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EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ISSUE

285

UNCHARTED

THE LOST LEGACY

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Welcome

A closer look at all of the best games on the horizon RESYNCHRONISED

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TAKING A BREAK from annual releases was the smartest thing Ubisoft could have done with the Assassin’s Creed series. Even if the likes of Unity and Syndicate hadn’t been marred by technical issues, franchise fatigue was still a serious factor working against the games – mechanics and structure changed little between games, and the series would need a proper overhaul to feel fresh and exciting again. And that’s exactly what has happened. To the untrained eye, Origins looks exactly like an Assassin’s Creed game. A strange statement, perhaps – what else would it look like? – but beneath that oh-so-familiar exterior lie a host of radical changes that switch up moment-to-moment gameplay to an extent never seen in the series before. Skill-based combat rather than counter-spamming tedium; RPG-style levelling and loot systems; fleshed out optional missions that feel like side stories in their own right… it’s a different game now, albeit one cleverly wrapped in the same fancy presentation as its predecessors so the casual crowd don’t feel like they’re being pulled out of their comfort zone. For years, Assassin’s Creed games have plugged the same gaps in my gaming schedule as the likes of the Lego and Warriors series – lazy Sunday games that don’t require me to even switch on my brain – so it’ll be interesting to see how players (myself included) take to this shift towards more demanding and involved gameplay. It’s exactly the kind of change the series needed and the fact that it has me genuinely has me excited to play a new Assassin’s Creed game for the first time since Black Flag would suggest that the franchise’s year away from the spotlight was the best thing to happen to it since Desmond popped his clogs.

THE FUTURE OF ASSASSIN’S CREED

Enjoy the issue and I’ll see ya online…

LUKE ALBIGÉS EDITOR @LukemonMGJ PSN: PorthMinster

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Contents

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The future of PlayStation gaming looks something like this…

Inside the biggest Assassin’s Creed game Ubisoft has ever made

4 Assassin’sCreed:Origins 22 Destiny 2 30 Top Ten: Grand Openings 50 Play Classics: In Cold Blood

@PlayMag_UK twitch/PlayUK

12 22 32

BACK TO THE BEGINNING

FEATURES

www.play-mag.co.uk

PREVIEWS 12 14 16 18

Kingdom Hearts III Beyond Good & Evil 2 Dragon Ball FighterZ Lego Marvel Super Heroes 2

KEY TO THE KINGDOM

EYES UP, GUARDIANS

THE NEW FACE OF UNCHARTED

The latest on Sora’s crossover adventure

15 ways Destiny is changing forever

Well, that Nathan chap had a good run…

REVIEWS 32 36 38 40 44 46 48

Uncharted: The Lost Legacy Sonic Mania Pyre Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice Matterfall Thimbleweed Park Arizona Sunshine

56 58 60 62 64 66

PLUS

Interview: Absolver Extended Play: Uncharted PS Plus Trophy Guide Join The Play Community You Haven’t Played… Playlist

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FEATURE

ASSSASSIIN’SS CREEDD ORIGINS

UBISOFT MONTREAL DETAILS ITS MOST CHALLENGING PROJECT TO DATE: MAKING ASSASSIN’S CREED’S PAST PROBLEMS FEEL LIKE HISTORY “WHEN DEVELOPMENT STARTED THREE AND A HALF YEARS AGO, WE SET OUT WITH THE INTENTION OF CHALLENGING OURSELVES. What we wanted to do was not only create an authentic Assassin’s Creed game, but reinvent that core AC experience. We know that elements like combat, stealth and navigation are details that constantly need to be improved upon – made better and made to be part of a more cohesive experience,” admits game director Ashraf Ismail, speaking with Play in a surprisingly frank interview long after the dust had settled on E3 2017. “And now we’ve opened the door to change whatever we wanted.” But it’s difficult to escape the feeling that we’ve heard all of this before. From the moment of Origins’ spectacular reveal, it’s been impressed upon us how the fundamentals of its design have been overhauled, reinvented in service of crafting an experience that “while unmistakably Assassin’s Creed” will come to “represent a whole new beginning for the series”. Given the series’ contentious standing with a large contingency of the community, this defiant statement of intent should be cause for celebration. Why then is this messaging such an immediate red flag? Perhaps it’s because this isn’t overtly dissimilar to the way in which Assassin’s Creed: Unity was presented to us back in 2014. While Unity may well be remembered in the annals of history for its myriad technical bugs, narrative failings and comically acrimonious reception, behind it all was a game packed with fresh ideas and good intentions – even if, ultimately, its improved systems and updated mechanics failed to properly fuse with the laboured Assassin’s Creed framework. So why, then, would we put our faith back in Ubisoft Montreal, let alone this October’s Assassin’s Creed: Origins? Could it be that we’ve had a deep-seated desire to explore the mysticism and

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FEATURE

ASSSASSIINâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;SS CREEDD OR

Q While the ancient Egyptians may be one of the first great civilisations of humanity they were not without their brutality or sadism, as these wretched souls might well attest.

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mysteries of ancient Egypt; eager to see what the Black Flag team could do as it swapped out gorgeous oceans for sweeping sandy planes? Perhaps. Or it could indeed have something to do with game director Ashraf Ismail. He is one of the first Ubisoft employees to publicly acknowledge that cautious iteration was no longer enough for Assassin’s Creed to survive, let alone thrive in the current gaming landscape. That has to count for something. The responses to Black Flag and Unity were polarising, to say the least, and that was more than enough to convince Ubisoft to give this team the time and space to take Assassin’s Creed back to the drawing board – and nothing, it seems, is safe. “We asked ourselves, ‘can we create a true Assassin’s Creed experience while still revamping it, modernising it, and bringing something new to it… refreshing it, if you will?” continues Ismail, noting that it wasn’t just the details that his team focused on, but the fundamentals of Assassin’s Creed’s design too; whether features were in the game because they needed to be, or simply because the series’ legacy demanded it. “We were open to the fact that the way players consumed the game is going to be different now, that we needed to make [large] changes to make the series modern, to take advantage of a lot of the tech that we are building. “We’ve opened up all of the fundamentals of what being an Assassin’s Creed game means, from the building of the world to all of the mechanisms within it… by the end of this experience, I want people to walk away saying ‘wow, this was an Assassin’s Creed game that needed to happen.’”

At a glance, it’s difficult to pick apart the ways in which Assassin’s Creed is being re-examined, particularly if you’re looking at a video walkthrough. Merely seeing Origins in action doesn’t do justice to what Ubisoft Montreal is trying to achieve here. It may not, for example, be readily apparent that Origins’ hero, Bayek, moves with a sense of purpose and fluidity unlike any other in his long lineage. That’s a change fuelled, in part, by the fact that the run button has been removed; instead of having to press a button to enact a high-profile sprint, operating Bayek at his maximum movement speed is as easy as thrusting the analogue stick in a particular direction. The mini-map is gone, replaced by an Elder Scrolls-style compass at the top of the screen to aid navigation, ensuring your attention is focused on the world itself rather than a litany of multi-coloured dots and icons in the bottom corner. Another small-but-important change sees Bayek able to scale almost every surface in the game; your ability to climb is no longer regulated by architectural design flaws, problem solving powered by intuition rather than vertical pathways carved out by precisely placed bricks and handrails. While these are small quality of life changes, when you look at them within the wider context of what Origins is trying to achieve, you begin to get a sense that Ubisoft Montreal is wholly focused on putting control back into the hands of the players. The way Ismail tells it, his team wanted to address the criticisms that have come up time and time again with the series. The common frustrations and concerns surrounding combat, progression, navigation and mission design – each of which is being re-assessed and overhauled, with varying degrees of impact on the moment-tomoment action. “There are a lot of fundamental differences with the gameplay this time. The combat is fundamentally different in terms of its depth and the way that we want players to think about it. This is deeply tied in with our new action-RPG elements, which are designed to change the way that people think about gameplay and progression,” he says, adding, “beyond that, we have a lot of

Q The terrain and architecture of these regions offers up some unique challenges for the Assassin’s Creed team that it hasn’t had to address since the original game.

different types of objectives that are new, based on the fact that we have a new AI system, a new quest, and a new narrative structure.” ‘We’re going to need examples’, we tell Ismail. After all, Assassin’s Creed III made similar promises in regards to changing the complexity and fluidity of combat and exploration; the same is true of Unity in its promises to break away from traditional mission structures and progression cycles. Not only did both fail to do so, but they actually instilled – in a cruel twist of fate – the notion that Assassin’s Creed was incapable of change, so entrenched in its ways that it would always struggle to deviate from the formula it solidified in 2009 with Assassin’s Creed II. Thankfully, Ismail is only too happy to oblige, giving us just a small (but potent) hint of how all of these new systems will intertwine to exorcise one of Assassin’s Creed’s biggest demons – the dreaded desync. “To give a very simple example, when you are doing some sort of chase or follow [objective] in previous Assassin’s Creed games, you were always given this warning at about, say, 30-40 metres that your target is out of range and you are about to desynchronise – we hated this. We wanted to get away from that; there is no need or reason for that from a player experience point of view.” To facilitate this (frankly, wonderful) change, the studio had to completely rethink the way in which it approached its world design, not to mention how characters inhabited it and interacted with the player character within it. The result of this means that Origins’ game space could be the most technically ambitious and outright impressive open world to come out of Ubisoft in recent years. “We created a new AI framework that actually allows us to have thousands of persistent people living in this world,” Ismail explains, noting that all of the AI – all of the human and animal NPCs that inhabit the sprawling Egyptian space – are “virtualised”. That is to say, they function away from the immediate gaze of the player. “NPCs actually have a life out in the world,” which, we’re assured, will mean that players will no longer be forced into a reload if an objective goes awry. That’s because Origins will generate new scenarios and gameplay opportunities as you move and interact with the environments and its inhabitants; it will react to your successes and failures in real-time, without punishing you for being creative or stumbling. “It means that all of those constraints are gone, completely gone. These were,” he tells us, “frustrations that we wanted to remove.”

Game creators dealing in open-world design have a habit of talking up their AI systems without explaining why they actually matter. It has been a common tactic for years; leverage the fact that NPCs have jobs, sleep cycles and bathroom routines as

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ASSSASSIIN’SS CREEDD ORIGINS

shorthand for detailing how realistic a virtual world might be. Ismail tries a similar tactic, noting that “every living element of the game is a part of this new system” and that “because the AI lives in the world, all of a sudden it feels more alive. The NPCs feels more credible, like they belong there.” It’s a cute idea, but this tends to hide one simple truth: knowing that an NPC has a particular schedule is only useful knowledge should you want to loot or murder them; it's quickly forgotten once you have engaged in the moment-to-moment rhythm of play. Rarely does it have any practical impact on gameplay or the ways in which you can approach core mission objectives. And so we press on: what does any of this mean, practically, for you the player, looking to enjoy an Assassin’s Creed experience? “The point is this, we give this information to the player, that this AI is really living out in the world, doing whatever it is that they are doing, and as a player you get to make the choice of ‘what kind of experience do I want to have?’ When we ask you to do something in the game, the objective is now far more open ended… So yes, you do still have assassination targets but, technically, you can do whatever you want to get to your target. “We have a target in the game who has decoys in one of the cities. You have to learn about him and his schedule. You actually have to pay attention to him, and the decoys – the ways they are living their lives – to figure out which one he really is, because the decoys are innocent people,” we’re told, though the open-ended play doesn’t end there. “The gameplay experience can change, even as you’re in the flow of chasing him down,” Ismail teases, explaining that how you approach the target once you’ve figured this puzzle out can drastically change depending on a number of factors. You can try and engage the target in open combat in the streets, only for them to escape on a chariot and make a break for a fortress. From there it means that your simple assassination attempt could transform into a multi-tiered stealth encounter as you try to sneak past gaggles of enemies of a far higher level than your own. Or you can get in a vehicle of your own and have a tussle on the sandy roads – vehicle combat, we’re told, is much improved over Syndicate. Perhaps you can find another approach entirely. Another aspect to this more open-ended design is made possible because Origins doesn’t feature missions, at least, not in the traditional sense. The reason so many of Assassin’s Creed’s

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Q While Bayek’s journey starts as one of isolation, this is ultimately supposed to be a story about the beginning of the Assassin order as we have come to know it.

Q Egypt is a pretty fantastic location to set a game because of its great diversity of landscapes. It’s not all deserts and pyramids.

objectives would end in frustration or a desync was because they were only (largely) ever designed to be played in one way – deviate from that and you’ll be punished. But like we said, Origins is all about choice and control, and so this will be the first Assassin’s Creed to feature a quest-based structure. “Players can now make a choice amongst a large variety of meaningful main and side quests that they can approach when and how they want,” he says, promising that you’ll be able to “pick up multiple quests, have them all be available simultaneously and decide their order and priority… most of the time you’ll need to find the next step in your quest by yourself, as we provide as little guidance as possible.” This is huge for Assassin’s Creed. If Ubisoft Montreal can bring all of this together it will not only have a notable impact on the types of gameplay experiences it can offer on an hour by hour basis, but it should also introduce a level of consideration and experimentation to every action that we’ve never seen this series attempt. The introduction of quests will also bring a defter touch to storytelling, as Origins pulls focus – not only to the formation of the Brotherhood of Assassins – but to the stories that exist out in its wider world. “The big difference here is that missions, which is what we had before, only tell the beat of a story. A quest is, in effect, its own little story. It’s packaged, you’ll meet characters and, while you might have subsequent stories with those characters later, you can kind of wrap up a narrative each time. So we re-did our quest structure because there were just so many stories we wanted to tell,” he says, adding, “A quest gives the narrative justification for meeting these people, dealing with them, or getting new information.”

All of this would mean nothing if Ubisoft Montreal had ignored the most pressing complaint levied at Assassin’s Creed over the years. For play to be so reactive, so open to interpretation, combat had to be entirely overhauled. The Counter-Attack prompt is gone, enemies no longer wait their turn to be decapitated, and the ability to button mash and glide competently between combatants has been removed entirely. Enemies will rush you – your response needs to be swift and precise, for death waits for no assassin. If you hadn’t gathered already, Origins is embracing positioning, hit boxes, and the tenants of the Action-RPG design. We are already wondering how it ever survived without it. The renewed combat system actually came out of the studio wanting to introduce boss battles into the Assassin’s Creed pantheon of objectives, something it couldn’t have done with the old system. “Early on, we decided that we wanted unique boss fights, where bosses have their own unique weapons and animations, where the player has to learn these enemies and how to fight against them. This was very difficult to do with the previous system, so effectively it has given us the leeway to have a lot of depth in our systems.” This October, you are going to need to throw out your AC muscle memory and get prepared to learn a whole new bunch of buttons. Attacks are now dished out with the R1 and R2 buttons, plus there’s a dedicated Dodge button – dedicated commands rather than contextual ones let you execute more robust defensive options. L2 pulls up your shield, and those with a touch for timing will certainly find a lot of enjoyment in the introduction of a parrying system. This, as we’ve come to learn, works in tandem with a Destiny-style loot system, with multiple item slots attributed to every area of your character; a twisting skill tree, with three separate pathways for specialisation in combat, stealth and mysticism; an actual experience and levelling system, which governs which enemies you’ll stand a chance of conquering, and a wide variety of weapon types and rarity tiers.

Art director Raphael Lacoste talks us through the challenges of creating an authentic ancient Egypt and how his team overcame them

Q Ubisoft is promising a very different flavour of combat for this game than we’ve seen before, enhanced further by a clear-cut levelling system.

What challenges have you faced bringing ancient Egypt to life? When we recreated ancient Egypt for Assassin’s Creed: Origins, we had to make some artistic choices, not only to have a credible sense of immersion, but also to take the player on a beautiful and epic journey. The constraints of having somehow less documentation than what we had for previous titles was, for us, a fantastic opportunity to be more creative. We did our homework and strived to be as historically accurate as possible of course, but we also had more freedom to recreate and re-imagine how this country looked and felt in ancient times. We also wanted to do justice to the incredible diversity of ancient Egypt’s landscapes and biomes. In Assassin’s Creed: Origins, you will embark on what we think is the most memorable journey in the franchise yet – from the lush oasis of Siwa to the harsh desert sands of the Qattara Depression, through the glorious and multicultural port of Alexandria and the ancient and majestic city of Memphis. Was this the reason the mini-map has been removed, to ensure players spend more time exploring the world? We took the decision to remove the mini-map very early on in the development process. Indeed, we wanted players to spend more time looking at and taking clues from the world itself rather than at a mini-map. This is a key lever in creating that feeling of exploration and discovery that we want our players to experience. Visual artistry has always been a major pillar of the AC franchise and that’s of course still true for Assassin’s Creed: Origins. In terms of our work in the Art Team, the removal of the mini-map makes the world’s landmarks even more important as they help players to get a sense of their whereabouts, so we took even more care with those elements in AC:O than we did in the previous titles.

Q As you can see, there’s no shortage of riches to be found on your adventures, but there are likely some very needy people out in the world who would benefit from your charity.

Can you describe some of the technical ways your team has taken to recreating Egypt? In Assassin’s Creed: Origins, we bring for the first time to our players a whole country to explore and discover. To achieve that we needed to work on new tools, allowing the team to design a vast scale landscape filled with life. We adapted and created new procedural tools to build our large forests and harvesting areas. The massive open deserts of the game are not only sand dunes but also large cliffs and mountains. This is why we also relied on these new procedural tools to dress these landscapes with dry vegetations and rocks, touching by hand what needs to be to make each place feel unique. The rendering has also been revamped for Origins. We reworked our lighting system with a new ‘physically based lighting’, allowing us to have a realistic time of day change with various atmospheres depending on the different regions of the game. We’re very pleased with the outcome, we think it really makes the game more beautiful and immersive as it allows us to convey different moods and emotions.

