Innholdsfortegnelse for January 2016 i PLAY

Before we started working on this issue I flicked through last year’s 2015 Preview Special, and I was struck by one thought: 2015 didn’t match the hype. Don’t get me wrong, it’s been a fantastic year for PS4: amazing sales, a dream E3 show (FFVII Remake! Shenmue III!) and bonafide future classics such as Bloodborne, The Witcher 3, MGS V, Fallout 4 and Life Is Strange. Just look at this year’s GOTY feature (p70) to see how great it’s been. Yet when I returned to that old issue, I couldn’t help but feel a pang of pain knowing how many of our most wanted games (Uncharted 4, No Man’s Sky, The Division, etc.) ended up slipping into next year. Here’s the good news: we’re on the cusp of something truly…

A TOUR GUIDE’S END Dreamboat Nathan Drake has quit pilfering artefacts to give you… a guided walking tour through London? Nolan North lent his tones to mobile app Recho, which plays audio clips at classic landmarks as part of a promotional Three treasure hunt. Warning: the goodies might already be snaffled, ending the fun… 2 ULTIMATE, 2 FIGHTING No sooner had EA unveiled its cover star for the newly announced UFC 2, than the previously unbeaten Ronda Rousey started getting a taste of Holly Holm’s foot, followed by the octagon canvas. The EA Sports curse strikes again, but hopefully UFC 2 won’t fall at the first hurdle when it releases in spring. EURO LOVE THIS Remember when you had to shell out real hard cash to get your virtual fix…

BEN TYRER STAFF WRITER My favourite moment in Black Ops III was returning to the Campaign menu. There’s an animated model of your soldier, chomping a cigar and prepping their pistol. Having gone for the woman, it’s awesome to see that her gender is less important than her cigar, eschewing teenage titillation for just a typical badass soldier. But 2016 needs to go bigger and do more. We should be seeing every spectrum of gamer getting representation. It leads to more people enjoying the games we love, and richer experiences for us all. Who can honestly say that’s something they don’t want? “WHEN DID DOUBLING A GAME’S PRICE FOR A VAGUE PROMISE OF DLC BECOME OKAY?” MATTHEW PELLETT EDITOR So the industry ignored my cries about unrealistic release dates 12…

WRITER BIO Production editor Andrew Westbrook discovered his penchant for prophecy after a strange encounter with some Scottish shamans. At least, he thinks they were shamans. It’s a bit weird that they kept chanting “Ebeneezer Goode.” Cards on the table, there’s a fraudster in OPM’s midst. An imposter from gaming’s past. Alas, that time-travelling hustler is me. Like PlayStation’s prodigal son, I’ve landed in current-genland after a wander in the wilderness. And wow, is it good to be home. Gaming’s progress in my absence has been truly staggering. But best of all, we’re at a point where the future promises so, so much. Trying to imagine where the tech will be at in a decade is a mind-blowing proposition. My critical life skills were developed in PlayStation’s formative years –…

RYU Street Fighter’s number one son returns, more aggressive, more immediately effective and with a new penchant for up-close beat-downs. Well, he has always been about the self-improvement… KEN Ryu’s hyperactive training partner is now a showboating monster. His more powerful special moves can hit like supers: everything can set you on fire. He’s a windmill of crazy kicks, he can sprint, and… just look at that hair. R MIKA Pro-wrestler Mika defies every grappler stereotype. Fast, rangey and dynamic, she has an answer for anything. She’s as adept at slams as she is juggling opponents in the air. A walking whirlwind. KARIN Capable of spectacular, sustained carnage, Karin’s pokey kicks and ground-based game make her unique and very rewarding. She can combo almost endlessly once she’s going. Build momentum…

Yes, don’t panic, it’s still pencilled in for a 2016 release. Despite news being a little thin on the ground at the time of going to press, it feels a little weird knowing that we’ll finally, finally be getting to play The Last Guardian in the coming months. While Fumito Ueda is a little cagey on the reasons for the delay, he told the PlayStation Blog that, “If I had to call out one of them, it was more of a technical hurdle that we had to overcome.” With the move to PS4 offering a fair bit more power to play with it, The Last Guardian will surely be worth its Trico-sized wait.…

Matt Nava – art director behind petal-pusher Flower and the incomparable Journey – is back, and this time, he’s sending us to Davy Jones’ locker. Scuba diving simulator Abzû is an enchanting exploration experience about finding your place in the ocean. Why Abzû? It’s supposedly derived from “ancient” words “ab,” meaning ocean, and “zû,” meaning to know. Deep (pun intended). There’s no dwindling air supply to worry about, or peckish sharks; the game prioritises peaceful interactions with its Neptunian natives. Whales, dolphins, eels and rays will pass by unconcerned. Swim with fish, ride turtles and unearth mysteries with some very special drones.…

MIRROR’S EDGE CATALYST Format PS4 ETA 26 May Pub EA Dev DICE Still bummed that Mirror’s Edge lost its footing and tumbled from a February release to its new 26 May date? Same here, but an unexpected first look at some of Catalyst’s stars has come from a LittleBigPlanet 3 character pack, in which Faith and other runners from the city of Glass have been sackified. Create your own level and pretend it’s out already! BATTLEBORN Format PS4 ETA 3 May Pub 2K Dev Gearbox Software Just as we get to grips with blasting all who dare come near us in our hands-on with Battleborn, its 9 February release date gets shunted back to 3 May. Oh well, there’s still an open Beta that’s coming to PS4 players first in…

