Innholdsfortegnelse for January 2017 i PC Gamer

Welcome! For this milestone issue, we’ve put together a retrospective on 20 significant past editions of PC Gamer that represent our storied history (p38). We also rounded up some special guests for Now Playing, and Andy revisited Deus Ex, one of PC gaming’s most important titles. And for the next 300 issues? One thing we’re going to do in 2017 is bring back our team diary features, daft photoshoots and all. We know you’ll enjoy seeing them again. Plus, we’re going to keep making this magazine something you look forward to every single month. Enjoy the issue. TALK TO PC GAMER Have your say! Tweet us @PCGamer…

I’M SURPRISED – AND ACTUALLY QUITE REASSURED – BY HOW STRAIGHT-FACED IT IS NEED TO KNOW RELEASE 2017 DEVELOPER Pixel Titans PUBLISHER Devolver Digital LINK www.strafe1996.com Strafe bills itself as having “bleeding edge graphics and gameplay”, but by the standards of the year 1996. It’s a stylish tribute to the blisteringly fast, single-minded shooters that defined PC gaming when cases were beige and games were packaged in giant cardboard boxes. Which, let’s be honest, is hardly a new idea. Indie developers have been dining out on ’90s nostalgia for years now, preying on our desire to return to a time when life wasn’t quite so gruelling and The Simpsons was still good. Visit the game’s website and you feel like you’ve tumbled through a time portal back to…

A few squads of burly Space Marines, members of Dawn of War III’s Blood Ravens Chapter, are hanging around a communications device, probably swapping tips on the best oil to use on their bulky armour. Little do they know, right next to them, Eldar are gathering. Cloaked warriors hide in the open, while the rest of the army lingers in the tall grass, essentially invisible. Before the Marines have time to ask “Who is that running toward us?” one squad of them is already dead, sliced and diced by a dashing Eldar who moves with preternatural speed and grace. The second squad opens fire, only to be sniped by the previously invisible Rangers and the infantry in the grass. The final group, maybe because they’re smart,…

Even with the push into science fiction, CoD hasn’t changed much NEED TO KNOW WHAT IS IT? A sci-fi shooter spectacle in singleplayer, with twitchy multiplayer and co-op zombie shooting. EXPECT TO PAY £40 DEVELOPER Infinity Ward PUBLISHER Activision REVIEWED ON Windows 10, Intel Core i5-3570, 8GB RAM, Nvidia GTX Titan MULTIPLAYER Up to 18 players competitive, 4-player co-op in Zombies mode LINK www.callofduty.com/ infinitewarfare Idon’t think Call of Duty campaigns are supposed to be fun. If I’m reckless at all – like, say, having fun with my jetpack – my vision smears with strawberry jam, blurry and pulsing. My screen shakes, white text yells “get to cover” at me and I’m forced to the ground behind hunks of concrete and metal. And…

Smash TV is my right tit. Geometry Wars is my ex-boyfriend NEED TO KNOW WHAT IS IT? Twin-stick Covenant blaster with an odd attitude to XP EXPECT TO PAY £2 DEVELOPER 343/Vanguard PUBLISHER Microsoft Studios MULTIPLAYER Some two-player co-op levels FIRST REVIEWED PCG 257, 58% LINK www.haloway point.com Issue 300, eh? It’s an important number. There were three hundred Spartans at the Battle of Thermopylae. We honour those warriors by doing the 300 Workout, where you do press-ups until you puke. We honour them by having Spartan Decor, which means you can’t be arsed putting wallpaper up. And we honour them with 2008 comedy Meet The Spartans, where the only fresh review on Rotten Tomatoes basically says “Expect nothing and you won’t be disappointed”. Or…

PHIL SAVAGE THIS MONTH Proved unsuitable for management. ALSO PLAYED Dishonored 2, Quadrilateral Cowboy I’m not a fan of motorsport, nor of managing things. Based on the experience implied by its title, Motorsport Manager is not the game for me. Then again, I don’t care for gardening or zombies much, and I played almost 100 hours of Plants vs. Zombies. I’m not about to let what things are called determine whether or not I’ll like them. My motorsport manager won’t share my lack of enthusiasm for racing. I name him Henry Motorsport, pick the Ex-Driver background, and give him a grey beard to convey knowledge and experience. Henry is managing Dragon Race Team China, my hope being that having a connection to something I understand – fantasy lizards – will…