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FEATURE

ASSSASSIIN’SS CREEDD ORIGINS

ASSASSIN’S CREED ORIGINS NS FEATU EATURES A RES A REWO REWORKED KED COMBAT SYSTEM, AND THESE ESE E ARE JUST S SOME OF THE WAYS IT WILL TWIST ST AND A TURN AS YOU OU APPROACH SITUATI SITUATIONS A ONS OUT OU UT U T IN THE WORLD

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“Embracing the action-RPG has opened up the door for us to do all of these gameplay variations. All of these micro details that give the fights way more depth, which was the main intention as we changed the system fundamentally. “From a granular detail point of view, you have to pay attention to your positioning, you have to pay attention to the enemy positioning. How many of them are there? What sort of weapon are you using – the distance, speed and type of your weapon,” teases Ismail, giving some hint as to how integral and intertwined the new RPG systems are with play. “You have to start thinking about the real micro details of your combat situation, considering your loadout and your enemies. This level of depth is something that we’ve never had before; what it allows us to do is not only have more gameplay depth, in terms of the enemies and their behaviour, but also in the RPG elements. Because, all of a sudden, a poison-tipped spear is not the same as a spear that does bleeding damage or one that you can set on fire. We wanted it so that even if you’re just playing with a spear, even after you’ve mastered the combos of the spear, that maybe you’ll stumble across a legendary-tier item and it’ll propose you to think about it all differently.” Ever since its debut in 2007, the Assassin’s Creed games have become frictionless. Every aspect was made to be as simple – borderline automated – as it could

possibly be. This extended out across all of its core proficiencies: combat, exploration, navigation and narration. But in Origins we see a different side to the series. Origins is all about establishing the Brotherhood Of Assassins, defining what it means to be an Assassin; that power fantasy has rough edges, and it’s only through trying and failing, experimenting and growing, and, eventually, learning and conquering that you’ll be able to truly rule over the shadows as a master assassin.

Q Each weapon in the game has a different bonus for your adrenaline meter, which in turn can be used to pull off big finishing moves if you charge it up enough in combat.

“I wouldn’t say that, over time, our intentions have changed at all,” considers Ismail as we ask whether the reception to Unity and Syndicate changed much for the team across development. “We had our intentions very early on and we stuck to them, but for sure we pay attention to the details. What are people not happy with? What are the things that the brand could do better? Where is the industry heading even, you know? More macro than just Assassin’s Creed, but what are gamers looking for at this point and what can we deliver to give them a unique experience that is somehow genuine [to the franchise] but at the same time something they have never played before. “That extra year of development (if you want to call it that) has been so that we could deliver the game that we set out to do almost four years ago. It’s an exciting time to be here right now; we are getting down to the wire. We are seeing the game come to life, the result of all our hard work, and it surprises us still. We are going to deliver this thing… and I just hope you like what we’ve done with it.”

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PREVIEW

KINGDOM HEARTS III

A FRIEND IN ME Kingdom Hearts III has already delighted with the small selection of classic Disney locales it has revealed so far, but the introduction of a Toy Story world is without question our new favourite. Interestingly, this convergence doesn’t take place in a parallel world but in the ofﬁcial Disney canon, meaning Woody and Buzz would have battled alongside Sora and friends before the events of Toy Story 3 kicked off. Weird, huh?

WE FINALLY HAVE A RELEASE WINDOW Announced in 2013 and teased for many a year longer, Kingdom Hearts III is ﬁnally in our sights – the game many have been waiting to play since Kingdom Hearts II wrapped over a decade ago. The title is going to launch in 2018 for PS4 and Xbox One, with director Tetsuya Nomura blaming Square’s decision to switch development from an internal engine (likely FFXV’s Luminous Studio) to the burgeoning Unreal Engine 4.

THERE’S STILL PLENTY MORE TO COME It should be clear that Toy Story won’t be the last of the game’s crossover worlds, and that we’ll see even more new ones in the ﬁnal game. It seems as though the likes of Marvel and Star Wars may be off the table – probably a few licensing headaches too many down that path – but there’s still plenty of potential in Disney’s own untapped resources. We’d be staggered if Square didn’t plump for a Frozen world – that’s just free money.

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PS4

ETA 2018

PUB SQUARE ENIX

DEV IN-HOUSE

Kingdom Hearts III Could the ﬁnish line ﬁnally be in sight for Sora and friends? Now Square Enix has put Final Fantasy XV and its first DLC out into the world, all attention turns to Kingdom Hearts III. It’s one of those franchises that is without question – for those that have enjoyed the main series entries or endured the confusing spin-offs in the past – one of the most anticipated new releases on the horizon. That’s because it’s going to offer a whirlwind adventure, bringing your Disney-fuelled childhood memories clashing together with the unbridled insanity of Final Fantasy’s typically melodramatic storytelling. Given how long this game has been in development, hype levels are starting to go through the roof, but it looks like Square Enix has everything in hand. Combat, in particular, is continuing to impress, with the system looking like a better-executed version of what we experienced in Final Fantasy XV. But then that’s Kingdom Hearts all over. Square has been chipping away at this project for years, and it’s clearly taking heed of the lessons it learned during the protracted FFXV development and applying them aptly to Kingdom Hearts III. With a release window of 2018 now locked down – fingers crossed the team will be able to hit it – this long awaited sequel is finally within arm’s reach.

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THE PIXAR DREAM While we knew that Kingdom Hearts III was going to be a stunner, it’s the introduction of the Toy Story universe that’s really hammered it home. The characters look almost exactly as they did on the big screen, with Square Enix managing to hit the sweet spot between distinctive art style, extreme detail and incredible animation. It’s a real victory for the medium that the gap can be closed so dutifully.

KINGDOM HEARTS III is ﬁnally approaching the home stretch and may yet release within our lifetimes. Find out more here: kingdomhearts.com

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PREVIEW

ETA TBC

BEYOND GOOD & EVIL 2

PUB UBISOFT

PS4

DEV UBISOFT MONTPELLIER

Beyond Good & Evil 2 A closer look at the insane ambition of this long-awaited prequel For creative director Michel Ancel, this announcement marks the end of a tumultuous few years. For us, it is merely the beginning. “I have to say thank you to the fans for sticking with us for so long,” he says, wiping a tear from his eye. He’s overwhelmed because, 14 years after its debut, after a decade of teasing a sequel, his beloved cult classic is finally returning. This

4 PS

swashbuckling prequel is a few years off, mind, with the team spending the last three years focused on developing the tech to power this wildly ambitious endeavour. We’re certain it’ll be worth the wait; this is, after all, an opportunity for Ubisoft to defiantly exercise its creative freedom. BEYOND GOOD & EVIL 2 is ﬁnally conﬁrmed to exist – now we just need to know whether it’ll be any good. Find out more here: bgegame.com

YOU MAKE YOUR OWN CHARACTER you want to play 1 Whether as a human or a genetically

AND YOU START WITH NOTHING As Beyond Good & Evil 2 2 begins, you will not have a

YOU BUILD UP A CREW play, you’ll meet 3 Asotheryoucharacters who you

AND THEY’LL REACT YOU GRADUALLY TO YOUR CHOICES EARN VEHICLES the speedy hover bike Do something illegal, horrible 4 or somehow disagreeable 5 From to the massive space-faring

modiﬁed hybrid (like monkey Knox) is entirely up to you. Although given the social structures of the game, it might lead to some diﬀerent conversation options and interactions as you play.

ship, crew or much of anything. You will have a basic vehicle, but not even a fancy bike like the one you can see in the ﬁrst BG&E2 trailer. You’ll need to do jobs and missions to earn enough for that.

can convince to join you as part of a party. Buy a ﬁghter ship and they can help you pilot it and eventually as you earn bigger ships they can be your crew. Their skills will add bonuses to your ship, too.

to a member of your crew and they may not stick around for long. There will be a reaction system in the game according to the development team that will see them make judgements about you as you play.

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vessel we saw in the trailer, you can earn your way up to greater mobility, ﬁrepower and ultimately freedom as you go through the story. Your ragtag bunch are all about escaping the corporate chains.

YOU’RE A SPACE PIRATE AT HEART likes the idea of 6 Ubiso being a pirate because to its

THERE ARE NO LOADING TIMES scale of the game is 7 The pretty impressive with so

EVEN BETWEEN SUNSETS AND RISES PLANETS ARE PHYSICS BASED made And then you point your ship 8 towards the stars and zip 9 byA fungamedemonstration director Michel

mind it means being accepting of anyone, regardless of upbringing or appearance. If you’re a pirate then that’s your identity and anything else people might see is irrelevant. It’s a nice, inclusive message.

many diﬀerent sizes of ship (with explorable interiors) and massive cities you can move around. Just as impressive is the promise of no loading times between areas as you make your war around.

oﬀ out of the atmosphere, orbiting the planet, out of orbit towards another world. And still no loading. You orbit a new world and enter the atmosphere, down to a new continent and city. Still no loading.

Ancel of the lighting system was that the day and night cycle of planets is based on their orbit and rotation around a star, not as a pre-determined lighting rig or animation. A very nice touch.

AND YES, YOU CAN TAKE PICTURES Would it really be a Beyond 10 Good & Evil follow-up if you couldn’t use a camera in-game to take pictures of cool stuﬀ? We think not, so that’s what you’ll be able to do, uncovering criminal activity and corporate corruption as you go.

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PREVIEW

DRAGON BALL FIGHTERZ

PS4

CAPCOM DROPPED THE BALL... As much as Street Fighter V is a great game and currently deserves its headline spot at major competitions, a rough launch meant that it’s not nearly in the dominant position its forerunner occupied. The king’s throne has never looked more attainable, nor has there been a stronger candidate for succession than the team that has quietly been making some of the best 2D ﬁghters of recent years.

ETA 2018

PUB BANDAI NAMCO

DEV ARC SYSTEM WORKS

Dragon Ball FighterZ Power levels are rapidly approaching 9,000... The fighting game scene was so perfectly ready for a game like Dragon Ball FighterZ when it was announced, that it’s hard to believe that it wasn’t just made up on the spot to tick the boxes the competition hadn’t. But no, as we know from its already playable state and absurd polish for a game that’s still so far out, this was a case of Arc reading the field to perfection and readying something that could finally catapult it onto the global stage, where it has long belonged. Its dedication to Blazblue has been admirable, its reworking of Guilty Gear as a technological showpiece amazing to behold and now, by partnering with one of the biggest brands in the fields in which it excels (anime and fighting, for those who haven’t been paying attention), the stage is set for something very special indeed, and here’s why…

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DRAGON BALL FIGHTERZ is pretty much every anime and ﬁghting fan’s dream game. Find out more here: bandainamcoent.com/games/dragon-ball-ﬁghterz

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...NOT ONCE, BUT TWICE Marvel is usually a hype factory, but MvC Infinite has found itself under heavy scrutiny for both its MCU-focused roster and simplified 2v2 gameplay. Then, along comes a 3v3 fighter with assists and all the usual Marvel trimmings – this time cosplaying Goku rather than Wolverine – and allegiances seem very quick to change, plus the understudy seems more than capable in this instance. Not that Marvel doesn’t also look interesting in its own way, mind.

ANIME FIGHTERS ARE PURE HYPE While they may currently fill the matinee slots of tourneys like EVO, the likes of Guilty Gear and Blazblue have given us some of the most memorable moments of competitive fighting in recent years. Not only does FighterZ bring with it the anime license to have, it also champions mechanics from anime-inspired fighters like Arcana Heart – fighting the anime war on two fronts, and looking incredibly comfortable on both.

GUILTY GEAR XRD WAS THE BEST ADVERT EVER There are no question marks hanging over Unreal Engine when it comes to great-looking games. But as others were chasing photorealism, Arc instead concocted a way to replicate 2D animation in 3D. Imagine being an anime creator and seeing Guilty Gear Xrd – we’d be falling over ourselves to partner with that team, and Bandai Namco has landed a truly talented bedfellow.

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PREVIEW

LEGO MARVEL SUPER HEROES 2

ETA 14 NOVEMBER 2017

PS4

PUB WARNER BROS.

DEV TT GAMES

Lego Marvel Super Heroes 2 TT Games is evolving with Lego Marvel Super Heroes 2, as we discover from Arthur Parsons As TT Games heads towards another massive sequel in its plethora of ongoing series, it knows that it needs to step things up a little. We’ve always enjoyed the Lego releases, but over time we have, perhaps, started taking them for granted. We want something new and fresh and thankfully, so does TT Games. To do that, it’s creating a new world where it can smash together heroes and villains from Marvel’s many timelines and universes so we can see icons of page and screen together in blocky form. So, Lego Marvel will now bring us SpiderGwen, Spider-Man, as well as the 2099 and Noir versions into one place to play together. And all in a gigantic new city. TT Games’ Arthur Parsons is on hand to explain what else the team is doing to breathe new life into the series…

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How do you pick the preferred look of your Marvel heroes between their comicbook incarnation or cinematic appearances? In Lego Marvel Super Heroes – the first one and I’m assuming the second one will follow the same route – the spectrum of people that play it is not just those 6-12-year old kids – it’s actually everyone. As such we need to make sure that we’re ticking boxes for everyone, so it could be little Johnny’s first ever video game and it could be that he’s six years old and this year he saw Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2. It’s the first time he’s ever watched a movie, it’s the first time he’s ever been exposed to Marvel. He therefore needs to see those Guardians. If we’re going to have Yondu, we need to have Rooker’s Yondu, not original, classic Yondu. So, the important thing is that when a character exists in the popular mindset that they tick those boxes and if not they are a visually reminiscent version of them? If we’re picking a classic character then, someone like Green Goblin, we’ll pick classic Green Goblin, the much loved one…

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Rather than the Willem Defoe one? Exactly, because we are after all telling an original comic book story. The way that we’ve written is in tandem with our Marvel writer, in order to get the best story we’ve got twists and turns and all sorts of awesome stuff going on. It’s a living, breathing comic. We’re using predominantly classic looks and then obviously for some of the stuff that’s around now and into next year there will be the movie visuals. That’s not to say that we won’t put alternate versions in as well. You never know. It’s exciting. Has having such a multifaceted city as Chronopolis opened up options for you in terms of scope, gameplay and scale? Yes, very much so. Chronopolis has been quite the undertaking. To get the layout right, to get the feel of it right and to hide little things away, we’ve got a little area of K’un-Lun in there, hidden away in the mountains. The way that Chronopolis opens up, as a player when you’re actually playing the game, you don’t know that you’re in Chronopolis. Stuff happens and you’re sent about saving the earth, you think, by Wasp in Avengers mansion and then very quickly it’s apparent that you should be tracking down various bad guys and having various boss fights early on in quick succession and it’s very apparent very quickly that something weird is going on. Then when the walls of Chronopolis come down, which are these time forcefields, when those walls fall and there’s the big reveal of Chronopolis, it’s that sort of wow moment. And then there’s time manipulation as well? This isn’t Blinx, this isn’t something where you’re wholesale going to be able to fast-forward or rewind through entire levels. This is about time manipulation in terms of there being elements where time is used against you and then you can also play areas so Doctor Strange is able to move time forwards and backwards. It will be on objects and certain things. There might be a collapsed elevator and he can reverse time to make the elevator go back up. Or it may be

that you accelerate time so instead of there being a pile of dirt you might get a massive tree grow out of it. It’s that sort of thing of forwards and backwards with it, but it’s definitely a big part of the game. Kang is a 40th century time traveller; It’s only right that there are portals between realities, it’s only right that there’s time manipulation. It just feels right for this game. One of the most common things we hear as a criticism of the Lego games, and we’re sure you hear too, is that there’s a sameness or templated feel to them. Do you accept that as a criticism or do you feel like the base template is a strength? It’s a weird one. Since 2005 we’ve been making the Lego games and there is a core Lego DNA. We set ourselves goals of making fun, humorous, authentic, family-friendly value games; those are our values. Yes, you could look at it and go “Aren’t they formulaic?”. Well, they feel similar because obviously they’re Lego, but every game we make we actually have to put 30 or 40 improvements in for one to be recognised. With Lego Marvel Super Heroes 2, rather than just make those minor improvements here and there, we’re actually trying to just shake everything. With moving just to next-gen platforms, if they can still be called that, that’s allowing us to take that breath and go “Right, take a step back, let’s look at what people don’t like, let’s look at what people want to see us move on with and improve and what we want to improve and let’s really go for it”. Whereas the first game was a launch title on PS4 and set that new benchmark for the Lego games in terms of size and enjoyment, for Lego Marvel Super Heroes 2 we want to move that bar up and really go, “Yes, that first one was great, but it’s just a foundation and this is what we’re going to deliver this time.” LEGO MARVEL SUPER HEROES 2 is the biggest and most ambitious Lego game yet. Find out more here: lego.com/en-gb/marvelsuperheroes

WHAT MAKES THIS GAME GREAT? It’s an original story, rather than one that riffs on the movies like previous games.

There’s a broader and more diverse cast of heroes and villains than ever before.

Leaving last-gen behind allows for genuine progress in terms of game design.

If it’s anything like the other games, it’ll basically be a free Platinum.

Agent Venom is a version of the classic Spidey villain that some may not be familiar with, but it’s actually the same Flash Thompson we know and loathe, except he’s now training with SHIELD and becoming a hero.

Fans of the Inhumans have been bemoaning their depiction in a recently released trailer for a new TV show, but this looks like classic Medusa to us.

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FEATURE

DESTINY 2

W WAYS

BUNGIE IS TAKING THE BIGGEST SHOOTER IN THE WORLD BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD, SO PLAY GOES HANDS ON ONCE AGAIN TO LOOK INTO DESTINY 2â&#x20AC;&#x2122;S KEY ADJUSTMENTS

DESTINY 2 IS CHANGING

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THE FOCUS HAS SHIFTED

No doubt the biggest, and most contentious, change to Destiny 2 comes from the most unlikely of places: the overhauled weapon system. The balance was never quite right in the original iteration of Destiny – particularly when it came to the Crucible. Special weapons aggressively ruled over the battlegrounds and that system has been replaced here entirely as weapons such as the shotgun, sniper rifle, sword and rocket launcher now fall under a new Power Weapons banner: the super-charged weapons only usable once you claim scarce Power weapon ammunition during play, governed by timers, death and spawn locations. This, as well as the Primary and Secondary weapon slots being recategorised into Kinetic and Energy has had a huge, and largely positive, impact on the state of weapon balance in PvP from what we’ve experienced.

Destiny is finally coming out of its protracted three-year beta – or, at least, that’s how it’s beginning to feel. Launching 6 September, Destiny 2 is pitched as a new beginning, with Bungie taking aim at its loudest critics by placing a renewed focus on the core tenets of the shooter’s design: narrative, exploration, cooperation and competition. Properly addressing long-standing criticisms and laying a solid foundation for future expansion has necessitated a shift to the state of play. Things are about to change and you aren’t going to agree with every one of the decisions. Many of these are in service of supporting the overhauled PvP; so much of the Destiny experience is rooted around replaying the same maps and missions over, and so Bungie seems intent on ensuring that the Crucible can be a home for wayward Guardians looking for an experience that can challenge, change and reward during the long stretches between new content.