Guerrilla might have made its name with the comparatively grubby Killzone, but for its PS VR debut, it’s time for a change of tone, as director Piers Jackson tells us. “We’d done gritty shooters, and we wanted to do something… I wouldn’t say ‘playful’, but just a little bit more colourful and vibrant,” he says. It’s clear to see that the mud and blood of Killzone is well and truly scrubbed away in this sports FPS that’s basketball meets MechWarrior minus the killing. If your RIG is destroyed, you’ll be ejected up into the air and must parachute back down into a brand new vehicle at a spawn point of your choosing.…

More than 50 PS VR titles have been confirmed at this point, but let’s just focus on another batch of ten. Shark-bothering simulator THE DEEP, in which you try to avoid becoming Jaws’ lunch while trapped in an underwater cage, is sure to get you sweating – as will PARANORMAL ACTIVITY VR, which sees you exploring a suburban home mid-haunting session. Brr. If you’d rather creep around without the scare factor, VOLUME: CODA is a free, 30-level expansion to Mike Bithell’s stealth game Volume, set after the main game and made just for PS VR. Similarly colourful, the friendly ‘bots of THE PLAYROOM VR should give you the chance to soothe any frayed nerves with plenty of party games: one person in VR, others clutching pads and watching the TV.…

Slower than Eeyore waddling through custard, the wait for Kingdom Hearts III is unbearable, with the slow dribbles of information from Square Enix only making it worse. We’ve had a chance to sneak a peek at a single screenshot of Goofy, Donald and Sora having a merry ol’ time on an on-rails shooting ride. As you’d expect, the jump to PS4 means the gang have never looked better – no wonder Donald is uncharacteristically happy.…

There’s a note on the Tokyo RPG Factory website that reads, “The ‘Good Old Days’ are coming back. To every RPG fan in the world… This is for you.” Bold talk, but Project Setsuna aims to deliver on that promise. An old-school JRPG, the launch trailer is heavily reminiscent of ‘pre-PlayStation’ Final Fantasy, with sprites and turn-based combat. It launches as soon as 18 Feb in Japan, but the Western version is still TBC.…

THE DIVISION Format PS4 ETA 8 Mar Pub Ubisoft Dev Ubisoft Massive Start spreading the news! Set in a chaotic New York, the open-world role-playing shooter is starting to show off more gameplay elements. Skills are assigned to bumpers, and break down into three categories: Security, Medical and Technology. Gadgets such as sticky bombs can be modded for extra oomph, while skins and mods will create unique weaponry for your custom agents. FOR HONOR Format PS4 ETA 2016 Pub Ubisoft Dev Ubisoft Montreal The age-old question of “pirates or ninja?” is shoved to one side in strategic hack-’n’-slash For Honor. Instead, Vikings, Knights or Samurai will have you debating amongst your friends. While multiplayer modes have dominated early demos and hands-on tests, Ubisoft’s promising plentiful single-player content too – different…

While we love The Godfather-aping antics of Mafia II, some people find its open world to be a little hollow. A bit like a lasagna without any bolognese. Which might explain why debut developer Hangar 13 has been trying to make its digital version of New Orleans a little bit busier than Mafia II’s Empire Bay when it comes to side-missions, with protagonist Lincoln Clay using his CIA (it’s always the CIA, right?) contact to find out about the Mafia’s shady business. Attentive gamers can keep eyes out for organised crime shenanigans going down, then follow perps back to the source to take on the bad guys. Do it often and the city will be yours, one region at a time.…

After spending far too much time whizzing about on speeder bikes and playing Lightsaber Chicken, we’re inclined to agree that Battlefront deserves to be in 2015’s Top Ten. It’s spectacular. Booting it up is like stepping into the silver screen (though we don’t recall many Vader teabagging scenes in George Lucas’ showstoppers). The sound effects, the jetpacks, the AT-ATs lumbering through forests… It’s clear why you love it. Serious Sith Lords are all over the high-octane Blast mode, but pure “GONK!”ing glee comes courtesy of scurrying after GNKs in Droid Run. When you’re done petting droids, dogfighting over Sullust in Fighter Squadron mode packs a Millennium Falcon punch so mighty that even Chewie would be hard-pressed to replicate it. With the disappointment of the hotly anticipated Hero modes, at least…

Well, that came out of nowhere. No, not that rusty-looking hook or blood-stained circular saw, but this choose-your-own-path horror that falls very much into the ‘short but sweet’ category. At its centre sits the Butterfly Effect, in which key decisions you make set you down different paths. As Until Dawn races through, there’s a genuine fascination in seeing how previous choices come back to haunt you, with seemingly innocuous or ‘moral’ decisions having deadlier implications than expected. Sure, it won’t be too long before you work out some of this survival horror’s twists, but that doesn’t mean it’s not fun watching the guts pile up as you get to them. Speaking of the suppliers of said guts, there’s also a lot of charm to the cast. We’ve got dude-bro Mike,…

Hideo Kojima’s swan song soars into your top five, which isn’t entirely surprising after it registered a maximum score in our review. Fire demons, a sandboxful of possibilities and sophisticated mechanics add up to an unbelievable game, in which stealth is key to dominating Afghanistan’s dusty wastes. Venom Snake’s wangled his own pony, but if tearing it up on the back – or side – of D-Horse isn’t action-packed enough, there are always spreadsheets to manage. The Mother Base concept from Peace Walker is also fleshed out, and can revolutionise fieldwork. Ears are in for a treat: its ‘80s soundtrack is sublime. Watching a guard’s brain atomise to the high note from A-ha’s Take On Me is surreal enough for you to put down your DualShock and declare that that’s…

