THE WORLDS NUMBER ONE PC GAMES MAGAZINE

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SHOULD YOU UPGRADE? TWEAK CHECKLIST HOW TO INSTALL IT

PRINTED IN THE US

JANUARY 2013 ISSUE 235

US$8.99

MICROSOFTS RADICAL NEW OS. WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR GAMERS? pg. 31
CLASSIC GAMES GUIDE REVIEWS

Crawl back into the cockpit

WING COMMANDER

Tools and tips from all-star indie devs

HOW TO MAKE A GAME

HITMAN: ABSOLUTION NEED FOR SPEED: MOST WANTED MEDAL OF HONOR: WARFIGHTER HOTLINE MIAMI

www.coolermaster-usa.com

Deliver an endless hail of destruction with the ability to press up to 6 keys simultaneously and utilize ve programmable macro keys with pro le management, scripting, and button reassignment.

Peripherals: Trigger

Peripherals: Sentinel Advance II

Contains the latest Avago sensor that is capable of over 8000DPI. It brings much higher sensitivity and accuracy at all DPI levels.

Cooling: Seidon 120M

The Seidon 120M is Cooler Masters latest, incredibly compact watercooling kit that aims to bring watercooling to the masses.

Power: Silent Pro Hybrid Series

Silent Pro Hybrid Series, built for the those in need of high power that includes plenty of options for customization and noise control.

Peripherals: Ceres 400

Engineered to provide a comfortable and stylish audio experience, Ceres-400 makes the perfect companion for any user.

#235 JANUARY 2013

EDITORIAL Editor-in-Chief Logan Decker logan@pcgamer.com Executive Editor Evan Lahti evan@pcgamer.com Associate Editor Tyler Wilde tyler@pcgamer.com Associate Editor Omri Petitte omri@pcgamer.com Intern T.J. Hafer todd@pcgamer.com Art Editor John Strike Contributors Tim Stone, Richard Cobbett, Dave James, Phil Savage, David Lyttleton, Rose Brandle, Jon Blyth, TJ Hafer, Andy McGregor, Duncan Harris, Cara Ellison, Duncan Geere, Craig Lager, Craig Owens, Matt Lees, Richard Lane, Tom Sykes, Chris Schilling, Tom Hatfield, David Valjalo, James Archer, Michael Grimm, Owen Hill, David Murphy, Nathan Edwards, Kyle Manchester Edit Owl Friedrich Nietzsche BUSINESS Vice President, Media Ursula Morgan, umorgan@futureus.com Publisher Ace St. Germain, astgermain@futureus.com Vice President, Sales & Business Development Nate Hunt, nhunt@futureus.com National Director of Sales Isaac Ugay, iugay@futureus.com Sales Director, East Coast Thomas Lundell, tlundell@futureus.com Regional Sales Managers Brandon Wong, brandonwong@futureus.com Stacy Gaines, sgaines@futureus.com Jen Doerger, jdoerger@futureus.com Samantha Rady, srady@futureus.com Advertising Coordinator Heidi Hapin, hhapin@futureus.com MARKETING Marketing & Sales Development Director Rhoda Bueno eCommerce & Fulllment Director Lisa Radler Consumer Marketing Manager Jong Lee Newsstand Director Bill Shewey PRODUCTION Production Director Michael Hollister Production Manager Larry Briseno Production/Print Order Coordinator Jose Urrutia FUTURE US, INC. 4000 Shoreline Court, Suite 400 South San Francisco, CA 94080, (650) 872-1642 www.futureus.com Chief Operating Ofcer Rachelle Considine Vice President & Chief Financial Ofcer John Sutton Vice President, Internet & Mobile Products Mark Kramer General Counsel Anne Ortel SUBSCRIPTIONS To Subscribe: www.pcgamer.com/subscribe BACK ISSUES To Order: www.pcgamer.com/shop or by calling 1-800-865-7240 Future US, Inc. is part of Future plc. Future plc produces carefully targeted magazines, websites and events for people with a passion. We publish more than 180 magazines, websites and events and we export or license our publications to 90 countries around the world. Future plc is a public company quoted on the London Stock Exchange (symbol: FUTR). Future Plc 30 Monmouth St., Bath, Avon, Ba1 2bw, England www.futureplc.com Tel +44 (0) 1225 442244 (Bath) Tel +44 (0) 7042 4000 (London) Non Executive Chairman Peter Allen Chief Executive Mark Wood Group Finance Director Graham Harding

Inundated
As our staff collectively prepares to unwrap a fresh Garfield tear-off calendar for 2013, we notice that, holy cats, the months ahead are saturated with games you can only play on PC. Company of Heroes 2, Arma 3, Total War: Rome II, SimCity, and StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm are all imminent and have our full confidence. Next month well put Neverwinter on our cover. And stuff were skeptical on, like The Elder Scrolls Online and Fortnite, still have time to win us over. A pile of crowd-funded and indie games also loom: Planetary Annihilation, Grim Dawn, Dead State, Clockwork Empires, Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs, Wasteland 2, and Double Fines adventure game among them. In the open-world zombie survival category, DayZ and The War Z will duke it out. Dota 2 and League of Legends will continue to try to out-spectacle each other as eSports (have a gander at Dota 2s insane trophy: bit.ly/dotatroph). Above that, we expect a scrum between studios whore staking their futures on PC-exclusive multiplayer FPSes like MechWarrior Online, Hawken, and PlanetSide 2. We continue to game in a bright time, and we continue to take seriously our responsibility to be reliable, insightful, and EVAN LAHTI EXECUTIVE EDITOR honest reporters and critics for you. Get ready evan@pcgamer.com for an incredible year. @ELahti

BRINGING YOU THE SCOOPS THIS MONTH...

Rich McCormick @richmcc Visited a retirement community to play Firefall with the locals. Wants his own bedpan. Now.

Tom Francis @pentadact Shot the sheriff, killed his deputy, took their clothes and hid in the laundry bin. Hitman review on p. 54.

Richard Cobbett @richardcobbett Knows more about Wing Commander than he does his grandmother. Validate Richs life choices on p. 90.

John Strike Designed the magazine and our digital edition, working until 10 p.m. and then playing Battlefield 3 until bedtime. Our hero.

PC GAMER (ISSN 1080-4471) is published 13 times a year, monthly plus Holiday issue following December issue by Future US, Inc., 4000 Shoreline Court, Suite 400, South San Francisco, CA 94080. Phone: (650) 872-1642. Fax (650) 872-2207. Website: www.futureus.com. Periodicals postage paid in San Bruno, CA and at additional mailing offices. Newsstand distribution is handled by Time Warner Retail. Basic subscription rates (12 issues) US: Digital $23.88; Print $19.95; Canada: Digital $23.88; Print $29.95; Intl: Digital $23.88; Print $39.95. Canadian and foreign orders must be prepaid, US funds only. Canadian price includes postage and GST #R128220688. PMA #40612608. Subscriptions do not include newsstand only specials. POSTMASTER: Send changes of address to PC Gamer, PO Box 5158, Harlan, IA 51593-0658. Standard Mail Enclosure in the following edition: None. Ride-Along Enclosure in the following editions: None. Returns: Pitney Bowes, PO Box 25542, London, ON N6C 6B2, Canada. Future US, Inc. also publishes @Gamer, Crochet Today!, Mac|Life, Maximum PC, Nintendo Power, The Official Xbox Magazine, PlayStation: The Official Magazine, and Windows: The Official Magazine. Entire contents copyright 2012, Future US, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part is prohibited. Future US, Inc. is not affiliated with the companies or products covered in PC Gamer. Reproduction on the Internet of the articles and pictures in this magazine is illegal without the prior written consent of PC Gamer. Products named in the pages of PC Gamer are trademarks of their respective companies. PRODUCED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. We encourage you to recycle this magazine, either through your usual household recyclable waste collection service or at a recycling site. SUBSCRIBER CUSTOMER SERVICE PC Gamer Customer Care, P.O. Box 5158, Harlan, IA 51593-0658. Online: www.pcgamer.com/customerservice. Phone: 1-800-898-7159. Email PCGcustserv@cdsfulfillment.com. BACK ISSUES: www.pcgamer.com/shop or by calling 1-800-865-7240. REPRINTS: Future US, Inc., 4000 Shoreline Court, Suite 400, South San Francisco, CA 94080. Phone: (650) 872-1642. Fax (650) 872-2207. Website: www.futureus.com.

JANUARY 2013

#235 JANUARY 2013

8 Letters 12 Top Story Free-to-play Xmas 15 News Steam Greenlight 16 The Spy 18 Face-Off Should gaming technology stop advancing?

20 Aliens: Colonial Marines 22 Total War: Rome II 24 Shootmania: Storm 26 Rift: Storm Legion 28 Company of Heroes 2

31 Windows 8 Should you upgrade? Heres everything you need to know about gaming on Microsofts controversial new OS. 40 Firefall Inside Red 5s studio and its ambitious MMO shooter. 46 The Indies Guide to Game Making Want to make a game? Start here.

FEATURES

31

WINDOWS 8

54 Hitman Absolution 60 Need for Speed: Most Wanted 62 Medal of Honor: Warfighter 68 Cortex Command 69 McPixel 69 Half Minute Hero 70 Hotline Miami 72 Hell Yeah! Wrath of the Dead Rabbit 74 Carrier Command 76 Mark of the Ninja

REVIEWS

Do you need Microsofts colorful next step, and is it bad for PC gaming?

20

80 Now Playing Tom gets his friends killed in XCOM, Chris tries not to kill in Dishonored. 84 Top 10 Downloads Battle hordes of cubes, relive Half-Life, and more. 88 Update Knights of the Old Republic II is finally finished. 90 Reinstall Long before Star Citizen, there was Wing Commander II.

The whimsical Borderlands series is a hit, but can Gearbox spin out horror, too?

ALIENS COLONIAL MARINES

40

Its vast, ambitious, and its doing what other MMOs arentfind out why Firefall deserves your attention

FIREFALL

93 Origin EON11-S review 94 CPU reviews 96 The PC Gamer Rig

54

The absolute review of the assassination sims absolutely unexpected new direction

HITMAN ABSOLUTION

94

Intel or AMD? Dual-core or quadcore? Our reviews help you choose the processor thats right for your gaming PC
JANUARY 2013 7

CPUS

EMAIL letters@pcgamer.com TWITTER @pcgamer FACEBOOK facebook.com/pcgamermagazine FORUM www.pcgamer.com/forum WRITE PC Gamer, 4000 Shoreline Ct, Suite 400 South San Francisco, CA 94080

Clone wars, playing the guinea pig, and why games were better in the old days
SPK UR MND
As an occasional random sound in Torchlight II when you break someones shield, and the word shattered appears on screen, you should hear a shout of shedoobie! But since you dont, Ive been having to do it myself. Cliff Congrats! Youre a human mod! Sorry it couldnt have been the Tomb Raider nude patch or similar. Still, were sure this will be just as enjoyable. After a long year studying in Wales it was time for me to go back home. I bought the October edition at Heathrows book shop and the packing looked unopened. But to my surprise, someone had nicked the disc! Andrew Leavey Nay sir, twas Progress stole the disc. You know: little gnome, about so high. With a face. All you need to do is nd him and hit him in the face. Hurry! Before anyone elses disc goes missing! Before you go though, dont forget your Giftageddon codes theyre like a disc, only better because you get full games and things as well. I plan to ll my XCOM team with nothing but PC Gamer writers! How do you think that will go for the planet Earth? Cpt Martin Alienkiller Top tip: Research which spices Mutons nd most delicious on humans, and bathe in them. Itll be your Good Deed Of The Day in the inevitable alien apocalypse.
8 JANUARY 2013

Ive just read your article on the new Command & Conquer, and it insults my intelligence for them to make their modern age high-tech military from the EU. What countries are they referring to? France, which hasnt won a war in 200 years; Spain, which is on the verge of

Great modern militaries

bankruptcy; or Greece as it falls apart and cant even keep its own people in check? I dont know if this is political correctness or an attempt to attract a broader European gamer audience, but I think an Allied Coalition or NATO group would have been a better choice, paying homage to all the great modern militaries: the UK, Germany, Italy, Australia, and the USAstill the military leader in the modern age! JTL 2 You say that, but you wait! We dont know what World War IV will be fought with, but World War III will be won by a robot Ban Ki-moon firing lasers from his orbital death satellite. You think the United Nations can spend that much time working and only end up with lots of debate and blather? Pffft. Oh and also, its just fiction. PCG

Action RPG, Diablo clone... its all good, as long as theres loot.

Doomed to forever

The always grounded, carefully researched C&C series, yesterday.

So Torchlight 2 just launched, and Ive already had one of my friends call it a Diablo clone. This got me thinking: back in the day, many first-person shooters were called Doom clones before adopting the FPS genre name. Recently, the Diablo clone genre seems to be picking up speed, with games like Torchlight 2, Path of Exile, and Diablo 3 coming out. So the question is, will games like this eventually gain their own distinct genre, or are they forever doomed to be called Diablo clones? Colin Well, many people just call them action RPGs nowalthough in the case of Torchlight II, great as it is, a photocopier and a copy of Diablo II does seem to have been involved. PCG

THE HOT MAIL

Why do they do it? Why do some developers think it is perfectly reasonable to release titles that are not able to run correctly with industrystandard drivers? Having loaded up my eagerly awaited copy of Guild Wars 2, its menu screen cheerfully announces that hardware issues have been detected. Is my motherboard about to pack up? No, these hardware issues turn out not to be hardware issues at all. The issue is that I am stupidly running the certified Nvidia driver for my graphics card instead of a half-cooked beta drivera driver that ArenaNet helpfully informs me I need to ensure I dont suffer a festival of lock ups and errors during play. Silly me! It appears ArenaNet wants me to play the guinea pig with my precious PC

Driver beware

to save them having to release a product that plays nicely with existing industry-standard drivers. I look forward to eventually playing Guild Wars 2 but it will be gathering dust here until there are certified drivers to run it.

Mags I like

Chris G

Theres a depressing amount of shortsightedness sometimes, from the DRM schemes of old to software demanding specific versions of various things. One adventure game that landed recently needed a yearsold version of QuickTimenothing more modern would do! Its expected that games like Guild Wars 2 will push the boundaries more than most, and hopefully this update wont be a problem, but yestheres nothing worse than having to play favorites with your games.

PCG

Hey guys, I dont usually write to mags I like, but I really have to give you guys a big thank you. Im disabled so I live on a somewhat limited budget. While many people have $50 or $60 a month to spend on games, that is what I have for a year, and as a consequence I need to find games that are inexpensive. Luckily for me, PC Gamer writes about and reviews indie games. Many of these games dont cost that much so I can get new games every so often and stay in budget. Props also to Steam for making these games available. While I couldnt get Borderlands 2 because of its cost, I was able to afford Torchlight II,

YOURE PLAYING
Jamie Chipperfield Currently playing: Jagged Alliance: Back In Action
This was my first Jagged Alliance, and despite having experience with XCOM, I did not know what to expect. My traditional strategy is taken straight from Sun Tzus The Art of War: overwhelm with sheer numbers. Among my favorite strategy games are titles that prevent reliance on that tactic, like Civ, Frozen Synapse, and XCOM. The tools Back in Action give you allow for really cinematic moments of finesse, room breaches, stealth assassinations, and explosive carnage, thanks to the plan and go mechanic. For me, though, what really places it a cut above is its immersive atmosphere, from the satirical little environmental details to the personalities of your soldiers. Few games provide unique
You know, dropping a bomb would usually be easier than sending mercs. Just saying.

SPK UR MND
There I was, playing Guild Wars 2 on my own. Only one of my shortlist of friends has Guild Wars and they werent around. So I continued to play by myself, and even though there were hundreds of people, I felt more alone than if I was playing Skyrim. Drew McCulloch Sounds like senior prom. You know. For some people. Other people. People who couldnt get their choice of ladies/ gents/grandma due to being really good at Syndicate. Those poor saps. Lying in the dark. Sobbi- wait, what were we talking about? I read your recent article on SSDs and I wanted to share a tip that I use. SSDs are often quite limited on space yet coupled with a larger traditional drive. Because of this, the built-in Windows command mklink is the best friend of an SSD owner! Josh Cats are pretty nice, too. Will mklink keep you warm in the winter? No. Though it probably wont drag in dead mice either, so lets call this one a draw.

voice acting for each soldier, and even fewer try to make each grunt feel like an individual character. When an inadvertent death causes me to load a previous save, the developers have made those 3D sprites seem damn far

from mere bots. If Jagged Alliance was a wine, it would be a strong, fruity red, but it would make you go blind after a few glasses and leave you with a killer hangover.

which has been very fun. And I wouldnt have known about it, or the original, if not for PC Gamer. So again, many thanks. Anne Peck Thank you for saying thank you. Everyone at PC Gamer loves their job, and works hard to create a great magazine and website. It means a lot to us to hear from people who appreciate the effort. Enjoy Torchlight II! PCG

Only click-fests

The reason I let my subscription expire is that most new games (over the last several years) are not enjoyable anymore. The click-fest of the strategy/RTS games is repulsive. The RPGs and many action/shooters are not only click-fests, one also has to have a background in orcs, genies, magic spells, curses, lightning bolts, disease, and the likenot to mention undead
FTL: Its original. Its clever. And you can pause whenever you like.

creatures, ghouls, ghosts, monsters, and mutants, etc. Turn-based games give one some time to think, chew on a Dorito, or just enjoy the games graphics, music, etc. Im still enjoying Civilization V (Ive played every version), Tropico 4 (Ive played every version), RR Tycoon (Ive played every version), and Sid Meiers Pirates!. These were quality games. The first Call of Duty, Medal of Honor, and Far Cry games were also awesome. Now I find that the new versions have overly in your face graphics and are much too difficult. Oldguy Hmm. Have you considered that the problem might just be that youre playing the wrong games? XCOM for instance is shiny and modern, but still turn-based. Indie games like FTL: Faster Than Light offer classic experiences. Something like Mass Effect may be more action-intensive than the games of old, but both Dragon Age games have pause buttons. There are plenty of games out there that youd probably like. Maybe you just need to look a little further. PCG

Break her heart

I thought you might like to know that my two-year-old daughter can recognize PC Gamer, and call it by name, when it arrives through our letterbox. She also associates the magazine with pictures of pandas, thanks to your coverage of Mists of Pandaria and at least one other game. So when the latest issue [November 2012] arrived, she asked for pandas, and I was prepared to break her heart, until I saw that there was a preview of Mists of Pandaria! Now imagine my surprise when said preview included no pictures of pandas at all. How is that even possible? I know the preview focused on battle pets and allbut not one panda, not even in a tiny screenshot. Oh, well. I had to satisfy my girls desire for black-and-white animals with the kitty in the ad facing page 54. Sigh. Jessica Levai Aw, what an adorable dilemma. Were overjoyed that you discovered a way to satisfy your daughters desire for pandas. In her honor, we ask all developers to include at least one panda in their games. And squirrels. PCG

JOIN US
Fight alongside us on the PC Gamer community servers CS: Source 75.102.38.129.27016 Team Fortress 2 8.17.251.163:27015 ArmA 2: Arma 2: OA 75.102.38.3:2332 : Source Goldeneye: Source 75.102.39.88:27015

Our game servers are provided by Art of War Central, PCGs staff-approved hosting service. Visit artofwarcentral.com

JANUARY 2013

THE

VIEW OF THE WORLD

THE TOP STORY The booming free-to-play scene challenges this years yuletide blockbusters
ajor publishers still insist on saving their biggest releases for the run up to Christmas, stretching our wallets to breaking point. This year Dishonored, Borderlands 2, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Far Cry 3, Assassins Creed III, and Black Ops 2 are singing and dancing for our favor. Theres a much cheaper alternative, however. A rush of quality free-to-play games threatens to undercut this seasons collection of big-budget titles. If all goes to plan, PlanetSide 2 (bit.ly/ r1W2zg) should be live on November 20. The gorgeous indie multiplayer mech fighter Hawken (bit.ly/xudU1E ) will stomp onto the scene on December 12, and BioWares multi-million dollar MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic (bit. ly/2HKEES ) has already taken the plunge.

Play for free this Xmas

Trions RTS End of Nations (bit.ly/ UBA5xQ) is due to open up this year, and Cryteks multiplayer shooter Warface (bit. ly/oDxdJG) is scheduled to invade the western world this winter. The free-to-play label is gradually shedding its bad reputation; its no longer just the last resort for underperforming MMOs. PlanetSide 2 promises battles on a scale far beyond Battlefield 3, Hawken does stunning work with Epics Unreal engine and Warface runs on the cuttingedge CryEngine 3 tech. Free-to-play games are increasingly able to go toe-totoe with high-profile releases. Whether youd rather play an RTS, an MMO, or a shooter, there are plenty of options available with no outlay required. This winters bundle of free-to-play options reflects the flexibility and broadening appeal of the F2P model

within the industry. For some developers, its less risky than the prospect of an allor-nothing blockbuster release. In a season packed with big games, there are always losers, and a high-profile flop can devastate a studio. Whats more, titles like World of Tanks and Allods Online have demonstrated that free-to-play games do very well in difficult, high-piracy territories like Russia. This is good news for us. Even if you choose to put down some money for an experience boost or a new gun in a freeto-play title, the cost of engagement is much lower than with a traditional release. The $60 youd spend on Assassins Creed III will go a long way in existing free-to-play games like World of Tanks. If the latest wave of free releases can maintain that level of value, it will become increasingly difficult to justify laying down big bucks for a big release. If the trend continues, the release schedule leading up to Christmas 2013 and beyond may look very different.

Tom Senior

12

JANUARY 2013

55m downloads

10 awards
Feel The Force for no monies down.

90 levels

QUITSTARTER

DEAD KICKSTARTER HAUNTED BY FIRST GAME FAILURE

Haunt: The Manse Macabre has become Kickstarters first cautionary tale. It reaped $28,000 from backers, but floundered when key programmers abandoned the project. On the Kickstarter page (kck.st/R8ve2g), developer Rick Dakan promised to refund contributors out of his own pocket should they withdraw support, but other developers will no doubt lack the capital or inclination to make similar reparations. The Manse Macabres demise highlights the risks involved in backing projects that may never get off the ground. TS

FAN SERVICE

$$$ STEAM WORKSHOP MAKES MILLIONS FOR MODDERS The Steam Workshop is one year old, and has been quite a success according to stats published by Valve (bit.ly/VoYtyp). More than 55 million mods, maps, and campaigns have been downloaded for the 16 games supported, which has proved lucrative for item creators. TF2 and Dota 2 contributors have earned millions of dollars selling items through the service, and Valve has vowed to expand the Workshop to make it even more accessible for pros and hobbyists alike. TS

HEALTH BAR
CHECKING THE GAMES BIZS PULSE

Winners
PlanetSide 2 will bring you massive combat on an epic scale, for free.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown Defied early predictions to prove that strategy can still sell. Chris Roberts Wing Commander creator explodes back onto the scene with Star Citizen. Obsidian Planescape: Torment creators raise Kickstarterbusting $4m to fund new RPG. Medal of Honor Required a massive day-one patch to fix control and connection issues. Stewie Zanjoahir EVE Online player loses $6,400 worth of equipment to in-game pirate raid. Ubisoft Forced to apologize after shipping PC version of Rocksmith with no activation keys.

Hawken, stomping onto your screens on December 12.