SIT BACK AND WATCH THE END OF CIVILISATION WHILE THROWING POPCORN INTO YOUR MOUTH ANDY KELLY THIS MONTH Destroyed the planet, eradicated the human race. ALSO PLAYED Dishonored 2, Deus Ex DEFCON is what the US calls its Defence Readiness Condition, a series of numbered alert states, from 1 to 5, that determine how close the country is to a nuclear attack. The lower the number, the more likely it is that the continent will be blanketed in radioactive fire. And the same applies to the game, which uses the same alert states to split its matches into five distinct stages. At DEFCON 5 there are no hostile actions on the map. Each player has a limited amount of time to place missile silos, radar dishes, airbases, and naval…

As good as its design and atmosphere were, as a horror game Frictional’s Soma couldn’t hold a candle to the team’s previous title, Amnesia: The Dark Descent. You’re lost in a spooky castle full of wandering monsters and invisible beasts, with only a few hiding places to keep you safe, and only an oil lantern to keep you sane. It’s still one of the most terrifying horror games around, and here’s a bit more of it, in the form of a massive new fan campaign that adds four chapters, 30 environments and two new enemy types. The five magics are alchemy, electricity, wizardry, sorcery and thaumaturgy, and playing as a happy-go-lucky occultist named Vernon Cooper, you’ll attempt to master all five, primarily by hiding in a cupboard until the nasty…

This is a game about the media, and how our consumption of news can influence our behaviour in the real world. As a camera-person hovering in front of a varied group of people, your job is to make news by snapping images of conflict, or of unusual fashions – encounters that, to begin with, are fairly rare. You see a person with a nice hat, take a picture, and before you know it half the citizens are wearing similar headpieces, after seeing your story on TV. The cute flash-game-style art helps to deliver the message in a non-preachy way, but it also lowers your guard for the darker turn the game takes later on, when the news incites acts of violence between social groups. DOWNLOAD AT www.bit.ly/WeBecome…

1 NEW YORK CITY Plagued by a mystery virus called the Grey Death and deadly street drug Zyme, this future New York is a bleak, dangerous place. 2 PARIS The French capital is the base of Silhouette, a terrorist group with ties to the Illuminati, and is patrolled by Majestic 12 troops. 3 VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE This base is the HQ of X-51, an MJ12 splinter group who disagreed with their shadowy plans for the world. 4 HONG KONG Villain Bob Page’s sinister VersaLife corporation is based here, as well as several warring factions of Triad gangsters. 5 AREA 51 The infamous ‘top secret’ USAF base in Nevada is secretly home to a mass surveillance system that’s covertly spying on the world.…

IN REAL LIFE YOU OFTEN DON’T KNOW WHERE FRIENDLY TROOPS ARE, LET ALONE THE ENEMY In late 2016, two missiles launched by rebel forces in Yemen shot toward the USS Mason, an American destroyer patrolling the Red Sea. The crew picked up the missiles late on their radar and launched defensive measures. The missiles ditched short, into the sea. It wasn’t the first time rebels attacked shipping in the area, but this was notable for a most unusual reason. A PC wargame was able to predict almost precisely the way the event unfolded. The game in question is Command: Modern Air/ Naval Operations from Slitherine. “Simulations don’t give specific outcomes,” says development director Iain McNeil. “They let you try out strategies multiple times to see what kind of plans work…

A SET NUMBER OF DAYS PASSES BEFORE YOU ATTEMPT TO PROVE YOUR INNOCENCE NEED TO KNOW RELEASE Spring 2017 DEVELOPER Pixel Crow PUBLISHER 11 Bit Studios LINK www.beatcopgame.com Once a respected detective, after being framed for murder you find yourself back on the mean streets of New York City, working the beat, writing tickets, and finding lost cats. Beat Cop is a game about the often mundane work of a police officer, but threaded with a tale of revenge as protagonist Jack Kelly attempts to clear his name. Set in the 1980s, Beat Cop has you patrolling a single city block. Pixel art might seem like a weird stylistic choice, but it works surprisingly well. By focusing on one area, the artists have been able to…

I WONDER IF BLIND NAVIGATION WILL BE THE FINISHED GAME’S PRIMARY GIMMICK NEED TO KNOW RELEASE TBC 2017 DEVELOPER Introversion Software PUBLISHER In-house LINK www.introversion.co.uk Introversion is known for its unique PC games, and its latest project continues the trend. The UK-based indie studio recently released several prototypes designed to test the waters for its next project after Prison Architect . The one that seemed to capture people’s imaginations, for good reason, was the deeply unusual Scanner Sombre . I spent an hour with the latest version of this prototype and it’s a step towards something very interesting indeed – even though I’m not exactly sure what that is. The demo begins in a tent. I appear to be camping somewhere, but outside all…

