Innholdsfortegnelse for No. 182 i GamesTM

This console generation has pushed through one the largest shifts in triple-A gaming history that we have ever seen. Studios are attempting to combat spiralling budgets and development pipeline times with the concept of ‘games as a live service’, wherein a videogame’s initial release is just the beginning of something much greater – its true potential lying on the distant horizon after it goes ‘live’. It’s an idea that PC players have long enjoyed through the persistent evolution of MOBAs, such as League Of Legends and DOTA2, not to mention MMOs like World Of Warcraft; as such, many of the biggest releases of 2017 aren’t new releases at all, but older titles still vying for your time and attention with new content, updated mechanics and refreshed game systems. These are…

FORMAT: PS4, XBOX ONE, PC ORIGIN: CANADA RELEASE: MARCH 2017 PUBLISHER: EA DEVELOPER: BIOWARE PLAYERS: 1-TBC There’s risk and reward to be found in a clean slate. On the one hand you can begin again, head down some paths that might have been closed off to you before, take a few risks that might have felt more dangerous in the past and journey forward with a little less baggage. On the other hand you have less to ground you, more work to do to meet your previous achievements and often more scrutiny to deal with. So, while Mass Effect Andromeda might be setting itself up in a new galaxy in order to reset the clock, there’s no shortage of challenge ahead for BioWare. But the Montreal team appears to be…

FORMAT: PS4 ORIGIN: JAPAN PLAYERS: 1 DEVELOPER: SQUARE ENIX BUSINESS DIVISION 1 PUBLISHER: SQUARE ENIX RELEASE: TBC 2017 Was this the Final Fantasy VII return that we really wanted? We’re not sure, but then we’ve had the chance to play the PlayStation original in so many different variations over the years, perhaps a new take on the experience should be welcome. Remake is not a traditional remaster or recreation of Square’s seminal RPG title, but rather an entirely new telling and presentation of the classic story. With an episodic release, combat more akin to Dissidia Final Fantasy and completely redesigned visuals, FFVII Remake is wildly innovative. And given how successful Square Enix has seen Hitman be in a similar format, we’d suggest that it might actually work really well.…

FORMAT: PC ORIGIN: USA PLAYERS: MULTIPLAYER DEVELOPER: BOSS KEY PRODUCTIONS PUBLISHER: NEXON RELEASE: TBC 2017 With so many shooters having dropped in the last 12 months, Lawbreakers is looking to set itself apart with its moody set of ‘antihero’ characters. Boss Key is consciously shooting for a more mature tone, so out go the brightly-coloured meme darlings and in come assassins and DEA agents who just want to kill things and swear about it. Boss Key isn’t just focusing on PC as a sole platform - it’s going full-on old school PC across the game’s entire setup, right down to the way it’s played. As it stands the game offers limited support for gamepads, so it’s back to the days of keyboard and mouse or bust. It’s certainly in line…

1958 SMALL STEPS The Soviet Union launches the Vorona I Satellite in an attempt to secure an early lead in the space race, it enters a stable orbit around Earth’s Moon at Lagrange Point 2 [LP2]. 1959 DEEP SPACE The satellite begins transmitting deep space telemetry back to Earth but communication quickly ceased, prompting a manned mission to investigate. It goes awry, quickly. 1960 FIRST CONTACT Following the discovery of the shape shifting Typhon creatures – and after failing to contain the emerging threat – the Soviet Union contacts the United States for assistance. 1963 KLETKA PROGRAM The US and Soviet Union announce their collaboration – dubbed the KLETKA Program – with the specific goal of containing and researching the exterritorial threat aboard the remodelled Veronica I Satellite, now a…

FORMAT: XBOX ONE, PC ORIGIN: JAPAN PUBLISHER: MICROSOFT STUDIOS DEVELOPER: PLATINUM GAMES RELEASE: TBC 2017 PLAYERS: 1-4 Following a glut of forgettable, yet mildly entertaining licensed tie-ins, we’ve started to worry that Platinum was losing its touch. But amid all those vapid franchise forays there’s a glimmer of hope – an original IP with Hideki Kamiya at the reins. Scalebound is certainly taking its time to swoop onto Xbox One and PC, but if the details we’ve seen so far are anything to go by, it’s going to raise plenty of temperatures. Main man Drew and scaly dragon pal Thuban will work independently in combat, but using a special Dragon-Link mode will enable you to take control of the winged monstrosity and turn your enemies extra crispy.…

