KnowGames - Oct Issue(Preview) by Miracle Media Private Limited

volume 1 | issue 1 | oct 2014

THE CREW Cross-country, crossterrain racing mayhem

REVIEWED Destiny, Infamous: first light, and more

DIWALI SHOPPING Your festive shopping list

MUST-PLAY

XBOX ONE

GAMES

Why You Should Own a

PlayStation Vita

Diwali

Shopping for Gamers

iwali is just around the corner, and as if shopping for loved ones wasn’t enough of a pain already, finding just the right gift for the gamer in your family or friends circle can feel like even more of an uphill battle. Gamers are a fussy bunch and they’re not easy to please, but that’s why we’re here. Gaming is everywhere now, from your mobile phones to the PC to dedicated handhelds and home consoles, and with games becoming multi-million dollar franchises, gamers’ interests expand beyond the games themselves and into peripheral businesses merchandise and collectibles. That means you’re no longer just restricted to gifting games and consoles; you now have a lot more to choose from, and more importantly, something to suit every budget. So let us ease your Diwali (and if you’re reading this a little later, Christmas) shopping woes with these gifting ideas that are guaranteed to please the gamer in your life. If you happen to be a gamer yourself – which isn’t unlikely since you’re reading a gaming magazine – go ahead and gift yourself something.

`499 to 1,499

Gamer Apparel

Yes, graphic tees aren’t just for comic book geeks. With gaming going mainstream over the last few years, many apparel websites are also now catering to the gaming audience. There are several websites with some great designs, and there are new ones coming up all the time, but we’ll list a few here that really caught our eye. First up is OSOM (osomwear.com) and its brilliant line of Mortal Kombat t-shirts. At the time of writing, they have three MK designs – Scorpion, Sub Zero and Raiden, and you can get them as t-shirts or hoodies in a variety of colours. T-shirts

Other websites you should check out: • Red Wolf (redwolf.in) • Lazy Ninja (lazyninja.in) • Captain Kyso (captainkyso.com) 4

are `699, while the hoodies (with back printing) will set you back by `1,499, and be sure to order well in advance because OSOM can take weeks to deliver. Next up is Bombay Trooper (bombaytrooper.com), whose designs are clever in that they aren’t licensed but don’t infringe on copyrights either. A prime example is their super cool Skyrim t-shirt, featuring Dovakhiin’s iconic headgear with the words ‘Fus Do Rah’ printed across the tee. They also have an Assassin’s Creed tee and the done-to-death Portal ‘Cake is a Lie’ design. Prices: `499.

`500 & above

gift card & subscrirtions Gift cards might seem like the most thoughtless gift idea of them all, but hear us out! Wouldn’t you rather give your gamer friend/family member the option to choose the game they want rather than gifting them a game they already have, or worse, a game they will never play? Personally, we would love to receive gift cards simply because it opens up so many possiblities.

Every major retail store chain (Croma, Landmark, etc) and online shopping portal (Amazon, Flipkart, etc) offers gift vouchers in various denominations starting as low as `50. That said, we’d recommend a voucher of at least `1,000 for PC gamers, and `3,000 for console gamers, since games aren’t exactly cheap. Since these retailers offer a wide variety of products,

the vouchers can be used towards games, peripherals, as well as consoles and other hardware.

If you know which platform your giftee games on, you can narrow down you gift card purchase further. For Xbox (that includes Xbox 360 and Xbox One) gamers, an Xbox Live Gold subscription card would be a great gift. These cards are available at Amazon (amazon.in) in one, three and twelve-month denominations, starting at `360. Unfortunately, there’s no way to gift PlayStation Plus memberships in India. If your giftee is a PC gamer, your job just became a whole lot easier. Steam is the most popular gaming platform on PC, and there’s no better gift to give a PC gamer than a Steam Wallet card. You can’t really

buy physical Steam Wallet cards in India, but websites like MOL (mol.com/in) and Game4u (game4u.com) let you buy digital codes that can be redeemed within Steam. If you happen to be a Steam user yourself, you can also gift Steam games to another user from within Steam. Lastly, for the mobile gamers, iTunes offers a way for you to send gift vouchers to other users. While prepaid iTunes cards aren’t yet available in India, you can load up iTunes on your Apple device or PC and buy iTunes credits from there. You can gift any amount from `500 to `5,000 and these can be used across all devices for music, apps, and of course, games. Unfortunately, no such gifting option exists for Android users on Google Play, but Amazon is once again an option. 5

`1,799 to 4,299

Games

Ah yes, the most obvious choice of them all – the gift of game. This is one of the trickier gifts to give because you’ll need to know your giftee’s likes and dislikes. That said, there are some universally popular games that you can count on. On the top of that list is FIFA 15, one of India’s most popular games. This year’s edition released on 26th September and is available for PS4, Xbox One, PS3 and Xbox 360. A great gift for a FIFA fan or any gamer who loves football. If the person you’re gifting to is a fan of racing games, there are also various options across platforms. Ubisoft’s The Crew releases mid-November for PC, PS4 and Xbox One; DriveClub for PS4 is out on 8th October, while Forza Horizon 2 for Xbox One released on 1st October. These are all great games so there are now wrong choices here. 6

If action games and shooters are more to your giftee’s liking, there’s plenty to choose from there as well. Fans of J. R. R. Tolkien’s fantasy worlds will get a kick out of actionadventure title Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor, which is out now for PC, PS4 and Xbox One, and PS3 and Xbox 360 in November. There are also two Assassin’s Creed games this year – Unity for PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Rogue for PS3 and Xbox 360 – and both release in mid-November. For new Xbox One owners, Sunset Overdrive, which releases in late October, is also a great choice. In the shooter category, Far Cry 4 (PC, PS4, Xbox One), Halo: The Master Chief Collection (Xbox One) and Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare all arrive in November and are all shaping up well. Yes, a lot of these games release in November, which is after Diwali, but most of these are on the top of gamers’ must-

buy lists, so preordering them for your loved ones could be a very thoughtful gift. If your giftee happens to be relatively new to gaming, however, there are plenty of older games to choose from as well, and depending on the platform, can go as low as `299 in price..

Other new releases this festive season: • F1 2014 - Racing (PC, PS3, Xbox 360) • WWE 2K15 – Fighting (PS4, PS3, Xbox One, Xbox 360) • PES 2015 – Sports (PC, PS4, PS3, Xbox One, Xbox 360) • Dragon Age: Inquisition – RPG (PC, PS4, PS3, Xbox One, Xbox 360) • Project CARS – Racing (PC, PS4, Xbox One)

`3000 & above

collectibles This category is for those whose love for gaming goes far beyond the screen. It’s for the most hardcore of gamers who like to own every bit of memorabilia of their favourite games, which also makes it one of the riskier gifts to give, especially since these don’t come cheap. If you don’t know your giftee’s favourite games, we’d advise you to steer clear of these. One of the most popular forms of collectibles is figurines and action figures, and while you’ll find far more variety on international shopping portals like PlayAsia (play-asia.com), which does ship to India, there is quite a bit available in India as well. We found that Snapdeal had by far the best selection of gaming figurines.

World of Warcraft, Street Fighter, Halo, Final Fantasy, Mortal Kombat, Batman Arkham, Mass Effect, Half-Life, Mario – figurines for these popular game franchises and others can be found, although many of these are imports so prices vary from `3,000 to as much as `15,000.

The other option is an extension to our games category from the previous page. Many of the popular games that release in India also have special editions that include more than just the game, from figurines, to Steelbook cases, to artbooks, to bonus in-game content. Assassin’s Creed: Unity, for example, has two special editions – the Bastille Edition (`4,999),

which includes a steel case, artbook and bonus in-game content; and the Notre Dame Edition (`7,999), which includes all of that, plus a 39.5 cm figurine of protagonist Arno. Assassin’s Creed: Rogue also has a Collector’s Edition (`4,999), which includes an artbook, lithographs, the game’s soundtrack, and some DLC. Lastly, there’s the Far Cry 4 Kyrat Edition (`6,499 to 7,499), which includes a lot of cool stuff, including a travel journal, a poster, and a 20 cm figurine of villain Pagan Min, all in a collector’s box. All of these can be preordered at Games The Shop (gamestheshop.com) and they’re a great option if you want to gift more than just a game. 7

`1,000 & above

accessories and peripherals No matter what device they game on, gamers can always do with accessories, and this is one of the categories that offers the most choice across a variety of price ranges. For serious mobile gamers, a controller attachment could be a great gift to get a console-like experience on a touch device. The Logitech Powershell ( `3,999 at Flipkart) is a great little controller that an iPhone 5 or 5s can fit into, with console-like controls on either side of the phone. For PC gamers, the choices are many, from gaming keyboards to mice to headsets. Within the budget range, the E-Blue brand offers keyboards, mice and headsets (exclusively via Flipkart) under `2,000. We 8

also recommend the CM Storm Devastator combo, which includes a backlit gaming keyboard and a mouse for under `3,000. The more premium peripherals will cost you between `3,000 and `10,000, and this range consists of brands like Mad Catz, CM Storm, Logitech, Razer, Corsair, Roccat and Steelseries. There’s a lot to choose from, so it’s best to set a budget and decide on a specific gift type first, which will make the choice of brand and model simpler. When it comes to console peripherals, it’s always a good idea to buy accessories made by the console manufacturers themselves, with the possible exception being headsets and steering wheels. So if you’re buying a controller for a PlayStation

console, get a Sony one. It may cost more, but you’re assured of good quality and full compatibility. Controllers aside, both PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 have their own motion control peripherals, PlayStation Move (`3,650) and Kinect respectively (approx `10,000). These are great for family audiences and more casual gamers, with lots of sports, fitness and dance games available for them. In the sound department, there are a variety of thirdparty headsets available from the likes of Tritton and Turtle Beach, but prepare to pay in the region of `10,000 for the good ones. Microsoft’s Xbox One stereo headset, at `6,000, is also an option, but Sony’s brilliant PlayStation Gold headset is unfortunately not officially sold in India.