The developers over at DICE must have a laser cannon of their own stashed away somewhere handy. They’ve nailed the essence of Star Wars in a single, devastating blast, sending the last of my cynicism crashing to the ground like so much TIE fighter fodder. Nice one, DICE. But wait, don’t get cocky. Battlefront is a gorgeous-looking, hugely entertaining shooter. It’s clearly designed to be accessible to a variety of skill levels, but that’s not to say it’s oversimplified. While there’s little room for advanced FPS players to distinguish themselves, the gunplay is solid and satisfying, while the online multiplayer holds up incredibly well. For every few glorious moments of galactic fun, however, there’s a disappointment. We’re not talking Jar Jar Binks levels of atrocity – but DLCshaped holes, some…

Attempting to understand the objective of arcade shoot ‘em up Kromaia Omega is like listening to a space admiral who’s gone a bit wrong. “Considering the gumtime in the flim-flam, you’d be crazy to blurbfight the escalator! Here’s a laser cannon with 15 settings, none of which I’ll bother to explain. Don’t forget to barrel-roll away from the evil fishbones! Now, off you pop to save the futuristic Greek universe.” Beautiful, beserk, but more than a little baffling, the best way to describe it is utter nonsense… in space. Thrown into six degrees of yawing, pitching and rolling freedom, it’s hard not to have fun. Lasers pulse and missiles bleep ominously as you weave through asteroids. Controls are wonderfully fluid – you do understand the controls, don’t you? It’s your…

Jen Dhalsimpkins STAFF WRITER Two weeks of Battlefront testing have frazzled Jen’s brain. She can’t stop wildly glancing at the office door, afraid it’s a Jar Jar. GAME OF THE MONTH Star Wars Battlefront STREET FIGHTER V PICK Karin Ken Tyrer STAFF WRITER Poor Tyrer’s trying to calculate how much he has to spend on games each month of 2016, but he just can’t work out The Division. GAME OF THE MONTH Beyond: Two Souls STREET FIGHTER V PICK M Bison Andryu Westbrook PRODUCTION EDITOR Our own Nathan Drake-alike is strangely convinced Street Fighter V will top our Hall Of Fame. He claims a little Birdie told him. GAME OF THE MONTH Star Wars Battlefront STREET FIGHTER V PICK Chun-Li M Coppock MANAGING ART EDITOR Milford wanted even more Street…

$250,000 Total prize pool at the Capcom Cup, hosted at the PlayStation Experience. 30 Million PS4 consoles have now been sold worldwide. It’s not slowing down… 59% Of Star Wars Battlefront’s physical UK launch week sales were sold on PS4. 650 Final puzzle count of The Witness, though the number could still change… 500,000 Copies of Fallout 4 sold in its opening week. Oh, and that’s just in the UK. £8 Increase in Dying Light’s season pass after The Following DLC grew bigger. 182 Days delay for Deus Ex: Mankind Divided to ensure the game is polished.…

Fallout’s fallout I was wondering: how do you decide which one of you reviews each game? It’s because you gave Fallout 4 8/10, as I know a lot of people who have the game – we all love it and say it’s probably the best thing on PS4. What happens if the person reviewing the game doesn’t like that genre, which would affect the score you give? Would it be better to get an overall score from a few of you? Robbie Clark via Facebook Every time you see a review in OPM, you can be sure that we’ve picked an expert – we’d never assign a reviewer to a genre they didn’t like (that’s what Don’t Make Me Play on p109 is for). As for averages, we do debate…

WRITER BIO When he’s not sticking knives between his fingers, pretending he’s the Black Ops specialist Spectre, Ben Tyrer will be bleeding out on a campaign mission, begging for his teammates’ help. But he never skips the cutscenes, so they usually decide not to. Black Ops III’s approach to its campaign could have been a defining moment for the series. Everything is unlocked, so pick your starting point and go wage your non-linear war, robo-soldier. Alas, it doesn’t quite work like that. Black Ops III basically gives you the option to play any chapter, anytime you want. But the story’s still the same linear narrative – it just makes more or less sense, depending on the order in which you tackle it. There are so many exciting possibilities for a…

1 NARUTO SHIPPUDEN The most popular anime on Crunchyroll with more than 400 episodes, it’s like a big bowl of noodles topped off with a runny egg – the anime equivalent of comfort food. Naruto, a boy from Hidden Leaf Village, wants to become a ninja so he can lead his people and reunite with his childhood friends. 2 DURARARA Halloween might be over, but it’s never too late for an urban legend. Set in a fictionalised Ikebukuro, where criminal and supernatural underworlds intertwine, Durarara sheds light upon some shady citizens: an information broker, an abnormally strong bartender, an internet gang, and a biker who’s searching for her stolen head. Spooky! 3 SWORD ART ONLINE Fancy a shot of virtual reality gaming goodness before PlayStation VR hits? We’ve got you…

Two servings of revamped PS2 classic? A game and a movie? Don’t mind if we do. Well, it’s more like one humongous helping – the new instalment’s trailer dubs it, “The game, based on the movie, based on the game.” Difficult to disentangle, then. Indeed, the jewel-toned vistas of a 1080p Metropolis are so crisp that we’re not entirely sure we aren’t playing the movie. Delicious confusion. Insomniac Games’ production director Sean McCabe sheds some light on the synthesis. They’re working closely with the Ratchet And Clank movie’s production company, Blockade Entertainment. “We knew there was this deeper, richer origin story in the film,” he explains to us, “and so our first approach was to take that and integrate it with the things that we really loved about the classic.”…