FORMAT: PS4 ORIGIN: FRANCE PUBLISHER: SONY DEVELOPER: QUANTIC DREAM RELEASE: TBC 2017 PLAYERS: 1 The games of Quantic Dream have proven to be fairly divisive over the years, with some willing to dive into their deep narrative themes and play out the role of director and collaborative story-teller and others rejecting their mechanics as not being real videogames at all, but interactive stories. However, its seems to us that the establishment of that model through Telltale’s titles and Dontnod’s Life Is Strange has placed David Cage’s commitment to this style of game-making at the heart of an established and beloved genre. And so with Detroit: Become Human we get to play out the roles of several android characters, fulfilling their duties as servants of humanity or trying to find some…

FORMAT: XBOX ONE, PS4, PC ORIGIN: USA PUBLISHER: UBISOFT DEVELOPER: UBISOFT SAN FRANCISCO, SOUTH PARK DIGITAL RELEASE: TBC 2017 PLAYERS: 1 Sometimes all you need is a game where you can lob farts like grenades and offend practically every denomination on the planet. That’s what 2014’s The Stick Of Truth gave us, a breath of ass-scented air in a genre that had taken itself seriously for far too long, and its sequel looks to carry on that irreverence into 2017. Picking up where its fantasy-focused predecessor left off, the infantile population of South Park, Colorado find themselves in a cosplay-heavy civil war as Cartman and co dress up as superheroes and attempt to out offend one another like a boxset of Frankie Boyle DVDs. From the offset it looks like…

FORMAT: PS4, XBOX ONE, PC ORIGIN: UK PUBLISHER: TEAM 17 RELEASE: TBC 2017 PLAYERS: 1-4 DEVELOPER: MOULDY TOOF STUDIOS No one is messing around with the formula for this sequel to the small indie sim that had a massive impact. The Escapists was a wonderfully addictive and challenging game so all of the core gameplay ideas are returning. You’re in jail and you need to get out by any means you can devise. There’s a nice graphical upgrade, but the pixel art style holds firm and we’ll now be able to make our escape plans with other players. Co-op and versus multiplayer both online and locally should open up some interesting new scenarios for us all and even more replay value as if crafting new plans wasn’t reason enough to…

FORMAT: PS4, XBOX ONE, PC, IOS ORIGIN: USA PUBLISHER: TERRIBLE TOYBOX RELEASE: JAN 2017 DEVELOPER: IN-HOUSE PLAYERS: 1 Hope hasn’t been lost yet that Ron Gilbert might be able to buy the rights to Monkey Island back from Disney sometime in the future, but in the meantime he’s free, along with fellow adventure game veteran Gary Winnick, to recreate the heyday of the genre with something that can take advantage of all the power and advancements of modern consoles and PCs. Thimbleweed Park feels like a spiritual successor to Maniac Mansion in more than just its graphical style. There’s a logic and humour to its progression and puzzles that frankly got a little muddled by its contemporaries back in the Nineties. This X-Files and Twin Peaks inspired tale already looks…

THESE POWERS ARE A SHINING EXAMPLE OF THE ORIGINALITY AND CREATIVITY DISHONORED 2 DELIVERS DETAILS FORMAT: PS4 OTHER FORMATS: Xbox One, PC ORIGIN: France PUBLISHER: Bethesda Softworks DEVELOPER: Arkane Studios PRICE: £49.99 RELEASE: Out now PLAYERS: 1 ONLINE REVIEWED: N/A Dishonored 2 is a game that seduces you with its giddying spectrum of possibilities. Moving through its world, you might spot a route that can take you onto the rooftops to stalk silently above patrolling guards. Another could take you through the basement of an abandoned building infested with nests of dangerous bloodflies that will attack anyone who gets too close. You might peek through a keyhole to overhear a conversation that offers a clue about an alternative way of taking out an assassination target, stumble across a…

