Innholdsfortegnelse for October 2019 i PC Gamer (US Edition)

Empire of Sin was perhaps the most pleasant surprise of my E3 this year. Announced as part of the Nintendo Direct stream, I had assumed it would be a casual, console-friendly strategy that would offer little to PC enthusiasts. Having now seen it in action, I can confidently say I was wrong. It’s the 1920s, prohibition is in effect, and wannabe kingpins are jostling for a slice of Chicago’s booming bootlegging scene. In Empire of Sin you pick one of 14 such bosses, most of whom are based on classic American gangsters such as Al Capone, Dean O’Banion, and Stephanie St Clair. Each boss will offer their own traits, including combat abilities, and empire and diplomatic bonuses. In a hands-off demo, designer Ian O’Neill picks Al Capone, and immediately proceeds…

DOOM 1993 The original Doom is the gory journey through Hell that set the standard for first-person shooters on PC. DOOM II 1994 Interconnected levels and a greater variety of enemies elevated Doom to new heights in this legendary sequel. FINAL DOOM 1996 A compilation of two Doom II mods, TNT: Evilution and The Plutonia Experiment. More of a spin-off than a sequel. DOOM 3 2004 A reboot with an increased focus on horror and storytelling, which remains the most divisive entry in the series. DOOM 2016 Another reboot, and arguably a more successful one. This brought Doom back to its violent, fast-paced roots. DOOM ETERNAL 2019 Very much the Doom II to the original Doom, Eternal takes the 2016 reboot and revs it up like a bloody chainsaw.…

A grandiose rendering of World War II’s Eastern Front, Steel Division 2 details Operation Bagration, the Red Army’s back-breaking push against the Nazi war machine. It’s an ambitious real-time strategy game, and though it ultimately fails to live up to a lot of that ambition—especially with its singleplayer campaign—the vastness of its battles captures the scale of total war with lavish detail. Operation Bagration was the June to August 1944 offensive that threw a huge number of the Soviet army’s best troops against the German army in occupied Belarus and Poland. At the same time as the Normandy invasion thousands of kilometers away, the Soviet army surrounded and crushed Germany’s Army Group Center, signalling the end for Germany in the east. The combatant divisions of troops in this game are…

Plagued by nightmarish visions of a drowned city and a colossal tentacled beast, private detective Charles Reed travels to the town of Oakmont to find answers. Storms have been battering this once thriving fishing community, cutting it off from the mainland, flooding parts of it, and leaving the rest sodden and dilapidated. And to make matters worse, the locals are deeply suspicious of outsiders. But with the source of these harrowing visions lurking somewhere in the city, Reed has no choice but to get his feet wet. The Sinking City is a third-person detective adventure set in a fictional version of 1920s New England, inspired by the works of influential (and, yes, controversial) horror writer H.P. Lovecraft. Divers uncover an ancient cavern hidden beneath Oakmont filled with otherworldly statues of…

This, my first encounter with Quantum Break, had the odd anticipation of a first date. I’ve annoyed my friends with it for ages—what if I don’t like it? With heightening anxiety, I realized that their opinions were just making it worse. They have different impressions. The only way to find out was to actually commit and see for myself. So I invite it over and spend the length of a rom-com montage getting ready while watching the progress bar of a seemingly endless download. Then it’s time. Sometimes starting a new game can be oddly nerve wracking. Wanting to give a game the attention it deserves—to dive in headfirst without getting distracted—can be tricky when there’s so much vying for your attention. That’s the best explanation I have for why…

1 GO LOW Enemies aim at chest height, so you want to get beneath that and close the distance with a forward roll. 2 BRING THE FIGHT You’re still at risk of a point-blank shooting. Wind your opponent by thwacking them in the groin. 3 THE EXCHANGE Wait until the cop attempts a pistol whip, then grab the gun when it flashes red. It’s yours now. 4 IT’S A KNOCKOUT Let your enemy’s momentum carry him to the ground. Continue on your day better equipped than before.…