`7000 & above

handhelds and home consoles

This is the best possible gift you could give, but as luck would have it, it’s also the most expensive. Starting with the handhelds, there are only three real options available here, and since the PSP (`6,990) is now ancient, we wouldn’t recommend it at all, unless it’s for a five year-old. That brings us to the Nintendo 3DS XL and the PlayStation Vita. The 3DS, like all Nintendo products, isn’t sold in India officially, but is quite easily available through the grey market. The 3DS XL is a hassle-free device and a great handheld for all ages. It will cost you anywhere from `15,000 to `16,000, with games at `2,000 and up. The Vita (`16,990) is the more technologically advanced of the two, with a large touchscreen and rear trackpad, plus all the controls you’d find on a home console controller. Games are available either physically or digitally via PSN, and the latter turns out to be more economical

as long as you’re willing to invest in a high-capacity memory card. The Vita can also stream games from a PS4, so PS4 games can be player directly on the Vita’s screen. Both the 3DS and the Vita are great handhelds, so there’s no wrong choice here. Just keep in mind that you won’t get warranty and support with the 3DS.

If your giftee is new to console gaming, the PS3 (starting `16,990) and Xbox 360 (starting `14,750) are great entry points. In fact, we envy anyone new to either console because they will now have seven years worth of great games to choose from, and they’ll now be cheaper than they were at launch. The one possible advantage the PS3 holds is free online multiplayer (Xbox 360 requires an Xbox Live subscription), but on the other hand, Xbox generally has way better customer support. So in the end, the choice is one about exclusive games. The PS3 has the likes of God of

War, Uncharted and Gran Turismo, while Xbox 360 is home to Halo, Gears of War and Forza. Take your pick. Now, we come to the top of the line; the latest in console gaming – the PS4 and the Xbox One. Both are priced at `39,990 and offer similar features, so once again, the choice boils down to the games. Third party games like FIFA, Call of Duty and Assassin’s Creed will be available across both, so the biggest differentiator will be the exclusives. The PS4 has been selling a lot better worldwide and it is the one with more momentum behind it, but the Xbox One has just launched in India, and as you can see from our review, it’s no slouch. Plus, FIFA 15 comes free with it. So again, no matter which way you go, you’ll end up with a great home console. If you do decide to go for the Xbox One, you should seriously consider spending the `6,000 extra for the Kinect bundle 9

preview

s y o B g i B e h t n o g n Ta k i

Releasing in close proximity to Forza Horizon 2, DriveClub and Project CARS, Ubisoft’s first real attempt at racing holds its own, and then some. by Sameer Desai 10

bisoft is the master of the ‘everything and the kitchen sink’ approach to open-world game design; a formula it has tasted much success with in the actionadventure genre with Assassin’s Creed and, more recently, Watch Dogs. Not content with doing a few things and doing them well, its open-world games try and inundate you with as much content as possible even at the risk of sometimes not executing them exceedingly well. Ubisoft is now taking that philosophy to the racing genre with The Crew, an all-you-can-eat buffet of crosscountry racing.

with other players’ cars populating it feels right at home here. So confident is the publisher in The Crew that it has already held two closed betas for it on PC and one on consoles, and while it isn’t quite the final game, there’s plenty to be excited about for racing fans. First and foremost, there’s a fantastic team at the helm of The Crew. Main developer Ivory Tower consists of the core team from Eden Games, which gave us the fantastic and ridiculously underrated Test Drive Unlimited games, and it’s being aided by the equally accomplished Ubisoft Reflections of Driver fame. Eden’s influence is instantly noticed when you first enter the world of The Crew. The first Test Drive Unlimited was too far ahead of its time when – all the way back in 2006 – it introduced an MMO feel to its brand of racing, but a vast open-world

Let’s be honest though; The Crew is a risky game. It lets you drive across the length and breadth of the continental United States – on-road and off – without a single loading screen. While there is a lot of technical wizardry that makes this happen, the bigger challenge is to not make large parts of this massive world feel bland and boring; like it was randomly generated rather than painstakingly designed. It’s a challenge 2008’s ambitious open-world racer, Fuel, failed to overcome, and incidentally, its developer – Asobo Studio – has been tasked with bringing The Crew to Xbox 360. However, creating a huge open-world and making every mile of it fun to drive is Ivory Tower’s bread and butter, as can be seen in the picturesque

recreation of Hawaii in Test Drive Unlimited 2, and while I didn’t quite manage to drive across all of The Crew’s game world (that would take a lot more time than two short betas), I did explore enough of it to rest assured that The Crew will not disappoint in this regard either. We all know about the iconic cities of the US - New York, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, etc – and they’re all present in the game, but in between them are diverse landscapes with dense forests, river basins, rock formations, massive deserts, snowcapped mountains, endless highways, and scenic coastlines. All of this forms the world of The Crew and it’s all available for you to explore. I spent one two-hour session simply driving non-stop from New York to Los Angeles, and the changing landscape as you drive through the countryside is really one of the highlights of the game. I drove night and day through canyons, mountains, deserts and forests as well as cities like St Louis, Washington, Chicago and Las Vegas, and 11

preview

driving into Los Angeles felt like the end of a really eventful road trip. It’s something you should definitely do when you get your hands on the game. It isn’t all just aimless driving though. There’s a story mode too, which, aside from tying all of the game’s races and events together, also determines how you level up and the content that you unlock. With such a massive open world set in a real-world location and events that take you on and off-road, it’s a shame that the premise of The Crew’s story lacks originality. You’re the younger brother of the head of Detroit’s baddest street gang, and when he gets killed by a crooked cop, you’re framed for his murder. Fast-forward a few years and you’re now working with the cops to take down the very gang you were once part of. But first, you must infiltrate their ranks and gain their trust. If that sounds to you like every story-based racing game ever, you’re not alone. That said, the beta only scratched the surface of the game’s story, so there’s still hope for some interesting twists and turns along the way. More than the plot itself, the story is what drives progression through the game, so you won’t mind the occasional cut-scene if it means that you get the opportunity to take on a new event, visit a

46 12

location you might not have, drive a new car, or get some new upgrades. Since The Crew is a massive game world, there are some great little driving sections that you may miss out on if you just free-roam, but the story mode does a great job of setting events in these sorts of locations. One particular event had me drive a converted 4x4 downhill through a dense forest, across a river and then through a dirt trail in a place I would probably never have discovered on my own. In fact, most of the story events are really well designed, so there’s plenty of incentive to stick to the story events amid all the cross-country freeroaming. Speaking of 4x4, The Crew features an exhaustive customisation system that lets you tweak pretty much every aspect of your car, both cosmetic and performance. So not only can you fit your car with all manner of bumpers, hoods, skirts, rims and paint jobs, but you can also enhance handling, power, braking and acceleration, to name a view. And it won’t bury you in technical details like a sim would. Every performance part you unlock will either enhance or decrease your car’s performance. Simply install the ones that improve performance and ignore the rest; it’s as simple as that. You can change every aspect of your car; so much so that you can take a strictly road-faring

car like the Nissan 370z and turn it into a nasty off-roader, complete with massive tyres, increased ground-clearance, and an all-wheel drivetrain. It may not be realistic, but man is it fun! The game is called The Crew though, so you’re best advised to party up with some buddies, or with random strangers in the game. You can then drive around together or enter events together, which could be co-op or competitive in nature. While in one event you’d be racing against your crew members for first place, in another, you’ll be teaming up in a takedown event, where you’ll chase and aim to crash an AI-controlled vehicle. There’s a lot of incentive to play with other players as well, with additional rewards in the form of experience points and unlocks for teaming up with fellow humans. Joining a crew is really simple and you won’t really need to sit through a lobby to enter a race or find other players. In fact, the game doesn’t even have a pause screen; all crew options show up in your HUD and you can actually drive around as you set up your crew. Co-op and competitive gameplay is seamless and it feels like part of the same game. So you won’t have to quit your story mode to take on co-op or versus events. The downside to this alwaysconnected approach, however, is that The Crew requires you to be online and connected to the game’s servers at all times; even when you’re

playing by yourself. So if your internet connection goes down, you get booted from the game. That wouldn’t be a problem if internet connections in India were stable (which they aren’t) and if Ubisoft had a track record of creating always-online games that worked as promised (which it doesn’t. Remember Splinter Cell: Conviction?). In fact, even if we had great connections and Ubisoft was the master of always-online games, it still doesn’t seem necessary in a game like The Crew. The game is perfectly playable – and fun – solo, so the always-online requirement seems, at least based on what I’ve played so far, to be more of a DRM measure than part of the game’s design. It’s unlikely that The Crew’s always-online requirement will go away, but what the developers can do away with it the overly cumbersome user interface. For one, the heads-up display (or HUD) is way too cluttered and confusing, although thankfully, you can turn off UI elements and I strongly recommend you do so. The other issue is the navigation marker. Each time you set a GPS marker or have to make your way to an event location, a blue navigational ribbon will show up on screen, hovering in the air above the car. Not only is it distracting, but it also doesn’t do a great job of telling you where and when you need to turn. There’s a reason most racing games have navigational aids on the road surface; it’s far less obtrusive.

My biggest complaint, however, is how the game handles side missions. You simply don’t have the option to not enter them. These side missions are scattered all over the place, and if you happen to drive through a side mission marker while free-roaming or on the way to an event, the side mission is automatically activated. There’s no way to quit it so you’ll just have to play through it or ignore it till time runs out. Then, the entire screen is taken up by the results screen of that mission, once again completely obstructing your view of the game. I sincerely hope the developers find a better way to implement side missions, because even though some of them are quite fun, I’d like the option to choose when I enter them. The Crew has me pleasantly surprised, especially since it’s Ubisoft’s first real stab at the racing genre (since Driver is more of an action-driving game). There are no half measures here – the world is massive and diverse; the cars are endlessly customisable and accessible enough for those accustomed to arcade racers like Need for Speed; and exploration is a whole lot of fun. That said, the beta only scratched the surface of what The Crew has to offer, and while I came away impressed, it remains to be seen if it can take on the likes of Forza Horizon 2, DriveClub and Project CARS. We’ll have our full verdict once it hits stores in mid-November

“There are no half measures here – the world is massive and diverse, the cars are endlessly customisable, and exploration is a whole lot of fun.”

