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CONTENTS R E I N STA L L

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8

113

Revisiting Agent 47’s finest murders in Hitman: Blood Money

119

16

Taking a trip into the cult fantasy universe of Beyond Good & Evil

36

Time hasn’t ravaged The Zone in the terrifying S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

82

It’s not all about giant ape droppings in Black & White

F E AT U R E S

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123

116

130 135

TOP 100 FREE DOWNLOADS 100 100 101 101 101 102 102 102 103 103 104 104 105 105 105 106 106 106 107 107 108 108 109 109 109

The Eternal War Dungeons of Dredmor mods Prison Escape Puzzles Sun God Polaris Seedling IrRational Stealthjam Selection I Wanna be the Guy: Gaiden Mission Improbable Civilization V maps Warsow They Love You Bee A Story About My Uncle Clop Zineth Skyrim quests Life in the West Diaspora: Armistice Endless, Nameless Grey Telepaint Force: Leashed

110 110 110 111 111 112 112 113 113 113 114 114 114 115 115 116 116 117 117 117 118 118 118 119 119

Way In Ruins Doom the Way id Did Ludum Dare 24 selection Owww Black Mesa FTL mods Biomes O’Plenty Xout Exo Reprisal A Nation of Wind Realistic Summer Sports Sim Student Showcase selection Middens Cry of Fear Portal 2 levels MaldoHD Atum Ascension Major Hertz No, Birdie, No? Designed for Danger GameMaker: Studio games Typing Karaoke

120 120 121 121 121 122 122 122 123 123 124 124 125 125 125 126 126 126 127 127 128 128 129 129 129

Far Cry 3 Minecraft Portal 2 co-op maps Paradisperdus What’s in the Box? Why Am I Dead? Escape: Paradise Vertigo Places F**k This Jam selection Frog Fractions Perspective Sins of a Solar Empire mods Deus Ex: New Vision Three Body Problem Moonlight Black Snow Streetfighter X Mega Man Skrillex Quest Minecraft maps Slave of God DayZ Left 4 Dead 2 mods Black Mesa: Uplink Extinct Minecraft Condensed Blocks

130 130 130 131 131 132 132 133 133 133 134 134 134 135 135 136 136 137 137 137 138 138 138 139 139

Insult Swordfighting Wayward Fistful of Gun DayZ maps Surgeon Simulator 2013 Wyrmstooth Baldur’s Gate mods Vietcry Jelly No Puzzle 400 Years A Grain of Truth Depression Quest Ratz Instagib Counter-Strike: Go The King of the Wood Spherical Nightmares System Shock 2 mods Tropical Skyrim Ziggys mod The Button Affair Legend of Grimrock: Master Quest Avant-Garde Duke Nukem Forever 2013 7 Day Roguelike Challenge Selection Blues for Mittavinda

Is this the PC’s most underrated adventure? Quest for Glory IV

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Panned at first, class in retrospect. Frontier: First Encounters

140

The epic sci-fi spectacle to end them all. Wing Commander II

10 Golden oldies

We show you how to get those ancient classics back up and running.

20 Build a budget PC

PC gaming needn’t cost the world; check out our hardware and build guide.

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THEY’RE BACK 42

52

Singularity

62

Hitman 2: Silent Assassin

43 Blur 43 Mystery Legends: Phantom of the Opera 43 Pod Gold 43 Patrician IV

53 53 53 53

The 7th Guest Soulbringer Order of War Divinity 2

63 Unreal Tournament III 63 Orcs Must Die! 63 Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation/Chronicles 63 TCoR: Assault on Dark Athena

44 Gangland 44 Wallace & Gromit’s Grand Adventures 44 Two Worlds II 44 Might & Magic 9: Writ of Fate

54 54 54 54

Anachronox Escape from Ravenhearst Myst V: End of Ages Mount & Blade Collection

64 64 64 64

55

65

46

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Cryostasis: The Sleep of Reason

Stalker: Clear Sky

47 Ultima VII: Complete Collection 47 Alien vs. Predator Classic 2000 47 Lords of the Realm Triple Pack 47 Angry Birds 48 48 48 48

