Innholdsfortegnelse for January 2019 i PC Gamer

HIGHS Warframe The Fortuna update adds a massive open world zone on Venus, and gives you a hoverboard. Hitman 2 The sequel has triggered a fierce leaderboard competition among the PC Gamer team. Phil is winning. Black Mesa On Half-Life’s 20th anniversary, the Black Mesa team released footage of its creepy reimagining of Xen. LOWS Black Friday PCGamer.com’s Tom Senior got so drunk on Black Friday deals that he even bought an RGB mouse mat. Fallout 76 Surprise! A Bethesda game has bugs at launch. Artifact Artifact’s initial monetisation model won’t fit in this space, but suffice it to say it has not been received well.…

INTENT Berens wished to depict a cult with more nuance (and realism) than is typically seen in videogames. “That necessarily meant brushing up against sensitive topics like physical, emotional and sexual abuse,” Berens says. RESEARCH Berens scoured books, interviews, and audio recordings (including the chilling final moments of Jim Jones’ Peoples Temple) for first-hand information on cult operations, as well as how they affect people in their thrall. ACKNOWLEDGING BLIND SPOTS Father James, the cult patriarch, is a contradictory mix of character flaws and empathic manipulation. Faith and smoke. This was intentional, but Berens admits his inability to relate to the character weakened the depiction. EXECUTION Players experience the story after its events, distancing them from horrors of the compound. Imagery is also evocative rather than graphic, allowing you to…

Unauthorized content The Arizona Department of Corrections has determined that your publication described below contains Unauthorized Content as defined in Department Order 914.07 and, as a result, may be released in part or excluded in whole for the specific reason(s) given below: Publication Title: PC Gamer Reason: DO 914.07 – 1.2.7. Promotion/ Instructions for Brewing Alcohol, Manufacturing/Cultivation of Drugs, Narcotics, Poisons. You and/or the inmate subscriber may appeal the decision by notifying us via email or US Mail within 30 calendar days after you receive this notice. Arizona Department of Corrections Phil: Thanks for getting in touch, Arizona Department of Corrections, with this genuine email that you sent us in response to our recent Weedcraft preview. While I apologise for the infraction, I’d like to assure you that you can’t…

The problem with a series about building on an island is that, sooner or later, you’re going to run out of island. Previous Tropico games could, at times, feel pretty limiting. Not only were you surrounded on all sides by clear blue ocean, but even within your verdant tropical paradise, mountains and cliffs would often restrict your ability to expand. Not so in Tropico 6. In many ways this sequel will be familiar to Tropico fans, despite it having a new developer – Might & Magic’s Limbic Entertainment – at the helm. But for all that’s the same, a few new features should help alleviate any claustrophobia. “We figured for El Presidente, one island wasn’t enough,” says lead level designer Mark Mussler, “so we wanted to…

Andy: I can’t enjoy driving games that aren’t Forza anymore. The handling has a note-perfect balance of weight, power and responsiveness, and in the Horizon series we get a satisfyingly streamlined take on that driving model. The UK is an inspired choice for a setting, particularly the winding mountain roads of the Scottish Highlands. Aside from everything else, it’s the feel of the driving that I love in Horizon 4, whether you’re carving up a dirt track or screaming along a stretch of motorway. Phil: ‘Racing’ may not be the most accurate award, but ‘Best Having a Fun Time in a Variety of Cars Game’ was too long of a title. Forza Horizon 4 is a great racing game – offering just enough realism to give its arcade handling a…

Tom: At one point Kassandra shoved an important quest item up a goat’s bottom to annoy an NPC. I was sold instantly. Ubisoft’s staggering, detailed rendition of Greece and its ancient islands was also quite nice to explore. Samuel: I thought Assassin’s Creed was the low point of modern blockbusters about four or so years ago: oversimplified combat, platforming and an icon-strewn map that won’t leave you the hell alone. Icon overload is still a bit of a problem, but as of Origins, Assassin’s Creed has become a series that’s great at exploration – Greece is such a different location from Egypt that the experience of uncovering it feels totally different. It improves combat over Origins, too, and the addition of RPG-like choices (in a Dragon Age-y fashion), made it…

