{"title":"2K Australia","description":"\u003cp\u003e2K Australia traces its origins to April 2000, when Irrational Games, the Boston studio that had made its name with System Shock 2, opened a second office in Canberra under the name Irrational Games Australia. Jonathan Chey, one of Irrational's three co-founders, led the Canberra operation, which quickly became more than a satellite: it worked alongside Boston on the tactical police shooter SWAT 4 and the sci-fi shooter Tribes: Vengeance, establishing a track record in systems-driven first-person design that would define the studio's output for the rest of its life. The corporate picture changed in January 2006 when Take-Two Interactive acquired Irrational Games and placed it under its 2K publishing label, and in August 2007 the two Irrational studios were formally split apart, with the Canberra team renamed 2K Australia. Under that name it contributed to BioShock, the game that turned Irrational's immersive-sim lineage into a mainstream phenomenon, and it would go on to support two more of 2K's most ambitious projects, BioShock Infinite and The Bureau: XCOM Declassified.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe studio's identity shifted once more between April 2010 and November 2011, when it operated under the banner of its sister studio 2K Marin before reverting to 2K Australia, a reflection of how closely the two teams were interwoven on the publisher's shooter projects during that period. Its defining moment as a lead developer came in 2014 with Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, the entry that bridges the original Borderlands and Borderlands 2 and moves the series' loot-driven co-op shooting to Pandora's moon. 2K Australia led development, with Gearbox Software providing development support, and the result is the credit the studio is best remembered for and the reason its name sits on PJ's Games' shelves today. That success was not enough to overcome the economics of the region: on April 16, 2015, 2K Australia closed, with the cost of running a game studio in Australia given as the stated reason, and its former web domain, 2kaustralia.com, now simply redirects to 2k.com. Fifteen years of work on some of the most respected first-person games of their era, from SWAT 4 to BioShock to the Pre-Sequel, is what the studio leaves behind, and the Borderlands entry it led remains as playable and as sharp as it was at launch.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"borderlands-the-pre-sequel-pc-download","title":"Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel","description":"\u003cp class=\"lead\"\u003eBorderlands: The Pre-Sequel takes the loot-driven shooting that made the series famous and lifts it off Pandora entirely, onto the moon Elpis and the Hyperion space station Helios hanging above it. Set between Borderlands and Borderlands 2, it casts you as one of four new Vault Hunters working for a man named Jack, who has not yet earned the \"Handsome\" and has not yet become the villain everyone remembers. Low gravity, oxygen management, laser weapons and cryo damage change how every firefight plays out, and the story fills in the most important gap in the Borderlands timeline.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eA Moon With Its Own Rules\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eElpis has a fraction of Pandora's gravity, and 2K Australia built the whole game around that fact. Jumps become long, slow arcs you can shoot from, and the new Oz kit lets you double-jump, hover and then come down hard with a butt slam that flattens whatever is standing underneath. Outside pressurised zones, the same kit feeds you oxygen, so the map itself becomes a resource to manage.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eOxygen as a weapon.\u003c\/strong\u003e Your Oz kit burns air to jump and slam, and it is the only thing keeping you alive in the vacuum. Enemies play by the same rules: crack a Lost Legion soldier's mask and watch them suffocate, or drop the pressure in a room and change the odds.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eLasers and cryo.\u003c\/strong\u003e Laser weapons arrive as a full new gun type, from railguns to beam rifles that never stop firing. Cryo is the new elemental damage, and freezing an enemy solid before shattering them with a melee hit or a slam is one of the most satisfying rhythms the series has produced.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eLunar vehicles.\u003c\/strong\u003e Catch-a-Ride returns with the Moon Buggy and the Stingray hover-bike, both tuned for the low-gravity terrain. Long jumps across craters and canyons are part of the route, not an accident.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eThe Rise of Handsome Jack\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe framing is Athena, in chains in Sanctuary, telling Lilith and the Crimson Raiders what really happened on Elpis. What follows is Jack's story told from his side. He starts as a Hyperion programmer with ambition and a grudge, and when Colonel Zarpedon's Lost Legion seizes Helios and starts firing on the moon, he hires you to help him take it back. Over the campaign you watch his charm curdle into something colder, and the game never lets you forget that the man you are helping is the one who will later rule Pandora from a space station shaped like the letter H. Familiar faces from both earlier games turn up in roles you may not expect, and the writing keeps the series' habit of undercutting every serious moment with a joke, then landing the serious moment anyway.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eFour New Vault Hunters\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cdl\u003e\n\u003cdt\u003eAthena the Gladiator\u003c\/dt\u003e\n\u003cdd\u003eHer Aspis shield absorbs incoming damage, then gets thrown back at the enemy with everything it soaked up. Athena's skill trees push toward a bleed-and-melee brawler or a tanky front-liner who thrives when surrounded, and she is the most approachable of the four for a first run.\u003c\/dd\u003e\n\u003cdt\u003eWilhelm the Enforcer\u003c\/dt\u003e\n\u003cdd\u003eWilhelm brings two drones, Wolf and Saint, one for offence and one for healing, and his trees gradually turn him into the cyborg that Borderlands 2 players had to fight. Building toward drone uptime and heavy weapons makes him a natural fit for co-op parties that need cover.\u003c\/dd\u003e\n\u003cdt\u003eNisha the Lawbringer\u003c\/dt\u003e\n\u003cdd\u003eShowdown snaps her aim onto every target in sight and boosts fire rate and reload speed while it lasts, which makes pistols in particular devastating. Nisha rewards aggressive players who like to move fast and never stop shooting, and her one-liners are some of the sharpest in the script.\u003c\/dd\u003e\n\u003cdt\u003eClaptrap the Fragtrap\u003c\/dt\u003e\n\u003cdd\u003ePlayable Claptrap is the wild card. VaultHunter.EXE examines the situation and picks an action package for you, from a disco funhouse of buffs to a rubber-duck float that helps nobody, and his skill trees deliberately mix good ideas with terrible ones. Chaotic, funny and surprisingly capable in the right hands.