Prince of Persia: Warrior Within Civilization IV Runaway 3: A Twist of Fate Assassin’s Creed 2

45

Geneforge Saga

Gothic 3 Time Commando Demigod Desperados 2: Cooper’s Revenge

49

72

Uplink

Dark Dimensions

Theme Hospital

Startopia

Rig ‘n Roll

73 73 73 73

Alien Shooter: Vengeance Costume Quest Imperialism Soldiers: Heroes of World War II

75

Leisure Suit Larry : Greatest Hits and Misses

XIII Batman: Arkham City Rise and Fall: Civs at War Back to the Future: The Game

77 Evil Genius 77 The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion 77 Off-World Resource Base 77 Guilty Gear X2 #Reload

58 58 58 58

Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver Avernum 4-6 Worms Ultimate Mayhem Sega Genesis Classics Pack 5

68 Might & Magic Heroes VI: Gold 68 Spycraft: The Great Game 68 Empire Earth III 68 Nethergate: Resurrection

78 Ruse 78 Supreme Commander 2 78 Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days 78 Dungeon Keeper 2

Far Cry 2

Two Worlds

26

76

67 67 67 67

Prototype

Make bonkers Steelport even madder in Saint’s Row 3

Rage

Freespace 2 Toejam and Earl 2 Grand Ages: Rome Gold Edition The Witcher 2: Enhanced Edition

69

18

74 Hunted: The Demon’s Forge 74 Duke Nukem 1 & 2 74 Stacking 74 Brink

57 57 57 57

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HOW TO

Fashion a mighty empire fit for a king in Mount & Blade

34

79

Build battlescapes to be proud of in Total War: Shogun 2

Populous

38

50

60

Syndicate

51 Deus Ex 51 Deus Ex: Human Revolution 51 Dungeon Siege III 51 Sonic CD

70

Dreamfall: The Longest Journey

61 Lord of the Rings Online 61 Fragile Alliance 61 Runaway 2: Dream of the Turtle 61 Silent Storm

Condemned: Criminal Origins

71 71 71 71

Bioforge Divinity Anthology Dangerous Dave Collection Farm Frenzy Classic Volume 1

80

Clive Barker’s Undying

81 Duke Nukem 3D: Megaton Edition 81 Postal 81 Omikron: The Nomad Soul 81 Syndicate Wars

Get the drop on foes and earn the respect of your peers in Dota 2

84

Pick your masks with care and kill with style in Hotline Miami

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Build courses fit for the racing gods in Trackmania 2: Canyon

28 Co-op Gaming

Looking to team up and save cash? We pick the best buddying up games about.

88 Extend Your Games

142

Some of the classiest mods for the best games under the microscope. Pick the slickest upgrade paths in XCOM: Enemy Unknown THE ULTIMATE PC GAMING MONEY-SAVER’S GUIDE 5

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THE

BEST CO-OP GAMES OF ALL TIME

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Play local? Go halves on a game. Play online? Play forever!

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hen you’re looking to shave a few quid off your costly gaming hobby, it’s often worth thinking about titles that you can rope your pals into ‘investing’ into. The most obvious money-saving tactic is that golden oldie – going halves (or thirds, or quarters, or... well, you get the drift) on a copy of, say, FIFA 13. You can then have bags of local, sofa-based fun for far less moolah than if you were playing on your lonesome. The second option is to head online with mates. Obviously you’ll all have to shell out on an individual copy of the game with this tactic, but a fair few of the titles featured here are getting on a bit now and can be picked up for pennies. This equals countless hours of friend-based fun for minimum spend, bringing you closer to your gaming buddies without breaking the bank. We can all agree that’s one hell of a deal. Just don’t descend into fisticuffs as to who gets to take that lone copy home at the end of the session, eh?

PorTAl 2 2 players, online How does it work? You and a friend play comedy robots in coop-only test chambers. Why is it good? Tom F The puzzles get magnificently complicated when designed for two. You can jump through each other’s portals, so you’re often setting up a jump that your partner will

perform. And because every puzzle requires two players, you’ve got to figure out where to put four different portals, and coordinate your approach. It bent my brain. Graham I use my portals to make a corridor slick with gloopy paint. Tom places his at either end of the corridor, creating the world’s first infinite slip ’n’ slide. I run down it and build absurd momentum, and as I reach terminal velocity, Tom moves one of his portals so that when I exit, I’m flung out over a chasm filled with acid. Co-op Portal 2 means entwining not just your portals, but your brains.