Andy: In terms of writing, quest design, and worldbuilding, Obsidian is at the top of its game in Deadfire. This nautical sequel continues the story established in the first Pillars, but is standalone enough that you can dive into it without any prior knowledge. And what a grand adventure it is, making you a ship captain and letting you sail the deadly, alluring waters of the tropical Deadfire Archipelago. For the most part this is a classic Infinity Engine-style RPG, with reams of vivid, descriptive text, enchanted items with lengthy descriptions, dungeon diving and magical beasts. But being able to crew and maintain a ship and sail between islands, gives it a compelling twist. The Deadfire Archipelago is a beguiling, strange, alien place, and uncovering its well-realised culture, politics and…

The Forgotten Realms is a dangerous place indeed, certainly for adventurers who make it their business to trek far and wide. There are plenty of times when a silver-tongued smoothie can and will talk their way out of the very worst of trouble, but every adventuring party finds themselves in a fight sooner or later. Fortunately, the Baldur’s Gate series offers far more than its fair share of spectacular adventuring gear to help them both kill and not be killed. Here are some of the most important (and unusual) items you can find. Whether you’re trawling the markets, hoovering up all that dungeon detritus or picking clean the corpses of the recently departed, you can’t help but trip over items dripping with enchantment. Quite literally, on…

I’ve spent over three decades cultivating the image of an irate, tiny lady draped in a monkey cardigan, setting up the perfect disguise for this Hitman mission where I take down the crimelord Phil Savage. But even with this amazing disguise it has proven hard to find a window of opportunity. For example, I tried blending in with a selection of croissants with the intention of poisoning one, but got distracted by eating croissants. Then I was going to lurk in the podcast room and take him out with a replica Infinity Gauntlet, but I ended up napping on the sofa. I guess the only option left is to train a dog to steal the office security guard’s bomber jacket, then subcontract the security dog to do the murder instead.…

If Manuel Neuer saves this I might keep my job. I mean, it was never a penalty. No one on the pitch thought so, not even the referee and his assistants. With just five nail-biting minutes left on the clock, we could almost taste the semi-final. But the VAR has bitten me on the backside, and now my future at Bayern Munich hangs in the balance. In short, Football Manager 2019 ’s latest match day feature is ruthless. Video assistant referees were introduced to football at the FIFA World Cup 2018. Designed to aid on-pitch referees with contentious decisions, an off-pitch official watches the game remotely; refs can consult the VAR on complicated calls, and big decisions can be overturned. And so my digital livelihood lies literally…

There’s no way to sugarcoat this, Underworld Ascendant is phenomenally bad, a catastrophic mess of poor design ideas, woeful execution and bugs the size of buildings. It’s difficult to fathom how OtherSide Entertainment, a studio that is headed by veteran Looking Glass Studios designers – founder Paul Neurath alone worked on Thief: The Dark Project and System Shock 2 – ever allowed it to ship in this state. You, a dyed-in-the-wool RPG hero known as the Ascendant, are chosen by a spirit named Cabirus to bring down the evil god Typhon. Achieving this boils down to locating seven Abyssal Keys to unlock a door, while uniting the game’s factions in the process. The world is divided into seven…

STORM HOLLOW Fury wields an electric lance and can glide in a buzzing storm field, which is useful for bridging large gaps. FLAME HOLLOW Lets you walk through fire, burn cobwebs to open passages and reach greater heights than normal via a flame jump. FORCE HOLLOW Grants you powers to move heavy objects, curl up into a ball to roll along crystal tracks and walk on the floor of lakes. STASIS HOLLOW Freeze any water you step on, stop objects in their tracks and slow enemies. It forms the basis for a lot of late-game puzzles.…

