Innholdsfortegnelse for December 2017 i PC Gamer (US Edition)

Black Mesa isn’t the biggest upcoming release. But it’s still notable—a testament both to the openness of the PC as a platform, and to the spirit and passion of modders. It’s a fascinating project, and I’m glad it’s on this issue’s cover. Coincidentally, this month is also the ten-year anniversary of The Orange Box, and thus of Half-Life 2: Episode Two. Whether we’ll ever play a sequel remains open, but this issue we’re celebrating Half-Life 2’s legacy with a five-part retrospective. phil.savage@futurenet.com @Octaeder TALK TO PCGAMER Have your say! Tweet us @PCGamer…

PLAYED IT A fter Doom, Wolfenstein, Titanfall 2, and even Battlefield 1’s War Stories, I’m prepared to convince myself that the singleplayer shooter is having a renaissance. Battlefront II stands out as it has the potential to join that roster of campaigns, and be a high-end bit of Star Wars fiction, with mocapped cutscenes and a story that bridges the gap between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens. The early mission EA chose to reveal the campaign is a bit muted, however. Playing as Imperial commando Iden Versio, I start by piloting a TIE fighter around a large-scale space battle, locking onto X-wings and taking them out. While Criterion has revamped the ship combat for this sequel, this sequence is too brief for me to really tell the…

Junction Point Studios is best known for developing the Wii-exclusive action adventure Epic Mickey. But this wasn’t the first project for the studio founded by Warren Spector after his departure from Ion Storm Austin. Somewhere between the end of 2005 and mid-2007, Junction Point studios worked on an additional Episode for Half-Life 2 that was ultimately cancelled by Valve. In the interceding years, only a handful of details about the Episode have emerged. The Episode would have introduced a new weapon called the ‘magnet gun’, although it was never explained how the gun worked. In addition, earlier this year, purported images of the project leaked online, depicting what appeared to be the zombie-infested town of Ravenholm carpeted in snow. But whether these environments formed part of Junction Point’s final vision for the project,…

HOW WE REVIEW 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. ALPHAS & BETAS We’ll review any alpha, beta, or otherwise unfinished game that you can currently buy. For these games, we won’t assign a score, but we will tell you whether they’re worth your time. DOWNLOADABLE CONTENT DLC might be hours-long new missions for a game, or it might be a single new item. Either way, if we think you want to know about it, we’ll review it. OUR SCORING SYSTEM EXPLAINED 00%-09% Broken or offensively bad; absolutely no value. Example Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude 10%-19% We might be able…

NEED TO KNOW WHAT IS IT? A fast-paced one-on-one fencing game with bows and dive kicks. EXPECT TO PAY $15 DEVELOPER Messhof PUBLISHER In-house REVIEWED ON Intel Core i5-4440 CPU @ 3.1GHz, 8GB RAM MULTIPLAYER Eight local, two online LINK nidhogggame.com Nidhogg 2 is horrible. Which isn’t to say that the graceful austerity of the first game has been stamped into mush by this sequel, but that its new art style is memorably grotesque. If you spliced misshapen clay men with Peter Jackson’s Bad Taste, you’d get something close to Toby Dixon’s squishy, messy, delightfully grisly art—a far cry from the original game’s minimalistic visuals. If Nidhogg 2 was to have a subtitle, it would be ‘Nidhogger’ The best multiplayer games are those that prompt the most spontaneous exclamations during play and…

WHAT’S NEW IN THE BIGGEST GAMES NEED TO KNOW RELEASE May 24 2016 PUBLISHER In-house DEVELOPER Blizzard LINK www.playoverwatch.com T hat character select screen is starting to look mighty cosy. Blizzard’s team shooter has sailed past its first anniversary bigger and brighter than ever, its roster swelling from 21 to 25 playable heroes thanks to a number of free updates. First came support sniper Ana. Her long-range healing abilities and powerful Ultimate changed both the casual and competitive meta. The common cold was instantly cured. Shares in grandmas went up 300%. Then came problem child Sombra, who hated Christmas and kicked puppies for fun. Okay, so it was just that the new hack-attacker didn’t comfortably fit into the game at first. Her ability-disrupting kit was never quite enough to sustain…