Our last main series Persona fix was in 2008, and despite the amusing spin-offs (just last month we got a boogie on with Dancing All Night), it’s time for a new journey into teenage self-discovery. We’ve seen tantalising glimpses of how its ‘real’ world sections look – a baseball cage looking like a new addition to your activities in self-improvement – and the alternate dimension where you unleash your personas. We’re starting to wonder, however, if the playable character is a bit of a wrong ‘un. After all, he’s a ‘phantom thief’, and his first persona has been confirmed as Arsene, who generally looks like an evil Vegas magician. We’ll find out very soon.…

Some of the best bits of the Battlestar Galactica reboot were the ferocious and grimy dogfights that tended to frequently break out. When it launches on VR, EVE: Valkyrie looks set to surpass those lofty standards by placing you directly at the heart of those types of battles. During our hands-on test flight we’ve been weaving between floating space debris and engaging in frantic and scrappy battles (using our head to aim our cannons) that render the Fighter Squadron skirmishes in Battlefront pedestrian by comparison. Oh, and having Starbuck herself – Katee Sackhoff – on board to voice Rán Kavik helps deliver the whole Battlestar vibe even further.…

We can’t help but gawp in amazement at the screens we’ve seen of puzzler Superhypercube so far, with their stonking colours and evocative art style. What’s even more impressive is that the original version of the game was intended to be played with red and blue 3D glasses, that developer Kokoromi says, “altered the perception of other colours in the game.” With PS VR, however, it can go to town with whatever styles it wants – and it clearly shows. It’s also being published by Polytron, who you might remember as the guys behind Fez, so there’s a strong pedigree of indie talent involved with this one. Set excitement levels to superhype when it hits PlayStation VR.…

This darkly hilarious visual novel series has you solving murders and avoiding death at the paws of sadistic bear Monokuma and the blood-stained hands of your fellow students trapped in Hope’s Peak Academy. The VR trailer we’ve seen places you in the shoes of one student whose luck officially runs out during a trial and gets a crushing punishment for being identified as a killer. Whether it’s the chance to see a glorious 3D Danganronpa universe or just witness horrific torture via a teddy bear, this will certainly be one of the more unique titles in the PlayStation VR lineup. Pink blood’s going to be spraying in our eyes, isn’t it?…

Got a younger sibling who you want to indoctrinate into the Final Fantasy fan club? (We see through your lies…) This is what you seek. The recent Tokyo Game Show trailer brought so many “D’awws” that we had to ban that word in the office, but among the highlights of this kid-focused Chibistyled tangent is the appearance of mini-Lightning and the return of Cactuar as a train ticket conductor. All aboard for this old-school spin-off.…

MATTHEW PELLETT EDITOR MASS EFFECT ANDROMEDA It’s a bulging release schedule, for sure, but gaze across the full 12 months that comprise next year and Bioware’s role-playing space opera is hard to ignore. The promise of a new galaxy to explore, new aliens to discover (and bonk, no doubt), expanded Mako sections and another epic planet-hopping tale is surely set to be a 2016 highlight. MILFORD COPPOCK MANAGING ART EDITOR THE LAST GUARDIAN I’ve been captivated by Fumito Ueda’s The Last Guardian since it was first revealed all the way back in 2007, so the thought of actually getting to play it this year is an enthralling prospect. The animation has come on in leaps and bounds, with Trico and his little human companion wandering through amazing looking puzzle-filled environments.…

Keiji Inafune boasts the sort of CV that would make anyone jealous. His work includes designing Mega Man, as well as having a hand in Onimusha and the Dead Rising series. With Mighty No. 9 – a side-scroller that’s secured more than four million dollars from crowdfunding – he makes his return to development, so we catch up with him for a chat… OPM: Has your philosophy towards making games changed? Keiji Inafune: In the 30 years since I created Rock Man [Japanese title for Mega Man], I’ve gone through a lot of experiences, many of which have formed my approach to development on Mighty No. 9. I’ve learnt to take a lot more risks and that’s where Kickstarter really comes into it. I now get to work with the…

FAR CRY PRIMAL Format PS4 ETA 23 Feb Pub Ubisoft Dev Ubisoft Montreal Think hunting mammoths in packs and taking them down with arrows and spears is scary? Try creeping around a forest at night with nothing but a burning stick to light the way as savage natives pounce from the gloom: it’s the stuff of survival horrors. And don’t get us started on those saber-toothed tiger attacks… Check back next month for our full hands-on preview of this prehistoric treasure. SOUTH PARK: THE FRACTURED BUT WHOLE Format PS4 ETA 2016 Pub Ubisoft Dev Ubisoft San Francisco Stop giggling – videogames are serious business. First instalment The Stick Of Truth was far more than just fart jokes. Its sequel, meanwhile, will build on the story and combat system, having you…

Ever notice the Free To Play tab on PSN? It’s there, we promise, but we don’t blame you if it’s not a place you frequent. That might change, however, with World Of Tanks, the tank-busting, MMO PC smash hit. The setup is simple – take your rumbling hunk of metal onto the online battleground, dominate, and then unlock higher tiers to get better tanks. According to project lead TJ Wagner, the PS4 version “will feature first-time-ever seen content at launch.” What’s more, it’ll be free to play for everyone, no PS Plus account required. With no barriers to entry, this might just light the free-to-play fuse for PS4, once and for all.…

