Table of contents for No. 171 in GamesTM

Editor

It’s nice to see creative types break out from their comfort zones. I’ve always felt there was something special about a quiet, acoustic band getting loud or an aggressive electric outfit taking it down a few notches. Forcing yourself one way or the other can lead you into some really interesting places so long as you keep a kernel of your own unique voice in there too. I see that in Blizzard’s Overwatch. While it may be picking up some of the scraps of the defunct Titan project, this actually feels further outside the Irvine California group’s typical output. Where Titan was a massive Earth-set MMO again, albeit from a first-person perspective, Overwatch is a purer shooter experience. This is something very different in tone and content than we’ve seen…

1 min

GamesTM|No. 171

Classics apparently running dry in Akihabara

“ Japanese copies of less language-sensitive games like platformers have long been popular among international collectors ” One of my enduring memories of my last trip to Japan was weaving around back alleys and clambering up confusing stairwells in search of some gaming classics, and the wall-to-wall technicolour patchworks of all kinds of discs, cards and boxes that lined the walls when we did eventually find what we were looking for left me wide-eyed, giddy with choice, and clinging to my wallet for dear life. How saddening it is, then, to see pictures circulating online of some of those same store shelves now looking more like Black Friday aftermath than the beautiful gaming history lesson I saw just a few short years ago. Naturally, supplies of old, out-of-print games are…

2 min

GamesTM|No. 171

WHY I LOVE... REZ

“If you showed it to someone that plays games casually, you will still see their minds melting in front of it ” ANDY ROBINSON, WRITER, PLAYATONIC “ I really, really love Rez. It’s probably not my favourite game of all time, but it’s really close. It’s certainly the only one that after 15 years, I still get out. It’s still, to this day, unlike anything else I’ve played; it’s very difficult to find a game like it. If you showed it to someone that plays games casually, you will still see their minds melting in front of it. The art style is timeless; it still looks amazing; and it’s still amazing to play – even though you can breeze through it in 40 minutes, you’ll have an amazing…

1 min

GamesTM|No. 171

Homefront: The Revolution

“The first game was much more of a military shooter-by-numbers. You were a soldier in the American army fighting against the invaders”STEPHEN RHODES, DAMBUSTER STUDIOS CONCEPT • A first-person shooter in which you play as a resistance fighter seeking to overcome a foe that greatly outmatches you in strength and sophistication INFORMATION Details Format: PC, PS4, Xbox One Origin: UK Publisher: Deep Silver Developer: Dambuster Studios Release: 20 May 2016 Players: 1 (1-4 Online) Publisher Profile Founded in 2002, Deep Silver is wholly owned by German company Koch Media. Thus far, the publisher has released over 200 games across genres as diverse as strategy, role-playing, first-person shooters, sports and racing. It acquired the Homefront brand following the collapse of THQ. Publisher History Risen 3 2014 [Multi] Saints Row IV 2013…

5 min

GamesTM|No. 171

Paragon

“ Skill matters – where you aim, when you attack, and how you move. Paragon puts you in direct control of the action like you’ve never experienced in a MOBA”PRESS RELEASE, EPIC GAMES CONCEPT • Two teams of five heroes drop into a three-lane valley and do battle over chokepoints, checkpoints and glowing spherical balls to find victory INFORMATION Details Format: PS4, PC Origin: USA Publisher: Epic Games Developer: In-house Release: Q1 2016 Players: 1-10 Developer Profile Founded in 1991 under the guise of Epic MegaGames, the studio developed titles like Overkill before changing its name to Epic Games in 1999. A new focus was put on developing its Unreal Engine tech, leading to Gears Of War in 2006. Developer History Gears Of War 2006 [Xbox 360] Unreal Tournament 3…

5 min

GamesTM|No. 171

DETAILING THE STRUGGLE WITH RANKED PLAY

There’s a very good chance that Overwatch will not include ranked play for launch. The team is still trying to find a way to make it work, without compromising its inviting atmosphere. It’s a competitive game at heart, but with so much for players to get their heads around there’s a chance players could revert back to old habits when the stakes are raised. “We are heavily iterating on our ranked play design… Our hope is that it will be in by launch. Right now, we are trying very hard – and I’m hopeful and optimistic that we can make something happen – it’s something the team is very motivated about,” explains Jeff Kaplan. Ranked is an interesting prospect for the design of Overwatch, and aspiring professional players too, as…

1 min

GamesTM|No. 171

ESPORTS LEADING THE WAY

How carefully is Blizzard building Overwatch around eSports? Incredibly so. “eSports is extremely important to us,” considers Jeff Kaplan. “We have some very big plans for eSports with Overwatch – we’re not entirely ready to talk about those just yet, we have a lot of details to work out before we present them.” That’s because eSports is growing at an alarming rate, and with Overwatch offering free hero and map updates in the future, it sounds to us like Blizzard needs Overwatch to thrive on the scene to keep engagement. Kaplan described the studio’s ambition towards competitive top tier play as a “three-pronged trident,” with Overwatch needing to nail ranked, eSport and robust broadcast/spectator features to succeed in terms of competitive play.…

1 min

GamesTM|No. 171

“YOU’VE GOT TO DARE TO BE STUPID”

“WE’VE GOT MASSIVE PHYSICS SIMULATIONS, NASA TECHNOLOGY FOR FLUIDS, AND ONLY FOOLS AND HORSES”Alex Ward, co-founder, Three Fields Entertainment How do you explain an idea like Dangerous Golf to a small team of game development veterans eager to start a new project? “I was like, ‘I don’t know, it’s probably a bit like Crash Mode, but with a golf ball. But it’s probably way more out there than that, with a shitload of destruction’,” reveals Alex Ward, co-founder of Three Fields Entertainment and former chief of Criterion Games. It’s a pitch that managed to capture the imaginations of colleagues from the Burnout development team and beyond, but obviously it wasn’t quite so simple as that. As we discovered sitting with the Three Fields team, including fellow ex-Criterion and Three Fields…

