Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2015 i PC Gamer (US Edition)

I’m the last person to cheerlead for companies’ financial results. Our passion and purpose lies in celebrating games as experiences. But this month I’m compelled to mention to the success of Cities: Skylines. Or more accurately, I’m compelled to call attention to the good values that inspired Cities: Skylines’ success. It became Paradox’s best-selling game ever on the day it launched. In four days, it had sold 500,000. The narrative that formed around Skylines as our review and others began to circulate was that Colossal Order’s game was everything we’d wanted from EA’s disappointing SimCity two years ago. Moddability. Massive scale. Transparent simulation. And the bold, innovative feature of being able to play a single-player game while offline. These are native things for a city builder, valuable to the experience…

SteamVR (The Vive) Display Two 1080x1200 AMOLED screens combined. Refresh rate 90Hz Optics Clear, with an overall larger field of view than Crescent Bay, but not quite as sharp. Tracking Valve’s laser-based ‘Lighthouse’ tracking system is definitely more advanced than Oculus’s IR. Will it be more expensive, too Mobility Valve used a belt strap to support some of its cable system, but I still managed to tangle my feet in cables twice in 15 minutes Controls VR controllers that may become the standard. Wand-shaped, accurately tracked, comfortable Oculus Rift Crescent Bay Display Two screens combined, unknown specifications. Similar pixel count, but to my eye, Crescent Bay has the higher pixel density. Refresh rate 90H Optics A slight edge for Oculus, which has a clearer picture. Tracking Crescent Bay can track…

Need to know What is it? Effectively Black Flag 1.5, eschewing the Caribbean for chillier climes. Influenced by Sid Meier’s Pirates! Moby Dick, all that money ACIV made. Reviewed on 3.4GHz Core i7 2600K CPU, Nvidia GTX 680 4GB, 16GB RAM Alternatively Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, 85% Copy protection UPlay, Steam A cynic could have a field day here. It’s the second swashbuckling Assassin’s Creed since 2013, developed by a gaggle of Ubisoft’s international studios while its prizefighter Montreal team was busy strapping hidden blades to the cast of Les Mis for Unity. More of the same, then— what else would you expect of a series that invites you to give feedback via a star rating after every mission, as if you just had a parcel delivered? There’s no denying that…

ANDY KELLY This month Destroyed things with medieval war machines. Also destroyed medieval war machines. Also Played Hotline Miami 2 The windmill is perched on a rock. High enough that my death-tank, to which I’ve attached a pair of spinning death-blades, can’t actually reach it. The blades spin stupidly in the air as I drive up the side of the rock, flip over, and land on my back. I need to try something else. That windmill must be destroyed. Why? I don’t know, and I don’t care. It must die. I go back to the medieval drawing board. I decide that simply making a taller death-tank would be the cheap way out, and I decide to try something more elaborate. I create a flimsy wooden frame, brace it to keep…

READ ME FIRST REVIEWED Sept 2003, 55% DEVELOPER CCP Games PUBLISHER In-house REQUIRES 1GB GPU, 2GHz CPU, 4GB RAM LINK www.eveonline.com COMMUNITY forums.eveonline.com Last year at EVE’s yearly Fanfest in Reykjavik, CCP Seagull (also known as Andie Nordgren, executive producer) announced a major change in the way expansions would be released. Rather than two big releases a year, we’re getting smaller updates, more frequently. The first of these was Kronos, released on June 3, 2014. It was meant to be a massive overhaul of the industry interface, but this was held back. Instead we got three new ships for pirate faction Mordu’s Legion. The Garmur, a fastmoving attack frigate that gets a 25% bonus to missile damage; the Orthrus, a cruiser with an impressive 200% bonus to missile velocity; and…

HOW WE TES TED Freedom to build > These are cases you’re going to be building your own PC into, so it helps if the experience is as stress-free as possible. Each case was tested by building components into it. Aesthetics > If you’re building a compact PC it’s probably for your living room. The look of each case was taken into consideration. Carbide Air 240 $90 Corsair Corsair’s Carbide Air 240 is my absolute favorite small form factor case, and going back to check it this month has only reinforced my high opinion of it. No other case gives me the same urge to delve in and get building. It’s partly thanks to smart segregation of components and attention to detail. But what’s even more impressive is the way…

