8/17/2019 PC Gamer - October 2015 USA http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/pc-gamer-october-2015-usa 1/100 The 100 GREATEST PC GAMES 22-page special PREVIEWED STAR WARS BATTLEFRONT / EITR ANNO 2205 / DARK SOULS III MIRROR’S EDGE CATALYST / MORE! HITMAN DID ABSOLUTION BREAK THE SERIES? BUYER’S GUID GET THE RIGHT GAMIN PC FOR YOUR BUDG WHY FIRAXIS’ STRATEGY SEQUEL S THE PC EXCLUSIVE YOU DESERVE XCOM GHOST RECO WILDLANDS FIRST LOOK AT THE OPEN WORLD TACTICAL SHOOTE ISSUE 270OCTOBER 2015 PRINTED IN THE USUS $8.99 REVIEWED INFINIFACTORY FINAL FANTASY XIV: HEAVENSWARD THE MAGIC CIRCLE RONIN MORE! N L o o k
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MakeoverNotice anything different? For the firsttime in a couple years, we’ve made acomprehensive redesign of ourmagazine. Almost every corner of the book has been updated, from letters to
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SEND A free Steam key for the funniest or
most insightful letter every month
U S E R R E V I E W STry to sort a deck
of interesting HerStory narrative-cardinto order whileuncovering tasty plonuggets. Yum.@skooIt took twenty years
for somebody tofigure out how tomake full-motionvideogames work,but we’re glad thatthey did.
Finally finishedHalf-Life 2: Episode 2and my God—talkabout punchinggamers in the gut anthen leaving for eigh years!@darrarkWedon’t talk aboutit anymore, DarrarkStill too painful.
Playing some WoWbecause the newpatch still has some juices to wring out.@darksaiyanisDon’t drink the WoW
juice. You don’t knowhere it comes from
Currently about 16hours into The TalosPrinciple . Definitelymy GotY so far.@alexharman
BattleBlock
Theater : a co-opplatformer with co-oplatforming and asense of humor.10/10—would jump again!@louisross167Great, now we’relistening to BuckleYour Pants again.
Ark . I have a dodoarmy named afterthe characters ofthe hit TV showSupernatural. Theyslow down the serve
immensely. Worth.@kimpulsively Never let taste ormass extinctionslow you down!
Softly does itIt’s very hard to design
around choices in stealth games. If
the rules are: you can stab everyone,
knock ‘em out or avoid them, your
design then becomes about making
levels where all three options are
equally viable. Which, in my
experience, feels less like the
awesome dynamic system they
envisioned and more like something
you can bumble your way through.
A very valid argument could be
made that says giving players choicesdilutes your game design and makes
a blander experience. That said,
I have an enormous boner for stealth
games and will replay them until I’ve
successfully completed a ‘no
touching anyone for any reason’ run.
Which in turn makes it all the more
disappointing when I stealth up to
a part that is obviously intended to
be a combat set piece and break the
game a little.
Mike Patrick
There’s nothing worse than when a
fight gets in the way of your attempt
to not touch anybody and spoils your stealth-boner. Or so we’ve
heard. PCG
Not a patch on consolesGreat. Finally got my rig updated anda slew of AAA games to play. Let’ssee, how about Batman: Arkham
Knight. Hmm. Lots of issues, bad PCport being fixed, patch coming. OK,how about Pillars of Eternity. OhPatch 2.0 with lots of UI changescoming very soon. Think I will wait.
Well, I loved Witcher 1 and 2, and sohere we go—Witcher 3! Oh, patch1.0.7 coming soon. Better wait.Jane Mutter
Patience is a virtue. And also an
unfortunate consequences of doing
your gaming on the PC, sometimes.
This is how it can be. Oh well. PCG
Don’t call it a comebackI know this topic has been talkedabout loads, but I am getting tired ofall the reboots of series that have hadgames released recently! Forexample, Hitman: Absolution wasreleased less than three years ago, yethere we are being told that a rebootof the series is going to be releasedthis year. Another example is Mirror’s
Edge, which came out less than seven years ago. This one is moreacceptable, but I wish they would
just call it a sequel or prequel.Don’t get me wrong, some reboots
turn out great, such as XCOM: EU (one of my favorite games). But someseries have games released toorecently to be rebooted. (Sorry ifI seem very cynical, I’m actuallya nice guy, I pwomise).James-Lachlan McCallum
Calling something a reboot is amarketing ploy. Be pleased that
they’re trying to recapture the spirit
of games you used to love. PCG
DIY gaming As big-budget games move more andmore towards both multi-platformexperiences (see: Batman / TheWitcher ) and controlled multiplayergames ( DOTA 2 et al), I sincerelyhope that the next generation of
videogame players receive theopportunity to tinker with their
games in meaningful ways. I might bedating myself, but for example: Scorched Earth’s (the DOS game)death quotes lack “Beam me up,Scotty!”—the fact that you can fixthat by adding a line to a text file isempowering, and that type of small,personal customization is somethingI hope today’s PC gamers find a wayto experience. Ryan Thompson
It’s happening. Dota 2 is gaining a
powerful custom game creation
toolset. The new Unreal Tournament
is being made by the community.Thanks largely to Minecraft ,
publishers again see the value of
putting the player in control. PCG
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The HoloLens demo onMicrosoft’s E3 stage blewmy tiny mind, and judging by the internet’s reaction Iwas not the only one. It had
to be smoke and mirrors, surely. A fullyinteractive hologram on the scale of aMinecraft world? No way.
On-stage at the Xbox Conference in June,Microsoft’s Saxs Persson showed how,wearing the HoloLens, you could start byplaying Minecraft on a virtual display on awall and then map it onto a table just bysaying the words “create world”. We saw,from the perspective of the wearer, anentire Minecraft world rise from the table.It was like something from a sci-fi movie.
It was a slightly misleading demo, as itturns out. When a rather clunky prototypeof the HoloLens headset was lowered ontomy head at Minecon in London, I foundthat the headset only lets you view
holograms in a window in the center of
your vision. As a speccy nerd I’m used toseeing the world through a letterbox, butfor some people this will probably be a
bigger disappointment. On the plus side, you can still see the people and objects inthe room around you perfectly well,making it definitively easier to make a cupof tea wearing HoloLens than Oculus Rift.
It’s like looking at the room through darksunglasses, but the holograms themselvesare super-bright and colorful. You can tellHoloLens to display a virtual screen on any
blank wall, or—and this is the magic part—
you can look at a horizontal surface and
make it do the thing where the Minecraft world rises up in front of you.
From this point onwards my HoloLensdemo worked precisely as advertised atE3—it was fully, impressively interactive.Walking around a virtual, tabletopMinecraft model in physical space, you canexamine it in detail and lean over it like agiant to peer inside the buildings. You
control everything by voice and gesture,and it made me feel weirdly powerful.
You can’t actually place blocks, at leastnot in this early demo, but you can playwith the world like a god: changing theweather, placing beacons to guide players,summoning lightning to set things on firefor no good reason. I can also see peopleusing it to keep track of collaborative
builds, or indeed just to admire them.Imagine being able to see all the incrediblethings people have built, without leaving
your own living room. As a long-term Minecraft tourist, it’s an appealing idea.
Keza MacDonald
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he Spy understands that change isa good thing. A change of trousers;change for the bus; even a spot ofregime change, if it’s a suitablyslow Thursday. Even so, The Spyunderstands that change is alsoscary. Think about the things you’dnever want to change. A defused
bomb. A sleeping grizzly bear. The
games industry as you remember itten years ago. Well, good news!The games industry agrees with
you (the bear’s mind isits own).
Alas, novelty andinnovation will alwayslurk on the periphery ofthis business. Here’ssome comfort: rebootsare coming. Reboots,sequels, prequels,requels and preboots.
Deus Ex! Mirror’s Edge!
Hitman! IoInteractive is, to its credit, tryingsomething new. On December 8this year you’ll be able to buy thegame, become a dour bald man,and creatively murder people.However! The game is not actuallyout until 2016, when all themissions will be in place. Earlyadopters get to play an ‘in-progress’
version, with live events
adding new targets to existingareas and so on. But Io seems morethan a little confused about whatthis method of game developmentis actually called. It’s giving playersan early access option, but Hitman won’t—the studio says—be an Early
Access game. “All of the content werelease live to our players will becomplete and polished.”
An episodic game, then? Hm.“We think the word ‘episodic’ setsup the expectation that we will sellindividual content drops forindividual prices,” Io continues.“That’s not something we’replanning to do. That said, there aresome episodic elements to thestory in the sense that it’s being
delivered in chunks over time.”The Spy is sure that there’s a
word for when something is
delivered in chunks over time, butlet’s move on. “The thing is, thereisn’t really a term to describe whatwe’re doing,” Io writes. “That’swhy we’re calling it a ‘live’experience because it feels likethat’s what it is—something thatlives, grows and evolves.”
How do you pronounce ‘live’ inthat sentence? Is it ‘live’ if playersencounter the same missions at
different times? Does it‘live’ simply by virtue ofthe fact that it changes?
Change and life aren’tthe same thing: just askthat bomb from earlier.
Lost in all of thisconfusion is how muchwill actually be availableto players this December.
As for when it might makesense for reviewers to
offer a verdict on a gamethat is both episodic andnot, early access and notand, in the manner ofcosmic horror both live and
not, well, The Spy leaves
that up to the reviewers. Andpossibly an exorcist.
A single new piece of concept artfor Mass Effect: Andromeda slipped out of San Diego ComicCon showing the surface of analien world and helpfully subtitled‘alien worlds’. Said world has riversof orange goop, coral-like fungalgrowths, and a yellow sun peekingthrough Venusian fog overtowering mesas. It doesn’t givemuch away, but suggests thatFrostbite is capable of generatingfar more natural and detailed openworlds than the ones we tumbledaround in the first game.
A NEW DAWN
Sega has registered a web domainfor Warhammer 40,000: Dawn ofWar III. When Sega acquired the
Games Workshoplicense, a sequel waswhat many fans askedfor—what they got wasCreative Assembly’sexciting-looking,silly-named Total War:Warhammer. Now itlooks like they’re goingto get both.
Relic reinvented
Dawn of War betweenthe first and second game,transitioning from a moretraditional RTS to a squad tacticsgame with RPG elements. It would
be exciting to see another shake-up: perhaps by the time 2016 or2017 rolls around we’ll becontrolling our Space Marines inthird person, or ushering themthrough the mundanity of day-to-day life in a grim future wherethere isn’t war any more becausewe got it all sorted out.
Lastly, The Spy has heard many
reports of embargoed Warcraft movie footage from Comic Con.The orcs are far more sympatheticthan in the original game, thehumans have shiny armor but areprobably assholes. Into this conflict
baby Thrall is born, and shownfloating off downriver just in case
you didn’t pick up on the Moses bit. The Spy is a little torn on thisone: by all accounts it should beterrible, but director Duncan Joneshasn’t made a bad movie yet. Still,that could always change.
freeform action/stealth approach andJust Cause ’s chaos and scale. A
mishmash of game types bolted on to a
series that sort of faded away with 2012’s
Future Soldier . I saw Wildlands in action at
E3 this year, and it’s certainly impressive
to watch four players run around in this
giant world simultaneously, then come
together to tactically figure out the
multipart sandbox missions.