12 min

GamesTM|No. 171

DESTINY BE DAMNED

" ONCE YOU REACH MAX LEVEL THERE WILL STILL BE QUITE A LOT OF CONTENT TO DEAL WITH. THEN OF COURSE FREE UPDATES AND [PAID] DLC WILL COME ALONG THE WAY” For the MMO to survive, first it had to die – in the traditional sense at least. It’s a move inspired by a change in attitude from the console-converted; a legion of controller-equipped gamers screaming out for enhanced ways to play with their buddies scattered across the globe. The massively multiplayer online model does, after all, inspire almost cultish instances of dedication and retention amongst its followers. It’s no surprise then, to see publishers only too eager to forge these experiences; maintaining an aggressive grasp over your time is desirable in an era of gaming quickly defined by spiralling…

16 min

GamesTM|No. 171

SEPARATING THE FACTS FROM FICTION

The Tom Clancy brand is synonymous with realism; blurring the lines between fact and fiction. But with The Division abandoning realistic gunplay and weapons in favour of intricate gun mods, loot drops and enemies that can withstand a hell of a lot punishment, we turn towards the story to find the ghost of Tom Clancy living on. So we checked in with the Centre for Disease Control in the United States to see how plausible The Division’s terrifying winter doomsday scenario is and, more importantly, how prepared the country is to stop it. What is your role at the CDC? My name is Matt Biggerstaff and I’m an epidemiologist at the influenza division at the Centre for Disease Control in the United States. As part of my job I do…

6 min

GamesTM|No. 171

VR TIMELINE THE FUTURE WAS HERE

1979 MIT creates the Aspen Movie Map, a ‘hypermedia’ system that let users walk around. 1984 Jaron Lanier founds VPL Research to prototype various VR machines. 1991 Sega announces Sega VR for arcade and Mega Drive, which was then cancelled. 1991 Virtuality is released, the first VR gaming system available to consumers. It mainly stayed within arcades. 1993 Sega claims that Sega VR will release in the autumn year and will retail at $200, before delaying it. 1994 Sega VR is cancelled, with it being reportedly claimed that it was “too realistic”. 1995 Nintendo releases Virtual Boy, now recognised as one of Nintendo’s biggest failures. 1999 Linden Lab is founded with an intention of making a complete 360 degree VR experience. 2010 Palmer Lucky creates his first prototype for what…

1 min

GamesTM|No. 171

XCOM 2

XCOM 2 HAS A TENDENCY TO UNFOLD IN ORIGINAL AND STRIKING WAYS EVERY TIME YOU PLAY DETAILS FORMAT: PC ORIGIN: USA PUBLISHER: 2K Games DEVELOPER: Firaxis PRICE: £34.99 RELEASE: Out now PLAYERS: 1-2 ONLINE REVIEWED: YES MINIMUM SPEC: OS: Windows 7, 64-bit PROCESSOR: Intel Core 2 Duo E4700 2.6 GHz or AMD Phenom 9950 Quad Core 2.6GHz MEMORY: 4 GB RAM GRAPHICS: 1GB ATI Radeon HD 5770, 1GB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 or better STORAGE: 45 GB available SOUND CARD: DirectX compatible sound card Time is our most precious commodity. We are handed our allocation of it and once it’s gone, it’s gone forever. In XCOM 2 it never feels like time is on your side. Instead it seems that it, along with the lives entrusted to your command, is…

10 min

GamesTM|No. 171

The Witness

IT’S TERRIBLY IMPORTANT TO NOT CONFUSE ALOOFNESS WITH MYSTIQUE DETAILS FORMAT: PS4 OTHER FORMATS: PC ORIGIN: USA PUBLISHER: Thekla, Inc. DEVELOPER: In-house PRICE: £29.99 RELEASE: Out now PLAYERS: 1 ONLINE REVIEWED: N/A Making something appear effortless might be the hardest thing to achieve in any creative field. It can be a difficult quality to articulate too, because ultimately it’s about making it seem like nothing incredible is going on. Everything makes sense and is as it should be. In a 3D sandbox space with limitless possibilities, the fact that The Witness feels very natural and your path is guided so subtly and cleverly, is one of its greatest triumphs. The Witness feels simple and comfortable as a world, but there’s clearly so much work behind it. Enjoying the gameplay of…

6 min

GamesTM|No. 171

Final Fantasy Explorers

DETAILS FORMAT: 3DS ORIGIN: Japan PUBLISHER: Square Enix / Nintnedo DEVELOPER: In-house PRICE: £29.99 RELEASE: Out now PLAYERS: 1-4 ONLINE REVIEWED: N/A The best thing about Final Fantasy’s template is that it’s so variable: you’ve got an established set of monster types, jobs and magic that can bend and fit into practically any genre. But just because they can, doesn’t always mean they should. Final Fantasy Explorers is Square’s attempt at aping the Monster Hunter formula, and whilst the game gets a few things right… It gets a lot of things wrong. Firstly, there’s the pacing: any game of this type isn’t really going to get started until you’re a good ten hours in. This covers the entire story of Explorers, so if you’re after a meaty RPG-like narrative, steer…

3 min

GamesTM|No. 171

Blade & Soul

BLADE & SOUL IS A RUSH TO END-GAME,A SIDE-EFFECT OF THE SHORT ATTENTIONSPANS OF A WOW-ADDLED MMO GENERATION DETAILS FORMAT: PC ORIGIN: Korea PUBLISHER: NCSoft DEVELOPER: In-house PRICE: Free-to-play RELEASE: Out now PLAYERS: Massively Multiplayer MINIMUM SPEC: Dual-core CPU, 2GB RAM on Windows XP/3GB otherwise, 256MB GPU, 22GB HDD space ONLINE REVIEWED: Yes How many times have we been here? How many times have we glazed over quest text simply to keep the momentum of the grind going? How many times have we scrolled endlessly through spamming text from gold sellers simply to find out what new abilities were unlocked when we levelled up? Everything about Blade & Soul feelsalltoo familiar, endemic of an aging genre. This is particularly true when we’re utterly ignored by passing players, whose brief existence…

