best games of 2017 and beyond the AssAssin s Creed Origins mario + rabbids beyond good And evil 2 featuring and many more! super mario Odyssey

Transcription

1 huge preview special! xbox one x everything you need to know about the most powerful console ever new sequel! AssAssin s Creed Origins hands on with an epic egyptian adventure super mario Odyssey spider-man the of 2017 and beyond featuring destiny 2 best games ISSUE 319 wolfenstein ii: the new colossus fifa 18 call Of duty: wwii crackdown 3 need for speed payback star wars battlefront ii god Of war forza motorsport 7 far cry 5 kirby yoshi monster hunter world pes 2018 and many more! latest info! beyond good And evil 2 the comeback you ve been waiting for bioware takes on destiny expert analysis! mario + rabbids the weirdest crossover ever?

2

3 welcome Issue 319 / August 2017 one colossal feature, a behemoth of paper and words ideogames are like buses: you wait V for ages, and then 51 come along at once, crashing into each other wildly as they all try to occupy the same section of street. With so many amazing games on the way, how could we ever pick just one for our cover this month? That d be like asking us to pick our favourite reader. No, the only right thing to do was cram the whole lot into one colossal feature, a behemoth of paper, words, hands-on impressions, and interviews. Within this mighty beast s folds you ll find all the latest on Mario s hat-flinging adventures, the trenches of WWII, two separate multiplayer pirate games, Bioware s answer to Destiny, and much more! (I ve just realised I totally can pick our favourite reader, though. It s Greg. You keep doing you, Greg.) And that s not all! As ever we ve got all the reviews, retrospectives, features, and stupid in-jokes you can handle. Enjoy your GM! editor S CHoICe My top picks this issue We ve rounded up the latest details on the best new DLC. Gimme that XCOM 2 expansion! I often tell the team I want A Way Out, but this time I m talking about this new prison break game. Robin Valentine Editor Get more from your Gm! Online at or subscribe. See p92 for details. 70 Arms: combining the competition of Street Fighter with the subtle grace of a Slinky. August

4 CovER story Only the best games are featured on GM s cover! ccover story cover story cover story cover story over story cover story cover story cover story Contents What s In Your Latest Issue? 20 the 51 greatest games of 2017 and beyond! Like a rapidly expanding sun but less terrifying, the future just got incredibly bright thanks to an oncoming wave of quality games. And we ve got everything you need to know on every single one of them! So start saving up, and be extra nice to your family, because the next 365 days are packed with incredible games. 22supermarioodyssey 26mario+rabbidskingdom battle 27kirby 28callofdutywwii 29destiny2 30anthem 32wolfensteinii:thenew colossus 33awayout 35needforspeedpayback 35granturismosport 36spider-man 37legomarvelsuperheroes2 38godofwar 40farcry5 41starwarsbattlefrontii 42fifa18 43pes skull&bones 46seaofthieves 47crackdown3 48beyondgoodandevil2 50assassin screedorigins 04 july arms The results are in! We ve totted up the points tally, taking into consideration flair, aggression, and the stretchiness of limbs just as real boxing judges do. Find out whether this arena brawler wins the coveted belt or slinks away punching itself endlessly. 74 EndlEss space 2 Guide civilisations to galactic glory in this turn-based space strategy. Will you rule with armadas, use velvet-tongued diplomacy, or float among the stars crying? Explore, expand, exploit, exterminate. Anything apart from expire, really. Reviews 76 dirt 4 The authentic rally series gets even muckier in new stages set across Wales, Spain, Australia, and Sweden. EvER oasis 77 A village-builder from the director of the Ocarina Of Time remake, and not a Gallagher brother in sight. tokyo Delve into the isometric world of micro Tokyo to commit assassinations and collect cat skins. friday the 13th 80 jason Vorhees is on the warpath at Camp Crystal lake. What a buzzkill. We only wanted to do a bit of archery. perception 81 A resonating horror in which you play a blind girl using echolocation to hear her way around a creepy mansion. Regulars fanbase 06 From fiddly controls to obscenity to console upgrade woes, you ve got plenty of grievances to air this month. upfront 10 We ve got all the deets on Xbox One X, Microsoft s new 4K console built solely to kill the abbreviation Xbone. indiemaster 66 In Observer you play as an elite neural detective who hacks into people s minds. It s a living. REtRomastER 86 Thwip! Thwonk! Kaboosh! That s the sound of us playing Wii Sports and destroying muscles not used since 06. CultuREmastER 90 GM speaks to the man who makes Fallout 4 props. We know who we re calling when the apocalypse kicks off.

5 team gm Meet The Magazine s Makers! the most dedicated team in the business The team s feeling absolutely fine after pulling together this month s huge feature. Ignore that thousand-yard stare in their eyes. That s just how they normally look, we promise. What would you possess with Mario s cap? The Great Barrier Reef What would you possess with Mario s cap? Someone who s better at Kenshi Ben Griffin 1 The only thing Ben s 2 been putting more effort into this month than running around finding the latest news is trying to throw rubbish into the bin from his desk. His aim s not improving, but he s learned a valuable life lesson: someone else will always pick it up for you. Leon Hurley This month s punishing assignment an endless stream of beatings in open-world survival game Kenshi has finally broken our Early Access reporter. Withdrawn and nervous, he s now fit only to review clicker games and fidget spinners Rob Crossland Despite refusing to have anything to do with The Words, Rob s been offering us his opinion on every driving game going this month. His verdict? The Crew 2 rubbish; Need For Speed - could be good; the old American Truck Simulator demo: amazing! What would you possess with Mario s cap? Donald Trump, and build a wall around myself. Louise Blain Despite already being the world s most dangerous games journalist, Louise has recently taken up kick-boxing for some extra killing power. She says she s only a few lessons away from learning to throw hadokens, though she s probably just trying to scare us right? What would you possess with Mario s cap? A Mini-SNES, and move to under my TV Future plc, Quay House, The Ambury, Bath, BA1 1UA Tel Fax gamesmaster@futurenet.com Web Editorial Editor Robin Valentine Art Editor Rob Crossland Senior Staff Writer Ben Griffin Operations Editor Miriam McDonald Contributors Louise Blain, Katharine Byrne, Adam Cook, Anne-Marie Coyle, Patrick Dane, Ian Evenden, Andy Hartup, Leon Hurley, Phil Iwaniuk, David Jagneaux, Andrew Kelly, Luke Kemp, James Nouch, Sam Riley, Chris Schilling, Jordan Erica Webber, Robert Zak advertising Media packs are available on request Commercial Director Clare Dove Account Director, Games Kevin Stoddart +44 (0) Advertising Director, Games Andrew Church Director Of Agency Sales Matt Downs international GamesMaster is available for licensing. Contact the international department to discuss partnership opportunities. International Licensing Director Matt Ellis (matt.ellis@futurenet.com) +44 (0) Fax +44 (0) ) subscriptions gamesmaster@myfavouritemagazines.co.uk UK reader order line & enquiries Overseas reader order line & enquiries +44 (0) Online enquiries Head of Subscriptions Sharon Todd CirCulation Circulation Director Darren Pearce +44 (0) production & distribution Head of Production US & UK Mark Constance Production Project Manager Clare Scott Advertising Production Manager Joanne Crosby Digital Editions Controller Jason Hudson Production Manager Frances Twentyman ManagEMEnt Finance & Operations Director Marco Peroni Creative Director Aaron Asadi Art & Design Director Ross Andrews Group Editor-In-Chief Tony Mott Group Senior Art Editor Warren Brown printed by William Gibbons & Sons Ltd on behalf of Future distributed by Marketforce, 5 Churchill Place, Canary Wharf, London, E14 5HU Tel: Next issue on sale 10 August 2017 Issue 319/August 2017 We are committed to only using magazine paper which is derived from responsibly managed, certified forestry and chlorine-free manufacture. The paper in this magazine was sourced and produced from sustainable managed forests, conforming to strict environmental and socioeconomic standards. The manufacturing paper mill holds full FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certification and accreditation. disclaimer All contents 2017 Future Publishing Limited or published under licence. All rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be used, stored, transmitted or reproduced in any way without the prior written permission of the publisher. Future Publishing Limited (company number ) is registered in England and Wales. Registered office: Quay House, The Ambury, Bath BA1 1UA. All information contained in this publication is for information only and is, as far as we are aware, correct at the time of going to press. Future cannot accept any responsibility for errors or inaccuracies in such information. You are advised to contact manufacturers and retailers directly with regard to the price of products/ services referred to in this publication. Apps and websites mentioned in this publication are not under our control. We are not responsible for their contents or any other changes or updates to them. This magazine is fully independent and not affiliated in any way with the companies mentioned herein. If you submit material to us, you warrant that you own the material and/or have the necessary rights/permissions to supply the material and you automatically grant Future and its licensees a licence to publish your submission in whole or in part in any/all issues and/or editions of publications, in any format published worldwide and on associated websites, social media channels and associated products. Any material you submit is sent at your own risk and, although every care is taken, neither Future nor its employees, agents, subcontractors or licensees shall be liable for loss or damage. We assume all unsolicited material is for publication unless otherwise stated, and reserve the right to edit, amend, adapt all submissions. ISSN Future plc is a public company quoted on the London Stock Exchange (symbol: FUTR). Future is an award-winning international media group and leading digital business. We reach more than 57 million international consumers a month and create world-class content and advertising solutions for passionate consumers online, on tablet & smartphone and in print. Chief executive Zillah Byng-Thorne Non-executive chairman Peter Allen Chief financial Penny Ladkin- Brand Tel +44 (0)

6 COnTaCT Us Twitter Facebook officialgamesmaster Web Post gamesmaster, Future, Quay House, the ambury, Bath, Ba1 1au, uk Is 4K the future, or just a buzzword used to sell new consoles? Perhaps the answer is somewhere in the middle L E T T E R samuel Hamilton has mixed feelings about the Xbox One X he Xbox One X specifications have been T revealed [see p10], and it looks and sounds pretty amazing! It s great to see a console closing the gap on PCs. Maybe in the future we won t have as much PC beats all nonsense that you get on social media these days maybe. I ve always been a day one adopter of consoles as I just don t have the patience to wait. In past generations they would inevitably release slim versions, elites, etc, but there was no real need to upgrade unless you were rich or didn t already own the system. I want the Xbox One X, but if I sold my XO, which I bought for 425, I wouldn t recoup much of even blocktastic builder Minecraft is getting a 4K version, with improved graphics and lighting. 06 august 2017 FanBase the best of your s, tweets, and carrier pigeon death threats of the month the price. I have a young family, and although my wife lets me buy all the consoles (thanks darling!), there is no chance she would allow me to upgrade mid-cycle, when essentially I can still play all the games. this got me thinking for the next generation of consoles (if there is one). I may, for the first time, not buy all the consoles at launch, and wait until the a better version gets released as they now vary so much! What are your thoughts on there being so many different versions being released? Do you think it is a good or a bad thing for gamers? Samuel Hamilton, We seem to be moving to half-step consoles, with the generation concept maybe on its way out. We re not sure how we feel about it the new machines are cool, but you only have to look at how iphones are sold to see that this could get very expensive for consumers. It may be wise to hold off for now, especially if you don't have a 4K telly. n win! got an opinion? Have even the barest grasp of words and how to put them together? the best letter bags a free mystery prize!* *Don t forget to include your postal address and chosen gaming format! fanbase fanbase fanbase fanbase fanbase fanbase fanbase fanbase fanbase fanbase fanbase Button mash Being in my early 30s, my first introduction to gaming was the sega Master system when I was just a boy, with just a D-pad and two buttons. then came the sega Mega Drive, with three buttons. From there controller layouts have exploded into life with triggers, shoulder buttons, touch pads, and more. games have even outgrown the buttons available, and we now require button combinations, such as holding a shoulder button to bring up a weapon wheel, then selecting from that using an analogue stick. I can no longer flick between games because I fear getting my controls mixed up. series like the Legend Of Zelda, previously very userfriendly, are now upping their difficulty, and this makes me worried about the accessibility of games for the next generation of young players. Giacomo Evangelisti, It s definitely something game developers need to be thinking about while veteran players push for more and more features and complexities, there are people being left behind. It s a tricky balance. We ve noticed more assumed knowledge in recent games, where gameplay concepts and controls are just not explained but they ve likely been left unspoken because the core audience would be bored and frustrated to be taught things they re already familiar with. More options is key, we think. Wherever possible, players should have as much control as possible over the difficulty of the game, how much it tutorialises, and how the game is controlled. Granted that s a lot of extra work for developers but it potentially opens titles up to wider audiences. Fouling it up I don t care what anyone says but [blimey]! How disgusting have games become these days? Yet no-one even bats an eyelid. I mean [blow Me down], how offensive is Outcast 2? and not to mention gta V, which was just utterly puerile from start to finish yet no [GentlePerson] even said a word. I mean, back in the old days you had games like Moonstone that showed a bit of blood and they went [loopy] in Parliament about it! [dang]! Can you believe that? and nowadays these [Monday-to-FrIday] game companies make such vile [electronic entertainment] and

7 question Time What game have you spent the most time in? Fallout 3 as I did it all on 360, Ps3, and PC. Including all the DLC too. Everything gamerscore, Platinum on Ps3. Must have been mad. Nitty I think it must be World Of Warcraft, though I ve been clean of my addiction for years now. I used to play every single night with my guild, plus raids at weekends. Damn, I used to have so much time on my hands Robin Valentine, Editor YOUr TOP 5 fanbase the most exciting upcoming games, as voted for by you on our Facebook and twitter pages 1 grand theft auto V. It never ends Zeeke the Movies. With the amount of creativity and customisation options in sandbox mode you can create whatever kind of blockbuster you want. Daniel Climo, Facebook Borderlands 2 love the local and online 4 person co-op, great story, levelling up through different story difficulties, great bosses, and the all-round fun and friendly community. Must ve spent about hours on it. Tom Loke, Facebook spider-man Format Ps4 ETA summer 2018 the chart s all shook up this month thanks to the barrage of new gaming news and a certain superhero s web-swung his way to number one. 2 voice actors. also it s co-op, which is always cool. Jimbo Pattison, Facebook the original Morrowind. Revolutionary, beautiful game, from the graphics to the music to the voice acting. Jon FFVII probably the first RPg I played, so I have fond memories. Plus it paved the way for future gaming. Even now, I think of it when I look at modern RPgs. Kevin Taylor, Facebook days GonE Format Ps4 ETA 29 december Move over the last of us there s a new sony-exclusive grim zombie apocalypse in town. only this one s got rad motorbikes. 3 Let s start a [gosh darn] revolution! Who s With me? gamers and mags lap it up, too afraid to say anything. Well [down WIth that sort of thing], I am saying it right now! things have gotten to a disturbingly profane stage, and I ain t going down without a [FlIPPInG] fight; no [MonKey-FIGhter] is going to corrupt my innocence, no sir! [stuff] them, [stuff] everyone, [stuff] the world! I want it back to how it used to be! Back when you had games where there were no [chaps and dames] swearing at you in the game, and blood was made green or blue so as to not ruffle feathers. Help me bring back the good ol days, let s start a [Gosh darn] revolution! Come on now guys! Who s with me?! Rob Roemer, We respect your passion rob, though unfortunately we have had to censor your language, just a little bit Level up What s the best rpg ever? Divinity: Original sin. Not only is it a solid RPg with an incredible story, but there are multiple solutions to a lot of quests, a really interesting magic system that allows for cool combinations, amazing script writing, and some incredibly Welsh off ThE chart! the hot topics you ve been gabbing about 30% Xbox One X 24% Your most prized gaming possessions 20% the summer s new announcements 16% Will BOtW influence future games? 10% What you want to see in Far Cry 5 Persona 5. Because it s the only one that s had me play for over 93 hours to finish and make me still want more. I miss the characters. Barry Burke, Facebook For editor robin, it s got to be the Witcher 3 a game that redefines the word epic with its huge, packed, immersive world. though he can t help but mention Mass effect 2 too, home to perhaps the best cast of characters in any rpg. n God of WaR Format Ps4 ETA spring 2018 Another sony exclusive? have you lot all been paid off or something? or are you just scared Kratos is going to beat you up if you don t vote for him? 4 anthem Format Ps4, Xo, Pc ETA Winter 2018 bioware strikes back with its own co-op shooter rpg. can it compete with destiny 2? Well, it s certainly winning on our Most Wanted list, at least 5 super mario odyssey Format switch ETA 27 october somehow, despite the reveal that he can now possess dinosaurs, Mario s managed to slide down the charts this month. baffling. august

8 fanbase feat of clay! rikkee bond s custom-sculpted statue of aarbron from shadow of the beast is too scary for us specs symbol YOU LOve games Cool stuff and videogame culture you love games you love games you love games you love games you love games you love games Final Fantasy XV s Ignis never looked so good! We re jealous of Kat thomson s arty skills. social grousing Wisdom and weirdness from our bustling social media channels I was never interested really in Wii and Wii U, but this year s E3 made me want to get a Switch. Kudos Nintendo. Leigh I will challenge whoever wrote your Puyo Puyo Tetris review [That d be Tom Regan Ed] to a Tetris battle to the death for saying its story is annoying. And I will be victorious maniac of ThE month! It s like apple are making consoles these days console, console slim, console Pro/s, console X it ll be console X slim next! Gordon McVeigh received this custom WWF nes as a birthday gift from his girlfriend. she s a keeper, Gordon! POLL POSITION Keeping democracy alive on our twitter feed Do you preorder the games you buy? 6% Always 40% Sometimes 34% Rarely 20% Never fight you for it always number one damian Gale loves retro gaming mags and he s got this amazing collection of first issues to prove it! Do you buy season passes for your games? 1% 22% 37% 40% Always Sometimes Rarely Never Spent far too many nights playing Left 4 Dead with my besties. Oh the glitches, oh the japes! Carrie The Far Cry Primal is the best in the series. Sabretooths, mammoths, and clubbing. What more could you want in a videogame? Joker Was an average E3 for Sony this year, but Microsoft and Nintendo pulled out some good showings and some good surprises Metroid Prime 4 especially. Good time to be a gamer all round, though. Chris Billman, Facebook 08 august

9 FOR PEOPLE WHO RETRO GAMES t t Available from all good newsagents and supermarkets ON SALE NOW Final Fantasy 30th Anniversary Special Commodore 64 CLASSIC GAMES COOL HARDWARE BIG INTERVIEWS COMPANY PROFILES INSANE ACCESS BUY YOUR ISSUE TODAY Print edition available at Digital edition available at Available on the following platforms facebook.com/retrogameruk twitter.com/retrogamer_mag

10 12 Add-on up We check out the coolest new DLC announcements from XCOM 2 to Horizon Zero Dawn. The impressive tech squirrelled away under the hood of Xbox One X means that it outperforms its console competitor, PS4 Pro. generation x great titles set to be even better on the new console The cars, the tracks, the mud splatters everything will look pixel-perfect in Forza Motorsport 7. Xto the Power of one say hello to Xbox One X the world s most powerful console The first Ori was polished and profound. Doubtless Ori And The Will Of The Wisps will stun on Xbox One X. M icrosoft has finally dispersed the mystery surrounding Project Scorpio by officially unveiling its new addition to the Xbox One family. In the same vein as Xbox One S, it s a super-snazzy enhanced version of Xbox One, with a host of powerful new bells and whistles. The result of three years of engineering, Xbox One X is the most powerful games console on the planet (possibly in the universe we re not sure how well alien gaming technology is coming along). From developer Rare, Sea Of Thieves allows you to live the pirate life in a beautiful open world environment. If you re keen to get your hands on the new console, you won t have long to wait as Microsoft has announced that Xbox One X will launch worldwide on 7 November, priced at 449. Here s where things get technical: the eight-core Custom amd CPu, clocked at 2.3gHz, allows for faster processing and smoother gameplay, while a hefty 12gB gddr5 of graphic memory adds speed and power, reducing those pesky load times and allowing for the creation of bigger, more robust, worlds. 326gB per second memory bandwidth adds more detail to graphics, and a six-teraflop gpu promises ultra-realistic 4K environments (that s a considerable increase from the 4.2 teraflops currently offered by the Ps4 Pro). aimed at giving players the most eye-wateringly detailed experiences ever from a console, Xbox One X is a powerhouse, offering a true 4K gaming experience. Microsoft has also stated that Xbox 10 august

11 14 Ken you believe it? 16 Balls up 18 Mood swing Our humble Early access reporter endures a frankly astonishing amount of abuse in Kenshi. Do football games need to play it dirtier? Ben griffin thinks so. We round up the highest highs and lowest lows of this month s gaming news in Win/Lose. One X will ship with an ultra HD Blu-ray drive for 4K movies and 1tB of storage. Maintaining their affinity for backwards compatibility, all current Xbox One accessories and games will work with Xbox One X from day one which should minimise the damage to your bank balance that comes with investing in a new games console. some savvy technical wizardry also means that older games will benefit from a performance boost on Xbox One X. For those yet to take the leap to 4K, Microsoft has promised an aesthetic enhancement for games rendered in 4K, even on a 1080p output. the impressive technical capabilities of Xbox One X are sure to generate some serious heat, and so Microsoft has installed a liquid-cooled vapour chamber, something normally reserved for high-end PC gaming cards. a true testament to good things coming in small packages, Xbox One X is also the smallest of all the Xbox consoles. Of course, all this power means nothing if you don t have a wealth of high-quality games to play on it. Fortunately, the new console looks set for a strong start with Microsoft announcing 22 console launch exclusives including Crackdown 3, Forza Motorsort 7, and sea of thieves. (Flip to page 20 for more on the games you can expect to see on Xbox One X). there s no denying the impressiveness of this latest iteration of Xbox One. However, with all the improvements being exclusively hardware-based, the value you place on getting the best possible graphics and performance will ultimately determine whether you feel it s worth taking the plunge. n aimed at giving players the most eyewateringly detailed experiences ever from a console, it s a powerhouse august

12 The Indian temples of The Lost Legacy are magnificently atmospheric. going the extra mile We round up all the latest on the best and brightest upcoming DLC, expansions, and add-ons W e love it, we hate it. It s the saviour of gaming, and its downfall. Yes, DLC is the most divisive acronym since HMRC, but the latest wave of announcements has given us an excuse to focus on the good side of it rather than the bad. There s so much to get through, in fact from ascending mountains to killing Outsiders that there s no time to waste in jumping straight in. On account of the fact that it s not an expansion but not quite a full-priced game either, we figured we d get the little matter of uncharted: the Lost Legacy out of the way first. the spin-off to Drake s adventures is due out 22 august, and stars the charmingly self-centred Chloe Frazer from uncharted 2 alongside uncharted 4 tough-girl Nadine Ross, as they seek out a mysterious relic in India the tusk Of ganesha. the latest footage shows lovely jungle, bickering between the incompatible heroines, and sinister new villain asav, an Indian mercenary leader. It looks like Lara Croft s got some serious competition in Chloe to be gaming s greatest tomb raider. a much newer kid in the Playstation playground is Horizon Zero Dawn, and we should all celebrate that guerrilla games mech-jurassic new IP turned out to be great. so great, in fact, that it s got a sizeable expansion coming out later this year. the Frozen Wilds takes you to a snow-covered, hostile new area with a mountain at its centre surrounded by a menacing micro-climate of black clouds and lightning. Lovely. aloy seeks to head inside (or up?) the mountain, though she s warned about some great beast that guards it. Could it be the legendary Metal Devil that we heard about in the main game? Take it outside the Dishonored DLC was phenomenal, taking the Empress assassin, Daud, on a redemptive journey alongside Billie Lurk as they sought to save Emily from the Brigmore Witches. the pair returns to the forefront for Dishonored 2: Death Of the Outsider, a standalone adventure due 15 september, which narratively seems more a sequel to the original game s DLC than DLC for the sequel, if you catch our drift. this time, however, you control Billie, who now has a fancy new demonic arm and eye, as she seeks to take out the Outsider. If they succeed, what happens then? Can there be a Dishonored without the Outsider? Over in XCOM 2 s resistance camp, we ve received signs of life from Firaxis stalwart turn-based strategy-shooter. Coming out 29 august, XCOM 2: War Of The latest uncharted footage shows lovely jungle, bickering heroines, and a new villain 12 august

13 More mecha-sauruses, photo ops, and an angry-looking mountain await in Horizon Zero Dawn: The Frozen Wilds. the Chosen introduces three alien heroes (technically villains) to confront. the assassin, the Hunter, and the Warlock throw a bit of personality and banter into the XCOM 2 fold, trash-talking you based on previous encounters with them (Middle-earth: shadow Of Mordor-style) and giving you a host of new strategic headaches to overcome. and there are three new factions to ally with, the most intriguing being the half-alien skirmishers. at the real-time end of the strategy spectrum is Halo Wars 2: awakening the Nightmare. One of the highlights of the main game was the burly Brute leader of the Banished, atriox, who didn t get nearly enough screen time. In this expansion, you get to control atriox and his mercenaries as they take on the Flood swarming plant-like organisms that nearly took over the entire galaxy earlier in Halo lore. With a tower Defence-type co-op mode, a new faction, and two new leaders, it will hopefully offer some strategic depth to 343 s no-nonsense, by-the-book strategy game. n The Burning Question What s your favourite ever piece of DLC, and why? red Dead redemption: Undead nightmare Zombies, Bigfoot, the Chupacabra, and unicorns in the West? Nothing beats that. Gabriel Cerda, Facebook mass effect 3: Citadel It was just the perfect way to say goodbye to your team and the characters from all three of the games. Adam Streames, Facebook Visit officialgamesmaster and com/gamesmaster to take part in next issue s burning questions. The neon-infused faces of the new recurring alien characters in XCOM 2: War Of The Chosen may be pretty, if you like that sort of thing, but they re not friendly. In Dishonored: Death Of The Outsider, Billie s Displace ability allows her to set a marker in the world that she can teleport back to whenever she likes. august

14 Live Die Repeat trying to scratch out a living in ruthless rpg life sim Kenshi N ot every game is about winning or beating the final boss. Kenshi is about just living. Do it by working, fighting, trading it s entirely up to you what you do to get by. The question is: with no rules, no objectives, and no ultimate goal, what will Leon do with his time in the wasteland? Get beaten up loads, it turns out. 1 hour I decide to head out into the sandy wasteland. I m still not sure what I can do, let alone what I should do, so I m hoping to find something I can sell or a feeble enemy to level up against. It s mainly just rocks, though, until I see a wounded bandit limping alone. Perfect! surely he can t be hard to finish off? I m already wondering how much I can sell his shoes for when his friends turn up and leave me lying in the dirt, unconscious after another savage beating. I did kill one of them so, when I wake up, I loot the body like a seagull attacking a bin bag. On the way back to sell the spoils I see a dog-like animal and try to kill it. It takes me down in one bite and leaves me lying you get the idea. It is technically night, at least, so let s call this sleeping. 30 minutes Kenshi is all about open-ended sandbox gameplay rather than playing your way through an actual story. there s no overall objective, just a dusty fantasy world to live in doing whatever you can to get by. and it s mercilessly unforgiving. For me that means most of the next eight hours will largely be spent lying in the dirt, unconscious after another savage beating. But I m getting ahead of myself; let me tell you how it all started: lying in the dirt, unconscious after another savage beating. Okay, I tried to steal some food, admittedly, so this was possibly the only time I earned a good hiding but, still How long is this game going to last if I can t even feed myself? tengu, my starter character, actually dies from his injuries, leaving me with Riku, a woman I ve literally only just met but is now the one surviving member of my squad. Once she wakes up, that is. 1 hour 30 minutes Once I m awake it s not long before I m attacked again. this time with a twist: I m taken prisoner, so at least I m getting a bit of air and a tour while I m unconscious. the people-things that catch me take me back to their camp and tie me to a stake. this presents an entirely new kind of problem because, after a few moments of furious googling, it turns out the only way I can escape is if I have a saw, or a squad mate to rescue me. I check on tengu. He s still dead. But at least I don t have to stay here long: the people who ve captured me are cannibals and they start eating me. alive. all I can do is watch as the stats on various limbs start to decrease, while dialogue like bite and munch appear on screen. First my legs go, then my arms, and chest. somehow I m alive right up until they eat my head. 14 august

