Innholdsfortegnelse for No. 188 i GamesTM

After five years of consolidation around some core properties in the console and PC market, Sega has declared that it is once again ready to take some creative risks. The company has recently unveiled a new strategy for the gaming market – it will be aiming for bigger hits rather than medium-scale successes, and looking to develop new IPs and utilise licensed external properties to join existing hits. The part that has excited fans the most is the mention of the company’s past properties being revived as part of this new drive for big hits. Though the company hasn’t specified what games it’s looking to bring back (and with the strategy document titled ‘Road To 2020’ it’s going to be a while before we see them), we’ve got our own…

“ Expect to see larger and more detailed environments than we have typically received in Uncharted games in the past” CONCEPT • A standalone story in the Uncharted universe, The Lost Legacy is an opportunity for Naughty Dog to explore a different corner of its series away from Nathan Drake. INFORMATION Details Format: PS4 Origin: USA Publisher: Sony Developer: Naughty Dog Release: 22 August 2017 Players: 1 Developer Profile One of the most important studios in the world, Naughty Dog has become a force in triple-A gaming, consistently delivering some of the most enjoyable and technically impressive adventure games the world has ever seen, across three decades of activity. High Point The Last Of Us was huge for the industry, pushing what we believed was possible with narrative-led experiences, an…

“ You’re free to be as giving and generous or as manipulative and selfish a leader as you care to be ” CONCEPT • It’s classic city and community building, only this time in a place without oxygen and with mysteries to discover as you must make Mars your home. INFORMATION Details Format: PC Origin: Bulgaria Publisher: Paradox Interactive Developer: Haemimont Games Release: TBC 2018 Players: 1 Developer Profile This Bulgarian team has established itself as the master of strategy city building and political manoeuvring, kicking off in 2000 with Tzar: The Burden Of The Crown and building up to taking over the Tropico series in 2009. Mixing the best of Civilization and Sim City, the games have gone from strength to strength over the years. Developer History Tzar: The…

“ You’ll be able to race around in golf-karts as well as do a little fishing and go treasure hunting ” CONCEPT • The long-running golfing series makes a welcome first appearance on the PS4 with some open world design and array of mini-games. INFORMATION Details Format: PS4 Origin: Japan Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment Developer: Clap Hanz, SIE Japan Studio Release: 29 August 2017 Players: 1-4 Developer Profile Since it was founded in 1998, Clap Hanz has only been involved in the Everybody’s Golf series (and its spin-off Everybody’s Tennis). We would imagine that either means there’s been a fair amount of turnover in the staff there or they lost their minds years ago and just keep making these colourful fairway experiences out of some kind of repetitious, ritualistic commitment.…

PRAEY FOR THE GODS Format: PC, PS4, Xbox One Publisher: No Matter Studios Developer: In-house ETA: Dec 2017 1 No Matter’s tribute to the giant climbing and toppling gameplay of Shadow Of The Colossus reappeared suddenly in recent weeks with a slight name change, but a renewed commitment to release a closed beta soon. Apparently Zenimax made a trademark infringement claim against No Matter to protect Arkane’s Prey. Trademark law can be a messy business, but No Matter is in no position to fight it, so its game gets an extra ‘a’ in the title and a little extra attention. Maybe not the worst trade-off, but regardless the game is looking great still, and apparently the team has made some big strides with its physics engine. Format: PC Publisher: Greenheart…

DETAILS FORMAT: PS4 OTHER FORMATS: PC ORIGIN: USA, California PUBLISHER: Annapurna Pictures DEVELOPER: Giant Sparrow PRICE: £15.99 RELEASE: Out now PLAYERS: 1 ONLINE REVIEWED: N/A Houses take on the personalities of their owners. The Finch house is crowded with them. Each one waits in the sealed-up rooms that whisper of the family history secrets kept from Edith. Now she’s returned home to get the answers her mother hid from her. She hid them well. Each bedroom in this narrative walking simulator belonged to a now-dead family member and has been sealed up, the only way to see inside being a peephole installed in a commemorative plaque. Tantalising you with an initial glimpse of the room before you find a way in, peeping in ignites a rabid curiosity, the distorted view…