1 WRAITHKNIGHT TALDEER Taldeer can charge at enemies, killing them or knocking them back in a broad path. The big damage comes at the end, with a massive sword slash. This attack can also be activated early, ending the attack but allowing players to hit specific, dangerous enemies. The mech’s second ability is a shield, which can be dropped to assist not just Taldeer but the rest of the army, while debuffing enemies. 2 FARSEER MACHA The Eldar protagonist tasked with retrieving the Spear of Khaine, even though she’s not convinced by the prophecy. She’s got history with her Space Marine counterpart, Gabriel Angelos, so there are personal stakes. Her key weapon is her Singing Spear, which she can throw at rows of enemies, recall – damaging them again –…

Titanfall 2 is a game about big, shooty robots and their fast, shooty pilots. It’s exciting, and one of the best FPS campaigns you’ll play this year – as you’ll discover by reading Chris’s review over on page 80. It also promises some great multiplayer experiences. There are plenty of modes available, from classics such as capture the flag and control point, to new modes like Bounty Hunt and Pilot vs Pilot. The more you play, the more options you’ll unlock, until your arsenal of weapons and tools has grown to support incredibly specific playstyles through a variety of different loadouts. In other words, there’s a lot to sink your teeth into. If you’re planning to get involved, consider joining our official PC Gamer network for Titanfall 2. Networks are…

Resorting to boring old running on the ground can feel like failure NEED TO KNOW WHAT IS IT? A fast-paced FPS featuring parkour, sci-fi gadgets, and massive robot battlesuits. EXPECT TO PAY £50 DEVELOPER Respawn Entertainment PUBLISHER EA REVIEWED ON Intel Core i7-6700K, Nvidia GTX 980, 16GB RAM MULTIPLAYER Online LINK www.titanfall.com Titanfall 2 ’s brilliance comes as a surprise, and I say that as somebody who loved the original despite its flaws. In that first attempt, Respawn created a set of traversal, gunplay and mech combat systems served well by their multiplayer framework. If it had been released in the late 1990s, we’d be talking about its wall-running, titan-hopping, knee-sliding combat in the same hushed terms reserved for Tribes’ skiing, or…

It’s satisfying to have the time spent drilling into stats pay off NEED TO KNOW WHAT IS IT? An incredibly detailed football management sim that will consume your life. EXPECT TO PAY £35 DEVELOPER Sports Interactive PUBLISHER Sega REVIEWED ON (PC and laptop) i3-2120, AMD Radeon R9 270x, 8GB, Windows 10 MULTIPLAYER Yes LINK www.football manager.com Why did Leicester City draw attention from across the globe during their triumphant 2015/16 Premier League season? Why do Roma fans love Francesco Totti so dearly? It’s because, whether it’s the timeless tale of the underdog, or the hometown boy living the dream, football thrives on storytelling. Football Manager’s ability to capture that aspect of the beautiful game is what makes it such a success. Though often described (not entirely…

The sedate feeling I get is within spitting distance of boredom NEED TO KNOW WHAT IS IT? One of several theme park management sims keen on reviving the venerable genre. EXPECT TO PAY £30 DEVELOPER Frontier Developments PUBLISHER In-house REVIEWED ON Windows 10, GeForce GTX 960, Intel Core i7, 8GB RAM MULTIPLAYER None LINK www.planetcoaster.com Career mode hands you a half-built park and the job of saving it from calamity, be it unhappy customers or an alien monolith. Even at its weirdest, it feels like playing with someone else’s toys. In freeform sandbox mode, almost everything can be customised, down to signs with your own text in a variety of fonts. If you can spend hours happily designing a toilet this will make you happy. But challenge mode is where…

NEED TO KNOW WHAT IS IT? Gadget-magic stealth in a stark, brilliant world EXPECT TO PAY £8 DEVELOPER Arkane PUBLISHER Bethesda MULTIPLAYER None FIRST REVIEWED PCG 246, 92% LINK dishonored.bethesda.net One thing I never got about Dishonored was the invisible measure of chaos that increased as you took the murderous path, and which determined whether or not you got the good ending. Now, I’m not going to make the complaint everyone made at the time. I’m not going to complain it makes no sense to give us so many excellent ways to kill people, then ask us not to use them because it’s naughty. My problem with this approach, based on a recent surge in misanthropy that I can only describe as perfectly justified, is that…

THIS IS NOT THE JOE DANGER SEQUEL I WAS EXPECTING. I JOKE, BUT LESS THAN YOU MIGHT THINK KIERON GILLEN THIS MONTH Returned to PCG for the first time in a while. ALSO PLAYED Firewatch, MGS4 I am an old man. I have travelled across a great distance to bring you wisdom. I have lived in places you will never go. I will try to tell you about them. I will try to make you understand so well it feels more like remembering. The place I’ve come from is the past. For gaming, the past isn’t a different country. It’s a different world. More so: worlds. The vast majority of those worlds are dead now. They are forgotten, until they’re not. A smarter reader will be suspecting I’m saying…