15 3 hours so far I ve played for about five in-game days and spent three of them unconscious, plus a good chunk of an afternoon being eaten. I concede defeat and look up some forums as I start a new character, Hmm. Most people seem against the idea of telling anyone what to do, as discovery is the whole point. so far all I ve discovered is how long it take to eat an entire person. One tip I do find is to lure bandits back to a town so the guards kill them, and then loot the bodies. I can t find any bandits but I do find some patrolling guards who ask me if I want to join. Yes! Oh, they re joking, and beat me up for thinking I could be one of them. I m unconscious in the dirt. Again. 8 hours I m kicking myself for not trying this earlier. Well, everyone else is kicking me, but let s not dwell on that. the cash is rolling in. after a few chain mail runs I have enough to buy robot components at the other town to sell on the return journey. after hours of earning 160 coins for mining four rocks, I m averaging every 15 minutes. I m still getting beaten up all the time but the money gives me sweeter dreams. During one trip I actually get attacked in my sleep. at least I was already unconscious. I also lose 2000 coins when the city guard plant drugs on me and offer me the choice of prison or a bribe. I m starting to think this game is a bit of a dick 5 hours I have the cash to buy enough building materials to make a mine, partly helped out by finding some dead bandits I strip for things to sell. I set up a little settlement near a town and begin hacking rocks out of the ground. It starts possibly the longest period of time I spend awake in the game. as a miner I go to sleep on purpose, not because a robber cold-cocked me with a sword. It s slow going, though. I can sell a boulder for 40 coins but a loaf of bread coasts 244. that means I have to get six stones just to eat and I can only carry four at a time. I m basically working really, really hard at starving to death. suddenly, selling dead bandits shoes seems like the good ol days. 10 hours I have a plan now. I m going to make enough money to hire some soldiers and okay, I don t have a plan. I just want some soldiers. If I can pay some people to work for me I can upgrade the mine and make more money. Potentially, then, I can branch out. Maybe even be the one who kicks people about and leaves them unconscious in the dirt. all these fine ideas are bouncing around in my head when I m beaten up again. But this time I m not left in a heap I m enslaved. Obviously I run away immediately but the funny thing about slaves is they get arrested a lot, what with the not being free and everything. My entrepreneurial plan is ruined because I can t trade any more, and I can t even enter town without being thrown in prison as a runaway. I think I ve had enough of this. Off. 7 hours Persistence is paying off, and between all the mining and a few looted corpses I make enough to buy a single, tiny, sheet of chain mail. this is a big deal because it costs me 1868 coins an amount that feels like a lifetime s worth of money but I can sell it for 2228 in a nearby town. screw mining, I m an entrepreneur now. this chainlink hanky is my ticket out here! Of course, that means wandering the desolate area between the towns, a strip of land I ve called ass-kicking and a nap-a Valley, because I m beaten up almost every trip. For some reason, though, I never lose my goods or money, so it doesn t affect my ability to make profit. It just bruises my pride. life-long labours Much like actual life, Kenshi is hard work. Passionate fans on forums talk about the hours of play needed to get the game, which explains why my 10-hour stint barely scratched the surface. the idea s sound, though: it s an open-ended world where you can do anything, just not easily. If a challenging sim-style RPg appeals to you, and you don t mind its rough edges (the camera is appalling), this might have something to offer. Its lack of polish, hand-holding, and forgiveness, though, means you d better give it a wide berth unless you re 100 per cent committed to the idea of something that takes longer than a decent-sized RPg just to dip a toe in. august

16 take aim Videogames have the ability to bring us closer together as a society David Jagneaux explains how gluing our eyes to a television screen and enjoying a game can actually foster real human connection ll never forget I where I was the first time I saw a videogame. My older brother was babysitting and it was getting really late. I heard a lot of laughter and yelling coming from the living room so I snuck out to see what was going on and saw a group of older boys huddled around the TV screen playing what I now know as Super Mario Bros 3. Ever since then I ve been hooked. a big part of what made that moment special is obviously how great and captivating the Mushroom Kingdom is, but also the social behaviour surrounding it all as well. these weren t weird, nerdy, or awkward kids struggling to find friends. I realised contrary to popular belief at the time that videogames can be a catalyst for social interaction, not a deterrent. gathering around a screen and experiencing an adventure together, competing for high scores, and connecting with well-written fictional characters is possible with videogames in ways that other media such as tv or movies can never realise. When reminiscing about favourite gaming moments, you re recollecting things that you actually did in the game world, not things you watched happen. sharing those sorts experiencing a game is as much about who you re with as it is what you re playing of memories with someone else is like using your console as a bridge between the real world and a digital wonderland overflowing with adventure. Multiplayer massive With the evolution of the Internet age things are getting even more elaborate. I can log onto my favourite online shooter, MMO, or other game and immediately connect with other people. using a headset I can talk with someone in real-time even if they re on the other side of the world as we co-exist in the same digital space. Having that digital presence initiates a more intimate and memorable connection that goes beyond just a voice through an earpiece or words in a chat box. Nintendo switch is the latest evolution of the way games can bring us together. I can hop online to race against people in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, or undock the system and meet up with friends to play together in the same space. Experiencing a game is now as much about where you are and who you re with as it is what you re playing. When playing a videogame you become the focus of the experience instead of just being a passive observer, and that s a special sort of magic to share with someone either online or in the same room. stats magic the gaming month in facts and figures $200,000 Percentage of For Honor s player base on Steam that has stopped playing since launch, according to GitHyp. It seems Ubisoft s melee-focused brawler lacks staying power. Number of abilities that Diablo III s new Necromancer class has at their disposal. They also have four class sets to collect, and 32 class-specific legendary items. The total value of a number of pieces of Star Wars memorabilia stolen from the biggest collection in the world, a hoard owned by enthusiast Steve Sansweet. 16 august

17 most wanted What s most tickling the team s fancy this month In the name of accuracy there should be authentic spitting physics Ben griffin dives in to makes the argument for a true warts-and-all football simulation, complete with litter, spitting, and gamesmanship ROBIN S PICK SUPER MARIO ODYSSEY I was definitely looking forward to Mario s first proper outing on Switch before, but now that I know you can possess dinosaurs, zip along electricity lines, and turn into a retro sprite, I m practically buzzing with barelycontained hype. PS4, XO, PC 27 October hut it, Pele. S Football isn t the beautiful game. Anyone who s watched their team limp to a rainy 0-0 draw will agree. Football is populated by cheaters, bullies, fakers, and win-at-all-costs psychos. It s time a simulation stepped up to accurately capture its chaos. First of all, I want to dive. as much as people don t like to admit it, diving that is, intentionally falling down to con the referee is a fundamental part of the sport, one you see at least once a match. the tricksy technique s in PEs, but it s simplistic and hardly ever works. I therefore propose a system called 360 Diving that lets you choose the angle of fall, how many times you roll over, and which limb to clutch in feigned agony. Let s see more gamesmanship: players appealing to get opponents sent off; defenders grabbing shirts in the box; the option of poking the ball away to stop the other team taking a free kick. During confrontations, there could be a button prompt that makes you fall down holding your face so the ref thinks you ve been headbutted. again, all this happens in real life. Everything would be balanced, of course, because an over-reliance on negative tactics earns stricter punishments. My hypothetical game s career mode would remember your actions through newspaper headlines slamming weasly teams, a chorus of i propose a system that lets you choose which limb to clutch in feigned agony boos following hated players, and even retrospective bans. Devilry in the details Dirty details are just as important as dirty tactics. there should be authentic spitting physics. Litter should drift onto the pitch. When celebrating in front of opposing fans, those fans need to unleash the rage of a thousand burning suns. Middlesbrough matches should be half empty (or half full). I m not calling for a revitalisation of Red Card soccer, the 2002 fighting game that happens to take place on a pitch. I just think football games need to do away with the squeaky-clean image they present. You could go to Youtube right now and watch a dozen men in a lower south american league start laying into each other with judo kicks. this is an age of park-the-bus defending, Fergie time, and by-any-means-necessary victories. the beautiful game can be downright ugly, so let s see more subscription to the dark arts. BEN S PICK FIFA 18 Greater responsiveness and more fluid animation means the action in FIFA will finally keep up with the speed of my amazing brain. It also means I can t blame anyone but myself when things go wrong. I ll just have to dry my tears on Alex Hunter s fat wads of cash in the return of The Journey mode, which sees my now-megastar footballer rub shoulders with Ronaldo, though sadly I still won t be able to pretend he elbowed me in the face. PS4, XO, PC September august

18 Switch em all Good news: Pokémon is finally coming to a home console. Well, Nintendo s announced a full core RPG is coming to Switch, which doesn t have to stay at home, but you will be able to see your monsters on a full-size screen. We ve no launch date for that game, but to tide you over, Pokkén Tournament arrives on Switch in September, and Ultra editions of Sun and Moon are coming to 3DS in November. you you PS Pride SamuS before? Games are for all, and Sony s proved that Double joy for Metroid fans, as Metroid: by sponsoring this year s London Pride, Samus Returns was announced for a 17 announcing it on Twitter with the September release. The 3DS remake of hashtag #foralltheplayers. Sony was by Metroid II: The Return Of Samus wasn t far the biggest name in gaming the big news, though that was the supporting the event. Something announcement that Metroid Prime 4 is #foralltheplayers to be proud of. now in development for Switch. Win Topping the leaderboard this issue Lose No, we don t want to continue thanks it S a hit! When Square Enix put Hitman developer IO Interactive up for sale, we were a little concerned. Good news! After a management buyout, the studio is now independent, and retains the rights to its most famous creation. To celebrate, the new indie dev made the first location free to download and play. Life, it seems, isn t even cheap Jay walking Portal, Half-Life and Counter-Strike developer Valve Corporation has lost another of its major writers: Jay Pinkerton, co-writer of Portal 2 announced he had left the company. There s no news yet about what Pinkerton s next project will be, though as a talented humourist it could be anything from games to comics to movies. Let s hope we don t have to wait too long to find out. oh rap! Despite having two of the biggest names in rhythm-action games behind it (NanaOn-Sha, the developer behind Parappa The Rapper, and inis, which created Gitaroo Man), Project Rap Rabbit failed to meet its ambitious 855,000 Kickstarter target. Production has halted for now, but the team hasn t given up hope that the game will eventually be made, quoting Parappa: I gotta believe! mod is dead The modding community is a vibrant one, but Take-Two has acted to stop a number of modding services, citing the problem of malicious mods that allow harassment of players and interfered with the GTA Online experience. OpenIV, Force Hax, Lexicon and Menyoo have been issued with cease-and-desist orders. Users have started a petition in defence of OpenIV, saying it only mods the single-player game. halo Stranger With nothing new about Halo at E3, fans have been concerned. In a blog post, Jeff Easterling, lead writer at 343 Industries explained, It s been made clear that we won t be talking about Halo s next major title for quite some time. And no, that doesn t mean Gamescom. Or PAX. Trust us, when we re ready to begin pulling back that proverbial curtain, you ll know. It won t be soon. Well he didn t say never. 18 AUGUST

19 21/07 splash out get ready to splurge some green splattery shooter splatoon 2 is out today on switch. 25/07 let s be aven you settlement-building sim Aven Colony sets up its stand in shops today. take it home to colonise your console. 25/07 Fallen into place grab yourself a bit of RPg action as Fallen Legion arrives on Ps4 or get it to go, and take it to the beach on your Ps Vita. 28/07 havin it large Nintendo 2Ds XL arrives in shops, and in our grubby mitts. Who needs three dimensions? The To do list Crucial dates for your gaming diary. If you only do one thing this month, eat, but otherwise make a note of these events 28/07 pik n mix Captain Olimar s summoning his army of plant-men and calling us to get Hey! Pikmin. 08/08 08/08 10/08 x marks the shop Capcom spoils us, releasing Mega Man Anniversary Collection 2. Four games in one! incoming six big releases headed to a format near you blade in hell-sea get psyched up for the release of the mind-bending Hellblade: senua s sacrifice. oh my cod Charge over to your newsagents as a new gamesmaster heads over the top sonic mania Format Switch, PS4, XO, PC Out 15 August F Format PS4, XO, PC Out 25 August Yakuza Kiwami Format PS4 Out 29 August Redout Format PS4, XO Out 31 August destiny 2 Format PC, PS4, XO Out 8 September dishonored: death of The outsider Format PC, PS4, XO Out 15 September August

20 Feature On The Cover! best Games of 2017 W e ve got a hell of a year ahead of us. From piracy on the high seas, to war in the trenches, to speeding around Brands Hatch, to transferring your spirit into a dinosaur s body, 2017 s crop of upcoming games has got something for everyone. In the face of such a stunner of a line-up, and what could we do but pack as many as we can into one massive preview feature? Over the page, you ll find our expert analysis, hands-on impressions, beyond and behind-the-scenes insights on the absolute best of the lot. Read on and get excited for the gaming world of 2017 and beyond! 20 AUgUSt

21 THE 51 BEST GAMES OF AUgUSt

22 Feature On The Cover! Format switch Publisher Nintendo Developer Nintendo ETA 27 October Super Mario odyssey snapback to reality! Nintendo s platformer-redefiner puts a cap among the pigeons f we ran around I throwing our caps on things they d just be covered in dandruff, but Mario doesn t have to worry about that because his is magic and he probably uses shampoo. Cappy, as he s known, can possess all manner of objects and organisms, from telescopes, taxis, and parking bollards, to Koopas, Goombas, and actual humans. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Mario s most important innovation since the butt stomp. tossing your bonce-coverer is as easy as flicking your Joy-Con like a nonchalant waiter pointing out the nearest toilet. this ability not only makes levels feel wholly more reactive, but opens up multiple ways to solve puzzles. the sheer number of new ways in which you can interact with the world is vast, and you ll want to test everything. You can, for instance, momentarily experience the tortured and furious life of a Bullet Bill first-hand. this cannot be understated. Our hands-on session starts in sand Kingdom, a colourful town square set amid rolling red dunes. the pause menu, styled after a holiday brochure, details its population (mid-sized), currency (pyramid-shaped), climate (average temperature 40C) and industry (tourism). It recommends we check out the heritage site at its centre. We shall. Odyssey s levels are open hubs containing multiple objectives, not dissimilar to super Mario 64. unlike that 1997 classic, however, you re not booted out once you ve found the gold star, which here takes the form of a green moon powering Mario s airship. that means total freedom to explore. First, we head into a clothes shop and plonk down 350 coins on a fetching pinstripe suit and Odyssey s levels are Open hubs with multiple Objectives, not dissimilar to super mario 64 hat, which is admittedly an odd sartorial choice for the desert. Round the back is an exclusive club whose poncho-wearing doorman tells us he ll only step aside if we re wearing a sombrero. since we lack the local tender required to buy one, we abandon that mission and run our well-dressed selves to tostarena Ruins. Here there s a familiar mix of moving floors, automatic lifts, and narrow walkways that, with the help of Cappy, we bypass by taking control of a Bullet Bill. Far from an easy shortcut, the danger is clashing with other Bullet Bills and plummeting to the quicksand below. It s an example of Nintendo providing the means to improvise creative solutions. El Capitan Next, as we advance on a floating platform, we chuck our sentient scalp 22 august

23 THe 51 BeST GaMeS of august

24 Feature On The Cover! Cappy is not really a cap, but a shapeshifting entity who takes the form of a variety of headgear. Stages have different time and weather conditions. Skeletons emerge at night in the desert. preserver at a switch just to see what happens and inadvertently set off a chain reaction of explosions which need perfect timing to hop over. On the plus side these shockwaves smash crates and spill out gold coins, and while we ve kind of made life difficult for ourselves, we appreciate having the option to do so. Dropping down to ground level (a lack of fall damage indicates plenty of verticality throughout Odyssey), we spy a noxious purple pool that ll kill poor Mario instantly, over which pyramid coinage hovers suspiciously. How to get there? a weird Easter Island head with feet might know the answer. Whoosh goes Cappy and suddenly we re in control. a prompt appears: Press Y to wear sunglasses. We do so and the Moe-Eye a play on the word Moai coolly flicks down a pair of shades, turning the screen a darker tint and revealing a hidden bridge over the poison liquid. (Brilliantly, Moe-Eyes can sometimes be heard faintly humming the first few notes of super Mario Bros. theme.) Where else might these invisible structures lie? the implications are huge. Indeed, secrets and special touches abound. take the Jaxi, a jaguar-turnedtaxi whom you can bound around on at speed. Or local fauna, in the shape of colourful birds and darting geckos. the presence of ice is another mystery. great shards litter the drifts, and there s even a yellow cab half encased in one frozen block. It ll probably need melting with some fire flower we haven t found yet. One of our favourite bits is ducking inside a pipe and turning Mario 2D, his retro pixel form projected onto a cylindrical wall that we hop up as blocky Bullet Bills zoom about. Within a huge inverted pyramid, this spot of retro side-scrolling is turned on its head as the floor becomes the ceiling. Based on our playthrough, we reckon each stage will take about an hour to fully solve, although coming back later armed with different powers will almost certainly unlock new sections. Don t worry, be hatty Next up it s New Donk City. Climate: 27C. Natives: New Donkers. Potential for gta-style hijinx: high. Our airship lands on top of an apartment block and we look out over a dense urban playbox full of cars and pedestrians spanning several small blocks. It s not massive, but there s something to see every few feet: a stop sign that s actually a coin box; two people swinging a skipping rope; a moped we can actually ride around on honking at people. We re pointed to a particular quest in which we have to meet Mayor Pauline and recruit four musicians for a City Hall concert. a purple beam of light highlights their locations. the drummer, for instance, is on the roof, which we reach by throwing our cap at an electric spark and darting up a wire. the man agrees to jam, and we re transported back to the concert where, in a rather cute touch, idling for a while sees Mario dance to the beat. In fact, Mazza s got several new moves. as well as his traditional acrobatic wall jumps, long jumps, triple jumps, backflips, and ground pounds, he can now curl up into a tight ball and roll along to cross large expanses quickly. tumbling downhill lets you build a surprising amount of momentum, and combined with jubilant cries of Wahoo!, navigation s rarely a chore. Mario also has several cap-throwing techniques. along with a straight toss, he can guide it for more precise targeting, and also use a powerful area-of-effect attack that has the red-brimmed hair-flattener spiral around Mario while knocking down enemy groups. talk about a bowler hat. give one half of your Joy-Con to a second player and Cappy becomes even more versatile, your co-op partner gaining free control of the woven cotton crown to bullseye hostiles and snag as well as his traditional acrobatic jumps, backflips, and ground pounds, mario can now curl up into a tight ball and roll along 24 august

25 THe 51 BeST GaMeS of 2017 In Luncheon Kingdom, possess a Hammer Bro and you can lob frying pans at your foes. collectibles. We almost feel too powerful for Odyssey s feeble foes. Cappy-tal punishment that is, until Mario finds Mecha Wiggler curled around New Donk City s tallest skyscraper. Every stage has at least one boss, and this one requires possessing a tank and using its firepower to shoot every glowing segment of Mecha Wiggler s body from third-person. Now he gets mad, as Wigglers often do, and charges across the floor. Dodging, shooting, then repeating the process gets you the moon. Odyssey looks to follow Nintendo s rich history of creating boss fights with all of the challenge and none of the dread, pitching them at just the right length and difficulty, and introducing new elements to play with. Each stage also contains a Crazy Cap shop where you can purchase new outfits using coins and the local currency. Not purely vanity items, certain areas enforce strict dress codes. to access a building site in the city, for instance, you need to obtain overalls and convince someone you re the foreman. there are also souvenirs to procure for your airship, such as models of landmarks. the shop s wares will get crazier as you progress. the third stage Nintendo reveals is the Wooded Kingdom, a picturesque green glade with croaking frogs and birdsong. there are spinning robot watering cans who say, I am rotating out of control due to anxiety about recent events!, a cheeky runaway rabbit who might remind you of that bouncy basement git from super Mario 64, and snow-tipped mountains in the distance. It turns out those mountains are in fact a projection, as Mario s actually inside a giant, dome-shaped greenhouse. Nintendo teases that each stage relates thematically with Bowser s wedding to Princess Peach, and here the dastardly Koopa is attempting to harvest flowers, hence the nervy natives. as expected, there are lots of creatures to utilise. You need to knock the bark armour off one acorn dude before you can slap your cap on him, and when you do, you can use his stretch ability to extend your roots and reach new heights. Elsewhere sit toxic puddles that need to be mopped up with throws of Cappy (you can get covered in the stuff, which triggers memories of super Mario sunshine); pots you can plant seeds in to grow giant beanstalks to climb; and Piranha Plants whose gaping maws you can hurl rocks into before stomping on their choking heads. Oh, and how could we forget. Wooded Kingdom contains a freaking dinosaur, and we re not talking Yoshi. While we sadly don t get a ride on the curiously realistic reptile otherwise that s literally all this preview would be about it indicates there really is no limit to what Nintendo will let you do in Odyssey. Cappy is, at the heart of it, a transformative addition that s at once a projectile, melee weapon, key, guide, and communication device. Just as in the Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of the Wild, super Mario Odyssey gives you the flexibility to express yourself, and in doing so, rewrites an entire genre. n august

26 Feature 1986 class On The Cover! Format Switch Publisher Ubisoft Developer Ubisoft ETA 29 August 2018 Full cover gives you full defence against enemy fire but if too many shots come your way, it ll be destroyed. Mario + rabbids: KingdoM battle A potential strategy classic. Yes, really S ometimes you see combinations that shouldn t work, only to find that they really, really do. Take bacon and maple syrup. Or Nick Cave and Kylie. Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle sounds like a mismatch, and yet against all expectations, the result is not just a pleasant surprise, but something that looks very special indeed. The expected result of the equation in the title would be a cross between a platformer and a minigame compilation. Yet the game this most resembles is, of all unlikely things, XCOM: it s built around a core of tactical combat, with such strategic staples as cover and overwatch mechanics, and it s got a few inventive flourishes besides. You don t actually control your party directly; rather, you ll move robot guide BEEP-0 around the environment a gaudy hybrid of the Mushroom Kingdom and the Rabbids world with Mario and co dutifully trotting along behind. There are a few light puzzles to solve and secrets to find, but here you ll spend most time gawping at the gorgeous setting, beautifully rendered and lit in Ubisoft s Snowdrop engine. It s a reminder of the horsepower Switch is packing within its compact form. Transitions from exploration to combat are signified by black Rabbid flags, though you ll spot the cover positions from some way off. Ducking behind brick blocks is naturally key to keeping your characters protected, but you can lean around them to fire at enemies. Yes, Mario has a gun, though the fiction ensures that he s not killing Rabbids; your opponents are being controlled by a malevolent force, and defeating them removes that negative influence. Stand down, PETA. Mario s joined by a couple of Rabbid allies: in the early stages, they re cosplaying as Peach and Luigi, though you ll be able to recruit more as you advance. While the plumber is the archetypal jack-of-all-trades, Rabbid Peach is a more defensive-minded unit, and Rabbid Luigi draws upon elemental powers to boost his attacks. To play efficiently, you ll need to think about setting up elaborate combos using your team. Dash attacks see characters launch into the kind of crunching slide-tackle of which Sergio Ramos would be proud. Do this with Rabbid Luigi at the start of a turn, and there s a chance your victim will be afflicted with vampire status, meaning your other heroes will regain health for over 250 weapons and a wide array of unlockable skills for the eight playable characters each shot they land. Friendly units can boost your movement range, too: move into their space, and they ll lie on their backs, booting you across rivers or into handy flanking positions. And try this one for size. Mario s Hero Sight ability lets him shoot enemies that come within range on their turn. With the bounce-shot effect, you can send them tumbling into the path of Rabbid Luigi, who can then set them ablaze, the flames propagating to adjacent units. There are masses of possibilities. With over 250 weapons and a wide array of unlockable skills for the eight playable characters, you might just find some unlikely combinations that really, really work. Ubi, it seems, already has. n 26 AUgUST

27 the 51 best games of 2017 You can turn into the screen to throw eggs, sending bushes flying or collapsing houses to form bridges. Format Switch Publisher Nintendo Developer good-feel ETA Summer 2018 yoshi Bashful stagehands power a crafty caper f all Bowser s O underlings, it s the Shy Guys who have, ironically, raised their profile recently. They ve cameoed in Mario Kart 8, stolen the show in Paper Mario: Color Splash, and in Yoshi s latest outing they re running things in the background. We know this because the hook here lets you flip the level for a glimpse behind the scenes. You ll find one blowing into a straw to inflate a bag that doubles as a lift, catch three others sweating with exertion as they push and pull moving platforms, and spot two more hiding behind a bush, waving butterflies attached to wires. If you re playing alone, you ll have to re-enter each stage to see it from this alternative perspective and grab any collectibles you missed. With a co-op partner, it s a simple matter of ground-pounding simultaneously to turn things around. The game s adorable handmade look (powered, perhaps surprisingly, by Unreal 4) is reminiscent of Tearaway, with deliberately rough edges and wonky art: everything is clumsily painted or cut, as if crafted by young hands. Objects might be fully-decorated from the front, but you ll see the backs of tins and juice cartons peeking through at the back. A stage s end, meanwhile, is marked by a cardboard arch crudely wrapped in fairy lights. Cute. Otherwise, it delivers exactly what you d expect from a game that places Woolly World s knitted heroes in a Paper Mario-style setting. Those two homespun styles seems to gel remarkably well partly thanks to those hardworking minions, quietly holding it all together. n Join up with three allies and you can form a wheel to bounce downhill and crush any enemies in your path. Format Switch Publisher Nintendo Developer HAL Laboratory ETA Summer 2018 Kirby Why we re tickled pink for the big-eyed puffball s tardy comeback t won t be with us until I next year, so Kirby s Switch debut is going to be late for his own 25th anniversary celebrations. Oh, Kirby! But while the spherical sucker s new game doesn t even have a proper name yet, it draws ideas from a quarter-century s worth of adventures. Looks-wise, it s closest to Wii s Return To Dream Land, but sharper and prettier. Kirby s Cleaning ability from Dream Land 3 returns, alongside feline buddy Nago though the cat s presence is merely cosmetic, as he pushes Kirby along to sweep up leaves. And the ability-mixing feature from Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards returns, as you combine copied abilities with elemental buffs: a fiery sword makes short work of grassy patches and even the largest of enemies; a watery bomb can douse flaming foes and blow up obstructions; while pairing Rock Kirby with a snowman transforms our rotund hero into a lethal curling stone. Obviously. Though you ll spend most of your time ingesting or destroying enemies, you can befriend them, too, winning them over by lobbing a love-heart at their heads. Up to three AI helpers can be recruited if you re playing alone, or you can invite three friends to play. It tends to be more fun when you re Kirby in multiplayer, but here you can give copy abilities to your allies to boost their attack power. Sure, it s nothing radically new, but HAL s mascot has rarely let us down, and this should be another robust addition to Switch s increasingly impressive library. n AUgUST

28 Feature On The Cover! COD has never forged a new path into graphical fidelity, but it s an undeniably handsome period piece this year. Format Ps4, XO, PC Publisher activision Developer sledgehammer games, Raven software ETA 3 November Call of Duty: WWII Back to where COD multiplayer first started? Y about ou won t believe this when we tell you, but Call Of Duty began as a World War II shooter. Peer past the people in exosuits doing wall-run powerslides while a voiceover honks Elite! in recent CODs, and deep in its DNA you ll find a gritty, tonally sensitive FPS camaraderie and the tremendous human cost of conflict. But will sledgehammer games look to rekindle that spielbergian vision of WWII, with dirt under its fingernails and always a moment from tears, or pursue a different treatment? From what we ve seen of multiplayer in particular, it s much more spectacular (and vehicle-heavy) than the WWII CODs of yore. that s not to say we re mounting our historical high horses it looks fantastic. Planes, tanks, anti-air guns, and Mg nests have all been spotted in the field by our intel agents, and air strikes are back to ruin your killstreak. It s not going to become Battlefield by a long chalk, but the interplay between all those elements looks fresh for the series: chokepoints are now created by deadly Mg fire coming from a concrete bunker, the aforementioned air strikes are your best bet for destroying them, and aa emplacements offer a way to control the skies from the ground. Every good multiplayer game needs a bit of the rock, paper, scissors to it, after all. It s still a close-quarters affair. there are bayonets being forcibly inserted into uncomfortable places, and the series trademark twitch gunfights haven t disappeared. However, they re now characterised by a class system that divides soldiers into infantry, airborne, expeditionary, armoured, and mountain divisions. Infantry get M1 garands and frag grenades, expeditionary bring 1897 shotguns to the fight, mountain division are kitted out with sniper rifles and mines, and so on. there are passive abilities for each class, so infantry get a buff to their bayonet skills, and armoured division can throw equipment further while sprinting. again, it might all sound very Battlefield, but it doesn t look like it in action. allied-s on tour Primarily that s down to map design. sledgehammer has already released a couple of flyovers of its multiplayer maps, and they re of a comparable size to what we ve seen before in the series no trudging for 20 minutes just to get made into jam by an unsighted sniper. France, Belgium, germany, and England (sort of) will be represented by the Normandy, ardennes, aachen, and English channel (see?) regions. Normandy s Pointe Du Hoc map, for example, is a series of interconnected trenches and bunkers which will make turning each corner a fundamentally nervy experience. Multiplayer was always going to be the more sensationalised of COD WWII s components. We re hoping there s still room for a more reverent experience in the campaign, and sledgehammer only needs to look back to Infinity Ward s 2003 debut for inspiration. Less Pearl Harbor, please, and more Private Ryan. n chokepoints are now created by mg fire air strikes are your best bet for destroying them 28 august