Released: 30 November 1998 Publisher: Eidos Interactive Developer: Looking Glass Studios System: PC 1998 WAS ONE of the most important years in the history of gaming. For many, it is largely remembered for being the period in which the FPS reinvented itself, shifting radically from the linear frameworks of the run-and-gun shooter to a more considered and mechanically ambitious level that ushered in the likes of Half-Life, Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six and (the oft-overlooked) SiN. But there was something else out there too, hiding off in the shadows, just out of sight but never out of mind. Metal Gear Solid and Tenchu: Stealth Assassins may have assembled a template for 3D stealth, but Thief: A Dark Project – arriving in the dying embers of the year – set a standard…

THIEF II: THE METAL AGE • The sequel to Thief: The Dark Project, released in 2000, is – like any good sequel should be – superior to its predecessor in almost every way conceivable. That’s because Looking Glass Studios simply took its core engine, systems and mechanics and built a better game around them. The story and mission structure is more focused, the level design more ingenious; Thief II is a game that every gamer should play at least once in their life. DEUS EX • Featuring one of the best sandbox structures to ever grace videogames, Deus Ex stands tall as one of the very best stealth games ever released. Across its huge, sprawling and interconnected environments, it allowed the player to experiment and play with its wildly adaptive…

“Everything from how we work with our community to how we patch our games, Fortnite really was the prototype of that shift inside the organisation to be able to have closer contact with our players.” So says Epic creative director and Fortnite creative lead Darren Sugg, as the developer’s base-building and horde-surviving multiplayer experience steps back into the light after months of silence. This Horde mode meets Minecraft-ish third-person shooter was one of the first titles Epic announced as it made the decision to move away from boxed games and towards a digitally focused, multiplayer future. On the horizon are the already very successful Paragon and the long-awaited Unreal Tournament, but this is where it began. “I think we took a lot from even how we…

“ The Partner Switch mechanic, although intuitive and easy to understand, is much more open than it’s ever been ”PETER ‘COMBOFIEND’ ROSAS CAPCOM CONCEPT • The most popular of the team-based beat ’em ups, that requires you to learn which characters complement each other’s fight style and use them to defeat your opponent. INFORMATION Details Format: PS4, Xbox One, PC Origin: Japan Publisher: Capcom Developer: In-house Release: 19 September 2017 Players: 1-2 Developer Profile Capcom is behind many of gaming’s greatest series and popularised the 2D fighting game genre with the release of Street Fighter II. It then went on to push it forward repeatedly with the release of a frankly absurd amount of incredible entries in the genre - many of which are regarded as all-time classics. Developer History…

“ Joe Madureira briefly returned to breathe fresh life into protagonist Fury for the new release, expanding on his original concept designs from 2010 ” • Five years since the original release of Darksiders II, this is a sequel emerging out of the ashes of THQ and Vigil games. INFORMATION Details Format: PS4, Xbox One, PC Origin: USA Publisher: THQ Nordic Developer: Gunfire Games Release: 2018 Players: 1 Developer Profile Gunfire Games formed in 2014, retaining the spirit of former Darksiders developer Vigil Games, and a number of staff that worked on the first two games, including the game director, executive producer, technical director and lead environmental artist. The studio also worked on the release of Darksiders II: Deathinitive Edition. High Point Chronos was a killerapp for virtual reality at…

“ Red Dead Redemption 2 is boasting some vastly improved engine technology to work on current gen consoles ” CONCEPT • The publisher famous for its GTA franchise turns its open world criminal skills to North America’s frontier lifestyle in an age before autos. INFORMATION Details Format: PS4, Xbox One Origin: USA Publisher: Rockstar Game Developer: In-house Release: Spring 2018 Players: 1-TBC Developer Profile While it’s not been confirmed which team is handling RDR2, Rockstar San Diego is the franchise’s usual home. Originally known as Angel Studios from 1984 to 2003 it was bought by Rockstar as Red Dead Revolver was finishing development. It has also worked on the Midnight Club series and helped on LA Noire and GTA V. High Point Working as the primary studio on Red Dead…

“We don’t want to force players into any linear route that locks you into having to play a certain way” One of the more ambitious goals the Total War: Warhammer trilogy has set itself is to eventually provide a space in which all of its factions seen across all three games, including accompanying DLC, are playable together and against one another in what Creative Assembly is currently calling the ‘Grand Campaign’. The idea here is to recreate the table top game in the sense that you will be able to pick any faction from the Warhammer universe and take it into battle within the structure of Total War. That plan is coming into action with the release of Warhammer II, the Grand Campaign supporting the use of the four new…

