Gamerzeino issue 2 by ind13

Gamerzeino Issue Two July 2016

PokĂŠmon GO Numbers to blow your mind

h c t a w r Ove FPS you crisis, this is the al b lo g f o e m ti In a

have to play....

Nintendo Classic Exciting the retro geeks, both young and old

Final Station

Doom

Zed

Uncharted 4

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Gamerzeino Issue 2, August 2016

Battleborn Review pages 48-53

Book of Demons Preview pages 68-73

Lovely Planet Arcade Review pages 54-59

CONTENTS

Who are Gamerzeino? Page 4 Editorial Page 5

Reviews

Preview

Overwatch Pages 37-41

Book of Demons Pages 68-73

Features

Doom Pages 42-47

The Final Station Pages 7-11

Battleborn Pages 48-53

Brigador Pages 13-16

Lovely Planet Arcade Pages 54-59

Eagre Games Pages 18-23

Uncharted 4 Pages 60-65

Introducing the NES Classic Pages 76-79

Lifeless Pages 24-28

Enter the Gungeon Pages 66-67

Events

Slug Disco Studios Pages 30-35

Features Pokemon Go in Numbers Pages 74-75

The Manila Majors Pages 80-85 Comic Con London Pages 86-89

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Who are Gamerzeino? Harry Cole

Lee Smith

Lexuzze Tablante

Group Publisher, Group Marketing, Group News Editor

Group Creative Director, Group Design, Head of Digital

Group Reviews and Features Editor, Group Video Editor

harry@ind13.com

lee@ind13.com

lextablante@sirusgaming.info

Richard

James

Vandolph

Contributor, VR Evangelist and Ambassador

Videos, PC Reviewer

Advertiser

Dr John Kenny

John

Michael

PC Reviewer/Previewer

News

Felippe

Kimberly

PC Reviewer

News & Communications Manager

Contributor

Rahul Shirke Contributor

Dave Proof-Reader, WiiU Expert and Editor, Graphics Artist

Keith

Rezper News Contributor

Jedrick Contributor

Feliciano

Proof-Reader, PS Vita Editor and Reviewer,

Contributor

Editorial

Advertising

editorial@ind13.com

advertising@ind13.com

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Is Pokémon Go good for Nintendo? It is a phenomenon, but is it going to have a positive impact? Okay, so everyone in the universe seems to be playing Pokémon Go right now. It’s impact has been staggering. People that I never would have thought would have been even slightly interested, are finding themselves wandering around streets looking for Drowzee or getting excited about catching a Pidgey. I got into a taxi the other day and the driver was all “you’ll never guess who I had in the back of my cab the other day? Only Mewtwo!” Even my sister, who is a number of years older than me and has riciduled me for most of my life about my gaming habits, is addicted. Rather than spending her days shopping at Bluewater, she has taken to walking around there, phone in hand, looking to increase her level and get into gym battles. I am not saying that she has given up her shopping altogether, of course. She now has a rewards

system. The more Pokémon she catches, the more she can reward herself with some highly fashionable accessory. So it is undeniable that it has had a massive impact on the world of gaming, but is that a good thing? Is that going to increase peoples interest in games and gaming in general; are people going to reawake the gamer inside themselves? Or is it just going to be a Flappy Bird trend... that’s unlikely, actually, seeing as Pokémon has been around for many a year now, and will be for a few more years I suspect. But with Nintendo’s shares rapidly rising, and falling again

just as quickly, we should all be wary of highlighting the latest Pokémon offering as the great new hope of gaming that some are proclaiming it as. Not that it needs it, that is true, but Nintendo certainly do, especially considering the massive losses that it suffered with the failed launch of the Wii U. Although the soon to be released (in time for Christmas strangely enough) Classic NES should also see a spike in sales for the once dominant, but now stuggling, company. And, of course, the soon to be revealed Nintendo NX. Lee Smith, a pathetic level 8

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News, Reviews and Features on all things indie gaming ind13.com 6

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The Final Station A first look and chat with the developer

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â&#x20AC;&#x153;Blasting groups of zombies in the metro with my newly acquired shotgun was particularly good fun...â&#x20AC;?

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Dr. John Kenny Final Station from Do My Best Games and published by ‘No time to explain’ developers tinyBuild, is a survival shooter/resourcemanagement game due for release for PC this summer on Steam. Join me as I take a first look at the beta version and catch up with Final Station developer, Oleg Sergeev. Zombies, our favourite anthropomorphic personification for a whole host of deep rooted societal and psychological fears and, by far, the best guilt free bullet catchers to grace our video game screens, are up to their usual tricks in the post- apocalyptic inter-city railway vagabondage: Final Station. Wearing their inspirations on their sleeve (This War of Mine), the developers have taken the survival shooter/ resource-management genre, switched it to a 2D 8-bit pixel art style, and placed the action on an armoured inter-city train speeding through the initial stages of a zombie epidemic. Stopping off at various termini, our protagonist (the train’s driver) must disembark to clear a path for his train, pick up weapons, supplies and any stray civilians that need to hitch a lift, whilst fending off the undead horde. Between cities our train driver must strive to keep his walking wounded alive by attending to their various needs as best he can; maintaining various life systems, feeding them and giving them first aid.

As we push further down the tracks a plot begins to reveal itself concerning the mysterious cargo the train is carrying (I bet it’s Twinkies) and its true mission. The gameplay is split into two alternating halves, the intercity stages, which takes place onboard the train and the terminus stages which take place at each train station and surrounding area. During the intercity stages, you must try to keep your passengers alive by maintaining life support systems, supplying them with food and medikits, as well as maintaining the train’s systems. This is achieved by running up and down the train flicking switches, pulling leavers and fetching/ delivering supplies to your passengers. At the same time, we get to witness the effect the zombie outbreak is having on our world as the train speeds through the different landscapes, but don’t stop to admire the view for too long or you may find yourself travelling alone. These sections are about the right length to maintain interest and act as a nice break from the alternate section of the gameplay.

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Each time the train arrives at a new destination our intrepid train driver must leave his passengers to retrieve a code, which allows passage to the next city. Whilst doing so, we can pick up supplies, weapons, fight a variety of zombies and pick up or interact with other characters. This section functions as a 2D platform shooter where the gamer uses the keyboard to control the train driver’s movements and the mouse to control his aim, Forgotten Worlds style (everyone knows Forgotten Worlds, right? Never mind). This section plays well and is exciting in parts, whilst also driving the plot. The difficulty is set about right (for me, anyway) and you soon learn to

conserve your ammo for the tougher foes and use chairs, boxes and other items to bash the weaker reanimated meat sacks. Whilst I’m not the biggest fan of the whole 8-bit retro pixel art style, I think in this case it works well. The parallax landscapes are well done (again for the style they have gone for) and there are a few background events to look out for which give you the sense of a larger world outside of the confines of the train carriage. The two types of gameplay work well but I have to say that I favour the run and gun levels rather than the resource management ones. The sound and music is generally somber and reflects the tone of the game well. The only exception is

when it comes to blasting zombies, where the gunshots are fierce and the realistic crisp metal on metal sound of a clip being reloaded gives a real sense of action. Blasting groups of zombies in the metro with my newly acquired shotgun was particularly good fun and the slow plot reveals, as the game progresses, capture your attention further. The first chapter took about an hour-ish to complete. So, with the promise of five chapters on release and assuming the price is right, I’m going to say that this game is definitely worth a download, especially for all those commuters out there. « Do My Best’s Final Station is due for release on Steam this summer.

I caught up with Oleg Sergeev, the developer, to ask him a few questions. DrJK: How is the development going? Have you faced any particular challenges? If so, how did you overcome them? Oleg: Development is going great. The last big challenge for me personally was to understand that most of the people have completely different styles of playing our game. Like, I’m always running into room and start fight with enemies, for me that was an obvious way to play. But most of the people trying to get back a bit when they facing with enemies. They’re always trying to hide on the stairs and stuff like that, playing more safely. So after this big discovery, we decide to make some major changes in enemies AI. How did you come up with the story-line for the game? Storyline went through many changes. But my general idea is that you see the world before the apocalypse, then you see the world during the apocalypse, and after that, that idea is still alive and I love it. Are you planning any other games set in the ‘Final Station’ universe? I really love this world, with a huge backstory. And it’s very attractive even to set all your games into one universe. But I’m not sure about that yet.

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You chose to go with an 8-bit style for the graphics, what are the reasons for this? Were you inspired by anything in particular? Maybe it’ll sound weird, but my main thought was to create graphics for the game as quick as possible. And since pixel art is more easier to create (at least for me), it was fast choice. At that time I was thinking only about realistic plans to finish the game, that was the goal, not the beauty or realistic look. You chose to develop the game using Unity, is there a particular reason you chose Unity over the other game engines on the market? I think for 2d game it’s best you can find right now. Do you have any advice or tips for upcoming indie developers? Ohhh, I’m not sure. I think it’s right to give advice only if you already done something, our release is the end of summer, and I think only after that I’ll be glad to share something. Can you tell us anything that might surprise our readers? I can tell one thing about the game. The apocalypse is just the beginning :)

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500 MILLION PLAYS WITHIN 3 YEARS WE PUT SOME OF THIS SUCCESS DOWN TO OUR

MINIWORLDGAMES IS A 12

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GAMES STUDIO

Brigador A futuristic isometric shooter. Gamerzeino

Dr. John Kenny Brigador from Stellar Jockeys is a futuristic isometric shooter and is available now on Steam. Join me as I take a look at the game and get an insight into the darker side of the game development process with Brigador’s creators. On a gloriously bright summers day in 1992, shut away in a dark bedroom I huddled over a Sega MegaDrive (Genesis, to our siblings in the US of A) D-pad as the insanely excellent music from ‘Desert Strike’ blasted out from my TV, drowning out my mother’s cries to ‘go outside’, ‘cut the grass’ and various other commands that were never going to happen. Flash forward to 2016 and replace ‘bedroom’ with ‘office’, ‘mother’ with ‘wife’ and ‘Desert Strike’ with ‘Brigador’, because for me this game is a joyous mechanical stomp down memory lane to that stroppy teenage era of video games. Brigador is a 16-bit retro style isometric action shooter ,where you take control of an assortment of hulking mechs and armoured anti-grav vehicles in a futuristic and fully destructible environment. The action takes place on a far flung world (Solo Nobre) in a futursistc, post totalitarian, K-9 eat K-9, war zone where its every mechanoid assault warrior for themselves. You have a choice of 18 primary and secondary weapons with which to load up your 6 mechs; ranging from chainguns to rockets,

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as well as a special ability (smoke grenades, EMPs, active camouflage etc). The gameplay sees you completing various contracts over 9 levels (so far), you do this by blasting and pummelling every man, mech and building into the ground. The controls may seem a bit unintuitive for people not used to this style of gameplay and may take a bit of getting used, but generally they work pretty well. The music throughout the game is a mix of futuristic electropop synths and sequencers as viewed from the perspective of someone living in the mid 80s and very reminiscent of the iconic sci-fi film scores of that period (think Terminator, Robocop etc). The sound FX are thunderingly loud and poundingly violent, which is great. If you’ve never played any of the 90’s Isometric shooters (tsssch. . . youngsters) then this may be a very hit or miss affair and at its current price point may seem a bit steep. For those of you that owned a Megadrive/Genesis then you will know what to expect. If you take a shine to this

“I love making games, and the development of Brigador itself was largely a joy. The main issue was just that there was too much development to do...”

game then you have the option of buying the deluxe edition which comes with a digital copy of the music and a gravelly voiced audio novel which expands the game universe. The development studio behind Brigador, Stellar Jockeys, was started by two brothers in 2011 along with two programmers fresh out of college. Brigador was in in development for five full time self funded years and during that time the developers struggled in every imaginable way to keep the game progressing. Combined with an initially unresponsive audience, when the game hit early release, the whole process took the dev team to the brink of despair and back again. I caught up with Hugh Monahan to talk about the game and its development.