WATCH DOGS 2 IS CHILDISH ANARCHY SPLASHED ACROSS THE SKYLINE OF THE SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA; PUNK FOR THE YOUTUBE GENERATION DETAILS FORMAT: Xbox One FORMAT: PS4, PC ORIGIN: Canada PUBLISHER: Ubisoft DEVELOPER: Ubisoft Montreal PRICE: £49.99 RELEASE: Out now PLAYERS: 1-4 ONLINE REVIEWED: Yes Declaring Watch Dogs 2 as a success, simply by virtue of it being better than its predecessor, feels like an act of reductive reasoning. Of course this sequel is better, because how could it not be? It would have been a legitimately impressive act of stubbornness on the part of the studio – particularly one as progressive and inherently iterative as Ubisoft Montreal – to produce something as overtly boring and cynical as the original Watch Dogs for a second…

THIS IS THE CLOSEST WE’VE COME TO AN OVERHAUL, AS GAME FREAK USHERS IN SOME OF THE BIGGEST AND MOST IMPORTANT CHANGES TO THE SERIES DETAILS FORMAT: 3DS ORIGIN: Japan PUBLISHER: The Pokémon Company DEVELOPER: Game Freak PRICE: £34.99 RELEASE: Out now PLAYERS: 1-4 ONLINE REVIEWED: Yes Fuelled by 20 years of nostalgia, Pokémon Sun & Moon is an exhaustive adventure. With over 800 Pokémon to catch and a talking Pokédex to ignore, an all-new region to explore and with hours of trials and tribulations to dispatch, the idea of participating at all can seem a little exhausting. This is the seventh generation of Pokémon games, after all; careful iteration on Game Freak’s part has ensured that we’ve come to receive careful refinement over sweeping reinvention…

DETAILS FORMAT: PS4 ORIGIN: France PUBLISHER: Microïds DEVELOPER: Anuman PRICE: £34.99 RELEASE: Out now PLAYERS: 1-10 ONLINE REVIEWED: Yes When even the best arcade racers are struggling to make waves in the modern gaming scene, what hope does a C-tier offering like Moto Racer really have at success? More importantly, does something like this even deserve success? There’s no one element of Moto Racer 4 that can be said to be excellent, and only a few that even manage to hit the ‘adequate’ benchmark – it’s light on content, underwhelming visually, and physics are unpredictable, especially in off-road events. Road races are where the game is at its best but the aforementioned dirt tracks are riddled with problems. Arcade-style handling feels sloppy here and course design…

AS SOON AS IT LOADED UP I SAW A GAME THAT WAS VERY UNIQUE, AND HAD COOL VECTOR GRAPHICS When did computers and videogames first grab you? It was at the science museum. They had a guess the animal Eliza program running on a terminal. It wasn’t often working, but it was the first thing I headed to whenever I went there. You had to let the computer guess what animal you were thinking of. All it took was that screen and a cursor and I was hooked. These were the days of the first digital watches and calculators – anything digital was fascinating. Your father gave you £10,000 to start up in business - did you start in the games industry immediately? No, I did some other things and…

ZERG The Zerg are a feral faction that initially seems the weakest. That is, of course, part of their charm. While individually weak, Zerg can easily overwhelm other factions with superior numbers. Unit prices are cheap and so the tactic is to build huge armies. PROTOSS A race of strange aliens, the Protoss has strength in small numbers, utilising immense firepower to overcome its enemies. That power is ultimately mitigated by high individual unit cost, though we’d wager that’s the price of utilising psionic powers and advanced tech. TERRAN The Terran are a human faction that occupy the middle ground. While a great introductory faction, they can also handle themselves fine at a competitive level in the right hands, their superior firepower and movable structures are a huge boon in…

