Índex per September 2015 a Gamesmaster

Crikey have we got a tantalising buffet of gourmet gaming for you to feast on this month. We’ve been behind the scenes at Bungie to play Destiny: The Taken King. If you haven’t got a level 34 Guardian primed and ready, you’ll want one after reading this. Elsewhere, you’ll find our hands-on look at Doom, one of the formative gaming experiences of my youth rebooted into current-gen gear. Oh, and we’ve tinkered with the latest VR headsets to discover how the new tech is pushing videogames into surprising territories. Hi, by the way! Long time readers will know me by my unpronounceable name and unhealthy obsession for all things Dark Souls. It’ll be my gurning mug adorning this page from now on. And it’s an absolute pleasure. Enjoy your GM!…

Popular consensus warns virtual reality developers to steer clear of fast-moving first person shooters (the veracity of which claim we can confirm after an ill-judged Team Fortress 2 session with the nausea-inducing Rift Development Kit 1). Killzone dev Guerrilla Games isn’t partial to toeing the line, it turns out. It’s made its first Morpheus project a high-speed, mech-based multiplayer FPS and basketball hybrid in which – as any good sportsman should – you must… become the ball.And somehow, it actually works. You steer your robo-suit and aim your cannons by looking in the desired direction, while the pad is reserved for jumping, strafing, firing, and triggering power-ups. Collect enough orbs or destroy a number of opposition vehicles and you’ll go into overdrive, at which point you can dash up a…

The dev Adam Riley Production Assistant, The Escapists: The Walking Dead I think there’s room for all different kinds of games – it doesn’t have to be solely gameplay-based. I’ve had just as much fun with ‘experience-based’ games that carry a message. The critic Robin Valentine Production Editor It feels weird to say, but not all games need to be ‘fun’ in the traditional sense. The actual mechanics of Papers Please, for example, were very dry – what made it great was the way it allowed players to experience a different perspective. The fan Ashley Bates GM Reader Honestly, I believe it’s 50/50. In the best games, the gameplay and the message work with each other. Spec Ops: The Line is a good example: really fun, while also telling you…

WICKET WAY Spend the day with some real bat men for the final test of this year’s Ashes series. TO BALDLY GO Put on your best suit and cringe your way through Hitman: Agent 47, in cinemas now. MOURNING AFTER Grab a copy of Until Dawn to play in your isolated log cabin. What could go wrong? SLEEP LESS Seattle hosts thousands of gaming fans for the con that launched an empire, PAX Prime. SCOT LIGHT It’s your last chance to take in the madness as the Edinburgh Fringe Festival draws to a close. SNAKE OUT Kojima takes us on one final ride through the world of Metal Gear with The Phantom Pain. WORLD OF WAR BOYS Oh, what a day! What a lovely day for the Mad Max videogame…

Format Wii U Publisher Nintendo Developer Platinum Games, Nintendo Out December It’s possible that our hands-on with two stages of Fox McCloud’s return didn’t manage to capture the moment when it all clicks into place. All we know is that the time we spent playing it was some of the most frustrating we’ve encountered with a GamePad in hand. The fight we endured with the control system stemmed from a disconnect between TV and GamePad screen. On one you have the wider view of the dogfighting battle at large, and on the other, smaller one you have the precision aiming view from inside the cockpit. Dividing your attention between the two screens is horribly counterintuitive. It’s like reading a book whose sentences begin on paper, but require you to read…

The newly chatty player character “Having them voiced, you can make emotional moments feel a lot better, and it was important that we didn’t hold back, so they’ve each recorded 13,000 lines of dialogue.” Bringing New England to life “If we make a world that has not just more details, but more dynamic details that we can keep track of and stream in and load quicker, all of that suspends your disbelief.” Exploring the wasteland “The setting itself is always the most important thing to us. The big question: is this world fun to explore? Does it reward my curiosity? That is absolutely crucial.” Real-life Pip-Boys “It’s a second-screen experience. Usually I find second-screen experiences to be stupid gimmicks, but as far as stupid gimmicks go, this is the best…