2 3 mineCrAfT

fifA 13

2 to many, online or lan

2-5 players, local

How does it work? Join a server and collaborate with friends – or strangers – to build the biggest, best, and most phallic structures you can.

How does it work? Two or more players join forces to defeat the nefarious forces of Computron, the dark lord of round ball kicking.

Why is it good? Rich Within minutes, I was building a spa. I don’t know why I was building a spa. No one had said “let’s build a spa” in the chat channel, but there it was, forming before us. Graham, now-departed Craig Pearson and I, had hollowed out an underground chamber, constructed a raised dais of glass, and diverted water to create a lovely jacuzzi pool. Our subterranean sauna was lit by lava, and we sat in it, content. Graham My first time was on a new, private server with a few folks from the PCG community. In three hours we dotted the landscape with giant Darwinians, and built an underground bunker with launch missiles, library and steam rooms to avoid a player who had built an ugly golden bridge around the world. It felt like I’d spent an afternoon building sandcastles with friends, and I wept with happiness.

Why is it good? Rich Football is incredibly frustrating. FIFA recreates that frustration perfectly: genius moves undone by idiot players. But in co-op, I managed to reduce that frustration through one simple method: blame someone else. I think I’m great at FIFA 13 at the best of times; when I’m playing in co-op, I’m flawless. Graham, on the other hand, is just plain terrible. Graham And Rich smells bad. For a while, we were playing two-on-two, but then our fourth man lost interest. We started playing two-onone. Here’s what we found: the player controlling a team on their own has the advantage. To work together in FIFA is to anticipate the other’s moves, making runs and pulling away defenders. If you do it right, you’re unstoppable. If you don’t, beatings fairly abound. If you’re Rich and I, well... Rich smells bad.

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THEY’RE BACK

The cheekbones of a drag queen, the barcode of a packet of Frosties.

You killed him, man. You’ve earned those clothes.

DRESS TO KILL

HITMAN 2: SILENT ASSASSIN is Groundhog Day for murderers.

Need to know What is it?

Dressed To Kill, the videogame

Influenced by

Thief, Metal Gear Solid

Play it on

1.8GHz CPU, 512MB RAM, DirectX 7 graphics card

Alternatively

Hitman: Blood Money, 85%

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his is how all sequels should start. The hero in retirement. Committed to a life of no longer doing whatever it was that made him suitable fodder for the first videogame. The dramatic irony is unbearable, waiting for the moment that we, the audience, know is going to knock him back into his old life. In the case of glossy-pated death executive Agent 47, that’s a life of profitable sneaking and contract killing. But gaming’s favourite prime number has turned away from that life, preferring to confess to a priest who offers no evidence of giving a shit, and tend the hydrangeas of the diocese with silent, assassin-like tenderness. He’s a gardener with a shed surprisingly light on gardening tools, but with plenty of room for guns. Perhaps his trick with the

daffodils is to walk around in March and murder them out of the soil. Then it happens: the priest gets kidnapped by the mafia. It’s off to the mission-giving laptop for 47, to get help from his old employers in return for hits. Incidentally, that laptop was just there, in his shed, open and on. Just how committed was he to this whole gardening thing? If you’re new to the Hitman series, it’s a mixture of Metal Gear stealth and infiltration, with the costume changes of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. The 20 missions all feel pretty scripted, but this isn’t about emergent adventures and overlapping systems. It’s about learning the intimate movements of the level, using the options given to you, and enjoying the thrill of satisfaction when you realise the developers knew you were going to do that