29 the 51 Best GaMes of 2017 Cloaks, masks, and a giant sphere hovering above the Earth: the be-all and end-all of sci-fi as of late Format Ps4, XO, PC Publisher activision Developer Bungie, High Moon studios, Vicarious Visions ETA 6 september DestIny 2 Like you needed an excuse to get back in B be ungie might have made gaming s most compulsive Skinner box in Destiny, so when talk turns to its sequel the salient points are less about story (Earth s in trouble and The Traveller s on fire) and more about how you get those Exotics. And how many slots you ll able to fill with Exotics. And what those Exotics will do. Exotics. Weapon categories, for example, are subject to a major shake-up: gone are the days of primary, secondary, and heavy. In their place are the kinetic, energy, and power lines of distinction. that means you could wander around with nothing but scout rifles if that s your own particular fantasy you re not restricted to certain weapon types in the new game. Kinetic weapons, as their name indicates, are pure damage-dealers, while energy weapons are about taking down shields. as for power guns, they work well, a bit like the heavy weapons from the first game. they re the ones you don t often call upon, like heavy-duty rocket launchers. this time, though, sniper rifles, shotguns, and fusion rifles can fall into the power category, where before they didn t appear as heavy weapons. still following? Cool. the idea behind all that is to force you into using a wider variety of weapons, more often. Big fights might begin with a bungie has revealed the cabal will play a starring role in destiny 2 s story volley of energy weapon fire, them a combination of kinetic and power damage from different team members on different targets. It also means you ll have more chance to put those Exotic weapons yes, we re back to those from different categories to use, rather than leaving them to gather metaphorical dust in your inventory. combat evolved Elsewhere, you can expect to see changes to the enemies on the receiving end of your arsenal. Bungie has revealed the Cabal will play a starring role in Destiny 2 s story, and will feature three all-new unit types: the War Beast, Incendiary, and gladiator. However, all species have evolved since the events of the first game, and the devs are focusing on creating better ai and animations across the board. guided games, the matchmaking system that at first sounded like another monumental shake-up to Destiny s overall design, has since revealed itself to be a bit more moderate. You can still take on Destiny 2 s more involved activities using guided games, so technically the long-standing problem of trying to organise a group of friends into a raid is mediated. However! all heroic activities initiated using that matchmaking system are limited to normal difficulty. scheduling headaches are back on the agenda, then. there s a spot of mediocre news for Xbox One X early adopters too: Destiny 2 will run at 30 fps on Microsoft s new all-powerful machine, albeit in 4K. Will the game be resplendent enough to overcome those issues? almost certainly. after all, its predecessor didn t seem to suffer all that much for forgetting to add a story, and popping some of the worst voice-acted lines of all time in the resultant narrative chasm. the action made up for all that. If the shooting and looting continues to be best-in-class, you won t hear us grumble. n august

30 Feature On The Cover! Format Ps4, XO, PC Publisher EA Developer Bioware ETA Winter 2018 Anthem BioWare carving out a new Destiny B into ioware ranks highly among developers who could use a break from their usual genre. The RPG maker has been looking jaded since the start of this console generation. What s a developer to do? Strap on a jetpack, and create a co-op shooter that skydives the arena currently championed by Destiny, is what. set in the future on an Earth-like planet, Anthem presents us with a world that s been reclaimed by nature, leaving humanity holed up within the sheer metal walls of a city. this, we re told, is because of some malignant force intent on wiping us out. Out in the world, vast metallic structures and arcs vestiges of dead civilisations, human or otherwise rise out amid the sprawling forests and lakes. You play as a Freelancer not in the sense that you sit around in a onesie writing about videogames, but rather that you undertake missions for people living within the walls, which entails you stepping into a Javelin exosuit, jumping into the wilderness, and teaming up with up to three other players to find treasure and fight all manner of villains. the exosuits are highly customisable, and not restricted to classes, although through a combination of the skill tree and weaponry, you can tailor them to your desires. A player in a heavy exosuit, for example, can leap into a crowd of enemies and knock them off their feet within a certain radius, while a lighter player can take a deep, jetpack-propelled plunge into a glimmering, gem-filled river, before blasting out of the water a hundred feet into the air to rain bullet hell down on hapless enemies. Movement looks fluid even in the heaviest gear thanks in part to the jetpack, which appears to be your main means of zipping around the world as well as granting mobility in combat. You can hover, for example, then suddenly lurch forward through the air to attack your enemies from a new angle. Heavy weaponry can be integrated into the exosuits too, so you can soften enemies up with artillery strikes before charging in, or mark them with a stream of homing missiles that elegantly twirl through the sky before coming down on their targets. Maul of the wild Despite humanity being up against the wall, as it were, the world of Anthem is a salubrious, fresh-looking place, as if the very air you breathe could clear your lungs of a lifelong smoking habit. What we ve seen so far takes place in lush, dense jungle environments filled with waterfalls, mysterious ruins, and a gentle humid haze enveloping the curious structures and rock formations in the distance. You d want to go there on a backpacking holiday were it not for all its sentient life-forms trying to kill you. You ll stumble upon plenty of events and encounters occurring dynamically in the wilderness. You may run into a You re able to tailor your suit so it s most effective for the way you play. Sounds like just the sort of thing for persuading the wildlife not to eat us reptilian ape tearing up lesser creatures, or a battalion of scars (one of the armed enemy types) ripe for an ambush. A vicious shaper storm can blow up suddenly, shredding the environment while strange animals flee mindlessly from its epicentre (which you can apparently fly into in search of new treasures and adventures). It s a world of picturesque, dangerous exploration, with new areas discoverable through underwater caverns, and tantalising ruins illuminated by an electric blue glow, all promising that holy social shooter quadrinity of treasure, weapons, encounters, and XP. the Frostbite Engine s trademark destructible environments seem to be accounted for, as trees get hurled through the air during storms, and topple as besieged At-At-esque walkers stumble into them. the Andromedan elephant in the room the one with the vacant expression seems to have been acknowledged as well, because the facial animations look excellent. Amid all this spectacular Destiny-defying action, is there any room for Bioware s trademark choice systems? Quite possibly. Footage stresses you ll need to live with the choices you make, or die trying to change them, suggesting that not only will choice play a part in events, but perhaps you ll also be given the opportunity to right the wrongs you commit. Of course, wherever you have choice in a Bioware game, hanky-panky tends to follow close behind, although nothing of that s been mentioned yet; with those expressive new faces, just think (not in a weird, leery way, please) of the possibilities this genre lends itself well to hype and glossy early coverage, but it s a long journey from there to a polished final game of such vast scope and intricate detail (just ask ubisoft). then there s the fact that it s Bioware. What do these RPg old-timers know about the distinctly modern phenomenon of the social co-op shooter? Well, apparently, they know that base-jumping with your mates jetpacked-up and exosuited-out into the jungles of an intriguing open world is objectively awesome. And we reckon that s a great start. n 30 August

31 the 51 BeSt GAmeS OF 2017 The dense jungle environments are filled with waterfalls and mysterious ruins. you d want To go There on a backpacking holiday were it not for all its sentient life-forms Trying To kill you August

32 Feature On The Cover! Format Ps4, XO, PC Publisher Bethesda Developer Machine games ETA 27 October Wolfenstein ii: the new Colossus You gotta fight with the Reich to paaaarty emember the 60s? R German Or Else! was the biggest show on TV, the streets were lined in red and white to celebrate the new regime, and down at Papa Joe s All-American Diner the Kommandant was developing a taste for strawberry milkshakes. Wait, what? alt-history is the new black in games, and Wolfenstein II: the New Colossus is serious about making its setting 1961 Nazi-occupied america feel real. Cue Klansmen walking hand-in-hand with ss officers in the street and imposing albert speer architecture casting shadows over american streets. a perfect setting to do some man-shooting if there ever was one. Back with a new haircut, new scars, and a pair of twins on the way, BJ Blazkowicz leads the resistance against the Nazi regime, primarily by shooting people. Machinegames delivered a revelation in meaty sci-fi shooting in the New Order, and everything we ve seen of its sequel ups the ante. Dual-wielding plus experimental weaponry multiplied by bananas setting equals a really, really good shooter, by our calculations. However, just because it s a Bethesda game, don t expect something akin to the all-but-mute Doom 2016 with Nazis story s a big part of this game, and both new and returning characters got a lot of screen time in what we ve seen so far. Ordinarily we d be sceptical about that, but having seen a resistance fighter converse with his own acid trip, manifested as a cartoon lizard, while a pregnant lady stabbed Nazis in the background, we re on board. n This time the indomitable BJ is up against everything from alligators to Nazi cyborgs. Just no mechs please. Classic Mikami over-the-shoulder shooting will return, but the nightmares you ll be firing at are all-new. So that s nice. Format Ps4, XO, PC Publisher Bethesda Developer tango gameworks ETA 13 October the evil Within 2 Hell and sebastian hy the long face, W Sebastian? Oh, that s right, you re still mourning the tragic loss of your family. You re also probably still miffed about all the gore you had to wade through in The Evil Within, aren t you? That s fair enough, but we hope you ll forgive our massive disrespectful grins at the prospect of you doing it all over again. seb s off to find answers (and, ideally, family members) in the Evil Within 2, and he s doing so in what looks like a greatest hits reel from horror movies past and present. tango gameworks delivered memorable scares last time, but this time the imagery s even more traumatising: menacing white goo, arms with too many joints reaching out of the floor, recurrent burning daughter dreams, and faceless zombie-girls crawling along ceilings. scarier than a late-night taxi ride with a driver who keeps talking about MMa. set three years after the events of its predecessor, the Evil Within 2 finds seb trying to figure out what happened to his wife and daughter while being surveilled by shady corporation Mobius. after drawing a blank in the real world and receiving a tip-off that his sprog, Lily, is alive somewhere, he pops back into stem. Y know, the nightmarish mindscape that almost killed him about 5,000 times last time he visited. shinji Mikami s never been short of ideas, but we re particularly excited to run the gauntlet of horror cinema he appears to have constructed. n 32 august

33 the 51 BESt GAMES OF 2017 The game plays entirely in split-screen, so you and your friend will be able to do your own thing as the battling bros. Format Ps4, XO, PC Publisher Ea Developer Hazelight studios ETA Spring 2018 A WAy Out there s brotherly love and hate in this co-op crime caper L aw-breaking bros Leo and Vincent are appropriately named. Like da Vinci and van Gogh, they re artists in their field the field in this case being criminality and bickering. Hazelight s adventure uses mandatory co-op to explore their tumultuous relationship through robberies, prison breaks, and heated confrontations. Our hands-on begins in a car park as the brothers discuss who gets gun privileges ahead of their gas station heist: calm Vincent or hothead Leo? You, whether sat next to your friend on the sofa or playing with someone online, must resolve it before the scene continues. In this instance we both decide the firearm is safer in Vincent s steady hands, and set to work casing the joint. It s an early example of a Way Out forcing players into a real-life dialogue. I don t like games where you re too passive, explains writer and director Josef Fares. You play this, you feel that you are in control. that s so important about games. that interactivity. that s what I love. Inside the gas station you can grab beers from the fridge, or chew gumballs from a machine. While Vin threatens the cashier, Leo (us) distracts one bystander with casual conversation. If you don t, onlookers may run off and call the cops, giving you a harsh time limit in which to locate the safe code and steal the money. Decisions matter, so working together to navigate delicate situations is key. the short sequence ends with the pair racing away slightly richer after a heist that could have gone very differently. they might have been caught in the act, or got blood on their hands. While it s not clear if incidents like this affect the wider story, it reminds us of choice-heavy experiences from Quantic Dream or telltale. unlike Heavy Rain, however, which Fares calls less interactive and too self-played out, a Way Out very rarely steals control from you. True bromance there s a great example of this liquid-smooth blend between narrative and action later in a hospital. Officers stream in and trigger a dramatic set-piece where the camera, in one unbroken tracking shot, travels through vents and lift shafts to follow the brothers, switching between both Vincent and Leo seamlessly. at one point it moves into a side-on perspective as Leo navigates a cluttered corridor. Fares, who s directed six feature films, tells us: Even though I have a movie background I want to go the opposite way. sometimes games want to go closer to movies. But games and movies have different ways of telling a story. Heavy cinematic stylings aren t at the expense of fun here. there is the question of length, though. Fares tells us that minute-long sequence in the gas station took three months to make. With so many different scenes, ranging from one brother driving as the other mans a turret, to going back-to-back up a storm drain, we can t imagine the running time will be particularly long. But, like Fares affecting last game, Brothers: a tale Of two sons, we reckon this will be exactly as long as it needs to be. n august

34 Feature On The Cover! Format Ps4, XO, PC Publisher slightly Mad Developer Bandai Namco ETA september Project cars 2 suspension of disbelief nything you can do, I A can do better is how Slightly Mad is fearlessly approaching its primary driving sim competitors, Forza 7 and Gran Turismo Sport. Those games, for instance, go up to 4K resolution; Project Cars 2 can output at 12K on PC, with multi-monitor support and improved gamepad controls. Those boast dozens of tracks; this features over 100 different layouts across 35 locations, from Scottish karting circuits, to Indycar oval racing, to gritty off-road events, to USA street sprints. and most of all, where those include varying time and weather conditions, Project Cars 2 has full 24-hour time and weather cycles on every single track. You ll see the Northern Lights shimmer in night skies, rain build up in the dents and divots of Brands Hatch, fog hanging low across Irish speedways, and trees turning from white to green to amber by the month. Loose surface racing and Livetrack 3.0 sets Project Cars 2 apart you can even race across ice. Which, by the way, is bloody hard. Painstaking attention to detail also results in a game less immediately accessible than Forza 7 and gran turismo sport, the complex handling weighted a little more towards realism than fun. that s not a criticism this is a sim, after all. It s just that slightly Mad s tweaked physics and bleeding-edge tyre model don t quite translate through your wheel or controller as well as they do in sleek trailers or PowerPoint presentations. When you re tearing round silverstone with a dozen other racers it s difficult to appreciate the accurately modelled air in your rubber. Project Cars 2 also lacks the glamour and gloss of its rivals, despite a ridiculous potential resolution. still, you can t deny it s the most comprehensive of the three racing rivals, with more vehicles, tracks, and driving styles incorporated into a ruthless pursuit of authenticity. n Format Ps4, XO, PC Publisher ubisoft Developer ubisoft ETA spring 2018 the crew 2 Baby we were born to cannonball run Multiple traversal options? Instant switching? It s like Steep but for vehicles. Beep? We ll see ourselves out. t may soon become I a walled fortress suitable for only the finest Americans, but Uncle Sam s borders are very much open for business in this countrywide racer. Ubisoft s cannonball run concept expands with the introduction of sea and air vehicles. Now, as well as cars, bikes, and dirt-churning buggies, you can power through the waves in speed boats and go skywards in stunt planes, both varieties of vehicle represented by real-world brands and models. Nowhere is safe from your reckless sense of entitlement. You don t even need to stop and park to switch between them. using the handy new transition feature, you can thread the needle through New York s skyscrapers and scare the caviar from Wall street fat cats before bursting out onto the Hudson River and pressing a button to become a boat in a way sully could only dream of. the transformations work in reverse too, provided the terrain s suitable. It s like classic James Bond if the man ran on fossil fuels instead of sexism. this is just the fresh thinking the middling 2014 first game lacked, allowing you to call the shots and switch up the experience on a whim, while also throwing open the door for top gear-style inter-vehicle showdowns Imagine motorboats hurtling down waterways at 200mph as slick sports cars desperately try to keep up, or a mad bike/buggy forest sprint as aircraft streak overhead winning the contest comfortably. (actually, that sounds annoying hopefully ubisoft has a way of keeping everything balanced.) the developer has built an impressive coast-to-coast playground featuring major cities, nowhere towns, and large swathes of beautiful open country, so it only makes sense to let you explore it exactly how you want. With street, pro, and off-road racing, the Crew 2 becomes a veritable diesel-powered triathlon. n 34 august

35 THE 51 BEST GAMES OF 2017 Format Ps4, XO, PC Publisher ghost games Developer Ea ETA November Need For speed Payback Fortune Valley favours the bold n this car-crumpling I open-world action-racer, EA wants to make you a superhero behind the wheel. For us, ramming into a fleet of cartel goons and watching them roll in spark-filled slow motion before pulling up alongside a lorry, climbing aboard, then stealing the exotic ride it s transporting certainly does that. Talk about a Spyder-Man. the Highway Heist mission is indicative of the direction we want to take Need For speed in, creative director William Ho tells us. all the missions are inspired by the great car chases in action movies over the last few decades. We like to say that it s Need For speed viewed through a Hollywood lens. For Payback, Ho and his team channel an encyclopaedic knowledge of awesome tv and film vehicle stunts. Fortune Valley is a prime location. In the series first fully open sandbox, one featuring weather conditions and day/ night cycles, you re no longer restricted to roads. Varied terrain opens the door to desert battles in the new runner vehicle class, drifting around mountain bends, or sprinting through affluent casino districts. Payback does sometimes overdo the cinematic angle, though. Highway Heist merely tasks us with driving in a straight line up to the truck while cutscenes do the rest, wrenching us from the moment, even if pounding music, intense framing, and spectacular visuals provide the requisite adrenaline rush. While it sometimes breaks a vital rule of cinema by telling rather than showing, no game comes closer to letting you become Vin Diesel. n Format Ps4 Publisher Polyphony Digital Developer sony ETA Winter GraN turismo sport Papa s got a Brands new Hatch ith this, Forza 7, and W Project Cars 2 all vying for attention, virtual racing fans are being spoiled. Polyphony Digital s PS4 exclusive is the most niche of the trio, concentrating entirely on circuit racing. Now, that might sound dull if you re into experimenting across a wide range of vehicles and disciplines, but this focus helps to set GT Sport apart as a more cultured racer, less about trading paint than picking your moment and cutting between lines. The only way its conduct could be more gentlemanly is if all the cars wore top hats. that s not to say it s inaccessible. take its campaign: one event bracket is called Racing Etiquette, which hammers home the rules of the road. another is Beginner s school, likely teaching the virtues of impressively rendered pit crews. speaking of which, the visuals are gorgeous, running 4K at 60fps on Ps4 Pro. For our money it s the best-looking driving game, each of its 15 locations shining across various weather and time conditions. scapes mode returns, too. Here you park any one of 140 motors (all have richly detailed interiors) in front of over 1000 HDR real-world photos, ranging from petrol stations to capital cities, and snap pictures. While its refined racing lacks the bite of its fast and furious peers, with little car damage and a lack of physicality to impacts, gt sport is the king of both decorum and aesthetic. n august

36 Feature 1986 class On The Cover! Format PS4 Publisher Sony Developer Insomniac Games ETA Summer 2018 Spider-Man From Spyro to Spidey Insomniac s trademark wit is out in full force here, perfectly lending itself to the Spider-Man universe. M Overdrive, arvel s new approach when making videogames is to work with only the best developers, and who better to bring Spider-Man to life than Insomniac Games? There s a noticeable resemblance to the studio s most recent offering, Xbox One exclusive Sunset in its swift animations and stylish movement. New footage of this enthralling collaboration shows Spidey zipping around the vast, richly detailed skyscrapers of New York City. The expansiveness of the world doesn t just apply to the horizon, though: New York is a city that reaches for the sky. Spider-Man can get some serious vertical miles free-running up the sides of buildings in a matter of seconds. Did we say free-running? How about free-swinging? The game makes brilliant use of Peter Parker s arachnid abilities. You re able to shoot webs to seamlessly cross the open-world environments. There s serious physics behind the swinging, and Spidey gains momentum and reacts in real-time to the environment, making for the most authentic virtual Spider-Man experience to date. The webbing also comes in handy for shooting foes in the face, pulling them to the ground, and trapping them in silky strands. Equally, superhero justice can be dished out by grabbing enemies from above and wrapping them in webbing, Shelob-style. Objects within the environment can be manipulated, giving you varied and creative ways to eliminate foes. Spider-Man can more than hold his own in close combat too; on top of his web-shooters, he can land physical blows between gravity-defying rolls, flips, and jumps, graceful yet violent, like football hooligans doing a trapeze act. All these abilities don t mean Spidey will have an easy time, however. He s on the trail of a group known as The Demons, and their mysterious leader, the Dr Jekyll-esque Mr. Negative, has crackling energy blasts that pack a powerful punch we re salivating at the prospect of some epic encounters with severely souped-up villains. The addition of QuickTime events may be irksome for some, but set-pieces, including one involving a massive crane and an elaborate helicopter chase through the city, are spectacular on a level to rival Naughty Dog, and ensure that Insomniac s effort looks and feels every bit as polished and epic as its silver-screen counterpart. Miles Morales, who in the comics assumes the role of you re able to shoot webs to seamlessly cross the open-world environments Spider-Man after Peter Parker, will also be making an appearance, but to what extent remains a mystery. Despite being released close to a new Spider-Man movie, the game will tell its own story and offer its own iteration of the universe, featuring an experienced and from the footage we ve seen a highly capable Peter Parker. Even Spidey s suit has had some changes, in the form of the big gleaming emblem on the front, proving that Insomniac has the mettle to make the franchise its own, and that s a very good thing. With its knack for creating vibrant worlds oozing with charm and humour, there are few developers that could do the franchise the same web-slinging justice. n 36 AuGuST

37 THe 51 BeST GaMeS OF 2017 Format Switch, PS4, XO, PC Publisher Warner Bros Developer TT Games ETA 14 November Lego MarveL Super HeroeS 2 New faces put a Rocket up the franchise s tailpipe New characters include everything from Noir Spider-Man to Lockjaw, the giant teleporting bulldog. Yes, really. right, chunky, and a B little bit cheeky, Lego livens up many a franchise. It s already had two successful forays into the Marvel Universe which is brimming with characters and material (usually bright, sometimes chunky, and occasionally even cheeky) for developer TT Games to draw from. Lego Marvel Super Heroes 2 builds on that. The story picks up right where the first game left off; opening with Guardians Of The Galaxy, you will be able to control a teeny Star-Lord, plus over 30 other superheroes, including Iron Man and Captain America. Controls and structure aren t worlds away from the beloved formula of the previous Lego entries, but now it s bigger. Your heroes will face off against Kang The Conqueror in an epic battle. The huge open world encompasses 20 different Marvel environments including Kang s city, Chronopolis. Kang is a time traveller, and so besting him involves one of the biggest advancements to this sequel the ability to manipulate time and visit locations like the Wild West, Ancient Egypt, and New York This means that not only will characters from different iterations of time and space be able to meet, but characters will also cross paths with different versions of themselves (why settle for one Spidey when you can have three?). Rather than be tied to a movie script the team has had the freedom to create its own tale using the characters, with comic book veteran Kurt Busiek taking on co-writing duties to ensure it retains the authenticity of a Marvel adventure, as well as the madcap fun of a Lego game. We can expect big battles, masses of block-bashing, building, and laughs. n A free demo allowing you to sample the game s story mode is available to download now for PS4 and Xbox One. Format PS4, XO, PC Publisher Capcom Developer Capcom ETA 19 September To infinity and beyond! arking the sixth entry M in the Marvel Vs Capcom series, Infinite sees Marvel baddie Ultron team up with Capcom villain Sigma to form the sinister-sounding Ultron Sigma a foe bent on destroying all organic life with a cybernetic virus. Despite a stronger story this time round, the main draw of this fighter is witnessing iconic characters from both the Marvel and Capcom universes kick the stuffing out of each other. Newly announced characters for team Marvel include Thanos, Gamora, Nova, Black Panther, and Doctor Strange, while fresh fighters in the Capcom ring consist of Dante, Zero, Spencer, and Arthur. As always, each character has a unique move set and special abilities. Battles are wonderfully fast 2v2 scraps. This replaces the former 3v3 method, resulting in an experience intended to be less hectic, but no less intricate. Adding to the complexity are the Infinity Stones, which can be equipped to grant a strength boost or bolster a character s defensive capabilities depending on which stone is chosen. These should grant a considerable advantage to those who use them tactically to compensate for their chosen character s shortcomings. The level of depth makes this brawler much more than mere fan service. Also, if you ve ever wanted to know who would win a fight between Dante and Rocket Raccoon, then this is the game for you. n AuGuST

38 Feature On The Cover! Format Ps4 Publisher sony Developer sony ETA Winter 2018 God of War trapped in a glass Kratos of emotion G themes and so Kratos, now with white wisps in his beard, weariness in his eyes, and rather less bloodlust in his heart, travels through a semi-open Norse setting with atreus by his side. the boy lends assistance in traversal, puzzle-solving, and even translation. When a great sea monster called the World serpent emerges from the depths and speaks in a deep rumble, for instance, Kratos yells to his son, What is he saying?, and atreus replies, He wants to help us! and during a climbing section when atreus clings onto Kratos back, his child fends off an attacker by helpfully plunging a dagger into his head. 38 august 2017 et ready for a very different Kratos. After 2010 s God Of War III, the demigod s done enacting vengeance against Greek deities, and now lives in Scandinavia with his son, Atreus. Where previous games centred on death and destruction, this latest explores of nurture and identity. Okay, and death too. their relationship is at once both father/son and mentor/student. Early on, Kratos tells the boy how to fire a bow. He s rubbish at first, shooting an arrow into his father s shoulder during a fight with a lava-spewing ogre, but atreus soon improves. Over the course of the game you ll watch him develop and Kratos derive satisfaction from it. If Kratos is training his son to be a god, his son is educating Kratos in how to be human again. He s a much more mature character, says aaron Kaufman, senior community strategist at sie santa Monica. He s not this vengeful god. He s had a very troubled, dark past, and as he takes his son atreus on this incredible journey it s a very deeply personal quest for them He doesn t want his son to go down the dark path that he had to live for many years in his life. and at the same time, atreus is trying to learn more about who his dad actually is. It s like Road to Perdition with frost trolls. During skirmishes you as Kratos can actually team up with your son. at one point atreus grabs a walking corpse in a headlock, which opens a window for you to strike and send the enemy flipping backwards. atreus hangs on during the rotation, then springboards off and shoots a lightning arrow to suspend the undead attacker in mid-air, giving Kratos another opportunity to batter the monster. unlike most ai-controlled companions, atreus seems more special ability than liability. It s not like Kratos can t defend himself though. the dad of destruction trades his Blades Of Chaos for a battle axe that stuns enemies with bright flashes of light, unleashes charged shockwaves in broad area attacks, and trembles the ground to knock back those nearby. Kratos can also launch the axe and summon it back, thor-style. Dispatch enough monsters and a rage meter fills, letting you annihilate enemies in customarily gory animations that see you split them in two or swipe their heads clean off. One kill move sees him drive his axe into a troll s tree-sized club and use it as leverage to swing down and crush him underneath. Mentor conditioning at first the rage meter seems at odds with Kratos evolved personality, a man who regrets once revelling in violence, but sie santa Monica uses anger

39 THE 51 BEST GaMES of 2017 There are plenty of creatures to slay in Norse mythology: trolls, giants, valkyrie. Oh, and wolves. Big wolves. Rage here is a necessary tool, and god of war earns its unflinching BRutality constructively. In one scene, for example, as Kratos gets annoyed by atreus firing his bow all wrong, you can see the rage meter build in the corner. this is a man struggling against his nature. as Kratos himself tells atreus in one cutscene, to be effective in combat a warrior must not feel for his enemy. Rage here is a necessary tool, and god Of War earns its unflinching brutality. the new camera is an important development, too. Now freely controllable as opposed to fixed, you ll often angle it around to sniff out hidden paths, crafting resources, weapons, and armour. sie santa Monica is keeping tight-lipped on the specifics of its more in-depth RPg system, but a ransacking of Norse mythology is virtually guaranteed. Picture Kratos with the Huliðshjálmr, a dwarven concealment helmet. Or the Falcon Cloak that allows the wielder to turn into a raptor and fly. Who can forget the shoes Of Víðarr, that in Norse legend give the user unparalleled foot protection? (Honestly, we re not making this up.) Norse swords alone could fill your inventory. We re talking the magical Mistilteinn blade that never blunts, Freyr s sword that could fight on its own, and one called gram that cleaves anvils in half. If god Of War goes down the sailing route, it s got to include Naglfar, a ship made out of dead men s toenails that embarks during Ragnarök. the more you think about it, the more this folklore fits Kratos perfectly. god Of War director and writer Cory Barlog has said he s already told the story of the Hulk, and now he wants to tell the story of Bruce Banner. What initially sounded like applying emotional nuance to a wrecking ball is just the approach needed to reconfigure the series. n august