Game details: Genre: Racing Developer: Ivory Tower, Ubisoft Reflections PUBISHER: Ubisoft Previewed on: PC Release: 14th November 2014 Platforms: PC, PS4, Xbox One, Xbox 360

REVIEW

Destiny Destined for Better

From the creator of Halo and publisher behind Call of Duty...we expected something a whole lot better. by Rishi Alwani

ou know what’s the cool thing about Dettol? It works on almost everything. As a mouthwash (yes, a mouthwash) when you forget to buy a new toothbrush to scrubbing kitchen floor after your cats have puked all over it, it’s a one-stop wonder disinfectant to make your life easy. What do sanitary solutions like this have to do with Destiny? Surprisingly a whole lot. You see, the fine people at Bungie, responsible for hits such as Halo and…well, Halo, envisioned a game to tick all possible boxes for the discerning gamer. The end result is Destiny. But is it any good? Well, just like using Dettol as a mouthwash – despite its raging effectiveness – isn’t the smartest thing to do. Destiny falls flat in certain aspects, which is tragic given that at its core is a competent shooter. But let’s get the bad out of the way first, yes? Destiny has an immense lore and back story. You’re a recently revived guardian – protectors of humanity on Earth and beyond. You find yourself in a world where races of the galaxy have been pushed to the edge by forces of darkness. Central to the plot is a mystical being known as the Traveler, which presented itself to humanity centuries ago. What happened next was a period of progress that saw humans colonise the stars and beyond. However, in the face of alien foes, the Traveler lost its powers and stands still protecting Earth’s last city, known as The Tower. As you can see, the setting of Destiny makes for compelling fiction and slick storytelling; no surprise given Bungie’s expertise at making the Halo games (particularly Halo 3: ODST and Halo: Reach) compelling in terms of narrative. There are lots of stories to tell to players to further

REVIEW

Game details: Developer: Bungie publisher: Activision Genre: Online first-person shooter Platforms: PS4, Xbox One, PS3, Xbox 360

their immersion. Or so you’d think. In a move that’s most puzzling, you can only read most of the game’s lore on your mobile phone. Yes, this is a Rs 4,299 game that runs on a video game console plugged into a big screen TV, but you have to still take out your cellphone to get an idea of what kind of enemies you just riddled bullet holes with. It’s a puzzling decision that does the game’s majestic setting no favours. And while we’re on the topic of poor story-telling and world-building, the campaign’s plot itself is disjointed. You’ll find yourself completing mission after mission, unlocking new planets and places to visit with barely any explanation in terms of story, save for your Ghost, who tells you what’s important in each mission. Voiced by Peter Dinklage of Games of Thrones fame, Ghost is the sci-fi equivalent of Legend of Zelda’s fairy Navi, who assists you in missions but is exponentially less annoying. After completing a slew of missions with little-to-no narration, the game throws a ten-minute cut-scene in your face. Puzzling indeed. It’s this half-assed approach and lack of consistency in delivering an understandable plot that makes Destiny so hard to get engrossed in. If this wasn’t enough, the missions themselves are repetitive in nature; even more so if you’re the sort who played the game since its Alpha demo back in June. Over the course of the game’s campaign (around 20 hours or so), you’ll find yourself repeating the same tasks again and again. From defending a structure from an impending enemy invasion to clearing out waves of interesting looking beasties, it’s extremely cookie cutter. This could have been forgiven if Destiny had some variety in terms of what you’ll see in each mission. It’s disappointing since this is not the case. 16

Have to assassinate high level enemies? Infiltrate an alien stronghold? Decimate opponents with a deathly sword? Guess what? Doing any of these takes you through the same vistas, makes you meet the same enemies, and has you walking through the same locations. Over, and over, and over. They’re three separate missions, but they take place in the same vicinity. It reeks of laziness and disrespect for a user’s time and energy. It doesn’t help matters that the game’s levelling up and progression systems are flawed. Instead of moving from one planet to the next, decimating all who stand in your way, you’ll find yourself returning to old battlegrounds and replaying missions you’ve finished. Why? Because newer missions require you to be at a higher level. It’s an approach similar to old MMORPGs, but doesn’t do anyone favours in an era where even World of

“The setting makes for compelling fiction and slick storytelling; no surprise given Bungie’s expertise at making Halo games.”

Warcraft makes things easier for the greenest of players. Speaking of massively online multiplayer games, Destiny’s campaign is best played with a friend or two, preferably with everyone using a headset and mic. The game’s mission structure gets terribly boring after a while and having a friend along makes it a lot more palpable, further proving that misery indeed loves company. Or in this case, 500 million dollars worth of it, if the game’s day one sales to stores is any indication. With so much to hate, you’d think there’s no reason to play Destiny. That’s where you’re wrong. The most obvious reason to give Bungie’s alwaysonline shooter a shot is that it looks absolutely breathtaking. Regardless of your console of choice, Destiny is quite possibly the best looking game this year. With a rock solid framerate backed up by fantastic art direction, it’s hard to find any flaws in Destiny’s visual style. Everything, from the game’s exotic locales such as Old Russia and Venus to the enemy designs, is stunning, and you’ll be hard pressed to find a pixel out of place. Those visuals are backed up by an amazing musical score. It’s orchestral and sounds appropriately epic, and by the time you’re done with the game, it’ll be tattooed on your brain. It’s that good! So much so that it’s probably the best thing about the game, right up there with Mass Effect and Halo in terms of quality. This is not all. Aside from being highly polished and sporting one of the best soundtracks around, the gunplay is phenomenal. No surprise given the developer’s expertise over years of making Halo games. The weapons handle well, pulling off head shots is extremely gratifying, and the sheer act of moving across the game’s exotic landscapes and gunning down enemies packs a punch very few first-person shooters can match. Thanks to this strong second-to-second gunplay, Destiny is saved from being a complete disaster. Furthermore, the role-playing elements of the game are surprisingly well done. Every mission grants you access to new weapons and armour and they’re doled out in a fair fashion. It’s not as generous a distribution as Diablo 3, which has you ending a quest with more loot that inventory space, but it’s good enough. Complete missions, defeat powerful enemies and take part in the game’s robust multiplayer modes, and you’re assured of obtaining some great items to customise your character with. On the topic of multiplayer, Destiny’s competitive mode, known as the Crucible, is a blast to play. Regardless of your campaign progress, you and

other combatants start off at the same level. It makes for interesting encounters based on pure skill and reflexes, with your choice of character class making all the difference. By and large, barring one horrible lunar map, Destiny’s maps are well made and accommodate the stipulated six-on-six player format perfectly. Throw in the fact that you earn experience to level up faster in the Crucible makes it a component that’s hard to ignore. Also hard to ignore are the game’s classes. There are the Warlock, the Hunter and the Titan to choose from. The Warlock utilises the power of the Traveler to set foes alight with magical blasts; the Hunter lets you specialise in quiet stealthy kills, both long and short range; while the Titan is the game’s tank, soaking up tremendous damage and dishing out just as much. While you can’t change classes after choosing one, Destiny lets you create multiple characters so as to experiment with a class for each. Although having just three to pick from might seem anaemic for some, it works well enough. They complement and balance each other, making competitive and co-operative play surprisingly fair and fun for all. So Destiny isn’t a total bust. The gunplay, classes, loot drops, competitive multiplayer and RPG elements are well thought out. Technically, it’s superlative and it sounds great too. But it’s hard to shake the feeling that Bungie’s first attempt at the MMO genre would have been evolutionary a decade ago. Today, thanks to the repetitive mission structure, constrained exploration (since each mission on each planet takes you through the same locales), and disjointed story, it falls behind what most seasoned MMO and FPS fans expect and it’s a disservice to newbies to the genres as well.

Not up for spending Rs 4,299 on Destiny? We got you covered with these: • Firefall (free-to-play; PC) • Defiance (free-to-play; PS3, Xbox 360, PC) • Planetside 2 (free-to-play; PC) • Blacklight: Retribution (free-to-play; PC, PS4) • Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary Edition (`1,199; Xbox 360) Much like Dettol being a magical fix for all your sanitary concerns, Destiny too falls flat in being the be all and end all for MMO and FPS fans. Having said that, thanks to the game’s modular nature and promise of extended support, it is possible to see it improving over time. Though at a cost. Though Indian pricing hasn’t been announced yet, $35 is what the game’s expansion pass would cost, which requires the base game that costs Rs 4,299. Until we have an idea of what these fixes entail, it’s tough to recommend Destiny to anyone but the most hardcore of Bungie fans. Everyone else should wait it out

VFM Verdict Destiny’s got the basics right, but everything else is not. Hold off until a price drop or till the forthcoming expansion packs try to fix its issues.

rating:

5/10

REVIEW

Game details: Developer: Sucker Punch PUBLISHER: Sony Genre: Action Platforms: PS4

Step into the shoes of the neon-fuelled Fetch for Infamous: Second Son’s standalone expansion. by Amit Goyal

O “There are moments of pure glee when your powers come together in a symphony of destruction, but everything else tends to pull things down.”

ne of the greatest follies of modern-day gaming is the trend of downloadable content, season passes and microtransactions. Game developers have become fiendishly clever at extracting money out of us. After charging some ridiculous prices for games, they soon realised that if the game is good enough, they can charge some more. But as Delsin Rowe of Infamous: Second Son and Cole McGrath of the previous instalments discovered, powers can be used for both evil and good. The DLC trend gave us some fantastic expansions that explored new ideas, such as Far Cry 3’s Blood Dragon and Infamous 2’s own Festival of Blood. In the case of Infamous: First Light though, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, and like Infamous: Second Son, it’s a well-rounded disappointment. Infamous: First Light, and indeed Second Son, aren’t disappointing because they’re bad, but rather because they had so much potential. In both instalments, there are moments of pure glee, especially when your powers come together in a symphony of destruction, but everything

else tends to pull things down. Let’s start with the story. First Light - a standalone single-player expansion to Infamous: Second Son - puts you in the shoes of Abigail Walker or Fetch, the neonpowered conduit you meet in the main game. The story begins with Augustine (the main antagonist from Second Son) interviewing Fetch about her past at the conduit prison, Curden Cay, while simultaneously putting her through training in battle arenas. These battle arenas come equipped with a number of challenges that the player can indulge in outside of the main story. In fact, if you own Second Son, you can play through these arenas as Delsin as well and pit yourself against waves after waves of enemies. While they are an interesting enough distraction, they didn’t really hold me beyond their required tasks in the story. The story takes you back two years, where Fetch and her brother Brent are trying to pull one last job to escape and start a new life in Canada. As you would expect, things don’t go as planned and Brent ends up getting abducted, setting up this

Single-player Expansions Done Right • Undead Nightmare (Red Dead Redemption) • The Ballad of Gay Tony (Grand Theft Auto IV) • Minerva’s Den (BioShock 2) • Ultimate Box DLC (Burnout Paradise) • Lair of the Shadow Broker (Mass Effect 2) If you own Infamous: Second Son, you can also play First Light’s battle arenas as Delsin Rowe.

roughly three-hour adventure for you. Fetch’s story is definitely tighter and better than Delsin’s, partly because it’s shorter and partly because Fetch is a far more likeable character than Delsin. Her dependency on Brent, especially for her emotional well-being, comes out as a believable motivation for doing the things she does, something that was sorely lacking in Second Son. The story stumbles towards the end though, primarily because at some pivotal moments, the game takes away the choice between good and evil; something that has been a hallmark of the series. Instead, you watch these moments go by, doing exactly what you’re told to do via on-screen prompts. For a game that has always given choice at such defining moments, suddenly having it taken away felt a little jarring.

