456we5 by peterjourev

The essential guide to Xbox 360 and Xbox One Issue 115 September 2014

www.totalxbox.com

THE OFFICIAL MAGAZINE Battlefield Hardline

MINECRAFT XBOX ONE

DICE: This time, we’ll get online right

It’s here! migrate your world & more

Assassin’s Creed Unity

Ubi starts over on next-gen

exclusive access

EVOLVE Must-read hands-on: why 2014’s most exciting shooter is best on Xbox One

GTA 5 comes to xbox one

New features & details revealed

Far Cry 4

Bigger, better, and still on Xbox 360

metal gear solid 5 skylanders trap team adr1ft / mortal kombat x best sports games mirror’s edge 2 / more! Issue 115 September 2014 £5.99

reality check tech to the future

the sony and oculus vR dReam is Ready to change your world

IN PRINt, ON tAblet AND smARtPhONe

on sale now ANDROID APP ON

Welcome…

to a most dangerous game

In the seven years I’ve been on OXM, no game has gripped the office as powerfully as Left 4 Dead. We played it for hours every day for months on end, a fourman team battling the zombie menace – so it’s not all that surprising that Turtle Rock’s new game, the similarly-structured but more elaborate Evolve, has proved just as popular. The big difference is that now you’re hunting human prey, with a strategy of its own, which adds an excellent new level of complexity. Find out just how it plays out on p30. If you want a more “hunting human prey conventional adds an excellent shooter, then we’ve got you covered with new level of exclusive access online complexity” our to DICE, Visceral and Battlefield Hardline. Find out how they’re nailing the story and squashing those server bugs on p38. Want a different form of co-op? Assassin’s Creed Unity might be just the thing. Check out our exclusive chat about solving the old irritations on p72. Enjoy the issue.

EMAIL jon.hicks@futurenet.com Live OXM Jonty Twitter @MrJonty

@OXM

Subscribe and get a free game! p82

four hunters, two monsters, and darwin

Ed and Joe band together to take down this year’s most exciting new shooter (p30)

can xbox one crack japan?

the game that xbox one backlash built

grand theft battlefield

the sports game hall of fame

We head to Tokyo to see if this will be the first Xbox to win it over (p44)

Why this year’s game isn’t just a cops-and-robbers spinoff (p38)

Ex-Microsoft man Adam Orth talks us through Adr1ft (p62)

What are the best sports games on Xbox? We’re glad you asked (p76)

the official xbox magazine / 5

#115

contents

page

30 evolve

You’ve got to be in it Darwin it. page

DASHBOARD

News and interviews curated for your easy digestion

10 Vapour Ware

The sky’s the limit for cloud-based gaming, says Edwin.

14 Ten Pro Tips

How do you spend a AAA budget? Bungie lets us know.

16 The Big Picture

page

GTA V’s new-gen upgrade could be more than a makeover.

22 EA versus the world

Customer dissatisfaction got down to an Electronic Art.

xbox extra

page

GETTING MORE FROM YOUR CONSOLE

100 OXM Investigates

call of duty: advanced warfare A new RoboCoD game? Oh. 6 / the official xbox magazine

Exploring the mechanics that shooters forgot.

102 Now Playing

GRID 2, Mirror’s Edge, Battlefield 4 and Epic Mickey 2.

114 The Final Countdown

Nine summer holiday destinations, no sun cream required.

www.totalxbox.com

page

“Inevitably, our great grey friend is shot down in a hail of machine-gun bullets” Far Cry 4 aims to add “elephant” to the old adage about death and taxes.

save 23% See p82

features

page

30 Evolve

OXM’s hunting party reveal grisly, tip-covered trophies.

38 Battlefield Hardline page

How a spin-off could be much more than a side project.

44 Xbox Rising

As East meets West, could Xbox finally crack Japan?

72 Talking about a Revolution Will co-operation bring France back together?

assassin’s creed unity

Paris gets a case of the miserables.

76 OXM’s Sporting Hall of Fame

It’s a load of old balls, frankly. Wait, that came out wrong. page

previews

48 Far Cry 4 52 Lara Croft & the Temple of Osiris 54 Assassin’s Creed Unity 55 Mortal Kombat X 56 EA Sports PGA Tour 58 Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime 59 The Legend of Korra 60 Metal Gear Solid V: The Phanton Pain 62 Adr1ft 64 Lords of the Fallen 65 Cuphead 66 Red Awakening 67 Skara: The Blade Remains 68 Skylanders Trap Team 70 Previews roundup

page

Metal Gear Solid V: The phantom pain

Grief, revenge and time-travelling cigars. page

44 page

48 page

Battlefield Hardline Get on this, post-heist. @OXM

reviews

84 EA Sports UFC 86 Outlast 87 Another World 87 Putty Squad 88 Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark 89 Sixty Second Shooter Prime 89 MotoGP 14 91 The Wolf Among Us: Episode 5 91 1,001 Spikes 92 Zombie Driver the official xbox magazine / 7

Meet the…

oxm contributors

The people behind, and in some senses also under, the UK’s biggest games mag

Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

Aoife Wilson

Joe Skrebels

Andy Hartup

Joel Snape

Live OXM ETBoy

Live OXM Aoife

Live OXM Joe

Live Private

Twitter @dirigiblebill

Twitter @AoifeLockhart

Twitter @2plus2isjoe

Twitter @AndyHartup

Twitter @JoelSnape

Edwin’s always the member of the team sent to play Evolve, presumably because his cut-glass accent makes it so much easier for people to imagine him on a real hunt, wearing a red coat and laughing at fox guts.

After having moved house this month, Aoife realised that she hadn’t bought a bed for her new room. It turns out that stacks of unsold magazines make both a firm mattress and a rustly yet workable duvet.

After he drank five coffees and an energy drink in one day, the team staged a caffeine intervention for Joe. He responded by yelling, twitching, collapsing and forgetting anything had happened in the first place.

GamesRadar supremo Andy actually worked on the Exeter student newspaper with Jonty back in the day. We guess that youthful nostalgia accounts for why our editor starts drinking as soon as his copy arrives.

As a fitness expert, Joel’s role on OXM is two-pronged. While reviews are useful, he also serves the important function of forcing our egotist team members to sigh at their weak, meatbag bodies. Keeps us humble.

Deputy Editor

Staff Writer

News Editor

Contributor

OFFICE PLAYLIST > WHAT WE’VE SPENT OUR TIME ON THIS MONTH

Maybe It’s Called Nerf Gun If you don’t mind bad language, just search for that phrase on YouTube. Trust us on this.

Death From Above 1979 The dance-rock duo are back after a decade away, and the new single slung us right back to 2004.

Totalxbox.com

8 / the official xbox magazine

GeoGuessr Hours of work time were lost as we pointed at pictures of desert and shouted “it just has to be Nevada”.

The website is where our most up-to-the-minute opinions appear, which means far less editing and more vitriol. Cool! Recent highlights: Why you should be excited about Phantom Dust for Xbox One / Hey Tecmo Koei, I’ve made you some DLC costumes for Dead or Alive 5 / Fable Legends looks brilliant, but I’d still prefer Fable 4 / “Everybody” at Crytek UK wants to work on TimeSplitters

Being Outdoors Honestly, we know you won’t believe us, but there’s literally tonnes of stuff out there.

oxm on iPad You know when you go to a museum and get the urge to leaf through the old books behind display glass? Well our tablet edition offers you both that feeling, plus the superhuman ability to swipe through pages. We’re nothing if not unnecessarily thoughtful. bit.ly/ipadoxm

www.totalxbox.com

xbox news, analysis, culture, opinion & more

reach for the sky

Vapour Ware Having put cloud gaming to the test

with Titanfall, Microsoft explains how tomorrowâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s games will benefit 10 / the official xbox magazine

www.TOTALXBOX.coM

Fortnite could come to Xbox One

Epic has said that its blend of Minecraft and Left 4 Dead might come to other platforms after launching on PC. According to lead designer Darren Sugg, “The console space has changed. Where Fortnite ends up is not set in stone.”

No Man’s Sky goes old-school

Besides stumbling on other players as you explore, players of Hello’s space sim No Man’s Sky will get more “traditional” multiplayer options. We’re still waiting for news of an Xbox One version.

//it can do anything, from forza’s drivatars to streaming retro games to your web browser//

Forza Motorsport 5’s AI Drivatars will be transferred to Forza Horizon 2.

he power of the cloud” was one of the first things Microsoft promised Xbox One would deliver, but it’s still the hardest one to demonstrate. While the benefits aren’t as immediate as doubling a console’s memory allowance, it’s still having an impact on the games arriving this year – just in lots of different ways rather than a single, obvious one. As Microsoft’s chief technology officer for the cloud, Robert Fraser, elaborates, there’s no single way to make use of an arsenal of superresponsive servers – to pretend otherwise, he declares, “would be a little bit arrogant”. Some advantages of cloud gaming, such as dedicated servers for all multiplayer games and the ability to run AI and physics calculations remotely in flagship titles such as Forza Motorsport 5 and Titanfall, we’ve already seen; speaking at this year’s Develop conference in Brighton, Fraser said what will come next.

Weather warning

The cloud, says Fraser, is as much an ethos of games development as it is a technological resource – the ability to “embrace uncertainty” and “be elastic” as developers face a world in which big games must sell tens of millions of copies to break even. The sales pitch is straightforward: Microsoft’s Azure and Xbox Live Compute servers are a vast, affordable pool of potential energy, which can be used for anything from analysing the behaviour of online communities to running the matchmaking that pairs you with similarly skilled Halo players. This can be made available to developers in moments, and it isn’t constrained by the limitations of the device you’re running a game on. This means that, among other things, the creators of the dinky HTML-based space-dogfighting sim Age of Ascent can field battles with 100,000 players a side: the game’s share of Azure’s grunt scales up smoothly as more combatants pitch in. It means that Respawn, a developer small enough to fit into one of Ubisoft Montreal’s broom cupboards, can draw on around 100,000 virtual machines at Titanfall’s launch. It means that AdultSwim can work out why nobody is able to complete a level in mobile driving game Delivery Outlaw by auto-generating a map of player wipeouts. It means that the creators of the Antstream service can run an enormous library of vintage games for ZX Spectrum, C64, Amiga 2600 and Sega Mega Drive straight out of your browser window, streaming

@OXM

the official xbox magazine / 11

Another Zoo Tycoon for Xbox One?

According to Microsoft Studios’ Matt Roberts, “the release of Zoo Tycoon: Friends doesn’t preclude our wanting to do any retail Zoo Tycoon games in the future”.

gameplay from a server (it’s still possible that Microsoft might elect to do the same with old Xbox 360 and Xbox games that aren’t supported by Xbox One). It means, in short, that even indie devs can deliver the same sort of hugely comprehensive online features as a massive publisher-owned studio. The cloud “democratises access to scale”, says Fraser. There are limitations, of course – the time it takes to bounce code from your Xbox to a server and back again means that the cloud isn’t useful for tasks that require an instant result, such as drawing in textures. But if you’re a developer as small as, say, Super Time Force creator Capybara, and you’d rather think about creating new games than the social and multiplayer features that are now all but mandatory, Azure has your back.

Look, she’s pointing at a cloud! It was almost certainly done with this very article in mind.

for the evolution of game design – and being able to update a game via the cloud to accommodate every little quirk of player behaviour is helpful. Microsoft’s attempting to lead the way with Zoo Tycoon: Friends, a beautifully animated tablet- and phone-based free-to-play spin on the Xbox One game that will grow to reflect the habits players form around it. A more exciting example is the Xbox One reboot of Crackdown, in

development at remote-processing specialist Cloudgine. Fraser showed us a demo of the formidable tech powering the game, in which you’ll not only get to lord it over a lustrous neon metropolis but blow it up, building by building. Thanks to the ability to run the physics calculations remotely, the framerate should remain stable while thousands of chunks of debris are pin-wheeling around the scenery. Fraser estimates that, at peak activity, the demo plays host to around 40,000 loose objects. It’s a controlled test, of course – the final game will have to

Hard rain

This is all part, reckons Fraser, of the rise of the idea that games are a service, rather than a standalone disc in a box. There’s been much discussion of the toxic aspects of this, mostly about freeto-play and dodgy microtransactions, but handled correctly it can make games better. Having to think about holding the player’s interest for months rather than the time it takes to click a purchase button is, in theory, great 12 / the official xbox magazine

Zoo Tycoon allows you to edit levels online. Could Halo 5: Guardians follow suit?

www.TOTALXBOX.coM

THIS month Coming up… more in this section we learnED...

Dictator sues Activision over Call of Duty

Former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega is suing Activision for including him in Black Ops 2. From prison. It’s unlikely to come to trial.

Just how Bungie created Destiny’s fabulous new world.

That the sky’s the limit as far as Xbox reboots go.

Just how much of Crackdown Xbox One’s city will you be able to destroy? Leave the off-licence alone, at least.

run AI, generate textures and deal with multiple players – but it’s extraordinarily impressive nonetheless.

Breaking ground

In the shorter term, Forza Horizon 2 inheriting the always-learning Drivatars of Forza 5 and Sunset Overdrive’s fluctuating city backdrop are evidence that the cloud benefits more than just small indie titles. Microsoft is also training up a neural network to play Atari 2600 games as convincingly as a real player. This seems an enterprise that would interest Ubisoft, among others: Assassin’s Creed multiplayer trades on the fact that it’s hard to distinguish between AI and human. Or, perhaps, the next Halo game, which will likely build on the venerated AI structures of its predecessors. Halo 4, it turns out, paved the way for Microsoft’s present

cloud gaming strategy: it made use of 40 separate cloud services at launch in Nov 2012, and helped persuade Fraser and co that server side computation would be “a big play”. The cloud, Fraser concludes, is “where we’ll see real innovation in the next few years – looking at these truly interactive worlds”. Again, if the precise uses of it aren’t always obvious, that reflects the fact that there are few real limits to what devs can do. “You’ve got scale, the ability to offload [tasks] from local devices. You can think about the unbounded and complex worlds you can potentially build, and different views on that world – from different devices, maybe even from different titles. You can think about how different fictions and narratives can be built into online worlds using procedural generation. You can talk about moving from AI in the cloud to a life in the cloud.” That sounds a lot more next-gen than higher-resolution explosions. EDWIN EVANS-THIRLWELL

//if the precise uses of the cloud aren’t obvious, that reflects the fact that there are few real limits to what devs can do with it// @OXM

That Los Santos is worth another visit, now that Xbox One’s involved.

That EA is basically the industry’s final boss – but it’s trying to change.

That Mirror’s Edge 2 is more about punching than its predecessor was. the official xbox magazine / 13

ten pro tips

this month:

How to create an online shooter that’s bigger than Halo

Bungie’s Jason Jones explains how the dream of scouring a solar system for exotic handcannons became a reality

“All core experiences must be delivered simply and directly.”

the same thing with you. Imagine gym, college – imagine if those experiences were solitary, with nobody there, nobody to check you in, nobody working out next to you.

…without knowing it

The first time you’re in Destiny, you believe you’re playing a campaign in an FPS. When you run into another human being, it’s an amazing, transformative experience.

Balance the difficulty

Easter Egg Bungie’s first ever game, Minotaur: The Labyrinths of Crete, was a multiplayer action RPG set in a randomly generated maze.

If you have the basic co-ordination to play a shooter, you can experience all Destiny has to offer. This isn’t really the hard part – it’s easy to make something accessible, if that’s the goal. The hard part is keeping it interesting to the advanced players, and there sure are a lot of them.

Create easy points of entry

Know your genre

We’ve learned our lessons from MMOs and Facebook games. But Destiny is a console FPS – it’s the kind of game we love to play, and it’s the game our fans love to play.

Aim broad

We’ve been really deliberate in Destiny in creating a broad range of activities, from co-operative to competitive, from solo to group, from casual to intense. Destiny can meet you wherever your mood, because not all players are the same, and not all players always feel the same way.

Keep surprising players

Our goal here is that every time someone sits down

14 / the official xbox magazine

Destiny has got to acknowledge that you usually come to computer games tired, impatient and distracted by all the cares of your real life. We have to remember that players don’t want to work hard to get involved in a game.

to play Destiny, they have a different experience than the last time. This experience of novelty is so powerful – it’s been another important goal to us from the beginning.

Consider the whole

One of the hardest questions we come across as developers is: how does a new idea fit in the game? Does it even fit in the game? Good ideas are not the problem, fitting them into one coherent experience – that’s the problem.

Let people share…

Everything you do in life is more fun if there are other people around doing

Keep the interface clean

Background Check Name Jason Jones Job title Co-founder, Bungie Bio Created games on Apple computers in high school, then formed Bungie with Alex Seropian in 1991. Oversaw the creation of the Marathon and Myth games for PC, then Halo: CE and Halo 2 for Xbox.

All core experiences must be delivered as simply and directly as possible. This has led us to do a couple of things – one of them is a big investment in UI, because we have a lot of complex information to convey in Destiny and we can do it in a way that is totally invisible.

Give people hope

There are dark and dangerous places and unabashedly beautiful places too. At its core, Destiny is a hopeful world. It’s a place worth fighting for, night after night, week after week, year after year. OXM www.TOTALXBOX.coM

Ryse 2 looks unlikely

Unconfirmed rumours of trouble at Crytek suggest that Ryse 2 is unlikely to go ahead. Sorry, Marius.

DASHBOARD All this started with a tweet. It might not be romantic, but it’s effective.

How Microsoft picks its remakes How Killer Instinct and Phantom Dust were renewed on Xbox One

f all the many surprises Xbox sprung on us last year, the biggest was Killer Instinct. A 1994 SNES game would never have been our pick to resurrect for Xbox One, and that it was so good was more surprising still. This year, Microsoft did it again: E3 confirmed the return of Phantom Dust, a real-time cardbased action-sorcery title for the original Xbox that’s so obscure it was nearly never published in the West at all. What dictates such oddball remakes? Persistence and luck, according to creative director Ken Lobb. “We absolutely loved the game when we launched it. Over the years, we have always bothered Phil [Spencer]. It’ll be ‘Hey, Killer Instinct!’ and he’s like, ‘someday’. ‘Hey, Phantom Dust!’ ‘Someday.’ With Phantom

Dust, I hadn’t talked to him in six or seven months, and some magical person decides to tweet him; it got a bunch of retweets. On this particular week, that was the catalyst.” Next, Microsoft looked for a studio. For Killer Instinct, the choice was simple: “We went to a bunch of developers, but Double Helix’s response was a literally handwritten love letter to Killer Instinct. ‘We have a machine in the office, we play all the time. Here’s what’s right, here’s what’s wrong, here’s what we would do based on your pitch. Oh, and by the way, here’s a playable prototype.’ For Phantom Dust we did exactly the same thing,

and one developer came back and said “we played this game, here are the cards that need to be tweaked, here’s what we like about the story... we’ll announce who they are later.” Does this mean we can look forward to annual remakes? “I would love to do that. But I have my day job, I’m on Sunset Overdrive, Crackdown, Scalebound. But let’s also have these pet projects. And yes, we are also already looking at what would come after this.” Should we start tweeting at Phil Spencer demanding that Brute Force remake, then? “It’s not a bad start,” says Lobb. “It definitely helps.” Sorry, @XboxP3.

//i’ve been bugging phil spencer to remake phantom dust for years//

in numbers > DATAPOINT: news in numbers > DATAPOINT: news in numbers >

@OXM

1080

10%

The number of days it took Titanfall’s Expedition pack to make it to Xbox 360 after its Xbox One release.

The number of ‘p’ that Battlefield Hardline will run in on Xbox One.

The expected boost in GPU power Xbox One developers could harness without Kinect. the official xbox magazine / 15

D A SH B O A RD THE BIG PICTURE. ONE IMAGE, ALL THE INFO

Looking Good, Feeling Five How GTA V’s Xbox One upgrade is wonderfully skin-deep What’s the story?

Rockstar has finally come clean and admitted that Grand Theft Auto 5 is coming to Xbox One. A scrubbed-up version will be available later this year, featuring improved graphics and more onscreen detail. Your existing GTA Online character will carry over.

Why should I care?

Because GTA V looked frankly astonishing on Xbox One, so it’ll be still more impressive on next-gen. It also ensures – as we foretold – that GTA Online will endure for the foreseeable future, which wasn’t the case when it was a purely last-gen release.

What happens next?

We wait for a release date, and fret over whether we buy it again over this autumn’s profusion of brand-new games. Once it’s out, expect to see more paid expansions for GTA Online as Rockstar continues to build it into an enduring online service.

Internet Inventory

The upgrade should bring new life to GTA Online. Rockstar’s promised “new jobs, new weapons, scores of new vehicles, new properties, and player customisations”.

Longsighted

Rockstar’s promised increased draw distances are certainly in evidence – where fog and texture pop-in used to dwell, we now have incredible clarity. Mount Chiliad should be incredible.

Gridlock

The game’s ability to render more on-screen should have an effect on how you play. Rush hour will now lead to authentically Californian traffic jams, which will affect mission timing.

16 / the official xbox magazine

www.TOTALXBOX.coM

Gearbox announces Battleborn

Gearbox has revealed what it’s doing instead of Borderlands: a cartoony twist on the multiplayer MOBA genre currently big on PC. It’s out next year, and we’ll have more details next issue.

Uppers & Downers This month’s temperature, taken

WHAT’S HOT?

1 New Year’s Resolution

Evolve

Our cover game’s looking and playing amazingly; just ask Team OXM’s intrepid hunting party on page 32.

There’s been no firm confirmation as to what resolution the game will run at, but Rockstar has promised that it’ll be an increase on Xbox 360’s upscaled 720p.

Negative Body Image

Character models appear to be getting a serious makeover. For instance, Trevor’s ‘individual’ lifestyle is now reflected in some delightful sores on his back. Yum.

2 Battlefield Hardline

It’s the Bad Boys simulator we never expected to want, and it’s got doughnuts you can swear at.

3 Closeup

Texture detail’s getting perhaps the biggest upgrade – a terrifying task when you think about it. Scuffed car wheel arches, unkempt wilds and watery depths – everything gets a touch-up.

Mortal Kombat X

Aoife giggles uncontrollably at demo reels of NetherRealm’s disgusting new fatalities. We guess that’s a good sign?

4 Metal Gear Solid V

You can attach balloons to almost anything. We’re going to pretend it’s Big Boss’ birthday for every mission.

WHAT’S NOT?

1 Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark Edwin now shouts at every car he sees, just in case it can hear him and feel bad.

//Rockstar’s promised “new jobs, new weapons, scores of new vehicles, new properties, and player customisations”// @OXM

2 Shape Up

We think Ubisoft’s Kinect fitness game looks pretty good, but the wider world appears not to care. the official xbox magazine / 17

opinion

There’s no such thing as a free lunch, so why should there be such a thing as free downloadable content? Ed is a bit mystified by the scale of the outrage around so m e of GTA V’s free add-ons

o quote Dr Samuel Johnson, creator of the first English dictionary, “when a man is tired of free rollercoaster rides in Grand Theft Auto V, he is tired of life”. And if you’re among those tired of free rollercoaster rides in GTA V, I’m tired of you. Shock and disgust was the order of the day for certain San Andreans on downloading the game’s free Independence Day update, which comprises various Starry and/or Stripey cars, guns, apparel and fairground attractions. The rollercoaster isn’t very fast, you see, and costs ten whole make-believe dollars. Ten dollars? Why, you’d have to mug at least one or two make-believe civilians to fill up a war chest of that magnitude. Is it any wonder there’s a recession on? These complaints form the tip of an iceberg of misgivings about GTA V, ranging from ( justifiable) annoyance that the promised co-op heists haven’t materialised yet, to (dubious) outrage that the 4th July update only contains one kind of motorcycle. And that iceberg is, of course, perched on a hundred-mile-long oceanic shelf of generalised resentment. One set of grumblers hold that companies like Take-Two Interactive now routinely get away with actual fraud – that modern creators are vampiric penny-pinchers who are screwing us with unfinished or buggy games, screwing us with high price points, screwing us with dropped features or waferthin story modes, and screwing us with in-game purchases.

Slash attack

I can sympathise, to an extent. Battlefield 4 is evidence that publishers don’t always have the consumer’s very best interests at heart: it was rushed out the door despite significant bugs. To poke another sore spot, digital prices for games that are also sold in stores remain determinedly high. 18 / the official xbox magazine

Admittedly, GTA V doesn’t exactly push the idea that greed is bad.

Call of Duty, meanwhile, keeps trying to sell us one game’s maps as the next game’s DLC, and though there are bright spots, freeto-play gaming on console at large is a gently corroding cauldron of microtransactions. But let’s keep things in perspective. According to a study carried out by our own Chris Schilling

Come on in, the water’s lovely! Oh, and that’ll be 99 cents an hour.

(see bit.ly/OXMprices), the price of a boxed videogame has stayed pretty level for the past decade, once you allow for economywide rises due to inflation. What has changed is that ‘proper’ videogames – the ones with licensed sports stars, big guns and cloth textures you can see from space – cost dramatically more to make. And players have never been more demanding, partly because they enjoy unprecedented access to creators via social media, partly because we take the internet’s cornucopia of freebies for granted, and partly because marketing frenzy around the biggest titles is such that we’re taught to expect nothing less than Saturn on a stick. In particular, a healthy array of post-release goodies now seems

//a healthy array of postrelease goodies now seem to be considered mandatory as part of a game’s up-front cost//

to be considered mandatory as part of a game’s up-front cost. In the recent past, this would have boiled down to weapon balance tweaks, bug fixes and the odd minor new feature. Lately, however, it has come to include maps, in-game items and modes, the sort of thing that used to be sold separately. And yet, none of this can be made for free. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not suggesting that Take-Two Interactive, a company that could buy a space shuttle with the proceeds from GTA V, needs the money. But isn’t GTA V already a spectacularly generous game, with its sun-baked freeways and military bases? Isn’t it a bit much to complain that we aren’t getting our just deserts? At the very least, I think we all need to tone down our language a bit. Having a company arrange matters so that microtransactions are required to complete a game may qualify as foul play, but ragging on a free rollercoaster feels like a parody of self-entitlement. Next month Aoife requests openworld games add a Tourist Mode. www.TOTALXBOX.coM

Dark Souls 2 likely for Xbox One

We’ve previously heard whispers of an Xbox One release for Dark Souls 2 – and now it’s appeared, briefly, on retailer sites. Seems legit.

D A S HB O AR D

OXM brings e3 to london Xbox One’s best, all in one room

ot all of Team OXM were lucky enough to visit E3 this year, so it seemed only fair that we organise some way to help a few more people get their hands on what Jonty and Aoife [cue much low growling from Joe and Edwin] were playing back in June. So it was that 25 of our most luckblessed readers, and their guests, descended on West London last month with nothing but the clothes on their backs and feverish dreams of Xbox One delights in their hearts. Filling a stately white-washed room with televisions, consoles, developers and tiny, tiny burgers, we spent an evening playing, watching and talking about Xbox One’s

upcoming lineup – and it turns out, it’s really rather impressive. From a veritable ton of Sunset Overdrive and Forza Horizon 2 stands, to full four-on-one games of Evolve and Fable: Legends, and some more exclusive pods showing off Ori and the Blind Forest and other prized projects from ID@Xbox supremo Chris Charla (who was on hand to talk us through the indie games on show), there was a genuine array of digi-talent on show – which naturally led to some embarrassing moments as we attempted to play.

Take Joe, who effortlessly sped through a tough section of Ori, before falling pitifully onto some spikes while celebrating, then realising he’d forgotten to use the game’s remote-save system. Cut to the Alien: Isolation booths, where some intense and prolonged screaming revealed that either Aoife or Ed (we’re still not sure which) had been in fake peril and hidden under a desk. Best of all was the corner set aside for weirdo Kinect-platformer Fru, where game artist Chi Wong had guests crawling, balancing and occasionally tumbling to the ground like terribly-made Jenga people in pursuit of the next objective. With co-op such a huge part of Microsoft’s output in the coming months, it seems only right to play these games with people. We’re planning more events for this year; watch totalxbox.com for details.

//there was a genuine array of digi-talent on show//

easter egg Two separate trays of glasses were smashed behind Joe as he played Ori. He was pretty good, to be fair.

This isn’t actually a picture of our portion of the event – we were having enough fun that we forgot to take

you’re fired! > quotes of the month > blah blah > he said what? > yadda “If fans say ‘we’d like this on a next-gen console’, we’ll think about that, but right now we’re concentrating on the consoles we know.”

“I’m really happy to be under the hard light of Twitter, even though it can be painful sometimes. We’re never going to stop listening.”

“ “Everybody working at the studio – everyone – whenever we say ‘what would you like to do next’, it’s TimeSplitters”

2K’s Tony Lawrence implies that fans drive where Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel! goes next.

ID@Xbox boss, Chris Charla reflects on the pros and cons of his open-all-areas programme.

Crytek UK’s Mark Jackson leads us to the inevitable question: ‘SO WHERE IS IT?’

@OXM

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DASH B O ARD a nearly-new world Castles in the cloud

Mojang is thinking about rentable servers for Xbox One – these are popular on PC, and there’s Microsoft’s scalable cloud support. “We are looking into different solutions, but we don’t know when it will work,” says Daniel Kaplan. “A lot of people would enjoy that.”

No microtransactions

Free-to-play Minecraft is out of the question, say Owen Hill – the original continues to sell thanks to injections of free, novel extras. “Minecraft wasn’t designed like that. Notch doesn’t work on it anymore, but I think he tweeted: ‘I hate free to play’.”

Quick cash-in

Minecraft Xbox 360 players can upgrade to Xbox One for just $4.99. If you bought the former on disc, “you’ll need to have at least a Silver Live account and have been signed in whilst playing” it, says 4J Studios’ Paddy Burns. If you downloaded it, the discount is automatic.

Chip off the old block

Minecraft for Xbox One is upon us. Here’s how the nextgen version builds on the best-selling Xbox 360 title

ive years since the very first version of the world’s most celebrated worldbuilding sim launched on PC, even Mojang doesn’t know why Minecraft makes so much money. The developer’s “chief word officer” Owen Hill is “consistently concerned” by this, in fact. “How are we still selling so many of these copies every day?” Business developer Daniel Kaplan, meanwhile, surveys the game’s spread to consoles, phones and tablets with the air of an emperor watching his armies descend on

20 / the official xbox magazine

neighbouring continents. “With the release of [the Xbox One version] I think we have fulfilled most of the needs for now,” he declares. “There aren’t many platforms left to release on.” One reason Minecraft’s popularity is unabated could be that it’s continually changing. While identical in many respects – “Ideally, we would change more things but for now we’re just making sure everything works,” says Kaplan – the Xbox One version supports worlds that are 36 times larger than those

on Xbox 360, and will follow its own evolutionary trajectory as Mojang and port developer 4J Studios roll out updates with each platform’s community in mind. These evolutions may be strikingly specific; Mojang has little patience for clinical talk about broad demographics. “If you start aiming Minecraft at your ‘average user’, I can imagine the game dulling down, you know?” says Hill. Initial updates should comprise bug fixes and tweaks, but beyond that? The sky certainly isn’t the limit. Find a few possibilities around this page.

www.TOTALXBOX.coM

This student project pits four, pad-controlled firefighters against a giant fireball controlled with Kinect. Bring it to ID@Xbox, please.

Pony up

What to expect from the first ‘proper’ Minecraft Xbox One update? Mojang and 4J would like to add horses to the game. “We’ve been planning that for quite a while,” says Daniel Kaplan. Owen Hill adds: “The horse thing is cool. If you don’t tame them properly, they jump all over.”

