72 Video Games Magazine by Denisse Cárcamo

content gdc nominees

news: resident evil

pokemon 20 years

review: no mans sky

review: firewatch

credits Editor in Chief- creative director Denisse Cárcamo

letter from the guest editor

Guest editor Denisse Carcamo

Reviews editor design

Denisse Cárcamo

illustrators Michael Myers

writers

Ryan Mccaffrey Alex Osborn

copy editor

Denisse Cárcamo

review team Ryan Mccaffrey Alex Osborn

special thanks Imprímelo, for the great quality of the impresion, keep that good!

I create this magazine as draft for my second year of university in the field of editorial design, it has been a pleasure and a challenge to design it. The magazine has been created for lovers of video games, that are in an advanced level, those who take video games seriously.

digitize it, read and debug articles (lucky me that pokémon is celebrating 20 years and how not to use that information for this edition), select photos and images were of good quality and have harmony with others, after all that choice and debugging process could move to diagramming.

The construction of the magazine, since I was assigned the theme “video games” I loved it, from the choice of the target audience, define the concept, choose the name of the magazine which incidentally was the year in which was launched the first video game for home console called Magnavox, design a logo that matched to the concept of the magazine and

Anyway, I really enjoyed the process from week 0 until the end, 72 video game magazine, and I hope whoever reads it can enjoy it, from design, articles, everything. thanks IGN.com platform were i took almost all the information.

game developers choice awards nominees The nominees for the 16th annual Game Developers Choice Awards have been revealed. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, both of which are up for Game of the Year consideration, earned the most nominations with four each. Rounding out the list of GOTY contenders is Fallout 4, Rocket League and Bloodborne.

The winners across all categories—including Best Debut, Best Narrative and many others—will be revealed at the Game Developers Choice Awards ceremony on Wednesday, March 16. See the full list categories and their respective nominees below.

Game of the Year Fallout 4 (Bethesda Game Studios / Bethesda Softworks) The Witcher 3 (CD Projekt RED / CD Projekt) Metal Gear Solid V (Kojima Productions / Konami) Bloodborne (FromSoftware / Sony Computer Entertainment) Rocket League (Psyonix) Fallout 4 video game image

Innovation Award Her Story (Sam Barlow) Super Mario Maker (Nintendo EAD Group No. 4 / Nintendo) Undertale (Toby Fox) Splatoon (Nintendo EAD Group No. 2 / Nintendo) The Beginner’s Guide (Everything Unlimited Ltd.)

Super Mario Maker video game image

Best Debut Studio Wildcard (ARK: Survival Evolved) Toby Fox (Undertale) Moon Studios (Ori and the Blind Forest) Moppin (Downwell) Steel Crate Games (Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes)

ARK: survival envolved video game image

72 MAGAZINE | 6

Best Design Rocket League (Psyonix) Metal Gear Solid V (Kojima Productions / Konami) Bloodborne (FromSoftware / Sony Computer Entertainment) Fallout 4 (Bethesda Game Studios/ Bethesda Softworks) Splatoon (Nintendo EAD Group No. 2 / Nintendo) Splatoon video game cover image

best Handheld/Mobile Game Lara Croft: GO (Square Enix Montréal / Square Enix) Fallout Shelter (Bethesda Game Studios / Bethesda Softworks) Downwell (Moppin / Devolver Digital) Her Story (Sam Barlow) AlphaBear (Spry Fox) AlphaBear video game image

Best Visual Art Ori and the Blind Forest (Moon Studios / Microsoft Studios) The Witcher 3 (CD Projekt RED / CD Projekt) Star Wars Battlefront (DICE / Electronic Arts) Bloodborne (FromSoftware / Sony Computer Entertainment) Splatoon (Nintendo EAD Group No. 2 / Nintendo)

The Witcher III, wild hunt video game image

Best Narrative Her Story (Sam Barlow) The Witcher 3 (CD Projekt RED / CD Projekt) Life is Strange (Dontnod Entertainment / Square Enix) Undertale (Toby Fox) The Beginner’s Guide (Everything Unlimited Ltd.)