Faildogs
JANUARY 2013 13

DEAD SPACE 3

Now with a co-op spin, but still offering all the bloody limb-severing that youve come to expect from the series, Dead Space 3 looks set to be a divisive sequel in every sense of the word.
Release FEBRUARY 8

GRID 2

Codemasters most ambitious racing game to date, with graphics that remind you what photorealistic means, and fast-paced racing to distract you from all that lovely scenery.
Release APRIL/MAY

DRAGON AGE 3: INQUISITION

Armed with the Frostbite engine and no shortage of player feedback about what went wrong last time, its BioWares chance to restore the honor of Thedas.
Release 2013

BIOSHOCK INFINITE

Its time to head for the skies and swing your way through the failed flying utopia of Columbia. Rails will be swung from and corsets worn, but will it beat Dishonoreds freedom of action?
Release FEBRUARY 26

DEFIANCE

Its a TV show! Its a game! Its a game and a TV show! Attempting to merge the two worlds to create one universe you can play and watch is quite a challenge. Will viewers both tune in and take part?
Release MAY

THE ELDER SCROLLS ONLINE

Can the series break away from its single-player roots with an MMO that satisfies even if youre not the hero? And how will you escape imprisonment this time?
Release 2013

ALIENS: COLONIAL MARINES

COMPANY OF HEROES 2
Scheduled for early 2013, but without a specific date as yet. The sequel to one of the last decades best WWII games targets the Eastern Front, with a new engine geared around accurate visibility.
Release APRIL-MAY

WASTELAND 2

Game over, man! Game over! is almost here, and this first-person shooter throws out those tiresome Predators in favor of a full-on human vs xenomorph smackdown.
Release FEBRUARY

One of the most successful gaming Kickstarters ever is due for release next October. Theres much riding on it, not just for the developers, but for anyone hoping to make millions with a Kickstarter.
Release OCT 2013

CRYSIS 3

Return to New York with a bow in your hands, a song in your heart, and aliens in your sights. Aiming for a mix of urban and natural, Crysis 3 will count its job done if it melts your PC to slag.
Release FEBRUARY

REMEMBER ME

Capcom goes cyberpunk in this memory-erasing new adventure with more than a hint of Mirrors Edge. It stars a heroine who begins the game with amnesia, but try not to hold that against it.
Release MAY

WATCH DOGS

No relation to Sleeping Dogs, Ubisofts hacking-themed open world cant come soon enough, having easily taken the prize for most impressive new intellectual property at this years E3.
Release 2013

CARMAGEDDON: REINCARNATION

GTA V

The original videogame nasty is back, gorier and more detailed than ever. Will it cause the same amount of fuss? No. It wont. But it should still be good dirty fun.
Release FEBRUARY

Still unconfirmed at the time of this writing, but expected in late spring. Rockstars latest crime-em-up returns to San Andreas to wreak chaos, though most other details remain under wraps.
Release MAY/JUNE

SURVARIUM

The Stalker team heads back to its post-apocalyptic survival roots in a game thats not a sequel, but unashamedly draws inspiration from the same sources as its predecessor.
Release 2013

CANT WAIT?
MISSING!
Metro: Last Light The game is still on track for release, but its multiplayer has been snipped out. If it comes at all, itll be post-release. We wont miss it, though.

YOU CAN PLAY THESE GREAT GAMES RIGHT NOW

Dishonored
Play with stealth, unleash your fury, leave no man standing, or no traces. Its up to you in the successor to Thief and Deus Ex.

XCOM: EU

Not the FPS, but a glorious remake/upgrade of the tactical original. Save the world, with victory not guaranteed.

FIFA 13

The beautiful game, now polished to a fine shine. Its as good as being out in the fresh air, only without the icky bugs.

14

JANUARY 2013

Getting Greenlit is like finding a Golden Ticket, only without Oompa Loompas showing up to sing.

WHOOPS EA SLIP GIVES AWAY THOUSANDS OF GAMES If a Golden Facepalm award existed, EA would be this months winner. As part of a survey, it gave away a voucher code for a free $20 game on Origin. But if you deleted your browsers cookies, you could keep using the voucherand Reddit found out. Thousands of free games were distributed before the Origin developers caught on. EA did the decent thing and honored all the free sales, but dont expect to see a repeat of this deal any time in the near future. RC

ORIGIN GETS GENEROUS

Valves Greenlight gets the green light

Valve Greenlight has indie developers fighting for space on Steam
undreds of independent developers are desperate for a place in the Steam library. So far, only 31 have managed to prove they deserve one. The opening lineup includes Black Mesa (the rebuild of HalfLife in the Source engine), zombie survival sim Project Zomboid, quirky octopus sim Octodad, a remake of the wonderful meta art project The Stanley Parable, and horror game Cry of Fear, which advertises itself with Lets Play scarecam footage (but dont hold that against it). Not all are finishedin fact, most arent. Getting greenlit simply means they have a place reserved for when theyre ready to go to market. Greenlight has an unusual selection system, less concerned with developers impressing Valve with their games, but instead encouraging fans to vote for them and thus demonstrate that they have enough of an audience to deserve a place. This, along with a $100 listing fee, has drawn complaints from smaller, and

DIGITAL MOTION

FUTURE GIVE KINECT THE FINGER WITH IR HAND-TRACKING

more niche developers, but it still offers more chance than the previous system, which was essentially win the IGF or be lucky enough to catch Valves eye. Other digital distribution platforms are available, inacluding the smaller scale Desura, and EAs Origin, which have extended a hand to indies by offering to waive a number of fees and publish crowd-funded games. But Valve is the undisputed kingmaker right now, and a whole ecology is springing up around Greenlight as a result. The biggest attempt at grassroots marketing is The Greenlight Bundle at www.thegreenlight bundle.com. A pay-what-you-want bundle, like many others, its real goal is to get votes for its participating games. Expect to see much more of this over the next year, as Valve tries to juggle the demands of a carefully curated service with those of developers desperate to get over the wall. For now, if you want to help out a game you like, vote. Every bit of attention counts.
Richard Cobbett
Octodad: no one must ever know that secretly youre an octopus.

Kinect hasnt exactly impressed on the Xbox 360, but Microsoft isnt giving up. Its latest project is a wrist-mounted unit called Digits that tracks finger movements. It looks like a prototype for Spider-Mans web shooters, but could work wonders with the Oculus Rift. Its precision could well become part of the virtual reality rig the world deserves. Check out the video at bit.ly/ msdigits. RC

SAY WHAT?
THE MONTH IN TONGUES That moment when you realise you can tweet whatever the hell you want now because the PR people cant yell at you any more = gold.
Cliff Bleszinski, Epic auteur, on leaving Epic

Someone needs to mod that Slenderman game and replace Slender with Pedobear.
Cliff Bleszinski, four days later

I should just focus on programming and partying. Hope hurts so much, and its hard to function when your insides are falling out.
Notch, Minecraft creator and party animal

Ive tried using C++11 lambda functions to perform complex const initializations, but it still feels alien.
Black Mesa ambitiously remakes one of the PCs greatest games.

John Carmack, ids engine genius, on geniusworld problems

JANUARY 2013

15

A
The Spys library card just says Dont Ask. He has read all the Bond books, but liked the one about ornithology the best.

BUT WHO WATCHES THE SPY?

aaah, achievements. Sometimes, you just make things too easy. The Spy remembers the good old days of hiding in a bin outside EA headquarters, waiting for a producer to walk past, then deploying the thumbscrews. Not hunting for rumors, you understand. It just took a long time to get over the closure of Origin Games. Everyone working on Ultima Forever, consider yourselves warned. But, as the kids would say, I digress. Achievements have caused both Firaxis and Bethesda to leave their metaphorical flies open this month, with the mighty XCOM: Enemy Unknown and mightier Skyrim both letting more than a few things slip. For XCOM, its a series of achievements linked to the first expansion, including information on a timed mission called Confounding Light, a structured affair called Deluge that involves activating valvesa bit of the old Terror From The Deep, perhaps?and the addition of a mysterious new ally whose profile picture looks like he escaped from Deus Ex, and whose origin can be guessed by his Japanese text image and its moniker Rising Dragon. Hes Canadian, clearly. Modders have also unlocked a set of extra options in the game that were officially cut, dubbed Second Wave. Its a harder way to play, with changes such as psychic powers being only slightly more common than they are in the real world (i.e., two characters in the game actually have psychic powers). The Spy is quietly confident that Second Wave would have eventuallly shown up in more polished form as a

DLC challenge pack. That may still happen, but as a few of the options are bugged, Firaxis will definitely need to up its game. When your squad heads out armed with water pistols, and Jeff Traitor Definitelyhuman is clearly a Sectoid in a Guile wig, you know who to blame. Skyrims leak concerns DLC supposedly called Dragonborn, although as part of it involves finally getting to fly dragons, Dragonborne would seem more appropriate. The good news is that anyone who played Morrowind will know the new location. The bad news is that were not heading back to Vvardenfell, but Solstheim, home of the second expansion pack Bloodmoon. The town of Raven Rock is still around, as there are achievements related to questing there, while DragonMounted DualStaff hints at the addition of possibly the least useful weapon ever. Unless you actually glue one onto each of dragon Odaviings wings and turn him into a shouty fighter jet that can hurl fireballs. Actually, that sounds fantastic. In any event, another snowy place to explore may not sound as thematically exciting as Oblivions madness-themed DLC, but it will at least be an actual shivering isle, and cant be more

In Skyrims leaked DLC we finally get to ride dragons.

pointless than Hearthfire. So theres that. Valves plans are still wrapped in a blanket of secrecy thats pinned down under a happy cat that only a crowbar could move, but new concept art hints that its going into...one moment, this requires a deep breath... SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE! Theres not much to go on except some pictures of spaceships, which could just be a new set of Team Fortress 2 hats or something, but theres a chance that theres some epic futuristic action on its way. OK, an extremely slim chance. Oh, alright, probably its just some nice art by a former employee. Word on the street is that its a Privateer-style open-world space game called Stars of Barathrum, which would be a dreadful name, but still better than when the X series decided to call its enemy alien race the Khaak. The Spy can however sadly report that even if it takes place in 2410, everyone will likely still be waiting for Half-Life 3. Also in developers working on things you would not expect from those developers and therefore interesting news, a job posting indicates that Dead Space team Visceral is currently working on a free-to-play action-RTS. Apparently they dont think 17 variants of the same bloody game are enough. The job advert asks for Work experience on MOBA, Action RTS, Action RPG, or Related Genres, and presumably being the 14-year-old getting the coffee while hanging out in the office doesnt count. They also want Knowledge of the competitive space, game design trends, and the ability to predict gaming trends. If youve successfully predicted the everyone realizing theyre playing the same damn Dota game and that we really dont need so many trend, best keep that one to yourself. Just a tip there, folks. Spy out.
The Spy

LET THE FLAME WAR COMMENCE

Should gaming technology stop advancing?

YES Its killing any chance of getting the most out of what weve already got. NO New technology could enable new game types we cant even imagine yet.

Richard Cobbetts favorite games machine was the cotton gin. He used it to play Loom.

RC: Technology is great, but what are we using it for right now? The biggest games on the market are prettier versions of things weve already played, while the most interesting are often indie games that look like they were made in 1987. At the same time, the cost of creating these high-stakes experiences is already at unsustainable levels and rising, trapping developers in a vicious cycle of having to spend more and more to stand out. If we pause the advance of technology, we get to spend that effort advancing the actual games. Everyone wins! TF: New technology certainly can be put to unimaginative uses, but it doesnt just have to mean more polygons and higher resolution textures. AI programmers are hobbled by tight processor and resource limits, and if those were removed they might be able to make new kinds of games with whole cities full of richly simulated people interacting. I dont know what those richly simulated people would do, exactly probably shoot each otherbut Id still like to play it. RC: We can build New York right now, and Rome, and LA...and what have we done with them? Floating objective markers and collectibles. Conversely, if we accept that good enough is good enough, we can really get to know our engines and tools, and the focus can turn to creating interesting experiences rather than worrying about the surface level shinies.

could dig into well-known tools like the original Quake engine, and people could start projects knowing that they werent going to be made obsolete in six months by the next big thing. The more tech progresses, the less assets and shaders can get away with looking like an amateur dramatics performance of Avatar. Limits, on the other hand, both encourage and gently force creativity. Many of the coolest games of late have used tools like GameMaker. If youre a programming god, you can still get those crowds, just like when Hitman: Blood Money did the seemingly impossible in its Mardi Gras level. If not, we boost the value of a good idea by not constantly increasing the gap between proper games and more concept-driven stuff like Spelunky, Binding of Isaac, and that little thing called Gunpoint. TF: Gunpoint, the highly anticipated 2D stealth puzzle game from somewhat reputable PC Gamer writer Tom Francis? Ive heard that it looks both satisfying and cerebralPCGamer.com. But I think if Tom were here, hed argue that 2D and retro-style games dont necessarily suffer when the cutting edge of 3D fidelity advances. The PC version of Spelunky was charmingly primitive when it came out in 2008, and I wouldnt say it looks worse now that Skyrim exists. In more realistic games, I think peoples fidelity standards arent increasing as quickly as technology. Its a bigger graphical jump from Half-Life 1 to Half-Life 2 than from Half-Life 2 to Dishonored, but the time between them is actually less. If tech keeps advancing and expectations level off, things could get interesting.

Tom Francis overclocks his brain every 18 months. He can no longer see taupe.

TF: Bah, getting to know our engines and tools sounds like hard work. Lets just keep upping the teraflops and gigahertz until we can afford to be grossly inefficient RC: Expectations have leveled off, but budgets with our code and still make something that still keep going up and up on the grounds that looks decent. I want to see hardware get so every edge must be exploited. The industry fast that developers can make something The debate has been chasing the dragon of realism acceptably realistic without having to is over since day one. Lets nip that pursuit in the spend years on optimization. That way But whose bud, and by default the focus has to switch the biggest developers can use the free argument is behind processing power to do new things with the times? Discuss at to impressing by doing more interesting thingsmaking games that stand out by AI, physics, or big crowds. And a wider www.pcgamer. design and ideas. To use Skyrim as an range of developers will be able to keep up, com/forum example, imagine how much better it could since itll take less programming expertise to have been if all of Bethesdas efforts had been get a game looking good and running well. focused on content. Actually, wait, you dont have RC: The programming hasnt been the killer part of that to. Just look at Fallout 3 vs New Vegas. (Unless you prefer Fallout 3 and are therefore wrong.) for years. Look at the mod scene. While we still get great stuff like DayZ on occasion, the big explosion of TF: (I think I might.) new ideas came when games were lower-fi, everyone
18 JANUARY 2013

Got enough teeth there, teethy? Show off.

ALIENS:

COLONIAL MARINES
I
hear a faint clattering to my left, just as something flitters past my peripheral vision. I spin around but find nothing to fill with hot lead. A shadow snakes across the wall, painting the shape of a fleeing xenomorph. I reload my shotgun and dash down the corridor after it. My target hasnt got far, and seems to be struggling to climb through a window. Training my sights on the fumbling creature, I fire three times and put an end to its ineptitude. As the acid spills from the corpse, a little bit of Aliens magic ebbs away with it. Watching Gigers monster stumble into walls is the sci-fi equivalent of catching your dad dressed up as Father Christmas. The single-player campaign for Aliens: Colonial Marines still isnt approved for touching READ ME with journalistic hands, so DEVELOPER Im spending time with Gearbox the online multiplayer. PUBLISHER Sega The initial idiocy fades, LINK but theres still something sega.com/ ridiculous about our alienscolonial marines extraterrestrial foes. When they manage to get close enough without being noticed, its a classic horror surprise. Turning to shine your torch right into the face of a xenomorph is still shocking. Spot them from further away, and the results are less dramatic. In contrast to the lightning speed seen in the movies, the xenos in Colonial Marines plod around like nonchalant dogs.

NEW INFO Can Gearboxs shooter stand up to close encounters?

The multiplayer mode features XP, levelling, and multiple classes on either side, but despite the obligatory post-Call of Duty additions the overall setup feels remarkably old school. Armor is a pick-up item, and you grab medikits to top up your health bars. At certain times in each match, special items spawn at fixed locations. The marines can rush to grab a flamethrower or a smart gun, while the alien side can obtain a genetic upgrade. Stomping through squaddies as the bull-like Crusher was brilliant fun, admittedly. Power-ups like these are primarily intended to add balance: the Crusher is a great tool for preventing the marine team from staying too bunched up. Aliens rely on getting quality time alone with their foes: you can leap and pin someone down, or dash in for a tail-strike, depending on which class youve chosen. The Spitter alien also gets to gob out fun acidic blobs at squishy meatbag foes. The changes make me smile, but also leave me concerned that the lines have been blurred. The hands-off single-player demo Im shown includes a section where

Stomping through squaddies as the bull-like Crusher was brilliant fun.

When youre playing as an alien yourself, the pace feels a lot quicker, but still doesnt match expectations. At one point in the demo my movement speed suddenly doubled, which made my xenomorph much tougher to control. Despite that, it was still disappointing to be tapped on the shoulder and told this was a glitch. I can appreciate why theyve chosen to limit the pace, but it leaves marines with legs that have been dipped in treacle.

20

JANUARY 2013

Genetic upgrades create a variety of alien forms.

No, idiots, run away from the aliens.

And whos going to tidy all this up? Hmm?

you fight troopers that work for Weyland Yutani, dipping the game into the murky waters of generic FPS man-on-man shooting. I wasnt hugely impressed with the quality of the xeno animations, and the human elements need a bit of work too. Facial movements dont go much further than lip sync, and pre-made death animations regularly repeat. If some of the presentation feels wooden, the environmental design and lighting bring the Aliens universe to life. Gearbox has clearly invested huge time and effort into creating levels that depict settings from the film, whether its the burned-out wreckage of Hadleys Hope or the APC that Ripley abandoned. The asymmetric multiplayer doesnt reach the lofty heights of Left 4 Dead, but the campaign still has plenty of potential. Ultimately, you cant truly get a feel for any Aliens game until youve had a chance to sit in the dark and play it alone. Theres definitely something exciting here, but Im concerned that it might just be another blip on the radar.
Matt Lees

Doctor, I have this funny dream where a shiny fetish alien impales me with its giant tail.

Release FEB 2013

JANUARY 2013 21

Join the Roman Legion, they said. See the world, they said...

TOTAL WAR:

ROME II
C

PLAYED IT Spectacle and strategic depth are one and the same thing
the boundary between each of these disciplines has shrunk. We simulate things, Russell says. For example, the projectile systemits fully simulated, and thats a really big deal. From a professional perspective, people might think that were crazy to do that. In a typical RTS, you might say that in a given situation therell be a specific kill rate. falling out for free. You dont need to create a gamey rule. In order to balance a system like this, Rome IIs designers need to go back to the properties of real lifenot the abstractions of wargaming. If men taking cover behind a line of rocks are dying to arrow fire faster than is desirable, then the solution has to come from the whole teamwhether thats a designer tweaking the accuracy of bowmen, an artist redesigning the scenery, or a programmer tweaking the behavior of the AI. As much as Creative Assembly has stressed drama and spectacle in the early marketing push for the game, Russell is keen to point out that building a detailed presentation of war is a crucial part of improving the games tactical depth. Our battles feel realistic, in an intuitive sense, he says. When troops clash on the battlefield, in other words, the player shouldnt see a mathematical formula resolving itself: they should see thousands of individual people acting and responding according to the orders theyve been given and the events around them. You dont

reative Assemblys Total War team is now almost four times larger than it was when developing the original Rome: Total War. Player expectations have advanced in tandem with technology, and the bar keeps rising: from Shoguns jagged sprites to Rome IIs grime-streaked, battlehardened soldiers, theres always more that can be done to render historical warfare with the depth of detail that has come to define the series. For Rome II, Creative Assembly has divided its developers into crossdisciplinary functional teams. Lead designer James Russell explains that individual aspects of the gamebattles, the campaign, multiplayerare being handled by small groups of programmers, READ ME designers, and artists DEVELOPER working closely together. The Creative Assembly You have multiple PUBLISHER small teams, and you keep Sega that small-team culture, LINK he explains. As the level totalwar.com /en_us/rome2 of detail has increased, so

Building a detailed presentation of war is crucial to improving the tactical depth.

If a target enters cover youll apply a modifier rule to the kill rateminus 20 percent or whatever it is, he adds. Because were a simulation, the kill rate is determined by whether the arrow hits or not. Whether or not cover affects the kill rate is a property of that coverits not in our control, directly, and thats really scary for a designer. But it does mean that you get all of these interesting properties of reality

22

JANUARY 2013

Rome II will introduce mixed naval and army combat for land battles and city sieges. CA aims to make the maths underpinning Rome IIs vast battles nigh-on invisible.

New view options will allow players to focus on individual soldiers on the battlefield.

I think I can see the weak point in your defenses.

want to see the hand of the designer, in that respect, because you want it to feel like it couldnt be any other way. Real-world tactics should win in the game. Creative Assemblys state-of-the-art motion-capture facility is hidden on the edge of a railway yard in west Sussex. It is, they believe, the largest developerowned mocap suite in Europeand the culmination of years of work on the part of their animation team. For any other developer a facility like this would be a tremendous extravagance, but Creative Assembly can be confident in the fact that it will always be working on Total War games, and that it will always have a need for detailed and realistic depictions of men murdering one another on the battlefield. The early build of Rome II that weve seen in action uses a fraction of the capture work that will go into the final game, Creative Assembly tells me. Everything from simple marching animations to choreographed matched combat sequences between two or more fighters will be pulled from a vast pool of data,

breaking up the monotony of the battle line and investing each combatant with their own personality. Then, as the dramatic actions of those individual troops propagate up through the simulation, Creative Assembly hopes that the new level of detail it can achieve will pay dividends for the game as a whole. We want to have our cake and eat it, Russell admits. On the campaign map, we understand that its a game of statecraft but we want to make you feel that youre running an empire thats populated by real individuals, and that youre negotiating with AIs that feel like real people. Its about making the game feel massively enhanced at both ends of the scale. I think those two things actually reinforce each other, he concludes. Thats the point. We want to take what weve learned and use that to push every aspect of the game forward without compromise. Its really scary. Its a really ambitious project. Weve got a motto: If youre not s#!+ scared, youre not trying hard enough.
Chris Thursten

Thats a lot of individual personalities right there.

Release OCT 2013

JANUARY 2013 23

My watch says its five-past explosion.

Ha ha! This would be even more fun if we could hit each other! Aw, come on, just stand a few feet closer.

SHOOTMANIA: STORM
uilt to be spectated, Nadeos online arena FPS is pared down to the essentials: frag fast, frag neat, look suave while you do it. Its about becoming a wordless, bloodless elimination machine. As I play I can feel my 90s self return: all those old Quake dreams come flooding back. In the past, many online games stumbled blindly, sometimes accidentally, into the arena of eSports, and had to adapt quickly to fit player demands. Nadeo is trying a different idea: its designed a platform specifically to encourage the type of players who make videos of their sickest headshots or their luckiest getaways. The videos I used to spend hours watching in my FPS infancy. Players can wall-jump up corridors, and use their lasers to hookshot themselves spectacularly READ ME through archways. This is DEVELOPER Nadeo an eSports community PUBLISHER platform fully-formed. Ubisoft Control is stripped LINK down to the minimum: shoot mania.com left-click to shoot, right-

NEW INFO The FPS eSport you can build yourself

click to jump, WASD for the rest. The terrain determines the weapon you use: railgun on metal pads, rockets on grass. Getting in-game is fast and vaporizing someone within seconds of beaming into a spawn point isnt unusual. I bounced around the medieval backdrop like a bunny on a trampoline, lasering people off the map until I realized it was time to go home.