PLAYSTATION 4 PRO 1TB MANUFACTURER: SONY PRICE: £349.99 THE PLAYSTATION 4 PRO is the most powerful home console on the market, and it certainly looks the part. In terms of pure construction, it’s a beast of a machine; the sleek, triple-stacked, matte black finish will look impressively dominating underneath your television while the new redesigned controller will feel as comfortable in your hands as the DualShock 4 did. But none of that is really all that important, what is, however, is the capability of that aforementioned TV of yours. On paper, it’s a faster and more capable console, with benefits such as improved performance, graphics and improved frame-rates coming to many titles – such as Call Of Duty: Infinite Warfare, The Last Of Us Remastered and Rise Of The Tomb…

2148 Humanity discovers a cache of Prothean technology deep under the surface of Mars leading to understanding of mass effect fields and the development of faster than light travel for further exploration of the solar system. 2149 A mass relay is discovered orbiting Pluto and a team is assembled – lead by Jon Grissom – to be the first to use it. They travel 26 light years to Arcturus where they find that the mass relays are a part of a massive network for travel around the Milky Way. The Systems Alliance charter is signed by the 18 largest nations of Earth, forming the military and exploratory might of the Alliance. 2150 Surveys begin for potential habitable planets outside of the solar system for human colonisation. 2151 An accident in…

FORMAT: XBOX ONE, PC ORIGIN: USA DEVELOPER: IN-HOUSE PUBLISHER: FULLBRIGHT RELEASE: TBC 2017 PLAYERS: 1 Like walking through a live performance of a story, but one where you can rewind and playback the conversations happening around you, Tacoma is hoping to do for time manipulation in storytelling what Gone Home achieved for environmental exploration. How this plays out in the game is that as you attempt to work out what has gone wrong on this space station you can see 3D digital recreations of the conversations and movements of the crew. As the crew break up and move about their duties, you can follow them to where they head and see what happens, then rewind and follow someone else. Piecing together the story is going to involve finding the right…

Breath Of The Wild will be arriving on both the Wii U and Nintendo Switch in 2017. In keeping with the Legend Of Zelda tradition, it’s highly likely that the game won’t make use of the system’s most obvious advancements – such as multiplayer on the move. But it will tap into the improved technical prowess to provide an experience that is more stable and detailed than that of its last generation brethren. We’ve played the game on Wii U and, while impressive, it did suffer from environments that – while vibrant and eye-pleasing – lacked definition and crispness. That will change for the Switch iteration, as will the frame rate, expected to be locked to a stable 30fps following a concerning reveal at the VGAs late in 2016. Breath…

FORMAT: PS4 ORIGIN: USA PUBLISHER: SONY DEVELOPER: NAUGHTY DOG RELEASE: TBC 2017 PLAYERS: 1 1 ALL GROWN UP Surviving on the collapse of civilisation takes its toll on the mind. Joel and Ellie went through hell in The Last Of Us, its damning conclusion still haunting the minds of gamers to this day. Its effect seems to have had a similar impact on the two protagonists, the pair swept up in another adventure defined by violence and attrition. Ellie is taking a central role this time out as the lead character, though it is set a number of years into the future – she is 19 years old now, her youthful exuberance burned away with an all-consuming hatred. 2 LOVE & HATRED The announcement trailer highlighted a world that has…

FORMAT: PS4, XBOX ONE, PC ORIGIN: CANADA PUBLISHER: RED BARRELS DEVELOPER: IN-HOUSE RELEASE: TBC 2017 PLAYERS: 1 The sequel to 2013’s sleeper horror hit Outlast 2 may be adopting a brand new, Deliverance-style setting in the intimidating wilds of the Sonoran Desert, but that familiar sense of player vulnerability is ready to scare you stupid a second time. Outlast 2 will retain your inability to fight back, with new journalist protagonist Blake Langermann now possessing a much more advanced camera than the one boasted by Miles Upsher in the first game. The first game was a little janky in places but it helped pave the way for first-person scare-athons on console so we’re intrigued to see how Red Barrels keeps the frights coming.…