DETROIT: BECOME HUMAN Boot up the emotion engine Format PS4 ETA TBC Pub Sony Dev Quantic Dream David Cage’s boldly unveiled continuation of an old tech demo may have been a showstopper at Paris Games Week, but alas, we don’t think you’ll be guiding android Kara through the rain-slicked streets of the Motor City in 2016. We’ll give you a sec for your emotion engine to run a diagnostic on this feeling called ‘anguish’. We could be (and would love to be proved) wrong on this one, but with Sony’s 2016 first-party lineup heaving right now (Uncharted 4, Ratchet & Clank, PS VR, Horizon Zero Dawn… you have read the previous pages, right?), squeezing Detroit in could be an AI step too far. VISCERAL GAMES’ STAR WARS Hans off for…

How easy it is to forget just how radically Rocksteady has continually redefined what a Batman game can be. Remember that before Arkham Asylum, Bruce Wayne’s digital representations were more Shatman than Batman. Yet Arkham Knight brings the ‘trilogy’ (debatable, given Origins) to a close in the best way possible, securing the series’ legacy. Knight makes full use of PS4’s extra horsepower. Neon-lit and rain thrashing down, we’re finally stepping into a fully fledged Gotham that reveals a world that’s half Nolan industry and half Burton Gothicness, while still feeling distinct from its influences, using Gotham’s architecture and villains to create an organic style. Some of you aren’t fond of the Batmobile, and we think the titular villain isn’t an instant classic – a tad whiny for our tastes –…

Just like the flesh munchers themselves, it’s hard to keep a good zomb-romp down. Dying Light takes the bits that worked in the Dead Island franchise – which involve turning things into squelchy puddles of guts, mostly – and fixes most of the issues contaminating that series, namely being riddled with more bugs than the bedroom of someone with a tendency to Google “bomb-building techniques.” It also introduces a few new tricks to the tried and true head-cave-‘em-in formula by adding some parkour-esque movement. It gives you the ability to slide through narrow passages, scramble up buildings and leap across rooftops. No wonder those zombies are desperate to take a bite out of you – you’ve got so much energy they can practically hear the blood thundering through your veins.…

MATTHEW PELLETT EDITOR THE WITCHER 3: WILD HUNT After some early technical hiccups, CD Projekt RED turned around a true masterpiece of PS4 gaming with an RPG that reminded me why I fell in love with the genre in the first place. My one and only regret? That PlayStation never got the other Witcher games. MILFORD COPPOCK MANAGING ART EDITOR METAL GEAR SOLID V Let’s be blunt. MGS V is not the best Metal Gear. It is, however, an amazing open-world stealth game. Big Boss’ last outing with Kojima at the helm is a gameplay triumph, despite a few unanswered plot holes here and there.And no, I never used the chicken hat. JEN SIMPKINS STAFF WRITER LIFE IS STRANGE I’ve decided. No regrets, no rewinds: this episodic epic is the…

Well, well, well. Look what The Witcher dragged in – a big, fat, juicy numero uno from OPM’s very own readers. The open-world RPG scooped multiple prizes at this year’s Golden Joystick Awards (five to be precise, including Ultimate Game). And now it can add another much-coveted trophy to its already-heaving cabinet – the glimmering adulation of PS4 players everywhere. Soaked in the golden light of sunsets over Temeria, the lands of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt span staggering distances and are suffused with colour. You can almost breathe in the icy moonlight when crashing through undergrowth on night-time jaunts, silver fingers of luminescence creeping into craggy cobblestone walls. Oh, and Geralt’s beard is a bit sexy, innit? The only thing more vivid than Velen’s provincial landscape is its self-styled…

The world is a frightening place, but never more so than when you’re a kid. Bumps in the night, monsters under the bed, loud noises. All are sources of pant-wetting terror (sometimes literally) to freshly minted imaginations. In fact, the early stages of life make such a good setting for a horror game, it’s a wonder it hasn’t been done before. As a disempowered toddler, the whole world is just a fizzled-out nightlight away from becoming a nightmare factory. Among The Sleep takes an axe to the kneecaps of the standard first-person perspective and pops you in the fuzzy blue sleepsuit of a two-year-old child. After some brief birthday celebrations, you’re put down to bed. But when you wake suddenly in the night and discover your mother is missing, you…

Even starting The Old Hunters is hard. That tells you everything you need to know. This is not paunchy, season pass DLC, to be lazily accessed through anything so indecorous as a menu. Hell, no. This is creator Miyazaki goading you into returning. A spiteful, inventive expansion, stitched into the leathery flesh of the existing game. Bold, relentless and completely essential. New players can access the DLC early on, but it’s like giving artisan chisels to a toddler. The Old Hunters offers fresh obstacles only for the fearless, and it does so masterfully. Even seasoned hunters will struggle with the narrowing, panicked gauntlets and meat-shredding machine guns. Simple NPC encounters resemble PvP combat. Enemy hunters come armed with vicious, unfamiliar weapons that batter you into reactive play. At times, they…

Get ready to tap furiously, K-pop fans, as this rhythm-action blast will have you swiping the night away. How will you be doing it? Well, there are two curved lines on each side,1 which blocks fly towards. Much like Persona 4: Dancing All Night, you interact with them by tapping the screen or the correct D-pad direction or face button. Interact is the key word there, as certain icons need to be swiped or dragged across the screen, either with your finger or analogue stick. However you play, it’s pleasingly intuitive, with the classic thrill of racking up combo scores and tapping in time to the music quickly becoming second nature. Difficulty’s malleable thanks to the ability to select between 4Trax (with four, er, tracks zooming into the screen), 6Trax…