I made a map with a hut and a dustbin in the center, and then later, shot someone from it.
If that sounds too simple to hold your attention, the ManiaPlanet 2.0 platform which includes both ShootMania and its racing sister, TrackManiaprides itself on providing the player with the ability to customize everything. XP earned to upgrade armor, stamina, or weapons is persistent across all games you play online. As with TrackMania, players can create their own maps, and here they can also edit scripts to change those armor, stamina or fire rate

values to create their own modes. (Within reason. I tried to up the fire rate above 10 and it wouldnt let meI am too extreme.) Tournaments using your own settings are ridiculously easy to host. There are rankings for custom modes, excellent replay and spectator modes, and video tools for making machinima. The level editor is incredibly easy to use, and encourages even the worst of level designers (myself) to indulge in a little creativity. I made a map with a hut and a dustbin in the center, and then later, shot someone from it. Though still in beta, ShootMania: Storm is already investing heavily in eSports competitions across the world. Nadeos hope is that it will attract a thriving modding community that can create and curate its own work. After playing, thats my hope too. But Nadeo has been careful to make ShootMania interesting for spectators, too: not only is it extremely easy and enjoyable to create your own map, its a joy to kick back with a beer and watch people battle to the death on it, too.
Cara Ellison

Release 2013
24 JANUARY 2013

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New areas have been warped and twisted by the rifts.

RIFT:

STORM LEGION
Y
ou get the impression that Trion Worlds like to make life difficult for itself. Since the launch of Rift its been consistently releasing new dungeons, raids, zones, and events in big-content updates every couple of months. The continual drip of new stuff meant that for Storm Legion, the games first expansion pack, the developers needed to go big. They did. Storm Legion isnt just big for an expansion big. Instead, it will add two whole continents, each one covering a larger area than Rifts original landmass. Hal Hanlin, Rifts design producer, tells us that where Silverwood, the starting zone of the Guardians, took 25 geometric area chunks to create, one area in Storm Legion is comprised of five sections, each with a maximum of 50 chunks. In all, it will triple the size READ ME of the game. DEVELOPER Thats a lot of new Trion Worlds world, and Trion wants to PUBLISHER ensure that dedicated In-house explorers are scouring LINK riftgame.com every inch of it. Design

FIRST LOOK New expansion puts the massive back into MMORPG
director Simon Ffinch says that the depth of the new areas gives him ample opportunity to creatively hide collectable artifacts. But even if youre less inclined to go hunting for secrets, theres still plenty to appreciate. Where Rift was about battling back the forces of the planes, Storm Legions areas have previously been unprotected by the Ascended. This means players can changes have been designed to make melee damage a more viable and enjoyable path through the game. That goes hand in hand with the Mages new soul, Harbinger, which allows the magic man to summon melee weapons for direct DPS attacks. The twist is that each of his weapons, comprised of luminescent blades of light, will also apply a different passive buff. Each of the classes is receiving a new soul, and while the Clerics has yet to be revealed, the others have been designed to fill a gap in their tactical bag of tricks. The Warrior, for instance, goes in the opposite direction with the T empest soul. This gives him more flexibility as a ranged class, by arming him with lightning grenades and AoE shock tendrils. The most interesting new subclass is the Rogues Tactician, who builds combo points that can be spent on using various flamethrowers, from a traditional firebased damage attack to a torrent of healing heatpicture running between your guildmates covering them in cleansing health flames. Tacticians also use cores to create area-of-effect team buffs, giving the

Thats a lot of new world, and Trion wants to ensure that youre scouring every inch.
experience a world in which the influence of the planes has been left to run rampant. Youll see weirder environments, destroyed cities, and unique enemies throughout. In addition to the new locations, Rifts combat is receiving an overhaul, with many of the existing souls (Rifts classes) tweaked for the expansion. One area theyre being shored up is in their melee survivability. Thats not to say DPS-based souls are about to put tanks out of business, but the

26

JANUARY 2013

The Cuddlebot 3000 line was scrapped for being too serrated. We could probably solve this one with a bucket of water. Typical insectoids, stockpiling sugar cubes.

Are you here for the cheerleading tryouts?

Rogue more chance to participate in group questing strategy. While these additions and changes will run through the game, Storm Legions questing is earmarked for players whove hit the current level 50 cap. Once there, players will see the new Carnage quests. As you kill mobs out in the world, dynamic missions will appear. Theyre the standard mission types, but their delivery promises to create a natural flow to questing that will keep players out in the world for longer. Storm Legions final trick is Dimensions, player spaces that allow for placing and constructing objects, giving you the freedom to create your own home and then fill it with all manner of stuff. You can invite friends into your dimension, even giving them building privileges to work together on a new creation. Naturally the system feeds back into your adventures out in the world, rewarding new items for achievements to show off your conquests. Given the grand size of Storm Legions additions, youre going to need one hell of a trophy room. Phil Savage

*prods* Nope, still dead.

Release 2013
JANUARY 2013 27

The Soviet Red Army is a new faction for Company of Heroes 2.

COMPANY OF HEROES 2
ts a cool autumn morning in 1941, and Vladimir is pinned down by German flakpanzer tank fire. Hes face-down on a muddy riverbank. His whole squad has been annihilated, and there are no reinforcements in sight. He is not having a wonderful day. I impotently click around my base looking for anything I could build quickly enough to bail poor Vlad out of his utterly horrible situation. T-34 tanks? Too expensive. A two-man sniper team? Too vulnerable. Nothing. Vlad dies in the open; I churn out two more squads of Vlads to replace him. The relatability of every individual on the battlefield (a strength of Relics titles going back to the original Company of Heroes, still our highestrated RTS ever) is everpresent in Company of READ ME Heroes 2s Eastern Front DEVELOPER THQ World War II campaign. PUBLISHER When I play a game like Relic StarCraft, I dont think LINK about each of my marines www.companyof heroes.com as a person with hopes,

PLAYED IT A fresh, freezing frontline for the classic tactical RTS

dreams, and a backstory. Zooming in on any hapless Russian conscript or shouting Wehrmacht officer in the latest preview build of CoH2 reveals miniscule bits of gear modeled and textured down to the straps, buckles, and rivets, at such a fine scale that they tell a story all their own. And it sincerely affects the way you play the game. chuckled along with him, but felt a very real twinge of guilt. They must be terrified. Theyre only patriotic farmers sons with cheap rifles, and I just ordered them into the middle of a crossfire, with mortars raining down from over the river. Its not all remorse, thankfully. CoH2s models and animations also grant a grandiose sense of triumph. When one of the conscript squads I sent to die managed to take out an enemy mortar team, steal their weapon, and take out an enemy flakpanzer with it, I could almost feel their surge of pride and relief. I pictured them gathering that evening for some welldeserved relaxation and vodka, regaling their wide-eyed childhood friends with a moment-to-moment retelling of their deeds. Shortly after, they were blown away by German reinforcements shortly after. CoH2s environments, just as doomed to being bombed and burned as the units, have also received the same level of flair and fidelity. A lot of emphasis has been placed on the role of seasons and weather (since the games campaign will cover a four-year span), with all units having at

Seasonal shifts will also affect your strategy and the pace of a map.
When I found myself in danger of losing a point at a key bottleneck, I panicked and sent two of my cheap infantry squads right into the thick of the fighting. Oh, so you have read up on the Red Army, one of the Relic team members overseeing my progress commented, mirthfully referencing real Russian forces in World War II and their habit for sending untrained and under-equipped detachments on suicidal assaults. I

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JANUARY 2013

The cold and extreme weather conditions play a big part in CoH2.

The Tiger tank was Germanys answer to the formidable Soviet T-34 and KV-1.

Play CoH2 for long enough and you will get a degree in unpronounceable tank names. The KV-1 Soviet tank was known for its extremely heavy armor protection.

least two distinct kits for warm and cold months, respectively. Some have even more, with many vehicles sporting unique camo skins for each of the four seasons. Seasonal shifts will also affect your strategy and the pace of a map. Raging rivers during spring might funnel all of the fighting to a couple of bridges, whereas the same map during a bitter, Russian winter would see the flow frozen over, creating many paths of attack. The colder months also require your infantry to stay near heat sources to survive. Deep snow will slow your progress, and your vehicles have to deal with poor traction on ice. While CoH2 may not be the most revolutionary RTS in terms of surfacelevel mechanics, all of these elements come together in a way that reinforces that Relic is still advancing the genre. Its the closest youve ever felt to the battles youre fighting without actually being put behind the sights of a rifle yourself. It feels like playing a war movie, where the characters lives depend on your actions. T.J. Hafer

Snow is as much a danger to your troops as enemy fire. Relics obsessive attention to detail can be seen in every aspect of the game.

Release EARLY 2013

JANUARY 2013 29

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THE

GUIDE TO

By Nathan Edwards and David Murphy

UNLESS YOUVE MANAGED to block out all advertising for the last several months, youve probably noticed theres a brand-new boxy, multicolored version of Windows out. The successor to Windows 7, cleverly called Windows 8, is a major step for Microsoft. This new OS contains lots of subtle tweaks and many huger, unsubtle changes, designed to give Windows a unified interface across the smartphone, tablet, and desktop environments. But youre a PC gamer, and you dont care about that. You want to know whats so good about Windows 8, and whether you should drop money on it that could go towards new games or hardware.
Read on to get the full details on Windows 8 from a PC gaming perspectivewhether upgrading is right for you, PC game benchmarks, system tweaks, how Windows 8 compares to its predecessors, and what it means for gamers.

JANUARY 2013

31

Windows 8

SHOULD I UPGRADE TO WINDOWS 8?

To go 8, or to waitthe answers you need
irst lets talk about Metro, the screen with all the tiles that replaces the Start menu and is the first thing you see when you power on Windows 8. Microsoft no longer calls it Metro (instead referring to it, confusingly, as just Windows 8), but everyone else still does. Metro is designed to look and act the same on PCs and on ARM-based Windows RT tablets. It consists of live tiles (sort of a cross between an icon and an information-bearing widget) and full-screen apps that you download and install through the Windows Store. Apps in the Windows Store will only work in the Metro interface, and the only way youll be able to install Metro apps is through the Windows Store. Microsoft has a stringent approval process for the apps sold through the Windows Store, which is a huge change from the completely open policy of previous versions of Windows and is the reason Gabe Newell and others have called Windows 8 a disaster. Fortunately, Metro is only half of Windows 8, and not the half you care about. Click on the Desktop tile and youre back on familiar ground. Aside from the lack of a Start button, Windows 8s desktop mode is just a souped-up version of 7s. There are lots of under-the-hood speed tweaks and you access to the traditional desktop, where you can install whatever you want. But will Windows 9? Devs fear that it wont. So should you, the PC gamer, upgrade to Windows 8? Maybe! If youre already using Windows 7, theres no urgent need to upgrade, but if youre still on XP or Vista, you should definitely upgrade to take advantage of the security and performance improvements launched since you last emerged from your underground bunker. DirectX 11.1 is going to be Windows 8-only, but there are no games or graphics cards for it yet. The biggest reason to upgrade now is to lock in a lower price: users of Windows XP, Vista, or 7 can get a downloadable upgrade for $40 until the end of January 2013, or $70 for an upgrade DVD. After that, prices go up. If youve bought a Windows 7 PC since June, you can upgrade for a mere $15. Given that full versions of Windows 8 start at $100 for the non-Pro version, its better to buy an upgrade.

improvements, as well as a slight difference in visual style, but it still operates like old-school Windows. You can install games and programs and access the file system in exactly the same fashion as in previous versions. If youre like us, youll use the new Metro interface for its search tool and to launch programs. The rest of the time youll spend in the desktop, or in games. With that in mind, you might wonder why game developers are making such a big deal about the Windows Store. Its because the Windows Store sets a precedent for the next version of Windows. Windows 8 still gives

The Linux Option

Is the open-source OS a viable alternative?

as DirectX, gaming on Linux may be picking up, ahem, steam. If youre thinking of switching to Linux, go to a popular distro like Ubuntu, which is relatively user-friendly and easy for noobs to pick up. Its also the distro that will get a native version of Steam. There are plenty of games available for Linux already. Digital distribution site Desura (www.desura.com) offers many Linux-compatible games, and you can find more at the Linux Games Database (http://www.lgdb.org). If thats not enough, you can always use WINE (winehq.org), a compatibility layer that lets you run native Windows apps, including many games, in Linux. You can see which games are supported at appdb.winehq.org.

If, like Gabe Newell, you think Windows 8s Windows Store represents disaster for PC gaming, whats the alternative (other than, you know, staying on Windows 7)? Valve is working to port Steam and some of its games, like Left 4 Dead 2, to Ubuntu, and other game developers may follow suit. The Linux gaming path is not an easy one, nor one with an overabundance of options. Gaming on GNU/Linux (hereafter Linux) has lagged behind Windows for several reasons, including fragmentation, the antipathy of Linux users to use closed-source software and DRM, the lack of DirectX support in Linux, and the reluctance of GPU vendors to open-source their drivers. But with Valve throwing its weight behind the project, and more developers writing for OpenGL as well

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BUYING AND INSTALLING WINDOWS 8

What you need to know
nlike Vista and 7, Windows 8 only has two consumer versions: Windows 8 and Windows 8 Pro. Windows 8 Pro offers a few features that vanilla 8 doesnt: BitLocker and EFS encryption, the ability to join work domains, and the ability to boot from a virtual hard drive. Not much that impacts gamers. So which version you choose is up to you. Should you go for 32-bit or 64-bit Windows 8? If your CPU supports it, go for 64-bit. If your CPU doesnt, and youre still stuck on 32-bit, you should upgrade your hardware before you upgrade your software. Regardless of what you choose, youll want to go for an upgrade edition, rather than a full version of the software, assuming you have a genuine XP, Vista, or 7 install on the computer youll be upgrading. Now, once youve determined which version youll need, you need to figure out whether you want to do an in-place upgrade or a clean install. If youre going from Win 7 Pro to vanilla 8, youll need to do a clean install. Ditto if youre going from any 32-bit OS to a 64-bit one. If youre coming from Windows 7, youll be able to do an upgrade that keeps your programs, settings, and all user accounts and files; upgrading from Vista lets you keep your settings, accounts and files, and from XP youll just be keeping your user accounts and personal files. However, its a good idea to do a clean OS install every few years to get rid of accumulated crud. We recommend doing a clean install, but if you have a relatively fresh Win 7 install, you may choose to do an in-place upgrade. Whatever you choose, be sure to back up everything you want to keep: documents, photos, music, movies, and game saves.

So youve decided to take the plunge. Youre getting Windows 8. But what edition should you get? 32-bit or 64bit? Should you do an in-place upgrade, or a clean install?

How to Install
The easiest and cheapest way to upgrade is to go to download the Windows 8 Upgrade Assistant from Windows. com, which lets you purchase, download and install the upgrade version of Windows 8. Once you buy the upgrade, it will download and you will be prompted to Install Now, Install by Creating Media, or Install later from Desktop. If you are on 64-bit Windows and want to do an in-place update, choose Install Now. If you want to do a clean install, select Install by Creating Media. We are going to assume the latter. You can either create a bootable USB flash drive or an .iso file, which youll need to burn to a DVD. If you have a 4GB or larger flash drive you can spare for a bit, thats probably the best option.

ACQUISTION

Once youve created your install disk, restart your computer and boot from the flash drive or DVD. Its important that you dont erase your current OS install before you install the new one, or the installer will not be able to

INSTALLATION

detect your valid previous Windows install and will screw up (as is the technical term). Windows Setup will start and youll be prompted for your language and keyboard choices. Hit Next. After you input your product key, youll be given the choice between Upgrade and Custom installs. Choose Custom, then pick your current OS drive as the target. This will delete your current install and everything on your C: drive, so only do it if everything on that drive is backed up. Its not too late to back out, back up, and start over. Once youve hit Next, Windows will install itself.

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Windows 8

Your system will reboot a few times and then dump you into a Personalize screen. Here you can pick a color scheme for your Start screen, as well as a name for your computer. Next, youll assign settings, like how Windows installs updates, downloads drivers, and more. You can use the Express settings or hit Customize to tweak them individually. After a few rounds of this, youll be asked to sign in to your PC. This is another new feature of Windows 8: If you sign in with a Microsoft account, also known as a Windows Live ID, youll be able to buy things from the Windows Store in Metro, as well as sync certain settings and data between your Windows 8 computers. If you have Hotmail, Games for Windows Live ( hiss ), or an Xbox Live account, you already have a Windows Live ID. Enter it and click Next. Youll be prompted for your password, or to sign up for a Microsoft account if you dont already have one. Your computer will spend a few more minutes getting ready, and put you through a brief Metro tutorial in the meantime. Pay attention; the interface isnt always obvious. Then itll spit you out at a personalized Start menu, with your avatar and name in the top right, a bunch of social apps on the left (possibly pre-populated), and, in the lower left corner, a link to your Desktop. Click it and be relieved by familiarity.

PERSONALIZATION

Youll have noticed by now that theres no Start button in Windows 8. Hitting the Windows key on keyboard will bring up the Start screen. We recommend taking a few days and getting used to Metro. It has some handy features, as well as a few usable apps, and its a quick way to launch desktop apps or find filesjust start typing! If you really miss the Start button on the desktop, though, youre covered. Classic Shell (shown in picture, classicshell.sourceforge.net), Start8 (stardock.com/products/start8/) and Pokki (pokki.com) are just some of the apps that can bring back some variant of the classic Start menu. But its clear that the Metro interface is Microsofts bet for the future of Windows, so by getting rid of it youre only postponing the inevitable.

DEMETROFICATION (OPTIONAL)

Skimming the Surface

Is Microsofts tablet good for gamers?

ouve probably heard of Surface, Microsofts chic new tablet. They come with sleek optional keyboard and run Windows. So are they good for gaming? No, and not really. There are two flavors of Surface: Windows RT, and Windows 8 Pro. The first runs a special version of Windows that only works on ARM tablets, and is powered by a quad-core Nvidia T egra 3 chip. Only Metro apps from the Microsoft Store will run on Windows RT, so expect a lot of casual games. They will take advantage of the Surfaces touchscreen, and will also be available to Windows 8 PCs via the Microsoft Store. The other Surface does run the full x86compatible Windows 8 Pro, so you can play real PC games on it. The

Surface Pro is essentially an Ultrabook with a detachable keyboard. It has a 10.6-inch 1920x1080 screen and an Ivy Bridge processor. It also sports Ivy Bridge integrated graphics, so your gaming options will (again) be limited. If you just want to be able to play Planescape: T orment or Minecraft wherever you go, the Surface Pro will be fine. But without discrete graphics, its no more a gaming machine than any other integrated-graphics laptop.

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WINDOWS SCORECARD
Windows 98
RELIABILITY
Come on, even Bill Gates himself crashed Windows 98 at a launch demo (YouTube it!).

How wed grade past versions of Windows. How will Windows 8 rate over time?
Windows Vista
The new Reliability Monitor let users track the frequency of crashes themselves. If only it came with achievements.

Windows ME
ME was an operating system beset by bugs, blue screens, and crashes. Select the wrong options or settings, and youd disable key featureslike networking.

Windows XP
A switch to Windows 2000/NT code vastly improved Windows XPs ability to ward off a dreaded Blue Screen, the killer of fun when you havent saved in three hours.

Windows 7
Good overall: Microsoft realized that it couldnt release an OS that sticks it to less-mainstream apps and games anymore.

C
Microsoft raised tha bar for USB, Firewire, and multiple-monitor support in Windows 98, back when joysticks were still cool to use.

D
Microsoft killed off DOS in ME, removing users ability to boot into MS-DOS and dramatically affecting some DOS gamers ability to play. The addition of Autoupdate, however, meant that Microsoft was finally taking device compatibility and updates more seriously.

B
Windows XP marked the introduction of Windows official Compatibility Mode, a tool for emulating older OSes when trying to get fussy programs and games to run. Also, XP began warning users when they were about to install unsigned drivers.

A
Jumping from XP to Vista caused developers a number of headaches. Users, toomany downgraded back to Windows XP for a while.

B
Each iteration of Windows seems to lessen the burden on users in terms of hunting, finding, and installing drivers just to have basic functionality within the OS. Still, dont forget to install those new video card drivers!

COMPATIBILITY

A
Active Desktop, anyone? Microsoft also worked to blend Internet Explorer and Windows Explorer as best it could for Webthemed file navigation, in addition to the debut of the Quick Launch bar.

B
All hail Windows Media Player 7, Windows Movie Maker, and Windows System Restore. ME was big on multimedia, much more so than previous versions.

A
A login screen? Yes, old-school Windows users, your life just got a bit more corporate. Other fun tidbits: integrated CD burning, a new network setup wizard, Windows Messenger, and DirectX 8! Well forgive Microsoft for the somewhatjanky MSN Gamezone.

D
Windows Vista heralded the launch of Games for Windows Live, everyones favorite annoying toolbar on the top of their screens. On the other hand, DirectX 10 gave users some meaningful performance improvements.

B
Hello, Games Explorer! Assuming your favorite games worked with this feature, you now had a one-stop shop for playing them. We welcomed DirectX 11 for prettier, multithreaded graphics (even though Vista users can also enjoy it).

FEATURES

C
EASE OF USE
Its not Microsofts fault per se, but Windows 98 existed in a time before automatic game updates. And dont get us started about drivers

B
The last Microsoft OS to run the Win95 code base. Even installing Windows MEif you wanted a clean install using USB-based input deviceswas a little annoying. Compatibility issues plagued it.

B
A new interface, the aforementioned login windows, and window grouping balanced out annoyances like Microsofts introduction of its activation system. LAN parties everywhere still cry out in horror.

C
UAC inundated users with prompts for almost everything they (or their PC) wanted to doand hurt your ability to play legacy, XP-supported games. Putting a 64-bit version on the same disc was nice, though.

B
Games for Windows Live is still annoying at best, and Microsoft has yet to deliver a good means for amassing and downloading digital gaming titles.

D
It wasnt the leap Windows 95 was, but 98 had huge USB support, introduced Standby mode, and featured easy conversion to the new FAT32 file system. Also, native DVD support and AGP graphics!

C
Some might argue that Windows 7 represents the last, great Microsoft OS before Microsoft forces a touch-friendly interface on its users with Windows 8.

IMPACT

Consumer hatred for Windows ME really lit a fire under Microsofts butt to do better in subsequent iterations, which ultimately had a positive impact.

Windows XP is still clinging to life with roughly a 40 percent worldwide market share some 10 years after its release. Thats a pretty big impact.

Even Microsoft realized this one was a no-go, pushing the dramatically different Windows 7 out the door less than three years after Vistas launch.

B
CLUTTER

A
A personalized start menu would only first display your most-accessed programs, which was nice if you just wanted to quickly load Baldurs Gate II: Shadows of Amn.

A
Such a lovely Start Menu! Look at that plain-English search functionality! A brand-new Explorer shell? Delightful. Microsoft made it easier for you to get to the games you want to play.

D
Minus that little ol thing called the Windows Sidebar (yuck), Vista felt like a fairly streamlined operating system, interface-wise. Goodbye, scrolling start menu. Hello cascade.

B
Microsoft nixed much of Vistas bloat, eliminating clutter in its UI and cutting programs nobody used. A default Windows 7 installation eats up less room on your hard drive than Vista.

Three words: Windows 95 Plus, a suite of silly addons and desktops themes now integrated directly into the OS. The companys push to Web-ize everything really bloated Windows 98s feature set.

B
Sans System Restore, which could throw benchmark results all over the place, Windows ME generally improved anywhere from three to 16 percent on the speeds of its predecessor.

B
Faster boots, faster speeds of course, comparing Windows XP against Windows ME almost seems unfair, right?

B
Much more inconsistent than XP. Early attempts trying to match 3D drivers with Vistas new driver architecture absolutely destroyed users performance.