CALL OF DUTY 2017 DEVELOPER: SLEDGEHAMMER GAMES PUBLISHER: ACTIVISION RELEASE: NOV 2017 As tempted as we are to reference this as Advanced Warfare 2, we suspect that in actuality the Sledgehammer team will have been working on a different concept as the wheel of COD development swings back around. There’s been some chatter about a return to World War II or perhaps something in Vietnam. We would like something that took a step back from the sci-fi direction the series has increasingly found itself heading in. STAR WARS BATTLEFRONT 2 DEVELOPER: EA MOTIVE PUBLISHER: EA RELEASE: OCT 2017 Jade Raymond’s newly minted team in Montreal will be getting its first opportunity to shine next year with the follow up to 2015’s Battlefront return from DICE. We don’t have too many…

FORMAT: PC ORIGIN: USA PLAYERS: 1-TBC PUBLISHER: BETHESDA SOFTWORKS DEVELOPER: ID SOFTWARE RELEASE: TBC 2017 It’s clear id wants to tap into that golden age of online shooters that rode on the success of Unreal Tournament and Quake 3 Arena, and so the latest incarnation drops all that single-player nonsense last seen in 2005’s Quake 4 in favour of a back-to-basics approach to gameplay. id is keeping pretty tight-lipped on whether Quake Champions will be released as a full-game or in a more free-to-play-esque guise, but we do know it’ll be running at 120Hz with a totally unlocked frame rate. Add the news that the game will be opting for Overwatch-style heroes with unique abilities and skills, and we’re already polishing our rocket launcher in anticipation.…

FORMAT: PS4, TBC ORIGIN: SPAIN DEVELOPER: TEQUILA WORKS PUBLISHER: SIX FOOT/ GREY BOX RELEASE: TBC 2017 PLAYERS: 1 After more than five years in development, the former Sony-exclusive Rime is edging closer to an actual release. With its bright, Wind Waker-esque coastal setting and platforming heavy gameplay reminiscent of the equally long-gestating The Last Guardian, the indie title promises to be one of 2017’s most intriguing prospects. Developer Tequila Works has swollen its ranks with staff from the likes of MercurySteam, Blizzard and Weta Digital, and you can see that pedigree shining through with the vibrancy of its open island setting and the environmental puzzles that look to have a familiar Ico flavour. However, things have been awfully quiet over the last year on the Rime front, but Tequila Works…

FORMAT: PS4, XBOX ONE, PC ORIGIN: UK PUBLISHER: TEAM17 DEVELOPER: PLAYTONIC GAMES RELEASE: MARCH 2017 PLAYERS: 1 1 PASSION PERSONIFIED In combining a team made up largely of former-Rare employees who desperately wanted to deliver a new Banjo- style experience and backed by the crowdfunding cash of fans who wanted to see that happen too, Yooka-Laylee is a project full of love for 3D platforming. Out of that comes a cast of characters who are quick to quip and are full of life. 2 NOSTALGIA EVOLVED The toughest balancing act for Yooka-Laylee is in bringing a classic 3D platforming experience into the modern era without it feeling like a throwback. From what we’ve seen and played so far, Playtonic has done an impressive job of modernising mechanics of the genre…

FORMAT: PS4, XBOX ONE, PC ORIGIN: USA PLAYERS: 1 PUBLISHER: SEGA RELEASE: Q2 2017 DEVELOPER: HEADCANNON, PAGODAWEST GAMES We can tell you having played a little Sonic Mania earlier in the year that this is everything fans of classic Sonic gaming could ask for. Driven by a development team that has emerged from the modding community and cut its teeth working on iOS ports of the original games, you can tell it has been pieced together by people who know these games backwards and forwards. Over the years it has seemed as if fans had a very different idea of what they wanted from a new Sonic game compared to Sega and this might finally be the answer to that disparity. With Sonic, Tails and Knuckles all playable and classic…

FORMAT: PS4 ORIGIN: USA PLAYERS: 1-2 PUBLISHER: SUPERGIANT GAMES DEVELOPER: IN-HOUSE RELEASE: TBC 2017 The idea of an action-RPG where the battles almost play out like a mix of Rocket League and Transistor was exciting enough as Supergiant Games builds on a weird and wonderful concept for a new kind of role-playing experience, but now we know multiplayer is joining the party. More specifically the battle system will be available as a separate local multiplayer experience, which is fantastic news. Through the solo campaign you act as a ‘reader’ for a band of exiles in purgatory, learning the lore of the land and managing their stats as well as controlling the team in battles when they meet fellow exiles. And of course, it’s as gorgeous as any Supergiant title.…