The shadow of Fez’s perspective trickery looms large over Poncho, a 2.5D platformer with an intriguing premise. Its central mechanic is ‘parallax platforming’, with tiny robot Poncho – named after his singular item of clothing – able to switch between two-dimensional planes. It’s a cute mechanic, where a tap of the shoulder buttons sends you forward or back between layers. Early levels ease you into how the world operates – some blocks move on a timer, others only move if you switch planes – and reward exploration with keys that unlock other areas of levels.1 It’s not groundbreaking, but it’s modest fun, with a really strong soundtrack and visual style. But halfway through, the difficulty spikes high as the platforming shortcomings are brutally exposed by the mechanics. Poncho is simply…

One moment you’re blasting into the New Year with Dinklebot in Destiny, the next you’re running around Hoth in Star Wars Battlefront. It went fast, right? It’s hard to believe just how much gaming goodness 2015 delivered. So, to prove you didn’t hallucinate Bloodborne, Rocket League and that E3 presentation – sadly, Tony Hawk’s 5 isn’t a fevered dream, either – we’ll walk you through the talking points of the past 12 months… January STRANGE BEGINNINGS We aren’t sure what to make of Dontnod’s Life Is Strange, giving its opening episode a 7/10. But we get the feeling this episodic adventure might be a bit of a grower… A THIEF’S COVER Drake – Nate, not the Canadian rapper – is the star of our first 2015 cover, as we take…

Koei Tecmo has hinted that Dead Or Alive Xtreme 3’s lack of EU release is down to conflicting Western attitudes regarding the representation of women in games. Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick has all but confirmed more BioShock games. Sources suggest From Software could be working on a PS4 JRPG. PS Vita’s Uncharted: Golden Abyss on PS4? Maybe, according to Naughty Dog’s Arne Meyer. Sony is pushing PS VR developers for a 60fps minimum, and a buttery smooth 90fps target, for upcoming titles.…

IT’S ALIVE! Much whooping in the OPM office at the news Life Is Strange will get a limited edition boxed release in Jan, including the soundtrack and an art book. Hella cool. FRIDAY FEELING Jason is grabbing his machete and heading to Camp PS4: a Friday The 13th game has reached its Kickstarter target. That means you’ll get a chance to neuter randy campers from October. ODEON KENOBI By the time you’re reading this, Team OPM will be down to the nearest cinema to see The Force Awakens. If anyone asks, we’re all ill… RAIN D’OH SIX Rainbow Six Siege’s season pass gives us a headache. With every map due to be free, £22.99 gets you gun skins, XP boosters and early operator access. It seems… expensive. CROCK BAND We’re…

@STEVIUM ‘Whole Lotta Shakin Goin On’ by Big Maybelle from the Fallout 4 OST is stuck in my head on a loop. @NORTHLANDER74 Fallout 4 is a good game but it’s not the superb masterpiece that all the hype makes it out to be. @CHACHASHAKALAKA Everyone’s already celebrating Christmas, but I’m still just waiting for Street Fighter V. @NYKANYKANYKA Until Capcom un-bans R Mika’s Iconic Butt Slap, I am forever boycotting all videogames 4 infinity. @DARKROASTFRANTA I played Life Is Strange and I’m so mad at the ending. Neither one is good. I hate everything. @PAPAJINN You ever think about how tragedies like Sonic Boom happen but Yakuza 5 still hasn’t been released? @MCMPRODS Guitar Hero made me glad I was able to play 84% of Free Bird. Pity I…

WRITER BIO New Videogamer recruit Alice Bell’s favourite assassin is Edward Kenway. She owns at least one Assassin’s Creed novelisation and enjoys long walks in the Third Crusade-era Holy Land. Turn-offs include being stabbed in the throat. Please. Somebody. Help me. I’m currently in a long-term relationship and it’s in a bad place. We’re stuck in a rut. We first met when I was a teenager – just 17 – and it was new and different. But now I’m finding it hard to remember the good times. It hasn’t been really exciting for years, and I’m coming to terms with the fact it’s going nowhere. The other party in my tortuously extended metaphor is, of course, Assassin’s Creed. Every year a new one comes out. Every year I buy it.…

UNION STATION Victorian railway station? Check. Big red bus? Check. Some ‘80s punks and a bowler-hatted businessman? Yep. Busby-headed Queen’s royal guard? Er, yes, that too. It’s the UK’s greatest hits, bar The Beatles and gross disappointment. HILLSIDE PLAZA Laura’s Brazilian stage is a far cry from the jungles favoured by the (currently unannounced) Blanka. Clear blue skies and the brightly coloured boxes of the distant favela typify this one, making for one of the breeziest stages in the game. UNDERGROUND ARENA Zangief’s secret fight club is a lovely old wood-and-metal affair that – weirdly – evokes memories of Street Fighter IV’s Scottish distillery, as well as SFII’s Russia stage. Probably ye olde industrial vibe. And dancing bears? Yes. CITY IN CHAOS Very probably set in the USA, and very…

FIREWATCH Format PS4 ETA 9 Feb Pub Campo Santo Dev Campo Santo The relationship between Henry and Delilah is one of the things we’re really intrigued to experience in sedate first-person adventure Firewatch – the extraordinarily natural dialogue promises to deliver one of the most charming double-acts in gaming. Key to this is some big hitters on voice duties, with Rich Sommer (Harry Crane – Mad Men) and Cissy Jones (Katjaa – Telltale’s The Walking Dead) bringing life to the script. HEART FORTH, ALICIA Format PS4/PS Vita ETA 2016 Pub Alonso Martin Dev Alonso Martin We sure love our retro-chunky 16-bit-esque graphics at OPM, especially when they’re married to a game that combines the Metroidvania style with a powerful story. Heart Forth, Alicia is a throwback with no shortage of…

