Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2017 i PC Gamer (US Edition)

The release of Mass Effect: Andromeda shows it’s not quite on a par with previous series entries—even if it still has a lot to give as a fuller vision of that universe. I expect Andromeda to follow the same trajectory as the original trilogy: The first entry finds its feet, the second makes the most of your established relationships. And the third, I guess, will have an ending that ends up being rewritten. Either way, Chris’s review, starting on p54, is a fascinating reading of the series’ trajectory over the next decade. samuel.roberts@futurenet.com@SamuelWRoberts TALK TO PC GAMER Have your say! Tweet us @PCGamer…

MONITOR I DISCUSS DISCUSS PHIL SAVAGE currently has six distribution clients on his PC. Is open to more. ANDY KELLY was once a Steam devotee, but now ready to branch out. Phil: Once there was Steam, and it was... pretty bad, actually. But over the years it grew and improved, and attracted competitors. Now, you can buy games through Origin, Uplay, GOG, Itch.io, GamersGate, Humble, Green Man Gaming, GameShart—so many digital distributors that only one of that list is made up. Many web stores simply sell Steam keys, but others offer a full Steam alternative, client and all. Given the size of the market, is Steam still the daddy? Andy: For ages I resented having to buy non-Steam games. There’s something nice about having your entire game collection in one…

Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood NEED TO KNOW RELEASE June 20 DEVELOPER Square Enix PUBLISHER In-house LINK http://eu.finalfantasyxiv.com F FXIV’s newest expansion is fast approaching, and the hype train is picking up speed thanks to a glut of new info from the recent European Fan Fest event and the latest story updates in-game. War is coming, and it’s about to take you to some unexpected places. In-game the story has been ramping up to a confrontation with the dominationhungry Garlean empire over the state of Ala Mhigo, which it invaded 20 years ago, forcing its citizens to seek refuge in Eorzea. Tensions have been simmering in the background since the game launched. A rebellion has taken root and now the warrior of light is getting involved to fight back. Current players of…

Mass Effect: Andromeda “YOU GET A SENSE THAT THE GALAXY IS FILLED WITH REAL PEOPLE” Ten years ago, the first Mass Effect packed a season’s worth of TV science fiction into a videogame, and put you in the role of both director and lead character. Its sequels took your decisions and span the consequences into series-spanning story arcs, held onto the characters you liked, and developed deep relationships around them. There is a reason that Shepard’s trilogy means as much as it does to so many people. Mass Effect’s five-year absence has been kind to the series, softening the memory of the controversial finale, and the faltering journey that got us there. Andromeda resets that journey to its beginning, for better and for worse. This is a new Mass Effect with all…

Apparently the jump button isn’t located between my ass cheeks. I know this because irascible and stunted protagonist—no, antagonist—Styx has just shouted it at me from a loading screen after I missed a ledge and killed him. Swearing is not big and it’s not clever, but you’d better get used to it, as the foul-mouthed goblin is back with another lavish helping throat-slitting and focused skulking-about in a fantasy world. Nine multi-sectored missions are set mainly in and around the vertiginous dark elven city of Korrangar, where high priestess Lyssril plots a path to invincibility through the acquisition of amber and pure quartz. Whereas Styx’s dependence on liquid amber provided the impetus in 2014’s Master of Shadows, this time he predictably develops a serious quartz habit too. The wider story unfolds…

As a stealth game, Sniper Elite 4 isn’t as playful or full of gadgets as Hitman or MGSV. You can lure enemies out of cover with sound and set explosive traps on bodies, but there are no boxes to hide in and no non-lethal options. I wouldn’t expect any in a game that delights in slow-mo X-ray shots of bullets crashing into foreheads and tumbling out of the backs of skulls. That’s the Sniper Elite way, and it’s never been better than it is here. Each campaign mission drops you into a large map—think Battlefield size or a little bigger—somewhere in Italy during World War II, and sets up some Nazi scheming to be foiled. I wasn’t particularly gripped by the plot details in the skippable cutscenes, but all of that recedes when it’s mission time. There’s…

You’ve found a phone. It’s unlocked, and has four recent messages from an increasingly panicked dad. The owner, it seems, is missing—having disappeared on this, the night of their 18th birthday. A mystery! And one that can only be solved by digging through the owner’s texts and, later, finding clues that let you guess passwords. A Normal Lost Phone is one of a growing number of adventure games about poking through personal data. But where Orwell and Mainlining make the invasion of privacy a central part of the story, here it feels incidental—and more uncomfortable for it. It’s hard to reconcile the story being told with the things you’re required to do in order to progress it. The owner of the phone has good reason to be wary about people…