Format PS4, XO, PC Publisher EA Developer DICE Out 20 November Life ain’t easy in the Rebel Alliance. One minute you’re happily jetting through space, the next you’ve crash landed in the Tatooine desert with waves of Stormtroopers descending on your position. That’s what you’ll be facing in Star Wars Battlefront’s Survival mode, at least. You won’t be alone though – you’ll be able to bring along a buddy for co-op action, and you’ll be advised over comlink by the rubbery-faced guppy puppet himself, Admiral Ackbar. In addition to presumably keeping you abreast of the status of any traps you happen to fall in to, he’ll also inform you about the various types of enemies you’ll be going up against – including Shock Troopers wielding heavy blasters, stealthy sniper Scouts,…

Format PC Pub Iceberg Interactive Dev Fugitive Games Out Autumn Mixing a dollop of complexity into the just-one-more-go roguelike spacefaring of FTL might sound counterintuitive, given how the click-and-go, pause-happy tactics of that particular title were so widely celebrated. But beam us down and call us a Vulcan’s uncle if this isn’t all the meatier an experience for it. There are a lot more stats involved for a start, with each of your crew toting enough numbers to keep a series of Sesame Street flowing over until the extinction of humanity. Which is just as well considering the evil Skorn are hot on the trail of you and your shipful of hopeful human colonists. Some UI tweaks and a bit of nipping and tucking in the turn-based combat department are…

The base game introduced some of the most critically watertight gunplay you could wish for. The variety of weaponry on offer was immediately enticing, eschewing the tried-and-tested blasters of traditional sci-fi fare to flaunt a whole new breed of magic-infused arsenal in our faces. Bungie has always been celebrated as a master of satisfaction, and it followed through here with a roster of enemies perfectly designed to offer meaty feedback. Just try to thwack a Phalanx Cabal with a melee attack at the moment his shield is lifted and not wheel away nodding with a savage grin across your mug. Another innovation saw the menu system (as boring as this might sound) truly revolutionise the way MMOs work on console. In effect it proved that the genre could function properly…

# 1 ELITE: DANGEROUS If you want an indicator of how we’ll be losing our lives to the VR revolution when it hits us in the eyes come 2016, take a look at Frontier’s dangerously addictive space sim. The words ‘infinite freedom’ have never been more scary, although – Virgin Galactic lottery aside – this is the closest we’ll ever get to being in orbit. #2 THE FOREST Because what you really want is to be inside the head of someone armed with an axe and being hunted by mutants. A perfect example of just how awful virtual reality survival is going to be – and by that we mean brilliant– The Forest is a sneak peak at the future of ultra stressful gaming. #3 RADIAL-G Putting you inside a…

When the Guardian newspaper wanted to construct a zero-carbon ‘Climate Hope City’ to show off the inventions that could rescue us from the effects of climate change, the budget didn’t quite stretch to making it for real, so they commissioned Adam Clarke, Dragnoz, and the Blockworks team to built it in Minecraft. “This isn’t a fantasy world, but a vision of a green urban environment, which uses technologies that either already exist around the world or are at the prototype stage," writes Keith Stuart, the Guardian’s games editor. “You can freely explore the city, read signposts, and listen to audio recordings that tell you more about what each building and feature represents.” Want to check it out for yourself? You can download it at: http://bit.ly/gmclimatehope HOW TO... RAID DESERT AND…

1 The Poseidon fight starts the game off in fittingly grand style. Even though this battle acts as a tutorial, it’s still one of the most challenging encounters you’ll face in the entire game. The key thing to remember is most of the Hippocampi’s attacks can be blocked with L1. 2 Don’t forget about your Icarus Wings. A good double jump with Kratos’ stolen set of feathers is invaluable during hectic combat sequences – never more so than the section of the Poseidon scrap where he breaks out his electrical attacks. H2 oh no. 3 Use Kratos’ magic sparingly. The miffed Spartan is invulnerable when he breaks out these special attacks, so it’s useful to store them up until you’re struggling. Essential tip: the Blades Of Exile’s Army Of Sparta…

Hype or tripe? The gulf between mobile and console gaming is unquestionably closing. But while mobile has a future, it’s not the future… and here’s why. It boils down to two things: analogue sticks and physical buttons. Aesthetics are an irrelevance in this debate. The reason consoles will always win the day is their control systems, which, unlike the poking and tapping of mobile phones and tablets, allows for a far more immersive experience. Alex Shute, email Immersion isn’t a problem so long as you build the right game for the right format. Replicating a console experience on mobiles might look nice, but its in the unique, and natural, control scheme implementations that we see the best mobile gaming experiences. Spare Nint After Nintendo’s Digital Event, there was no sugarcoating…