Finding the best graphics card depends on how you plan to use it. Chances are that since you’re reading this guide, you’re in the market for the best graphics card for gaming. The best gaming PCs will almost always prioritize the GPU over the best CPU for gaming, because gaming workloads prioritize the kind of single threaded processing at which graphics cards excel, but if you run a lot of applications simultaneously, or your workload leans on multithreaded processing, you may want to consider budgeting more for your CPU. Of course, you can automatically pad out your budget by getting your graphics card on sale, so keep your eyes on our Amazon Prime Day PC deals hub for the best prices on GPUs and everything else under the PC gaming sun…

KEY Budget build PC gaming is for everyone. Pick the parts you want to build a new, well-rounded PC for a good price. Mid-range build You want to run every new game at 1080p 60fps. This recommended build will see you through. Advanced build You’re looking for the best PC on the market and superior components. But you still want to spend smart. BUDGET BUILD Enjoy 1080p gaming without breaking the bank MID-RANGE BUILD Our recommended build for playing the latest games ADVANCED BUILD Go above and beyond with a PC powerful enough to end worlds…

1 BUILD-AN-ASTRONAUT “To simulate actress Kezia Burrows in zero G using mo-cap, we used a system where we’d capture her limbs separately and then blend them together. Chris Wilson, lead animator, would also do swimming motions lying down on a stool.” 2 HOME OFFICE “On the original ISS, laptops are just stuck to every surface at every angle. Most of these laptops run on DOS, and they run one specific programme only, so you don’t lose lots of crucial data in case of a malfunction.” 3 FOUND FOOTAGE “Cameras on the station are all of the same quality because we wanted tech to feel unreliable as a whole, to give you a sense of unease. The interference and glitches make it feel like they might fail at any minute.” 4…

There was an air of disappointment around the look of Square Enix’s Avengers game when it was announced. The slightly muted color palette of Marvel’s Avengers approximates the look of the Marvel films rather than the comics, but without the actors playing those roles, it ends up looking like an uncanny, slightly drab cover version. Seeing more of the game in action behind closed doors at E3—about 20 minutes of an early mission—couldn’t overcome that initial reaction to capture my imagination. But the long-term ambition at play here is very exciting, and this is only a tiny introduction to what Crystal Dynamics and company have planned. This hands-off demo takes place during A-Day in San Francisco, a celebration of all things Avengers. As the reveal footage showed, an attack gets…

The E3 hands-on demo for Shenmue III is timed to 15 minutes, and I’m sat playing with creator Yu Suzuki. Ryo Hazuki, the returning protagonist, is going around a village asking people the same thing again and again. Every time he asks and with the countdown in mind, I want to skip the dialogue, but it seems rude to do that in front of the developer, so I don’t. And so, Ryo asks NPCs the same ridiculous thing over and over again. Most of the answers are wasting my time, and the English voice-acting that delivers them is odd in a way I can’t quite put my finger on. This is definitely a Shenmue game. Shenmue III feels like a Dreamcast game, only released 20 years later, which I think…

Five years ago Koji Igarashi, director and writer on Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, left Konami to make another Castlevania-style game. Five years is a long time, and the Metroidvania genre has grown substantially in that period, but sometimes you don’t want a variation on a familiar theme. You want the same game in a new package. Rejoice, because with Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, that’s exactly what you’re getting. Miriam is a science experiment in the shape of a dolled-up anime girl. Together with her friend, a man named Gebel, she was part of an experiment that transplanted the essence of demons into her body. This demonic power comes in the form of shards, thus she’s called a Shardbinder. The more shards you absorb, the more you let go…

The gamers running at me have swords, because all gamers own swords, I guess. They also have Monty Python Dark Souls cosplay armor but it can’t save them from the shotgun blasts that reduce them to lumps at my feet. I’m out of ammo before I’m out of gamers, the last one charging with sword held high. But any object you kick is a one-shot kill in this game, and dead gamer lumps are kickable objects. There are more impressive gun-fu stunts in My Friend Pedro than breaking somebody’s neck by kicking their dead friend’s torso at them, but this moment of improvization is typical of what happens between gif-able highlights. Once or twice per level I’ll do something absurd like skateboarding through a window then kicking that skateboard at…