Aquaria arrived right at the start of the indie boom heralded by Braid, and it’s a bit of a shame that it doesn’t get more credit. It’s a massive underwater exploration game (think Echo the Dolphin) where you play as a mermaid who can ‘sing’ different colours to cast spells. There’s a neat swimming system, the art and sound design is genuinely lovely, and the story, while slow to get started, is well conceived and interesting. I want to emphasise the slowness of it, though: this is a long game and it really takes its time introducing its best elements. If you find yourself with a weekend to sink into a ten-year-old forgotten indie game, however, then you could do much worse.…

MOTHERBOARD Z370 Tomahawk MSI £133 This is a nice-looking bit of kit at a good price. Couple that with two M.2 slots, and it’s the perfect place to house that Core i5. PROCESSOR Core i5-8400 Intel £295 Better default gaming performance and a lower price puts this chip ahead of the AMD Ryzen 2600X. GRAPHICS CARD GTX 1070 SC Gaming ACX EVGA £441 Again, we’re making a saving this month on our choice of graphics card. This time you can expect a chunk of savings. COOLER MasterLiquid Lite 240 CoolerMaster £45 This 240mm, dual-fan, all-in-one liquid CPU cooler is ludicrously cheap, but performs well and stays quiet, too. MEMORY Vengeance LPX 16GB (2x8GB) @2666 Corsair £116 16GB is the minimum amount of RAM we’d recommend for a system of this…

1 UPDATE YOUR DRIVERS Though it sounds basic, make sure you have the most recent graphics drivers. Outdated ones can sap performance, so visit AMD’s and Nvidia’s sites regularly (or download Nvidia Experience) to make sure they’re updated. 2 USE FXAA Anti-aliasing makes games look smoother, but it can also nuke your framerate. Most titles support FXAA, which is far less taxing than either SMAA or MSAA. If you want to claw back frames, FXAA is the option to go with. 3 TURN OFF AMBIENT OCCLUSION AO is a performance killer. Sure, it adds depth and texture to games, yet unless you have the obsessive eyes of a Terminator, you’re unlikely to notice its absence. Switching it off can often save you upwards of 10fps. 4 LOWER SHADOW DETAIL Shadow…

PHILIPPA WARR Specialist in Concentrated Fire Twitter Nope This month Was told that, no, taking a trip to the aquarium is not going to be our game of the year. ANDY KELLY Specialist in Lone Wanderer Twitter @ultrabrilliant This month Was told that, no, going viral on Twitter is not going to be our game of the year. SAMUEL ROBERTS Specialist in Chem Resistant Twitter @SamuelWRoberts This month Was told that, no, drinking a bottle of artisan stout is not going to be our game of the year. FRASER BROWN Specialist in Quick Hands Twitter @FraserIBrown This month Was told that, no, getting a job as PC Gamer’s news editor is not going to be our game of the year.…

Let’s begin this bleak winter emanation from the rumour pit with something comfortably familiar, shall we? Get cosy: it involves the words ‘virtual reality’ and ‘ Half-Life’ ! Everybody likes those words. Photos of a prototype VR headset with a Valve logo on the circuitboard have surfaced. Now, you very well may say, ‘Hang on a minute, The Spy, isn’t that just a Vive?’ To which the answer is, as ever, sort of. The Vive, though based on Valve-birthed tech, is very much a HTC product. This new piece of kit – and it is new, featuring built-in headphones and 135-degree field of view – would be something that Valve makes and ships itself, like its range of Steam Controllers. Rumour has it that…

DEATH STAR Creator MuFuTee This coaster twists around the inside of a replica of the iconic space station. LIMBO: THE RIDE Creator Pixelated This coaster captures the striking visual style of Playdead’s morbid platformer. THE DISUSED DISTILLERY Creator Boochoo This coaster sends you hurtling through an abandoned and dangerous distillery. ALIENS: THE RIDE Creator HinNya With its Giger-inspired architecture, this coaster is as scary as it is thrilling.…