Even so, I wonder if it’s in such an
embryonic a state that we won’t see it
released for another two years or so,
much like The Division debuted in 2013
with possibly unattainable good looks and
a ludicrous tablet drone element. It tooktwo whole E3s to come and go before I
could play The Division and it’s still miles
off release. Will Wildlands still look this
pretty when it gets here?
Ghost Recon Wildlands is set in an
immense Bolivian landmass where a
cartel has a stranglehold on the
government, turning this part of the world
into a drug state. In my live demo, the four
players started in wildly different parts of
this vast sandbox, just to show off the
environmental variety and how far apart
players can be in the same game. One
soldier was driving across white salt flats,
another was in a canyon of red-colored
cliffs, a third was pissing about in the
mountains, and the fourth was in a
tropical green jungle somewhere. Players
are apparently free to do whatever they
want in this shared open world while
coexisting within it. The different starting
locations bode well for a colorful,
interesting environment. This is the
biggest world Ubisoft has ever created
(suck it up, Far Cry 4 ).
The mission today is to kidnap an
informant called Alvarez, who works for a
crime boss called Nina Flores. The teamstarts by saving some hostages, taking
one of their captors out and interrogating
another to get Alvarez’s location. The
action shifts across the map to an
enemy-occupied village, where the cartel
has staged a massacre to show they mea
business. The squad is planning to steal a
helicopter from this little town; every
vehicle in the game is up for grabs, from
buggies to aircraft to boats and vans.
That’s just one of the marked changes
from any Ghost Recon to date.
CONTEMPORARY WARFARE
Drones have been a part of Ghost Recon
long before they were delivering Amazon
packages and taking fingers off with their
tiny rotors, and in Wildlands players can
again use them to hover overhead and
pick enemy targets in advance of an
attack. The village, one of many in the
game, is impressively scaled and
detailed—it looks like a real place from the
air. I’m shown that there’s a concert going
on in the village as well as a market, giving
it some civilian life rather than it just being
an empty combat arena.
The team sneaks through a long field
of dry grass towards a helipad, and firesoff a round to start an inter-faction
gunfight, where enemies take each other
out. The Ubisoft team points out that
there’s also the option to sneak in at night
and that weather conditions have an
effect, too. I ask how that makes a
difference beyond a visual filter change.
E very E3, Ubisoft reveals something big toget people talking. Last year it was Rainbow Six Siege, the year before, The Division, in 2012 it was Watch Dogs, and
this year it’s Ghost Recon Wildlands. As with thosereveals, it’s a little bit pie in the sky at the moment, but this looks a little more colorful and ambitiousthan the usual Clancy fare.
The military shooter series goes big, explosive and airborne
Icompleted Mirror’s Edge four times, so Iknow the game stupidly well—andCatalyst feels almost exactly like the
Mirror’s Edge of 2008. The platformingseems identical, and my muscle memory and senseof timing from the first game served me wellduring my first hands-on at E3.
RELEASE
Spring 2016
PUBLISHER
EA
DEVELOPER
DICE
LINK
www.mirrorsedge.com
N E E D T O K N O W
P L A Y E D
I T
M I R R O R ’ S E D G EC A T A L Y S T
It’s not quite a sequel, not quitea prequel—so what is it?
I guess I won’t be needing those‘Faith no more’ puns any more.
My demo took place in a tiny snippet of
what is apparently a seamless open world.
It consisted of a series of rooftops and
three tasks to perform: a speed run, a
chain of combat encounters, and a
challenge to climb to a high point. The run
was standard Mirror’s Edge and the climb
encouraged me to be more methodical,
but what this boxed-off 13-minute demo
couldn’t do was outline how open-worldplay will work. The whole thing honestly
felt like it could have been a level from the
first game.
The combat was a little too simple for
my tastes, but might suit players who
found the original too challenging. Attacks
are now mapped to the X button on an
Xbox controller, rather than the trigger,
and as long as you press it at vaguely the
right time, Faith will quickly take an enemy
out, sometimes with a lovely third-person
finishing animation. There are no guns this
time around.
Despite my reservations, it’s a treat to
know there’s a Mirror’s Edge coming in2016 where all the best things about the
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Praise the sun.
I got to see half an hour of Dark Souls
III in a small demo room at E3, with
Miyazaki himself walking us through it.The world I saw, featuring a towering
gothic castle reminiscent of Anor
Londo, captured the same majestic,
eerie ambiance of the first two
games. The difference is scale. The
castle is huge and clearly rendered in 3D,
despite its distance.
The general scale of the environment
feels grander and more imposing, and
there’s a noticeable chunkiness to the
graphics. Dark Souls has always created a
feeling of isolation and vulnerability as you
traverse it alone, and I think that sensation
will be heightened by taller structures and
more geometry in Dark Souls III . From thebits and pieces I’ve seen of Bloodborne on
the PS4, the size of the environments here
will feel similar, but with Dark Souls ’ art
style intact. One genuinely breathtaking
moment came near the very end, when
the player finally drew close to the castle,
and it absolutely towered above him,
ethereal light cascading into the courtyard
where he stood. A couple of people in the
audience ooohed softly.
HERE BE DRAGONS
Dark Souls III will have deeper ties to its
predecessors than just its art style. The
story, what little bits Miyazaki would
disclose, concerns the Lords of Cinder.
There are dragons, and Miyazaki hinted
that Dark Souls III may take place before
the first games. Series mainstays such as
Estus flasks, bonfires, imposing knight
enemies, jump attacks, greatswords anddual-wielding weapons are all returning.
Miyazaki talked about refining
movement and combat for the sequel.
Movement will be “more intuitive,” and it’s
definitely faster overall, if not as fast as
Bloodborne . Miyazaki showed this off with
a revamped shortbow, which could be
fired while strafing around an enemy. It
looked fast and fun to wield, and I can see
bows being a much bigger deal for Dex
players in Dark Souls III .
Weapons will have unique two-handed
abilities called Weapon Arts. The
longsword, for example, has a ‘ready’position where the shield is put away
and two special attacks can be
triggered that break blocking
stances. Greatswords have an
upward strike that can launch
enemies into the air. Dual wielded
scimitars have a whirlwind attack that can
hit multiple enemies. Miyazaki’s goal of
deepening the game also includes
expanding the roleplaying experience with
a wider variety of viable character builds.
The character models were definitely
more detailed, with the same twisted,
creative monster design we’ve come to
expect. The boss at the end of the area,called Dancer of the Frigid Valley, was
everything I expected from a Dark Souls
boss. It was large, dwarfing the player
character, but thin, all hunched over and
gangly limbs, a twisted death bride with a
flowing translucent veil whisking along
behind. And very large swords.
From what I saw, Dark Souls III has no
intention of reinventing the series, but with
Miyazaki calling the big shots, it seems to
be in good hands, expanding in scale and
refining the combat and movement. I
think that’s all most fans would ask for.
Wes Fenlon
Dark Souls 3 gave me emotional whiplashat this year’s E3. First, anticipation: itsexistence was leaked, and I wondered ifit could be real, so soon after Dark Souls
2. Then, celebration: it was real, and coming to PC!Then, apprehension: Dark Souls 2 was great, butlacked that certain something director HidetakaMiyazaki brought to the first game. At last,Miyazaki stated that he was co-directing the game,with a hand in worldbuilding and level design.
Miyazaki returns for Dark Souls’grand finale
D A R K S O U L S I I I
A TWISTED DEATH BRIDE WITH A
FLOWING TRANSLUCENT VEIL
WHISKING ALONG BEHIND
RELEASE
2016
DEVELOPER
FromSoftware
PUBLISHER
Bandai Namco
LINK
www.darksouls3.com
N E E D T O K N O W
F I R S T
L O O K
MoreSouls lore forfanatics to dig into.
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A fire, a sad dude in armor– looks pretty Dark Souls .
In case you worried itwas looking too normal.
The return of a series that peoplewill obsess over for lifetimes.
t E3 I stepped into a caravan and triedout Eitr, a very cool-looking 2D dungeon
crawler inspired by Dark Souls and adisparate range of sources such as Zelda,
Golden Axe, Diablo and the excellent console-only brawler Fight Night Round 4. Like Dark Souls , youcarry a flask that replenishes your health, and between tricky fights with enemies in dankenvironments you sit at fires, but it’s much morethan an indie copycat—I loved my first hands-onsession and can’t wait to play more.Samuel Roberts
RELEASE
2016
PUBLISHER
Devolver Digital
DEVELOPER
Eneme Entertainment
LINK
www.eitrthegame.com
N E E D T O K N O W
P L A Y E D
I T
E I T RN I N E R E A L M S
Each of the nine levels isinspired by a different realm
from Norse mythology,conveniently granting the
developers access to fire and iceworlds, as well as giants fromJotunheim. Even dank worlds
look gorgeous with thishigh-end pixel art.
T H ES H I E L D M A I D E N
Eitr ’s redheaded heroinewas, according to the team at
Eneme Entertainment, inspiredby the shieldmaiden Lagertha
Lothbrok from the TV show Vikings.She carries a range of weapons,such as bows, swords and axes,
n Enemy Unknown,the alien invaderswere on your turf.In XCOM 2, you’reon theirs. Thatsignificantly changesthe pace and dynamicof the game. In thedemo Firaxis showsme, I see civilianscrowded behind
barriers, futuristic police cars right out of theTotal Recall remake, armored fascist twats knownas Advent and floating holographic billboards. Thealiens control everything. In XCOM 2’s world, youlost the war against the extraterrestrial invadersof Enemy Unknown, and this is not your planet anymore. You must take it back.
“We began the process of defining XCOM 2 by
looking at how players responded to XCOM: EnemyU nknown,” creative director Jake Solomon tells me.“By asking: what did they enjoy? What didn’t theylike and how can we make it better? What was ourcommunity requesting? How do we renew andrefresh that sense of struggle and triumph?”
Solomon and the team took inspiration for XCOM 2’s bleak premise from the way people actually played Enemy Unknown the first time through: badly,which I can empathize with. “We realized thatmost players lost their initial playthrough of
Enemy Unknown, and we realized there was aninteresting and unique opportunity to have XCOM 2
begin with XCOM losing the invasion.”I think XCOM 2 is the Enemy Unknown sequel
fans want. It’s been developed to expand yourstrategic arsenal and to mitigate the repetition of levedesign of the original, the latter being one of my fewmajor issues with Firaxis’ first attempt at the series.
After a while in EU , no matter where you were goingin the world to fight the alien horde, you knew thelayout. One of the biggest changes to XCOM 2 is thatlevels are now procedurally generated—but don’tconfuse this with the levels being randomized. Firaxitried that and it didn’t quite work. Instead, levels areprocedurally generated in a way that is designedto feel somewhat handcrafted to the player.