40 Feature On The Cover! Format Ps4, XO, PC Publisher ubisoft Developer ubisoft ETA 27 Feb 2018 Far Cry 5 I fought the bear and the bear won This is Boomer, your four-legged friend. He s very good at fetch. Any dog can fetch you a stick, but Boomer will fetch you a boomstick. ontana. Home of the M Rocky Mountains, the Great Plains, and now Ubisoft s sandbox shooter. There s new wildlife, including black bears and charging cattle eager to gore you on curled horns. There are fresh vehicles in the shapes of gas-guzzling planes and choppers which you ll both fly and get into dogfights with. And there are even new geological features ripe with possibility. During our first hands-on session we grab a sniper rifle and take advantage of the ubiquitous farmland s long sightlines to neutralise foes at range. sure, sniping s hardly new to Far Cry, but there s a certain charm in capping despicable hicks in flannel shirts and trucker caps as they yell slurs in a Montanan drawl. these guys belong to an end-of-days cult shepherded by a fatalistic leader who s convinced them all the apocalypse is nigh. a small band of brave townsfolk are so committed to reclaiming their home that they ll lend you their services whenever, wherever. after thinning out the herd we call our pilot friend to divebomb stragglers in his chaingun-modified crop duster, and in the chaos, a fuel tanker catches a stray bullet and explodes. You can also rent a dog. Press the D-pad over an enemy and he ll dash from cover and maul them. What a good boy. While Far Cry 5 s new setting doesn t completely transform the experience, it feels different enough from the rest of the series. With two-player co-op throughout, plus rampaging animals (wild and domestic), panicked civilians, trigger-happy rednecks, and even driveable tractors, Far Cry 5 is the series most anarchic entry yet. n Notice the blokes in the background? Chivalry really is dead in Format Ps4, XO, PC Publisher Dontnod Dev Focus Home Interactive ETA November Vampyr the doctor will see you now his gothic horror T game embraces the rules of the vampire. Doctor-turnedbloodsucker Jonathan Reid can t enter buildings unless invited, and churches are neutral ground. Every kill he makes ripples across a free-roam London circa at one point in our hands-on he invites an injured man, sean Hampton, into Pembroke Hospital, but that man turns out to be a dangerous pale-skin who attracts the attention of vampire hunters the guard Of Priwen. Now Reid must find and stop him. according to a bartender, Hampton runs an asylum. Reid sets off along a murky thames and quickly encounters two flamethrower-wielding guards. Our morally conflicted quack slashes them with a bonesaw, impales them on claret-coloured spikes, and at one point enters a body in a puff of black smoke and explodes it from the inside. It s a cartoonish clash at odds with Vampyr s atmosphere, but you can avoid all physical confrontations if you wish. Reid eventually finds Hampton tucking into a plate of raw meat. Creepy, but Hampton s no murderer. I have come to embrace the everlasting craving, he says, following it with a rather strange request: Hampton wants you to eat him as communion, and you can either spare, kill, or heal him. Vampyr is full of tough choices like this. Whether you end up snacking on everyone in London or saving them is entirely up to you. We thirst for more n 40 august

41 the 51 best GaMes of 2017 Confirmed heroes include Darth Maul, Yoda, Han Solo, Boba Fett, Luke, Rey, Finn, Captain Phasma, and Kylo Ren, with more to come. Format Ps4, XO, PC Publisher Ea Developer Ea ETA 17 November star wars battlefront II there s always a bigger fish I f you thought the Death Star plans were a hefty set of data, just wait until you get a good long look at this. We ve got enough Battlefront II facts, gameplay titbits and all-new info drops to keep a Bothan spy busy for a week. Hell, information is practically dripping out of our exhaust ports While general improvements may not get as much love as general Han solo (and quite right too), star Wars: Battlefront II is clearly paying attention to both, and to criticisms levelled at the first game. Everything from gunplay to flight controls have been tweaked here, allowing for greater precision and more dynamic encounters throughout. Weapons have also been improved from the first game, with developer Ea DICE now including a skill-based reload system for overheated rifles a mechanic that should sound familiar to any gears Of War fanatics. as to the single-player campaign, we now know that protagonist Iden Versio will be undertaking her mission on behalf of the late Emperor Palpatine. Just what that mission entails is currently under wraps, though judging by the designation Operation Cinder, we d imagine Palpy s plan involves quite a bit of burning, with lots of death on the side. In addition, Ea has confirmed that the story mode will feature limited stealth mechanics (hmm), adjustable loadouts (hurray!) and seamless transitions from space combat to surface battles (unadulterated mega-glee). sadly however, campaign co-op is a no-go, though certain modes will still be available to play with friends. Empire of the fun and speaking of friends, Battlefront II promises to change the way we play together online. With the addition of Dynamic squads, troopers will now respawn alongside a regiment of their fellow players, creating a greater sense of to-and-fro, attack and counter-attack than the drip-fed approach of the original. Of course, just what skills you ll be bringing to that squad is entirely up to you, as Battlefront II returns to the class-based gameplay of its original forebears. Divided into four distinct classes, players can now choose between: assault a standard jack-of-all-trades, perfect for mid-to-close-range combat; Heavy a hulking tank-type, excellent for soaking up damage and mowing down foes; Officer the requisite support class; and specialist a high risk, high-reward sniper/engineer. Each of these classes comes equipped with two fixed abilities: timed shotguns and sprint skills for the assault trooper; plasma shields and miniguns for the Heavy; and so on. Playing well means performing that class s role effectively, not just nabbing the flag or killing the most enemies. You can then trade in any points you ve earned for vehicles, super troops, and access to heroes, who now feature replenishing health and powerful new abilities, such as Rey s Mind trick, which serves to muddle up an opponent s control scheme. add to this a massive array of star Cards buffs that you can apply to anyone and star Wars: Battlefront II is beginning to look light years ahead of its somewhat disappointing predecessor. What s more, Ea has announced that the game s DLC will be free, though additional microtransactions are to be expected. Let s just hope that the add-ons take the form of aesthetic upgrades visual elements that DICE say will remain authentic to the star Wars universe. that s bad news for any leopard-print stormtroopers among us n august

42 Feature On The Cover! Unhygienic new celebrations let you run into the crowd and hug the unwashed masses. Format Ps4, XO, PC Publisher Ea sports Developer Ea ETA september FIFA 18 Reworked animations, faster responses, and the Journey returns E A Sports is brutally honest, using this year s FIFA reveal event to reflect on past failures. In FIFA 17, no-touch dribbling didn t help beat your man. Animation was choppy. Crosses were potluck. Players felt too similar. But this wasn t self-flagellation: the point was to prove to us FIFA 18 cleans up 17 s act. First of all, it s markedly more responsive, thanks to a new animation system called Motion technology. Previously, if you wanted to alter your player s course, you had to wait until they d completed their step. Now you can interrupt individual frames. Not only does it mean players react almost instantly to inputs, but movements are cleanly blended. While you can only truly appreciate the visual seamlessness close-up, you ll feel it in every lunge, sprint, and pivot. What you can see from afar is diverse player locomotion. six archetypes run the gamut of gaits, from short and stocky, to long and lean. During our first match, Manchester united s Pogba takes longer, fewer strides than the terrier that is Chelsea s Kante. Ea tweaks distinctive runners further. We re focussing on ones that have a very unique run style, says senior gameplay producer sam Rivera. so sterling, Robben, Yaya toure, Hazard You ll see how sterling, when he s doing a dribble touch or shooting, his hands are doing this, at which Rivera flops out his hands like a shocked baby. Footsoldiers sudden speed is key to beating your man. What we re doing is simplifying everything into one shoulder drop [on RB], says Rivera, and the inspiration was Messi. all the time he just does one little shoulder drop, enough for the defender to step in that direction, and then he exits the other direction. so we are focussing on the exits. Making sure they are explosive. FIFa 18 emphasises pace in all areas, whether it s this, the new one-press subbing system, or all crosses whipping in dangerously by default. team ai is said to be better too, with players spreading out to allow for intricate passing down the middle, but in our experience the centre remains congested, and sides don t show the tactical diversity Ea claims. Facing the computer is better, less about chasing them as they play keep-ball, and more about pressuring them into mistakes. and finally, alex Hunter returns in the Journey 2, which revolves around Hunter s decision to either stay a Premier League superstar or transfer abroad. this answers criticisms the first was too uk-centric, and the presence of Ronaldo in a speaking role suggests a move to La Liga is imminent. It doesn t, however, address those pining for more personalised fantasy fulfilment. sure, you can customise Hunter, but you still don t feel fully represented. It s the only time you might sense a disconnect from FIFa 18, though, as a jump in responsiveness, more fluid animation, and a focus on explosive speed lessens the gulf between you and your players. n while you can only appreciate its visual seamlessness close-up, you ll feel it in every lunge 42 august

43 THE 51 BEST GAMES OF 2017 Licenses include Liverpool, Barcelona, Borussia Dortmund, and Atletico, plus Europa League and Champions League rights. Format Ps4, XO, PC Publisher Konami Developer PEs Productions ETA 14 september PES 2018 the golden Real touch F IFA s not the only football game looking smooth this year. PES Real Touch system is back and better than ever, allowing players to control the ball with any part of their body without lurching awkwardly between animations. Since a football can be a tricky thing, you ll now find fresh mo-capped moves for every situation. across several matches we find left-foot-favourers letting the ball run under their right and trapping it, or nestling it in their chest before pivoting in one seamless turn. and no matter where the ball is in the air, our player always welcomes it with the appropriate animation, whether it s a volley at waist height or a crack at a low bobbling ball. an overabundance of animations has bogged down PEs in the past. after triggering one you d have to watch it play out before you gained control of your player, and this could make the game feel slow. It s different here. Despite players impressive range of motion they re responsive and agile throughout, more directly attuned to your inputs. You feel you re not fighting against the game but working with it. strategic dribbling is another movement-based innovation. Beating your man is now less about memorising strings of button presses to perform despite players impressive range of motion, they re responsive and agile outrageous carnival flicks and tricks and more about light shimmies and dips of the shoulder. the right subtle shift at the right time completely wrong-foots defenders and gives you just enough room to pass the ball, shoot, or increase the distance between yourself and them with a burst of pace. using the left stick to move and right stick to wiggle elusively, improved dribbling refines ball control without sacrificing its depth. Squad goals While it s true to say PEs 2018 concentrates on emulating the frantic pace of modern football, that doesn t mean slower players are redundant. Contextual shielding makes players hold the ball up and protect it from pressuring defenders, which is a blessing to heavier men such as giroud or Ibrahimovic. It results in more varied tactics that mean you re not just pumping the ball to an aubameyang or Mané, giving players of all shapes and sizes a role in your squad. Visually, once again PEs sparkles. Players like Messi, griezmann, and Reus look immaculate, and care s been shown to how kits fit different physiques. stadiums shine too. Last year s Nou Camp was the finest recreation of a football ground ever committed to disc, and this year Borussia Dortmund s sigma Iduna Park joins its esteemed company, with stands, back rooms, and tunnels rendered using on-site data. Where all this aims to capture the feel of football, Master League aims to capture the atmosphere, with more pre-match press conferences, post-match interviews, and dressing room team talks. there won t be full voice acting, because that would be a massive undertaking, but it s cool to watch a photorealistic Iniesta sweat in the media glare. Like FIFa 18, PEs 2018 concentrates on fine-tuning the fundamentals of football, dialling down into player movement and ball control to make a faster, fluid, and more responsive experience. n august

44 Feature On The Cover! Format Ps4, XO, PC Publisher ubisoft Developer ubisoft ETA Winter 2018 Skull & BoneS grow out your beard and cut off your leg, because you re going to love committing the crime of the ancient mariner W do ould-be swashbucklers are going to be spoilt for choice soon. But the two big pirate games currently in development couldn t be more different. Where Sea Of Thieves is a bit of a lark, Ubisoft s effort takes the business of buccaneering more seriously. And we mean business: Skull & Bones is all about those pieces of eight. It comes from ubisoft singapore, which has been quietly making the most interesting bits of the assassin s Creed games for years. the studio created the nautical sections in the third entry, which in turn informed the more refined shipboard sequences in Black Flag. this isn t, the developer insists, Black Flag 2 by another name. Plenty would have been quite happy with that, we re sure. But it would also have been the easy option. skull & Bones is something different, something more daring and exciting. and ubisoft singapore s experience with ghost Recon Phantoms suggests it knows how to build and develop an online multiplayer game. It s set in the early 18th century, as your customisable captain (you ll be able to design your own flag and emblem, too) plots a course for the busiest trade routes of the Indian Ocean to ambush cargo ships and claim their booty. though you can head out alone, this is a multiplayer-focused game, its brand of nautical action smartly showcased in the PvP mode Loot Hunt, where two teams of five ships compete to earn as much swag as they can possibly pilfer. Boats amazeballs If you ve played Black Flag, you ll have a fair idea of how these ships handle. You ll need to learn how to read the wind and sometimes you ll find a rival ship trying to pillage your target bring out the big guns to use it to your advantage, adjusting your trajectory to fill your sails and to position yourself strategically during ship-on-ship combat. Of the three ship types we ve seen so far, the hefty frigates are the most sturdy, with fortified exteriors and plenty of firepower, though the trade-off is a distinct lack of manoeuvrability. the double-masted brigantine can t take quite as many broadsides, but it s devastating at close range: hit top speed and the large battering ram at its prow will smash chunks out of your target s hull. and there s the rangy sloop-of-war, whose mortars and accurate cannons allow you to attack from a distance slow down, climb the crow s nest and pull out your spyglass to scout out potential victims. If you re within range, dropping anchor lets you deal more critical damage. the secret to amassing a winning haul, it seems, is to split up: smaller ships can wind their way through the shallows, while their heavier counterparts remain on the open seas. Concentrating on seizing loot is the name of the game, but sometimes you ll find a rival ship trying to pillage your target, at which point it s time to (quite literally) bring out the big guns. Draw up alongside a crippled vessel, and you ll be given the option to board her. and you needn t worry about commandeering a ship that s about to sink; successfully take control and her hull will be partially repaired. then comes an exhilarating switch, as hunter becomes hunted. the more swag you ve plundered, the bigger the target you re painting on your back. at a certain point in proceedings pirate hunters will be sent after you and they ll focus their fire on the ship with the most spoils. though expert players might just be able to work as a team to fight back, flight is the more realistic option, since their defences dwarf your own. In fact, their hulls are so sturdy that even a close-range barrage feels like you re The single-player campaign promises to explore the unique bond between man and machine. Just one of the many similarities the game shares with 1986 classic movie Short Circuit. 44 august

45 THe 51 BeST GAMeS of 2017 doing little more than tickling them. In some situations, you might choose to take one for the team, sacrificing yourself for the greater good by obstructing your pursuers, and giving your frigate a potentially crucial few seconds of clear water so they can escape with their ill-gotten gains. Sea-ing is believing It s thrilling stuff, not least thanks to the mesmeric presentation. In quieter moments, you ll hear faint creaks and groans as your ship bobs on the surface, waves lapping gently against the hull. Drop the sails and you ll find it hard not to join in with your crew as they lustily belt out a range of shanties. and when it all kicks off, you ll wince with every cannonball that lands, each loud boom followed by a distinctive crack of splintering wood. It s a bit of a looker, too, as you can tell from the screens here: the tropical setting means golden suns and gorgeous, blue-green seas. We thought sea Of thieves water tech was pretty special, but ubisoft might well have matched it. a certain authenticity is perhaps to be expected, mind; after all, the setting is pretty close to home for the singapore crew. It s still too early to gauge whether skull & Bones has the sea legs to last the course against its multiplayer peers, but all in all, its reveal outing was a very promising maiden voyage. and with a less-than-subtle tease that pirate hunters aren t the deadliest threat you ll face afloat, ubisoft singapore seems to be offering budding Blackbeards plenty to be kraken on with. n august

46 Feature 1986 class On The Cover! Format XO, PC Publisher Rare Developer Microsoft ETA Summer 2018 Sea Of ThieveS A booty-full take on the pirate life I n Rare s multiplayer pirate adventure the challenge is to play without cry-laughing. The latest playable build has us venturing online and forming a four-person crew of utterly inept sea dogs. Our mission: to locate a treasure-filled island. The cryptic clue is scrawled on a yellowed piece of parchment. For gold to Snake Island you sail, but I ll take a wager you will fail. Find the sunstone on the southwest beach of the largest isle, you salty dog, have a dig and then some grog. Forget that after such dreadful doggerel we re cracking out the grog now. Several items occupy our inventory wheel. There s a compass, which we won t be needing because we sail by instinct and our sense of smell; a shovel; a lantern; a bucket for bailing out when our ship fills with water; a stock of seven cannonballs to stuff in mounted guns, and, most importantly, a mug filled with booze. We take a hearty swig and instantly come over all funny. Much to our crewmates delight, we can t even make it up the gangway due to blurry vision and involuntary swaying, causing us to take a briny bath. The effect soon subsides and we set off, two pirates turning a big crank to raise the anchor while we unfurl the sails. The angle and length you set them to needs to match the direction of the wind, and determines how fast you go. We re working as a team now: one player 46 AuguST 2017 hops behind the wheel and steers the ship, another climbs to the crow s nest and peers through the telescope, which is actually a vital job in this pre-radar age, and a third heads below deck to read the map and relay directions. Meanwhile we re on the main deck serenading everyone with sea shanties from our accordion. It s the kind of feature you expect to get old but doesn t. Seas the day Suddenly a human-controlled ship appears on the horizon. Sea Of Thieves is set in an instanced open world, like an MMO, so you ll occasionally find other people in your session. Our self-appointed captain pulls up alongside as we man cannons and fire. Before it passes out of range one player climbs inside the cannon and shoots himself over, but he ends up in the drink and we sail away laughing. To Snake Island! We head ashore, find the sunstone, and plunge our shovels into the sand. The multiplied manpower digs up the loot faster, which is handy, as an army of we man cannons and fire. one player climbs inside the cannon and shoots himself over skeletons is coming. The only place we like to see skulls is on our flag. We whip out blunderbusses and let rip, scattering them into piles of bones. After that, one pirate hauls off the treasure, swims to our ship, and stashes it in the cabin. It was an utterly raucous 30 minutes filled with song, dance, and drunkenness, but just like previous hands-on escapades with Sea Of Thieves, we re left wondering where it will all lead when the game is released. What s the point of treasure? Can you upgrade your ship and purchase new outfits? How often will we encounter rival ships? Oh, and just what is in that grog? Thankfully, while it lacks structure, Sea Of Thieves is anything but plain sailing. n

47 The 51 BeST GaMeS Of 2017 Format XO, PC Publisher Sumo Digital Developer Microsoft ETA 7 November CraCkdown 3 Black hole gun, won t you come and dish out all the pain While Crackdown 3 scales back building-toppling damage, your agent feels devastating nevertheless. ot a single building N falls during our playthroughs of this anarchic urban shooter. It s somewhat disappointing given how early footage presented the setting as an ultra-destructible playground in which any structure, from a bungalow to a skyscraper, could topple if you chucked enough firepower at it, but don t worry, the tech s there. It s just exclusive to 10-person multiplayer. See, Crackdown 3 s city-levelling requires the power of dedicated servers. You re able to play the campaign, on the other hand, without an internet connection. Besides, the aim in multiplayer to wreck the other team s tower while protecting yours wouldn t make sense during a story about superhero police officers sent to protect the cel-shaded sprawl of New Providence. You ll need all your special powers to succeed here: the city is over two times bigger than the last game s location, Pacific City, and filled with kingpins to destabilise. Jumping 20 feet into the air, boosting with your jetpack, and ripping lampposts from the ground to batter people with is all very Hulk-like. Your abilities will be further boosted by eminently collectible agility orbs that transform you into beefier, bouncier versions of yourself. The game s best when it s busiest, scenes packed with cluster bombs, rocket explosions, and black hole guns that suck anything not nailed down into obliteration. It runs faster than the previous games, too, which is striking in four-player co-op when multiple black holes chucked into traffic effortlessly fling fleets of cars in a way that seems to threaten the space-time continuum. Stephen Hawking would love it. n Format XO, PC Publisher Turn 10 Developer Microsoft ETA 3 October Forza 7 Xbox s driving sim exclusive goes back to track, with 250 more vehicles to enjoy ou can t get much Y more glamorous than racing the recently revealed Porsche GT2 RS around a sun-baked Dubai motorway. In 4K, and at a solid 60 FPS, it s the perfect demonstration of Xbox One X s power. The scene shifts dramatically as we take to Nürburgring in a Nismo Motul Autech gt-r. The german climate is very different from Dubai s, and we watch dynamic skies churn before spitting speckled rain across our windshield. Time and weather is dynamic now, veering from overcast, to storms, to baby-blue skies over a single event. Conditions have an impact on your vehicle too. Tarmac temperatures affect tyre friction, for example, and puddles swell in real time when it pours. The new Driver s Cup campaign familiarises you with how over 30 environments look come rain and shine, as well as introducing you to numerous car classes across six freely playable championships. Your range of four-wheeled playthings include exotic supercars, trophy trucks, American muscle, pre-war motors, and NASCAR s finest. There are a healthy 700 cars to Forza 6 s 450 in all. Gear box Turn 10 also aims to give your driver equal prominence, with over 300 sets of gear to choose from. Pick helmets, gloves, and racing suits to see him or her decked out in pre- and post-race screens, adding a degree of personalisation to the experience. Forza 7 doesn t look massively better than the already-stunning last one at least, not better enough to buy an Xbox One X for and comparing its visuals to gt Sport or Project Cars 2 is like trying to pick your favourite Renaissance artist. If the devil is in the details, however, Forza 7 outdoes itself. n AuguST

48 Feature 1986 class On The Cover! BG&E 2 takes place in a galaxy known as System 3. The temple city of Ganesha takes many cues from Indian culture. Format TBC Publisher Ubisoft Developer Ubisoft ETA Summer 2019 Beyond Good and evil 2 Revolution meets evolution in Ubisoft s animal cracker F oul-mouthed monkeys, filthy pigs, and a cocksure swagger to shame Mick Jagger. Welcome to Guy Ritchie s Animal Farm. Yes folks, Beyond Good And Evil is back. Bigger, brasher, lewder, and cruder but with that same sense of fun, curiosity, and heart that has made this series such a firm fan favourite. Described as a prequel to the 2003 original, Beyond Good & Evil 2 is now going galactic, trading in the cramped confines of Hillys for the wider, brighter cosmos. Creative Director Michel Ancel confirms the title will feature multiple settings, across potentially dozens of worlds, all of them connected seamlessly, with nary a loading screen in sight. Can you say ooh là là? Not content to simply beef up the scale, developer Ubisoft Montpellier is also promising a richness of depth and detail, displayed in everything from the game s environments to its mysterious narrative. Worlds will practically teem with life, with the title s new-look trailer recalling the dizzy verticality of The Fifth Element and the chaotic bustle of an Indian street scene. Here, technology must take its place alongside temple gardens, and it makes for quite a clash. Bit of a Goa Speaking of verticality, Ancel also confirms that the trailer s jetpacks, grapple-arms, and jet bikes will all make playable appearances in the game. Players will even have the option to co-pilot the latter with a friend just be careful not to crash it into the destructible environments. Budding captains can also look forward to interacting with crewmates both human and otherwise as well as collecting numerous spacecraft, which can then be stored aboard your massive capital ship. Whether this means we ll soon be taking part in any glorious space fights is another matter, though if the original s vehicle segments prove any indication, that s just where Ubi may be heading. As to the narrative, the game appears to be focusing on the hunt for a gigantic space relic, and on the ragtag, cross-species crewmates leading the charge. Could these planet-hopping chums be the same freedom fighters that appeared in the original? To what extent will the mooted social structure, and issues of slavery play a part in the narrative? Will the evil DomZ reappear to cause havoc? And could that actually be some relation of Jade s poring over the ThE TrailEr recalls ThE dizzy verticality of ThE fifth ElEmEnT and bustle of an indian street ship s holographic projector? It s tough to say at this point, but between Ancel s talk of direct continuity, and the trailer making mention of a certain oinking uncle, we d expect a few cameos at least. For the time being, fans will have to content themselves with getting to know an all-new group of heroes, including biker Shani, the green-eyed Dikini, and, of course, everyone s new favourite monkey Knox, aka South London s answer to Planet Of The Apes. Imagine Walt Disney scrapping The Jungle Book to make Mass Effect, and you ll have some idea of what Ancel and company are attempting. It s ambitious, humungous and utterly intriguing. Let s hope it s also the (monkey) business. n 48 AUGUST

49 THe 51 BeST GaMeS of 2017 Format PS4, XO, PC Publisher Deep Silver Developer 4A Games ETA Summer 2018 Metro exodus Underground, overground, wandering free The plot is follows on from Last Light s canonical good ending, as Artyom hops aboard a train to escape Moscow. he Metro games are T held in quiet regard by pretty much everyone who s played them. Yet somehow the series has never quite hit the big leagues. It s hard to say whether Exodus will change that the stifling atmosphere of its post-apocalyptic universe is even more potent in 4K, so it s certainly not for the faint of heart but developer 4A Games is keen to bring Metro into the light in more ways than one. For starters, you ll spend more time outside the tunnel network that dominated previous games and gave the series its name. The post-apocalyptic overworld is not a true sandbox environment, but you ll have more room to explore freely outdoors, while narrative morsels and survival systems crafting and whatnot should prevent your expeditions above ground from lapsing into aimlessness. A compass and a map will guide you, and a crossbow lets you hunt prey, though bolts are rare enough that you ll need to pull them from the carcasses of the animals you slay for reuse. Beneath the surface, within those dank, dripping tunnels, you ll again be kept on your toes by the presence of terrifying, sinewy mutants. These gnarled horrors will lunge hungrily at you, eyes popping, mouths crammed with jagged teeth, as you desperately fend them off with your knife and gun. The detail is so vivid, you can almost smell their foul breath; during these panicky encounters you might find yourself wishing for fewer pixels. Nonetheless, the strange beauty of Exodus s irradiated environments (further prettified by a dynamic weather system) means you ll struggle to find a more dazzling visual showcase for current console hardware. n Format PS4, XO, PC Publisher Capcom Developer Capcom ETA Spring 2018 Monster Hunter: World Capcom switches things up to broaden the series appeal without Switch he flex is gone. As any T seasoned Monster Hunter knows, it s been a long-standing tradition to swig a potion and watch your hunter adopt an exaggerated strongman pose during which, of course, you re vulnerable to attack. It might seem a minor thing, but its absence in Monster Hunter World is a sign of fundamental change at the heart of Capcom s series. It s a Westerner-friendly kind of revision, as is the presence of damage numbers showing how much pain you re inflicting. Other changes are less controversial. A grappling hook lets you latch onto monsters bodies and climb quickly to higher ground. One hunter skill lets you equip a ghillie suit to go undetected, and there s a proper day-night cycle in the game s large, seamlessly-connected biomes: it s not quite a full open world, but you won t see any loading screens as you move between areas. Summoning allies for co-op hunts, meanwhile, is a simple matter of firing up a flare. Series producer Ryozo Tsujimoto is keen to stress that this is a full-fat Monster Hunter: all 14 weapon types return, you ll still get loot from slain enemies to craft gear, and you ll need to keep your weapons sharpened. Concerns remain that the series might have lost some of its character, and its palette looks washed-out next to previous entries. Still, the series has steadily grown more accessible, and World looks a giant stride forward in that regard. n AUGUST

50 Feature On The Cover! Format Ps4, XO, PC Publisher ubisoft Developer ubisoft ETA 27 October AssAssin s Creed Origins take to the Pyramid stage like a real diamond giza H protagonist Origins marks the first time a mainline Creed game goes backwards instead of forwards in time. so, why Egypt, and why now? We decided to go with the ascent to the throne of Queen Cleopatra because it s really a very important moment in history, creative director Jean guesdon tells us, his eyes flickering with tales of Julius Caesar and Mark antony, epic naval battles, asp-based suicides, and the Roman Civil War. unless we re reading too much into his gaze. also it allows us to have a world already filled with tons of locations. so we have the ancient capital, Memphis, but also the new one, alexandria. and we have tons of hidden temples, sunken 50 august 2017 ere s a mind-blowing fact for you. Cleopatra lived closer to the creation of the iphone than the building of the pyramids. It contextualises just how ancient Egypt is, a country with several thousand years of history under its belt by the time Origins Bayek comes along in 300 BC. locations underwater, and so on. We want to push exploration very far. You d think reverting in time naturally means regression, a stripping away of all the comforts you ve enjoyed since steam trains, gunpowder, bombs, and buildings made from more than mud and spit entered the timeline. In fact, Origins pushes the sandbox forward. Now an unbroken open world, missions aren t separate sequences in one large story, but stories in themselves. One mission we play, for example, involves a young priest accused of stealing gold religious icons. He s getting thrashed by an elder when Bayek finds him. Bayek can prove the priest s innocence by finding the two icons, located around the docks of Euhemeria, and bringing them to the elder. this is the perfect time to use our new eagle, senu. at any point we can take control of this feathered friend and use her to get a bird s-eye view of the scene, tagging enemies and setting waypoints to items of interest, drone-style. It s silly, sure, but incredibly helpful. One icon sits on a ship guarded by several Roman soldiers: we swim over to it, and stealthily assassinate them all. the second icon sits in a shipwreck surrounded by hippos and crocodiles. these beasts will happily eat you as well as each other, often leaving pools of blood in the Nile, so we borrow a merchant s sailboat to get there safely. after diving down for a plunder, something you can do whenever you want in Origin s treasure-filled lakes and riverbeds, we return to the priest and resolve his conflict, gaining XP for the hassle. New scenery, tools, and environmental hazards make a familiar steal this thing job feel fresher. Anubis would happen XP goes towards abilities split into the three paths. Master seer is all about utilising the environment to, say, accelerate the decomposition of dead bodies and contaminate enemies, tame animals which have been tranquilised by sleep darts so they follow you, and meditate to change the time of day. Hunter is for sneaks, with slow-motion bow aiming, controlling arrows in flight, and calling senu to slash people. and abilities on the Warrior path include chain throws that let you launch enemy weapons such as spears and scythes, charged heavy attacks to break through shields, automatic loot-kills, and horse highjacking. there s plenty of versatility.