DrJK: Standard question, what inspired the game? Hugh: Collateral damage, or rather the lack thereof in games. BF Bad Company 2 is one of my all-time favorite games, and one of the few thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s actually taken pains to create an environment that properly reflects the ordnance being deployed. The dynamism of the environments and how they affect gameplay has long fascinated me, and also it just seems disingenuous to build an environment that is entirely inert when you seemingly have earthshattering weapons at play, So from its inception destructibility has been a core component of Brigador, which went on to dramatically impact the game we ended up building. And how was the development process? I love making games, and the development of Brigador itself was largely a joy. The main

issue was just that there was too much development to do; between writing our own engine and being hamstrung by our inexperience we had to compensate with long hours and a dev cycle arguably 2 years longer than it should have been. That and our precarious financial state forced us to live together and use the livingroom as an office for years. While thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a certain tarmacadam to be had from mutual misery, 4 years of that pushed all of us to the brink of cracking. Oh no, really? So, what were you high and low points? For a long time we were perpetually in a state of thinking we were 6 months out from shipping the game. Part of that is due to the game continuously morphing and growing as we properly understood what we were building, but as in part it was because weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d never shipped

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a game on our own before, so we just couldn’t see that far down the road. It began to feel Sisyphean, and around a year before shipping early access was the complete nadir. Ironically finally gauging the complete scale of the thing we were building also inspired despair as we realized it was at least a year out at that point. All you can do is square your shoulders and soldier on, or give it all up.

else and turned into something distinct yet recognizable. It was like being able to see our game with new eyes. All in all the entirety of that package we produced– game, soundtrack, book, and audiobook– is something I’ll always be proud of.

The high point has been seeing all the wondrous things our collaborators have produced. The soundtrack Makeup and Vanity Set produced for the game exceeded our wildest expectations, and Brad Buckmaster’s book adaption and the ensuing audiobook we produced gave us chills when they were done.

The style really captures that 16-bit era, what game engine did you use? We rolled our own engine. We were young, and we wanted to build a game in the ‘old masters’ style; a good blacksmith makes his own tools, and a good painter knows how to craft their own paints and stretch their own canvases, so why should it be any different with games? Yes we wanted to make money, but we were also in it to become consummate craftsmen.

I cannot tell you how great a joy it was to see something you’d made taken by someone

With that in mind do you have any advice for inspiring indie developers?

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Don’t do what we did. At least not at the beginning. By all rights we should have crashed out years ago, and we may yet still depending on how this launch goes. Cut your teeth on some tiny projects, ship something small so you can get the lay of the land before starting a larger project, so you don’t harpoon yourself on the one game you’ve spent a half decade making. So, what’s next for Stellar Jockeys? Hopefully more games, but we’ll see. Well, I hope to see a lot more from Stellar Jockeys, any final thoughts? The games industry feels like both the best and the worst place in the world to be working right now. It’s such a curious thing. Thanks a lot and good luck with Brigador. «

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Welcome to

the world

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of dreams An interview with Eagre Games

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Lee Smith Eagre Games is a small Central Maine-based game company whose raison d’être is to develop non-violent, beautifully immersive, storydriven games. Games where you lose yourself in worlds that you didn’t think could exist, full of imagination and breathtaking graphics, and not your standard ‘point and shoot’ games which pretty much dominate at the moment. The studio has been set up by Chuck Carter, who is the digital artist that has worked on projects such as Myst, the ground breaking graphic adventure puzzle game that was first released in the early 90s. He also also worked with NASA, the BBC, on Babylon5 and on Command and Conquer: Red Alert, so the portfolio is pretty varied.

game. So we contacted them for a chat to find out a bit more, and were lucky enough to speak to Seth Mantye, the Vice President, in charge of Production and who oversees all of their operations. First of all, can you tell us about Eagre Games and why this new studio was set up. Eagre was set up by veteran game artist Chuck Carter, who has over 25 years’ experience in games. He decided to found his own studio to chase his dream of making his own game, and ZED is essentially that product.

worked on now which we haven’t released to the public is even better. This all ties in with a story we’ve come up with, and that story is actually a very deep story. A friend of ours, Joe Fielder, was one of the lead writers on Bioshock Infinite and several other games. He’s currently working on Underworld Ascendant, and he’s helping us flush the story out in a more user-friendly way and it’s shaping up to be terrific.

The game invites you into a world where you have to solve puzzles as the player helps an aging and dying Dreamer leave behind a lasting legacy for his granddaughter.

Eagre Games doesn’t seem to make the usual games. More immersive story driven environments. Can you tell us more about this? We aren’t trying to make usual games, we’re trying to make great games. We are using an art-style which is incredibly surreal, yet strangely realistic at times. This art style surrounds this user with something which is truly beautiful and creates a completely awe-inspiring experience.

The two games that you have made currently, Zed and Curio, are artistically amazing to look at. How do you balance the the visual and the gameplay? As for balancing the gameplay, we have a lot of environmental interaction. You can’t see it in our art preview (demo), but later worlds we’ve built allow the player to explore virtually everything they can see. You can get sort of a feeling of this by walking on the rocks near the lighthouse in our preview, but it’s just a small taste of things.

Full of wonder and puzzles, and a truly immersive experience, we at IND13 have fallen for the idea of this

The first time I played ZED I was glad I was sitting, because things just look so good. The stuff that is being

Our puzzles are also designed in such a way that players need to interact with them in order to interact with the

Eager Games are running a Kickstarter campaign for their new game Zed, which they describe as “an adventure puzzle journey into unpredictable, nonviolent dreamworlds.”

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world, and players need to explore the world to collect the Dreamer’s memories. The visuals are very much a part of all of that, and since exploration is so key to our gameplay it puts the visuals front and center and essentially makes gameplay and visuals go hand-in-hand. Every piece of this ties in with the story and helps players get a true gaming experience, rather than just gameplay. Chuck Carter, who is the Creative Director and Founder of Eagre Games, has worked on so many defining games over the years, how he bring all that experience to Eagre Games? Chuck’s experience has been phenomenal. He’s worked on everything from Myst to Guitar Hero. He works for NASA drawing visualizations of new planet discoveries, did special effects for Babylon5, and helped make the cinematics for Red Alert 2. I called him last August and he said “Hey, did you see that article in the Washington Post with the red planet” and I’d seen it earlier that day. I looked it up again and sure enough, there was a beautiful little red planet Chuck had visualized for NASA. Working with someone with that pedigree is very mindblowing at times, especially considering how frequently his work has shown up in my life. Chuck’s one of the most modest people

out there and never talks about his experience unless asked (some of our team members had to beg him to talk about his resume for our Kickstarter campaign, in fact), but his years of experience have developed a huge “encyclopedia of knowhow” that no other artist I’ve worked with has.

volumes. However, Chuck’s presence is very modest as I said earlier.

He also knows what’s good and what isn’t, so he’s someone who gets art right the first time and doesn’t need to go back and tweak a lot of things – although he sometimes does anyways because he’s a frustrating perfectionist.

With Chuck having been around since the early days of games and 3D art, how has it changed? I imagine that technology has made certain things easier, but does that mean it has less ‘fun’ challenges? Technology has changed a ton even since I started game development and level design on Unreal Engine 1 (think: 1998’s technology). You can see Chuck in “The Making of Myst” documentary (I think it’s on YouTube) where he talks about how they made Myst in the engine.

You have a few Contributing Artists, is it daunting (at first anyway), working with someone like Chuck. Or is it more like being around a Mr Miyagi type character (without the waxing of cars probably). We have a lot of younger contributors on our project, you’re right. In fact, some of the people on our team weren’t even alive when Chuck worked on Myst and probably don’t understand how formative it was for a generation. One of our musicians saw our original trailer and called it “Myst-like” even though he never played Myst, and Myst was released when he was two. “Myst-like” has become a term in itself and the fact that people who don’t know Myst know what it means speaks

He accepts and encourages input from everybody and allows a lot of room for expression and room to grow, so I don’t know that anyone has felt like the experience has been daunting.

A single picture could take days to render. Now everything renders in realtime and we can package our levels in less time than it takes us to upload them using fiber thanks to Unreal Engine 4. While I know very little about the art side of things, I can say that Chuck has been on top of 3D design and game art for over two decades which is extremely difficult for anyone to do. Chuck uses MODO and ZBrush and other softwares which simply did not exist back then.

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it's a free press release distribution service for Indie Games. Indie Devs are able to create their studio's profile page and begin to publish press releases of their games. Journalists, Youtubers, Bloggers can subscribe to customisable email alerts, RSS feeds or follows press releases on our social media accounts.

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“Our puzzles are also designed in such a way that players need to interact with them in order to interact with the world, and players need to explore the world to collect the Dreamer’s memories...” Are the ideas for the games a collaborative process, or is it more a case that someone has the idea and everyone works towards that? Our games are very much a collaborative process. Nearly every one of our employees has had ideas for how to make the game. Collaboration is really important. It allows for us to flush out good ideas and get rid of bad ones. With collaboration in gamedev hassles can arrive, however. None of us think the same way and we’ll

sometimes spend several hours workshopping ideas so that everyone is happy, or Chuck or I will have to put our feet down and say “This is how we’re going to do it.” Occasionally someone will throw out an idea that’s perfect, and we’ll know it’s perfect because none of us discuss it. The important thing, at the end of the day, is that with a small team we need everyone on board and working toward the same goals.