NOW PLAYING You never forget your first MMO love. The game that clicked with you, that made you forge the most friendships, that made you cry the most tears. My college gaming days were dominated by Champions Online, where I spent more than 3,200 hours across almost four years. 2016 marked the year I moved out of my home country and while spending the last month reminiscing about days gone by, I asked myself, “What’s Champions Online like now? I log into the client and the game greets me as I left it: No music, the resolution and video settings of my old PC, and the sight of the last character I played. Next to the bear wrestler from Planet Soviet is the line “Last active: 590 days ago”. I’m…

WHAT MAKES GAMES SPECIAL When I was young, I had too few games but too much spare time. Now I’m an adult, I have the opposite problem. That changing relationship with games means I now see them as things to be ticked off as quickly as possible, rather than to be got into as deeply as I used to. Having just five or six games as a younger man meant I would endlessly pore over them, repeating skirmishes in Red Alert, or missions in X-Wing. Everyone has done something similar, I’m sure, whether installing endless Doom WADs, or conquering every last piece of land in Total War. Age of Empires II’s map editor was the king of time wasters for anyone with just a few games in their collection. I remember the first time I…

PHIL SAVAGE Specialist in Cartels, drones Twitter @Octaeder This month Braved the wilds of pretend Bolivia for our Ghost Recon review, and had only an OK time. TONY ELLIS Specialist in Writing books, goodbyes This month Announced he’s leaving us next issue, after years of service to PCG. Do send your best wishes so we can embarrass him on his final day. CHRIS THURSTEN Specialist in Space, smoochin’ Twitter @CThursten This month That didn’t take long! Expat Chris returns to review Mass Effect: Andromeda for us.…

Hevn NEED TO KNOW RELEASE Summer DEVELOPER Miga PUBLISHER In-house LINK www.hevngame.com The year is 2128 and Earth is overheating, overcrowded, and generally an unpleasant place to live. This inspires Sebastian Mar to take an interstellar mining job at Barnard’s Star, a system six light years away from Earth. The game is set on an isolated planetoid orbiting the star, on a mining base operated by Sebastian’s paymasters, Nonomi. This being a dystopian science fiction story, there seems to be a sinister side to the corporation’s interstellar activities. “As Sebastian you’ll navigate the physical and political dangers of Nonomi’s highly controversial celestial mining efforts,” according to Seattle-based developer Miga, founded in 2013. “Inspired by classic immersive sims such as System Shock and Deus Ex, HEVN is a survival game with…

There’s never been a better time to play free PC games, given just how many of them are released every single day. Thousands exist on platforms such as Game Jolt and Itch. io—so many that it can be difficult to spot the gold. Every so often you need to celebrate not only classics, but also more recent gems that haven’t gained as much attention. In that spirit, PC Gamer presents our now yearly edition of the Top 50 Free Downloads, an unordered list of the best games you can download without needing to open your wallet—no, not even for microtransactions. We haven’t been able to fit every great freeware game we know of, and there are doubtless others that have slipped our minds. Nevertheless, you will find exemplars from a variety…

I can’t help but admire the crew of the Spirit of Fire. For almost three decades they’ve been locked in cryosleep (in some uncomfy looking chambers), yet when the ship’s dying AI finally sends out a wake-up call, they pop out into action, hardhats already donned. By the time the ship’s scruffy Captain Cutter starts making inspiring speeches to an awestruck scientist in the map room, I would have been still rubbing my eyes and debating whether to shower or eat first. With Halo Wars 2, co-developers 343 Industries and Creative Assembly seem to hope the RTS genre will make a similar leap back into action. For Xbox One players, undoubtedly the target audience, it’s a bit of a miniature wonder, with largely smart gamepad controls and a modicum of…

Mae Borowski drops out of college and returns to the rural town she grew up in, Possum Springs. But it’s a bittersweet homecoming. She was the first Borowski to go to college, and her parents are disappointed she quit. The collapse of the coal industry has left the town in a state of decline. And her friends have matured in ways she hasn’t. But while this is a game that fearlessly tackles big subjects like mental health, responsibility, and relationships, it’s also really funny. We follow Mae as she reconnects with friends, confronts her past, and faces her future, while still finding time to play bass, eat pizza, and smash stuff with a baseball bat. Without a job or school to go to, Mae spends her days exploring Possum Springs.…