OVERHAULED LOADOUTS

THERE IS BETTER WEAPON BALANCE

Thanks to these changes, there’s a greater focus on proficiency across a wider variety of firearms. Engaging in PvP combat feels far more dynamic, with players noticeably cycling between hand cannons and scout rifles, the new submachine gun and pulse rifle to better respond to each and every encounter as it occurs. There’s a greater focus on honing your skill with a primary weapon, on understanding what weapon will best serve your survivability, and more emphasis on reading the map and positioning of enemy combatants. By making the most powerful weapons scarce in The Crucible, Bungie has taken the largest frustration out of play; the focus is no longer on one-shot weapons and rush tactics, but rather the type of intense, skill-based play that made Halo’s multiplayer so enjoyable. When you do eventually get access to your Power weapon, it feels more meaningful, more empowering, than any situation the Crucible of old could have conjured artificially.

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FFEATURE FEA EATU ATU

DESTINY 2

In fixing one of Destiny’s largest PvP grievances, Bungie has potentially created another, larger, problem that could have long-lasting consequences to the way in which we engage with the best content in Destiny 2. Namely, PvE feels actively less engaging because of the Power weapon balance shift. While it’s likely we'll see an abundance of ammo crates strewn across Strikes, and an increase in the drop rate of Power ammo from enemy corpses in the final game, we're concerned that it won’t be enough. The impact this has had on damage output is difficult to quantify, and chipping away at bullet-sponge enemies with two primary weapons – one modded to inflict elemental damage – seems at odds with Destiny’s core premise. When you can summon angel wings and rain death from above with space-magic, not being allowed to pull out your shotgun because you couldn’t find the requisite ammo seems a little tenuous.

THAT’S HAD A KNOCK ON EFFECT

SPEAKING OF SUPERS…

In keeping with Bungie’s decision to better communicate when a Super is ready to alter the dynamic of play, Destiny 2 will also introduce better ways in which to combat those leveraging space magic to eviscerate enemies. While there is still little you’ll be able to about a Voidwalker Warlock sending a Nova Bomb in your direction, it is now possible to mitigate ‘roaming’ Supers – those that rely on staying charged for short periods of time to utilise. Spot a Hunter Gunslinger with a Golden Gun and you’ll find that an effective counterplay now exists thanks to the second slot energy weapons – dealing bonus damage in the Crucible to any player with an active Super. Plus, you no longer need to worry about matching the Arc, Solar or Void elements to get a bonus, giving each and every player a chance against PvP's most powerful aggressors, no matter their loadout configuration.

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THE NEW SUPER META

Unpopular opinion time: the Supers ruined PvP in Destiny. In a competitive game mode designed to leverage skill, reflexes and active tactical comprehension, getting one-shot by a screaming sociopath wielding a golden gun is not only out of place, it’s outright destructive to any hope of having open, balanced play. Destiny 2 changes the meta; it still gives you the opportunity to feel like an empowered interstellar war machine, it just takes a little longer to get there. The charge time has been extended, the impact of an Orb Of Light reduced. If you aren’t getting kills, there’s a good chance you aren’t going to pop your Super. Bungie also cleverly worked Supers into the UI design, subtly notifying you when someone has a Super burning a hole in their pocket via the colour of an icon below the score counter. It only serves to bring a new tactical edge, and renewed importance on communication, to play.

With Supers charging far slower in PvP, we had expected to see the damage potential of abilities be raised across the board. That, surprisingly, isn’t the case; grenades were an overused blight in Destiny’s Crucible and Bungie has responded by overcorrecting. In both PvP and PvE, cooldowns take an absolute age to recharge and it’s a little disappointing to see in both instances. Strangely, a large array of the subclasses offer skills which help increase recharge speeds of melee abilities – helping to close the distance between battling players – but there is no equivalent for grenades, unless, of course, grenade recharge speed is something Bungie is actively holding back for armour mods and Exotic gear in the final game. Either way, while this has had a largely positive impact on ability spamming in PvP, the knock on effect is that it’s yet another contributing factor to making Guardians feel underpowered in PvE.

GOODBYE TO ABILITY SPAM

Many of the larger changes in Destiny 2 have had a positive impact on the playability of PvP, but they are raising a number of concerns for PvE. Given that Bungie is yet to reveal the first Raid, show off more than a glimpse of Patrol, and has only given us access to one Strike, The Inverted Spire, we are going to speculate on this one; we are concerned that by making Power Weapons scarcely available, by slowing down the recharge rate on grenades and Supers, it’s led to Guardians feeling less powerful – a problem when it comes to Destiny's notoriously long, bullet-sponge boss fights. The magic of a good boss fight in Destiny is seeing three hyperpowerful Guardians come together to wield a vast array of impressive, visually stunning powers and abilities. By slowing this, Destiny 2 runs the risk of losing its dynamic, spectacular edge in favour of the grind.

BULLET SPONGE BOSSES

Destiny is all about empowerment – pitting you against impossible odds and huge waves of enemies in an attempt to maintain challenge as you continue to get better weapons, armour and mods. It was player movement that made navigating the biggest encounters possible – that gave the Raids an edge, as platforming challenges intertwined dutifully with shooting galleries – yet it has been massively reined in for the sequel. Closing gaps is more difficult, there’s less forward momentum when you take to the skies, and a lack of mobility across the three classes, making the Hunter class feel redundant. Guardians feel heavier, in general, with a larger emphasis placed on cautious airborne movement and cover positioning. Right now, it feels as if Mobility stats are largely redundant, something we hope will be addressed ahead of launch as Bungie continues to tweak loot, levelling and modifications.

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FEATURE

DESTINY 2

NETCODE 10 CONCERNS

Despite the huge focus on PvP content in Destiny 2, it was difficult to understand the studio’s decision not to bring dedicated servers to the fray. Bungie has promised that it has overhauled its peer-topeer netcode, and while performance is – for the most part – solid, we’ve still had instances of interruption and disconnection; survivability can be hard enough in Crucible, the last thing we want to contend with is teleporting Guardians (and not those of the Warlock persuasion). How the netcode holds up, particularly on PC, with millions of incoming players at launch, is a concern. It’s a shame, especially as the core gunplay is a polished and responsive as ever. Bungie still makes the best feeling shooters in the business, but we'll continue to have concerns over the netcode until proven otherwise – the respawn points, following a disconnection in beta, in the campaign and Strikes were a nightmare to recover from.

As fun as the Crucible was back in Destiny, the six-versus-six format was far too chaotic. It was difficult to follow the action and tough to react to the shifting state of play, with games routinely resulting in messy firefights around spawn points and frustrating results for everybody involved. Bungie has responded by reducing team sizes down: the standard PvP configuration changed to four versus four, a move that seems universally positive. There’s a far larger emphasis on maintaining specific, tactical roles – in working with your team to utilise clear offensive and defensive plays. Interestingly (and whether this speaks to this change specifically or the general re-balance is up for debate) individual players feel far more defined and impactful, with solid tactical manoeuvres and plays having a noticeable impact on the outcome of games, flow of combat and positioning of everybody else on the map.

THE CRUCIBLE PLAYER COUNT

MAP DESIGN IS BETTER 26 |

With fewer players running around, it’s given Bungie space to let the maps breathe in Destiny 2. The Crucible maps we’ve seen so far are noticeably re-focussed, less cluttered and cramped than their counterparts from the original Destiny – easier to navigate and learn than anything in the original game. Spawn killing seems to be a thing of the past, as does getting decimated from unseen aggressors. If the Endless Vale and Last City Midtown maps are a fair representation of what will be available at launch, then we should expect the Crucible to be a far more intimate affair across the board. Learning the maps, clearly defined in their sightlines and pathways, is imperative should you want to avoid chokepoints, charge your Super and have a noticeable impact on games.

If Control is indicative of how Bungie plans on adapting our favourite PvP modes for the new weapon balance, cleaner map design and reduced player counts, then we are in for some seriously good times. Control has been completely streamlined, focused on getting players in motion and in battles. Point A and C begin captured, funnelling players towards B within seconds of spawning; points no longer capture faster if multiple people are standing on the flag, which has given the multi-person battles over these areas a more dynamic feel and dangerous edge, movement is key to surviving these situations. Couple these changes with a power play being activated should you capture all points – boosting the amount of points you are awarded per kill – and match time locked to eight minutes, and you’ll find a game mode that is sleeker and more aggressive than its original iteration.

CONTROL HAS BEEN OVERHAULED

If any one thing is clear – and this applies to both PvE and PvP – it's that Destiny 2 is built around the premise of players being in constant communication and willing to work as a team, more so than its predecessor. The tighter games in the Crucible certainly require teams to avoid lingering frustrations, while the challenges and spectacle seen in the Inverted Spire Strike essentially demand it. Solo play in Destiny 2 doesn’t feel as viable, although this will hopefully be addressed by the addition of Guided Games and the robust Clan system that’s designed to bring players together matchmaking – we’re still yet to see this in action, a slight concern given the game’s imminent release. Still, Bungie recognises how important these systems are, and we’re eager to see how they contribute to Destiny’s stellar community.

STRONGER FOCUS ON TEAMWORK

THE NEW SOCIAL SPACE

With the Tower under siege, the Guardians have had to find a new home to play football and dance around in. In Destiny 2 it’ll be The Farm, and it’s the place to take a rest when you’re done savaging people in PvP and arguing over revivals in PvE. The Farm looks to be a pretty great social space; our limited exposure to it has revealed a far more complex space than the Tower, with, seemingly, far more to do and see. With The Farm holding up to 12 Guardians – a decrease from the Tower’s 16 but up on the Reef’s 9 – there’s plenty of activity, which also means far more emote spam. Still, as a place to relax, get your mail, pick up dailies and exchange items for loot, it’s without question Bungie’s best yet.

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Overwatch Who is Doomﬁst, and where does he ﬁt into Overwatch? Doomfist has been floating around the universe of Overwatch since the game was announced in 2014, but now he’s finally in the game, ready to get his punch on. He’s certainly a bolt of lightning to the current roster of heroes, too – his Rocket Punch is one of the strongest non-Ultimate abilities in the game, able to kill any non-tank hero if fully charged and the punched hero hits a wall. With a cooldown of only a couple seconds, too, it gives Doomfist a huge potential for one-hit kills. He’s a surprisingly mobile hero, which is great as the current meta rewards movement most. He can move with mobile characters like Tracer, Genji, Winston and D.Va on attack, but can also counter diving heroes. His power to kill flanking offensive characters can really scupper teams trying to disorientate you with their mobility. It’s why he fits nicely right into the game where it is right now, something that’s not always been true of new heroes. Keep in mind, Doomfist is a difficult character to play, with a high skill ceiling. Much like Genji, if you can master his huge potential, you will win games outright. If you overextend and find yourself in the backline with all of your abilities on cooldown, you will be dying a whole bunch. Having said that, he is just what Overwatch could use right now, and he has one of the most unique skill sets in the whole game. Importantly, he might well just be the most fun character to play in Overwatch to date. Go punch some people!

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STRONG AGAINST SUPPORTS Just about any Support is going to have a rough time with Doomfist. His mobility and his ability to defeat any of them on a whim makes him a real danger for any backline.

D.VA D.Va has found herself thrust into the higher end of the meta recently for her ability to fly around and eat all incoming damage. She won’t stop a Rocket Punch though, so Doomfist will have a field day with her.

BARRIERS Barriers are reliable against just about any onslaught. They block everything and are a staple to most compositions. Not with Doomfist. His Rocket Punch will blast through Reinhardt, Orisa and Winston’s shields no problem.

WEAK AGAINST PHARAH Pharah is more or less untouchable to Doomfist. While she’s in the air, none of Doomfist’s kit helps him. It’s best for him to stay inside where he can, or she’ll be able to make mincemeat of the newest character.

RANGE While Doomfist can close gaps, the time he spends doing so is time he isn’t outputting damage. A Hanzo, McCree, Soldier or Widowmaker who hit their shots will take out Doomfist before he’s even close.

ROADHOG Despite recently taking heavy nerfs, Doomfist is good news for Roadhog. Doomfist is most exposed when he’s out of position. While ’Hog can’t kill him with his hook/shot combo any more, his teammates will take advantage of a hooked Doomfist.

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FEATURE

TEN OF THE BEST

GRAND OPENINGS A SELECTION OF THE GREATEST INTROS IN PLAYSTATION HISTORY

SAINTS ROW 4 ■ THE POLAR OPPOSITE of something like BioShock, Saints Row 4 unsurprisingly plays its intro for laughs, and it sure gets them. The game begins with The Boss racing to disarm a huge missile, but reaching it just too late. Undeterred, you ride the rocket into the atmosphere, ripping it apart with your bare hands while the gangs sings your praises and Aerosmith’s ‘I Don’t Wanna Miss A Thing’ blares. So dumb, but so good.

BIOSHOCK Q AH, SWEET RAPTURE. The reveal of Andrew Ryan’s underwater ‘utopia’ is handled masterfully and within the first few minutes of the game, you’ve got a solid grasp of not only the style of the game but also its primary themes. It’s one of the all-time greats in terms of sci-fi settings in videogames, and you’ll never forget your first ride in the bathysphere down to the sub-aquatic dystopia.

METAL GEAR RISING: REVENGEANCE

RESIDENT EVIL

Q NOTHING HAMMERS HOME the message that players are in for a rough time quite like throwing a boss at them within the first 60 seconds of a game. The moment you round the first corner, you’re set upon by Metal

Q IF YOU’RE GOING to make a videogame that riffs on B-movie culture, a schlocky live-action intro is a must. Between the abysmal acting, the budget effects and the characters that look nothing like their in-game counterparts, this is one of our all-time favourites and sets the tone for the rest of the game absolutely perfectly.

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Gear RAY and must go toe-to-toe with the gigantic mech with just your sword. It’s a proper baptism of fire, but it’s also an awesome boss battle in its own right. Shoutouts to the game’s soundtrack, too – ‘Rules Of Nature’ is our jam.

DEVIL MAY CRY 3: DANTE’S AWAKENING ■ WE’LL NEVER FORGET the first time we saw this outstanding introduction to young Dante in Capcom’s stellar prequel. The son of Sparda gets a visit from some unwanted guests, so sets about tearing his own office to pieces in order to dispatch the creeps in as stylish a manner of possible. While eating pizza. Obviously. What’s really cool here is that while the OTT set pieces (like performing a mid-air pool break by shooting the cue ball) are purely showing off, most of the techniques Dante uses in the fight – such as surfing around on enemies’ bodies – can actually be unlocked and used in regular gameplay. This party’s getting crazy!

SOUL BLADE Q TO SHINE! THIS CG intro blew us away when we saw it back in the late Nineties, and it actually holds up fairly well today considering it’s over 20 years old. It’s a simple montage of the game’s characters doing their thing set to a kickass J-rock soundtrack, but it’s incredibly effective all the same. This seems like as good a time as any to make our regular monthly plea for a new SoulCalibur game. So yeah… if you could get on with that, Bamco, that’d be great. Cheers.

FINAL FANTASY VIII Q FITHOS! LUSEC! WECOS! Vinosec! The faux-Latin choral stings of ‘Liberi Fatali’ are what make this epic intro, with rivals Squall and Seifer going at it as sparks, blood and feathers fly. FFVII marked a huge leap in production values from its cartridge-based predecessors, with Square once again taking things to the next level here. Fun fact: the rest of ‘Liberi Fatali’ is sung in proper Latin, with that main four-word refrain actually an anagram of ‘love’ and ‘succession of witches’, the game’s two primary themes.

UNCHARTED 2: AMONG THIEVES

KINGDOM HEARTS II

METAL GEAR SOLID 2: SONS OF LIBERTY

Q THERE ARE FEW developers as good at placing players in perilous predicaments as Naughty Dog, and the intro to Drake’s second outing is a perfect example of this. Nate comes to in an abandoned train, quickly realising that he didn’t just fall asleep and miss his stop – he’s sort of dangling over the edge of a cliff. Cue an exciting clamber to safety in what has to be the most precarious tutorial of all time, the game making one hell of a statement by opening with so grand a set piece and establishing the franchise as the cinematic action blockbuster that we know and love today.

Q GIVEN THAT THIS Square/Disney crossover series

Q IN THIS AGE of leaks, early reveals and

makes bugger all sense anyway, we didn’t think twice about importing the second game the moment it came out on PS2 in Japan. What greeted us when we fired up the game for the first time was a beautiful and artistically incredible CG sequence set to Utada Hikaru’s soaring ‘Passion’, comfortably one of the most memorable intros of its era. The Western release instead used the track’s English equivalent, ‘Sanctuary’, but it was never quite the same – check out the Japanese intro online and you’ll see what we mean.

poorly-kept secrets, it’s unlikely that we’ll ever see a bait-and-switch quite like MGS2’s intro ever again. After what could pass for the opening credits of a movie comes Snake’s amazing tanker infiltration mission (which is endlessly replayable thanks to the open-ended gameplay) before the big reveal – surprise, Snake isn’t the main character! Poor Raiden didn’t exactly get the warmest reception…

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REVIEW

UNCHARTED: THE LOST LEGACY

PS4

“THE LOST LEGACY IS AS CLOSE AS UNCHARTED HAS COME TO GETTING THE BALANCE JUST RIGHT”

32 |

Uncharted: The Lost Legacy Drake’s Abdication As an action hero, you can only cheat death so many times. Eventually, one of two things is going to run out: your luck, or the patience of the audience. While suspension of disbelief is not as important to Uncharted as to games that play things straight, maintaining a sense of possible peril is crucial to player engagement. Naughty Dog has employed some pretty neat tricks across its catalogue to keep that curtain up, the latest of which is a bold piece of recasting – Uncharted has auditioned plenty of replacements for Nate since it began and presented several strong candidates, with Uncharted 4 again adding a handful of solid new options. And while the unlikely duo of returning fan favourite Chloe and U4’s no-nonsense

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DETAILS PUBLISHER Sony DEVELOPER Naughty Dog PSN PRICE £29.99 PLAYERS 1-10

newcomer Nadine might not have quite the same kind of chemistry as Drake and pals from the off, watching the pair evolve from secondary characters to star material over the course of the game is as entertaining as the adventure itself. The Lost Legacy’s origins as DLC for U4 are hard to miss. It’s practically identical on a mechanical level, all the way from core mechanics such as combat and climbing, right down to granular details like physically interacting with crowd members or realistic dirt build-up on other objects. A new cast and setting both help it feel fresh, plus these are not things to mess with for the sake of it – both traversal and gunplay were at their most evolved for the series in Uncharted 4, and there’s no reason to expect a ground-up

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REVIEW

UNCHARTED: THE LOST LEGACY

PS4 Set pieces are as explosive and exciting as anything else in gaming – it is an Uncharted title, after all.

