Xbox360

GTA V SPLINTER CELL BLACKLIST BIOSHOCK INFINITE Issue 94 January 2013

ISSUE 94 GEARS OF WAR: JUDGMENT GTA V FAR CRY 3 METAL GEAR RISING DmC: DEVIL MAY CRY ANARCHY REIGNS WATCH DOGS BIOSHOCK INFINITE WWW.OXM.CO.UK OXT94.cover.indd 1

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GEARS OF WAR JUDGMENT Epic’s shooter heads the best games of 2013!

Issue 94 January 2013

£5.99

INSIDE WATCH DOGS STAR WARS DARK SOULS PRETTY-BOY SHOWDOWN VAMPIRE DIARIES 12/3/12 11:59 AM

Contents January 2013 Welcome to the jungle, again. Lose 82 your mind with Far Cry 3.

How well does Medal of Honor: 122 Warfighter fare online?

38 “We’re aiming to

make Judgment the most intense Gears you’ve seen so far”

review of the LEGO Legolas.

89 Our

lara laughs Raider.

52 AwithlaraTomb 8

XBOX 360 THE OFFICIAL XBOX MAGAZINE

OXT94.contents.indd 8

South Park: play even more 68 Poking The Stick of Truth.

76 We DmC: Devil May Cry. www.oxm.co.uk

12/6/12 9:12 AM

Subscribe to OXM and get a SEGA handheld console!

Turn to page 50 for details.

best of the rest for 2013.

62 The

up with the 61Catch latest Splinter Cell.

biggest game is on its way 44 2013’s soon. Get ready for GTA V.

Dashboard

Expert opinion and comment…

Destiny 014 Bungie’s top-secret shooter MMO finally leaks out into the open.

Enticing sci-fi artwork ahoy!

Heroes & Zeroes 016 Pay-per-hour karaoke, Log in a dress, and an inability to escape Gangnam Style. These three points are unrelated.

Month in Numbers 019 Now that 343 is done with Halo 4, it’s gearing up to make something for the next Xbox. What could it be?

First Look 020 Side-scrolling strategy heads to Xbox Live Arcade, bringing a touch of Angry Birds flair. Hello there, CastleStorm.

Number Cruncher 022 An angry mob of NUMBER GOBLINS block your way to the EAST. There are doors to the NORTH and WEST. Most Wanted 024 Modern Warfare 4 hasn’t been officially revealed yet, but neither has the date of your death. Inevitability, people.

Hot Topic 026 Do we need triple-A gaming in the future, or are smaller projects the way to go? Log and Dan discuss.

Calendar 028 You’ve got a whole year of pointless procrastination ahead of you. Let’s go.

Input

Post opinion on your games, your friends and your magazine Letters 032 This month we’ve got internet usage queries, GTA Glasgow, and investing in Battlefield 3 Premium. twitter.com/oxmuk

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Features

The best writers in the industry explore the wider world of Xbox 360 What’s inside the next Xbox?

070 What technological wizardry can we expect from the Xbox 360’s successor?

Battle of the Brawlers 073 Devil May Cry, Anarchy Reigns and Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. Three great action games go head-to-head.

From TV to table 080 We take a look at board game versions of videogames. Can they really compete with our beloved Xbox?

Games of 2012 098 It’s been an incredible year for games, but which have been our favourites?

The Vampire Diaries 106 Our extended play of Skyrim’s bloodsucking Dawnguard DLC. Wampires!

Previews

Every detail available on the most-wanted Xbox 360 games Gears of War: Judgment GTA V Tomb Raider Watch Dogs BioShock Infinite Star Wars 1313 Dark Souls 2 Splinter Cell Blacklist

038 044 052 055 056 059 060 061

Reviews

The ultimate buyers’ guide – the best new Xbox 360 games reviewed!

Far Cry 3 082 Nike+ Kinect Training 086 Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed 088 LEGO The Lord of the Rings 089 Rise of the Guardians 091 Family Guy: Back to the Multiverse 093 Zone of the Enders: HD Collection 094 Skulls of the Shogun 096 Harry Potter for Kinect 097 Karateka 097 Marvel Avengers: Battle for Earth 097

The Full 360

Customise and expand your Xbox 360 gaming with tips, content and great ideas!

Now playing: Halo 4 113 Things to try out with Mr. John-117.

DLC Reviews 116 Borderlands 2’s expletive-filled offering.

OXM investigates 120 Is the Season Pass value for money?

Medal of Honor: Warfighter 122 We take EA’s shooter online for a test.

The OXM Replay 124 Looking back at Amped 3.

Quiz 130 Are you a final boss, or just another goon?

On the disc Your Official Xbox 360 cover disc has six demos to try!

Find out more on page 12.

THE OFFICIAL XBOX MAGAZINE XBOX 360

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The other games you need to watch out for in the year ahead ith Gears of War, GTA, Star Wars, and everything else already mentioned in this issue, you might think W we’ve the preview balloon is fully inflated. Well, you couldn’t be more wrong. We’re going to keep blowing until 2013 explodes in our faces. Over the next few pages, we’ve got the stars, the oddballs and the causes for suspicion that make up what we know of the coming year. If you can’t find something for you in here, maybe you should hibernate until 2014.

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2013 Preview

Strike Suit Zero Pub Born Ready | Dev Born Ready | Release 24 Jan

Crysis 3

Taking a lot from the Japanese love of transforming robots, Strike Suit Zero is a successful Kickstarter project that mixes giant robot space battles with a strong, twisty storyline.