6 min

GamesTM|No. 171

Sébastien Loeb Rally Evo

DETAILS FORMAT: Xbox One OTHER FORMATS: PC, PS4 ORIGIN: Italy PUBLISHER: PQube DEVELOPER: Milestone PRICE: £44.99 RELEASE: Out now PLAYERS: 1-16 ONLINE REVIEWED: Yes In any other year, we might have been hailing Sébastien Loeb Rally Evo as a breakout title for Milestone. The studio, known for pumping out competent yet forgettable simulation racing games over the last two decades, has finally shaken off the restrictive official WRC licence and found itself associated with one of the all-time rally greats. But, sadly, for every corner Sébastien Loeb Rally Evo takes successfully, it quickly finds itself careering off-track by the next. And yet, Sébastien Loeb Rally Evo features a staggering array of content. Milestone has wasted no time in taking full advantage of Loeb’s career (nine World Championships!), with Rally Evo…

3 min

GamesTM|No. 171

That Dragon, Cancer

DETAILS FORMAT: PC ORIGIN: US PUBLISHER: Numinous Games DEVELOPER: In-house PRICE: £10.99 RELEASE: Out now PLAYERS: 1 MINIMUM SPEC: Windows 7, 1.80GHz dual core processor, 2GB RAM, video card with 512MB VRAM, 5GB HDD space ONLINE REVIEWED: N/A Being surrounded by games that promote and encourage death as an end result for so many years, it comes as a stark, harsh blow to the emotional centre when playing something that makes one life matter so very much. That Dragon, Cancer tells the story of Joel Green: an infant given months to live after being diagnosed with terminal cancer, who went on to live to the age of five before passing away. It was created by Joel’s parents, along with his young brothers, and is a difficult experience – one many…

3 min

GamesTM|No. 171

MIKE MONTGOMERY TALKS SPEEDBALL 2

How did Brutal Deluxe improve on the original Speedbal ? I think the whole concept of Speedball 2 was different. What we wanted to do with Speedball 2 was all of the things that we really didn’t have time to do with Speedball. So the viewpoint was slightly changed, the graphics were a lot better – it was a different game to a certain extent, wasn’t it? I think Speedball 2 was just a natural progression. How did it compare to the Atari ST version? The frame-rate was a lot better and that was important because the better it was, the better the game experience of that type of game would be. It wouldn’t matter for a turn-based game, but with an action game, you needed to be slick and…

2 min

GamesTM|No. 171

BEHIND THE SCENES DUKE NUKEM 64

RICK RAYMO WAS VERY MUCH PUSHING FOR THINGS TO BE CHANGED Released: 1997 Format: Nintendo 64 Publisher: GT Interactive Software Key Staff: Rick Raymo (producer), Ashley Finney (lead programmer), Simon Mills (programmer), Steve Bamford (graphics), Nick Dry (graphics), Neil Baldwin (audio), Steve Duckworth (audio) SIMON MILLS’ VERY FIRST TASK AS A PROFESSIONAL GAMES PROGRAMMER AT THE BRITISH DEVELOPER EUROCOM DID NOT REQUIRE HIM TO DILIGENTLY TAP AWAY AT HIS KEYBOARD NOR COME UP WITH ANY NEW AND IMAGINATIVE CODING TRICKS. Rather, he was handed a pad of A4 paper and a pen, and he was asked to play through Duke Nukem 3D in its entirely. It was up to him to figure out which bits were of particularly poor taste and note down the most controversial moments. As tasks go,…

15 min

GamesTM|No. 171

GETTING SENSIBLE WITH JON HARE

WE WERE 19-YEARS-OLD AND WENT HOME SINGING, ‘WE’RE IN THE MONEY’ ENTERPRISING YOUNGSTERS “The government had an enterprise scheme paying £40 a week for a year to set up a company as long as we had £1,000 each. But we had to be signed on for a minimum of 13 weeks. After Twister we did just that, but also took on another game that paid us exactly £2,000 but was never released. We signed on, got the cash, signed off and applied. The money was enough for bus fares, crisps and Cornish pasties.” Jon on how Sensible Software was formed CODEMASTERS BUYS SENSIBLE “We’d been going for 13 years and were down to eight staff. We asked Codemasters if they would buy us and they agreed, but it was hard…

10 min

GamesTM|No. 171

Is Activision Blizzard trying to buy its way into eSports?

A ctivision Blizzard isn’t just betting hard on the growth of eSports, it’s making an aggressive play to own it. Following hotly on the heels of the formation of a dedicated internal competitive gaming division in October 2015, the Call Of Duty and StarCraft II publisher has now completed the purchase of Major League Gaming (MLG) in a deal estimated to be worth 46 million dollars. Bobby Kotick, the chief executive officer of Activision Blizzard, has already outlined his ambition to “create the ESPN of eSports,” and the acquisition of MLG is certainly the first step on that long and difficult road. “MLG’s ability to create premium content, its proven broadcast technology platform – including its live streaming capabilities – strengthens our strategic position in competitive gaming,” continues Kotick in…

8 min

GamesTM|No. 171

Ikenie to Yuki no Setsuna

• A brand new RPG from Square Enix is always going to pique our interest, and this latest release courtesy of the oddly-named Tokyo RPG Factory is no exception. Announced at E3 with little more than a teaser trailer, its launch has crept up on us somewhat and it’s finally out in Japan. Said to be a love letter to classic 16-bit RPGs like Chrono Triggerand earlier Final Fantasytitles, it seems like something that could fill the hole left by every major player in the genre clambering over each other to reinvent the JRPG for a whole new audience.…

1 min

GamesTM|No. 171

Hitman

“ We decided to take the full leap and publish Hitman as a truly episodic game experience”HANNES SEIFERT IO INTERCTIVE CONCEPT • Use your environment, its inhabitants, its items and, most importantly, your own creative thinking to assassinate specific targets as silently as possible INFORMATION Details Format: PC, PS4, Xbox One Origin: Denmark Publisher: Square Enix Developer: Io Interactive Release: 11 March 2014 Players: 1 Developer Profile Founded in 1998 in Copenhagen, Io Interactive is most famous for its Hitman series. Their first release came in 2000, in the form of Hitman: Codename 47, and up until 2012 the studio managed to release at least one game every two years. With four years passed since Hitman Absolution, expectations are understandably high. Developer History Hitman Absolution 2012 [Multi] Kane & Lynch…