1 FALLOUT 4 FormatPS4, XO, PC Out 10 November It’s hard to believe the launch is already so close, and we’ve all the essential info for you on p34 of this very issue. 2 FINAL FANTASY VII REMAKE Format PS4 OutWinter 2017 As if this wasn’t going to be on the list, after that monumental reveal. But it’s a long, long way away yet. 3 DARK SOULS III Format PS4, XO, PC OutSpring 2016 Miyazaki’s in the driving seat once more, so we’re naturally as keen as you are to get stuck into this one! 4 STAR WARS BATTLEFRONT FormatPS4, XO, PC Out 20 November Prepare to make Sith-kebabs out of your fellow fans of shooting and those infamous battles. See p38 for the latest. 5 DEUS EX: MANKIND DIVIDED…

There’s no escaping it now. We’re moving into the next phase of the virtual revolution. For the last few years we’ve donned the often-oversized heavy plastic helms through which VR could be experienced, but now we’re starting to see these hulking units shrink down in scale and evolve into svelter, smoother, and lighter kits. The tech is getting better and better at a rapid pace, with crisper imagery and reliably solid frame rates. Perhaps most excitingly, though, we’re starting to leave behind the realm of the tech demo. More and more, as we sidle up to these work-in-progress units at events, we’re walking away with minds blown by fully functioning, legitimate gaming experiences. It’s all part of the process of iteration, a palpable sharing between developers as they learn new…

While I’m not the kind of tech head who’d queue outside a shop for days to be the first to get an Apple Watch, I do keep up with what videogames are capable of. There’s something about the recent push towards virtual reality, however, that has me concerned. I’ve been lucky enough to try out a few different VR devices, from the Morpheus to the Oculus Rift, and have mostly walked away hugely impressed by the very definitely new experiences. But, pretty much every time, I’ve also walked away with one hand on my tummy and a lump in my throat. I don’t typically get motion sickness, but something about extended VR sessions makes my inside bits roll about like jumping beans in a pneumatic drill operator’s lunchbox. Not pleasant.…

Consoles are born, they live, and then they die. It’s a sad, sorry state of affairs which means that many of the precious memories of gaming’s history get left behind with advances in technology. Thankfully, to celebrate three decades of Rare, the bods over at the revered British studio have launched Rare Replay, a collection of 30 of the developer’s best titles – including Perfect Dark, Battletoads, and Conker’s Bad Fur Day – exclusively for Xbox One. We sat down with Craig Duncan, the Kazooie to Rare’s collective Banjo, to find out why it’s so important to keep one foot in the past. Q How long have you been with Rare? Were you involved with the games in the Replay collection during their initial creation? A I joined to lead…

Parasaur Pretty much the cow of Ark. These passive herbivores are one of the most common creatures you’ll encounter early on. And, when you finally reach the crafting limit for ‘things not made of dinosaur’, they’re the first you’ll introduce to Mr Pointy Stick. Even when you attack they aren’t really dangerous, preferring to run away, so prepare to give chase. Brontosaurus Early on these are the largest things you’ll meet – and they don’t seem to care about the tiny humans running around their feet. We’ve not even tried attacking one yet, but given that they shake the ground when they walk we don’t fancy anyone’s chances. And don’t stand behind them – everything in Ark defecates, and these things drop boulders. Triceratops These spiky guys might look dangerous,…

Format 3DS Publisher Nintendo Developer Next Level Games Out Spring 2016 Despite fanning the flames of fan ire, to the point of over 20,000 individuals signing a petition to have the game sunk, this team co-op shooter doesn’t actually lookhalf bad. The chibi-robo styling of the characters, who climb aboard hulking mech suits in our demo for some 3v3 Blast Ball (read: football but with guns instead of feet) is delightfully twee, while still feeling like it belongs in the Metroid-verse. Unfortunately that’s about as far as our praise can go, for now at least. Firing lasers at a giant disco ball couldn’t be farther from Metroid’s isolated single player adventures. But while we could just about let that slide, there are two vital elements missing…