51 THe 51 BesT games OF 2017 Creatures abound in this game. Senu the eagle (our feathered eye in the sky) and camels are the most useful we ve seen so far killer crocodiles and hippos are definitely best avoided. fighting, remember, is merely an option. what you ll be doing much more is infiltrating Combat-wise, Origins turns off the autopilot, no longer confining you to pressing a button and having your sword or arrow home in on your target. Basically, you can miss now, which sounds rubbish but really means you ve got finer control over strikes. We test this in an arena mode against waves of ai gladiators who enter in pairs and trios. the mass brawls of syndicate s gang-ridden London wouldn t make sense in ancient Egypt. While fighting feels more tense, and Bayek more vulnerable, we pine for the outrageous multi-kills that saw you dispatch scores of goons in a single gory move. Fighting, it s worth remembering, is merely an option. What you ll be doing much more is infiltrating stealthing into guarded locations to assassinate, steal, rescue, and sabotage. Outpost conquering is a ubisoft cliché, sure, but it s better than ever here thanks to Bayek s improved parkour, his eagle scout, his bow, and of course, the natural splendour of Egypt. It s a little bit lower, says guesdon of the environment, but at the same time we compensated by adding to the parkour on all surfaces. so you can now climb on rocks, mountains, cliffs, and not only buildings, which allows us to regain the verticality missing in the architecture. We have some really cool setups with infiltration using verticals. Lush farms, crumbling ruins, and towering temples all feature. ubisoft s temptation will be to fill Egypt with outposts, but there s plenty of encouraging new pursuits besides that well-worn staple, whether it s raids on lion lairs, gladiatorial showdowns, galloping across white dunes on camelback, or firing five simultaneous arrows from a shotgun bow into someone s face. We do hope someone s left a bale of hay under the great Pyramid n august

52 Feature On The Cover! Format Ps4 Publisher sony Developer sony ETA september Days Gone Land of the freeroam of the brave een to stress the K open-ended nature of this zombie-filled sandbox, developer SIE Bend treats us to a behind-closed-doors demonstration in which protagonist Deacon runs the same rescue mission we ve seen in a previous trailer, only it s very different. For starters, it s winter now. Days gone features all four seasons, with snow actually impacting motorcycle handling. Bikes are vital in crossing the vast Pacific north-west wilds, but you ll need to stay vigilant. a tripwire that toppled Deacon in footage we saw earlier isn t so effective here, as he snips it before brutally knifing two muggers. although cold, Days gone isn t heartless. Later, Deacon infiltrates a camp and we overhear a conversation. Jesus, I didn t know you got that gun by killing a man, says a concerned voice. they re not one-note baddies, but survivors like yourself. still, supplies are supplies. Deacon plants a bear trap and ensnares one guy, who screams in pain. You gotta be quiet, whispers his friend, conscious of nearby zombies. When the man continues screaming a woman shoots him. You didn t have to kill him! his buddy protests. this sequence emerges organically if Deacon hadn t used the bear trap it would never have happened. Later Deacon snipes from a crow s nest, throws Molotov cocktails, and has a sundown shootout with ak-47s in front of the surging fire. about the only thing he doesn t do is encounter the hundredsstrong Freaker horde that forms Days gone s calling card, proving there s much more to it than initially thought. n Format Ps4 Publisher sony Developer sony ETA December KnacK II Double the bits in two-player co-op urried to meet the H PS4 s launch, SIE Japan s particle-effectfilled original platformfighter left plenty on the cutting room floor. The studio gathers these concepts and scatters them into its unexpected sequel. take, for instance, a section in which Knack drives a tank through an ultra-destructible building site, firing missiles at grouped robots, then whipping out a front-mounted drill to bulldoze them into hundreds of quivering components. Or platforming sections incorporating rapid mid-jump size shifts. anything to wash away the taste of the last game s repetitive combat, basically. When the fists do fly you ve got more than three moves. Your collection of relics can conjure shields, unleash body slams, and even lasso fools, and Knack s ability to scale up or slim down varies the action further. Your changing bulk is emphasised during one castle-based scenario in which tiny goblins and tight camera angles make you feel massive. a boss fight against two towering knights, conversely, gives you a shrinking feeling. Drop-in campaign co-op is Knack II s most important addition because now parents can play with their kids instead of screaming at them. You can teleport to each other great if one keeps getting lost and there are tag-team moves. One player can fling the other into enemies, and if you stand behind your partner and fire, you ll propel a spread of body parts. New moves, vehicle sections, and the chance to buddy up make Knack II the idea-stuffed adventure sie Japan wanted to make in the first place. n 52 august

53 THE 51 BEST GAMES OF 2017 Format Ps4 Pub sony Dev Quantic Dream ETA summer 2018 DetroIt: Become Human Do androids dream of electric graffiti? he revolution will be T robotised in Heavy Rain creator David Cage s story-driven sci-fi uprising. Set in 2040, it imagines a world in which sophisticated androids attempt to either overthrow or coexist with human oppressors like a mechanical Planet Of The Apes. The story jumps between three characters: Kara, a recent factory escapee exploring her newfound sentience; Connor, an agent who hunts deviant androids; and synthetic rebel Marcus. One early Marcus section takes place in a snowy city square. He s recruiting for a riot, and has his eye on retail androids. they re advertised as housekeeping assistants and dream partners, but to Marcus, they re slaves. Multiple choices are a Cage calling card, and there are plenty of ways in. You can enter quietly or by smashing through the window in a truck. using QtEs, a necessary evil given the complexity of your actions, you can tag a bench with one of four holographic symbols, highjack or switch off a digital billboard, and decide whether to overturn a taxi. a morality system reacts accordingly: throwing a firebomb swings the meter from pacifist to violent, for example. the revolt can end peacefully, with Marcus raising a flag, or angrily, with everything burning. Methodology affects the wider story, with news reports reflecting how it all went down. With seemingly greater narrative divergence, a powerful setting, and no suspicious accents in sight, this small section has Detroit already looking like Quantic Dream s best title yet. n Format Ps4 Publisher sony Dev supermassive games ETA October HIDDen agenda Who s next? Cast your votes! n this collaborative I interactive drama from the developer of Until Dawn, players vote on what they want to happen. To play it, you need to download an app on your Apple or Android device, then fire it up as you launch the game. This means, in theory, you can play with five, six, or even seven mates and make a proper night of it. Do you, for instance, rush in through the front door or creep round the side and take your target by surprise? the target in question is a deranged serial killer called the trapper, whose modus operandi is murdering people and then booby-trapping their corpses to kill the first responders as well. Hidden agenda was born from developer supermassive games watching playthroughs of until Dawn on Youtube and seeing how viewers would try to participate in the outcome. Where that game attracted criticism for scenarios not being as divergent as people would like, Hidden agenda nimbly swerves between extremes. In our hands-on session, our investigating police officer saves a life, but he could also have been shot, which would have sent the story spiralling in a new direction. Choices concern dialogue as well as action: do you tell a kidnapper to freeze, or try to reason with him? Occasionally the game feeds secret objectives to players via their devices. For example, you might have to convince everyone in your group to pick a certain answer without letting them figure out your motives. this means that although you can experience Hidden agenda as a single player, playing as part of a group will elevate the experience. n august

54 Feature On The Cover! Format XO, PC Pub Microsoft Dev undead Labs ETA summer 2018 State Of Decay 2 survival in this zombie-infested sandbox is all about working together. the action is pure third-person shooter/brawler, but you re not just one hero you control a whole community, switching between members depending on what skills you need on each mission. scavenge the resources you need, and you ll be able to build up your base, upgrade it with new facilities, and recruit more survivors to your cause. You ll need that backup if you die out in the field, that character is dead forever, and all you can do is switch to another, making it important to have a roster of skilled combatants. n Format PC Pub gambitious Digital Entertainment Dev Pixel spill ETA autumn Outreach Despite a story tangled up in an intriguing Cold War mystery, this 1980s space adventure s most elusive question is: How do I get from here to there?! Moving around in zero-g is tougher than it looks, especially when the focus is on realism over the kind of science fiction that might grant you magnetic boots, a jetpack, or other useful gadgets. using only your hands and feet, you must clamber from handhold to handhold, before launching yourself through rooms and across gaps. In our hands-on, it s the good kind of challenge, turning the simple act of moving into a tense experience especially during a gripping spacewalk. Plus, throwing objects around in zero-g is a giggle. n Format switch, Ps4, XO Pub ubisoft Dev ubisoft ETA autumn 2018 Starlink: Battle for atlas Is No Man s skylanders too obvious a gag? Probably this game sees ubisoft taking its first step into the toys-to-life genre, allowing players to slot a plastic starfighter onto their controller and battle their way across an alien star system. Each ship is modular, allowing you to take off parts and slot in new wings, weapons, and more, or even swap to a different pilot. Your craft can fight in space, but also fly down through the atmosphere of one of the system s seven planets for surface-based combat, as you battle the evil alien Legion. n Format XO, PC Pub Microsoft Dev Moon studios ETA spring 2018 Ori and the Will Of the WiSpS If you thought Ori and the Blind Forest was beautiful, you ain t seen nothing yet. this stunning sequel blends 2D and 3D seamlessly to make its fantastical forest one of the most visually arresting game worlds we ve ever seen. It looks like the emotional stakes are high, too, with early footage already striking a tragic note if a baby owl staring mournfully up at the decaying skeletons of its parents doesn t get your waterworks flowing, we re not sure what would. gameplay looks to stick close to Blind Forest s Metroidvania style, but this time you ll be taking Ori and sein on an adventure across all-new areas. n Format switch, Ps4, XO, PC, Ps3, 360 Pub Bethesda Dev Bethesda ETA autumn (switch), November (Ps VR) the elder ScrOllS V: Skyrim What do you mean it came out six years ago? Okay, you ve played Bethesda s epic already, but this year you ll be able to experience it like never before. First up, the switch version has been revealed. Despite its appearance in the console s original trailer video, it s taken until now for Bethesda to admit its existence. It s looking worth the wait, however, with full motion controls, Zelda-themed armour and weapons, and amiibo functionality. Plus, you ll soon be able to truly disappear into the world of the Elder scrolls, as the end of this year sees the release of a full Ps VR release of the game. and Doom and Fallout 4 will be getting the same treatment, too. n Format Ps4, PC Pub Bandai Namco Dev Level-5 ETA 10 November ni no kuni ii: revenant kingdom this plucky RPg sequel certainly embodies the spirit of the original, with charming characters, beautiful anime visuals, and plenty of regional British accents. When it comes to the gameplay, though, it s making some big changes. Combat, for example, is more action-oriented. You ll no longer control Pokémon-like pets in battle, instead getting stuck in yourself, slicing with your sword and dodge-rolling away from attacks. You ll still have a little assistance, though you can deploy squads of tiny Higgledies to buff you, debuff enemies, and hurl adorably miniature projectiles. n Format Ps4, XO, PC Pub Maximum games Dev Iron galaxy studios ETA spring 2018 extinction Colossal ogres seek to wipe out mankind in this appropriately-named new action game. the solution? go all attack On titan on their ugly mugs, using main character avil s impressive parkour skills and deadly swordsmanship to leap up to their level, slice off their limbs, and finish them off with a decisive blow to the neck. as your foes are so tall, you ll need to use buildings in the area to your advantage to succeed, scampering up walls, air-dashing between rooftops, and even bouncing off awnings. You ll also be able to bring to bear magical abilities, including powerful Runestrikes that allow you to dash towards your enemy and inflict a burst of damage just the thing for lopping the legs off ogres. n Format Ps4 Pub sony Dev sony ETA spring 2018 ShaDOW Of the colossus Fumito ueda s critically-acclaimed classic is back! sony is remaking the game in HD for modern hardware. this new take is completely faithful: everything from the Ps2 version has been recreated, just with a huge visual upgrade. From the textured stone of your lumbering foes, to the waving grass of the landscape, to the weave of the protagonist s tunic, this is shadow Of the Colossus as visualised in your most rose-tinted memories. the devs have promised they ll be tweaking the controls, to bring the gameplay more in line with modern action games, but for purists they ll offer an option to return to the feel of the original game s movement too. n 54 august

55 the 51 BeSt games Of 2017 Format Ps4, XO, PC Pub Bandai Namco Dev arc system Works ETA summer 2018 DragOn Ball fighter Z Dragon Ball has never looked so good. this fighting game from the creator of guilty gear Xrd and Persona 4 arena somehow both recreates the style of the original anime perfectly, and looks a million times better than it. It s got some of the most spectacular special attacks we ve ever seen in the genre. there s a fan-pleasing roster, including goku, gohan, and Vegeta. In terms of feel, the 3v3 battles fall somewhere between the classic Marvel Vs. Capcom games, and ark system s recent titles, with some distinctly Dragon Ball twists, including a homing dash attack for getting in close. n Format PC Pub Klei Entertainment Dev Klei Entertainment ETA spring 2018 griftlands Developer Klei can t put a foot wrong these days. From Mark Of the Ninja to Don t starve to Invisible Inc and more, the studio seems to succeed in any genre it chooses so you should be excited for this latest project. griftlands is an RPg adventure across a ramshackle sci-fi world, where your team of rag-tag mercs must make their way slaying alien beasts, scrapping with foes, and avoiding the authorities in their quest to make their fortune. the devs promise that in this universe everything is negotiable: money, loyalty even morality, so expect plenty of ethically grey manoeuvring between stints of exploring, and fighting in beautifullyanimated turn-based battles. n Format Ps4, PC Pub Devolver Digital Dev Onebitbeyond ETA spring 2018 the SWOrDS Of DittO Don t have the time for epic 100-hour RPgs? the swords Of Ditto s broken up into a string of two-hour adventures, with your successes and failures in each affecting the next. Let your hero die, for example, and evil will claim the land for 100 years, creating a bleaker setting for your next character to adventure in. the action is in the style of the classic top-down Zeldas, with simple combat and puzzle-filled dungeons, but with an emphasis on playing together in local co-op. It s brought to life by a cartoony art style and a cheerful sense of humour you revive downed allies with hugs! n Format Ps4, XO, PC Pub square Enix Dev Deck Nine ETA 31 august life is Strange: BefOre the StOrm While original developer Dontnod continues to work on Life Is strange 2, this summer Deck Nine is bringing us a prequel. taking place three years prior to Max s adventures, it stars a 16-year-old Chloe, and will flesh out her mysterious relationship with Rachel amber, the first game s focal missing person. time travel won t feature, allowing character drama to take centre stage and we expect plenty of it as Chloe turns from well-behaved teen to the blue-haired rebel we know and love. the bad news? Voice actor ashly Burch doesn t return to the role, due to the voice actors strike. n Format PC Pub Phoenix Labs Dev Phoenix Labs ETA Winter DauntleSS redeemer tunic WargrOOVe If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then Dauntless is practically showering Monster Hunter with compliments. But while it may wear its inspiration pretty clearly on its sleeve, this co-op action-rpg looks more a worthy tribute than a sloppy clone. as in Capcom s long-running series, the goal is to team up with your buddies to take down huge beasts (or Behemoths ) roaming the world, harvest their bodies for parts, and use those components to craft new armour and weapons with which to take down even stronger creatures. thanks to a colourful art style and impressive layer of polish, that loop s looking more inviting than ever here. If the wait for Monster Hunter World is already feeling unbearable, this could be just the thing to tide you over. n Format PC Pub gambitious Digital Entertainment Dev sobaka ETA summer Vasily s tried his best to live a peaceful life. He s ducked out of the contract killer game, and made a go of living a life of contemplation in a remote monastery. It s not his fault an army of mercenaries has come to eliminate him. What other option does he have but to murder thousands of them with his bare hands? Combat in this ultra-violent top-down brawler combines the speed and precision of Hotline Miami with the rhythm and variety of the arkham games. You ll chain dodge-counters as enemies descend on you, steal their weapons and turn them on their mates, and use contextual kills to impale foes on branches, smash them into walls, and shove them in ovens. Maybe after that Vasily ll get some peace. n Format PC Pub Finji Dev andrew shouldice ETA summer 2018 Coming to PC and consoles (the developer wouldn t specify which), this isometric adventure combines adorable low-poly models with soft, realistic lighting to create a seriously sumptuous look. as a fuzzy little fox, you ll travel across a blocky world, exploring wild forests and spooky ruins, and battling hostile creatures with your trusty sword and shield in surprisingly intense and tricky-looking battles. the footage is immediately impressive especially when you find out it s being developed by just one man, andrew shouldice, based in Halifax in Canada. this is his debut game, and he quit his job to work on it back when it was originally announced (as secret Legend ) back in We reckon that gamble s going to pay off. n Format switch, XO, PC Pub Chucklefish games Dev Chucklefish games ETA Winter Pining for a new advance Wars? this indie turn-based strategy game might fill the gap for you. Despite a fantasy setting, the inspiration is obvious in its look and its gameplay, and that s no bad thing. It s no slavish remake, however, bringing to the table plenty of exciting modern features. along with full online and local multiplayer functionality, it boasts content creation tools that allow you to make and share your own campaigns, complete with fully customisable battlefield maps if the 12 campaigns already created by the devs aren t enough for you. It ll even feature modding support, for those who want to get in and tinker even more. super Mario Maker meets advance Wars? that s a winning combination. n august

56 Special Exclusive Feature! 56 august

57 Fight Why game fans in a digital age are opting for analogue soundtracks Vinylvinyl fight igital is king in games. The rush D towards throwing off the chains of physical boxes feels like a runaway freight train at this point. Bricks-and-mortar game shops struggle while Steam, the Xbox Store, and the PlayStation store surge to convert our game collections to binary. However, one small area of the gaming product scene is bucking that trend, a space that capitalises on a fondness for a very tangible bit of gaming paraphernalia. It s not expensive collectors editions complete with an egregiously garish statue, but rather something more elegant: game soundtracks on vinyl. Listening to game music is an evocative experience that taps into how you felt about a title without the time commitment of starting over again. that there s an audience seeking that experience on LP is not surprising at all. given the superior sound quality and how enjoyable it is to put a record on a turntable, listening to a piece on vinyl is almost always more involving than loading up a song on the internet. On the record Collectors who want to express their fandom increasingly want to do it in more and more grown-up ways, posits Mondo label manager Mo shafeek. I think that s part of what the games soundtrack on vinyl movement is. I do think the older you get, the less likely you are to want to have action figures hanging about. that s not to say anything against people who have action figures, but you want something a little more dignified on your shelf. shafeek touches on why vinyl is taking off. as gaming matures, so does its audience, and we are entering a period where adults have grown up with gaming as part of the mainstream. they want to showcase their fandom. Vinyl provides a great way to let that love shine, often with pleasing sleeves, records and, of course, music. In a medium world, even where tangible experiences are getting rarer, it perhaps isn t surprising a desire for soundtrack LPs has grown. We want to feel things with our hands and relive emotional experiences. It s why companies like Mondo, Iam8bit, Black screen Records, and more are finding an audience showcasing the work of some of gaming s best composers. they are providing answers for an audience that wants to find new ways to love the medium while growing older. Kevin schulz, co-founder of Black screen Records relays that exact sentiment, saying: People connect their favourite games to the past, such as when you played a game with your dad or your friends. Video game music, in general, brings back all the emotion of the time. so owning these emotions and these feelings on a physical format is pretty cool. People want to own that. in a world where tangible experiences are getting rarer, we want to feel things with our hands and relive emotions august

58 Special Exclusive Feature! everyone has an opinion on whether a handsome package or the sharpest of sharp sound quality is more important Vinyl will never be a full replacement for the experience of playing through a game, but the feeling you get when you put a familiar piece of music on a turntable, relax, and enjoy the memory of a beloved game is unique. While it isn t the same as existing in a crafted digital world, it s still enriching to mull over a game s melodic leavings, especially if there s a beautifully designed sleeve to admire at the same time. Art on your sleeve speaking of sleeves, there is a push and pull between design and audio quality that divides all involved in this niche hobby. From vinyl collectors to the companies that make records, everyone has a different opinion on whether a handsome package or the sharpest of sharp sound quality is more important. Ideally, of course, you d have both, but every once in a while a compromise has to be made. speaking to representatives of each label, it became clear that there is no core consensus either. For me, the most important thing about a release is the quality of the vinyl. I come from the music industry. schulz is pretty blunt about what is important to him in a game soundtrack vinyl. I used to work in manufacturing. I did pressings for punk-orientated stuff. I was taking care of vinyl productions of these record labels and we really had to make sure they sounded great as they wanted high-quality pressings of their releases. so when I started this label I had the music background. I wanted to do vinyl for video game music. I didn t want to release a piece of merchandise, I wanted to release a piece of high-quality music, so we always make sure the music is remastered for vinyl to increase the sound quality. For shafeek, Mondo found its audience after initially looking elsewhere on the spectrum. In the beginning, we really wanted to go after audiophiles. People who went after CD soundtracks. We wanted people to look at us as a reputable source for audiophile-quality soundtrack reissues, but we found the people who came back and back and back more routinely were people who were just fans of the film or game and just wanted something that represented that. Iam8bit co-owner amanda White has a more fluid approach to the question. We try to do both of those things to the most impressive degree possible. I think we [she and co-owner Jon M gibson] are both very aesthetically driven, so design matters so much. I think when it comes to vinyl we try really hard not to compromise sound quality for a look, but sometimes it does happen, I ll be honest. If you get a really cool marbled disk or a picture disc, for example, you are going to lose a little bit of audio quality. that s just the nature of the beast. But we do try to minimise that. the rising popularity of this hobby isn t without its growing pains. Within the last five years, it s gone from sporadic releases of game music on vinyl to a small industry with lots of labels being set up to specialise specifically in this medium. While competition is good to drive quality, in some instances it can be the enemy. Iam8bit co-owner Jon M gibson argues there s a problem with so many companies trying to secure The soundtrack for Ori And The Blind Forest has won many awards, including an SXSW Gaming Award for Excellence In Musical Score. 58 august

59 vinyl fight Thinking of starting a collection? Be warned, that combination of memory-provoking music and great sleeves is addictive. The official Life Is Strange soundtrack features 22 tracks from the game 14 licensed songs, and eight from the score. games for vinyl, and the format is being taken advantage of by bigger entities. Our opinion of it is that vinyl takes a lot of nurturing. It takes a lot of champions. It takes a lot of passion. It s not something you can just pop out. there are a lot of rushed or even sloppy releases that don t really feel like they have had a lot of thought put into them. gibson continues, We ve gotten into fights before with big companies who would very much like to put out their vinyl releases. sometimes it is about the top bidder. sometimes it is about the bottom line. It s not about making a good, excellent, amazing thing. It sucks. there is an over-saturation to a degree because everyone wants to get their stuff on vinyl now but you gotta do it right or don t do it. sometimes it doesn t have to make the launch of a new franchise title. It can come later, it can come five years later and still be respected and cherished. that s the cool thing about vinyl. It doesn t have to be this day and date thing. It s there forever. there is a permanence to it. Play hard to get While these concerns for the ongoing state of the industry are well founded, in the end, all that matters to a lover of game music is the experience they get when the vinyl lands on their doorstep. For a collector, they might just be a completionist who picks up an LP to fill out a collection. Purists might pick one up for the superior sound quality the format provides over listening to something on spotify, while others might not even listen to it, rather use it as a beautiful expression of fandom. acquiring a favourite soundtrack isn t always easy, with a lot of vinyl being quite expensive, some productions of records taking six months to complete, and scalpers flogging hard-to-get records. Putting all that to the side, vinyl really is a wonderful way to reaffirm your love for a property. Videogames are about play, and, often enough, superfluous noise, so it s easy to lose sight of how much they can mean to us. Vinyl allows us to stop for a moment and get lost in their world via an auditory experience. In this digital age, there is certainly something to be said for taking out a gorgeous-looking sleeve, slipping out the disc, and letting the needle slip into the groove of your favourite videogame soundtrack. a real bit of physical engineering takes you into a cherished, personal space. a pure example of emotional magic. n Patrick Dane The game s still in development, but a 12 single of music from Death Stranding s trailers has already been released and sold out. august

60 Special Exclusive Feature! Save Point Games that you can play to improve the world aving the world is what S videogames are all about some a little more than others. Enter the genre of applied games, entertainment that attempts to gamify everyday tasks, and turn them into fun, philanthropic adventures, taking your efforts from the virtual world to the real one. Some specialise in science, others in literacy, charity, or even first aid, but whatever the angle, the intention is clear: to empower players to make their world a better and brighter place. Oh, and if you needed any more incentive to play, just remember this is the only planet with videogames. Better start saving 60 august

61 Playing Smorball helps to preserve knowledge for future generations. Think Skyrim Greybeards, just without all the yelling. Smorball Here s hoping we didn t just teach Shakespeare to Skynet Did you know that Google once tried to digitise every book in existence? Yes, well, it did, and no, ultimately it didn t Turns out that copyright owners weren t too keen to play co-op. Thankfully, other, more modest, efforts are now under way to continue that work, safeguarding endangered literature from the scourge of sticky-fingered readers. To achieve this, data specialists have turned to Optical Character Recognition software that attempts to scan texts in order to identify their content. The snag here is that older, more eclectic font-types often prove tougher to detect. The only remedy: to manually correct the computer a grind if ever there was one. That s where Tiltfactor studio comes in, along with its brilliantly simple browser game Smorball. Equal parts Plants Vs Zombies and Typing Of The Dead, Smorball tasks players with typing out words in order to conquer enemies. Doing so earns you more powerful loot, incentivising repeat play, and improving your overall typing. Entries are then collated with other users data to determine which words to teach to the main database. Brilliant, eh? Talk about schooling the computer Free rice They say there s no such thing as a free meal. Well, just try telling that one to the ducks down at the park. Those damned dirty freeloaders Speaking of things that you should never toss to a bird, to this day rice is the most widely eaten staple food group throughout the entire world. Yes, even above actual staples. Who would have thought? Oh, and all that business about rice blowing up birds? That s just an urban myth. Polly can have that second helping of rice pudding after all. Delicious and nutritious, plentiful and cheap, rice also serves as an excellent weapon in the battle against world hunger. And thanks to the United Nations World Food Programme, donating small amount of that rice is now just a quick quiz game away. With subjects that include world capitals, famous quotes, flags, landmarks, and languages as well as high school favourites chemistry, maths, and literature this site can help boost your brain, prep for an exam or improve at a second language, all while helping the needy. Competitive players can even sign up to track their contributions, with 10 grains donated for each and every correct answer. Fill your brain and fill a bowl in the process. Food for thought indeed. You may save the universe in Mass Effect, but you can save real lives here. Unlike that one pub quiz machine that definitely has it in for you, this quiz won t cost you a penny. august