What are the plans for Eagre Games moving forwards? As for Eagre’s next steps: Once ZED is done we begin work on a game called Curio. Curio is like ZED, but ten thousand times more amazing. We need to raise money for ZED so we can complete ZED, and then use the money from ZED to make Curio. I can’t give you any details about Curio at this point because Chuck will actually kill me if I do, but suffice to say you will appreciate it. «

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Lifeless A zombie co-op MMO

Dr. John Kenny Lifeless, from Rigid-Soft and published by Green Man Gaming is an open world cooperative survival MMO set during a zombie apocalypse and is available in Early Access on Steam. Come with me as I catch up with the creators to talk about the early release version and indie AAA gaming. Ahhhh, zombies! They’re so difficult to kill during a functioning society, with a government, infrastructure, armies, aircraft and nuclear weapons, but strip all that away and plop a lone protagonist in amongst them, wearing nothing but a hospital gown, and in no time at all he’ll start tearing through them like a tornado that’s recently passed through a razor blade factory. So, what’s so different about

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the zombies in ‘Lifeless’? Nothing and that’s great, in ‘Lifeless’ you get to shoot, blast, hack and chop them into bloody lifeless (well . . . even more lifeless) heaps. What is different, though, is that you are also embroiled in a very human, but no less violent, civil war, between two very different factions. To survive here you will need to find similar minded allies

“We chose zombies because we have a deep passion for the genre, and because they haven’t really been done properly yet!”

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and work together to fight everything that comes at you, whether it is the undead, hunger, thirst or a crackpot despot trying to take control of your patch of rubble. The very moment the title screen for ‘Lifeless’ flashed up I had to reach for my notes to double check that this was in fact from an indie developer and not a larger software house. The graphics, sound and general feel of the game are very high quality for an indie game that is still in development. Because Lifeless is still in Early Access, you can only get a feel for what the game will be like but so far it looks like RigidSoft are on to a winner. At the start of the game you get to set up your character and choose a faction; Nova Guard (good guys, I think) or Spartan Phalanx (bad guys). After this you are dropped into the middle of the wilderness

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with very little equipment to survive with. Immediately, you have to scour the local area for weapons, food and water, whilst avoiding the undead (at least until you are armed). You can then choose to meet up with your fellow online team mates or go it alone. You progress your character by gaining XP through killing zombies and completing quests. This allows you to unlock new skills and level up your current ones. A skill tree, a host of customisable weapons and equipment further add to the layers of individualism your character has. With promises of an economy, bountys and an immersive story line involving two warring factions (with very different ideologies), it doesn’t seem like there will be a shortage of things to do (or kill) in this zombie filled hell hole. So far, the graphics are looking very impressive there are lots

of moments, in between the action, when I caught myself thinking ‘that looks really good’. The sound is good and the gameplay is really taking shape and currently plays well. There are lots of melee weapons, pistols and automatic rifles and with lots of work benches lying around I’m hoping we’ll see some very unique weapons in the complete version. The co-operative online play will hopefully become more essential as the game develops and I look forward to seeing the co-op quests. The development road map lists some very exciting features such as an economy, bounties, advanced animations and improved graphics. All this is pretty advanced for an indie production and I wonder how far off we are from a fully realised AAA indie game. With the ready availability of high quality game engines (Unity5, Unreal4,

CryEngine and Lumberyard to name a few) and ‘Indie’ publishers providing financial opportunities for Indie studios, which in turn leads to bigger budgets and more time/staff to work on a game, surely it’s just a matter of time before we see a AAA indie game (although, by that time, maybe the big studios will be making AAAA games). With all this in mind, I thought I’d ask Kristoffer Blasiak (CEO and Co-founder of Rigid Soft, and one of the creators of Lifeless) about his game and his thoughts about AAA indie games. DrJK: There are various apocalyptic scenarios that you could have chosen for your game (e.g. war, natural disaster etc) why did you choose zombies? Kristoffer: We chose zombies because we have a deep passion for the genre, and because they haven’t really

been done properly in this genre (zombie survival mmo) yet! We feel that the zombies have been played a bi-role in most games that have come before us, and we think that that’s a lot of wasted potential! Why did you choose to use the Unreal4 engine over the other available game engines? Unreal Engine 4 was chosen mainly because of the technical specifications and the fact that it will fit perfectly for what we want to make. Lifeless has a long way to go, and we feel confident that Unreal Engine 4, and Epic. Will be able to help us get all the way there. I was recently told that there are no AAA indie games and there never will be, how would you respond to that? That’s really dependent on your definition of AAA. Some people see a AAA title as something that only a big developer can achieve. And some people say a that a game is classified as AAA depending on how well

made/graphics. Personally I often go “Hey that looks pretty AAA” when I look at aspects of our game. So I guess I would say that Indies can definitely create a AAA game. But that’s really up to how you define a AAA game. How was the development process? The development process has been long and has taught us a lot. The highs are definitely when we make great progress and when we get to interact with the community. Any time we get to go into a stream or talk with our fans on Twitter/ Steam it is a huge boost for us. The lows are usually when we have to sit to 5 am crunching on a patch, but then we just grab a coffee and turn on a Stream in the office. And it all feels worth it. What are your thoughts on ‘indie’ publishers? The future of the video game industry is going to be a mix

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of massive publishers pushing out great titles, and self published indie games which will sometimes rival the big guys. I personally think it’s the way to go for the industry, as it makes it possible for certain individuals to create awesome things, that we would never get to experience otherwise. We will see more and more independent studios grow up and develop games, selfpublish them through platforms such as Steam and survive without the need of a publisher. And this in turn will make the traditional publishers less needed. What can we expect to see in ‘Lifeless’ in the next few months? Lots! We have so much planned for Lifeless that it’s really hard to tell anyone within a reasonable timeframe, so I’ll refer you to our roadmap! Http://lifelessgame.com/ roadmap

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Whats next for Rigid-Soft? Anything new in the pipeline that you can tell us about? Lifeless. We are focusing 100% of our resources and time to develop Lifeless and deliver the game we have all been waiting for! Any advice for inspiring Indie developers? Kristoffer: I like to say that if you want to succeed in anything in life, be it game development or anything else you need to be ready to put 110% of yourself into it. If you do that, eventually you will succeed. And don’t be afraid to fail, because if you don’t try you’ll never achieve anything. And regarding more exact game development advice as an indie, don’t be afraid to put yourself out there. If no one knows your game exists, then no one will ever play it! Thanks a lot and good luck with the game. «

“The development process has been long and has taught us a lot. The highs are definitely when we make great progress and when we get to interact with the community...”

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Slug Disco Studios An interview with Matt, the developer for the Birmingham based indie studio.

Interview by Harry Cole Slug Disco Studios are a small indie games development studio based in the UK. They are currently working on our first game Empires of the Undergrowth. Please introduce yourselves and your studio My name is Matt and I’m developer for indie game developer ‘Slug Disco Studios’ based in Birmingham. What is your experience in making videogames? Our studio consists of three developers with heavily academic backgrounds. Between us, we’ve made hobby projects in various game engines over the years and undertaken loads of programming projects. I’ve personally implemented three different game engines from scratch (for an MMO, Puzzle and RTS). These days there’s

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such good choice for thirdparty game engine technology, that it doesn’t make sense for a three-man studio to create their own engine and so now I focus on getting the best out of available engines. Please introduce your game Our game is called “Empires of the Undergrowth” (EotU). EotU is a simulation strategy game hybrid where you control an ant colony, excavating a nest underground and taking on large insects, arachnids and other colonies on the surface. The game is currently planned to include a campaign and sandbox mode. The campaign

“We’re in an unusual position: we were working in our own engine designed for android devices up until the start of this year...”

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is particularly interesting: the player will follow a colony of nomadic ants as it journeys back to its ancestral mating grounds. Along the way, numerous threats, creatures and other ant species will be encountered which the player will have to overcome. All the while, the colony’s epic story is told from the perspective of an Attenborough-inspired documentary team studying them. Why did you embark on this project? We were interested in creating a simulation game with strategic elements. In particular we wanted base construction to feel like classic dungeon keeper: the player digs out and furnishes a ‘cosy’ nest of their own design and layout. It was then important that this base construction served some strategic purpose. In EotU the player’s colony typically has some opposing colony to conquer, the ease of which will be determined by the player’s

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construction strategy amongst other things. What stage is it at? We’re in an unusual position: we were working in our own engine designed for android devices up until the start of this year. During this period of well over a year we were able to prototype gameplay ideas in our engine and develop concepts for the game. Thanks to this period we started this year with a highly fleshedout campaign and developed gameplay concept. We also had a lot of assets available in a basic form. At the start of this year we were awarded the the UK Games Fund and utilised it to recreate an EotU game prototype for PC platforms instead using Unreal Engine 4. This change to a third-party engine has sped up progress enormously.. At present we are reimplementing a number of upper-level gameplay systems in the engine before we begin

to flesh out and implement the full campaign. We are currently aiming to have the game ready for the first quarter of 2017. Why ants? What fascinated you about these insects? At primary school I was that kid in my class who was a little obsessed by bugs and constantly carried around books about the creatures of the undergrowth, trying to impress my classmates with interesting facts about them. So I had always known that ants were a diverse and great source of ideas for the sort of game we wanted to make. But even I was unprepared for how great a source of ideas they would be. A few days of research and we had a long list of species with interesting traits that we felt would transfer to game easily. In fact, we’ve been so overwhelmed by interesting ant species, that it has been a little tough at times to decide which species we can’t fit into the

game. I’m happy to say though, that we’ve managed to include a number of awesome species, including the Trap-jaw ant with its lightning fast jaws, the Leaf-cutter ant with its fungus gardens and the rather creepy looking Bull ant. Did you find yourselves in a dark and sometimes scary world? The undergrowth can be a really beautiful place, even the otherworldly creatures in it. One of my personal aims with EotU will be to show players how awesome ants are and how fascinating and beautiful the undergrowth can be. But of course, the undergrowth is the also the stage of a fast-paced and brutal battle for survival. This battle for survival is central to our game and unavoidably brings into the game a number of the darker elements from nature. For example, anybody who has played The Last of Us will be familiar with the Cordyceps

fungus. It’s actually a real fungus and for invertebrates such as ants it can be devastating - it makes them act bizarrely as it takes over their body and eventually kills them. While it may not drive them into a murderous frenzy as in The Last of Us, it is still pretty damn creepy, especially in the final stages when the fungus eventually (though somewhat beautifully) grows out of the ant’s corpse. Players are going to have to deal with this fungus, as well as huge beasts such as arachnids, thievery, slavery, parasites… it’s not easy being a young ant colony fighting for its place in the undergrowth! Is there an attacking element to the game? At some point in a level, the player will learn that they’ve exhausted the resources underground. They’ll then have to venture above ground in search of more food. Now, there’ll be food above ground

- lots of it. But unfortunately the player’s colony won’t be the only one on the map. Cue a battle for resources and ultimately a battle for dominion of the local territory. These battles play out similarly to a tug-of-war RTS map. You’ll be bolstering the front line constantly trying to push the enemy colony back into its base for the final blow, or if things aren’t going your way, you’ll be trying to stop them from doing the same to you. Compared to typical RTS games, such as Starcraft 2, our emphasis is more on the macro than the micro. Did you do more research into ants and what did you find? It feels like the research into ants never ends. Our fans are excellent at bringing previously unconsidered species and their traits to our attention. Most recently a fan made us aware of the Dracula ant. The adults of this bizarre (and dark) species actually feed on the blood of

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their own larvae! I’m sure that as time goes by we’ll learn even more - it’s something that makes developing a game of this nature really enjoyable. Does the ‘hive’ mentality come into the game? As our focus is on macro as opposed to micro, it’s really important that we develop the ant AI such that they do what the player is likely to want rather than just the simplest job for them. It generally turns out that ‘what the player is likely to want’ translates to ‘what is best for the colony’. To this end, we’ve had to implement a layer of management behind all the ants’ AI which itself can be considered a form of hive mentality. Through the inclusion of this centralised and automated colony management in the ant’s AI, they can decide what jobs to do, and where to go based on the current jobs and aims of all the other ants in the colony. In this regard, the colony is truly acting as one.