Cacodemons The old crimson balloons of death are back, fulfilling their previous role of spamming the air with stinking hot barrages of plasma, while looking weirdly, goofily cute. Kind of. In a way. Imps A low-level ‘fodder’ enemy, alongside the returning Shotgun Zombies. Primarily here to make life tough on the ground with endless, rapidly-flung fireballs. Also, if they get close, they’ll claw your face off. Mancubi We’re getting into the heavy, floor-pounding big-leagues now. The Mancubus is effectively a slobby old flesh-tank, dealing heavy rocket damage while the little guys snap at your heels. Bring out the big guns. Cyberdemons Speaking of big guns… Traditionally, there is no more fearsome Doom enemy than the Cyberdemon. Packing power and resilience, they’ll casually pound you to bits, often backed by a…

Format PS4 Publisher Sony Developer GenDesign Out Summer 2016 We can still feel it now. That rushing sensation in our collective chests as a single white feather floated gently down the screen at the opening of Sony’s E3 conference. After years and years of wondering if the project had been cancelled altogether, there it was before us, sporting a shiny new PS4 coat. The public demo was certainly rousing (especially given our long-standing love of Ico and Shadow Of The Colossus), but a behind closed doors run-through, performed by designer Fumito Ueda, has since addressed the multiple-elephant-sized hybrid monster in the room: how will the boy and Trico occupy the same spaces given the not-inconsiderable imbalance of scale? With melancholic adorability, of course. Prior to the crumbling bridge sequence that…

Format 3DS Publisher Nintendo DeveloperLevel-5 Out Spring 2016 We all know how very thorough Level-5 is when it comes to localisation. Ni No Kuni was three years old by the time we caught a whiff of its Welsh fairies, while Professor Layton’s outings always come at us donkeys after their initial home territory releases. There’s a reason for this. Japanese, as you might imagine, is an especially hard language to translate. Level-5 takes its time, and it really shows in this now two-year-old, potentially Pokémonousting JRPG. Yo-Kai Watch immediately radiates all of the quirk and personality you’d want, without any of the awkward, lost-in-translation moments that you might see elsewhere. The team has somehow managed to cram significance into interactions which would otherwise mean nothing to Western ears. The Yo-Kai…

Format PS4, PC Publisher Capcom Developer Capcom Out March 2016 Ken is famous for two things: wearing a red gi, and being like Ryu. In Capcom’s latest, neither of those things are true. As with much of what it’s shown of the game thus far, the Japanese developer is chucking out the old and bringing in a healthy fistful of the new. The cosmetic changes are one thing, but it’s his altered fighting style that’s got us excited, with some significant tweaks on the cards to distance him from his aforementioned palette-swap brother. He retains his flashy shoryuken, but comes with a host of new, aggressive tricks too. He can rush forward and close gaps using his quick step V-Skill ability, or cancel it to fake out opponents. His V-Trigger…

Format XO, PC Pub Team17 Dev Team17 Out Summer 2016 ‘Rayman-esque’ is probably not a phrase you’d expect us to use when talking about the art style of the latest Worms game, but this new entry in the venerable 20 year old franchise genuinely has the gorgeous, hand-drawn look of an UbiArt game. The gameplay cleaves closely to fan favourite Worms Armageddon, but at the same time introduces brand new features, such as drivable vehicles and building interiors, to keep things feeling fresh. The goal is to capture the magic of that ’90s classic, but also ultimately to surpass it.…

Format PS Vita, PS3 Pub NIS America Dev Lancarse Out August 28 It may very well have slipped off your radar (or never even blipped on it in the first place), but this intriguing future war-flavoured JRPG might be the best reason to keep your PS Vita active while you await Zero Escape 3. With a combat system reminiscent of the excellent Valkyria Chronicles, you’re tasked with ascending a tower, stopping every so often to deduce who among your battling party is a traitor. With writing by Jun Kumagai, the chap responsible for the Persona 3 and 4 animated spin-offs, we’re optimistic.…