A
Speedier boots meant quicker gaming. Gaming and application performance between Windows 7 and Vista varied, but network file transfers were through the roof!

Little changed, performance-wise, from Windows 95. In some cases, FAT32 actually hurt application load times!

SPEED

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TWEAKING WINDOWS 8 FOR GAMES

Tips for going from bootup to play faster than you thought possible
As soon as you install Windows 8, head online to the manufacturer websites for your gaming keyboard, mouse, video card, sound card, and SSDto name a few critical devicesand grab the latest drivers they have for Windows 8. Also resist the urge to just make a local account on your system for logins. Tie your Windows 8 login experience to a Microsoft Live IDpreferably one youve already been using for other Microsoft services (Games for Windows Live), hardware (Windows Phone), or gaming consoles (Xbox 360). Its a little scary, we know, but youll tap into a wealth of features related to file and settings synchronization, as well as Microsofts Stores and Xbox-themed apps.

UPDATE DRIVERS

Download an app called Classic Shell. When you install it, youll be able to use one of its easily identifiable settings to virtually eliminate Windows 8s Start Screen from your desktop or laptops existenceone less step between you, your games, and the more normal conveniences of Windows 8s Desktop Mode.

DONT LIKE THE MODERN UI? GO CLASSIC

Once Classic Shell is up and running, hold down Shift and hit the Windows Key on your keyboard to open up the Start Screen. Type in gpedit.msc and click on the app that appears. Navigate down to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Control Panel > Personalization. Double-click on the policy that says Do not display the lock screen, and change that option to Enabled. Click OK. Youve just removed the annoying process of having to scroll up a window just to reach your password prompt when logging in. You can also set Windows 8 to log into your account automatically. Head back to your Start Screen and type in netplwiz, and click on the app that appears. Select your User Name and uncheck the box that says, Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer and click OK. Enter your password twice, click OK again, and restart your computer. Be amazed at how quickly your OS boots right past your login prompt and Start Screen!

STREAMLINE YOUR LOGIN

If you cant bear to be without Windows 8s tiled interface, the least you can do is spruce it up a bit for gaming. When you install new games or apps, Windows 8 transforms all of a programs shortcuts into individual tiles, which quickly clutters up your screen with junk. Carve out some space and make a gaming zone by dragging iconsgame shortcutsinto their own group, and then edit the position of these larger groups of icons (relative to one another) by clicking on the minus-like icon in the bottomright corner of the Start Screen. From there, simply grab your larger groups of icons and rearrange them as you see fit. And, if you want to give them a bit of flair, you can right click on any group and select the Name Group option to give it a distinctive title on the Start Screen.

ORGANIZE YOUR START SCREEN

WINDOWS 8 BENCHMARKED
Most benchmark comparisons dont reveal meaningful performance differences between Win 7 and 8.
WINDOWS 7 Total War: Shogun 2 Dirt 3 ARMA 2 Crysis 2 Metro 2033 Unigine Heaven benchmark 41.9 53.2 39 41.4 21.5 34.2 WINDOWS 8 42 56 38 42 21.5 34.2

Components: AMD Phenom II x6 1055T @ 3.23 GHz, 4GB memory, 1TB HD103UJ Samsung HDD, Nvidia GeForce GTX 480, Sabertooth 990fx motherboard

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IS WINDOWS 8 BAD FOR PC GAMING?

THE WIN 8 DEBATE

YES Only Microsoft could jump into a world full of digital

distribution platforms and somehow make theirs the worst.

NO The Windows Store is for casual gamers, but the

desktop is still there! Windows 8 is the best Windows.

DM: If the launch list of smartphone gaming titles for Windows 8 is any indication about the strength of the Windows Store going forward, I think Microsoft has completely lost its mind. Wheres the big Halo 4-like agship title and awesome shopping experience that will make the Windows Store a viable marketplace for hardcore gamers? NE: If this was Windows RT Gamer, youd be right. Everyone thinks Windows 8 is the Metro interface, but on a PC, Metro just goes where the Start Menu used to be. Its a detour on the way to the desktop. Microsoft has an iron grip on the Windows Store, but underneath those pretty tiles is a fully armed and operational Windows, with all the Skyrim nude mods you can install. Which is really the only one, or they start to conict. Ive heard.

The casual audience is a big deal, but any gamers worth their salt arent going to want to drop the frequent game sales, purchasable developer collections, and built-in social networking just to get a Metro-based Skyrim instead ofgasp!Skyrim for Desktop mode. Whats the omg appeal of Microsofts Windows Store? NE: Right, I dont actually disagree at all. Is the Windows Store bad for PC gaming? Probably! The people who run other digital distribution platforms especially think so. It sets a bad precedent for Windows as a closed platform. But who cares? I get my games digitally from all over: Steam, Desura, GOG.com, and little indie gaming forums. I install them on my desktop and play them exactly how I would if I was on Windows 7, because thats all Windows 8 on the PC is: Windows 7 plus this extra tiley bit that you use as a Start menu. Maybe Windows 9 wont have a desktop at all, but Win 8 does.

David Murphy is a freelancer for PC World and PC Mag.

Nathan Edwards is a freelance tech writer for Maximum PC, PC Gamer, OXM, @Gamer, and The Wirecutter.

DM: I think Microsoft has confused its Xbox 360 console with a desktop PC: These Cut The Rope-like casual titles work wonders on the couch, not the desk chair. I think DM: You said it perfectly. When it comes to Windows Microsofts one size ts all treatment of the Windows 8s Store, who cares? Your 74-year-old granny playing Store for three different types of hardware is the Angry Birds, maybe, but not a real PC gamer. real reason why were getting all this uffy Microsoft could have launched with killer They content right nowan inauspicious start. titles, or even just straight-up copied fought the law... features from the other digital stores But who won? NE: Sure, the Windows Store is full of you mention, but instead we get this. A Establish your moral casual games right now. But thats typical phenomenally casual experience, but one superiority at of any new platform. How long did it that I believe will leave much to be desired www.pcgamer.com/ take before the iPad got Innity Blade or when Microsoft starts delivering games of forum Android got, uh, those Tegra Zone thingies? substance. I guess well nd out in December The games on the Windows Store have to work when the rst of the M-Rated titles are allowed on ARM-based Windows RT tablets as well as PCs. on Microsofts platform. They have to be touch-enabled, which means the rst But, hey, at least we can all play some Xbox Games things you see will be cheap smartphone casual game on Windows while we wait. ports. But wait until the indie scene gets into it. Imagine Spelunky or FTL or Minecraft on the Surface RT. NE: Im switching to Linux, because I only want to play Left 4 Dead 2 now. DM: Well, maybe not Minecraft. But lets talk shop: Specically, how the Windows Store is really just... a tiled DM: Does it run Crysis? store. Why didnt Microsoft build in some of the bigger enhancements already present on Steam or even Origin? NE: Youve got me there.

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DRE AM

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ON

Take to the skies to see FIREFALLs ambitious open world in its full glory

by Rich McCormick
a free-to-play game. James smiles, aware of the difficulty of describing his MMO. The elevator ride is done by the time you can say what the game is. Even in Red 5s ambling elevators, Firefall is not an easy game to explain. After my interview, James flips it around and asks me to describe Firefall in a few words. I could try to explain what Ive been shown, say that its an MMO set on a future Earth under attack by everything from monster bugs to the pseudohuman Chosen, that it plays more like a shooter thanks to class choices and snappy, tactile combat. But then I would fall into the same, wordy trap. I mutter something about jetpacks and shooting. Its reductionist to define Firefall by its airborne combat, but for a game this huge, its a good place to start particularly when James and Scott Youngblood, Firefalls lead designer term the game an MMO shooter.

n the first day I visit Red 5 Studios, the lifts are behaving oddly. They take an age to arrive, and stay at empty floors too long. James Macauley, vice president of development, tells me this is a common thing. Sometimes they break down with people inside them. Later, James references the idea of the elevator pitcha spiel designed to sum up a project in a brief lift ride. He tries the Firefall elevator pitch out on me. Were a shooter, were an online shooter, were a social game, were an MMO, were an RPG, were an RTS. Theres a massively persistent open world, deep character progression, deep backstory and lore, competitive PvP and eSports-focused match types, ladders, and leagues. We have all these different aspects of different games, we have the social features of MMOs, we have armies built-in clan support much like a guildwe have all of this stuff and its

Its packed

SUMMER 2013

RELEASE

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CIRCLE OF DEATH Crafting in Firefall

Combine your self-made items to make more powerful weapons. Kill monsters with your weapons to get even more loot.

Monsters

Weapons
Use minerals to craft items and weapon parts back in a hub city.

Minerals
Collect showers of minerals that fall from downed enemy bodies.

Items

Thumper

Send Thumper back to earn more minerals.

Minerals

Scan for underground resources, call down a Thumper, then defend it.

The arrangement of the words in my description is wrong though: for James and co., the shooting had to come first. We have a test called the wall test. It should feel good to pick up a gun and shoot a wall. And onceand only onceit feels good to shoot a wall, then we look at making it feel good to shoot a player or shoot a creature. But as with the elevator pitch, it wasnt simple. Firefall takes place in an MMO world, and very few MMOs manage the kind of kinetic feedback Red 5 is chasing. I cant think of a more complex system, James tells me. You have all these calculations. A bullet flying through the air could collide with any number of hundreds of players on that server at one time. But impressively, theyve managed it: firing one of Firefalls guns feels like firing a gun in a single-player action game. Its infinitely more satisfying than the kind of behindthe-scenes dice rolls MMOs traditionally employ. James puts this satisfaction down to the games lengthy beta test. The developers, he argues, were unafraid to go in and rework entire elements of the game as the community provided feedback. The betarunning for much of 2012heavily influenced the games development. James constantly references design decisions as originating from what he describes as the most amazing community of any game ever, period. Nothing was given a free pass. We questioned everything down to movement speed. Thats typically a sacred cow. Once you decide

Once it feels good to shoot a wall, then we look at making it feel good to shoot a player or shoot a creature.
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PvP is 5 vs. 5, and feels like a dedicated multiplayer shooter. Copacabana, the shootiest place north of Havana.

An area ripe for jetpacking.

Red 5s current focus is PvE. Next comes an episodic story.

movement speed, all of the level designers, all of the artists, the rest of the team can start building a world based on that speed. Timing is so critical in an action shooter. But we decided that wed rather have the extra work going back and modifying our existing levels, than to try to jury-rig fun into what we already had. So we made the call and we increased movement speed by 20 percent. We also increased jump height, we changed how gravity affects falling so youre a little bit more floaty, and we changed jumpjets completely, giving you a lot more burn time.

Spoilers

Player progression was also addressed at a fundamental level. Early on, players earned experience points and levelled up one of five specific classes (see Get in the Picture, over the page). Those classes remain, but each now has an array of battleframes under its umbrella, James explains. Theres not just one assault any more. I liken it to cars: you want to customize it. You want to get better tires, you want to have better

Prancing in boots that heavy takes a lot of practice.

suspension, you want a spoiler. You unlock a battleframe chassis, and then you customize it so you can change how your character plays to match your playstyle. We want you to collect all these different models, or battleframes. This gives us a platform where we can release new battleframes on a regular basis. New battleframes and upgrades for them are unlocked via a convoluted tech tree. Plug XP into these trees, earned for killing enemies and completing missions, and youll eventually have access to the next tier of battleframe, and advanced specializations that let you use class abilities. The assault frame, for example, branches into Firecat and Tigerclaw at Tier 2: one specializing in mobility, the other in damage. James uses the assault battleframe again as an example. It has Cannonball, which spins you forward 30 yards, doing damage as you go, or Afterburner, which jets you out of danger. Or Crater, which is a smashdown attack: you jump up and slam down to the ground, doing lots of damage to enemies in the area. There are further layers of customization: I love jetpacks. I like being in the air a lot, so I always upgrade my jumpjets so I have the longest burn time. The way I play, I dont care as much about jump height, so I dont need to upgrade my servos. These upgrades can only be earned through in-game experience. Firefall is free-to-play, but Red 5 swears the cash shop will only sell items of cosmetic or convenience

value: examples so far include glowing tiki masks and XP boosts. Player skill is Firefalls central tenet, and the thing that sets it furthest away from other MMOs. During my time at the studio, pro-gaming team Complexity flew in to duel a crack team of developers at their own game, in five-on-five scuffles over objectives and kills. Red 5s local heroes trounced the professional players 5-0, but bringing the team in wasnt a simple gloating exercise: Red 5 is pushing Firefall as a coherent, competent eSport, a PvP game where shooter synapse reactions and muscle memory matter. The game has already been altered to make it a twitchier, more shooty shooter. James gives an example: Our healing beam locked on, which completely discarded most skill components. If I was playing medic and I was doing my job, it meant that the entire match Im holding down right-click right behind you. It wasnt skill-based at all. So we made the call to get rid of all homing weapons. Those were designed intentionally to make the game approachable, but we made it so approachable that it made it lose some of the high skill ceiling. Raising that skill ceiling is vital for Firefalls success, but James doesnt want to drag the skill floor up with it. Thats where PvE was a really big opportunity for us. You dont have to be a cutthroat PvPer to enjoy PvE. For that, you need to venture away from Firefalls codified, queue-driven PvP matches, and into its open world. Future-Earth is already big, but the developers plan to expand it as the
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game growsJames mentions that the team has five years of content features planned out. Its also easy to get around. The jetpacks glued to every battleframe make traversal simple andcruciallyfun. Much of my time playing the closed beta in Red 5s offices is spent trying to puzzle my way up the side of a canyon using my Engineer battleframes jetpack. Theres a clearly visible road I could use, but the freedom of movement is novel in an MMO, and I want to exploit it. Finally reaching the top of the canyon, I happen upon a Chosen acolyte. The Chosen are the games main foes: a new, angry race seemingly born from the Melding, the swirling purple and gray cloud that forms the perimeter of Firefalls currently playable area. The acolyte is a human warped into thinking the would-be murderers of his species are his best pals. He immediately opens fire as I get within range. I pop out three of my turrets the Engineer battleframes first special abilityand duck behind cover. Firefall can be played solo, but the acolyte is one of the enemies designed to be fought with friends at your back. Earlier in the day Id made impromptu pals. Wed congregated around one of my thumpers resource-collecting drilling machines that you call down from the skyprotecting it together for experience boosts and the joy of shooting bugs with guns. This time Im alone.
Hence the expression half-dressed.

Or I was. Behind the acolyte, a gnarly spike falls from the sky, driving into the ground. A gang of gray-skinned humanoids spawns next to it, bottom-heavy in similar armored boots to my own. They are the Chosen, called to Earth in a dynamic drop pod, the likes of which rain down on Firefalls world of their own accord. I swear I didnt know that was going to happen! James says, as the Chosen unload their powerful rifles in my direction and the screen washes red with death.

Glide pads let you zip around the world.

Dynamic tension

Traditional MMO questing asks you to imagine a person has decided to stand in one spot for the rest of their lives, gluing an exclamation mark to their forehead. James is not a fan. We are not keen on that model for a couple of reasons. A new expansion comes out for WoW, how long does it take someone to reach maximum level...two days? We think we can improve on that. Were trying to step off the quest content treadmill. The replacement is dynamic questing. One of the most visible examples of which are the melding tornadoes, swirling expanses of purple and gray that wreak havoc on the games habitable territory. They can happen almost anywhere, spawn weird creatures, and can only be calmed by direct, shooty action. Thumpers provide another dynamic quest. These portable drills mine for minerals that can be used to craft parts for items and weapons, but in doing so attract the games more lethal fauna, as James explains. Were trying to build our encounters to be truly dynamic. If were calling down a thumper...were actually using the local regions creatures: enemies are different when youre in the melding, or different when youre down on the beach.

But its Red 5s future plan for those Chosen drop pods that provide the most exciting example of Firefalls dynamic events. They can be destroyed by organized bands of players, but leave them unchecked and theyll multiply. Theyll build bases and outposts that can be spotted by the games future-Internet, the Shared Intelligence Network. Fail to push the invaders back with a serious force, and its time for trouble. James again: The Chosen will actually invade Copacabana [the games first major city]. It plays out much like a shared open-world raid: you want to have dozens of players helping defend the town. If you dont, you can actually lose it: the Chosen can take it over. And if the Chosen take over Copacabana, a couple of things happen. One, you lose access to all the amenities in town. Vendors, resource refining, battleframes. Butjust as importantlyif, even at that point,
The Chosen will soon be able to attack cities.

Open-world PvP and player-built bases are also planned.

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GET IN THE PICTURE Firefalls five battleframe options

Assault
Primary weapon Plasma cannon Example ability Crater hurtle into the ground for AoE damage Good at Frontline ghting Bad at Sneaking around, helping others

Recon

Primary weapon Sniper rie Example ability Satchel charge throw explosives and detonate when required Good at Long-range damage Bad at Being shot at close range

Dreadnaught

Primary weapon Heavy machinegun Example ability Repulsor blast swats nearby foes away Good at Tanking, putting out a lot of repower Bad at Being shot by snipers

Engineer

Primary weapon Tesla gun Example ability Turret drops helpful turrets to shoot at foes Good at Repairing with armmounted repair beam Bad at Being in the center of combat

Biotech

players dont unite to push back the invaders, eventually the Chosen can and will actually win. They can take over the world. Mankind loses. You lose...youre kicked off the server. Its something Ive never seen done in an MMO. Firefall is doing a lot of things not done in other MMOs. Thats what makes it so hard to pitch in a single elevator ride. Its vast, its dynamic, its strategic, and its rapid-fire. Its already in a competent beta, but wont be released for ages. James says its his dream game, and Im inclined to believe him. Everyone else I speak to at Red 5 says the same thing, and Im inclined to believe them, too. It is a dream game. Its an amalgamation of shooter and MMO and RPG. It takes moments and mechanics from a lifetimes worth of gaming experienceresource collection, social interaction, dynamic events, jetpacksand lets them blend together in the wandering minds of its creators. Like a dream, its lit by bright lights and color. Like a dream, you can fly. But dreams are intangible, ethereal, and difficult to remember. Even harder to justify to others. Trying to explain their dream has caused Red 5 trouble, as James explains. I always thought: what are the bullet points on the back of the box? We really struggled with it because there were so many. Everything we added to the game made it... He pauses, trying to measure the game in outstretched hands, before dropping them back to the table, momentarily defeated by the scope of the task. Its a big game, right?

Primary weapon Bio-needler Example ability Healing wave launches a cloud of healing in a chosen direction Good at Healing and reviving fallen comrades Bad at Dealing AoE damage

You can actually lose it: the Chosen can take over Copacabana.
CHRISTMAS 2012
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If you want to make a game, where do you start? We asked the indie experts by Tom Francis

Y
46 JANUARY 2013

ou might have heard that Its never been easier to make a game. And its true. But how do you actually make one? What do you make it in? How much does it cost? How long does it take? Can you sell what you make, and do you owe anyone any royalties? Do you need to learn a programming language? I dont know, but I do know a lot of indie games. And lots of them are made with

tools and suites that claim to be beginner friendly. So for each of the most popular tools, I found an indie developer who had made something cool, and asked them what its like to work with it. Ill also cover how much these tools cost, what your rights are when it comes to selling your work, and which platforms they can make games for. If youve ever been interested in making a game, hopefully this will give you an idea of how long it takes to learn, which tool will suit you, and where to start.

Info
What is it?
Unity looks like a level editor, but does everything. An all-inclusive development suite for making 3D games.

Price and licence

The free version has all youll need as a beginner, and is ne to use commercially unless youre making more than $100,000 a year from your games. The pro version has fancy features like pathnding, physics, and graphics tricks, and costs $1,500. No royalties for either version.

Makes games for Tutorial

PC, Mac and Linux. iOS and Android versions are $400 each. www.bit.ly/UniTut

Unity is best for 3D games.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!! FOR THE AWESOME

DEVELOPERS ICHIRO LAMBE (DEJOBAAN GAMES) AND ALEX SCHWARTZ (OWLCHEMY LABS - UNITY VERSION)
How long does Unity take to learn? Ichiro Beginners often adapt and reframe what theyre thinking about to fit whats readily available to them theyll learn how to code through tutorials. The ability to create something playable becomes less Do I know enough to create something or dont I? And more I dont know what everything does, but I know enough to screw with Euclidean space... What that gives us is the ability to become creative in a matter of weeks! What prior knowledge or skills are helpful? Ichiro Knowledge of another 3D engine, Solid C# (or C++, etc) skills, vector algebra. What cant you do with it? Alex Honestly, we havent hit development walls that prevented us from fulfilling our creative goals, and anything that annoys us is usually just a minor editor idiosyncrasy. How long did you think the game would take to make, and how long did it actually take? Alex We estimated around six months, with only two full-time developers on Owlchemy Labs end and one to three part-timers on Dejobaans end. It ended up being closer to eight-and-ahalf months. How much of the development time was enjoyable, and how much was unpleasant? Alex Thankfully, the work within Unity was mostly pleasant. The most unpleasant part of the development of the game involved bringing in 3D Game Studios proprietary asset formats where a source asset was not available, but that was solved early on in development. How much did it cost you to develop, and what did that money go towards? Ichiro Most of the project was done via revenue share, so development/ marketing costs were well under $20k. How well has your game done for you financially, on a scale from 1-10? (Lets say 5 is enough to make your next game.) Ichiro Time will tell. Most of our revenue comes about over the course of two years after the initial push (when we do bundles and Steam sales and so forth). The original Aaaaa! was doing pretty well, until we added it to the Portal 2 Potato ARG. That dialed things up to 11.

Aaaaa! is a game about falling.

Simple geometric shapes are the easiest to create.

If you could give your past self one piece of advice before starting to make the game, what would it be? Ichiro Add in one more killer mechanic that pervades the entire game and gets fans of the original to pick up the semi-sequel.

Conclusion
Unity is the best combination of approachable and versatile for 3D games. Its more complex than Game Maker, but about as easy as it gets for 3D development. The free version is very generous, and the recent addition of Linux support makes it one of the only noob-friendly tools that can make games for all three desktop operating systems.

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Info
What is it?
An all-inclusive development suite for making 2D adventure games.

Price and licence

PC

Free, you can sell your work, no royalties.

Makes games for Tutorial

www.bit.ly/AGSTut

AGS provides the basic adventure game structure.

DEVELOPER DAN MARSHALL

How long does Adventure Game Studio take to learn? AGS abstracts quite a lot of the complicated stuff for you and it all just works. You can pretty much make the bare bones of something simple in a weekend with a lot of perseverance and very little programming knowledge, because its largely just filling in forms and ticking checkboxes. What prior knowledge or skills are helpful? If you want to do anything exciting or interesting with the game, youre going to have to learn some C. What cant you do with it? Lots, Im afraid. AGS is great for making faux-1990s pointand-click games, but nothing else. Its also Windows only, so no iPad or Linux versions. AGS is also kind of getting on a bit, now. You could probably make an AGSequivalent in Unity in about a

BEN THERE, DAN THAT

week, and get all the multiplatform benefits and visual boost with it. How long did you think the game would take to make, and how long did it actually take? I think it probably took about as long as Id expected it would, a couple of months. But then, Ben There, Dan That! has a deliberately... uh, slapdash style. How much of the development time was enjoyable, and how much was unpleasant? Ben There, Dan That! was pretty much a laugh from start to finish, largely because I wasnt taking it seriously. Maybe the only unpleasant bit was writing all the dialoguetheres a unique reaction for most things in the game, and so sitting there churning out dialogue did start to become something of a chore.

Adventure games require a lot of art...

Ben There, Dan That comes with a making-of e-book.