A SUCCESS I DID GO OUT OF MY WAY TO TRY GAMES I’D HAVE OTHERWISE SKIPPED This is the final month of our 100 games challenge, and so I figured it was time I reconstructed the list I lost earlier in the year. I’d played 75 games. I’d failed. On the other hand, I did go out of my way to try games I’d have otherwise skipped. When I saw Steven Messner writing about his love of Warframe on PCGamer.com, I gave it a go. After enjoying a tense Dragon Ball FighterZ tournament at this year’s EVO, I tried the game to see if it would be my cup of tea. I even went back and finished games that would have otherwise been discarded on the pile of shame –…

It’s the most hated game at the moment and I love playing it! Can’t wait for more! Don’t jump on the hate train! R3troDaD He’s talking about Fallout 76, in case you couldn’t tell. I’m 70 hours deep into AC: Odyssey. It’s a fantastic Greek demigod simulator that’s only held back from true greatness (for me) due to its connection with the larger AC franchise. Eduardo Valdes We take it you’re no fan of overwrought sci-fi nonsense about an ancient precursor race sending messages into the future? Surviving Mars. It scratches that sci-fi and city-building itch, and I just like the look of those tiny drones, they’re so cute! MisterSnicker Doodles If humanity ever does colonise Mars, know that we will have done it for the cute drones. Celeste is…

Wattam is bright, inventive and cheerful. In fact it’s so intensely bright and cheerful that a colleague walked past my desk, stopped, walked backwards until she could see the screen again and asked, “What is this adorable thing?” This adorable thing is a puzzle-ish sandbox from the creator of Katamari Damacy and Noby Noby Boy. You start as a bright green cube in a hat. This cube is obviously the mayor of a floating slab of ground. At first you’re alone, but a crowd of perky oddballs starts to gather as you learn how to interact with the world. You can hop into the bodies of other characters, hold hands with them, climb, jump and (as the mayor) use your hat to make little…

A clever deckbuilding roguelike hybrid with terrific card design. Each of the three characters has a card set that you collect, one by one, as you defeat enemies on your quest up the spire. I love zapping everyone with the robotic Defect character, and I love stacking strength on the close-combat Ironclad to deal stupid damage tobosses. Slay the Spire was on the cusp of a full release at the time of writing, but I’ve been playing it all year and it’s already brilliant.…

Tom: There is some seriously excellent hitting in this game. When you whack a rat in the head with a hammer it blows up and the poor creature stumbles around a bit before falling over dead. Top hitting. Vermintide II is also a great example of how sequels can realise the intentions of the original game. With a fanbase and more resources, Fatshark added a more engaging loot system, new environments and loads more enemies to clonk with hammers. I’ve always thought that more games should copy the co-op setup established by Left 4 Dead, but Vermintide carves out its own niche with a strong melee focus and a surprisingly good realisation of the old world of Warhammer. I love it for that, but even if you’re not a fan,…

I only play a few hours a month, but Sea of Thieves has become my favourite game world to spend time in. It’s a gorgeous place that can waver between exciting, high-pitched naval battles with other players and relaxing goofing off with friends. The lack of RPG elements makes it a bit shallow, but it’s refreshing that I won’t find myself outmatched by someone who’s grinded hundreds of hours. The only skills in Sea of Thieves are the ones you bring with you.…

1 DEMOGORGON A legendary monster, and arguably the most challenging boss in the Baldur’s Gate series. You’ll find this beast in the Throne of Bhaal expansion, and to slay it you’ll need to make use of your party’s entire range of abilities. Before the battle you can have a thief lay traps, while mages can cast spells to weaken it. Even then, you are in for a gruelling, almost impossible, battle. 2 FIRKRAAG A powerful dragon. If you rolled a paladin, one of your final duties is slaying him to retrieve the Holy Avenger, a legendary sword. Firkraag will cast Remove Magic on the party, removing everyone’s buffs. To make your life a little easier make sure you have a cleric who can cast Protection From Fire on the group…