Undertale video game image

72 MAGAZINE | 7

Best Audio Star Wars Battlefront (DICE / Electronic Arts) Ori and the Blind Forest (Moon Studios / Microsoft Studios) Everybodyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Gone to the Rapture (The Chinese Room / Sony Computer Entertainment) Metal Gear Solid V (Kojima Productions / Konami) Crypt of the NecroDancer (Brace Yourself Games) Matal gear solid V video game image

Best Technology Metal Gear Solid V (Kojima Productions / Konami) The Witcher 3 (CD Projekt RED / CD Projekt) Star Wars Battlefront (DICE / Electronic Arts) Fallout 4 (Bethesda Game Studios / Bethesda Softworks) Just Cause 3 (Avalanche Studios / Square Enix)

Star Wars battlefront video game cover image

72 MAGAZINE | 8

Resident EvilComing to Play station and Xbox One Capcom is re-releasing Resident Evil 4, Resident Evil 5, and Resident Evil 6 on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. The company announced today that all three games are coming to the new consoles, beginning with Resident Evil 6 on March. Each game will cost $20 / €20 / £16. Resident Evil 6’s re-release will come with all previously released add-on content, including costumes and more. Resident Evil 5’s release is slated for summer 2016, with Resident Evil 4 coming this fall. Capcom also announced that physical disc versions will be available in the Americas, though no further details were provided. The publisher did not say if the new versions of any of the games will be updated with better

graphics or if they will be standard ports. 2016 marks the 20th anniversary of the Resident Evil franchise, as the first game debuted in 1996 in Japan. The Pokemon franchise also celebrates its 20th birthday this year. Capcom is making a habit of re-releasing classic Resident Evil games. The publisher has already released new versions of Resident Evil and Resident Evil 0, while a Resident Evil 2 remake is also on the way. In May 2015, Capcom said it was encouraged by the success of Resident Evil HD remastered version so much so that HD remasters and re-releases would become a key area of growth for the company.

72 MAGAZINE | 9

72 MAGAZINE | 10

Pokemon is twenty years old, and people are still collecting creatures like crazy 72 MAGAZINE | 11

Holly Payne, 30, Cleveland, Tenn.

Plenty of children are terrified by the mere thought of monsters, but Austin Frailley has been seeking them out since before he could read. The Harrison resident was 3 years old when his parents gave him a copy of “Pokémon Yellow” for the handheld Game Boy Color. With their help, he was able to decipher the text in the video game — whose title is Japanese for “pocket monster” — and he remembers being entranced as he explored its digital landscape, battling and attempting to capture the 151 different “species” of creatures who called it home. “Until I was about 11 years old, I spent more time on Pokémon than literally anything else in my life,” Frailley, now 21, recalls. “The first thing I did when I came home from school was sit down on the couch, turn on cartoons and play Pokémon. “[When] my parents sent me to bed? I’d turn on my lamp and play Pokémon until I was so tired my eyes couldn’t stay open. [That’s never happened with] any other game series.” Saturday marks the 20th anniversary of the Pokémon debut, “Pokémon Red” and “Pokémon Green,” in Japan. A year after its Japanese premiere, the creature col72 MAGAZINE | 12

lecting/battling franchise made its way to North America as “Pokémon Red” and “Pokémon Blue,” sparking a craze that inspired millions of Americans like Frailley to start building their own monster collections.

The collection of a lifetime Pokémon — both the franchise’s title and the name applied to its creatures — is now a pop-culture titan valued at more than $40 billion, according to statistics from its corporate parent, The Pokémon Co. The Pokémon brand includes more than 5,000 licensed products, including dozens of video games, 18 movies, an ongoing cartoon series now in its 19th season and a wildly popular trading card game played for high stakes at international tournaments. Regardless of the platform on which it appears, Pokémon centers on a fictional world where Pokémon trainers scour the wilderness for different creatures with fantastical traits such as the ability to sing oppo-

nents to sleep, breathe fire or create lightning. Players attempt to capture these wild Pokémon for later use in battles against those belonging to other trainers. As Pokémon grow in strength and experience, they eventually learn new abilities, and many can evolve into more powerful forms. New entries in the video game series typically are released in pairs, such as “Pokémon Red” and “Pokémon Blue” or “Pokémon Diamond” and “Pokémon Pearl.” Certain Pokémon are locked to each title, however, so players who want to follow the franchise’s slogan, “Gotta catch ‘em all,” must complete their collection by trading Pokémon with play-

ers who own their game’s companion title. The Pokémon Co.’s website describes the franchise as “one of the most popular children’s entertainment properties in the world,” but many fans of the video games, cartoons and card game say their love of Pokémon has persisted long past childhood. Rossville resident J.R. Pettyjohn remembers waking up at 7 a.m. to watch the “Pokémon” animated series before leaving the house for first grade, but it was the series of Pokémon videos game that most appealed to him. Even though he’s now married and living on his own, the 24-year-old says the games have retained their appeal.