How much did it cost you to develop, and what did that money go on? Uh... I dont think I spent anything. How well has it done for you financially, on a scale from 1-10? Ooh, tricky. On its own, probably a 3 or a 4. As a Double Pack with the sequel on Steam, definitely a 9. I could always use more money.

...but not much serious programming.

Conclusion
Adventure Game Studio is perfect if the cool thing about the game in your head is its story, characters, or humor. If you want to make allnew game mechanics, youre better off with Game Maker. But if youre a writer or artist and you want to tell a story with as little coding work as possible, this is where to start.

If you could give your past self one piece of advice before starting to make the game, what would it be? HEY! IDIOT DAN FROM

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Info
What is it?
RPGM comes with art to get you started. An all-inclusive development suite primarily for making 2D RPGs. Includes some graphics sets to get you started.

Price and licence

$29.99 for the older version, $89.99 for the latest. You can sell what you make, no royalties. 30-day trial available.

Makes games for

PC

Tutorial

www.bit.ly/RPGTut

If you can produce art like this, make a game.

To the Moon is really an adventure gam e.

Get used to drawing every character from four directions.

TO THE MOON
DEVELOPER KAN GAO, DIRECTOR/DESIGNER
How long does RPG Maker take to learn? Anyone could just sit down and get a character sprite to run around on a map with a basic battle system, but I think a few months to get the basic technical aspects down. To create your own systems and mechanics involves programming logic just like any language. What prior knowledge or skills are helpful? On the technical side, programming experience (the engine uses a scripting system based on Ruby) and a general grasp of logic. Otherwise, every creative skill comes in handythe engine actually has a rather active community, which is exciting because it also means that theres a lot of bartering for resources going on. Its like Burning Man, but with less sand. What cant you do with it? As far as 2D stuff goes, theres actually not much of a limitation as far as the programs capability is concerned. You can operate on the entire engine and create a shoot-em-up like U.S.G. (www.bit.ly/QfheCq). The main technical restriction for me right now is the inability to port to Apple Mac and Linux, but that might change. How long did you think the game would take to make, and how long did it actually take? 21 months. We started in February 2010, and it was released on November 1st, 2011. But its initial expected release date was April 2010. How much of the development time was enjoyable, and how much was unpleasant? It wasnt all prancing around a meadow, but I did purr a lot. A large positive factor was the variety of tasks to break down the monotony of the work. The unpleasant part was mainly personal rather than work-related. But still, making the game was definitely an 87.3% enjoyable experience. If you could give your past self one piece of advice before starting to make the game, what would it be? Plan out the progress in small segments, then spread them out over twice the time so you can actually follow it sustainably. Also, tomorrows winning lottery number is 08 21 59 37.
To the Moon omits combat altogether.

Conclusion
RPG Maker is very well suited to a very particular kind of game: Japanese-style RPGs with turn-based combat and top-down exploration. You can certainly stray from that template, as To the Moon does, but the further away from it you go, the more sense it makes to use Game Maker instead.

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Info
What is it?
An all-inclusive development suite for 2D games. You can either create rules with a drag-and-drop interface, or write code in its scripting language, GML.

The built-in sprite editor isnt bad.

Price and licence

The limited version is free, basic version is $49.99, a version for teams is $99.99. You can sell the games you make with any of them, no royalties.

Makes games for Tutorial

PC and Mac. iOS and Android versions are $199.99 extra each, HTML5 is $99.99. www.bit.ly/GMTuts

Random level generation keeps Spelunky fresh.

Spelunky: made in GM by one man.

SPELUNKY

DEVELOPER DEREK YU
that look like they came from the 90s or earlier. But I dont know if thats still true of GameMaker Studio, the latest incarnation of GM. How long did Spelunky take to make? Spelunky took me about a year of on-and-off work to finish, which is maybe double what I guessed when I started working. But I also didnt anticipate that the game would get as popular as it did. How much of the development time was enjoyable? Id say it was 90% enjoyable and GameMaker played a big part in that. Given how easy it is to use, you can spend most of your time doing art and design! How much did it cost you to develop? I dont think I spent any money on the original Spelunky, aside from the $19 registration fee for Game Maker ($40 these days). If you could give your past self one piece of advice before starting to make the game, what would it be? Id be afraid of messing with my past self too much, since things turned out well and I attribute part of that to my naivet. Maybe Id just send myself a cookie!

Consistent rules are simpler to code.

How long does GameMaker take to learn? It shouldnt take more than a couple of weeks. Its very intuitive and there is a wealth of tutorials and scripts for it. What prior knowledge or skills are helpful? Some programming knowledge and familiarity with C-based languages would help you take advantage of the scripting language. Some skill with pixel art couldnt hurt! What cant you do with it? GameMaker 8.1 (the version Im using) is too slow to handle modern graphics and audio. It is strictly for games

Making levels tile-based saves a lot of time.

Conclusion
GameMaker is one of the easiest tools to use for an absolute beginner, and its exible enough to make almost any 2D game you can think of. The only reason not to use it is if you want to make something in 3D, or youre planning an adventure game or J-RPG. There are better options specically for those.

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Info
What is it?
An all-inclusive development suite for making 3D games in the Unreal Engine 3.

Price and licence

$99, no royalties on your rst $50,000 in revenue, 25% royalty afterwards. Free for noncommercial use. You can jump in and play very quickly.

Makes games for

Almost everything PC, Mac, iOS, Android, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Flash (web), Wii U, PS Vita.

Tutorial

www.bit.ly/UDKTut

Abstract games are easier to make than realistic ones.

Waves makes the most of UDKs flashy effects.

3D engines tend to be better for fancy lighting, even for 2D games.

WAVES

DEVELOPER ROB HALE

How long does UDK take to learn? Its tricky because youre always building on top of how Epic likes to structure games. That learning process will continue for years, but you can make something simple very quickly, maybe within just a couple of hours, and be relatively competent in a few weeks. What prior knowledge or skills are helpful? Any previous programming experience is very helpful, but be prepared to swallow your pride and do things the Unreal Way. What cant you do with it? Anything that involves changing terrain in real time. Voxel worlds like Minecraft. How long did you think the game would take to make, and how long did it actually take? If you asked me during development how long I had left I would always say A couple of months. Ultimately I worked on Waves for about nine months in total, but I wasnt doing 40-hour weeks or anything. How much of the development time was enjoyable? There were a few times when working on the game was a chore, specifically getting the user interface and menus done. I will say that if you dont enjoy solving problems and being faced with mysteries on a daily basis, then dont get into games development. How much did it cost you to develop, and what did that money go towards? Living expenses and music. I had about $9,500 saved up when I quit my job and went full time and I spent every penny finishing the game. UDK has an upfront fee of $99 but you dont need to pay anything until youre ready to release. How well has it done for you financially, on a scale from 1-10? Id rate it as a 6. I can afford to make another game and I even have a little bit extra so I can pay some freelancers, but if I dont get another game released inside of a year then Ill be in trouble. If you could give your past self one piece of advice before starting to make the game, what would it be? Dont call it Waves! Nobody remembers the name and you cant find it on Google.

Games should have more pink in them.

Conclusion
UDK is the thing to learn if you ultimately want to be making big, shiny, multi-platform games. Its harder to learn than Unity, and youll need to be very versatile or form a team to make something that looks good. But its also great experience if you want to join an established developer, since Unreal Engine 3 is the most commonly used engine in mainstream games.

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Need to know
Third-person stealth game about dressing up in disguises

What is it?

Hard to imagine. Really bad gangster movies?

Influenced by Play it on

Quad-core CPU, GeForce 560 or better, 8GB RAM Hitman: Blood Money, 85%

Alternatively
Steam

Copy protection

Disaster is a strong word, which is good because we need one.

54 JANUARY 2013

REVIEW

BLOODLESS
H
itman: Blood Money was close to perfect. Almost every mission was a rich playground of deadly possibilities, and you were usually free to roam them undisguised, planning the perfect murder. Hitman: Absolution goes...in a different direction. Disaster is a strong word, which is good because we need one. Absolution is a disaster. Its almost the polar opposite of Blood Money: instead of sidelining the story to focus on big, open-ended assassination missions, it sidelines assassination to focus on telling a long, linear, and embarrassingly bad story. In game terms, that means most of its levels task you with reaching and opening a particular door. If it was called Doorman: Absolution, it would be much less disappointing. Skyrim smoothly, its almost unplayably sluggish: 15 frames per second even on minimal graphics settings.

HITMAN: ABSOLUTION is a mess. The police do not suspect Blood Money is involved by Tom Francis

Locked in

Steady, aim, miss

Answers 1 No, Im invisible in an open closet. 2 No, Im invisible in an open laundry basket. 3 No, commando rolls are invisible. 4 Yes, but studying a leaet makes my disguise perfect to all.

Thats not even its biggest problem. Its biggest problem is that it doesnt have a save function, so every screw-up or glitch of game logic costs you a galling amount of pointless repetition. Very rarely there are mid-mission checkpoints, but even if you can find them, they dont save vital aspects of your progress - guards youve painstakingly eliminated respawn. The huge price of failure discourages you from experimenting with new tactics, and makes going for a perfect run an exercise in punishing tedium. Since experimentation and perfectionism are two of Hitmans core appeals, thats a major problem. The game has major technical problems on PC. Ive played it on three machines, and on two that run

Make him disappear

Its a shame, because some of the locations are beautiful. Theyre just a bit small. Each mission is split into a series of short levels, connected by a single door that you cant go back through. And you cant open these doors if any guards on the level are alert - a ridiculously artificial rule in the first place, but doubly absurd when youre on the run from the law or rival assassins. Three-quarters of these levels are purely about traversal: youre just trying to get from A to B to move the story forward. The other quarter do give you a target to kill, and a choice of how to do so, but the segmentation means youre operating in a space that isnt as rich or complex as a typical Hitman: Blood Money mission.

The other thing that really hurts Absolutions few actual assassinations is the new equipment system. There isnt one. You give away all of your trademark kit at the start of the game, and start most missions with one bad, loud pistol. You never get to buy or choose your weapons in the campaign, so youre stuck with whatever you find lying around. Can you snipe this target from afar? Depends if the level designer left a sniper rifle somewhere. So much that used to be a universal, versatile systems is now left to the level designers whim. Hitmans greatest pleasure was coming up with your own solutions, but even at its best, Absolution makes it feel like youre choosing between the ones the designers provided for you. Its most promising addition is a new way of handling disguises. You can still take the clothes of dead or unconscious enemies, but now

Can I be seen? For each screenshot, guess whether the guard can see me

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REVIEW

anyone wearing the same getup will be suspicious of you. Cops know cops, is the theory. It makes sense, but its undermined by two things. Firstly, most of the areas youre trying to get through only have one type of guard, and no other disguise will work. So you spend most of the game wearing the same clothes as the people youre trying to evade. Thats when you hit the second problem: suspicion is viciously overreactive to all the wrong things. Guards rumble you in a second if you try to walk by casually. But if you sneak around like a cat burglar and dive between cover, they find you completely convincing. As long as you break line of sight often enough, your laughably conspicuous behaviour is the perfect disguise. It robs you of Hitman: Blood Moneys best feature: the ability to walk around a mission space unharrassed, so you can study routes and plan an inventive approach. On lower difficulties, you can hold down a key to allay their suspicions by putting your hand over your face. I cant think of a way to mock this that would make it sound any more absurd than that, so I wont try. Its a crutch to mitigate the stifling effect of a bad mechanic. Both suspicion and regular stealth glitch out regularly: Ive been spotted through two solid walls on several occasions, and at other times supposedly silent actions brought

guards running. Irritating in any game, this is disastrous in one with no save function. I keep coming back to the failings of the level design, and most of them stem from its determination to tell a story. Its a tedious farce of panto villains, voiced by Hollywood actors utterly wasted on this adolescent, exploitative trash. And Im fine with that. Every Hitman game has had a terrible story, but until now it has rarely mattered. The problem with Absolution is that they actually decided to focus on it this time. The story frequently requires you to get from A to B, but rarely involves a legitimate reason for you to kill. And when it does, you dont always get to do it. Several of the actual kills happen in cutscenes, and sometimes all your hard stealth work in getting to the target is rewarded with a cinematic of your character screwing it up. It completely ruins the fantasy of being a capable professional killer.

Playing other peoples contracts is fun: some are very straightforward, but already people are adding entertaining twists. The last one I played insisted that I run into a town dressed in full samurai armor and kill a particular cop with a sledgehammer. Its no substitute for the kind of freedom Hitman used to give you, though. When creating a contract, you have too muchit doesnt matter who you kill, so who cares? And when playing one, you have too little: the contract specifies what to wear and which weapon to use, so youre basically just following orders. And guess what? DRM! Despite the fact that the contracts themselves must be tiny amounts of data, you cant play any of themeven your ownoffline. You have to be connected and logged in, and if their servers are down, youre shut out.

Doorman: Absolution

Dont look at me!

Paperwork

Threequarters of the levels are purely about traversal.

I guess the new Contracts mode is meant to be the antidote to this, and it is a nice idea. You can load up any level from the main game, choose your weapons (at last!), and mark up to three people as targets. The way you choose to kill them, and how stealthily you do so, become the objectives of a contract. Other players can then take on your contract and try to kill the same people, with the same weapons, just as stealthily.

Hiding in plain sight The illogical guide to guard logic

SUSPICION

RISING

NONE

RISING

MAXIMUM

These are all the reasons I found Absolution crushingly disappointing. These are the reasons its a terrible Hitman game, and its worth saying that in the strongest possible terms, because Hitman is an important and brilliant series of games. But despite all of that, it isnt a terrible game, and it doesnt deserve a terrible score. Called something else, itd be a decent sneak-em-up with some welcome Hitman influences. Creeping past people is inherently fun, even if youre gaming some weird suspicion mechanic while you do it. So is knife-throwing. I will never be able to forgive the horrid checkpointing, but its certainly less of a problem once you get good. And on the rare occasion that you find a disguise that lets you roam freely, some of the levels have lots of different routes to try. Its just about worth playing. Currently, though, Absolution is not worth buying. If they can somehow patch in a save function and improve performance, it might be. But this is not a Hitman game, its not an especially good stealth game, and I wouldnt buy it outside of a generous Steam sale.

Sneak Hmm, a cop I dont

recognize is sneaking around carrying a sledgehammer. Thats odd.

Hide Wait, no, its okay

hes hiding behind that car now. Must be legitimate. Nothing to see here.

Sneak Hmm, another

cop I dont recognize is sneaking around carrying a sledgehammer. Thats odd.

Sneak HEY! This one hasnt hidden behind anything for at least three seconds! Arrest him immediately!

Expect to pay $50 Release Out now Developer IO Interactive Publisher Square Enix Multiplayer Not really Link hitmangame.com

A passable stealth game, but one that betrays almost everything that, until now, has made Hitman great.

62

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Let me give you a hand. To die!

Youre meant to win a shooting contest to get your guns back. Or: this.

Its what he might have wanted.

Killing the Swedish Chef from The Muppets is a low point. At this point, the temptation to jump is pretty strong.

You there, stop! You havent done a commando roll! See-through radioactive people are probably targets.

One mission involves mastering capoeira moves.

Sportsmanship is not one of your virtues.

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REVIEW

MOTORHEAD
Need to know
an open-world Need for Speed game thats all about the cars The 1998 original of the same name, and Burnout Paradise

Hot Pursuit collides head-on with Burnout Paradise in NEED FOR SPEED MOST WANTED by David Valjalo

What is it?

Influenced by Play it on

2GHz dual-core, 2GB raM, 512MB DX10 video card

Alternatively
Need For Speed Hot Pursuit, 78%

Copy protection

Ea Origin

Its more for the fetishist than the car fanatic.

oure cruising the downtown streets in a shiny new Lamborghini whengaspyou spot an equally gorgeous Maserati tucked away down a sidestreet. What do you have to do to possess that delicious new motor? What challenges do you have to beat, races do you have to win, pockets do you have to pick? None, actually. Just pull up alongside it and its yours for the taking. Most Wanteds sprawlingly open world, Fairhaven, is a free-for-all. Every location, every nook and crannyand all 123 vehiclesare accessible from the off, you just have to explore and discover. If that sounds too easy, the real challenge, as in Hot Pursuit, Criterions previous entry in the Need for Speed canon, is beating your friends records to creep up that leaderboard and gloat like the obnoxious owner of a German sportscar that costs more than most peoples houses. Almost everything you do in Fairhaven is cross-compared with your friends and other players, from highest jumps to how fast you fly past

speed cameras. Its all updated in the blink of an eye via Autolog 2.0, the second iteration of Criterions social network designed to bring out your dark, competitive side. Sadly, one of Hot Pursuits strengths and core attractions, the option to play as the law and dispense justice fashionably in a blue and white Gallardo, has been scrapped for Most Wanted. This is a game that harks directly back to the series roots (and the 1998 game of the same name) where its all about looking good as you escape and frustrate the fuzz. Chases can break out at any time as you go about your dangerous driving, and youre rewarded with points for the lengthiest and deadliest of your escape runs. There are no EMPs to use or tire-spikes to throw downno weapons at all, in factbut you can upgrade your ride with everything from nitrous shots to re-inflatable tires by mastering the car-specific events dotted all over the vast, varied map. Chases rise in tension and aggression until you either resort to a change of identity (by breezing through any street-side garage for an

instant lick of new paint) or you find yourself surrounded and eventually busted by the police (a regular problem when they roll out the big, bad SWAT-style units), costing you your hard-earned Speed Points. Speed Points are Most Wanteds equivalent of XP: your means to rank up your profile and earn a shot at one of the games most wanted slots, which are occupied either by your friends or predetermined AI rivals. It may have a drive-anything, go-anywhere ethos, but theres a game here, a ladder to climb and a reputation to build, through cutthroat driving and bumpercrumpling bravado.

Autoerotic

Real life versus Most Wanted Dont try this at home

Speed past a Speed past camera in a camera in real life Fairhaven Smash into Smash into billboard in billboard in real life Fairhaven Scrape a police cruiser in real life Scrape a police cruiser in Fairhaven

With its heaving roster of cars and toned-down upgrades, Need for Speed Most Wanted is more for the car fetishist than the car-chase fanatic, and the developers attention to the feel of each vehicle shines through although the lack of cockpit artwork remains a bugbear. Handling is a halfway house between the simulation of a game like Shift (which, as if to rub it in, has lovely, authentic cockpits) and the arcade action of Hot Pursuit. With a selection of cars for all tastes, a map filled with sun-soaked sights and roaring sounds, and a gamut of challenges, this is the most content-rich Need for Speed released in some time. Its also the most social, and takes the series right back to its core attraction: the thrill of driving very, very fast in very, very expensive cars.

Feel crappy, have points taken off your license.

Feel great, earn Speed Points.

Wait two hours for the tow to x car, get taken to court.

Feel like God soaring through clouds, earn points.

Youre nicked! Lose months off your life.

Eat dust, boys in blue! Earn Speed Points.

Expect to pay $50 Release Out now Developer Criterion Games Publisher Ea Multiplayer up to 12 Link needforspeed.com/most-wanted

a smoother, more seamless ride than Hot Pursuit, its second time lucky for this fast, furious, open-world motor show.

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In mating season, cars battle for hours to prove dominance.

That billboard is about to experience the effect of mass.

The fidelity of all 123 cars is a towering achievement.

Event restarts are blink-fast.

Each vehicle must be upgraded individually. Easydrive lets you GPS to the next challenge.

There are day and night cycles... ...and weather changes.

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revIew

FUBAR
Need to know
A modern military manshoot about elite special forces fighting worldwide terrorism Call of Duty, commercial gain

MEDAL OF HONOR WARFIGHTER has been dishonorably discharged by Graham Smith

What is it?

Influenced by Play it on

Quad-core CPU, 4GB memory, Radeon HD 5700 equivalent Battlefield 3, 80% Origin, Battlelog

Alternatively

Copy protection

Its written by Tier One operators on active duty.

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hings I have learned about war from the wholly authentic Medal of Honor Warfighter: #1: Door opening privileges are granted with seniority. #2: A soldiers sidearm, whether a pistol or a machinegun, has infinite ammo. #3: If you run far enough ahead of your squad, you might see the moment your enemies blink into existence. #4: Bullets wont kill you if youre in the middle of a melee attack animation. #5: Tier One operators are total badasses and can kill hundreds of people on their own. #6: War is super-fun, and is a passion for some people, kind of like water skiing or samba dancing. #7: It is totally justifiable to repeatedly abandon your wife and child to go fight in a war. Your wife and child should probably just learn to accept both that and your inevitable death. #8: A lot of types of beard make you look like a bell-end. It can be unfair to criticize a videogame for failing to live up to its marketing, when developers so rarely control their own. Instead we should criticize a game for the messages it communicates while we play. Medal of Honor Warfighter never gets near the authenticity it promised pre-release, but it has plenty to say about soldiers, and about war, and all of it is hateful. The problemaside from just generally being a bad, boring game, which Ill get tois that Warfighter adopts a tone of uncritical reverence for both its subjects and its subject matter. Written by Tier One operators while on active duty which explains a lotWarfighters story depicts soldiers as superheroes, not manufactured or purchased but born into this life, blessed with a higher sense of purpose. You play as two of these superheroes, Stump and Preacher,

as they investigate a terrorist operation smuggling explosives across the world, and as Preacher deals with problems at home. They do what needs to be donegruffly mowing down bad guys in terrorism hotspots, ignoring orders when necessary, and occasionally deploying a hardy bro.

No good men

These are the men we want/need on walls, as Jack Nicholson described in A Few Good Men. Except A Few Good Men doesnt deify Jack Nicholson in the way Warfighter fawns over its bland leads. It turns out to be an issue of tone.

Beards of war Where superhero soldiers get their superpowers

The Dangler
+5 Flaccidity

Stubble Trouble

+10 Protagonist

The Green Fuzz

+3 Chin invisibility

Neck Beard

+60 Woman repellant

Fuzz of Eternal Sadness

+8 Mourning

You can portray war like a silly, globe-trotting disaster movie, as Modern Warfare does, and you can scrape by without questioning your characters relentless killing. But when your story is told with stonyfaced seriousness, a little critical distance might be a good thing. In fact, isnt it both dishonest and ethically abhorrent to do anything else? If your video game is set in the real world and its characters kill hundreds of people without feeling or personal injury, and then your videogame unthinkingly applauds those characters, youve created a multi-million dollar celebration not of heroism, but of violence and killing. And the shooting is crap, too. Lets move away from the moral quandaries and tonal contradictions, just for a moment. The trick to enjoying the mainstream single-player military shooter, which includes Modern Warfare and Battlefield, is to remove them from the broader first-person shooter genre. Instead, think of them as arcade rail shooters, and therefore solely about popping out from behind cover, popping heads, and occasionally popping a new clip into your gun. By these meager ambitions, Modern Warfare 3 was a mildly enjoyable rompand Warfighter is still a failure. Each of these games split neatly into three elements: the guns, the setting, and the setpieces. War of Medal Honorfighters guns are the usual fare. You start each mission with what my uneducated mind thinks is a machinegun, but might be a sub-machinegun. Youre then free to pick up AKs or shotguns and myriad other machinegun/submachinegun variations from your fallen foes. I mainly stuck with the weapon each mission gave me, as they tended to have better scopes and iron

jAnUARy 2013

Trees: more indestructible than buildings.

Wait. Yours or mine?

This is my multiplayer buddy. I love him. Slipped and died of embarrassment.

A cargo ship sequence? I can barely container my excitement. Hot Point multiplayer is a rare highlight. Terrorist training involves ducking under things.

Terrorist beard.

Mothers: also not purchased or manufactured.

Oh hey, a turret section! Great.

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Technically pretty. Artistically brown.