Combat is infrequent and often avoidable, with stealth a viable (and, on higher difficulties, preferable) option to ghost past most encounters altogether.

rework of these pillars in what is basically a mid-price standalone expansion. It’s both mean and even reductionist to label it as such, though, as Naughty Dog has put in the work and turned this into a complete game in its own right. Between a campaign around the length of that of the original game (read: eight hours or so on a first run) with a decent degree of replayability, U4’s entire competitive multiplayer suite and the new wave-based Survival co-op mode, this is a complete, value-for-money package. The campaign is the clear centrepiece here, so let’s break that down a little. Its shorter length compared to more recent games in the series allows some of the main criticisms of modern Uncharted – issues of pacing and padding – to be tossed off a cliff with a pithy one-liner. You will have your own idea of what constitutes a perfect balance of navigation, combat, puzzles, narrative and setpieces, but we’d argue that The Lost Legacy is as close as Uncharted has come to getting the balance just right. It’s a leaner experience than U4, but also one open to trying new things with its gameplay, as it does around halfway through. It’s here that we see the proof of Naughty Dog’s prelaunch soundbite about ‘the largest play space it has created’, the game briefly shifting towards sandbox design replete with optional areas, collectibles, and even the series’ first proper side mission. It only takes an hour or so to clear out the large area and there’s an excellent showcase of variety among the activities so we heartily recommend doing it on your first run – although you can obviously blast through the expanse more quickly if you wish. Just as this large area serves to address pacing issues by making the flow playercontrolled, other aspects have also been tightened up in line with this lean new look for Uncharted so that none ever really outstays its welcome. Combat is less frequent and way less forced than in Drake’s last outing, with the larger spaces and greater verticality of U4 still intact to allow for stealthy freedom, roaming

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encounters or a mix of the two depending on what players want. Puzzles too are tighter, typically either totally self-contained or tied to a single common theme that is established early, with tips offered by Nadine if it ever seems clear that you’re struggling. Navigation’s returning combo of convenient-yet-oftenunstable handholds, piton-assisted climbing and grappling hook-powered leaps of faith remains stronger than anything the heroes attempt to grab onto in a moment of need, once again aided by a newfound brevity as the game cycles through activities faster than its parent title on account of being around half the length. While its loop may be quicker and slicker, the fact still stands that if you didn’t like Uncharted 4 on account of its core gameplay, there’s nothing here that will change your mind. To call it ‘more of the same’ is no slight on the game – that’s exactly what it is, and that’s exactly what fans want. Perhaps most excitingly, The Lost Legacy hints at what could be an interesting format for future releases. It’s clear that the heavy lifting of development was done with the core game, allowing for a quicker turnaround for this shorter side-story, and it’s a hugely successful first attempt to shift the franchise out of Drake’s shadow. The studio’s characterisation is as strong as ever here and looking to the future, there are as many potential new heroes for an Uncharted adventure as there are fictional MacGuffins and lost cities, so anthology-style spin-offs to mainline games could be the norm from now on. Whether Chloe and friends get another shot after this excellent leading debut or Naughty Dog deigns to throw more characters into the spotlight is kind of irrelevant at this point, though – this is proof positive that it’s possible to retire a PlayStation icon while having their legacy live on.

VERDICT Charts a clear new course for the franchise

9/10

PICS OR IT DIDN’T HAPPEN Chloe seems quite snap-happy with her phone’s camera over the course of the adventure – landmark photos serve as a collectible of sorts – so it’s only right that the same thrill of capturing the moment be passed onto the player as well. In Sony firstparty tradition, the Photo Mode here is best-in-class, offering everything from lens and exposure values to all the expected varieties of filter and frame. You can even play God if you want to create a scene that is just so, shifting the sun’s position to better light a scene or removing certain characters entirely, all in the name of photographic perfection. The best part? Changing Chloe’s facial expression – which you can even do with photos snapped in cutscenes – is a source of near-endless hilarity…

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REVIEW

SONIC MANIA

PS4

Sonic Mania To be this good took ages Nailing the speed and feel, this is the best Sonic game in many years that we can remember. In fact, we’d go as far as to say this is the game Sonic 4 should have been seven years ago. Once upon a time there would be pressure on a new Sonic game. The Blue Blur’s stock has fallen so far thanks to low quality releases that Mania’s status as a budget game being released just before the “most wanted big releases” carries a risk that, if you’re not careful, Mania could slip under the radar. And that would be a massive shame, because it’s only after playing Mania that you realise the feel of almost every Sonic game since Sonic & Knuckles in 1994 has been wrong. The inertia feels perfect here, the jumps feel right, and the level design is great as well. Starting with Green Hill Zone as you’d expect, this is a weird mish-mash of the remade and the reimagined. Levels and ideas are borrowed from lots of different Sonic games, remixed

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DETAILS PUBLISHER Sega DEVELOPER Headcannon, Pagoda West Games PSN PRICE £15.99 PLAYERS 1-2

The bonus stages present a challenge because you’re taken out of the 2D side-scrolling world and put into a 3D, almost endless runner-like level. You have to chase down the Chaos Emerald by increasing your speed before your time runs out.

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in such a way that it’ll make you feel old. Each area is made up of two acts, and they will often kick off by tickling your nostalgia bone, convincing you that this is that original level, before twisting and turning into something you think you recognise, but you don’t – it’s great. Running from left to right is the ultimate goal, but there’s more verticality than ever, and more exploration options. There are plenty of save slots, and you can choose whether you play as Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, or Sonic & Tails, and each of the characters has a unique skill (Knuckles climbs walls, Tails flies) that makes certain areas easier to get to. Speeding through areas as Sonic, rolling through walls and zooming high up into the air might show you a glimpse of something that, sure, you can probably get to somehow – but playing as Tails might make it easier; that kind of thing. Boss battles end each act, and these are inventive and mostly enjoyable – and there are some ace surprises, too. There’s a definite possibility that newcomers to Sonic will be

confused, though. Mania plays entirely on your love of the hedgehog’s classics that could, unfortunately, mean a lot of it leaves you cold. The plethora of nods and winks to Old Sonic are fantastic: this is a game that replicates the exact retro look of those beloved games, while still somehow looking modern and shiny, but it also harks back to the mechanics of those original games – and a time where heavyhanded tutorials weren’t really a thing. On top of the campaign, there is a competitive multiplayer mode (like Sonic 2), but ultimately this all amounts to – hold on to your trousers, because this’ll shock you – a genuinely good Sonic The Hedgehog game. Yes, in 2017. That this exists at all after so many failed attempts is impressive, but the fact that it’s really good is a bloody miracle.

VERDICT Sonic is back, and it feels great

7/10

The setup is the standard Sonic adventure story. Robotnik/Eggman is being a bad dude, and is using his minions to stop you from ending his all conquering adventure. Oh, and Tails is as annoying as you remember him â&#x20AC;&#x201C; play solo.

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REVIEW

38 |

PYRE

PS4

Pyre presents much of its narrative as a visual novel, giving you the opportunity to delve into lore and detail as you please. It’s incredibly well executed, giving such depth and personality to each one of your companions.

Pyre Try to set the night on ﬁre There’s something truly intoxicating about a new release from Supergiant Games. The studio has established an aesthetic, a ferocious creative fusion of style and sound, of rich and remarkable world building, brought to life with thoughtful, poignant characterisation. Pyre, much like Bastion and Transistor before it, is as unmistakable as it is alluring. But it’s also a departure. You’ll find commentary from Logan Cunningham and music from Darren Korb here, but it’s used sparsely. Pyre has plenty of action in it, but isn’t, crucially, an action game. In fact, it features no combat at all – at least, not in the traditional sense. Instead, you’ll find that Pyre is a blurring of lines between a fantasy RPG adventure, visual novel and an arcade sports game. It shouldn’t work, but somehow it does; it’s original and essential, surprisingly comprehensive and layered in its design and execution. Pyre tasks you with befriending various outcasts of society in a foreign land in an effort to reclaim a place in high society for yourself and for your new associates.

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DETAILS PUBLISHER Supergiant Games DEVELOPER In-house PSN PRICE £14.99 PLAYERS 1-2

These weird and wonderful companions make up your core team of Rite superstars, players destined to engage in ancient Rites that happen to take the form of frantic three-onthree fantasy basketball games. Winning will take you one step closer to redemption; putting you on a path to increase core statistics of each player, to earn resources to buy new equipment, and the opportunity to further leave your mark on the world and its colourful inhabitants. Losing will bring its own set of consequences to the tale, and Pyre accounts for, and reflects on, all of them – hundreds of branching paths helping to form your own little adventure. The sporting aspect of the game is the most cleverly implemented mechanic here, subtly growing with complexity and difficulty. It’s reminiscent of a fantasy-themed NBA Jam, only it replaces the ball with a glowing orb, body checks with a litany of move types, and has far more depth and tactical opportunity to its basic play. But the most remarkable part of Pyre is everything that surrounds these rituals. The world building is incredibly impressive, as is the breadth of consequence presented throughout

To get the most out of Pyre, you’ll want to adjust the difficulty as you go. The greater the challenge, the greater the potential impact. Challenge yourself and see where the narrative takes you.

the course of the narrative. Pyre is more openended and narratively intricate than any of Supergiant’s previous works, soaked in lore and intertwining character relationships. The result is that Pyre does stumble at times in terms of pacing, but that’s a small price to pay for such a wonderfully realised, and enjoyable experience.

VERDICT You’ve never played anything quite like this

8/10 | 39

REVIEW

HELLBLADE

PS4

The contrast between the simplicity and familiarity of the early parts of Hellblade with the darker and more tormented landscape the deeper you go tells a story of its own. Again and again, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Senuaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own mind that merges the two together.

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Hellblade A worthy warrior’s tale When entertainment has a cause it can, on occasion, become consumed by the drive to be significant at the expense of being approachable or enjoyable. No such claim can be laid at Hellblade’s feet as Ninja Theory has threaded the needle of being both incredibly powerful and enlightening on the subject of psychosis and mental health while also being an often-superb gaming experience that punches far above its weight. While we can’t necessarily speak to the authenticity of this game’s depiction of psychosis, we can say that it is utterly compelling from start to finish. We know that Ninja Theory went to great lengths to involve experts, caregivers and people dealing with these issues on a daily basis to help inform their depiction. The way in which these things have been interpreted and funnelled through the medium of video games is what is really potent. The most original element of this is in the 3D binaural experience of having voices in your head as you play (so long as you’re using headphones, as recommended). They whisper and whimper, most often trying to dissuade Senua from whatever path is clearly laid out in front of you. Of course, you ignore them because this is a video game and the only direction you have available to you is forward, but you can’t help but associate this drive with Senua’s mindset as if you’re defying the nay-saying spectres that haunt her.

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DETAILS PUBLISHER Ninja Theory DEVELOPER In-house PSN PRICE £24.99 PLAYERS 1

But at other times they’re actually helping you. They yell warnings in combat and they hint at what direction you should head in if you’re trying to solve a puzzle. It’s an unsettling and creepy experience at first to have these unknown figures communicate so intimately with you, whispering into your ears, but when they go you feel utterly alone and isolated. It’s a fantastic effect that ties brilliantly into the narrative of Senua’s journey and experience, adding additional layers to its execution. And it’s something that feels uniquely possible in a video game. This sort of audio experience might be plausible in a movie or TV show, but it feels far more natural in this format. The question of what is and isn’t real is something that hovers over the entirety of this game; is Senua really travelling into Hel, fighting demonic Norse warriors, and hiding from beasts who hunt her in the dark? But this is fed into the mechanics of the game in a way that merges the video game form and the concept of psychosis in a really interesting way. The puzzles in the game largely revolve around finding Norse runes around you, similar to The Witness actually, and discovering these elements in the game was equally enjoyable. The other set of puzzles revolve around perceptions of reality, walking through doorways that change how the world looks, opening up new paths. This could all be said to speak to a person who is ‘seeing things’ or making associative leaps that simply aren’t objectively there.

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REVIEW

HELLBLADE

PS4

“THE QUESTION OF WHAT IS AND ISN’T REAL IS SOMETHING THAT HOVERS OVER THE ENTIRE GAME” When not looking for puzzle solutions to open doors and move on through the game you’ll be making use of Senua’s fine combat skills to dispatch those Norse warriors we mentioned. As you might expect from a studio that has been playing in the actionadventure field for some time, this is a real strength of Hellblade. Light, heavy and melee attacks can be combined along with a deeply satisfying parry mechanic. These warriors are all much bigger than Senua, but they are also slow and that typically allows you to duck and dodge your way around. As strong as combat is mechanically, some of the way in which it is utilised through the game isn’t great. Deeper into the game, the rising pressure and challenge Senua is facing is largely signified by wave after wave of enemy being thrown at you. Towards the close of the game, battles approach parody levels of length and frustration, but there’s an argument to be had that this is part of the devices of the game aiding the plot and themes at its heart. We would caution against becoming too frustrated as the game wraps, although we don’t want to give anything away. Simply put, Ninja Theory has a message and every element of the game, from mechanics to plot, is serving it, sometimes to a fault depending on your personal tastes. How the game mixes its use of combat and puzzles can sometimes feel a little

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If you’ve played The Witness then the environmental puzzles of Hellblade will have you feeling at home pretty quickly. You’ll need to look for shapes by shifting your perspective and finding new vantage points to move on.

drawn out, but is good on the whole. The early going is a heavy mix of both, but there’s a fascinating middle stretch to the game where you no longer have a sword and the game becomes even more foreboding and thematically rich as a result. And then the god-killer sword, Gramr is introduced and you’re empowered with a weapon that takes out the weaker enemies in a couple of blows. It’s a heroic feeling that really powers you through to the final act. So, in places the game can feel a little uneven in its execution, most often in fact when it appears to fall back on classic video game solutions to how tension is built and endgames are ramped up. It would also be easy to criticise the level design as being a series of corridors, albeit some really wobbly and weird ones in places, with pretty heavily signposted combat areas. And in places some of the effects (film grain, hallucinations, transitions between world states) can feel a little cheap But it is so well executed in so many ways, so committed to its mission and has integrated concept and design so well that we found it easy to look past these things to enjoy Hellblade immensely.

VERDICT Intense, powerful, important and very well done

8/10

IN THE EYES The story of Hellblade’s development is one of a small team with plenty of triple-A development experience trying to take control of its own creative vision financially and structurally. What this means in real terms is a smaller budget and fewer resources all around. This might have had a massive impact on the production values of this game, but despite having to construct its own motion capture rigs and systems, this is one of the best examples of 3D scanning and capture we’ve ever seen. Senua, played brilliantly by Ninja Theory’s video editor Melina Juergens, emotes and moves superbly and the reality of this character comes particularly through the eyes. Her gaze flitters and jumps around giving her a really life-like feel. It’s a small detail, but a thoroughly essential one.

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REVIEW

MATTERFALL

PS4

Housemarque’s trademark graphical style returns, featuring a futuristic world that is as coldly sterile as it is dangerous. Enemies are clearly represented against their backdrops, but fail to stand out when it comes to visual personality or flair.

Matterfall

Problems of success breeding expectation Housemarque is the Quentin Tarantino of the videogame world; a studio whose output almost exclusively takes the form of remixes and intersplicing of cult classics. While it would be unfair and incorrect to say that the Finnish studio’s work is one of plagiarism, it would be accurate to say its output is loaded with references to ideas no longer considered fashionable. Nex Machina borrowed from Smash TV and Robotron, whilst Resogun proudly wore its Defender influence on its sleeve. It says much about Housemarque’s ability that it has managed to turn design ideas considered passé into such celebrated gems of the modern videogame landscape. Matterfall takes its beats from both Gunstar Heroes and Metal Slug, side-scrolling shooters that live and die by the degree to which they’re able to tempt you to indulge in creating – and avoiding – a ceaseless wave of bullets.

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DETAILS PUBLISHER Sony DEVELOPER Housemarque PSN PRICE £15.99 PLAYERS 1

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Past success creates lofty expectations for the future and, unfortunately, Matterfall doesn’t quite live up to them. What’s offered here is not at all bad, but it does not harbour the same degree of elite balance, pacing and sense of achievement as provided by Housemarque’s back catalogue. Level design fails to deliver the same slick interplay between enemy movement and personal tactical choice as Nex Machina, while the weapon design and character moveset do not operate as the seamless whole they are in Resogun. Matterfall is a different game to these two examples, of course, but it relies on many of the same elements to succeed and it’s these essentials that are comparatively lacking. A large part of the failing comes from a reliance on ramping up the quantity of enemy numbers and challenging you with trickier map layouts, as opposed to diversifying the type of opposition and environments. The result is that you’re able to quite quickly predict what’s coming next, meaning you’re rarely looking forward

to the next zone as an opportunity to learn something new, or as a reason to force yourself to improve your understanding of the available interactions. Instead, you find yourself concentrating more on staying alive over how to attain a high score through being an active participant. Essentially, you often feel as though you’re being guided into a more conservative style of play than we’re used to from a Housemarque release and thus the aspirational tones of its previous games feels somewhat muted. To be too hard on Matterfall is difficult, though. Even mentioning a ‘failing’ is a little harsh in the grand scheme of things, with the design here trumping most of what is offered by developers other than Housemarque. To be certain, this is not an objectively bad game – it’s just an inferior proposition to the other subjects to have come from the studio responsible for it. If you’ve never played a Housemarque game before then you’ll likely love what’s here, but if you’re coming to Matterfall off the back of Resogun and/or Nex Machina then prepare for an anti-climax.

VERDICT Good, but nowhere near Housemarque’s best work

6/10

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REVIEW

THIMBLEWEED PARK

PS4

Thimbleweed Park Remembering the good ol’ days Nostalgia. That comforting familiarity that comes with a bitter twist of melancholy for a time forever lost. Distorted memories of the way it used to be and never was. The rediscovery of valuable relics that struggle to find their expression in a present that’s irrevocably changed. All of that is to be found in Thimbleweed Park, a title pitched by Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnick of Maniac Mansion and Monkey Island fame as a game made to feel like a lost LucasArts adventure classic. It is an unashamed nostalgia project. Their attempt to walk the line between past and present. They are largely successful, but it’s a difficult task and it’s not surprising that they occasionally stumble. You start the game able to switch between two FBI agents – the acerbic and cynical Agent Rey and the naive and upbeat Agent Reyes. They are investigating the appearance of a dead body in this strange town that’s clearly got something to hide. It’s hinted that each agent has ulterior motives, too, which is instantly intriguing. Indeed, the game is great at cultivating and maintaining a sense of mystery that makes you want to push on and uncover the secrets that Thimbleweed Park hides. Agents Rey and Reyes serve their purpose as vehicles for the game to deliver its myriad hit-and-miss jokes and fourth-wall breaking adventure game references – with which it is a little too preoccupied – but they are dull characters. Thankfully, newer and more

4 S P

DETAILS PUBLISHER Terrible Toybox DEVELOPER In-house PSN PRICE £15.99 PLAYERS 1

interesting ones are soon introduced. Game developer Delores eventually takes centre stage in the plot, providing the game’s heart as its most likeable and sincere character. Then there’s Ransome the bleeping insult clown. His unwavering belligerence and expletiveladen rants, punctuated with bleeping bleeps every other bleeping word, provide a liberatingly aggressive way of engaging with the bleeping idiots that populate Thimbleweed that made us chuckle. Finally, there’s Franklin, who is, unfortunately for him, dead. Fortunately for us, his ghostly abilities offer a different way of interacting with the world, providing a basis for some of the game’s more memorable characterswitching puzzles. Those puzzles where you must switch between the game’s multiple characters to solve them represent some of its highlights. It’s an aspect of the game that’s a little underdeveloped and perhaps could have been made more fundamental – as with Day Of The Tentacle’s time-travelling character-swapping puzzles – but still works well, even just in giving you different threads to pursue when you get stuck. Thimbleweed’s puzzling isn’t free of frustrations: we were disappointed to discover that there are far too many puzzles with difficulty that lies primarily in finding the items that you need to solve it, rather than having to engage your brain to work out a solution. That’s an aspect we would have been happy to leave in the past.