MAP HAPPY
“We had to figure out a lot of new systems to makethe procedural maps work,” senior producer Garth
DeAngelis says. “It was actually a very differentpipeline and system than we had in Enemy Unknown
because it was completely handcrafted. So we found best practices for how you make the number of buildings work relative to open spaces, relative to thenumber of height-based parcels we want to work on(parcels being an element of the procedural mapsystem). So all of that we sort of had to build from the
ground up. We could take elements from what welearned from Enemy Unknown because we
didn’t want it to be completely procedural, because random turned out to be not too
fun. So we still had hand-placed moments—it’s agreat-looking map, but you get the value of: ‘I haven’tseen this before’, which is really, really powerful.Unlike EU , where we had a lot of maps but we startedhearing feedback of ‘it’s the museum map again. I’vedone this before’. You’re not going to have that feelingon XCOM 2.”
Solomon sheds some light on how it works. “Whenyou head into a mission, the game rolls the dice andplaces the appropriate modules on the parcel. Youmight be able to recognize something like an Adventcheckpoint, but that won’t give you any insight intowhat lies beyond that.”
LEVEL UNKNOWN
Most of the decisions made from the outset forXCOM 2 were intended to support a more replayablegame—levels that are impossible to predict certainlyencourage replays, and inspiration for that came fromanother part of the Firaxis office. “We wanted torefine that fundamental experience of Enemy
Unknown, and give it the replayability of a game likeCivilization,” Solomon explains. “Players told us theywanted more maps, and we wanted to provide aprocedural map system this time around. We wantedhigher-fidelity characters. We wanted better-lookingdestruction. And we really wanted to have bettermodding support for the game from the outset.”
Concealment is probably the biggest change—itputs the start of the fight in the player’s hands, lettingyou stealthily line up your squad’s positions at thebeginning of each mission before pulling the trigger.You can quietly line up your characters in overwatch,so when the enemy prepares to retaliate, your wholeteam can open fire on any enemies in range.
“Combat’s still turn based, move-and-action stylelike the Enemy Unknown,” says Solomon. “But now
that the levels are built procedurally, you can’t predictwhere the enemies will appear. There are going to be
patrols, and they’re going try and figure out the level, just like you are. But now we have concealment,which means until you enter into enemy visualrange, or attack, the enemies aren’t going to know
you’re there. This gives the player control over howthe fight’s going to start.”
“As soon as you load into that map, you see yourguys are completely concealed,” says DeAngelis.“They’re speaking in hushed tones, there’s this reallycool ambient music, and it allows the playermechanically to set up an ambush how they want to
before they engage completely. Once you fire a shot it becomes classic XCOM combat.”
You have two new classes at your disposal: the
ranger, an extension of the assault class from EnemyUnknown, and the specialist, both of which the demo
T H E N E W G E N E R A T I O N Inspired by XCOM (or X-Com)
X E N O N A U T S
Inspired by the earlier X-Com games, and well worth your time.
D E A D S T A T EThis zombie survival RPG’s
combat has shades of XCOM .
T H E B A N N E R S A G A
A turn-based RPG fromex-BioWare veterans.
I N V I S I B L E , I N C .Klei’s turn-based strategy game
is immaculately designed.
T H E B U R E A U : X C O M D E C L A S S I F I E DThis weak spin-off turned XCOM into a trite shooter.
Berserkers lose theirSaturday morning cartoon
villain look and get real ugly.
T U R R E THacking these automatedturrets lets you shut themdown or even use them to
does a good job of showing off. The former carries a blade that can be used to easily cut down the vipers, XCOM 2’s deadly snake-like alien enemies who canpull your guys out of cover with their tongues beforeconstricting them to death. The specialist, meanwhile,has a drone-like device called the Gremlin that can beused to remotely hack turrets. Every soldier can hack,
but the specialist is the only class that can improvetheir hacking ability. Inthe demo, there are
three hacking optionsfor the turret: disable,control and improvedcontrol, the latter twoof which will make thegun open fire on nearbyenemies. The Gremlinhas its own ability tree, and while it’s treated as aseparate flying unit, movement with it still uses up thespecialist’s turn. “Those two classes are very innatewith the resistance theme as well,” DeAngelis says.
But don’t expect any of your MECs from EnemyWithin to carry across, either. In XCOM 2’s canon,that expansion simply didn’t happen, according toDeAngelis. “You lost within the first third of [ Enemy
Unknown ]. So MECs, gene mods, all that stuff—wewanted a clean slate with that.”
SNAKE MILK
The aliens have certainly stepped up the threat levelsince EU . The viper is a giant python with seeminglyhuman breasts—an image that, to be honest, I washappy to live my life without. Returning foes are
nastier. XCOM’ s meleeheavies the berserkers
are much closer toscary sci-fi trolls thanthe slightly PowerRangers-ish look theyhad in the first game. Ifthey get close enough,
you’re done for. I seethe berserker in this demo smash a squad memberout of the way and into a vehicle. “Super deadly, thedeadliest melee move in the game—you want tostay away from them,” DeAngelis says.
It’s escorted by two tall white mechs that looksimilar to the geth in Mass Effect. “The berserker wasaccompanied by Advent MECs, which are also heavyfirepower—they don’t need to take cover, they have
It’s an image that, to behonest, I was happy to
live my life without
In the open air, facingberserker. It doesn
look good for this gu
The variety of locations in XCOM 2 will exceed the limited amount players saw in Enemy Unknown . Here’s what you can expect.
more you can do, there’s so many more knobs you can
turn now that feed into the resistance theme,” saysDeAngelis. “You can change their gender now if youwant, set their nationality—all of that stuff that youcouldn’t do in Enemy Unknown gives even moreagency to the player.” When you pick a nationality, thegame will autoselect a matching voice, but you canstill change it if you want. That personalization wasfundamental to Enemy Unknown and remains so here.
Your best friends, family members and pets will stilldie, only now they canperish with an accent of
your choosing.“The most important
aspect of XCOM is thatit’s about playing
catch-up, that it’s not apower fantasy, and that
you’re always just aheadof disaster,” Solomon says. “ XCOM ’s a game aboutloss and managing that loss. So any story you buildinto XCOM has to have this as its basis. Given the arcof an XCOM game, it made perfect sense to have
XCOM 2 have XCOM as a resistance movement.” At the time of writing, Firaxis isn’t talking base
management, which has XCOM on the run in a giantaircraft called the Avenger. I fear the studio is going tospend most of the next few months making it clearthat this enormous airship is a reference to the trooptransport from UFO: Enemy Unknown, as opposed to
a ship in the sky where Nick Fury lives.
In theory, Firaxis ismaking a game we can
play forever
Living on a skybase is anexcellent excuse to wearcool sunglasses.
42 OCTOBER 2015
C O V E R F E A T U R E
XCOM 2
a micromissile ability where they can take out any
units that are clumped together in an area of effect.”Sectoids, XCOM ’s greys, return in a more advancedform, too. “We wanted the aliens to feel deadly in
XCOM 2—they’ve evolved in the 20 years and haveput the Advent in place as cannon fodder, becausethey’re doing a lot of nefarious things behind thescenes. So when you come across them it’s very hard,and you need to use group tactics to take them down.”
More variety in enemy attacks makes combat lesspredictable, whichforces you to react onthe spot at a greaterfrequency than you didin EU . Presentation isgenerally more
ambitious. The goal inthe demo is to have oneof your guys blow up agold statue of an alien and human holding hands—apiece of Advent propaganda. When the explosive isdetonated by your crew, a mini cutscene playsin-game where it crumbles dramatically beforethe action resumes. It feels a lot more consideredthan Enemy Unknown.
This effect is heightened by the back-and-forthdialogue between your player-created characters,where they now seem to chat during every move. Inthe demo it almost feels like traditionally scripteddialogue, but you can pick the nationalities and even
up a few questions. As PCG’s Tom Senior points outto me, it’s not like a skybase has hidden thermal ventsor decks you didn’t know were there—so expect somechanges to the way base management works, or atleast in the way it’s presented. “You can imagine, withthe resistance theme, is that we want you to feel like
you’re on the run,” says DeAngelis. “We really want you to feel like you’re sparking a resistance, so designhas been hard at work thinking of ways to get themechanics to support that.”
WE ARE THE MODS
I think the PC exclusivity of XCOM 2 was necessaryfor this entry. In announcing it, Firaxis led with apro-modding sentiment, while underlining the fact
that it has always been synonymous with PC. I askSolomon about why they went PC-only after EU arrived on consoles and even tablets in a respectableform. “PC gaming is in a golden age. It’s the tip of thespear in terms of innovation, in types of gameplay
being explored, in relationships between developersand their audience, and for Firaxis, it’s our home. It’swhere we want to be.”
The modding potential of XCOM 2 is as rich asanyone could ask for. Again, Civ provided a point ofinspiration to Solomon and his team. “We’re luckythat our studio has had a wonderful and long-standing mod community for Civilization, and even
EU , which had limited modding support, got fantastic
work from very dedicated guys like the Long War
team. Modding is one of those elements that brings
people together in the community through their owncreative expression of the franchise, and this andhelps our game live on over time.”
DeAngelis goes in depth on the tools that will beavailable to players. “I can tell you a lot of effort hasgone in, across the engineering front, [to make sure]that everything can be modded. Obviously we haveUnreal Engine 3. We have a modified version ofthat—so the editor is going to be released. You caneither do total conversions, or partial gameplay editswith our gameplay source that we’re going to beproviding as well. So if you just want to edit units andstats that’s going to be easy to do if you have theknowledge to do so in the scripts. It’s one of our corepillars in XCOM 2 that we felt like we were short on
in Enemy Unknown—that we want to get right.”It’s not like EU had a ton of room for
improvement. My reaction, as DeAngelis explainshow procedurally generated levels eliminaterepetition, how mods can expand the life of XCOM 2indefinitely, and how exciting the new tactical optionare, is that Firaxis is making the XCOM sequel thatfulfills every fan’s wishlist. I can’t think of anythingelse I’d ask for. In theory, Firaxis is making an XCOMgame that we can play forever. “Between theprocedural maps, between the procedural objectives,the way more enemies and abilities that you’re gonnasee, I think that’s right,” DeAngelis agrees. “That’sultimately what we want to accomplish. We want fan
to play much, much longer.”
M E C M A R K 2Taller than your units,XCOM 2 ’s robotic enemies
are fearsome creations.
3A D V E N T C L O W N SHuman puppet forces for the aliens and your
basic cannon fodder. Sinister and annoying it’strue, but not too much trouble for you.
W H A C K I N G D A Y What’s going on in this XCOM 2 battle?
4C A R O F T H E F U T U R EThe future! Forget contemporary suburbia,
XCOM 2 ’s backdrop is a stylish futuristic sci-fiworld. Can’t wait to see more of it.
1T H E V I P E R P I TThis snake asshole killed one of your team,
and can use a turn to drag another out of cover,exposing them to gunfire and her crush attack.
2R A N G E R D A N G E RThis is your ranger, one of XCOM 2 ’s new
classes, and she just sliced that blade throughthe viper to avenge your fallen comrade.
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100GREATEST
GAMESThehighlights of
three decades ofgaming on the
PC.