“At some pivotal moments, the game takes away the choice between good and evil; something that has been a hallmark of the series.” You’d expect things to go a little better on the gameplay front, but unfortunately the fundamental problems that exist with Second Son carry over to First Light – chief among them being the city of Seattle itself. Games like Grand Theft Auto V, Assassin’s Creed and Watch Dogs have spoilt us by giving us living, breathing worlds that exude a collective personality and charm. Infamous’ Seattle, by comparison, is dull and drab and serves merely as a stomping ground for its superpowered inhabitants. The most interesting thing I have ever seen an NPC in Seattle do is scream in terror.

Infamous: First Light does little to infuse life into the drab open world of Seattle.

Playing as Fetch means that you’re restricted to a single set of powers, which would have been a downer if the neon powers weren’t hands down the best amongst all of them. Sucker Punch did a good job streamlining the neon powers as well, so you have some new moves now, such as the quick melee finisher and the neon homing missiles, making Fetch suitable for both long-range and close quarters combat. You can hang back and try to bring down enemies by targeting their weak spots, or go in

punching and blasting anything that comes your way. The best part about the neon powers in Second Son was the sheer joy of movement as a neon haze at breakneck speed. Sucker Punch has made this more awesome here by adding neon swirls around town. As you race your way through them, you temporarily gain speed and momentum, allowing you to move faster and jump farther. These swirls have been placed frequently enough for you to chain them with ease and move around Seattle with reckless abandon. The side missions of First Light try to take full advantage of these abilities. In neon races, the player is tasked with chasing a fast moving lumen - a neon cloud that awards a skill point when collected. These lumens are also placed in plain view, but in difficultto-reach locations. Figuring out how to reach a particularly elusive lumen, and then executing it perfectly is one of the rare high points of the game. The rest of the side missions are generic at best. Apparently, it is must for conduits to express themselves via some form of graffiti (in the case of Fetch, you have neon graffiti). The simple days when conduits could express themselves by zapping you in the face with their powers are long gone. So in the name of misplaced character development, you can indulge in sullying the walls around the city with some rather spectacular looking neon art. The other side mission, where you must locate and destroy a drone by accessing its camera, is equally trite. I can only recommend Infamous: First Light to the gentleman at the back who was the only one to raise his hand when I asked for die-hard fans of Infamous Second Son. The three-hour adventure – which can be extended by a couple of hours if you are obsessed with completion – is simply not worth it. For everything it does right, it gets two things wrong, all the while reminding us of the potential that has been squandered

VFM Verdict At around `1,999 (`1,248 via PSN), First Light is a bit steep for a single-player expansion that you can run through in one sitting. This one is for the most ardent Infamous fans only.

rating:

5/10

india spotlight

Mogul Games

Tiny

While most Indian studios seek international fame and fortune, Bangalore-based Tiny Mogul Games is betting big on India. We speak with studio head Anshumani Ruddra and sample some of the studio’s popular games. by Amit Goyal

hese are exciting times for the Indian game development scene, or rather, more exciting than five years ago, when expecting to find someone who works in game development was roughly in the same (im)probability range as meeting a girl at an engineering college. Today, we have people making legitimate efforts to build great games, and many, such as the Mumbai-based Yellow Monkey Studios (Huebrix) and New Delhi’s Vidhvat Madan (Lovely Planet), have managed to break out and garner critical acclaim from around the world. In this issue, we’re talking to Anshumani Ruddra, studio head of Bangalore-based Tiny Mogul Games, a studio that is making waves with a bevy of delightful games. With content targeted squarely at the Indian audience, it has you covered with everything Indian, from mythology (Shiva: The Time Bender) to cricket (Cricket Match) to your grandmother! (Dadi vs Jellies) Before joining Bharti SoftBank (BSB) to set up Tiny Mogul, Ruddra worked with Zynga, where he was the design lead on global hits such as Mafia Wars and Cafe World. He’s helmed the team at Tiny Mogul Games since February 2013, and since then, the studio has consistently released games that cover genres such as platforming, tower defence, match-3 and trivia, putting a unique and decidedly Indian twist to every one of them. We spoke with Ruddra about Tiny Mogul’s approach to game development, its India-first strategy, and a whole lot more.

“For a lot of us, the Holy Grail has always been making the first Indian monster hit – a game made in India and for Indians that completely disrupts the market.” Can you tell us a little bit about how Tiny Mogul Games started out? Tiny Mogul started as a small team in Delhi, but we quickly shifted our base to Bangalore. This decision was made mainly because of the ease of hiring talented developers, artists, designers and product managers, as well as the great start-up scene in Bangalore. The idea was to create a strong team that could focus on creating brand new IP and work in a lean start-up fashion experiment with different genres and types of games, develop them fast, launch them, learn from those experiences to make better games in the future and run them successfully. While most Indian developers target the global audience, Tiny Mogul has created a range of Indiathemed games like Shiva: The Time Bender and Dadi vs Jellies. Any particular reason why you chose to focus only on the Indian audience? At BSB, our mandate is to build services from the ground up for India, where the first screen for most is and will be a mobile phone. Gaming is a huge part of

this. Internationally, 60 percent of all smartphone users play games - and this is true of India as well. Some estimates put that number far higher than 60 percent for India. Indians love to consume homemade content – movies, music, sports. Almost every form of entertainment has a strong development history in India, but at the moment, only international games rule the top of Indian charts. While these games are doing well, none of them have really disrupted the Indian market. For a lot of us, who have been part of the game development scene in India, the Holy Grail has always been making the first Indian monster hit – a game made in India and for Indians that completely disrupts the market. Personally, this was a big reason for me to join TMG. Most of your games are absent on iOS. Is it also part of your India focus, given that India is a predominantly Android market? iPhone and iPad are reasonably popular in India. Does it make sense

to ignore that audience? Yes, being Android-first is definitely part of our India-focussed strategy. The idea is not just to reach the metros, but the huge mass of humanity that lives in smaller cities, towns and villages in India, who have just gained access to smartphones (almost all of them Android). While we have the ability to release our games on iOS – and we did release Shiva: The Time Bender on the App Store – the number of devices are just too small at the moment. We are a scrappy start-up and need to focus on the biggest chunk of the pie, which is Android. Tiny Mogul has an interesting roster of games. What was the inspiration behind Dadi vs Jellies and Shiva: The Time Bender? How did these ideas come to be? A funny story will earn you bonus points! We absolutely love and adore our grandmothers at the studio. They are the coolest people we know; the only ones who can scold our parents and get away with it. We also found a huge proliferation of jellies and 21

india spotlight

“Most indie developers love making games – and do a fantastic job as well – but no one realises that the real war begins once a game is launched.”

candies in the various app stores, and this really irked us. The idea of a gun-toting dadi destroying hordes of ultra cute jellies instantly appealed to everyone in the studio. Our artists quickly sketched out a poster and then there was no looking back. You’re also making your presence felt in the trivia segment, with SongQuest and the more recent Quiz Adda. What prompted you to venture into this category? Indians love to quiz. A sizeable chunk of the reality TV market in India is dominated by quiz shows. A quiz game serves all the classic requirements of a good casual mobile game – easy to learn but difficult to master, short bursts of gameplay, and inherently social mechanics. So entering this field was a no-brainer for us. With Quiz Adda, it’s evident that you are going after the category leader, QuizUp. What does Quiz Adda offer over and above Quiz Up that you felt users were seeking? With Quiz Adda we are focussing on topics that are genuinely of interest to Indians - history, mythology, Bollywood, cricket, etc. The inspiration is from the classic TV and radio quizzes of the 80s hosted by quiz masters like Siddhartha Basu and Narottam Puri, and hugely popular shows like Surabhi. Our newly-released television section is doing phenomenally well. We are also getting into regional content with the addition of Tamil and Telugu cinema topics. We have access to some of the best quiz masters in the country, who are developing relevant and entertaining content for us. Plus, there is the learning element - a lot of parents love Quiz Adda because their children get to learn something new about India. One also has to understand ground realities in India real-time gameplay has huge issues - most people are on bad 2G/3G connections, latency is a big problem, and so simultaneous gameplay usually fails. We cannot make games that only work on a steady Wi-fi connection at home. One should be able to enjoy a competitive round of quizzing on the go. This has been our target with Quiz Adda. It hit the top of the Trivia category on Google Play in no time and we expect to maintain our position with relative ease. Tiny Mogul calls itself a tiny studio with big ambitions. What can we expect from you in the