IT AIN’T OVER

The name of the recently-deceased Chuck looms large over the town. The 'tubes' he invented power almost everything in the town and are key to solving a fair few of the game's puzzles.

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There’s something a bit off in the way Thimbleweed Park is pitched to the "true lovers" of the genre “who miss classic adventures and all their innocence and charm”. Sure, the Nineties produced many classic adventures that had a style unique to the era. Does that mean that the generation whose reference points for adventure games are Life Is Strange and Night In The Woods cannot be “true lovers” of the genre? Can those who want “charm” from their adventures not find it in the beautiful Lumino City? Does the legacy of the 2D adventure not live on in Machinarium, or Wadjet Eye’s retroinspired pixel art adventures? If you love adventure games, there’s no need to live in the past.

“RANSOME THE BLEEPING INSULT CLOWN’S EXPLETIVE-LADEN RANTS ARE PUNCTUATED WITH BLEEPING BLEEPS EVERY OTHER BLEEPING WORD”

The spectre Franklin gets his own set of ghostly verbs to use to interact with the world around him, though some don’t have any practical use.

Thimbleweed Park isn’t boneheaded in its loyalty to the era of Nineties adventures. Indeed, it can be smart in the way that it evokes the classics. Its chunky pixels stir memories of titles like Zak McKraken, Maniac Mansion, and Indiana Jones And The Fate Of Atlantis. 'This', you think, 'is exactly how my favourite adventure games used to look.' In reality, it is far more detailed and uses lighting in a way that you’d never see in the adventures that inspired it. That it is prepared to use modern techniques to create a fantastic-looking adventure and does so without losing the ability to tap into the nostalgia of the audience at which it is aimed is to its credit. Key in cultivating that old point-and-click feel are those big ol’ verbs at the bottom of the screen. In the style of those classic adventures, you select verbs like ‘Open’, ‘Use’ and ‘Give’ and then objects in your inventory, the environment, or characters, to interact with them. However, Gilbert and Winnick have evidentially identified some frustrations with the system that they’ve tried to iron out. Many interactions accept multiple verbs, meaning it's less likely that you will get stuck on a puzzle because you didn’t use the precise verb the game wanted you to. In fact, you often don’t need to select a verb at all thanks to an option that auto-selects the right verb for you. These changes certainly make the game less fiddly and finicky than the titles it is based on, but they also render the verb system largely

pointless. We struggle to think of a single example of a puzzle that relies on the use of verbs in a clever or interesting way. Stripped of its significance as a tool for engaging with the world and its puzzles, is seems the system is only there to support Thimbleweed Park’s aesthetic of nostalgia. The implementation of the verb system is emblematic of the difficulty faced when making a game like this. What do you keep from adventure game history and what do you jettison? When do you modernise and when do you not? If you do modernise, how far do you go? There are missteps in the answers Thimbleweed Park gives to these questions, but it just about gets the balance right. At least, it does if you are part of the audience at which this game is pitched. You do need to be familiar with the idiosyncrasies of the genre to truly ‘get’ Thimbleweed Park – the jokes, the references, the story, the structure, the aesthetic, and the themes are all explicitly related to adventure game history and our relationship to it. It can’t truly recapture the feeling of playing those classic adventures for the first time, nor can it lose all the negative baggage associated with them, but it does find a path that allows it to do a little bit of both.

VERDICT A pleasant puzzling trip down memory lane

7/10 | 47

REVIEW

48 |

ARIZONA SUNSHINE

PS4

Arizona Sunshine Will the PC VR classic dazzle on PS4?

DETAILS PUBLISHER Vertigo Games DEVELOPER In-house PSN PRICE £32.99 PLAYERS 1 (1-4 online)

Hailed as one of the best experiences you can have on Vive and Oculus, Arizona Sunshine arrives on PSVR with a fair amount of expectation. What a pity then that a sloppy conversion ruins what could have been a tremendously fun game. One of the most refreshing aspects of Arizona Sunshine is its bright vibrant setting, which is at odds with the dour gloomy exteriors used by many similar VR shooters like The Brookhaven Experiment. It instantly makes you want to explore the well-crafted world, makes you eager to loot every abandoned vehicle and house you encounter in the hope of finding more ammo for your dwindling supply and makes you want to find out what’s at the end of the radio signal you’re following. It helps as well that your protagonist is surprisingly chipper, despite the situation he finds himself in, cheerfully calling zombies by the collective name of Fred and never short of a pithy one-liner.

So, it’s a shame that Arizona is constantly compromised and stops you from truly enjoying the game. Right from the off we were experiencing problems, with poor tracking and jittery controls ruining what should be a tight, precise shooter. Regardless of whether you play using the Dual Shock, motion controls or the Aim controller (which features a new balanced mode for two-handed weapons) you’re always fighting against them in some way. The motion controls are great for general shooting and being able to easily grab the additional weapons that you carry, but you have to rely on teleporting and can’t move backwards, which feels absolutely archaic after the leaps made by Farpoint. The Aim controller handles movement brilliantly, but it lacks the freedom that firing independently with two controllers offers and as the game progresses the difficulty ramps up. Oh, and aiming down the sights of your many different guns is virtually pointless due to the insane amount of jitter that you experience. It’s a pity that the controls feel so horrible,

because when Arizona works it can be tremendously satisfying. Watching multiple zombies’ heads pop as you take them out shot by shot is a wonderfully empowering feeling, but it rarely happens when you need it to, meaning you always feel at the whims of lady luck. The campaign is short, but well crafted and it’s enjoyable enough that you’ll want to consider the co-operative mode that’s available too. Speaking of online play, Arizona Sunshine also features a horde mode that supports up to four players. It’s tense to play, but is hampered by a confined playing area and a distinct lack of maps. With a suitable patch, Arizona Sunshine could be something really special. Unfortunately, its current tracking issues and compromises outweigh its benefits. Wait for the inevitable sales.

VERDICT A fun game ruined by poor implementation

5/10

While the new Aim controller should be your optimum way of experiencing Arizona Sunshine, its utilisation when interacting with objects is absolutely woeful and can make for some truly awkward moments. You can tell the game was built around the original motion controls.

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FEATURE

PLAYSTATION CLASSICS #38: IN COLD BLOOD

Blood, sweat and tears went into the making of Revolution Softwareâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fourth attempt at creating fresh IP. Charles Cecil and Tony Warriner discuss their often-forgotten game

FORMAT PLAYSTATION

50 |

RELEASE DATE 2000

PUBLISHER SCEE, UBISOFT, DREAMCATCHER GAMES

DEVELOPER REVOLUTION SOFTWARE

y the time In Cold Blood had been released, Revolution So ware had carved out a solid reputation as a developer of some of the finest point-and-click adventure games. It had released its debut, Lure Of The Temptress, in 1992 and it had followed it up with the dystopian sci-fi classic Beneath A Steel Sky two years later. More importantly, it had created not one but two Broken Sword adventures in 1996 and 1997, giving the genre a major shot in the arm as players flocked to enjoy the adventures of George Stobbart and Nico Collard. Yet from that point, there had been an unusual lull in the development of their trademark games. “Publishers had decided that 2D point-and-click adventures were dead and they weren’t commissioning them anymore,” explains Revolution’s founder Charles Cecil. “They wanted 3D visceral games for the PlayStation.” That was despite healthy sales for the first Broken Sword, The Shadow Of The Templars, which had sold 600,000 copies on the PlayStation and in spite of similar success for the sequel, The Smoking Mirror. “We were just in an era when you could sell a game if you said it had slightly more polygons,” Cecil adds. All of this meant that if Revolution was to survive in this pre-indie era when development costs were soaring month a er month, it had to adapt and follow the crowd to some extent. It worked on projects for other companies – Disney’s Story Studio: Mulan was released in 1998 – but such a move wasn’t to everyone’s taste. Dave Cummins, who had worked on every Revolution game up to that point, le the company on the basis that he’d return to the company if it started to develop point-and-click adventures again. But thanks to a strong relationship with Sony, Cecil was

WHAT THEY SAID… Q It may secretly desire to be the next Metal Gear Solid but it’s not half as entertaining or action-packed. It may be attractively cinematic but as the next generation of adventure game, it doesn’t make a name for itself

PC ZONE, 2000

“WE STARTED TO LOOK AT PUTTING AN ADVENTURE WITHIN AN ACTION GAME” Although the detailed pre-rendered backgrounds were stunning, the control system was fiddly, which put many players off.

The game’s introduction was jaw-dropping, showcasing the abilities of the PlayStation at a time when the PS2 was about to turn heads.

entirely confident that he and the rest of his team could stride forward in this new 3D, action-obsessed era. “We were looking at how to move the point-and-click genre across and continue writing attractive stories,” he says. “So we started to look at putting an adventure within an action game, one which would put the player under pressure while ensuring that the main challenge didn’t come from the action. The idea was that we’d add a degree of strategy and a degree of jeopardy and we pitched this to Sony. The team there got very excited and the company went ahead and commissioned the game.” Revolution had initially considered making Broken Sword its first 3D title. It would have made sense given the appetite for a third game in the franchise. Had the developer gone down that path, it would have been released around the same time as Gabriel Knight 3: Blood Of The Sacred, Blood Of The Damned for which Sierra On-Line had used a rendered 3D engine in its bid to keep the series relevant to everchanging modern audiences. “I’m glad we didn’t,” explains Cecil. “Clearly the technology was way behind what the audience expected. With Broken Sword, gamers were used to lush 2D animation and backgrounds and for that game the narrative, characters and empathy was very important. If we had moved to 3D with Broken Sword at that point, the technology wouldn’t have allowed us to create that player empathy.” It is why Revolution decided to create entirely fresh IP as it pushed towards a release of what became In Cold Blood in 2000. The story came first. Set in the near future in a fictional, newly independent state called Volgia – located on the east coast of Russia – the game starred an MI6 agent called John Cord who players met as he was being tortured by a ruthless dictator called Dmitri Nagarov. It transpired that Russia had wanted to regain control of Nagarov’s resource-rich nation and had called on military assistance from China. Yet their efforts were being scuppered by a US-funded resistance movement in Volgia headed up by Gregor Kostov – and to make matters worse, this group had heard the Volgians had developed some special technology, prompting the Americans to send a spy called Kiefer to investigate. When Kiefer went missing, the US asked Britain for help. Cord was then sent to try and find out what was going on. “I kicked off the basics of the story and then Neil Richards worked with me on it before writing the script,” recalls Cecil of the creation of the game’s unravelling, complex plot. The hope was that players would watch the bold opening and

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FEATURE

PLAYSTATION CLASSICS #38: IN COLD BLOOD

MEET THE CAST

Revolution’s narrative-driven games have always contained strong characters – but was that the case with In Cold Blood?

JOHN CORD

Voiced by Nickolas Grace and born to a ruthless, domineering British Army officer, In Cold Blood’s protagonist John Cord was a MI6 agent loyal to his boss Alpha. While this inevitably invited unwanted comparisons to James Bond – Charles Cecil insisted Ian Fleming’s character was not an inspiration – it also meant Cord had a particular set of skills. Adept at survival and able to dispatch enemies with a single blow, he was a sharp shooter and a good puzzle solver (all with your help, of course). For all of that, though, he lacked the dry wit and sarcasm of Broken Sword’s George Stobbart or Beneath A Steel Sky’s Joey, making him markedly more forgettable.

GREGOR KOSTOV

With a strong voice not unlike that of Brian Blessed, bear-like Kostov was the leader of the Volgian Freedom Fighters. Big on personality, this charismatic, this helpful man was voiced by Constantine Gregory and Cord came into contact with him early on, later encountering him at important moments in the game.

then be driven with anticipation to discover how and why Cord ended up in his predicament. To do this, Revolution decided to use flashbacks as a central theme. “This, along with the scenarios – the spy story and so on – gave us something different from the Broken Swords that came before,” says programmer Tony Warriner, who co-founded Revolution with Cecil. The use of flashbacks presented the team with a challenge, though. What if Cord died as players made their made through one of his recollections? Surely that would mean he couldn’t be telling his story further down the line? The solution was clever. “My idea was that if Cord died in the game, then he would say it couldn’t have happened that way and you’d go back to the start of the memory,” Cecil explains. “It was my way of smoothing over the suspension of disbelief when a character dies.” With that in place, the game could then be built around the story. “The design evolved slowly around a number of ideas,” begins Warriner. In order to progress, though, an entirely new game engine had to be built. “This was driven by the PlayStation being the lead platform.” There was also no available middleware that could suit the style of game they wanted to create. Jake Turner, who had worked on Disney’s Story Studio: Mulan a er a spell at the Ministry of Defence, took on the role of technical programmer and, together with Andrew Boskett who joined later, worked hard on producing the engine. “It was one hell of a feat; a very ambitious project,” Cecil states. “If you asked them whether it was difficult, they would say absolutely.” The developers removed any notion of a detached point-and-click interface and they replaced it with a game that involved real-time action. They retained an abundance of logical puzzles from There were nine varied missions in total – seven of which led you to the point where Cord was being tortured and the final two resolving the story.

DMITRI NAGAROV

Just as in James Bond (there’s that comparison again), the villains within In Cold Blood tended to stand out the most. Voice artist David Calder brought this cold, evil force to life in the most superb of manners, ensuring Volgia’s dictator was a fellow to fear from the very start.

CHI LING CHEUNG

Born in Hong Kong to a pro-Britain mother and pro-China father, Cheung was a secret agent for the External Security Section of The People’s Republic of China, working as a double agent for Nagarov. She was rather underdeveloped as a character, though, and she often appeared like magic by Cord’s side.

ALPHA

Alpha was a high-ranking MI6 officer and Cord’s boss (inviting those James Bond comparisons again). Strong and something of a mother figure for Cord, she was perfectly voiced by Patricia Hodge. It offered an entirely different, professional relationship to that of the duos who had roamed Revolution’s previous games.

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There were many ways to die within the game. Fortunately, Cord always says his recollections were different when faced with such circumstances, letting him live on.

Broken Sword, though. Cecil had come to believe that the point-and-click adventure genre had been suffering thanks to developers infusing their games with silly, illogical obstacles that sought to baffle seasoned adventurers who had become used to the grammar of such games. This was frustrating point-and-click’s core fanbase so, as tempting as Cecil admits it was to come up with off-beat puzzles, he decided against challenging players in such a way. Instead, he looked towards making a game that was primarily about stealth but also about shooting; one which contained action-based puzzles. It meant gamers had to think about when to fire and when to sneak, knowing that one false move could get them killed. The use of stealth had been popularised by Hideo Kojima’s Metal Gear Solid, which sold more than six million copies on the PlayStation. Highly acclaimed and a good example of how a game genre could be updated for modern audiences (the original Metal Gear had been released in 1987 for the MSX2 computer), it would certainly have been an ideal game from which to draw inspiration. Yet rather than purely drive the narrative forward with non-interactive sequences, In Cold Blood required the player to explore the environment, interact with characters and overcome obstacles. “I think the stealth worked more or less okay,” concludes Warriner. “We approached the puzzles in the same way as we did with the adventures, and because the scenario and so on were content rich, we had a lot to work with.” The approach taken by Revolution felt different to MGS and it marked the game out, helping to avoid overly direct comparisons with other titles. Indeed, Cecil never cited Kojima or indeed Metal Gear’s main character, Solid Snake, as his muse in any of the interviews he gave about the game. He preferred to talk

of being inspired by the movies Pulp Fiction, The Usual Suspects and Heat (Cecil was always reluctant to go along with comparisons between Cord and James Bond, too). He wanted his latest game to feel as cinematic as possible, both in the playing around of time – hence why the game started two-thirds of the way through and had flashbacks – and in its visual style. It was no accident, then, that he turned to Bob Keen, who had worked on the special effects of films such as Hellraiser III: Hell On Earth. “Bob was based at Pinewood Studios and he had become well known for creating the masks and a lot of the special effects for the film,” says Cecil. “I can’t remember how or why I met him, but he was excited about video games and we teamed up. He worked on the storyboards and the sequences, almost as an art director, and we were able to tap into his 3D experience. He advised us about the look of the backgrounds and his team created some of the cut scenes as well. It was a very valuable relationship.” The game was able to push the abilities of the PlayStation. It had detailed pre-rendered backgrounds and the polygons of the characters were ray traced, with shadows cast realistically. “The visual style was a happy outcome from the tech,” adds Warriner. “The idea was always to develop a 3D sprite while retaining our high-detail adventure-style backgrounds, and the obvious route was

Charles Cecil says he regrets forcing players to crouch at the start of In Cold Blood because it meant their introduction to the game was far from gentle.