Fractal’s Node 304 is one of my favorite mini-ITX cases. I just don’t want to build a machine in there myself. I’ve tested lots of pre-built gaming PCs from different manufacturers and the 304 makes for a great mini rig when it’s been built by the pros. Doing it yourself can be a bit of a pain. That’s because it really is quite tiny, making it a trial to get all the necessary components inside in a tidy fashion. Thankfully the roof and sides slide off in one piece, giving you decent access. Fractal Design has had to be a bit creative with other design choices, too. The most obvious is the dangling white storage bays that hang down from the crossbars at the top of the case. There are…

Devices such as MSI’s Gaming Dock are blurring the lines between gaming PCs and gaming laptops, while powerful portables like the Asus G751JY are breaking down the performance differences. What isn’t changing is the fact that you get a lot more bang for your buck with a custom desktop build. The PCG Rig will give you a PC that’s capable of playing any modern game, and it won’t even cost you $1,400. Why pay more for the illusion of portability? WHAT ’S IN THE BOX The components that make up the PCG Rig POSSIBLE UP GRADES OCZARC 100 240GB > If you can’t stretch to a 500GB SSD then OCZ’s excellent ARC 100 is your best bet around the lower capacities. The combination of price and consistency is key. Corsair…

Wealth of choice You talk about the Steam ‘pile of shame’ like it’s a bad thing, but I think it’s a sign of how good we have it. Fifteen years ago, my entire knowledge of games came from those featured in PC Gamer, and if I wanted to buy something, I’d have to go to a shop and generally spend $45 for the pleasure. These days, you wait three or four months and thatsame title will go on sale for a third of the cost—and that’s not to mention the many games that start at a lower price from day one, and websites like Bundle Stars that give keys away for virtually nothing. We should celebrate the fact that we can sit there with so many games still to play,…

The Spy remembers the first time he made somebody ‘disappear’. He was eight years old and a magician was telling him to wave a little magic wand at a curtain. An audience volunteer called Nigel was behind that curtain. He never saw Nigel again. Twelve years later he was strangling a would-be assassin with a set of floral drapes. It’s funny what comes back to you. Or what doesn’t come back. Respected developer and on-demand bratwurst eulogy coordinator Hideo Kojima is rumored to be departing Konami, where he has worked as the head of Kojima Productions since time immemorial. Kojima’s name is nowhere to be found on press materials for The Phantom Pain, having been elided overnight by the game’s publisher. It’s an act of political erasure rarely seen in…

Need to know What is it? A multiplayer focused firstperson shooter with cops ‘n’ robbers flavor. Influenced by Battlefield 4, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Reviewed on Core i5-3570, 8GB RAM, GeForce GTX 760/Radeon R9 290 Alternatively Battlefield 4, 84% Copy protection Origin “I have a lot of questions about my bullets” Battlefield Hardline’s multiplayer has launched without disaster. There are glitches and dumb physics, but hell, it works, and it’s fun. After Battlefield 4, that deserves a clap. A slow, slightly sarcastic clap, but a clap. It’s fun, but in the words of Roger Murtaugh, I’m getting too old for this shit. It’s exhausting. I pine for Battlefield 1942’s simple structures, sprawling terrain, and Lee-Enfield rifles. The same fundamentals are still here—big maps, classes, vehicles, 64 players—but the speed…

Need to know What is it? Sequel to the brutally tough 2012 indie action classic. Influenced by Hotline Miami, Drive Reviewed on 2.8GHz CPU, 2GB RAM, 512MB GPU Alternatively Hotline Miami, 86% Copy protection None (from GOG) The original Hotline Miami was brutish, nasty, short. Its basic vocabulary was elegant enough to support a score-attack videogame but loose enough, creative enough, to make you feel like that wasn’t entirely the point. It was a marriage of Robotron and Lynch, Pollock with a machete going through the comedown of a century. It was about turning ugly ugliness into beautiful ugliness. If you lacked the hyperacute reflexes necessary to score an A grade in every level, you could still chase that feeling. Despite the bad-trip aesthetic and the bloody cruelty of it all,…