To keep things fresh for veterans of the PS Vita original, Japan Studio’s latest action game introduces two new types of gravity to experiment with (we must have skipped that lesson at school). Jupiter gravity makes you lighter and faster, while Lunar may slow you down, but you’ll get more powerful attacks. Mixing these together should give the combat a bit of extra depth for crushing the plentiful amount of monsters waiting for you. If the wait for the sequel’s dragging you down, there’ll also be a remaster of Gravity Rush for PS4 in February.…

Ho! A new announcement! Our PC pals have been churning up dust in DiRT Rally for the best part of a year now, but 2016 will see Codies’ racer screech right onto PS4. A far more realistic race sim than its predecessors, it has a physics engine designed from the ground up to test your reactions across different terrain. DiRT Rally also includes at least six different countries to tour through and over 20 cars for that aforementioned racing, including our personal favourite, the Subaru Impreza. Codies’ typically exceptional graphics should shine even brighter on PS4, making this a 2016 racing highlight.…

Jurassic Park fans get very excited, as Crytek’s foray into VR looks like it’ll be the sort of game you’ve been dreaming of since a T-rex ate a man on a toilet. Its reveal trailer shows you waking up in a gorgeous forest, before being asked by a slightly arrogant orb to start rushing through a stampede of dinos. Exhilaration turns to knee-trembling fear as the trailer ends with you coming face-to-face with an angry-o-saur that doesn’t look chuffed about being interrupted by your presence. And breathe. Cevat Yerli, co-founder, CEO and president of Crytek, is a huge fan of VR’s potential to dazzle. “To me, that’s what makes VR so special. It has the power to amaze us all over again.” “THAT’S WHY VR IS IS SO SPECIAL –…

If you don’t quite remember the arcade original, we can’t blame you – it was released back in 1980. In modernising it, however, Sniper Elite 3 developer Rebellion has taken the concept of the cabinet game – blowing up lots of stuff with a tank – and given it an angular, futuristic design. Confirmed as a PS VR launch game, its vivid, fluorescent colours give it a strong retro feel, with creative director Jason Kingsley saying: “The aim is to use VR to make each environment feel as awe-inspiring and monumental as possible from the cockpit of your tank.” If the combat proves as striking, Battlezone will be an essential day one purchase.…

Rats may be out for our return to the Empire Of The Isles, but don’t get too excited – there’s another potential infestation, courtesy of the delightful-sounding blood flies. “The more corpses there are, the more blood flies there are,” explains Arkane’s co-creative director Harvey Smith. He describes how discarded corpses could become potential nesting places for a new swarm if a blood fly gets to them. Bleugh, we’ll be the city of Karnaca’s finest body removal service next year.…

We’ve seen footage from Doom’s now-closed Alpha testing and early indications suggest this is destined to become our new online shooter of choice. Our fave moment comes from seeing a player-controlled demon for the first time: being the quickest to a demon rune sees you transform into Doom’s bad guys. Doom II’s shrieking Revenants have been revamped as slightly bulkier freaks than before, complete with shoulder-mounted laser cannons and jetpacks to help you literally rain death upon your foes.…

Format PS4 ETA 2016 Pub Square Enix Dev Platinum Games The original Nier was a divisive cult curio, but for the sequel, Square Enix has turned to Japanese action king Platinum Games. More specifically, it’s the Metal Gear Rising team that’s in charge, and the results are spectacular – we’ve yet to see an action game in the pipeline that beats this for all-out scrapping. Expect Bayonetta-style action blended with bizarre shooting side-mechanics to set this apart from the crowd. It’s been freshly revealed to be called Nier: Automata, incidentally, on account of its android star 2B – its name was kept a mystery at E3 while the dev team investigated whether calling it Nier: Android would infringe on Google’s trademarks……

Would you Adam an’ Eve it? Turns out OPM’s readers love a bit of Syndicate’s London Town. Creed’s latest chapter is more brutal than ever, pulling no punches (or Hidden Blades) in its depiction of Jacob and Evie Frye’s ‘orrible murders. Alexander Graham Bell’s nifty rope-launcher is an essential tool when you’re traversing the kaleidoscopic city, while wide streets require you to segue from ziplining to hardcore parkour in your quest to wipe the impeccably groomed moustache off Crawford Starrick’s face in classic, sneaky Assassin’s style. But it isn’t all ye olde Creede. PS4 owners get the exclusive Dreadful Crimes missions, which mix up gameplay via Eagle Vision, while a bit of knuckle-cracking encourages witnesses to ‘fess up. Oh, and ‘ave you ‘ad a butcher’s at the secret mission down…

DAVID BAMFORTH STAR WARS BATTLEFRONT It’s Star Wars Battlefront for me. It’s been a long, long time since I was addicted to a game like this.The playability, graphics, modes… the whole feeling of the Star Wars universe is truly breathtaking. DONOVAN KRAHN METAL GEAR SOLID V: THE PHANTOM PAIN As much as I love Fallout 4, the best game of the year has to be Metal Gear Solid V! It’s got the insane story that takes you through three chapters, so just when you think you have beaten the game, here comes more of the story and more missions. JAMES BEECH LIFE IS STRANGE I laughed, I cried, I enjoyed every second; and as the credits rolled, I had never felt more satisfied from a videogame as I did with…