We review each game on its own merits, and try to match it to a reviewer who’s a passionate expert in the field. The main aim of reviews is to help you make buying decisions. To this end, we’re selective about what we review, and try to focus on the notable, interesting, exciting or surprising. DOWNLOADABLE CONTENT DLC might be new missions for a game, or it might be a single new item. If we think you want to know about it, we’ll review it. EARLY ACCESS Any released alpha, beta, or otherwise unfinished game that you can currently pay for. For these games, we won’t assign a score, but we will tell you whether they’re worth your time. THEY’RE BACK Whenever there’s a bargain or re-release of a significant…

MISSION Kill your targets, either quietly like a professional, or loudly like a murderous chump. ELUSIVE TARGET You only get one chance to complete these time-limited missions. Don’t screw up. ESCALATION A mission repeated five times. With each completion, new complications are added. CONTRACT User-made missions, usually with specific requirements for how to kill your target. SNIPER ASSASSIN Like Duck Hunt, but the ducks are people and the hunt is a stealthy sniping spree. GHOST MODE A multiplayer race to quietly kill as many targets as possible before your opponent.…

FRANCE Maps: Twisted Steel, Arras Rural France is a classic setting for a WW2 videogame, but Battlefield mixes things up with Twisted Steel, whose bridge DICE says is the biggest object it’s ever built for a multiplayer map. HOLLAND Maps: Rotterdam, Devastation Here you’ll find two wildly different city maps: the mostly intact Rotterdam, and the decidedly not intact Devastation, which features the same city but after a German bombing. NORTH AFRICA Maps: Hamada, Aerodrome This warzone is home to two of the most open maps in the game, which tank commanders and pilots will love. But be warned, infantry: you’ll be running about a lot. NORWAY Maps: Narvik, Fjell 652 Both of these chilly maps are quite different – a remote mountain and a harbour village – but both…

Now let’s visit that moment at the start of the indie wave when it was the late ’70s again. Bit.Trip Beat – the first in a long line of Bit.Trip games, as it happens – is singleplayer rhythm action pong. Squares fling at you from the right: you bat them back to the beat. That’s it! As you progress and build combos, the patterns get more and more elaborate: sine waves, blocks that pause for a beat before rushing forwards, and so on. You know how this works. What you’re thinking is: ‘Does it beep and invite lazy drug analogies.’ My answer: very much yes. I mean, the developers put ‘trip’ in the title. But I will not indulge them! They’ll not have that satisfaction! It’s quite good, though!…

We’ve used enough mice to have a good feel for build quality, button placement and shape. Our opinions on those aspects of mouse design are, naturally, subjective, but they’re also well-informed. The tricky part of testing mice is analysing the other part of the equation: tracking performance, jitter, angle snapping, acceleration and perfect control speed. What do all those terms mean? If you’re interested in the intricacies of gaming mice, here are some basic definitions that will help you understand why each of these terms are important issues. Grip How you hold the mouse. The most common are palm, claw and fingertip. CPI/DPI Counts/dots per inch, or how many times the mouse sensor will read its tracking surface for every inch it’s moved. Jitter An inaccuracy in a sensor reading…

MOTHERBOARD Strix X470-F Gaming Asus £185 Get the most from the new AMD Ryzen 2700X with this matching X470 motherboard that’s packed with features. PROCESSOR Ryzen 7 2700X AMD £299 Easy to overclock and with huge performance out of the box, AMD’s new flagship CPU is the one to go for. GRAPHICS CARD GeForce GTX 1080Ti Turbo Asus £840 Prices of GTX 1080 Ti’s don’t seem to have dropped as much as other cards but you’re still saving a decent amount. COOLER Kraken X62 NZXT £130 The Kraken is the culmination of three of our favourite things: an infinity mirror, a 280mm radiator and slick braided cooling. MEMORY Vengeance LED RGB 32GB @3200 Corsair £364 Ryzen is the one processor that does benefit hugely from higher-frequency memory. This kit is…