Wild boar. Blacktail deer. Roosevelt elk. European bison. Beautiful, majestic creatures, all of which I’ve killed with a big gun in The Hunter, a semi-realistic hunting sim set across two vast rural landscapes in Germany and America’s Pacific Northwest. But you can’t just sprint around shooting like a Call of Duty protagonist: You have to be quiet and methodical if you want to bag one of the many furry trophies. This being a simulator, there’s more to a successful hunt than pointing your gun at the first creature you see then shooting it. There are a lot of places in the woods for an animal to hide, and your first job is usually tracking one down, which can take a while. As you creep through the trees you’ll see tracks highlighted on the…

MAJOR MODS, ANALYZED Y ou’re a child, walking down a bright, sunny road. It’s idyllic, until it’s not. When you meet up with your father, things get dark, quickly. It’s a strong, unsettling opening for Enderal, an enormous total conversion for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim that dazzles with its quality and professionalism. It’s not perfect, but Enderal is leagues ahead of what I thought possible from an amateur team working with an almost-six-year-old game. The opening sums up this running theme of imperfect but impressive. It’s well crafted, but poorly paced. The eerie cold open is revealed to be a dream, after which you’re still a long way from getting out into the world proper. There’s an admittedly accomplished cutscene—an animated tapestry of events that fills in the history of this world. There’s your…

ANDY KELLY CPUs are just sand that we flattened and tricked into thinking. And now you can play Daikatana on that sand. It makes you think. NO MAN’S SKY www.no-mans-sky.com Like many people, I lost interest in No Man’s Sky and drifted away. But the recent Path Finder update, which adds a brilliant photo mode, has tempted me back. Combined with the new creative mode, which gives you infinite fuel and resources, it’s turned the game into an incredible space photography simulator. FAHRENHEIT www.fahrenheit-game.com David Cage’s adventure game is, arguably, absolute nonsense. But that’s why I keep replaying it, even though it’s little more than a prolonged series of QTEs. The sheer absurdity of the script, culminating in an inexplicable fight with the internet, makes it the PC gaming equivalent…

NEED TO KNOW RELEASE 2017 DEVELOPER Milestone PUBLISHER In-house LINK www.gravelvideogame.com From sunny Pacific islands to the forests of Alaska, Gravel offers exuberant open-world racing. Milestone has moved to Unreal Engine 4, and the difference is immediately visible. But while Gravel clearly utilizes the capabilities of the new tech, it has its roots firmly in Milestone’s past—namely the classic 90s racer Screamer. Irvin Zonca, head of game design at Milestone, explains: “Our head of programming created Screamer. So in my office there is the original design of the Screamer games. I took it off the shelf and put it on the table and it stayed there all the time, giving me inspiration. I was thinking of me as a 15-year-old guy playing Screamer during the ’90s, and I thought that a game like that is…

When you look at the most popular survival games on the Steam marketplace, it’s easy to notice a particular trend. Whether you’re surviving the Jurassic jungles of Ark: Survival Evolved, the hostile planets of Empyrion—Galactic Survival, or the exposed genitals of other players in Rust, if you want to play a survival game, you’re probably going to play an unfinished one. Steam Early Access is billed as a way for players to “get immediate access to games that are being developed with the community’s involvement.” That’s a fancy way of saying paying upfront for games that aren’t finished. And when it comes to survival games, very few are. That hasn’t stopped the genre from becoming one of the largest and most diverse in PC gaming, however. Ark: Survival Evolved continues to be one…

The Penthouse is a maximum security prison balanced on top of a mesa somewhere in the Arizona desert. Built to house augmented criminals, it has cameras, drones, armed guards, laser grids, and automated turrets everywhere you look. The perfect playground for an immersive sim. But when Jensen arrives, working undercover for Interpol’s Task Force 29 and posing as a criminal, he’s implanted with a chip that disables his augmentations. This forces you to adopt a new play style and not rely on your augs so much, at least until you find a way to reactivate them. You’re in the Penthouse – or the Penley T. Housefather Correctional Facility to give it its full, exhausting name – to locate a fellow undercover agent and squeeze him for intel about a terror…

NOW PLAYING DOWNLOADS REPORT MOD SPOTLIGHT REINSTALL WHY LOVE MUST PLAY OLD GAMES, NEW PERSPECTIVES “He’s not a blank slate, he’s just incredibly boring” Eike Kusch leaves a restaurant in the fictional German town of Lebensbaum. As he walks down a cobbled side street, he has the uneasy feeling that someone is following him. Then, in a flash, an unseen figure stabs him in the back and he slumps to the ground, dead. Game over. Or is it? Kusch wakes up in a strange, otherworldly void. A grandfather clock ticks loudly as he picks himself off the floor, then an odd being calling itself Homunculus appears before him. In an eerily calm, slightly sinister voice it says it’s giving him a second chance at life. It hands him a device…