New ways to play

Players have built games inside Minecraft for ages, but options are limited on console. Mojang is thinking about bringing over faninvented PC modes to Xbox One. “It could happen,” says Owen Hill. “People would love it if we put Hunger Games on 360, as a separate little mode.”

Around the clock

There are “no plans” to stop updating the Xbox 360 version, says Paddy Burns, but some platforms may be updated earlier. “We will update all platforms at once, but due to different submission processes, it’s unlikely releases will happen at exactly the same time.”

How To Speak Developer Your guide to translating those interview gems

"This is a huge opportunity to redefine the gaming industry and deliver consumers a blockbuster entertainment experience." If I fill this interview with empty hyperbole, you’ll have to axe the feature and the PR will get in trouble rather than me.

"Our approach to storytelling is truly cinematic." Our approach to gameplay is truly non-interactive. You might as well go and make a cup of tea.

"The world has a really rich and deep lore."

Lock and key

Mojang isn’t keen on in-depth player-data tracking, even to harvest ideas for features, items and so on: “One policy was never to track what people do,” says Owen Hill. “Don’t need to, so why do it? It would be awesome to see, but we’re not going to start that kind of stuff.”

@OXM

One up, one down

Worlds aren’t uploaded and shared automatically with Xbox Live profile data – the large files require a separate slot in the cloud – but the process is straightforward. “You go in and upload your save file to be transferred later. Then it pops up, and you say, ’Download this one’.”

Verily, you can’t swing an axe of Frost Damage +2 without burying it in some poorly sub-edited Wheel of Time slash fiction. Forsooth.

"We’ve assembled a world-class voice cast."

We spent threequarters of the game’s entire budget on Malcolm McDowell’s one-take impression of a wizard.

the official xbox magazine / 21

easter egg Xbox director of development Carl Ledbetter is also the creator of one of the first computer mice with a rubber scroll wheel.

Wildfire spreads to Xbox One’s Kinect

D A S HB O AR D Putting the EA in evil Urban crime

Out with a bang

Fans despised Mass Effect 3’s original endings – one player tried to have EA charged with false advertising, claiming that the game did not allow players to “completely shape” the outcome. BioWare released an extended cut as free DLC.

Many players were irked by SimCity 5’s always-online requirement – particularly when servers fell over at launch, severely limiting the experience for weeks. EA Maxis later offered players a free game by way of apology.

EA versus the world Why does the FIFA publisher keep being voted the Worst Company in America, and how can it fix it?

lectronic Arts had a rough start to 2014, thanks mostly to grumbling about Battlefield 4’s online problems. But it has been spared, at least, the distinction of becoming the first organisation ever to win Consumerist.com’s influential Worst Company in America poll for three years running. Channelling anger over in-game micro-transactions, the publisher beat out the Bank of America in 2012 to claim the trophy; it repeated the trick the following year with an even larger share of the vote, allegedly thanks to lacklustre sequels, poor post-launch support and overpricing. EA’s response has been a mixture of defiance – as chief operating officer Peter Moore has argued, an entertainment company’s blunders surely aren’t as catastrophic as those of an international oil firm – and humility. EA chief executive Andrew Wilson has described the second win as a “wake-up call”, and according to PopCap’s senior franchise marketing manager Gary Clay, a “reputation committee” has been formed to address the fallout: “There are people across the entire organisation who are trying to make sure EA doesn’t fall into that category again.” We contacted two former EA executives, BAFTA Games chair Harvey Elliott and independent game consultant Ben Cousins, for their thoughts on the publisher’s performance so far. Echoing Moore, Elliott feels EA’s main problem is poor communication – particularly around micro-transactions and other monetisation tactics. “I think the company

22 / the official xbox magazine

has done a better job of being understood in the market over the past year or so, and is clearer about the sort of relationship it wants to have with customers,” he observed. “I think it is more direct about how games are monetised.” EA is “a fantastic company” on the whole, as far as Elliott’s concerned, “and one I am proud to have worked at. It is of course a corporation, with a revenue target and a bottom line to make, but I think that overall it goes about it in the right way, with the customer in mind for everything it does.” The outlook isn’t as rosy for Cousins: “In my opinion, EA suffers from a ‘profit first’ mentality and culture, rather than a ‘customers first’ mentality,” he told us. “Putting customers first, if done correctly, will lead to huge profits.” Addressing this ethos will require “a huge effort”, Cousins went on, and ‘accolades’ like the WCIA have a part to play here. “I think the principle – ‘naming and shaming’ companies that upset consumers – is a great idea.” It’s important, of course, not to conflate online polls with general opinion: “[They tend] to draw focus (and votes) to companies that upset a certain type of highly connected, internet-savvy person.” Nonetheless, “EA is clearly doing something wrong. Otherwise there would not be this perception.” While adamant that EA is mindful of its errors, Gary Clay feels that a certain amount of negativity is inevitable: “When you’re at that level of reach, some people are going to be unhappy, and the key balance is ensuring that you listen to the feedback and then adapt.”

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No story for Forza Horizon 2

Playground’s open-world Xbox One and Xbox 360 opus will cater to single-players, but it won’t have an actual narrative. Instead, you’ll “form your own narratives with real people”.

DODGING THE BULLET Why didn’t EA win the Worst Company in Amercia award this year?

Harvey Elliott reckons the company escaped censure this year by ”identifying other companies that have been more in the news” and “answering back” with quality games such as Titanfall. Ben Cousins has a gloomier assessment: “The US broadband infrastructure is broken, and this year was a tipping point in people’s frustration with monopolies and lack of investment. EA were up against Time Warner Cable in the first round, and Comcast ultimately won.”

Rumour & Speculation Five of the biggest bits of Xbox gossip this month

Capcom Vancouver is 1working on two

new games, one of which is a new Dead Rising. Likelihood: 9/10 Excitement 7/10

Mafia 3 is in development at 2K’s recently refreshed Marin studio. Likelihood: 6/10 Excitement: 3/10

The Witcher 4 is being planned to incorporate your choices from The Witcher 3. Likelihood: 9/10 Excitement: 8/10

Playing for keeps

EA Mythic’s Dungeon Keeper mobile reboot was an unapologetic Clash of Clans clone, loaded with inapp purchases. EA chief exec Andrew Wilson admitted that the company hadn’t “walked the line” between the original and new game mechanics.

//Peter Moore argued an entertainment company’s blunders aren’t as bad as those of an oil firm// @OXM

BioWare’s next 4will Mass Effect launch in 2015.

Likelihood: 6/10 Excitement: 10/10

Microsoft is making 5 an AR headset

that lets you move projected objects with your hands.

Likelihood: 5/10 Excitement: 9/10 the official xbox magazine / 23

DA S HBOA R D updates – new info on the big games

Future buildings will be made out of the teeth from Colgate ads. So will teeth.

This is as close as Faith ever gets to a nice rest. Kit Kat and cuppa just out of shot.

update

Publisher EA / Developer DICE / Format Xbox One / ETA TBC

Mirror’s Edge 2

DICE is bigging up the combat. We’re cautiously impressed Why has everything gone white? Am I dead? Don’t worry, you’re just looking at some Mirror’s Edge 2 screenshots. Boosts to resolution and character detail aside, the sequel matches the original – environments are a searing symphony of blues and whites until you approach something you can run up, jump off or climb on, whereupon things will turn a lovely, bouncy crimson.

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So the world is more complex than it looks?

More complex than ever. DICE has yet to say much about the game’s city, but an EA exec has referred to it as an “open world”, so exploration could be a huge focus. That said, individual areas still appear to be structured like branching race courses: you’ll want to come back and revisit them in search of shortcuts.

Does it play like the original?

Seemingly, it’s much more of a fisticuffs-driven game. DICE is out to create “the best first-person close combat in the world”. Leading lady Faith retains many old moves – wall-run kicks, disarms, jumping on people – but these can be chained together much faster. DICE suggests we think of her as a projectile, ricocheting off people on its way to the exit.

Sounds a bit brutal for Mirror’s Edge.

Yes, we’re a little bit worried about that. As Joe writes on page 104, the first game is unique because it encourages you to shy away from conflict – going full Jackie Chan on people will usually end in Faith’s demise, or at the very least a dismal level completion time. We hope the sequel doesn’t stray too far on this count.

Is there a story context for this?

Possibly. The new Mirror’s Edge seems to be a coming-of-age story, given that the teaser shows Faith acquiring her iconic tattoos, and if there’s one thing we know about people who are coming of age, it’s that they’re full of unresolved anger – the perfect emotion for punching policemen. Just stay away from the guns, Faith.

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update

D4 is said to be the exploration of a tortured psyche, but it’s got a healthy sense of humour.

Publisher Microsoft Studios / Developer Access Games Format Xbox One / ETA TBC

Solving crimes with Kinect gestures is elementary, my dear Watson Who am I?

You’re David Young – private detective, practitioner of melodrama and a man who can travel into the past by touching objects that are pungent with mystique, such as a woman’s misplaced high-heeled shoe. Somebody killed your wife a few years ago and you’re understandably a bit put out by this. The only clue to her murderer is a letter, “D”. Hmm. David starts with a “D”…

Why am I in this bath tub?

It’s safest not to ask. In keeping with creator Swery’s previous work, D4 is all about jarring plot shifts and borderline absurdity. You probably shouldn’t worry about that woman who’s just walked in with a rat in her mouth, either. Oh look, now she’s trying to beat you up. It’s just as well D4’s Kinect

controls are both well-tuned and built around sweeping, casual gestures rather than fiddly little interactions. There’s controller support if you’re struggling, mind you.

So is this an action game, or a puzzler?

It’s many things. There’s a touch of the classic PC adventure genre to how you’ll poke around each area, studying objects for hints about the next plot point – but then again, the fact that each activity is often tied to a distinct set of gestures calls to mind a minigame compilation such as Kinect Sports Rivals. The combat, meanwhile, is a branching QTE that’s played for laughs: you may end up with a rat in your own mouth. D4 is nothing if not a celebration of the human imagination. We hope our tendons can keep up.

This being a detective story, the cast is loaded with a large selection of femmes fatales. @OXM

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DASHBOA R D updates – new info on the big games

The Call of Duty cast continue to be largely male, white and lantern-jawed.

update

Publisher Activision / Developer Sledgehammer Games / Format Xbox 360 & Xbox One / ETA 4 Nov

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare Sledgehammer’s Xbox One debut takes a six-legged tank to Seoul

More like Bore of Duty, am I right?

No, you are not. Say what you like about Call of Duty’s penchant for blowing things up in lockstep but it has given rise to some very memorable moments, and Advanced Warfare’s EXO suit allows for more options within those tight parameters: tearing the door off a car to use as a shield, for instance.

Isn’t that just PR waffle, though?

Look, it’s clearly still a corridor shooter, but it feels a lot freer thanks to the suit. At E3, we watched in awe as Private ‘Robocop’ Mitchell bounced around Seoul like a tank on a space hopper. The jet thrusters are particularly handy against shot-gunners. Now you see me… and now you’re a wet patch on the carpet.

You’ll once again be ushered through many chapters by AI helpmates. 26 / the official xbox magazine

Does it look the part?

Yes. It runs on an almost-total revision of the Call of Duty engine. According to the tech heads at Digital Foundry, you can expect at least a 50 per cent jump in pixel count. There’s also much more going on in the background – skyscrapers reflect the outlines of vast hovercraft, drone swarms emerge from side alleys.

Any downers?

Well, the framerate could do with a bit of a shot in the arm: it often falls below the franchise’s supposedly missioncritical 60-frames-asecond benchmark, which could be a problem in multiplayer. Still, this is early footage that, among other things, may not reflect graphics boosts offered by Xbox One’s June development kit update.

Going to the toilet in one of those must be murder. Unless… no, don’t think about it.

So a definite improvement on Ghosts, then?

Much will depend on how the suit’s abilities transfer to multiplayer. In theory, the ability to double-jump over a rank of parked cars, cloak yourself, kick airlocks open and strafe faster than a speeding bullet represent a sea change for head-to-head. Maps will need to be larger with multiple elevations to compensate for the new movesets. We’re keen to see how things such as self-piloting grenades (which hover, then homein) and one-way-only energy barriers affect the classic FPS tactics of corner camping and quickscoping, to say nothing of the new directed energy weapons. The mystery is good: we haven’t been truly intrigued by a Call of Duty game for a while. www.TOTALXBOX.coM

XBOX T O-D O L IS T

s av e t h e dat e s

the guide

Aug us t m ea ns su n, sea, sa nd a nd a s m or gasbor d of s tuff to add to your su m m er sched u le

1st AUGUST

8TH AUGUST

Ultra Street of the Galaxy 03Fighter IV 02Guardians The Marvel Cinematic Universe gets a little bigger today with this tale of outlaw misfits unexpectedly brought together to thwart the evil schemes of Thanos.

13th – 17th August

See the future at Gamescom 2014

Two months after the madness of E3, the games industry descends upon Cologne, Germany for the next round of reveals at Gamescom. We already know Remedy is showcasing Quantum Break – keep an eye on totalxbox.com for all the other news as it happens.

19th August

25th August

3: the Ultimate Evil doctor 06Diablo 07call Stay a while and listen a little longer, as last year’s addictive Diablo 3 comes to Xbox One in an updated package bundled with the Reaper of Souls expansion. @OXM

Doctor Who’s got an (older) new face with Peter Capaldi taking over, but we suspect he’s still getting into plenty of timey-wimey trouble. Catch up via BBC iPlayer.

15th August

3: Titan Lords 04Risen

Abandoning the pirate themes of Risen 2 to return to the original’s medieval setting, will Risen 3 scratch that RPG itch while we await Dragon Age: Inquisition?

29th August

If you didn’t grab the addon, you can now get what Aoife calls “the definitive version” of Ultra Street Fighter IV in a handy all-inone package from today.

16th -17th August

some v good music 05Enjoy

With Justin Timberlake and The Killers, this year’s V Festival features a range of treats for anyone who enjoys their music with an outdoor flavour.

TBD August

City: A Dame a to Kill For Block Party 08Sin 09Have Old faces return and some new ones will be introduced. Expect this stylised thriller to be no less gritty, bloody and eye-catching than its 2005 predecessor.

Finally, Minecraft gets an Xbox One makeover. Even better: Xbox 360 Edition owners can upgrade for a huge discount, bringing previous worlds along, too. the official xbox magazine / 27

Messages Official Xbox Magazine, 2 Balcombe St, London, NW1 6NW

Love letters, death threats, and some stuff about games… your comments on the mag and on Xbox

nce the E3 dust settles, you tend to stop thinking about what new games are on their way, and start obsessing over what you’re not getting instead. It’s a phenomenon that happens every year – which might explain why this month’s page covers skating games, Destiny’s extra content, No Man’s Sky and a Vanquish sequel. Can you lot not be satisfied, for once in your lives?

Star

Letter

Prize: GRID Autosport on Xbox 360 The best piece of correspondence wins a game from Jon’s swag bag

Technological Marvel

In my opinion, the Batman Arkham series has set the bar for licensed games. That said, I have no doubt a movie tie-in Batman game would have been woeful [we’re shivering at the thought of the Batman Begins game on Xbox – Team OXM]. Surely the smart thing for a game to do would be to add to the movie rather than emulate, continuing or bridging to the next movie in the same way as the Marvel universe has grown? Malcolm Purves There’s a lot to be said for the ‘extended universe’ approach – you won’t need the ‘film clip as a cutscene’ thing, for starters. Letting developers think outside a story template helps create something interesting – we’d like to see a Best Exotic Marigold Hotel shmup.

Skate – a criminally unsung series of last gen. Says Joe.

Ground Down

I’m patiently waiting for a skating or snowboarding game to be announced for Xbox One. There seems to be a decline in these games but they have always been my favourite. A next-gen Skate game would be incredible but looks less likely all the time. I don’t know if any of your guys feel the same as me and could write about it. James Dopson This email doesn’t so much strike a chord with Joe as sound an entire orchestra of rusty French horns in his head. You should have seen him during EA’s E3 keynote, trembling in anticipation of a Skate 4 reveal. And when it didn’t come? Well, he would have ground a gnarly, insolent darkslide into the horizon if skating games weren’t the only place he could possibly come close to pulling that off. But Sunset Overdrive looks alright, eh?

Desti-nay?

I have been an Xbox gamer since launch and have invested a lot of time and money into far too many games for my girlfriend’s liking. My next purchase was to be Destiny. I say “was to be”, as I may have changed my mind. The game looks fantastic – my problem is all this “first on

from the mouths of TOTALXBOX.COM Excerpted comments from our website 28 / the official xbox magazine

PlayStation” and “exclusively on PS4” business. I get that it’s to sell PS4, but it makes me not want to buy it for Xbox. My girlfriend says I’m being childish, but I see it as flying the green flag. Ian Falconer Ian, we appreciate and empathise with your unstinting support for our favourite console, but we really must point out that Destiny appears to be rad as hell, even if we’ll have to wait a carefully specific period of time to get some of the DLC. Don’t deny yourself the pleasure just because someone else’s robot will dress up like Sackboy or something.

Desti-yay!

Activision’s announced $500 million investment into Destiny is interesting. I pay full price for very few games, as otherwise I simply could not afford to experience all of those I want. Having learned about the money that goes into AAA games, however, I decided to pre-order Destiny, because the game is worth what I’ll pay. It’s worth it because of Activision’s investment, because of the time and effort put in at Bungie, and because if we don’t splash out on games like this, there are likely to be far fewer of them in the future. Adam A You never felt cheated by your deaths, and the destruction was brilliant. You could level buildings, make your own doors. Pure sandbox. Bezza89 remembers Bad Company 2

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That’s an equitable way of looking at big business. We’d contest that major investment can lead to overstuffed teams and diluted vision as easily as, well, GTA V – but Bungie’s cosmic shooter does seem to be in the latter camp. AAA can get a bad rap, but if the costs justify the results, long may it continue.

Social Services Your best/least libellous Twitter and Facebook replies

Argh-Rated

What is your opinion on underage gamers (little kids playing 18-rated games, for instance)? I personally think they should not. I admit, I do play Halo: Reach once in a while, but that’s it. I’ve heard my little brother’s friends, who are like 6 years old, play games like Mortal Kombat and Left 4 Dead. But that’s just crossing the line. Krzysztof Panfil Krzysztof didn’t include his age, so we can’t make any definitive verdict on whether he’s a CRIMINAL, but we’re more shocked at his brother’s friends’ ability to play those games. Obviously they shouldn’t, we won’t insult your intelligence on that count, but more surprising is that they’d even want to – we remember thinking the horror level filled with living tomatoes in Gex was pretty darn terrifying.

Victory for Ergonomy

I’d like to thank Microsoft’s design team. My fiancée struggles with arthritis and all this weekend her fingers were in pain. Nothing would

free them up. Then today she saw me playing World of Tanks and decided she wanted to try it. Within her first match holding an Xbox 360 controller her fingers felt better, and her pain went away. I think it’s great how Microsoft have such a well-designed controller. The only problem now is that she’s taken over my Xbox. Aaron Matthews

Wait, have we made this whole page unsuitable for children now? Damn.

That is excellent news. Xbox has always been big on its controller design (look how quickly The Duke got punted) and we imagine stories like these make the kind of people who are employed to look at hands all day wave their own jubilantly in the air.

//If we don’t splash out on games like Destiny, there will be far fewer in the future//

The Annotated… Destiny

Has Bungie ostracised Xbox owners with PS4-first content? What a goober. I don’t know why they think this shouldn’t bother Xbox fans. They shouldn’t act so dumb. Cozzie40

It’s just the same as COD on Xbox. I’m sure there will still be plenty to do without a map and a few guns. Its Just Rave

Remember that Bungie and Microsoft didn’t part on the best of terms. Bungie wanted to do something new. phil22hall

The devs really do speak a load of guff. No weather system on 360’s Forza Horizon 2? PGR did it years ago. hazy33 won’t accept a ‘no’

@OXM

A year does seem like a long exclusive. Not sure if that’s a good thing for Bungie or its fans. Englands Own

As long as micro-transactions stay out of the loop, I’m ok with it! Topher2

Assassin’s Creed multiplayer has always been solid, but it was at its best in Brotherhood. I am glad they dropped it: co-op should be good. Maximus T looks to the future

It’s easy to mod a 360 – you have to chant the magic words, something along the lines of “izzy whizzy, let’s get busy”. FishyGinger is some kind of mage

Team @OXM are the worse for drink. Just took two people five minutes to change the batteries in an Xbox pad. @MrJonty At least Xbox fans still get to play Bungie’s latest. What Insomniac did to the PS fanbase is worse. @Yanksfan_03 Excited about Homefront: The Revolution after reading about it in @OXM. I enjoyed the original game & the sequel looks 10x better. @george_hopkin I hope they do make a Wolfenstein sequel. Maybe ditch the old boss battles, I thought they were the only disappointing parts. Brilliant game. @MoronFreeGamers I’d personally like to see MachineGames have a crack at a Fallout game. They’ve proved they are a capable bunch with Wolfenstein. David Hallam I just love Dynasty Warriors’ roster, diversity of weapons and moves with each weapon. So many clothes to choose from. If they bring all that into an Xbox One release & have nice, big levels with awesome draw distance, it should be a contender against AAA titles. Lindsey Deanshaw Vanquish was an AWESOME game. They really need to make a sequel to that. Seriously. Waddy Santiago Outlast actually made me jump. That hasn’t happened since the original Resident Evil game. Playing this has made me a little bit more excited for Alien: Isolation now. Sjon Chris

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fe at ure

2K compares the Goliath to Mike Tyson. We think he looks like Brian Blessed.

BIG GA 30 / the official xbox magazine

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E V O L v E Surely a barbershop quartet isn’t out of the question.

Turtle Rock’s four-vs-one sci-fi shooter looks set to reinvent asymmetrical multiplayer. Here’s how the average match might go very right or terribly wrong

The sight of distant birds taking off in panic. The lonely warble of a motion detector. The thunder of enormous, approaching feet. No other shooter looks, sounds or feels quite like Evolve, in which four Hunters pit harpoons, flame-throwers and forcefield traps against a huge, agile alien predator that’s prone to dramatic growth spurts. Created by the developers of the original Left 4 Dead, the game is effectively two multiplayer games in one – a tactical first-person co-op blaster in which you scour lush maps ridden with deadly AI critters for signs of your quarry, joined at the hip to a third-person Godzilla sim. With Xbox getting both an exclusive beta this autumn and early access to post-release DLC, it’s sure to be a hit on Live. We’ve played for hours, experimenting with eight Hunter types and two breeds of monster – the flight-capable, electricity-shooting Kraken, and the melee-oriented, boulder-throwing Goliath. Join Joe, Ed, Turtle Rock’s Chris Ashton and 2K’s Iain Willows for a breakdown of how a typical match can unfold.

@OXM

the official xbox magazine / 31

fe at ure Harpoon mines take a few seconds to arm, so try to lead the target.

“the hunters are most dangerous when they’re closest-knit” TIME ▼ 0:01

▼ 1:20

Teams spawn Ed: “The trick to spawning in Evolve is that both sides appear in the same place: the monster has 30 seconds to itself before the Hunters descend from their dropship. How you use those 30 seconds can be decisive. The obvious approach is to leg it – the Hunters are most dangerous, after all, when they’re closest-knit – but one of our opponents during the hands-on simply backs up a few feet and spanks us with lightning as we touch down. As a Hunter, try to arrive with a plan of action in place. Are you going to head out as a group, or split into pairs?”

32 / the official xbox magazine

▼ 2.42

Hunters spot the monster for the first time >

Monster feeds on wildlife > Ed: “As the monster, you’ll evolve to larger, more powerful forms by eating enough critters to trigger a (highly vulnerable) cocoon state. The larger and angrier the critter, the more of your gauge it’ll fill. Beware, though – big predators like the aquatic Tyrant won’t come quietly, and any corpses you leave might give away your presence. Hunters have much less to gain from annoying the fauna, but it might be worth nobbling the odd elite starred creature to acquire a passive perk – or prevent the monster doing likewise.”

Chris Ashton: “I’m always scared when I’m a Stage 1 monster. We didn’t really think about that tension when we initially designed the game, but it’s an exciting thing and it adds to that adrenaline rush. I think people who get into that vibe are really going to like playing the monster. We see people experiment with early attacks initially – but it’s designed for that to not go very well. But you’ll see, once you get your skill level up it opens the door. Looking at our telemetry, we might have anywhere between 15-20% Stage 1 monster wins, so there’s still a threat!”

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E V O L v E

Q&A 2K International Iain Willows, producer

How has Evolve changed during development? The monster used to be in firstperson. We had it in play-test and it worked well in certain situations but not in others. So when you’re harpooned by the harpoon gun in third-person, you can see the harpoon beam. If you’re in first-person you’ve got no idea what’s happened. Does being multiplayer-focused limit the game’s appeal? I see it for its strengths. What’s cool is you’re playing something that doesn’t exist, instead of the traditional multiplayer game where you’ve got the kind of symmetrical experience. To offer something completely asymmetrical is new and fresh. If you like co-op games, play as Hunters. If you like single player, then play on the Monster side. Did you ever think five players wasn’t enough? You add more players, you focus less on all those players. You’ve got three team members to look out for and work with - add more and you start to lose track.

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“the monster’s smello-vision highlights other lifeforms” B e a stl y b e h a vio u r

As the monster, don’t waste your time punching the Assault’s energy shield. ▼ 6:17

Hunters trap monster in dome >

Assault caught by megamouth, freed by Trapper > Joe: “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been ambushed and swallowed by Evolve’s giant toad wildlife. Not because I don’t know, but because of how embarrassing it is. The first few times are reasonable enough (Turtle Rock’s done a great job of making the camouflaged aggressors look like, well, turtly rocks) but my continued idiocy is proof of just how aware of your surroundings the game forces you to be, not to mention how tight a team needs to be – the only means of escape is through the help of others.”

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▼ 7:12

Support spots Monster > Ed: “’View halloo!’ is what English fox-hunters say when they sight the quarry. All I can manage is incoherent squealing. There are several recon abilities spread across the classes, all with pros and cons. Maggie’s pet Trapjaw Daisy will home in on the beast, but you’ll have to stick together for this to be effective. Bucket the robot’s head is a detachable UAV which can tag the monster with radar darts, but Bucket’s defenceless while controlling the drone. The monster has the edge here: its Smell-o-Vision penetrates walls and highlights other lifeforms.

Iain Willows: “When we know that the mobile arena is going to run out, generally there are only a few exit routes, especially on this map with the cave systems. And if you’re playing as Maggie, it all comes down really to ten seconds: go to those exits; put down the harpoon traps. As the dome comes down and the monster is trying to flee, he’ll be trapped in them and can’t get away. Then you call in Val to tranq the guy.”

Use the wildlife When fleeing the Hunters, try to clip the edge of an NPC predator’s territory. With any luck it’ll rear up and eat your pursuers. Why not join the fun? Drop-kill The Kraken has a shockwave ability that inflicts huge damage, but takes a few seconds to charge. Try charging in mid-air, then dropping down as it activates to catch Hunters by surprise. Camp the corpse If the other team has Lazarus as a Medic, keep blasting any KO’d players – you might splash Lazarus as he moves in to heal them while cloaked. Hide near the spawn Creating distance isn’t always effective. Try hiding near the spawn rather than running away. Wait for the Hunters to disperse, then ambush any stragglers. Mine the generator The Kraken can cough up self-guiding energy mines. It may be worth dropping some by the generator, to surprise the Hunters when they try to fortify the position.

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Fortunately, fire won’t spread to the surrounding plants.

Team

S pi r it

Never Split Up Your team’s only stronger than the monster when everyone’s contributing to piercing its scaly/ slimy carapace, so stick together, and save anyone waylaid by wildlife. Don’t Be a Hero The monster’s better than humans – its smello-vision is proof of that. As soon as a player strays, expect them to be detected, killed and – probably – devoured. Steal a Meal The monster relies on wildlife to grow – culling the local population stops it wandering into him, and could prove a useful honey trap for an inexperienced enemy player. Play to your Strengths Every class has pros and cons – doing someone else’s job will get you nowhere. A trapper has no right rushing in, just as the assault wastes time by spotting. Use Your Environment The monster’s most obvious giveaway is its glowing tracks, but keeping an eye on startled birds, panicked wildlife – and looking to the sky – will lead to quicker captures.

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“stage 2’s probably the most important moment for the monster player” ▼ 9:13

▼ 10:01

Hunters strip away Monster’s armour > Ed: “The monster’s armour can be restored by eating things, but any health it loses is gone for good. To have any hope of surviving the endgame, then, you need to trap it in the dome for long enough to make a lasting dent. Watch out for monsters that hide behind chunks of scenery till the demo’s battery runs down – use toxic grenades, turrets or electricity mines to control its movements. If you’re playing as the monster, use abilities in sequence so that each power recharges while you’re using another.”

▼ 11:34

Monster evolves to stage 2 >

Monster knocks out Trapper, escapes dome > Chris Ashton: “Early on, one of the biggest worries was that you’d hunt for the monster, find him and then there’d be this big fight – it might last two minutes, and then the game would be over. We’re using a very similar pacing system to the one we used for the AI Director in Left 4 Dead, but instead of driving the AI, the pacing system now drives the teams’ abilities and mobility. It allows the two teams to find each other and fight, and then it allows somebody to escape. It results in a more well-rounded experience, and better pacing – it’s a lot more like a roller coaster ride.”

Joe: “Stage 2’s probably the most important moment for the monster player. The second set of points you spend on abilities will shape the game to come. Stage 1 gives you the bare minimum to stay alive, Stage 3 is an opportunity to beef up across the board – but Stage 2 is when you commit to a playstyle. Will you stay ranged, invest in stealth or go all-out aggressive? As Kraken, I spend my second set of points on a fully-powered lightning strike attack, and immediately become a winged storm god. Until I’m harpooned to the floor and have little else to protect myself with.”

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E V O L v E

Q&A Turtle Rock

Chris Ashton, co-founder Were there any monster ideas that didn’t make the cut? We actually went way more weird, initially. We had really bizarre monsters with no mouth, no eyes, or their head was in a weird place. The cool thing about Evolve is that the door is wide open once the game comes out. And by that time players should have a basic familiarity with how the wider game works, too. Exactly. I mean, Goliath is our most straightforward monster, and the most humanoid monster – we wanted to make sure people had something as recognisable as possible on the monster side initially. Then we’ll get weirder and start exploring more interesting directions as we go. So is this part of a DLC campaign, sequels, or is it about seeing how the community reacts? We’re definitely looking to see how the community reacts. With Evolve, the way the whole game fits together means we can make new maps, new environment types, new wildlife, new monsters and hunters. It’s designed to have a long life.

▼ 12:30

If you’re caught by a mine, use the Goliath’s stampede ability to clear it.

Precision aiming is laudable, but impractical. Just hold the trigger down.

▼ 13:23

▼ 16:55

Hunters regroup to heal up >

Monster ambushes Medic, but is driven away by Assault > Iain Willows: “When I play as the monster, I know that the Assault isn’t going to be the first target because he can shield himself, and the monster is that powerful that he can go round in circles trying to take out the Medic. But the Support can use his shield to protect the Medic. And the Medic has got his own cloak, and the Trapper can use the harpoon trap to keep the monster away. And all that time the monster is focused on taking out the Medic or Support. Who’ve you got on your back?”

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Chris Ashton: “It’s very important that not only your teammates know what kind of gear you’re carrying, but also the monster player, so that everyone can strategise and counter-strategise. We hope that everyone can find a character that they can fall in love with, and we think that having 12 actually lets us go quite a bit wider on the range of styles and personality. With Left 4 Dead’s four characters – everybody needed to like them. We couldn’t afford to have a controversial one, or that some liked and others didn’t. But with 12, we can afford to push their personalities a bit more.”