SOLID PROJECT A mod that adds dynamic new features to New Vegas including takedowns, sprinting, climbing obstacles and lowering your weapon during conversations. EVE This mod adds HD blood and fire, better bullet impacts, improved textures and new kill animations. It makes the game’s combat feel much more varied and impactful. ROBCO CERTIFIED Recommended for science players, this mod lets you take the blown-out shell of an enemy robot and turn it into a companion. You can eventually command bigger, scarier robots. ENB The popular graphic enhancer for New Vegas comes recommended by the creators of New California. Their preferred plugin is ‘Rudy ENB’, which is found on Nexus Mods.…

Metro turns claustrophobia into an aesthetic Metro’s 2033 ’s gas mask was what made the game more than just another post-apocalyptic FPS. By forcing you to wear this airtight faceplate, Metro maintained its sense of claustrophobia even when exploring a wide-open space. The tension of hearing your breath become laboured as the mask’s filter struggles to clean the toxins from the air. The cracks that appear as you’re battered about by the mutant wildlife. It’s more important to making Metro work as an experience than any of its guns. But the gas mask is crucial to Metro’s immersion in another way. It acknowledges that the player is separated from the game world by a screen, and by separating the…

Something I miss when I play digital games is the tactile side of play. It’s why videogames and board games coexist in my life so beautifully. One allows for complexity beyond what a pen-and-paper can track, and the other offers tokens to hold, boards to construct, people to physically turn to as you play. Somewhere in the middle are a wonderful selection of videogames where you feel compelled to take notes. I’m not talking about games which demand you fetch a sheet of paper as part of the experience. These are games where my experience just happens to spill over into the real world as drawings and words. The ones where I decide to keep my thoughts straight by idly jotting down words, phrases, the location of a treasure to…

LITTLE DUCKY Ducks over time? I mean, there are no ducks in Dota but maybe this tells us there will be if we wait. EXPLODING SHIP This is clearly Kunkka’s ghost boat crashing into the evil tentacle from Day of the Tentacle. “DEATH” Life’s only certainty is also my notebook’s only certainty. DEATH. And a tiny, tiny boat. GOLD SPIDER The golden spider did win but it was also invisible and had a glowing red butt at the time.…

ANDY KELLY In ancient Egypt they played senet; today I play MGS; in the future… who knows? Play is eternal. GET STEALTHY METAL GEAR SOLID V: GROUND ZEROES  www.konami.com/mg/mgs5/ Infiltrate a grim military prison and rescue hostages in this surprisingly deep prologue to Metal Gear Solid V. Silently sneak your way through with tranq darts or wipe out guards with a sniper rifle. You might think this is a glorified demo, but the 27 hours I have logged on Steam say otherwise. SOLVE A MYSTERY RETURN OF THE OBRA DINN  www.obradinn.com Lucas Pope’s mystery joins Her Story as something that could only exist as a videogame. You climb aboard the Obra Dinn, a stricken merchant ship, and use a magical watch to determine what happened to the crew. This is…

ISSUE 196, January 2009 ON THE COVER Blizzard IN THE CHARTS Hallelujah – Alexandra Burke 1 It’s always tricky to pin down release dates – they’re notoriously squirmy, writhing things. So spare a few thoughts for the PC Gamer team of 2008, who took a chance and went with the bold coverline: “WhyBlizzard Rule2009”. Diablo III, StarCraft II and continued support for World of Warcraft pointed to a banner year for the studio. But no. Blizzard released no games in 2009. 2 Still, though, World of Warcraft did remain popular, in large part thanks to Wrath of the Lich King. Adam Oxford hung a 93% score on the MMO expansion. 3 Some other 2009 preview picks – Rage, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Metro 2033 andAlphaProtocol – would also miss the…