DAYZ DEVELOPER: BOHEMIA INTERACTIVE WHAT’S IT ABOUT? You start with nothing and roam a zombie-infested Soviet-inspired landscape searching for food, water, medical supplies, clothes and weapons. Those shambling zombies aren’t the real danger, however. With permadeath meaning you can lose everything in the blink of an eye, the game is known for adrenaline-inducing encounters with other players who might be after your stuff, leading to bluffs, betrayals, stand-offs, shoot outs, and, occasionally, collaboration. HOW HAS IT CHANGED? Starting off as a mod for ARMA 2 before its move to Early Access, there were big changes in DayZ’s early days as it garnered the kind of attention Battlegrounds is now enjoying. Fast-forward to 2017, however, and it’s lost all that momentum. With creator Dean Hall leaving the project in 2014 and…

GULLY The nine-year old daughter of a famous and decorated member of the Royal Guard, Aramus, who went missing under mysterious circumstances, Gully has inherited her father’s magical gauntlets, which imbue her with incredible strength and near invulnerability. ROLE: TANK ALUMON A new character and hero for the Battle Chasers realm, Alumon is described as a Devil Hunter. He was never mentioned or featured in the original comic book run, so he is exclusive to the Nightwar story arc. His skills have been described as being a slayer of evil and healer of wounds. ROLE: T BC RED MONIKA This bounty hunter is a proficient fighter who actually trained Garrison in the art of sword fighting having known each other from a young age. While Garrison would go on to…

ANIMATION MIGHT FEEL STIFF BUT IN MOST OTHER RESPECTS INJUSTICE 2 IS A CLEAR SUCCESS DETAILS FORMAT: PS4 ALSO ON: Xbox One ORIGIN: USA PUBLISHER: Warner Bros. DEVELOPER: NetherRealm PRICE: £49.99 RELEASE: Out now PLAYERS: 1-8 ONLINE REVIEWED: Yes There’s been a steady uptick in quality with NetherRealm’s fighters of late, improvements across the board steadily turning the studio into one of the front runners on the beat-’em-up scene in some regards. Since 2011’s Mortal Kombat reboot, we’ve seen games that hold up as proper competitive fighters rather than relying on shock value and wackiness, with quality ramping up with each subsequent release – the first Injustice showed real promise and improvement, with Mortal Kombat X the most refined and creative of all the team’s projects. And now, Injustice 2…

DETAILS FORMAT: PS4 OTHER FORMATS: Xbox One, PC ORIGIN: Poland PUBLISHER: CI Games DEVELOPER: In-house PRICE: £49.99 RELEASE: Out now PLAYERS: 1 ONLINE REVIEWED: N/A This is a case of Icarus flying too close to the sun. You can’t escape the feeling that CI Games has lost its footing while overreaching, when really it should’ve concentrated on getting the basics right and gone from there. There’s a lot of ambition behind Sniper: Ghost Warrior 3, which can’t be faulted, but that ambition to create an emergent open-world experience in a game that could easily manage without that element means that the developer has had to compromise when it comes to performance. It’s a shame, really, as there’s quite a lot to like about Ghost Warrior 3 if you know where…

DETAILS FORMAT: PS4 OTHER FORMATS: Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, PC ORIGIN: France PUBLISHER: DotEmu DEVELOPER: Lizardcube PRICE: £15.99 RELEASE: Out now PLAYERS: 1 ONLINE REVIEWED: N/A To look at Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap is to see several years of dedication and affection splashed across the screen. French studio Lizardcube’s remake of the 1989 Sega Master System game is beautiful, its fluidly animated hand-drawn visuals complemented perfectly by a gently swelling orchestral score. What it’s not is anything more than the source material in terms of level structure, moment-to-moment gameplay and difficulty curve – and at the touch of a button, the player can revert to the 8-bit original. This is essentially a terrific respray, then, playing atop the older game; as such, it’s incredibly faithful…