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Is there two types game play, under and over ground? The gameplay is very different depending on which side of the ground you are viewing. Underground is all about nest expansion and construction. Fans of Dungeon Keeper will feel right at home underground. Above ground is all about securing resources, defending against your opponent, defeating huge ‘titans’, and eventually defeating your opponent. This part is reminiscent of ‘tug-ofwar’ maps such as Starcraft 2’s Desert Strike. Although a better analogy might be a DotA style game with no heroes and just minions. That said, there are numerous ways that the player will find themselves actively involved in the fight for the surface, trying to swing the tide of battle. Is multiplayer part of the game? As a three man team aiming for release early next year, we have to be careful not to

bite off more than we can chew, and this unfortunately means that we aren’t planning any multiplayer right now. That said, we are constantly keeping it in mind and we do make sure that all of our ideas can translate into multiplayer, should we have the time and resources later on. We’ve got a really solid vision for the single player game though, and it’s important that we focus all our energy onto this first. What are the player’s objectives? Establish a colony? The first thing the player will want to do is establish a colony. When the underground resources have been exhausted, the player will have to go above ground in order to find more. Once the player’s ants have access to the surface, the objective will ultimately be to eliminate the enemy colony before it can eliminate you. Doing this will require securing and harvesting resources, and utilising them strategically to

modify your nest, bolstering your force with the types of ants it needs the most.

new and exciting light, opening a portal into the fascinating world of the undergrowth.

Tell us about the Kickstarter? On April 26th we ran our second Kickstarter campaign which concluded on the 26th of May. The first, which we attempted in November 2015, only achieved about 60% due to poor community engagement. For our second, we learnt from our mistakes and hit about 180% of our goal. The response from the community was brilliant, and the Kickstarter campaign has really helped spread the word.

At the same time, I hope that our strategy-simulation hybrid gameplay, blending base construction with tug-of-war combat, strikes a chord with fans of this kind of game who are looking for something refreshing and new.

What are your ambitions for the game? How can people support? While researching for EotU, I’ve seen a lot of great ant games on the market but nothing quite like EotU with its particular attention towards the amazing diversity of real ant species. I hope this game is remembered for showing these awesome creatures in a

Anybody looking to support us should check out eotugame. com where they can grab a hold of the underground demo, find out more about the game and support us via PayPal. We’re extremely interested in getting feedback from interested players as we press forward with the development, and so we encourage players to follow us on the social media links given on the site.

“The undergrowth can be a really beautiful place, even the otherworldly creatures in it...”

This will ensure that players are kept up to date with the latest developments while giving them a direct channel of communication with us. «

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is not a â&#x20AC;&#x153;The FPS genre gaming e h t in g in h t new lizzard B t a h w t u b , y r t indus ught to o r b s a h t n e m Entertain marvel.â&#x20AC;&#x153; f o k r o w a ly u r us is t Gamerzeino

Review by Jan Lemuel Goyeneche “Overwatch“, a game that has been hyped for a while, is finally here, and did not fail to impress, either. Not only did it do a great job in meeting the players and fans’ expectations, but it was also able to bring more into the table. You may think that it may just be another generic FPS game, but wait until you play and actually see what the game has for you. How the game is played is pretty simple, but it requires tactical strategy, and proper team coordination to win every match you encounter. Each team is separated as the “attackers” and “defenders”. Overwatch is not a game to be won by only one person, but a game to be won with everyone’s coordination. Keep in mind that the only thing that will bring you victory is you and your allies’ combined efforts in winning the game. Also, keep your eyes on the objectives. My experience so far in the game has been a bumpy ride. When I was still new to playing the game, I lost a lot of matches. This is because of the “kill-and-win” mentality I had in mind due to playing other casual FPS games.

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The objectivity gameplay of Overwatch may not be new, but it makes sure that the player follows the objective for him/her to win the match. The game modes the game provided was definitely fun. Playing with people online is one thing, but playing with friends is another. I highly recommend you play this game with your friends, for a more guaranteed entertainment. The game doesn’t just stop there (by being fun), though. Like I said, it calls out to each team member to participate and cooperate with each other. It gives you this feeling of being in a real fight. Well, online, of course. I can feel my adrenaline kick in every time I get into a thrilling match with an intense battle on the opposing side, ultimately leading to either a win or a loss. The game mode that I personally like would be the “Assault” mode. This mode is the fastest mode to be finished. But it all really comes down to what team comp you currently have. The other modes will still be finished early, granted you cooperate properly with your teammates. For every win, it just feels so great. You get to see a “Play of the Game”, where a clip is shown as to who made the most epic kill in the entire match. Well, sometimes it just gets a little bit anti-climatic,

seeing a Bastion in its turretform team-killing your whole team or the enemy team, or a Torbjörn turret killing you because it has been wellplaced and well-cared by him, but hey, you gotta give credit to that at least, am I right? You may feel a little disappointed after every lost match, though, but at least you know you’ve done your best. I mean, a match lost is an experience gained. Fall down hard, come back up harder. After all that, if you get salty or unhappy about your matches or the play of the game highlight, you could always go up to the menu and watch your own highlights. The game records your own highlights, too, and that is definitely worth watching, believe me. You’d be surprised about yourself and the plays you did. The game runs smoothly on the PC. No lags or anything. The server lags is present, though, but it’s just because it’ll depend on what country you are in. If you are in Asia, I recommend Asia (I tried following the recommended “Americas” server from Battle. net, but found out I was delayed for a second, so I decided to go to Asia). You can freely move from one region to another, which is really great since you can play with your friends on the other regions because of this. No lag spikes here and there.

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Save the sheep from a horde of wolves by building a fence around them, in this increasingly difficult new puzzler from McPeppergames www.mcpeppergames.com 40 Gamerzeino

A lot of people always compare Overwatch to Team Fortress 2. Yes, the game is similar to TF 2, but what really differs one from the other its contents. What I meant was, even though Overwatch and TF 2 has similar classes and even similar objectives, they both have different character designs, environments, music, sounds of the game (i.e. footprints from either allies or enemies, ultimates casted by the heroes, or even champion interactions), and even more to mention. Hero emotes, skins, dialogues and a whole lot more, there is more to Overwatch than labelling it as “just another version of TF 2”. There’s just so much in this game that separates it from being “just another game”. The game has always given me the “Hero’s Initiative” feeling, which really fires me up. I don’t overreact to people sayin it’s just another type of this game or that game, but

Overwatch really stood out. Comparing it to other similar games is like comparing Lays to Cheetos, which are just both junkfoods. It doesn’t really matter if a game is similar to another game, as long as you get to enjoy it (even though you still get frustrated), it’s what makes a game, well, a game. Overwatch is just absolutely amazing. Everything that makes the game is just perfectly done. From the voices of the heroes, to the places, to the amazing shorts they released and oh so teased to the fans, to just everything, Overwatch did a fantastic and perfect job, from keeping up the hype, to actually giving the game. The game may have just started, but there is still so much room for improvement and I’m really looking forward to these improvements Blizzard is going to implement. Great job, Blizzard, you’ve done it again. «

“I can feel my adrenaline kick in every time I get into a thrilling match with an intense battle on the opposing side, ultimately leading to either a win or a loss...”

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E M O C L E W E H T TO D L R WO ! L L E H F O game, id M O O D t s r fi e h from t e one. r a u q s o t k c 20 years apart a b he series t s e k a t w o n e r Softwa

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Review by Lexuzze Tablante Retaining most of the similar mechanics and weapons from DOOM (1996), this reboot is one hellof-a-ride. With the classic first-person shooter elements from the first DOOM makes this one of the best first-person shooter of 2016. Better than ever, DOOM is now back with Doomguy, or his new name “Doom Slayer”, in a UAC facility on Mars crawling with possessed demons that are trying to kill the relentless warrior that almost destroyed Hell. Yes, you read it right: a relentless warrior. In this reboot, the Doom Slayer is known to be, in the biblical book of this hellish world, the guy that no monster or hellbeast want to mess with. Waking from a sarcophagus prison, you start off with a UAC-made Pistol to fend off the Possessed. You get into a room surrounded by candles and a demonic-engraved symbol on the floor to get your impervious-to-damage armor, the Praetor suit. It was surprising that the game felt a little bit linear in terms of goals where I thought everything was conveniently given to you, and

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guides you to your objectives. However, this changed when I progressed through the game. There were obstacles wherein you had to explore the area to look for the good ol’ classic colored keycards. I had some challenges where I looped around the area to look for a way to get that bluekeycard to destroy a Gore Nest – a portal that transports monsters from the demonic world of Hell to Mars. It’s great that each level are open-ended, there are certain ways for you to just accomplish each objective, and you can do it any order you like. Despite not having a plottwisting or solid narrative, the solid core mechanic of the game covers its lack of story. DOOM retains some of the classic weapons we all know and love from the first DOOM. You get to use the weapons with an added “mod” feature that makes it more fun and explosive. For example, the Combat Shotgun with addons such as Explosive Shots, similar to what we know as a “grenade launcher”, and Charge Bursts, which makes the weapon fire more than 3 shots consecutively. The damage each weapon offers varies. Even with those mods added onto your weapon of choice, there are monsters that can withstand the damage you give to them. The finishing move is called a “Glory Kill”. You can only

do this when the monsters are already in low-life state – ripping off the Hell Knight’s jaws off is surely fun to watch. Combat in DOOM is relatively enjoyable, fast-paced unlike DOOM 3, and easy to understand: You strafe, run, do Glory Kills, and shoot like hell. Doing Glory Kills can feel satisfying in the first few attempts, however, due to its killing style being done almost the same most of the time, the satisfying feel can awfully die down. Graphically, the game is gorgeous. The models of the gun featured in the first DOOM has been rendered from 2D to high-definition 3D graphics. DOOM is bloodier and more brutal than Wolfenstein: The New Order. More guts spilled and heads smashed give the players one of the hellish experience in DOOM. It’s a masterpiece. The visuals of the top hellbeast, Baron Of Hell, is one that I truly adore. And that Cyberdemon visuals though, I’m very well astonished too. I was also impressed with the level of detail that each stage and locations have. Comparing the graphical achievement that each preset configuration offers, the game looks similarly the same from Low to Ultra on 1080p. I ran the game on an R9 290X GPU and an i5-4440 with 16GB of RAM, there were framedrops