Content warning: sexual assault . “LEADING PEOPLE INTO DARK TERRITORY IS GOOD IF YOU DO IT CAREFULLY” Jean Leggett is many things. CEO. Game developer. Writer. Stand-up comedian. Public speaker. Sexual assault survivor. Each has had an effect on the perspective and expertise she brings to her work, but the latter has particularly driven her to find better ways to depict mature content in Shakespeare’s Landlord , a game that prominently features themes of sexual assault and PTSD. This search for sensitive, aware and  nuanced ways to capture potentially problematic content is being echoed elsewhere, across the industry, in almost every genre imaginable. Shakespeare’s Landlord is an upcoming narrative adventure about a sexual assault survivor investigating the murder of someone in her small town, adapted from…

1 HEAVEN WILL BE MINE Phil: A visual novel about mech pilots fighting and flirting in space. Delightfully weird. 2 THE RACCOON WHO LOST THEIR SHAPE Pip: A raccoon medium acts as a go-between for shapes. 3 EMILY IS AWAY Pip: The story of a relationship unfolds via a retro (god, I feel so old) chat window. 4 TENDER LOVING CARE Andy: A bizarre softcore FMV game starring the late, great John Hurt. Not his finest work. 5 OK/NORMAL Andy: Imagine a David Lynch fever dream rendered with original PlayStation graphics.…

Following the central theme of ‘man vs environment’, Civilization IV’s first expansion will ask you to deal with late-game climate change, leading to rising sea levels and the loss of city districts. Along the way, you’ll encounter river floods, blizzards, droughts, volcanic eruptions and other natural disasters that can provide risks and rewards. The most intriguing new feature is a dynamic climate system that will track the amount of carbon that has been added to the atmosphere by all civs on a map. This won’t be a major factor until around the industrial age. Buildings and districts that use coal and oil for power increase carbon levels, and removing forest tiles can speed up this effect. Left unchecked, it will lead to melting ice caps and…

Phil: I’m not usually a fan of roguelikes that demand I spend time unlocking persistent skills to progress. I prefer the Spelunky method, where I don’t technically need anything to complete the game, but will still throw myself against it hundreds of times. If I’m going to die in roguelike, I prefer it be because I screwed up, not because I haven’t yet unlocked the upgrades I need. Despite this, I love Dead Cells, in large part because its combat is so good. It’s satisfyingly technical, forcing you to learn attack patterns and special abilities. And executing the perfectly timed strikes and dodges required to efficiently and safely progress remains fun, even after tens of hours. Its weapons keep things interesting, too, with lots of interesting quirks designed to tempt…

Baldur’s Gate is powered by the Infinity Engine, a bespoke technology created by BioWare specifically for the game. Simple in its exterior, Infinity makes the complexity of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons playable with just a mouse, and makes use of a visual style that boils down to a bunch of animated sprites walking on top of some beautiful paintings. Looks can be deceiving. Beneath those simple backdrops was a deep and complicated engine made up of many different tools and technologies. It was hugely advanced and also hugely idiosyncratic, while getting it to work in the way BioWare wanted was, frankly, a nightmare. While BioWare itself was not a new studio, the Baldur’s Gate team was almost entirely new to the games industry, with many of its designers…

When BioWare designed Baldur’s Gate in 1998, it already had almost 25 years of D&D history to draw from. The result is one of the most varied and exciting bestiaries in RPG history. Across the two games and their expansions, the Bhaalspawn battles all manner of dreadful beasts, from trifling kobolds and rats, to powerful mind flayers and beholders. And it’s in these encounters where the game’s real-time-with-pause combat comes to life, forcing you to think carefully about how to slay each foe. There’s plenty of sword fodder in Baldur’s Gate. You can slice through the kobolds in the Nashkel Mines without breaking a sweat. But it’s when a more formidable enemy confronts you that you have to pause the game and have a good old…