“The Mojave is a far cry from the grim ruins of the Capital Wasteland” NEED TO KNOW RELEASED October 2010 PUBLISHER Bethesda Softworks DEVELOPER Obsidian Entertainment LINK www.bethesda.net S hot in the head and left for dead, you wake up in the one-horse town of Goodsprings and begin a quest for vengeance in the Mojave Wasteland. That’s the beautifully simple setup for Fallout: New Vegas, which makes the vault sequence in Fallout 3, where you watch your character grow up, seem needlessly long-winded. After a quick chat with a local doctor, voiced by Saul Tigh from Battlestar Galactica, you’re set free. And it’s up to you whether you want to hunt down the people who tried to kill you, or just drift aimlessly around the desert like Clint Eastwood’s Man With No…

GARETH @realgazwalker @MrAlexHunter is doing great in the lower leagues, maybe that’s where he belongs. DANNY @THE_williams_footy @EASports you’ve rated me way too low in the latest FIFA, sort it out. AGENT @MichaelTaylorRS Hi @MrAlexHunter do you think your grandad will sign my scarf? BERNARD @li_li_foot One must master the appetizer of the lower leagues before one can move on to dessert. MUM @cat_hunter_football @MrAlexHunter I hear it’s going to be cold tomorrow. #wrapupwarm…

ANDY KELLY Specialist in Sci-fi, imperilled scientists Twitter @ultrabrilliant This month Returned to Black Mesa for this month’s cover feature, on p26. CHRIS LIVINGSTON Specialist in G-Mod, G-Man Twitter @screencuisine This month The creator of the Half-Life 2 webcomic Concerned returns for one last Garry’s Mod job. TOM SENIOR Specialist in Heroism, sacrifices Twitter @PCGLudo This month Saved the world for his XCOM 2: War of the Chosen review. Find out at what cost on p62.…

1 METAL GEAR SOLID V:THE PHANTOM PAIN Despite fan outcry following news that the game was being split in half, MGSV surmounted further delays to become PC Gamer’s 2015 Game of the Year. 2 RAINBOW SIX SIEGE Debuting as the multiplayer mode of a new series entry titled Rainbow 6: Patriots, Siege eventually spun off into its own title. After overcoming a rocky launch, Siege is now one of the most popular shooters on PC. 3 SOUTH PARK : THE STICK OF TRUTH A rocky dev cycle that included several delays and the collapse of its publisher, THQ, didn’t stop South Park: The Stick of Truth from launching to acclaim in March of 2014. 4 TEAM FORTRESS 2 A whopping nine-year development cycle, as well as a visual overhaul, somehow…

FIRST LOOK B iomutant is a post-apocalyptic kung-fu action RPG, and the exciting debut of Experiment 101—a studio headed up by Stefan Ljungqvist, whose credits include Avalanche’s Mad Max and Just Cause. Despite not being able to play the Gamescom demo, it’s easily the most intriguing game I saw at the show. Set in a dying world, you play an anthropomorphic critter—a kind of cross between a raccoon and a fox. Your actions will have a huge impact on this world, including whether you choose to save the Tree of Life at its centre. At this early point in the game, though, the main character is more worried about not being a snack for the Meat Eater—the world’s last carnivore, and a major antagonist throughout Biomutant. The ensuing fight demonstrates Biomutant’s smooth mix of ranged,…

When Tom reviewed XCOM 2, he concluded, “We’ll play this forever.” For Firaxis, it seems, that wasn’t long enough. War of the Chosen adds enough new systems that it risks bloating an already-sizeable, varied campaign. This impacts the pace of play, but makes up for it through the quality of the additions. Turn the page to learn more. If forever is too much of a commitment, some more manageable games are also worth your attention. LawBreakers and Nidhogg 2 are great ways to entertain yourself for a few rounds, and The Darkside Detective and West of Loathing are both quirky indie comedies. phil.savage@futurenet.com LET US KNOW WHAT YOU THINK Email us via pcgamer@futurenet.com with your reactions, or simply tweet us your thoughts @PCGamer…

NEED TO KNOW WHAT IS IT? A cute and colorful farming sim where you rear bouncing slimes instead of cows and cabbage. EXPECT TO PAY $20 DEVELOPER Monomi Park PUBLISHER In-house REVIEWED ON Intel i7-2600, 8GB RAM, GeForce GTX 1070, Windows 10 MULTIPLAYER None LINK www.slimerancher.com Slime Rancher pulls off a PR coup that fast food corporations would kill for: It’s battery farming, but adorable with it. It’s about cramming as many blobs as you can into tiny pens, gorging them, then sucking up their plorts (that is, poop) and selling the goods off for the highest rate. It’s the kind of horror show that has you hankering for that chlorinated chicken you keep hearing about. On the other hand: Ahh, look at their little faces. Getting your slime prison operational…