Make yourself cosy, young hunters, and prepare thyself for a journey into the depths of Yharnam. You see, it’s not like the Dark Souls you’ve encountered before, but a new breed of punishment from the bloody quill of Hidetaka Miyazaki. It’s hard to not get a bit Gothic when reminiscing about the pain chambers of Miyazaki’s games. And Bloodborne is no exception. While the core concept is the same – an insane-o-tough game that slowly teaches you through brute force – there are enough tweaks and adjustments to give Bloodborne its own flavour. Key to this is the shift in combat emphasis. Where previous Souls titles concentrated on defence, Bloodborne is very much about attack. Due to a health recovery system that gives you back half of the health lost…

Considering how long you’ve waited for Bethesda’s latest, we’ll let you hide in your bunkers for a little while longer. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure in Fallout 4, after all, and you’ll be busy hoarding everything and the kitchen sink to improve settlements, as well as pea-shooters. Oh, and isn’t dystopian gunslinging a triumph on PS4? Firing into feral ghouls is super-satisfying. V.A.T.S slows down cantankerous Deathclaws (rather than freezing them), meaning each encounter feels critical. And Fallout wouldn’t be Fallout, of course, without getting overly attached to some irradiated buddies. Codsworth calling you by name is a lovely personal touch, when he’s able to at least (good news if your name is Assface; bad news if it’s Nick). What with umbrella stands to craft, fusion cores to…

GOLD AWARD Awarded to a game that’s brilliantly executed on every level, combining significant innovation, near-flawless gameplay, great graphics and lasting appeal. EDITOR’S AWARD Not at the very highest echelon, but this is a game that deserves recognition and special praise based on its ambition, innovation or other notable achievement. 10 INCREDIBLE The kind of phenomenal experience rarely seen in a console generation. 9 OUTSTANDING Unreservedly brilliant – this should be in every collection. 8 VERY GOOD A truly excellent game, marred by just a few minor issues. 7 GOOD A great concept unfulfilled or the familiar done well, but still well worth playing. 6 DECENT Fun in parts, flawed in others, but more right than wrong. 5 AVERAGE What you expect and little more, this is for devotees only.…

Chaos is Just Cause 3’s currency. As dictator-removal specialist Rico Rodriguez, you must free the fictional archipelago of Medici from a despotic general by basically blowing half of it to bits – liberation through annihilation. The stage is set for a gleefully dumb action game that revels in the resulting mayhem. But while some of the biggest and brightest explosions you’ll ever cause might convince you otherwise, Avalanche is too keen to ration the fun. It’s like arriving at an all-you-can-eat buffet, then being told you can’t have any of the main courses – at least until you’ve devoured most of the canapés. It’s a game in which the trappings of the sandbox genre seem to actively work against an underlying desire to let you off the leash. From the…

The cast of Jurassic Park spend much of the movie looking distraught. If Primal Carnage: Extinction is in any way representative of their experience of fighting dinosaurs, we now know why. A few hours spent with Circle Five Stuidos’ PS4 version of the asymmetric team brawler would be enough to sour anybody’s mood. Originally intended as an update to indie collective Lukewarm Media’s 2012 game, Primal Carnage, the project grew into a full-blown sequel released earlier this year on PC. A modest revision of the original, the game pits a pair of commendably varied teams against each other, one comprising humans and one a mix of fast-moving and lumbering dinosaurs. Batting on the side of evolutionary progress are the Scientist, Commando, Pathfinder, Trapper and Pyro. All have primary and secondary…

Beloved animated series Adventure Time has videogames in its DNA, so it’s a travesty on par with the Ice King’s pick-up technique that there’s yet to be a great PlayStation game set in the Land of Ooo. Finn And Jake Investigations is the best so far, but it still falls well short of the cartoon’s stratospherically high standards. After discovering their parents’ magical case-giving ticker tape machine, Jake the Dog and Finn the Human set out to solve five 60-or-so-minute mysteries around Ooo.1 But whereas the most recent Adventure Time games aped dungeon crawler Diablo, Finn And Jake Investigations is a basic point and click. Emphasis on ‘basic’, though, as effortless object collection and snoreinducingly simple puzzles are the order of the day. Every so often, enemies will attack, at…

Any Stark loyalist knows what it’s like to be kicked when you’re down. And punched. And flung head-first into an abyss of existential despair. In that respect, Telltale’s Game Of Thrones is remarkably faithful to its source material – they can both be phenomenally cruel. And given that A Song Of Ice And Fire remains unfinished after almost 20 years, this season one finale appropriately offers scant resolution. In TV terms, it feels less like a final episode and more like a mid-season break, ending on a trio of irksome cliffhangers. Coupled with Telltale’s traditional illusion of choice problems,1 there’s little question that Game Of Thrones fails to stick its landing. In previous episodes, Telltale’s constant desire to cram in famous faces from the show worked to its detriment, reminding…

AJRPG set within a virtual reality MMO based on an anime adapted from a light novel – lost is certainly what you’ll be if you enter Lost Song with zero knowledge of the SAO universe. Serving very few scoops of back story, this is a title that strives to please only the series’ most dedicated fans. In his latest quest, hero Kirito sets out to explore the floating islands of Svart Alfheim1 with SAO sweetheart Asuna and a formidable roster of over 15 playable characters. The majority of the game is spent soaring through the skies, looting dungeons and fighting mini-bosses, all while unearthing the secrets of the Shamrock guild and its leader – a famous singing idol. Silky smooth controls allow you to breeze through battles, while there’s no…