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“More guts spilled and heads smashed give the players one of the hellish experience in DOOM. It’s a masterpiece...” from around 49 from 120 in the busiest moments in the game on High with VSync on. However, my current PC build can’t have a stable 60FPS on Ultra. Sorry DOOM 3, even with your horror atmosphere, the reboot is the modern DOOM that everyone was waiting for. I wasn’t able to tackle the multiplayer aspect and even SnapMap since I only borrowed the game from a friend of mine who was kind enough to share his library – thanks Albert! But I was able to try out the Open Beta. Surely, it was horrible. Even if it tried to retain what Quake had, unfortunately it was poorly done because it lacked the sense of originality. No wonder Bethesda took off the DOOM Open Beta from Steam due to its “negative” reviews. Even so, multiplayer mode was

“fun” at the first few runs but boredom strikes hard after; it did have funny emotes on the victory screen where you can let your character dance but it wasn’t really enough to cover its poor game design. Putting aside the bad multiplayer mode and experience, DOOM was fun at best! It was fast-paced, and it was satisfying – that glory kill move on Baron of Hell was awesome. Graphics surely caught my attention. The world of Hell and Mars in DOOM is one place that every hardcore first-person shooter lovers would get into all over and over again. It was surely, again, enjoyable, and it didn’t disappoint me at all. Pretty much I’ll buy the game on the PS4 in June! «

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N R O B E BATTL a u o y e r A r e p e e k e c pea ? r e k a t r a or a st

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n r o b e l t t a B veryone e d n a e s r e iv n in the u ector. s t Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the last star a h t f o l o r t n ke co is fighting to ta

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Review by Lexuzze Tablante Do you want to be part of the Peacekeepers faction to protect the last star, Solus? Or are you for taking control of the last star by force and to value power above all else like the Jennerits? The survival of the universe rests in your hands, Battleborn hero. Now choose your side! Gearbox Software, people behind Borderlands, is taking a route for their latest IP – BATTLEBORN – in an online-only road. With other game competitors who have pioneered the genre like SMITE (Third-Person MOBA), Titanfall (FPS), and the upcoming Blizzard’s online first-person shooter Overwatch, can BATTLEBORN standout in this strong lineup? BATTLEBORN is your online competitive first-person hero shooter from Gearbox Software. The game is set in a distant future where most of the stars in the universe has gone dark or destroyed by a mysterious enemy. Stuck with only one star left in the galaxy, Solus, is the last hope for the whole universe to survive. Now, all factions are fighting to take control of Solus.

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The game starts with a prologue that shows a brief story of a battle in a planet where you play as Melka, one of the Peacekeeper heroes, to save the undercover Jennerit – Deande. The prologue also serves as a tutorial, it doesn’t explain each mode but pretty much gives you an idea on the basics of the game. However, the game gives you some helpful information/brief details when you go over the menu for its other features like Gears, Loadouts, and also in every beginning of each mode in Multiplayer. It’s actually good because the game really encourages you to explore every feature than spoon-feed everything in one tutorial – which can be a little bit taxing for some players. BATTLEBORN features a Story Mode. There is a total of 8 chapters or episodes, each episode gives you that television show intro where you see a brief cartoon/anime scene.

mission in single-player. If you quit your progress from one episode it will bump you back to square one where you play that episode again even on single-player mode. However, in a surprisingly good way, having latency issues won’t affect your single player experience unlike some other online-only titles. It can also be really enjoyable and at the same time challenging when you play the Story Mode as the bosses and minions are hard to kill especially when you’re using a melee character. What really stands out in BATTLEBORN is its multiplayer – this is quite true. There are 3 modes in BATTLEBORN and has 2 unique maps on each mode. One of these modes is really popular in Asia and might also be the main highlight of its multiplayer – the Incursion mode. Incursion is your MOBA-like gameplay in a 5v5 setting to destroy 2 main sentry bots from each team.

What can be a slight bummer is that you are still required to play the game’s Story Mode online. Gearbox wants to encourage players to play the Story Mode with random players or in a party cooperatively, but you can still play the Story Mode alone by playing it privately.

There’s only one lane that your team’s minions travel, it’s exciting and quite interesting to see all players gather in one location where all those explosive actions and battles are all around the place. There are also certain areas in the map that can be strategic shortcuts. Incursion runs 30 minutes per match.

What’s annoying is that the Story Mode doesn’t offer any “Save” feature if you play the

No doubt that the gameplay element of Incursion is what everyone is familiar with, and

it’s very simple to understand because of games like DOTA and League of Legends. But after playing Incursion 6-7 times, it can become boring for casual players where the same objective/goal is repetitive. Another mode is called Meltdown. I personally love Meltdown as it does have 2 lanes where your minions travel and fight to sacrifice themselves to be shredded in the enemy’s incinerator that gives your team points. This mode actually lets the player showcase their play style in every situation especially how the maps are well-structured that’s offered in Meltdown. There are greatly placed vantage points that encourages sniper-based players to support their minions and team members; and there are some not-tooconfusing tight corners that lets brawler players surprise enemies with their melee attacks and abilities. Capture Mode is something that’s really left out in BATTLEBORN. I mean, there are long wait times in the lobby which can really be disappointing. This mode is what we call the “classic” mode in every first-person shooter multiplayer. You capture Point A, B, and C, and hold those points while your team’s score increases. It’s still fun as it’s one of the core elements in shooter

games, but in BATTLEBORN, it tells us otherwise. Perhaps, additional maps can make Capture mode more appealing to BATTLEBORN players. There’s a struggle when you play in the Asian continent. The player-base in Asia is really low. There are longer wait times in the weekdays for Incursion mode, and don’t even get me started to say how long you have to wait for a game in Capture Mode and Meltdown in the Asian server. You might wonder why your hair already grew white strands. This, however, might be different from the console versions as it can be possible that there are more players in the PS4/Xbox One platforms compared to PC. BATTLEBORN showcases 25 playable heroes. Some heroes you need to unlock while other heroes like Oscar Mike, Rath, Miko, Marquis, and Boldur are provided as your first playable heroes. Each hero has unique abilities and skillset, what makes them interesting as well is that each of them has their own “Lore”. What’s good about BATTLEBORN’s list of heroes is that every character has their own play-style, which makes players have the option to choose what hero matches their preferred play-style. Don’t get fooled by how the hero looks as it can be a real surprise how a thin-robot like

Marquis can really be a deadly sniper. What the game also offers in every mode are Mercenary camps and also buildables. If you played Heroes of the Storm, then it’s quite easy for you to understand that you can capture Mercenary camps by taking them down and capture their area to hire them to aid your team and minions. These Mercenaries are quite deadly, in my opinion, and is somewhat a bit overpowered that a team can totally abuse to hire mercs and making the opposing team have a really hard time defending against those waves of mercs; sometimes killing the fun by forcing the team members to cast a Surrender vote. But aside from these overpowered mercs, there are also buildable turrets, healing wards, etc. that can also help defend the area or give some boosts to your minions, teammates, and yourself – but then again those overpowered mercs still kills the fun in some way. You can also purchase Loot Packs that can be bought using in-game credits – at first I really did think that the game involved microtransactions, fortunately it didn’t! You can carry 3 Gears max in every loadout. With these loot packs, it gives you Gears that you can equip in your matches or missions on Story Mode by ironically

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purchasing them again to activate your Gear using shards. It feels a bit redundant in a way you have to pay using shards to activate your Gear. There is also what we call the Helix System. The Helix System is your in-game level progression whenever your character levels up in a match similar to other MOBA titles. Every character can reach up to Level 10 where each level offers two augmentation choices for your character’s abilities or skills. This feature is relatively easy to understand by reading its advantages. BATTLEBORN is also great when it comes to humor. There are times when I just laugh in certain character quotes like how Oscar Mike says “Deploying explosive thingy” when you use the grenade launcher. And also how this one crazy A.I, Nova, says “haul-ass and nuke newbs in… 3… 2… 1…”

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at the beginning of the match. The dialogue in this game is quite mature but badass funny. There are just jokes that sounds too corny, but it’s not all that bad. Let’s go with how the graphics of the game is. Its visuals are pretty much comparable to Heroes of the Storm, which is cartoon-ish or based from a Pixar animated movie almost similar to Blizzard’s upcoming shooter, Overwatch. To say it in two words, it’s “visually attractive”. BATTLEBORN delivers the fun factor and all-around humor that you can get from a game. You can ditch the Story Mode and hop on the multiplayer side as that’s where the game really shines. Despite its lack of a better narrative, the stability of the game’s server, and its fun multiplayer concept can surely reel you in to get the game. Are you now ready to haul-ass and nuke some newbs? «

“Don’t get fooled by how the hero looks as it can be a real surprise how a thin-robot like Marquis can really be a deadly sniper...”

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Review by Rahul Shirke The first thing I noticed about Lovely Planet Arcade was that I couldn’t look up or down. This immediately took me back to Doom—not the new one, mind, but the original, classic Doom. It felt like an unspoken reference to me. In Doom’s time, this limitation may have existed for technical reasons, but Love Planet Arcade digs it out again and squeezes puzzle game juices onto it. Lovely Planet Arcade is a combination of shooting, puzzling tempered with lots of trial and error. At the start of each level, you find yourself in a surreal and dreamlike little environment. You have a shotgun, and there are green snowmen with conical hats (or sometimes helmets). They have angry eyebrows, so they’re the bad guys, and you must shoot them. The game feels in equal parts bizarre and abstract. Not only does it not adhere to any kind of realism, but it actually fights against the notion of realism. This abstraction permeates the game through and through, from its minimalistic visuals, through its lack of narrative and right down to its simplistic gameplay. The game affects a Japanese style, with its use of torii gates, Japanese architecture, red lanterns (that are actually selfactivating bombs), and very brutal use of kanji characters. At first, it’s tempting to think

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that the game is representing something: killing old-timey gangsters in Japan, perhaps? But as it goes on, it becomes increasingly unhinged from reality until it starts feeling like a game from an entirely different dimension. For instance, there is one environmental hazard you will see fairly often that consists of red blobs strewn about the ground. Touch them, and as you fail the level, you will be given only the vaguest possible hint of what they might be: “Sharp!”, “Spicy!”, “Painful!”, “Acid!”. I felt like this deliberate ambiguity is a nod to the often poor English localisations of Japanese games of yore. Not unlike those games, Love Planet Arcade feels wonderful in the literal sense of the word. There’s wonder aplenty to be found in the game’s abstraction. Lovely Planet Arcade starts off simple enough, with you running around the levels, your shotgun going spiff and poof, blowing polygonal smoke and killing enemies in one shot each. As you progress through the levels, new mechanics are introduced. All of these are presented within the environment, rather than being

