Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2017 i PC Gamer (US Edition)

This issue accidentally became an RPG special, somewhere between our Mass Effect: Andromeda cover feature, our exclusive interview with Obsidian on Pillars of Eternity II and the first part of our two-part history of the genre. We even got a first look at a Morrowindthemed addition to Elder Scrolls Online this month. If you like numbers and beards, it’s going to be a good one. If RPGs aren’t your thing, Ghost Recon: Wildlands, Resi 7 and Elite are just a few of this issue’s other highlights. samuel.roberts@futurenet.com @Samuel WRoberts TALK TO PC GAMER Have your say! Tweet us @PCGamer Our team of writers PHIL SAVAGE Specialist in Space stuff, Forza Twitter @Octaeder This month Joined Sam in building the worst spaceship in the galaxy. Go to p88 to see how…

1975-1990 Computers and RPGs have always gone hand-in-hand. Even when the best adventurers could hope for visually was a few letters and numbers on a screen, what better way could there be to handle stats, die-rolls and complex calculations? Soon enough, though, computer RPGs were capable of doing much more. The original PC RPGs—such as MUDs, or multi-user dungeons—appeared in the mid-’70s. These weren’t for home computers, but mainframes, typically found in universities. They tended to be based on either Dungeons & Dragons, which itself launched in 1974, or be variously disguised takes on Tolkien. These included Dungeon, DND, Orthanc and Oubliette. A few, such as Oubliette, had simple graphics, though most started out as just text or used ASCII’s standard set of text-mode graphics. Despite the primitive technology, these…

Ethan Winters drives deep into the Louisiana bayou to find his missing wife. We follow his car from above, a tiny speck against a vast expanse of remote, isolated swampland. The setting sun casts a gloomy orange glow over the landscape, creating a sense of foreboding. If you get lost or go missing— or worse—out here, who would ever know? It’s a beautiful, evocative shot, and almost certainly an homage to the Torrance family’s yellow car snaking through the Colorado mountains at the beginning of The Shining. But Resident Evil has always been inspired by horror cinema, even if recent entries in the series have been more Uwe Boll than Stanley Kubrick. This understated opening immediately sets the tone for Resident Evil 7. It’s a return to the atmospheric, slow-burning horror of…

Two soldiers patrol a stretch of road. They see nobody. Then, a sound that can only be described as “adorable” inspires one of them to wander off. The source is an improbably cute tanuki, or raccoon dog. Entranced, the soldier doesn’t notice the rock hurtling from above. As it turns him into a smooth paste there’s the flash and bang of a matchlock pistol, and soldier number two goes down. I exhale. Two more foes fallen to Shadow Tactics’ heroes. This tale of an unlikely cadre attempting to stop a civil war consists of 13 elaborate and complex stealth missions where the odds are seemingly stacked against the player. Thankfully, the quintet, made up of a sake-loving samurai, three ninjas, and an old man with a gun-leg and pet raccoon dog,…

M y playthrough of the first game was more disaster than Dishonored. At the time, I didn’t quite grasp that slitting every throat I met in those early Dunwall levels would send me spiraling toward the dreaded High Chaos ending never to return. As the hours rolled on and the increasing swell of rats began to gnaw on Corvo’s bootstraps, I thought that maybe, just maybe, I might be able to redress the balance by going full stealth, stifling the screams of my foes without shuffling them off their mortal coil. Alas, Arkane’s Chaos system was more severe than I’d anticipated. The rats continued to scoff their way through the mounds of decaying flesh strewn about the city, and poor Emily might as well have been crowned Queen of the…

MOD SPOT LIGHT MAJOR MODS, ANALYZED The word ‘mod’ undersells Long War 2. Mod implies an aesthetic tweak, a UI correction, a new weapon perhaps. In fact, this is XCOM 2 as developed in a parallel universe. Long War 2 does add lots of new weapons, classes and skills, but all these service a set of bespoke design aims that turn XCOM 2 from a survival strategy game into a gradually paced army and territory management sim with expanded combat encounters. For players who have mastered XCOM 2’s story and power arcs, or now find them predictable, Long War 2 is an essential download. The mod forces you to break out of your habits and re-engage with the game again at the most basic level. Even soldiers are valued differently. You can field up to ten in…