BRADDOCK A cigar chompin’ one-woman A-Team. Her burst gun means more clicking, but she can call in an air strike when her Mayhem meter is full. RED CARD He’s German and soccer mad, or maybe just mad. His weapon can switch from assault rifle to a shotgun with the press of a button. ONI Ex-Yakuza and the coolest-looking of the lot. Has a silenced pistol and a very useful glove/ claw arrangement for melee kills. FORTUNE A Lara Croft-alike with good hacking skills. Has a drone called Glory, presumably because it makes holes in Legion troops. SCHEHERAZADE A beast in close quarters combat. Gracefully animated until she sprints— then she looks like a child pretending to be a jet plane.…

I f you’ve been waiting to take the plunge into the blocky zombie game, you’ll find yourself in one of the most supported survival games on Steam. A CANISTONCREEK Here’s a rainy map that looks a little like the setting of Friday the 13th or Dawson’s Creek. Except it’s full of zombies rather than talkative teens. DOWNLOAD AT www.bit.ly/UnturnedMod1 B CAR SADDLEBAGS Vehicles tend to have plenty of luggage space, but they could always do with more. Stick some bags all over your car with this strange mod. DOWNLOAD AT www.bit.ly/UnturnedMod2 C FIFF’S OBJECTS This adds over 60 objects to the game, from theater screens to gun stores: It’s a random list of items that fleshes out the world’s interactivity. DOWNLOAD AT www.bit.ly/UnturnedMod3…

You might know Nina Freeman for her adventure game Cibele: a game about love, sex, and the internet. She explores similar territory with Lost Memories, a collaboration with Aaron Freedman. Like Cibele, it’s set inside a sort of fake operating system—in this case a pretend internet browser that allows you to ‘chat’ with some of teenage Nina’s friends, to tinker with her website design and to visit a variety of fan sites. There’s a love triangle at the center of the story but even if you’re not interested in that, Lost Memories is worth a look for how it recaptures a memorable period in the internet’s history. DOWNLOAD AT www.bit.ly/LostMemoriesNet…

ANA NANO BOOST STRONG Powering up a Reaper for a few extra ‘dies’. WRONG Accidentally hitting your braindead Widowmaker. SOMBRA EMP STRONG Waiting for somebody stronger to follow up on the hack. WRONG “That tickled”— Enemy Team. ORISA SUPERCHARGER STRONG Letting your team know you’re about to set the drum down. WRONG Trying to play Phil Collins songs on it. DOOMFIST METEOR STRIKE STRONG Dropping it on the fools trying to take cover in a building. WRONG Providing a handy weather forecast for your opponents.…

PRIMM Recognisable by the famous El Diablo rollercoaster, this town was a budget Vegas before the bombs fell. GOODSPRINGS A quiet one-horse town on the edge of nowhere. Not much here but dust, tumbleweed, and a run-down old saloon. NOVAC Built around the ruins of an old desert motel, this settlement is dominated by a huge statue of Dinky the T-Rex. NEW VEGAS A walled-in wasteland paradise of gambling, excess and vice, ruled and protected by the enigmatic Mr House.…

ANDY KELLY I am the rocker, I am the roller, I am the out-of-controller. And I love applying thermal paste to CPUs. ELSE HEART.BREAK() www.elseheartbreak.com In a digitized world, anything can be hacked. That’s the premise of else Heart.Break(), a wonderfully unique game about love, youth, and cybercrime. Use a tool called a Modifier to hack objects and change how they function, and use your newfound coding skills to impress a gang of hacktivists. SWAT 4 www.irrationalgames.com Before BioShock, Irrational made this brilliant SWAT simulation. It sees you intervening in a number of dangerous crimes, from a gas store robbery to a hostage situation in an office. And dealing with them requires patience, planning, and playing it by the book. Still one of the best tactical shooters on PC. GONE…