Trapper harpoons monster > Chris Ashton: “Maggie has harpoon traps, and she can lay five of those out in the world. The basic tutorial videos show you everything she’s got, and that’s effective at getting someone into the game – they switch items and try everything out. But then we find that to be effective as Maggie you need to know some next-level stuff, so with the harpoon traps we tell the player to spread them out. If you cluster them together, the monster can use one attack to break all of your traps. Spreading them out means the monster has to use five attacks to break all five.”

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Val’s healing beam may give away a cloaked player’s location.

C l a ss S e ssion

How to pick between Evolve’s characters Assaults: Markov vs. Hyde Assault’s probably the most homogenous class, but there are key differences. Markov’s Lightning Gun is useful for eliminating whole flocks of wildlife, but Hyde’s Flamethrower is perfect against sniper-caused monster weak spots. Trappers: Griffin vs. Maggie Harpoons are the name of the game, here, but how you use them can differ immensely. Griffin’s Harpoon Gun is perhaps more useful than Maggie’s contextual traps - but his Sound Spikes are harder to gauge than Maggie’s pet snifferbeast, Daisy. Medics: Val vs. Lazarus The difference between Medics is perhaps the most interesting choice any team can make right now. Val’s long-range Medgun keeps players alive, but with Lazarus onside you almost want them to die first – his Lazarus Device brings any slaughtered buddy back to life with health to spare. Supports: Hank vs. Bucket Mad-eyed Hank is a friendshielding, monsterorbital-barraging, lasercutting machine, whereas posh robot Bucket is both a literal machine and prefers a more subtle approach: dropping floating turrets, firing laser-guided missiles from afar and using his own head as a roaming UAV.

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“the closer you stray to ultimate boss status, the more visible you are” Xxxx xxxxxx x xxx xx xxxx > ▼ 20:12

Xxx xx xx xxxxx x xxxxxxx > ▼ 22:34 Monster evolves to stage 3 >

Monster severely wounded, but escapes > Joe: “The monster has one very powerful, but easily forgotten, tool to use against the Hunters: the sneak function. This eliminates the bioluminescent footprints and is as useful a tool for escape as it is attack. In one game, Ed attacks my party, makes off with his life (and one of ours) and enters a nearby cave system. Following his prints, we end up at a junction – where they disappear. We argue for a few moments, then get attacked by a gigantic crabspider thing we’ve disturbed. Ed is a crafty bastard.”

Ed: “There’s a slight downside to power: the closer you stray to ultimate boss status, the more visible you are and the harder it is to play games using the terrain. The Kraken sprouts bright blue dorsal nodules at Stage 2, making it a tempting target for Bucket’s remoteguided missiles. Still, by the time you reach Stage 3 there’s less incentive to be subtle. You only have so long to take down the map’s generator, and the Hunters pose much less of a threat. So by all means walk right into the middle of the hunting party and throw a massive tantrum.”

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E V O L v E

“you can’t be a spare wheel in this game” Even monsters get scared. Dare you to run directly towards this chain gun.

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▼ 23:57

Hunters fall back to generator, kill wildlife for perks, lay traps > Joe: “The sections in which the monster’s able to attack the generator – which only becomes an available objective at Stage 3 – are my favourite in the game; but only as a Hunter. Suddenly, your roaming party becomes a Zulu-style last line of defence. You know the monster is bigger and stronger than all of you – the only way you’re getting out is through sheer hard graft. You lay every trap you have, bark orders at one another and wait. And wait. When the first team member spots the monster, it’s a thrill like little else.”

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▼ 26:45

▼ 28:15

Monster kills three Hunters >

Monster attacks generator > Ed: “Your best friends at this point are abilities that knock the Hunters away from you. On the maps we’ve played, the objective is located on a raised platform, so a well-timed vortex blast or boulder throw could take one combatant out of action for long enough to either eat the players he or she is supposed to be protecting or smack a few chunks out of the generator. Resist the temptation to attack the generator while you’re taking damage. Force the Hunters to retreat first.”

Ed: “Last man standing? Run like the wind, Bullseye. Or more sensibly, like you’re being chased by a Pikachu the size of a double-decker bus. One of the highlights of our demo saw Joe’s character huddled out of sight like a scared child, staring into a wall to hide his torch beam while the rest of the team waited to respawn. The monster, of course, was able to spot him using its magic smell-o-vision. Apparently, you can stand in water to become totally invisible. Beware hungry fish, though.”

Hunters respawn, battle recommences > Iain Willows: “You can’t be a spare wheel in this game, that’s the cool thing about the class system. If there’s no healing going on then the team is in trouble. The main damage from the team has to come from Assault. With the Support class, the difference between Hank and Bucket is that Bucket is much more aggressive. He’s the guy with the weapons, the turrets, UAV.” ■

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BATTLEFIELD HARDLINE

The game’s story (and multiplayer) takes place in LA and Miami.

Grand Theft B a tt l e f i e l d WORDS: Andy Hartup

How Dead Space developer Visceral s tole our at tention with its cops-vs-criminal take on Xbox ’s mos t accomplished shooter series

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here are some parts of the community that say, ‘Hardline is not a Battlefield game’. So says Karl Magnus Troedsson, chief executive of DICE. He’s in a characteristically honest mood when we catch up with him at this year’s E3. “We knew, we foresaw that. It’s a new studio built for the game and I don’t blame people for being a bit hesitant.” It’s true that Hardline is already drawing accusations of being either a Battlefield 4 expansion (in all but name and price) or simply a non-canon game that’s cynically trading on Battlefield’s credentials. While there’s truth in both criticisms, the recent PC beta does tell us one important thing: it’s bloody good fun. It was hugely disappointing that the first Hardline beta missed Xbox One. After all, the game was announced at EA’s own press conference, and Sony didn’t take the opportunity to crow about the beta’s PS4 exclusivity. There seems no overt reason for the snub. It’s a strange reversal of fortunes for Microsoft, which tied down several pieces of exclusive DLC for Battlefield 4 less than 12 months ago. The news of a second beta, which launches in the autumn on all platforms, is cold comfort to Xbox owners mulling over Hardline pre-order decisions right now.

Up close and personal

The game itself – based on our playtime with the beta – is incredibly familiar. Combatants may be able to wear leather jackets or riot gear, and tanks may have been traded for police cruisers, but underneath the new skin are the sinews of the Battlefield 4-tuned Frostbite 3 engine. It gives the same fluid balance between free movement and aiming, the same satisfying bullet feedback and the same careful mix of short- and medium-range weaponry. It is Battlefield 4 with cops and crims. Good news, but a big tick in the ‘it’s just an expansion, really’ box.

One point of difference at this stage, however, is that the beta’s only map – High Tension – forces more close-quarters combat than long-range tactical warfare, something we suspect will carry over into most of Hardline’s multiplayer stages. It brings to mind Operation Dawnbreaker from BF4, only trimmed down to a size between the Domination and Conquest variants of the map. The verticality is present and correct, but the variation in height doesn’t add much to the action. On both game modes (Heist and Blood Money), battles tend to break out in specific spots on the map, rather than occupying the entire playing area. While this makes for a great tug-of-war between teams, as they battle for the slight advantages that can swing each session, entering these hotspots can feel like throwing your virtual body into a meat grinder. We genuinely missed the long-

“it’s taking another step towards cod’s small-scale twitch combat”

A C L A S S S P ART H o w h a v e t h e c l a s s e s c h a n g e d ? N o t m u c h

One thing that really sets the Battlefield games apart from other shooters is the class system. With each player fulfilling different roles in every squad, you get tremendous variety in the gameplay. You know this – you’ve played Battlefield. Here’s how the classes line up in Hardline:

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Operator This guy’s your Assault/ Medic class. He’s got the revival kit, med packs and standard short/medium range assault rifles. As ever, it’s is the most rounded class, and it seemed the most popular in the beta.

Mechanic This is the equivalent of the Engineer. He carries the heavy weapons to take out vehicles, and carries an SMG. Right now he feels underpowered because there aren’t as many vehicles to take out.

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BATTLEFIELD HARDLINE

Cops can spawn into a police cruiser, then lean out of the window to shoot baddos.

range tactical play of previous games, and the way a well-implemented vehicular attack can swing the balance of play dramatically. Right now, it’s the scale that seems to be missing from Hardline – the sweeping breadth of tactical options that opens up with every spawn in BF3 and 4. In the beta’s urban map, this restriction is a necessity. It contains the action and focuses the players on objectives, but it still feels small-potatoes next to BF4’s Siege of Shanghai and Dawnbreaker maps. Forget that the characters have been reskinned from soldiers to cops and robbers, the lack of scale provides the most compelling reason Hardline may not end up a ‘proper’ Battlefield game in many fans’ eyes.

Change of plan

Ever since BF3, DICE and EA have been keen to lure Activision’s substantial Call of Duty audience to the Battlefield series. And that’s an admirable goal. It’s why Domination, Defuse, and Capture the Flag have become core modes in the series – albeit options that play second-fiddle to Conquest and Rush. Based on our impressions of the beta, it seems that Hardline is taking another tiny step towards the smaller-scale twitch conflict that Call of Duty has always owned. It’s a minor change, but a noticeable one. When we ask Troedsson to talk about series changes, he gives specific examples: “What the new setting brings is both new opportunities and some signature ones that come with the fantasy of being a copper or

Enforcer The Enforcer (support) carries a heavy machinegun, ammo packs and explosive charges. We found him to be a decent class: the HMG can shred most vehicles quickly, so you’re not too vulnerable on foot.

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Professional Finally, here is your Recon (sniper) class. He carries a long-range sniper rifle, and a bunch of surveillance equipment for tracking enemy movements. Again, this class feels underpowered in the first beta.

a criminal. Driving a vehicle down the street, you’re not in a heavily armed vehicle, you’re in a civilian car. You can sit in the passenger seat and shoot through the window, and you can move around inside the vehicle and just break glass and shoot through it. Or you can actually climb outside of the vehicle and hang on, so while some crazy dude is driving it you can be spraying bullets around. These are small incremental innovations, but we know how important they are to Battlefield fans.” Perhaps. Although, we don’t recall many Battlefield players demanding to be taken from tanks in open areas to squad cars in tight city streets. The driving in Hardline’s beta is noticeably more frustrating than in previous Battlefield games because the streets of LA force you down certain routes and pathways. Even helicopter effectiveness is limited by the smaller map and the many buildings and places where on-foot combatants can hide. Almost all action in the beta – barring the odd car chase – takes place mano a mano.

Turning to crime

It’s impossible to judge a game based on a short beta that only covers a single map – we know that – and there are plenty of positives to take away from this early showing. The action is typically brutal, and weapons and classbuilds seem fairly balanced; although we do miss the dirty melee-takedowns that BF4 did so well – the stab-and-steal-dogtag animation is replaced by a more conservative nightstick to the face. Elsewhere, other Battlefield staples are pleasingly slotted into the new setting – criminals revive each other with Stimipens, while police use regular defib paddles. Get past the cosmetic stuff, though, and Hardline’s progression system may bring a sensible change to the series. Steve Papoutsis, vice president and general manager at Visceral Games, explains: “Our progression system on the multiplayer side is not the same as on Battlefield. Rather than using experience as the in-game currency, we’re using cash. So as you perform takedowns, and do the objectives, you’re earning cash. It’s a nice fit with the cops and criminals theme. So, rather than saying, ‘You’re going to get this weapon, and until you get to X amount of experience or cash on this

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Cops now have nightsticks, and crims have baseball bats.

weapon you cannot progress to another one,’ we’re letting you jump around. So you can pick a different weapon, and as you use it you can start unlocking the attachments and things that you can use on it. We want to let players experiment and play with whatever they want.” There are few who would argue that Battlefield 4’s ‘briefcase’ system is either elegant or popular (to us, it feels like an unfulfilled attempt to introduce microtransactions to the game), so this emphasis on choice is a step in the right direction. Unless, that is, players discover a kit combination that is significantly more powerful than others. Then we’re in trouble. Papoutsis continues to talk about progression, raising another cool idea called Weapon Licenses: “Let’s say you’re a real fan of the P90, but you’re also a fan of just the game and you want to unlock all the classes so you can play with all the gadgets. Well, now you can take that P90 you purchased the weapon licence for (and you’re going to have to put in a lot of time to get that weapon licence) then, say, take it over to our Professional – which is more of a sniper type of class. So you can still go through the Professional progression, and see the gadgets that character has, but you can bring that P90 with you. So again, we’re

really trying to open up and be more flexible, so people can play the way they want to.”

I work alone!

Then there’s single-player, which has become something of a dirty phrase among Battlefield fans. Hardline – more than any previous Battlefield game – has the opportunity to get the story mode right. It’s about cops and robbers, after all. Grand Theft Auto V recently set the high watermark for videogame crime fiction, and while people will inevitably

compare Hardline’s narrative to it, Rockstar has whetted gamers’ appetites for classic heist stories. All Visceral needs to do is recognise what makes GTA’s plot so great (interesting characters, varied pacing, a few nuggets of humour and a well-realised world) and cram that into Battlefield’s established brand of shooting. Easy, right? “The way we’re looking at the single-player campaign is we’re calling the levels ‘Episodes’,” explains Papoutsis. “So we want each segment of the game, each episode, to feel

Five reasons Battlefield is safe at Visceral (and one reason it isn’t) Th e s e

Great! James Bond 007: From Russia with Love (2005) GoldenEye aside, many hail FRWL as the finest Bond game of modern times. Visceral took a few liberties with the licence to unlock the series’ potential.

Great! The Simpsons Game (2007) Simpsons games are generally stinkers, but here, Visceral delivered a relative tour de force. True, by ‘tour de force’ we mean ‘8 out of 10’, but that’s better than most previous attempts.

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games

are

Great! Dead Space (2008) Does Visceral have the chops to create a compelling, story-driven game set within a rather over-visited universe? Yes it does. Dead Space is, arguably, one of the best horror/sci-fi games on Xbox 360.

all

made

Great! Dante’s Inferno (2010) Any dev that can take a 14th-century work of literature and turn it into a disgustingly entertaining game has a great shot at making a top-notch Battlefield experience, right?

the

dev

Great! Battlefield 3: End Game (2013) Sure, it’s an expansion, but it proves that Visceral can operate in Battlefield’s theatre of war. In fact, it’s a fine example of how fresh thinking can rejuvenate an over-familiar game.

Err... Army of Two: The Devil’s Cartel (2013) Okay, so this is a bit knob. But Dead Space is great, right? Well, the first one is. The second one’s okay. The third... let’s not talk about that either.

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BATTLEFIELD HARDLINE

Bug-o’-war

The funnier side of Battlefield Hardline’s bugs See this guy? He’s unofficially known as NeckMan, and he’s been a Battlefield community in-joke since BF3. Much has been made of rumours that Hardline shares the same bugs as BF4, so it’s no surprise to see this particular glitch returning. On a more positive note, though, Troedsson assures us that Hardline’s launch will be much smoother than BF4’s: “There are so many people still working on BF4, and everything that’s been going into making that game better and to the good state in which it’s in now, goes straight into this game as well.” So, maybe poor Neck-Man won’t make it after all.

Heist sees crims trying to rob armoured vans and escape with the loot.

like a contained bit of the game. So you have a sense of progression and a sense of closure as you go through the different episodes.” And the narrative? Is Hardline playing it straight like Battlefield 4 or going after some of the more complex, even lighthearted cop dramas on TV? ”I think one of the things that really appeals to us is some of the writing you see in stuff like [US TV series] Justified. So something kind of in that vein – not exactly that, but interesting characters, with texture, that have interesting things to say. We want the dialogue to be entertaining, so you don’t mind if you have to hear it a few times. So I’d say we’re more in that ballpark.”

finish the game without really knowing who that Jin Jié chap is. Is he a spy or something? Perhaps taking single-player responsibility away from the DICE team is (whisper it) just what Battlefield needs. “I think that was part of the big appeal when Karl and I talked [about Visceral making Hardline],” says Papoutsis. “It was the fact that we did have this kind of pedigree of making single-player experiences.” Dead Space and Dante’s Inferno say ‘true’, while Army of Two: The Devil’s Cartel screams ‘errr...’ So, Hardline – is it just an expansion of BF4? No, it’s more than that. Sure it uses the same tried and tested engine, and the gameplay feels the same, but there are enough changes underneath it all (along with a significant thematic overhaul) to more than justify its existence. While the snapshot we’ve seen to date feels familiar – and perhaps a little underwhelming – the potential is definitely there to create something fresh and fan-pleasing, although that’s always a huge ask. Perhaps purists will inevitably take the other point of view: this simply isn’t a canon Battlefield game. Rejecting Hardline because

“the potential’s definitely there to create something fresh and fan-pleasing”

One last job?

It’s all optimistic talk, but we’ve been here before. Throughout BF4’s pre-release campaign we were reminded that the single-player was all set to be the most entertaining, the most human story the series had ever seen. While the actual set-pieces and levels are great, BF4’s plot is so baffling and scattered that most

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of its attempts to shake the series out of its modern military setting seems harsh at this stage, and there’s plenty more to see before November. As much as we crave the tanks, this definitely feels like classic Battlefield to us. Finally, we ask Troedsson what the future holds for the series. Given the evident appetite for trying new settings, could we see Battlefield regularly becoming more than just a military shooter? “What we’re definitely committed to is that if we have a great idea, that’s when we’ll build another game,” says Troedsson. “We won’t build another Battlefield if it feels like, ‘Oh, let’s just rehash out another one.’ It needs to be something that challenges us to build a really... the best Battlefield game that we can, and the kinds of things that we know that our players really appreciate.” That’s a sentiment we can get behind. Just, er, make sure we’re actually invited to the next beta event. ■

Zip lines are back! Woop!

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XBOX rISING Words: Daniel Robson

Japanese fans show Xbox One a little love ahead of its long delayed launch

Though Xbox One has been shown at Tokyo Game Show and Niconico Chokaigi, this was many puntersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; first time hands-on.

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XBOX RISING

Around 150 curious gamers were in line when the Xbox Daikanshasai event opened for its first day.

lmost a year after its launch in the US and Europe, Xbox One will finally hit Japanese retailers on 4 September. The question, once again, is whether Japan – which has famously always resisted Microsoft’s consoles – even cares. A preview event held in Tokyo’s gaming capital of Akihabara suggested that interest is there, and that, after years of perceived neglect, Microsoft is this time trying to give gaming’s heartland the commitment it needs. Just before the event, it was announced that Xbox One will have 29 localised titles available at launch and four previously unannounced games made in Japan: Raiden, Azito, Shooting Love. Trilogy and Natsuki Chronicle. A total of around 70 games were announced for release there before the end of 2015. There will also be a barrage of specially made apps targeted at Japan. Xbox One owners will be able to sing 100,000 songs using the DAM karaoke system, stream from hugely popular video site Niconico, watch archive J.League football games, co-ordinate their fashion via Kinect using Wear, order dinner using Demaeyakata (Delivery Centre), take a pop-idol-guided tour of local districts with UMU Gotouji Idol Walker (UMU Your Local Idol Walker), shop for home delivery on local Amazon equivalent Rakuten and more. At the public event, charmingly titled Xbox One Daikanshasai (Big Thanksgiving), several hundred dedicated Xbox fans and curious passers-by dropped into Akihabara’s Sumitomo Fudosan building to try around two dozen games, with long lines forming for hands-on time with Titanfall, Forza Motorsport 5, Dead Rising 3, Kinect Sports Rivals and Wolfenstein: The New Order. A central stage hosted live demonstrations of Kinect Sports, Dead Rising 3 and Happy Wars, which were also live-streamed on Niconico.

Preaching to the converted

A stage show kept visitors entertained as they lined up for demos, and was also broadcast live online.

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Xbox has famously struggled to get a foothold in Japan. Blame it on an overly Westernised lineup of games, Microsoft’s failure to understand the market, Red Ring of Death-style hardware problems, gamers’ preference for domestic companies Nintendo and Sony, an ever-increasing trend towards handheld – the theories are many. But Xbox does have its loyal fans, and they will tell you the reasons they love Xbox are: games, games and games: “I love Xbox and I have about 200 games,” Kenta Ono, a fan lining up to try Forza, tells us at the event. “I have a PlayStation too, but Xbox games appeal more, especially Western ones.” “Western games express a totally different world than Japanese games, and graphically they’re usually much better,” adds Yuuki Uchida, another self-professed Xbox fanatic, who shuns rival hardware altogether. “I like Western games because they tend to be more violent,” says Risa Matsumoto, one of a smattering

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fe at ure

of women at the male-heavy Daikanshasai. “I came here to see Dead Rising 3 and Plants Vs Zombies.”

Appathy

Made in Japan Four new Xbox One games coming in 2015

Raiden Moss’s new game on Xbox One will coincide with the 25th anniversary of the Raiden scrolling-shooter series. The original was an arcade smash for 38 months. Concept art suggests shooting chaos among crumbling skyscrapers.

Shooting Love. Trilogy Japan loves arcade-style bullet-hell shmups. Triangle Service promises its awkwardly punctuated Shooting Love. will take advantage of Xbox One’s features. Previous games have been both innovative and hard as nails.

Natsuki Chronicle This new IP is yet another shmup. Developer Qute Corporation is responsible for Japan-only Xbox 360 shooter Eschatos, which had players dodging more bullets than a late-night gas-station attendant in Los Santos.

Azito Hamster’s Azito is a SimCity-style strategy game in which the player creates monsters and superheroes, of the sort you’d see in Power Rangers, to build up defences against an invasion. Deliberately crude art and truly crazy.

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Xbox Japan marketing director Naoyuki Isogai: “We needed a lot of time to localise the UI, including language support for Kinect’s voice functions.”

The message seems clear, repeated by almost everyone we speak to at the event (and at other Xbox events in Tokyo): existing fans are satisfied with the machine and its games. So why should Microsoft release games and apps targeted towards Japan at all? The answer, says Naoyuki Isogai, Microsoft’s director of Xbox marketing in Japan, is obvious: to grow the market beyond the hardcore fans, and to preach to more than the converted. And just as Microsoft has eaten its fair share of humble pie over the past year, so too the Japan wing appears to have learned lessons. If it wants to win a larger Japanese audience, it needs to offer something just for them.

“voice control has caught the imagination in Japan” “If we only release Western games, that will satisfy our core audience,” Isogai tells OXM. “That access to Western games is one of Microsoft’s strengths, but it’s our intention to have a variety that will appeal to all gamers.” And there are plenty of Japanese releases coming up, from multiplatform titles such as Konami’s Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain and Tango Gameworks’ The Evil Within to Xbox One exclusives, including D4 from Access Games and Scalebound from Platinum Games. The newly announced Raiden and so on are exclusives, but they’re niche and hardcore. The true indication

of Microsoft’s renewed tack in Japan is the wealth of apps, most of which are lifestyle services for the whole family. Most Daikanshasai visitors we ask are unimpressed, but they have yet to see the apps and the intended audience is their parents, siblings and friends, who may be interact with an Xbox One without ever playing a game. Some are more positive, including Forza fan Ono: “I think the Japanese games and apps show commitment to succeeding in Japan, and I hope they do more,” he says, and others point out that Niconico is especially important since it is Japanese gamers’ preferred video service. It has nearly 40 million registered users (about a quarter of the population of Japan).

Attempting to Kinect

Then there’s Kinect. The original peripheral was a failure in Japan – Xbox 360 owners were rare already, let alone users with space to use Kinect. Japanese flats are tiny, and younger gamers at home with their parents are unlikely to be able to commandeer the TV and the space around it often. When Kinect 2.0 was announced, Microsoft made a point of saying it can be used in closer quarters, and that may help its chances, as might the popularity of dancing games. Japan’s arcades still have Dance Dance Revolution and other, more sophisticated dancing games, including Kinect-style ones that read movements. At the Daikanshasai, we see dozens of full-on otaku grooving along to Zumba Fitness World Party with a professional dancer, and many of them are remarkably co-ordinated. “I loved Dance Dance Revolution on Xbox 360, so I’ve preordered an Xbox One with Kinect,” says Matsumoto. Nari, who says she has no interest in games (she is accompanying a friend), tells us, “When I was a kid, I

Yuuki Uchida (right) said he only plays games on Xbox and does not own a rival system. He and his friend Yuuki Ina were especially psyched about Forza.

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XBOX RISING Who says otaku don’t have rhythm? The Zumba Fitness World Party booth was crowded all day long.

Friends in high places thought videogames looked difficult, because there were so many rules. But looking at the Kinect games today, they seem fun.” Regardless of space constraints, Kinect’s voice control seems to have caught the imagination in Japan. “I’m looking forward to operating the console just by talking to it,” says Yuuichi Satou. Time will tell whether voice recognition works better in Japanese than in English. Japan has dozens of dialects, so there’s a danger the average punter in Okinawa or Hokkaido will discover how gamers in, say, Ireland or Australia have felt when confronted with hit-and-miss voice control.

Lost in translation

Naoyuki Isogai says the lengthy conversion process is part of the reason Japan is getting Xbox One so late: “We needed a lot of time to localise the UI, including language support for Kinect’s voice functions,” he says. “The syntax of Japanese is different from English. In English, you might say, ‘Xbox, snap Internet Explorer,’ but in Japanese the word order is reversed. We’re in the process of refining all that now.” Isogai explains that Xbox One’s release date in Japan was chosen to come just before Tokyo Game Show in late September. Xbox One was on display at last year’s expo, so to have it there two years in a row as an unreleased console would have sent out a bad message. He says the plan is to have Xbox One on shelves ahead of TGS so the Xbox booth can show off upcoming titles. “We will announce more games at TGS, and afterwards too,” he says. “Some of the Japan titles listed as ‘TBA’ will be announced later. Also,

Kinect Sports Rivals comes bundled, which might explain its less popular booth.

some have undecided release dates, so some of that information will come at TGS too, as well as playable demos.” Isogai says that TV functionality may follow after launch, as it did in Britain, though that isn’t official.

Promising signs

Perhaps the biggest success of the Daikanshasai is turning curious passers-by into Xbox fans on the spot. Outside, staff enthusiastically drum up support from Akihabara shoppers and sightseers, hustling them in with cries of, “You can play Xbox One games right now!” and signs listing the wait times, while promo videos on Niconico encourage viewers to come along. Matsuri, who dragged her friend Nari along, tells us, “I watched a video about Xbox One on Niconico. There are games I fancy, so I came to see.” This is exactly the sort of openminded attitude Microsoft will be hoping Japanese gamers will have come 4 September. Preorders for the Day One edition, which includes Kinect as well as Titanfall and Kinect Sports Rivals, for 49,980 yen (£285), began on the same weekend as the Daikanshasai, and at the time of writing the console is at the top of the sales charts at major electronics retailer Yodobashi Camera and on Amazon.co.jp. It’s unclear how many units were made available for preorder, but after seeing Xbox 360 chart in bottom place almost every week for years, this is encouraging news. Who knows, come September, Xbox’s fortunes in Japan may finally start to turn around. n

XBOX rISING

@OXM

Japan’s top devs cheer on Team Xbox At a Tokyo press conference at the Akihabara UDX Theatre the day before the Daikanshasai event, top Japanese developers took to the stage to pledge their support for Xbox One. Toshihiro Nagoshi, head of Sega’s in-house Ryu Ga Gotoku (Yakuza) Studio, said he would be making games for Xbox One and Windows. The Yakuza games have almost all been PlayStation exclusives – the one exception, a Wii U port of the PS3 HD remake of the first two games, was a commercial failure. Nagoshi didn’t announce any titles, so whether Kazuma Kiryu and chums will grace Xbox One is anyone’s guess; it could just as easily be a Binary Domain sequel, a new IP or even Super Monkey Ball. Appearing in video form were Square Enix’s Shinji Hashimoto, repping Final Fantasy XV and Kingdom Hearts 3; Capcom’s Yoshinori Ono, who gushed that Dead Rising 3 would not have been possible without Xbox One’s hardware; and Tango Gameworks’ boss Shinji Mikami, pimping not only his studio’s The Evil Within but also parent company Bethesda’s The Elder Scrolls Online. Comcept producer Keiji Inafune has become quite the spokesman for indie development in Japan, thanks in part to the wild success of his Kickstarter campaign for Mighty No. 9. He took the stage to big up ID@Xbox. “The best games are made when you strike the balance between what the users want to play and what the creator wants to make,” he said. Like Nagoshi, he did not announce any new titles, though the multiplatform Mighty No.9 is already bound for Xbox One as one of its stretch goals. So that’s nice.

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Preview

It is now mandatory for Far Cry games to have mentally unstable villain characters.

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Preview

Far Cry 4

Publisher Ubisoft / Developer Ubisoft Montreal / Format Xbox One & Xbox 360

A stranger in a strange land. Plus elephants

here’s a method to our madness. Or should that be there’s a madness to our method? Regardless, we’re looking forward to redefining insanity in Far Cry 4, the latest title in Ubisoft’s exotic firstperson action-adventure series. In it, you fill the shoes of one Ajay Ghale, an American born in the fictional Himalayan province of Kyrat. He’s returning to the country for the first time in his adult life, to scatter his mother’s ashes as per her final wishes. The dramatic shift from Far Cry 3’s tropical island to the vast mountain ranges of the Himalayas, means more attention is paid to vertical traversal. Plus, new tools like the grappling hook and gyrocopter, along with returning

@OXM

features like the wing suit, provide colourful ways to get from A to B as the crow (literally) flies. This skyward focus extends to the wildlife, too, with Kyrat’s summits serving as a home to birds of prey and other fauna that’ll swoop down and peck Ajay’s unsuspecting eyes out given half the chance. During our hands-on, we’re dropped outside an enemy base camp, and asked to pick one of three preloaded options to decide how we’ll go about liberating it. First is the stealthy route, which involves using the new grappling hook to scale the side of the compound before employing a semiautomatic crossbow (which sacrifices the long-range aspect of a bow and arrow in return for rapid fire) to silently dispatch the guards inside. The second option is what we like to refer to as the Death from Above approach, which has you climbing aboard your

Bluffer’s Guide The Far Cry series is all about exotic locales and extreme adrenaline rushes. And making purses out of the skins of sharks and hawks and stuff.

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The game’s co-op character Hurk makes his return from Far Cry 3. He likes blowing stuff up, which suits us just fine.

You wouldn’t shoot this little guy, would you. Actually, don’t answer that. You monster.

Sure-footed as a mountain goat – we’d like to test that theory.

Pagan Min’s interests include good haircare and stabbing insubordinates with a pen. Repeatedly.

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Preview

own personal gyrocopter and picking off enemies from high in the sky. The third option, which we’re assured by a nearby dev is by far the most popular, is the direct approach, which involves smashing through the front gates while on top of an elephant. Choosing the elephant-aided route (because who wouldn’t?), we’re plonked outside the base camp, suggestively close to three elephants bathing in a nearby stream. Before approaching them, we take a moment to drink in the full 360-degree view. On all sides are beautiful snowcapped mountain vistas that we’re told are off limits for now, but they provide a tantalising glimpse of the wild expanses we’ll be able to explore for ourselves come launch day.