M E E T T H E T E A M
Jordan Erica Webber Freelancer
TimClarkGlobal editor-in-chief
Chris LivingstonStaff writer
Tom MarksAssistant editor
DanGriliopoulosFreelancer
Tony EllisProduction editor
JohnStrikeArt editor
Evan LahtiEditor-in-chief
TylerWildeExecutive editor
Wes FenlonHardware editor
Samuel RobertsEditor
ChrisThurstenDeputy editor
Andy Kelly Section editor
TomSenior Web editor
PhilSavageNews editor
TOP
The
AND: Shaun Prescott, AU Editor
Richard Cobbett, Freelancer Jody Macgregor, Freelancer Ian Birnbaum, Freelancer Omri Petitte, Freelancer
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Chris T: In almost all of the great competitive shooters, movement is just as essential as
aim. This is why Tribes II remains such an important game to me: it combined exciting
spinfusor rocket-duels with an unequalled sense of momentum. It’s hard to go back to
plodding around Call of Duty after skiing down a sci-fi mountain at 250km/h. The series
persistent commercial failure is almost a badge of honor. Tribes was only ever going to
play to a small, dedicated crowd, but that’s pretty much what ‘special’ means.100
TRIBES IIRELEASED March 2001 | LAST POSITION Re-entry
MIRROR’S EDGE
RELEASED November 2008 | LAST POSITION 33
Samuel: A unique, arty first-person
platformer from a studio renowned for
shootymen series, Mirror’s Edge makes
parkour traversal and jumping feel
convincing in a gorgeously stark dystopia.
It’s a divisive game, sure, and the combat
is particularly contentious—but a game
this original with these production values
is well worth celebrating.
97
THE STANLEY PARABLE
RELEASED October 2013 | LAST POSITION New entry
Phil: A game about games; a story about
stories. That sounds unbearable, but The
Stanley Parable is a wonderfully funny
exploration of choice and consequence.
As you walk through the halls of a
deserted office building, a narrator
vocalizes your next steps. Do you follow,
or rebel against the story? Whatever you
choose, hilarity follows.
96
SPIDER AND WEB
RELEASED February 1998 | LAST POSITION New entry
Tony: Every time you screw up your
infiltration mission in this deceptive textadventure, you wake up back in the chair.
“No,” the Interrogator says, “that’s not
how we caught you. Try again.” And you’re
whirled away into another flashback. In
spinning the story of your capture and
downfall, can you somehow turn it into a
story where you win?
99
SAM & MAX: HIT THE ROAD
RELEASED November 1993 | LAST POSITION Re-entr
Chris L: Ridiculous puzzles, oddball
characters, and a disturbingly accurateportrayal of roadside America feature in
this 2D LucasArts adventure. Two
freelance cops, one a wry dog in a suit an
the other a violent, naked rabbity thing,
investigate the mystery of a missing
bigfoot. Includes country music and the
destruction of the west coast.
98
very year, theinternational PC Gamerteam puts its headstogether to hash out alist of the hundred PCgames you need to play.This year, we’re
stressing ‘play’. With ahandful of exceptions,every game on the list isone that you can accessand enjoy today. Wherethat’s not the case, it’s because that game isspecial and we feel youshould know about itanyway. The hope isthat you’ll read throughthis list and discover aclassic that you’d neverotherwise have played.
Our selection process
is democratic andsubjective. Everymember of the jury putforward their personaltop 15 games of all time,and those lists werecombined to produce ourlonglist. Finally, oneperson each from the UKand US teams entered aroom (well, a Skype call),went through the entirething, and emerged witha final list that we’re
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P E R S O N A L P I C K SSENSIBLE SOCCER
RELEASED July 1992 | LAST POSITION New entry
Tim: Whatever new whizzbangery EA’s trillion-strong FIFA
team comes up with, for sheer ‘GET IN YOU BASTARD!’
thrills they will never surpass scoring from halfway with
an aftertouch-enabled shot that looked more like a
parabolic curve than anything an actual soccer ball might
do. Such is/was the joy of Sensible Soccer , the top-down,
bobble-headed masterpiece that ate lives in the mid-’90s.
It’s considered an Amiga and ST icon, but I came to it on
PC, where I wasted months trying to build the dynastic
success on Tyneside that cruelly eluded Kevin Keegan.
88
TERRARIA
RELEASED May 2011 | LAST POSITION New entry
Tom M: A crafting/mining game similar to
a 2D version of Minecraft , Terraria puts an
extra emphasis on combat with magical
weapons, hundreds of different types of
enemies, and dozens of large bosses. You
could put hundreds of hours into it, and
still find something new to do the nexttime you play. It’s also been updated a
huge amount: even if Re-Logic never
patched Terraria again, it would have still
added more to its game than most
developers offer through DLC packs and
season passes.
Shaun: A lot of people write it off as
Minecraft 2D , but in practice it’s a very
different beast—especially if you harbor a
lifelong preference for sidescrolling
platformers. Spend a couple of hours and
it’s nothing but a rote, grindy 2D survival
game, but persevere and it becomes an
obsession. If I had this game as a kid I’dhave never learnt to read and write, but I
bet I could dig a pretty mean hole.
Tom S: Every dawn there’s a chance a
goblin army will invade the surface world.
Deep underground, chests hide items that
let you summon huge flying eyeballs, or
the feared Wall of Flesh. Terraria is
secretly a horror game, and even better
enjoyed with friends.
FAR CRY 4
RELEASED November 2014 | LAST POSITION New entry
Tony: You tool around a massive open world, shooting
bad guys and liberating armed camps singlehanded. But
it’s the fabulous, faux-Kashmir setting that nails it: not just
one of the most beautiful game worlds we’ve ever seen,
but one of the most vivid , so richly detailed you canalmost smell the incense at the roadside shrines.
Andy: For my money, the best Far Cry setting. The sheer
verticality of Kyrat, and the ability to buzz through its
mountain passes and across its rivers in a gyrocopter,
makes it one of the most exciting playgrounds on PC. It’s
still stuffed with too much open-world filler, mind.
EURO TRUCK SIMULATOR 2
RELEASED October 2012 | LAST POSITION New entry
Phil: You’re a truck driver. Your job is to take multiple
tonnes of wood shavings, or other utilitarian goods, to
some grim industrial city somewhere in Europe. It’s agame of endless motorways, fuel management and
speeding fines. It’s also the most compelling simulator it’s
possible to play. ETS2 is plain, functional and yet
strangely charming.
Andy: It’s unironically brilliant, but you won’t realize this
until you play it. I installed it mainly just to laugh at it, but
40 hours later I count it among my favorite games of all
time. It’s a bizarrely peaceful experience.
BATTLEFIELD 3RELEASED October 2011 | LAST POSITION New entry
Tom S: CoD is famous for its set-pieces,
but Battlefield 3 generates those war
movie moments in unscripted multiplayer
warzones. It was competitive enough to
inspire our John Strike to run a clan for
years, but forgiving enough to let irregular
players enjoy the spectacle. I spent hours
breaking down choke points in Rush,
gasping at the outstanding sound design.
84
87
86
85
Samuel Roberts
SPEC OP STHE LI NE
This adaptation of Heart oDarkness is a shooter thadares to make murder inta rote, exhausting activityto underline a wider pointabout the effect of war on
soldiers. It is half-
successful in doing that.The choice of Dubai as an
escalating warzone and thunsettling sense of moraambiguity made Spec Opmemorably bleak, and alsrendered the likes of CoD
worthless to me bycomparison.
TimClark
H E R S T O R Y
Having grown up on policeprocedurals like PrimeSuspect and Inspector
Morse, the genre’s almostotal absence in games halong been frustrating. He
Story ’s trawl throughchopped up interviews wita single suspect scratchethat itch in a particularly
British way. It’s more than just a didshedoit—by thetime you’re done with the
files, it feels less about thcrime and more about how you feel about this personThere’s nothing else quite
Chris T: Bloodlines is an open-world first-person RPG and
was one of the first games to use the Source engine. The
new tech meant it wasn’t particularly stable when it
launched, and even now you’ll need community patches
to get it working at its best. If anything, however, the tech
problems compounded the sense that this game was
destined to be a cult classic. Its depiction of vampire-
haunted LA is atmospheric and frequently scary despite
the well-trodden subject matter, and the story responds
organically to how you play and what type of vampire you
are. Some of the very best side-stories in the genre, too.
64
PLANETSIDE 2
RELEASED November 2012 | LAST POSITION 93
Andy: Battlefield has been doing big-scale
battles for years, but PlanetSide 2 blows it
out of the water. Using a variety of land
and air vehicles, and several infantry
classes, it’s your job to wrestle control of
territory from other factions. It’s a pretty
basic take on BF ’s Conquest mode, butit’s the scale that makes it. Organized
assaults on bases are exhilarating, with
ground troops clashing, tanks exchanging
fire across valleys, and aircraft dueling in
the sky. Cresting a hill and seeing a battle
unfold is a dazzling, strangely beautiful
sight—at least until you charge into the
thick of it, then it’s just sheer chaos.
To get the most out of it, however, you
need to work with other players. Solo, it’s
a lonely and aimless experience. It’s only
when you’re charging a base with a group
of likeminded players, preferably with a
commander organizing things, thatPlanetSide 2 becomes one of the best
multiplayer first-person shooters on PC.
There’s something for everyone, whether
you want to be a gunship pilot, a transport
driver, a spy, an anti-tank trooper, or any
number of roles. It’s free-to-play, but
uncommonly generous with it. You can
enjoy it, and advance your character,
without spending a cent.
BASTION
RELEASED July 2011 | LAST POSITION 75
Phil: “He gets up,” the narrator says as you press the
button to get up. Thus, in three words, this action-RPG
expresses the clever relationship between the on-screen
events and the way the narrator folds them into his story.Bastion ’s art and soundtrack are oft-praised, and rightly
so, but it makes this list because those elements are
backed up by satisfying combat.
Tom M: During a fight, every well-timed button press is
rewarded, just as every mistake is punished. Bastion lets
you choose the way you fight, and all of its weapons and
abilities can be effective—if you know how to use them.
THIEF GOLD
RELEASED November 1998 | LAST POSITION New entry
Chris T: The original Thief doesn’t hold up as well as its
successors, but it earns inclusion on this list for beingsuch an important part of FPS history. This was the game
that established that you didn’t need to run at 60km/h
and carry a shotgun all the time. It opened the door to
slower, more methodical approaches to play, leading not
only to the stealth genre but also horror and, many years
later, the ‘walking simulator’. Without Thief there’s no
Deus Ex , no BioShock , no Gone Home . If you’re interested
at all in the history of game design on the PC, you need to
have played it.
MORROWINDRELEASED May 2002 | LAST POSITION New entry
Chris T: This remains unique among
Bethesda’s open worlds, a genuinely alien
fantasy landscape populated by people,
creatures and factions that take time to
truly understand. It offers the experience
of being a stranger in a strange land, and
over time the modding community has
fixed almost everything that you might
take issue with.
60
63
62
61
Wes Fenlon
ODDWORLD:STRA NGER’S
W R A T H
This endlessly creativeshooter has smart designdecisions at every step.Live animal ammunitionlike the puke-inducing
Skunkz replaces ordinarybullets, and the level desigalways offers a shortcutback to town. Capturingbounties alive instead ofkilling them requires a
great mixture of planningquick thinking and jumpinfrom stealth to shooting t
melee combat on the fly.
