch isn’t free but has a larger cast of characters and a wider range of abilities — there’s something in Overwatch for everyone, not least of which is the satisfaction of dispatching foes with an exploding cricket ball launcher.

There’s something in Overwatch for everyone

XCOM 2

Aliens have invaded Earth and you find yourself in charge of the resistance task force fighting against them in this outstanding 2016 turn-based strategy game from Firaxis.

Squad members can be recruited from across the world, with Australia one of the available nationalities. Your squads are fully customizable so it’s entirely possible to have an X-Team of Aussies fighting aliens, liberating Earth from enslavement, and ensuring continued access for the world’s meat pie and Tim-Tam supplies.

It’s going to take longer than a day to do it, though — it’s a challenging but rewarding game.

BENEATH A STEEL SKY

Released in 1994 by Revolution Software, this cyberpunk point-and-click adventure with a quirky sense of humour takes place in a futuristic, dystopian Australia. You play Robert Foster, a helicopter crash survivor who is rescued by Aborigines in the Outback, before armed paramilitaries show up, kill everyone and cart you back to one of the remaining enormous cities, where you find yourself stranded with nothing but a circuit board and a desire to find out what on Earth is happening.

Regarded as a cult classic point-and-click adventure — up there with the classics from LucasArts and Sierra — the original game is available (legitimately) for free on PC from gog.com and a remastered version (which is not free) was released for iOS devices in 2009.

WHERE IN THE WORLD IS CARMEN SAN DIEGO?

Originally released way back in 1985 — an era where computers barely had colour screens and were partially expected to bring about global thermonuclear war at the hands of a young Matthew Broderick — Where In The World Is Carmen San Diego? cast the player as an Interpol-esque agent looking for the game’s eponymous criminal mastermind, tracking her across the globe via a series of pun-tastic clues relating to international geography before arresting her.

An updated version was released in 1989, with other versions appearing in the 1990s. Given the game’s educational nature, there’s a pretty good chance most people over 30 played it in school at some point. Oh, and one of the cities you can visit is Sydney, which is why it’s on this list.

What other Australian-related games will you be enjoying this Australia Day? Tell us in the comments below or continue the conversation on Twitter @RoyceWilsonAU

Originally published as Here are the best Australian-related games to check out this Australia Day