Death by elephant

With the requisite gawping out of the way, we make for the nearest elephant and tentatively climb aboard. It’s completely compliant, though not all that smooth to control, and we wobble up the hill towards the camp. Smashing through the front gate is easy enough, but we soon run into trouble when we’re surrounded by enemies and under fire from all sides. It isn’t long before we’re forced to jump off the back of the beast and leg it, while the poor pachyderm continues to provide a distraction. Inevitably, our great grey friend is shot down in a hail of machinegun bullets, and an uncontrollable guilt washes over us. Mercifully, seconds later, we’re dead too. As it turns out, all-guns-blazing isn’t the tactic best suited to our panicked approach to combat. We have much more luck on our stealth-focused second attempt: we get inside the compound and take out more than half the population with our trusty crossbow without raising so much as an eyebrow, let alone an alarm. We then test out another new feature: a melee kick, which you perform by looking down when pressing the melee button. We use it to affix explosives to barrels and kick them off platforms into a group of unsuspecting guards below, alerting the rest of the compound to our presence in a typically grandiose fashion. Our hands-on time with the game is all too brief, but several new features were also showcased in an extended E3 gameplay demo, including the ability to perform drive-by shootings and ‘driving takedowns’, which have you leaping from one vehicle to another, dumping its former occupant @OXM

//New tools like the grappling

hook and gyrocopter provide colourful ways to get from A to B//

by the roadside and carrying on without even changing gears. Also new is an integrated co-op mode, where an online friend can join you in Kyrat for some unadulterated carnage. When the game switches to co-op, single-player-only missions are turned off, and you’re free to roam around and do as you please as a twosome. Your progress for everything besides main story missions – challenges, collectibles and completion of Adventure Zones, which are self-contained temples dotted around the landscape for you to explore – is kept track of across both co-op and single-player, so you won’t be wasting your time or having to start fresh when switching between modes.

For all the tonal missteps in the single-player story, Far Cry 3 was outrageous open-world fun, and it looks as though Far Cry 4 plans to build on the insanity of its predecessor. And, for all the controversy stirred up when the game’s box art was first revealed, it looks as if Ubisoft has learned from past experience and has created a story that doesn’t smack of racial insensitivity. There are, the developer says, only five white characters in the game, and none of them are the people you either fight for or against. We’ll wait until we hear more before making any assumptions, but top of our to-do list in Kyrat at present is hopping aboard the beguilingly bizarre Chitty Chitty Bang Bang-esque mini-chopper with a friend in tow and laying waste to the local wildlife. Even in these early stages, few games seem better suited to “Xbox, record that” moments: your comrade is suddenly thrown off the side of a mountain by a surprise snow leopard or the jeep you’re driving is unceremoniously overturned by an enraged elephant. That’s definitely our kind of insanity. Aoife Wilson

Of all Far Cry 4’s animals, none are more ferocious than the honey badger. Trust us on this one.

ETA

21 NOV

Metadata

best bit…

As much as we like trundling around on an elephant, there’s something very satisfying about stealthing around a restricted area with a crossbow. Compound bows are so 2013.

Fashion victim

Meet Pagan Min, Far Cry’s most flamboyant antagonist Much was made of Pagan Min’s dress sense when Far Cry 4’s cover art was first unveiled, but Ubisoft Montreal insists that the fact he wears pink has literally zero to do with his sexuality. “We’re being accused of being stereotypical, but the assumption is stereotypical,” the game’s creative director Alex Hutchinson told Eurogamer. “The way he dresses is unique to him. It’s not a comment on gender or race at all.”

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P re v i e w Egyptian beetle-headed god Khepri was one of the first bosses unveiled in the game, and he’s a looker.

Publisher Square Enix / Developer Crystal Dynamics / Format Xbox One

Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris Walk like an Egyptian – shoot like one too Bluffer’s Guide The Xbox One sequel to well-regarded XBLA Tomb Raider spinoff Guardian of Light steps up to four-player co-op play.

ou’d think that numerous encounters with the paranormal and the murderous would put a girl off raiding tombs for life. But you just can’t keep a good pillager down, and Lara is back to her old tricks in this upcoming sequel to 2010’s top-down co-op adventure, Guardian of Light. Set in Egypt, its scale, the developers tell us, will be larger, the action “more cinematic” and the puzzle-solving elements that featured so strongly in the original Tomb Raider games much more prevalent. Players

can choose between two character classes. Archaeologists Lara and rival treasure hunter Carter Bell have tools such as zip wires and guns at their disposal, whilst newly reawakened Egyptian gods Isis and Horus have magic powers that enable them to activate pedestals and magical protective shields, and do other things mere mortals can’t. As in Guardian of Light, players can team up either locally or online, only now the game enables up to four players to engage in co-op

//There’s more of that classic Tomb Raider puzzle-solving// Family ties

Think your Xmas dinners are awkward? The Egyptians knew how to keep it in the family. According to the original Egyptian texts, Osiris was murdered and cut into bits by his brother, Set, then reassembled and resurrected by his wife (and sister), Isis, long enough to conceive a son, Horus. Set and Horus were locked in battle for an age, with Set destroying Horus’ eye and Horus cutting off Set’s (ahem) private parts. Some or none of this lore may influence the design of the game’s boss fights.

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simultaneously, dropping in and out of play as they please. The puzzle challenges and difficulty level will adjust according to the number of players active, and loot will vary according to who is present. Teamwork is still necessary to overcome some obstacles, so it’s best to stick together, and pick a partner who won’t push you into the nearest spike pit every few minutes. Combat has been souped up, and many of the new weapons, including machine-guns and power staffs, are “much more powerful” than those in GoL. You can hold torches while shooting, so you can move through dark areas but continue to fight whatever the angry Egyptian deities throw at you. During our short playthrough, we encountered swarms of scarab beetles and a giant crocodile in a wig – Crystal Dynamics’ take on the Egyptian god Sobek – and got a glimpse of the big bad: Osiris’ brother, and murderer, Set. From the demo we played, Temple of Osiris is as moreish as its predecessor, and since the series is making the jump to next-gen, the graphics, lighting and world destruction are improved. That Lara. She’s a wildcard, but we hope she never changes. Aoife Wilson

ETA TBC

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ike saving money? Us too. But our bartering skills, honed over years of juggling game tradeins and using the ‘Intimidate’ option on susceptible RPG merchants, count for nothing when shopping online. The internet is overflowing with deals, but finding the ones you’re actually interested in can take an age. Enter bespoke offers, which seeks out the very best savings on exactly the things that you want to buy. You can save a fortune on everything from surround sound speakers and tablet computers, to holidays and remote-controlled cars. Not interested in any of those? Then just tell it what you are interested in, and they will only

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P re v i e w According to Amancio, Arno’s fight style is “more deadly than you might be used to seeing in Assassin’s Creed.”

Publisher Ubisoft / Developer Ubisoft Montreal / Format Xbox One

Assassin’s Creed: Unity

Let them eat cake. And stalk Templars Bluffer’s Guide Open-world stabbing moves to the French Revolution – and skips Xbox 360 for the first time. There’s also co-op.

aris of 1789 was a busy, bustling place. Step outside your front door, and within seconds you might witness a mugging, be pulled into a pub brawl or be asked for help by bereft neighbour wanting to avenge her husband’s killer. And that’s all just before breakfast. Assassin’s Creed: Unity introduces a new assassin, Arno Dorian, who is driven by guilt over his perceived involvement in the death of his adoptive father. This leads him to join the Assassins in an attempt to uncover the ‘true instigators’ of the Revolution.

Historically, there were multiple factions embroiled in the conflict, but Unity condenses these down to just three: the Loyalists, the Moderates and the Revolutionaries. And behind the scenes, the battle between the Assassins and the Templars goes on. As you familiarise yourself with the Revolution and the people involved, you’ll meet famous figures like King Louis XVI, Napoleon, and the Marquis de Sade. Should be interesting to see what missions he offers. Designed solely for next gen, Unity was built using Ubisoft’s

ETA

28 OCT

//It takes the series forward, with a bigger open-world and co-op// No girls allowed

Ubisoft comes under fire for not adding female character support Though you’ll be able to customise your assassin as part of the game’s four-player co-op mode, you won’t be able to change their gender. This is, Ubisoft claims, because it was too timeconsuming and expensive to add female character animations, an explanation for which the dev has come under a lot of fire for since. Especially considering the most famous real-life assassin of that time – Charlotte Corday – was a woman.

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newly retooled AnvilNext engine. Accordingly, the streets of 18th century Paris are teeming with life: whereas Xbox 360 struggled to render crowds in the hundreds, on Xbox One Unity will host throngs up to 5,000-strong. There are also far more interior spaces to explore around the open-world map. The buildings have been designed to a 1:1 scale with the aim of making them much more traversable. For the first time in the franchise, Arno doesn’t have to perform missions by himself, thanks to the introduction of four-player co-op. Here, players will be able to take on contracts together, plan co-op heists, and sabotage executions. Creative director Alexandre Amancio reckons that about a third of the time that players put into the game will be spent engaging in co-op – find out more on page 72 – and individual missions can be replayed different ways thanks to a new branching design methodology. Based on what we’ve seen so far, Unity confidently takes the series forward into the next generation, while simultaneously returning to what being an assassin is all about: stealth and subterfuge. With the streets so much busier, the target will never see you coming. Aoife Wilson www.TOTALXBOX.coM

P r ev i e w There’s more to fights than just punching and kicking – new character D’Vorah is able to inflict toxic attacks that do damage over time.

Publisher Warner Bros / Developer NetherRealm / Format Xbox 360 & XBOX ONE

Mortal Kombat X

Not too busy throwing punches to try telling a decent story Bluffer’s Guide The first Xbox One entry in easily one of the goriest fighting game franchises out there.

he thing I love most about the Mortal Kombat series isn’t its fatalities, gloriously gory though they are. It isn’t even the franchise’s enthusiasm for providing fans with alternate game modes heaving with unlockable content. Rather, what I admire is NetherRealm’s refusal to fall in line with other contemporary fighters and reduce its focus on the single-player story experience, despite a growing trend for fighting games to omit any real narrative in favour of bare bones online-only multiplayer modes. Set 25 years after the events of Mortal Kombat 9, MKX will continue that game’s rebooted storyline with classic figures like Scorpion and Sub-Zero, while featuring brand new

characters including Cassie Cage, the daughter of classic fighters Johnny Cage and Sonya Blade, and Kotal Kahn, a mysterious character who may or may not have some sort of kinship with long-time series antagonist, Shao Kahn. Then there are characters that are entirely unknown, like half-insect, half-human hybrid D’Vorah, and the two-fighters-for-the-price-of-one combo of Ferra/Tor.

Fighters reunited

Though NetherRealm wasn’t keen to give away many plot details up front, the studio’s commitment to story was strongly hinted at through a demonstration of match preamble cutscenes, in which each character addressed the other personally, and

ETA

2015

//MKX represents the biggest shakeup to the format in a very long time// Injustice for all

NetherRealm borrows from its other brawler to mix things up in MK It seems Mortal Kombat X has taken a couple of tips from Injustice: Gods Among Us, as it incorporates interactive elements into its stages. These aren’t deadly enough to turn the tide of a fight, but they are useful for escaping an incoming attack or extricating yourself from a tricky situation. Take the forest stage, for example. In it, you can use overhead branches to swing from one side of the 2D plane to another.

@OXM

alluded to any past history that they may have together. So story is the key focus here, but that doesn’t mean that in-game action has taken any kind of a hit as a consequence. In fact, Mortal Kombat X represents the biggest shake-up to the franchise’s format in a very long time. Every single combatant in the roster, whether they’re old or new, now has three different fighting style variations, which you select before each round. The different variations are based around that character’s theme or known specialisations – however, one style might emphasise close-quarters combat, while another may focus on zoning. It’s a way of giving players greater variation, and allowing you to become familiar with a character you might never have felt comfortable fighting with before. NetherRealm insists that these new variations are all built “on top of” Mortal Kombat’s existing combat system. X-ray attacks still exist, as do power meters and, of course, the Fatalities, which are among the most violent we’ve ever seen. Some involve slicing up your opponent to expose their lolling tongue and still-throbbing brain, while another has Cassie shoot her victim in the head before stretching a piece of bubblegum over the wound to watch a blood bubble form and pop. Story, substance and over-the-top violence – this could be the best Mortal Kombat game yet. Aoife Wilson the official xbox magazine / 55

P r e v i ew New fantasy: a DLC pack that enables cross-play between this and Battlefield 4 online. It would be mayhem.

Publisher EA / Developer EA Sports / Format Xbox One

EA Sports PGA Tour Augusta, me gusta Bluffer’s Guide The world’s premier golf game returns without its cover star, but with added military vehicle action. Wait, what?

olf is a good walk spoiled,” quotes every article ever written about virtual versions of the royal and ancient game. It’s an easy fix for tired writers: ‘Golf’s boring, intelligent dead people said so, but maybe it won’t be this time!’ Preview done. Except this time, the quote seems to be part of EA’s design document, rather than our cliché. Imagine a well-rendered, tartanslack-wearing gent hitting a ball so hard his three-wood explodes with Killer Instinct punch particles. You watch the resulting shot glide gently over the Levolution event from Battlefield 4’s Paracel Storm multiplayer map (you know, when an entire battleship careens into a beach) before landing perfectly for a birdie tap-in on a smoky green. Yes, it’s clear the first PGA

without Tiger Woods is turning the rounds themselves into the new star of the show – forget the good walk.

Round one

That even extends to its recreations of famous courses. While the inch- perfect fairways and clubhouse facsimiles remain, EA Sports promises that each full 18hole area is now (its words) an open world. What that means for rounds is unclear – we’d guess you can enforce tournament rule sets to get the traditional experience – but there’s mention of shortcuts between holes, and full exploration of areas traditionally blocked off by endlessly clapping crowd sprites. The courses, rather than the golfers, seem to be getting the real attention here.

That’s helped by the choice of engine. While every other EA Sports franchise has chosen the Ignite framework (which, as we were told approximately 38 times in the course of EA’s E3 showcase, creates emotions so real you’ll probably weep about them days later), PGA’s nabbed Battlefield’s Frostbite 3, for a more picturesque quality. And frankly, what are golf courses if not DICE-style 64-player maps presented preconflict? It’s a fine combination. Frostbite even speeds up the game – EA Sports estimates that the lack of loading times between holes will knock 10-15 minutes off an 18-hole round. In the time you save, you can probably go for that walk. Joe Skrebels

ETA

SPRING 2015

Four more potential EA franchise courses

Mass Effect 3’s Palaven Moon

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Bulletstorm’s Stygia

Mirror’s Edge’s City

Someone’s face from FaceBreaker

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P r e v ie w If you don’t have a local co-op partner, the game provides a space-pooch companion.

Publisher ID@Xbox / Developer Asteroid Base / Format Xbox One

Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime Asteroid Base asks us to strike up a friend-ship Bluffer’s Guide A freeroaming, cutesy space shooter, with a co-op platforming game concealed at its centre (literally).

he shooter genre is a lonely, unsmiling place, so it stands to reason a co-op take on it would swing to the other end of the spectrum. Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime is undoubtedly the sunniest game about cosmic terror, endless battle and planet-wide species extinction that we’ve played. It sets you and a single, localonly friend – developer Asteroid Base wants to make sure your communication can be as physical as it is verbal – in a neon pink Death Star against waves of enemies terrorising a series of technicolour galaxies (which you travel between through heart-shaped wormholes).

Your rotund ship is essentially a tiny platform game with a great galleon wheel at its centre. It has control panels for Millennium Falcon-like turrets that can be equipped with power ups – we’re particularly interested in the laser-mounted flail. There’s also a spinnable, localised forcefield and special weaponry – including an unstoppable beam-blaster and showers of missiles – spread out between its various rooms. Each item is so powerful that the game should be unbalanced – regular bullets tear through enemies, the shield deflects almost any projectile and even your engine can vaporise baddies in its blast radius. But there’s a catch: you

//To switch between items, you

run and clamber across the ship// Final frontiers

A platform for new challenges LiaDS isn’t just a wave-based shooter. Its mechanics are also used to force you into unfamiliar and dangerous challenges. We’ve already seen twisting, rocky corridors (requiring more precisely controlled movement than you’ll need in the central game), and many areas come complete with invaded worlds covered in tiny, screaming bunnies. To get maximum points, you’ll need to blast enemies from the surface before they finish off its fluffy inhabitants.

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can only use two things at once, and to switch you must run, jump and clamber your way across the ship, screaming at your partner to do the same for some other far-flung bit of kit.

Beneath the surface

It’s an oddly see-sawing experience. In the short demo we play, we’re in full control of a situation, repelling squadrons of brain-filled flying saucers, when an asteroid careers out of deep space and crashes headlong into the ship’s back end, adding unwanted Newtonian force. We’re sent crashing headlong through the remaining horde, soaking up damage as we run for the steering thrusters. Crucially, the ship can take quite a beating, meaning mistakes are, if not encouraged, certainly allowed for. That is until end-of-level boss fights against suddenly corporeal constellations force teams to work in tandem against a single, gigantic threat. Those swings between localised chaos and total precision have us most excited. You can be manoeuvring your ship with the ease of a spacefaring Riverdance troupe before a new enemy leaves you screaming, “Put the power diamond on the laser, for God’s sake!” at your partner. It might be the smiliest shooter we’ve come across, but the real beauty comes when you’re spitting feathers at it. Joe Skrebels

ETA TBC

www.TOTALXBOX.coM

P r e v i ew

While four elemental attacks sounds unwieldy, a quick bumper tap will switch which part of the planet you’re smacking opponents down with. Publisher Activision / Developer Platinum Games / Format Xbox 360 & Xbox One

The Legend of Korra

Japan’s quirkiest developer gives an American cartoon a Platinum shine Bluffer’s Guide

Activision follows the forgettable Avatar: The Last Airbender games with a new Platinum Games combatadventure hybrid in the same universe.

ven if it’s not always completely successful in creating instant classics with its development efforts (see Anarchy Reigns), you can laud Platinum Games for making things its way, whether it be the stylish Vanquish, the revamped Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, or unexpected exclusives such as the upcoming Bayonetta 2 and Scalebound. So when it was revealed it’d be teaming with the rarely experimental Activision for a licensed game based on a teenfriendly American-made anime, there was potential for disappointment. Fortunately, our first hands-on

experience with The Legend of Korra and a discussion with the developer has settled the uneasiness. The Legend of Korra TV programme followed the super-popular Avatar: The Last Airbender series, focusing on a female protagonist who, as the only warrior in the world with the power to summon (or ‘bend’) all four elements, even overpowered Avatar hero Aang. The game will give Korra a proper Metroid start, as she regains each power one by one, so you can properly learn the different kung-fu-based combos, special elemental attacks and traversal techniques affiliated with each. Water

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Autumn

//The multiple elements offer a wide variety of attacks// Harder Korra

What do you get when the Avatar universe comes to Xbox One? What generational differences can you expect Korra to deliver on next gen? Kurooka stated that “for the most part, the Xbox 360 and Xbox One will be similar, but next gen will obviously be visually more impressive. Because of the increased power, we’ll be able to fit more enemies on screen at once, which is pretty cool, but in terms of gameplay, it’ll be a similar experience.”

@OXM

bending is a long-range form of attack that lets you juggle enemies with blasts of water. Earth bending is much slower and has limited range, but is far more powerful, enabling you to raise spiky rocks from the ground and pierce foes. Firebending is useful in close melee when charged, and is good for chaining long combos, while airbending is the most versatile, with the widest range – including the airball, which has the fastest environmental traversal.

Bending platinum

What does Platinum’s penchant for the offbeat bring to the table for a game like Korra? Platinum Games producer Atsushi Kurooka explains that “Korra is a series that’s well-made, with cool action, an incredibly deep story and setting... it’s even got romance. It’s also hilarious at all the right times. The setting is crazy-detailed in the right ways. We considered it a really big challenge to be able to realise something like that.” While we only had time to test Korra’s skill in a few quick battles, the combat was smooth, with the multiple elements offering up the wide variety of attacks previous Platinum titles have brought to the fight. At the very least, this martial artist seems stronger than Activision’s attempt to revive the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles last year. Dave Rudden the official xbox magazine / 59

Preview

Publisher Konami / Developer Kojima Productions / Format Xbox 360 & Xbox One

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

Kojima leaves us hurting for more after his newest Boss battle

Bluffer’s Guide Legendarily self-important stealth-action scales up to a vast new open world, enabling a paean to premeditated pew-pewery.

nder the unfiltered sunlight of an Afghan summer sky, Big Boss has misdirected, tranquillised, suffocated and viciously wallsmashed thirteen Russian guards who stood between him and the intel he needs. Creeping, finally, into the relative darkness of his adobe-clad target building, he spots something unexpected. A bound prisoner of war, rendered senseless by who knows what, writhes slowly on the floor. It’s uncomfortable to watch, a feeling Ground Zeroes players will have become all too accustomed to. Metadata

Also by…

Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes Kojima’s openworld stealth taster left us hungry – TPP will fill the hole.

Pro Evolution Soccer 2014 The FOX Engine made a game of two halves – well animated, horribly presented.

Taking time to scan the documents he needs, Big Boss turns and carries the insensible victim heroically out the door, then ties a miniature zeppelin to his belt and watches as his rescued charge yelps a joyous “yahoo!” into the cloudless sky and erupts toward the mesosphere. No matter how seriously Hideo Kojima wants us to take Metal Gear, he’ll never quite let go of its silly streak. Good. What struck us most in watching a playthrough of the newest game wasn’t its dour, Grand Guignol story, or a reminder of how good the new-gen FOX Engine can look (not least because of some egregious pop-in problems in its most wide-open areas), it was how much fun The Phantom Pain looks, minute to minute. The series’ gradual move from cargo-strewn corridors to a full desert landscape hasn’t dulled Snake’s tactical espionage abilities, it’s simply given the developer a chance to add more.

ETA TBC

Snake harmer

Upgraded CQC moves let Snake turn every time he’s near a guard into a knockout opportunity. Air support, including artillery, intel and targeted

//Hideo Kojima’s made a game

that wants you to subvert, overuse and specialise its ideas// Balloon animal

Why Mother Base is only a hop, skip and a float away Attach a Fulton balloon to the dead centre of a shipping container you’ve climbed atop of, and there’s every chance you’ll take off with it, soaring back to Mother Base and aborting the mission. That can be done by accident, or you might require an emergency evac – if traditional helicopters are too slow, pick-up zones are far away or gunfire is too sustained. Just make sure you wrap up warm, OK?

60 / the official xbox magazine

equipment drops that can knock out guards, are all callable from Big Boss’s gloriously ’80s walkie-talkie/hologram projector. A measure of vertical traversal gives your creaking hero a spry edge on his younger clones. And, yes, the ability to attach Peace Walker’s Fulton balloons to anything, from jeeps to goats, lets you loot or remove any stuff not nailed down to the sandy ground. All of this turns The Phantom Pain’s levels into something more akin to experiments – seeing how one element will react with another, how actions can combine – than the tense, limited palettes of old. Where a passing guard used to call for a quick nip into a smut-plastered locker, now you might distract him with para-dropped ammo canisters, drag him into a corner and pump him for information. Or, for maximum carnage, simply mark him, let him get on with his business, light up a time-altering Phantom Cigar and wait to see where his barracks are.

Mother, plusher

The fact that those experiments can have wide-reaching effects on the game should come as no surprise. Mother Base, to which you send your balloon-cargo, fills up with recently airborne gifts, necessitating paid-for expansions later. Vehicles let you get about its ocean platforms, the guards are co-opted employees and shipping containers, er, sit there. There are more practical steals, too – nabbing level elements such as anti-aircraft guns helps outfit the Base for tougher situations. Taking certain (as yet undisclosed) courses of action in missions can even initiate dynamic attacks on Mother itself. That’s the point: Metal Gear Solid V doesn’t just let you mess with its systems out of curiosity. Hideo Kojima’s made a game that wants you to subvert, overuse and specialise its ideas, so it can surprise you some more as time goes on. Joe Skrebels www.TOTALXBOX.coM

We know Kojima likes his films, but this Carrie remake is just a little too weird.

Despite a couple of niggles, the FOX Engine’s in fine fettle, particularly in motion – animations are astoundingly fluid. For all it’s silliness, The Phantom Pain looks to be about as downbeat as we’ve seen Metal Gear Solid get.

Ground Zeroes’ Reflex shot system returns, meaning gunplay’s a doddle.

@OXM

the official xbox magazine / 61

Preview A little bit Sunshine, a smidge Gravity and a tad self-indulgent.

Publisher 505 Games / Developer Three One Zero / Format Xbox One

Adr1ft

Games’ least expected developer aims to give a nerd’s-eye-view of outer space Bluffer’s Guide Gravity, the game, basically. A lone astronaut travels around the dangerous wreck of a space station in search of answers – both mechanical and existential.

hat happened to me had a profound effect on my life. It’s a strong, central theme in the game that I’m not going to shy away from.” Adam Orth, who you’ll know best as the man behind the hashtag #dealwithit is clearly not one to shy away from his troubles. The ex-Microsoft employee was pilloried, left his job and forced into a period of recovery as punishment for that single hyperlinked portmanteau (delivered, if you’ve forgotten, as a riposte to those complaining about the rumours around the pre-release Xbox One’s always-online requirements). His return to the industry, with the small indie studio he’s founded, seems to be more a part of the process of engaging with that sudden turmoil than a way to distance himself from it.

//Adam Orth’s dealing

with it, and you get to play the results//

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“When I was going through the fallout from that episode, I seriously considered leaving the game industry. At many points, I believed I didn’t have much of a choice about that. It permeated my entire life so that there was no escaping it. And the story of the game revolves around a similar sequence of action, consequence, and redemption.”

Starman

something we’re bringing into the game. Radiation, space debris — all of that is going into the stew of how we present this environment. I would say that most of our research right now is about movement. How objects behave in space; how bodies and large objects can be the same under that physics.” ‘Physics’ is a term bandied about by unscrupulous writing sorts (i.e. us) a little more frivolously than perhaps it should be, but it seems appropriate here, given what makes Orth tick as a designer: “I have several friends at NASA, and I would say much of this comes from my own interests and my touch points in that community. “I don’t know if there’s a slider between ‘realistic’ and ‘realism’, and if so, I’m not sure where Adr1ft might fall on that spectrum. It is a science fiction game. Our foremost concern is making a game that is a fun and unique experience to play. So, while we’re trying to be as

ETA

We might not know the true story of those events, but the game itself definitely gives something away through that poetic echoing. Placing you in the confines of an astronaut’s helmet, Adr1ft’s a firstperson exploration game set entirely in zero-gravity surroundings, where you are the only human investigating a derelict space station. It’s about loneliness, piecing together broken elements of a whole – you get it. Crucially, though, it’s also about dying in space. “The enemy in Adr1ft is your environment,” explains Orth. “The dangers of space are absolutely

2015

www.TOTALXBOX.coM

Preview

Q&A Puzzles appear to be tied entirely to the ruined, zero-gravity environment.

Adam Orth

Location, location, location. And sound design

nlike in exploration, space was pretty much gaming’s first frontier, meaning we’ve become familiar with it over the last few decades. For Three One Zero, that represents a unique challenge – how do you present space in a way people aren’t already used to?

Metadata

big idea…

Three One Zero uses the unfortunate genre title FPX (first-person experience), but it fits other upcoming nonviolent games like Nero and, to an extent, Alien: Isolation.

faithful and accurate as possible, we’re also willing to let some of those things slide in the spirit of making a great game.” That final point’s perhaps the most important revelation – Orth might be making his game in reaction to personal events, but he’s not lost sight of what games are for. He’s dealing with it, and you get to play the results. We’re in. Joe Skrebels

@OXM

Much of the game’s been designed for VR, but it’s as atmospheric on screen.

It feels as if this is one of those games where you have to totally nail the setting, as that’s where everything else in the experience springs from. That’s absolutely important – and it’s a lot harder than it sounds. You can’t just throw in a planet, some stars and a destroyed space station. It’s how you lay that environment out, because it’s an openworld experience. How you lay that out, it’s really - well, we’re still learning. All that little stuff you see floating around, I obsessed over where to put those things. But they float around in space, so

it’s very difficult for me compared to doing traditional level design, where you have walls, and places where you can’t go, a floor. It’s a challenge – but it’s a fun challenge. Is it the case that you’re having to learn new ways to design to meet that challenge? Or are there tropes you can rely on?

The team behind Forza have talked about procedural audio before. How are you thinking about audio in Adr1ft? Sound design and audio are just a huge, critical thing for this game. We’re right in the middle of mapping out how we’ll do all that stuff. The whole game takes place inside a helmet, so we’re trying

//You can’t just throw in a

planet, some stars and a destroyed space station// Well, what we’re doing is building little pieces and learning little things from them, putting them together and applying those lessons to bigger things. I’ve been telling people that it’s incredibly freeing and incredibly limiting to be working with VR. There are no rules, you have to find that spot where you know you’re doing enough or not doing enough. It’s fun! It’s like it makes you feel young again, everything’s new again.

to do some interesting things with audio. One thing we’re struggling with now is: “Is there sound in space?” In Gravity there was that scene where she was touching things and she could hear and feel it in the suit. Do we do that? How does that work? It’s exhilarating to figure out where to go. We purposely don’t really have any rules. We’re trying to make the coolest thing possible, tell a good story, to hopefully give gamers something different.

the official xbox magazine / 63

P r e v ie w Staffs and spells are on hand for players who don’t want to rely too heavily on melee-based combat.

Publisher Square Enix / Developer CI Games / Format Xbox One

Lords of the Fallen

The creatures of the catacombs have got nothing on us. Except a size advantage Bluffer’s Guide To say it’s like Dark Souls with a Darksiders art style is a bit too easy. It’s accurate though, so we’re going with it.

like to consider myself an experienced Dark Souls player – I’ve tangled with From Software’s deadliest creations and come out swinging. So when CI Games claimed that it would take “an experienced Dark Souls player” around 30-40 hours to finish its upcoming dungeon crawler, Lord of the Fallen, I took that as a personal challenge, and decided to use this hands-on demo as a warm-up exercise. For the first section of the playthrough, I’m led deep into the game’s catacombs, which are crawling with zombie-like Infested, who occasionally revive after their death. There are also Demonic Spiders, which spit acid and birth demonic spider babies if you allow them to live for too

long. After getting a feel for the ebb and flow of combat, I spend some time experimenting with my equipment and weapon loadout, swapping heavy metal armour for lighter leatherbased gear that will speed up playable character Harkyn’s attacks and dodges, and equip a shield alongside a standard one-handed broadsword. With everything in place, I pull a lever to enter an arena located at the centre of the Catacombs, where a boss called the Champion awaits. This massive, meaty mound of an opponent attempts to charge me down and slice me up with his man-sized elbow blades, so my lighter armour serves me well as I repeatedly roll out of the way. This causes him to smash headlong into a

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//CI claims it’ll take an experienced Dark Souls player 30 hours to finish// Crime does pay

Being bad feels pretty good You might have noticed that player character Harkyn is covered in tattoos. Each individual inking represents a crime, so altogether his collection marks him out as a particularly bad egg. This is the reason he’s chosen to fight for humanity when an ancient god reawakens and dispatches his minions to reconquer the world, thus giving Harkyn a fairly convenient chance at redemption through doing what he does best – lots and lots of killing.

64 / the official xbox magazine

wall, giving me a precious few seconds to retaliate and then retreat back out of harm’s way. Once I chip away enough damage, he enters a kind of berserk mode, where his blades glow orange and he becomes faster and much more aggressive – here it’s all about keeping your distance until he calms down again. Then it’s a case of rinse and repeat until the brute finally falls. It took a couple of attempts to take him down; a challenge, but a drop in the ocean compared to how many deaths I suffered from the likes of Ornstein and Smough in Dark Souls. The second boss battle the game throws at me is much more challenging. The First Warden appears early on in the game, and you’ll fight him inside a cathedral of sorts. He begins the battle with thick armour, a full body tower shield and a massive sword, but as I start to whittle down his health he discards his equipment in a suitably dramatic fashion until he’s down to just his skivvies, twirling his sword above his head in huge, sweeping pirouettes. It’s the least sexy striptease I’ve ever witnessed, and while a tougher fight it still lacks the elegance of From’s series. That said, Lords of the Fallen is looking better than I had anticipated. I’m not sure whether it’ll ever match the difficulty of Dark Souls, or if it even wants to, but if what little I’ve played is anything to go by, there are definitely worse ways to spend 30-40 hours. Aoife Wilson www.TOTALXBOX.coM

Preview

Cuphead’s bosses straddle a horrifying line somewhere between Dark Souls and Bill and Ben.