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FEATURE

PLAYSTATION CLASSICS #38: IN COLD BLOOD

to use 3D modelling to create the backgrounds so that the 3D sprite – or model as it turned out – would fit properly. Of course, until real-time 3D games, we had no polygonal limit to our pre-rendered backgrounds and so our artists had no restrictions. The backgrounds were visually rich as a result.” There were also many neat gaming mechanisms. A few of these were borrowed from other sources and were made necessary by the move away from the point-and-click interface that Revolution was used to. In its previous games, for example, a usable object would be highlighted when moving the cursor around the screen, but in In Cold Blood useful objects would be highlighted by having Cord turn to look at them. It would give the player an instant visual clue that there was something of interest nearby, but it was nevertheless a mechanism ripped from Grim Fandango. The game also looked to other games in borrowing the technique of cutting in close to a location or giving players a better view of something Cord was looking at. All of this helped to drive the narrative forward in a cinematic way. The well-written script with its o en witty lines (“Fire away,” says a technician, before quickly adding, “Figure of speech! Figure of speech!”) were brought to life by the voice artists. Nickolas Grace lent his tones to John Cord, for instance, while Patricia Hodge, who became much loved as Penny in the comedy series Miranda, played a blinder by voicing Alpha. David Calder did a particularly superb job with Nagarov, ensuring he came across as incredibly dark and sinister throughout. Calder went on to play a role in the entirely unrelated ITV television series Cold Blood that was first broadcast in 2005, but his work in the game will be remembered forever. As with Broken Sword before it, the game’s outstanding orchestral score was created by the Austrian composer Barrington Pheloung who, to many, was best known for the theme and incidental music to the Inspector Morse television series. His music added to the emotion of the game and it also gave it a stirring send off thanks to a fabulous end credit song sung by Pat Treacy. “That element was always going to be epic,” says Warriner. Even so, Cecil wasn’t entirely happy. In hindsight, he felt the game was too ambitious for the PlayStation since some of the 400 cameras ended up being pulled too far back at times and the characters looked pixellated. The user interface was also clunky, so while critics praised the use of interrogation and the way you could threaten characters to dish the dirt,

THE BLOOD CIRCLE

Could the game have worked as a point-and-click? Although In Cold Blood marked Revolution’s intention to move away from the point-and-click genre, it didn’t stop Tony Warriner from trying to recreate the game as an old-style adventure last year. “I had a crack at reworking the game as a pure mouse-driven point-and-click game,” he explains. “I pretty much had it working, although it was going to be quite a lot of work to bring the underlying data into shape and working with a point-and-click user interface.” The project wasn’t pursued – a “real shame”, he says. “I guess at

they scorned the way the gun sometimes homed in on a less appropriate target and they became frustrated at hindering mini-robots, which were tricky to get past. “We mishandled the UI and the action itself was not a great success,” admits Warriner, “so we missed an opportunity to do something groundbreaking that, for us, would have been a nice adventure game in a non-adventure scenario. The controls became the game’s biggest problem.” They certainly did. The controls made moving through the nine missions of the game unintentionally frustrating at times. Even though gamers had a burning desire to explore the game’s 100-plus locations – albeit linearly – in practice it wasn’t always that easy as you tried to move the character faceforward before heading that way o en under pressure. “It made the game diﬃcult to play,” Cecil admits, adding that the situation was made worse by an unforgiving start to the game. For those who have never played it, the beginning of In Cold Blood requires players to strike up a conversation with Gregor Kostov in order to ask him to create a diversion. You are meant to follow him as he distracts the guard by oﬀering cigarettes. At this point – and in order to avoid being shot dead before reaching a door – you need to crouch and edge your way past. This was by no means obvious and so many This pre-production sketch shows an overview of the Arctic Base that was later brought to life in fine, colourful detail in the t e ga game. e

Cord’s chunky watch had a database detailing your mission status and character backgrounds, a map and an infra-red link to interface with other computers.

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the back of my mind, a UI reboot of the original game would have made a follow-up more of a possibility after such a long time since the original game.”

WHAT THEY SAID… Q The most ambitious PlayStation game yet. In Cold Blood pushes what used to be called the adventure into brave, new, exciting and cinematic territory

OFFICIAL UK PLAYSTATION MAGAZINE, 2000 players ended up dying over and over, which surely caused many to give up. “I am really embarrassed that we made the player crouch at the beginning. It was a stupid decision,” Cecil explains. “It was absolutely mine and very naïve, but games were designed very differently then to the way they are now. Today, people expect, quite rightly, to be taught the control system slowly rather than be punished if they haven’t read the manual.” It is something that, were he to remake the game at any point, he would immediately rectify. “I think in hindsight we could probably have done a better job, but we had a small team and we ran out of time and money,” he says. “Had it been a bigger team with a big budget I am sure we would have had more time to finesse some of these aspects. The control system in an environment in which the background was rendered and the characters in real-time was always going to be quite tough, though.” Even so, it posed a challenge and anyone who made it through the ten hours or so of gameplay couldn’t help but feel a sense of accomplishment (finish and players were rewarded by a slideshow of conceptual art, profiles of ten characters and the opportunity to play any of the missions again). “Sony got very excited and put a lot of marketing behind the game,” says Cecil. “But while In Cold Blood got stunning reviews at one end, it got slammed at the other.” He

contends, though, that he wouldn’t have liked it other way. “I don’t want to write games that are mediocre,” he tells us. “I would rather write a game that some people love and some people hate than one that everyone collectively agrees is just okay. For me, In Cold Blood was a brave attempt to try and redefine the adventure genre and while it was limited in that regard, it allowed us to move on with Broken Sword, which we were able to take into 3D and which was very well received.” He certainly sees In Cold Blood as an important title in the history of Revolution So ware. “It is very much part of the canon. We haven’t produced that many different franchises so we are proud of it,” he says. It went on to sell around 300,000 copies following its launch in 2000 and it got an airing on the PC the following year once the exclusivity period with Sony ended, allowing DreamCatcher Interactive to publish it. It has since been re-released on www.gog.com where it has been doing rather well and Revolution still gets emails discussing the title, asking if there would ever be a sequel. Realistically that’s not about to happen any time soon since Revolution has been hard at work dusting off some of its more popular titles (Broken Sword benefitted from a hugely successful Kickstarter which saw it return in 2013). But how would Cecil sum up his o en-overlooked game? “I am pretty proud of what I came up with,” he tells us, pausing. “But there could be no doubt that it could have been better.”

“I AM PRETTY PROUD OF WHAT I CAME UP WITH”

Cord is able to get to the top of the tower with Chi’s help and activate a cable car as he heads to an island.

A GAMING EVOLUTION Broken Sword » In Cold Blood » Broken Age

Broken Sword was Revolution’s ﬁnest hour. The developer took inspiration from its dialogue and plotted narrative for In Cold Blood.

More recently, Tim Schafer’s point-and-click Broken Age has shown just how well 3D can work within the popular genre.

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EXTENDED PLAY DLC MULTIPLAYER TROPHIES VIDEO

IINTERVIEW NTE

CRUISING FOR A BRUISING Creative director Pierre Tarno talks us through the development of Absolver How has the development process behind Absolver been? It’s fucking hard making a game. It consumes your days and nights and you think about it all the time… but if you don’t have an attachment to your game, and that deep belief that it’s awesome and it’s a game that should be made then you’ll burn out, and not have that passion and fuel anymore. Does being an independent studio allow your team freedoms that they may not have had at past workplaces, such as places like Ubisoft? [Working in an independent studio], we get to define the vision that’s dear to us, that we think is original enough and beautiful enough to be presented to players… that gives meaning to our effort. So that’s 56 |

wonderful. When I left Ubisoft, I was working on Ghost Recon: Wildlands. It wasn’t even the final push on production, and I was working in a team with 250 people. Here, at the final apex of production, there are 25 of us. Working with a smaller team like this gives us much greater velocity – when we were really motoring with production, it gave us this breakneck speed, this ability to not look back, iterating and making the game as good as it could be without having to have meeting after meeting and wrestling with this huge codebase at every turn. But making games is still fucking hard. Will Absolver be as satisfying for hardcore fighting fans as it will be for newcomers to the genre? There are a number of layers to how you’ll be able to play the game. It’s easy to pick up

and play – you have two attack buttons, you can guard, you can dodge. That’s it. But then you add perfect attacks in – where you have to be really conscious of your timing – and that adds another layer of challenge, with you needing to be really in the flow to do well. But then you add feints, which create mind games in PvP which work really nicely with having to know your own Combat Deck, having to learn your opponent’s Combat Deck… for competitive PvP players, people are going to go in deep, but it’s the mix of complexity and simplicity that we think is really going to appeal to many different kinds of players. How different is Absolver from the likes of more traditional fighters? When you fight someone in PvP in Absolver, it’s totally different from other fighting

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games. If you go into a fight against, say, Blanka or Heihachi, you know their moves, what they can do. It’s all about the match-up. In Absolver, you need to start by gaining an understanding about what your opponent's move set is: that introduces a notion of permanent adaptation, about learning who your opponent is and what he can do. That’s the first layer of PvP combat. If your opponent is a good enough opponent, he can trick you by feigning his moves out - luring you in to try and parry and counter – and the whole fight becomes about mind games. Are you expecting the meta of Absolver to sort of balance itself over the course of time? Sure, we’re going to have to make some balances and tweak some attacks here and

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there, but I have a feeling that Absolver could – at a meta level – balance out for players. Think about it: two weeks after release, I guarantee you that there will be players out there that no-one in the studio will be able to beat [laughter]. That will happen, and we want that to happen, because that proves our game works. Could you talk us through your initial pitch for Absolver? When we started out, we wanted to make a game that reflected the beauty and the depth of martial arts combat… we started on paper and drafted the whole system, where you start in one stance and flow into another. From there came the idea of letting the player build these attacks themselves, but also creating a fluid and dynamic style. I am so proud – so proud – that we have

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managed to hit that double objective, and in doing so have managed to create a game deep enough for PvP gameplay but built on a foundation of beauty and grace, too. Do you plan to support Absovler for a while, post-launch? If so, what kind of stuff can we expect? Here at [SloClap], we don’t say ‘this feature is cut’, we say ‘this feature is post-launch’ [laughter]. There are so many things you want to fit in, but there isn’t time! We were talking to our friend at Ubisoft – a creative director – and he was saying ‘games just don’t want to be made’ [laughter] Unless you’re Blizzard or Naughty Dog, no one really finishes their games. Absolver, SloClap’s martial arts action-RPG, is available now for PS4. | 57

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EXTENDED PLAY

UNCHARTED If you’ve got a taste for adventure, you don’t have to rely on Nathan Drake to get your ﬁx. Here are a few alternatives worth trying…

THE LOST LEGACY ■ IT MIGHT SEEM like an obvious recommendation, but you’d be surprised how many people we’ve spoken to who have been unsure about the idea of an Uncharted game without its usual wise-cracking star. As you may have already read elsewhere in the issue, though, the good news is that the series loses little from Drake hitting the bench, as Chloe is a superb stand-in. It might take a little while to warm to her – understandable, given that Drake has been the face of the franchise for a decade and we’ve all grown so used to his company – but give it a chance and you’ll see what we mean.

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UNCHARTED

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HORIZON: ZERO DAWN ■ WHILE THE SUBJECT matter might be worlds away from anything you’d expect to find in an Uncharted game, a lot of the same kinds of gameplay elements are present and correct in Guerrilla’s latest release. There are some really strong characters, combat leans heavily towards stealth without punishing failure too hard, and exploration is a key mechanic, even if the game’s open world means you’ll be doing a lot more of that. Aloy isn’t quite as vertically nimble as Drake so there’s less climbing and leaping going on (there is still a little) but those clear similarities mean it’s worth a look for Uncharted fans.

RISE OF THE TOMB RAIDER ■ THAT YEAR LONG EXCLUSIVITY deal with Microso really did a number on this sequel on PS4, with genre fans already spoiled by Uncharted 4 a good six months before Lara’s late arrival. While not on the same level as Naughty Dog’s game, Rise Of The Tomb Raider goes bigger on everything that made the 2013 reboot so good and is still really enjoyable in its own right. If it’s characters and

narrative that appeal to you most in the Uncharted games, though, it’s worth highlighting that these elements are much weaker in Lara’s adventure, but the rest of it is really damn good (and it’s a real looker too, especially on PS4 Pro) so hopefully you won’t notice too much. If you haven’t already, the remaster of the original reboot is also well worth playing through, and that’s usually pretty cheap, too.

UNEARTHED ■ IT’S ALL TOO easy to forget just how difficult it is to make a blockbuster game like Uncharted – Naughty Dog makes it seem effortless and we can sometimes take that for granted. If you want to bring yourself crashing back down to earth with a bump, dust off your PS3 and download Unearthed: Trail Of Ibn Battuta Episode 1, a clear homage to PlayStation’s flagship franchise but one that fails miserably in every last thing it attempts. Despite the game getting battered by critics, a second episode was announced back in 2015, but we’ve heard nothing more since. Strange, that…

THE ORDER: 1886 ■ WE’RE STILL SURPRISED by just how much ﬂak this Steampunk shooter caught on release as frankly, we had a blast with it. Yes, it’s linear and pretty short, but the gunplay, setting and jaw-dropping visuals all conspire to make moment-to-moment gameplay feel exciting and fresh. If you’re one of

the many people who avoided the game due to the negativity surrounding it at the time, do yourself a favour and grab it on the cheap – you might ﬁnd that you really enjoy it, especially since a lot of the core mechanics aren’t too far removed from those you’ll be familiar with from the Uncharted games.

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TROPHY GUIDE

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TROPHY GUIDE

PS PLUS TROPHY GUIDE ASSASSIN’S CREED: FREEDOM CRY PLATFORM: PS4 DIFFICULTY: 2/5 TROPHIES: 6 0 1 2 3 ■ IT’S A SHAME to see a major game – well, a standalone expansion to one, then – with so few Trophies, but Freedom Cry’s return to Black Flag’s high seas setting is still pretty good fun all the same. The main thing to shoot for is 100 per cent synchronisation on all nine main missions, which will net you four of the available six Trophies. For the remaining two, you just need to free a total of 500 slaves (which will probably happen anyway over the course of your playthrough) and kill five enemies at once with a blunderbuss, which is easily done – when you get your hands on the gun, coax a bunch of enemies into chasing you and blast them when they group up.

JUST CAUSE 3 PLATFORM: PS4 DIFFICULTY: 3/5 TROPHIES: 48 1 2 10 35 ■ JUST LIKE ANY other large open-world game, those hoping to get their hands on Just Cause 3’s Platinum should expect to have to put the hours in. You’ll get most of the Trophies on your way to 100 per cent completion of the game, but give the list a skim before starting as a few are tied to specific ways of dealing with enemies or bases. Don’t worry if you don’t get things like ‘...Without Bullets!’ during your first playthrough – after finishing the game, you can choose to attack conquered outposts again, and you’ll have much better gear by that point to make things even easier. To lower difficulty further still, consider grabbing some of the DLC. Daft tools like the jetpack and mechs make most of the game a cakewalk.

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P PLUS DOWNWELL PLATFORM: PS4/VITA DIFFICULTY: 5/5 1 7 10 5 TROPHIES: 23 ■ OH LOOK, IT’S another retro-looking indie game with a bastard-hard Trophy list. As much as we love Downwell, we won’t be going for the Plat any time soon – you’ll quickly see that some of the demands the game makes are flat-out crazy. You need to not only reach the end (the game is hard, too) but also do that on Hard mode, with extra Trophies for superhuman feats such as clearing

“YOU’LL QUICKLY SEE THAT SOME OF THE DEMANDS THE GAME MAKES ARE JUST FLAT-OUT CRAZY” entire areas without touching the ground or dropping your combo, avoiding power-ups, or racking up huge combos across multiple stages. Unless you’re some kind of gaming god, do your sanity a favour and accept that this Plat is never going to happen. Our hopes and prayers are with you if you are crazy enough to go for it, though…

SUPER MOTHERLOAD PLATFORM: PS4/PS3 DIFFICULTY: 2/5 0 2 2 5 TROPHIES: 9 ■ ANOTHER PLATINUM FREE TITLE means this month’s selection only has one crazy-hard Plat and one extremely time-consuming one, but at least the games are good! This PS4 launch title flew under the radar for many, but it’s really cool, even though there’s not a lot going on for Trophy hunters. Most of them are pretty straightforward, and the only difficult one is for finishing the perma-death Hardcore mode. However, a few of the unlockable characters make that far easier, so work towards getting those through regular play before attempting that.

LEVEL 22 PLATFORM: VITA DIFFICULTY: 1/5 TROPHIES: 21 0 0 0 21 ■ THE PROCESS OF sneaking to your desk after turning up late for work isn’t the most exciting concept to us, as it’s how most mornings begin. Still, the more punctual among you may dig this indie curio, even if it only has Bronze Trophies to offer. The spread is extremely simple – there’s one for each of the 16 collectable figures (there’s one hidden in each non-boss stage), one for solving all the safes in each of the four ‘worlds’ (again, one per non-boss level), and a final one for successfully reaching your desk undetected. It’s a pretty straightforward game, so it’s only fair that there isn’t a shinier payoff at the end, to be honest.

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MONSTER HUNTER: WORLD

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DESTINY 2

CAPCOM IS PUTTING out tons of great videos showcasing Monster Hunter’s glorious return to consoles – check them out, they’re ace!

FANCY AN RPG that features a realistic medieval setting with none of that magic nonsense? This is the game for you.

ALL ABOARD THE Hype Train! The launch trailer got us super-pumped for our next adventure, and 6 September can’t come soon enough…

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■ PS4’S Community feature is a great way of ﬁnding like-minded players that share your interests. That’s why we’ve set up our own Play Community where you can join our game sessions, share your best screenshots, win free games and other prizes, and connect with other PlayStation fans. Come and join our ever-growing community of readers today!

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THE INDIE 100 Every must-play indie game on PlayStation is right here – if you love indies, this will help you ﬁll any gaps in your collection.

Uncharted: The Lost Legacy has a superb photo mode, so go nuts with it and see what kinds of crazy pictures you can get for your troubles!

DOWNLOAD PLAY BACK ISSUES Missed an issue of Play? Fear not! They are all available to download for tablets and smartphones from greatdigitalmags.com

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Nidhogg 2’s art style may be divisive, but that doesn’t make its battles any less intense. SHOW US WHAT YOU GOT.

How are you getting on with Doomﬁst in Overwatch? Share any great plays you get to show off your skills!

| 63

PLUS

YOU HAVEN’T PLAYED… BLEED?

YOU HAVEN’T PLAYED… ?

BLEED This indie darling has been doing the rounds on other formats for years, but it has only just arrived on PlayStation for the ﬁrst time. Here’s why this news should be music to your ears… GET SCHWIFTY How to show off and boost your style gauge

KEEP SHOOTING Pick your weapon of choice and blast away at anything that moves – that’ll get the style meter ﬁlling up.

DODGE EVERYTHING Taking hits will dent your gauge, so that’s the last thing you want. Use the air dash to make quick escapes.

■ WE’D PRACTICALLY GIVEN up all hope of seeing Bleed on a PlayStation system. But now, almost ﬁve years a er its initial release, the stylish shooter which has become a cult favourite is ﬁnally on PS4. The simplest point of reference for anyone new to the game would probably be to call it a 2D pixel-art bullet-hell twist on character action games like Devil May Cry or Bayonetta. While the showdowns with huge bosses are the clear highlight, the short stages leading up to them are no slouches either, packed with relentless foes and unique gimmicks to blast and/or dodge accordingly. The primary focus is on ranged weapons, and on raining death on enemies from a distance while attempting to dance around their countermeasures.