Chickens repeatedly hit your windscreen. Like a joke.

Night-vision sections last about 90 seconds, total.

Wooden tables: earths most durable material.

This is how I order my complimentary breakfast.

Cutscenes often resize the window resolution. I cant remember which city this is.

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sights, and because all the guns felt rattly and weak anyway. The setting of the game changes with each mission, and varies in geography if not in detail. Over the course of the game you fight in places like Pakistan, the Philippines, Yemen, and Bosnia, but every locale is depicted without personality. Concrete crumbles, dust fills the air, and men pop up from behind cover to kill you. Even when you visit Dubai, a fascinating urban folly, you could easily mistake it for a movie studio backlot somewhere in southern California. Theres no artistry in how the game shapes these battlefields. You slide from narrow corridors to open areas filled with crates, boxes, and burned-out cars. Occasionally the lighting obscures where youre meant to go, rather than being used to lead you there. Time and again areas that look passable turn out to be unreachable due to invisible barriers. You never interact with the environment in an interesting way. Which brings us to setpieces, which are normally how these games imprint themselves on your memory. Theyre the moments when the game breaks the run-and-gun formula to offer you something different, and theyre a fair watermark for the varying quality of these kinds of games. For example, the first Modern Warfare has three standout moments: the nuclear explosion, the ghillie suit stealth section, and the creepy, quiet AC-130 mission. By comparison, Battlefield 3 has only one that really stands out, in its fighter jet mission. Honor of War Fightermedal has none. It tries. Theres a sniper mission, where you take out enemies while accounting for bullet drop. There are a couple of sections where you drive a remote-control robot with a machinegun attached. There are mounted gun turret sections, on a helicopter and a boat. You get to steer the boat at one point and, in the closest the game comes to a unique experience, there are a few driving sections. The best of the latter has you dodging enemy patrols by pulling into lay-bys. Its a nice idea. The three previously mentioned elementsguns, setting, setpieces

Vox pops What does the man on the Internet* have to say about Warfighter?

STOP BITCHING ABOUT SIGNAL SCAN ITS BALANCED

Ea s#!+$ on you with a peace of crap. ITS A GAME FOR TODDLERS. Shame on you EA.
you still have indestructible bamboo????????

Thanks ablot EA for screwing up a great game.

I think MoH is very fun and I heavily enjoy it with or without friends.

I say the game is fun as hell. But far from fine...

*All quotes taken from Warfighters official forum

wasted sequences

coalesce into a tidal wave of apathy, and make the experience of playing Warfighter feel like a kind of spiritual death. How many burned-out cars have I, will I, can I crouch behind in my life? How many times can I fire a mounted gun, making sure not to hold my finger down too long to avoid overheating? Its an oppressive, grinding slog. As some consolation, the multiplayer at least fares slightly better. There are a few different modes, but I had the most fun in Hot Point. Each level has five bomb sites, which unlock in a random order. The attackers must blow up three of those bomb sites to win the match, while the defenders must prevent that from happening at three sites to win. This creates a lot of push-and-pull drama, last-minute explosions or defusing, and rounds last long enough for new players to learn the map. Theres also the neat idea of "fire teams," which works like a smallscale version of Battlefields squad system. On any given server, youll be paired with a random buddy. You can spawn on that buddy and replenish one anothers health and ammo, and if they avenge your

death, youll immediately respawn. It bonds you to a stranger in a fun and immediate way. Otherwise, the multiplayer is held together by the same systems of points and medals and unlocks as established by every other game of this type. I havent had time before publication of this review to advance very far in these systems, so well revisit the multiplayer at a later date. Assuming that theres anyone else still playing, that is; the servers are already worryingly quiet. Here are the next two entries on my list of things communicated by the boring, soulless, not-at-all authentic Medal of Honor Warfighter. #9: Hey, didnt Call of Duty sell well? #10: There wont be a new Battlefield game until next year, so I guess we should try to fill that gap. There is no gap for a game like this. Keep playing Battlefield 3 or any of the other, better games released this year. Or, I dont know, maybe you could take up water skiing or samba dancing.

How many burned-out cars have I, will I, can I crouch behind?

Expect to pay $60 Release Out now Developer EA Danger Close Publisher EA Multiplayer 20-player, 4 modes, plus "Real Ops" hardcore modifier Link medalofhonor.com

A boring, unoriginal, morally bankrupt, ethically dubious glorification of war, thats not worth your time or money.

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Fending off opponents while juggling commands can get overwhelming.

Turrets have the added bonus of not dropping their weapons.

Fog of war is available on some of the maps.

If your troops make it to the fight, battles are fun.

BRAIN DEATH
Need to know
A vintage 2D jetpack shooter with basic strategy elements and base-building options.

CORTEX COMMAND has guns, style, jetpacks, and little else by Michael Grimm
magine a jigsaw puzzle of something greatsay, an anthropomorphic Lamborghini bench-pressing a dinosaur. Now imagine the pieces are all the wrong shape and will never fit together. You can still make out part of the Lamborghinis flexing bicep and the dinosaurs worried expression, but its not what it should be. That puzzle is Cortex Command, a 2D action game with bits of squad strategy and base building, none of which quite fit together. It casts you as a brain-in-a-jar that calls down troops, tools, and guns from space to eliminate other enemy brains-injars. Gold pays for all this and can be harvested from the ground, meaning its wise to have a few cheap units dutifully digging away to feed your war machine. This is where the UI and AI start messing everything up. Youre limited to direct control of one unit at a time, so you have to rely

What is it?

Influenced by
Soldat, Lemmings Windows 7, any PC

Play it on
Soldat, N/A

Alternatively Copy protection

Steam

on the AIs help, but your commands work sporadically at best. Robots ordered to mine for gold will do so until they decide not to. Pathfinding and movement AI seem to barely function. The targeting, however, is excellent, so even if your opponent is tripping over his own legs into a QWOP-inspired heap, he can still shoot your head off. During my first mission I assembled a diverse squad and planned a tactical strike on the enemy bunker. Alpha squadron would push back the enemy so that Donald, the explosives expert, could blow a hole in the roof. By the time I reached the enemy, half my troops had dropped their weapons or lost a limb, two had killed themselves with their jetpacks, and Donald had dug a hole to the bottom of the map. Well done, Alpha squadron. I tried some of the AI mods and found them helpful, but not revelatory.

Cortex Command features a campaign mode and standalone scenarios. Of the two, the scenarios are generally more structured, and break the game into manageable chunks. I had the most fun with the Dummy Assault scenario, where I sent wave after wave of dead men into a robot-controlled bunker. Campaign mode is barely explained, though it tries to stitch the combat into a turn-based conquest mechanic where you capture points across the world. The metagame doesnt make a difference when even the most basic missions are arduous, requiring the perfect combination of patience, skill, and luck. Multiplayer is limited to local splitscreen only, though attempting to play a game this spotty competitively may end in tears. Co-op fairs better if youre playing on a TVgathering four friends around a computer monitor seems unlikely. Cortex Command is a long way from being a game that people are going to feel comfortable paying $20 for. It looks neat, the basic gun combat is fun, and the destructible terrain works well, but the pieces dont fit together and the failed AI makes it a drag to play.

Expect to pay $20 Release Out now Developer Data Realms Publisher In-house Multiplayer Up to four, local co-op Link www.datarealms.com

Occasionally entertaining, but plagued by AI bugs and hamstrung by a clunky user interface. Less than the sum of its parts.

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REVIEW

PIX-AND-MIX
M
cPixel is where adventure games, WarioWare, and the DIY movement collide. As an ordinary, out-of-shape guy named McPixel, you have a mere 20 seconds (take that, So Solid Crew) to defuse a hidden bomb, across dozens of ridiculous situations. Your primary recourse is the kick, which will be familiar to fans of Bulletstorm or Dark Messiah. McPixel will boot anything or anyone, including the bomb itself, but when pressed he can also lift the odd afro, urinate on the occasional alien, or hurl himself into a volcano. This is the adventure game boiled down to its purest essence: bouts of immediately rewarding trial and error, with none of the inventory bingo that often bogs the genre down. To pass each stage you have to perform the correct, bomb-disposing action in all six scenarios, but youre unlikely to achieve this on your first

Kick like your life depends on it in the wonderfully crass MCPIXEL by Tom Sykes
go. Succeed or fail, youll witness one of several reliably hilarious outcomes to each skit, before automatically being ushered into the next. This automatic transition is McPixels masterstroke. While an undeniably repetitive game, theres something almost hypnotic about the way developer Sos goes about it: 20 seconds is just enough time to assess each situation and attempt a solution, but not so much that you cant bear to return. The soundtrack comprises catchy chiptunes that complement the crude pixel art perfectly. Crude is often used an insult, but here its the ideal word to describe McPixels pretense-free microgames. Its not a big or a clever game, but theres value in the small and stupid too, and theres something truly wonderful about it being Steam Greenlights first release.

There are loads of extras, including a level editor.

E.T. relaxes on the set of his 1982 motion picture.

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Expect to pay $5 Release Out now Developer Sos Publisher In-house Multiplayer None Link mcpixel.net

FAST TRAVEL
H
alf Minute Hero: Super Mega Neo Climax Ultimate Boy is a JRPG with the fast-forward button held down. The maps are tiny, the combat is automatic, and most of the conversations are about four lines long. Its also massivemissions only last between 30 seconds and a minute, but there are well over a hundred of them, and only a few follow the rapidfire fight-shop-walk-fight-boss structure of the main questline. Repetition does become a problem, especially with a credit sequence popping up after every level. Luckily, the almost comically swift pace rarely lets up, and the rapid accumulation of XP and gear manages to take the edge off grinding while maintaining a satisfying sense of progression. If it wasnt for some nasty difficulty spikes that turn encounters with the main baddie into miserable spriteon-sprite slap fights, HMHs main

HALF MINUTE HERO isnt quite as timeless as its name suggests by James Archer
feature could have been a work of offbeat greatness. The rest of the game still makes use of 30-second countdowns, but is split between multiplayer mode (up to four players) and three distinct campaigns: Princess 30 is a breathless twin-stick shooter, Evil Lord 30 has you fending off soldiers with demons and snakes, and Knight 30 is a series of escort missions. Next to the delightful mania and streamlined strategy of the Princess and Evil Lord stages, the fiddly subservience of the Knights quest seems like an inferior experience, though. These sideshows can only be played fully in the 8-bit Retro visual mode, as opposed to the cartoonish default setting. Weird restrictions aside, this is a funny, unique, and charming way to kill some time, even if only in small amounts.

Combat lacks agency, but is over quickly. I think Ill call him MechaGreg.

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Expect to pay $10 Release Out now Developer Marvelous Entertainment Publisher MarvelousAQL Multiplayer 4-player Link halfminutehero.com

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REVIEW

MASKS
Need to know
A top-down murder sim set to a disco beat in a lurid, neon 1980s Miami

Experience cheap and dirty thrills in the murderous environs of HOTLINE MIAMI by Graham Smith

What is it?

Grand Theft Auto, Drive, dance music Anything, really Grand Theft Auto 2, 90%

Influenced by Play it on

Alternatively
Steam

Copy protection

The instant restarts lead to frantic repetition.

Who dies first?
Tear it

ear out a mans throat and steal his bat. Knock a man down with a door and pound his skull into the tiles. Hurl the bat at a third man, climb on top, and pour scalding water on his face to watch him squirm. Take his machinegun and run, dancing, up the stairs towards more killing. Immediately get shot, die, and start again. It only takes one bullet, stab or punch to kill you in Hotline Miami, but your fragility isnt designed to encourage caution. Instant and frequent restarts instead lead you toward frantic repetition: it wants you to play recklessly, failingly fast, and then urgently try again. By the time youve completed your first mission, youll discover two things: first, your movements no longer look reckless. Practice has made your steps purposeful, and your every killing blow is part of a choreographed movie fight scene in which brutal murder is performed to a soundtrack of heavy beats. The second is that Hotline Miami has indoctrinated you into its way of thinking. Without realizing it,

youve been bolted to the brain of the protagonist: a silent, crummy man performing senseless acts of violence in a neon 1980s acid trip. Once youre hooked, its easy to get carried away. This game is designed to inspire a fever, and a certain kind of gamer is going to love it. Its confident, brash, and conceptually complete in a way that makes it hard to imagine what its designers might have done differently.

Disco bloodbath

But shake off the bloodthirsty mania and youll find a tight, efficient game, content with providing cheap thrills. Slice a mans intestines out with a samurai sword, then kick his friends head against a wall until it bursts. Press your thumbs into a mans eyeballs until he stops struggling, then shoot his dog. If you die, youll do it again. If you succeed, youll do it again on another mission. All Hotline Miami wants from you is that you kill, or be killed, and enjoy doing it. There are hints of something more, but just hints. After each successfully completed mission, it tallies a score based on the method

Killing Spree

Get close to this guy and tear out his throat. Use his baseball bat to kill his dog, wholl run in from offscreen.

1 2 3

1
Punch it

Club it

Wait outside the door and punch this guy out. Take his knife and slit both their throats. Take this guy out with your newly acquired machinegun, and dance on towards the next section of glorious, senseless violence.

Shoot it

3 4 5

and manner of your killing. Get enough points and youll unlock new weaponsninja stars and samurai swords and beer cans and dozens of others. Youll also unlock masks that give your character a special power. Dress like Lassie and dogs wont attack. Slip on a monkey mask and a close-up kill will end with the enemys weapon in your hands. There are also hints at a deeper mystery. Each mission is bookended by brief moments in the protagonists life, including a romance conveyed wordlessly via the changing state of your apartment. There are bizarre conversations with three men in animal masks. And there are the phonecalls, their sources unknown, that request your services. But dont expect answers to these mysteries. Hotline Miami may well just be about the worlds worst temp, mistaking his assignments for a euphemistic incitement to murder. This turns out to be a relief. Too often videogames flail around in an attempt to justify the players actions. Your wife and young child were killed, which justifies Max Paynes rampant bloodlust. Youre Skyrims chosen one and the dragons are attacking, so its probably fine that you kill and steal indiscriminately. At best, these justifications are nothing more than clichs, at worst theyre intellectually dishonest: a mask we wear in front of the world to hide what we arent yet able to explain. In Hotline Miami, youre compelled to murder by nothing more than a phonecall and a propulsive disco beat.

Toss the bat at the machinegun guy, knocking him out.

Throw it

Expect to pay $10 Release Out now Developer Dennaton Publisher Devolver Digital Multiplayer Nope Link hotlinemiami.com

Transgressive like Grand Theft Auto hasnt been for years, Hotline is violent, quick, and compulsive, but lacking in depth.

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I dont think any of this will wash out.

A look into Martins future.

You have to kill the dogs whether they attack or not.

Blood in the bathtub. At least I know theyre bad too. A look into Richs future.

Killing quickly gives you combo bonuses.

Guns for show, thumbs for a pro.

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Hell Yeah!s drillable rocks look delicious. Youd eat that at the funfair.

Slain enemies work for you in a bonus mode youll never remember to use.

Its Casino Night Zone from Sonic 2. Only in the day, so different. Peek-a-boss! I see you!

So, thats how you solve a problem like Maria.

HARE TRIGGER
Need to know
The insane platform adventures of a devil rabbit riding a buzzsaw. Sonic the Hedgehog 2

HELL YEAH! WRATH OF THE DEAD RABBIT is a damned trip by Richard Cobbett
emember when platformers werent all trying to be arty metaphors for life, loss, and all that other fancy crap? If you find a metaphor in Hell Yeah!s relentless assault on your eyes and sanity, its only because its about to get dropkicked by an angry demon rabbit riding a giant spinning death blade with a jetpack on the back. This is one of those games where the design process didnt involve whiteboards and long discussions, but some pharmacists secret stash being ground up and dripped into the artists eyeballs. Youre Ash, disgraced rabbit prince of Hell, on a quest to kill 100 wacky monsters who saw paparazzi photos of you playing with a rubber duckie in the bath. Thats as sane as Hell Yeah! ever gets. Its a game where firing shark missiles is all in a days work. Getting to your enemies is relatively standard platform fare,

What is it?

Influenced by Play it on

2.4GHz CPU, 1GB RAM, DirectX 10 video card Super Meat Boy, 90%

Alternatively
Steam

Copy protection

with the twist that you can often drill through obstacles, boost jump around the place, and acquire different weapons. Actually killing your foes, however, involves playing Warioware-style microgames such as stealing honey from a suspicious bee to unleash an appropriate fatality move, which might be having a dinosaur bite their head off for you. Its the chaos of Earthworm Jim in the levels of Sonic the Hedgehog 2, with a little Ren and Stimpy/Invader Zim thrown in for good measure. Gags and minigames repeat more than they should, but still survive the repetition of gags and minigames repeating more than they should, which both gags and minigames do. The action itself, while enjoyable, soon lets things down. While Hell Yeah! is a fantastic looking game, its one in which more attention was paid to looking good than playing

great. Theres so much going on most of the time that its often hard to take in and get a proper read on the levels and whats going to hurt if you run straight into it. More routinely irritating are the controls, where double-jumps, skids, and simply being knocked back by enemies will often frustrate you. You want an Xbox 360 controller for this one. You could play it with a keyboard, but only in the same sense that technically you could fly if you flapped your arms hard enough. Either way, prepare for unhelpful checkpoints, and the irritations of repeated cutscenes and similar hold-ups soon being promoted to fully-fledged annoyances. They take the shine off the chaos rather than the fun out of it, however, and you soon return to the forward momentum Hell Yeah! needs. The games obvious enthusiasm carries it over these bumps in the road, and if you can forgive, you can easily forget in the race for the next bit of insanity. Hell Yeah! is no platforming classic, but its cheap enough to be worth a try if you like the idea of its craziness, and crazy enough to get your moneys worth long before the end.

Expect to pay $15 Release Out now Developer Arkedo Studios Publisher Sega Multiplayer None Link www.sega.com/games/hell-yeah-wrath-of-the-dead-rabbit

Gory, beautiful chaos, if a little frustratingly rough behind the scenes. A good afternoons chaos, and thats what matters.

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You do realize I cant get you out of there, right?

Your carrier, awaiting your command. The infrequent, tacked-on shooter bits in the campaign disappoint.

Lt. Myrick: a card-carrying member of the Generic Sci-Fi Protagonists Guild. Controlling one vehicle, you can give the others orders via command wheel.

CARRY ON
Need to know
RTS/vehicle combat hybrid set during a futuristic war. Control a mini-army, upgrade your carrier. Carrier Command, unit pathnding in the original StarCraft Intel Core i5 or AMD Phenom X4, 4GB RAM, 1GB video card

Battle enemies and your own AI in CARRIER COMMAND: GAEA MISSION by TJ Hafer
thought I was having an offkilter dream when I heard that the developers of military sim Arma were making a follow-up to Carrier Command, the cheesy 1988 sci-fi game about piloting an aircraft carrier. It turns out I wasnt dreaming, but Gaea Mission isnt quite the dream outcome. Two modes are available: a storybased campaign built around a bland, futuristic war where the sides are mostly differentiated by the color of their units, and a strategy game option that lets you set up your own map, tweaking the difficulty in a variety of ways. Both boil down to capturing and defending islands that provide you with resources to upgrade your carrier and build unitsa fleet of up to eight amphibious walrus tanks and flying manta gunships. The ultimate objective in both cases is to confront and defeat an enemy carrier.

What is it?

Influenced by

Play it on

Alternatively Copy protection

Ruse, 85% Steam

The campaign is a decent tutorial, but burdened by forgettable characters and a story youll often have to be reminded exists. The main focus of Gaea Mission seems to be the strategy mode, which on the surface looks like it will be highly replayable. Theres just one problem: the core tactical mechanics make you want to walk away from your PC and break things. Gaea Mission has some of the worst, Yakety Sax-worthy unit pathfinding Ive seen in years. You can only pilot one vehicle at a time, while your other seven are directed using attack, move, and follow commands. Your vehicles interpretations of these commands are hilarious at first, but eventually made me want to construct scale replicas of each just to take a sledgehammer to them. Often, while piloting a walrus, other walruses (walri?) would drive

directly into a ravine and get stuck, allowing enemy mantas to shoot them like walruses in a barrel. On more than one occasion, they would back up directly into me at full speed as I was lining up a shot, or miss a waypoint by a few inches and neurotically insist on making a sixpoint turn to go back and hit it instead of carrying on Mantas are no smarter. The first time I instructed one to dock with my carrier for repairs, it interpreted that as crash unceremoniously into the ships hull and explode. They often interpret attack commands as hover around with your crosshairs on a target and hold fire until it shoots you down. This is especially irritating considering the jittery manual controls make it almost impossible to hit anything while piloting a manta directly. Multiplayer is woefully and headscratchingly absent. It seems like a no-brainer; the strategic side of the game is almost screaming to be a deep and engaging competitive experience. It would also have enabled competent humans to control all the vehicles in eight-oneight skirmishes, circumventing the awful AI. But no.

Expect to pay $50 Release Out now Developer Bohemia Interactive Publisher In-house Multiplayer None, sadly Link www.carriercommand.com

This much belated franchise-resurrection trips in execution due to unit pathfinding issues and the lack of multiplayer.

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Thisis .Heknows it'shisjobtoteachhissonScotty whatthiswholegamingthingisabout. Theageratinghelpshimpicktheright games,butbeingagooddadmeans healwayswantstoknowmore. ThatsexactlywhattheESRBs ratingsummariesarefor. Searchforagamesrating summaryatESRB.org.

Richard

Lafayette,IN

Darts dont kill guards, but they do get their attention.

Challenge rooms offer highconcept platforming challenges. Dodge between alcoves to avoid the beams.

Fumble a stealth kill and youll alert nearby guards.

This will not lead to a Spider-Manstyle upside-down kiss.

TOP MARKS
Need to know
A 2D stealth game with platforming aspects, from the makers of Shank. Thief, Metal Gear Solid

All done in Dunwall? MARK OF THE NINJA offers an equally well-crafted slice of stealth by Craig Owens
heres a guard in my way. I need to get to the air vent hes stoically defending, and theres about ten yards of well-lit room between him and the shadowshrouded gantry Im hiding in. This is a serious problem. Not because I cant figure out a way to stalk past the dunce and continue on my journey through to the top of this mercenary-infested skyscraper, you understand. Quite the opposite, in fact. There are just so many options at my disposal that Im struggling to choose one. I could use my grappling hook to zip between the light fittings overhead, drop down behind him, and plunge a sword in his back. Quick, clean, and efficient. But a bit dull. A more creative approach involves a spike minea wicked, bear-trap kind of snare that instantly kills anyone who walks across it. If I threw one of those on

What is it?

Influenced by Play it on

2.4GHz CPU, 1.5GB RAM Batman: Arkham City, 89%

Alternatively
Steam

Copy protection

the ground, then threw a dart to smash the lightbulb above it, the guard would come over to investigate, trigger the mine, and find himself a pair of legs short of a fully-functioning bipedal frame. Of course, if I was feeling merciful Id just chuck a smoke bomb at his feet and use the visibility-limiting fumes to sneak by unseen. Mark of the Ninja is an intelligent, unpatronizing game, built on exploitable systems and consistent rules. Its linear but multi-route levels are really just collections of puzzlesheres the room with two guards standing above the vent you enter from; heres the room full of dogs who sniff you out of your hiding spot. You solve them through creative employment of your ninjas bursting utility belt and selection of moves. Its a game unafraid to be empowering: hold Ctrl (or the right trigger if youre using a gamepad),

and time will stop indefinitely, giving you as much peace and quiet as you need to aim that noise-making firecracker or plan your next move. Even more useful, however, is the games visual design. Theres a cartoon crispness to the graphics (which Klei have shown off before in Shank), but Mark of the Ninjas real triumph is the way it conveys information through its art. A neat line-of-sight effect shrouds areas beyond view in murky uncertainty, while the color vanishes from your ninjas garb to show when hes hidden in the dark. The handling of sound is inspired. You can see sound waves emanating from their source, like ripples in a pond, and even view them in advance when aiming toolsletting you meticulously place your distractions or set traps unheard. To preserve challenge, Mark of the Ninja consistently introduces fresh enemy types with skills that counter yours across the course of the fivehour campaign. Even without this, it is an aggressive, emboldening take on stealth. Mark of the Ninja gives power and information to the player, and trusts that you know what to do with them.