“Lovely Planet Arcade is a combination of shooting, puzzling tempered with lots of trial and error...”

upgrades to your character. You have the same abilities at the end of the game as you do at the beginning: you can run, shoot and jump. The difference lies in the skill that you accrue. The game doesn’t waste words explaining these mechanics to you, forcing to figure them out by yourself. It also forces you to pick up skills on your own. What seem at first like skilful plays of finesse that you have developed turn into essential skills later in the game. There is a kind of genius to this: when the game can force you to play in a certain way without you realising it. In an age full of tutorial popups, this is a welcome change. Lovely Planet Arcade is the sort of game that would be seen in a bar sharing a beer (or perhaps sake?) alongside its gory friends Hotline Miami and Super Meat Boy. As you get familiar with the game’s

controls and mechanics, the game starts to up the difficulty steadily. Failure is a central element of playing the game. You will fail, over and over, and each time, you will be told explicitly why you failed, in no more than one word. The constant failing sounds like it should get frustrating very quickly, and yet, it doesn’t. This is achieved by the game never penalising the player for losing: neither in a story context, nor in a game experience context. There are no loading screens to deal with, no elaborate death animations, no mocking messages. Restarting a level with the R key is as much a part of the game’s controls as jumping with Space, or shooting with the left-mouse button. Another subtle factor was that the game’s music doesn’t stop when you fail at a level, which keeps up the illusion that your failures are not false

“Lovely Planet Arcade is the sort of game that would be seen in a bar sharing a beer (or perhaps sake?) alongside its gory friends Hotline Miami and Super Meat Boy....” ends, but rather, a part of the same stream of gameplay you are experiencing. This is where not having a story falls into the game’s favour. In a world where trees rotate and giant rolls of sushi sit on the ground blocking my path, who am I to question the character’s ability to restart a level at will? As I went about running and gunning through the bite-sized levels, I found the

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game actively challenging my accuracy, reflexes and problemsolving skills. As you fail and restart over and over, a precise set of instructions takes form in your head, guiding you through that level. It’s usually not that hard to eventually ‘figure out’ the level, but the game also challenges your timing. You are awarded up to 3 stars for how quickly you complete the level. Your current star score is conveniently displayed onscreen, so that you can always restart a level instantly if it drops. Another convenience the game presents is letting you play any level, so long as you have unlocked the Act it is a part of. This was another reason why the game never came across as frustrating to me. If you can’t seem to ‘figure out’ a level, you can always skip it and come back to it later with a fresh mind. I did, and I was pleasantly surprised with how coming

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back after a while helped solve the game’s puzzles. One niggling annoyance I had was with a new enemy introduced in the game’s final act. I won’t spoil what it does, but it made me think I’d encountered a game-breaking bug. I e-mailed the developer about it, hoping he’d fix it soon so I could get back to writing this review. Instead, I was told that it was no bug at all. Getting back into the game, I got the hang of how the associated mechanic works. Still, I can’t help but think that this enemy could have been handled in a more elegant way. I suspect developer Quicktequila is going to get many more such ‘bug reports’ yet. It took me 4 hours to ‘beat’ Lovely Planet Arcade, by which I mean playing through every single level and beating the vast majority of them. This is clearly a game catered towards

speedrunners and lovers of time trials. I, however, was satisfied with my mostly onestar performance in most of the levels of the game, and enjoyed the process of figuring out the ‘right’ path through a level. There were even a few levels that I never managed to figure out, all of them in the final act of the game. Perhaps I’ll go back to them some time. All in all, Lovely Planet Arcade succeeds at what it sets out to do: creating a tight, compact and solid package of puzzlesolving and first-person shooting. Every part of the game comes together just right. It may not be particularly ambitious, but that’s because it doesn’t need to be. It certainly manages to delight, surprise and tickle more than games with exponentially larger budgets and sizes. That’s really all anyone can ask for from an arcade. «

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: 4 D E T R A H C UN D N E S â&#x20AC;&#x2122; F E I H T A nter, u h e r u s a e r t e h ture of t n e v d a l a n fi e... e m h o T c s a h , e k a r than D the popular Na

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Review by Lexuzze Tablante 5 years since the last release of its predecessor, Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End comes to the next generation console of Sony’s video-game machine. It gives a far better experience and an epic way of ending the franchise with its compelling story, which showcases the emotional and, probably, the most thrilling treasure hunt adventure in Nate’s life ever.

existed or even mentioned by any of the characters or by Nate himself. And impressively, they were able to connect the missing dots of Nate having a brother without leaving anyone confused.

And for those who haven’t played this franchise, it’s not a rip off of Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag because of its involvement with pirates or Rise of the Tomb Raider for its platforming adventure. No. Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End can give you the adventure of your life… as a gamer.

Nate’s struggles on his decisions were clearly tested in every moment, it was a matter of prioritizing. Was it to either sacrifice his marriage with Elena or to lose his long-lost brother once more? The story is very compelling in a way that you want to finish the game quicker for you to know what the conclusion of the game is.

The story starts off with Nathan Drake and his long-lost and presumed-dead brother, Sam, in a sea chase with goons that then kicks off to the past where it tells a bit of a long-story from their childhood leading to the time when Sam conveniently reappeared in Nate’s life.

The delivery of each backstory in the game about the notorious Henry Avery, King of Pirates, is very intriguing as well, like how Nate and Sam discovers a lot of clues and bits of historical finds that leads them closer to unraveling Avery’s secrets.

With a convincing story from the long-lost brother, the Drakes embark in a journey to seek the King of Pirates’ treasure. It was interesting that we are able to see a plot twist where Nate had a brother. It wasn’t mentioned in the previous installments that he had one at all. It was a bold move by Naughty Dog to add up a character that never

Consistent with Naughty Dog’s narrative style, the closure of this final installment gives a nice touch of Nathan Drake’s one last adventure in a way where he’s moved on from the illegal thrills and treasures. And this time, it’s not going to leave you wondering what’s going to happen next.

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What’s also added in the game

“Look at every fine points in the game: the sweat, beards, hair, and the environment makes you say “wow” every time you see a beautiful scenery or place...”

that makes it come to life aside from its captivating story are the stunning visuals and details. With the maximum potential of the graphics hardware that the PS4 has, Uncharted 4’s details are far more dazzling than other graphic-demanding games I’ve played on the PS4. I’m really impressed actually. Look at every fine points in the game: the sweat, beards, hair, and the environment makes you say “wow” every time you see a beautiful scenery or place. To tell you, what you see in the whole area of the game and the unreachable places are its in-game graphics, not just a mere background. Uncharted 4’s Madagascar is by far the most the beautiful place I’ve ever seen in any other game. What I’m also fascinated with as well is the transition of the game’s cinematic to its in-

game visuals and vice-versa. With Naughty Dog using the PS4’s full potential, Uncharted 4’s seamless in-game scene transitions give you the true cinematic experience. However, there are times when the game slowly renders on specific areas of the game which makes it a bit annoying. The water splashes look more of an 8-bit effect which is quite disappointing even for a small detail that could have been improved in some way. Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End’s dialogue has been loyal to its series. It’s funny and also emotional in way that it can make you internalize what the scene wants you to feel. Nolan North is back to do the voice-over of Nathan Drake, Emily Rose as Elena, Richard McGonagle as Sully, and now featuring Troy Baker as Nate’s

brother Sam. This strong lineup of voice-actors is what also makes the game alive aside from its fantastic graphical achievement. It’s pretty impressive that Nolan North still has it – the enthusiastic young voice that really suits the protagonist, Nate the Great. The music orchestrated in Uncharted 4 still retains some of its elements from the previous game, but this time it adds more of a modern touch to its score especially when gunfight starts. There is also guitar-plucking music inspired from The Last Of Us which makes a more suitable atmosphere to what the game’s story has offered. The game’s gameplay elements have been improved, as well as its controls. The swift and smooth movement of the

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camera made the aim better where you don’t have to adjust the sensitivity setting. There has been some added features in the game that weren’t offered in the previous Uncharted titles. I like how they balanced everything out in the game. Naughty Dog made sure that you can use every feature that the game offered like: driving, swimming, swinging, and sliding off cliffs and edges. I also love how they incorporated the grappling hook in the game to make impossible paths possible to traverse. And yes, this time the game offers driving in some parts of the game, and good thing too that Nate can finally swim underwater! Stealth has been greatly improved in the game since

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this wasn’t featured in the old Uncharted games, now it encourages players to choose between a head-on gunfight against dozens of goons or just take them out slowly without wasting ammo. However, there are these The Last Of Us moments where your AI companion obnoxiously passes in front of goons without being seen when doing stealth, which I find rather more amusing than disappointing, really. Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End still gives that very challenging combat as a third-person shooter adventure, and this time with larger locations. You still encounter those heavy brutes covered with spongyarmors and big machine guns just like in the previous Uncharted installments. The game is not too

“Nate’s struggles on his decisions were clearly tested in every moment, it was a matter of prioritizing. Was it to either sacrifice his marriage with Elena or to lose his longlost brother once more?”

linear anymore unlike its predecessors, it encourages you to explore to find hidden treasures and letters that will add more in-depth details to its plot. I was pretty amazed how big Madagascar was. In the game, Madagascar was the second location I took time to explore next to the pirate’s home colony in Libertalia. There’s also “Photo Mode” where you can capture enticing scenes with a lot of photo editing options to make your picture better. Time to show off your gaming photography skills now, shall we? There is also a multiplayer mode in Uncharted 4. It features a 5v5 teamdeathmatch that features Mysticals, supernatural powers that players can use in the game like the Wrath of El Dorado that can kill other players who stand beside it.

The playerbase is actually decent as you don’t have to wait for more than 7 minutes for a match. It’s a decent multiplayer experience that you can chill out with your friends and other Uncharted players if you need some time to rest from its story. I’m just only a bit disturbed with its 8-bit-ish water splash, but it didn’t affect my verdict for Uncharted 4. With its most compelling story, great soundtrack, improved AI and gameplay, and its glorious graphics, Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End is a game that gives you a fascinating ending story of Nathan Drake’s final adventure and an immersive cinematic experience unlike any other adventure game out there.

“Uncharted 4 has a 5v5 teamdeathmatch that features Mysticals, supernatural powers that players can use in the game like the Wrath of El Dorado...”