coming months? We will continue working on new and exciting games; games where we can apply all the learnings from our existing live games. We are also focussed on our existing games. We continuously add new features and content to them. In Dadi vs Jellies, we have just introduced an Endless Mode as well as a Quest system. New topics and questions are added to Quiz Adda on a regular basis. We are also excited about a PvP (player vs player) mode that will soon be out in Cricket Match. We are also actively reaching out to the indie development community and other gaming start-ups as part of our publishing plans. We’ll have more to share on this over the next few months. ‘Free-to-play versus premium’ is an ongoing debate in gaming, especially the mobile space. We have noticed that all games released by Tiny Mogul Games have been F2P. Is that what we can expect from future releases as well? The debate ended a long time ago and F2P won on mobile. F2P games with in-app purchases accounted for 93 percent of all game revenue on Google Play and App Store combined in 2013, globally. India does have some interesting challenges with F2P – lack of credit card penetration, which is necessary for making Google Play payments; high minimum price point of Rs 50, which reduces the quantity of micro-transactions; and no carrier billing on Google Play – but these are all problems that we hope will get resolved over the next few years. The idea is to have no entry barriers and give the best possible gameplay experience to as many people as possible in India. India is still not a known entity for original IP. Studios such as yours are obviously out to change that. Many attribute the slow development of the Indian industry to lack of talent, lack of funding, taboos associated with gaming, etc. What is your take on it? As a funded studio, do you feel you’ve not had to face many of the challenges that some of the product-focussed indies in India have to face? I don’t think the problem is one of talent. It is more a problem of experience and mindset. Most indie developers love making games – and do a fantastic job as well – but no one realises that the real war begins once a game is launched. Most developers don’t want to work on live games, not realising that real value is created when you can engage your players over long periods with better gameplay metrics, more active

users, and more monetisation. The investment scene is also changing. Seed-stage investors are bullish on gaming companies in India. Teams that have a clear sense of the market and the types of games they want to make, and understand the importance of running games as a service should find it easier to raise funds. What are the games you guys play at the office? What are the other ways you guys let off steam? Old SNES games are a staple. We play lots of mobile games and do regular de-constructs of popular games to understand what works and what doesn’t. Fighting games on our Xbox are also hugely popular - Tekken, Street Fighter, etc. League of Legends is played by a big chunk of the studio as well. Game development is picking up steam in India. A recent Game Jam event organised by NASSCOM saw school students participate and make some pretty interesting games. What advice do you have for students in schools and colleges who want to get into game development? My advice is pretty simple. Play lots of games with a critical eye. Understand what works and doesn’t work and why it works or doesn’t work. Learn coding so you can prototype your ideas. Get an internship at a gaming studio while you are still in school/college. Consume content and pop culture of all types – read books, watch movies, listen to music – this will make you a much more evolved developer of games. If someone wants to get in on all the action at Tiny Mogul Games, how do they go about it? We are always looking for interns across the board – developers, designers, artists, producers. So if you are passionate about game development, do get in touch with us. We maintain and regularly update Facebook pages for our studio and all our games. We also have a website - tinymogul.in, and can also always be reached on tmg@bsb.in. Last quarter, we did a very successful open house and are hoping to do more of them in the future. This gives people a chance to test out games that are still in development and interact with the team. We also actively participate in gaming conventions and share our learnings with the Indian game development community.

“My advice [to students] is simple. Play lots of games with a critical eye. Understand what works and doesn’t work and why.”

It’s evident that BSB and Tiny Mogul Games have a clear strategy and a plan of action ahead of them, which is more than can be said about many studios here in India. You may have wondered as you read this interview – “Why bother with all this?” Sure, the international development community has you covered with quality content for all platforms, but what we have to remember is that games are as much about expression as any other art form, and expression is always influenced by our roots. The team at Tiny Mogul Games is taking our Indian roots and creating games around them, which is an important component in the burgeoning game development industry in this country. There are many other aspects to it as well, and with the coming issues, we hope to talk to more Indian developers about their games and their stories, and hopefully explore how our industry is shaping up to be our own unique expression.

india spotlight

A game developer’s worth lies in its games, and that’s something Tiny Mogul Games has no shortage of. You’ve read about how the studio started out and its plans for the future, but it’s now time to talk about some of the games that are part of the young studio’s already impressive roster.

Shiva: The Time Bender Tiny Mogul’s debut effort was a side-scrolling platformer, where you control a time-travelling Shiva as he runs, jumps and indulges in some general badassery over a series of beautiful, colourful levels. An interesting twist to the standard platforming formula here is the ability to reverse time, which comes especially in handy when your character plunges to his untimely death simply because you were too slow to tap the screen. While Shiva isn’t the team’s best foot forward, the game is by no means a slouch either, and is a great reimagining of one of the most interesting characters from Indian mythology.

Dadi vs Jellies A tower defence game where a gun-toting, jelly-busting granny is the only thing that stands between you and a ‘game over’ screen? As a game, Dadi vs Jellies conforms to many of the genre standards – you face waves after waves of monstrous jellies, whom you must defeat with your “Kitchenzooka”, a weapon that looks cobbled together using various kitchen utensils. It is these quirks – including the powerful ‘Chappal of Death’, which can be used to smite jellies, and ‘Tommy Shoo’, an overenthusiastic dog that is incredibly effective at thinning enemy ranks – that set Dadi vs Jellies apart from the competition and give it that distinctive Indian flavour.

Cricket Match The latest release from Tiny Mogul Games is a matchobject game that every Indian match-object game fan would want on their phone. This cricket-themed take on the genre presents some interesting challenges that create the excitement of cricket in the most “non-crickety” way since book cricket showed us an entertaining way to ignore teachers during class. Every level is presented as a set number of runs required to win in a fixed number of turns (balls). Matching three balls of the same colour yields one run; chain more and you score more. If you are a big fan of cricket and Candy Crush – and it’s safe to assume that there is a huge overlap of these in India – then this one is a no-brainer.

QuizAdda and Song Quest These two are Tiny Mogul’s foray into the trivia segment. Song Quest, as is obvious from the name, is trivia about songs, where the hook of a song plays and the player must answer an associated question (name of song, movie, music director, etc) within ten seconds. QuizAdda takes up even more categories – from movies to cricket to mythology to television shows to politics – for quizzers around the country to go head to head in this asynchronous multiplayer trivia game.

All of Tiny Mogul’s games are available as free downloads for Android via the Google Play Store. Shiva: The Time Bender is also available for iOS. Give them a shot

FEATURES

The new consoles have witnessed a spate of older games being re-released in HD, and it looks like this trend is here to stay. by Rishi Alwani

014 is the year of the remaster. It is what happens when game makers underestimate the success of new consoles. Sure, it’s a nice way to get a hit of nostalgia, what with souped-up graphics and, in some cases, more content and better controls, but it’s essentially a cash grab until developers come up with something more substantial to show what your console or handheld can do. After all, it is easier to revisit an old, well-received game and make it look shiny instead of creating something new from scratch. Like them or loathe them, these re-releases are here to stay, but with a ton of them flooding the market, which ones are worth your time and energy? We sift through everything this year has to bring to tell you just that.

The Last of Us Remastered Price: `2,750 (PS4)

Ah, The Last of Us, the poster child for all things good with cinematic, narrative gaming. From a solid plot to robust, well-rounded characters, it was a treat to play on the PS3. Given the story-driven nature of the game, you wouldn’t think that it’s worth a second playthrough on the PS4, and that’s where you’d be wrong. The move to 60 fps makes for a fluid gaming experience and the transition to proper high-resolution assets further enhances the element of immersion of the game’s many distinct environments. How good does it look? Good enough for the fine folk at Naughty Dog to include a photo mode. Here, you can indulge your inner photographer without having to wait for a social occasion to whip out Instagram. You can control the game’s camera, mess around with settings like focus and filters, and take some great looking snaps. Furthermore, the DualShock 4 is a massive upgrade over the PS3’s DualShock 3 in terms of control and precision, making controlling an over-the-hill smuggler a lot easier.

To help show off the crisp 1080p visuals on the PS4, the Remastered version also includes a photo mode.

Also, the PS4 version includes all of the PS3 version’s post-release DLC, namely the Left Behind single-player add-on and multiplayer expansions, Abandoned Territories and Reclaimed Territories, making it solid value. If you own a PS4, there’s no reason to miss out on The Last of Us Remastered. Well, until Sony decides that the superlative Uncharted trilogy is worthy of a second outing on the PS4.

Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition doesn’t have much in the way of additional game content, but at least Lara’s hair moves more realistically.

Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster Price: `2,499 (PS3) ), `2,199 (Vita)

One of 2001’s finest games is brought back in the form of this HD remaster for the PS3 and Vita. First and foremost is the all but obvious graphical upgrade. Everything looks a lot shinier than it did when Final Fantasy X hit the PS2 12 years ago. From upscaled character models to improved environments, a lot has changed for the better. Other modern-day gaming amenities such as Trophy support and cross-save functionality between the PS3 and Vita further sweeten the deal. But this isn’t all; all the content from the international versions of the games that never made it out of Japan is here as well. This includes rearranged music, level progression improvements, optional bosses as well as mini-games.

Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition Price: `2,999 (PS4 , Xbox One)

One of last year’s better games was deemed worthy of a graphical update by Square Enix. Then again, the company felt that Sleeping Dogs needed a sprinkling of modern-day pixie dust as well, but we’re not complaining. In case you missed out on Lara Croft’s reboot on the PS3 and Xbox 360, you’d rather catch all the action on next-gen. Aside from having the necessary visual touch-ups, it comes with all of the game’s DLC. This isn’t much, given that it just amounts to a few multiplayer maps, a handful of single-player costumes for Lara, and a new tomb to explore; scant pickings if you’re looking for something above and beyond the base game. On the bright side, it handles just as well as, if not better, than what high-end PC owners experienced, with improved water effects and grass animations, and Lara’s hair bobbing realistically. Throw in the advantages of the better controllers of the PS4 and Xbox One, and you have a compelling update to what is already a fine game; more so if you’re detail-obsessed.

If all this wasn’t enough, you can now capture monsters and certain NPCs and use them in combat, much like Pokemon. Also, Eternal Calm, a movie that bridges the gap between Final Fantasy X and X-2 is bundled in, as is Final Fantasy X: Will, a 30-minute audio drama that plays out at the end credits. Whether you’re just revisiting the series or a newbie jumping in, you’d be foolish to miss out on this.