◆ Expect to pay £7 ◆ Developer Square Enix ◆ Publisher IO Interactive ◆ Multiplayer None ◆ Link www.gog.com ◆ First review PCG 114, 71%

and gave the game a satisfying response. Think of each level as its own little riff on Groundhog Day. Just keep repeating, learning, and eventually you’ll live that perfect, Silent Assassin day. Take the first level, Anathema. Getting into the compound, you can knock out or kill a mailman, and steal his clothes and delivery. But there’s a frisk check at the compound gate, so you have to get rid of your gun. You’re limited in your options by a set of limited context menus. We’re all used to creating piles of inventory crap in Skyrim, but you can’t do something as unusual as ‘drop your guns’ unless you find an object with an option for stashing them. My inclination to dress up the mailman in my old clothes, plant the gun on him, then grass him up to the compound guards? Non-starter, for irritatingly similar reasons. But those limitations are easily trumped by the sheer number of fun ways in which you can, eventually, achieve your mark, and the more you play, the more you’re willing to forgive the frayed edges of the illusion. It’s worth it.

Not the best in the series, and archaic-feeling controls. But Silent Assassin holds its own in a crowded room.

77

Kiss your trees goodbye, there’s humans to kill.

Heh. The radar blip thing is going up his nose.

Crouching. The quieter, modern alternative to walking.

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THEY’RE BACK

MULTIMEDIOCRE

Beware, mortal, my creepy skull puzzles.

THE 7TH GUEST fails to click.

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here’s going to be a time, maybe 20 years from now, when we’ll look back on Adam Sandler movies, and there’ll be sufficient distance for us all to think: did we really let that happen? Were we so starved of novelty that we accepted this? What must the industry that produced this shit have thought of us, to think we’d buy it? And didn’t I like The Waterboy, before I realised that it wasn’t cool to not sneer? Oh, hello, CD-ROM videogames. I was just thinking about an appropriate analogy for you. Not sure I managed it, to be honest. Anyway, The 7th Guest is from the era when ‘interactive’ was a word worth putting on the front of your game box. Where we were promised the future but given gaming’s equivalent of a pennyfarthing. A time when our chill thresholds were so low that midi tunes

could be considered ‘spooky’. But it’s not quite part of the Sandler-Schneider mire we find ourselves wading through today. The puzzles are decent enough. It’s likeably camp. It’s not offensive. It’s The Waterboy, not Jack And Jill. Unfortunately, The 7th Guest is powered by a way-worse-than-broken ‘pointing’ and ‘clicking’ system that feels like your niece has installed a set of animated novelty cursors she downloaded from a Russian website. A massive, imprecise pyramid indicates clickability, but if you can work out which of the options the huge sod is referring to, then perhaps you won’t quit the damn game without saving, more than once, like I did. If you must have a CD-ROM nostalgia party, there are far worse places to start than this. Actually, not that many.

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Tremble at the spooky human heart.

◆ Expect to pay £7 ◆ Developer Trilobyte Games ◆ Publisher Good Old Games ◆ Multiplayer None ◆ Link www.gog.com ◆ First review PCG 23, 79%

Imagine throwing a war party, and only tanks came.

Boatmaster, your craft is an unlikely one.

Get a room, guys.

SOULBRINGER

ORDER OF WAR

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L

DIVINITY 2: THE DRAGON KNIGHT SAGA

ome worlds are created with so much love it feels like a darn privilege to explore them. This is absolutely not one of those games. Its major novelty appears to be a motion-captured combat system. Although you’ve never seen a lowresolution man stab a vagabond in a more convincingly lifelike fashion, this is definitely not a timeless feature that stands the test of nostalgia. Possibly most annoyingly, something as fundamental as moving around the world has been made so unpleasantly fernickity that there isn’t a proper modern word for it. Well, there might be a better word than fernickity, but once you’ve thought of the word fernickety, it crowds out all the others. Fernickity. Don’t buy this, for all our sakes.

ook at all those tanks. Like ants at the picnic of war. Like a herd of cannontrunked RTS elephants. Order of War might have a title as forgettable as a wasp fart, but it’s as hungry for attention as a writer who relies too heavily on elaborate and self-referential similes. This is a game of noisy set-pieces, desperately trying to keep the attention of the casual crowd it consistently underestimates, like a patronising conversation during a first date with a hot simpleton. The trade-off comes in the tedious combat, which can only be truly communicated by repeating the word ‘dull’ 150 times. Try it. Stop reading this, and mouth the word ‘dull’ 150 times. Congratulations! You’re now reviewing videogames.