Expect to pay $15 Release Out now Developer Klei Entertainment Publisher Microsoft Game Studios Multiplayer None Link www.markoftheninja.com

A stealth game that turns you into a predator rather than prey. Mark of the Ninja is an engaging sandbox of stealth.

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Will Porter tries to save Chris Donlan from a Chryssalid.

THE PC GAMER TEAM

Tony had shot freelancer Phil Savage in the chest

XCOM: ENEMY UNKNOWN TROOPS ARE LIKE LOBSTERS: ITS BEST NOT TO NAME THEM
TOM FRANCIS
This month Named his troops after friends and strangers, then played favorites like an idiot. Also Played Dishonored, Little Inferno

TOM

TJ

GRAHAM

CHRIS

COM starts you with a barracks full of randomly generated soldiers, and you take around five on each mission. But you can also customize them, and one of the things you can customize is their name. So it wasnt long before I heard that production editor Tony had shot freelancer Phil Savage in the chest in Grahams game, that web editor Martin was an unstoppable badass in Richs, and that myself and news ed Tom Senior had earned the nicknames Cash and Crash then died on the same mission. For my game, I called for volunteers on Twitter. Anyone could sign up to have a soldier named after them, and be informed of their fate. Wow, I said as the roster filled up, Im

becoming powerful star players. When a going to have to get a lot of you killed to get friend does survive long enough to level up, through all these names. they become impossibly valuable. I was sad That didnt turn out to be a problem. when my star medic Graham couldnt revive XCOM is brilliant at building up your our former friend Owen, a new recruit. But it attachment to your troops, and equally was even more horrific when Graham brilliant at killing them. And when theyre himself was killed by a Muton two turns dead, theyre gone for good: their name, later. He had actual skills! their unlocked skills, and all your progress in Game designer friend Robin Burkinshaw developing them. was my first sniper, and that combat style The only unique thing about new troops is suited my instinctive caution well. He their name, but because these are real became team leader, star player, and savior names, I found myself being incredibly of many new recruits. When he was killed by biased. Personal friends were VIPs; I ordered a grenade, I was almost in shock. I spent a them straight to heavy cover and moved turn or two not really paying attention, everyone else to defend them. Names I thinking Id have to load an older savegame. know were the next most important would But thats a fast way to ruin XCOM, so I be moved to engage, but not into unknown territory. Thats where I sent the names I was played on. Because I didnt choose who made the least familiar with. Sorry, distant Twitter draft, some good has come of it. I didnt acquaintances. know Kotakus Kirk Youd think that would Hamilton before he signed leave me with a squad of READ ME up, but now that I got him close friends, but the RELEASED October 9, 2012 killed, I feel weve bonded reckless way I use OUR REVIEW PCG 246, 87% over our shared grief. He strangers often leads to BUY IT Steam, $50 MORE www.xcom.com says hell also name one of them leveling faster, and

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JANUARY 2013

Stun FAILED? Ill resent you in real life for this, Rich!

Rich, nooo! I take it back! Not like this! Not like this!

All hail Sir Papercut! Everyone rally on Sir Papercut

KILLING MEN WITH TINY KNIVES IN WAR OF THE ROSES
got to the point where, just to make the experience more challenging, I do things like This month Caused equal try to play entire rounds with only the amounts of rage and rejoicing default dagger. And I still leave a trail of among armored men. corpses in my wake. Also Played Crusader In one such match, a particular player on Kings 2, XCOM: Enemy Unknown the enemy team wielding some kind of giant anime sword was raging quite hard at this fact, and in a show of solidarity, a teammate of mine began filling server chat with ALL or some reason I have never been HAIL SIR PAPERCUT! and EVERYONE great at shooters or deathmatch-type RALLY ON SIR PAPERCUT! games. Its just a fact. If I stick with one Before long, we had a significant portion of them long enough, I can usually claw myself from the bottom of the noob brigade of the team in various states of armoredness charging the enemy objective with their to the middle of the pack, assuming I stay in daggers out, like a giant, clanking precursor practice. But thats about it. to the electric razor. So imagine my surprise when I discovered, Believe it or not, we actually won the from the first moment I jumped into a beta round, too. As someone who lives in a press event, that I kind of destroy everyone country that doesnt knight people, it was in War of the Roses. truly an honor to feel like a Why my natural genuine knight for a day. aptitudes translate so READ ME Even if I was basically much better to the RELEASED October 2012 dubbed for trolling people bludgeoning sword-andOUR REVIEW PCG 246, 77% with the worst weapon in crossbow combat of the BUY IT $35 a game Im too proficient MORE bit.ly/TmP2y9 medieval battlefield, I at for my own good. couldnt tell you. But its

TJ HAFER

In memoriam: Rich.

his soldiers after me, but actually give him good armor. The strangest moment happened in London. Alien Chryssalids were rampaging through the streets, turning civilians into zombies. Since theyre good friends in real life, Id paired up freelance writers Chris Donlan and Will Porter as my lead fire team. They stuck close as they moved out, taking cover behind burned-out cars. A few turns in, a Chryssalid leapt out of nowhere and skewered Chris in one blow. Will went into a panic, firing so wildly he missed the alien right in front of him. But my new star sniper Sam Carelse stayed cool and shot it from across the street. For one turn, that was the end of it. But then Chris got up, scarred with alien tissue, and lurched towards Will. Sam was out of ammo, and Wills assault rifle was empty. All he could do was switch to his pistol and shoot his friend three times in the face before being mauled to death. Back in real life, Will had just tweeted to Chris: Coffee/lunch tomorrow? I wont tell them just yet.

Behold! The man with two left eyes.

Welcome to the Middle Ages. Would you like some rain with your mud?

JANUARY 2013

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NOW PLAYING
This is probably me scoring.

The games we love, right now

This is definitely me scoring. This is Rich failing to make a save.

Crap, watch out for that ball!

Folks come by to mock us for the jocks weve become

FIGHTING AGAINST (SOME) SOCCER STEREOTYPES IN FIFA 13
GRAHAM SMITH
This month Bought a patterned dressing gown and hoped people would call him Statto. Also Played Dishonored

eople have been dismissing Football Manager as a spreadsheet for decades. FIFA wasnt like that, until Rich and I made it that way. We play FIFA every day at lunch, and sometimes after work, and sometimes late at night at home, and sometimes on weekends. It started innocently: Hey, FIFA 12 is good on PC now. Lets try it. Its since become a part of our lives somewhere between comfort game and lifedestroying addiction. On one hand, its immensely satisfying to play. On the other hand, none of our friends or partners respect us anymore. The problem is that, before this, I spent a year playing Supreme Commander every day

at lunch, while Rich fought his way to the top we note down our teams, the score, and a of various StarCraft II ladders. We had to few passive-aggressive comments in a abandon all that PC geek credibility when growing Google Document. Its a diary of our we traded infinitely complex strategy games lives over these past few months, with colorfor Wayne Rooneys screaming maw. coded winners and losers. Thats the best How we played FIFA has continued to kind of diary. evolve despite the scorn. At first, it was From CS Sedan vs Koln (2 - 4), on the 3rd simple friendlies, each of us selecting a of September, Koln 3-0 up with ten minutes team of equivalent quality. Then we started to go. Sedan score two, miss a penalty. Koln using the games randomize function to get a penalty and score it to end the match. create impossible draws: Russia vs Galway From Cameroon vs Blackburn Rovers on the United (3 - 0), Cesena vs Stevenage (3 - 2), 6th (3 - 2), Etoo gets two, lays off the third. and so on. Is a magic man. The spreadsheet gives When we realized the games random context to our matches, like a global button delivered the same six teams, again campaign map linking each individual and again, we started closing our eyes skirmish. It also provides plenty of evidence before selecting. Then, when Euro 2012 to fuel our incessant office bickering. happened, we mirrored the real Now when folks come by from other tournaments group stages, and crafted our magazines to mock us for the jocks weve own alternate history where Czech Republic become, we open up our spreadsheet and won the tournament. talk them through whos Afterwards, we couldnt winning our two-man READ ME go back to standalone league. They quickly RELEASED September 25, 2012 matches. Thats how the realize their mistake. Find OUR REVIEW PCG 246, 86% spreadsheet was born. out whose on top now at BUY IT $40 After every game we play, bit.ly/pcg-fifa. MORE www.ea.com/fifa-soccer-13

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I have two sleeping, man-sized problems

MISLAYING BEST-LAID PLANS IN DISHONORED
CHRIS THURSTEN
This month Ensured that his target never knew what hit him by having no idea what he was doing. Also Played XCOM: Enemy Unknown

am crouched in the basement of the Yep, Im pretty sure theyve seen me. Office of the High Overseer, and I have two problems. Two sleeping, man-sized problems. One is Campbell, the High Curnow here, however, hell be helpless so I Overseerthe man Im here to kill. The other need to get him out of the building. Earlier in is Curnow, captain of the guard and target of the mission I was spotted, and now the an assassination plot of his own. I followed upstairs corridors are being patrolled by both men down here when Campbells alert Overseers. As I see it, I can probably attempt on Curnows life failed. Then, discretely move one of these bodies. Except fearing that Id be too late to stop his second Ive never been one to back down from a try, I shot both men with stupid challenge. tranquilizer darts. I manage to get both READ ME If I can get Campbells men up the stairs by RELEASED October 8, 2012 body to the interrogation teleporting back and OUR REVIEW PCG 246, 92% room, I can brand him as a forth, stashing one of BUY IT Steam, $60 heretic without having to them while I pop back to MORE www.dishonored.com take his life. If I leave grab the other. I hide

Curnow in a corner and get ready to deliver Campbell to his fate. Then I turn a corner and run smack into a pair of Overseers coming the other way. They give chase and I realize that Im not going to be able to finish this the non-lethal waynot if I want to save Curnow. Still carrying Campbell, I blink onto the window ledge. I slow time, chuck Campbells body into the void, turn, blink, and grab the guard captain. As the High Overseer smacks into the pavement, Im hoofing it to the exit unconscious man over my shoulder, thoroughly confused guards in tow.

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Free games stuff from the web

It happened again? What are the chances?

MOD NOSTALGIA CASCADE EVENT

1 BLACK MESA

2 FTL MODS
MODS TWEAKS FOR THE SPACE -BASED ROGUELIKE

irst announced in 2004, Black Mesa slow intro feels vast, and is full of clever was a response to Half-Life: Source, dialogue and in-jokes. When the crap hits Valves own port of their classic 1998 the anti-mass spectrometer, the fallout is FPS to their newfangled Source engine. genuinely harrowing. HL: Source upgraded the physics and the What follows is recognizably Half-Life. lighting, but to the annoyance of players left Vents. Crouch-jumping. The bit with the the textures untouched. tentacle monster. The bit where you mess Completely rehauling the game was an up endless security guards by using them as ambitious project for a mod team, and for a human shields, and all the bits where a long time dismissed as vaporware. Eight creepy guy in a suit watches you from afar. years later, Black Mesa is out and delivering Its great, and comfortingly familiar despite on its vision of Gordon Freemans first the small changes. adventure presented with the The AI is better and theres an fidelity of his last. awesome, completely original The game covers soundtrack. Purists can PHIL SAYS... everything from the rightfully argue that its not I sympathize with anyone opening monorail ride into a replacement for the trying to make the facility, through the original, but its a staggering the Xen space resonance cascade and up example of what a mod baby scary. to... well, up to the portal to team can achieve. the world of Xen, but not Xen The game is due to arrive on itself. Thats due in a separate Steam as part of Valves game. It seems not even eight years Greenlight program at some point in is long enough to make that section the future. Until then, it can be downloaded enjoyable to play. as a mod for the 2007 Source SDK, which is a Not merely a faithful recreation, Black free download for every Steam user in the Mesa changes the size and geometry of the tools section of the library. PS facility to convey the scale of the place. The www.blackmesasource.com
84 JANUARY 2013

eres a selection of mods for the oh God, everythings on re simulator FTL. Each installs with the community-built Grognaks Mod Manager.
bit.ly/FTLGMM PS PIRATES! Gives you a new ship, new weapons, and new events. Also the in-game text is updated with plenty of arrs, avasts, and ahoys. bit.ly/FTL-1 HI-RES BACKGROUND Swaps the pixelated old backdrops for crisp new versions that dont distract from the res and the breaches and the dying. bit.ly/FTL-2 DISABLE FLEET In space, no one can see you turn down the difculty. With no pursuing rebels, youre free to explore at your leisure. bit.ly/FTL-3 EXTREME DIFFICULTY Or you can increase the difculty because I dont know, maybe youre insane? Less crew, less HP, less energy, more dying horribly. bit.ly/FTL-4

The sickly green of the Parasitic Heap.

3
BIOMES O PLENTY
MOD MAKE MINECRAFT FEEL NEW AGAIN
Evil genius? Why not build on the Volcano biome?

inecrafts biome algorithm is what makes its worlds come alive. The patchwork collection of terrain types creates a unique and explorable land. But what do you do when youve seen everything the

game has to generate? Install Biomes O Plenty. It takes the more-is-more approach to development by adding 60 new landscapes to pick from. Youll see huge Alpine ranges, sparkly ice trees, prairie lands, quagmires, dried wastelands,

red rock deserts, and swampy bayous, to list just a few of the astonishing locales. Theres even a parasitic disease that can spread throughout the land if you venture too far into the infected areas. Yay! PS bit.ly/BMSoP

4 XOUT
FREEWARE CATASTROPHE IS CUBED IN LD24S WINNING GAME

5
GREY CUBES These swarm the level. Your job is less about keeping them at bay, more about creating a tiny corridor to move through.

he overall winner of Ludum Dare 24, which had evolution as its theme, was X0uta side-scrolling shooter where shooting power-ups upgrades your ship and being hit devolves it back again. Battling the hordes of cubes is a frantic, enjoyable challenge that takes a lot of skill to complete. PS bit.ly/LDx0ut

COMPANION CUBES Large ashing cubes that upgrade your laser when shot. The big challenge is getting to them through the swarm.

EXO
MUSIC ELECTRIC AVENUES

BLUE CUBE This is you. Constant ring and quick reaction times are your only hope. Devolve completely and youre dead.

B A C

n the fearsome battle for attention-grabbing music videos, electro-outt Gatekeeper has hit upon a more novel idea than most. To promote its debut album Exo, the group has released an interactive music visualizer that accompanies the full album with explorable landscapes and vignettes. Theres kaleidoscopic cyberpunk, barren green deserts, barren red deserts, colorful forests, underwater ruins, industrial space stations, and intergalactic fly-bys. In places the lighting and environment pulse to the music. The visual panache is amazing; the scope of the landscapes and post-processing effects create beauty despite generally low-res textures. Your interaction is limited to just wandering about, and your enjoyment is going to depend a large part on likingor at least tolerating Gatekeepers brand of old-school electro, but the spectacle on show more than justifies the free download. Dubstep version next? PS www.e-x-o.com

JANUARY 2013

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Man, I suck at the Not Being Shot event.

A NATION OF WIND
FREEWARE NOT JUST HOT AIR

his is a god sim in which you pilot a lone airship around oating islands besieged by monsters. Each level contains obelisks that you capture by building four temples around them. Those temples cost a lot in resources, so first you must create a full industry to power your obeliskoppressing empire. Buildings can increase your gold, food, stone, and wood, which you must periodically collect to creep towards your target. Each temple represents a different element, granting magic that affects both units and the island youre terraforming. In sparse areas, Earth magic can create new land, but sometimes youre better off going for the damage-dealing, lake-drying Fire to increase your real estate and keep monsters at bay. You can also attack enemies with your airship, using a variety of location-specific weaponry. Youre too weak for a sustained direct assault against multiple enemies, though, so your other major task is building a standing defense of walls and turrets. Its a lot to juggle, but with only one unit to control, the challenge is balanced nicely between arcade shooting, civil planning, and hurried repairs. PS bit.ly/ANoWPC

7 REALISTIC SUMMER
A

SPORTS SIMULATOR
FREEWARE PERFORM MENTAL GYMNASTICS

Olym... er, an unspecified international set of weights rest on the floor. Next athletics competition. Each of the 15 sports to them my pixelated athlete waits has been run through the mind of Justin expectantly. OK, relax, weve Smith, the creator of Enviro-Bear 2000, and practiced for this. I click the weights and is now something very different. slowly drag upwards. A yellow line Each event is controlled by extends, and starts to pull the clicking and dragging someone weights up. The screen flashes or something. Youll fling Clean. Good start. PHIL SAYS... horses upsidedown into The screen flashes Jerk. A missed fences, boats miles into the Its referring to the final opportunity to liven up air, divers into anything but stage of a weightlifters dressage. the pool below them, and maneuver, but may as well see the word Fault flash mean me. Its all gone onscreen over and over again. wrong, the weights come Not finishing as the bottom down at an uncontrollable nation is a task of truly Olympian angle, knocking my athlete off his magnitude. Its deliberately obtuse, but podium and the podium flying into the air. absolutely hilarious because of it. PS Realistic Summer Sports Simulator is a bit.ly/RSSSPC collection of sporting events based on the

8
86 JANUARY 2013

THIEF 2 V1.19
PATCH BRINGING THIEF TO THE MODERN AGE

heres nothing like a fan patch with a bit of mystery to it. On September 24, Le Corbeau posted a link to an unofficial 1.19 patch on a French Thief 2 community forum. There was no hype, no warning, but if the patch did what it claimed, it would be an amazing boon for a game that increasingly struggles to cope with modern systems. It did exactly what it claimed. The headline changes are full resolution support, 32-bit color, a plethora of bug fixes, and an update to audio and video files to work with modern

codecs. Thief 2 looks crisper, runs more smoothly and no longer requires you to pretend to have a single-core CPU. Beyond the immediate benefits, theres another reason for readers of these pages to be excited. DromEd, the Thief 2 mission editor, has also received a huge number of improvements, giving the game a new lease on life for mapmakers looking to try something more ambitious. The community has rallied behind the patch, and hopefully well see the fruits of their experiments in the coming months. PS
bit.ly/T2-119

SURVIVAL PHENOMENON NOW HAS MODS OF ITS OWN

MAPS ARMA 2S ZOMBIE

9 DAYZS NEW ISLANDS

MIDDENS
FREEWARE COLLAGE OF CRAZY

ith DayZs future as a standalone game now secured, creator Dean Rocket Hall has given the community his blessing to create mods within his Arma 2 zombie mod. Here are three unofficial maps that each drastically change the tone of the game through simple changes to the worlds ecosystem. Installing them manually can be a pain. Instead, download DayZ Commander (bit.ly/ DayZC), a tool for installing, patching, and launching the game. The update screen contains a selection of community maps you can download and install with a click. Search by map name in the server browser and DayZ Commander will return a list of compatible and working servers. PS

S
The most popular alternative map, Lingor is a tropical island with a South American avor. Its slightly smaller than Chernarus, and full of open, lootable buildings that makes survival less desperate a struggle than it is in the original mod. Youll get basic weapons and tools quickly, which perhaps explains the popularity. One slight problem: so will everyone else. With more military bases providing military-grade loot to survivors, the chance of ambush from well-armed gangs is high. The rewards for successfully prospering in this snake pit, however, are commensurately greater.

LINGOR ISLAND

Unlike Lingor, Takistan is much more focused on exploring, navigating, and gathering. Its a mountainous desert environment pulled from Arma 2s ofcial maps. With no coast to spawn on, the rst problem is nding your bearings. There are fewer trees and buildings to lose zombies in, loot is rare, and the long unbroken view of the landscape makes for a snipers heaven. Takistan is the map for people who love a harsh early game.

TAKISTAN

Utes is more akin to the eastern European landscape of Chernarus, but where Chernarus is a large 14x12km area, Utes is a comparatively tiny 5km2 island. There are two towns, one military base, and a whole load of zombies and other players around them. This is essentially DayZ in arcade mode. Encounters are frequent, as players are directed towards the few loot-containing buildings that exist. Dont get attached to your character.

UTES

ome things to know about the game called Middens: One. Its an exploration RPG made in RPG Maker and features NPCs and turn-based battles. However, while accurate, that sentence doesnt describe what Middens actually is at all. Two. Your companion is a sentient talking gun, who licks her lips at the thought of you murdering people with her. Sultry yet sinister, shes nevertheless your Virgil in this Dantes Acid Flashback of a journey. Three. There is a robot who will save your game and, apparently, clear your name against slander. You can shoot him. You shouldnt shoot him. He cant save your game if hes dead. Four. Your enemies in the turnbased battles use special moves, such as pleading for their life or reciting a death poem to announce their impending departure from the world. Five (and counting). God, its weird. Delightfully, surprisingly so. Its a midden of hallucinatory sketches woven together into something eerie, funny, contemplative, and compelling. Im not sure if theres any point to it. I dont think there needs to be. PS bit.ly/Middens

MACHINIMA
SCOUT VERSUS WITCH
The output from Valves Source Filmmaker is still pretty Team Fortress 2 heavy, but as time passes machinimists are working out how to get interesting results from other Source engine games. That means one thing: crossovers. Here, one of the TF2 team members nds themselves in the zombied world of Left 4 Dead. PS
bit.ly/SFM-SvW

Infected go about their everyday business: swarming, growling, clawing, gnawing on tasty human flesh. That is, until a sportssock wearing foot kicks its way into the world in a dramatic explosion of gore.

A normal day

Its the Scout. Our hero(?) starts to show off in front of the Witch and her friends, proving that, yes, even in the nightmarish world of a future zombie apocalypse, the Scout would still be a colossal douchebag.

A disturbance

Understandably unimpressed, the Witch summons everything from a Hunter to a Half-Life headcrab zombie. The resulting sequence is a superb side-on action set- piece of choreographed violence.

A challenge

With the Infected defeated, the Scout turns his attentions on the Witch, watched over by Gnome Chomsky in a cameo appearance. As her head flies off, the Scout emerges victorious. Or does he?

A reckoning

JANUARY 2013

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UPDATE

THE EXILE RETURNS

KNIGHTS OF THE OLD REPUBLIC II IS FINALLY FINISHED by Richard Cobbett
Obsidian had planned for KotOR II rather than adding its own content. Because of this, there arent many obvious changes to KotOR II after installing it. The opening section on Peragus Mining Facility is still so boring that it could use itself to mine tungsten, the graphics and interface both feel as old as they are, and most of the individual patch notes are things like Fixed an Atton influence line, Added line for Miras cutscene and, of course, the crucial Fixes green tint on Kreias hood. But there are larger additions. For example, the game originally had a section in a factory that was

Whats new in the biggest games

hile Knights of the Old Republic II isnt the best Star Wars game ever released, its easily the bravest and the smartest. Where others have leapt at the chance to explore George Lucas universe and play with its iconic characters and races, KotOR II takes a scalpel to them. Its the story of a Jedi Exile returning to the universe with a crew of misfits, READ ME murderers, and other folk who basically hate each others guts. FIRST REVIEWED This isnt simply a story, though, its PCG 146, 87% a brutal, brutal deconstruction of DEVELOPER Star Wars morality, The Force, and Obsidian everything else that bugged PUBLISHER LucasArts designer Chris Avellone. Originally REQUIRES pitched as a regular sequel, it Pentium III, 256MB ended up being closer to the RAM, 32MB 3D card Planescape: Torment of space. LINK www.lucasarts.com Sadly, what KotOR II is mostly COMMUNITY remembered for is being rushed bit.ly/MQq8Ii out for Christmas in hideously unfinished form. For most of the game you can ignore this, bar a few bugged moments or rushed bits that stand out as odd rather than broken. On the last planet, though, theres no missing it. Your huge squad of hangers-on are lucky if their stories end on a damp squib instead of a cliffhanger or simply being dropped. Its really awful.