62 Special Exclusive Feature! Death by heart attack may be the only demise poor Dirk didn t suffer in Dragon s Lair. life-saver When she isn t too busy saving John Boyega from a stroppy Sith lord, Daisy Ridley can be found performing life-saving CPR in this play-along video. Created by the folks at The Resuscitation Council a UK-based charity promoting awareness of cardiac arrest, and not, as the name might imply, some sort of 80 s synth band Life-Saver puts the knowledge you need directly into the palm of your hand. Playing out like an old-fashioned FMV title think Night Trap or even Dragon s Lair this award-winning sim is part quiz, part Wiiware, as players are encouraged to perform real-life motions with their phones, tablets or mice (the game can be played online, on Android or with an iphone). With time being a crucial factor in these circumstances, extra points are available for quick-fire answers, a feature that encourages completionists to play all three scenarios to the point that life-saving knowledge becomes second nature. Of course, this being the most serious of serious games, you can t actually fail, and indeed there are no scenes of folks biting the bullet as you flail around a la Surgeon Simulator. Still, this one s well worth the effort. WeTopia not currently available We realise playing a tycoon game for good may be a tad unusual for some. What if mankind could utilise the energy of every bored commuter, or Facebook friend-botherer, and turn it into good? We re talking, of course, about social gaming, or rather its most obsessive players. What if, in addition to growing crops on your virtual farm, you were also providing real aid to real people? What if pay-to-win was suddenly play-to-help? That was the thinking behind Sojo Studios WeTopia a Farmville-esque plant- em-up that delivered both cash and crops to the needy. Playing out much as you might expect, WeTopia did however bring one key element to the mix: Joy a form of in-game currency exchanged for real-life donations. The project started out with a bang, receiving ringing endorsements from numerous celebrities, including Ellen DeGeneres and Justin Bieber. Five years on, it now lies dormant, with no word on if or when it might return. Still, with over $500,000 raised for various charities worldwide while it was up and running it can only be a matter of time before another generous studio takes a whack at this Facebook game philanthropy. Just try not to bury your buddies in invites. Even when it s doing some good, that sort of thing is still deeply irritating. 62 august

63 If you get tired of transporting those atoms, feels free to take a Quantum Break What do you mean, fired? QuanTum moves Building a quantum computer isn t easy, but with your help we can make evil robotic overlords a reality. Wait Catching an atom is a lot like catching The Flash. Coax him into a six-foot jail cell and you still won t know where he is not exactly. They are, to coin a phrase, the wriggling fish of the microverse, and we are just the mortified tourists attempting to hold on. Oh, and everyone s being pelted with grease globs and we all have soap bars for hands. You get the picture. When it comes to quantum computing, manipulating these atoms is a task typically performed by lasers, but since atoms are so darn hard to pin down, our processors aren t always up to the task. That s where Quantum Moves comes in. Developed by Science At Home, a Danish development studio specialising in citizen-science software, Quantum Moves tasks players with inventing clever new ways to manipulate matter. The setup itself is simple, with users, acting as the laser, attempting to guide a glut of waveforms from one location to the next. These waves tell us whereabouts the atom may be, and it s your job to transport that precious cargo in as fast a time as possible. Think of it like moving a punctured water balloon all the way to the sink. Up and atom! project DiScovery Cell-Slider is just one of the many citizen science games you can play online for free. Creating your own game is one thing, but integrating it into another that s something else entirely. Inspired might be the word. In the case of Project Discovery that s certainly true. Developed by researchers at Reykjavik University, in partnership with Massively Multiplayer Online Science (MMOS), Project Discovery bolts on to EVE Online, rather like a science ship docking with a deep space cruiser. After all, what s the point in flying around solo when you can hit hyperspace together? Introduced as a protein-matching mini-game, Discovery will soon expand to allow EVE users to chart the stars for exoplanets. The former has the potential to advance our knowledge of the human body, while the latter could expand our awareness of the universe itself. Plus, by doing so players can also earn unique in-game loot. Everyone s a winner (baby). Then again, if EVE isn t exactly your thing, there are plenty of other ways you can play citizen science. How about having a go at decoding genetic disease in Phylo, help scientists learn more about your peepers in Eyewire, or the human genome in EteRNA? Helping out humanity is now just a few clicks away. Project Discovery will soon allow EVE Online players to chart the stars. august

64

65

66 IndieMaster The Best Of The Indie Scene! Hmmm She always thought that there would be fewer wires in future versions of the Oculus Rift headset. Who is... Based in Krakow in Poland, this small studio was founded in Its first solo project was Vita puzzle platformer A-Men, but it was last year s Layers Of Fear that brought Bloober Team into the indie horror spotlight. If Observer is more of the same, our hearts will be in trouble. Format PS4, XO, PC Developer Bloober Team ETA August Web #1 Observer It s time to look on in horror ames don t often G give us nightmares, but after completing Bloober Team s Layers Of Fear in one sitting, we felt a distinct sense of unease. Its terrifying, often Escher-esque house wasn t as easy to forget as Resi VII s tension or the nastiness of Outlast. Well, the team behind it is back to horrify us once more, and this time we re jumping into Have all the points if you saw it straight away and weren t at all creeped out. That s no points to Team GamesMaster saw it, shuddered. other people s memories after a global apocalypse. Great. We learned a lot from Layers Of Fear, confirms brand manager Rafal Basaj. People crave a cerebral, psychological horror experience, something other than survival horror in which you mow down monsters/demons/aliens/zombies with rocket launchers. We love the idea of blurring sanity and insanity. With Layers Of Fear, we featured a mad painter, stuck in his own nightmare. With Observer we moved to a dystopian future where cops can hack into citizens minds. Visually, we can add a lot of variety, like the slums of 2084 Krakow and the memories of the minds you hack being locked up in prison, or struggling with drug addiction. Thought police Observer sees you take on the role of, well, an observer, a neural investigator who can clamber inside minds and find out the nasty secrets in people s heads. spoiler: it s not going to be pleasant in there. If it looks grim and gritty enough on the outside, on the inside there is serious chaos. Hopefully everyone will have a favourite mind they hack into, says Basaj. as with Layers Of Fear, we want people to be more than just afraid while playing our games. We want them immersed in the story, to be awe-struck with the haunting and mind-bending experiences we create. We hope they will stop for a moment and ponder what they just experienced. Like a good novel, these stories carry a lot of symbolism and windows into character psychology. We hope these make you think about the things that scare you in your own life. It might be set in a dark future where the world as we know it has fallen to a global pandemic and is now in the hands of an evil corporation, but the team has EvErything has been scripted perfectly to EnsurE you re at your most stressed 66 august

67 Bloober Team is intent on creating horror that you don t need lightning-fast reflexes or precise headshots to beat the staff are keen to present more cerebral challenges to players in their games. See what you did, PT? Corridor shots might be everywhere in games nowadays but they still give us the heebie-jeebies. injected plenty of the real world into Observer. We re setting up the game in Krakow, Poland our hometown so we wanted to sneak some Polish history and pop culture into the story, Basaj explains. after World War 2, Eastern Europe was lagging behind the West. Our architecture was not what we could call innovative or fun. For years the culture lived under censorship. this led to a world that was gritty and colourless, all shades of grey. Inspired by that atmosphere, we began to shape the world of Observer. Brain drain Cautiously wandering the dark hallways and grimy tenements of 2084, it doesn t feel like the future we were promised, and there s a very good reason for that. We were inspired by everything from Blade Runner to William gibson novels to 90s cyberpunk anime like ghost In the shell and akira, Basaj confirms. some of Try this! Want to be afraid? Very afraid? See the world from behind the eyes of an insane painter in Layers Of Fear: us spent countless hours playing the pen-and-paper RPg Cyberpunk all of these have something in common a dark future as envisioned by people living 30 years ago. this is why we like to think of our world as retro cyberpunk. the year is 2084, but you ll see legacy technology like CRt tvs, and new tech like hologram advertising plastered over everything, used to cover up the grime that hides beneath. they re not giving much away about the story as that would ruin the fun, but if you re looking for the expertly directed frights of Layers Of Fear, there s going to be more of that here. With every step you take and mind you jump inside, Bloober team wants you to think you re doing something out of choice but instead, everything has been scripted to ensure you re at your most stressed. seen from a tight first-person perspective, Observer is carefully orchestrated. Feel like the infamous rat in a maze? You are one. Directing experiences is what we do, Basaj teases. to create such an experience you need a very talented designer and art team. teams that think differently figuring out ways to position the player in the right spot at the right time. the most prominent ways of focusing the player s attention are with lighting and level design the assets used, the amount of assets used in a single spot, the material from which certain objects are made. the most important part, however, is testing the more people who play your game, the easier it is to recognise player patterns and adjust the design accordingly. and what should we be most afraid of when Observer arrives? We re based in Krakow, a city known for the armies of pigeons roaming the streets, so if you have a fear of birds the game will make you cry like a baby, laughs Basaj. But seriously, we want you to answer this question for yourself as you play. We ll provide the triggers, but how you engage is up to you. ask yourself why this scares you. Look that fear right in the eye. thanks. We will. Maybe. n The 60 second Pitch Hacking into the mind of Rafal Basaj The year is The world has been ravaged by war and a global nanophage pandemic. From the ashes, the Chiron Corporation has risen to take control of everything, and will stop at nothing to maintain its grip on power. You play as an Observer, a neural detective capable of hacking into people s minds in order to discover any crimes against Chiron. You are what the people fear. When your son a high-level Chiron engineer goes missing, you track him to a crumbling tenement building in the Class C stacks. To find the truth of what happened to him, you must hack into the minds of the building s residents. But with every mind you hack, the lines between their memories and your reality blur, until your very sanity begins to disintegrate. Part noir detective story, part cyberpunk horror, Observer is designed to disturb you. The question at the very heart of our game, the one that we want all players to answer for themselves, is, What would you do if your fears were hacked?

68 indiemaster The Best Of The Indie Scene! Format PC Developer Lucas Govatos ETA Winter Web #2 Epitasis Going on a trip? Better planet ooks like it s time to get L distracted taking screenshots again instead of taking a single step forwards. Think of the most eye-happy-making planets you saw in No Man s Sky, throw away your multi-tool and you ll be close to the visual delights of Epitasis. Incredibly, this beautiful puzzler is the work of just one man, who was inspired by a holiday to Central America. After travelling [through] Costa Rica, I was very much inspired to create something truly vibrant and colourful, much like that area of America, explains Lucas Govatos. I also wanted something that felt made the player feel more connected to nature, which I think the visuals really help do very well. The art style attempts to bring a great sense of wonder and exploration much like I experienced myself while hiking and travelling through the country. While the inspiration has come from his trip, Govatos doesn t want his game to feel like anywhere in this solar system, let alone hemisphere. Epitasis is an exploration puzzle game, set on ancient worlds once inhabited by a long-forgotten race, he says. The game throws the player into a beautiful world filled with cryptic mysteries, crumbling metallic ruins, and large open natural plains to traverse. The player must explore the landscape, searching and learning the technological wonders for a way to make it back home. Sounds like every time we end up on the London Underground without any phone battery. Nature calls And no, you can t just wander around taking in the incredible scenery. There are puzzles to be If you want a future work soundtrack, Govatos is aiming for a Boards Of Canada feel to match the visuals. Puzzle-wise, Govatos has been inspired by The Talos Principle and Obduction, so maybe get your brain out of storage. getting on with. The different areas are connected via an expansive portal network that is still operational thanks to the ancient race, Govatos explains. While exploring the world, players gain access to various types of puzzles and puzzle elements, such as complex operable machines, lasers, force fields, ancient drones, and more. The game also offers more complex puzzles, such as an ancient alien language that can be deciphered and used to manoeuvre through secret areas. There s a narrative at work here, but nothing s going to force you in any direction. Govatos is focussing on those pesky feels of yours instead. There are a few main areas you can explore, and each one provides a different array of emotions and atmospheres of its own across the whole spectrum, he says. While not spoiling too much, there are very relaxing and nice areas of the game, while others can be a bit darker and more emotional. I ve attempted to channel my own emotions into the game, and incorporate them as much as possible. With every screen and clip we ve seen so far desktop wallpaper background levels of beautiful, Epitasis looks like it ll be a perfect otherworldly holiday destination later this year. n Small But Perfectly Formed The five indie soundtracks you ll want to buy on vinyl #1 #2 #3 #4 #5 REz infinite Why would you want to buy the perfect, sweet electronica of Rez Infinite on vinyl? Because, apart from playing the game, there s actually no other way of getting those electronic tunes into your noggin. The exclusive package includes two LPs, an art book and a seven-inch vinyl with music from the trippy Area X. no Man s sky Music For An Infinite Universe will fit perfectly in with your procedurally generated living room. Oh no, where s the cat this time? 65daysofstatic is behind the dreamy tracks of endless galaxies (ironic given the band s clear mistrust of spaces), making this an essential addition to your hipster turntable. thumper You could stream Thumper s soundtrack on Spotify, but there s nothing like the authenticity of vinyl. Brian Gibson s pounding soundtrack, exclusively from iam8bit, comes with a copy of the game and has been recomposed as a standalone listen for the perfect LP experience. ori and the Blind forest Because you should always have the option for glow-in-the-dark vinyl. Ori s soundtrack comes in two versions, blue and purple and the aforementioned luminescent, but both feature art from incredible Japanese illustrator Aya Kakeda. MonuMEnt VallEy As far as being pleasantly confused about which way is up goes, nothing can beat the Escher-osity of Monument Valley. A perfect companion to the game, this double LP features tracks from Stafford Bawler, OBFUSC, and GRIGORI. There s even a bonus digital soundtrack to take on the go. n 68 AUGUST

69 #3 claybook As plasticine on screen Format PS4, XO, PC Dev Second Order ETA Winter Web asn t it wonderful W opening up a new packet of plasticine back in the day? That fresh smell, those perfect strips waiting to be turned into whatever you wanted them to be (and to leave grease stains all over your parents new coffee table). How long did you wait to mix them? Exactly how long was it until your once-technicolor clay became a giant ball the colour of a recently trampled playing field? Of course you re ready to do all of that again without having to worry about getting it out from under your fingernails. Welcome to Claybook. A puzzler from three developers from Finland, Claybook opens up beautifully colourful environments where everything you can see is moulded from you guessed it clay. From water to trees, everything is made from the squishable stuff, letting you morph your playable ball into a multitude of shapes. Every level of the book opens up as different chapters, each with its own puzzles to solve and creations to transform. Colours even stick to your original character, making this so tactile-looking you can practically see the thumbprints. Mould fashioned Everything has been created using the team s proprietary Clayfield technology, for an unexpected level of realism. Animated dough has never looked this squidgable, and it s been a long time in the (clay)making. It s been one and half years since we started developing our unique clay simulation and rendering technology, explains designer Sebastian Aaltonen. Clayfield is using the GPU to simulate and shape the volumetric clay environment and characters. The result is a digital world that feels like real clay. You won t have to play alone; co-op is on the way for up to four players. There s also an option to create your own chapters. Think LittleBigPlanet but with plasticine physics and you re not far off. Wallace and Gromit, eat your hearts out. It s claytime. n #4 semblance Squish you were here Format PC Developer Nyamakop ETA Summer 2018 Web ames are like buses G sometimes. You go years without a single game about modelling materials and then two come along on the same IndieMaster page. Starting off as a university project for its two South African devs, Semblance is all about what would happen if playdough met an adorable colourful platformer. Squish yes, that s his name, he had cruel parents, okay? must make his way from left to right in what initially might look like a charming world but is packed with hidden dangers. Dough or dough not The good news is that an awful lot of what you encounter is mouldable. Can t reach that platform? Why not scoot underneath your current purple platform, bounce up and down until you ve bent it into the right shape and then jump back up, and onto the one you couldn t reach? It s a simple idea but works beautifully. When faced with what look like sheer purple cliffs, Squish can launch and embed himself in the surface before making the next jump. Wall jumping has never been quite this gooey or charming. Squish can even deform walls to make protrusions on the other side that serve as makeshift platforms. Of course it s not always that simple. Some areas can t be moulded, forcing you to find other ways to collect items and progress. Vicious-looking green spikes, for example, will put an end to your squashy little blob. Ridiculously charming visuals, not to mention an adorable shloop sound as big-eyed Squish scoots along the ground, mean we ll be keeping an eye on this puzzle-platformer for next year. n Wall jumping has never been quite this gooey or charming The founders of studio Second Order were core members of the Trials Evolution team at RedLynx. Now the obsession with physics makes sense. Like Portal and all the best puzzlers, Semblance starts off enchantingly easy and quickly becomes devilishly hard, yet remains one-more-go addictive. AUGUST

70 Reviews The Final Verdict! 74 Endless Space 2 Create your own Empire Of the sun (Moon, stars, whatever) with careful strategy. How we ScoRE 0-39 Awful Avoid it as you would a bullet with your name on Poor Major issues here that won t be solved with a hug Decent A mixed bag filled with sweets and sharp stones Good Some flaws, but still a very enjoyable experience Excellent Buy it, love it, thank us when you re done Outstanding A rare and essential piece of brilliance. The small print: We rate games in comparison to what else is available on the same system, in the same genre, and for the same format at the time of release. so this year s FIFa might score less than a FIFa from three years ago, but still be a better game. Because time, and our expectations, move on. Hey, you re smart, you get it Not awarded based simply on score, but rather given to games that possess a special blend of qualities. For instant classics that you won t regret owning. Format Switch Publisher Nintendo Developer Nintendo ETA Out now Players 1-4 espite setting you the simplest of goals to knock your opponent out before they do the same to you fighting games have steadily grown more complex since their arcade-era peak. The likes of Street Fighter V are rightly hailed for their depth, It s not a genre in which Nintendo has much expertise, but arms has a few antecedents. take 1984 s urban Champion, a rudimentary and, let s be honest, pretty awful fighting game where you had to punch your opponent down a manhole. But arms has more in common with the original Punch-Out, and particularly Next Level games remake, which asked players to thrust the nunchuk and Wiimote forward to produce left and right hooks. there s a similar physicality here. the default control scheme asks you to hold two Joy-Con in what Nintendo calls the thumbs-up position, both facing inwards as you launch punches with jabs, or twist your wrists to curve them towards your opponent. that s possible thanks to a wonderfully silly conceit whereby each of the ten combatants boasts a pair of stretchy upper limbs. It s a bit like adding aftertouch to a shot in FIFa, if, instead of curling it towards the corner, you aimed to smash the ball into the goalie s face. Spring time With stages offering plenty of room to manoeuvre, and each character able to dash, jump, and block, something as seemingly straightforward as landing a punch successfully is harder than you might think. at times, it almost feels like those moments in an online FPs where two players find themselves circling one another, leaping Disable an opponent s arm and it ll Dangle feebly by their side, reducing their movement speed but these games rarely do much to invite newcomers on board and, at the highest level, many are borderline impenetrable. At the very least, Arms acknowledges the need for a fighting game anyone can pick up quickly and have a good time with. That it s not quite like anything you ve played before is a delightful bonus. around and trying to get a bead on their evasive rival. since getting close to your opponent gives you less time to react, it s often best to leave a little distance, only closing the gap once they ve committed to an attack that you ve jumped or dodged or maybe to apply extra pressure when their health is low. It s not the kind of fighting game where you need to worry about convoluted inputs or extensive combo strings. Rather, it s built around a simple system of blocks, punches, and grabs. Blocks will negate most damage from punches, though they can be easily countered by grabs, which are executed by thrusting both arms forward simultaneously. these are highlighted by a glowing green mesh between the two fists, which can be broken with a single-arm punch. If that sounds a little too simple, the weapons you attach to your character s arms give the combat much greater How long until Chris drives his neighbours mad by singing along to the theme tune? too late it s already happened. 70 august

71 76 Dirt 4 78 Tokyo Friday The 13th Want realistic rallying, an array of customisable cars, and more? We ve got the Dirt. Come for the stealthy open-world shooting, stay for the bizarre humour, try not to get sent home in a box. thank goodness it s Friday? You ll be thanking your lucky stars if you make it through to saturday. august

72 Review The Final Verdict! Byte and Barq fight as a duo: Byte s canine ally will occasionally attack, and doubles as a platform to jump off. range. tribolt fists fire three horizontally-inclined missiles on strings: ideal for those with poor aim, but also useful for keeping opponents at a distance, and for dealing with players fond of lateral dashes. Likewise, the serpentine slapamanders, which writhe and undulate even before you launch them in a wide, snaking arc. Megatons are huge fists that look like spherical mines and prove every bit as deadly. You ll feel their weight in the sluggishness of their movement, but they certainly hit hard, and you ll find they double as handy shields, their sheer size keeping you protected from most frontal attacks. Others, meanwhile, are designed for controlling space. Dragon fists can be sent out wide of your opponent, but its laser can be guided inward to catch out sidesteppers. auto-targeting Homies will lock onto evasive players, while the rubbery Whammer (it s exactly as it sounds) is great against anyone who spends a lot of time airborne. You wouldn t describe any of these as conventional, but there are even more unorthodox options. there s something weirdly sinister about the guardian shield s slow advance: it s a pig to deal with, but equip it yourself and you ve essentially got a piece of moveable cover to hide behind. Or how about the Blorbs, which bounce forward and deposit goop over your opponent s display if they hit? Not all of the 30 fists are unique. some have a few variants, each with a different elemental buff that activates once they re charged by holding dash, jump, or block. Ice inevitably slows you down; electricity stuns. You know the drill. Beyond that, each fighter s unique ability gives you something extra to think about. the pompadour-sporting spring Man is your textbook all-rounder, his fists staying perma-charged when he s on low health, potentially letting him pull off classic Rocky-style comebacks. Fellow you ll have to remind yourself this is running on supposedly less capable hardware box star Ribbon girl has a quadruple jump, from which she can instantly descend if you hold dash. Master Mummy s bulk means he can soak up a few light punches before falling over, while guarding lets him slowly regenerate health. then there s the bizarre Helix, a sentient piece of goo with DNa strands for arms: instead of jumping and dashing, he can stretch up and squash down, allowing him to body-swerve or duck beneath blows. Bash street kids as with any good fighting game, you ll be convinced at various times that certain characters are severely over- or underpowered. and, as with any really good fighting game, it s usually because you either haven t found the value of their speciality or the most effective way to counter them. Kid Cobra, for example, is a fast mover, but it might be a while before you master the use of his quick-step, which is only activated while his fists are charged. twintelle s ability to slow incoming punches when she holds a mid-air dash can make her frustrating to hit, but she has to land sometime, and she s more vulnerable when she touches down. the only technique we regularly what S THE SToRy, brawling glory? Discover grand Prix mode T he top menu option is your archetypal single-player story mode, though it can also be tackled with a friend. Pick a fighter and you re ten matches away from a championship belt. Eight of these matches are standard one-on-one scraps including a face-off with a fearsome boss character with championship belts for arms with the other two chosen from the V-Ball, Hoops, and Skillshot asides. It s presented in a perfunctory way: between matches you ll get context-sensitive commentary from fist-headed host Biff, but that s about it. Still, on difficulty level 4 and above, the mode represents a stern test of your skill. 72 august

73 Dash in mid-air with Min-Min and she ll produce a spin-kick that can knock away incoming punches. Click in the left stick when selecting your character and push it left, right or down to use alternative costumes. Ruck STaR Nintendo reinvents lobbies in playful fashion Arms lobby system is so good, it s hard to imagine other fighting game developers not trying to emulate it in future. In the for fun Party Match mode you ll be put in a room with several other players, each represented by the icon of the character they ve picked. While you re waiting for your match, you can instantly jump into a warm-up mode which puts you in a ring against a series of gelatinous dummies holding destructible targets. In the meantime you can see a rudimentary representation of how other matches within your group are going, with a timer showing you how long is left before those taking part will be put back in the pool. Clever stuff. Here, you ll play all of the different game types, from standard one-on-one fights to four-player melées and two-on-two team battles, with volleyball and basketball asides thrown in for a change of pace, and a Skillshot mode that asks two teams to smash targets, their value increasing the more you strike with a single punch. If there s a particularly skilful player who s dominating a lobby, they ll be taken down a peg or two with a handicap system that gradually reduces their health bar once they ve won four matches in a row, evening things up a little and ensuring that newcomers can still have fun. If you re playing with friends, meanwhile, you can choose the game types that appear, set handicaps of your own, and pick a score target to aim at before a winner is declared. loves hates Motion controls aren t precise enough for serious competition. Getting ganged up on in a free-for-all is no fun at all. better than Punch-Out!! Another Nintendo fighting game that lets you choose between button and motion controls. But Arms is superior in every department. worse than ARMS It s artistically accomplished and technically immaculate. Party Match mode is unbelievably moreish. Mario Kart 8 Made by the same team, this exquisite arcade racer is marginally better than Arms, though the fighter has seven sequels to catch up. struggle with is the elusive Ninjara s mid-air teleport-dash. It s usually followed by an immediate grab, which can be hard to deal with consistently, since his warp takes him a little way wide of you. If your fist on that side isn t free to slap him down, there s not much you can do to avoid it especially since keeping your distance isn t always feasible. sometimes you ve no choice but to take the fight to your opponent. a rush gauge that lets you unleash a powerful flurry fills more quickly the more you punch, which naturally discourages constant turtling. Even so, you ll need to be careful when you use it, as it can be dodged or countered. One smart tactic is to target a single arm by hitting it repeatedly: once disabled, it ll dangle feebly by your rival s side, dramatically reducing their movement speed. unlike most other fighting games, the stages themselves have to be factored into your battle strategy. On twintelle s stage parked cars provide handy barriers, around which you can launch curling punches, and off whose bonnets you can bounce to gain a height advantage. Kid Cobra s skate park allows you to wheel around on giant spinning tops, which make you a moving target without having to dash everywhere. Ribbon girl s disco dancefloor has randomly rising rostra, while Master Mummy s home at the Mausoleum has a central section that cracks to reveal a trampoline. tonics will sporadically drop in, topping up your health or rush meters if you can stay within their radius a smart way of guiding players towards a single spot when they might otherwise be spread apart. and large round explosives can be punched towards rivals to stun them or set them ablaze. Barmy Arm-y all of which makes arms almost as much fun to watch as to play. there s already slapstick appeal in seeing these colourful characters being thumped in the kisser with oversized fists, but it s a gorgeous game full stop. the combatants are brilliantly realised and animated, their character models bursting with absurd detail, from the fine stitching on Kid Cobra s baggy skate pants to Min-Min s noodle fringe peeking out from beneath her woollen bobble hat. at times, you ll have to remind yourself this is running on supposedly less capable hardware. the surrounding structure is robust if not overly generous, though the lobby system (see Ruck star) is so ingenious it hardly matters that the training exercises are limp, and that unlocking each of the 30 arm variants for every character is more of a grind than a hook. In fact, arms biggest stumbling block might be the one thing it initially seems to get so right. Ranked matches are locked behind the surprisingly tough Level 4 difficulty of the game s de facto arcade mode and it was at this point we realised motion controls weren t quite going to cut it any more. sure, they re more flexible than the buttons-and-sticks alternative, letting you simultaneously curl two punches in different directions, or launch a straight jab while moving. But while you can attribute certain mistakes to user error, your intentions will be misread often enough to cause issues at the more competitive levels: the difference between inputs for blocking and backing off, for example, is negligible. still, if arms isn t quite the advert for motion controls its maker clearly believes, this esoteric, entertaining brawler gets almost everything else right. It s a tremendous entry-level fighter that possesses enough depth to appeal to competitive players; a game that packs a punch in every sense. n Dlc Nintendo has already promised extensive post-launch support in the form of free downloadable updates. These will add new arm types, stages, and fighters. JuDgement 88% as far from a traditional one-on-one fighter as can be and all the better for it. thumpingly good fun. Chris Schilling august

74 Review The Final Verdict! These guys aren t the most, er, diplomatic diplomats, but make a good ally if you can keep up with them. Format PC Publisher Sega Developer Amplitude Studios ETA Out now Players 1-8 endless space 2 Discover what happens when politicians get spaced out he galaxy is a big T place. Like, really big. Even so, several species find themselves rubbing up against one another and have to find a way to, y know, get along. Or leave each other in a smoking ruin after antimatterfuelled space battles before the victor takes over planetary colonies and enslaves their populations. One of those outcomes, anyway. Endless space 2 (the previous game in the series having, apparently, ended) is a 4X game the sort of strategy title in which you re invited to explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate, and therefore should really be called 4E. But we don t decide these things. It s turn-based as well, though it does well to work within this limiting framework there s no enforced downtime while the CPu is churning through ai players moves or other humans are scratching their heads; you can zoom around the map and get things ready for your next turn. the most famous 4X game is Civilization, and Endless space 2 pushes hard against the borders established by that series, bursting through in places like an over-aggressive alien war fleet into huge undiscovered spaces. and those spaces are packed with whole libraries of detail. these titles can feel like the epitome of nerdery, especially to new players, and it s down to its excellent presentation that Es2 maintains an approachable face. Windows for wormholes Faintly reminiscent of Windows 8 in the way big notification panels fill the screen (this can be turned on and off) with a simple close button to dismiss them, the interface makes the game feel more immediate. add to this the (skippable) cutscenes when you colonise a new world and the (optional) 3D space battles, An Afternoon spent tweaking ship designs to perfection doesn t feel wasted and what could have been a distant abstraction becomes much more solid. Months spent in steam Early access have paid off, and Es2 is largely a polished experience that looks great even on a last-generation graphics card. the soundtrack is fitting too. the objective here, as in real life, is domination of the galaxy. to achieve this you ll need to expand your empire, sending out settlers (the precise details depending on your chosen faction) to colonise appropriate nearby planets. as the turns tick by, you ll encounter (possibly crush) other species, discover useful rare materials, make scientific discoveries, earn some Dust (the money-like substance left over from an awol super-civilisation, the Endless) and maybe, if you re really good, you ll be able to pull this together into a coherent plan for your empire. It s all too easy to forget that we re meant to be getting three systems to technology level two in order to advance when there s a belligerent cyborg race breathing down our necks and demanding money with menaces from one direction, and a race of chirpy, tech-rich cockneys in the other, worrying about our warships passing through their territory and making vague threats to put All ChAnge the mod squad could leave Es2 unrecognisable F ully moddable and with Steam Workshop support, there s a growing collection of add-ons for ES2 available. For now they re palette mods, tweaks to weapon stats and early unlocks to bring a sandbox mode to the game, but we ve seen in the past how these things can spiral. Expect new quest strings, empires, and even settings. Those for the first game included conversions to the Mass Effect and Babylon 5 universes, along with new stories and overhauls of the diplomacy system. Skyrim and XCOM2 showed the flexibility and potential of the Steam Workshop to alter games, so we re excited to see what modders have in store for ES2. 74 august