I load up TF2 not with any serious intention of playing it. I’m here simply because I’m trying to figure out Steam’s bizarre Grand Prix sale event. Apparently if I play some casual matches I can earn points that do… something? I don’t know. On the menu screen I notice a new button for something called the ConTracker. It seems to be a bounty system offering rewards for completing basic missions—kill, capture, defend, etc. It’s all locked behind the Jungle Inferno Contracts Pass. On a whim, I buy it. I’ve been here less than five minutes and I’m already a few bucks down. I queue up for a casual Payload game, and load into Badwater Basin. It’s on the loading screen that nostalgia hits. The long bar denoting the time…

There are actually two versions of the original Police Quest, whose full, unwieldy title is Police Quest: In Pursuit of the Death Angel. There’s the 1987 original, which has basic 16-color graphics and uses the classic Sierra text parser. And then there’s a VGA remake, released in 1992, which features a point-and-click interface, slightly reworked puzzles, and vastly improved visuals and sound. The first release has its charms, and is undoubtedly a classic of the genre. But for this retrospective I decided to revisit the 1992 version because, honestly, it’s more fun to play—especially by modern standards. Police Quest was a collaboration between developer Sierra On-Line and retired police officer Jim Walls. When it was first released, most videogames were either fantasy or science fiction. But this was (and still…

Attacking out of nowhere, a non-player faction called the Drifters has invaded New Eden, the galaxy where EVE Online takes place. The Borg-like aliens laid siege to starbases and destroyed more than 5,000 player ships, amounting to hundreds of billions of ISK, EVE’s in-game currency. The major player-led alliances scrambled to respond, but not before a huge amount of damage was done—and now they’re annoyed. What was intended as an attempt to inject some life into EVE’s universe served mainly as an annoyance for the large groups of players who call New Eden home. “The lack of forewarning that normally precludes an event like this took a lot of the playerbase by surprise,” TEST Alliance fleet commander Seraph Padecain told our own Steven Messner. For them, repelling the alien invasion…

Let me tell you about Abe Welch. He’s a hired goon who is now in a hospital. I put him there after performing a melee takedown on him during a mission in Watch Dogs Legion. It was at this point I decided to save him to my collection of tracked people in the game. A menu screen tells me he hates Dedsec, no surprise after I knocked him out. But, having hacked into the hospital, I can now prioritize his care, which will begin to change his mind. From there I can help him with the other troubles in his life, like his sister who’s being harassed. Eventually I will have the chance to win Abe to my cause. If all goes well, he’ll have gone from being a random…

It can be nerve wracking playing a hands-on E3 demo in full view of one its designers—particularly one for a PC game that delights in its difficulty. You’ve got a short amount of time to figure out the controls, intuit the most effective route forward, and exude an air of basic competence. Luckily, for Desperados III, I already had some experience. Not from my distant recollections of playing Desperados: Wanted Dead or Alive some 18 years ago, but rather developer Mimimi’s previous game, Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun. Desperados III may be a prequel to the classic stealth series, but it feels like the follow-up to the studio’s lauded Edo period sneak-’em-up (itself inspired by both Desperados and the earlier Commandos games. Snake, meet tail). In the main mission…

I’M IN SPACE, ABOVE MARS, SO CLOSE THAT THE HULKING RED PLANET FILLS THE ENTIRE SCREEN. A MASSIVE CHUNK HAS BEEN TORN OUT OF IT, AND I’M HOPPING BETWEEN SHARDS OF ROCKY DEBRIS THAT HAVE BROKEN LOOSE, SLAUGHTERING DEMONS WITH A SUPER SHOTGUN. DOOM ETERNAL, A SEQUEL TO 2016’S STELLAR REBOOT, IS A GAME OF IMPOSSIBLE SCALE AND DRAMA. SO MUCH SO THAT THE PREVIOUS GAME SEEMS ALMOST BORING IN COMPARISON. “From the beginning, our goal was making you fight in unbelievable locations, surprising you every step of the way,” says id Software’s Marty Stratton, producer of Doom Eternal. “From the very start to the final boss, players will be seeing things they’d never expect from a Doom game.” “It’s all about engagement,” says creative director Hugo Martin, a word…