Need to know What is it? A metroidvania with challenging platforming and a few puzzles. Influenced by Metroid, Super Meat Boy Reviewed on Windows 7, Core i5-3570, 8GB RAM, GeForce GTX Titan Alternatively Cave Story+, 88% Copy protection Steam This is one of the most beautiful games I’ve ever played. It’s also fun, and difficult. The curiously calming (and fantastic) music seems more suited for a city builder, but smartly so: piano, winds and strings relieve the stress of playing Ori and the Blind Forest and lull me into a cool-headed space, where I can routinely die by spike pit and keep going. I died and died, but I never wanted to stop. Ori can easily be compared to Metroid: it’s an intricate, winding network of passages, each with hidden areas,…

My first thought when I unpacked the new Core X2 from Thermaltake was ‘they’ve sent me the wrong case’. I didn’t think something this size could be classed as small form factor, but because of its horizontal motherboard tray it can only accommodate mATX or mini-ITX boards. Also it’s a little smaller than a standard ATX, case so I’m going to give it the benefit of the doubt. On the plus side this is the only one of this month’s cases that could possibly house one of Thermaltake’s 360mm water-cooling radiators. In fact, it has a pair of mounting rails in the roof that could take two of them. And speaking of cooling, this thing has vents all over, apart from the huge perspex peep-hole on the side. Behind the…

The squat shape means this is capable of housing both mini-ITX and mATX motherboards. It also means there’s a good amount of space inside. That extends to the cooling, with space for mounting a 120mm radiator at various points and a 240mm one in the roof. The Cube also comes with a 200mm LED-lit fan at the front—and I love those massive spinners. They shift a lot of air with a few languid revolutions and their low speed makes them practically silent. There’s an exhaust fan at the rear too. Sadly the inset carry handles on the top feel sharp to the touch, and the meshed ‘X’ on the roof has jagged edges too. The moulded shell also feels a little plasticky. Overall Aerocool’s case is goodlooking covering for your…

I still want Empire at War to be good... or at least if they made another RTS Star Wars game, that would be fantastic. George Martin TIE Fighter (Secret Order of the Empire missions, & laying waste in a TIE Defender). Dammy Onafowokan KOTOR 1 and 2. I hope someone can top those games someday. Peter Fisher SWG, pure and simple. As far as MMOs go, The Old Republic still falls far short of the fun that could be found with player cities and customizable just-about-everything. Sven Wrightsen Star Wars Episode 1: Racer, without a close second. Seriously, it’s easily the best racing game I’ve ever played. Brandon Graham Battlefront 2 was really a lot of fun. Flying a transport to the enemy ship and disabling the systems from within,…

I will protect this bathroom with my life. In 40 seconds, five SWAT dudes are going to C4 their way into the twostory house we’re defending. For the entirety of that time, one-hundred percent of my focus is on figuring out the best way to fortify a toilet. My team has to defend a hostage, an AIcontrolled character we can’t allow to be captured. This round, that hostage has spawned in the master bedroom, which happens to be adjacent to the now tacticallysignificant lavatory on the second floor. The odds that I’ll fire a submachine gun while standing in a bathtub are as high as they’ll ever be. I need to work fast to put up defenses. My character, Castle, carries two bulletproof barricades, his special equipment. I hold F…

Need to know What is it? A city-building and management sim. Influenced by SimCity Reviewed on Intel i7 3.33GHz, 6GB RAM, Nvidia GeForce GTX 960 Alternatively A career in town planning Copy protection Steam Cities: Skylines didn’t have to stretch far to trump 2013’s SimCity: it just had to be a good citybuilder with an expansive area to build in, support for custom content, and no always-on DRM. Skylines offers all this. It’s also fun and addictive. The biggest challenges involve roads and traffic, which is not unexpected given that this comes from the same developer/publisher duo as Cities in Motion. Laying down roads is easy. Laying down roads that make sense, not so much. It’s not just traffic congestion you have to worry about, it’s logical traffic routes. Figuring out…