75 EndlEss space 2 Up In the top left are buttons to control every aspect of your empire, from the economy, to science and management of hero characters. Space lanes are, at first, the only way of moving between systems. No space lane, no way through but science has an answer. With a space fleet selected, these are your options. You can guard the system, carry out an action, or just wait. Our mighty fleet consists of just one custom ship, the Interruptor, armed with exotic torpedoes we found abandoned on a barren world. loves Each empire is distinct and creatively designed. The game s interface is impressively slick. Your afternoons will just melt away as your empire expands. hates Occasional typos mar the otherwise excellent text. Better than Sins Of A Solar Empire Or any sci-fi 4X game really. The extra polish and streamlining ES2 has received make it stand out among some shiny company. worse than Who s the leader of the united Empire a dead ringer for? Jeremy Corbyn. We re trying to work out if it s deliberate. Planets come in different forms, making them more or less open to colonisation. You ll need specific tech to live on many. a stop to it they just might be able to back up. From the bottom-left of the map, a society entirely made from the clones of a narcissistic madman wants us to give it free stuff, while some easily pleased sentient trees we re chums with keep sending vague messages love notes really about galactic harmony. all that s a lot to take in. In many ways, we re thankful Es2 is turn-based, despite the occasional blip in which the End turn button needs a second click (we also had problems with fleets of ships refusing to take the space lane we were frantically clicking on, but otherwise bugs were rare). a game of this scope and depth just wouldn t be playable in real-time. as it is, an afternoon spent tweaking ship designs to perfection before individually going round every colony in your empire ensuring it s operating at peak efficiency, then worrying about the balance of the political factions within your empire, doesn t feel wasted. the effect a single powerful class of spaceship can have we fended off a warmongering neighbour for many turns just because we happened upon some potent torpedoes while checking out a planetary anomaly means military expansion shouldn t be ignored even if you re ultimately aiming to create a peaceful civilisation. and the way weapons and colonies can be fashioned from scientific breakthroughs means even the most militaristic society will need some scientists and engineers if it s to survive and thrive. Combat, when it comes, sees you choose a battle plan for your fleets and watch things unfold. You can assign a hero character to a fleet (and to solar systems too, where they act as planetary managers) who will bring bonuses, at the risk of his or her ship being destroyed in the action. Battles are either resolved with a click, or you can watch them play out in 3D something you ll probably only do once. Nice as they are, the inability to affect the torpedoes or energy bursts means they re a purely passive experience. Warp speed ahead and being passive isn t what Es2 is all about. there s no point sitting in your corner researching technology endlessly, as a militaristic neighbour is going to roll over you and enslave your entire Space battles look great, like Homeworld, but are an ultimately empty experience. population. the only way to succeed is to expand, to take your culture out into the stars and see how it fares against others. this is a game that encourages you, right from the beginning, to fire probes out into uncharted territories just to see what you can find, to bet all your output on the scientific breakthrough that will enable your ships to travel that little bit more easily through the void. the randomly generated galaxy means no two maps will be the same, and the differences between civilisations, both in terms of their nature and the rules they play by, ensures that there s an enormous range of play styles on offer. French developer amplitude has delivered the goods with Endless space 2. It makes what could be a cold, remote sort of game approachable, filling it with character and flavour. some may complain that not enough here has changed from the first Endless space (or its fantasy-themed spin-off Endless Legend), but what we re seeing is a streamlining of what s gone before, the collapse of a diffuse nebula into a protoplanetary disc, rather than the white heat of explosive game formation and Es2 is all the better for that. n Civilization VI It s a close run thing, but the tighter focus and better handling of heroes in Civ make it less likely to bog you down in detail. We declare it 4X overlord. i need to know Side-quests appear, and you ll need to make a choice: arrest the spies or recruit them? Investigate the mysterious ship or let it pass? The decisions are almost always a grey area, bound to annoy someone. Judgement 81% Huge space strategy housed within a gleaming shell. It ll keep you boldly going for months. Ian Evenden august

76 Review The Final Verdict! loves Damage carries over between stages, adding to the challenge. Long rallies are intense, nerve-racking, tests of skill. hates The team management aspect is too menu-heavy. A general absence of personality makes for a dry experience. Better than Tarmac is the most forgiving of the game s diverse collection of driving surfaces, and the least filthy. The Crew Ubisoft s ambitious open-world racer has some neat ideas, but the driving just doesn t hold up, particularly when you take your car off-road. Worse than Why is that Welsh man always shouting at me as I drive? that s your co-driver telling you the severity of upcoming corners. DiRt 4 the grubby off-road racer goes back to basics Format PS4, XO, PC (reviewed) Publisher Codemasters Developer Codemasters ETA Out now Players 1-8 alfway through a H four-mile rally, a tyre pops. As we careen down a tight, narrow path in a Welsh forest, we hear the rubber clinging on for dear life. Then it disintegrates, leaving a sparking metal wheel in its place. This should be the end, but no. We keep driving, undeterred. The car lurches from side to side, thrown off by the missing tyre. An already difficult stage just got ten times more challenging, not helped by the pounding rain obscuring the track ahead. But we survive and limp over the finish line, coming in a respectable third. this is Dirt 4 at its best. Every rally is a nerve-racking test of patience and endurance, especially when something inevitably breaks on your car. It could be the headlights blinking out during a night stage after one too many bumps, leaving you to rely on your co-driver s pace notes. and when the next service stop is two stages away, you really start to feel the pressure. Damage is consistent between stages, so every crash is potentially ruinous. the fourth Dirt is a return to the serious, understated tone of the Colin McRae Rally series. this makes it a lot less annoying there are no bros shouting at you about how radical you are, dude but it does feel a little dry as a result. We love the increased focus on the purity of driving, but the basic menus and lifeless atmosphere make for a slightly empty-feeling game compared to the colourful sparkle of something like Forza Horizon 3. Control freak at the beginning you re given a choice between two control styles: gamer and simulation. But however tempting gamer sounds, avoid it. It makes the game laughably easy, adding so much traction control that the game might as well be driving for you. simulation is where it s at, making your car feel as weighty and unruly as we imagine a real rally car It shines When you re BomBIng along a muddy track and flying By the seat of your pants would. You really have to wrestle with the thing to keep it on the track, which is how it should feel. and whether it s the dangerous, snowy roads of sweden or australia s winding, dusty trails, every surface throws a unique challenge at you. But simulation mode isn t as gruelling or unforgiving as Codies superb hardcore spin-off Dirt Rally. If you want a hardcore simulation experience, play that, because Dirt 4 is fundamentally a game designed to be accessible. It also introduces team management elements, which feel an awful lot like Metal gear solid V s Mother Base. Money earned in races can be spent on staff and facilities to allow for better upgrades and more lucrative sponsors. the higher the level of your chief engineer, the less repairs between stages will cost, and the less time they ll take. the dreary interface makes this a fairly uninspiring distraction, though. We do like how the sponsors whose logos you plaster your car with will have specific demands, like finishing a race without crashing, that you need to meet to get a bonus. But mostly team management is a load of dull stats. Dirt 4 shines when you re bombing along a muddy track and flying by the seat of your pants. the thrill of making it through a rally alive especially when your car only has three wheels is the reason to play it. n Forza Horizon 3 This bright, colourful racer absolutely fizzes with personality. The off-road handling isn t as nuanced as Dirt, but it s ultimately a lot more fun. i need to know Dirt 4 sees the return of Colin McRae Rally regular Nicky Grist as co-driver. Grist is a legend of the sport, having won 21 rallies, and has a lovely Welsh accent. Which you ll hear a lot of as you roar around. Judgement 75% an accessible off-road racer, but a lack of personality and dull management features let it down. Andy Kelly 76 august

77 ever oasis Enemies come in all shapes and sizes, but some of your craftier foes will use the environment to their advantage. loves A great blend of town management and action. Quick loading times make fast travel an absolute breeze. hates Having to warp home to change party members is a bore. You can t change your gear on the fly when you find new stuff. Better than Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King Ever Oasis gives you the freedom to explore the world at large. This didn t. Worse than What won t you find in an Ever Oasis shop? Cigarettes and alcohol. Or a copy of gamesmaster EvEr Oasis an action-rpg with true grit Format 3DS Publisher Nintendo Developer Grezzo ETA Out now Players 1 fter years of A working on Nintendo s 3DS Zelda remakes, developer Grezzo has struck out on its own and made another Zelda game. Or at least half of one, as Ever Oasis mixes Link s eternal obsession with hacking up monsters and trawling through dungeons with a light town-management sim, capturing that inevitable moment in life when you ve got to pull up a chair and swap Water Temple for water cooler. After all, your growing population is all that stands between you and evil forces. Okay, maybe that s overselling the admin. grezzo s made sure the town-building aspect is as streamlined as possible, leaving plenty of time for venturing beyond the oasis gates. think animal Crossing rather than Civilization. the first hour gets bogged down in setting up the backstory and explaining mechanics, such as keeping stock levels topped up in your shops and collecting profits to pump back into expansion and item crafting, but it s not long before chores can be delegated to NPCs, freeing you to deck sand squirrels and save the world. Power to the people Rather than follow in Link s solitary footsteps, Ever Oasis makes everyone a hero. the abilities of your fellow townspeople, not hookshots, will carry you through its vast network of caves and dungeons, allowing even the meekest of juice merchants to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with hammerwielding bipedal scorpions. It s a refreshing change from the squad of angsty teenagers who normally populate RPg rosters, and it feeds back into the town-building mechanic. Build more shops and attract more visitors, and you ll have a wider range of villagers to draw on. some residents, for instance, can use spears to pull down levers or roll into balls to get through tight spaces, while others can mine for extra resources or even manipulate plants to reach high the abilities of your townspeople, not hookshots, Will carry you through ledges, making them valuable additions to either your own party of three or additional exploration parties later on. Puzzles frequently require a combination of abilities, resulting in some satisfying head-scratchers that would make aonuma proud. In these moments, Ever Oasis is a worthy successor to Zelda s handheld legacy. While its handsomely designed foes won t trouble seasoned Monster Hunters, its lively hack-and-slash combat feels more energetic than Link s broad sword-flailing, and swapping between characters at will using the D-pad reminds us of those brilliant moments in tri Force Heroes when your team works together like a well-oiled machine. this makes it all the more frustrating, then, when you encounter a puzzle you can t solve with your current trio and have to warp back to town to swap party members. It s a reasonably painless process thanks to the myriad of fast travel options, but it nevertheless stalls the game s momentum. It s a clumsy misstep from such a capable team. In these cases, Ever Oasis might have benefitted from paying closer attention to its lauded inspiration, but it s still a charming adventure that brings a new, fresh take on Zelda-style adventuring. With the 3Ds lineup looking increasingly barren, this will slake your thirst. n Little King s Story Battles are fun, but they lack the strategic nuance of Cing s RTS masterpiece. It s also severely lacking in cows named Pancho. i need to know Ever Oasis has plenty of fast travel options, but the Aqua Gate is the most useful. This creates a link between your town and your current location, allowing for quick party swaps. Most welcome! Judgement 86% Party and inventory management are fussy, but this action RPg is a real treat for parched 3Ds owners. Katharine Byrne august

78 review The Final Verdict! Even the menus are gorgeous, showing pixel-y places you can fast-travel to as long as you re not being hunted. Format XO, PC Publisher Mode 7 Developer SMAC Games ETA Out now Players 1 tokyo 42 Death, the universe, and everything With an exquisite visual style that is impossible to ignore, some games can capture our hearts and minds in a second. What makes us stay besotted, though, is the presence of something more under the surface. Beauty may be only skin deep, but in SMAC Games case, the arresting visuals are hiding something far more exciting: an interesting, challenging puzzle-shooter (yep, that s a thing!) that has character and soul in spades, but is also unique and challenging. As game lovers, this is exactly what we come for, and really the only question is whether it can sustain itself over a full eight- to 10-hour game. and the answer to that question is rather complicated. Before we get too carried away, we must establish what on Earth is going on beyond that attractive appearance. You are in tokyo (surprise) in the future, and have been framed for a crime you didn t commit. In this colourfully dystopian version of the Japanese capital, people are more like replicants, totally reliant on their pills and technology, and because of this, violence is everywhere, bubbling under the underbelly of the clean, almost Mirror s Edge-like future-world. Turning Japanese after a brief but helpful tutorial, the story becomes clearer: you might have been innocent to begin with, but now you re talking to a fixer who is setting you up as a contract killer. You will jump around with an arsenal of weapons, killing your targets without thinking about why. It s also here that the big bad corporation is revealed, offering the aforementioned pills up that basically stop people dying. to clear your name you must get down You need to approach tokyo 42 more like a puzzler than a shooter at times and dirty with the crime lords and the big business moguls. the game s rarely heavy on narrative but it s clearly not a nice future to live in. With a zoomed-out isometric view, tokyo 42 plays host to a colourful, clean world. taking cues from Fez, you can hit a bumper to spin the world at intervals, which enables you to see more of what s going on, and crucially, helps you aim your shots. Whether you re firing a pistol, a sniper rifle, or just chucking a grenade right up the baddies, you ll need to approach tokyo 42 more like a puzzle game than a shooter at times: it s reminiscent of slow-mo standout superhot in that respect. the bustling city is full of people, and for some reason you can hit a button and change character. By that, we don t mean you can become someone who is walking by; you ll stay in the same place, but your face will change. as long as the enemy can t see you doing it, it s a fine way to blend in, and comes in dead handy when you ve alerted a base full of angry mobsters, but it uses up energy so you have to be a bit cautious about how and when you use it. You ll be scouting out bases using that manually rotating camera, but here Motorcycle emptiness under neon loneliness, everlasting nothingness ots of your time in Tokyo 42 will be spent bouncing around L rooftops and using the quick travel to jump from location to location, but there are vehicles you can zoom around in. While you re on a motorbike, you can t shoot, which led to one of the most frustrating side missions we encountered: to take out enemies without getting off the bike. After killing the group of enemies for the umpteenth time, we realised there were more to kill. All you can do is avoid their gunfire and try to run them over. Frustrating. 78 august

79 Tokyo 42 There s a clever depth to the visuals of Tokyo 42 though sometimes the screen gets too busy. Most of the story is told via mobile phone conversations, but there are some meetups. Hiding in plain sight sometimes the suit does not make the man One of the ways you can vary your mission tactics is by buying and equipping suits that mirror those of your enemy. As you ll be making cash hand over fist, there s no reason not to grab them all as soon as you can, from one of the shops in the neon jungle of future Tokyo. If you re approaching a mission that might be against a faction that you can buy a suit for, you can go to the entrance of the area and pop the outfit on. We had to take out a massive base full of punks, so we decided to buy the suit, and put it on. this isn t automatically easy mode, however; you can only wear a suit for as long as your energy bar stays charged. given that it drops rapidly, we used our punk suit to get us past the guards at the entrance, stripped back to normal, then ran around the base silently killing punks with our katana. It requires timing and patience, because if you run out of power mid-infiltration, you re going to be standing there in your civilian clothing, with an army of angry gun-toting criminals looking at you. You ll stop smiling when you ve reloaded for the fifth time. While you won t always do this, tokyo 42 offers a decent amount of variety in its missions because of the sandbox nature. While, yes, most of the main missions end up being infiltration jobs so you take out a group leader, the fact you can approach them in your own way ensures you re never bored, even if most missions can be brute-forced with enough bullets. loves We never tire of the gorgeous visual style. The stealth gameplay is, at its best, very satisfying. hates The difficulty balance never feels right. Or especially balanced. Sometimes moving the camera interferes with your flow. Better than Lumo This retro-feeling isometric puzzler tickles our nostalgia bone, but Tokyo 42 wins out thanks to its style and interesting gameplay. Worse than Hotline Miami While not strictly in the same genre, Hotline Miami is the poster child for the psychological, arty shooter and it s a hard one to beat. What is the meaning of life, the universe, and everything? Find out in our full review next issue success is partially down to trial-and-error. some enemies you can almost stand behind, right up close, and they won t notice you at all, while snipers will spot you and kill you with a single shot. Melee and stealth are the best strategies, but shooting is also a core fundamental, even if it can be difficult to aim at your targets sometimes. the trouble is one of distance: you might be able to see an enemy your victim quite easily, on the top of the skyscraper two buildings over, but aiming and hitting them are different matters entirely. You can t be messy about this, and you will have to watch their path and fire at the right time to make sure the shot counts. Of course, other missions and areas vary the tactics, and you can go in with your machine gun blazing if you so choose. that s rarely the most satisfying route to take, mind you; get too trigger-happy and you might not achieve the optional part of the mission kill silently, that kind of thing. there are timed missions, too, and trying to aim for a moving target while manipulating the camera can cause hair-tearing frustration. It s all very satisfying until it becomes frustrating, and it gives up its bag of tricks a bit quickly. Much of tokyo 42 feels familiar after a few hours, and you ll settle into a routine, understanding what needs to be done, with each kill merely becoming an exercise in your ability to complete it proficiently. this isn t a fast-paced game, with movement having a floaty feel. an elongated jump can t quite take you from building to building every time, but it s slow enough to allow you time to think if you re trying to move around using that method. It won t hurt if you fall from a great height, and the checkpointing is (mostly) friendly, and it s fast enough to load you back in should you expire. Enemies will take one bullet to kill, but so will you. It s more a case of dodging gunfire and making your aim count. there are boss encounters, but they re not particularly brilliant, and can resort to becoming wars of attrition. there s always skill involved, but there s also the potential to take a stray bullet you didn t see against the colourful backdrop, which again, causes frustration. Hitman and miss that actually leads neatly onto the subject of difficulty, because it s rather all over the place. Often your actions determine the level of challenge, because if you choose to stealthily take out everyone on the way in to kill a target, you re going to have an easier route back out. that said, sometimes assassination targets are up high, and when you ve killed them you can just jump off the top of the skyscraper, allowing the floaty jump to glide you all the way to safety outside the restricted area. If you favour the melee weapons, you may well find the fiddly combat off-putting, because sometimes you ll feel as though you re so close to your foe you can smell what they had for breakfast, yet you ll somehow miss and they ll turn around and see you, and even if they don t have a gun, the 20 guards who are now on their way to you certainly do. the story may be nothing we haven t seen a million times before, but tokyo 42 offers up a game that s better than the some of its parts. the combat can be ropey, but also very satisfying. It s easy until it s bloody hard. You ll enjoy yourself; yet you ll also be frustrated. But when you ve just had a two-hour session and stopped playing, you ll realise it s got under your skin. It s not the best game you ll play all year, but it s certainly completely unique, and for that alone it s well worth a go. n i need to know There s a competitive multiplayer mode that is pretty interesting in the same way Assassin s Creed s was, but unfortunately, even post-release there is barely anyone playing it on PC. Judgement 75% a beautiful yet flawed game that draws you in with its stylish looks and feels like nothing else. Adam Cook august

80 Review The Final Verdict! Jason s victims can only escape with teamwork. You can t get a car running unless you work together. loves A great online horror game that nails co-operative terror. Excellent attention to detail in recreating the films feel. So much fun to play with friends. hates Can be glitchy and temperamental in places. Better than Evolve The co-op monster killing has a similar asymmetrical hunter and hunted balance but never quite nails the fun like Jason can. Worse than accidental Jason theme tune sung most frequently through the headset while hunting? tiptoe through the tulips Format PS4, XO, PC Publisher Gun Media Developer Gun Media, IllFonic ETA Out now Players 8 FRiday The 13Th How to break friends and eviscerate people he problem with T chasing screaming friends with an axe is all the blood, the police getting involved, and no one wanting to play once they understand the rules. Which is why it s good Friday The 13th lets you recreate the effect within the safety of a videogame. As the name suggests, this is based on the film series and is both a tribute to Jason Voorhees machete-waving attempts at socialising, and a cleverly crafted game that weaves stealthy scares from its slasher movie tropes. the rules are simple: there are seven teen counsellors at a summer camp, all trying to escape Jason. It s basically one big murderous game of hide and seek. For the teens it s about scouring cabins for tools, either to escape Jason, or to escape, full stop. the options for the latter are limited and mostly involve team work. there are cars if you can find gas, a battery, and the keys, or a boat, which needs fuel and a propeller, plus you can call the police, who appear at an exit and let survivors flee the scene. For the most part, whatever the plan, you need to find each other and work together. It creates beautifully frantic, whispered attempts to co-ordinate and escape. Voicechat is used brilliantly here; you can hear anyone if they re close enough, counsellors and Jason alike. One minute you re crouched in a corner, discussing where to hide or who has the car keys in hushed tones, the next you re listening to whoever s playing Voorhees singing found youuu! as they smash all the windows in with a boat hook. Like the films, this creates comedy horror gold. Cabin fever None of this would work if it weren t fantastically balanced. Counsellors can climb through cabin windows, while Jason can only use easily barricaded doors. Jason can t run but he never tires, while counsellor stamina is gone in an instant, creating slow, inevitable chases. Voorhees can t die (except under very Just seeing Jason is enough to induce terror a good Jason stalks and hunts he teases specific and tricky conditions) but can be stunned and distracted. Mechanically, it s well crafted to recreate 80s horror, and nowhere more so than with Jason s powers: he can warp anywhere on the map to confuse and surprise, a sense mode highlights buildings with people in, and using shift he briefly becomes invisible and can move short distances with a whooshy camera zoom. But by far his best power is fear itself. Just seeing Jason is enough to induce terror in his victims. Finding bodies or seeing people killed raises it further, and as it peaks you lose key abilities. a terrified counsellor s HuD disappears, characters start to cry out and make more noise, drawing attention to themselves. When utterly terrified they appear red on screen, easy pickings for any passing hockey-masked slasher. a good Jason doesn t just hack away, he stalks and hunts he teases. the game is a little clunky in places, with glitches and a shaky lobby, but that barely detracts from the fun of a perfectly recreated, playable slasher flick. the only drawback is that you need seven friends to enjoy this. It works with randoms, but the real joy is playing with people you know: all those howling recriminations, the taunts, cheering the kills. Who knew murdering your friends could bring you closer together? n Resident Evil 7 The best horror game of the year so far, and possibly one of the greatest of all time. If you enjoy scary games, you need to tick this one off. i need to know While the counsellors unlock perks that can help them survive, Jason unlocks new kills, from eye gouging to head rips, as he progresses. There s also a ton of environmental murders to unlock. Judgement 76% a great co-op game that s essential fun with a gang of friends, despite having a few rough edges. Leon Hurley 80 august

81 perception The game s distinctive aesthetic transforms ordinary surroundings into a suitably surreal landscape. loves The idea of seeing through sound is well implemented. Sound design is minimalist, and helps with the scares. hates Cassie is far too blasé about well, everything that happens. You re forced to stumble in the dark far too often. Better than The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct The most horrifying thing about this is the graphics. Though the structure comes a close second. Awful. Worse than What was the lamest joke Luke managed to resist shoehorning into the review? something about housewarming presence. PercePtion the devil and the deep blue see Format PS4 (reviewed), XO, PC Publisher Feardemic Developer The Deep End Games ETA Out now Players 1 t s a fascinating I concept. You play Cassie, a blind woman navigating an abandoned house purely by sound. As she investigates her surroundings, however, she is stalked by a malignant apparition identified only as The Presence. Brilliant setup less than brilliant execution. the visualisation of your surroundings is very clever and very silly at the same time. Cassie gets around by echolocation, which does have some basis in reality. By tapping her cane (which you do with a button press), she generates a temporary awareness of her immediate surroundings through the sound waves bouncing off nearby objects. For you, this means an eyebrow-raising level of detail highlighted in blue. Combined with the Delphi app on Cassie s phone which instantly converts text on any documents she finds (documents in a pitch-black house) to speech we have a Knight-Rider-style blurring of the borders between science and magic. still, videogames are all about suspension of disbelief, which is just as well because there s also a sixth sense at play, which basically translates to having the next doorway or object you need to reach highlighted in white, no matter how far away you are, by holding down the appropriate button. Without this, you would often stumble around the house illuminated only piecemeal, of course with no idea of where to go. It s tempting to wander around tapping Cassie s cane on the floor constantly, hammering the button as though you re playing a game of Hungry Hungry Hippos. too much noise, however, will summon the Presence. Despite the Daredevil-esque spatial awareness, Cassie is no fighter. If your nemesis makes an appearance, all you can do is hide until it gets bored and goes away. Echo and the bogeymen the general idea of navigating by sound is bursting with potential, especially for a We have a Knight-RideR-style BluRRing of the BoRdeRs BetWeen science and magic horror game. there are signs that this will be realised. something playing music will illuminate a small area around it; Cassie s footsteps will, for a split second, show a tiny amount of the floor around you; step outside into a roaring wind, and your surroundings will be shown in clarity with no need for the cane. there are lots of little touches like this. given the impressive pedigree of new developer the Deep End games (with members who have previously worked on the likes of Bioshock and Dead space), the mistakes here are both surprising and disappointing. there are none of the sound-based puzzles you might expect. No puzzles at all, in fact, merely locations to reach and objects to interact with. Dialogue is mediocre at best, and the script as a whole fails to sufficiently explain exactly what s happening or why. a detailed backstory has clearly been written, but at least half of it is missing from the final game. You are, both figuratively and literally, in the dark. With very little emotional connection to the house and its former inhabitants, the horror is fatally diluted. there s a handful of cheap but effective jump scares, but the dominant feeling will be of frustration as you attempt to balance avoiding attracting the Presence with being able to see where the heck you are. It s clear to see this is one to avoid. n Outlast Red Barrels debut also involves wandering in the dark with no combat, but it s more scary and much more fun. (It s also superior to its own sequel.) i need to KnoW If you want to get as much of the story as possible, interact with every object you can. The more memories you trigger, the more you learn about previous occupants of the house. Judgement 45% We applaud the idea, but despair at the delivery. Not enough bump in the night, too much bump into stuff. Luke Kemp august

82 Review The Final Verdict! now playing this month s biggest time sinks on team gm 1 Warhammer: end Times VerminTide Ps4 If you ve ever wondered what it would be like to be eaten alive by a swarm of rats, just hop onto my Vermintide team robin Valentine, editor 2 injustice Ps4 2 NetherRealm once again showing other devs how a modern fighting game should be. Brilliantly accessible and absolutely packed with content even the loot system is great. robin Valentine, editor 3 mario KarT 8 deluxe switch I watched four colleagues team up and play this on a flight recently. I forgot my Switch (doh!) so I couldn t join in, but still Mario Kart in the air! ben Griffin, senior staff Writer 4 reigns mobile A swipe-based RPG to play in short, kingdom-devastating bursts. So far I ve met the devil, burned my own crops, and mishandled the treasury. ben Griffin, senior staff Writer Office LunchTime Game Of The month: arms switch Robin s been battering all the other mag teams in the office with his spring-loaded punches. Well, got to keep them in line, haven t you? equels that are S shorter and easier than the originals are rare, and that s not the only surprise Monument Valley 2 holds following its out-of-nowhere release. Its benign challenge perhaps speaks to the familiarity of its environmental puzzles: we know how these monuments work and as such we re able to rattle through them. Strictly speaking, there s more game here 14 chapters to the original s 10 but we seem to reach the end sooner: maybe in part because new protagonist Ro s walking speed seems a shade quicker than her predecessor s. then again, Monument Valley was never much of a head-scratcher; its appeal lay in marvelling at the intricacy of its Escher-like constructions. the ones here might be even better: stages are more dynamic, and there are a few real eye-openers in store. When you re accustomed to stone plinths gliding elegantly into place, you ll gasp when you trigger a mechanism that unexpectedly causes a chunk of the level to break and tumble away. the presence of a child might partly explain the architectural disorder (a notion any parent will surely endorse). While the story took something of a back seat in the first game, it s more of a driving force here. It side-steps the recent trend for tear-wringing sentiment, striking a more uplifting note. this journey is linked to the passage of time and a coming of age, with departures and reunions, and the occasional embrace: the bond between Ro and her offspring is relatable even if the worlds they explore rarely resemble our own. sound design, as before, plays a huge part in establishing mood, with resonant echoes as you turn wheels and chunks of finely-hewn stone shift into place. You ll encounter doorways that take you deeper inside a structural matryoshka, and perspective trickery that makes 3D constructions appear two-dimensional, while Chapter 12 s blooming flora elevates the level design to an even higher stratum of ingenuity. If Monument Valley 2 leaves you wanting more, it s not because it s short-changed you, but rather that the journey has been so consistently enchanting. n Chris Schilling 86 You ll probably be relieved to hear those pesky crows are conspicuous by their absence this time. Format Mobile Publisher Ustwo Games Developer Ustwo Games ETA Out now Players 1 MonUMEnT VallEy 2 geometry awe: sudden sequel is a miniature marvel Light plays a vital role in one of the game s standout chapters. 82 august