Shaun Prescott
S U P E R M E A T B O
People get so hung up onlegacies, and who
pioneered what, and wher
stuff fits on the continuumof any given genre. I do toosometimes, but I still thinSuper Meat Boy is the bestwitch-oriented platformeof all time. It’s better thanany bloody Mario game.
T E L E P O R T E RMoves blocks from Ato B. One a time, andsevering any joins in
the process—so you’ll need a plan for
reassembly.
I N V E R T E DC O N V E Y O R
It’s a conveyor, butupside down. Gravitystill applies, so you’llneed lifters to keepsomething up there.
L A S E RDestroys blocks at adistance. Far moreversatile than the
eviscerator as it canbe connected to
sensors.
P A I N T E RChanges the color of
the block thatpasses in front of it.
Used to facilitatesome of the new
puzzles.
C O U N T E RA smart sensor!
Thank you! If youneed to separate outa certain percentageof your blocks, thishelps enormously.
Let’s recap. Infinifactory is a creativepuzzle game where you turn block-based factory components into
complex machines. Each level has adifferent layout, a different schematicto match, and a different set of inputsthat dispense various componentsand building materials at a fixed rate.It’s your job to negotiate all of thesedifferent factors, a taskthat is 50% industrialdesign and 50%trainset construction.
You are doing this inorder to please youralien captors, giving thegame a comic streak
that treads the linebetween black comedyand outright slapstick. The sci-fisetting justifies both the freeformnature of the environments you buildin (you’ll spend a bunch of timeconstructing factories on asteroids)and also allows Infinifactory to showoff a surprisingly pretty side,particularly in its later missions. It’snot all conveyor belts and starscapes:there are dazzling nebulae,cyberpunk skylines, and alien forests.
When I wrote our review of the alpha version of Infinifactory back in February, I felt like I should giveit a score. That version of the game was anaccomplished puzzle game, my favorite in years, with acampaign you could see from start to finish. It felt
done. Playing the finished version of Infinifactory today feels like playingthe game and its first expansion pack. It’s more done.
You zip around by way of analways-on jetpack and manipulate
blocks in much the same manner as
Minecraft’s creative mode. Every toolavailable to you behaves according toconsistent, heavily simplified physics.Complexity arrives in the form oflogic devices: sensors, blocks withdifferent toggle states, and so on.
These are introducedto you slowly, withpuzzles dedicated toexplaining each. Soon,the potential forcreative combinationskyrockets.
Since its early access
launch, Infinifactory has gained threemini-campaigns that follow the mainstory. Each is built around a set ofnew blocks that change the way you
build in variously subtle and drasticways. The laser is a variant on the
block-destroying eviscerator withmuch longer range and, crucially, theability to be toggled on and off. Thecounter is a sensor that activates aftera user-specified number of blockshave passed it. My favorite is the
teleporter, which acts as anenvironmental modifier. Teleportersmove one block at a time (or theplayer) between separate areas of theworld. Their usefulness is offset bythe need to reassemble whatever it isthat you tried to teleport on the otherside: building devices to sensibly feedconstructions in and out ofteleporters is a gratifying challenge.
CREATIVE ASSEMBLYThe genius of Infinifactory is not thatit’s a very well-designed puzzle game:it’s that it makes you feel like atalented designer too. There’s atremendous satisfaction to watchinga machine you’ve slaved overdiligently follow your orders. It’s the
videogame equivalent of thoseincredibly compulsive looping gifs offactory processes, but you madeit—and the pride you experience incoming up with a solution feels‘earned’ in a way it does in few other
games. It’s appropriate, then, that Infinifactory allows you to output agif of your creations at the touch of a
button (these have been upgraded ina recent patch, too) and that, forthose who want to take thingsfurther, there’s the option to createand share user-generated puzzles viathe Steam Workshop.
It’s nice to be able to finally givethis the outright recommendation itwarranted earlier in the year. This isthe most generous game Zachtronicshas made, opening up SpaceChem’slofty problem-solving to anybody
who can place blocks but withoutsacrificing too much intellectualheadroom in the process. The bestsolutions blow my mind, but I’mhappy with my own ones too. It’s thataccessibility that makes Infinifactory special: not only is it clever, but itshares its cleverness with you.
93The pleasure of creativeblock-building meets thesatisfaction of puzzle-solving. One of the year’s
best games.
V E R D I C T
N E E D T O K N O W
WHAT IS IT?
A block-based puzzlegame about factory
construction.
EXPECT TO PAY
$25
DEVELOPER
Zachtronics Industries
PUBLISHER
In-house
REVIEWED ON
Intel i5-2500K, 16GBRAM, GeForce GTX 970
MULTIPLAYER
Leaderboards only
LINK
www.zachtronics.com/infinifactory
GIANTS OF INDUSTRYBlock-based puzzler INFINIFACTORY rolls off the production
FLIGHT OF FANTASYFINAL FANTASY XIV’s first expansion balances
tradition with adventure in HEAVENSWARD. By Daniella Lucas
Flying makeseven the mostmundane of
delivery questsa real joy
R E V I E W
FFXIV has long been trying tobalance the trappings of a traditionalFinal Fantasy game with being an
MMO to rival the likes of World ofWarcraft—and to great success. Itsfirst expansion, Heavensward, adds ahuge new section to the map ofEorzea, the power of flight andseveral new classes, all withouttipping those finallybalanced scales. WhereTESO fails tocohesively marry thesingleplayer prestige ofSkyrim with a worldfilled with otherpeople, FFXIV and its
expansion succeed.Taking you into theheart of the once sealed-off city ofIshgard, Heavensward opens on asolemn note. Given the previoustragedy and revelations in the city ofUl’Dah that saw your friends in direstraits in the lead-up to theexpansion, it’s a fittingly frosty start.And to see it you’ll have to havecomplete the main questline of ARealm Reborn and all of its
There are a lot of expectations to live up to when your game bears the Final Fantasy name. They all need to have epic,twisting storylines, magical landscapes, and plenty ofMoogles. It’s all part of the DNA of the series. But despite theMMOs of the collection possessing all of these things, there
are many who still don’t consider them to be ‘proper’ Final Fantasy games.Those people are missing out.
subsequent patches first. Yes, it willtake you a while if you’re starting as acompletely new player, but the
journey is well worth it. And with boosts to help first timers level-upquickly and cut dungeon queuetimes, you don’t have to worryabout being left behind.
The new areas are vast anddesigned to take fulladvantage of the newflying mounts. Campspepper the snow-
besieged hillsof Western Coerthas,while the Sea of Cloudsswims with tiny islands
waiting to be explored.It’s a real shame that you can’t take advantage of thatflight-based design straight away. Youhave to earn your wings first, and ittakes ages to do so.
You’re stuck hoofing it until youunlock all of the aether currents inany given area to learn what thesurrounding winds are like. Someare dotted around the hills andobscure high points, while others are
unlocked during quests. It does startto feel dull as you run from one endof the map to the other doing classicMMO busywork. But once you getthem all and you finally take flight, allof that tedium is forgotten. Taking tothe skies is glorious. Dipping betweenthe trees of the Chocobo Forest, orthe fluorescent pompoms of theChurning Mists is a sight to behold.Flying makes even the most mundane
of delivery quests a real joy.
NEW CLASS
The fighting is equally grand. Thenew classes (gun-toting Machinist,sword-wielding Dark Knight andglobe—uh, spinning?—Astrologian)add a nice mix to party line-ups, asdo the new skills for existing classesthat accompany the level cap rise to60. With every new move comes anew layer of strategy to consider.While many players are still findingtheir feet over what works best, it’s
the sense of greater choice that’smost exhilarating. There’s no oneway to do things anymore.
There’s a lot on offer here, andwhile I sunk over 40 hours into themain storyline I have yet to see theend of it. The amount of new thingsto do is equal to that of the basegame, which is a huge feat foran expansion, and there’s still plentymore on the way.
If you already play FFXIV then Heavensward gives you even moreof what you know and love. Forthose that have been eyeing up those
chocobos from the sidelines, there’sno escaping the catching up you’llhave to do, but that shouldn’t put youoff. Even if you don’t know yourTonberrys from your Cactuars, it’swell worth playing for the sheer
variety of adventures. Now isdefinitely the time to get involved.
E X C E E D T H E W E I G H T L I M I T
1 D O A Q U E S TTalk to this guy in
Ishgard for a quest.While it’s designedto unlock the abilityto fly for the normalchocobo you gotearlier, it’ll unlock itfor ol’ Tubby, too.
2A W A K E N H I MNext, head to
Tailfeather wherethis farmer’s boywill send you outto awaken yourchocobo’s instinctsby summoning it tobattle alongside you.
3G E T A F E E LAfter you’ve done
this you’ll be sent onerrands to a fewdifferent locationsso that yourfeathered friend canget a taste of thewind in its beak.
4F L O A T F R E EHead back to
Tailfeather tocomplete the quest,and then BOOM.Your fat rolls will befree to ripplebeautifully in thebreeze. Lovely.
How to make your fat chocobo fly
87
A hugely enjoyableaddition to the world ofEorzea, with plenty ofroom to spread your
COPY KATANAA mixture of stealth and turn-based combat, RONIN isn’t quite as good
as its obvious inspirations. By Phil Savage
The trick is toalways be
moving
It looks like a stealth game andsometimes plays like a stealth game,but there are frequent occasions
where you’re forced into battle. Ronin is first and foremost about fighting,and the turn-based swordplay is whatdistances it from its most visiblesource of inspiration.
Each of its five chapters has threelevels: two in whichyou infiltrate buildingsto hack terminals, anda third where youconfront and kill one ofthe five executivesresponsible for thedeath of your father.
Set in sprawling officebuildings, each level iscomposed of a number of self-contained sections. At first, you’reunseen—free to lurk in the darkness,taking out guards and planning youropening strike. But soon you’ll needto jump into the light, at which pointthe action pauses. Each combat turnis defined by the enemy’s actions. If ared laser sight is pointed at you, onthe next turn they’ll fire. If they’vefired, on the next turn they’ll re-aim.
Why yes, Ronin does look a lot like Gunpoint. A 2Daction-stealth game that takes place in the interiors ofa stylishly futuristic city, its similarities are numerous.You hack computer terminals, use the mouse to planand execute jumps, and stick to any wall or ceiling you
fling yourself against. Ronin is less derivative than it first appears, though,thanks largely to the prominence of combat.
The trick is to always be moving.It takes two turns to down a guard:one to land near them, and one to
strike them down. It takes two turnsin the same position to get yourselfkilled. That’s the central puzzle ofeach encounter. The easiest solutionis to jump into guards, knockingthem down and giving yourself a
couple of turns beforethey recover.
At a basic level it’san enjoyable system tomanipulate, enhanced
by unlockable skills.These are tied to a limit
break meter that builds
as you stun and kill. Fillit completely, and you’re given a free action. More often,it’s worth spending your accruedpoints on a potentially life-savingspecial move. By the end of the game,I could create decoys, throw mysword, and send out a circle ofdaggers that temporarily downed all
visible guards. There’s even a teleportmove that lets you instantly slam intoany visible enemy to send themflying. If they’re standing by a
window, this is an instantdefenestration button.