DETAILS FORMAT: PC ORIGIN: UK PUBLISHER: Introversion Software DEVELOPER: In-house PRICE: £8.99 RELEASE: Out now PLAYERS: 1 ONLINE REVIEWED: N/A Let’s get it out of the way first; anyone who uses the term walking simulator as a form of insult can quietly leave now. Yep, off you pop. The rise in short experiential games such as Gone Home and, more recently, What Remains Of Edith Finch, show just how rich in potential our medium can be when it comes to storytelling. Happily, Scanner Sombre is no different. While short at only three hours, not only does Prison Architect studio Introversion Software manage to deliver a swift underground scary tale but also one of the most beautiful and unique experiences we’ve had in years. While being plunged into complete darkness is…

“ It changed a lot of things for me, but the one thing that always sticks out in my mind was a specific puzzle ” GAVIN PRICE, MANAGING DIRECTOR & CREATIVE LEAD, PLAYTONIC “The Legend Of Zelda: A Link To The Past on the Super Nintendo is a game I love. It changed a lot of things for me, but the one thing that always sticks out in my mind was a specific puzzle in the game. There was no jump button in the game, but an after-effect of using the Pegasus Boots was always that you jumped back one grid space. There was this puzzle in the very last dungeon, a gap that you couldn’t Hookshot across or anything else. But there were some…

“ There are two big new additions that should go a long way to shaking up both the world and the gameplay options ” CONCEPT • TT Games returns to the Marvel universe, this time bringing together characters and concepts from across the many dimensions of the comic empire. INFORMATION Details Format: PS4, Xbox One, PC, Switch Origin: UK Publisher: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment Developer: TT Games Release: 14 November 2017 Players: 1-4 Developer Profile The TT Games run on the LEGO franchise has surely made it one of the most lucrative developers in the business today and it shows no signs of slowing down. As it stands it has regular LEGO releases, LEGO Worlds and LEGO Dimensions on the go. Developer History LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game 2005…

“ The studio wants every player to walk away with different stories and a different experience ” CONCEPT • Take control of the destiny of the British population, working as a journalist to uncover a shady government that threatens civil liberties. INFORMATION Details Format: PC Origin: UK Publisher: White Paper Games Developer: In-house Release: 2017 Players: 1 Developer Profile An independent developer out of Manchester, White Paper Games formed in 2012. The studio released its debut title in 2014, with the eight staff contributing to the critically-acclaimed Ether One. Now that’s out the door, it is now working on its new title, The Occupation. Developer History Ether One 2014 [PS4, PC] High Point As far as debuts go, Ether One was a massive statement of intent from White Paper Games.…

“ It’s a graphical and stylistic upgrade that honours the original look of the game ” CONCEPT • Take out all required targets in busy locations without being spotted or caught in this fun and frivolous murder simulation. INFORMATION Details Format: PC Origin: Ukraine Publisher: tinyBuild Developer: Pinokl Games, Kverta Release: TBC 2017 Players: 1 Developer Profile Pinokl doesn’t have a long list of titles behind it that are available globally, having started out slow on browser and smartphone releases very different from the game that would really grab the world’s attention, Party Hard. Cute, animal-based releases and robot brawlers were the key interests before the developer moved into party-stopping violence simulation. Developer History Party Hard 2015 [Multi] Mecha Titans 2014 [iOS] High Point Party Hard is the game that…

“IF IT WASN’T FOR MY CAREER IN COMICS I DEFINITELY WOULDN’T HAVE HAD THOSE OPPORTUNITIES IN THE GAMES INDUSTRY” SO, TO START OFF COULD YOU TELL US A LITTLE ABOUT YOUR BACKGROUND? WE UNDERSTAND YOU GOT YOUR START IN COMICS AT A PRETTY YOUNG AGE. I was going to a high school in New York City called the High School of Art and Design and they had an internship program that you can do in your third year; your junior year. They had various publishers throughout the city and one of them was Marvel Comics – and DC actually – and because I was at the time so into comics and making up my own characters and stories and stuff, people were like “you gotta do this internship at Marvel…