GRAHAM SMITH THIS MONTH Beat Rich McCormick at FIFA 17 without him knowing. ALSO PLAYED A sad loop of home movies from his glory days. I hate magic Zlatan Ibrahimovic!” I yell at Rich as the Swedish striker collects the ball. His real-life strength and powerful shots are exactly the kind of footballing skills which, transmuted into FIFA, seem to imbalance its simulation. He’s unstoppable. Yet to my surprise and delight, Zlatan chugs slowly into the box and blasts the ball high into the crowd behind the goal. The final whistle blows. “I guess you do like to lose,” I say to Rich, as I’ve just beaten him with the French team Toulouse, which is pronounced like “to lose”, maybe. If this year’s performances are any indication, Zlatan isn’t the…

Eleven years is a long time to nurse an idea for a Doom 2 map, but after being re-inspired by a YouTube review of “terrible wads”, modder Ben Mansell set about bringing that map to the world. Thirteen months, and some 300 hours of development later, Foursite was born, which is four maps crammed into one. If you know Doom modding at all, you’ll be aware of the limitations of the stock engine, and Foursite pushes up against them all, relying on only one enhancement from the modern era: the ability to make bigger maps. Even then, it pushes the level format to its limits, encompassing four distinct areas, each with their own boss-like…

Lovely action RPG Titan Quest received an unexpected ‘Anniversary’ update recently, one that improved performance, enhanced the multiplayer, made several quality-of-life tweaks, and added a bulging bag of new stuff to the Greek mythology-inspired loot-’nmurder game. Anniversary Edition also includes support for the Steam Workshop, and there are already a fair few skins, difficulty settings, and system overhauls available. Before you get down and dirty mucking about with the game engine, why not swap your human hero for a member of the undead? Undead Heroes will let you do just that, replacing the default avatar with a mouldering pile of bones. Meanwhile, The Gorgonizer will transform you into a slithering snake-person, Angry Pigs will make your appearance considerably more porcine, and Tiger…

EPISODIC HITMAN WAS A BOLD EXPERIMENT THAT ULTIMATELY PROVED SUCCESSFUL Much to the despair of PC Gamer’s Phil Savage – who quickly regretted volunteering to review every episode of Hitman’s opening season when he realised it meant he had to review the same game six times – IO Interactive is insisting on making a second season. “Yes, there is a second season,” said production director Hakan Abrak in an interview with French outlet GamerGen. In the same interview, it was suggested that the second season will bring us a selection of new cities, along with the possibility of remixed settings from season one, but visited at different times of year. Will returning to Paris or Sapienza but with snow on top be the thing to finally…

“THE LOWER FANTASY ANGLE LENDS ITSELF TO MYSTERY AND WHAT-IF SCENARIOS” NEED TO KNOW RELEASE 2018 DEVELOPER The Outsiders PUBLISHER TBC LINK theoutside.rs David Goldfarb is the co-founder of The Outsiders, a small indie studio developing an intriguing new RPG known only as Project Wight . “We have a pretty broad mixture of experience,” he tells me. “Ben Cousins (co-founder) and I come from DICE, and we also have experience from Starbreeze, Sony, Guerrilla, Paradox, and Avalanche. Lots of Swedish game dev in the house for sure.” Project Wight is a long way from finished, but after seeing some early footage of the game in action, I had to know more. Set in the Dark Ages, you play as a creature facing extinction. “You’ll experience life on…

EACH FARM IS ONLY ACTIVE FOR A LIMITED TIME BEFORE BECOMING INFERTILE NEED TO KNOW RELEASE 2017 DEVELOPER Pocketwatch Games PUBLISHER In-house LINK www.toothandtailgame.com I’m not sure why my red mouse is angry at that green mouse, but there really isn’t time to ponder. Tooth and Tail is a fast-paced RTS starring anthropomorphic animal soldiers. Stoats lug around artillery cannons, badgers wield gattling guns, chameleons carry nail bats, pigeons fly in with medical supplies. At the start of each match, you pick six unit types from four categories. Rabble are cheap, basic units – both melee and ranged, plus Baneling-like toads with dynamite strapped to their back. Militants are more expensive and more powerful. The hero category is full of lone operatives, including a sniper fox…