Q What do you recommend experienced players do first when they leap into The Taken King? Mark Noseworthy: Oryx has his boot on humanity’s throat, so the first thing you’re going to want to do is jump into the new story missions and campaign. There’s a major Cabal installation on Phobos, Mars’ moon, and you’ll be sent in to investigate the intensified Cabal activity there. It’s not what it seems. After that introduction to Destiny Year Two, the Vanguard in the Tower has two options for you: chase down Oryx and his Taken army, or go off to rediscover the third subclass for your Guardians – the Sunbreaker Titan, Stormcaller Warlock, or Nightstalker Hunter. Q On the flip side of that, are you altering any of the existing game to…

By the time our season passes kicked in and we were graced with the first batch of new content, we’d become very familiar with the planets of Destiny’s solar system. This is surely why, after all those shooty sprints through the same landscapes, it was so exciting to see how the little things suddenly started to change within this epic universe. Well, we saylittle things. What we mean is, we’d find ourselves accosted by huge sword-wielding minions of the subterranean moon deity Crota, a big bad who would star as the ultimate villain of the piece. This was the first sign that Bungie was looking to seismically shift the world around to fuel distinct memories. The loot system wasn’t enamouring for veteran players, but this was a definite step forward…

“Impact Winter is a post-apocalyptic survival game that puts you in charge of a team of four survivors and asks the question, ‘How do you survive for the next 30 days?’. As Jacob, you’ll be tasked with leaving your makeshift base and exploring the Void, a hostile winter environment that comes complete with buried landmarks, dynamic weather, and unpredictable threats. Finding supplies is crucial in keeping your team healthy, and the game’s unique event system reacts to your decisions accordingly, creating an adventure that constantly surprises. Your role as leader is also super important. You’ll have the job of dividing rations, giving advice, and utilising your team’s skills. From improving your base and building survival tools, to upgrading your Ako-Light robot, the game gives you a host of options and…

Eorzea’s new areas are filled with countless stunning vistas. From intricate city streets to moogle-filled caves, there’s a lot worth looking out for. Here are some of the very best spots to take a break, relax, and just enjoy the view. 1 Located in the pillars of Ishgard, the Jewelled Crozier market area is absolutely gorgeous at night. 2 The towering trees of Chocobo Forest hide an adorable secret. These wild ones are a little bitey though. 3 You can only reach the top of Anyx Trine once you’ve unlocked the ability to fly, but it’s worth the effort. 4 So. Many. Moogles! What’s not to love about Moghome, a place filled with these adorable fellows? 5 The tower of Zenith overshadows everything in the Churning Mists. It’s as imposing…

1 BATMAN: ARKHAM KNIGHT PS4 The twists! The turns! The drama! Batmobile fuddley-ness aside, this is one of the most polished and refined action adventures I’ve played. Matt Sakuraoka-Gilman, Editor 2 DARK SOULS PC Pfft, this game isn’t hard – you’re all just a bunch of wusses. I’m already well on my way to kicking Gwyn’s teeth in. (Please send your boos and hisses on a postcard to…) Robin Valentine, Production Editor 3 HER STORY MOBILE I’m loving this immersive and atmospheric little number, especially the retro-styled user interface. I’ll be reaching for my notebook and deerstalker in no time. Sam Freeman, Art Editor 4 FINAL FANTASY VI MOBILE After the VII Remake reveal, I had to leap back into one of the older FFs. I’d forgotten just how shocking…

1 Metroid (NES – 1986) Nintendo’s first-party rate of fire throughout the mid-’80s was astonishing: the first two Zeldas, Super Mario Bros, Kid Icarus, Ice Climber, Punch-Out, and Metroid all landed between 1985 and 1987. This one was a big shot at epic, multi-directional sci-fi exploration with harder edges than Nintendo had been known for, influenced by the likes of Alien, and gave us all the core mechanics and tools of Ms Aran’s trade from day one. 2 Metroid II: Return Of Samus (Game Boy – 1991) Producer Gunpei Yokoi’s R&D1 team returned five years later as Samus toured the Metroids’ homeworld SR388, battling wacky new strains of the oversized head-sucking space plankton. Metroid II didn’t reinvent the wheel but had a scattering of new ideas (including save points, at…