Updated visuals aside, the Final Fantasy remaster features gameplay tweaks, reworked music, as well as extra content that was originally only available in Japan.

FEATURES

God of War Collection

Grand Theft Auto V

Price: `2,799 (Vita, `1,579 via PSN)

God of War 1 and 2 are quite possibly Sony’s biggest hits to date, but why dust off your old PS2 or scurry around hunting for a copy on the PS3 when you can play them on the go? Yes, the first two games are remarkably playable on the PS Vita. But there are a few graphical inconsistencies and that’s to be expected given that the first game originally came out nine years ago. By and large, however, you’re treated to two great looking games that betray their age thanks to the Vita’s smaller screen. And if you’re using a firstgeneration Vita that sports an OLED screen, you’ll notice that the colours pop up nicely, making for gorgeous Greek genocide. The frame rate holds up for most part, chugging away with barely any slowdowns. However, due to the Vita’s lack of success in India, it may be hard to find these in physical form unless you hunt around the grey market, making PSN your best bet to grab them.

Price: `3,499 (PS4, Xbox One), `2,499 (PC)

Oddworld’s gameplay has stood the test of time, but the PS4 version introduces tweaks like quick save, improved checkpoints, and of course, updated graphics.

Oddworld: New ‘n’Tasty Price: `1,748 (PS4 via PSN)

This is, if you can excuse the pun, an odd addition to the list. It’s the only game that was made from ground up for the PS4, soon to be headed to Wii U, PS Vita, Xbox One, PC, Mac and Linux. The original release, entitled Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee, came out in 1997 for the PlayStation 1 and PC. Not only does this platformer sport better graphics, but also easier difficulty, quick save, revamped checkpoints, and of course, Trophy support.

There’s no two ways about it - if you’ve played it on the PS3 or Xbox 360, you’d realise that this is one game that’s restricted by the hardware constraints of end-of-life consoles. Announced at E3 this year, this remaster will sport enhanced draw distances, finer textures, higher resolutions, improved weather effects, busier traffic, and of course, the ability to transfer your GTA V Online progress to your next-gen console of choice. You’ll be able to record and share your escapades with ease and enjoy everything San Andreas has to offer, minus the slow downs, glitches and the odd crash or two that this rollicking open-world adventure suffered from on the PS3 and Xbox 360.

For the uninitiated, New ‘n’ Tasty has you in the role of a strange looking creature (or mudokon as the series calls them) known as Abe. It’s up to you to save your fellow mudokons from enslavement at a giant meat processing plant. Quirky story aside, it’s replete with puzzles and sports slick platforming that hasn’t aged a day since its original release; a testament to how well it was designed the first time around 17 years ago.

Coming soon The first two God of War games were the highlights of the PS2 era and you can now relive on-the-go with the Vita. 28

Now, while those are five remasters you can check out immediately, here are three that should be on your radar when they hit digital and physical store shelves soon.

Aging console hardware held GTAV back from reaching its true potential last year, so expect the PS4, Xbox One and PC release to be the definitive edition.

Metro Redux Price: $50 (PC via Steam), N/A (PS4, Xbox One)

Metro Redux contains both Metro 2033 and its sequel, Metro: Last Light. They’re fantastic first-person shooters set in post-apocalyptic Russia. Both games are deliciously desolate affairs, with players having to worry about details such as their gun getting jammed in combat, dying due to lack of oxygen in irradiated areas, and of course, psychotic beasts. Metro 2033 is still a game many PC enthusiasts use to test how well new computer hardware performs, and the Redux edition of the game features improved gameplay, borrowing stealth mechanics from Last Light, a few new weapons, and an improved HUD. Aside from that, a lot of graphical details have been reworked to accommodate next-gen PC and console hardware, making this the definitive edition of this cult shooter series. Updated visuals aside, the Final Fantasy remaster features gameplay tweaks, reworked music, as well as extra content that was originally only available in Japan.

Sleeping Dogs Definitive Edition Price: $3,499 (PS4, Xbox One), NA (PC)

This is a peculiar one. Sleeping Dogs went free on PS Plus and Xbox Live Games for Gold a while back for the PS3 and Xbox 360 respectively. The PC version is routinely discounted, along with the oatload of DLC that was released for the game, to the point where you can acquire everything for less than $10 digitally. Throw in the fact that the PC version has a free HD pack released by developers United Front Games, and the existence of this Definitive Edition becomes a lot more perplexing. It didn’t help matters that the announcement trailer featured footage from a live-action film made to promote the game when it first came out. Nonetheless, publisher Square-Enix is touting changes to gameplay and graphics as requested by the fans. So until a sequel to undercover cop Wei Shen’s escapades hits, this will have to do. Look out for this on October 10

games we’d like to see remastered Final Fantasy VII Mass Effect Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 Crash Bandicoot Tetris (we kid, of course) We’re not entirely sure why Sleeping Dogs is getting remastered on PC, especially since the original game already has a free HD texture pack.

FEATURES

portable power Why the PlayStation Vita is the only handheld worth buying

Contrary to popular belief, the best gaming experience on-the-go isn’t on smartphones. Here’s why the PlayStation Vita should be your go-to portable gaming device. by Rishi Alwani

ight now, you’d be hard pressed to find a better handheld gaming device than the PlayStation Vita. Sure, mobile gaming is all fine until you realise that the half hour session of blasting zombies in Dead Trigger kills your phone battery horribly. That, and the oodles of compatibility issues that games have with smartphones that aren’t labelled as iPhones. So if you’re serious about your portable gaming pleasures, here’s why you need to get a Vita.

“Close to 150 games are making it to the handheld in this year alone.” Despite the smaller screen and lesser horsepower, Uncharted: Golden Abyss on the Vita holds its own against its PS3 counterparts.

The Games

Yes, the first point is the most clichéd. Contrary to popular belief, the Vita has a ton of great games. From beastly first-person shooters such as Killzone: Mercenary to platforming delights like Tearaway, there are lots of fresh, new games to play. It isn’t all AAA goodness either. Indie hits such as Hotline Miami, The Binding of Isaac, Stealth Inc, and The Swapper are all available on the Vita as well, ensuring that you’re not more than a download away from a great game to play. Furthermore, the line-up of upcoming games is looking solid as well. Close to 150 games are making it to the handheld in this year alone. It’s a diverse range of games, ranging from Sony’s take on Monster Hunter with Freedom Wars, promising a connected co-op experience, to Kickstarter-backed roleplaying games such as Cosmic Star Heroine. Needless to say, games are the least of your worries.

every PS4 can be played on the Vita without a hitch. It’s a slick feature that translates nicely on the smaller screen. And while it’s recommended to use it only on your home network, some have reported success of using it miles away from home as long as the PS4 is connected to a working power outlet with a robust internet connection.

The Ultimate Nostalgia Machine

Remember the first Metal Gear Solid game? How about Castlevania: Symphony of the Night or Crash Bandicoot? These are just a few of the games you can play on the Vita.

While you can play these on your PC or smartphone via the dark arts of emulation, they don’t scale or play as well as they do on the Vita. Thanks to the small screen, a lot of the graphical issues older games suffer from (as they were made keeping CRT TVs in mind) are negligible on the Vita. The best part? Getting a slice of old school gaming fun is cheap on the wallet and your bandwidth, with most games under Rs 600 and file sizes predominantly below 1 GB (unless you count the Final Fantasy games). After all, a few things are as good as having the best games from the original PlayStation available to play on the go with little fuss.

Remote Play

Sure, Sony announced that this killer feature was coming to its new range of smartphones, including the Xperia Z3 and Z3 Compact, but it’s still best on the Vita thanks to the non-requirement of a separate controller to play games. For the uninitiated, remote play lets you stream PS4 and PS3 games from your console on the Vita. While there are fewer PS3 games you can play on it, almost

PS Vita is also home to some of the best indie games, like the ulta-violent retro-themed Hotline Miami.

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Fantastic hardware and build quality

Prior to Sony’s arrival on the handheld console scene with the PSP, gamers had to buy whatever Nintendo threw at them. Over the years, we’ve been accustomed to cheap looking – and even cheaper feeling – hardware, like the Gameboy and its many competitors such as the Sega Gamegear. These devices felt more like toys than actual gaming consoles. It’s as if there was no difference for these manufacturers between the two categories. That changed with the PSP and its slim brethren thanks to slick design and premium build quality. They showed us what we should expect from a handheld in terms of look and feel, making it as important as what the device itself could do. The later iterations of the PSP were made to match a lower price and hence lost the smart looking design, but this isn’t the case with the Vita. While the first edition sported a gorgeous OLED screen, the current Vita has an LCD screen instead. The differences in image reproduction are present and are quite subjective, but there’s little else to differentiate the two. That is until you factor in the 1 GB of onboard memory on the new Vita, micro USB charging instead of the proprietary solution used in the original, and an hour of additional battery life. It just shows that Sony is getting better with each hardware revision without skimping on the premium look and feel that it’s made its own.

“Did you know you can buy a game on your PS3 or PS4, play it at home on the big screen and then continue the same game on the go?”

Five Must-play Vita Games • Gravity Rush – Action/Adventure • Killzone: Mercenary – Shooter • Persona 4: Golden – RPG • Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc – Visual Novel • Tearaway – Puzzle/Platform

The Controls

The many iterations of the PSP had a single analog stick that made gameplay cumbersome. Ditto with the 3DS and the same also applies to smartphones, which are limited by the touchscreen interface. All of this changed with the Vita. Thanks to dual analog sticks, a touchscreen, rear trackpad, directional buttons, and the familiar Playstation button icons we all know and love, there’s very little reason not to like the myriad of control options available on the device. Games like Uncharted: Golden Abyss make sniping a breeze thanks to intuitive use of the rear touchpad, while last year’s Tearaway lets you use the Vita’s cameras and gyroscopes to allow you to interact with the game’s many platforming and puzzle solving sections. Smart use of the system’s many control options helps keep a game fresh even when you’re at the very end of it.