Publisher EA | Developer Crytek | Players 1-12 | Co-op None | Release 22 Feb

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n the jungle, the mighty jungle, that was once New York City, Prophet and Psycho are fighting Cell Corporation forces in the overgrown streets. It’s like Crysis got homesick when the sequel moved from the actual jungle to its urban counterpart. But instead of going back to an island, they stubbornly insisted that the jungle must come to New York.

Set in 2047, it’s been 24 years since the happenings of Crysis 2 2, and our two heroes have discovered the truth behind the Cell Corporation’s Nanodome construction program. Built under the guise of protecting the remaining humans from Ceph invasion, they also have a secondary purpose: to help Cell seize power over what remains of Earth.

It’s not all misery and oppression, though – the domes are climate-controlled, which gives developer Crytek a chance to break out of the greys of granite and alien steel. Prophet and Psycho will carve paths through swampland and rainforest that have taken root in the city.

The latest demo shows how Prophet’s Nanosuit has improved over the years, getting closer and closer to the fluid combat we were promised with the very first Crysis. And while this is just one of many games to bring bows and arrows to shooters, this is the only one with high-explosive arrowheads.

NANO SUITS YOU

Aliens: Colonial Marines Pub Sega | Dev Gearbox | Release 12 Feb

This bombastic FPS homage to the Aliens movies has “fan service right down to the bedrock” and great pacing according to Edwin, who’s played it. Read more at oxm.co.uk.

Magrunner Pub Focus Home Interactive | Dev 3AM Games | Release Spring

A Portal-style first-person puzzler with magnetism at the heart of the puzzles.

It starts in a gleaming, corporate cathedral, but quickly degrades into a filthy nightmare when Cthulhu gets involved.

In Crysis 2, 2, we learn the Nanosuit is evolving – a great way of explaining away the differences. The new suit is still mysterious – all we know is it’ll be able to hack, and that speed and power have been split into distinct powers, like they used to be.

Star Trek Pub Namco Bandai | Dev Digital Extremes | Release Spring

Originally pegged for 2012, this co-op shooter starring Kirk and Spock is shrouded in mystery. All we know is that J.J. Abrams and his team are writing the story, and it’s being made by The Darkness II team. twitter.com/oxmuk

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Omerta: City of Gangsters Pub Kalypso Media | Dev Haemimont Games | Release 1 Feb

If we’re going to get turn-based strategy kick-started on the Xbox 360, we’re going to need more games than just XCOM. Maybe this one will keep everyone’s attention for a while?

Dark Pub Kalypso Media | Dev Realmforge | Release Summer

Stealth-action with a bit of vampiric role-playing, Dark gives you a bloodsucker’s speed, strength and their shortcomings, and then pits you against soldiers and other vampires. Nice idea, rough execution.

GRID 2 Publisher Codemasters | Developer Codemasters | Players 1-12 | Co-op None | Release Summer

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Matter Pub Microsoft | Dev Blind Wink Games | Release 2013

A Kinect-enabled rolling ball puzzler set in a Tron-esque universe... directed by Gore Verbinski. This sounds like it was designed exclusively by happy powder.

Dead Island: Riptide Pub Deep Silver | Dev Techland | Release 26 Apr

Techland retreads old ground with another tear-jerking trailer, even though we now know that the game is pretty low on emotion. Was the first game a fun fluke?

Let’s hope Techland manages another flawed gem. More next issue.

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hether blasting through the grime of midtown Chicago or seeing reflected sunbeams dapple off your tail-pipe as you hurtle towards a Californian highway’s cliff-edge, GRID 2 is primed to arrive this summer buffed to a fine sheen. But it’s not all muscular, thrumming engines – there’s cleverness beneath the gleaming bonnet of that Nissan Skyline too…

The original GRID’s forward-weighted arcade handling makes a return – chased down by rival AI that packages driving traits into distinct racing personalities. If you end up playing against an ‘aggressive’ and ‘foolhardy’ AI, you’ll have an ample chance to admire the new and impressive car wreck physics.

You might prefer to race through GRID 2’s city streets, sweeping highways and intense track days against non-simulated opponents, of course. If that’s the case, you’ll find the XP chains of multiplayer sitting separately from your solo career. Here Codies’ answer to EA’s Autolog, RaceNet, will provide all the challenges, tournaments and friend rivalries that life on four wheels can muster, keeping you informed of your friends’ progress without making it necessary to boost your career.

The in-car view has been chopped (only five per cent of players ever use it, Codies tells us), but new for the sequel is LiveRoutes – an option that changes the track layout on every lap to keep you on your toes.

So far, 2013 is looking pretty dry in terms of adrenalin racing, which means GRID 2 has nudged itself into an easy pole position. We’re expecting a podium finish.

“There are some new and impressive car wreck physics”

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2013 Preview

Remember Me Pub Capcom | Dev Dontnod Entertainment | Release May

A high-kicking action adventure that sees Memory Hunter Nilin kicking seven shades of sentience out of Futuro Parisians. Her combat options are vast and hugely customisable. A potential hardcore treat.

Terraria

Pub 505 Games | Dev Re-Logic | Release Spring

To call Terraria a ‘2D Minecraft clone’ is both damning and descriptive. It’s delightfully hard, with your hero digging and building a home in a huge, randomlygenerated 2D platform world full of night-loving beasties, huge bosses and hidden treasures. It also supports nicely anarchistic multiplayer, and the Xbox 360 version will have some exclusive features.