Awesome Boss! Paper Mario Format N64 Developer Intelligent Systems Released 2001 In a series where your next boss bust-up could be with anything from a dickish ghost in a party hat to a sky-scraping robo-dragon, the Lava Piranha was one of the first fights with a twist in the tale. Not the fact that it talked and gave you a load of lip before you even got started, but the fake-out victory sequence ahead of the Lava Piranha re-emerging on fireto finish the job. Classic Momen t! Truxton Format Arcade Developer Toaplan Released 1988 “So," you mused as you cruised through space deploying carefree laser death and scattering those gittish Gidans to the solar winds, “why are my bombs represented as little skulls down there in the corner of the…

STARCRAFT ATTRACTION As incredible as it might seem, this image of Starcraft’s Kerrigan was built entirely in Minecraft. The small matter of 1,128,960 blocks makes it a world record breaker, and it was all crafted by ‘Pixel Art King’ Thorlar and some friends over 23 weeks. See the creation at: http://bit.ly/gmthorlar FASHION ABLE Want to model the ultimate in haute couture in your Animal Crossing town? Sorry , but the Crossing The Runway Tumblr can sort you right out with QR codes for new season garb from Gucci, Prada, Burberry and more. Get 4000% cooler here: http://bit.ly/gmfashion KNIT PICK 800 hours over six years: that’s how long it took for Mario fan Kjetil Nordin to crochet this Super Mario Bros 3 blanket. He studied the exact colours needed for the…

THE DEFENCE SAM FREEMAN VS THE OPPOSITION ROBIN VALENTINE THE DEFENCE Rocksteady delivered a classic here. From the epic opening credits through to the flawless combat, gadgets, and takedowns, it was everything I wanted from the Arkham series. The gritty, dense richness of the Gotham world trumps its predecessor, offering up a seemingly endless set of involving missions and challenges. In a word: brilliant. THE OPPOSITION Not every game needs to have an open world. Arkham Asylum is a focused experience – Arkham City is a bloated mess. The gameplay and the story are all over the place, totally over-stuffed and over-complicated. And all of it takes place in a setting with a bigger population of collectibles than humans. An empty place never felt so unnecessarily full.…

You posed a great question on Facebook about whether mobile gaming is the future. In the short term, things won’t change. Developers have discovered a way to print money, a way to get casual gamers to spend cash hand-over-fist. While consumers spend in this way, we won’t see any change in the way games for mobile are produced. Look at the recent rise of first-person shooters, which came after the success of Call Of Duty and its ilk. We saw clone after clone. As long as this free-to-play business model remains successful, freemium clones will continue to flood the market. We mustn’t lose sight that games are designed to be fun, but also to make money. It’s a business. But then, we’re forever hearing about studios which are closing down.…

I’m really looking forward to Wednesday 170th June in your calendar… :) TheMadFoot, @themadfoot I’m concerned that if I don’t platinum Ground Zeroes by the time Phantom Pain gets here, then Big Boss will be displeased with me. David Lonergan, @Davlonian I would pick Geki from Street Fighter to take my job for a day. I’m a full time carer for an elderly relative and he’d need all his ninja skills. Old folks have special powers of their own to cause mayhem! Lesley Davis, Facebook People who moan about game prices now didn’t have a SNES and Starwing back in the day. Retro Game Geeks @RetroGameGeeks I’m not actually looking forward to any new games. I’ve found myself going back to retro titles. They seem to have much more of…

1 Taking the gimmicky Word is that the NX, like predecessors Wii and Wii U, will feature its own unique new control method. It seems a safe bet, what with the second-screen functionality of the current console failing to take off. 2 Pitch perfect We might have thought Nintendo’s E3 2015 showing a little weak, but apparently the firm was hard at work pitching the new console to third parties. Rumours suggest that initial reactions to the mysterious device were positive. 3 Power switch Chatterings from the Twitter-verse say that the NX will not try to compete with PS4 when it comes to power. That would tally with earlier scuttlebutt (despite Nintendo denying it) that it’ll have Android as its OS. 4 Diddy really? There’ve been whisperings that it’s already…

MATT’S PICK Dark Souls III For the longest time picking an entry for this slot of the mag was the easiest thing. Now, though, it’s as hard as I can ever remember it being. Miyazaki’s return to the Souls stable just about wins out, though, mainly as I can’t wait to see what he brings to the formula off the back of the excellent Bloodborne. PS4, XO, PC – Spring 2016 ROBIN’S PICK Hellblade For me, Ninja Theory is one of the most exciting studios out there, combining brilliantly mad action, unique visuals, and engaging characters in every game it makes. It’s fantastic to see that team striking out on its own with this latest game, and I can’t wait to see the results – especially if it’s able to…