TOTAL $938 MOTHERBOARD H270M Bazooka MSI $80 Kaby Lake has landed, and the 270 series chipsets with it. MSI’s Bazooka H270M is a perfect fit for our new CPU. PROCESSOR Pentium G4560 Intel $79 We saw zero framerate difference between this four-threaded Pentium and a core i7-7700K across multiple titles. GRAPHICS CARD GTX 1060 3GB EVGA $110 Its prices are haywire due to cryptocurrency mining, but this is still the best deal you can get right now. MEMORY Fury Black 8GB @2400 HyperX $76 DDR4 packs higher speeds, better energy efficiency, and larger capacities. 8GB is still perfect for most games, too. POWER SUPPLY 500BQ EVGA $43 It may be cheap, but this 500W PSU is more than enough to handle any budget build. This rig only draws 269W at…

TOTAL $3,238 MOTHERBOARD Crosshair VI Hero Asus $235 Asus’s Crosshair VI Hero provides a stable backbone for any would be early adopter looking to join the red core revolution. PROCESSOR Ryzen 7 1700 AMD $290 This is for the Twitch streamers, the pro gamers, and the video creators. Eight cores, 16 threads, stunning value. GRAPHICS CARD GTX 1080 Ti Turbo Asus $710 With Founder’s Edition cards now impossibly rare, Asus’s Turbo is the next best thing. It still packs that GTX 1080 Ti punch. COOLER Kraken X62 NZXT $147 The Kraken is the culmination of three of our favorite things: An infinity mirror, a 280mm radiator, and slick braided cooling. MEMORY Vengeance LED 32GB - 2666 Corsair $300 32GB of RAM is excessive for anyone gaming today. Use the excess…

FIRST LOOK I gnore the overly melodramatic plot about warring nations, an assassinated king, and a magical crystal—that’s not the point. Final Fantasy XV is really a road trip, as Prince Noctis and his three best boys—Prompto, Gladio, and Ignis— travel the continent, hunting monsters, helping townsfolk, and delving into some of the best dungeons of the entire series. FFXV is at its best when you’re out with the lads, exploring the gorgeous world for adventure, either on the road in your car, or out in the wilderness on the back of a chocobo. The relationship between its central characters is often charming and infectious, and their personalities lend a natural pathos to the adventure. After releasing on consoles late last year, FFXV is finally PC bound, and will arrive with a…

A LIENS Gruesome, deadly invaders from other worlds. They came pouring through the portal Gordon opened, and are causing havoc all around the facility. MARINES The Hazardous Environment Combat Unit has been sent in to ‘clean up’ the incident, which means killing everyone. SCIENTISTS The boffins who worked at Black Mesa are mostly seen dying in horrible ways, but they can also help you by opening locked doors. SECURITY These guys are handy with a pistol, and will follow you around, firing at any enemies you encounter. But they’re weak, so don’t get attached. ZOMBIES Former scientists and security guards, now transformed into shambling, grotesque zombies by the headcrabs that latched onto their faces.…

My name is Pritus Jenkins, Citizen #00670. I know this number by heart because in the last few hours I’ve had to recite it around five times. Such is life as a citizen in City 17, where the alien Combine which patrol the streets love nothing more than to stop and harass me. I’m playing on a multiplayer Garry’s Mod server, roleplaying Half-Life 2. but the role I play isn’t that of a hero. I am no Gordon Freeman. I am Pritus Jenkins, a 55-year-old man with a limp. And I’m hungry. If Half-Life 2’s roleplaying community were a food, it’d be the bland, mushy packet of rations I receive hourly from the dispensary located just off the central square of the dystopian city. This isn’t a place for grand adventures and bravery,…

ne of the greatest influences on first-person shooters at the turn of the millennium wasn’t a game, but a film: Steven Spielberg’s World War 2 epic, Saving Private Ryan. The movie’s thunderous portrayal of the D-Day landings would find echoes decades later in videogames like Killzone and Titanfall. Spielberg himself also has a robust association with game development: He co-founded DreamWorks Interactive with Microsoft in 1995 to work on adaptations of movies like Small Soldiers. Seeking a way to teach younger people about the war after wrapping up production on Saving Private Ryan, Spielberg asked DWI to develop a shooter, Medal of Honor, for Sony’s trendy new PlayStation platform. Launched in 1999 to strong sales, the game was a watershed moment in several respects. On the one hand, its more…