Publisher ID@Xbox / Developer Studio MDHR / Format Xbox One

Cuphead

A brimful of passion from pre-‘45 Bluffer’s Guide A traditional run ‘n’ gun platformer dressed to the nines in 1930s cartoon regalia.

here’s a moment in Max Fleischer’s 1939 cartoon, Small Fry – ostensibly a story about how children shouldn’t skip school to play pool – where the young protagonist is given a cigarette, blindfolded and pushed into a dark room full of deep sea fish that appear to want to eat him alive. It’s animated with a grim glee, all jabbering lips and big teeth, and it seems totally out of place, a dark, scary element in a story of delinquent fish and jazzy singsongs. Cuphead doesn’t just borrow Fleischer’s washed-out palette, gently blurred film-stock look and brilliantly grotesque animation style – it seems to want to take a little of that instructive message and unexpected horror along with it. That instruction’s pretty clear

– the fake episode name the game goes by is Don’t Deal With The Devil, and it’s clear that Cuphead (and his colourswapped co-op partner Mugman) have the sort of mischievous streak ‘30s animators tended to favour in their anthropomorphised wyrd-child heroes. That darkness, however, comes from a more interesting, gamefocused place. Cuphead’s standout enemies are its bosses – a rictus-grinned, sharp-toothed man-bat who emerges from a coffin, or what looks like the world’s creepiest take on Dragon Quest’s perennial slime enemies (now equipped with one gigantic boxing glove), all playing out familiar battle patterns in a kind of world we’ve simply never seen in a game before.

A tussle with a monstrous, bristling flower feels like Contra in a Color Classics disguise, with the sharp-nosed enemy taking up the right side of the screen as Cuphead bounds from hovering toadstools and fires streams of pellets at it, before jumping to the floor to escape its unsettlingly extended attacks. There’s something pleasant about matching such old-school mechanics with animation’s own retro grandpappy. We’re yet to see what the game between these encounters will consist of – there are hints of shmup sections and bullet-hell like swarms of enemies but, as with Fleischer’s work, it’s the jarring, standout moments we’re interested in most. Joe Skrebels

ETA

2015

feelin’ fine, lookin’ better

You’re not meant to judge a game on looks alone, but we go all superficial at the knees when Cuphead trailers come on.

@OXM

the official xbox magazine / 65

P r e v ie w A work in progress character model, showing a fondness for cheesy movie caricature.

Every weapon in the game can be thrown, so an empty gun isn’t entirely useless.

Publisher id@xbox / Developer Domino Effect / Format Xbox One

Red Awakening

Stealth meets horror meets hyperactive gunplay Bluffer’s Guide It’s a multiplayerfocused FPS with invisibility cloaks, murders, surreal visuals and a strippeddown HUD.

he games industry is full of odd couples – Master Chief and Cortana, action games and role-playing – but they don’t come much odder than Red Awakening, in which the frenetic TimeSplitters brand of local multiplayer cuddles up to the slipshod stealth of Dishonored. It’s more of a three-way, actually: the lurid comicbook visuals, environments like the asylum level and characters such as the hooded cheerleader are obviously indebted to B-movie horror. And then there’s the dual class system, which calls to mind Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow’s Spies vs Mercs mode. Stealth characters are all but untraceable while cloaked providing they keep moving, while Vision characters are equipped with thermal goggles that limit what you can hear, and grow ever more

powerful when team-mates use theirs at the same time. It’s a fascinating mixture – though it’s hard to get a sense of how successful all this is from the pre-alpha build, which doesn’t actually support multiplayer (the finished game will support encounters of five versus five). Still, the little touches are promising. There will be 27 weapons – primary, secondary and melee – ranging from laser-sighted pistols that fire explosive ammunition through machetes and baseball bats to flame throwers.

ETA TBA

Excessive force

While the OTT appearance of the weapons implies a certain carelessness of design, every variable has been thought through in depth. The game’s puritanical approach to HUD

//The plot calls to mind Rockstar’s controversial Manhunt series// Get set

Maps from the movies Domino Effect plans to ship with 15 maps, which are billed as a selection of Cold War-themed locations from the US and the Soviet Eastern Bloc, but recreated as an ‘80s horror movie set. One example is the Reichstag from Berlin, which has been remodelled in the style of the hotel from The Shining. There’s also a Siberian research station that looks a bit like the facility from John Carpenter’s The Thing. It’s an eye-catching approach to map design.

66 / the official xbox magazine

elements means that you’ll need to physically check a revolver’s drum to take stock of your remaining ammo, for example. Every decision made by the player appears to have clear pros and cons: cloaking means sacrificing the ability to check the radar on your wrist, and there are two kinds of assassination move – silent but slow, or noisy but quick. Sprint and you’ll be unable to check your health or radar. These also aren’t visible while cloaked – and nor is your laser pointer, which is problematic given that there are no crosshairs. To drop another ostentatious reference, the plot calls to mind Rockstar’s controversial Manhunt series. You’re the willing victim of a CIA-hatched ‘offender rehabilitation’ programme turned reality TV death sim. While there doesn’t seem to be a traditional campaign, each character has a backstory that can be excavated as you go about the business of dramatically lowering another player’s blood pressure. It’s hard to imagine this compensating for the absence of a story mode, however. Another potential problem is that Red Awakening is extremely fastpaced, which could pose difficulties given Domino’s ambition to make a multiplayer shooter that’s genuinely scary. Still, the idea of cowering in a corner with your combat knife while an enemy prowls the vicinity with a chainsaw is cause for trepidation. We look forward to the fruits of this cross-genre union. Edwin Evans-Thirlwell www.TOTALXBOX.coM

Preview

The game’s use of cliché could limit its appeal. Once you’ve seen one Orc-derivative, you’ve seen them all... Publisher TBC / Developer 8-Bit Studios / Format Xbox One

Skara: The Blade Remains Two’s company, three’s a crowd and 16 is, well, this game Bluffer’s Guide Free-to-play fantasy action game with five races and up to 16 players per match.

magine all the fantasy films you feel guilty about enjoying rolled into one, turned into a game and given away for free. Thus Skara: The Blade Remains, a multiplayer-focused thirdperson hack ‘n’ slasher. At this early stage in development, Skara isn’t much to write home about. Only two of the many characters appear to be operational, and they’re about as interesting and graceful as the ringside

spectators in any given fighting game. In the red corner, we find Man Wearing Hat With Horns – he’s the guy with the halberd-a-pult, and is all about slow, hard-hitting strikes. On the other side, there’s Guy With Sword and Shield, who’s all about turtle tactics and quick, unsportsmanlike stabs. Both characters are able to perform simple combos that mash together light and heavy blows: while there’s talk of unlockable (or

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//Matches should be bubbling

cauldrons of tactics and brutality// Earth works

How Microsoft helped 8-Bit move forward Skara’s creators were selected to participate in a three-month Microsoft Accelerator program in 2014, during which they received one-to-one mentoring from Microsoft Studios veterans and “unlimited” access to Xbox cloud servers. It’s one instance of Microsoft’s commitment to smaller, riskier indie outfits. “As well as having the chance to learn a lot, having a company like Microsoft’s support is further confirmation we’re on the right path,” reckoned creative director Pablo Rodriguez.

@OXM

purchasable) moves and weapons, it seems likely that depth will derive from positioning and team tactics rather than the intricacies of individual duels. While it’s hard to get a sense of this from the pre-alpha build, the map design has promise. One map consists of a cluster of climbable towers in the middle of a desert plateau, which is ringed by twisty paths that wind under and around each other. With 16 players in the field and a well-balanced set of character skills on display, the result should be a bubbling cauldron of tactics and brutality. One of the biggest unanswered questions relates to whether the game will thrive on Xbox One, given Microsoft’s insistence that all multiplayer games sit behind the Xbox Gold paywall. World of Tanks dev Wargaming has been vocal about the problems this poses for a free-to-play title; lacking an existing fanbase on PC, Skara has more to lose here. Still, games like Happy Wars have flourished on Xbox Live despite the Gold requirement, and Skara’s mix of racial archetypes is certainly eye-catching, even if the archetypes themselves aren’t. We look forward to playing more. Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

TBC

the official xbox magazine / 67

P r e v i ew Water-based Trap Master Snap Shot is bundled with the game at launch.

Publisher Activision / Developer Toys for Bob / Format Xbox 360 & Xbox One

Skylanders Trap Team Holy trap – this one’s not just for kids

t’s a sure sign of success for Skylanders when something as simple as a character’s idle animation makes us grin from ear to ear. But then, that’s always been one of the hallmarks of the series: fun and likeable figures bursting with personality, that look and sound like they’ve walked straight off the set of a Saturday morning cartoon. Skylanders Trap Team introduces the latest twist to the franchise in the form of its new Traptanium Portal and accompanying Traps. The story goes

Bluffer’s Guide An actionadventure game that uses reallife figures to trap and transport characters from our world to theirs.

that long-standing series villain Kaos makes his way to Cloudcracker Prison, a fortress made entirely out of the magical substance Traptanium. He blows up the prison, freeing all the villains and scattering shards of Traptanium throughout Skylands. Some even find their way to Earth, where they transform into the physical, collectible Traps which, like many features throughout Skylands, take the form of one of eight elemental alignments. These Traps and the Traptanium Portal are the only way of rounding

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Roll call

Stop by the Skylander Academy for minigames and meet-ups Your base of operations in Trap Team is the Skylander Academy, which the team at Toys for Bob say is the biggest hub world they’ve ever done in a Skylanders game. Here you’ll bump into lots of characters that fans of the franchise will recognise, like pilot Flynn, voiced by Patrick Warburton, and Persephone, who’ll grant you your upgrades. The Villain Vault, where you store villains that you’ve captured, is located here too.

68 / the official xbox magazine

up all the villains Kaos set free, which is where the new Trap Master Skylanders come in. Though you can use any of your pre-existing Skylanders characters to find and defeat the upwards of 40 villains that Kaos freed, the Trap Masters are unique in that they carry special Traptanium weapons. These give them the edge in combat and glow when a notable villain is nearby. Once an enemy is defeated, you place a Trap into the new Portal to capture the enemy inside, pulling them out of Skylands and into our world. It’s a sweet sequence whereby the audio shifts from your TV or surround sound system and into the Portal itself as the villain is captured. Once an enemy is detained, they can aid you in battle. You only have a limited time to use them, however, and once that expires, your Skylander will pop back in, and you’ll have a short cooldown period while that timer recharges. “Originally, we had it that using villains was limitless, but explaining to kids about swapping back and forth and tag-teaming wasn’t www.TOTALXBOX.coM

P r e v i ew

Villain Buzzer Beak starts mean, but once you get him on side he’ll soon prove an asset to your tag team. In addition to Wolfgang & co, villain Kaos is capturable.

Metadata

best bit…

There’s a Skylander out there to please everyone, whether it’s a diminutive dino or an undead Egyptian that shoots swarms of locusts from its face.

//Trap Masters carry special

Traptanium weapons, which give them the edge in combat//

really sinking in. This is a great way of getting them to understand all the benefits of switching,” producer Chris Wilson tells us.

Sweet and sour

The villains themselves are a delightful bunch. During our demo we’re introduced to Broccoli Guy, a healer who subtly reinforces the benefits of eating your greens, and Painyatta, a sugary thug who barfs candy and whacks his enemies with a lollipop hammer. There’s also Buzzer Beak, the bird-brained owner of that aforementioned adorable idle animation, and Wolfgang – a rock ‘n’ roll werewolf whose attacks are themed around his wicked-sweet electric guitar/harp. The new Skylanders can be used infinitely, however, and they all have @OXM

their own individual powers to make use of. “All of the Skylanders have their different upgrade chains, and you can evolve them,” Wilson explains. “Villains work slightly differently; they do have a degree of evolution but it’s done in a different way. We want the two types of classes, the hero characters and villains, to compliment each other and not step on each other’s toes. It’s all about choosing the right pairing between your Skylander and your villain.” New Skylanders introduced in Trap Team include Food Fight, a tomatolauncher-wielding artichoke who pairs nicely with Broccoli Guy (for obvious reasons), and Snap Shot, a crocagator who’s also leader of all the Trap Masters. Then there’s Wildfire, a hulking lion-like Skylander made out of solid gold; Chopper, a teeny tiny dinosaur; and Gearshift, a female robot

Fighting only gets you so far – there are plenty of environmental puzzles, too.

that fights with a giant Traptanium gear. “We have a lot of strong female characters, as we have a large female audience,” the team explains. “The approach we’ve always taken is to make aspiring, heroic female characters like Gearshift, rather than making damsel in distress characters.” The team also mention that they have a lot of children and parents involved in playing the game throughout the production process. Do they take the fact that a lot of adults enjoy the Skylanders games into consideration? “In the end, we’re always focused on making games for our core audience, which is kids. As adults, it’s often too easy to pay too much attention to the feedback that’s coming from adults and react to that, but we always have to remind ourselves who our audience is and why we’re making it. In the end, everyone wants to play a quality game, and if it’s a kids’ game and it’s quality, adults will want to play it too. That’s the most important thing.” If there are more cute animations where Buzzer Beak’s came from, sign us up now. Aoife Wilson the official xbox magazine / 69

Preview

on the radar The other games you should know about this month

Someone ran with “the Citizen Kane of video games” (in the loosest sense), we reckon. Publisher ID@Xbox / Developer Team Colorblind / Format Xbox One

Aztez

aking its visual cues from Platinum’s Wii weirdo MadWorld, and its subject matter from a Horrible Histories book, Aztez appears at first to be little more than a stylish 2D arena brawler. One overpowered dude in a cool hat beats seven shades – well, one shade – out of a tonne of others, using a mix of action-game fight-dodge mechanics and some more fantastical abilities. Given your brutal hero’s ability to juggle enemies, it seems built for combo specialists keen to go whole rounds without a missed hit. That’s enough to have us interested. But then there’s every chance that element represents less than half of the game. Key

to the action is what you’re doing outside of it. Two-man developer Team Colorblind isn’t saying much about the meat of Aztez yet, but we do know that it puts you in charge of the suddenly monochromatic Aztec civilisation as it expands across South America in classic turn-based style. The tiny sliver we have seen implies a Civilization-lite set-up, cutting to those aforementioned black-and-white beat ’em ups as a dynamic replacement for Firaxis’s more sedate combat sections. It’s as two-tone a game as its dominant colour scheme implies – but we’re most interested in finding out what happens when those two sides interact.

Publisher ID@Xbox / Developer Sirvo Format Xbox One

Publisher ID@Xbox Developer Storm in a Teacup / Format Xbox One

ETA

2014

Publisher ID@Xbox / Developer Frima Studio Format Xbox One

Chariot

Threes

Nero

unerals are tough. Wakes can be worse. Our least favourite part of the process, however, is heading into the wilderness with your fiancé, carting your regal dad’s corpse to his final resting place. This physics platformer turns that familiar but unpleasant phenomenon into couch co-op comedy. Each bobble-headed character has a rope for dragging, lifting, suspending or swinging the chariot (fancy coffin on wheels) – useful when only the vehicle, not the characters, can collect the treasures strewn across 25 stages. In other sections, you have to ride it like a platforming minecart or use it as part of a chain to keep your partner from dropping to their death. There’s almost enough invention here to make us feel bad ETA for not trying some stuff out at TBC Grandma’s send-off.

stensibly, Snap is a way to multi-task – Skyping, streaming, watching. It’s a time-saver, an efficiency engine. Threes, the previously mobile-only puzzle game, does not fit that philosophy. It’s dangerous; a breezy timesink that insinuates its way into your life. It’s a logic puzzler masquerading as a numbers game. You match and meld cards by swiping them around a 4x4 grid as new ones are added. It quickly becomes a mess of runic significance and gets all too much, then you have to start again. So its move to Xbox One, and the ability to snap it (the second “app game” after Nutjitsu), is appropriate. The idea of it sitting there, silently ready to encroach on TV, conversations or other games ETA fits its dangerous profile rather TBC nicely. We’re doomed.

t’s easy for an indie game to come out of nowhere, but it’s less common to see an entire studio phase loudly into existence as Nero developer Storm in a Teacup did. It’s quite an entrance, and one the company’s clearly proud of – it’s remained curiously tightlipped about its work ever since. Barring some cryptic comments and a baffling teaser trailer, there’s been little in the way of hard fact for months. So what do we know? That you play the shorter of two hooded characters, solving environmental puzzles from a first-person perspective (for example, you’ll be using summonable lanterns to reveal directionpointing shadows) and that there are tonnes of airborne jellyfish. It’s not a healthy attitude to PR, ETA but we can’t help but feel intrigued: 2015 what the hell is going on?

70 / the official xbox magazine

www.TOTALXBOX.coM

Preview

brain dump Publisher ID@Xbox / Developer Upper One Games Format Xbox One

Never Alone

wo-character puzzle platformer. You already know what that will entail. Each participant will have slightly different abilities, requiring co-operation and forward thinking to get past obstacles as you switch between them. There’ll likely be an evocative bit where one isn’t there, and you realise the limits of individuals through game design alone. Never Alone may be all these things, but it has a trick up its sleeve – you’ve never played a game about this subject. Made with the help of Alaskan Iñupiat storytellers, it tells of a young girl and an arctic fox lost in a seemingly endless blizzard, contending with challenges environmental and spiritual (amoral entities like ghostly Sky People are as much a challenge as wall-jump solutions). ETA This is a totally new situation, so AUTUMN you may be glad of the anchor provided by that familiar gameplay.

Publisher ID@Xbox Developer Snow Castle Games / Format Xbox One

Earthlock: Festival of Magic

RPGs are perhaps the only genre in which discussions about a new title often revolve around why it won’t feel right. No one launches into a discussion about Halo by saying, “I really hope the pistol feels totally different from how I remember it, to the extent that I am totally unfamiliar with how to use it”. But Earthlock’s standout changes to the formula veer towards intelligent, streamlined design. All party members come in warrior-protector pairs, making options plentiful without losing the turn-based risk-reward factor. Powerful elemental spells are controlled by ammo. The story is non-linear, with switchable characters, meaning any tendency ETA towards bizarre flights of fancy has to be curtailed. Earthlock looks like 2015 a different breed of JPRG.

Publisher ID@Xbox Developer Crazy Viking Studios / Format Xbox One

Publisher ID@Xbox Developer Ndemic Creations / Format Xbox One

here’s no doubting Crazy Viking’s debt to ’90s classics. The studio’s previously-onPC left-to-right brawler has traits more familiar to callous-fingered arcade frequenters than soft-skinned console users. Ghosts ’n Goblins’ unsexy striptease health mechanic, early Castlevania’s storyline asceticism and the coin-op terror of no save mechanic mark this as self-assuredly “hardcore”. But it’s modern, for all that. Völgarr’s ranged attack – chucking a bloody big spear – doubles as a platforming mechanism when it sticks into walls. Modern processor heft gives the game a (usually literal) meatiness and allows for a more crowded screen than in older entries. It seems studied, rather than stolen – we look forward to screaming ETA in piteous, primal frustration, just 2014 like the good old days.

mong the regular moral panics about violent games, there’s something sneakily delightful about a scarlet-hued grand strategy to coldly and systematically wipe out humanity in as unpleasant and efficient a way as possible. Plague Inc is nasty: a clean, smirking Hannibal Lecter to the berserk Jason Voorhees of first-person shooters. You move from a basic pathogen (each type, from virus to microscopic worm, has different strengths and weaknesses) to an apocalypse agent. You need to travel along manky skill trees (“Rash or renal failure?”) and micro-manage your strain’s grip on the regions of the world. It may not translate that well from PC, but we look forward to telling ETA people what we’re doing with a TBC screaming atlas on our TV.

Völgarr the Viking Plague Inc: Evolved T A

@OXM

Final despatches from the industry frontlines +++ Well named Reinhard Pollice, development director for Nordic Games, who inherited the Darksiders license from THQ, has said “there has to be a future for [the series]... and it will be awesome”. +++ Pollice also hinted at plans for Red Faction: Guerrilla: “I wouldn’t say it’s not happening... it could happen quite fast.” +++ Castle Crashers and Battleblock Theater dev, The Behemoth, has teased its first Xbox One game with a picture of a furious walking cupcake. +++ Bethesda’s Peter Hines has said the upcoming DOOM needs to be “something fun and different you need to pay attention to”. More updates on totalxbox.com the official xbox magazine / 71

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Talking about a revolution Words: Jon Hicks

72 / the official xbox magazine

www.TOTALXBOX.coM

ASS ASSIN’S CREED UNIT Y

Platform Xbox One Developer Ubisoft Montreal Publisher Ubisoft Release 28 October 2014

Where next for Assassin’s Creed, now that it’s back on dry land? Ubisoft Montreal explains Unity’s new setting, social focus and RPG-inspired progression

ome franchises have struggled with the transition to new consoles, but it’s been plain sailing so far for Assassin’s Creed. Aside from looking absolutely lovely on Xbox One, last year’s Black Flag was a breath of fresh air after the bloated self-importance of Assassin’s Creed 3. This year’s offering couldn’t be more different from both: set in late-18th century Paris at the height of the French Revolution, it’s the first co-op Assassin’s Creed, the first that won’t appear on Xbox 360, and the first to make serious revisions to free running and how missions unfold. We spoke to creative director Alexandre Amancio about reinventing urban stealth for a new generation. What was the thinking behind adding co-op? It’s a combination of many factors. Yes, the community had been asking for co-op for a long time but we also felt… if you look two generations back, the original Xbox was all about single-player games, this last generation was really about the reign of multiplayer games. I think this next generation might be about the social element: sharing your experiences, sharing your world. So it’s in that sense that this game is co-operative. It’s not co-operative in the sense that there’s gating, like where there are two levers you need to pull at the same time to open a door. It’s more that if the challenge needs you to do something in a certain way, it might be better to do it with buddies.

@OXM

the official xbox magazine / 73

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We now have deeper character progression. Before, assassins were pretty static in terms of their progression – they got new suits but it was only visual; now they have skills and skill points. You can spend your skill points on skills and get gear, so gloves might give you proficiency with certain weapons, a hood might make you harder to discover in a crowd, and boots make you move more silently, for example. There are dozens of these, hundreds, and not only do they look different but they also have special perks. So the idea is that you create an assassin for your own play style. Your buddies are obviously going to gear up their assassin according to their own way of playing, and to complement each other’s choices. You’re stronger as a group. So are we talking about different flavours of the same assassin, or a World of Warcraft-style selection of roles – tank, ranged and so on? The assassin is fundamentally an archetype, like a Cleric or a Thief or whatever, so the core of it will be the same because you’re all playing assassins. However, and I’ll give you an example: we have Eagle Sense, a skill that you need to purchase, and the first level is Eagle Pulse, which fades out, but if you upgrade it you get [proper] Eagle Sense, which stays active. And if you level it up to level three then it becomes communal, so if we’re playing together and I activate it, that information displayed on my screen is also displayed on yours. So we’re all playing assassins, but this element makes me unique within the group and will make me useful for scouting. Lock-picking is another skill you unlock with points. You can pick a level-three lock if you’re only level one (and you’re really good and you have a lot of picks), but it’s easier at level three. If there’s a level-three door and it’s a shortcut through the mission, then the guy who has lock-pick three will be invaluable. If we had kept our mission structure as it was before, all of this stuff would be trivial. What we did was – and I’m going off on a tangent here, but I think it’s important to the train of thought you were talking about – when most people talk about the low-level mechanics of the game, they talk about the navigation, the fighting, the stealth, and that’s certainly important. But one thing that’s vital to mention about Unity is all the mid-level stuff, the application of the low-level mechanics contextually within the 3D world. So the missions have evolved, but we’ve been working from the same basic foundation since Assassin’s Creed 2

Talking about a revolution

In a controversial bit of costcutting, there are no female avatars in co-op.

with our mission blocks: tail chase, eavesdrop, all that stuff. That is one of the things we wanted to tackle. Right now, we only have two missions, two types of major category missions. The first one is called AMM, Adaptive Mission Mechanic. I’ll give you an example: your narrative mission is that you need to find this secret hideout, and to do so you need to tail this guard. Previously, if he spotted you, it’s over and you have to restart; in Unity, how it would play out is you’d start tailing the enemy and at one point he spots you, he bolts and he starts running; it becomes a chase. You lose him, it’s a ‘locate’ mission. Or maybe he’s running and he runs into a systemic fight and gets killed; you loot the body, you find the letter and you know where the place is. However, now he’s missing, so they’re going to double up the guards in there. That’s one example, but that’s the philosophy. You can’t invent new activities to do in a city in the context of what you’re doing, so it’s not that; it’s how they afford you the possibility of expressing the way you want to play. Then your tools reinforce that, because if you’re a better scout, you can locate the guy easier, and if you’re a better free runner then you can catch him. The second big category of missions is what we call ‘black boxes’, these are 360˚ missions. So they don’t have to be an interior, they can be just a big slice of Paris, and we always start the mission by showing you what the area is, then let you explore, create your own path and do it the way you want to do it. For example: you’re carrying out an assassination mission, but you’ve been playing the city and doing the

“the idea of skills is that you create an assassin for your own play style”

The combat seems identical to previous offerings, but even more streamlined.

74 / the official xbox magazine

www.TOTALXBOX.coM

ASS ASSIN’S CREED UNIT Y

Drop-kills from a guillotine? Seems like it’s missing the point a little.

side-content and you’ve discovered, by undertaking a contract, that the cemetery has a crypt. You open the door to the crypt in the mission and it leads to a passage that leads inside. So you’re in this mission and you’re like, “Shit, I know about this passage, are they going to block it?” Before, on missions, we turned off [some of the openworld elements] because we didn’t want it interfering with the mission, but now we try to embrace it. We’re giving you more agency, because playing co-op is all about co-operation, it’s all about imagination, it’s about discovery. If you’re redoing the same thing over and over, it becomes tedious, so “let’s do this mission again, but let’s see what happens if we go through the front gates”.

You’ll progress seamlessly between large, detailed interiors and the open world.

of reasons, but the main reason is that every time a game designer tries to guess what a player wants to do, there is a chance we guess wrong. Every time we guess wrong, you get pissed off. Example: you’re tailing a guard, you’re trying to be all sneaky, and your character snaps up against the wall and you’re like, “Goddamn it,” and then you get spotted and you get even angrier. That’s because we don’t know whether you want to be agile or sneaky. By adding a stealth mode, you’re telling us, “I want to be sneaky, I want to be agile.” So less guess, more agency, less confusion, less frustration. Then we can build on it. So when you’re in stealth mode, you’re silent, all of your actions are contextually stealthy because we know you’re stealthy. Same thing for navigation: now that we know when you’re not trying to be stealthy, you can just add a little layer on top of that. It’s real easy: you’re holding the right trigger, you’re free running. Then you press A; you would be free running up, then you just press and hold the B button and you’re free running down. It’s up, down – that’s it. This is the real trick; maybe if you’re not an expert player it’ll be simple and you’ll be going down the wall, but if you are an expert player then you’ll be spotting all the different architectural elements and navigating on your way down. You don’t have to do it. It’s like the jump button: if you press the A button you can just free run and the character will automatically do it. But if you let it go, and let’s say run on rooftops, and just press the trigger and hit the A button, the assassin will jump. You can time the jump perfectly to be faster. So if you were doing a race with two players, one just holding the trigger and A, and the other actually just using the jump, the player using the jump will get there much faster. But you don’t have to do this. ■

“We’re giving you more agency – co-op is about imagination and discovery”

Assassin’s Creed has always been easy to pick up and play. Is there a concern that the RPG elements will make this too abstract for series fans? The way we do it is we don’t have XP, for example, so there’s not that level of abstraction that RPG players are used to. The skills are all stuff players will recognise – you start off with nothing, you get your basic skill and then you can upgrade your skills and get more stuff. So it happens in a gradual way, where people take it in slowly. As for the navigation, we added the controlled stealth mode. The reason we did that – well, there were a couple @OXM

the official xbox magazine / 75

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Words Ben Wilson

OXM’s Sporting Hall Of Fame

Saluting the very best of virtual turf, track and tennis court

here’s no greater accolade in the National Football League than winning a place at the sport’s Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. Basketball and baseball’s corridors of greats are well revered, too, and even WWE gets taken seriously once a year thanks to its WrestleMania induction ceremony. Sadly, however, there’s never been a fitting place for virtual sports to be similarly lavished with the acclaim they deserve. Until now, that is. No longer shall the greatest games in the sporting genre go unheralded, nor developers feel unrewarded for their excellent work on the court/rink/field of play. Ladies and gentleman, please prepare your finest champagne – and oversized crates of Gatorade – for the first batch of inductees to OXM’s Sporting Hall of Fame…

76 / the official xbox magazine

www.TOTALXBOX.coM

H A LL OF FA M E

FIFA on Xbox One did the unthinkable this season, surpassing even the great PES efforts of the mid-2000s.

Football

FIFA 14

A next-gen boost places EA’s beautiful game firmly at the top of the league Format Xbox One

★

Released Sep 2013

★

Pub EA

★

Dev EA Canada

here’s no romance to the most recent instalment in EA’s megabucks franchise being named best footy game ever, just as there was none in Manchester City buying their way to yet another Premier League title this season. But it’s a fact of the sport that, these days, money talks. And for all the stick its publisher has come in for over the years, the time and cash EA spent on re-energising FIFA for next-gen paid dividends both on and off the pitch. Where the matchday experience is concerned, FIFA 14 apes real football like no game before it. Authentic ball control, brilliantly individual AI, and crisp passing and shooting make every match a pleasure to sink your mind (and thumbs) into, with the experience enhanced by what’s happening around you. Fourth officials, managers, subs and even ball boys behave realistically. The game doesn’t merely look like real football: it plays like it, too. Off the pitch, a retooled career mode with innovative scouting options delivers season after season of Mourinhoaping enjoyment, and then there’s Ultimate Team. The highlight of all sports games for the last couple of years, it’s especially moreish on Xbox One thanks to the inclusion of exclusive legends such as Dennis Bergkamp, Ruud Gullit and Pelé. When virtual football plays this sublimely, who needs romance, anyway? @OXM

the official xbox magazine / 77

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Tennis

Virtua Tennis 3 Format Xbox 360 ★ Released Mar 2007 Pub Sega ★ Dev Sumo Digital

Tennis has served up numerous decent games over the last decade, but no truly exceptional ones. So Virtua 3 is the title that heads into our Hall of Fame. Using tennis balls to fend off alligators, or participate in bingo, or replicate curling, is as brilliantly bizarre as sports titles get – thereby justifying Virtua’s spot in this gaming pantheon.

Graphically, Madden has long moved on from this outing – shame the same can’t be said for the in-game AI.

Hockey

NHL 14 Format Xbox 360 ★ Released Sep 2013 Pub EA ★ Dev EA Canada

While EA was never able to recapture the magic of Xbox Madden during the Xbox 360 era, its hockey series ascended to such heights that rival NHL 2K eventually took its puck and went home permanently. The NHL series now so closely mirrors the real thing that it’s hard to see where an Xbox One instalment can take the game next. We look forward to finding out.