10 min

GamesTM|No. 171

Horizon Zero Dawn

“ We wanted the player to feel primitive, so we decided that the tribes would have very limited knowledge of technology ”MATHIJS DE JONG, GAME DIRECTOR, GUERRILLA GAMES CONCEPT • An open-world action-adventure RPG that sees humanity fighting to survive in rural future dominated by giant robot dinosaurs INFORMATION Details Format: PS4 Origin: Netherlands Publisher: Sony Developer: Guerrilla Games Release: 2016 Players: 1 Developer Profile Guerrilla Games has been cutting its teeth on the PlayStation brand ever since Shellshock: ‘Nam 67 hit PS2 in 2004 and it went full-on exclusive in the same year with the very first Killzone. The Dutch developer has stuck with the politically-minded sci-fi shooter ever since, but has now turned its attention to the exciting post-post-apocalyptic world of Horizon. Developer History Killzone: Liberation 2006 [PSP]…

3 min

GamesTM|No. 171

SHOWCASE

TORMENT: TIDES OF NUMENERA Format: PC, Mac Publisher: inXile Entertainment Developer: In-house ETA: Q4 2016 BILLED AS the spiritual successor to 1999’s Planetscape: Torment and with over $5 million in pledges currently sitting in the bank, Torment: Tides of Numenera may have had a few release date alterations since it was first announced back in 2013, but you can check it out on Steam Early Access if you’re keen to sample just a sliver of what developer, inXile, has in store for its fantastical Monte Cook tabletop inspired RPG. WAY TO THE WOODS Format: PC Publisher: N/A Developer: Anthony Tan ETA: Q4 2016 DEVELOPED BY 16 year-old student, Anthony Tan, Way To The Woods is a visually stunning adventure title that puts you in control of a deer and her…

6 min

GamesTM|No. 171

OFFENCE

GENJI DIFFICULTY WEAPON TYPE Katana VANITY QUOTE “Even if I sacrifice my body, I will never sacrifice my honor” MCCREE DIFFICULTY WEAPON TYPE Peacekeeper Revolver VANITY QUOTE “Justice ain’t gonna dispense itself” PHARAH DIFFICULTY WEAPON TYPE Rocket launcher VANITY QUOTE “I will protect the innocent” REAPER DIFFICULTY WEAPON TYPE Twin Hellfire shotguns VANITY QUOTE “Death walks among you” SOLDIER: 76 DIFFICULTY WEAPON TYPE Heavy Pulse rifle VANITY QUOTE “We’re all soldiers now” TRACER DIFFICULTY WEAPON TYPE Twin Pulse Pistols VANITY QUOTE “Cheers, love! The cavalry’s here!”…

1 min

GamesTM|No. 171

IN DISCUSSION WITH THE DIRECTOR

HOW IMPORTANT WAS IT TO GET OVERWATCH ON PS4 AND XBOX ONE? From day one we designed the game to be multi-platform, so a lot of our design decisions - like limiting the number of abilities the heroes had – was always with the gamepad in mind. WILL OVERWATCH FEATURE CROSS-PLATFORM SUPPORT? There will not be any cross platform support. Each platform will have its own eco system. Most of that is for fairness reasons. There are slight advantages and disadvantages to PC versus Xbox One versus PS4. DID IT FEEL LIKE TREYARCH STOLE YOUR THUNDER A LITTLE WITH ITS INTRODUCTION OF ‘SPECIALISTS’ IN BLACK OPS III MULTIPLAYER LAST YEAR? No, no, no! In fact, we have nothing but love and respect for Treyarch. We’ve met with them numerous times,…

3 min

GamesTM|No. 171

FOR THE LOVE OF DESTRUCTION

“WE LIKE PLAYING FOR SCORES, WE LIKE FAST ACTION, WE LIKE TO ENTERTAIN PEOPLE”Alex Ward, co-founder, Three Fields Entertainment From Burnout to Black and now Dangerous Golf, this team seems drawn to smashing things up and enjoying the chaos that unfolds. What’s the allure? “I would say that, as a player, you can very easily see what you’ve done,” says Three Fields and Criterion Games co-founder Alex Ward. “Cause and effect. Players like games that they’re good at. You also like to be able to see ‘I’ve done that’. Whether it’s a fighting game or an exploration game, with games with destruction in them, you can clearly see what you’ve done. People say it’s cathartic, but it’s also just a very clear thing to put on the screen.” “You don’t…

1 min

GamesTM|No. 171

THE DARK ZONE BECKONS

Despite its inherent hostility, there’s a glimpse of brilliant imagination buried deep within The Division’s Dark Zone areas. The PvP zone found in the centre of the map can be accessed seamlessly by stepping through a door or hopping a fence, and it’s offering an ambitious take on multiplayer designed to cripple friendships and forge brand new ones. In this darkened, chaotic space, you are tasked with battling tough-as-nails NPCs who may hold the greatest loot – problem is, you may also encounter other players. Emotes and proximity voice chat can only get you so far here: meeting other players is often tense, as you freely have the option of collaborating or clashing. Any player in the Dark Zone – including those in your squad – can become potential betrayers…

1 min

GamesTM|No. 171

IS YOUR PC VR READY?

It’s hard to believe that it’s nearly been four years since Oculus first launched its Kickstarter, the phenomenon that heaved virtual reality out of the stigmatised dark ages thanks to the likes of VirtualBoy and into the modern day. The Kickstarter – which raised nearly $2.5 million dollars – was an unfathomable, but uncontrollable success; perhaps, many thought, VR can be done. Well here we are: it’s 2016 and we’re awaiting not only the finalised Oculus Rift product, but a whole host of unexpected competitors. Valve and HTC have teamed up to release the Vive, Sony is looking to bring VR to PS4 with PlayStation VR and we’ve already seen more affordable options with the smartphone-driven Google Cardboard and Samsung Gear VR. And that’s overlooking Facebook’s intervention, which had enough…