64 |

To aid with the latter, you have a couple of handy tools at your disposal, namely an air dash and the ability to briefly slow time. Watching a skilled player weave through fields of bullets while pounding a boss is amazing, and pulling off similar feats yourself – not actually as hard as it looks a er a little practice, although the control scheme may take a little getting used to – is immensely satisfying. And before you know it, you’re throwing everything together to drop S-rank combos packed with swooping dashes, real-time weapon swaps and pixel-perfect evasion. With unlockable weapons and even characters (who have their own unique gameplay gimmicks), Bleed is a game that genuinely rewards mastery. And boy, does mastery feel good.

TINKER WITH TIME Like in Max Payne, you can spend resources to slow down time. Here, though, the Time bar reﬁlls slowly.

QUALITY. INNOVATION. RESPECT w w w.gamestm.co.uk

Available from all good newsagents and supermarkets

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IF YOU WANT

LET’S PLAY… OFFICE FAVOURITES

UNCHARTED: THE LOST LEGACY Spoiler alert: Naughty Dog made another amazing game. It’s that same delicious Uncharted 4 gameplay, with a cool new setting and a new cast to chuck banter around… what’s not to like? Roll on The Last Of Us: Part II!

DESTINY 2 The entire Play team has taken a week off work starting 6 September which, curiously, is the exact same day that Destiny 2 launches. That’s probably just a coincidence though, right? Of course not. See you soon at The Farm, fellow Guardians…

NIDHOGG 2 While its visual overhaul seems to have upset quite a few fans of the original game, this multiplayer fencing sequel is still stupidly fun to play with friends. A perfect complement to the likes of TowerFall and SportsFriends for a night of local multiplayer madness.

WARRIORS ALL-STARS It might not be as strategic or complex as some of the mainline games, but crossover characters and settings from other Koei and Tecmo titles mean that there’s still a lot of unexpected hilarity to be found while mashing Square.

66 |

TO KNOW WHAT A GAME SCORED THEN THESE PAGES ARE FOR YOU

PS4 GAME

ISSUE SCORE

Abzu Alekhine’s Gun Alien: Isolation Alienation Amplitude Arslan: The Warriors Of Legend Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: China Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: India

273 270 249 270 266 268 257 266

Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag Assassin’s Creed Syndicate

237 264

Assassin’s Creed: Unity Axiom Verge

251 256

Batman: Arkham Knight Batman: The Telltale Series – Episode One

258 274

Battleborn Battlefield 1 Battlefield 4

271 276 238

Battlefield Hardline BioShock: The Collection Black The Fall Blazblue Central Fiction Blazblue Chronophantasma Extend

256 275 284 277 264

Bloodborne Bloodborne: The Old Hunters

256 265

Bound Bound By Flame Broforce

274 245 268

Call Of Duty: Advanced Warfare Call Of Duty: Black Ops III

251 264

Call Of Duty: Ghosts Call Of Duty: Infinite Warfare Child Of Light

238 276 244

CounterSpy Crash Bandicoot: N. Sane Trilogy DariusBurst: Chronicle Saviours Dark Souls III

248 284 266 269

Day Of The Tentacle Remastered Daylight Dead Nation: Apocalypse Edition

269 245 242

Dead Or Alive 5: Last Round Destiny

254 249

Destiny: House Of Wolves Destiny: Rise Of Iron Destiny: The Dark Below

258 275 252

Destiny: The Taken King Deus Ex: Mankind Divided Devil May Cry 4: Special Edition

262 274 258

Diablo III: Reaper Of Souls Dirt 4 Dirt Rally Dishonored 2 Disney Infinity 2.0

248 284 269 277 249

Divinity: Original Sin Enhanced Edition Don’t Starve Doom Dragon Age: Inquisition Dragon Ball Xenoverse Dragon Quest Builders

264 240 271 251 255 276

Dragon Quest Heroes Dragon Quest Heroes 2 Drawn To Death Driveclub

263 283 281 250

Dying Light Dynasty Warriors 8 XLCE

254 243

EA Sports UFC EA Sports UFC 2 Enter The Gungeon Ether One

246 269 269 258

Everybody’s Gone To The Rapture Everything Evolve

261 282 254

F1 2015 Fallout 4

260 264

7 3 9 8 8 5 7 7 8 4 6 9 9 4 6 7 8 7 7 5 8 9 9 9 7 6 6 8 8 7 5 7 5 8 8 9 8 2 7 7 9 8 8 7 9 6 8 9 9 9 9 8 8 8 8 8 5 8 8 6 6 8 9 8 7 8 8 8 8 7 6 8 9

GAME

ISSUE SCORE

GAME

ISSUE SCORE

Far Cry 4 Far Cry Primal Farpoint Fez

251 268 283 243

8 8 8 10

FIFA 15 FIFA 16 FIFA 17 Final Fantasy Type-0 Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn Final Fantasy XV

249 262 275 255 243 277

Firewatch Furi Game Of Thrones: Iron From Ice

267 272 253

8 9 8 8 9 9 6

Need For Speed Rivals NHL 15 Nier Automata Nioh No Man’s Sky Not A Hero Nuclear Throne Octodad: Dadliest Catch Outlast Outlast 2 Overcooked Overwatch Oxenfree

238 249 280 279 274 267 266 244 241 282 273 271 271

8 6 8 8 8 6 8 6 7 8 9 8 6

Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions Get Even Ghost Recon: Wildlands Gnog God Eater 2: Rage Burst God Of War III Remastered Grand Theft Auto V

252 284 280 283 275 260 251

Pac-Man Championship Edition 2

275

Gravity Rush 2 Grim Fandango Remastered Guilty Gear Xrd -RevelatorGuilty Gear Xrd REV 2 Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN-* Guitar Hero Live Hardware: Rivals Headlander Hitman Hohokum Homefront: The Revolution Horizon: Zero Dawn Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number I Am Setsuna inFamous: First Light inFamous: Second Son Injustice 2 Invisible, Inc. Just Cause 3 JStars Victory VS+ Killing Floor 2 Killzone Shadow Fall Killzone Shadow Fall: Intercept King Of Fighters XIV King’s Quest: A Knight To Remember Knack Lara Croft And The Temple Of Osiris Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham Lego Dimensions Lego Marvel’s Avengers Lego Marvel Super Heroes Lego Jurassic World Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens Lego The Hobbit Lego Worlds Let It Die Little Nightmares LittleBigPlanet 3 Lords Of The Fallen Lumo Madden ’16 Madden ’17 Mad Max Mafia 3

279 254 272 283 253 264 266 273 268 248 271 279 255 273 249 242 283 270 265 260 277 238 246 274 261 238 252 252 263 267 238 258 273 244 280 278 282 251 251 271 262 274 262 276

Persona 5 PES 2015 PES 2016 PES 2017 Plants Vs Zombies: Garden Warfare Plants Vs Zombies: Garden Warfare 2 Prey Prison Architect Project Cars Puyo Puyo Tetris Rainbow Six Siege Ratchet & Clank République Resident Evil HD Resident Evil 7 Resident Evil Revelations 2 Resogun Resogun Heroes Rime Robinson: The Journey

280 250 262 275 248 268 282 273 258 282 265 269 268 253 279 256 238 247 284 277

Rock Band 4 Rocket League Rogue Legacy Rory McIlroy PGA Tour Salt And Sanctuary

263 260 248 260 269

6 9 9 9 8 7 8 7 8 6 8 8 8 7 8 9 7 9 9 6 6 7 8 9 5 8

Sébastien Loeb Rally Evo Shantae: Half-Genie Hero Sheltered Sherlock Holmes: The Devil’s Daughter

267 279 270 272

Mass Effect: Andromeda Mercenary Kings Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain Middle-earth: Shadow Of Mordor Mirror’s Edge: Catalyst Mortal Kombat X

281 244 242 261 250 272 257

7 7 8 9 4 8 5 8 8 9 8 6 9

Moto Racer 4 Murdered: Soul Suspect N++ Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 NBA 2K15 NBA 2K17 Need For Speed

277 246 261 267 250 275 264

4 4 8 8 8 8 5

Shiness: The Lightning Kingdom Shovel Knight Skylanders Imaginators Skylanders Superchargers Skylanders Swap Force Skylanders Trap Team Sniper Elite 4 Sniper: Ghost Warrior 3 SOMA Star Ocean: Integrity And Faithlessness Star Wars Battlefront Statik Star Trek: Bridge Crew Steep Street Fighter V Strider Styx: Shards Of Darkness Super Time Force Ultra Switch Galaxy Ultra Syberia 3 Tales From The Borderlands: Zer0 Sum Tales Of Berseria Tearaway Unfolded Tekken 7 Teslagrad The Amazing Spider-Man 2 The Banner Saga 2 The Binding Of Isaac: Rebirth The Crew The Evil Within The Last Guardian The Last Of Us Remastered

282 258 276 263 238 250 280 282 262 273 265 282 284 278 267 242 280 262 253 283 252 279 262 284 253 245 272 251 252 250 278 247

5 8 6 10

The Order: 1886 The Sexy Brutale The Surge

254 282 283

8 5 7

8 8 9 7 5 7 6 8 10 8 8 9 9 9 8 5 6 9 8 6 9 9 8 5 8 8 9 7 6 6 8 8 7 8 6 5 6 7 6 8 7 6 6 6 7 8 9

5 8 9 6 8 9 7 7 7 7 8 5 8 6 6 8 8 6 9 6 6 9 8 2 7 7 7 8 7 2 8 9

THIS MONTH’S NEW ENTRIES The newest games, freshly squeezed among all your old favourites

Dirt 4 Crash Bandicoot: N. Sane Trilogy Star Trek: Bridge Crew Tekken 7 Get Even Tokyo 42 Rime Black The Fall

P PLUS

9 8 8 8 7 7 6 5

GAME

ISSUE SCORE

GAME

ISSUE SCORE

GAME

ISSUE SCORE

The Tomorrow Children The Vanishing Of Ethan Carter The Walking Dead Season 3 E1&2 The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt The Witness Thief

275 260 278 257 267 241

Asura’s Wrath Atelier Ayesha: The Alchemist Of Dust Batman: Arkham Asylum Batman: Arkham City

216 230 183 211

7 6 8 9

Dark Souls Dark Souls II

211 242

9 9

This War Of Mine: The Little Ones Tiny Brains

267 240

Batman: Arkham Origins Battle Fantasia Battlefield 1943

237 176 182

8 7 9

Titan Souls Titanfall 2 Tokyo 42 Tom Clancy’s The Division

257 276 284 268

Battlefield: Bad Company Battlefield: Bad Company 2

168 190

8 9

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5 Torment: Tides Of Numenera Toukiden 2

263 280 281

7 9 3 8 8

Battlefield 3 Battleship Bayonetta* The Beatles: Rock Band

212 219 187 184

8 4 9 9

TrackMania Turbo Transformers: Devastation Transformers: Rise Of The Dark Spark Transistor

269 263 247 245

8 8 3 9

Destroy All Humans!: Path Of The Furon Deus Ex: Human Revolution Devil May Cry 4

178 209 163

8 8 3 10

7 8 8 7 7 8 8 6 9

8 8 8 8 8 7 7 6 8 9 9 7 8 8 6 9

244 258 272 270

213 201 207 236 216 179 169 203 172

230 188 188 221 202 223 210 231 197 172 201 228 203 231 233 193

Trials Fusion Ultra Street Fighter IV Umbrella Corps Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End

Beat Hazard Ultra Beat Sketcher Beyond Good & Evil HD Beyond: Two Souls Binary Domain Bionic Commando Bionic Commando Rearmed Bionic Commando Rearmed 2 BioShock

Darkstalkers Resurrection Dark Void Darksiders Darksiders II DC Universe Online Dead Or Alive 5 Dead Island Dead Island: Riptide Dead Rising 2 Dead Space Dead Space 2 Dead Space 3 Dead Space: Extraction Deadly Premonition: The Director’s Cut Deadpool Demon’s Souls

9 9 8 9

163 160 190 198

4 5 8 9

206 219 175 224

8 7 8 9

275 239 280 264

BlackSite Bladestorm: The Hundred Years’ War BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger BlazBlue: Continuum Shift

DiRT 3 DiRT Showdown Disgaea 3: Absence Of Justice Dishonored

Virginia War Thunder Warhammer 40K: Deathwatch Wasteland 2: Director’s Cut

235 186

8 9

DJ Hero 2 Doctor Who: The Eternity Clock DmC Devil May Cry

198 220 227

8 3 9

Yakuza 0 Yooka-Laylee

279 281

193 185 223 250 168 188 233 171 185 203 235 211 162 185 151 173 160 186

Disney Infinity DJ Hero

245 278 249 283 245 258 283 276 252 264 275

Blur Borderlands Borderlands 2 Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel The Bourne Conspiracy Braid Brothers: A Tale Of Two Sons Brothers In Arms: Hell’s Highway Brütal Legend Bulletstorm The Bureau: XCOM Declassified Burnout Crash Burnout Paradise Buzz! Quiz World Call Of Duty 3 Call Of Duty: World At War Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

8 8 9

Watch Dogs Watch Dogs 2 Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate What Remains Of Edith Finch Wolfenstein: The New Order Wolfenstein: The Old Blood Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap World Of Final Fantasy WWE 2K15 WWE 2K16 XCOM 2

8 7 8 6 8 8 7 8 8 7

8 9

217 235

263 267 261 247

189 230

Devil May Cry HD Collection Diablo III

Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection Unravel Until Dawn Valiant Hearts

BioShock 2 BioShock Infinite

8 7 7 8 5 7 8 7 5 6 9 9

Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Call Of Duty: Black Ops

212 199

8 9

Call Of Duty: Black Ops II Call Of Juarez: Bound In Blood Call Of Juarez: Gunslinger Call Of Juarez: The Cartel Captain America: Super Soldier Castle Crashers

226 181 232 208 208 200

8 8 8 3 7 9

Dragon Age: Origins Dragon Age II Dragon Ball: Raging Blast Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit Dragon’s Crown Dragon’s Dogma Driver: San Francisco Duke Nukem Forever Dungeon Siege III Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 3 Dynasty Warriors 7: Empires Dynasty Warriors 8 EA Sports Active 2 EA Sports MMA Eat Lead echochrome EDF: Insect Armageddon Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

186 203 186 168 235 218 209 207 206 208 230 234 200 198 178 169 208 152 212

8 6 4 6 8 8 7 3 8 5 4 7 8 8 3 8 6 9 9

Castlevania: Harmony Of Despair Castlevania: Lords Of Shadow

212 197

7 9

Castlevania: Lords Of Shadow 2 Catherine Chronicles Of Riddick: Assault On Dark Athena Civilization Revolution

241 215 178 168

8 6 8 9

Elefunk El Shaddai: Ascension Of The Metatron Enslaved: Odyssey To The West Epic Mickey 2: The Power Of Two Eternal Sonata Everybody’s Golf: World Tour

170 208 197 226 176 165

4 7 8 5 8 9

EyePet Fairy Fencer F Fallout 3

185 250 173

8 4 10

Clive Barker’s Jericho The Club Colin McRae: DiRT

159 163 158

6 8 9

Colin McRae: DiRT 2 Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 Conan Condemned 2 Costume Quest Counter Strike: Global Offensive

184 178 160 165 199 223

8 6 7 7 7 9

Fallout: New Vegas Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer Far Cry 2 Far Cry 3 Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon FEAR FEAR 2: Project Origin FEAR 3 FIFA 14

198 155 172 226 231 151 176 208 236

8 3 7 8 8 8 8 6 9

218 204 230 181 223 189 154

3 7 6 3 3 8 9

215 165

7 6

Fight Night Champion Fight Night Round 4 Final Fantasy XIII Final Fantasy XIII-2 Final Fantasy XIII: Lightning Returns Fist Of The North Star: Ken’s Rage Folklore Front Mission Evolved Fuse

203 181 190 214 240 198 158 198 232

8 8 8 8 8 5 6 5 7

PS3

4 8 5 10 10 7 7 6 7 7

6 9 8 8 7 7 4 5 9 9 6

3D Dot Game Heroes 50 Cent: Blood On The Sand Ace Combat: Assault Horizon The Adventures Of Tintin Afro Samurai After Burner Climax

192 177 211 212 177 193

8 7 7 5 6 9

Agarest: Generations Of War Alice: Madness Returns Alien Breed: Impact Alien Breed 2: Assault Alien Breed 3: Descent Aliens: Colonial Marines Aliens Vs Predator Alpha Protocol Amy Ape Escape Aquapazza: Aquaplus Dream Match Arcana Heart 3 Armored Core 4 Armored Core V Army Of Two Army Of Two: The 40th Day Army Of Two: The Devil’s Cartel Assassin’s Creed Assassin’s Creed II

187 207 196 201 204 230 189 193 215 208 239 207 153 217 164 188 231 161 186

7 6 8 8 6 4 7 8 1 5 7 7 6 6 8 6 4 5 9

Assassin’s Creed III Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood

225 199

7 9

Crash Time 4: The Syndicate Crysis 2 Crysis 3 Damnation Damage Inc: Pacific Squadron WWII Dante’s Inferno The Darkness

Assassin’s Creed: Revelations Assassin’s Creed: Rogue

212 251

7 7

The Darkness II Dark Sector

6 7 9

TEN YEARS AGO BEST REVIEWS (156) 1 Rogue Galaxy (90%)

2 Hitman: Triple Pack (90%)

3 Tomb Raider: Anniversary (81%)

4 Rainbow Six: Vegas (78%)

5 The King Of Fighters XI (75%)

6 Final Armada (57%)

7 Tony Hawk’s Downhill Jam (51%)

8 KOF: Maximum Impact II (43%)

9 World Of Pool (42%)

10 Transformers: The Game (34%)

*denotes import review

| 67

P PLUS

PLAY’S BEST GAMES IF YOU LOVE…

VAST IMPROVEMENTS PLAY: NO MAN’S SKY We loved it at launch, but there’s no denying that it was missing stuff that was shown and promised in the run-up to release. After several huge recent patches, though, it’s bigger and better than ever.

GIGANTIC WORLDS PLAY: GHOST RECON: WILDLANDS We weren’t overly taken with Wildlands when it ﬁrst released, but we will say two things about it – it’s very big and very pretty. Perhaps we’ll give it another shot some time soon…

THE CLASSICS PLAY: SONIC MANIA Going back to basics is what Sonic fans have long been crying out for, and doing so has given us the best Sonic game in years. Let’s have plenty more like this please, Sega!

MULTIPLE ENDINGS PLAY: NIER: AUTOMATA Finishing this cult classic isn’t quite as simple as just making it to the credits. If you want the full picture, you’ll need to see all 26 of the game’s endings – might want to set aside a few weeks to get all that done.