You can only be discovered by specific NPCs of the same type NEED TO KNOW WHAT IS IT? Sandbox stealth about a clone who is good at killing. EXPECT TO PAY £40 DEVELOPER IO Interactive PUBLISHER Square Enix REVIEWED ON Windows 10, 16GB RAM, i5-6600K, GeForce GTX 1070 MULTIPLAYER None LINK www.hitman.com Like many, I was surprised when Hitman was announced as episodic. Surprised, but not worried. Story has never been the main focus of Hitman . That changed for Absolution and I – like many series fans – didn’t much care for it. In releasing each mission individually, IO seemed to be signalling this new Hitman was again a standalone series of sandbox murder…

“The writers have poured wonder and weirdness into the expansion” NEED TO KNOW WHAT IS IT? An underwater expansion for Failbetter’s creepy and eccentric nautical sandbox. EXPECT TO PAY £8 DEVELOPER Failbetter Games PUBLISHER In-house REVIEWED ON Intel i5-3570K 3.4GHz, 8GB RAM, GeForce GTX 970, Windows 10 MULTIPLAYER None LINK www.failbettergames.com/sunless When the ink-black and glowing green expanse of Sunless Sea’s unterzee ceases to be harrowing enough, there’s another place where brave captains can venture if they dare: the enigmatic abyss under the water’s surface. Zubmariner is the expansion that takes you down there, transforming your vessel into a zubmarine, and opening up a new realm, ripe for exploration. And what a strange realm it is, where you can find a city…

You’d be forgiven for thinking that there’s surely no more room to make gaming mice any better. For years now we’ve had fantastic mice that track accurately, keep up with the fastest of movements, have comfortable shapes and a multitude of buttons. But, things have indeed moved on. Old favourites are still around but they’ve been tweaked and refined, plus there are a few new names in the market. RGB lighting, even higher DPI sensors, weight systems, replaceable body panels, sniper buttons and more are all up for grabs. Plus there are MOBA mice that have loads of extra buttons, though we’re not looking at any of those here. For this test we’ll be looking at seven standard wired and wireless gaming mice that start from a mere £50 and…

I BEND AND SPIN AND SWOOP AND TANGLE IN THE VIVE’S WIRE. I AM THE EYE OF THE STORM... OF EYES CRAIG PEARSON THIS MONTH Wrote all this just to get to that pun at the end. ALSO PLAYED Rust (for a living), Overwatch I’m in the virtual realm, in a room barely bigger than the boundaries I set for my Vive. To one side is a glowing orb with a number etched into it; on the other is a floating eyeball. I’ve a glowing rod in each hand, but I’ll only need one. The goal is to get the eyeball to touch the numbered ball, squeezing the trigger on the Vive’s wand to draw the eye to the rod in my hand, but letting it drift on to…

For reasons he’ll share only with Cortana, Master Chief has snubbed the PC since the release of his second game, and while that policy doesn’t show signs of changing in the near future, we can at least play part of Halo 5 thanks to this free release. Some might say it contains the best parts, in fact – a custom multiplayer mode, and a fulsome map editor – leaving out a story campaign that many have deemed inessential anyway. You’ll need Windows 10 and 40GB of hard drive space, but once done you can hop into that comprehensive level editor and create maps that will be playable on both PC and Xbox One. More importantly, you can play a whole host of…

1 ALEX EGGLESTON An atypical hero name for an atypical hero. Alex is a bespectacled ginger hipster with a vinyl fetish. 2 WORLD’S END The game’s set in 1999, seemingly in autumn, against the backdrop of Y2K. Expect the world to be in peril. 3 ABSENT FRIENDS Party members (not pictured) include a keytarwielding musical prodigy, a hula hooper, and a conshie. This is an odd game. It’s basically Earthbound, only in place of an adventurous child you play a flannel-wearing bearded dude, sporting a thick pair of hipster glasses. It cultivates its own bizarre alternate universe where haunted traffic cones hide in spooky caves, and cats can be tactically flung to reach out-of-the-way switches. It feels like a mash-up of ‘90s geek culture in a very Scott Pilgrim kind…

NEED TO KNOW RELEASED 2000 DEVELOPER Ion Storm PUBLISHER Eidos Interactive LINK www.deusex.com In the earliest Deus Ex design document, written three years before the game was released in 2000, Ion Storm established the philosophy of their ambitious cyberpunk RPG. “The key to role-playing is giving players the freedom to act as they see fit,” it reads. “And a deep world simulation that allows them to solve problems in a variety of ways is the best way to do this.” And that’s the core of what makes Deus Ex a PC classic. The sheer breadth of its systems and the complexity of its level design is unmatched, even today. A lot of things were cut from that document – including a level set on a space station – but Warren…