YOU WIN MARS ATTRACTS One of the best Vita games/visual novels going is set for a sequel, with Virtue’s Last Reward follow-up Zero Escape 3 due in the summer of 2016. Once again you’ll be trapped on the Mars Mission Test Site, and there will be fully voiced cinematics, multiple endings, and – wait for it – a dog. Cancel the Game of the Year Awards, this one’s a shoo-in… QUEST PRACTICE Got a franchise in need of a fresh spin? Noticed that people like building in games? Kill two birds with one voxel and make your series more like Minecraft! In fairness to Dragon Quest Builders, it looks like a charming take on the movement. Plus it has dragons. Obviously. LIFE OF GRIMES The Escapists: The Walking Dead probably…

Format 3DS Publisher Nintendo Developer Nintendo Out Winter Well we’ll be a Goron’s uncle, if this isn’t the most fun we’ve had with a Zelda game since Skyward Sword. It might not pack the home console physique of the delayed Wii U title, but with a properly unique three player dungeon-busting angle, and all the polish you’d expect from the series, this has already, in the space of a 40 minute hands-on, caused more giggles and high-fives than many co-op multiplayer games manage throughout their run times. As a wee Toon Link, you join a party and dart about in typical top-down Zelda dungeons. The twist is that each of your band of co-op players owns one of the items needed to solve the puzzles you’ll find. Need to wang…

Format Wii U Publisher Nintendo Developer Camelot Software Planning Out Winter Who knew this was slowly baking behind closed doors at Nintendo HQ, then? It’s the first home console outing for the plumber’s racket-based sporting series in over a decade. And from what we’ve played, it’s looking incredibly well polished. For the uninitiated, this is no simulation of the mighty game of tennis, instead being an arcade-flavoured affair. Glowing patches of court underfoot indicate the availability of special moves which would have the Nadals and the Murrays of this world weeping into the nearest bowl of strawberries and cream. Smash the ball while standing on a red patch of grass and your next shot will be empowered with Fire Flower power. Do so on a bluey-white patch and it’ll be…

Format PS4, XO, PC Publisher Bethesda Developer Bethesda Out 10 November Before the bombs fell, people built things to last; it ain’t easy putting together a toaster that can survive a nuclear apocalypse and still work 200 years later. But hey, if you think you can improve on their creations, go ahead – in Fallout 4, you’ll have the freedom to craft to your heart’s content. You know all that junk you always horde in Bethesda games? Picking up everything you see until your backpack is straining with forks, brooms, and children’s toys? Well this time round you’ll be able to put all of it to use. Everything you find can be broken down into its constituent parts, and those are what you need to cook up inventions of your…

Format PS4, XO, Wii U, PC, PS3, 360, 3DS, PS Vita Publisher Deep Silver Developer Comcept Out 18 September Going faster is quickly becoming not just a legitimate way to play your games, but a much more common school of thought when putting them together, too. This 2D platfomer just screams Mega Man – from its chromatic blue robo-hero, to its fisty plasma balls and slightly awkward traversal – but it comes at us with a very obvious intent to make you play at pace. “With an explanation alone it may be a bit hard to grasp,” admits Keiji Inafune, one-time creator of the aforementioned Man what was Mega, and now producer of Mighty No. 9. It would be easy for the freshly introduced speed-running bent to be “confused for…

Format PS4, XO, PC, PS3, 360 Pub Activision Dev Platinum Out Winter Initial reactions to the reveal of the Bayonetta studio’s tie-in robo-actionbrawler were lukewarm, if only because we still had the acidic taste of Legend Of Korra in our mouths. With fresh footage showing a robust and startlingly smooth fighting system (as well as some seriously authentic sound cues and voice work), we’re freshly sold. Interestingly, the game’s director, Kenji Saito, has hinted that he’d be up for game tie-ins of anime series Kill La Kill or Berserk once work on this is done.…