F rom the intro to the dying moments of the main quest, the Imperial City dominates Oblivion, and it’s little wonder. This grand place can be seen for miles across the map. It’s the jewel of the empire. No matter where I wander, I always make my way back there. It’s my safe haven. Constructed by the long-dead Ayleid, and boasting the characteristic white stone and smooth lines of their striking architecture, the city is a circular hub, split into concentric districts. Each of them oozes wealth, only the outlying waterfront area and occasional beggar’s bedroll lying forlornly in odd corners hints at the city’s poorer undercurrent. Nothing is perfect, even this iconic place. As a game city it has its flaws. It’s woefully underpopulated, something especially noticeable now, more than…

25 JAN 3256 In a day that will live in infamy, the human race finally made contact with an intelligent alien species in the Milky Way. However, after careful consideration and a thorough study of the human race, the Thargoid ambassador has decided that in fact, they have to go, because they have work in the morning, and they’ll give us a call, maybe. “We attempted to make peaceful contact,” Ambassador Gruugthaax Morgblorb told Galnet in an exclusive interview. “But the one you call ‘Commander Weedlord’ fired at our ship, and we’ve come to the conclusion that you are, to borrow a human term, a bunch of jerks.” Many believed the Thargoids were about to wage war on humanity, but they were in fact about to gift us wondrous technology…

1991-1997 Get to know... THE LOST ELDER SCROLLS Along with the main games, there have been two more Elder Scrolls on PC—the Legends series. The first, Redguard, was a piratethemed adventure. The second, Battlespire, was a truly abominable combat game with multiplayer features. Both are forgotten for good reason. There’s a reason the ’90s are considered a gaming golden age. Everything seemed possible. Every game had the potential to be its own thing. Is Ultima Underworld, released in 1992, an evolution of dungeon crawlers like Dungeon Master? Yes, but to call it so is to do it a huge disservice. Underworld wasn’t about fighting through a dungeon, but experiencing it. You play as Ultima’s Avatar, falsely accused of a crime and thrown into the Stygian Abyss with nothing but the clothes on…

Despite what the first-person view suggests, Resident Evil 7 is a return to form. You’re back in a big house full of creepy horrors, conserving ammunition, managing inventory slots and snorting herbs. The series’ emphasis on action, spurred on by the acclaimed Resi 4, has been dialed back in favor of a more traditional, slowburn pace. It’s clearly worked its abominable charm on Andy, as you’ll see from his glowing review over the page. We, too, are looking to the past—albeit the more recent past of 2016. With the year off to a slow start in terms of new releases, we’ve gone back and reviewed some of the interesting gems we initially missed. Included in that crop is the excellent Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun, which might secretly be…

Between the comic books, the TV series and the games, the cyclical nature of The Walking Dead’s narrative has become ever more apparent. Still, if a riff is catchy enough it can bear a certain degree of repetition, and though some of its scenarios are familiar, A New Frontier opens with a double episode that shows the game at its best, with characters you can care about, a couple of genuinely shocking surprises and a clutch of well-staged set-pieces. It helps that Telltale’s new engine finally feels fit for purpose. There’s little to grumble about in Ties That Bind: everything runs that much smoother, and snappier transitions give the action sequences a greater sense of urgency. Press a button to jab a sharp object through a walker’s skull and the only delay between…

UPDATE WHAT’S NEW IN THE BIGGEST GAMES I ’m on a pilgrimage to the Maia system, jumping between stars in the hope of experiencing an alien encounter. It’s the Elite Dangerous equivalent of that rooftop party scene in Independence Day, where, faced with a powerful and unknowable force, some choose to rush towards the ship, folksy greeting placards raised high above their heads. Admit it, you smiled when they were obliterated. My own encounter is less eventful, in that it doesn’t happen. There are lots of rumors about where to find the aliens and how to tempt them into intercepting your ship, but nobody really knows anything. That’s a cool place for Elite to be in. It’s a sim that has been extensively catalogued through wikis, forums and third party databases. UFOs…