FORMAT: PC ORIGIN: CANADA PLAYERS: 1-TBC DEVELOPER: RELIC ENTERTAINMENT PUBLISHER: SEGA RELEASE: TBC 2017 Has it really been six years since the release of Dawn Of War II? Relic’s real-time strategy series has been conspicuous in its absence, but our longing for another slice of boltgunwaving action has paid off with news that the latest full-fat Dawn Of War will arrive in 2017. From the off it’s striking just how colourful the new entry is. It’s not quite World Of Warcraft, but there’s a noticeable shift away from the dark, washed-out palettes that have long been a staple of the 40K universe. Perhaps a sign that Relic and Sega are attempting to appeal to the MOBA crowd. While Dawn Of War III is trying something new aesthetically, there’s a definite…

MESMERIZE Used to summon a void that nearby enemies will stare into in a trance, this power is probably only going to be useful to players that favour a stealthy approach. It can be upgraded to distract up to four enemies and to last longer. DOPPELGANGER This power allows you to summon a copy of yourself to distract enemies while you sneak past or run away from danger. Upgrades include one that gives your copy the ability to fight enemies and one that allows you to swap places with it. SHADOW WALK Transforming you into a stealthier form, Shadow Walk is a great option for a nonlethal approach. Upgrading it allows you to perform multiple assassinations while in Shadow Walk form, however, and it can also work with a more…

“FFXV QUICKLY MAKES YOU FEEL LIKE A PART OF ITS WORLD AS OPPOSED TO A VISITOR TO IT” DETAILS FORMAT: PS4 OTHER FORMATS: Xbox One ORIGIN: Japan PUBLISHER: Square Enix DEVELOPER: In-house PRICE: £49.99 RELEASE: Out now PLAYERS: 1 ONLINE REVIEWED: N/A With its sense of freedom and romance, the promise of new horizons and fresh adventure, the open road sums up what Final Fantasy XV is all about. In both its narrative and its very existence, this is a game about making sure destiny is fulfilled; the road acting as a visual metaphor for the journey towards achieving exactly that. Protagonist Prince Noctis is, whether he likes it or not, on a path to making sure his regal responsibilities are met and his destiny along…

DETAILS FORMAT: PC ORIGIN: US PUBLISHER: Paradox Interactive DEVELOPER: Obsidian Entertainment PRICE: £34.99 RELEASE: Out now PLAYERS: 1 MINIMUM SPEC: Windows 7 64-bit OS, 2.80 GHz quad core CPU, 6GB RAM, 1GB GPU, 15GB HDD space ONLINE REVIEWED: N/A Obsidian has gone and carved itself a beautiful little niche. Sure, Pillars Of Eternity might’ve cashed in on the nostalgia of the likes of Baldur’s Gate but it also proved there was still a demand for exactly that sort of RPG. When armed with such knowledge, well, it’s hardly a surprise that we’d see further use of the developer’s all-new Infinity Engine. The first such title is Tyranny, and if you’ve played Pillars Of Eternity you’ll mostly know what to expect. That’s not a criticism, mind; it was a well-loved RPG…

How did you get to work on the conversion? Software Creations was doing a fair bit of work for US Gold and it was really just the next game I got following on from LED Storm. It was my last C64 game as I was doing more and more NES work. Had you played much of the game beforehand? Sadly not. I’d played Ghosts ‘N Goblins to death but I hadn’t seen Ghouls ‘N Ghosts in the wild until well into the development of the game. By which time I was quite good at it, although not keen on paying to play! How much help did you receive from Capcom? We didn’t get any, really. We received a board from US Gold and that was it. Fortunately it was one…