12 min

GamesTM|No. 171

20 REASONS WHY POKÉMON CONQUERED THE WORLD

01 CROSS MEDIA PERFECTION From the beginning Pokémon has been a multimedia entity. It existed from the start as a game, an anime and a trading card game. Others over the years have sought to expand in this fashion, attempting to turn sales on the shelves into success on the screen, in comics, in books or elsewhere, but they’re rarely triumphant. Likewise it’s rare to see a show, movie or board game translate with great success to a videogame. Pokémon is unique among its peers by not only pulling off this spinning plate trick of existing in all its camps simultaneously, but doing so with great products too. 02 THE SLOW REVEAL OF SECRETS Do you remember when the existence of Mewtwo was revealed? Do you recall the rumours and…

11 min

GamesTM|No. 171

TIMELINE HIGHLIGHTS

30 MINS • Frozen in terror looking at the overworld map, desperately stalling for time as you try to make your next potentially game-ending move as the enemy inexorably approaches. 8 HOURS • Trying to hold back the tears as it becomes apparent that some of your heroes – ones that have been there from the start – simply aren’t going to make it back to the base with you. 3 DAYS • The crushing realisation that there’s no way that you can win and so you begin a New Game, pumped with the knowledge that you won’t repeat the same mistakes (you totally will though).…

1 min

GamesTM|No. 171

LEGO Marvel’s Avengers

LEGO MARVEL’S AVENGERS, WHILE UNQUESTIONABLY FAITHFUL TO ITS SOURCE MATERIAL, JUST DOESN’T HAVE ENOUGH TO WORK WITH DETAILS FORMAT: PS4 OTHER FORMATS: PS3, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PC, Wii U, Vita ORIGIN: UK PUBLISHER: Warner Bros DEVELOPER: Traveller’s Tales PRICE: £39.99 RELEASE: Out now PLAYERS: 1-2 ONLINE REVIEWED: N/A While the LEGO games finally took a step beyond its successful but very familiar formula with last year’s ambitious toys-to-life effort LEGO Dimensions, LEGO Marvel’s Avengers is very much Traveller’s Tales back in its familiar groove. This is the kind of ultra-polished and sharply comedic licensed action that we’ve been enjoying for the past decade; as fine-tuned as a LEGO game has ever been, but also one lacking in the some of the scope of its most stellar predecessors. Instead of…

6 min

GamesTM|No. 171

Undertale

DETAILS FORMAT: PC ORIGIN: US PUBLISHER: Toby Fox DEVELOPER: In-house PRICE: £6.99 RELEASE: Out now PLAYERS: 1 ONLINE REVIEWED: N/A If we’d have told you at the beginning of 2015 that one of the year’s greatest success stories would be an 8-bit-style RPG where you don’t even have to fight enemies, you’d most likely have laughed the very words off our pages. But it happened. A devout and adoring fan base sprung up around this oddity almost overnight and on closer inspection of the game in question, it’s not hard to see why. You see, hiding behind that tatty old disguise is one of the most playful, creative and involving RPGs we’ve had the pleasure of playing in quite some time. By not just steering clear of typical genre tropes,…

3 min

GamesTM|No. 171

Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: India

DETAILS FORMAT: Xbox One OTHER FORMATS: PS4, PC ORIGIN: UK PUBLISHER: Ubisoft DEVELOPER: Climax Studios PRICE: £7.99 RELEASE: Out now PLAYERS: 1 ONLINE REVIEWED: N/A It’s almost as if Ubisoft thought it would be all too easy to reinvent Assassin’s Creed; to get some fan favour back on its side. The main-series has languished in mediocrity for so long now that abandoning half a dimension and wading clumsily into Mark Of The Ninja territory must have seemed like the best idea in the world, at least since Corey May decided to orbit a triple-A franchise around mystical fruit. But just as Assassin’s Creed Chronicles stumbled out of sixteenth-century China with little to show for it, its meddling in colonial India doesn’t fare much better. Climax Studios has clearly attempted to…

3 min

GamesTM|No. 171

The Banner Saga

DETAILS FORMAT: Xbox One OTHER FORMATS: PS4, PC, iOS, Android ORIGIN: USA PUBLISHER: Versus Evil DEVELOPER: Stoic PRICE: £15.99 RELEASE: Out now PLAYERS: 1 ONLINE REVIEWED: N/A If you missed it the first time around, which is highly likely, The Banner Saga is a tactical RPG with a Viking setting, telling the tale of a wandering army on a quest to defeat the warring Dredge race and figure out a way to kill its seemingly immortal leader. Rather than focusing on a main hero, the entire army of warriors is presented as a single entity travelling and fighting as a group; as you travel through the various lands you’re also responsible for ensuring the well-being of the group via a number of CYOA style decisions. The game is beautifully presented,…

3 min

GamesTM|No. 171

WHY I LOVE... STREET FIGHTER II

“It was an awesome excuse for all my friends to get together and have mini tournaments in our bedrooms ” NICOLL HUNT, CREATOR/DEVELOPER, I FIGHT BEARS “I’m going to go with the game that did, in many ways, change my life, and that’s Street Fighter II on the SNES. That game for me solidified everything that I love about computer games. It’s got people punching other people in the face, it’s got an awesome soundtrack, and it was an awesome excuse for all my friends to get together and have mini tournaments in our bedrooms. I absolutely fell in love with that game. It’s the first game that I got so obsessed with that it got to the point where I just analysed every single frame of the…

1 min

GamesTM|No. 171

FURRY AND FABULOUS

What was the most difficult aspect of creating Lemmings? There were a few issues. Making the lemmings walk and move exactly, binding feet to ground rather than sliding, actually getting collision working on a pixel basis was tricky – and in fact, Lemmings never worked totally for ‘steel’ things. On console it was a nightmare of the highest order. The five-screen bitmap was utterly horrible, and I am still amazed they managed to port it to the Game Boy! Lemmings is known for its difficulty. Did any of the levels keep you puzzled for ages? Nope. By the time we were churning out levels, we were all so very good at it, we could solve any level in seconds – pretty much. The only tricky bit was actually doing the…

1 min

GamesTM|No. 171

CONTROLLING THE DUKE

A tap of the left shoulder button allowed players to use an item from their inventory, The R-button was used as a “shift” key and, in combination with other buttons, could be used for activation, or the selection of weapons and inventory items. It could also be used to jump, fly or swim. When the Control Stick Move Mode was actioned, players could use this stick to get around the environment otherwise it would just allow for looking around. The D-pad would always allow you to select an inventory item but its secondary use depended on whether the player was using the control stick to look around or to move. In the former state, the D-pad would allow for weapon selection, otherwise it would be used to look around. The…