83 review roundup HoT downloads the latest DLC and expansions explored You can t all be Captain but for our money, Helm is the best job anyway. Format PS4 (reviewed), PC Pub Ubisoft Dev Red Storm ETA Out now Players 1-4 star TREk BRidgE CREw set phasers to fun his is the definition of T fan service; a lavish game created to serve a hugely niche yet feverishly passionate audience. While Bridge Crew can technically be played solo, or with a reduced party of players each assuming multiple roles on the USS Aegis, it s at its best when four friends are going boldly together. That s four dedicated Trek fans. With expensive VR set-ups. And a will to play together Format PS4, PC (reviewed) Pub Thunder Lotus Dev Thunder Lotus ETA Out now Players 1 sundered Doesn t break with tradition oining the legion of J Metroidvania-alikes currently flooding the indie scene is mega-successful Kickstarter project Sundered. Hand-drawn visuals backed by haunting, melodic tones bring this world wonderfully to life. Alas, there s not much time to soak in the spectacular atmosphere and visuals, as hordes of enemies lie in wait in the lavish labyrinth of this semiprocedurally generated platformer. and take this game as seriously as it deserves. A tight, deep niche. Played this way Bridge Crew is easily one of the best experiences you can have in VR. all the star trek trappings are superbly recreated. this is one of the most faithful and detailed game worlds ever made it simply had to be impeccable to stand up to the scrutiny of players actually being inside the vessel. Bridge Crew shines when players role-play seriously. When each crew Thrilling boss battles yield shard fragments that allow you to embrace the dark side, giving your powers some extra oomph. Dying is all part of the experience, however; the game takes cues from other roguelikes and incorporates your demise into character progression. Enemies and the environment yield yellow shards that you can use to increase necessities like health and shields, improving your chances of survival. granted, these odds are never particularly high thanks to the waves of enemies that wash over the screen at timed intervals. Combat itself is a fairly basic affair that requires considered timing of your member is owning their particular class (Captain, Engineering, tactical, and Helm), creating a slick team, this is the perfect simulation. Missions give each role a chance to shine, although there s some repetition, and the difficulty curve gently introduces more challenging scenarios, so you never feel overwhelmed. there s even an option to randomly generate stages, so there s lots of replay value for a dedicated crew. sadly, the original Enterprise stages are too tough, and little fun for all but the hardest core of trekkies, and the general customisation options are too thin. solo and two-person play feels a little joyless, as you miss out on the camaraderie of playing with friends. so, if you can, get four friends, four headsets, and enjoy this the way it s meant to be played. n Andy Hartup 81 attacks and rolls. the enemies aren t particularly troublesome once you ve become accustomed to their attack patterns, but their sheer volume makes for some fast, frantic battles that ll put your thumbs through their paces. sundered perfectly balances difficulty with progression. areas are expansive, yet samey, with new abilities and added vigour required to advance. Extra melee combat abilities and more varied enemy types would have been welcome, as repetition dulls the excitement after a while. It s beautiful and challenging, but the lack of diversity ultimately makes it a game of recycled mechanics that have been done to 70 much more entertaining effect elsewhere. n Anne-Marie Coyle Punishing roguelike Darkest Dungeon just got even bloodier. Expansion The Crimson Court adds to almost every area of the game, with new dungeons, enemies, bosses, events, items, and more. In your battle against a horde of monstrous vampires, you ll also be able to add a new hero class to your parties a self-flagellating religious fanatic who harms his own body and mind to deliver powerful attacks and heals. If that s not enough horror for you, this month sees the release of Secrets Of The Maw, the first chapter of a three-part DLC story for Little Nightmares. As new hero The Runaway Kid you ll explore a new flooded basement (Hull? Bilge? You can tell we re landlubbers) area, The Depths, while avoiding the grip of an insidious underwater threat. We re already getting flashbacks to the water area from Amnesia: The Dark Descent Prefer drier, less terrifying exploration? The Elder Scrolls Online s first expansion may be more your speed. Morrowind takes players back to the titular setting (last seen in a game 15 years ago, or 700 years in the future in the game) for some seriously nostalgic adventures, including a quest to stop a meteor destroying Vivec City. Pick it up, and you ll also be able to play as the new Warden class, a druidic nature wizard who fights alongside their very own pet bear. That s right, you get a pet bear. Presumably all of the Warden s attacks just involve making their enemies die of sheer jealousy. Injustice 2, meanwhile, is more concerned with the right to bear arms. New fighter Red Hood has joined the roster, bringing with him a brace of automatic pistols, useful both for shooting opponents and smashing them in the face. He can even charge his shooters with electricity, for extra-efficient mug-battering. DC fans will recognise this as the Jason Todd incarnation of the character, a former Robin who was murdered by the Joker, but brought back to life by the power of the Lazarus Pit as a murderous vigilante. Comic books, eh? He s the first of nine DLC characters to come, with alien princess Starfire and Mortal Kombat s own ice ninja Subzero next on the list. august

84

85

86 LEgEnd of gaming LEgEnd of gaming LEgEnd of gaming LEgEnd of gaming LEgEnd of gaming RetroMaster We Old Games! Boxing matches could easily descend into mad flailing, but it was always fun. We can see their legacy in Arms. Wii SpoRtS Wii can work it out #55 Legend of Gaming hink of a sports T game. Picture it, sitting on a shop shelf. What do you see? Perhaps you see the familiar face of some superstar athlete staring back at you, accompanied by an official logo. Perhaps he s dressed in his world-famous kit, posing with a football in hand. Perhaps you note his piercing eyes and wonder, just for a second, whether he could love you. The origins When Nintendo thought of a sports game, it pictured something very different. But the genesis of Wii sports can t be traced back to Wii s pre-launch period or even gamecube s for the full story you need to delve right back to the development of Nintendo 64. that s because it was way back in the mid- 90s that Nintendo first started exploring the potential of a motion-sensing controller. It may have looked very different from the Wiimote (this N64 prototype looked more like a wristwatch than a tv remote), but this idea of capturing players movements clearly had staying power. In fact, the concept floated around the hushed halls of Nintendo for some 15 years before receiving its moment in the spotlight. But once the technology had caught up to Nintendo s vision, the company needed a flagship game to sell consumers on Wii s radically new concept. and if Wii was going to be a console that enabled seasoned gamers and complete rookies to play nicely together, that game was going to have to be utterly accessible. The legend as such, Nintendo ignored all sorts of sports game convention in the creation of its playful package. there were no professional athletes on the box, and no attempts at photorealistic fidelity. and whereas most sports games desperately Developer Nintendo Publisher Nintendo Released 2006 Format Wii Get it Wii Sports Club for Wii U ape the camera angles, commentary, and presentational quirks of their televised counterparts, Wii sports opted instead for chunky accessibility. Five popular pastimes were included tennis, baseball, bowling, golf, and boxing ensuring that Wii sports served as a perfect demonstration of Wii s capabilities, whether you were throwing hooks and jabs or picking up spares. the Wiimote may not have been a perfectly accurate motion sensor, but its shape and the way it was used just felt so welcoming and familiar compared to the esoteric controllers of other consoles. so, Nintendo wisely chose to make Wii sports generous in terms of the inputs it would accept if you could swing your arm in a rough approximation of a tennis serve or golf swing, you could play Wii sports. You didn t have to stand or move like a professional. anything overly complicated or extraneous to that central motion was ruthlessly eliminated in the name of accessibility. take the tennis game, for instance, in which your sporty little Mii would sprint towards the ball automatically, leaving you free to concentrate on the timing of your return. It was this insistence on inclusivity, as well as a generous heap of Nintendo charm, that facilitated enjoyably tense tennis tournaments and heated baseball matches between hardened gamers and inexperienced relatives. The legacy there are many standards of success, and Wii sports is a game that meets an awful lot of them. In terms of sheer numbers, the game s performance is remarkable worldwide, Nintendo has shipped million copies of the game to date. that figure makes Wii sports the third bestselling game of all time, lagging only behind tetris and Minecraft in terms of units shifted and those are both multi-platform titles. if you could swing your arm in a rough approximation of a tennis serve, you could play it 86 august

87 Nintendo launch games Putting your best foot forward Who doesn t love a round of golf, especially when it s always sunny? 1 Mario Bros (NES 1986) Mario s NES debut may not be the most fondly remembered instalment in his oeuvre, but it was the first game to firmly place the portly plumber in the title role. Fun fact: in it, you attack enemies from below, rather than bump them on the noggin from above. 2 Super Mario World (SNES 1992) The launch of Nintendo s second home console was accompanied by an appropriately souped-up showing for the company s mustachioed mascot, and Super Mario World augmented the platforming panache of its immediate predecessor the superb Super Mario 3 with unprecedented levels of visual flair. For many, this is the title that will go down as history s greatest launch game. Early players were astounded by the Wiimote s ability to register force. the vast majority of those 82 million copies of the game weren t purchased individually, of course, since Nintendo smartly decided to bundle copies of the game with every Wii console it sold. as such, a better measure of the success of Wii sports might be how effectively it managed to demonstrate and even evangelise the merits of its host system. On this level, Wii sports is perhaps one of the most successful console launch games ever made. and the long-term effects are still being felt. People who once felt excluded or uninterested in gaming are increasingly coming around to the unique appeal of videogames as a pastime, and Wii sports can take its fair share of the credit for that fact. and while it s tempting to think of motion-sensing as a forgotten fad, it s worth noting that every major VR system relies on the technology (albeit an updated form) to deliver immersive experiences. Your own copy of Wii sports might be languishing in a cardboard sleeve or a dusty drawer somewhere, but the repercussions of Nintendo s massive success are still very much on display in the games industry. n 3 Super Mario 64 (N ) With N64, Nintendo hoped to usher in the age of full 3D visuals and analogue control, and it set about developing a stunning launch title to showcase these bold intentions. The result was something we simply don t see any more: a breathtaking game that just wouldn t have been possible on the previous generation of hardware. 4 Nintendo Land (Wii U 2012) If there s a weak link to be found in this mighty chain of launch game success stories, it s here. This collection of mini-games was clearly built with the staggering success of Wii Sports in mind, and was intended to serve as an introduction to Wii U s unique capabilities. But the games weren t nearly as immediate as tennis or bowling, and what s more, they weren t nearly as much fun, either. 5 The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild (Switch 2017) Switch didn t arrive with a mighty line-up of stellar software to support it, but for many of the people who managed to nab a system at launch, that simply didn t matter. That s because Breath Of The Wild was enough to support weeks (if not months) of joyous exploration, free-form battling, and ceaseless climbing. Another contender for the best launch title crown. august

88 RetroMaster We Old Games! Six Of The BeST Cool JoCks Because we only cavort with the sportiest sorts ruth be told, GamesMaster isn t run by T Herculean bodybuilders and chiselled contenders. It may come as something of a shock, but the magazine you hold in your hands is put together by a motley assortment of nerds, dweebs, geeks, and spods. as such, we naturally admire jocks for their athleticism, good looks, and well-developed social skills. But on the other hand, we fear jocks for the casual cruelty they inflict and the persistent threat they pose to our hard-earned lunch money. so, whether the videogame jock is wearing a standard-issue varsity jacket or a 15th-century Florentine robe, they somehow manage to instil dreadful fear and humbled awe in the gamesmaster crew. We may just be humble poindexters, but here are the six Cool Jocks we re proud to be bullied by. n Duke nukem Duke Nukem 3D (PC, N64, PS1, Saturn 1996) One time, we were carrying a stack of textbooks to class and Duke approached. We thought he was going to help, but he blew cigar smoke in our faces and said Hail to the king, baby. Disappointing. nick Carlyle Lollipop Chainsaw (PS3, ) Nick is the archetypal Cool Jock. A varsity jacket covers his broad shoulders, his hair is a barber s dream, and he once referred to us lame before smashing a diorama we d spent four hours making from papier-mâché. Johnny Cage Mortal Kombat (Mega CD, SNES, Game Gear, Mega Drive, Game Boy, Master System, Amiga 1992) Johnny s always flouting uniform policy. A teacher asked him to take off his sunglasses, but he just did the splits and punched poor Mr Thompson in the nards. 88 august

89 Grab Bag Retro gems from every era Awesome Boss! ezio auditore Da Firenze Assassin s Creed II (PC, PS3, ) Ezio isn t as mean as the other jocks. Sure, he won t acknowledge us in the cafeteria, but occasionally he ll give us a cheesy wink that seems to say: hey, let s be best friends. Wolfenstein 3D Format PC, Jaguar, 3DO, SNES Developer Id Software Released 1992 If there was one idea that Id Software could trust 90s gamers to get behind, it was that Adolf Hitler was a real stinker, but given that the Führer stood at five feet, eight inches tall and sported a ludicrous moustache, he probably wouldn t make for the most intimidating boss battle. Id s solution? Stick him in a mech suit. sonic The hedgehog Sonic the Hedgehog (Mega Drive 1991) We remember like it was yesterday. Gotta go fast, he taunts, as we pant our way around the track field. His echidna friend titters from the bleachers. Our cheeks burn with shame. Classic Moment! FaiTh Connors Mirror s Edge (PC, PS3, ) Faith asked us to go to prom with her last year, but when we said yes, everyone laughed and she walked away. It turns out she only asked because Augustus Cole dared her to. We think about it every day. Psi-ops: The mindgate Conspiracy Format PC, Xbox, PS2 Developer Midway Released 2004 Realistic simulation of Newton s laws is commonplace in modern gaming, but there was a time when believable physics were enough to make gamers shudder with delight. So, when Psi-ops told us we could control objects with the power of our mind, we naturally clambered onto a crate and used our telekinesis to ride it like a surfboard, baby! Cowabunga! Hang ten! Et cetera! Remake Request! Blast Corps Format N64 Developer Rare Released 1997 Some games don t need flashy presentation. It would be hard to imagine what Tetris would gain from 4K resolution, for instance, or how Vib Ribbon would benefit from a complete remaster. But when a game is all about creating the biggest explosions possible, suddenly we see the appeal of crisp visuals and extravagant spectacle. Reckon you could add this one to the to-do list, Rare? august

90 CultureMaster The Outer Regions Of Gaming! Tully started in 2014 with a Pip-Boy 3000, complete with functional LED screen. Aim high Too Cool for ghouls We go behind the scenes and discover what it takes to truly prepare for life in the Wasteland from Fallout replica master Jason Tully That New Vegas sign is now getting the attention it deserves in a Melbourne bar. allout 4 has left a mark on us all. F Not the kind that reminds you of a stupid attempt to open a carton of milk with a corkscrew, but the type of mark that you spot and suddenly a hundred memories come flooding back. From stepping out of the vault for the first time, to making endless settlements across the Wasteland, each with enough food and water to happily exist without making you feel guilty. Jason Tully knows all these feelings too, but he s not content until Fallout makes its way into real life. While by day he s a graphic designer in south West Victoria in australia, by night tully goes under the name Wasted Props, and is dedicating his life to helping people survive the modern-day wasteland. tully started prepping for the apocalypse ridiculously early in life. Being home-schooled at my parents farm until late primary school, I had the opportunity to tinker in my Dad s shed, he explains. I started making replica props around the age of 10 using old junk, scraps of wood and metal. some of my first props I created were a couple of 90 august 2017 makeshift sparring lightsabers from star Wars they had blades made from old golf stick shafts and used to leave a nasty bruise or two. In my early teenage years I was building more realistic weapons and armour. as finger-removingly dangerous as all of that sounds, tully managed to survive his younger years but left his workshop behind. It wasn t until he was introduced to the apocalyptic franchise that he was compelled to start building again. until only a few years ago, my tools had been lying dormant then Fallout 3 was recommended to me by a few friends of mine, he confirms. after previously playing Bioshock and having a soft spot for the art deco style of that game, I instantly fell in love with the post-apocalyptic 1950s post-nuclear war theme of Fallout. It re-ignited the DIY demon inside me. Just rad water and did he start small? Maybe with a miniature gun or Nuka Cola bottle? Well My first Fallout prop was an operational Pip-Boy 3000, tully grins. I jumped into the deep end making the PipBoy with an LCD screen that has custom load-outs for the owner (ie weapons, armour, and provisions) and a choice of galaxy News Radio or Radio New Vegas that would play through an MP3 speaker hidden inside. this kickstarted my hobby, and from there I built a 1:3 scale replica of the well-known New Vegas neon sign featured in the game, a pair of resin cast t45d power helmets, an aer9 laser rifle, aep7 laser pistol, a 3D-printed F4 combat shotgun, numerous pieces of armour, and smaller items like stimpaks. Right. We d probably have started with the last one. But it s tully s latest creation that s really turned heads: a fully functioning tesla rifle. after waiting so long for the possibility of Fallout 4 to be released, I was raring to sink my teeth into the game to get my hit, tully explains. I got so involved in the game I didn t have a chance to consider building any of the weapons; that My first fallout prop was an operational pip-boy

91 THIS! SEE THIS! SEE THIS! SEE THIS! SEE THIS! SEE THIS! SEE THIS! SEE THIS! SEE THIS! SEE THIS! SEE THIS! SEE THIS! SEE THIS! SEE global MAsTEr Ways to play games in the real world Tully learns something new with each new build. We ve learned the meaning of humility. Getting the look right isn t enough for Tully; he has to make each prop sound like it s from the game too. The Tesla rifle took five different prototypes and many hours to get the interlocking gears to spin around the plasma ball just right. That s right, they even move like the ones in the game. was until the automatron expansion DLC came out with the legendary tesla rifle. I knew I had to build it, but with my wedding date looming I knew that I would have limited time to work on it so I waited until after my wedding so I could focus on the build. the past six months I have been juggling my full-time graphic design job and working in my workshop a few hours every night, manipulating the in-game assets and troubleshooting the files so they could be made into working parts. Ball or nothing the tesla rifle is on a 1:1 scale, and tully removed the actual files from the game to work from. Once I had the raw 3D files, then came the task of making them all work together, he says. I had to troubleshoot a lot of intersecting joints and separate them individually. For some sections I printed a prototype section to check the structural integrity and decide what material to make it from. I had See this! Grab Dogmeat and some Radaways and head over to Tully s Facebook to see even more Wasteland gear: the lower-front handgrip cut from aluminium sheeting and bent to shape to give the whole rifle a sturdy base. Everything has been carefully crafted, complete with 3D printed gears to spin around the plasma ball, and tully isn t even content to stop there. He s currently working on building in audio from the game. With all the actual mechanical parts fitted and ready, I m finally at the stage of programming the arduino Nano to control the various parts of the rifle, he explains. I prefer building props, but when it comes to coding microcontrollers, let s just say it s not my forte. I need to combine the audio from the game (loading and firing sequences) with the front rail and main rotor mechanisms and have it all timed perfectly. time for a rest once that s done, you d say? Well no. tully s currently planning a Fallout-themed telecaster guitar. He d better head out and start scavenging up some materials n Louise Blain Evil EyE What could you possibly want to do after surviving the horrors of Resi VII? How about a real-life version of the game where you not only have to survive but also solve puzzles on a timer? The official Resi Escape Experience is currently touring the USA. Missing link? If carrying around Breath Of The Wild on Switch just isn t enough, The Defenders Of The Triforce is on a global tour with Real Escape Games. Letting you team up with your friends to beat Ganondorf, this locked room puzzle comes complete with official story. Attempting to cook seared prime steak with greens isn t advised. TruE TrainEr Or instead of having to use your brain, you could just jump on this Pikachu train. The Pokémon With You train created after the 2011 earthquake has already been busy on Japan s railways, but this electric mouse overhaul will make things significantly yellower and happier. august

92 CHOOSE YOUR PACKAGE For all your multiformat needs, subscribe today to the world s most dedicated gaming mag. We have three options to choose from Print Digital quarterly SuBSCriPtiOn Save 28% quarterly SuBSCriPtiOn 15 7 n It costs less than buying it in the shops! n Delivered to your door every month! n Never miss an issue! n The cheapest way to get your GM! n Every issue is packed with trailers and videos! n Download instantly on the day of release! Save 27% Print & Digital quarterly SuBSCriPtiOn 19 Best Value! SAVE SAVE SAVE SAVE SAVE SAVE SAVE SAVE SAVE SAVE SAVE SAVE SAVE SAVE SAVE n The best-value GM package! n Every print issue delivered to you! n A digital copy for ios or Android! n New trailers and videos each month!

93 subscribe THe UK s NO. 1 multiformat games mag SuBSCriBe! Every month we fill our pages with expert analysis and all the latest info on the hottest games you need to know about no matter which gaming platforms you prefer. Subscribe or risk missing out! Go online: MYFAVoURITEMAGAZInES.Co.UK/GMSUB or CALL TERMS AND CONDITIONS Prices and savings quoted are compared to buying full-priced UK print and digital issues. You will receive 13 issues in a year. You can write to us or call us to cancel your subscription within 14 days of purchase. Your subscription is for the minimum term specified and will expire at the end of the current term. Payment is non-refundable after the 14-day cancellation period unless exceptional circumstances apply. Your statutory rights are not affected. Prices correct at point of print and subject to change. For full terms and conditions please visit: myfavouritemagazines.co.uk/terms. Offer ends 09/08/2017

94 SUMMER SALE! TRY 5 ISSUES FOR 5 BIG SAVINGS ON OUR BEST-SELLING MAGAZINES SAVE 80% SAVE 83% SAVE 75% SAVE 83% SAVE 87% SAVE 83% For great savings on all of our magazines, see the entire range online myfavouritemagazines.co.uk/summer17 Hotline *TERMS AND CONDITIONS: The trial offer is for new UK print subscribers paying by Direct Debit only. Savings are compared to buying full priced print issues. You can write to us or call us to cancel your subscription within 14 days of purchase. Payment is non-refundable after the 14 day cancellation period unless exceptional circumstances apply. Your statutory rights are not affected. Prices correct at point of print and subject to change. Full details of the Direct Debit guarantee are available upon request. UK calls will cost the same as other standard fi xed line numbers (starting 01 or 02) are included as part of any inclusive or free minutes allowances (if offered by your phone tariff). For full terms and conditions please visit: bit.ly/magtandc. Offer ends 31 August 2017

95 Next MoNth GamesMaster 320 on sale 10 august we head into the trenches to bring you everything you need to know The hottest gaming news, previews, and reviews every month! ALSO NEXT ISSUE PREVIEWED Super Mario Odyssey Far Cry 5 Dauntless REVIEWED Splatoon 2 Crash Bandicoot N Sane Trilogy Pyre Due to the unpredictable nature of the gaming world, all contents are subject to change.

96 game guide our definitive list of the best games to play right now Not sure which games to grab? Trust the experts (that s us) to shine a light of clarity through your fog of confusion. over this spread you ll find Gamesmaster s 100 per cent scientifically accurate and indisputable list of the greatest games on modern machines updated monthly as well as the top five most vital exclusives on each of the major platforms. pick one of these up and, buddy, you re going to have yourself a good time. 1 the legend of zelda: breath of the wild Switch / Wii U Nintendo casually revolutionises the open-world genre with perhaps the best launch title ever. Explore, fight, and cook your way across Hyrule. 2 3 grand theft auto v PS4 / XO / PC / PS3 / 360 Rockstar s most detailed, immersive cityscape yet serves as the backdrop for a brilliantly explosive, multi-layered crime saga. the witcher 3: wild hunt PS4 / XO / PC An unbelievably vast fantasy world, where grim adventure and brilliantly mature, engaging storytelling lurks around every corner. 4 5 the last of us PS4 / PS3 Naughty Dog s greatest triumph yet: the dark and truly cinematic tale of Joel and Ellie, two survivors in a dying world. dark souls III PS4 / XO / PC Weighty, impactful combat in a bleak, unforgiving world. There are few satisfactions in gaming greater than besting its brutal bosses. 6 7 uncharted 4: a thief s end PS4 An incredible end to one of the most spectacular series around, seeing Nathan Drake off in style. Perhaps the best-looking game ever made. overwatch PS4 / XO / PC Colourful characters and slick shooting make this multiplayer FPS from the makers of World Of Warcraft utterly irresistible. 96 November April

97 the top exclusives The five best for each console mario kart 8 Switch / Wii U The definitive kart racer, now portable and packed with new features on Switch. Own a Nintendo console? This is a must-have. horizon: zero dawn PS4 A truly unique vision from the creators of Killzone. Primitive humans hunt robotic beasts across a beautiful wilderness xcom 2 PS4 / XO / PC A turn-based strategy masterpiece that doesn t pull its punches. Try not to get too attached to your soldiers, eh? 1 halo 5: guardians 2 forza horizon 3 3 kalimba 4 Quantum break 5 gears of war 4 persona 5 PS4 / PS3 The greatest JRPG on current-gen a stylish, rebellious story of teenage fury and surreal journeys into your enemies minds. pokémon sun and moon 3DS Nintendo s collect-a-thon at its very best, with a charming monster roster and a beautiful island setting. Sunshine in a cartridge towerfall ascension PS4 / XO / PC / PS Vita Nothing else on current-gen comes close to matching this gem for local multiplayer action. Still a regular lunchtime distraction in our office. 1 the last of us remastered 2 uncharted 4: a thief s end 3 horizon: zero dawn 4 JourneY 5 bloodborne metal gear solid v: the phantom pain PS4 / XO / PC / PS3 / 360 Hideo Kojima s last hurrah brings open-world action to the revered series. dota 2 PC A strange and intimidating beast but take the time to learn its secrets and you ll find a game of incredible tactical depth and variety hearthstone PC / Mobile Blizzard achieves the once-impossible making deck-building CCGs accessible to all. Prepare to lose all your free time in 15-minute chunks. 1 the legend of zelda: breath of the wild 2 mario kart 8 deluxe 3 snipperclips 4 fast rmx 5 kamiko InsIde PS4 / XO / PC The shadowy, fascinating follow-up to Limbo, taking you on a perilous adventure across a surreal and terrifying world. device 6 Mobile This mysterious and engrossing text-based mystery adventure is perfectly suited to carrying around in your pocket. battlefield 1 PS4 / XO / PC The Great War serves as a rich historical backdrop for this epic multiplayer FPS. You can shoot down zeppelins what more do you need to know? 1 total war: warhammer 2 guild wars 2 3 dota 2 4 the sims crusader kings 2 1 pokémon sun and moon 2 fire emblem fates 3 animal crossing: new leaf 4 monster hunter generations 5 the legend of zelda: a link between worlds bloodborne PS4 Dark Souls more agile cousin, tighter and faster but no less punishing, in a world of gothic horror and Lovecraftian nightmares. doom PS4 / XO / PC A nostalgic reimagining that proves so much better than it has any right to be. Hyperspeed hyperviolence in the depths of Hell. titanfall 2 PS4 / XO / PC Blisteringly fast-paced multiplayer and a fantastically inventive single-player campaign make this quite the package tales from the borderlands PS4 / XO / PC / PS3 / 360 / Mobile Telltale s formula at its very best witty, exciting, and packed with unforgettable characters. Don t be put off by the setting. total war: warhammer PC The tabletop game comes to life in this definitive strategy game. Manage your empire and lead your armies into huge, epic battles. halo 5: guardians XO Master Chief s adventures are more spectacular than ever and new multiplayer modes layer fresh depth onto online play. 1 hearthstone 2 device days 4 sorcery 4 5 monument valley AuGusT

98 The end has come. With his new powers of possession, Mario has taken over the world, one videogame at a time. Even the GM team has fallen prey to his hat-based control make sure you pick up the all-new MarioMaster magazine next month

99

100