LEAST REALISTIC PHYSICS

TEAM PICK

A lot of fans felt that Dragon Age 2 was rushed and not onpar with the original.

The fact that we’ve heard nothing about Dragon Age 3 until recently suggests BioWare has taken these criticisms to heart, and I’m fascinated to find out what the legendary RPG creator has up its sleeve. Mass Effect 3’s ending might have angered some, but the quality of the game was fantastic.

If BioWare can add the same polish here, it should be fantastic.

Dragon Age 3: Inquisition Pub EA | Dev BioWare | Release Winter

No one expects the Dragon Age: Inquisition! You’ll only be able to play as a human, choices from the earlier games will carry through, and it’ll feature enemies from the distant Tevinter Imperium.

Young Justice: Legacy Pub Little Orbit | Dev Little Orbit | Release Spring

Fuse

Pub EA | Dev Insomniac Games | Release March 2013

TEAM PICK

The original GRID fitted neatly between bolt-polishing simulation and power-sliding fun, and the sequel is being built along similar lines.

The handling is deep enough for the hardcore, but playable by anybody without assists. Codies has big plans for online play too. Now that Forza’s lightened up a bit thanks to Horizon, GRID 2 has a tougher job on its hands, but its pedigree is unbeatable.

It’ll easily number in the year’s top racing games, and may even come top.

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Insomniac, onetime developer of the populist Ratchet & Clank games and the so-so Resistance series, seems to be moving closer to the po-faced gun combat that sells shooting games.

Fuse,, its new hyperbolic co-op title, has a team of four misfit heroes using a range of silly weapons against an entire army of human and sci-fi enemies. Taking Gears of War’s third-person perspective, but with the Borderlands’ co-op ethos, and throwing in the crap science we associate with face cream adverts (melanite bullets shatter people! firing anti-matter at people sucks them into black holes!) makes for a fun-looking co-op massacre. Apparently, there’s a plot too!

“Fuse’’s weapons use the same crap science as face cream ads”

Young Justice tracks the teen wannabes behind the brave and the bold heroes of DC Comics. Legacy takes them to the realm of the Action RPG – where many a villain will encounter a righteous fist.

Injustice: Gods Among Us Pub Warner Bros | Dev NetherRealm Studios | Release Spring

The DC universe, in the hands of the Mortal Kombat creators? Batman’s hardly a Fatality kind of guy, but the “powers vs gadgets” combat sounds pretty toasty.

Chucking a Batarang at the Green Lantern sounds futile, but fun.

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State of Decay BEST LOSS OF “CARTEL”

Pub Microsoft Studios | Dev Undead Labs | Release 2013

The relentless onslaught of zombie games doesn’t seem like it’s going to end any time soon. Looking increasingly like a mix of The Sims and Dawn of the Dead, State of Decay (formerly known as Class3) is a combination of base-building, NPC-management, scavenging, and old-fashioned zombie-bashing. Jeff Strain, the co-creator of World of Warcraft, wanted a game that could help people test out their zombie-apocalypse survival plans. This CryEngine 3-powered title is a step towards the game codenamed ‘Class4’, a full zombie MMO on the Xbox 360 – or, more likely, the next Xbox.

Call of Juarez: Gunslinger

BEST SURVIVAL GAME

Pub Ubisoft | Dev Techland | Release Spring

Gunslinger’s got one thing right: Call of Juarez is back in the Wild West where it belongs. The first two games were centred around Reverend Ray, but the stars of Gunslinger are legends of the West. Pat Garrett, Billy The Kid, Butch Cassidy – all linked together by the tales of our hero, a bounty hunter who hobnobbed with the best of them.

“Call of Juarez is back in the Wild West where it belongs”

Army of Two: The Devil’s Cartel Pub EA | Dev Visceral Games | Release 29 Mar

The bombastic exploits of Tyson Rios and Elliot Salem are in the past. Step forward Alpha and Bravo, two “blank slates” that you can pour your own personality into, so long as it’s the kind of personality that likes to blow things up.

Dead Space 3 Pub EA | Dev Visceral Games | Release 8 Feb

We were worried for a while that co-op play might rob Dead Space of its horror and survival elements. It’s a lot easier to face up to an unknowable terror when you’ve already fought it twice already, and kind of know about it now. And even easier when you’ve got an equally badass friend helping out. The first game was defined by how hopelessly alone you were in the face of an undefined enemy. The latest game will be defined by buddy-action co-op, and a chilling sense of uncertainly and paranoia. Don’t worry, is the message from Visceral. Things change, but they’re still going to shock your Crocs off. If you wear Crocs, which you shouldn’t.

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BEST GAIN OF “CARTEL”

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2013 Preview

BlazBlue: Chrono Phantasma Pub Arc System Works | Dev Arc System Works | Release 2013

An imaginative fighter that doesn’t have a huge roster, focusing instead on finely balanced combat between beautifully designed 2D characters. It’s out in Japan and, distributors willing, over here soon.

Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons Pub 505 Games | Dev Starbreeze Studios | Release Summer

Metro: Last Light Publisher THQ | Developer 4A Games | Players TBC | Co-op TBC | Release 2013

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Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2

Pub Konami | Dev Mercury Steam | Release 2013

At the close of Lords of Shadow, Belmont showed his ties to a rather famous ancestral vampire. The sequel sees him negotiating the famed bloodsucker’s castle trying to regain his lost powers.