Golf

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10

American Football

Madden NFL 2005 Still ahead of the field, a decade after release Format Xbox

★

Released August 2004

★

Pub EA

★

Dev EA Tiburon

hile the Xbox 360 era featured a handful of good Madden outings, none ascended the heights of the game’s golden era: the last days of the original Xbox. That could be taken as an indictment of the series’ more recent efforts, but it’d be more pertinent to consider it a complement to a game that remains unsurpassed a decade later. What made Madden NFL 2005 so special? Simplicity, for starters. This played like a natural evolution of classic, Mega Drive-era Madden: easy to grasp for noobs who simply wanted to sling Hail Marys, yet also packing in near-endless depth for the hardcore fan. Sure, the occasional unfathomable dropped catch or shonky bit of run blocking rankled, but generally this bridged the divide between real and virtual sport seamlessly. Then there were the myriad off-field extras, from being able to edit the appearance of the fans watching your team, to a colossal Franchise mode. And who can forget the Tony Bruno show, with disgruntled spectators calling in to bemoan your ineptitude, or the ability to negotiate with restricted free agents? (A key part of the NFL offseason, which bafflingly never appeared in any of the later Xbox 360 iterations.) Between this and Take Two’s ESPN NFL 2K5, many opined in late 2004 that fans of the sport had never had it so good. Ten years on, that statement still holds true.

Format Xbox 360 ★ Released Jul 2009 Pub EA ★ Dev EA Tiburon

Not only did Tiger 10 introduce the US Open for the first time in series history, but it also snuck in snazzy features like dynamic weather data and the chance to replicate legendary moments in golfing history. Controls offered both simplicity and subtlety, and the balance of courses, both old and new, soothing and challenging, was perfect. Five years on, it remains king of the swingers. 78 / the official xbox magazine

www.TOTALXBOX.coM

H A LL OF FA M E

The best of Xbox Live Arcade

Button-hammering noobs loved Undisputed 3 just as much as Lesnarworshipping hardcores.

Sensible World of Soccer

MMA

UFC Undisputed 3

In the early ‘90s, Sensi rewrote the virtual footy rulebook – and after years of clamouring for its return, it finally landed on XBLA in 2008. Now as was back then, it’s best played against another human. Just don’t expect to remain on speaking terms after you win via an unsaveable 90th minute banana shot.

The undisputed champion of MMA on Xbox Format Xbox 360

★

Released Feb 2012

★

Pub THQ

★

Dev Yuke’s

ant all the fun of a night out in Croydon without having to bust out the TCP next morning? Yuke’s’ almighty brawler is the game for you. Mixed martial arts brings together numerous fighting disciplines, and all are represented among the biggest roster to ever grace a combat sports title. What’s more, you don’t need to know the sport off by heart. In terms of sporting realism this holds its own with the NHLs and NBA 2Ks, but it stands up to your Street Fighters and Soulcaliburs, too. In the office, we’ve witnessed OXMers with no interest in sports games wear the shiniest of grins after catching a colleague with a perfectly-timed Flash KO.

NBA Jam: On Fire Edition “Youuu-uuu, your ball is on fire…” Those with fond memories of ‘90s Jam, complete with flaming, impossible to defend dunks won’t be remotely disappointed by this Live comeback. But the turbo-paced action isn’t its only appeal – a challenge-packed career mode adds unexpected longevity, too.

Even non-boxing fans’ eyes lit up the instant they first caught sight of Fight Night on Xbox 360.

3-on-3 NHL Arcade Sports games aren’t exactly known for their laugh out loud humour, but this bucks that trend. Nonsensical power-ups trigger frozen players and shrinking goalies, while smaller teams guarantee a goal every 30 seconds. Result: endless fits of laughter even when you lose.

Boxing

Fight Night Round 3 An Xbox 360 debut that packs a punch Format Xbox 360

★

Released Mar 2006 Pub EA

★

Dev EA Chicago

ou could argue that both subsequent games in this series – Round 4 and Champion – were marginally superior to this fine fist-slinger. But when the Xbox 360 was revealed in 2005, it took a man’s jaw being shattered in slowmotion to demonstrate the next machine’s at-the-time-astonishing graphical capabilities. The sweat flying off the brow, the brutal displacement of cheek from mouth: nothing screamed ‘next-gen’ like seeing the human form disfigured in such uncensored, too-close-for-comfort fashion. And it’s for that reason, and the fondness with which so many remember it as their first great Xbox 360 sports game, that Round 3 enters our Hall of Fame ahead of its equally powerful offspring. @OXM

Pinball FX 2 Yes, for the benefit of this feature we’re calling it a sport. Play it and you’ll surely agree with the decision, with tables themed on Captain America and Street Fighter II Turbo on which to produce satisfying pings and whizzes and whirs. Four years post-release, it remains as addictive as ever.

the official xbox magazine / 79

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MVP 2005 remains so popular that devoted PC modders still play it nine years on.

Skateboarding

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 Format Xbox ★ Released Oct 2001 Pub Activision ★ Dev Neversoft

Pro Skater 3 achieved many firsts: first online skater; first appearance of the revert (enabling extended combos of super flashy moves); first time a game of this type really caught on with the mainstream. It’s not aged brilliantly, but it’s still more than twice the game of the ill-fated Shred, which killed the series off just nine years later.

Snowboarding

SSX

Format Xbox 360 ★ Released Mar 2012 Pub EA ★ Dev EA Canada

So often, the games of yesteryear most clamoured for are the ones that disappoint when they actually do get remade. Not so in this case: SSX returned a full 12 years after its debut – and in the form of its life. Fast, varied courses teased death on every jump and corner, but that only made the game’s plethora of gravity-mocking tricks all the more exhilarating to pull off.

Baseball

MVP Baseball 2005 EA’s final MLB outing still can’t be beaten Format Xbox

★

Released Feb 2005

★

Pub EA

★

Dev EA Canada

I Wrestling

WWE 2K14

t’s rare that you see EA lose out on the official rights to a major sporting licence, but that’s exactly what happened in 2005 when the company kissed its Major League Baseball games goodbye. Boy, did it sign off in style, though: two generations later, we’re still waiting for an Xbox game that nails all the sport’s basics so expertly and enjoyably as this one. MVP’s gameplay mechanics enabled you to feel like a genuine pro. For instance, the ball flashed a particular colour as it left the pitcher’s hand to let you know its delivery type, so you could play tactically and wait for a ball that suited you, rather than constantly guessing as in previous games. Then there was Dynasty mode, offering up to 120 complete seasons of baseball. Clear, concise menus made trading and negotiating a dream, but it was assembling a roster with the correct chemistry – long before FIFA’s Ultimate Team mode riffed on a similar theme – that became the biggest time sink. Just as Chicago Cubs fans spend every year praying for a long-awaited title win, so we whisper to the heavens on a nightly basis in the hope of MVP one day making a glorious return.

Format Xbox 360 ★ Released Nov 2013 Pub 2K ★ Dev Yuke’s

WWE games often split fans – with some claiming they don’t play like the ‘real’ thing. Trouble is, real WWE fighters work together to orchestrate a brutal ballet, whereas gamers just want to pummel each other. With a smart attributes system, numerous personalisation sliders and a heaving roster, 2K14 serves up those required back-andforth pummellings time after time. 80 / the official xbox magazine

www.TOTALXBOX.coM

H A LL OF FA M E

The next contenders

London 2012 offers up the ultimate stamina test for your forefingers and thumbs.

Athletics

London 2012

FIFA 15 Bafflingly, EA’s official World Cup 2014 game only appeared on Xbox 360 – but you can still expect its standout features to make their way over to FIFA 15. That likely means a less convoluted penalty system, improved back four AI, and fresh trapping and shooting animations. Roll on the new season.

Good as Gold

Format Xbox 360

★

Released Jun 2012

or more than a decade and a half, the words ‘International Track & Field’ evoked wistful smiles from gamers – and oceanic tears from developers. In its wake, every licensed athletics title strove to match the button-smashing fun of its 1996 forbear, yet all failed. London 2012 finally

★

Pub Sega

★

Dev Sega Australia

changed all that, with each of the game’s 31 events deftly tailored for minimum complexity and maximum enjoyment. On Hard difficulty the AI offered just the right amount of challenge, and online races against real humans elicited the best kind of big swears as you were pipped at the line in the 100 metres.

UFC As we’ve already pointed out, EA’s hockey title raised the bar for sports games when it debuted on Xbox 360. Real-world collision physics, NBCbranded presentation and 9,000 new fan animations give it a shot at doing the same again when it skates onto Xbox One in September.

Basketball

NBA 2K14

Blurring the line between actual and artificial Format Xbox One

★

Released Nov 2013

★

Pub 2K

★

Dev Visual Concepts

n the ‘90s, virtual b-ballin’ meant preposterously overblown dunks and impossible three-pointers, nailed using flaming balls by players who could sprint the length of the court faster than a Lucozaded Carl Lewis. It was a happy time – until the end of the decade approached and fans rightly wondered when they could expect the realism on show in Madden and PES to find its way into five-on-five basketball. Fast forward 15 years, and now NBA is the one all others are playing catch up with. Visually there’s little to separate this from a genuine TV broadcast, and that outstanding presentation is enhanced further by updates from real-life matches being seamlessly integrated as you play. Then there’s the actual gameplay, still packed with big dunks and breathtaking three-pointers, but all within the context of slower, smarter, more team-focused court action. Those who loved those arcadey ballas of the ‘90s will be shocked by the steepness of the learning curve. There’s no more hotfooting it past every opposition player, and nothing is spoon-fed. Tackle that curve head-on and you’re rewarded with one of the deepest sports sims ever created.

WWE 2K15 At last bound for Xbox One this October, Yuke’s’ veteran grappler will finally receive the overhaul critics have spent years pining for. Expect the outstanding NBA 2K facial tech to cross from baseball court to squared circle, and also look out for a series debut from Sting (the WCW legend rather than the hippie singer).

RBI Baseball 14

You can’t have a basketball videogame without impossi-dunks. Thankfully, 2K14 offers a fine selection.

Already released across the pond, this remake of a ‘90s favourite is due to be released on Xbox Live in the UK this summer. It’s had mixed reviews Stateside, but home-run heavy pickup-and-play action should instantly earn the game a few new fans on these shores.

@OXM

the official xbox magazine / 81

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82 / the official xbox magazine

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re vie w s The most important Xbox releases rated

THIS MONTH IN NUMBERS Number of games released this month that we would deem in any way worthy of being a true lead review?

0(So we don’t have one)

Franchise face-off

EA Sports UFC

UFC Undisputed

Chokeholds

Loads

Even More

Roster Size

106

Dead celebrity appearances

How many years since it first went gold? Outlast 1 Putty Squad 20

A new challenger comes to kick off a franchise (p84)

Another World: 20th Anniversary Edition: Er, 23

THIS MONTH WE HAVE…

Seen too many genitals p86

@OXM

Travelled to gaming’s past p87

Rolled out, switched off p88

Tamed the beast p91

Committed vanslaughter p92

the official xbox magazine / 83

review

The standing game’s impressive, but the floor game could do with a few more tweaks.

Publisher EA / Developer EA canada / Format Xbox One / release date Out now

EA Sports UFC Reviewer Joel Snape Live Private @JoelSnape

the knowledge What is it? A punching-heavy, grappling-light take on the world’s most violent sport. What’s it like? Going to an MMA class where everyone wants to punch and nobody knows jiu-jitsu. Who’s it for? Diehard fans and ‘stand and bang!’ bros who don’t know what a gogoplata is.

A new challenger makes its debut – with too many weaknesses to be crowned champ

ighting has never been more complicated. Up until the invention of the UFC in 1993, most of the general public thought that winning a limited-rules scrap was simply a case of swinging your limbs at the other chap fast enough to make him fall over. Brazilian jiu-jitsu master Royce Gracie proved them all wrong by throttling his way to tournament victory – three times – against an array of karate experts and wrestlers. But then the strikers learned just enough of his moves to stand a chance, and things swung back in the other direction. Fast-forward 20 years, and if you can’t defend against a rolling heelhook or do a Superman punch, you might as well not turn up. Nobody debuts in

the UFC as a fully-formed fighter. The question is: are your strengths enough to make up for your shortcomings? This, of course, is exactly what’s happening with EA Sports UFC. It’s EA’s first go at the franchise after three increasingly-good games from THQ, and EA Canada’s first try at mixed martial arts (the divisive EA MMA coming via the Florida studio), and it shows. A ton of attention’s been paid to presentation, with retinas that you really can see reflections in, some beautifully fluid animations, and fighters’ bodies heaving, deforming – and yes, bleeding quite a lot – from the strain of the bouts. The commentary is seamless, and the walkouts really are lovely. But that’s the superficial stuff. Just as some people look like killers in the gym

Bruce Almighty Was Bruce Lee the original mixed martial artist? Even though he never actually had a sporting fight, EA thinks so, and so this time around you can play as the little dragon himself – if you’re prepared to pay for the DLC. He’s actually one of the better welterweights, thanks to a decent selection of spinning kicks.

84 / the official xbox magazine

but fall apart in the Octagon, it’s once the serious fighting starts that you see the flaws appear.

Stand and bang

Every fight starts standing up, and it’s here that EA Sports UFC does its best work. Striking’s based on the onebutton-per-limb approach of the THQ games, rather than the stick-twirling seen in EA MMA and Fight Night. So putting combinations together, angling off to create openings, and countering are all pleasingly possible. Nothing ever connects with quite the impact of Fight Night’s screen-rattling hooks, but the fighters certainly ‘feel’ different. The parry system is more disappointing. Though nudging buttons to redirect punches going low or high works fine, the (relatively) huge window before you can swing back makes the action stutter – especially compared to Fight Night’s fluid slip-and-crack encounters. It’s also a shame that being ‘rocked’ doesn’t come with more visual frills. Your fighter certainly wobbles convincingly when hurt, but it’s done too subtly to convey much urgency. Standing clinches work well. As in THQ’s games, you twirl the stick www.TOTALXBOX.coM

review

Only about three people have ever pulled off this duck-under suplex in the UFC.

Miesha Tate is a rare dud character model – lovely in real-life, troll-like here.

“The presentation’s beautiful, but the rest is too limited to impress” to ‘pummel’ for superior position (as dictated by your fight style: an overunder hold is insta-throw territory with Olympic judoka Ronda Rousey, whereas the Thai clinch means knee-to-facedeath against a decent Anderson Silva player). Wrestling-style takedowns also work well, though there aren’t many animations for them – almost every character has the same three or four options, including one gigantic back suplex that’s probably only been used in the real UFC twice.

Jits and giggles

It’s when things hit the ground, though, that you really see EA’s weakness exposed. Again following THQ’s lead, it has you transition between positions with twirls of the stick, ‘modifying’ your

The OXM Verdict

PROS/CONS ✔ Fluid, meaty striking

✔ The character roster is massive ✔ Impressive, gruesome facial damage

@OXM

✖ The singleplayer options are limited ✖ The grappling can feel underwhelming ✖ No TJ Dillashaw

movements by holding the shoulder buttons. Stamina management is crucial – if you’re on the bottom, getting back to your feet is largely about conserving energy better than your opponent to create opportunities to explode. It’s not a bad system but, as with EA MMA, it feels horribly stunted by a lack of animations. Every character does the same no-hands scissor sweep and the same half-guard pass with their head in the wrong place. Grappling world champions and stand-and-bang strikers all have the same handful of moves, animated in a way that looks like they were mo-capped by white belts. Submissions are done via minigame – basically, the defender points the stick in different directions to ‘escape’, while the attacker blocks his

Most Desirable CHARACTER Ronda Rousey Sorry Bruce, but any lady who wins by hip-tossing her foe to the ground and breaking their arm would probably beat you.

Improved beardand-belly physics mean heavyweight chubster Roy Nelson’s never looked more magnificent.

DID YOU KNOW?

EA Canada enlisted MMA and BJJ coach Adam Ryan to teach the team the finer points of grappling during development.

movements and responds to on-screen prompts to tighten the squeeze. It works in the sense that it’s much tougher to finish than to escape, but it doesn’t really mimic the feel of a UFC fight, where submissions can happen in fractions of a second. Plus, having a cartoon Octagon appear in the middle of an otherwise lovingly-rendered fight spoils the suspension of disbelief a bit. Much of this doesn’t matter in multiplayer, where the thrill of a face-denting victory makes up for a lot of the flaws, and the striking really shines. That’s for the best, because Career mode is underwhelming (you fight through reality series The Ultimate Fighter and, uh, that’s it), and there’s a severe paucity of other solo options. Ultimately, EA Sports UFC feels like the debuting scrapper it is: clumsy, rough around the edges, and too limited to really impress, but entertaining enough to invest a bit of effort in. It’s certain to be better in future iterations, but for this year, it’s only worthy of attentions from the most fight-starved fans. OXM

Overall A promising debut, but the whole game’s just too light on options – both inside and outside the Octagon – to be the champ it so desperately wants to be.

the official xbox magazine / 85

review

It’s up to you how much of the game’s narrative you want to explore – there are no cutscenes.

The game often forces you into situations where your point of view will be restricted. Not all of the asylum inmates are dangerous to you, but how do you tell the good from the bad?

Publisher Red Barrels / Developer Red Barrels / Format XBOX ONE / release date OUT NOW

OUTLAST Reviewer AOIFE WILSON Live OXM Aoife @AoifeLockhart

the knowledge What is it? Tense survival horror with no weapons, just a night-vision camera. What’s it like? Take PC title Amnesia, add HalfLife’s platforming, and an aesthetic from Spanish horror film REC. Who’s it for? Anyone who doesn’t feel like sleeping for the next fortnight.

The most stressful game of hide and seek we’ve ever played

here’s always a grace period at the start of a horror game, that simultaneously teaches you the controls and fills you in on essential plot points, while keeping you safe from any real harm. In Outlast, which sees investigative journalist Miles Upshur travelling to the Mount Massive Asylum on a tip from an informant, you’d be wise to savour that time, as the instant Miles realises – too late – that whatever has been going on behind those locked doors isn’t worth the chance of a Pulitzer, your nerves will be shredded right up until the end credits. As the first real survival horror to appear on the Xbox One, Outlast sets a high standard. It owes a debt of inspiration to the likes of Project Zero, Half-Life and PC title Amnesia, from which it’s borrowed the mechanic of being able to open doors either in

The OXM Verdict

PROS/CONS

✔ Sound design is perfectly horrible

✖ Graphics aren’t exactly next gen

✔ Doesn’t scrimp on the gore

✖ Story retreads a number of familiar horror tropes

✔ You’ll encounter several ‘scream out loud’ scares

✖ Hiding sections can feel tedious

86 / the official xbox magazine

COMPLETION CLOCK

4-5

hours

an instant or gradually, for a peek at whatever is on the other side. This gradual opening is an unassuming feature, but the sensation that you’re moving with the door as it opens greatly heightens your trepidation over what you might find waiting on the other side.

Weight for it

Similarly, when enemies are close or you’re navigating a particularly dark or dangerous area, Miles’ breathing will become laboured, mirroring your own tension. And when the moment inevitably comes for you to run for your life, you feel pleasantly weighty, and there’s a great feeling of momentum when you’re hurtling down a corridor, vaulting over a discarded wheelchair and barrelling into double doors. In the complete absence of weapons, your only tool is a handheld camcorder with built-in night-vision

DID YOU KNOW?

Red Barrels is a small indie studio made of alumni of Ubisoft, Naughty Dog, EA, THQ, Eidos and Warner Bros Games.

mode. This lets you see through the darkness and get an edge over your would-be pursuers. There are some wonderful moments where you’re given mere milliseconds to react and take advantage of the fact you can see things the asylum inmates can’t. The game loses a little of its lustre towards the end, as you become a touch too familiar with the ‘collect three fuses/valves/keys to continue’ objectives sandwiched between jump scares and extended periods of hiding under a bed and waiting until the coast is clear. Thankfully, its relatively short run-time means that no one section is overplayed. We can’t say that we’re still sleeping with the light on, as the scares that it provides aren’t the sort that stay with you, but as a quick and dirty slice of nerve-jangling survival horror, Outlast makes an impression, and then some. OXM

Overall Despite its shtick wearing slightly thin towards the end, Outlast doesn’t outstay its welcome. And it certainly ensures you’ll never look at green-hued night-vision footage the same way again.

8 www.TOTALXBOX.coM

Only the truly nostlagic need apply.

Ripped through time-space in your scruffiest lab-khakis.

review

Publisher System 3 Software Ltd / Developer System 3 Software Ltd Format Xbox 360 / release date Out now

Publisher The Digital Lounge / Developer Delphine Software Format Xbox One / release date out now

Putty Squad

Another World: 20th Anniversary Edition

Shapeless, in every sense of the word

turned on Putty Squad, and is outdated and easily outwitted, I just didn’t understand it. so the worst that can happen is Why was I playing as a blue you miss a jump, fall, and have amorphous blob, and why was to repeat a particularly laborious I on a quest to greedily ingest platforming section to get back anything smaller than me? Why to where you started. Additional were loads of dogs and cats in objectives, like collecting stars military uniforms, and and stickers, are carrots in sunglasses, exactly as rewarding trying to kill me? Why as they sound. If did this decidedly you don’t fancy that average platformer there’s a Challenge Reviewer cost £9.99 on XBLA? mode, which sets you Aoife Wilson Then I did a bit a number of new goals Live OXM Aoife of research and to complete on each @AoifeLockhart discovered Putty map, such as finishing Squad was originally it within a certain time the knowledge a 1994 SNES port of limit or not using any What is it? an unreleased Amiga health items for the A ‘remake’ of a game, and everything duration of the run. SNES re-release made sense. Nostalgia of an unreleased The problem is that is probably the only the gameplay just Amiga title. reason any sane isn’t appealing: you What’s it like? A really, really old person would be can jump, stretch and platformer. And not willing to pay a squash to reach new a good one. tenner for a game areas, absorb enemies Who’s it for? that, in 2014, would to claim their powers People who loved struggle to stand out as your own, or use LB the original and have on Xbox Live’s Indie and RB to lash out at money to burn. Marketplace. bad guys that get too My main gripe is that close. That’s as complex there’s no thematic structure to as things ever get. the levels, only a disjointed ‘90s The reality is, in 2014, there wackiness that today just feels are far better games out there on tedious. And with no discernible XBLA for a fraction of the price. story or real time limit to push That’s not to say Putty Squad is you onwards, there’s very little terrible, but it shows every one to keep you invested. Enemy AI of its 20 years. OXM

The OXM Verdict

Did you know?

Putty Squad is a sequel to the Amiga title Super Putty. But by the time the follow-up was ready, the 16-bit era was all but over.

@OXM

Overall

Repetitive and rather mindless gameplay make playing Putty Squad an experience we’re unlikely to return to. If nothing else, it’s a stark reminder of just how far games have come.

Report from the near-future

t’s astounding how quickly of both more than once. Precise Another World reveals its landings don’t mesh with Lester’s influence on gaming. Eric gangly horizontal lurches, and Chahi’s stunning vector-look some ludicrously obtuse clues as platformer introduces cinematic to how to proceed only frustrate cutscenes (there’s something you. Worse still, many obstacles joltingly wonderful appear to be there to about the lingering extend the length of shot of lead character what is a very short Lester taking three game – completing it halting sips from a can without impediment Reviewer during the opening takes half an hour. sequence), basic cover Joe Skrebels Another World mechanics, smart point Live OXM Joe now feels more like @2plus2isjoe ‘n’ click telegraphing, a document than a unmarked, contextgame, a collection the knowledge sensitive QTEs and, less what is it? of nascent ideas laid welcomely, insta-kill forth for those lucky It’s only the 1991 enemies in the first few adventure-platformer enough to be working scrolling single screens. that changed how we with more advanced see games. If the reverant words tech. It’s testament of Hideo Kojima and to Chahi’s genius that What’s it like? Suda51 aren’t enough it feels this good two Most games you’ve played since 1991. to convince you of this decades on – the game’s influence, your rock-paper-scissors Who’s it for? familiarity with its ideas Retro wanderers, gunplay and hinted-at – despite a total lack of those in search of world-building feel answers, poison tutorials – will be. contemporary – but slug fans. This, in a way, is the frustrations, and the 20th Anniversary the abortive, confusing Edition’s main problem. Provably checkpointing between, hold it timeless elements make the back from being a rare example original’s issues apparent. Chahi’s of a truly perfect classic. Perhaps marriage of classic platforming more important, then, is the sheer and thoughtful adventure number of classics than can be elements brings out the worst traced directly back to it. OXM

The OXM Verdict

Did you know?

Eric Chahi’s latest game was 2011 god sim, From Dust. We can’t imagine that will get a 20thanniversary edition.

Overall

By no means perfect, but perhaps more influential than almost any other game from the same time period, Another World’s essential for anyone with more than a passing interest in games as a whole.

the official xbox magazine / 87

review

Now presenting the world’s largest pooper-scooper.

Insecticons are among the dullest of the generic enemies.

This gun’s beam leaps between enemies, saving you the stress of aiming.

Publisher Activision / Developer Edge of Reality / Format Xbox 360 & Xbox One (Xbox 360 version tested) / release date OUT NOW

Reviewer EDWIN EVANS-THIRLWELL Live OXM ETBoy @dirigiblebill

the knowledge What is it? A quick-fix action game to accompany a dreadful film. What’s it like? Gears of War: Optimus Edition, only less substantial. Who’s it for? People who can’t be bothered with better games.

Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark

The latest Transformers movie tie-in is neither dark nor sparky

ear Optimus Prime: I’m so sorry. We Earth-dwellers are not the beings of possibility you took us for. Lo, you have given unto us the concept of fabulous outer-space robots that can morph into dinosaurs, hot rods and spaceships. And we have given you back Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark, the videogame equivalent of a party popper that refuses to pop. Rise of the Dark Spark is a special kind of average – triple-distilled, carbon-reinforced bland. Whether because developer Edge of Reality isn’t equal to the strain of releasing across six different home formats, or because Activision thinks it can get away with dropping features, the latest adaptation is the leanest since

The OXM Verdict

PROS/CONS

✔ Transformers! ✔ Solid array of weapons and abilities ✔ You can blow stuff up. What more do you want?

✖ Oh, you want a game that does its premise justice ✖ Cut-down multiplayer offering ✖ Sluggish performance

88 / the official xbox magazine

High Moon Studios’ surprisingly solid Transformers: War for Cybertron. There’s no competitive multiplayer mode. All you get is Escalation, where up to four Xbox Live players defend one of seven maps against 15 waves of foes, buying and upgrading defences with cash earned from kills. The campaign doesn’t support co-op, despite all the ally characters. It blurs Decepticon and Autobot perspectives, which is jarring but irrelevant, because they have much the same objectives: go here, pull or shoot this, kill everything. The nuts, bolts, gears and pistons of Transformers combat are much as in previous games, which is good if you like third-person shooters with nicely differentiated (and upgradeable) weapons and gizmos, but not so good

COOLEST CHARACTER Jetfire Turns out there’s a flying Autobot who sounds and acts much like Captain Price from Modern Warfare. Chin up, soldier!

DID YOU KNOW?

Transformers: Age of Extinction took $100 million in its first weekend. There will be more films. And games. Oh dear.

if you want to feel like a Transformer. Having to open Gear Boxes via the pause screen to unlock gear is tedious. There are rough edges everywhere: the AI sometimes gets stuck behind things, and many checkpoints are just in front of unskippable cutscenes. But, every so often, you’ll stumble into an open area with dozens of enemies, vomit yourself into the shape of a hoverjet and have a rare old time tossing rockets around. A Transformer can be anything – that’s the point. Alas, a licensed game thrown together to coincide with a movie is only allowed to be inoffensive, economical and ontime. Rise of the Dark Spark ticks all those boxes. It’s the most hatefully unhateable game I’ve played. OXM

Overall Activision’s Transformers adaptations shed a little more charm and fascination each time they transform. This feels like the last okay offering before the rot truly sets in.

5 www.TOTALXBOX.coM

It’s not pretty, but at this speed it hardly matters.

Flashy night races are par for the course.

Publisher Happion Laboratories / Developer Happion Laboratories Format Xbox One / release date Out Now

Sixty Second Shooter Prime

irst impressions are 20-odd, each new, and more important, we know this. successful, attempt will add A firm handshake, a witty something: a power-up, enemy opener, not slugging a type or a triggered effect that job interviewer out of nerves – sees an entire arena of enemies these are things you learn as life explode in slow motion. goes on. Sixty Second By the time those Shooter Prime – first impressions are Happion Laboratories’ over, you’re playing upgraded port of a a different game. now-three-year-old You and your many Reviewer twin-stick shooter enemies move at JOE SKREBELS – doesn’t make a scorchingly high particularly good one. Live OXM Joe speed, you’re running @2plus2isjoe It’s probably over power-ups meant to look like a literally every two the knowledge cross between the seconds and a single what is it? particle cannonades touch ends the game. A twin-stick of Geometry Wars There’s little new shooter that’s as and the asceticism here, barring the fast to finish as it of Super Hexagon. In is to play. time limit (as proof, reality, it’s like a tieInfinity Mode loses What’s it like? dye Asteroids T-shirt much of the heartAsteroids, with a second joystick – not a fetching in-mouth countdown and an egg timer. spectacle. charm), but instant Unlocked colour restarts, an intrusive Who’s it for? High-score mods can obscure leaderboard and the obsessives and the differences buzz of the thing can very busy people. between power-ups easily turn 60 seconds and enemies, which into 60 minutes. would be a problem if Sixty It doesn’t amount to more Second Shooter didn’t have than a diversion – and we more opportunities to prove can’t help wishing the game itself. True to its name, each was Snap-able – but, it’s still round lasts a minute (well, instantly gratifying once the first usually less), and for your first impressions are over. OXM

The OXM Verdict

secs

@OXM

Overall

The very definition of cheap and cheerful, Sixty Second Shooter Prime matches simplicity with speed to make a shooter you don’t mind either losing or switching off after one round.

Publisher Milestone / Developer Milestone Format Xbox 360 / release date Out now

MotoGP 14 On yer bike

You’ve got to be in it to minute

COMPLETION CLOCK

review

eveloper Milestone has steer, and it takes knowledge of been making videogames the track to get into a rhythm; about overpowered bikes too heavy on the throttle through for a long time. After a even the easiest-looking series of five-year hiatus, the studio retook corners and you’ll end up bumping control of the MotoGP franchise through the gravel. last year, to almost entirely Be willing to learn, though, and adequate effect. It must have you’ll have fun with instant races, found an audience, because the a lengthy Career mode and the followup is another new Scenarios mode, competent and very which puts you in dense simulation. real-life situations from Accordingly, it’s MotoGP championships. intimidatingly detailed Career remains the Reviewer with little in the way of same: you’re a risky concessions to anybody SAM WHITE wildcard biker in the Live Jams Bend not already committed lower formulae who to the sport. The series’ @samwrite shoots through the handling system has ranks with the aim the knowledge always been incredibly of becoming World what is it? tight and complex when Fast bikes, detailed Champion. New to played on full sim mode. simulation, lowCareer, there’s also You’ve got to know Real Events, based on resolution graphics. tracks extremely well objectives from past What’s it like? to hit every apex, apply A tough, involving real-life MotoGP events. the throttle and brakes sim. Not for the After such a long faint-hearted. just right, and manage tenure, Milestone has the balancing position learned to present Who’s it for? of your rider. It takes an authentic and People who care deeply about a lot of practice to compelling, but motor racing. place anywhere higher not-entirely-lifelike, than last place. representation of There’s a lot of MotoGP. With 18 tracks difficulty customisation, for and tons of events, any fan will beginners to tune their assist adore this substantial game. It’s levels and the like, but even with difficult for a yearly upgrade to auto-brake and other tricksy be distinct, and MotoGP doesn’t helps, it’s still challenging from always succeed, but it’s still the the word go. Bikes are heavy to best game in the series. OXM

The OXM Verdict

COMPLETION CLOCK

hours

Overall

Yes, it’s another yearly update with sub-par visuals – but a couple of new features are all it takes to make this the best of the series so far. You may wish that it had more competition, however.

the official xbox magazine / 89

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Bigby finally shows us his true form.