PREY LACKS THE VARIETY OR FOCUS TO EVER TRULY SETTLE INTO A COMFORTABLE RHYTHM DETAILS FORMAT: Xbox One OTHER FORMATS: PC, PS4 ORIGIN: USA PUBLISHER: Bethesda DEVELOPER: Arkane Studios PRICE: £59.99 RELEASE: Out now PLAYERS: 1 ONLINE REVIEWED: N/A Is Arkane Studios having an identity crisis? It’s a question that’s inherently difficult to answer, but one that seems particularly relevant given the ways in which Prey succeeds and fails. For all that the game does well – particularly the ways in which it strikes a balance between a yearning for knowledge and a drive for survival – Prey is never quite able to escape the long shadow cast by System Shock. That isn’t merely a symptom of thrusting a wrench in your hand and setting an immersive sim in the…

THERE ARE A LOT OF PEAKS AND TROUGHS TO A GAME OF DAWN OF WAR III, AND THAT IS PERHAPS ITS BIGGEST SUCCESS DETAILS FORMAT: PC ORIGIN: Canada PUBLISHER: Sega DEVELOPER: Relic Entertainment PRICE: £49.99 RELEASE: Out now PLAYERS: 1-6 MINIMUM SPEC: 64-bit OS, 3GHz quad core CPU, 4GB RAM, 1GB GPU, 50GB HDD space ONLINE REVIEWED: Yes There’s an unspoken rule in game critique that suggests you should never start a review with a history lesson, but it’s somehow pertinent to do so here. See, Dawn Of War – as a franchise – has long been seen as a title capable of shifting the expectations of the RTS genre and it’s important to acknowledge that going into the third game. The original release created a pure example of the…

DETAILS FORMAT: PS4 OTHER FORMATS: Xbox One, PC ORIGIN: France PUBLISHER: Anuman DEVELOPER: Microïds PRICE: £44.99 RELEASE: Out now PLAYERS: 1 ONLINE REVIEWED: N/A Early on in Syberia 3 , we were able to run through a locked gate behind which we were supposed to be trapped. Later, we had to restart the game mid-way through a puzzle after it froze solid. At one point, protagonist Kate Walker admonishes someone for “watching” a soap opera. On a radio. Characters are fond of performing a little teleportation dance at the start of a scene before finding their proper place. Dialogue will occasionally play out of sync. This collage of disaster should give you a feel for what you can expect from Syberia 3. The game carries straight on…

DETAILS FORMAT: PSVR ORIGIN: Sweden PUBLISHER: Tarsier Studios DEVELOPER: In-house PRICE: £15.99 RELEASE: Out now PLAYERS: 1 ONLINE REVIEWED: N/A You hang around for a decade hoping to see Tarsier release a new IP of its own and suddenly two come along in a week. And what’s more, they’re both belters. Having impressed us with Little Nightmares, this VR puzzler is a 180 degree turn, but it’s no less impressive, immersive, unsettling and engaging. The core premise of Statik is one of those great ‘how has no one thought of this before’ moments with your first person perspective revealing that your hands, wrapped around the DualShock 4 as far as you’re aware, are actually trapped inside a box. Each button, stick and trigger on the PS4’s controller may or may…

DETAILS FORMAT: PS4 OTHER FORMATS: Xbox One, PC ORIGIN: Germany PUBLISHER: Focus Home Interactive DEVELOPER: Deck13 Interactive PRICE: £49.99 RELEASE: Out now PLAYERS: 1 ONLINE REVIEWED: N/A What an interesting prospect this is. The Surge’s blend of action-RPG nuance and sci-fi hack-and-slash insanity sounded like risky business to us, but give it a few hours, find your way through the familiar but secretly super different levelling mechanics, weapon upgrades and more, and there’s a really good game in here. Don’t get too excited about the plot or wider lore – you’ll spend most of your time smashing other exo-suit-wearing nutters with a variety of primitive items, from pipe-like metal staffs to huge shards of steel that you’ve nicked off the corpse of a boss. Combat takes a little bit…

MORTAL KOMBAT IS quite an interesting franchise as it’s one that has generally improved with each successive instalment. Yes there have been some huge stumbles along the way (most of the spin-offs, for example, are absolute garbage) but the core games have tended to always improve on the original formulae, which was gore, gore and even more gore. Created by Ed Boon and John Tobias as a competitor to Capcom’s phenomenally successful Street Fighter II, Midway’s brawler mainly relied on two things to wow gamers in the arcades: its realistic digistised characters; and an unhealthy amount of over-the-top blood and guts that immediately made it stand apart from virtually every other game of the time. Sure the animation was incredibly ropey and naff in the first game, and the block…