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he first Metro game pulled something rare out of the bag. It was a game that we’d previewed with considerable reservations – the UI, the controls, and graphical performance all pointed to that forgotten creature, The Sloppy PC Port. By the time the game was ready for review, all of our concerns had been dealt with. Metro 2033 was a tense, fantasy thriller set in an apocalyptic Moscow.

Let’s hope there are similar reasons behind Last Light’s delays. The sequel was originally called Metro 2034, after the name of the book’s sequel. But it departed so much from the storyline that it ended up with its own subtitle. It was also meant to be released during the summer of 2012, a date which was fumbled and passed into 2013, without a clear date to get excited about.

Still, it’s a world that deserves further exploration. The Metro series is set after an unnamed “event” that sent human life retreating into the Metro stations of Moscow, and left the outside soaked with deadly radiation. The life that remains out there is hostile and mutated. Inside, humanity’s remnants have coagulated into tribal communities. Scarce resources mean that they frequently fail to unite in the face of a common enemy. THQ might be in financial trouble, but it’s got too much good stuff going on to just disappear.

Far from Starbreeze’s usual hyper-violent fare, XBLA title Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons gives you control of a young, playful and artistic boy, and his stronger, elder brother.

Prepare for intense fraternal bonding.

TEAM PICK

Last Light’s debut in-game footage smacked a little too much of CoD for fans, but recent PC demos suggest that 4A has spent as much time expanding the fiction, fine-detailing the world and rejigging the suspense as it’s spent giving the gunplay more zip. So far, we’ve toured sewer cities, stalked neo-Nazis from above and fought mutants inside busted airliners. Providing the Xbox 360 version stands muster, this should be nightmarish fun.

Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2 Pub City Interactive | Dev City Interactive | Release 15 Jan

The original Ghost Warrior defied critics by sneaking out of the long grass as something of a sleeper hit. Built in CryEngine 3 and taking in grassy knolls from war-torn Bosnia all the way to the Himalayas – its sequel shows every sign of capitalising on that success. It’s a bullet drop extravaganza: a bumper edition of CoD’s annual sniper mission.

Here’s hoping for a strike on target.

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MOST OVERDUE STARRING ROLE

Deadpool Pub Activision | Dev High Moon Studios | Release 2013

Deadpool’s the masked, mutilated superhero who won’t be limited by the medium he’s in.

He talks to his own speech bubbles, makes his own sound effects, and who knows – he might also make for a fun action brawler.

Retro City Rampage Pub D3 Publisher | Dev VBlank Entertainment | Release 2013

This GTA demake is already out on PC, so we can confidently predict that it’ll atomise every movie, comic book and videogame of the ‘80s and spray it into your face like a sweet-smelling mist of references.

Persona 4 Arena Pub Atlus | Dev Atlus | Release Spring

Beloved by those who care, and ignored by those who don’t, P4A is a 2D fighter based on the characters and universe of a Japanese RPG. It came out in 2008, for some reason only on PlayStation 2. We’d love to see more Persona games on Xbox, but this is a pretty strange place to start.

MOST UNLIKELY HERO

Lococycle Pub Microsoft Studios | Dev Twisted Pixel | Release 2013

Twisted Pixel’s latest stars a motorbike that leaps from the street, transforms, and punches other vehicles into the scrap heap.

Where’s the rider? Chained to the back wheel, obviously. So long as Lococycle isn’t voiced by Jack Black this should be fun.

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South Park: The Stick of Truth Publisher THQ | Developer Obsidian Entertainment | Players 1 | Co-op None | Release TBC

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ince the failure of uDraw, THQ has lurched from one financial frisson and cash-conniption to the next. This has led the South Park RPG to slip backwards from a release date of March 2013 to a much mistier and more distant place. This is a shame, because it could be one of the games that pulls the company out of its hole. The combination of unflinching comedy and cartoon turn-based combat looks like it might tickle us in a long-untickled armpit.

Parker and Stone were explicit in their inspirations, and made it clear that in making a game, they were as driven by avoiding the things they hated, as mimicking the things they love. So while players would get to challenge massive, optional bosses like Final Fantasy VII’s Ruby and Emerald Weapons, there’d be no unskippable cutscenes. Which begs the question – why aren’t these man drafting the industry standards?

It’s the first time the town of South Park has even been imagined and mapped out as a continuous world, rather than a place where people walk out of one location and appear in another. It contains all of the cast members, either as mission-givers, cameo NPCs or summons.

What Mr. Slave does with his finishing move is something that needs to appear our of shot.

But it’s never all shock with South Park – the main story of a child looking to find his place in a new town is bound to have some touching moments of real emotion. Just, you know, not so many that it’ll make you want to puke.

CLASS WARFARE

At one point, a mysterious fifth class was announced.

Then, it was revealed that this class was the “high risk, high reward” Jew, who was “strongest when close to death”. For whatever reason, this class appears to have disappeared.

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2013 Preview GHOSTS OF 2013

The unconfirmed, the potentially cancelled, and the games that we just don’t know enough about

TEAM PICK

The second Parker and Stone mentioned the Ruby and Emerald Weapon in The Stick of Truth, I was on board. It’s been a long time since my Final Fantasy VII play clock jammed on 99:59:59, and I rode my Golden Chocobo to that geezer in the cave who gave you stuff based on the number of battles you’d fought. This game could fill my aching nostalgia tube, and better still – not star a tedious, moping juvenile who communicates in ellipses.