2 min

GamesTM|No. 171

GAME CHANGERS DIABLO

THERE’S NOTHING QUITE LIKE THE GRIND IN DIABLO, THE WAY BLIZZARD MANAGED TO MAKE THE GAME CHIP AWAY AT YOUR SANITY KEY FACTS • Diablo was originally going to be a more traditional take on the roguelike genre, with Blizzard once toying with the idea of turn-based movement and combat. You’d still have done plenty of clicking, it just would have been a lot slower. • The reason Diablo puts so much emphasis on The Warrior throughout your adventure? Because it was originally planned to be the only class in the game, with the Rogue and the Sorcerer added in towards the end of development. This also explains why the game features a critical lack of character back story. Released: 31 December 1996 Publisher: Blizzard Entertainment Developer: Blizzard System: PC,…

5 min

GamesTM|No. 171

GAME CHANGERS EIGHT GAMES WITH CURIOUS VISIONS OF HELL

SAINTS ROW: GAT OUT OF HELL • Saint’s Row isn’t known for its nuance or understated approach to storytelling, and Gat Out Of Hell is a suitably stupid approach to the biggest questions in life. Like, what happens to you in hell? If the Saints got it right, you’ll be taking an Uzi to the overlords of the underworld and taking part in a little Disney-inspired sing-along… it’s better if you don’t question and just roll with it. SILENT HILL • It might be metaphorical, but it’s terrifying all the same. As the game world shifts into the otherworld, players are taken to a personal hell for the character; a supernatural horror realm where nightmares crawl out of the fog and into your life. There’s a reason the Silent Hill…

3 min

GamesTM|No. 171

GAMING CLOTHING

WEARABLE MEGA MAN HELMET For cosplayers and fans alike, thisreplica Mega Man helmet is a must-own. Pair it with the Mega Man blaster that is also available and you’re well on your way to one of the best costumes ever. www.thinkgeek.com LYLATIAN DEFENDERS With a new Star Fox title on the horizon, now is the time to show your support for the team of animals that will save the Lylat system once more. This tee shows the crew at their most heroic. www.teefury.com IF YOU CAN’T BEAT ‘EM… We would never normally condone the use of cheat codes when gaming – mostly because we always win – but when a sweater looks this good it’s hard to argue with the sentiment. www.threadless.com…

1 min

GamesTM|No. 171

GAMES SET TO STORM ESPORTS

• THE RATE OF growth for the eSports industry is accelerating. Its market value is expected to approach $2 billion by 2018 – that’s simply unprecedented territory. The most popular competitive titles, such as League Of Legends and Counter Strike: Global Offensive, already attract millions of players (and even more viewers) each month, and offer impressive prize pools to attract professional talent and coaches into the fold. With 2016 already proving to be a big year for eSports – thanks to the early buzz surrounding the Halo World Championships and Activision Blizzard acquisition of MLG – there’s an even greater desire for advertisers, broadcasters and streaming sites to get involved with the action. Developers too are pumping more resources than ever into supporting eSports, and as such there’s plenty of…

2 min

GamesTM|No. 171

It’s oh so quiet, it’s oh so still…

“ Does a game with offensive characterisation, world building, plot writing, story, etc, deserve to be called a great game? ” Our next game features a man called Loud who uses his penis as a periscope and must keep it dangling outside his trousers at all times or go blind. That’s basically a bit of narrative design from a man we pedestal as a giant and auteur in the industry, from one of the best games of last year. Okay, I flipped the gender, but that’s about it. Which should make us all just a little bit embarrassed, really. The Phantom Pain is a great open-world stealth shooter, it really is. The mechanics are gorgeously balanced, it’s expansive yet detailed, it’s a real GOTY contender – provided you overlook a…

3 min

GamesTM|No. 171

Doom

“It’s not about canned set pieces, cinematic sequences. The roller coaster is about the action and the combat and it’s a blast”MARTIN STRATTON, EXECUTIVE PRODUCER, ID SOFTWARE CONCEPT • The corridor shooter that drew first blood back in the Nineties returns to spill buckets of the stuff in a brand new generation INFORMATION Details Format: PS4, PC, Xbox One Origin: USA Publisher: Bethesda Softworks Developer: id Software Release: 13 May 2016 Players: 1-12 Developer Profile Veteran studio id Software began developing the original Doom back in 1992 and remains one of the industry’s most enduring elder entities. Known for building bespoke game engines for all its past releases, the Texan outfit has become a cornerstone of FPS with Doom, Quake, the original Wolfenstein games and Rage. Developer History Doom 1993…

3 min

GamesTM|No. 171

Adr1ft

“Short of actually being in space, this is the best way to experience zero gravity”ADAM ORTH, THREE ONE ZERO CONCEPT • As the survivor of a catastrophic space station incident you must survive, piece together what happened, repair your escape pod and return to earth INFORMATION Details Format: PS4, Xbox One, PC Origin: USA Publisher: 505 Games Developer: Three One Zero Release: 28 March 2016 (PC) Players: 1 Developer Profile This is Three One Zero’s very first game, but it’s from a team made up of creators that have been in the business for some time. Lead by former Microsoft game director Adam Orth, the team is bringing Adr1ft to Oculus Rift and PC for the launch of the VR platform followed by console releases later in the year. We…

3 min

GamesTM|No. 171

OVERWATCH

“BLIZZARD IS AIMING FOR FULL 1:1 PARITY BETWEEN THE CONSOLE AND PC” “It’s really important for us to be listening to the community, because with Overwatch, as soon as it launches, it belongs to them just as much as it belongs to us. We want to make sure Overwatch is a cool environment that they enjoy hanging out in. We don’t want to do anything that really detracts from their sense of enjoyment in the game. We feel like the community works with us; they own our games as much as we do… We want to do right by the players” Spend any time listening to game director Jeff Kaplan talk about the development phase of Overwatch and it’ll sound like Blizzard is perpetually stuck between a rock and a…