NOW PLAYING THE PC GAMER TEAM CHRIS THURSTEN This month Chased a monster in circles. Chased some hunters in circles. For ten hours. Also Played Hotline Miami 2, Dota 2 The first time I played the monster in Evolve was a story worth sharing. I chose the Goliath, because I had to (thanks, restrictive unlock system) and sneaked my way through the jungle, only feeding when the four players hunting me were nowhere to be seen. I reached tier two without encountering them at all, but shortly after evolving heard the first sound of gunfire—the hunters, killing creatures that might be food for me. I crouched in a cave entrance and waited. Shortly, one of the hunters jetpacked down from the clifftop above. I was a 20ft godzilla-ape; remaining concealed seemed…

TOM SENIOR This month Gained an appreciation for horses that has evaded him for 29 years. Also Played One Finger Death Punch It’s good to be the Huns, the horsiest of the Steppe nomads in an era when horses were overpowered. I like to march right up to the next settlement I plan to raze, and set up camp outside their gates, daring their garrisons to come out onto the open field to try their luck. They always do, the fools. READ ME RELEASED February 2015 OUR REVIEW PCGamer.com, 83% BUY IT $45 MORE www.bit.ly/1wK0okp Then I have them. I disrupt some blocks of infantry with cavalry charges, and let others through. Once their line is a mess I disengage most of my speedy mounted force and redeploy, picking off…

This might not look like machinima at first, but you’ll be left in no doubt halfway through this cute short film about an annoying headcrab. It’s a nice bit of physical comedy that takes what we know about headcrabs and pushes it to its logical conclusion. TS www.bit.ly/JerkHeadcrab 1 Loading up Gordon gets ready to board a hovercraft with one of the nameless survivors from Half-Life 2. I’m going to call her... Jane Doe, considering how close she comes to an ignoble death in the next few seconds. 2 Heads up Suddenly a headcrab appears from behind a stack of crates, and You Won’t Believe What Happens Next. Sorry, went all internet there for a second. Actually, you will—it attempts to chow down on Jane’s noggin. 3 Stick ’em up…

Now that motherboard components are increasingly being incorporated into the CPU itself, we no longer require the motherboards themselves to be so large. That means you can now make a miniature gaming PC that can go toe-to-toe with a rig twice its size. What counts as a ‘small form factor’ PC? There are two standards when referring to small form factor (SFF) machines: micro-ATX and mini-ITX. Technically, these are sizes of motherboard, but the term is used to categorize the PC itself. What’s the difference between the two sizes? The micro-ATX (or mATX) board is the oldest SFF design and is, at its most basic, just a squared-off version of the slightly larger standard ATX specification of motherboard. That means it’s not that small, but also means you can fit…

The Hadron Air is getting on for 18 months old now, but this mini-ITX case isn’t entirely out of date yet. It’s the absolute smallest case in this test and that brings its own complications and compromises, but it’s also the only one to ship with a 500W PSU included in the price. It has to: you couldn’t fit a fullscale ATX power supply inside the confines of the Hadron Air. But the solution EVGA has used makes sense: modern components, graphics cards included, are getting less and less power hungry, so a 500W PSU won’t cause you problems down the line. And it’s no budget option either, the EVGA power supply is rated with a high-end 80 Plus Gold efficiency rating. You will have to forego watercooling though: shorter,…

The Aquila is another diminutive case I didn’t expect to have enough space to be able to fit an mATX motherboard inside, especially given the horizontal mounting of the mainboard. And, as with the Strike-X, I’m quite taken by its cuboid styling—I also like the slight tilt to the mountings inside, giving it a little angular aesthetic to cut through the otherwise staid look. It’s actually very similar to the Aerocool in a lot of respects, although a little more restrained in design. There’s a wide-boy 200mm fan at the front, lazily pushing a good volume of air through the case with minimal effort, and a few removable drive bays so you can mess with the layout. The problem is that the 3.5” cage can’t be removed, because part of…