The key to success is learning environmental quirks.

Publisher Telltale Games / Developer Telltale Games Format Xbox 360 / release date Out Now

review

Publisher Nicalis / Developer 8Bits Fanatics Format Xbox one / release date Out now

The Wolf Among Us 1,001 spikes Episode 5: Cry Wolf A new kind of difficulty spike Wrapping things up and tying a bow on it

ry Wolf brings an end to can choose to settle things with the first – but unlikely a bloodbath, but you’re also free to be last – season of to take a more diplomatic path, Telltale’s Fables prequel and this is where all your past The Wolf Among Us, and it’s acts may come back to haunt you about as satisfying and thrilling – or win you some sympathetic an end as we could ears, if you were prone have hoped for. to acts of clemency. Cry Picking up where Wolf references almost the penultimate every decision players episode left off, we’re have made throughout Reviewer gifted an extremely the first season, while Aoife Wilson worthy – and suitably setting up some big Live OXM Aoife cunning – final new choices of its own. @AoifeLockhart adversary in The Every scene feels Crooked Man. His justified and leads to a the knowledge right-hand woman, satisfying conclusion what is it? Bloody Mary, is one or confrontation, A noir thriller where of the best new and the action fairytale characters female characters I’ve meet grisly realsequences and QTEs encountered in world problems. feel well-placed and a game for quite paced. It is a bit of a What’s it like? some time, owing disappointment, given Engrossing to the chiefly to how single- end, even though the chemistry Telltale the framerate is still mindedly evil she is. has built up between shonky as ever It was also a treat Snow and Bigby, that Who’s it for? to finally encounter she barely features at Bigby in his true form, Anyone that likes all, while peripheral a hard-boiled and to have a nod, characters are given detective story. however brief, as to more screen time. Mind his distant origins. you, that’ll probably be addressed While this is by far the season’s by the inevitable Season Two. It most action-packed episode, it’s got pretty hairy for a while there, also one of its most thoughtful. but Fabletown’s more than It begins with Bigby cornered earned its (sort of) happy ever and utterly outnumbered. You after. For now, at least. OXM

The OXM Verdict COMPLETION CLOCK

hours

@OXM

Overall

Mixing tense action sequences and clever character development with thoughtful scripting and meaningful dialogue, Cry Wolf is a spectacular end to an excellent series.

erhaps the oldest feeling few hours – not to mention just I can remember of playing how quickly a thrown dagger, games is that developers his only other ability, can were laughing at me. counter an Indiana Jones-esque Playing Asterix & the Secret environmental trap’s darts. Mission, the Game Gear edition At its best, this is a game of of Sonic 2, and any number of supreme skill, exacting in the low-grade ‘90s platformers, led way few platformers dare to to high-pressure situations my be, because it knows just how young mind could only elegantly put together interpret as impossible. its base design is. My thumbs simply Weaving your way couldn’t work that through a creaking, fast – it was a joke at crumbling maze Reviewer my expense. It’s an that simultaneously joe skrebels immature response, wants to kill you Live OXM Joe an easy reason to give feels fantastic. @2plus2isjoe up, to pretend that Unfortunately, that it wasn’t my fault I’d usually follows a the knowledge wasted the pocket lengthy period of trialwhat is it? money I could have and-error frustration. A decidedly retro spent on more Pogs. The first ten or so precision platformer I hadn’t felt that way runs of any level (you with your death again, until 1,001 on its mind. begin with 1,001 lives, Spikes came along. so don’t worry too What’s it like? A pseudo 8-bit much) tend to result Your angry, 8-yearold self’s memories of in unexpected death, platformer designed ‘impossible’ games. entirely around often the result of I Who’s it for? forcing you through Wanna Be The GuyThrill-seekers and/ scrolling trials by ire, indebted hidden traps. or those who enjoy it’s punishing and Whether you enjoy being walked on in meticulously designed. high heels. that mortal rhythm will Lead character Aban come down to how Hawkins possesses two jump much you enjoy the experience of inputs – one sends him up a finally nailing a run, as opposed to single regulation block’s height; the numerous deaths beforehand the other, two. You’ll get to know – or to put it another way, whether just how each one’s rigid arc you feel as though 8bits Fanatics will propel you within the first is laughing with you, or at you. OXM

The OXM Verdict

Did you know?

This is a sort-of sequel to underappreciated 2011 Xbox Live Indie Game, Aban Hawkins & the 1,000 Spikes.

Overall

Occasionally incredible and often frustrating, there’s no way this could ever have been for everyone. Find yourself on the right side of that masochistic equation, however, and it will savage a rarely-scratched itch.

the official xbox magazine / 91

review

Larger bosses don't pose as much of a challenge as hordes of debris-flinging undead, but they're still resilient.

The entire game should be set at night – vehicle headlights are appropriately moody.

Publisher EXOR Studios / Developer EXOR Studios Format Xbox One / release date Out now

Reviewer Aoife Wilson Live OXM Aoife @AoifeLockhart

the knowledge What is it? A top-down shootercome-driver in which you accumulate undead roadkill. What’s it like? Oddly, it alternates between morbidly compelling and tediously boring. Who’s it for? Players who enjoy running down and mopping up every last enemy.

Zombie Driver: Ultimate Edition

Roads? Where we’re going, they’re buried under zombie entrails

f you’re the kind of sadistic individual that gets untold pleasure from squeezing a particularly juicy zit, you’re going to get a real kick out of Zombie Driver – a game whose main pleasure derives from running down or shooting up crowds of undead and watching their heads pop like clusters of ripe whiteheads. A top-down shooter with more than a passing resemblance to early GTA titles, Zombie Driver encompasses three game modes, each taking advantage of its post-apocalyptic setting. There’s the vanilla Story mode, in which you accept missions from the military to rescue survivors throughout the city, and destroy gigantic mutant bosses to upgrade your vehicles and equipment; there’s Blood Race, which

The OXM Verdict

PROS/CONS

✔ Lighting is truly impressive, particularly at night ✔ Hordes of zombies are definitely a next-gen upgrade ✔ Satisfying combat

has you chasing down other specially outfitted cars on custom tracks; or there’s Slaughter, which tasks you with surviving waves of increasingly aggressive zombies with a variety of hood-mounted weapons. An upgrade from the version previously released on Xbox 360, the Ultimate Edition includes every bit of DLC ever created for the game on other platforms. Additionally, it offers a full 1080p resolution running at a steady 60 frames per second, if you’re conscious of that sort of thing. Best of all, though, is the Xbox One’s ability to host more than twice as many zombies on screen at any one time. There are also a number of smaller weather and environment upgrades, as well as other, more

the best bit

✖ No multiplayer. At all. Say what now? ✖ Voice acting is distractingly bad ✖ At £11.99, the price really doesn’t feel justified

92 / the official xbox magazine

Screeching through a horde of undead, leaving behind a trail of bloody tyre-prints.

Did you know?

The Xbox One edition includes a pack of car skins that haven’t been released on any other platform, even Xbox 360.

subtle improvements such as more detailed particle animations.

Dead and gone

But despite cosmetic improvements, it’s still just as well that the act of squishing undead is so cathartic, as the game never tasks you with anything beyond that, save repeatedly rescuing survivors and driving them back to your base site. You do get the opportunity to upgrade your wheels – from a humble taxi to a school bus, bulldozer, fire truck and eventually even a tank – but the basic challenges across its 30-odd stages never vary. Drive to this bit of the map, kill everything that moves, maybe pick up an NPC or two, drive back to where you started. OXM

Overall It might not have much depth, but if you just want to have a good, silly, and above all violent old time, Zombie Driver does the trick – and this is by far the best version going.

6 www.TOTALXBOX.coM

online

reviews

This guy’s head is about one second away from not existing any more. Publisher 505 Games / Developer Rebellion / Format Xbox 360 & xbox one / original score 6/10

Sniper Elite 3 Enemy At The Logic Gates

Reviewer Jon Denton Live Guacamole Kid @jondenton

uring the decadeplus of Xbox Live, never has any game had a stranger matchmaking system than Sniper Elite 3. Some games chuck you into a server, others ask you to create your own lobby, and the smoothest cleverly match you with equally skilled players without a hitch. Rebellion’s third tale of scopes and skullshattering, though, opts for something quite baffling. You choose from a fairly typical list of match-types, and then the game tells you it’ll give you a nudge

We said “A touch too charmless to rank as one of the great B-games, but it does deliver on its premise.”

when it finds a game. You’re then left to your own devices, and if it does find a match, you’ll get a party invite – from the game itself – which then links you to a party with the opponents you’re now playing with. It’s madness. It also doesn’t work very well. Actually finding opponents in Sniper Elite 3 is trickier than landing a perfect headshot. I never found a full game, instead playing 2-on-2, 2-on-3 and, most

commonly, 1-on-1 matches, when the modes allowed for 12 players. Yet, from the ashes of this matchmaking apocalypse comes a quite splendid multiplayer game. Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch are fundamentally worthless; all sniping is rendered moot by the fact you can just creep up behind prone sharpshooters and pop them in the back with your machine gun. Thankfully, Rebellion has conjured up a pair of modes that do great work in countering this frustrating reality. ‘Distance King’ only awards score for the distance between you and the enemy you eliminate.

“Finding opponents in Sniper Elite 3 is trickier than landing a perfect headshot”

You can still run up to your enemy and shoot them in the back, but you’ll only get a couple of points for it. A good sniper shot can easily earn you 100+. ‘No Cross’ creates an impassable barrier from one side of the map to the other, meaning it’s impossible to fight at close-quarters. And so Sniper Elite 3 is allowed to settle into a rhythm that genuinely feels like nothing else. This is a slow, methodical, tense online shooter that requires intense concentration and teamwork. As in the campaign, you can tag enemies spotted through your binoculars. Smart players will locate a rooftop or hilly outcrop, and quickly scan the environment. The dream scenario is to spot an unsuspecting enemy and tag them, revealing their location

are we having fun yet? Our first hour rendered as a wavy line… Amazing Enjoyable

What is this matchmaking system?

Annoying

Scouting the horizon, looking for trouble.

First online headshot; first victory.

Can’t find anyone to play with.

Finally, more people to play with.

Teaming up with friends in a busy match.

Rage Quit Minutes 0

94 / the official xbox magazine

www.TOTALXBOX.coM

review

With so many cars in a race, you’d expect a tiny bit of banter, surely?

There are only a few maps, and they’re all incredibly similar, but it doesn’t matter hugely. Scope out the horizon, spot an enemy, line them up, miss spectacularly.

Publisher Codemasters / Developer Codemasters / Format Xbox 360 / original score 7/10

GRID Autosport The long, lonely road

to everyone on your team. This might lead to a teammate severing their brain stem with a bullet or, ideally, you doing it yourself. Sniper Elite 3 leverages its splendid sharpshooting to its online game, meaning you have to compensate for distance, movement, and even wind. Hit a perfect headshot, though, and the camera flips to your enemy’s point of view, and you get a slow-motion money shot of the bullet shattering their cranium. It’s astonishingly satisfying. What a shame, then, that it’s so difficult to find a full match. When played with real people this is a strategic, intelligent and compelling game. Which makes it all the more irritating when you can’t find anyone to shoot in the ribcage. OXM

Reviewer Sam White Live Jams Bend @samwrite

riving online is hostile. Without team-based banter, players are left to fend for themselves in the lonely cockpit of a supercharged hypercar. With dodgy-looking players smashing into you unfairly, and devs still not quite perfecting the online penalty systems, there’s even less reason to share friendly words with each other. GRID Autosport is no different in this respect. Throughout my online experience of about four hours, the community was sterile, cold and uninviting. Playing dozens of races in all the various disciplines, I heard almost no chat. Players usually had their mics muted, or were a hodgepodge of different nationalities with a noticeable

We said “The game may lack next generational pizzazz, but it’s a substantial stop-gap”

language barrier halting any feasible level of communication. Things are made more frustrating by the slow lobby system, which often takes a couple of minutes to get into each room. Annoying, too, is the Quick Match system, which always managed to connect me to Demolition Derby events with the same players. Custom cup matches are the way to go if you’re looking for something a little more exciting than smashing each other up across 11 short laps of the same circuit. Thankfully, Autosport’s online racing is actually really good, which salvages the sense of loneliness. There’s tons to do, and a lot of features seemingly forgotten about in single-player are crammed in here instead.

The OXM Verdict A very good online shooter spoiled by a matchmaking system built by the work experience lad.

@OXM

By comparison, the multiplayer makes the already-large singleplayer look quite slim. You start out earning money by completing races and borrowing cars to use in single events. Eventually, you’ll accrue enough gold to start buying your own cars to curate a garage of different vehicles – and this is where the magic begins. You can upgrade your cars, keeping an eye on progressive damage ratings as you use each one in events. It’s a great way to keep you interested in ranking up and earning money by winning events, rather than just sacking off a progression system altogether and giving you cars you can do nothing with once they’ve been earned. As a community, there’s very little here to convince you that Autosport is anything more than a stopgap to what might come next. Still, it might be lonely in motorsport, but it’s frequently exhilarating on track. OXM

The OXM Verdict

A car’s history plays a big part in how well it races. Treat it badly and your performance will suffer.

The game’s wellequipped and exciting – it’s just a shame the players aren’t more welcoming.

the official xbox magazine / 95

the

Also released

download

Latest add-ons and indie games rated

From best to worst, the latest additions to Xbox Live Marketplace

Yes, you’ll have to fight a decayed giant zombie M. Bison that fires laser beams from its eyes.

Watch Dogs – conspiracy

Hunt down cyborgs in a mind-bending alternate game universe with this Digital Trip game mode. Price: £3.99

2 PVZ: Garden Warfare – Tactical Taco Party Pack In which you can play all-new map Jewel Junction, game mode Vanquish Confirmed, and an 8 vs. 8 mixed mode playlist. Price: FREE Publisher Microsoft / Developer Capcom / Format Xbox One / reviewer Tamoor Hussain / Price £7.99

Super Ultra Dead Rising 3 Arcade Remix Hyper Edition EX Plus Alpha

More references than you can shake an undead limb at

his year’s oddest piece of downloadable content takes the Dead Rising series’ evercathartic gameplay of tearing through crowds of shambling zombies, then cranks up the daftness by wrapping it in classic arcade tropes and saturating it in spectacular Capcom fan service. As either Chuck, Annie, Frank or Nick, you’re thrown into one of four familiar areas from the main game and tasked with completing a series of challenges daisy-chained together over five rounds. It’s all familiar stuff – kill zombies, rescue survivors, destroy objects – but it’s given a nice twist through the inclusion of collectible gold coins and arcade-style power-

ups that have been placed around each level. Power-ups vary from health boosts to spawning vehicles, powerful weapons or extra armour. Since the clock is ticking and zombies are particularly grabby, using powerups is essential to carving a path through the crowd and completing the objective. Gameplay is simple and satisfying, but its longevity hinges on your own desire to replay sections for higher scores, or to find the various hidden collectibles scattered around each location – and they’re worth finding, especially if you’re a Capcom fan.

The big draw here is the fan service. If you grew up playing classic Capcom games, touches like the RAM loading boot up sequence, the logo jingle, the unashamed overuse of Street Fighter music, being turned into Resident Evil’s inexplicable block Tofu by a power-up, or having to face Akuma as a boss, are worth the price. It’s harder to justify to non-fans, but they still get a fun, colourful romp that will give a few extra hours of solid zombie-killing joy. And for those inclined to hunt down Easter eggs, there are wonderful little hits of nostalgia too, even if the buzz is short-lasting. OXM

//The collectibles are worth finding – especially if you’re a Capcom fan//

Pinball FX 2 – Deadpool

The Merc with a Mouth gets immortalised in a pinball table, and you can bet it breaks the fourth wall at least once. Price: £2.39

Injustice: Gods Among Us – Lockdown skin pack

New costumes for Bane, Batman, Harley Quinn, Green Lantern, and a rather drab Lockdown skin for Superman. Price: £1.99

CoD: Ghosts – Leopard Personalisation Pack

This animal print pack includes a leopardspotted camo and a themed reticule, patch, playercard and background. Price: £1.69

The OXM Verdict

The character variations are more than just outfit swaps; each presents a twist to the core move set.

96 / the official xbox magazine

More of the same goofy, eccentric zombie-killing action Dead Rising fans love, sprinkled with Capcom callouts.

Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate – Overalls set

How are these costume packs still happening? Is anybody buying these softcore porn skins? Can we stop them? Price: £11.99 www.TOTALXBOX.coM

Though there’s a pervasive sense of déjà vu along Mount Massive’s corridors, Whistleblower’s story is top stuff.

review

Publisher red barrels / Developer Red Barrels / Format Xbox One / reviewer Aoife Wilson / Price £5.29

Outlast: The Whistleblower Close encounters of the tense kind

he Whistleblower expands on the lore of the original game and returns you to Mount Massive as Waylon Park, the man who anonymously tipped off player-character Miles Upshur at the beginning of the main game. It does a great job of complementing the original story – essentially acting as both a prologue and an epilogue

to Outlast proper. Things feel a little less fresh on the action side of things – you still rely on a night-vision camera to navigate through Mount Massive – but the fact that you’re retreading a lot of the same locations makes the journey a little less exciting. If you enjoyed the main game and fancy more of the same, this is just what the doctor ordered. OXM

Format Xbox 360 / reviewer Aoife Wilson / Price FREE

Relying less on jump scares and more on moody, atmospheric tension, this is a great addition to the main game.

Format Xbox 360 & XbOX ONE / reviewer Aoife Wilson / Price £5.59

GTA Online – The Independence Day Special

The OXM Verdict

rive from sea to shining sea with a new Sovereign motorbike and Liberator monster truck, and protect your right to bear arms with Ammu-Nation’s antique musket and Firework Rocket Launcher. Possibly the most exciting new inclusion, however, can be found on Pleasure Pier, where you can ride the Ferris Whale and the Leviathan Roller Coaster. OXM

Watch Dogs – Access Granted Pack

eason Pass holders will already have access to all this pack offers: three new single-player missions, six new skins, new weapons, and new skills including the ATM Hack Boost and the Vehicle Expert perk. It’s nothing you’ll sorely miss, but there’s plenty to warrant it a worthy purchase for those eager to further their career in hacktivism. OXM

Indie Roundup / The latest hidden gems and DIY disasters

Mashapocolypse Competitively mash buttons along to a grating, looping clip of music. About as fun as it sounds.

***** @OXM

Outpost Defender Make a paper aeroplane and chuck it out a window. It’ll handle better than the crafts in this shooter.

*****

Croc’s World Ignore the fact that Croc dies when he touches water, and this is a fun, if safe, Mario-lite platformer.

*****

Logan’s Treasure How can a Manic Miner knock-off made more than 30 years after the original feel like a step backwards?

*****

Parkza This one’s worth getting just to experience the magnificence of its ‘Game Over’ screen. Unparalleled.

*****

the official xbox magazine / 97

Squeezing more from your machine every month

page

106 100 OXM Investigates

Along with some much-loved developers, we reminisce on what “shooter” used to mean.

102 GRID 2

Why we should remember Codemasters’ racer more for its manageability than its machismo.

104 Now Playing

Joe settles a score, Alice Bell goes through basic training and Alaina Yee gets epic.

106 OXM Replay

Ryan Davies talks us through the anti-Call of Duty. Which, as it turns out, is Call of Duty 3.

108 Community Spotlight

Watch Dogs skill tests, the loving void of Peggle 2 and the madness of Trials Fusion creators.

110 Xbox Movies

It’s the oldest battle of all – roots music vs. horror films. Who will come out on top?

112 Must Buy

2 102 Grid Fantasy and simulation needn’t be separate. page

page

100 @OXM

page

104

One day, everything on this list will be a priceless antique – we’re doing you a favour.

114 The Final Countdown

The plasma tan, friend of hermetic nerds. Make the most of your indoor summer holidays.

page

114 the official xbox magazine / 99

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extra

oxm INVESTIGATES Uncovering the other side of Xbox gaming

Antique Weaponry The great things shooters used to do that have fallen out of fashion

ummarising how much shooters have changed since the first time somebody fired a gun in a game is impossible. There are too many variations, whether you’re talking about the smelly machismo of a series like Duke Nukem, or the agonising firework displays of a ‘bullet hell’ arcade game. Instead, we’ve spoken to a number of the industry’s leading developers about their favourite shooter features from times gone by. Suffice to say that the genre’s history doesn’t begin with the launch of Call of Duty 4.

Single player levels you can actually explore! Name: Adrian Chmielarz Developer: The Astronauts Key game: Bulletstorm “I’d love to see someone bring back the forgotten hero of the shooter genre: a level you know inside out. Most modern shooters are all about pushing forward. You enter a combat area, deal with the enemies, move on to the next area, rinse, repeat. At best there’s a little bit of backtracking. Now, recall Doom 2. The map overlay, and getting familiar with the place. Cleaning up rooms from demons. Discovering secrets. Opening up new areas and connections, morphing parts of the level into something different. The levels were alive, you could feel their presence – they were a friend and a foe at the same time.” 100 / the official xbox magazine

www.TOTALXBOX.coM

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extra

Pink cowboys!

Bunny-hopping!

Name: Lasse Middelbo Outzen Developer: Press Play Key game: Max: The Curse of Brotherhood “A game we keep going back to here at the studio is Sunset Riders from Konami, which we play through a PC coin-op emulator. We originally picked it up out of sheer nostalgia, but we soon realised that the slow-moving bullets actually provided fantastic gameplay – especially when played as four-player co-op. The game is basically a 2D side-scrolling shooter starring pink cowboys who have to shoot their way through the land. What really makes it shine is that it is constantly throwing upgrades and new gameplay at you. It is a good example of how few [ingredients] are required to create a fantastic game.”

Name: Jamie Winsor Developer: Undead Labs Key game: State of Decay “Bunny hopping, or bunny jumping, was the best way to separate the scrubs from the pros. You might ‘know’ a level in a modern shooter, but mastering the fastest route to the best power-ups or to reach a choke point faster than your opponents was sometimes more important than your aim. It wasn’t about just mashing the space bar, either, it was about rhythm. The technique typically involves a mix of jumping, strafing, and camera movement done in concert to gradually increase your movement speed to a point that was greater than you could achieve by just holding the button down. Couple this with rocket or grenade jumping and you were sure to get the upper hand in map position.”

//Devs don’t draw in bullets anymore because they move very fast. Bullets don’t actually exist in games. I miss that. I want bullets//

@OXM

Bullets you can see!

More creative ammo types!

Name: Rami Ismail Company Vlambeer Key game: Nuclear Throne “Quake is very much about [visible ammo] with the missiles flying around – you saw them, you knew when they would hit you, and you’d take one step to the side. Nowadays, by the time you’ve seen a missile, you’re dead. Devs don’t draw in bullets any more because they move very fast. Instead, when somebody shoots, they make an invisible ray from the gun to where it would hit, and then check if a player’s there. The bullet does not actually exist in the game. I miss that. I want bullets. I want to be able to dodge a bullet by a millimetre and not be like, ‘here’s a ray, it has 95% accuracy’. It’s why a knife throw kill is really fun, because the knife is actually there and you can see how it flies.”

Name: Stewart Gilray Company Just Add Water Key game: Oddworld: New ‘N’ Tasty “I’ve played through Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath three or four times at least and each time I’ve done it I use ammo slightly differently, [which affects] how quickly you can dispatch some of the big bounties in different ways. It’s true that using live ammo in certain ways will get you through quicker, but you won’t get as big an award, or if you do it more stealthily you get more moolah, but it takes longer to finish. And that’s great, it breaks up [the usual routine] where you’ve got a gun that fires lead – oh the character’s dead, move on. I got kind of bummed when someone said in a review for Stranger’s Wrath HD last year that ‘this is the most linear game I’ve ever played in my life’.” the official xbox magazine / 101

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extra

now p l ay i n g The games weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re still going back to, and why

Big muscle cars are the order of the day; fun to drive, but very ugly.

Need for Speed: Underground, eat your heart out.

102 / the official xbox magazine

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extra

Ryan Davies is playing

GRID 2

BECAUSE… “I’d rather be a hero than an expert”

Loving The oh-so-accessible driving style

’m not even sure if I like GRID 2. It’s a racing game that’s ultimately more about how many legions of fans you have than how good you are behind the wheel. While I don’t care for the globe-trotting storyline or awful faux-ESPN interviews, I do like the consistently excellent driving mechanics. It’s not realistic, by any stretch of the imagination, but I don’t think that any other racing game out there successfully translates the thrill and speed of driving to a gamepad. F1 fans can have their fancy simulations, I just want the joy of feeling like a skilful race driver for a few hours. I’m not going to get that feeling from a storyline, only perfectly pitched driving. GRID 2 nails that feeling, just like so many Codemasters racing games

Hating The horrible, cheesy storyline

before it. The EGO engine is starting to show its age on the visual front, but behind the scenes it’s all action, and that’s what’s keeping me dedicated to GRID 2 long after newer, shinier models should have surpassed it. It’s not without its faults, although I wouldn’t include the controversial removal of the in-car camera view among them (I just don’t use the thing, and I suspect many others don’t either). Its absence doesn’t bother me nearly as much as the the chest-thumping machismo that dominates so much of the game. It’s an aesthetic that has come to consume Codemasters’ racing titles. From the MTV voice-over to the enduring focus on muscle cars and street races, GRID 2 feels like it’s more interested in whoopin’ and hollerin’ than getting wheels on the road.

//It’s not realistic, but I don’t think any other mechanic translates the thrill and speed of driving to a gamepad so well//

details Released May 2013 Dev Codemasters Pub Codemasters Format Xbox 360 Score 8/10, OXM #100 Recap As the poster child for World Series Racing, take your garage around the globe in an attempt to enlist other racers to your cause.

The structure isn’t very engaging either, especially compared to the fantastic team and progression system that underpinned the original GRID. There’s some notable rubberbanding going on, and many of the vehicles feel rather similar – a consequence, most likely, of that ohso-effortless handling model. Yet I can’t help but enjoy the game. The arcade control combined with the incredible sense of speed makes each race enjoyable, and there’s a strong variety of events on offer. Some argue that GRID 2 was one of Codemasters’ weakest racers (excluding the measly Dirt: Showdown), and they’re probably right – but that’s like saying Jenson Button is one of the worst F1 champions of all time. I mean, he’s still pretty good. Ultimately, GRID 2 is a rare example of a game where the parts are worth more than the sum. I’ll admit to having an eye on GRID Autosport next, though – not for that in-car camera, but for a less gung-ho approach to presentation. ■

Generic joke about BMW drivers mercilessly shoving people off roads.

@OXM

the official xbox magazine / 103

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ex t r a

no w p l a y in g

“Officer, I’m so sorry, my legs just do that sometimes. It’s a curse.”

Joe Skrebels is playing

Mirror’s Edge BECAUSE… “Edwin and Jonty are in an endless, destructive verbal war about it” Loving All of the stuff Edwin loves about it

ur office is as harmonious as any other. We drink coffees, discuss our weekends, send each other gifs of corgis twerking. But one subject sees battle lines drawn, warpaint (well, ketchup) applied and promotional Nerf guns loaded: Mirror’s Edge. Edwin contends it’s a beautiful misfire, pure in intention and designed for lateral-thinking play. Jonty just thinks it’s crap: a single, repetitious idea padded out by misguided gunplay and poor level design. Much like World War One Christmas football, I am tasked with getting two disparate sides talking productively, by playing the full game for the first time. The speed I’ve vacillated between the

Hating Most of the stuff Jonty hates about it

two sides is astounding, and unheard of for a recent AAA-published game.

Run ‘n’ fun

The first impression is eye-opening and wonderful: an unmatched feeling of first-person freedom and tactility. Faith’s speed and dexterity come across instantly, and mapping her jumps, slides, climbs, turns and combat controls to the four triggers is a stroke of genius. Somehow, an index finger’s tug gets her onscreen power across more effectively than the soft pestlesmush of a thumb-press. It was enough for me to ignore the early (thankfully artificial) time constraints and simply run over the city’s beautifully sanitised rooftops,

//The first impression is eye-opening and wonderful: an unmatched feeling of first-person freedom and tactility// 104 / the official xbox magazine

details Released November 2008 Dev DICE Pub EA Format Xbox 360 Score 7/10, OXM360 #41 Recap By turns an immersive, heart-inyour-mouth parkour sim and a bafflingly slapdash FPS, this is of Xbox 360’s greatest pontification points.

seeing how far my skills could stretch, before I thought about continuing. Mirror’s Edge nails a fun base feel, just as Skate and Rayman Origins do. Then you fight Blues – stationary punch-sponges who block your well-chosen lines, interrupting jumps with weedy weaponry (anaemic by DICE standards) – and get forced to bypass levels of climbable, interesting architecture. It goes against the mechanic’s freedom when you’re forced through vents or down funnel points, and feels worse after subsequent years of more accommodating design. And I started skipping every cutscene of the vapid, wish-we-were-noir storyline after a couple of hours. Like all terrible mediators, I see both sides and cannot reconcile them. Mirror’s Edge is an implacable conflict between philosophy and execution. It’s beautiful. It’s terrible. Yet I think I love it, as much for its failed attempts as its successes. Sorry Jonty, you’re outnumbered. ■ www.TOTALXBOX.coM

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Alice Bell is playing

Battlefield 4 BECAUSE… “A shouting American is making me a man” Loving The adrenaline in my veins

Hating The endless learning curve I’m on

lthough I love first-person shooters, I’m also tragically bad at them. In online matches I’m always quickly identified as the weak link in a team. Once, a Halo 3 Slayer match became a competition to see who could kill me the greatest number of times. I can just about hold my own in games like Call of Duty with a shotgun and an adapted ‘spray and pray’ approach, but Battlefield 4 is a very different kind of beast. Apparently you have to use, like, tactics or something. Some time ago I made friends with an American from the Deep South called Sean. Sean loves him some online war games, so decided the best way to strengthen our friendship was with some Battlefield 4. Sean is trying his best, but he’s constantly frustrated that I can’t, for example, time my bail

out of an aircraft properly, or flank the enemy in an adequate manner. Sean is an old hand at Battlefield; he knows the lay of the land as if he were an actual veteran. Sometimes I’m convinced that he even thinks of himself as one, such is his total immersion in the game. “Go over there,” he instructs, increasingly annoyed. “No, not there, over there! Look where I’m looking. Look where I’m

details Released Nov 2013 Dev DICE Pub EA Format Xbox 360/Xbox One Score 9/10, OXM #106

looking!” If only I could see where Sean was looking. His training method is to repeatedly shout similar such things at me, punctuated by filthy profanities, in an effort to scare my confusion into some kind of order. I’m not entirely sure why Sean keeps roping me in to play with him – our win to loss ratio is extremely low – but I think he’s enjoying being my mentor as much as I enjoy the mentoring. I can see myself improving, in miniscule increments, and when I manage to get a kill the adrenaline is almost as heady a drug as the Texan yell of approval in my ear. Then, inevitably, I fail to check my corners properly and Sean is disappointed once again. If he does manage to forge me into a soldier in the fire of combat then it’ll be his greatest triumph, but we’ve got a long way to go yet. War is hell. ■

Alaina Yee is playing

Epic Mickey 2 BECAUSE… “I was remembering my childhood far too fondly” Loving The 2D, paper-style cutscenes

rowing up, I was entirely too fond of playing Tiny Toons: Buster Busts Loose! and the Animaniacs repeatedly. I loved those cartoon series and I loved those games. At one point, I spent a whole summer playing them back to back to back. Nostalgia, however, is a rather blinding, tricky emotion. It’s what caused me to put Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two in my backlog – and keep it there even after I was told it wasn’t

@OXM

Hating Just how co-op centric the gameplay is

going to be as good as I was expecting. It even compelled me to be patient and hold off on judging the game to soon. Eventually, though, my adult brain kicked in. There’s nothing necessarily bad about Epic Mickey 2, but there’s nothing really good about it, either. The camera often drifts away from where I set it, but I am able to fix it. Targeting feels sluggish, but enemies don’t require fast reflexes. The voiceacting comes across as forced, but the Mad Doctor’s musical interludes are diverting. Platforming and puzzling provide little challenge and are sprinkled in very lightly, but the variety in the environments make each a pleasure to behold. Playing without a real-life co-op pal also diminishes the experience. It’s not just that in single-player mode, Oswald’s controlled by slow-witted A.I.

details Released Nov 2012 Dev Junction Point Studios / Blitz Game Studios Pub Disney Interactive Studios Format Xbox 360 Score 7/10, OXM #93

(Sometimes he shows up and does his thing when he’s supposed to; other times, you’ll have to wait a bit before the game figures out that yes, you do need him to be spewing electricity at something or not dawdling on a different platform.) It’s that you can hear the conversations and sibling spats you could potentially have been having each time the game automatically has your rabbit companion do something for you. (“No, no, not over there, OVER THERE.” “Where are you going?” “ I’m going to stop playing if you don’t stop pushing me off the ledge!”) Still, even if Epic Mickey 2’s not irresistibly lovable, it’s rather easy to get along with. I find myself moving along towards its finish without resistance; I just can’t stop thinking that it could have been so much better the whole time. ■ the official xbox magazine / 105

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the oxm r e p l ay Revisiting the resolutionallychallenged

British troops have always been well represented in Call of Duty, and 3 is no exception.