Cross Buy, Cross Play, Cross Save

Did you know you can buy a game on your PS3 or PS4, or both, play it at home on the big screen and then continue the same game on the go? Well, now you do. Games such as Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time, Counter Spy, Hotline Miami and countless others let you do this. Some AAA fare, such as the superlative Metal Gear Solid Collection, let you buy both Vita and PS3 versions separately, but allow you to continue your game on either device. It’s a slick feature that makes gaming on to go more pertinent, and in a lot of cases, aiding your gaming at home. If you own either a PS4 or PS3, you can also save quite a bit on your portable gaming. So if you were to buy a game like, say Hohokum, on either PS4, PS3 or Vita, you’d get the other two versions for free.

as Need For Speed: Most Wanted. What it lacks in raw power, it makes up in finesse, allowing for gorgeous looking games that outweigh most experiences available in the palm of your hand today.

Cheap Games

“What the Vita lacks in raw power, it makes up in finesse, allowing for gorgeous games that outweigh most experiences available in the palm of your hand today.”

Playstation Plus

Let’s face it; games at physical retail for the Vita are expensive. Why should you pay Rs 2,499 for a copy of Killzone: Mercenary when you can get it for Rs 1,650 via the PlayStation Store? Add to that Sony hold frequent sales on PSN, making these already-cheap games even cheaper. Thanks to the huge price difference between physical and digital prices, it makes sense going for the latter, unless of course, you’re one of those obsessive, compulsive collector sorts who absolutely must have everything as a physical copy. Do keep in mind that you’ll need a decent sized memory card if you plan to go digital.

Power in Your Pants

A 32 GB card costs around Rs 5,999 via online stores and a little less if you manage to get one locally from the grey market. Or you can import a 64 GB card for the same price as well. Granted, it’s on the expensive side, but it’s tough to ignore thanks to the tremendous savings to be had going digital. It’s also convenient, considering that supply of games at retailer in India, Vita or otherwise, has been inconsistent at best of late

If you own a PS4 or a PS3, you’d be stupid to miss out on Playstation Plus. For Rs 2,499 for the year, you get two free games on per platform every month. It’s been a godsend for PS3 and PS4 owners and even more so if you plan on getting the Vita. Given that Vita games at retail cost as much as Rs 2,799, you’ll get your money’s worth out of a year’s subscription for the Vita in the first month itself. And if you’re already using Playstation Plus, you don’t have to pay more to use it for the Vita, making it extremely good value for money.

The Vita sports a quad-core processor and a quad-core GPU. While it outclasses the 3DS by a long way, it’s a bit long in tooth compared to current-day smartphones, but that doesn’t make the games any less palpable from a graphical standpoint. First-party titles such as Gravity Rush and Uncharted: Golden Abyss show what it’s capable of, as do third-party games such

features

The Best on Mobile

In our monthly mobile round-up segment, expect to see a hand-picked collection of what we believe to be the best mobile games in recent times, and we will painstakingly go through featured titles as well as the more obscure releases to bring the best possible ways to splurge for your gaming on the go. by Amit Goyal

Angry Birds Epic Angry Birds Epic might first come across as a forced extension of the widely popular franchise. They already have a racing game, and now this one’s a role-playing game. What next? A first-person shooter where the pigs kill off all the humans and take over the planet? God, I hope Rovio is reading this!

Game details: Platforms: iOS (Free), Android (Free) Developer: Rovio

Alone Alone distinctly reminds us of Canabalt, which was the endless runner before endless runners were cool. In Alone, you navigate a tiny spacecraft headlong from the left to right of the screen. You can move the ship up or down by sliding your finger in the corresponding direction, and using these mechanics, you must avoid falling debris, comets screaming towards you, and even navigate through caverns that get increasingly treacherous (requiring sharp turns) as you go further. The controls may seem a bit over-sensitive at first, but it is only a matter of getting used to. The sharp controls are important for twitch gameplay, and you come to appreciate them sooner than later. Moreover, as is the norm with most endless games, the level is generated procedurally, which means that you get something different every time you play.

That said, once you get past the F2P shenanigans and the fact that it is Angry Birds, you’ll find a surprisingly good turn-based RPG here. Epic requires you to put a great deal of thought into the squad you take into battle (once you unlock enough birds) and the costume to equip to ensure you have the right special moves to deal with the enemies. You’ll also be paying a lot of attention to enemy attack patterns to make sure you choose the most effective moves in every turn. You’ll end up spending a lot of time crafting weapons and concocting potions to improve your chances in every subsequent battle (wait till you run into zombie pigs). The obvious downsides to the game are the always-on internet requirement and the aggressive F2P monetisation, but that doesn’t take away from the game’s solid mechanics. It’s definitely worth a shot in my book.

The visual is blocky and slightly old school, and yet it suits the gameplay really well. The art mostly utilises blocks and edges for everything, including the smoke that comes out of the rocket tail. Everything conveys a sense of urgency, including the sharp colour changes of the entire background. The music - edgy and techno - fits in well with the scheme of things. Alone is great for short bursts of fun. It features three game modes (plus two bonus modes) of increasing difficulty, which can only be unlocked by reaching a certain distance in the previous mode, ensuring you have something new to pursue for a fairly long period of time.

Game details: Platforms: iOS (`120), Android (`150) Developer: Laser Dog

80 Days

Game details: Platforms: iOS (`300) Developer: Inkle Studios

Hitman GO What if someone took the Hitman franchise, with all its sneaking about, patrolling guards, disguises, silenced weapons, and of course, Agent 47, and made a board game out of it. Thankfully, you don’t need to imagine the result. Hitman GO is a turn-based tactical puzzle game that will reel you in as much with its fantastic aesthetics as it will with its gameplay. Every level is presented as a board with fixed paths, with you controlling the Agent 47 piece on the board. Other pieces guard various points between you and the destination (or target). Every turn allows you to move one node, with all the other pieces making their move after yours. You have to reach the end of the level without landing up on the same node as one of the guards would at the end of the turn. Different types of pieces are governed by different rules. For example, some guards stay stationary, while others move back and forth on a fixed straight path. Later in the game, you find shielded guards, and guards that move around in a loop. The game also gives you new tools as you go along, from weapons like sniper rifles and dual pistols that can shoot down some guards, to disguises that make you impervious to certain guards.

80 Days is a stylish text adventure based on the classic Around the World in 80 Days. You play as Passepartout, the loyal valet of Phileas Fogg, at the beginning of your mad dash around the world. The game plays out like a novel, granting you multiple branching dialogues with the people you encounter on the journey. In every city you land up, you can explore to discover new routes and meet new people, or acquire objects in the market that would be of considerable value in other cities. Once your business in a city is done, you can choose to move on to your next destination. The game requires some amount foresight in planning what activities you take on as Passepartout, since you cannot run out of money or time. If you run out money, you need to wait a few days for the bank to wire funds to your location. If you run out of time, well, then pox upon you, my friend. On my journey across Russia from Moscow to Yokohama, I helped a couple divided by social stature elope, met a proud Mongol woman who pointed out a mysterious comet in the sky from the viewing deck of a train, and later met a man who advanced the Steampunk technology of the game’s world by a fair degree. I also managed to get Phileas Fogg and myself arrested, and even led a successful mutiny on a ship. What’s remarkable is that such a vivid game world is brought to life only by the writing and scattered pieces of art that suggest how the world might look. The price is on the steep side for a mobile game, but for that you get to experience an intriguing world. If you’re looking for something immersive and are not averse to reading, don’t pass up on this one

The entire game is presented like an elegant board game. The pieces themselves are not animated, and move as you would expect them to on a board game, giving the game a very novel feel. With six different acts full of clever levels, Hitman GO is definitely worth your money Game details: Platforms: iOS (`300), Android (`300) Developer: Square Enix 35

FEATURES

the Replacements Disc versions of EA’s PC games will no longer be released in India, so if you’re not keen on going digital just yet, here are some substitutes to EA’s biggest upcoming games that you will be able buy at retail. by Rishi Alwani

n case you have been living under a rock and just re-emerged to live in modern civilisation (to which we think you’d have more pressing matters to attend to than reading a gaming magazine), you’d have noticed that Electronic Arts (EA) has stopped selling PC games on discs in the country.

Long-winded opening sentences aside, you can still get your fix of Dragon Age: Inquisition, The Sims 4, FIFA 15, and Battlefield: Hardline on consoles if you so crave a disc. Or if you have a high-speed internet connection and think nothing of spending around Rs 3,499 for a game on PC, you can download EA’s latest and greatest via the company’s Origin store front. But if you’re a dyed-in-wool PC gamer without fast internet or the interest in spending so much for EA’s games as digital copies, there are other alternatives. Read on to learn about the games that you can replace EA’s line-up with until better sense prevails and they’re available physically or receive a massive price drop on Origin.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (instead of Dragon Age: Inquisition)

Much has been said about The Witcher games. From the moral ambiguity to the distinctly different narrative experiences brought on by the choices you make, this is one of the deeper role-playing series around. It’s made even better by the fact that The Witcher 3 will sport an over world that’s larger than Skyrim’s, slick combat and oh-so-drool-worthy graphics. Sure, you’ll probably need a beast of a PC to run it, but when the game itself is priced at a moderate Rs 1,499, there’s not much to complain about. So if you have a hankering for Dragon Age: Inquisition but can’t stomach the lack of disc, high price or even higher download size, you can’t go wrong with The Witcher 3. At least you’re assured of an ending that’s a little more than a bunch of Powerpoint slides (Dragon Age: Origins) or a game that recycled so many assets it would be a shoe-in for a climate change prevention award (Dragon Age 2). 36

Game details: Genre: RPG Developer/Publisher: CD Projekt RED Release: 24th February 2015 Platforms: PS4, Xbox One

Payday 2

(instead of Battlefield: Hardline) There are multiplayer games and there is Payday 2. Designed by the same people behind the stellar Battlefield: Bad Company 2, it’s a gorgeous team-based heist game that pits you and three other friends against waves of enemies as you try to loot your way to glory. Each game follows a similar structure of surveying the environment you’re looking to pillage, be it banks, jewellery stores, or malls. This is followed by the act of actually stealing from aforementioned locations. Then you and your team of thieves have to escape the area.