15 min

GamesTM|No. 171

DEFENSIVE

BASTION DIFFICULTY WEAPON TYPE Submachine / Gatling gun VANITY QUOTE “Battle Automaton” HANZO DIFFICULTY WEAPON TYPE Storm bow VANITY QUOTE “With every death comes honor, with honor, redemption” JUNKRAT DIFFICULTY WEAPON TYPE Frag launcher VANITY QUOTE “It’s a perfect day for some mayhem” MEI DIFFICULTY WEAPON TYPE Endothermic Blasters VANITY QUOTE “Our world is worth fighting for” TORBJÖRN DIFFICULTY WEAPON TYPE Rivet gun VANITY QUOTE “Build ‘em up, break ‘em down" WIDOWMAKER DIFFICULTY WEAPON TYPE Widow’s kiss sniper rifle VANITY QUOTE “One shot, one kill”…

1 min

GamesTM|No. 171

TANK

D.VA DIFFICULTY WEAPON TYPE Fusion Cannons VANITY QUOTE “I play to win” REINHARDT DIFFICULTY WEAPON TYPE Rocket Hammer VANITY QUOTE “Justice will be done” ROADHOG DIFFICULTY WEAPON TYPE Scrap gun VANITY QUOTE “I’m a one-man apocalypse” WINSTON DIFFICULTY WEAPON TYPE Tesla cannon VANITY QUOTE “Imagination is the essence of discovery” ZARYA DIFFICULTY WEAPON TYPE Particle Cannon VANITY QUOTE “Together we are strong”…

1 min

GamesTM|No. 171

THE LESSONS LEARNED AT CRITERION GAMES

BURNOUT Alex Ward: Don’t prioritise the saving of crashes to memory cards. I don’t think any of us kept crashes on a memory card ever, and it was ages and ages of work. And supporting all available steering wheels at the time on PlayStation2, which then littered the office with Logitech wheels in boxes for ages. We had to enforce a rule: ‘If you want it, take it home and never bring it back to the office.’ There were boxes of them everywhere. Chris Roberts: Always test on an American NTSCTV [sighs] AW: Yeah. Always test it on American TV, which we didn’t have. When we finally saw it, we weren’t happy with the image quality, particularly anti-aliasing. CR: Also, don’t trigger a bus coming out of the cross-junction just…

6 min

GamesTM|No. 171

HAS THERE BEEN A GRAPHICAL DOWNGRADE?

The Division hasn’t even launched yet and it’s already been hit by a wave of controversy. It seems most fitting to dive straight into the issue the Internet (however erroneously) has deemed the most important. Following in the footsteps of other recent Ubisoft games such as Assassin’s Creed: Unity and Watch Dogs, The Division doesn’t look quite as sharp or beautiful as those early trailers may have once suggested. We took this straight to creative director Julian Gerighty, though he was quick to defend it. “So far I’ve only heard about downgrades from the people that couldn’t actually get their hands on the game. Once you get the chance to play you can see that there are so many delightful little details from a graphical point of view… we’ll see…

1 min

GamesTM|No. 171

2016’S VR GAMES

P.O.L.L.E.N. Exploratory games are going to become ten-a-penny by the time the three major VR headsets are released, but for now the likes of P.O.L.L.E.N remain novel and a great way of experiencing the technology for the first time. THE CLIMB Crytek is getting involved with virtual reality in a number of ways, but it’s The Climb that excites the most. The concept is simple, but it’s one experience that really only works in VR. LUCKY’S TALE An interesting title – it isn’t first-person, like many other VR games. It’s a Super Mario 64-style 3D platformer, with the perspective controlled by the movement of your VR headset. EDGE OF NOWHERE Insomniac’s Edge Of Nowhere is not first-person. You control a hero as he escapes from disastrous situations, the wobble of…

1 min

GamesTM|No. 171

WHY I LOVE... ELITE

“It is a great example of a virtual world making you actively imagine more than it shows. An instant classic!” FRANK ARNOT, MANAGING DIRECTOR, STORMCLOUD GAMES “My favourite game? That is such an impossible question to answer! Plus I’m old… I’ve been playing games since the Eighties, so there’s a lot for me to choose from! If you are twisting my arm, I guess I’d have to go back to my youth and choose the original Elite. By today’s standards, Elite’s wireframe graphics seem very simplistic but for my 14-year old self, it was pure escapism. Sandbox gameplay, my own spaceship to pilot, a whole universe to explore, space battles, and a moral choice over how I made money, whether it be piracy, mining, bounty hunting or trading in legal…

1 min

GamesTM|No. 171

Street Fighter V

CAPCOM HAS TWEAKED AND TWISTED ESTABLISHED CONVENTION FOR STREET FIGHTER V DETAILS FORMAT: PS4 ORIGIN: PC ORIGIN: Japan PUBLISHER: Capcom DEVELOPER: In-house PRICE: £44.99 RELEASE: Out now PLAYERS: 1-2 ONLINE REVIEWED: Yes Ever since the stretchy-limbed yoga practitioner made his debut in Street Fighter II, Dhalsim’s fireball has slowly puffed its way across the screen in a straight line following his ‘Yoga fire!’ cry. For fans, it’s every bit as iconic as Ryu’s Dragon Punch, Guile’s flash kick or Zangief’s lariat, a move that has become instinct for anyone who has spent more than a few hours with Capcom’s famous fighting game series – what it does, how to do it, why it’s useful. Except now, 25 years later, ‘Yoga fire!’ is followed by a fireball that dramatically arcs upwards…

6 min

GamesTM|No. 171

Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon

DETAILS FORMAT: 3DS OTHER FORMATS: N/A ORIGIN: Japan PUBLISHER: Nintendo DEVELOPER: Spike Chunsoft PRICE: £34.99 RELEASE: Out now PLAYERS: 1 ONLINE REVIEWED: N/A Although the main Pokémon games are naturally the most lucrative for Nintendo, there remains a cult following who love its spin-off series, Pokémon Mystery Dungeon. Over the years – much like the main games – it too has tended to stick to a formula, with each new instalment only making incremental changes. This fifth edition does nothing to change that. The concept is similar to previous games in the series: you play as a human who has been mysteriously transformed into a young Pokémon with no previous memories other than that you were once human. After being befriended by another Pokémon and brought to their village, you…