“

I think adorable little creatures that battle each other is just a unique concept thats fun for every generation.

Designer Michael Myers, his recent work entitled ‘Poketryoshka’

Designer Micha el Myers, his recent work entitled ‘Poketryoshka’

72 MAGAZINE | 13

Designer Michael Myers, his recent work entitled ‘Poketryoshka’

“It has expanded beyond anything I could have ever imagined, but it is still the same game that I fell in love with 16 years ago,” Pettyjohn says. “It is marketed towards a younger audience, [but] I was that younger audience at one point, and because of that, I still support them now.”

22 cover with the headline: “Beware of the Pokemania.” Writers Howard Chua-Eoan and Tim Larimer describe the inescapable saturation of Pokémon-themed media and merchandise at the time as “a pestilential Ponzi scheme.”

“Pit fighting” and witchcraft Because of the attention garnered by its widespread popularity, Pokémon has 72 MAGAZINE | 14

found itself at the center of the occasional controversy. Soon after the Pokémon Trading Card Game was released in 1999, schools nationwide began banning the cards from their grounds. In a Reddit post requesting users’ stories of the backlash against the game, contributors mention bans at their school based on the cards’ tendency to distract students, for promoting gambling and a series of other incidents, including theft and a stabbing. In 1999, Time magazine featured Pokémon on its Nov.

Creature evolutions, a core element of the Pokémon mythos, have rankled some religious groups, who also criticize the series for “bear[ing] disturbing similarities to witchcraft” and liken Pokémon battles to “pit fighting.” Despite coming under fire from some critics

for featuring battles “to the death,” however, Pokémon do not die when their health is depleted; they faint. In a video uploaded from multiple sources in 2009 that collectively has garnered more than 1.5 million views, one televangelist’s sermon suggests Pokémon teaches children “how to cast spells” and “use psychic phenomenon.” “Pokémon world is the world of the demonic, of the satanic,” he says. In a review of the franchise’s big-screen debut with 1999’s “Mewtwo Strikes

Back,” Christian nonprofit the ChildCare Action Project suggested the entire Pokémon “craze” was dangerous to children due to its emphasis on “power over and control of others using violence and ‘magic’ with impunity.” The nonprofit’s review further suggests the G-rated film was “saturated” with subversive elements such as the presence of psychic abilities, “lust for power, control and independence” and “portrayal of tears having the power to resurrect.” Despite Pokémon’s controversy among some religious groups, the Roman Catholic Church gave its seal of approval to the series. In 1997, People magazine reported that Sat2000, a satellite TV station run by the Vatican, had declared “Pokémon” to be ultimately beneficial to children, describing it as “full of inventive imagination” that has “no harmful moral side effects.” The papacy also praised Pokémon for its positive philosophy of “intense friendship” between trainers and their Pokémon.

The catching craze that just won’t quit

As Pokémon enters its third decade, the franchise retains many of its original supporters and continues to perform well critically and commercially. According to sales figures from The Pokémon Co., the latest entries in the series, “Pokémon Omega Ruby” and “Pokémon Alpha Sapphire” — remakes of 2003’s “Pokémon Ruby” and “Pokémon Sapphire” — sold just shy of 10 million copies in the seven months after their November 2014 release. Their predecessors, 2013’s “Pokémon X” and “Pokémon Y,” collectively sold 12 million copies and were the most-popular titles on the Nintendo 3DS at the time, according to company sales statistics. Chattanoogan Michael Carrillo has been a Pokémon fan since he started watching the cartoon in sixth grade. He played the video game at school with many of his friends, many of whom also played the collectible card game as part of a local Pokémon League hosted on Saturday mornings at Books-A-Million. Now 30, Carrillo has played almost every new entry in the video game series, most recently “Pokémon Alpha Sapphire,” to which he has dedicated “an honestly embarrassing number of

hours” and collected 701 of the 721 available Pokémon species. Unlike its ever-evolving creatures, Pokémon’s core mechanics of collecting and battling monsters haven’t changed dramatically in the last 20 years, but Carrillo says that consistency is a testament to the success of the original design, not a flaw. “They connected with kids with a basic concept and have continually captured the next generation with the next game release,” he says. “A new version of the game comes out every three to five years, [and] each new group of kids can join in the fun and follow subsequent games as they grow older.