00%-09% Broken or offensively bad; absolutely no value. Example Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude 10%-19% We might be able to find one nice thing to say about it, but still not worth anyone’s time or money. Example Gettysburg: Armored Warfare 20%-29% Completely falls short of its goals. Very few redeeming qualities. Examples Family Guy: Back to the Multiverse 30%-39% An entirely clumsy or derivative effort. There’s little reason to play this game over a similar, better one. Examples Trials of the Blood Dragon 40%-49% Flawed and disappointing. Examples Aliens: Colonial Marines 50%-59% Mediocre. Other games probably do it better, or its unique qualities aren’t executed well. Examples Primordia, Homefront: The Revolution 60%-69% There’s something to like here, but it can only be recommended with major caveats. Examples No Man’s…

0–0 “Okay, what are we supposed to do? I don’t have any weapons. Wait, my opponent is sprinting off. Have they done this before?” 0–2 “New target. If I just wait for him to get out of sight of everyone else… wait, the other player has already killed them? Let’s just go for it.” 1–3 “Holy crap, I did it! I killed a target and nobody saw me. Am I getting the hang of this?” 3–4 “We both got the kill that time. At least it’s still close.” 1 – 5 “I should have been changing disguises instead of sprinting everywhere. Looks like the winner is the first to five points. Maybe next time.” 0–1 “They’ve already killed the target? I can still get a point if I also kill…

RimWorld is a life sim about establishing a colony on a remote planet. Things go wrong, the unexpected occurs and your colonists react. Each has drives and needs, ones that are often unhelpful to the mission but which are intended to make them more complex characters. Go in wanting to build a neat utopia and you’ll likely be frustrated. Welcome the storytelling potential of disaster and you’ll have a much better time. Your colonists are the main drive behind the game. When you begin a scenario you have to select your team and they’ll be generated with traits and backgrounds. Some are helpful skills, like hunting or teaching, and some are there to inject personality. There’s a lot of promise in the ideas these characters bring to the…

Fighting small groups of demons in Darksiders III feels special. Fury, one of the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse, is nimble and responsive, dodging blows and swinging weapons in flashy arcs of magic. I love her electric lance, which fizzes with every strike. But the clunky lock-on camera makes fighting large groups frustrating, and platforming and puzzling feel lightweight. It’s been six years since the last Darksiders . This is not the return I’d hoped for. The Charred Council have tasked Fury with stopping the apocalypse by defeating the Seven Deadly Sins. To reach those bosses you’ll travel a semi-open world, plough through enemies, solve puzzles and navigate platforming sections. The grunts are impressively varied: demon children chuck toxic goo, winged angels summon…

MOTHERBOARD B360M-DS3H Gigabyte £70 It lacks overclocking options, but the new B360 chipset is far cheaper than the Z370 and is perfect for this budget build. PROCESSOR Core i3-8100 Intel £121 A great processor for out-of-the-box gaming performance. Opt for the AMD Ryzen 1300X if you’d like to overclock. GRAPHICS CARD GeForce GTX 1060 Windforce OC 3GB Gigabyte £217 Amidst fluctuating GPU prices, Gigabyte’s compact 1060 model offers the best value. COOLER Hyper 212 Evo CoolerMaster £22 We’ve dropped the controller from this build and added in a better CPU cooler, for a quieter, cooler system. MEMORY Vengeance LPX 8GB (2x4GB) @2400MHz Corsair £69 DDR4 prices are still high, however this Corsair pair is a good value option. POWER SUPPLY 500BQ EVGA £55 It may be cheap, but this 500W…

NEW CALIFORNIA REPUBLIC A large, benevolent and democratic federation of states formed in the wake of the nuclear fallout. With over 700,000 members, it controls parts of Nevada, Mexico and has bases along the Colorado River. ENCLAVE A technologically advanced organisation that styles itself as the continuation of the prewar federal government. Before the bombs fell it secretly controlled the US government from the shadows. BROTHERHOOD OF STEEL A semireligious group that covets technology, using it to impose order on the wasteland. It has roots in the prewar scientific community and military, meaning its members understand tech more than most.…