TOM SENIOR Specialist in Strategy, grudges Currently playing XCOM 2: War of the Chosen This month Faced off against a powerful, recurring foe: Team meetings. KATHA RINE BYRNE Specialist in Indie, farming Currently playing Slime Rancher This month Learned that even cutesy farming involves a lot of poop. PHIL SAVAGE Specialist in Shooters, nostalgia Currently playing Rez Infinite This month Had a flashback to the early-’00s. Watched Donnie Darko and listened to Feeder. CHRIS LIVINGSTON Specialist in RPGs, ghosts Currently playing West of Loathing This month Ate ghost pickles while riding a ghost horse. (And in the game.) ANDY KELLY Specialist in Indie, cults Currently playing The Shrouded Isle This month Chose human sacrifices based on the greatest crime of all: Patter theft. EVAN LAHTI Specialist in Shooters, traversal Currently…

NEED TO KNOW WHAT IS IT? An open world RPG comedy western with turn-based combat, a lot of hats, and ghost pickles. EXPECT TO PAY $11 DEVELOPER Asymmetric PUBLISHER In-house REVIEWED ON Intel i5-6600K @ 3.50 GHz, 8 GB RAM, Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 MULTIPLAYER None LINK www.westof loathing.com Welcome to the Old West, where snakes are used as whips, cattle are demonically evil, and alongside stick-figure cowboys there are goblins, necromancers and a lot of ghosts. There are ghost horses—I ride one myself—and ghost cowboys. There are even ghost pickles, and they’re not the strangest food you’ll encounter. This is a funny game, and you’ll want to root out every last joke A comedy RPG, West of Loathing is goofy and wonderfully written. After choosing from one of three…

NOW PLAYING I DOWNLOADS I UPDATE I REPORT I REINSTALL I WHYILOVE I MUSTPLAY MATTHEW ELLIOTT THIS MONTH Tried to drill through a wall using an ice cream cone. ALSO PLAYED The Darkside Detective, Baldur’s Gate W hen I played the first Bertram Fiddle episode for this column, I got horribly drunk on sherry and port, chosen tipples of the elderly, festive or desperate. Now that the sequel is here, things are going to be different. The fact you can play adventure games while tipsy doesn’t mean you should. It’s a pleasantly dull, adventure-free start. Bertram is working in a factory making ‘adequate soap’. Before I can do anything else, I need to finish his work for the day by selling three shipments of soap. It’s going to take at least…

FREEWARE You’re a caveman, Harry Fans of Jet Set Willy will feel right at home with Caveman Harry, a similarly Spectrum-style platformer full of critters and traps that will kill you in a single hit. Playing as the titular Neanderthal, you’ll set off on a quest to acquire food for your tribe, edibles that are tucked away in obscure parts of the world. There’s a lot to like about this retro platformer, from the cute pixel art to the devious level design, which really makes you work for the (thankfully frequent) checkpoints. As with Jet Set Willy, and the similarly retro-inspired VVVVVV, each screen is accompanied by a deliciously punny title, and it’s worth charting this prehistoric world just for those linguistic titbits. DOWNLOAD AT www.bit.ly/CavemanHarry…

NEED TO KNOW RELEASED September 27 2016 OUR REVIEW 83% EXPECT TO PAY $30 LINK www.easports.com/fifa W hen FIFA 17’s story mode was announced, the response was mostly mockery. Will there be Renegade and Paragon options for post-match interviews? (Yes). Will it end with a ‘suicide match’ with the characters you’ve met? (No). Yet when I actually gave it a try, it ended up being one of the most unusual and innovative stories I’ve ever played. Let’s set the tone: The game begins with you, Alex Hunter, as a ten-yearold boy playing soccer in the park. After winning or losing the match, Alex goes back to his tiny, pokey house, and distracts himself playing keepie ups while his parents argue downstairs. This is not the kind of scene I’ve ever encountered…

TOTAL$1,749 MOTHERBOARD X370 SLI Plus MSI $132 MSI’s X370 SLI Plus is identical to the gaming series motherboard that costs not a lot more, so why waste money? PROCESSOR Ryzen 5 1400 AMD $157 Four cores, eight threads, and half the price of the Intel equivalent. Gaming performance is solid, and streaming capability is robust. GRAPHICS CARD GTX 1070 SC Gaming ACX EVGA $470 Trying to balance prices, we’ve opted to drop down to an SC Gaming card. Don’t worry, you only lose out on a very minor overclock. COOLER Kraken X31 NZXT $80 To get the most out of a good CPU you need a cooler to match. The Kraken X31 is powerful, quiet, and great for overclocks. MEMORY Fury 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 - 2666 HyperX $155 Ryzen demands…