Lost Planet 3

Pub Capcom | Dev Spark Unlimited | Release Summer

After the overtly multiplayer theatrics of its predecessor, LP3 is a traditional blend of thirdperson action, stompy mechs and survival horror – all accessible within the snowy free-roam wastes.

THIEF 4 With Dishonored and Hitman making their mark on 2012, the world’s ready for the return of stealth action’s classic grandaddy.

MAFIA 3 Both Mafia games fell shy of perfection.

But there’s every chance that Mafia 3 could be the period classic they’ve nearly made twice.

DEVIL’S THIRD Best known for Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive Alive, Tomonobu Itagaki is turning his hand to third-person shooters. But the trail’s gone cold.

PREY 2 The openworld bounty hunting sequel is the subject of ongoing dispute between dev and publisher. We’re told it’s still coming.

Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee – New ‘n’ Tasty Pub TBC | Dev Oddworld Inhabitants | Release Winter

This isn’t just a straight remake of the game that introduced us to Oddworld. With scrolling instead of flip-screens and improved 3D, it’ll feel more up to date.

Pier Solar HD Pub TBC | Dev WaterMelon | Release 2013

A crowd-funded attempt to bring a huge 16-bit platformer to Xbox 360. The team are also making a Dreamcast version, because... well, because it’s their Kickstarter and they can do what they want.

MGS: GROUND ZEROES Hideo Kojima’s open-world take on Snake’s tactical espionage had a lush trailer – but a huge project like this may take a while.

The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct

XCOM FPS This disappeared when the strategy game stole the limelight, but we loved the ‘50s aesthetics and research-based gameplay.

Pub Activision | Dev Terminal Reality | Release 2013

The Walking Dead has had an unbroken run of hits, so far: the comics, TV show and adventure games were all creations of high tension, horror and emotional torture. So, a shooter? How will that work? It’s single player, starring the survivalist Daryl Dixon from the TV show, accompanied by an AI Merle, who’ll be providing the role of “asshole”. It’s a prequel to the series, showing their back-story, and while more emotional zombie stories focus on the relationships between the living, this is an action tale that’ll pit you mainly against the senses of the dead. We’re intrigued, but not yet excited.

“It’s the first time the town of South Park has been mapped out as a continuous world” twitter.com/oxmuk

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SAINTS ROW 4 This started as DLC for SR3 but is now a full game. Expect a return to Steelport, then, and an even greater level of slapstick lunacy.

FURIOUS 4 Gearbox’s comedy co-op shooter has now ditched the Brothers In Arms name. We suspect it’ll arrive on the next Xbox.

RAINBOW SIX When vigilantes take it upon themselves to punish the rich on behalf of the poor, apparently that’s not cool, and you have to stop it.

The Cave Pub Sega | Dev Double Fine | Release Spring

From the creators of Monkey Island,, a sentient cave welcomes seven travellers plucked from time and space. Expect the profound and the hilarious.

Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams Pub TBC | Dev Black Forest Games | Release 2013

Another Kickstarter project, this is the Giana dev’s effort to set apart their characters from the Super Mario plagiarism that spawned them. The art team have stepped up to the task – it looks gorgeous.

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20 LOOK BEHIND YOU

1 2 20 We round up the 12 best games of 2012 – and the best and worst of the year gone by

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XCOM: ENEMY UNKNOWN Publisher 2K Games | Developer Firaxis

Edwin>>The only bad thing I can say about XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Unknown is that it’s all but driven 2K Marin’s promising, controversial XCOM shooter into the ground. As for good things to say about Enemy Unknown – well, where do I start? It’s easily the best strategy game on Xbox 360, not least because it has so much in common with survival horror – each game is a suspenseful process of escalation as you shore up global defences against a threat that can strike anywhere and at any time. Setting off on a mission is like sticking your head under the bed in search of monsters, with the key difference that the monsters are real, and everywhere.

A big hand in particular goes to the game’s upgradeable troopers, each worth his or her weight in gold providing you’re able to keep them upright long enough to access the top-tier weapons and abilities. Each trooper begins life as a nugget of generic parts, but soon attains a distinct personality via customisation and the vagaries of each battle.

Losing one to the alien hordes through injudicious positioning or sheer bad luck is cause not for irritation, but for genuine sorrow, with the prospect of a life-saving reload never far from your mind.

“Losing a trooper to the alien hordes is cause for genuine sorrow”

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Look Behind You

DISHONORED Publisher Bethesda | Developer Arkane Studios

Log>>The first time I finished Dishonored, I wanted to start playing again immediately.

I got the good ending, so it wasn’t for that reason. I just felt that I hadn’t done the game justice. I hadn’t explored enough, hadn’t found everything, and hadn’t seen all the domestic rooms that the game’s artists had filled with such love. The best thing about Dishonored is the intelligence with which it fills its world.

We’re used to having back-story thrust upon us. I hate Skyrim’s books. I loathe those audiologs that fade out as you walk away from the source – like you’re just supposed to just stand there and listen. Dishonored manages to get around that problem with a stroke of clockwork genius. Everything and everyone in Dunwall is transformed into a tiny, bite-sized audiolog by that brilliant whispering heart. If everyone built worlds as complete and dense as Dunwall, I wouldn’t have to spend so much time in this ridiculous place. (I’m gesturing at Matt, Edwin, and Jonty here.)