BEING SCARED SILLY PLAY: RESIDENT EVIL 7 If you’re lucky enough to have a PSVR headset and haven’t had a crack at this horror reboot yet, we strongly suggest you give it a whirl. The atmosphere is like nothing else, and getting through it feels like a triumph.

68 |

GAME

ISSUE SCORE

GAME

ISSUE SCORE

GAME

ISSUE SCORE

Genji: Days Of The Blade Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 Ghost Recon Future Soldier GI Joe The Godfather The Godfather II God Of War III God Of War: Ascension

151 157 219 183 151 178 190 230

Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures Lego Pirates Of The Caribbean Lego Rock Band

167 187 206 187

7 7 7 8

3 4 9 9

7 8 7

8 6 8 8 8 8 9

188

God Of War Collection: Volume II Gotham City Imposters Gran Turismo 5 Gran Turismo 6 Grand Theft Auto IV Grand Theft Auto V

210 216 200 239 166 236

7 7 8 8 9 10

160 204 227 180 209 172 201

184 217 231 177 206 155 225

God Of War Collection*

Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars Lego The Lord Of The Rings Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust Limbo LittleBigPlanet LittleBigPlanet 2

Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 Ninja Gaiden 3 Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge Noby Noby Boy No More Heroes: Heroes’ Paradise Nucleus Okami HD One Piece: Pirate Warriors Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising Operation Flashpoint: Red River The Orange Box

224 185 205 161

6 7 7 9

LittleBigPlanet: Karting

225

7 8 6 9

7 7 6 7 9

7 4 6 5

207 180 181 201

191 232 246 174 191

221 221 199 175

Outland OutRun Online Arcade Overlord II Pac-Man Championship Edition DX

Greed Corp Grid 2 Grid Autosport GTI Club+ GTA: Episodes From Liberty City

Lollipop Chainsaw London 2012 The Lord Of The Rings: Aragorn’s Quest The Lord Of The Rings: Conquest The Lord Of The Rings: War In The North

213

Lost Planet 2 Lost Planet 3 Lost Planet: Extreme Condition

192 236 163

8 5 6

Pain Payday: The Heist Payday 2 Peggle Persona 4 Arena Ultimax

183 213 235 189 250

6 8 8 9 9

Guardians Of Middle-earth Guitar Hero III

227 160

7 9

Guitar Hero 5 Guitar Hero Greatest Hits Guitar Hero Metallica Guitar Hero: Van Halen Guitar Hero: Warriors Of Rock Guitar Hero World Tour

184 182 179 189 197 173

8 7 8 6 7 9

Madagascar 3 Madden NFL 12 Madden NFL 13

224 209 223

3 8 8

Madden NFL Arcade Mafia II

188 196

5 8

PES 2012 PixelJunk Eden PixelJunk Shooter PixelJunk Shooter 2

210 169 187 204

7 6 9 9

Magic: Duels Of The Planeswalkers Marvel Vs Capcom 2

202 182

8 9

Gundemonium Collection Gunstar Heroes Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix Haze Heavenly Sword Heavy Rain

197 181 182 155 167 157 189

8 8 6 3 6 7 9

Marvel Vs Capcom 3 Marvel Ultimate Alliance

202 151

8 6

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 Max Payne 3 Mass Effect 2 Mass Effect 3

185 219 201 216

6 7 10 9

PixelJunk SideScroller PixelJunk Racers PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale PlayStation Move Heroes Poker Night 2 Portal 2

213 160 225 204 232 205

7 7 8 5 5 10

Heavy Weapon Heroes Over Europe Hitman: Absolution

187 184 225

7 4 9

Hitman HD Trilogy Homefront The House Of The Dead 4 The House Of The Dead: Overkill Hunted: The Demon’s Forge Hustle Kings Hyperdimension Neptunia I Am Alive Ico & Shadow Of The Colossus HD

230 203 218 212 207 190 202 217 210

7 6 8 7 5 8

Medal Of Honor Medal Of Honor Airborne Medal Of Honor: Warfighter Mega Man 9 Mega Man 10 Mercenaries 2: World In Flames Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance

198 161 225 172 192 171 228

8 8 7 7 8 7 9

Prince Of Persia Prince Of Persia: Classic Prince Of Persia: The Forgotten Sands Prince Of Persia Trilogy Prison Break: The Conspiracy Prototype Prototype 2 Puddle The Punisher: No Mercy Puppeteer Pure Quantum Of Solace Quantum Theory

174 173 193 200 191 181 219 216 182 236 171 175 197

8 6 6 8 4 7 7 7 4 7 8 5

Race Driver: GRID Rag Doll Kung-Fu: Fists Of Plastic Rage Rainbow Six Vegas

167 179 211 155

8 8 6 9

The Incredible Hulk inFamous

168 180

inFamous 2 Inferno Pool

207 181

Injustice: Gods Among Us Inversion

231 220

Iron Man Iron Man 2 The Jak And Daxter Trilogy Jak And Daxter: The Lost Frontier James Bond 007: Blood Stone James Cameron’s Avatar: The Game JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: All Star Battle Journey

166 193 216 187 199 187 244 216

5 8 8 8 8 4 5 5 8 5 6 6 8 9

Rainbow Six Vegas 2 Rango Ratchet & Clank: A Crack In Time Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One Ratchet & Clank: Q-Force Ratchet & Clank: Tools Of Destruction Ratchet & Clank Trilogy HD

164 203 186 211 227 160 221

8 5 8 6 5 7 9

Rayman Legends Rayman Origins Red Dead Redemption

235 212 193

8 8 9

Juiced 2: Hot Import Nights Jurassic Park: The Game Just Cause 2 Kane & Lynch: Dead Men Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days Katamari Forever Kick-Ass The Game Killer Is Dead Killzone 2

159 194 190 160 196 184 194 235 176

7 6 8 7 7 8 6 7 9

Red Faction: Armageddon Red Faction: Guerrilla Remember Me Renegade Ops Resident Evil Chronicles HD Collection Resident Evil Code Veronica X Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City Resident Evil: Revelations HD Resident Evil 4 HD

207 180 232 211 221 211 217 232 210

6 8 6 7 8 7 3 7 9

Resident Evil 5 Resident Evil 6 Resistance: Fall Of Man Resistance 2

177 223 151 173

8 8 8 9

Killzone 3 Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 ReMIX Kingdom Hearts 2.5 HD ReMIX

202 236 252

8 8 9

Resistance 3

210

Kingdoms Of Amalur: Reckoning The King Of Fighters XII The King Of Fighters XIII Kung Fu Panda 2 LA Noire Lara Croft And The Guardian Of Light The Last Guy

215 182 213 207 206 198 171

7 7 8

Resonance Of Fate Retro City Rampage Ridge Racer 7 Ridge Racer Unbounded Riff: Everyday Shooter Rise Of The Argonauts Risen 2: Dark Waters Risen 3: Titan Lords

191 228 151 217 162 176 222 248

8 7 7 6 8 5 5

Last Rebellion Legend Of Spyro: Dawn Of The Dragon Legendary Lego Batman Lego Batman 2 Lego Harry Potter: Years 1-4 Lego Harry Potter: Years 5-7

191 174 173 173 221 194 213

Risk: Factions Rock Band Blitz Rock Band Rock Band 2

202 223 169 179

8 8 9 9

Rock Band 3

199

Rocksmith Rogue Warrior Rugby World Cup 2011

223 188 209

7 1 4

3 8 6 2

Lego Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues

9 9 10

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is another world-class entry in gaming’s most fundamentally playable genre. Metal Gear Solid 4 Metal Gear Solid HD Collection

167 214

9 9

Metro: Last Light Michael Jackson: The Experience Microbot Midnight Club: Los Angeles

231 205 202 173

6 5 5 8

Mindjack Minecraft

202 240

3 9

Mini Ninjas Mirror’s Edge MLB: The Show 14

184 173 245

8 7 9

ModNation Racers Monkey Island 2: Special Edition

192 195

8 9

Mortal Kombat

205

Mortal Kombat Vs DC Universe MotoGP 13 Motorhead MotorStorm

173 233 173 151

6 7 6 9

MotorStorm: Apocalypse MotorStorm: Pacific Rift

203 172

7 9

Mud: FIM Motocross Championship MX Vs ATV Alive

217 206

5 4

MX Vs ATV Reflex Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm

189 174

6 6

Naruto Shippuden: UNS Generations Naruto Shippuden: UNS 3

217 230

5 8

Naughty Bear NBA 2K12 NBA 2K13

195 211 224

6 8 8

NBA Jam NBA Street: Homecourt Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit

200 151 199

Need For Speed: Most Wanted Need For Speed ProStreet

225 161

6 6 9 9

9 9 9

Need For Speed Shift Need For Speed: The Run

184 213

8 6

Need For Speed Undercover

173

4 5 6 6 8 7 6

NeverDead Nier

215 192

3 6

Ni No Kuni: Wrath Of The White Witch NHL 12

227 210

8 7

NHL 13

223

NiGHTS Into Dreams... Ninja Gaiden Sigma

224 154

7 8

6 9

P PLUS

GAME

ISSUE SCORE

GAME

Rune Factory Oceans RUSE The Saboteur Sacred 2: Fallen Angel Sacred 3 Saints Row 2 Saints Row: The Third Saints Row IV: Gat Out Of Hell SBK Generations Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse

220 197 187 180 247 172 211 253 220 194

5 8 6 7 6 7 8 6 5 9

Super Street Fighter IV

191

Syndicate Tales Of Graces f Tales Of Monkey Island

216 222 196

7 7 9

Tales Of Xillia Tales Of Xillia 2 Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection Online Tekken 6 Tekken Tag Tournament 2

234 249 161 184 223

7 7 8 9 9

SBK Generations The Secret Of Monkey Island SE

220 195

5 9

Section 8: Prejudice Sega Mega Drive Ultimate Collection Sega Rally

209 177 158

8 8 9

Test Drive Ferrari Racing Legends Tetris Test Drive Unlimited 2 The Amazing Spider-Man The Last Of Us

221 202 203 221 233

6 8 6 6 10

Sega Rally Online Arcade Sengoku Basara: Samurai Heroes Shadows Of The Damned Shank Shatter

208 198 207 197 183

7 7 8 8 9

The Testament Of Sherlock Holmes The Walking Dead

224 231

5 9

Shellshock 2: Blood Trails Shift 2: Unleashed Silent Hill: Downpour Silent Hill HD Collection Silent Hill: Homecoming The Simpsons Game The Sims 3 The Sims 3: Pets SingStar Singularity Siren Blood Curse Skate Skate 2 Skate 3 Skullgirls Sleeping Dogs The Sly Collection Sly Cooper: Thieves In Time Sniper Elite V2 Sniper: Ghost Warrior Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2 SOCOM: Special Forces Sonic The Hedgehog 4: Episode 1 Sonic The Hedgehog 4: Episode 2 Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed

177 204 217 217 174 160 199 212 159 195 170 159 175 192 218 222 200 230 218 206 230 205 199 225 190 227

3 6 8 7 6 8 8 7 8 8 6 8 8 8 8 8 8 6 5 4 5 6 8 4 7 9

Sonic Generations Sonic The Hedgehog Sonic Unleashed Sorcery SoulCalibur IV

212 151 175 219 169

7 5 4 7 9

SoulCalibur V South Park: The Stick of Truth Spec Ops: The Line Spider-Man 3 Spider-Man: Edge Of Time Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions Spider-Man: Web Of Shadows Spin Jam Splatterhouse Splinter Cell Double Agent Split/Second: Velocity

214 242 220 155 212 197 173 174 200 153 192

8 8 7 3 3 6 5 3 5 7 9

Sports Champions Sports Champions 2 SSX Stacking Starhawk Star Ocean: The Last Hope International Star Trek Star Trek: D-A-C Star Wars: The Force Unleashed Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II Star Wars: Pinball Start The Party! Stormrise Stranglehold Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike Online Edition Street Fighter IV

196 225 216 203 219 190 231 189 171 199 230 196 178 159 209 176

8 6 4 8 8 6 5 5 6 6 7 7 5 6 9 9

Street Fighter X Tekken Strength Of The Sword 3 Super Puzzle Fighter II HD Turbo Remix Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition

217 234 168 207

8 8 7 9

Stuntman: Ignition Super Stardust HD Superstars V8: Next Challenge Superstars V8 Racing Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix

157 155 190 181 176

8 7 5 6 7

ISSUE SCORE

The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct

231

Thor: God Of Thunder Tiger Woods PGA Tour 14 Time Crisis 4 Time Crisis: Razing Storm TimeShift Tokyo Jungle Tom Clancy’s EndWar Tom Clancy’s HAWX Tom Clancy’s HAWX 2 Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Blacklist Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Trilogy HD Tomb Raider

206 231 166 199 162 223 173 177 196 235 210 229

3 6 7 5 7 8 8 7 7 7 7 9

Tomb Raider Trilogy Tomb Raider: Underworld Tony Hawk’s Project 8 Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater HD Tony Hawk’s Proving Ground Tony Hawk: Ride Top Gun: Hard Lock Top Spin 3 Top Spin 4 Toy Story 3 Transformers: Dark Of The Moon Transformers: Fall Of Cybertron Transformers: War For Cybertron Trash Panic Trine Tron Evolution Tumble Turning Point: Fall Of Liberty Turok Twisted Metal UFC Undisputed 2009 UFC Undisputed 2010 UFC Undisputed 3 Ultimate Marvel Vs Capcom 3

204 173 151 223 160 188 218 168 203 195 208 223 194 181 184 200 198 165 163 216 180 193 215 212

8 8 8 7 7 5 4 7 6 8 6 7 8 7 8 1 7 4 4 6 9

Ultra Street Fighter IV Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune Uncharted 2: Among Thieves Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception

GAME

ISSUE SCORE

WWE 13 XCOM: Enemy Unknown

225 224

5 9

Thinking, planning, failing and dying is back in fashion: XCOM is a phenomenal reimagining of a classic title and an instant classic in its own right. X-Men Destiny

211

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

179

Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z

242

Yakuza: Dead Souls

216

Yakuza 3

191

WHAT WE’RE PLAYING… Watch out! Games!

Yakuza 4

203

Yakuza 5*

264

Zen Pinball 2

224

9 9

Zone Of The Enders HD Collection

VITA

226

A-Men

217

Army Corps Of Hell

217

Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation

225

Atelier Meruru: The Apprentice Of Arland

221

WHAT (have they been playing?)

Destiny 2 WHY (was it chosen?)

Everybody’s Golf

215

BlazBlue: Continuum Shift Extend

216

Broken Age

257

Call Of Duty: Black Ops Declassified

227

Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc

242

Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair

249

Dead Nation

201

Destiny Of Spirits

244

Dokuro

230

Earth Defense Force 2017 Portable

230

Escape Plan

216

FIFA Football flOw

216 151

8 9

Flower

176

Gravity Crash Gravity Rush

187 219

8 9

Hotline Miami

233

Hustle Kings Joe Danger

216 194

8 9

Killzone: Mercenary

236

LittleBigPlanet

223

Little Deviants

215

Lumines Electric Symphony

216

Metal Gear Solid HD Collection

221

ModNation Racers: Road Trip

215

Mortal Kombat

219

MotorStorm RC

217

Muramasa Rebirth

234

New Little King’s Story

224

246 161 185 212

8 8 8 9

Ninja Gaiden Sigma Plus

217

8 10 9

Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 Plus

230

Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath HD

214

Orgarhythm

230

Unearthed: Trail Of Ibn Battuta: Episode 1 The Unfinished Swan Unreal Tournament III Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom Valkyria Chronicles Vanquish

233 225 162 151 173 197

1 7 8 5 8 9

PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale Persona 4 Golden

225 228

8 9

PixelJunk Monsters

163

Puddle

222

Rayman Origins

216

Reality Fighters

215

Viking: Battle For Asgard Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown Virtua Tennis 3

165 220 150

7 9 9

Resistance: Burning Skies

219

Ridge Racer

216

Rocketbirds: Hardboiled Chicken

212

Virtua Tennis 4 The Walking Dead: All That Remains The Walking Dead: 400 Days Wanted: Weapons Of Fate Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine Warhawk Warriors: Legends Of Troy Warriors Orochi 3 Watchmen: The End Is Nigh Way Of The Samurai 3

205 240 234 179 210 157 202 217 183 190

7 8 8 6 5 8 1 5 5

Silent Hill: Book Of Memories

Wet Wheelman Where The Wild Things Are White Knight Chronicles White Knight Chronicles II WipEout HD Wolfenstein Worms 2: Armageddon Worms Ultimate Mayhem WRC 3 FIA World Rally Championship WWE All Stars

184 178 188 190 207 172 183 198 217 225 204

It’s time for a new legend to rise. It’s me… again… LUKE ALBIGÉS FINALLY, THE TIME has come. The grind begins anew, with all of my fellow Guardians robbed of our Light and booted all the way back down to level one – no longer do they feel like they’re too far behind my 400 Light trio to catch up and we can all play, Strike and Raid together as a big happy family once again. I’ve tried pretty hard to avoid as much as I can going into the game, as there’s no better feeling than seeing an Exotic drop that you’ve never even heard of before, or running into an epic boss battle and trying to figure out the mechanics on-the-fly. I still remember how hard we banged our heads against the Vault Of Glass when it first released, so I’d like to be a little more prepared this time around. Hopefully a week of solid play will be enough to get me and my crew Raid-ready. Exciting times!

WHAT (have they been playing?)

Matterfall

225

WHY (was it chosen?)

Sorcery Saga: Curse of the Great Curry God 240

Soul Sacrifice

232

Sound Shapes

223

Gotta support Housemarque!

Superbeat Xonic

265

Superfrog HD

234

Super Monkey Ball: Banana Splitz

224

Sumioni: Demon Arts

230

Super Stardust Delta

216

Tearaway

239

4 7 5 5 4 8 7 8 8 7 8

Terraria

232

Touch My Katamari

216

Toukiden: The Age Of Demons

241

Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3

216

Uncharted: Fight For Fortune

227

Uncharted: Golden Abyss

215

Unit 13

216

Velocity Ultra

233

Virtua Tennis 4: World Tour Edition

215

Virtue’s Last Reward

227

215

WipEout 2048

DREW SLEEP I’VE BEEN A fan of Housemarque’s games since back in the PS3 days and this generation, the studio just can’t seem to put a foot wrong. Resogun is still as good as it was on launch day, Nex Machina was so good that my other magazine, Retro Gamer, gave it 100% (yes, really) and although Matterfall is arguably the weakest of the bunch, it’s still a darn fine score attack game.

*denotes import review

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