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◆ Expect to pay £10 ◆ Developer Interplay ◆ Publisher Good Old Games ◆ First review PCG 84, 63%

◆ Expect to pay £5 ◆ Developer Square Enix ◆ Publisher Mastertronic ◆ First review PCG 207, 45%

◆ Expect to pay £30 ◆ Developer Interplay ◆ Publisher Good Old Games ◆ First review PCG 84, 63%

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his bundles Ego Draconis, and the expansion. I read PC Gamer’s first review out of curiosity, and found the perfect summary. “It’s not the best fantasy RPG,” it read. The original reviewer followed that up with a sentence I’ve used a few too many times myself, which can be paraphrased as “but if you love doing missions, it’s got loads of missions. So knock yourself out, by all means.” And I’ve just enough space to say that the sizey expansion pack is actually pretty good, and the thoughtful devs have patched the bugs that made the first game hard work. So the bundle has rocketed upwards, into a whole new cliché. Now, it’s good if you like that sort of thing, as it is exactly that sort of thing that you enjoy.

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MAKE YOUR GAMES LAST LONGER Forty of STEAM WORKSHOP’s greatest mods for your favourite games, installed with a single click. By Richard Cobbett

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odding is as much a part of the PC experience as mice, keyboards, and that warm feeling of superiority over every console generation. Now, thanks to Steam Workshop, adding a new mod and keeping it up to date can be as easy as picking from a digital catalogue, where creators get the chance to upload new skins and objects for either direct download or possible inclusion in-game. Games such as Skyrim can be instantly filled with new adventures, items and complete overhauls. For other games, notably Dota 2 and Team Fortress 2, the Workshop is more a list of hopes and dreams: a way of putting your

stamp of approval on anything from a new staff to a costume piece that you want to see make its way into the official store. Creators don’t simply get a warm glow if that happens, but a cut of all sales. You can mix and match mods with those from other sources, like the Nexus (www. nexusmods.com), which is needed for some more advanced projects. Steam Workshop has a fairly tight maximum file size, at least for the moment, and prefers to keep things clean. Even with such restrictions, there’s plenty that modders can achieve, and thus no shortage of goodies. Without further ado, here are our favourite discoveries, fresh from your Steam client.

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MAKE YOUR GAMES LAST LONGER

sKYrim

GRAPHIC/AuDIo oVeRHAul BY JessupsGamingChannel link www.bit.ly/Skymod1

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kyrim is far from an ugly game, but this is a set of instant improvements you’ll never be able to go back from. Better snow, lush trees, dynamic snow, bloodier combat... the list goes on, leaving no stone unturned and making the stone look prettier while it’s about it. It’s a collection rather than one mod, so you can swap out anything you don’t want. It shouldn’t destroy your framerate either, unlike more advanced graphical overhauls such as the ENB series. One thing to watch: any other mods you download that edit towns and villages will almost certainly clash with these, which is potentially disastrous. If the game crashes on launch, or you find yourself blocked from somewhere important, switch those off first. As a general rule of thumb, you probably only want one mod at a time working on any part of the game.

MooNPAtH to elsweyR BY Muppetpuppet link www.bit.ly/Skymod2

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ored of Skyrim’s scenery? How do you feel about a quick journey to another land – one of jungles and deserts? To get started, head for the town of Falkreath and sign up with a group you’ll find in the tavern – ideally after clocking up a few

FRostFAll

BY Chesko link www.bit.ly/Skymod3

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orget exploring Skyrim’s frozen wastes in just a pair of fur pants. Frostfall turns the weather into a bigger threat than any dragon. Dips in cold water bring on hypothermia, and a trip up High Hrothgar demands proper gear. When it rains in the north, find cover or prepare to start shivering. You do get a few bonuses, too: such as being able to set up camps and build warming fires.

levels doing Dovahkiin business. The journey involves a few stops to deal with bandits and giant spiders, and guess who has to do the dirty work? After that, this is one of those mods that reminds you why mods are so vital. It has a fully voiced questline, occasionally rough around the edges, but a refreshing break with a distinct style and identity. You’re still dealing with those pesky Thalmor, and the land of Elsweyr is the official Khajit cat-people homeland rather than a pun, but while the opening is incredibly linear, it soon opens out into more than just a few quick set-pieces. Plus there’s an airship, which isn’t as incongruous as that might sound. Poorly proofed text and occasional confusion about the next step aside, Moonpath fits right next to Bethesda’s own work.

quick fixes nPC tools

sCarY horror maPs

Cs_museum

Summon your favourite GMod characters and play puppet-master.