If you own a PS4, don’t miss out what Uncharted 4 has to offer! «

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Enter the Gungeon Review by Dave Acuña Enter the Gungeon is a rogue-like dungeon crawler and top-down shooter game developed by Dodge Roll for the PC and PS4 and released by the second quarter of 2016. In this game, players assume the roles of Gungeoneers – different characters each with dark pasts – all of them with a common goal of redeeming themselves by going through and defeating the Gungeon. The Gungeoneers must go through floors of procedurallygenerated maze of rooms in which The Cult of the Gundead reside and lay waste upon those who try to conquer the Gungeon. Of course, Enter the Gungeon wouldn’t be complete without guns, and by guns, this game has a lot. From handguns, shotguns, bazookas to even guns that shoot mail and packages, guns that shoot bouncing beams, and even guns that shoot out eggs which hatches and disperses homing

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chicks. There even are guns which are clear references of other games such as Megaman and Dead Space, to name a few. It will take one to go through dozens of runs before seeing and unlocking all the available guns. Enter the Gungeon is roguelike in the sense that every run is different and once you die, all the guns and money you got from that run will be lost. However, every run can still contribute to the progression of the whole game itself. Gungeoneers can pick-up hegemony credits from killed bosses which can be used to unlock certain guns from shops and there are also NPCs who can be rescued throughout the Gungeon that can provide different services which will

“Despite being a pixel game, the handcrafted room design and detailing is just so nice to look at...”

make future runs survivable. The Gungeon is quite unforgiving for the newbies and especially those who are not fond of bullet hell. Players must dodge bullets and other sorts of projectiles shot by bullets and things start to get nasty once every enemy on the room decides to unleash a barrage of bullets in every direction. Static walls can be used as cover as well as tables once flipped over. Enemies have attack patterns which can be easily exploitable by a well-experienced player. It takes mad skills to dodge and shoot through a floor to stay alive, not to mention coming out of one after a boss fight scratch-free. Also, a lot of patience and a little bit of luck will be needed to successfully beat the Gungeon. Contrasting its unforgiving nature is its cutesy depiction of its characters. The Cult of

the Gundead isn’t all that scary thanks to the adorable bullets that will greet you by trying to kill you in the early stages. Despite being a pixel game, the handcrafted room design and detailing is just so nice to look at. Plus, the designers did quite a good job in putting the little details on the gun and ammo animation: every gun has a different look and animation, starting from being shot to being reloaded. A very minor thing to include and put effort into but it adds a whole lot to the visual experience of the game. Overall, Enter the Gungeon may seem too hard of a game to enjoy and may drive off a lot of gamers, but it’s definitely on the top list for us. For one, the level of challenge it poses might be too high but the players are rewarded accordingly. It is a good timekiller because every run is

“The Gungeon is quite unforgiving for the newbies and especially those who are not fond of bullet hell...” just as fast-paced and actionpacked as the last one, be it just a few minutes short or a full run of around an hour. Also, the amount of content alone provides hours of play and provides reasons to play it over and over again. The multiplayer adds in a twist in the gameplay that may or may not be beneficial, depending on the skill of your co-player. Enter the Gungeon is one polished game that we truly recommend. «

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F O K O BO S N O M DE w e i v e r P deckh it w G P R n io An act you set s t le t a h t g in d buil geons n u d e h t f o h t g the len ough. youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll crawl thr

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Preview by Rahul Shirke Book of Demons, developed by Polish studio Thing Trunk, is the first part of a series of games called Return 2 Games. The series aims to bring back classic video game genres of the 90s, but with a decidedly modern twist. In Book of Demons, the inspiration is chiefly Diablo: a hack-and-slash romp through a dark crypt that leads down straight to Hell. The twist is that you use cards, build hands and decks, and set the length of your dungeons. The plot follows a wandering hero who was returned home, only to find his or her home village consumed by demons and other generally ghoulish monsters. With the help of a few supporters in the village, it is up to the hero to vanquish these evil beings. You can pick one of three classes: the Warrior, the Rogue or the Mage, who looks like Mr T, for some reason. In the Early Access build I played, only the Warrior was available. Rather than opting to directly clone Diablo or the more recent Path of Exile, Thing Trunk has created a game that functions rather uniquely. Rather than your traditional grind of weapons and armour, there’s a rather creative card-based system. You will obtain cards over the course of the game, and many of their functions are straightforward: there’s a card that serves as a potion, a card

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that will allow you to perform a powerful strike, a card that works as an antidote against status effects, and so on. What I found particularly interesting is how equipment cards work. Rather than using up any of your character stats, equipping weapon and armour cards causes your blue mana to turn into unusable ‘green’ mana. Your mana, therefore, determines what equipment you can put on as well as the spells that you cast. This inventive card system was satisfying to use, and allowed considerable flexibility. One reason it stands out in particular is that the order in which cards are dropped is procedurally generated, just like the game’s dungeons. While most games of this sort favour open-ended movement but fixed-path character development, Book of Demons goes the opposite way, by making your character’s movement fixed on a path, but their character development unpredictable and open-ended. Not only does it work, it succeeds: I always found myself excited to see what the next card drop would be, and how it would affect gameplay. The other major feature, or ‘twist’ the game introduces

“While most games of this sort favour open-ended movement but fixed-path character development, Book of Demons goes the opposite way...”

is the Flexiscope system, which allows you to set the length of the dungeons that you encounter at each level. Depending on how much time you have ahead of you, you can set the dungeons to be quick and short, long and meaty, or anything in between. The system learns as it goes, improving its time predictions based on its observations of your play style. Compared to other games in the genre, Book of Demons feels stripped-down, but in a good way. Health, both yours and your enemies’, is counted in very limited quantities of hearts. Even when levelling up, you can only add one point to either your health or your mana at a time. Your attacks are swift, and your enemies fall quickly. Your movement may be restricted along a fixed path (that often branches out), but it never feels limiting. This streamlining actually

“Compared to other games in the genre, Book of Demons feels strippeddown, but in a good way. Health, both yours and your enemies’, is counted in very limited quantities of hearts...” serves to make the combat particularly dicey. If you’re not careful, you’ll find your health dropping rapidly, particularly when you face multiple opponents. There’s also a bit of Souls here, as whenever you die, you drop your cards and your money at the spot where you died. I did not have much trouble retrieving the cards, and the game helpfully even offered to restore the hand of cards I was using before. On returning to the village up top, you can have newly found cards identified, new card

slots unlocked and your card’s charges replenished (for cards like potions). One interesting mechanic is the ‘Cauldron’. When you choose to add either a life point or a mana point at a level up, the opposite point goes into the Cauldron, along with any bonuses you’ve found in the dungeons. You can drink from the cauldron for a price to earn these bonuses, but each time that you do, the price goes up. I found the game’s economy to be tight, but fair. I had just enough money to perform these routine tasks, and then some. But there was always

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something more that I could do—something I could strive for, which is perhaps the hallmark of any functioning capitalist system. The game is rendered in a style that simulates paper, specifically a pop-up book, which is a smart decision for an indie studio. The end result is something that looks very tactile and crisp, while staying quite simple. This is followed up by expert sound design, full of satisfyingly punchy sounds that make it a joy to click and click through the game’s enemies, items and menus alike. My favourite sound was of my warrior hero hacking at wooden shields. The scrumptious sound of wood splintering and eventually breaking never got old. Despite being in Early Access, the game closely resembled

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a finished product. The user interface is slick, and welldesigned, both artistically and functionally. In all the time that I played, I did not encounter any notable bugs or glitches on the technical side at all. On the contrary, I was actually surprised at the many conveniences the game offered, such as helpfully reminding you to return to the village before you dived headlong into another dungeon, or marking the paths you’ve already visited. Book of Demons, in the end, proved to be a very competently developed, smartly designed hack-andslash adventure that feels fresh (even if it’s set in a dank, decaying crypt). The game is expected to release later this year, and considering how complete the Early Access build felt, I fully believe it won’t be in Early Access for very long. «

“My favourite sound was of my warrior hero hacking at wooden shields. The scrumptious sound of wood splintering and eventually breaking never got old...”

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o G n o Pokém s r e b m u in N 5,982,616,734 47%

100

Uses of the hashtag #PokemonGo during its first week on the App Store.

Share of the US games market Pokemon Go accounted for over its first Sunday on sale.

PokeCoins purchased using the most popular bundle, covering 37% of in-app purchases.

30,000,000

31.4 million

Number of Pokemon Go downloads surpassed by 19 July.

Worldwide sales of 1996’s red, blue and green – a number Pokemon is expected to surpass imminently.

33 Number of minutes the average iOs user spends playing Pokemon Go every day.

£5000 Amount one, er, committed player forked out for a level 20 Pokemon Go account with 75 characters unlocked.

$3 billion

Estimated figure Apple – not Nintendo – will take from Pokemon Go in-app purchases over the next two years.

The number of people who walked off a San Diego cliff playing Pokemon Go (and thankfully survived).

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19 Pokémon Go numbers that will blow your mind

10km

23,000,000

15,300,000

Distance you’ll have to walk to have a chance of hatching Aerodactyl, Lapras, Scyther, Chansey, Jynx, Magmar, Electabuzz, Eever, Pinsir, Kabuto, Hitmonchan, Omanyte, Dratini, Snorlax, Hitmonlee, Mr Mine, or Onix.

Peak daily active users in the US – more than any other app, ever.

Tweets about Pokemon Go in its first week after release.

4-6 million

$11 billion

Average number of daily downloads in the US between 7 and 13 July.

Amount added to Nintendo’s stock exchange value after Pokemon Go’s first weekend on sale.

1800

$1,600,000

1,219,740

Calories it’s estimated an average man will burn in a week playing Pokemon Go

Amount Pokemon Go is making every day in the US alone.

Number of Likes for the Pokemon Go Facebook page as by 22 July.

52%

Time, in hours, it took for Pokemon Go to top the ‘highest-grossing mobile app’ chart in the United States.

Pokemon Go players aged between 18 and 34.

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e h t g n i c u d o r t In c i s s a l C NES derland

it won b 8 n a o t e m o Welc

By Lee Smith Let me take you back to my youth, which seems increasingly further away as the years pass by. It was Christmas, 1988, when I eagerly awaited this big wrapped up box and uncovered the glory that was the Nintendo Entertainment System, complete with R.O.B. (Robotic Operating Buddy), and the lightgun for playing Duck Hunt. It was a glorious moment, one of the most defining of my years. I have previously owned an Atari system, which I loved, and a Commodore computer, which I still continued to play after I got the NES, but this was different. The games were a massive leap forward. The original Super Mario game is still one of my favourite games, as is Castlevania,

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Metroid, The Legend of Zelda, Ninja Gaiden and Ghosts ‘N Goblins. The hours, days, weeks and months playing these games with my friends elevated my interest in games to new heights, and is one of the reasons why I am still so passionate about games now. Hell, I have even introduced my kids to these games through the use of emulators and a joypad plugged into my Mac (as unfortunately, I don’t own my NES anymore. It has long since gone into ‘game console heaven’ along with my SNES, N64 and GameCube). They know the joys of finding out the secrets in Super Mario, and the insanely addictve theme tune for Bubble Bobble. But now this Christmas is about to send me back in time as Nintendo is releasing the NES Classic. A tiny ‘plug in

and play’ version of the NES for the new generation and all us parents looking for a little retro joy. Now we can play NES games the way they’re meant to be played, especially as it comes with a full-size “original” controller. Yes, that blocky controller looks very strange compared to the hi-tech multi button giant controllers of the XBox One and PS4, but that is part of the charm. Just two buttons, A and B. Life was simpler in those days, but in lots of ways I prefer that. It does only come with the one controller, though, but you can buy a second to go with it which I would highly recommend. This little beauty fits in the palm of your hand and comes with an HDMI port so it can plug into a modern TV. And

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yes, Nintendo have said that “each game has multiple suspend points, so you can start where you left off at a later time.”

of the best era-defining games that were ever released on the NES.