As I grew more familiar with thecombat, inconsistencies became moreapparent. For starters, you don’talways have enough information toplan a move. The jump tracer doesn’taccount for enemies, so it’s difficult toknow where you’ll end your turn if
you go for a stun—an omission thatled to my death on more than one
occasion. Invisible, Inc. proved theworth of complete transparency inturn-based feedback, and it’s a lessonI wish Ronin had learned.
RONIN ON THE SPOT
More frustratingly, your moveset isrestricted in combat. You can’t climbor run, only jump, and you’re unableto fine-tune actions mid-turn.Outside of combat, you can pause atany moment to plan and executemoves. I suspect the limitations are anecessary tradeoff to keep the
difficulty intact, but they seem toundercut game’s core fantasy of balletic, fluid action expressedthrough stop-and-start systems.
Each level has three optionalobjectives: don’t kill a civilian, don’ttrigger a lockdown, and kill allguards. Except, they’re not reallyoptional. You need to complete allthree to earn a skill point used tounlock Ronin’s best toys, and thatmeans you’re incentivized to re-tryeach checkpoint over and over.
With a growing collection of skills, Ronin stays interesting. The level
design is largely excellent, offeringplenty of varied scenarios, albeit onlya handful of enemy types.
Ultimately Ronin doesn’t live up tothe quality of its inspirations, but itdoesn’t really need to. It does enoughto make for a fun four-to-six hourcampaign of gratifying swordplay.
P U S H I T T O T H E L I M I T
H O L O G R A P H I CD E C O YMore trouble thanit’s worth.
T H R O W S W O R DRemember to getit back again.
T H R O WD A G G E R SKnock downeverything.
T E L E P O R TIf an enemy isnear a window,use this.
Ronin’s skills explained
74A fun, if lightweight,stealth combat game.The turn-based fightingisn’t perfect, but remains
TORQUE SPORTROCKET LEAGUE is a game about cars and soccer
for people who care about neither. By Matt Elliott
Driving isdelicious. Cars
ease aroundlike butter ina heated pan
I’ve never played a game thatneeded a tutorial less. Drive car atgiant ball; hit ball into net; scorepoints. Rocket League’s competitivecore has existed for millennia, and
this helps make a preposterousconcept feel primal. This, in turn, is alaughable way of describing a gamethat would be called moto carball ifit actually existed in real life.
Like dry martinis and penisesscribbled in unattendednotebooks, RocketLeague is a celebrationof distinction throughsimplicity. Driving isdelicious. Cars easearound like butter in aheated pan, but always
feel under your control.You accumulate boostby driving over markers on the arenafloor, and unleashing it is athunderous rush, firing you across,over and around the pitch. Becausematches take place in smooth,enclosed spaces, you can drive upwalls and across ceilings as ashimmer of perpetual motion. Carscan also jump and dodge, both ofwhich can be used defensively andoffensively. The weight of the cars,
Let’s not waste energy exploring why soccer should replace itspaper chain of squalid billionaires with cars, and accept it asfact. A fact that Rocket League proves with simple andimmediate ease. Yes, this is a game about cars playing soccer,and that’s just about as developed a plot as you’ll require.
as well as your ability to apply unruly boost to jumps, adds a pleasinglyhaphazard element; something likeathletic soccer players leaping abovethe opposition to header high balls,
but with less shirt-pulling.The vehicles feel light and
buzzy—somewhere between Micro Machines, and those swift, slideyremote controlled cars that only seemto appear on Christmas Day. This
contrasts nicely withthe fat, beefy bounce ofthe ball, whichgormlessly invitesimpact like a punchablecousin. And that’s it. Ifeel almost guiltyreducing a review to
‘ball’ and ‘car’, but thereare only ever those twothings in the field of play, andcrucially, they both feel great. Thereare no weapons, but certain markersfill your boost and let you obliterateother players. Mercifully, it’s thegenerous, instantly-respawning typeof obliteration. Destruction is theonly conspicuous deviation from theclean and simple business of drivingaround and scoring goals, but in mostof the games I played it was a rarity,
and certainly never frequent enoughto be irritating.
Alternatively, you can set teams offour against each other, in matchesthat become so frantic that they’reless like footy, more like a lost,confused beach ball bashed between
bumper cars. Playlists of duels,doubles, standard 3v3 matches andthe appropriately named Chaos 4v4mode are all available online, with
ranked playlists limited to duels,doubles and 3v3. There’s a reasonwhy online play is the first option onthe menu, as here’s a game that feelsdesigned to be played with actualpeople, and this is absolutely where itthrives. I rarely had to wait long for agame, and if players dropped outmid-session they were immediatelyreplaced by AI bots. Best of all, it’srefreshingly simple to get back intoanother game, so very little time isspent lingering in lobbies.
SIMPLE PLEASURES
If playing online isn’t your thing,there are exhibition matches and fullseasons you can solo. The length anddifficulty can be altered, and while itdoesn’t offer much in the way ofdepth—cars and soccer,remember?—I still found myself
bonding with pretend teammates.Perhaps I’m just lonely.
The offline modes do reveal thegame’s minor inadequacies, however.Team AI can be flaccid andunreliable, especially against tougheropponents, and the same simplicity
that makes Rocket League soimmediately playable can causethings to get repetitive when playedalone; a criticism that only becomesapparent precisely because it’s sodamn addictive. It’s a simple thingdone brilliantly well, kept interesting
by the thrill of competition.
N U T M E G S A N D B O L T S
1 B O O S THelps you to
whack the ball withsome vigor, but alsoallows for excellentmid-air acrobaticswhen applied duringa jump.
2 J U M PHop up to hit high
balls, or block lobbedballs for epic saves.Press twice for aprobably-impossibledouble jump. Heck,it’s all impossible!
3 D O D G EFlip forward,
sideways andbackwards for anextra boost ofmomentum, whichwill send the ballflying impressively.
4 S L I D EPowerslide
around the arena tochange directioneasily and knockshots sideways. Also:looks cooler thandisco cucumbers.
5 R A MFill your boost
meter with powerupsand slam into anenemy vehicle,destroying themutterly. It’s not evena cardable offence.
Five silky skills every MVP should master
87Rocket League isfast, fun andrelentlessly enjoyable.The best soccer game
HEAVY METAExploit an unfinished adventure game while playing it,
in THE MAGIC CIRCLE. By Christopher Livingston
Contains a lot of jokes about
crowdfunding,game tropes and
games media
74 OCTOBER 2015
Before long, you’ll gain the ability tomake changes to the game by
tampering with its programming.Specifically, you can alter thebehavior of the game’s entities. Aftertrapping a hostile dog-creature, forexample, you can change itsalignment fromviewing you as anenemy to seeing you asa friend. You can assignit new enemies, whichit will then attack. Youcan also completelystrip it of attributes,leaving it inert while
storing those propertiesin your library to be applied toother creatures. None of thisinvolves writing code yourself, mindyou: it’s accomplished by simplyselecting words from a list anddropping them into fields. When youexit the customization screen whereyou set these values, the creature’sbehavior is changed.
The Magic Circle casts you as a playtester for a game that has been in development for ages and is still nowhere nearcompletion, something most gamers can easily grok in thisage of Kickstarter campaigns and Early Access. What beganas a sci-fi game has become a swords and sorcery adventure,
and as you progress through the unfinished world you’ll find the spines ofa pixelated space station poking through the fantasy crust, with long-forgotten robots and drones mingling among the wizards and spiders.
You can’t use these abilitiesdirectly, so overcoming obstacles
becomes a matter of altering the behavior of your growing AImenagerie. Once you’ve stolen anability or value from an enemy, you’reclear to use it to edit any creature or
entity you might fancy.Rocks can be made tofloat in the air,providing you a nicestepping stone.Zombies can be madefire resistant and ratscan be fitted withtractor beams. This
gives you multiple waysto tackle obstacles, solve puzzles anddefeat enemies. It’s also a lot of fun toplay with between puzzles: whocould resist sending a loyal army ofmushrooms fitted with helicopter
blades and repulsor beams to attack afew fire monsters? There arecertainly shades of Double Fine’s
Hack ’n’ Slash to the premise.
You’re not the only human in thegame: the developers, represented byfloating eyeballs, are working on it as
you play, though most of their workamounts to them bickering loudlywith each other. As you might expectin a game about an unfinished game,The Magic Circle contains a lot of
jokes about crowdfunding,development, game tropes and gamesmedia, and provides some insightful
and funny observations on thosefronts. While the tone is initiallylight and playful, however, thewriting eventually sags under itsown weight. The performances growmelodramatic and overwrought, andthere are long stretches where thedevelopers argue, or a rogue AIspeaks to you while you simply sitthere, waiting for them to finish(during Early Access, the ability toskip a couple of these scenes—thoughnot all of them—was added).
NOT SO FAST
There are a couple of other issues: fora game where you’ll be crisscrossingthe landscape repeatedly to explore,it’s annoying that you can’t sprint(though fast-travel is possible
between scattered nodes). And whileit fits in with the premise that themostly black-and-white game world(with some neat exceptions) is
visually unappealing, it doesn’t reallyhelp the fact that the game world is
visually unappealing. You can expect between 4-6
hours of play, and there’s a relatively
enjoyable minigame that becomesavailable after completing the story.
You can also continue exploring tofind secrets you may have missed.Despite its issues, The Magic Circle’sconcepts are both clever and put togood use, and editing monsters tosolve puzzles is always enjoyable.
78Visually drab and a bittoo taken with its ownstory, but otherwise aclever and fun exercise in
creative problem-solving.
V E R D I C T
N E E D T O K N O W
WHAT IS IT?
An adventure gameabout exploring
an unfinishedadventure game.
EXPECT TO PAY
$20
DEVELOPER
Question
PUBLISHERIn-house
REVIEWED ON
Windows 7, Intel i7x980 3.33GHz, 9GB
RAM, Nvidia GeForceGTX 960
MULTIPLAYER
None
LINK
www.magiccirclegame.com
A K I N D O F M A G I C Other monsters I would like to edit
G T A 4 ’ SR O M A NNot really amonster, butI’d like toboard uphis mouth.
H A L F - L I F E2 ’ S P O I S O N Z O M B I E S I’d add aweakness:poison!Problemsolved.
S P E L U N K Y ’ S B A T SNo more flying at an angle.Maybe no more flying, period.
L E F T 4 D E A D ’ S W I T C HShe’s sensitiveto noise, so I’dremove her ears.Maybe even herwhole head.
F A L L O U T ’ SD E A T H C L A W SRemove theclaws. Or maybethe death. Both?
B I O S H O C KI N F I N I T E ’ SH A N D Y M E NTheir weaknessis their heart, soI’d add tenmore.
Ifeel confident insaying that ConnorSherlock’s Voice ofVamana is inspired bythe works of Arthur
C Clarke—because how could it not be? It’s a first-person exploration
game that unfolds at a glacial pace,with a terrifically slow beginningwhere you float from your spaceshuttle to the alien structure you’ve been sent to investigate.
Too many space games trivialize
distance with handy warp drives or
jetpacks, but when you finally approach
Vamana’s structure, and gain access to
it, it feels like you’ve earned it.