Sounds simple? Try doing this under a barrage of heavy gunfire, hordes of increasingly difficult enemies from mall cops to SWAT teams, and you have a very cool game that Battlefield: Hardline took its cues from. The advantage, however, lies with Payday 2 for a variety of reasons. For one, it’s still getting regular updates and DLC, the latest of which is in collaboration with the makers of Hotline Miami. Secondly, the game isn’t as resource-intensive as anything bearing the Battlefield moniker. This ensures that low and mid-range PCs have a chance of running it smoothly without too many tweaks. Most importantly, it’s available right now across PC, PS3, and Xbox 360, which is more than we can say for Battlefield: Hardline that’s delayed until next year.

Game details: Genre: Co-op shooter Developer/Publisher: Overkill Software/505 Games Release: Out now Platforms: PS3, Xbox 360

FEATURES

Game details: Genre: Sports Developer/Publisher: Konami Release: 13th November Platforms: PS4, Xbox Onel, PS3, Xbox 360

Pro Evolution Soccer 2015 (instead of FIFA 15)

Yes, yes. We know. FIFA is a big deal here, even more so compared to its technically superior rival, Pro Evolution Soccer 2015 (PES 2015). But that matters little when one game has licenses to use every club and player that matters rather than the half-hearted attempt at realism in this regard that the PES series tends to be. For most, this alone is a deal-breaker. However there are more than a few reasons to go with PES 2015 this year. For one, there’s an actual physical release on PC at a low, low price 46 38

of Rs 999. This alone makes the game a whopping three and a half times cheaper than FIFA 15 on PC. Along with this, you do save on your download cap, since with FIFA 15, paying Rs 3,499 is just one part of the equation. The other part of it is actually downloading it, which in this country, tends to be a problem. If the price and bandwidth are no constraints, PES 2015 sports gorgeous looks thanks to the FOX Engine (also used in Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes) and if the demos are any indication, has more fluid gameplay than EA’s footie fix. That makes FIFA Ultimate Team the only reason to bother with FIFA 15. For most, that’s reason enough, but with increased prices across platforms including console, you can do with spending less.

The Sims 3

(instead of The Sims 4) This is the only game from EA on the list to replace another EA game. With The Sims 4 costing around Rs 3,499 and available digitally only, The Sims 3 seems like a better bet. Aside from being decently priced at Rs 699 via Origin, it’s available locally if you know where to look. However, given how watered down The Sims 4 is, you’re better off sticking to The Sims 3. The lack of

an open world, the absence of a plot, no toddlers (babies become school kids), no randomness in the form of aliens or burglars, no pools, and no options to customise and expand your home to your liking are just some of the many reasons to give The Sims 4 a miss even if you’re comfortable with the Rs 3,499 price and digital-only availability. If you’re even more prudent with your money, there’s always Second Life, which is free or the host of The Sims games or its clones available to play in your browser, on Facebook, or on your mobile phone

Game details: Genre: Simulation Developer/Publisher: The Sims Studio/EA Release: Out now Platforms: Mac OS X

Calendar

18 Nov 2014 Grand Theft Auto V

Here’s a list of all the major game releases for India over the next few months

October 2014

14th The Evil Within

31st WWE 2K15

01st Forza Horizon 2

17th Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel

November 2014

Xbox One, Xbox 360

03rd Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor PS4, Xbox One

Assassin’s Creed Birth of a New World - The American Saga PS4, Xbox One

07th Alien: Isolation PS4, Xbox One

08th DriveClub PS4

10th NBA 2K15

PS4, Xbox One, PS3, Xbox 360, PC

Sleeping Dogs Definitive Edition

PS4, Xbox One, PC

PS4, Xbox One, PS3, Xbox 360, PC

PS3, Xbox 360, PC

F1 2014

PS3, Xbox 360, PC

24th Just Dance 2015

PS4, Xbox One, PS3, Xbox 360, Wii U, Wii

Sid Meier’s Civilization: Beyond Earth PC 28th Sunset Overdrive Xbox One

MX vs ATV Supercross

PS3, Xbox 360

04th Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare

PS4, Xbox One, PS3, Xbox 360, PC

11th Halo: The Master Chief Collection Xbox One

Assassin’s Creed: Rogue

PS3, Xbox 360

13th Assassin’s Creed: Unity PS4, Xbox One, PC

Pro Evolution Soccer 2015

PS4, Xbox One, PS3, Xbox 360, PC

PS3, Xbox 360, PC

29th Freedom Wars PS Vita

14th LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham PS4, Xbox One, PS3, Xbox 360, PC, PS Vita

11 Nov 2014 Assassinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Creed: Rogue

10 Oct 2014 NBA 2K15

24 Feb 2015 The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt 01 Oct 2014 Forza Horizon 2

Evolve 10 Feb 2015

06 Feb 2015 Bloodborne

04 Nov 2014 Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare

Dying Light 30 Jan 2015

14 Nov 2014 LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham

18th Grand Theft Auto V PS4, Xbox One

Far Cry 4

February 2015

PS4, Xbox One, PS3, Xbox 360, PC

19th Little Big Planet 3

06th Bloodborne

PS4, PS3

21st Dragon Age: Inquisition

PS4, Xbox One, PS3, Xbox 360, PC

Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor

PS3, Xbox 360

Project CARS

PS4, Xbox One, PC

WWE 2K15

PS4, Xbox One

PS4

January 2015 27th Grand Theft Auto V

PS4, Xbox One, PS3, Xbox 360,

30th Dying Light PS4, Xbox One, PS3, Xbox 360, PC

10th Evolve

PS4, Xbox One, PC

20th The Order: 1886 PS4

24th The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt PS4, Xbox One, PC

RUMOURS

Xbox on PC, First-person GTA, and Iron Man in Assassin’s Creed? People in the games industry, be it journalists or gamers, love to speculate about what might happen in the future, and we’re no different. Here are some of the rumours that have been doing the rounds of late, and our take on how true they could be. by Sameer Desai

Will you be able to ride this bike in first-person on PC?

irst-person mode in Grand Theft Auto V

After months of silence, Rockstar Games announced that Grand Theft Auto V will be arriving on PS4 and Xbox One next month, and PC on 27th January. Along with that announcement, several new features for these versions were also revealed, including increased draw distances, higher resolutions, new weapons, vehicles and activities, additional wildlife, denser traffic, a new foliage system, enhanced damage and weather effects, and over 100 new songs and DJ mixes. But the real buzz is around a feature that Rockstar supposedly published on its website and then removed – first-person mode.

The feature was supposedly mentioned in the FAQ section on Rockstar’s website for the new versions of GTAV before it was edited out. It mentioned – ‘A brand new first person mode for vehicles that shows the interior of the vehicle, including working speedometers, tachometers, dash lights, and more’, and ‘A brand new first person mode while on foot’. Before you get excited, this information is now only available online via a Google cache link, and there are ways that these can be faked.

different matter. Unlike most games, an openworld game such as this has several character interactions that will need to be completely reworked for first-person mode, especially core gameplay mechanics like shooting and hand-tohand combat. More than any of that, GTA games are designed to be experienced a certain way, so even if a first-person mode was technically possible, adding it may not be the best course of action, especially given Rockstar’s perfectionist approach.

Our take: This sounds like something modders would cook up once the PC version is out, but we simply don’t see Rockstar adding this feature. While it wouldn’t be too hard to implement a first-person mode for driving, implementing first-person on foot is a whole

That said, we’d be overjoyed if a first-person mode was indeed added to GTAV. We’re not sure we’d actually play the game that way in its entirety, but it’ll be a great way for us to experience a game we already love in a completely new way.

Xbox games to soon be playable via PC browser Microsoft has stepped away from PC gaming over the past few years after gamer backlash over its disastrous Games for Windows service. But while the company has sat back and watched as the likes of Steam took over the PC gaming market, it could soon be making a comeback through a game steaming service it is rumoured to be working on. According to Neowin, Microsoft is developing a streaming platform that will allow full Xbox One and Xbox 360 games to be streamed to the PC browser, where they can be playable at 60 fps. While Xbox One games can be streamed, the Xbox 360 will supposedly go a step further by streaming the entire dashboard to the PC browser, making it a fully-functional virtual console. While this sounds like a great service, Microsoft has certain hurdles to cross, aside from the technicalities. Chief among them is working with game publishers, since a service like this could eat into their PC game revenues.

Our take: Microsoft has been investing heavily in cloud-based technologies so a service that uses its Azure platform to stream Xbox games to other platforms seems perfectly plausible. That said, Microsoft will only do something like this if there’s lots of money to be made, and with them also having to appease publishers, we wouldn’t be surprised if the company charges a hefty fee (either per game, or per hour) for this streaming service over and above the Xbox Live subscription, similar to what Sony is planning with PlayStation Now.

Then, of course, there’s the issue of streaming itself. High-quality triple-A games will require a lot of bandwidth to stream and making that gameplay lag-free will also require low-latency connections, something that will be a problem in India. So even if Xbox games streaming to PC does become a reality, it’s something that may not be relevant to India for a long time.

Robert Downey Jr cast in Assassin’s Creed movie According to Moviepilot, Robert Downey Jr has been cast in the upcoming Assassin’s Creed movie. The Iron Man star will reportedly play the role of Leonardo Da Vinci, which probably means the game will be set around the events of Assassin’s Creed 2. It has already been confirmed that the film will be co-produced by Inglourious Basterds star Michael Fassbender, who will also play the leading role. That rumour was quickly followed up by the news that the film, which earlier had a firm 7th August 2015 release date, has now been pushed to 2016. The Hollywood Reporter claims that the delay is due to ‘multiple script rewrites and scheduling issues’.

Our take: We’re not quite sure what to make of this rumour. While

The casting team could do a lot worse than signing Robert Downey Jr to play Da Vinci.

Michael Fassbender is a star in his own right, it does seem a bit strange to have a much bigger star in Downey Jr as a supporting cast member. Not that we’re complaining. Ezio and Da Vinci had forged quite a friendship over the course of Assassin’s Creed 2, so it would be great to see these two great characters translate that into movie form. But with the script still being worked on and scheduling in a mess, it’ll be a while before we can get an official confirmation or denial on this rumour

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