Turn the cheeriness of Garry’s Mod into sheer pants wetting- BOO!

One of the prettiest maps around, but don’t stop to look at the scenery.

Game Garry’s Mod BY Silverlan link www.bit.ly/Gmodmod1

Game Garry’s Mod BY GEMI link www.bit.ly/Gmodmod2

Game Counter-Strike: GO BY FMPOne link www.bit.ly/CSmod1

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TOP 100 FREE DOWNLOADS

51

FAR CRY 3 MINECRAFT

52 PORTAL 2 CO-OP

MAP INSANITY IS CUBED IN THIS MINECRAFT CUSTOM MAP

MAPS TESTING PARTNER NOT INCLUDED

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Thanks to Steam Workshop, there are now enough co-op test chambers to keep Atlas and P-Body busy for months. Here are four to make GLaDOS proud. PS

he most surprising thing about this venture out in the daylight hours, find a lovely ode to Far Cry 3 in the form new collection of buildings, clear out the of a Minecraft map is that it isn’t just mobs and spawners, then scavenge for any some half-arsed tie-in. It’s made by tools or loot that will help see you through Michael Lambert, an established the next few days. Progress can be slow, community figure, and comes with a new because you don’t want to be wandering texture pack that reskins the zombies and the jungle at night. skeletons as members of Vaas’s gang. It’s a In true Minecraft tradition, installing map that not only acts as a primer for the map isn’t the easiest procedure. You Far Cry 3, but also makes for a need to get to the Roaming folder compelling Minecraft of your computer’s AppData. adventure in its own right. Type ‘%appdata%’ into your PHIL SAYS... The best of two brilliant Start bar and it should “What’s next, Creepers worlds, then. appear. From there, go to rendered in For starters it’s brutally the .minecraft folder to Far Cry 3‘s tough. Villages and access the game’s data. engine?” outposts are covered in mob In the download you’ll spawners, so explore at night find two files. Move the and you can easily find yourself Farcry-3-textures.zip file into overrun by monsters. Weapons, the .minecraft\texturepacks tools and armour are scarce too. It folder. Then uncompress the map file follows the typical Minecraft adventure and move the entire folder into . rules, so you’re not supposed to break or minecraft\saves. If it’s installed correctly collect any blocks (but not that it doesn’t you’ll find a new option in Minecraft’s use the recently introduced Adventure Texture Pack menu and can then load the game mode, so this is strictly on the map from the Select World screen. Happy honour system). hunting people. PS Your primary method of survival is to www.bit.ly/FCraft3

SIX EXTRA SECONDS OF TRUST A warren of puzzles, each player trying to create a path for the other. www.bit.ly/P2coop1 BUTTONS, ELEVATORS AND GOO Somehow packs-in every puzzle element available in the mapmaker. www.bit.ly/P2coop2 RAMPAGE Uses a mixture of ramps and emancipation grids to provide puzzles designed around hard-light bridges. www.bit.ly/P2coop3 THERE’S NO I IN TEAM, 01 Starts with a tricky excursion funnel puzzle, ends with slapstick laser hilarity. www.bit.ly/P2coop4

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TOP 100 FREE DOWNLOADS

PARADIS PERDUS FREEWARE DESTROY SOMETHING

BEAUTIFUL TODAY

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h look, another ambient exploration ambulator in which you slowly plod around a gorgeously abstract world while cheerful music plays in the background. Except beauty is fleeting in Paradis Perdus, because you destroy everything you touch. As you walk, the path you travel starts to decay. The music warps and glitches as the green grass rots into a dark red. Eventually it collapses entirely, leaving a hole in the world that you can fall through. That’s a problem, because your job is to find three crystals scattered around. Unless you’re extremely careful about the route you take, you can easily trap yourself, unable to double back while the world disappears around you. That’s a pretty scary thought, for sure. Tread carefully. PS www.bit.ly/PPerdus

53 54

WHAT’S IN THE BOX?