Format XO, PC Pub Team17 Dev Tiger & Squid Out Winter Imagine losing your sight at age ten, and how terrifying that would be. For Rae, in this hauntingly beautiful indie title, it leaves her bound to the familiar, wiling away her days in her garden with her cat. When the treasured pet goes wandering, she’s forced to follow it into the outside world – where she reacts to noises by filling in her blank canvas view with objects from memory. She hears dripping water, and ‘sees’ the elegant fountain she knows from home – until she gets close enough to touch, and it’s revealed to be a filthy storm drain.…

It takes around a year for the average human child to learn to stand upright and walk around unaided. It’s taken as long for Bungie to turn its genre-defining, MMO-inspired shooter from a unique-but-not-quite-essential affair into one of the most indispensable mainstays of our current-gen console dashboards and XMBs. If you’ve tried it and bounced right off, now is the time, even before The Taken King arrives, to consider jumping back in. A lot can happen in a year, huh? Back at launch we were ever-so-slightly underwhelmed by Destiny. Its shooting was typically bulletproof – as you’d expect from the studio responsible for Halo – yet there was something amiss narrative-wise, and its systems felt too heavily focused on repetition. This was 30 hours of gaming Marmite, spread too thinly…

This is where we’d steadfastly argue that Bungie’s bullet-fest went from being a great game with some niggling problems, to one of the best console shooters to have ever existed. Every lesson learned from both the previous expansion and the base game bore fruit as Bungie served up a heaving platter of varied-yet-delicious treats. Two new characters, Petra and Variks, bounced off each other via enrapturing dialogue – one a hard-bitten Queen’s ambassador, the other a personified betrayer of the nameless forces you’d been gunning down since day dot. We’ve still not quite got the beginning, middle, and end of a satisfying story, but this was a leap in all the right directions. Meanwhile we had so much more to do than simply run weeklies and grind the raids into…

Some adjustments are tiny, yet welcome. Pit comms are overhauled, with race engineer Jeff on hand to provide up-to-date status messages. In qualifying you can tune into TV-style feeds of your opponents, which might reveal some sneaky tactics you can adopt in your own run for pole position. Codemasters has also reworked the penalties system, but it’s still touch-and-go as to whether you’re justly punished. It’s great that the game has introduced the same system as in real life; if you gain a place illegally you can hand it back within a certain space of time, but it’s not quite perfect. Sudden shunts from behind often result in you getting a tap on the wrist from the digital stewards, despite being entirely blameless.…

Been slacking when it comes to your laser beam redirection practice, or your musings on the nature of existence? Well it’s time to shape up, because the excellent The Talos Principle has received a sizeable chunk of additional content. The Road To Gehenna consists of four episodes, featuring new characters and showing a different side of Elohim’s world. It also contains the game’s ‘most challenging puzzles yet’, so it’s good for you masochistic types. If it’s a more physical brand of digital exertion that you’re after then you might want to partake in the first batch of story DLC for Batman: Arkham Knight. Batgirl: A Matter Of Family lets you play as the titular heroine for the first time in the Arkham series, and sees you team up with Robin…

1 The old ‘ability cull’ trick in the early stages kicked off a satisfying progression back to planet-pounding powerhouse status. 2 Sublime mobility afforded by bouncy jumps, a grapple beam, and the liberating human pinball shenanigans of the Morph Ball. 3 Building-sized bosses are a Metroid staple: Prime had nightmarish parasites and plants, a Phazon-animated rock giant, and Meta Ridley. 4 As usual, Kenji Yamamoto’s brooding electronic soundtrack was critical to the atmosphere. Classic Super Metroid remixes went in without a hitch. 5 Some upgrades and Log Book scans were optional, but a ‘gotta grab ’em all’ approach earned you extras and the complete ending.…

Movies and games have shared a rocky history, the rather excellent King Kong tie-in for PS2 aside. But now we’re seeing more and more successful adaptations of our favourite cinema franchises – in this bold new era, what essential gaming experiences inspired by the silver screen are yet to occur? We bash heads to find out… Matt:You could argue that the dream combo has already slipped through the net. Hideo Kojima and Guillermo Del Toro getting behind Silent Hills, and the subsequent falling apart of the whole thing, is probably one of the all time great videogaming tragedies. But now that Rocksteady has hung up its cowl on the Arkham games I’d love to see it tackle something entirely different. Given the studio’s expertise in melee combat, I’d pick the…