“The first time I finished Dishonored, I wanted to start playing again immediately” FORZA HORIZON Publisher Microsoft Studios | Developer Playground Games

Jonty>> I’ll be honest: I’ve always

appreciated Forza games more than I actually enjoyed them. My enthusiasm for motoring was born in worn-out Minis and rusting BMWs, and the impossibly expensive track battles of prior games never felt like an attainable fantasy.

Horizon, however, is bang on the money: a world filled with different races in every vehicle under the sun, all of them equipped with the same sublime handling that we’ve come to expect from that Forza logo.

Straightforward point-to-point is mixed with off-road blasts, urban street racing and face-offs against aircraft, and even getting from one event to another is a joy thanks to the constantly-accumulating style points that bring back warm memories of Project Gotham Racing. It’s an impossibly perfect car event that could never exist in reality, and thus an ideal bit of gaming escapism. I only hope that Microsoft and Turn 10 let Playground Games keep working on the franchise. twitter.com/oxmuk

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FLASHES OF JOY

THE WALKING DEAD

A SMALL SELECTION OF OUR FAVOURITE GAMING MEMORIES

Publisher TellTale Games | Developer TellTale Games

Matt>>Telling the tale of a man called Lee who’s trying to look

WELCOME TO DUBAI GAME: SPEC OPS: THE LINE

Spec Ops was a game full of amazing set-pieces, moral quandaries and a neat triple-tap of alternate endings. Its highlight? The visual wonderment of staggering through a doorway to be confronted by a row of vast skyscrapers – the space between them clogged by mountains of sand.

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after a girl called Clementine in a post-apocalyptic world full of zombies, The Walking Dead is a harrowing emotional rollercoaster. The characters and storylines are both fantastic, and the scripted events work perfectly with the brutal time constraints you have when making tough decisions. It barely feels interactive at times, but that doesn’t stop The Walking Dead from being massively involving and exciting.

It’s one of the best narrative-led games you’ll ever play, and the extent to which it gets under your skin is genuinely unnerving. Brutal, dark, unmissable stuff. The rest of the industry needs to start playing catch-up.

“It’s a harrowing, emotional rollercoaster”

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TAKING OVER THE ASYLUM GAME: THE DARKNESS II

Jackie Estacado has been hit by a train. He wakes up in hospital – but not the sort you’d expect. He’s in the nuthouse, with references to his life as a mobster graffitied on the walls. Is he mad, or is he really infected with a power that gives him heart-hungry tentacles?

LOVE WHAT YOU’VE DONE HERE! GAME: MINECRAFT

You’d constructed your initial ‘hut above a deep pit’, and then decided to visit a friend’s server – where you saw what they had built: a vast palace, perhaps, or a pirate ship hanging in the sky. You felt inferior, yes, but also awed by the skill, time and energy put into it.

DRAGON’S DOGMA Publisher Capcom | Developer Capcom

THE MARKET OF CHAOS AND DEATH GAME: SPELUNKY

Shopkeepers are deadly when provoked. Anger one, you anger them all. The Black Market is full of them, so when we misjudged a bomb detonation, the world became alive with shotgun blasts and leaping beardy men. That we escaped alive is our proudest achievement.

BECOMING THE ENIGMA MACHINE GAME: FEZ

It slowly dawns on you, as you’re playing Fez, that the alphabet around the world is a substitution cypher. One of the best puzzle-solving moments, though? Noticing a little brown fox jumping over a lazy dog, and realising you’re being presented with the entire Fez alphabet.

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Matt>>There’s no way that Capcom’s eccentric take on

traditional Western RPGs could ever find itself at the top of this list, but it’s rare that I find myself this excited and surprised about a game where you run around fighting goblins. Introducing a varied class and skill system that puts the combat of most RPGs to shame, Dragon’s Dogma’s world has a sense of physicality that’s similar to that of the amazing Dark Souls.

While not as punishing as From Software’s monster, Dragon’s Dogma’s ’s steep difficulty curve imbues the game with a real sense of adventure. Getting from A to B is often tough, and quests feel like massive undertakings. Yes, they can be repetitive, but the monster design is superb, and the world has a subtle but impressive sense of style. Many aspects of the game simply don’t feel finished, but despite that, it still manages to be far more exciting than other, more well-rounded competitors. It also lets you throw an old man off a cliff, and has the weirdest ending to any game, ever.

“Quests feel like massive undertakings” www.oxm.co.uk

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Look Behind You

YOUR SHOUT

WE ASKED YOU WHAT GAMES MADE YOUR YEAR ON FACEBOOK, TWITTER AND OXM.CO.UK. MANY OF YOU SAID HALO AND BLACK OPS. BUT THERE WERE SOME RARER CHOICES ON THE FORUM… XCOM “So different to any other game out there at the moment. It tried something new, and pulled it off.” Kronk10 “By far the most original game I’ve played, not to mention addictive.” RickyBlaze DISHONORED “My first playthrough was rushed, and I felt like the game was missing something. I gave it another go, and it’s brilliant.” Kronk10 “My surprise game of the year was Dishonored. Love it.” Captain_Chao5

HALO 4

Publisher Microsoft Studios | Developer 343 Industries

Jonty>>Given the amount of time, money and effort Microsoft spent filling the hole that Bungie left in our lives, it’s not surprising that Halo 4 turned out well.