Sherlock makes up for the lack of life
and detail in his artificial world by means
of a well-acted radio channel that
accompanies your lonely investigation,
and even enhances it in a way by
Positech’sGratuitous
sequel lets you design
your own spaceships,
and fans have been busy
drawing iconic intergalactic vessels
from popular culture. Try these.
making you feel like a real person with a
real friend in your ear, rather than the
floating camera we so often play as in
first-person games. There’s a bit of
platforming, a modicum of puzzling
once you’ve made your way inside, but
Vamana ’s main strength is in its sound
and visual design. This is a place thatfeels alien and oppressive, magical in a
way, thanks to the ship’s cavernous
interior, and the odd devices that
transform it in interesting ways.
What will happen when you’ve
pressed all the switches—what awaits
you in the bowels of this frightening
ship? I’m not going to tell you, obviously,
that was an entirely rhetorical question,
but I will say this: it’s a rare game that
makes you both excited and scared to
reach its conclusion.
DOWNLOAD AT www.bit.ly/VoiceOfVamana
N Y A NHonor the memory of Nyan Cat, theintergalactic feline who, even as I type this,continues its solitary voyage into deepestspace. You’ve got that tune stuck in yourhead now, haven’t you?
www.bit.ly/Gratuitous3
A P O P H I S B A T T L E S H I PGiven the design and name, I’m pretty surethis is from Stargate SG-1, which featuredan Egyptian space god named Apophis asits first-season villain. He was fond of gold.
www.bit.ly/Gratuitous2
B O R G C U B EGive Picard terrifying flashbacks with thisimpressive Borg slab, which wants toconvert all organic beings into squishycyborgs. Enjoy a cup of tea, Earl grey, hot,while you play, for maximum authenticity.
N O W P L A Y I N G I D O W N L O A D S I R E I N S T A L
OCTOBER 2015 8
3 PORTALSTORIES: MEL
This is a huge mod boasting 22 levels, a newstory with a different voice actor companion, a
ton of custom assets, and even anew decal for the gun. (It’s yellownow. Yellow is cool.) You don’t need Portal 2 installed to play, but you doneed to own it. Related: everybodyshould own Portal 2.
Mel is a clear labor of love, and ifthe team at Prism Studios can’tmatch the vocal performances ofthe original, that’s only because thatwould be impossible. Mel’s deviouspuzzles are supported by detailedenvironments that stop this fromfeeling like a simple rehash.
DOWNLOAD AT www.bit.ly/PortalMel
JENNY LECLUE
Indie developer Stephen
Lavelle recreates the soapy
business of washing with
his typical flair and eye fordetail. We all shower, hopefully, but who
else would think to notice all the tiny
details of showering, like the pineapples,
the tubes of magical ingredients, and
the fact that we all involuntarily crap
when we squat down? This is a
scatological, childish game of messing
around with stuff.
Your interactions are simple and
consistent: pick stuff up and drop itagain with the left mouse button, while
the right performs such actions as
squeezing open, chopping or mashing.
It’s all good, clean fun.
DOWNLOAD AT www.bit.ly/ShowerGame
SHOWER GAME
1MIRROR MIRRORTransform your shower
into a freaky hall of mirrors,and see your low-poly wang
from a whole new angle.
2REVERSE GRAVITYTidy the mess you’ve left
in the shower byfundamentally messing with
the laws of physics.
3SEX CHANGEChange your sex with a
handy perfume, combining itwith a different product to
turn your new tits golden.
1
3
2
MOD New protagonist, new AI, new gun
FREEWARE Do you missMarple? Try this instead
While we wait for Mografi to
finish the Kickstarted
adventure Jenny LeClue ,
we have this playable
mini adventure to whet our appetites.
Jenny LeClue: The Journal of
Professor Zazer asks us to
investigate a creepy mansion; it’s a
very short point-and-click, but a
funny and fairly stonking one with it.The full game will feature
Gothic 2 is still regarded bymany as the best PiranhaBytes game, with therichest world, story and
systems of their many RPGs aboutheroic dudes in faction-heavyfantasy lands. You’ll be giving up onsleep entirely if you decide to tacklethe fan-made Golden Gate too. Itadds several new guilds to join, anda whopping hundred extra queststo undertake, and extends the storypast the end of Night of the Raven.
Or it will do, anyway—at the time ofwriting, only the first (of four)chapters has been completed.
Like another recommendedmod, Requiem, The Golden Gate makes shields usable in combat; italso adds new textures and a fewextra animations to the game. Don’texpect a flawless translation fromthe Polish original that released last year—or even English voices.
DOWNLOAD AT www.bit.ly/GothicGolden
MOD American Gothic. Well, Polish actually
Another Portal mod? You
spoil us, Portal community.
And it’s another mod that
gives the portal gun a new
coat of paint. Those neat pink and
yellow stripes reflect Hazmat’s new
portal colors, which have put Valve’s
traditional orange and blue wall-holes
out to pasture. The palette of
environmental objects has been
updated to match the garish new
look—but there’s more to Hazmat’ s
than its color scheme. It also adds seven
new maps themed after the clinical,
non-apocalyptic testing facility of the
original game, while mixing-in puzzle
elements from the sequel.
Professional and polished, it’s not
quite on the scale of Portal Stories: Mel,
but if you’re after a slice of regular
portalling that manages to keep things
fresh in the process, you’ve found it.
DOWNLOAD AT www.bit.ly/HazmatPortal
8 HAZMAT’S PORTALMAP PACK
MOD Formerly known as Nick’s Portal Map Pack
VA-11 HALL-ADEMO The Cyber HouseRules (thanks, Futurama)
Cyberpunk bartending
game VA-11 HALL-A has
been in development for
a while now, under the
watchful eye of publishers Ysbryd
Games (which, full disclosure,
includes sometime PC Gamer
freelancer Cassandra Khaw). This
new demo offers a glimpse of this
Snatcher -like adventure, which isshaping up to something special.
It’s a rare cyberpunk game that
doesn’t cast you as a hacker and/or
freedom fighter of some sort, but
that’s not to say your bartending
persona won’t be meddling with the
world in this one, albeit on a much
smaller scale. Your job is to serve
drinks and listen to your customers,
while offering up advice with a slice of
lemon, and on the rocks.
DOWNLOAD AT www.bit.ly/ValhallaBar
7
“What’s up with thisweird freaky grass?”
Tickle Portal 2 pink (and,er, yellow) with this mod.
N O W P L A Y I N G I D O W N L O A D S I R E I N S T A L
OCTOBER 2015 8
REGULAR HUMAN BASKETBALLFREEWARE Featuring giant, clumsy, human-powered mechs
Sorry for including a normal,
boring basketball game
this month, but I was
running short and had to
think of something . As you can see, it’s
a pretty standard B-ball game featuring
a couple of beefy humans, a bouncy
orange ball—oh and the two enormous
mechs you see at matches all the time.
As with real basketball, each player
controls a death machine by physically
clambering inside it, and pressing
buttons to operate its limbs, as well as
the handy magnet that carries the ball
to your opponent’s net. Regular Human
Basketball is from the devious minds
behind multiplayer horror-roguelike
Crawl , so it’s odd that this QWOP -like
game of flailing robots doesn’t do
anything new with the venerable sport.
DOWNLOAD AT www.bit.ly/RegularBasketball
9 THE ESCAPISTSLEVELS Treat yourself to some great escapes
Mouldy Toof’s gameexplores the flipsideof Prison Architect’sintense jailmanagement sim,
putting you in the orange jumpsuitof a recently incarcerated crim whois hoping to break out at the nearestconvenient opportunity.
You’re given a number of ways to
achieve this in the main game, which
incorporates a variety of increasingly
difficult prisons, and the community has
been busy working on more. There’s a
huge number of jails available on the
Steam Workshop, perhaps because the
devs have been rewarding the best
efforts with game-themed hoodies.
The user-made prisons range from
mods based on games, TV and films, to
facilities set in space, and modifiedlocations from history. One thing unites
them all: your desire to see the back of
them, by hook or by crook. I’ve tracked
down three of the best to save you the
trouble. See if you can dig, shiv, or
otherwise scheme your way out of the
places of incarceration on the right.
DOWNLOAD AT www.escapistgame.com
PRISON BREAKSGet out of jail free with ourget out of jail three
3 S T A L A G L U F T I I ICreator Vic Ramone reckons his map is“probably 99.99%” identical to the GermanPOW camp featured in the Steve McQueenclassic, and that’s good enough for me.
www.bit.ly/Escapists3
2 U S S L O C K W I N GA genuine space prison, with all the shinygray floors and walls you would expect.Escaping this is going to be tricky, what withspace famously lacking an atmosphere.
www.bit.ly/Escapists2
1 B L A C K B E A R D ’ S S H I PPrison ships are particularly miserable,given the watery fate that awaits you even if you do manage to escape. As if that wasn’tenough, this one adds pirates.
N O W P L A Y I N G I D O W N L O A D S I R E I N S T A L
OCTOBER 2015 8
Our review was brutal.Tom Francis rightlycriticized thelong-awaited sequelfor being a step
backwards from the magnificent Blood Money. Expectations were
high, and Io Interactive delivered agame too obsessed with story andscripted set-pieces to provide theassassination sandbox we wanted.
Despite this, I’ve always had a softspot for it. It’s a rubbish Hitman game, sure, but it’s an enjoyable15-hour chunk of mostly goodaction-stealth, with a few missions Ithink are among the best in theseries. When a new Hitman gracedthe cover of our last issue, I decidedto reinstall Absolution to see if time
has been kinder to it.
The biggest mistake Io made wasthinking its story was any good, andmaking that the focus of the game.It’s horribly written, and trieshopelessly to humanize Agent 47. Alot of developers fall into this trap,thinking we care about their
characters as much as they do.Imagining they require depth andcomplexity, when, really, they’re justa means to an end. It’s not Lara Croftthe character who defines the Tomb Raider games: it’s what she does.Similarly, no one really cares about
Agent 47 as a person. He’s an excuse
to pull off amazingly coolassassinations. That’s it.
The cutscenes in Absolution aretiresome and endless, made all theworse by longtime series voice actorDavid Bateson’s stilted, lifelessperformance. That last detail isn’t Iofault, though. Realizing his hammy
voice acting would jar with its grittynew David Fincher-inspired visualstyle, Io hired TV veteran WilliamMapother (Lost, Justified) to play 47But when people found out, therewas an uproar, and Io was forced to
bring Bateson back. Bad idea. Ioshould have stuck to its guns anddefended its artistic vision instead of
kowtowing to Bateson’s groupies, because the guy can’t act.
UNFORGIVEN
This increased focus on story meansthat between the proper Hitman-style contracts, of which there are afew, you’re forced to play throughclunky, badly designed scriptedevents, including a woeful rooftopchase involving a helicopter. I’m notsure why Io thought the gameneeded these. They are everything a Hitman game shouldn’t be: linear,
scripted, action-packed, and
HITMAN: ABSOLUTION
N E E D T O K N O W
RELEASED
2012
PUBLISHER
Square Enix
DEVELOPER
Io Interactive
LINK
www.hitman.com
The special today isDEATH on a bed of PAIN.