\u003c\/dd\u003e\n\u003c\/dl\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eShoot, Loot, Repeat\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eUnderneath the moon setting this is still Borderlands at its core: procedurally generated guns in absurd numbers, elemental matchups that matter, and a level-up loop that keeps pulling you toward the next chest. The Grinder in Concordia adds a twist, letting you feed three unwanted weapons into a machine that spits out something better, so the junk you would once have sold becomes raw material. Online co-op supports up to four players, with enemies scaling to the party and loot dropping for everyone, and finishing the story unlocks True Vault Hunter Mode for a tougher second pass with rarer drops.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eGrab an Oz kit, learn to time your jumps, and go find out how a Hyperion nobody with a good haircut talked his way into owning a planet. The moon is waiting, and Jack has a job for you.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"2K","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":33269262796,"sku":"PC_9528175372_DL_GL","price":7.29,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0875\/3268\/files\/card-borderlands-the-pre-sequel-pc-game.jpg?v=1788961274"},{"product_id":"bioshock-remastered-pc-download","title":"BioShock Remastered","description":"\u003cp class=\"lead\"\u003eBioShock Remastered brings Irrational Games' 2007 landmark back in high resolution, with the base game and its bonus content in one package. It is 1960, your plane has gone down in the mid-Atlantic, and the only shelter in sight is a lighthouse standing over Rapture, a city built on the ocean floor by the industrialist Andrew Ryan. What waits below is a place where art deco grandeur, genetic ambition and unchecked ideology have collapsed into something far worse, and a first-person shooter that still asks harder questions than most of its successors.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eA City Beneath the Sea\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRapture was founded as a refuge for artists, scientists and industrialists who wanted to work free of government, religion and the common man. By the time you arrive, the experiment has failed. Water pours through the glass tunnels, the citizens have twisted themselves into Splicers through the overuse of ADAM, and the voices of Ryan, Atlas, Dr. Tenenbaum and Sander Cohen argue over the radio about who is to blame. Audio diaries scattered through Fort Frolic, Arcadia and Hephaestus fill in the years leading to the fall, and the city itself, with its neon signs, flooded ballrooms and propaganda posters, tells the rest. Few game settings have been imitated this often, and the original still holds up.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eWeapons, Plasmids and Tactics\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBioShock hands you a conventional arsenal and then asks you to rewrite your own DNA. Plasmids are the game's signature: genetic upgrades injected into your left hand that give you powers to combine with whatever is in your right.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdl\u003e\n\u003cdt\u003ePlasmids and Gene Tonics\u003c\/dt\u003e\n\u003cdd\u003eElectro Bolt stuns enemies and shorts out machines, Incinerate sets Splicers ablaze, Telekinesis turns debris into ammunition, and Enrage sends foes at each other. Passive Gene Tonics improve your engineering, combat and physical traits, and you can reconfigure your loadout at any Gene Bank as the situation changes.\u003c\/dd\u003e\n\u003cdt\u003eA Full Arsenal\u003c\/dt\u003e\n\u003cdd\u003eThe wrench, revolver, shotgun, machine gun, grenade launcher, crossbow and chemical thrower each take upgrades and alternate ammunition types. Electric buck, armor-piercing rounds and napalm let you tailor every weapon to the enemy in front of you.\u003c\/dd\u003e\n\u003cdt\u003eHacking and the Environment\u003c\/dt\u003e\n\u003cdd\u003eTurrets, security cameras, vending machines and safes can all be hacked and turned to your advantage. Shock a Splicer standing in a puddle, lure a group into a hacked turret's field of fire, or simply photograph enemies with the research camera to unlock damage bonuses against them.\u003c\/dd\u003e\n\u003c\/dl\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eBig Daddies and Little Sisters\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe lumbering, drill-armed Big Daddies are among the most recognizable figures in gaming, and every one of them guards a Little Sister harvesting ADAM from the dead. Taking one down is a set-piece fight that demands planning, traps and most of your resources. What you do with the Little Sister afterward is the game's central moral choice: harvest her for a larger dose of ADAM, or rescue her and trust Dr. Tenenbaum's promise that kindness will be repaid. Your decisions shape the ending you receive, and the story that unfolds along the way, written by Ken Levine, includes one of the most discussed turns in the medium.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eWhat the Remaster Brings\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBlind Squirrel Games rebuilt the original for modern hardware while leaving its design untouched.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eHigh-resolution textures, models and interface, with 4K resolution support, so Rapture's leaking corridors and art deco details look the way memory insists they always did.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eDirector's Commentary: Imagining BioShock, a series of collectible reels in which Ken Levine and Shawn Robertson talk through how the game and its city came together.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe Museum of Orphaned Concepts, a walkable gallery of cut enemies, characters and environments from development, alongside the Challenge Rooms, three standalone puzzle-combat scenarios set in Rapture.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eAchievements and full controller support, whether you prefer to play at a desk or from the couch.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eWould You Kindly Come Down\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhether you first walked through the bathysphere doors in 2007 or have only ever heard people talk about Rapture, this is the version to play. Pick up the wrench, load a Plasmid, and find out for yourself what became of Andrew Ryan's great chain.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"2K","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":117681160204,"sku":"PC_21258928140_DL_GL","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0875\/3268\/files\/card-bioshock-remastered-pc-mac-steam-game.jpg?v=1789175208"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.pjsgames.com\/collections\/2k-australia.oembed","provider":"PJ's Games","version":"1.0","type":"link"}