What caused eyebrows to raise was that it turned out really well – the reawakening of Master Chief kicking off a best-of compilation of everything fans have ever loved about the franchise. It doesn’t quite manage the scale that Bungie delivered – I waited in vain for a battle as epic as Halo 3’s Scarab showdown – but the Forerunner enemies and architecture brought a new challenge and a new aesthetic, and the all-important gunplay is as pure as the fanbase could have hoped for. It’s doing interesting things online, too, with Spartan Ops inventing an interactive, bullet-spraying TV series. Let’s just hope that having proved it can keep the fans happy, 343 Industries now gets the freedom to stretch its legs a bit and take the franchise to still more inventive places.

DRAGON’S DOGMA I had a lot of fun playing Dragon’s Dogma.

If it wasn’t for Matt and his videos I wouldn’t have bought it.” Plamsa Wing “I’ve had some great times with the regulars on the OXM website” Clanger 67 SLEEPING DOGS “I loved Mass Effect 3, The Walking Dead, and Sleeping Dogs. Sleeping Dogs was probably the best, for me.” NinthGeorgesw “Dishonored and Sleeping Dogs both tried new things with existing formats.” CunningSmile THE WALKING DEAD “Although the game does have a few bugs, I think that the storyline and plot twists are fantastic. Well worth 400MP.” The Kcaj “The only game I’ve ever felt like playing through more than once.” Scottishwildcat MASS EFFECT 3 “It was an epic, incredible journey. The ending was fine in theory, it was just the execution that failed.” godoflemmings “An exquisite conclusion with seriously addictive multiplayer.” Waffles2541 BORDERLANDS 2 “Ludicrous fun and the most likeable antagonist since GLaDOS.” godoflemmings “The first DLC was meh, but the main game is really compulsive. It’s the game I’ve played the longest this year.” msbhvn TRANSFORMERS: FALL OF CYBERTRON “I’d like to put in a word for Transformers, for being so enjoyable off and online, albeit for a short time. It was pleasant to play a combative game without foul language or blood and guts flying everywhere.” SamuelF_2 LEGO BATMAN 2 “Give LEGO Batman 2 credit for really stepping up. It would have been easy for them to leave the LEGO games as they were, but they made changes and made them much better.” Grummy MINECRAFT “My Arcade game of the year is Minecraft. I’ve had so much fun building giant structures with my friends, collecting bones and gunpowder, and creative mode has been an absolute blast.” moses2kay9

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MINECRAFT

MARK OF THE NINJA

Publisher Microsoft Studios | Developer 4J Studios

Edwin>>Besides being the best value for money offering on XBLA, Minecraft is the only game for the service that’s actually getting more interesting over time, thanks to a bombardment of free updates (including the odd feature you won’t see in the PC version). Nowadays you’ve got Creative Mode to fool around in, enabling mighty feats of giant penis sculpture. The terrain generator coughs up Strongholds, Villages (currently empty) and Abandoned Mineshafts besides oceans and floating hillocks, and there are new mobs like the Endermen to pester. To top off, there’s a steady stream of downloadable skins modelled on famous faces from the rest of XBLA, the clear stand-out being a pintsized Super Meat Boy. If you’re the DIY sort, this is essential to the point of life-changing.

Publisher Microsoft Studios | Developer Klei Entertainment

“It’s the best value for money offering on the Arcade”

Log>>Klei Entertainment just gets better and better. Shank was an adequate but boring slog that was way too keen to shock. Shank 2 refined the combat to be satisfyingly intense and more responsive, leaving a highly entertaining game. And Mark of the Ninja leaves the compulsory violence behind, and builds an original and natural platformer where you can slip unnoticed through every level. Taking a peek through a grille, knocking out the lights with a throwing knife, and creating diversions with sound makers – the animation and atmosphere make this a real stand-out title in the Arcade, and the year’s best stealth game. I can’t wait to see what Klei’ll do next.

“Mark of the Ninja is an original and natural platformer”

BORDERLANDS 2 Publisher 2K Games | Developer Gearbox Software

Log>>Borderlands 2 is a fantastic shooter, with a randomlygenerated gun system that creates such a brilliantly varied global arsenal that you end up having relationships with your guns. The day you have to give up a gun you love because it doesn’t have the stats, and put it into storage for your next character, is pathetically emotional.

But best of all, Borderlands 2 makes good on its comedy potential. The first Borderlands game changed direction halfway through, and only really found its voice in the DLC. Borderlands 2 knew what it was from the outset – a highoctane comedy that’s built out of bullet bricks and held together with jokes that put the lairy into hilarious. The best shooting, the best co-op, and a world rich with primary-coloured psychosis make this my most memorable game of the year.

The Dark Side

The games that made us wish the Mayans were right about 2012

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AMY Survival at its most horrific

KINECT STAR WARS Leave a franchise with some dignity

INVERSION Crashing down to Earth

THE EXPENDABLES 2 One step down from the movie

Amy is a long escort mission with an AI partner who’ll bug the hell out of you.

There’s no reason why you should ever play this game.

Decent pod-racing wasn’t enough to rescue flabby game modes, bad controls and a franchise that is long overdue a spruce-up.

The main problem here is the identical enemies. Making them appear on walls and ceilings doesn’t hide the fact it’s more of the same, forever.

This proved to be one of the most painfully monotonous feats of endurance ever created. It deserves an award for sheer brass balls.