SAMUEL ROBERT 80 DAYS www.inklestudios.com/80days This densely packed, very loose adaptation of the Jules Verne book uses just a few words and pictures to bring steampunk versions of real-world cities to life in extraordinary fashion. You’ll feel like you’ve traveled the world and lived a life, and then you’ll go again to visit those places you missed. SUPERHOT www.superhotgame.com Control the flow of time in this first-person game where you punch, shoot and slash your way out of a bunch of deadly scenarios in the most efficient way possible. My personal pick for 2016, partly because I found it to be of an almost perfect length at about three hours—try to grab it in a sale. STAR WARS : ROGUE SQUADR ON www.bit.ly/1W0byz2 Pilot an X-Wing, Y-Wing, Snowspeeder, A-Wing or…

SAMUEL ROBERTS Romanced Ashley, Miranda and Isabela. A dull BioWare fan. PHIL SAVAGE One of the first to identify “the Hinterlands problem”. Samuel: Things we know about BioWare: Mass Effect is out in March, they’ve been working on a new series in some capacity since Mass Effect 3 came out, and the last, successful Dragon Age was released three years ago this year. The Old Republic trundles along, too. What would you like to see from BioWare, Phil? Phil: If they had any sense, it would finally be time for a Dragon Age visual novel in which you play some young, lithe Inquisition initiate trying to score a date with Cullen. You know, the thing Tumblr has been crying out for. Personally, though, I’m excited by the idea of something…

ANDY KELLY Specialist in Survival, horror Currently playing Resident Evil 7: Biohazard This month Entered a house full of creeps. The punchline writes itself. PHIL SAVAGE Specialist in Racing, topography Currently playing Forza Horizon 3: Blizzard Mountain This month Did sick drifts like a rad racer who doesn’t play Forza in his briefs. KATE GRAY Specialist in Visual novels, euphemism Currently playing Ladykiller in a Bind This month Tested the limits of NSFW by playing Ladykiller for work. FRASER BROWN Specialist in Strategy, tanuki Currently playing Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun This month Discovered the stealth potential of small, chubby canids. CHRIS SCHILLING Specialist in Adventure, pathos Currently playing The Walking Dead This month Embarked on an adventure more deadly than 2016. TOM SENIOR Specialist in Strategy, masochism Currently…

The actual, full title of Christine Love’s sexy sex visual novel Ladykiller in a Bind is My Twin Brother Made Me Crossdress As Him And Now I Have To Deal With A Geeky Stalker And A Domme Beauty Who Want Me In A Bind!!, which, uh, tells you pretty much everything you need to know. Basically, your twin brother has kidnapped you and is forcing you to pretend to be him on a cruise full of exceedingly randy teens from his school. At the same time, a ‘game’ is going on in which you have to win votes for a chance at a $4 million prize. You have to balance two statistics: votes, and suspicion, which leads to Game Over if it gets to five points. Suspicion is earned by doing things your…

I’m a fan of Playground Games’ no-nonsense approach to DLC naming. The (alas) Xbox exclusive Forza Horizon 2 offered the Storm Island expansion, which brought players to an island beset by storms. Now, Forza Horizon 3 presents Blizzard Mountain, set on a mountain onto which blizzards fall. Judging by the quality of both components, the combination of weather type and geographic feature is an effective formula. Rather than integrate into the main map directly, Blizzard Mountain is accessed via Redstone Airport. This being Horizon, your introduction to the new region involves a helicopter and a Ford Focus RS, but, after the initial rapid descent, things soon settle into a routine. Blizzard Mountain features a tweaked progression system. Instead of fans, you collect stars—up to three from each race. You earn one star for finishing, a second for…

“Ezio embarks on a quest for vengeance across Renaissance Italy” We’re introduced to Ezio Auditore da Firenze, the historical protagonist of Assassin’s Creed II, the moment he’s born. He pops out of his screaming mother and, in a truly bizarre tutorial, the game urges you to wiggle his arms and legs. Then we skip forward in time to his unruly teenage years, brawling and shagging his way around Florence. This could have easily been an indulgent, ponderous way to begin the game, but it’s actually brilliant. Too many games hurry you into the action, but this one takes its time and lets you get to know its hero before tragedy inevitably strikes. Ezio’s father is framed for treason and executed by a corrupt magistrate, which inspires Ezio to join the Assassins…