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FREEWARE HOPEFULLY NOT GWYNETH PALTROW’S HEAD

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othing to do with Peter Molyneux’s cube-tapping shenanigans, What’s in the Box is a fiendish puzzler. You help an arm long enough to make Mr Tickle jealous carry a box through the twisting maze of each level. Many obstacles lie between you and the discovery of what you’re holding. PS www.bit.ly/BoxPC

A B C

RED BARRIER Your hand can pass freely through, but the box can’t. Which means your hand can’t if it’s holding the box. BLUE BARRIER Allows the box through, but blocks your hand. You need to drop the box through and go around. SWITCH These swap the colour of every barrier in the level as long as your arm covers them. Expect doubling back.

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WHY AM I DEAD? WEBGAME IT’S A PERFECTLY REASONABLE QUESTION

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n this mystery adventure you play a hotel owner. You’ve been murdered. You want to find out why. To do this you must possess the various guests of the hotel, using them to question each other to reveal scraps of information. Your chief vessel is Cricket, a lawyer and the only guest who actually seems to care about solving the murder.

Many of the guests will only open up to a specific person

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While it’s Cricket who’s doing most of the legwork, many of the guests will only open up to a specific person, so much of the game revolves around finding just who you need to inhabit to make a character open up. That does lead to occasional aimlessness as your progress through the story is blocked by a particularly unhelpful character. Luckily a lot of the characterisation is funny enough to make up for the downtime. PS www.bit.ly/WhyDead

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PRESENTS WORLD OF TANKS

Maps

EDITORIAL Editor Rob Taylor

LICENSING Head of International Licensing Tim Hudson

CONTRIBUTORS Richard Hood, Andy McGregor, John Strike, Jon Blyth, Richard Cobbett, Christian Donlan, Tom Francis, Duncan Geere, Duncan Harris, Tom Hatfield, Steve Hogarty, Rick Lane, Christopher Livingstone, Adam Oxford, Rich McCormick, Graham Smith, Phil Savage, Tom Senior, Chris Thursten Photography Future Photography Studio, www.istockphoto.com Group Art Director Graham Dalzell Creative Director Robin Abbott Editorial Director Jim Douglas Sales Director Nick Weatherall

FUTURE PUBLISHING LIMITED Group Publishing Director Clair Porteous Publisher Richard Keith

ADVERTISING Advertisement Manager Andrew Church London Sales Director Malcolm Stoodley Entertainments Sales Director Rob Elms Account Manager David Priestman Account Manager Rachel Sinclair Account Manager Chris Brown MARKETING Group Marketing Manager Sam Wight Direct Marketing Manager Adam Jones Marketing Executive Antonella Matia

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Future produces high-quality multimedia products which reach our audiences online, on mobile and in print. Future attracts over 50 millions consumers to its brands every month across five core sectors: Technology, Entertainment, Music, Creative and Sports & Auto. We export and license our publications. Chief executive Mark Wood Non-executive chairman Peter Allen Chief financial officer Graham Harding Tel +44 (0)207 042 4000 (London) Tel +44 (0)1225 442 244 (Bath)

PC GAMER is Future Publishing Limited’s registered trademark. All rights reserved. © Future Publishing Ltd. 2012. No part of this magazine may be used or reproduced without the written permission of the publisher. Future Publishing Limited (company number 2008885) is registered in England and Wales. The registered office of Future Publishing Limited is at Beauford Court, 30 Monmouth Street, Bath BA1 2BW. All information contained in this magazine is for informational purposes only and is, to the best of our knowledge, correct at the time of going to press. Future Publishing Limited cannot accept any responsibility for errors or inaccuracies that occur. Readers are advised to contact manufacturers and retailers direct with regard to pricing. All submissions to PC Gamer are made on the basis of a licence to publish the submission in PC Gamer magazine, its associated websites and all world-wide licensed editions of the same. Any material submitted is sent at the owner’s risk and, although every care is taken, neither Future Publishing Limited nor its agents shall be liable for loss or damage.

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