NEVERDEAD Shouldn’t live So, a protagonist with limbs that endlessly drop off isn’t entertaining at all. Add some bottom rung sassy banter and boring combat, and you have this failure. www.oxm.co.uk

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MASS EFFECT 3

Publisher EA | Developer BioWare

Matt>> Many moons have passed since the internet rose up and forced BioWare to improve Mass Effect 3 3’s ending, and I’m still not sure what the colossal fuss was all about. The final few minutes might have seemed shaky, but to me it felt like the whole game was a 30-hour long finale. After the cop-out ending of ME2 that psyched you up for a ‘suicide mission’ before letting you bring the whole team back alive (provided you met the right criteria) ME3 forced me to watch my favourite characters die. Putting drama before traditional RPG mechanics was a decision that I feel was brave, but one that BioWare didn’t get much love for. The vastly improved combat and guns are worthy of a full salute too, but it was ME3’s impeccable tone that set it apart from the competition. Videogames always tell you that you’ve got to save the universe, but very rarely convey a sense that the end of the universe might actually happen. It took the bleak undertone of ME3 to make me truly appreciate the characters I fought with. The choices at the end don’t seem significant: the whole of ME3 was a fantastic finale.

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A GOOD YEAR FOR

UPDATES Minecraft is quickly catching up with the PC version, and Halo 4 pushed free DLC to a new level with its serialised Spartan Ops and the return of SWAT mode. Call of Duty got some decent boosts, too.

OPEN WORLDS Open-world games have been a rich source of new playgrounds this year.

Sleeping Dogs gave us a bustling Hong Kong, Dragon’s Dogma was a Japanese take on fantasy, and Prototype 2 might not have been perfect, but the zoned New York was great.

STEALTH In this world of Red Bull eyebaths, stealth can seem boring. Not this year – Hitman and Dishonored made it an enticing option, and Mark of the Ninja made it hugely stylish. Maybe Ground Zeroes and Thief 4 will bring back the pure stealth beast.

MOH: WARFIGHTER Fight a war, win a medal

BLOODFORGE Black and white and red all over

Bullets might’ve hit heads, but otherwise this was the best example of a banal and redundant military shooter in recent years.

Your wife’s dead, your camera angles are crap, and your skull mask stinks.

Better kill some endlessly repeating monsters, then.

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BLADES OF TIME Nip / Tick Tock Bad level design and dire combat conspired to unfairly destroy you, while sub-par blade traps somehow escaped from the cupboard we locked them in, in the 1990s.

007 LEGENDS Double oh-noyou-didn’t Between some of the most joyless shooting around, this kills some of the easiest classic scenes in Bond’s 50 years.

ANGRY BIRDS You’re avian a lark That this game was dropped into a lounge was stupid.

That it was a boxed product was stupid.

And stupid became insulting when it was given a £30 price tag.

XBLA XBLA brought Minecraft out of bedrooms and into the lounge. This spirit of creativity even infected Trials Evolution – some of the player levels are amazing. As for Fez and Walking Dead – perfect.

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BINARY DOMAIN

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Publisher SEGA | Developer Yakuza Studio

Edwin>>Sure, Binary Domain handles just like Gears of War, and sure, the campaign design is more or less the same, but that’s not the point. The point is that when I blow a robot’s knees off, he claws his way across the map and punches me in the groin. The point is that shooting things is like taking a hammer to a huge box of Christmas tree decorations. The point is that there’s a boss that’s too big to fit on the screen. The point is that when I pick female squad members to accompany me on-mission, they call me out on the fact that I’m a massive lech. The point is that neoTokyo is beautiful, and – oh for God’s sake, just buy this game already.

A BAD YEAR FOR...

SURVIVAL HORROR Operation Raccoon City and Resident Evil 6 tag-teamed the franchise’s horrific heritage. Downpour left Silent Hill in the mist, and I Am Alive’s stamina bar was a big turn-off.

Then there was Amy. Survival horror: get well soon.

THQ Red Faction Armageddon killed a quality franchise.

Devil’s Third and Insane were cancelled. The WWE franchise went to EA. THQ is in a world of financial hurt. We wish its tightened roster success next year.

“It fuses GTA missions with Batman combat” SLEEPING DOGS Publisher Square Enix | Developer United Front Games

LICENCES 007 Legends was almost hilariously bad. Cartoon Network’s Punch Time port was a double kick in the armpits. Aliens: Colonial Marines got pushed back.

Come back, Batman. We need you.

Log>>Even better than the story of undercover cop Wei Shen, is the story about how Sleeping Dogs got made. It’s the story of a Cinderella developer which pitched its open-world adventure to the Ugly Sisters at Activision, who said, “yeah whatever just make it a True Crime game”. So United Front went to work in Activision’s dungeons with a heavy heart, because everyone knows True Crime is rubbish. One day, Activision said, “hey, losers. We hate you now because of money, get out of our castle.” Then Square Enix flew in with a star-tipped wand and said, “you can call the game whatever you like, here’s loads of money to make it good.” So they fused GTA missions with Batman combat in a movie-inspired Hong Kong environment. And all the people cheered, because the story was fun, the action varied, and the side missions joyfully tongue-in cheek. And everyone lived happily ever after.

CLOUD GAMING We love cloud saves and having our profiles on more than one Xbox. But gaming in the cloud isn’t ready yet, at least for action games. Maybe when the tech gets better, we’ll be persuaded – but 2012 was not the year we were convinced.

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