“

That concept will keep fans’ attention for many years to

Celebrate 20 years of Pokémon by watching the 2016 Pokémon Super Bowl spot! Join the conversation with #Pokemon20 on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. Visit the official Pokemon20.com site for more exciting ways to Train On.

”

72 MAGAZINE | 15

NO MAN S SKY HANDS-ON: THE REAL GAME BEGINS TO REVEAL ITSELF Your galaxy is what you make of it. I’m not sure I’ve ever wanted a game to live up to its potential as much as No Man’s Sky. It has ignited my imagination with the promise of limitless galactic exploration for years now. Could the math that powers this universe also make it 72 MAGAZINE | 16

interesting? Would trading, space combat, and alien interaction be meaningful? º I’m getting closer to finally having all of those questions answered. See, No Man’s Sky still stubbornly refuses to reveal all of its

secrets, even with its June 21 release date now set in stone. But after a new demo from Hello Games mastermind Sean Murray and an all-too-short 30-minute hands-on with a new build, I now have a much better sense of what No Man’s Sky

is. And I still haven’t met a game I’d rather see live up to its full potential.

How the Sausage is Made

First, Murray walked me

“

There’s no mini-map. We had one but we took it out. We want people to explore. Since no one has been here before, the minimap shouldn’t exist

”

No Man´s sky video game cover photo

through a series of planets, each more mathematically complex than the last (first totally flat, then with sin wave-made hills, then with rock formations, and then with water and flora and fauna). The aim was to show off No Man’s Sky’s underlying world-creation algorithm and explain how No Man’s Sky was even literally possible. The answer? It’s all math: “A human hand hasn’t really touched this, necessarily,” says Murray

of the test planet on the screen. His next goal: make the game fun. This is where Hello’s team of a dozen-or-so developers come in handy. Murray uses his creative director powers to teleport to a new, fully fleshed-out planet (“I’m like god in this universe,” he quips). It is genuinely stunning. Fish swim in the ocean. Sea plants wave back and forth. Palm trees stretch towards the sky. Tall

red grass sprouts waisthigh. Weird creatures roam. Mysterious buildings contrast the organic backdrop. Brontosaurus-like dinosaurs tower overhead. Odd, elklike game trots about. And it’s all punctuated by a ‘70s sci-fi movie soundtrack in the background, a la Mass Effect. “This delivers on what I’ve always wanted from the game,” Murray explains genuinely. “[That] feeling

like I’ve stepped into a sci-fi book cover.”

Game Time Now it was my turn. Murray dropped me onto the planet Balari V. It’s an ice planet – over 150 degrees below zero…Celsius. Snow-powdered green pine trees dot the landscape. My suit’s thermal protection is not infinite. On-screen warnings flash that my suit is down to 75% protection 72 MAGAZINE | 17

No Man´s sky video game image

from the elements, and then 50%, and then 25%, and then…frostbite. I can’t run anymore and I’m slowly dying. “It’s really important to me that the game be a challenging game,” Murray says. As such, you’ll have to scrounge for resources that can be used for so many different things, from recharging your thermal suit to upgrading weapons or your ship to creating a bypass chip that will allow you to hack a building’s landing terminal and steal a ship. “You can trade, you can fight, you can explore, [and] you can survive. It’s a giant sandbox – a universe-sized sandbox,” promises the humble Irishman. But Murray also seems to relish in the idea that No Man’s Sky is so massive that no FAQ or walkthrough could 72 MAGAZINE | 18

ever possibly help you. He wants you to explore it for yourself. “Nowhere out there is there a FAQ to show me where things are,” he says. “There’s no mini-map. We had one but we took it out. We want people to explore. Since no one has been here before, the mini-map shouldn’t exist.”

Nuts and Bolts A press of the Options button on the DualShock 4 (I played on PlayStation 4, though the game will also be releasing for PC) brings up No Man’s Sky’s character management menus. Suit, Weapon, Ship, and Discoveries can all be drilled into; the latter being a list of where you’ve been and the former three being self-ex-

planatory. “I can upgrade everything about myself,” Murray explains. “It’s kind of a non-linear RPG. You can upgrade your tech tree in whatever way you want.” Each upgrade will require resources, which can be harvested from the planets you visit – their rocks, their planets, or their creatures. After recharging my thermal suit using one of the minerals in my inventory, I wander for a bit longer, zapping plutonium-packing crystals with my blaster weapon until I’m nearly ready to freeze to death again. I find an outpost to duck into. I notice a terminal on the wall. Accessing it tells me I’ve found the Galactic Market Provision Matrix. From here I can buy and sell resources. I can’t afford anything now,