3 min

GamesTM|No. 171

Darkest Dungeon

DETAILS FORMAT: PC OTHER FORMATS: Mac, PS4, Vita ORIGIN: Canada PUBLISHER: Red Hook Studios DEVELOPER: In-house PRICE: £18.99 RELEASE: Out now PLAYERS: 1 ONLINE REVIEWED: Windows XP, 2 GB RAM, Open GL 3.2+ Compliant, 2 GB available space ONLINE REVIEWED: N/A Darkest Dungeon wants to be bleak, evocative, human, but it lacks grace. An RPG/dungeon crawler where, as well as standard effects like bleeding and poison, your characters suffer from mental deterioration and can end up going insane, it plays on the same themes as Dark Souls. But where that game explored oppression and attrition through minimalist imagery and diluted, practically invisible systems, Darkest Dungeon is absolutely leaden with micro-management. Your party, your inventory, even the world you inhabit must be organised and levelled up, in excruciating detail, via pages…

3 min

GamesTM|No. 171

Arslan: The Warriors of Legend

DETAILS FORMAT: PS4 OTHER FORMATS: PS3, Xbox One, PC ORIGIN: Japan PUBLISHER: Koei DEVELOPER: Omega Force PRICE: £39.99 RELEASE: Out now PLAYERS: 1-2 ONLINE REVIEWED: No Chances are you’ve never heard of Arslan, and that’s a shame. He’s the star of a recent Japanese anime series that’s really rather good – and so it should be since it’s the work of Hiromu Arakawa, renowned creator of the brilliant Fullmetal Alchemist. And now developer Omega Force, following on from its stellar tie-ins with the Zelda, One Piece and Dragon Quest franchises, has given Arslan’s story the Warriors treatment with yet another quality hack-and-slasher. The game is a direct retelling of the 2013 anime series. It follows the story of Arslan, the crown prince of Pars, who is driven from his homeland…

3 min

GamesTM|No. 171

Resident Evil Zero HD

DETAILS FORMAT: Xbox One OTHER FORMATS: PS4, PC, Xbox 360, PS3 ORIGIN: Japan PUBLISHER: Capcom DEVELOPER: In-house PRICE: £15.99 RELEASE: Out now PLAYERS: 1 ONLINE REVIEWED: N/A There will never be another Resident Evil game quite like this. For those of you still clinging deliriously onto the days of retro past, that’ll be a tough pill to swallow. But for the rest of us, Resident Evil Zero HD offers a bittersweet opportunity to realise that, while the franchise isn’t in great shape now, it wasn’t fairing much better at the turn of the century either. That’s partly down to Resident Evil Zero HD standing as a shimmering testament to how much we take for granted in modern videogame design. Just as it did back in 2002, everything about Zero HD…

2 min

GamesTM|No. 171

THE RETRO GUIDE TO… AMIGA 500

AFTER DOMINATING THE 8-bit home computer market with the Commodore 64, Commodore was keen to replicate the success going forward. The Amiga 1000 launched in 1985, but wasn’t really considered a games machine, mainly due to its high price point, which kept it out of reach of many gamers. The introduction of the budget-based Amiga 500 in 1987 helped bring the Amiga to the wider paying public, which ensured developers quickly started flocking to the system. In October 1989, Commodore International’s David Pleasance put together one of the most popular Amiga bundles of all time. The Batman pack not only featured the titular game, but also included the computer and a modulator, The New Zealand Story, Interceptor and Deluxe Paint 2, all for the staggeringly low price of £399. The…

14 min

GamesTM|No. 171

JON HARE ON HIS BEAUTIFUL GAME

How did SWOS originate? After Sensible Soccer came out in 1992, we didn’t stop working on it. Our programmer, Chris Chapman, ensured the development process was never broken. So as he carried on working, we were able to inject more features and work on a game that really would become the ultimate football game, in our eyes at least. That’s how Sensible World Of Soccer came into being. Why were there so many clubs and players? We were very thorough, and that is because of the roots which go back to Subbuteo. That game was international and it had different kits. You had all the different international teams and I think SWOS was an ideal way of just turning our game into a modern Subbuteo on a computer, not in…

2 min

GamesTM|No. 171

QU’EST-CE QUE?

JON ST. JOHN was always the man behind the Duke’s voice – except when it came to the French version of Duke Nukem 64 when the dialogue was re-recorded by a French actor. “We thought he was really good but 3D Realms wasn’t happy when they found out because they thought Duke was also Jon and that subtitles should have been used,” says programmer Simon Mills. That would certainly have been the case for the Japanese version. “A Japanese publisher wanted to release the game, which was odd because we heard first-person shooters didn’t do well in Japan,” says Mills. “We removed all the blood and we had a Japanese company do the font but when it was all finished, the publisher said it didn’t want it any more. It…

1 min

GamesTM|No. 171

BEST BOSS

THE WARLORD OF BLOOD Did you make it to level 13? You get a chance to tackle The Warlord Of Blood. This encounter is actually watching over one of the most valuable quest items in the game. DIABLO To complete the game, you have to beat the big bad demon himself. Our advice: dodge the hellfire, get your clicks in and run like hell were at your heals, which it is. THE SKELETON KING The Skeleton King is a demanding scrap that gets harder the longer the fight persists; he soon starts raising allies out of the ground to overwhelm and defeat you.…

1 min

GamesTM|No. 171

THE VAULT

GAMEVICE CONTROLLER FOR IPAD MINI MANUFACTURER: GAMEVICE PRICE: £79.95 GAME CONTROLLERS FOR the iPad have been slowly on the up in recent months after Apple offered a new standard for integrating controller support into iOS games. Companies like SteelSeries have offered a range of options for standalone controllers for iPhones and iPads, but few have managed the same premium quality feel that is offered by the major consoles – until now. The Gamevice is the first iOS controller that we’ve used that feels genuinely as good as a dedicated gaming device. The whole thing clips neatly onto your iPad Mini, connecting via the Lightning port to provide power to the controller. Once it’s attached, it all feels quite similar to the Wii U’s tablet controller, which certainly isn’t a bad…

5 min