This rubbish Hitman game is not as bad as you remember. By Andy Kelly
8/17/2019 PC Gamer - October 2015 USA
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/pc-gamer-october-2015-usa 86/10086 OCTOBER 2015
OLD GAMES, NEW PERSPECTIVES
RE I NS TA L L
railroading you into a single playingstyle. There was a six-year gap
between Blood Money and Absolution,and in that time, Io appeared toforget why people fell in love with itsgames in the first place.
Another glaring flaw is thestructure. Unlike the huge, open-ended missions of Blood Money,Absolution’ s levels are, criminally,split into chunks. There are loadingbreaks as you transition betweenareas, and it auto-saves. The lack ofany manual save system whatsoevermeans if you want to experiment, youhave to repeat entire chunks of themission—and in a game where guards
like to have massive conversationsbefore they start their patrol, this isan exercise in frustration. And again,it displays a baffling lack ofunderstanding about why we lovedthe other games.
IT COULDBE WORSE
Bad sequels to great games
A S S A S S I N ’ SC R E E D I I IThe worst Creed yet, full of lamescripted events andinstant fails.
R E S I D E N TE V I L 6How didCapcom go fromthe sublime Resi
4 to this?
D U K E N U K E MF O R E V E RA disastrousfollow-up to Duke
Nukem 3D . Theabyss of sequels.
F E A R 2This poor sequelhad none of theoriginal game’sbrutal, kineticcombat.
Disguises aren’t asuseful in Absolution .
If all else fails, grab ahuman shield.
There’s far toomuch of this.
And, yet, I still think it’s a decentgame. I’m someone who has always
appreciated strong world-building,and Io’s artists are some of the best inthe business. Absolution is anastonishingly pretty game, set in acluttered, believably lived-in world.They went overboard with the bloomlighting, to the point where itsometimes looks like the aftermath ofa nuclear explosion, but the amountof detail squeezed into the levels ismad. The Terminus hotel is straightout of David Fincher’s Seven: a grimy,dilapidated building, populated bylowlifes and pounded by rain. Hope isan archetypal dusty American desert
town, its streets lined with stars-and-stripes bunting.
These amazing spaces make forsome genuinely brilliant missions,with a similar freeform feel to thoseof Blood Money—albeit hampered by
the stupid auto-save system and thelevels being split into chunks. There
are loads of ways to infiltrate theTerminus. Hope is similarly stuffedwith options. A mission in a strip clubinvolves you using a massive crowdof hooting horny men to wanderaround unseen, planning your hit.There are moments where it feelslike classic Hitman, and these, I think,are just about worth all those rooftopchases, sniping sections, and otherlame set-pieces.
HIT AND MISS
If you keep comparing Absolution to Blood Money you’ll have a terrible
time, but take it as it is and there’s alot of fun to be had. If Blood Money is2001: A Space Odyssey, then
Absolution is 2010: The Year WeMake Contact. Inferior in almostevery respect, but an enjoyable
N O W P L A Y I N G I D O W N L O A D S I R E I N S T A L
OCTOBER 2015 8
continuation of the series regardless.The problem is, for every standoutmoment there’s a massive sinkhole ofawful waiting to swallow you up. It’sprobably the most inconsistent gameI’ve ever played in terms of quality.
One of the main plot threadsinvolves Agent 47 protecting a14-year-old girl called Victoria, but
because the writing is so messy, it’s
hard to care about her at all. Youdon’t feel the same drive and urgencyhe apparently does, which weakensthe narrative massively. The story
becomes little more than adistraction, getting in the way of thereason for playing a Hitman game:hitting men. The new incarnationshown off at E3 seems to besidelining story in favor of goodold-fashioned murder sandboxes,thank God.
Absolution is a peculiar quality dipin an otherwise brilliant series. I’m
not sure why it happened, but I have
a theory. Io used Absolution to showoff its new Glacier 2 engine, and I get
the feeling it was still finding its feetwith the tech. It had the visualsnailed. I mean, just look at thoseenvironments. But perhaps it hadproblems making levels as big andseamless as Blood Money’s. Andperhaps this impacted the gamedesign too, forcing the studio to cutcorners. That’s total conjecture, butI’ve seen similar things happen inother games. Assassin’s Creed III wasthe debut of Ubi’s AnvilNext engine,and was similarly hamstrung as aresult. Both games, in fact, take thepower away from you at the last
moment and play some of theirassassinations out in cutscenes, ratherthan giving you control over them.That should never happen.
MERCIFUL RELEASE
But even with its flaws, and alukewarm critical reception, Hitman:
Absolution still sold almost 4 millioncopies. Its Metacritic score currentlysits at a respectable 79. Even thoughmany hardcore Hitman fans(including our own Tom Francis)lamented its inferiority to its
predecessors, it seems the brand was
strong enough to ensure people still bought it. Which is for the best,
because if it was a total failure, wemight never have seen another Hitman game. It’s been around for years, but there’s still a lot of potentiain the series—for more complexsimulation, more freedom, and moreways to creatively kill people.Hopefully we’ll see some of that inthe new game, titled simply Hitman:with luck, that’s an indication of its
back-to-basics approach.
IF YOU KEEP COMPARING
ABSOLUTION TO BLOOD MONEY ,YOU’LL HAVE A TERRIBLE TIME
If only the level designwas as good as the art.
UNINSTALLPhil thinks Absolution should never be absolved
“Nice try, Andy, but a Hitman game with a helicopter chasesequence is indefensible. As is aHitman game that, at the end of your mission, triggers acutscene in which Agent47 fails to kill his target.Absolution does both,and deserves to befiled away in yourSteam Library undera special categorycalled ‘the bin’.”
There is a battle going on inthe PC gaming world, andno, it’s not between WarnerBros and the people who bought Arkham Knight on
PC. It’s the battle over high resolution vshigh refresh rate in your monitor. Ichecked out high refresh rate screens afew months back, so now let’s turn ourattention to the high-res guys.
Q&AWhy can’t I have both ahigh-res screen and asuper-speedy one?At the moment theresimply aren’t the panelsavailable to cope withdriving something like a3440 x 1440 or 4Kresolution at the sort of120Hz+ speedsassociated with highrefresh rates. And it’staken long enough forPCs to acquire the displaconnections capable ofeven driving a 4K screenat 60Hz.
So why would I want ahigher resolution overa higher refresh rate?It depends what’s mostimportant to you. Smoot
framerates are within threach of us all, almost nomatter what yourhardware. All you have todo is sacrifice resolutionBut how many folk with a1440p screen downgradtheir gaming res to 1080for the sake of higherframerates?
OK, what benefits arethere to a higher res?At the start of the latestresolution revolution,few. Make the move up toa 4K monitor and your
textures look blockier,switch to an ultrawideresolution and the gamemay not support the newfield of view. But that’s achanging now, and gamelike GTA V or The Witche
3 add far more drama toimages on ultrawidesand 4K screens than onlower resolutions.
DictionaryResolution The pixelcount for a given image,
in the form of the numbeof horizontal pixels by thvertical count. Matchingthe output resolution of game to the nativeresolution of a panel isimportant in maintaininga clear image.
4K AKA Ultra HD iseither a resolutionof 3840 x 2160 or4096 x 2160 pixels.
Refresh rate The numbeof times, per second, agiven screen is updated,or ‘refreshed’.
65I’m still not completely sold on the goodness of abent screen. As with curved TVs, the benefits arepretty intangible, although I did expect to be moreenamored with one on my desktop where I can be inthe sweet-spot in perpetuity. I think the problem isthat curved monitors don’t curve far enough toreally make a difference. The radius is so subtle that
it’s barely perceptible, and any effect it has on yourgames is mostly down to the fact these screens arebuilt at a 3440 x 1440 resolution.
I’m also not sold on Samsung’s use of a VA panelfor the S34E790C either. The 40-inch VA panel inthe 40-incher feels superior to this, and the IPSpanels of both the BDM3470UP and theLG34UC87-P are just plain better. The black levelsmay be improved over the IPS, but the whites areway out and the colors are nowhere near as good.
When you’re a manufacturer asking this muchmoney for this kind of screen you’re introuble. I’d be far happier with the3470UP any day of the week.
There’s also few of the problems getting gamesrunning I experienced in the early days. Flawlesswidescreen used to be vital to get game displayingproperly at 3440 x 1440, but now it’s only really theolder titles which struggle. Playing GTA V , especiallyin first-person mode, is a fantastic experience. Youcan see far more of the world in your peripheral
vision, which is always a bonus when you’re on therun from the cops.
The 8-bit AH-IPS panel is a beauty too, deliveringcrisp colors and fantastic contrast levels. Again it’s acase of great white, but relatively mediocre blackreproduction. You do get a lot more control over thepicture quality compared with the cheaper AOCpanel, which allows you to offset any issues you getwith dark images. But there is an elephant in theroom and that’s the price—which is a ridiculous$1,900 at the time of writing because of Philips’lackadaisical US distribution. Just wait awhile: this quality screen will surely hitits proper $800 price soon.
Samsung is the king of the curve. It brought the curved TV
into our living rooms and suddenly everyone followed suit. Then
the curve came to our desktops, paired up with the ultra-
widescreen 21:9 aspect.
These ultra-widescreen displays have really grabbed my
imagination. Since getting my hands on this Philips screen’s
half-brother from AOC I’ve been utterly hooked on the extra
7So yes, another curvy panel, but this time it’s alovely IPS version which puts the Samsung VA toshame. As it’s IPS, the black levels aren’t so hot, butthe white saturation is far better—though not thesame immaculate reproduction you get on thePhilips ultrawide. You also get impressive-lookingcolors compared with the VA screen—which you
ought to given that this thing costs a princely$1,000. That does seem a lot simply for sticking aknee into the panel and giving it a bit of bend. Andgenuinely I find the flat ultra-widescreen monitorsdeliver just as dramatic gaming performance as thesupposedly more-immersive curved screens.
This LG however does harbor aspirationstowards professionalism, with a solid base, decentout-of-the-box calibration and Mac-sensitiveThunderbolt connections. Those add unnecessaryexpense if you’re only going to be gaming, but ifyou’re considering a curved monitor forgaming then you’re already all aboutthe unnecessary.
This is one serious ultra-widescreen monitor and no mistake.
But it’s not all work and no play—despite the somewhat
severe-looking stand—this is another quality IPS screen, here
boasting that divisive curved panel.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
LG 31MU97
1,149
8.8 million
Philips BDM4065UC
909
8.3 million
3
iiyama B2888UHSU-B1
823
8.3 million
1
Acer Predator XB280HK
680
8.3 million
1
Samsung S34E790C
1,136
5 million
4
Philips BDM3470
1,900
5 million
LG 34UC87-P
1,000
5 million
PRICE ($) PIXEL COUNTNumber of pixelsin native res
PIXEL RESPONSE (ms)Speed that pixels canchange colour
STACKED UP
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
28 inch 1ms
28 inch 1ms
31 inches 5ms
40 inches 3ms
34 inch 5ms
34 inch 4ms
34 inch
3840 x 2160
3840 x 2160
4096 x 2160
3840 x 2160
3440 x 1440
3440 x 1440
3440 x 1440
TN
TN
IPS
VA
IPS
VA
IPS 5ms
Panel size Native resolution Panel type Response rate (GtG