It seems obvious now in retrospect. The best way for an annualized, licensed motorsport game to stay fresh every summer when the latest iteration trots out onto the Steam Store is, clearly, to chuck in an entirely different racing series as well. With the inclusion of the 2018 F2 championship, F1 2019 feels for the first time in the series like a wider world of motorsport, offering that irresistible rags-to-riches journey in career mode and a handling model all of its own to master. It makes a lot of sense. Codemasters has had the handling down for years now, twitchy and frightening, and giving just the right amount of rumble in your hands as you wrestle your car implausibly fast over an impeccably rendered apex. It needed to add something…

In a gloomy, perpetually rain-soaked American city where smoke-spewing factories loom over rows of dreary suburban homes, a serial murderer is on the loose. The killer’s calling card is an origami animal, and four very different people find themselves swept up in his wave of terror: Journalist Madison Paige, FBI agent Norman Jayden, private detective Scott Shelby, and architect Ethan Mars, whose son has been kidnapped by this so-called Origami Killer. What exactly is Heavy Rain? Well, it’s an adventure game of sorts, with a heavy focus on Shenmue-style QTEs. That means a lot of button-tapping and stick-waggling, whether it’s one character shaking a carton of orange juice before taking a swig or another swinging a fist in a punch-up. Occasionally you can wander around freely, and the environments are…

A mid Evil’s worst weapon is a staff that shoots blue homing blobs—pathetic water balloons that splash against low-poly demons, many of whom look like what you’d get if you coated a bunch of triangles with super glue, and threw them in a dryer. I don’t like it or the moments when I resort to it, but I can also use the entire Earth as a grenade, which more than evens things out. Amid Evil is good. It’s a throwback FPS like Dusk, but rather than the hitscan headshots, Amid Evil recalls Heretic and Hexen’s magical weapons. The staff sucks, but there’s also a magic sword, a grenade launcher that shrinks and fires planets (like the Earth), a spike-firing morningstar, a lightning trident, plus your axe and a geometrically-unreasonable purple…

JALOPY shop.excalibur-games.com/products/jalopy A road trip in a knackered Trabant during the fall of East Germany, Jalopy is Euro Truck Simulator reimagined as an art game. You wind up loving the car, which needs regular attention just to keep going. The mundane moments are oddly memorable—washing the wheels, or checking into your bare motel room. CATHERINE catherinethegame.com Half social simulation, half block-budging puzzle game with hooves, this strange beast was a one-off from the Persona team released in 2011. Catherine concerns a commitment-phobe 20-something who cheats on his partner and is punished for it in life-or-death trials as he sleeps. Fun! FAR CRY 4 www.ubisoft.com/en-gb/game/far-cry-4/ Ubisoft overreached with the unfocused sequel. Far Cry 4 is the tauter refinement—outpost assaults and emergent chaos, while leaving space for an ostentatious yet nuanced villain,…

There’s no denying that the Valve Index is a great VR headset. At present, it’s the best VR headset on the market, with best-in-class display resolution and refresh rate. But it’s also the most expensive—and at times more frustrating—than other headsets (namely the Oculus Rift S) that offer a similar experience. Let’s start with what the Index does well. The Index display boasts a 1440x1600 per-eye resolution and refresh rate of 120 Hz, which together offer the best visual experience I’ve had in VR to date. (For comparison the Rift S offers 1280x1440 resolution per eye at 80 Hz.) The ‘screen-door’ effect that plagued first-generation VR headsets is practically nonexistent. There’s also a dial and slider for lens adjustment, helping you get the placement just right for maximum comfort and…