THE HERO T-SHIRT This is another fine example of the tarot card range of shirts Gametee has been doing recently and the perfect shirt for those of us who are excited to play Breath Of The Wild in 2017. It’s available as a print as well. www.gametee.co.uk RYAN IND. T-SHIRT A man chooses and a slave obeys, or so the saying goes. Honestly, we don’t think you have much choice but to pick up this tailored, dark heather grey T-shirt, tastefully drawing inspiration from on BioShock. www.gametee.co.uk MANA T-SHIRT One for all of you modern mages, druids, sorcerers and spellswords out there, this hyper-detailed mana tee not only looks gorgeous, but it also ships with a free collectible art card. www.gametee.co.uk…

“It teaches you that if you aren’t paying attention – if you aren’t being careful – you will die ” GOICHI SUDA, CEO OF GRASSHOPPER MANUFACTURE “I absolutely love Zelda , I love all of them; but that’s as a gamer . But there’s a game called Another World . What valuable lesson that game taught me was that there is no set rule, necessarily, to game design. At the beginning of the game, if the player doesn’t do anything, they just sink and die. In a way, you could say that the game is immediately challenging the player. At the beginning, it teaches you that if you aren’t paying attention – if you aren’t being careful – you…

1 A QUESTION OF DISTANCE The Andromeda galaxy, if you were travelling at the speed of light, takes about 2.5 million years to get [to]. Which is fine, that’s not incompatible with the game, you just have to arrange it so that it can be done. The game doesn’t have to be 100 per cent realistic. You do want to articulate just how much faster than the speed of light you would have to travel in order to get there in 600 years. 2 THE SCALE OF ANDROMEDA The Andromeda galaxy itself is quite big. The bright part of the Andromeda galaxy, which is shaped like a disc – like a Frisbee – is about 60,000 light years in radius. There is a much sparser halo of stars around Andromeda…

FORMAT: PS4 ORIGIN: USA PUBLISHER: SONY DEVELOPER: SIE BEND STUDIO RELEASE: TBC 2017 PLAYERS: 1 1 The rivers of dead effect that the zombie physics engine has in this game is mesmerising. Watching the undead horde clamber and dash towards you is so distracting, it might just get you killed. It’s a far cry from the lumbering statues in some zombie games. 2 The bike really counts for something in this game. Bend has said that the bike plays a huge role in the gameplay and isn’t just a piece of character jewellery to legitimise its biker gang lead. That bike will be needed to traverse this world. 3 If anything this game is reminding us more of Red Dead Redemption than your typical survival game with its lush backdrop…

CI GAMES’ UNDERRATED SNIPER SIM KEEPS IT MODERN FORMAT: PS4, XBOX ONE, PC ORIGIN: POLAND PUBLISHER: CI GAMES DEVELOPER: IN-HOUSE RELEASE: 4 APRIL 2017 PLAYERS: 1-TBC A first-person shooter with a modern setting? With no sci-fi bits? How very 2007. The folks behind the stealth-focused Sniper: Ghost Warrior threequel are sticking to their ghillied-up guns and keeping things familiar with a fictitious civil war in Georgia. The biggest departure for the game’s third outing is the decision to drop the semi-linear sandbox levels of the previous games in favour of a vast open-world. Going sandbox makes sense considering the open-nature of the previous game, and it’s a design choice that could make for plenty of player agency when it comes to tackling missions.…

FORMAT: PS4, PC ORIGIN: JAPAN PLAYERS: 1 DEVELOPER: PLATINUMGAMES PUBLISHER: SQUARE ENIX RELEASE: TBC 2017 It’s been six years since NieR, and after all that time it seemed destined for that corner of the medium resigned for games that don’t sell well but attain cult status anyway. Well, would you believe it, NieR is getting a sequel. Set in the same wasteland as the previous games, you’re now in the shoes of war-grizzled android 2B. With Platinum’s pedigree in pacey action infusing Automata’s gameplay with an almost Devil May Cry flavour, that means you’re getting a much faster kind of gunplay and brutal melee sprinkled across an open world. The story of androids fighting machine invaders does sound a little rote, but NieR and its forbears have always come up…