No more starting each game from the beginning each time, or writing down complicated codes, everytime you have to interrupt a gaming session to do some of those grown up things like, say going to work or feeding the baby.

Okay, so there is no Double Dragon (it has, instead, Double Dragon II: The Revenge which was always a better game anyway), no Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (the licensing for that must have been to problematic I imagine), and no Rygar, but there are some really classic in there.

Okay, so you cannot blow the dust off your old cartridges to play them again (which was never recommended anyway. Seriously, don’t do that...), but the 30 games that it comes with are more than enough. Especially as Nintendo has bundled it with some

From Kid Icarus to Gradius via Mega Man 2 and Dr. Mario, there are enough games to keep any retro gamer happy for a long while while they once again get sore gamers thumbs. «

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“Now we can play NES games the way they’re meant to be played, especially as it comes with a fullsize “original” controller...”

n i s ’ t a Wh ? x o b e h t Balloon Fight Bubble Bobble Castlevania Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest

Punch-Out!! Featuring Mr. Dream Star Tropics Super C Super Mario Bros.

Donkey Kong

Super Mario Bros. 2

Donkey Kong Jr.

Super Mario Bros. 3

Double Dragon II: The Revenge

Tecmo Bowl

Dr. Mario Excitebike Final Fantasy

The Legend of Zelda Zelda II: The Adventure of Link

Galaga Ghosts ‘n Goblins Gradius Ice Climbers Kid Icarus Kirby’s Adventure Mega Man 2 Metroid Mario Bros. Ninja Gaiden Pac-Man

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a l i n a M The e c n e i r e p x E r o j a M eâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Dota lv a V f o t n e v e is the third r jo a M a il n a e Mall of M th t a The e c la p k o hips, and to s n io p m a h C r Majo ilippines. h P , a il n a M in Asia Arena

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were also eliminated on day 1, truly a day of upsets.

By Keith Winters Dota has always been a cultural phenomenon here in the Philippines. No game has made the same impact as Dota has and that impact has carried over to Dota 2. That said, when the announcement that a Major was going to be held in Manila, it was inevitable that the hype level was astronomical. Before the main event, the group stage began and sorted out which teams will be competing in which bracket. This set the stage as a sort of teaser to what kind of action was to follow. Probably the most memorable of the games in the group stage was fan favorite team NaVi advancing to the winners bracket after stomping out both Digital Chaos and Team Secret. This set the tone, NaVi was back, and the crowd was cheering. Unfortunately, NaVi was unable to carry that momentum as they were swiftly defeated by OG in day 1 of the main event and were demoted to the Losers bracket. Another loss that got the crowd in an upset was how the local team, Mineski, were also quickly eliminated by Alliance in the Losers bracket and thus their Manila Major progress was halted on day 1. TI5 champions Evil Geniuses

The spotlight for day 2 was definitely on the game between NaVi and Alliance, a game which felt nostalgic for fans who’ve watched TI3. NaVi proving triumphant against Alliance move on to play another day. Team superstar Dendi, being the humble person he is, reminded the crowd that he only compromises 20% of the team and that if the crowd must cheer, they should be cheering for the whole team and not just for him. The hype was so intense that it left Day 3 relatively tame by comparison. One definite highlight that Day 3 had was that the performance of Vici Gaming Reborn and LGD gaming definitely put Chinese Dota on the map. That Chinese Dota was then put to the real test as both Chinese teams had to face each other on Day 4 of the Major with LGD Gaming coming out as the victor. Team Liquid proved to be the MVP of day four as they won both of their games against Fnatic and NaVi, 2-0 each game.

“What was apparent from day one in the Major was just how energetic the crowd was. Even the commentators noted just how lively the Philippine fans were...”

Fans of NaVi were disheartened to have their favorite team finally out of the running but cheered loudly nonetheless. Day 5 marked a milestone in the Major as for the first time since the Major had started, OG’s 9k MMR superstar Miracle had finally incurred his first death. Miracle having gone through every game until that point without dying. Despite this, OG still shows their superiority by beating out

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Newbee 2-1. Team Liquid put an end to LGD’s Manila Major run and secure themselves a spot on the grand finals. As Day 6 approaches, the crowd grows restless as the event hits its climax. Team Liquid and Newbee face off for the right to fight OG in the grand finals. Newbee put up a good fight, but it is ultimately Team Liquid who step up to fight OG. The Grand Finals had the whole audience on edge as every seat was filled and some of the viewers just sitting on the floor or on the sidelines just to pay witness to this monumental clash. A grueling best of five, OG prove victorious despite being on the receiving end of a brutal beatdown by Team Liquid in the first round by winning the next three rounds consecutively. With this, the crowd goes wild as OG are proclaimed the winners of the Manila Major and are the first team to win 2 Majors. Now one thing that was definitely apparent from day one to day six in the Major was just how energetic the crowd was. Even the commentators noted just how lively the Philippine fans were, and you could tell who the crowd favorite teams were just by listening to them cheer on the arena.

“SirActionSlacks was roaming around the event are and interviewing various attendees of the event, providing some much appreciated humor and insight into the kind of people present and watching...” truly staggering. An hour and a half before the scheduled time, the line has already gotten incredibly long, by the time the photo shoot started the line basically almost wrapped around the length of the arena. Outside of the tournament though, there wasn’t really much going on. There was a booth sponsored by the ASUS Republic of Gamers where people could compete in challenges to earn stamps to exchange for prizes. There was the secret shot in the SMX arena that sold valve goodies in loot boxes of varying rarity ranging from common to rare to legendary. Honestly, in my opinion the loot boxes really aren’t worth picking up as some of the contents seem overall underwhelming.

local cosplay superstar Alodia Gosengfiao as the special guest panelist. There were many epic cosplays present, such as Doom, Medusa, and even Timbersaw. The one who really stole the show though was the Tinker Cosplayer and won himself the contest with his amazing cosplay. Overall, the Manila Major was an exciting event. So much action was well distributed among the event’s six days, with the hype building up day after day. All of the 16 teams present did their best and gave the Philippine crowd the kind of excitement they were looking for. Win or lose, the crowds cheered hard for the teams they love.

In terms of merchandise, the major could have benefited from having merchandise of the various teams for sale.

Patient and dedicated fans waited in line for a once in a lifetime chance to get a picture taken with their idols.

Outside of the cheering, fan hype could also be measured by the lengths of the lines during the meet and greet photo sessions.

SirActionSlacks was roaming around the event are and interviewing various attendees of the event, providing some much appreciated humor and insight into the kind of people present and watching.

The amount of people lining up for a chance to have their photo taken with NaVi was

Another event that had people really excited for was the cosplay competition that had

In the end, the Manila Major was definitely a memorable event for all the people involved. From the players, to the broadcasters, to the analysts, and to the audience, the Manila Major gave an experience to remember and definitely showed to the world just how much the Filipino people love their Dota. «

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By Ophelia Matthews-Smith A variety of coloured costumes, bright lights and stalls loaded with clothing, toys, bags and even swords, drawing me in and begging me to buy them. Around every corner people would be redoing their makeup or putting in their contact lenses. Sections filled with attendees watching Warwick Davis answering questions asked by the fans themselves. As well as interviews, there are bands, food places run by unique companies, drink places such as Starbucks and Costa and mini gardens flooded with people. Comic Con did not cease to amaze me, or anybody else. There were walls dedicated to certain companies or shows. A Marvel wall was filled with people dressed as Thor, Loki, Black Widow, Deadpool, and many more, having their pictures taken or posing for a selfie. Not far behind it was a Tokyo Ghoul wall with lifesized cardboard figures of Tsukiyama, Kaneki Ken, Rizesan and Touka Kirishima. As well as this, there were props such as statues, motorbikes and police cars that you could have your pictures with and groups of characters, such as the Emperor with Darth Vadar and his Storm Troopers that would pose with you while your picture is taken. There were many areas full of people dedicated to eSports. The tension in the area could

not go amiss as two men used all of their gaming knowledge in order to defeat their opponent and win the prize. The crowd was quiet as they gazed at the screen and listened to the three men who narrated the intense showdown. Finally, when one had given up, the crowd cheered and, one by one, left. Nearby the eSports area were many games and groups of people watching others play against each other. The people who were running the Attack On Titan game were giving out posters as people came closer, interested in the game that was based on a popular, new, upcoming anime. Behind the crowd of A.O.T fans was another group of people playing a game similar to Street Fighter. As I picked a character and tried out the game, a group of people surrounded me and started narrating my moves, as well as saying what the best moves would be and why. As the time sped by, I browsed through the stalls looking at everything to offer. Many of the stalls were selling cute, cuddly cat toys and t-shirts with popular anime characters printed onto the front. Posters hung limp from the

“The people who were running the Attack On Titan game were giving out posters as people came closer, interested in the game that was based on a popular, new, upcoming anime...” top of stalls crowded with people surrounding it. Around every corner, there were things from Black Butler, Avengers, Supernatural, Sword Art Online, Star Wars and much more. Dresses, stationary and even trips to go sightseeing in Japan were being sold and previews of new television shows, based on comics, were being showed. Even when I left, the event was still going. In the outside areas, there were cafes, restaurants and small shops with queues reaching the pathway. People were surrounding others, taking pictures of the amazing costumes which reached around double the size of them. A pop-punk band were throwing their t-shirts at the surrounding fans taking videos as they sang songs that ran through the air. Even on the trains, there were many people dressed in huge heels with wild, coloured hair and makeup beyond ima gination. Throughout the cramped space was the sound of rustling bags as people admired what they’d bought. Eventually, as my station was nearing, the train became empty, and almost all traces of Comic Con were gone. «

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ESPORTS (ALSO KNOWN AS ELECTRONIC SPORTS, ESPORTS, E-SPORTS, COMPETITIVE (VIDEO) GAMING, PROFESSIONAL (VIDEO) GAMING, OR PRO-GAMING) CAN BE DEFINED AS A FORM OF SPORTS WHERE THE PRIMARY BE RIGHT WHERE THE ACTION IS