Mod is about repair, not rebuilding. Occasionally it goes a little too far, with content that feels cut for a reason beyond time pressure, but for the most part its a completely seamless upgrade to a better, more finished-feeling game. One thing not listed in the patch notes, though, is that, somewhat suspiciously, KotOR II is finally available through Steam. This may be pure coincidence, but its certainly convenient: KotOR II deserves to be played, and if you missed it back at release, theres never been a better time to do so. If you do get it on Steam, installing The

Secret plans

What players soon discovered was that poking around in the PC version revealed a treasure trove of What Was Meant To Bein particular, big chunks of the real ending. The conspicuous gaps turned out to have been filled at one point by scenes that were cut but left in the game files, often unfinished. Several groups set out to figure out where these pieces fitted in. The Sith Lords Restored Content Mod is currently the only one to declare itself finished. While it does make some tweaks and bug-fixes, its focus is on restoring what

churning out assassin-bots. As fan-favorite character HK-47, youd have infiltrated it to either destroy it or take control of its armies. It was cut from the game, but enough remained to reimplement it here. Another area, the droid planet M4-78, only offered a few leftover scraps to work with, so it has been left out. The team is building its own version from near-scratch, but as a side project that will never be integrated into The Restored Content Mod itself. Purists might prefer to play without it, but itll be fully compatible if you want to install it. Some of the new scenes do help the plot. A droid stand-off that originally had no resolution is now finished when assassinbot HK-47 shows up to break the stalemate. Your love interest at the end of the game at least gets a quick moment with the Exile before everyone faces their destiny. Fundamentally, though, its the same story, told in the same way. The Restored Content

Kreia is nothing short of a middle finger to the likes of Obi-Wan and Darth Vader

KREIAS ADVICE A beggar asks for money. What do you do?

Give him money Give him the back of your hand

Kreia tuts. How will he ever learn to stand on his own two feet like that? Also, he immediately gets mugged for that money. You naive clod.

Kreia tuts. Such vulgar cruelty is unbecoming. Also, he immediately goes and beats up someone else in response. You arrogant jerk.

Restored Content Mod is straightforward. First, though, right-click it in Steam, go to Properties > Updates, and check that its set to always keep this game up to date. When you install the Restored Content Mod, point it to your Steam\steamapps\common\ Knights of the Old Republic II folder. If you have a non-Steam version of KotOR II, make sure that its patched up to version 1.0b before you install the mod. If youre in the US, you can grab that here: bit. ly/K2PatchUS. Otherwise, you have to get the 1.0a patch first for reasons that surpass understandingyou can get it here: bit.ly/ K2Patch. Once youre patched up, the mod itself is easier: the default install folder should be correct. Youll see a new launch screen when you start the game if nothings gone wonky. Expect clunkiness, to be sure. But when it comes to what mattersthe storyline and the scriptits the ideal RPG for people who love Star Wars and want to dig a little deeper, and for people who want to see it picked apart. Its mentor character, an elderly woman called Kreia, is nothing short of a middle finger to the likes of Obi-Wan and Darth Vader, and to some extent, Lucas himself. Shes a mix of wise sage and evil mother-in-law who approaches the Force from a perspective of sheer moral nihilism. If youve already finished KotOR II and know all this already, however, its probably not worth a second spin-through unless youve been meaning to do so anyway. Its an RPG you definitely want to play at least once, though, and one thats lucky to have had friends like these.

DA

SID

RK

HT

SID

LIG

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Did anyone just see a funny blue box overtake us?

Darth Sion, Lord of Pain. Cheery folk, these Sith lords.

Swoop Racing: possibly the dullest mini-game ever. Bar Pazaak.

So do I just stick my thumb out, or what?

The opening mission is endless, dull agony. Stick with it. It gets better. Dancing Twilek girlsStar Wars really needs some new fun.

Run! Before I set my granny on you!

Star Wars mentors tend to die early, but dont expect too much grief.

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10 TEXT REINSTALL
TOP
Youre never not Wing Commander, even as a rookie. Its endearing.

Classics revisited

Even by modern standards, its above and beyond the call of duty
FORM UP AND FRAG SOME KITTIES IN WING COMMANDER II by Richard Cobbett
ed alert! Red alert! When the Kilrathi attack the TCS Concordia, you dont get a briefing screen that says So, were under attack by seven-foot cat aliens. Click here to continue. Theres no level or mission number on the screen, or a choice of difficulty. You just get feet smashing against the bulkhead, sirens and red lights blaring as you and your fellow pilots race into your ships and blast off in the full knowledge that if you fail, therell be no carrier left to land on. And thatll really put a downer on tonights poker game. Wing Commander is the saga of a pilot who you could initially name whatever you wanted, but became READ ME canonically known as Blair as a mocking reference to his blue hair, FIRST REVIEWED N/A destined to become hero of the DEVELOPER Terran Confederation in its darkest Origin hour. The first game was a PUBLISHER cinematic masterpiece in 1990, Origin with this sequel upping the ante in RELEASE every respect for 1991. It blew 1991 everyone away at the time... or at least, everyone who could run it. Developer Origin had complete contempt for system specifications, and while its official studio motto was We Create Worlds, it might as well have been Your PC Probably Cant Run This.
90 JANUARY 2013

is especially enjoyable, even if its weighed Even by modern standards, Wing down by a script that seriously includes the Commander II goes above and beyond the line God, I love that boys spunk... . call to make you part of the navy. There are Whats unusual about Wing Commanders funerals for fallen pilots, for instance, and take on space is just how depressing it can lots of time is spent hanging out with other pilots and crew aboard your assigned carrier, be. There are heroics, yes, and its a sprawling space epic of betrayals, the TCS Concordia. Everyone has a friendship, and space cats with voices that personality, both in and out of the cockpit. will make you beg for a lozenge after a while. Take Spirit, your first wingman in the However its odd to start a sequel not seriesa classically helpful, reliable as a war hero, but as The Coward fighter whenever you fly with her. of KTithrak Mang, picking up Her eventual suicide therefore RICHARD SAYS... after Blair has spent the last means that much more if Best space sim ten years on the bench due you manage to get her ever? Nah. Best to the Tigers Claw carrier through the first game in series? Its in with ship being blown up by one piece, as well as forever a shot, though nostalgia stealth fighters nobody else changing the relationship goggles believes in. Of course, theyre between Blair and his help. real, but a running theme still commander, Angelthat fact emerges. Every time youre sent subsequently starting WC3 off out alone, you fight them. Every time with a real bang. you fight them, your black box mysteriously malfunctions before you get home. Did he just say that? That alone adds a lot of spice to the While the first game had similar character, it game, with Blair not only having to earn the didnt have a vast amount of actual plot. respect of his colleagues, but you having to Wing Commander II sets out as one of the make sure it works out. Wing Commander most cinematic, plot-obsessed action has a branching mission system where your games everif you dont count its sequels, performance directly affects the war which swapped the hand-drawn characters effortthe bad path ultimately leading to and cutscenes for FMV starring the likes of a suicidal last stand. This kind of thing Mark Luke Skywalker Hamill and Tom Not Luke Skywalker Wilson. Wing Commander III simply isnt done in games any more, not

Remember to request docking permission, or a crash will follow.

Shouldnt these helmets have glass in them? Over.

Deploy laser pointers! If that fails, start stockpiling catnip!

I have a strange urge to ask her to check my R2 unit. This funeral seems... less than safe...

Blast! Theyre immune to even our bounciest rubber balls!

least because of the cost of making all that content that people will just go back to a saved game to avoid. Text being cheap though, Wing Commander pulled it off. Ive not mentioned much of the actual game yet, and theres a reason for that. During the 90s there was a big fight between Wing Commander and X-Wing/TIE Fighter fans over who had the best game. Cinematically, Wing Commander clinched it. As a space shooter, there was no competitioneven from the other side of the great divide, the Star Wars games had what it took. Since then, Wing Commanders action has aged badly, with its universe made up of scaled sprites rather than polygonal 3D, and an AI that thinks its in a jousting tournament rather than a dogfight. Its borderline unplayable these days, and unthinkable that it was once king of the genre. The human element remains effective though, and shows just how sterile most games are. Theres something satisfying about landing after a mission and having the engineer, a girl called Sparks, shoot the breeze and tally your kills via a conversation instead of just having it added to a variable somewhere. Likewise, you dont get to make any actual conversation decisions (until Wing Commander III), but the amount of

THE PATH TO VICTORY Every mission counts. Almost.

DEFEAT DEFEAT DEFEAT DEFEAT

Declining expectations

Ghorah Khar

Novaya Kiev

Tesla

Gwynedd

Gwynedd

Ghorah Khar

Heavens Gate

Enigma

VICTORY!

Niven

Novaya Kiev

Tesla

KTithrak Mang

KEY Victory

Defeat

Doesnt matter

DEFEAT

time you spend with everyone does so much to turn the war from a simple series of missions into something with actual impact and repercussions on a wider scale. Even the mighty Freespace 2the best space sim of all timelargely failed at this by never letting its characters be more than just Alpha 1 and Alpha 2. Here, you quickly start sharing Blairs frustration at everyone refusing to believe in stealth fighters... although in fairness, this is countered by wishing hed just buy a damn camcorder to prove it. Throw in murders, sabotage, a little romance, and the introduction of one of the

series best characters, turncoat Kilrathi Hobbes, and the main game and its expansions add up to an extremely enjoyable space epic. Without nostalgia, though, WC3 is the game to go back to. Its tough to start with WC2, to put it mildly, unless youre going to use the cheat that lets you instantly blow up enemy ships and play it for the story. To save a trip to Google, start the game with wc2. exe Origin -k, and press Alt + Del. On the plus side, you wont need to make a trip to your local hardware provider. Twenty years later, your PC almost certainly can run it.
JANUARY 2013 91

Origin EON11-S
$1,486 www.originpc.com

heres an easy way to describe Origins EOS11-S: Netbook-size without the netbook suck. Sure, those $300 netbooks filled a certain need when the world was on the verge of financial collapse but to gamers, they were like a hard kick in the pants. Enter Origins EOS11-S. This mini notebook may look like the typical anemic netbook but its ten times faster if not more than the typical netbook. How can something so small be so fast? Reading the spec sheet on the EOS11-S is a bit like popping the hood on a 427 cubic-inch Shelby Cobrainside you find nothing less than a quad-core Core i7-3720QM Ivy Bridge processor, 8GB of DDR3/1600, a 256GB Samsung 830 SSD and the cherry on top: A GeForce GT 650M GPU. Discrete graphics in a tiny 11-inch

notebook arent pioneering. Alienware bagged accolades for its M11X but the company gave up on the footprint in favor of bigger gaming notebooks. Those left heartbroken by the lack of updated hardware in an 11-incher can find solace in the EON11-S. In performance terms, the EON11-S is smokingly fast for something its size. Hell, its fast compared to some notebooks twice its size. Your nongaming apps will also fly thanks to the quad-core chip that seems to have no problems running in Turbo at 3.4GHz all day long. There is a cost to all this firepower though, but not necessarily where youd expect it. The notebook is surprisingly affordable when you consider whats under the hood at about $1,500. Where it gets painful is in heat. Keeping the discrete graphics card and quad-core CPU cool requires a fan running at high speeds

when under a load. The noise isnt shrill, but it will register on your ears. Worse than the noise though is the never-ending heat that spits on the starboard side of the notebook. If you plan to use it literally on your lap, you should consider Nomex pants. We also take issue with the power brick which is literally the size of a brick. Despite this, were tickled pink by the amount of performance the EOS11-S can pack into such a compact package. Are there compromises? Sure, but wed take them all to get into a notebook thats this fast and this tiny.

The EON11-S offers real gaming capability in a tiny package. Expect heat and fan noise, but this is the best small gaming laptop.

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SPEC CPU Core i7 RAM 8GB DDR3/1600 GPU GeForce GT 650M plus integrated Intel HD4000 Storage 26GB Samsung 830 SSD OS 64-bit Windows 7 Home Premium STALKER: CoP 39.9 Unigine 3.0 32.2 Unigine 3.0 32.2 3DMark 11 P2480 DIRT 2 47.1 PCMark 7 4,324 Game resolutions are run at native resolution of 1366x768 High to Ultra detail

GET THE PC YOUR GAMES DESERVE

PROCESSORS
Mammoth octo-core CPU or slimline dual core? Which is the right CPU for your gaming PC? by Dave James

GROUP TEST

HOW WE TESTED

Computational performance > A measure of how quickly a CPU can process a given task. Cinebench uses a CPUintensive image renderer to test both single- and multithreaded performance. The X264 benchmark tests the speed at which the chip can encode HD videoalso a great multi-threading test. Gaming performance > Batman: Arkham City was used on its lowest possible

settings, at 1920x1080, to take the GPU out of the equation so that any difference is purely down to CPU performance. The built-in CPU benchmark in Total War: Shogun 2 was also used. Overclocking > Whether you want to squeeze the most out of your CPU or not, its worth knowing the limits of your chosen chip. Only an off-the-shelf cooler and some very basic overclocking techniques were used to achieve the overclock results.

Core i5 3570K
$230 Intel
he choice of a Core i5 3570K CPU for the PC Gamer Rig was no accident, and the fact that its been in our PC for so long is testament to what a quality processor it is. Transistor for transistor, the 3570K is hands-down the best processor for a gaming PC right now. If youve got the ready cash then this Ivy Bridge CPU will be a perfect fit for your new rig. And those price concerns are the only possible bumps in the road I can see for this impressive slab of silicon. The total platform cost of going for an i5 processor with a decent motherboard, such as the Gigabyte

Why not visit www.techradar.com to nd the latest, best prices.

GET MORE!

The i5 3570K is the perfect choice for the all-round gaming PC of today
Z77 weve got it paired with in the Rig, will run you around $350. Thats a fair chunk of cash if youve only got a limited budget. And if you are trying to build on the cheap then maybe Intel isnt the way to gofull AMD setups can be much cheaper. And it also means you can spend a little more cash on a better graphics card to offset any dropoff in CPU performance. But these are just niggling financial worries. The fact is, the 3570K is a great value chip considering the mammoth performance you can get

out of it and despite Intel having needlessly chopped hyperthreading out of the equation for marketing reasons, it still has remarkable straightline CPU speed in those four Ivy Bridge cores. So if your PC use is split between gaming and other productivity tasks, know that this is also a great all-around chip. When you consider that its only $20 more expensive than AMDs top chipa little less than that, in fact and is the second tier of Intels Ivy Bridge lineup, you can see the dominance Intel has. That also shows in the single-threaded performance of the Intel chip: more than 50-percent faster than the best AMD chip. Thats a good metric for general gaming performance. But what of that K series moniker? Well, that means this chip has an unlocked multiplier, while the straight i5-3570 is a little cheaper but totally locked down. What does the multiplier get you? About a 1.4GHz boost in clock speed if you opt for a quality motherboard and get busy

with the overclocking. The cheap Gigabyte board in the PC Gamer Rig could probably still give you at least another 1GHz. The hyper-threading of the higher caste i7-3770K will come into play in terms of Photoshop or Sonys Vegas Pro, but when slashing throats in Dunwall it will offer very little extra performance, if any, for the extra $90 youd have to pay. In the end then, the i5-3570K is the perfect choice for the all-round gaming PC of today. And the upcoming Haswell chip is going to have to be something special to make us think differently.

An excellent all-round processoras good in games as it is at throwing HD video files around. One hell of an overclocker, too.

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SPEC Technology Intel Ivy Bridge Socket Intel LGA 1155 Cores 4 Threads 4 Clock speed 3.4GHz Max turbo 3.8GHz Lithography 22nm Max TDP 77W Graphics Intel HD 4000 Cache 6MB Smart Cache

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FX-6200
$140 AMD

ere I just looking at CPU performance in isolation, these latest AMD processors wouldnt get a mention. Such tests are important in a lab environment when youre trying to figure out empirically which CPU is the most powerful, but in the real world components dont work in isolation. Your CPU, motherboard, and graphics card are all inextricably linked, if not in strict performance terms, then at least in terms of financial constraints. For gamers, its not straightline processor performance that matters most. If your CPU is powerful enough to feed your GPU, thats sufficient. Its for this reason I havent included the server-based Core i7-3970X beast of a chip. That is the most powerful desktop CPU for the consumer market, but those six cores of Sandy Bridge E silicon dont really add up to any extra performance in-game. And the cost of chip and X79 motherboard combined is

astronomical. So thats where AMDs six-core chip, the FX-6200, comes in to the equation. While it gets crushed by the top Intel chips in most of the CPU tests, it will give you enough performance to comfortably feed your graphics card. Its also the same price as Intels cheapo i3 range, but with far better multi-threaded performance than those dual-core chips. Compared to the i5, youre saving around $90 off your total platform costs, and that makes a lot of difference when it comes to buying a graphics card the difference between dropping a HD 7870 or an HD 7950 into your final build. In framerate terms thats going to make a big difference. The quad-core AMD FX chip is cheaper still, if only by around $15, and the two extra threads will eventually come into play and give you some decent productivity performance should you ever decide to do something other than play awesome PC games.

If youre on a budget then, the FX-6200 is a bargainits got better multi-threaded performance than the i3-3225 for the same price. If you want to overclock, I managed to hit a massive 4.8GHz without really trying. At that speed its suddenly almost competitive with the i5 in CPU performance.

Lacks the raw processing chops of the pricier Intel chips, but what you save on costs you can drop into your graphics card.

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SPEC Technology AMD Bulldozer Socket AMD AM3+ Cores 6 Threads 6 Clock speed 3.8GHz Max Turbo 4.1GHz Lithography 32nm Max TDP 125W Graphics N/A Cache 6MB L2, 8MB L3

A10-5800K
$130 AMD

his AMD chip is the most modern piece of silicon in this test. The A10-5800K is so advanced its not even classed as a CPU. Or at least, its not classed as a CPU by AMD. It belongs to the new Trinity range of what AMD is calling APUs, or accelerated processing unitsa combination of general CPU and specialized graphics components. By that definition, of course, all the Ivy Bridge CPUs from Intel with integrated graphics can be called APUs too. But I digress. This second generation of AMD APUs includes the new Bulldozer CPU architecture. Weve seen the basics of this in the current FX chips, but Trinity comes with a slight architectural change-up, codenamed Piledriver. This is my first look at the more advanced chip design, which we should start seeing in standard AMD CPUs soon. And to be honest, its tinged with a

little disappointment. I was hoping for a bit more of an advance on the previous architecture, but its actually still lagging behind the FX-4170, which is a similarly speced CPU without the graphics. But then CPU performance isnt what Trinity is all about: its about graphics oomph, and that actually is impressive. The GPU embedded in the A10 is pretty beefy, and if you dont mind sacrificing many of the sexy visuals in a game, you can get some decent framerates without having to install a discrete graphics card at all. Compared to the HD 4000 graphics on the Intel CPUs reviewed here, its the difference between night and day. With the AMD chip I had Batman: Arkham City running at 1080p on v.high settings at 27fpsa very playable framerate. The Intel chip on the other hand could barely manage a very stuttery 16fps. You can also pair this chip with a

cheap AMD graphics card and get an extra fps boost using a hybrid CrossFire setup between components. Its not massively consistent, though, and I still recommend a standard CPU/ GPU pairing for now.

The graphics performance is really impressive, perfect for a small lounge PC that you play less-demanding games on.

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SPEC Technology AMD Trinity Socket AMD FM2 Cores 4 Threads 4 Clock speed 3.8GHz Lithography 32nm Max TDP 100W Graphics AMD HD 7660D Cache 4MB L2

GET THE PC YOUR GAMES DESERVE

The PC Gamer Rig

Is there an alternative?
he PC Gamer Rig has hardly changed in recent months thanks to a relatively stagnant PC components market. Now that Nvidias lineup of next-gen, Kepler-based graphics cards have landed, you might think that our choice of GPU would change. It has, but not how you might have expected. AMD has had its own options out in the wild for most of the year, allowing the company to slash the prices of its competing cards to the point where the Radeon HD 7870 is now almost the same price as the HD 7850 was before. With that higherspec card ably outperforming the competing GTX 660, its practically a no-brainer.

And that started me thinking whats to stop us from going fully AMD, with an AMD Bulldozer CPU and AM3+ motherboard? The CPU performance is a way off the Intel setup, but is significantly cheaper. For around the same price as a dualcore i3 3225 you can pick up a full-fat AMD FX 6200, which has multithreading chops. The mobos are cheaper too, so you could spend more on your GPUwhich is where we gamers really want the power.

WHATS IN THE BOX

$230 $100

Dave James Hardware Editor

$40

$90

$110

$20

CPU
Intel Core i5 3570K Its Ivy Bridge and overclockable. Great value and a chip that will last for years. FITTED July

MOTHERBOARD
Asus P8H77-I Its not overburdened with features, but its cheap and is good enough for a Core i5 processor. FITTED December

RAM
Crucial Ballistix Sport Eight gigabytes of fast 1600MHz DDR3 for $40. Grab it quick, just in case its a misprint. FITTED November 2011

CASE
BitFenix Prodigy A case doesnt have to be huge to command respect. This one is beautiful and keenly priced. FITTED December

HARD DRIVE
Western Digital Green 2TB A year after the Thai oods most drives are still overpriced, but 2TB for $110 is a good deal. FITTED October

DVD DRIVE
Samsung SH-222AB Theyll be free with a packet of cereal next. At this price, you may as well buy a sackful. FITTED June

NEW!

$250

$80

$180

$110

$45

$35

3D CARD
Sapphire Radeon HD 7870 GHz Ed Formerly sold for $300, but at this price the performance is stunning. FITTED Christmas

POWER SUPPLY
SilverStone SFX 450W A 450W PSU designed for small cases. As always, avoid cheap compromises youll only regret it. FITTED December

MONITOR
AOC i2353PH Spectacular quality for gamers, easily beating screens that cost twice as much. FITTED May

KEYBOARD
Tt eSPORTS MEKA A gamer needs a mechanical keyboard. This isnt the best in the world, but it is great value. FITTED October

MOUSE
Logitech G400 Classic Logitech style in a brand-new design, this 3600dpi mouse is comfortable and precise. FITTED November 2011

HEADSET
SteelSeries 3H VR One of the better sounding budget headsets. Nice microphone, too. But spend more if you can. FITTED August

POSSIBLE UPGRADES

OCZ Solid 3 120GB SSD > Were still keeping the SSD as a possible upgrade, but the time is coming when theyll be cheap enough to fill out the rig. This one is an absolute bargain at $90. ASRock 970 Extreme4 > If you want to go for a base AMD setup, then this bargainous board isnt a bad place to start. Its got all the USB 3.0 and SATA 6Gbps you could want... AMD FX 6200 > ...and paired up with this decent six-core CPU its cheaper than the Intel 3570K chip alone. With more money to spend on graphics, youll see the benefits in-game.

TOTAL PRICE

$1290

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JANUARY 2013

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December 2012

WE BUILD IT

YOU DREAMIT

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