so I depart – but not before being very polite to the Korvax character manning the shop. “A lot of these planets are occupied,” says Murray. “This is someone’s base.” I choose a dialogue option the extraterrestrial clearly liked and am given a seriously upgraded blaster pistol as a gift. Bonus! I walk outside and a medium-sized Lkevinov-Deng ship touches down at the outpost landing pad. I can buy it, but I don’t have anywhere near enough currency to do so. Instead, I admire the red, 30-foot-tall dinosaur-ish creature meandering by with a tail and little winglets on each of its forearms. It’s already been named – Offmano Duvauca – but you can indeed name new planets, flora, and fauna when you discover them.

My criminally brief 30-minute hands-on is already two-thirds gone, and I have a hankering to get to outer space. To do so, I’m going to have to hack the landing pad since I didn’t have the cash to outright buy the impressive ship that docked (and soon left) a few moments ago. But I need plutonium in order to do craft the bypass chip. And so off I go, overheating my gun while trying to blast and collect as much plutonium as possible. Unfortunately, it seems I angered some of the native wildlife; a tiger-like animal comes bounding after me, chomping me from behind and forcing me to engage it. I get a few laser blasts in before turning to run. The beast fells me, and I have to respawn from the last spot I saved at, far away. I’m now a bit lost. Or at least turned around. I’m not entirely sure where the outpost landing pad is – or if I even have enough plutonium to complete the hacking panel I need – but after pressing down on the D-pad to do a sweeping scan of my nearby radius, it seems Hello placed my ship a kilometer away. A waypoint with a ship icon appeared on my HUD, so I followed it – freezing my face off in the process. Would I make it to the ship before Death’s icy grip grabbed hold of me again?

Space Ghost Yes! It’s my own actual ship: the Arturo S94 (which, I ad-

mit, I’m not sure is its name or its class). I aim up and rocket towards the stratosphere. Murray notes that there are never any loading times in No Man’s Sky, and indeed I saw none in my hands-on time. I’m spoiled by choice as to what to do next: explore another planet? Start shooting at the fleet of freighter ships orbiting the planet? Just fly and see what happens? I aim for a nearby planet, pressing the Circle button to enable my ship’s top speed. Suddenly a nimble little ship darts in front of me. “Warning: Hostile ships on approach,” my HUD screams.

The End of the Beginning And so, finally, No Man’s Sky’s puzzle is slowly being pieced together. Trading, crafting, exploring, space combat, survival – I’ve experienced a small taste of them all now – but it’s almost frustratingly small. I can’t imagine ever playing this game for just 30 minutes at a time once the final version is in my hands. No Man’s Sky begs to be played for hours at a time. Its massive potential hasn’t lost a single shred of its luster, and many questions still remain. But I absolutely cannot wait to go try and find the answers to them. As Jean-Luc Picard said in the pilot episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, let’s see what’s out there.

No Man´s sky video game image

spoiler alert!

Wander this world

72 MAGAZINE | 19

No Man´s sky video game image

REVIEW

A controlled burn of brilliance

Firewatch quickly lets you know that it’s not going to pull any emotional punches over its four to five–hour runtime, opening with a series of text-based choices that call back to adventure genre forebears like Zork. I dare not spoil this potent sequence, but I will say that it masterfully bounces between being funny and heart-wrenching and plausibly establishes just why protagonist Henry ends up in the Wyoming woods as a solitary fire lookout. 72 MAGAZINE | 20

The Verdict Firewatch is amazing for many reasons, but above all because it’s an adult game that deals with serious issues, with realistic adult dialogue to match. And it deals with those issues just like actual adults would: sometimes with humor, sometimes with anger, and sometimes with sadness. It is among the very best of the first-person narrative genre, and it reminds us what video game storytelling is capable of in the right hands. It’s a game I can see coming back to every year or two just to revisit its beautiful sights and memorable characters – just like a good boy.

Firewatch video game image

spoiler alert!

These days I tend to enjoy games that are similar to a good book: a solitary, escapist experience I can get completely lost in without any interruptions from the outside world. Firewatch, then – on the strength of its gripping story, brilliant branching script, wholly convincing voice-acting performances, and stunning art direction – is easily one of my favorite and most memorable game experiences of this decade.

Firewatch video game cover image

Firewatch video game image

72 MAGAZINE | 21

72 MAGAZINE | 22