Call of Duty 3

Why Ryan Davies fondly remembers the one truly neglected Call of Duty

Details Dev Treyarch Pub Activision Released November 2006 Scored 9/10, OXM360 #14

f all the lost and forgotten games in history, Call of Duty 3 has got to be the most high-profile one of the lot. By the time it was released, the series was slowly establishing itself as one of the best military shooters around, and was generally regarded as a worthy followup to the incredible CoD2. Yet when most look back on it now, it’s seen as the runt of the litter, the hand grenade in a stockpile of nuclear bombs, the game that marked Treyarch as the B-team to Infinity Ward’s varsity. For those who discovered the series after Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, it’s just another ‘old Call of Duty’, along with the original two games. Unlike those games, however, long-time fans have often scorned it, claiming it doesn’t reach the lofty heights of its forbears or its immediate successor. That’s probably true, but in my eyes CoD3 easily surpasses many of the later games in the series.

//It’s an underrated campaign that arrived both too late and too early in the FPS world// 106 / the official xbox magazine

It all starts with the best opening mission in the entire Call of Duty series. After a brief tutorial, you’re forced onto a cramped truck with a bunch of other plucky recruits and given one simple rule from the sergeant: “You’re no good to me dead.” To the point and realistic, it’s hard not to like this man and his husky tones. The next set of orders, from the squad commander, is just as scant on details. “Today we’re on a secret mission to get coffee and doughnuts,” he says. “Problem is, the Germans drank all the coffee and ate all the doughnuts.” Which hardly seems fair, so it’s time to take it to the treat-stealing Nazis. Many of the establishing missions in later Call of Duty games provide subtle, tactile experiences. The opening Saint-Lô mission in CoD3 is just about balls-out action. Artillery strikes, destroying tanks, riding tanks, secret tunnels and an incomprehensible number of dead Nazis all combine to create a huge opener that excellently sets the tone for the rest of the campaign. What’s interesting about that campaign is the tight focus. While the first two games in the series hopped

back and forth between different parts of the war, this is content to follow the breakout from Normandy. In classic Call of Duty style this was portrayed through the eyes of characters from varying nations, including a Canadian trooper and a Polish tank driver, providing an all-encompassing view of the battle.

Not all forgotten

That keen focus on one small, albeit very important, part of the war makes Call of Duty 3 a unique entry in the series. Despite this, the influence on later iterations is clear to see. While the Modern Warfare games took up the globe-trotting mantra again, the associated stories told a focused tale akin to that found in CoD3. The character-weaving plot that formed in the background of that game became a key element of success in the various Modern Warfare games. It’s an incredibly underrated campaign that simply arrived at the wrong time – after the point at which WW2 fatigue began to take hold and before the Modern Warfare revolution arrived. The multiplayer suffered a similar fate, with some excellent systems that were too quickly www.TOTALXBOX.coM

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From the The game does an excellent job of reflecting the incredible scale of World War II battlefields.

OXM museum

Bad hair, bad licences, bad games. Past OXM weren’t perfect, and yet you drew pictures for them and not for us. It’s a cruel world we live in Issue 27 / Date March 2004 / Cover Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow

L Influenced by… Battlefield 2 Multiplayer with classes, vehicles and teamplay.

Influence on… COD 4: Modern Warfare The focus was inspired by the Normandy story.

eclipsed by Infinity Ward’s move to a modern-day setting. Contrary to the fast pace of its predecessors, the Call of Duty 3 multiplayer requires precision and patience. The team-based class mechanics and excellent vehicular warfare make it more like Battlefield than any modern CoD release. The win often goes to the team that operates best as a collective, and matches take place in a beautiful selection of French towns and countryside locations. It’s worth trying, even now. Call of Duty 3 will always be remembered as the game before it all went large. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare launched just one year later and almost expelled the game from the history books. That’s an injustice, as it was a fitting end to the series’ ‘dark days’, and likely a better game than anything you’re going to see from the franchise moving forward. I’d like to see modern genero-terrorists try to drink all the coffee and eat all the doughnuts. n What happened nexT CoD4 blew up the world, then Treyarch went back to WW2, but with added zombies.

@OXM

ooking back over this ten-year-old issue of OXM taught us a few things we didn’t know. One, that there was a planned game adaptation of the acclaimed DC and Vertigo comic-book series 100 Bullets that was cancelled in late 2004. Two, that even as far back as 2004 we were questioning whether Sonic had ‘cracked 3D’ with the mediocre Sonic Heroes. And three – care of unflattering pictures of past staff writer Andy Irving and producer Ben Talbot – that bad hair happened to good people in 2004. Mind you, given our current editorial team’s styles, perhaps it’s best we don’t pass judgment. The previews are another in-depth demonstration of just how keen publishers were on licensing stuff

back then, with 100 Bullets joined by Bad Boys and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games. Both look dreadful, the former writeup being a mass of caveats and the latter straight-up admitting that “not only do your fingers ache, but your brain does too”. Good job there was the much more palatable RalliSport Challenge to celebrate as an Xbox exclusive. The reviews contained such gems as Barbie Horse Adventures: Wild Horse Rescue and Robocop. Brilliantly, they’re beside one another on a double-page spread. And shockingly, Barbie reviewed higher by a whole 0.8 of a score: 6.7 out of 10 to Robocop’s 5.9. Seems legit, except for our protestations that Robocop is a franchise “well past its sell-by date”. Whoa there, Nelly – let’s not be too hasty.

//We were questioning whether Sonic Heroes had ‘cracked 3D’//

In a world before Titanfall, MechAssault 2’s giant metal coffins were an impressive sight to behold. Now… well, they just don’t cut it. That’s hindsight for you, we suppose.

Now this has made us jealous. Any chance you lot could start sending us handdrawn pictures like you did for past OXM? Imaginative and adorable.

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Creativity’s the name of the game if you’re going to be featured.

extra

Live S p o tligh t Reports from Xbox’s biggest communities

Watch Dogs You let the dogs out. You, you, you, you, you Details Dev Ubisoft / Pub Ubisoft / Reporter Joe Skrebels

Most Play with Us events have foregone hacking so far.

Ubisoft has a whole other set of community ideas on the side. 108 / the official xbox magazine

atch Dogs’ online offering is, appropriately, hard to keep track of. Its myriad invasions, each an attempt by one player to conceal themselves from another while they hack the ever-living data out of them are frequent, quick and mostly concealed (that is unless the invaders are discovered and clubbed to death in a restaurant). This might go some way towards explaining Ubisoft’s weekly ‘Play With Us’ promotion – an altogether more visible way of engaging with the community. At time of writing, it’s essentially the world’s most gruesome game of Simon Says. Ubi’s community managers set a task, complete with rules and goals, and players around the world perform said task, record it and submit it via YouTube, with the best attempts catalogued on the official website. Of course, the majority of these videos are intensely boring. Watching someone safely evade the

on the clock

How we spent our time in the game

42% Initiating Scooby Doo-style chases with hapless online invadees 11% Fighting crime 29% Doing crime 6% Trying on hats 12% Driving fruitlessly into multi-storey car parks

//’Play With Us’ is essentially the world’s most gruesome game of Simon Says//

police for two minutes is interesting to no one, barring, perhaps, actual robbers. Where it gets interesting is when people go a little off-road with their instructions. Take Irish Gamer (bit.ly/ OXM_WD1), who took Ubi’s ‘Who Called 911’ challenge – in which players had to head to a crossroad, bomb the traffic and survive for as long as possible in the ensuing police assault – and ran with it. Soon there’s a fence made of SUVs, remote charges set on every entrance, the city’s been blacked out, and the strobing of blue lights turns the resultant mayhem into a sort of murder-disco. MASTERJJ1995 (bit.ly/OXM_WD2) took a similarly studious approach for ‘Tough Escape’ (get to police pursuit level 3, then escape without hacking or using motorbikes). His route took him up a multi-storey car park, over roofs, through a ramping statue and onto a bustling train track. Classic action movie fare. Watch Dogs has been criticised for an unfocused, even oversaturated approach to open-world design, but if an inventive community gets behind it, we can see that becoming a true strength. ■ If you do one thing in watch dogs this month, make it: Tracking down and, er, subduing an invader before they even begin hacking you. Pro.

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He can fly, but we’re more interested when the floor bursts into flame upon sprinting.

Playing local games while you wait for an online vacancy is always possible. Luckily.

Peggle 2

Trials Fusion

Make Bjorn a Poly-corn

Level editors + bored humans = too much for us to deal with

Dev PopCap Games / Pub EA Reporter Joe Skrebels

ou can’t imagine much of a community being able to form around Peggle 2. It’s a solitary sort of pursuit, even when playing with others. No voice chat, no avatars and very few onscreen interactions mean that the benefit of playing online is primarily a sort of instant gratification for beating others – or, in my case, a speedier descent into madness as I screw up consistently. So why do I keep going back to it? Let’s not pretend that the primary draw isn’t the game itself – that curious mix of forward planning, unfollowable bounce-based mania and Ode to Joy has worked for years. There’s just enough intrigue to leave you feeling there’s a measure of skill needed, but just little enough control over proceedings that games can turn on a dime. This is also essentially the draw of online multiplayer. By throwing in other people experiencing the same thing, Peg Party’s a fast-track to the feeling of a late goal in football – players who’ve steamed ahead dropping back, and one piece of luck causing another to shoot past their point total on the final shot. Add to the fact that you can watch other players live and there’s a neat element of aghast spectatorship to it as well. Sadly, it’s not a hugely populated game by this point – I’ve struggled consistently to get a one-on-one Duel match going, but a backgrounded matchmaking system means getting in some singleplayer games while you wait is always possible. That’s sort of the beauty of Peggle 2’s online offering – it doesn’t attempt to offer a true community aspect, and inadvertently creates a group of people who enjoy the game for what it is as a result. ■

//There’s a neat element of aghast spectatorship to it//

If you do one thing in peggle 2 this month, make it… Firing a shot randomly, watching every other player finish their turn, and still winning.

@OXM

Dev RedLynx / Pub Ubisoft Reporter Joe Skrebels

t’s been long enough. Give Trials players enough time and they’ll corrupt RedLynx’s studiously open-ended level creation tools to make, well, anything they want. Trials Evolution saw dedicated tinkerers creating playable optical illusions, Aliens homages, firstperson exploration games – such was the power of the editor that anyone with enough time on their hands could create a (usually janky) version of almost any game genre. So how does Trials Fusion stack up? Initially, you might be forgiven for thinking fans had grown up a bit during the two-year gap between games: the standout downloads are incredibly competent Trials tracks, rich with the invention and spectacle RedLynx pulls off itself. But they’re not exactly outlandish. The key here is to check out the ‘Skill Games’ filter, in which a largely unseen portion of the fanbase appears to have gone mad and set up a virtual squat. A few of our favourites include a realisticallymodelled Copernican diagram (‘Solar System’ by Storm Lord ost), a full series of hilariously lo-fi first-person horror games (‘Insane Asylum’ by FreshFrixy2358), a gem-collecting open-world superhero game (‘HERO - rising’ by PneumaticBog484) and approximately four thousand variations on motocross basketball. As with Evolution, it’s only going to get better with time. You can see ideas being worked through in various iterations of games. The ‘Team Destructabots’ series (by bkgreenhill) has been messing with a single third-person shooter template, for instance. If it wasn’t for memory restrictions, someone would make an entire game within this game. It’s the weirdest, most interesting community on Xbox One. ■

//The key here is to check out the ‘Skill Games’ filter//

If you do one thing in trials fusion this month, make it: Playing car sim, ‘Crown Victoria’. No goals, no point, no physics model. Incredible.

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c u lt u r e corner books

12 Years A Slave

movies on your xb o x

Starring Chiwetel Ejiorfor, Michael Fassbender, Lupita Nyong’o, Benedict Cumberbatch, Brad Pitt Price £3.49 (SD)

This month in uninteractive entertainment

t won best film at the Oscars, the BAFTAs and The Golden Globes, it’s about a terrible period of American history and it’s based on a true story. Though 12 Years A Slave may be obligatory viewing that feels a touch like homework, it’s undeniable that Steve McQueen’s tale of free man Solomon Northup, kidnapped into slavery, is a powerful and emotional journey. The cast is impressive: Chiwetel Ejiofor’s Northup is long-suffering and stoic, Benedict Cumberbatch’s benevolent plantation owner is uncomfortably likeable, while Michael Fassbender sweats and rants as violent, lusty landowner Edwin Epps, taking his sexually frustrated fury out on unstoppably vital Patsey (Lupita Nyong’o). Despite the cast pedigree, it’s newcomer Nyong’o who’s the standout: desperate, noble, hopeless but unable to completely resign to her victimisation. ■

Chiwetel Ejiofor was so daunted by the role of Solomon Northup he nearly turned it down.

Devil’s Due

Starring Julianne Moore, Chloë Grace Moretz Price £11.99 (SD - buy only)

Starring Allison Miller, Zach Gilford, Sam Anderson Price £3.49 (SD)

Kimberly Peirce’s remake boasts more gore, impressive FX and a great crazy performance from Julianne Moore as religio-nut Margaret White, but missteps in the casting of Chloë Grace Moretz, far too self-possessed and beautiful to convince as the titular troubled telekinetic teen. ■

Found footage shenanigans where a honeymooning couple fall unexpectedly pregnant after a lost evening abroad. There’s the odd decent jump shock, though the focus on the increasingly terrifying and erratic behaviours symptomatic of pregnancy is a nice skew to a bog-standard story. ■

OXM

What is it? A player’s manual for role-playing game Deadlands. Why’s it good? It’s your gateway to one of the best pen-and-paper RPGs around.

//It’s an important story, vividly told, and a history lesson worth having//

Carrie

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit Starring Chris Pine, Keira, Knightley, Kenneth Branagh Price £3.49 (SD)

Chris Pine plays the fourth iteration of Tom Clancy’s CIA terrorist hunter in Kenneth Branagh’s Bourne/Bond-lite thriller. Decent but unsurprising, with Keira Knightley miscast as Ryan’s annoying girlfriend, subjected to torture with a lightbulb. ■

Deadlands Reloaded Player’s guide by Shane Lacey Hensley & BD Flory

Will it make me seem cooler and/or smarter? Well, old-school RPGs aren’t really considered ‘cool’ but since Xbox has commissioned an original TV series based on the Deadlands universe, you should give this one a try.

Inside Llewyn Davis Starring Oscar Isaac, Carey Mulligan, Justin Timberlake Price £3.49 (SD)

Talented but selfish Llewyn is the orchestrator of his own downfall in this slow but fascinating folk music drama. John Goodman, Justin Timberlake and Carey Mulligan cameo, but it’s the music that steals the show. Llewyn may be a first-class moron, but when he plays, he’s inexplicably beautiful. ■

pic k s:

D OU B LE

Orphan Black Season 1 Wuaki TV

Moon Blinkbox

Adaptation Blinkbox

Fringe Xbox video

The Prestige Wuaki TV

Londoner Sarah discovers she’s one of many clones around the world being knocked off one by one.

Sam Rockwell plays several iterations of a blue-collar worker stuck on an offplanet station.

Nicolas Cage’s two best performances as screenwriting brothers Charlie and Donald Kaufman.

FBI agents discover parallel universes populated by alternate versions of themselves.

A brilliantly twisty tale of warring magicians starring one or more Christian Bales and Hugh Jackmans.

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T R OU B LE !

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ISSUE 115 / september 2014 Future Publishing Ltd, 2 Balcombe Street, London, NW1 6NW, UK Tel: 020 7042 4680 Fax: 020 7042 4689 Email: oxm@futurenet.com Web: www.totalxbox.com Editorial Editor-in-Chief: Jon Hicks jon.hicks@futurenet.com (Live: OXM Jonty) Deputy Editor: Edwin Evans-Thirlwell edwin.evans-thirlwell@futurenet.com (Live: OXM ETBoy) News Editor: Joe Skrebels joe.skrebels@futurenet.com (Live: OXM Joe) Staff Writer: Aoife Wilson aoife.wilson@futurenet.com (Live: OXM Aoife) Art Editor: Curtis Phillips-Cozier curtis.philipscozier@futurenet.com (Live: OXM DJ Coziee) Deputy Art Editor: Will Morse will.morse@futurenet.com (Live: OXM Will) Production Editor: Jenny Meade jennifer.meade@futurenet.com (Live: OXM RockOn) digital Technical Manager (Online): Kornel Lambert kornel.lambert@futurenet.com Technical Support Assistant (Online): Andrew Taylor andrew.taylor@futurenet.com Digital Designer: Luc Pestille luc.pestille@futurenet.com Contributors Writing: Alice Scoble-Rees, Alaina Yee, Tom Hatfield, Rosie Fletcher, Ben Borthwick, Richard Cobbett, Daniel Robson, Tamoor Hussain, Dave Rudden, Sam White, Andy Hartup, Jon Denton, Ryan Davies, Joel Snape, Ben Wilson, Tom Bruce Subbing: Jeremy Hodge Art: Al Parr Advertising and marketing London Ad-Sales Director: James Ranson (0207 042 4163) james.ranson@futurenet.com Sales Director: Nick Weatherall (0207 042 4155) nick.weatherall@futurenet.com Digital Advertising Manager: Andrew Church (0207 042 4237) andrew.church@futurenet.com Senior Product Manager, Subscriptions: Adam Jones International Licensing Director: Regina Erak Group Marketing Manager: Sam Wight

NEXT MONTH

Dead Island 2 does it deliver? the First hands-on verdict

Rights Rights & Asset Management Director: Katherine Bebbington-Taylor Production Production Manager: Mark Constance Production Co-ordinator: Marie Quilter

cd projekt on the witcher 3

Senior Editorial Group Editor-in-Chief: Dan Dawkins Group Art Director: Graham Dalzell

gearbox on battleborn

Management Managing Director: Nial Ferguson Deputy MD: Clair Porteous Head of Games: Lee Nutter Head of Digital: Keith Walker Distribution Seymour Distribution Ltd, 2 East Poultry Avenue, London, EC1A 9PT (020 7429 4000)

remedy on guns, time travel and quantum break

About the magazine Xbox: The Official Xbox Magazine is published by Future plc, under licence from Future’s US subsidiary. In the US Future has a licence to publish Official Magazines in all territories, excluding Japan. If you’re interested in becoming a licensee, contact regina.erak@ futurenet.com Xbox 360 and the Xbox 360 logo are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Xbox 360: The Official Xbox Magazine is published under licence from Microsoft, and is an independent publication not affiliated with Microsoft Corporation. The ABC combined print, digital and digital publication circulation for Jan-Dec 2013 is 37,519 (Print 35,961 Digital 1,558) A member of the Audit Bureau of Circulations Want to work for Future? Visit www.futurenet.com/jobs Future produces high-quality multimedia products which reach our audiences online, on mobile and in print. Future attracts over 50 million consumers to its brands every month across five core sectors: Technology, Entertainment, Music, Creative and Sports & Auto. We export and license our publications. Future plc is a public company quoted on the London Stock Exchange (symbol: FUTR). www.futureplc.com

Chief executive Zillah Byng-Maddick Non-executive chairman Peter Allen Chief finance officer Richard Haley Tel +44 (0)207 042 4000 (London) Tel +44 (0)1225 442 244 (Bath)

© Future Publishing Limited 2011. All rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be used or reproduced without the written permission of the publisher. Future Publishing Limited (company number 2008885) is registered in England and Wales. The registered office of Future Publishing Limited is at Beauford Court, 30 Monmouth Street, Bath BA1 2BW. All information contained in this magazine is for information only and is, as far as we are aware, correct at the time of going to press. Future cannot accept any responsibility for errors or inaccuracies in such information. Readers are advised to contact manufacturers and retailers directly with regard to the price of products/services referred to in this magazine. If you submit unsolicited material to us, you automatically grant Future a licence to publish your submission in whole or in part in all editions of the magazine, including licensed editions worldwide and in any physical or digital format throughout the world. Any material you submit is sent at your risk and, although every care is taken, neither Future nor its employees, agents or subcontractors shall be liable for loss or damage.

We are committed to only using magazine paper which is derived from well managed, certified forestry and chlorine-free manufacture. Future Publishing and its paper suppliers have been independently certified in accordance with the rules of the FSC (Forest Stewardship Council).

@OXM

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extra NEW ENTRY

KINECT

XBOX LIVE ARCADE

Xbox Essentials

Our shortlist of the finest games currently available Grand Theft Auto V

Dark Souls 2

Rockstar somehow fits the most impressive open world ever created onto Xbox 360. An unpleasant story, but the setting’s peerless. 10

The teleportation takes some threat away, but this is still a masterpiece of melancholic world-building, and doomed beauty. Stunning. 9

BioShock

Bulletstorm

Infinite is great, but those new to the series should start here. Rapture still captivates, and the second-act 10 twist offsets the dull end.

Not nearly as stupid as it pretends to be, this packs an impressive Story mode, and still has time to include Skillshots in the mix. 9

Portal 2

XCOM: Enemy Unknown

Valve turns sci-fi test chambers into the funniest game you’ll ever play – it has what is probably the most satisfying co-op, too. 10

Intense tactics with a personal twang, XCOM is an oddly emotional strategy game. Tough, deep 9 and surprisingly addictive.

Mass Effect 3

Red Dead Redemption

Those diving in at the end won’t get the same impact, but for fans of the series this is sublime. A brilliant end to the best RPG trilogy ever. 10

Not merely GTA with cowboys, the gripping story, beautiful world and brilliant characters make this 9 the best cowpoke game ever.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution

FIFA 14

This cyberpunk RPG/shooter hybrid has an unparalleled sense of depth and scope. If you’re a sci-fi fan, 10 this is unmissable stuff.

There’s a learning curve, but embrace the more thoughtful gameplay and you’ll be rewarded with a 9 thrilling football experience.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Dishonored

Imagine Oblivion with better levelling, characters and fighting, and a gripping tale of dragonbased apocalypse. Hi, Skyrim! 10

A genuine first-person classic that you’ll want to play through at least twice. It’s a near-perfect blend 9 of stealth and action.

Minecraft

Left 4 Dead 2

Spend an afternoon making a castle and you’ll understand what all the hype is about. The split-screen 10 mode is utterly brilliant.

Valve has created another zombie-mashing classic. More varied campaigns and new weapons await you.

FORMAT: XBOX 360

Yours for £10 Discount games worth getting

FORMAT: XBOX 360

FORMAT: XBOX 360/xbox one

FORMAT: XBOX 360

Far Cry 3

An insane price for a game that toyed with our definition of insanity and let us make ammo purses out of shark skin. Score 9/10 Buy it £9.24 Amazon.co.uk

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FORMAT: XBOX 360

Rayman Origins FORMAT: XBOX 360

Sequel Legends is a still more excellent dose of four-player co-op, but if you’ve played neither, this is cheaper and almost as good. 9 www.TOTALXBOX.coM

xbox Batman: Arkham City FORMAT: XBOX 360

The Dark Knight’s first open-world outing is a superb smash-hit. Have Alfred iron your very best cape 9 and come and get involved.

BAD BUT GOOD we shouldn’t like it, but we really do

Borderlands 2 FORMAT: XBOX 360

A huge world, amazing weapons and excellent script make this one of the best co-op adventures 9 you can have.

Saints Row IV

Gears of War 2

All traces of GTA are now purged, leaving a ridiculous open-world blend of Crackdown, Prototype and overblown sitcom.

Still our favourite Gears – it has the most engaging campaign, and the multiplayer invented the now industry-standard Horde mode. 9

FORMAT: XBOX 360

Far Cry 3

FORMAT: XBOX 360

Take Far Cry 2’s scale, remove the checkpoints and set it somewhere beautiful. You’ve got yourself 9 an unmissable shooter.

assassin’s creed IV: black flag

FORMAT: Xbox 360/XBox one

The naval exploration and combat completely refreshes a series 9 that was showing its age.

Forza motorsport 4 FORMAT: XBOX 360

The best pure racing simulation on Xbox 360. It has everything except a sense of humour, which it’s 9 licensed from Top Gear.

Battlefield 4

FORMAT: XBOX 360/xbox one

All is as expected – a disappointing single-player campaign, with some of the best MP shooting you’ll 9 ever play. Gorgeous, too.

Omerta: City of Gangsters

We wanted to like this a lot more. It combined two of our favourite things – RTS games and bootlegged liquor. Alas, it’s ugly and a bit broken, but there are still some small touches that make it worth a look. £5.99 Amazon.co.uk

The Orange Box FORMAT: XBOX 360

The best package on Xbox 360, bar none. Two great shooters and a stunning puzzler: there’s no better way to invest your cash. 9

Bayonetta

FORMAT: XBOX 360

Sega’s saucy witch has seduced us, with action that keeps increasing in scale until your head explodes 9 in a shower of confetti.

Why you should buy… Wolfenstein: The New Order

I’ll admit it, I had pretty much written this off completely as a mindless run-and-gun shooter designed as one last cash-in on a Aoife Wilson once great but now barely relevant franchise. @AoifeLockhart I’m not too proud to admit I was wrong; MachineGames has crafted a game that is not only a highly satisfying first-person shooter, but manages to tell a decent story, too. Plus, the Xbox One makes Nazi-occupied Europe look gorgeous, all things considered.

titanfall

wolfenstein: the new order

Beautifully natural athletics, and those awesome Titans. Respawn has taken online multiplayer a huge, stamping step forwards.

Just because we want to dual-wield shotguns doesn’t mean we don’t appreciate a good story. The 9 New Order has it all.

FORMAT: xbox One

FORMAT: xbox 360/xbox one

Mark of the Ninja

south park: THE STICK OF TRUTH

Forget other so-called stealth games, this 2D ninjathon is the real deal, and avoids the frustration that’s so common in the genre. 9

Shock-led satire that presses all the buttons. What South Park lacks in combat depth, it makes up for 8 with constant laughs.

Skulls of the Shogun

The Walking Dead: episode 1

A funny and smart turn-based strategy gem that riffs off classic games such as Advance Wars. Exhausted XCOM? Play this next.

Telltale’s interactive drama only just counts as a game, but it manages to deliver some of the most 8 powerful storytelling around.

FORMAT: XBOX 360

FORMAT: XBOX 360/xbox one

FORMAT: XBOX 360

@OXM

extra

FORMAT: XBOX 360

the official xbox magazine / 113

the final countdown

9 Xbox Holiday Destinations

Your Xbox is always available as a portal to some of the greatest worlds ever created, but life can’t all be about missions and business. When you want to kick back and relax, consider one of these fine package holidays into imagination. Safety not guaranteed

Shear ‘Evolve’ your adventure holiday by bringing four friends along on the ultimate safari expedition – to capture Godzilla’s little brother and see if he tastes like chicken. Be warned, though, the trip may be cheap, but the health insurance is a bitch.

Gotham City A perfect holiday destination whatever the season, since it’s always cold, rainy and miserable in Gotham City. Visit the Iceberg Lounge most evenings to see local criminal underworld celebrity Penguin battle the city’s number one vigilante while you eat. Just ask at the door about the dinnerdinner-dinner Batman show.

Los Perdidos Yes, it’s your chance to take a city-break in a broken city. The locals might not be the friendliest, but doctors everywhere agree that there’s no better way to relieve stress than by grabbing a baseball bat and smashing open some zombie skulls. It’s like bubble-wrap, only much more interesting. Not for the squeamish or the asthmatic, or the particularly deliciously bebrained, but if you think you can hack it – literally – start packing now (an axe, ideally).

Columbia Let manifest destiny be your destination, as long as you’re rich, white, godfearing and American, like everyone is. Some may say it’s a powderkeg of revolution and oppression, but we say let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

Mordor One does not simply walk into it, so book early to avoid disappointment. This season, the corrupted Elven Kings return for their celebrated Three Ring Circus, enjoy our celebrated walking trail up and into Mount Doom, and take dining in the dark to a whole new level with Shelob. Please, no synthetic fibres or fiddly jewellery.

Halo Installation 05 The galaxy’s most romantic destination, and ideal for dramatic proposals – after all, as the old saying goes, if you love it, put it on a ring. And then stop the ring from destroying the world. While aboard, try adding a guilty spark to your relationship, or for singles, let our array of naked holographic AIs show you why they’re called ‘rampant’. A fully integrated weather control grid guarantees glorious vistas throughout your stay. Though if your hotel TV issues a ‘Flood warning’ for the love of God, get out at once. Run! RUN!

Bowerstone This sleepy but Fableous destination is the perfect place to sit back and relax, free of all worries – unless you’re concerned about a passing Hero randomly farting in your face and demanding to marry you,

that is. All weapons should be handed in at the front gate, unless you’re actually tough enough to get away with using them – in which case, please refrain from murdering everyone. It’s impolite.

Tristram You’ll have a hell of a time getting to know this sleepy little village and discovering its hidden treasures, including coffee shops, friendly taverns, chatty locals and the imprisoned souls of the Prime Evils whose boundless rage will scourge the mortal plane and leave it a charnel house in sin’s honour. When even the Lord of Terror keeps coming back for more, you know it’s a place worth getting to know. While you still can, obviously.

Yamatai So long as you’re careful and don’t mind a serious, serious lack of safety rails and such, the Solarii brotherhood invites you to join them and raise up a storm. Activities include human sacrifices in the flames of the great Pyre of Himiko, marshmallows provided. Good health insurance a must, ideally backed up with a grenade launcher.

next issue of oxm on-sale 29 aug. subscribe and get a free game: see page 82 for details

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