30 MINS • Staring at the upgrade screen for ages and agonising over which of the game’s many powers is the best to spend your hard-earned runes on. 3 HOURS • Taking your time crawling through corridors and across rooftops, doing your best to be super sneaky on your first run through the game. 30 HOURS • Shooting on sight and cutting people in half now that you’re on your second playthrough and finally feeling liberated to cause as much chaos as possible.…

DETAILS FORMAT: PS4 OTHER FORMATS: Xbox One, PC ORIGIN: United States PUBLISHER: Tripwire Interactive DEVELOPER: Tripwire Interactive PRICE: £29.99 RELEASE: Out now PLAYERS: 1-12 ONLINE REVIEWED: Yes A quick glance at the mutated zombie hordes currently pouring down a corridor at you, all blades for arms and foaming jaws, you’d think you were slap bang in the middle of a horror nightmare. Paris is burning, the world is coming to a rather grisly end. Are you scared? Of course not, you’ve got a flamethrower in your hands and a couple of buddies toting the kind of weapons that would give the NRA a fluttering heart. Anyone for crispy ZED? This is Killing Floor 2 in a nutshell - throw you and a bunch of other virtual survivors into a ruined…

DETAILS FORMAT: PS4 ORIGIN: Japan PUBLISHER: PQube DEVELOPER: Arc System Works PRICE: £49.99 RELEASE: Out now PLAYERS: 1-32 ONLINE REVIEWED: Yes While the quality and breadth of content continues to improve with every increasingly ludicrously-titled BlazBlue game, it’s getting harder and harder to recommend them to fellow gamers. That’s no slight on the excellent job Arc System Works does every single time, but perhaps rather on the frequency with which these updates come – Chronophantasma Extend is barely a year old and having seen the success of download-based upgrades in the likes of Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat and Killer Instinct, BlazBlue’s release model just feels dated. That’s not to say that the new stuff isn’t good, because it really is. The new characters have some really interesting…

DETAILS FORMAT: PSVR ORIGIN: Germany PUBLISHER: Crytek DEVELOPER: In-house PRICE: £54.99 RELEASE: Out now PLAYERS: 1 ONLINE REVIEWED: N/A Trust Crytek to deliver the most phenomenally convincing virtual world that we’ve seen on PSVR to date. From the moment you step out of your crash-landed pod, to coming face-to-face with a gigantic T-Rex, Robinson’s sense of scale and place constantly blows you away. The world young protagonist Robin finds himself stranded on feels incredibly real, so much so that it feels like an actual place you’ve visited. So real is this convincingly constructed VR world (which looks even more luscious if you have access to a PS4 Pro) you’ll want to explore every last nook and cranny of it. But the further you explore, the more flaws you’ll discover in…

 Released: 1994 THERE WAS DEFINITELY A LOT RIDING ON THE SUCCESS OF THE GAME WARCRAFT WAS GOING TO DEFINE BLIZZARD AS A PUBLISHING ENTITY AS WELL AS A DEVELOPER Format: PC, Mac Publisher: Blizzard Entertainment Key Staff: Bill Roper (producer/writer/voice acting), Michael Morhaime (senior programmer), Gregory Alper (composer) IT’S TOUGH TO IMAGINE AN INDUSTRY WITHOUT THE NAME ‘WARCRAFT’. As an MMO it has been running for 12 years now, with six huge expansion packs released over a decade that have helped to build a complete, ever-growing world for gamers to explore. Few games can claim to have continued to maintain a player base for so long, and fewer still can do so with a considerable amount of popularity. When attached to Hearthstone, that same world’s most recognisable characters, creatures and…

“THE TRULY AMAZING part of all the additions with the sequel is that we accomplished all of this in a 12-month development cycle,” says Roper. ”I’ve always maintained that there was a lot of magic on that project. Not to take anything away from all of our hard work and expertise, but every decision that we made turned out to be the right one. I don’t recall us ever having to throw out huge parts of the design, redo massive amounts of artwork or ever talk about delaying the game. Warcraft II will always feel like a magical development to me, and I’ve never experienced anything like it again.”…