Innholdsfortegnelse for March 2016 i PC Gamer

HIGHS Elite Dangerous Players have found traces of alien life on a distant planet. Thargoids, anyone? Danganronpa The brilliant, bizarre Japanese murder mystery adventure game is coming to PC. Metro for Steam After using this beautiful custom skin, we’ll never be able to go back to the default interface. Dragon’s Dogma If you’re the creator of a pawn called ‘Burger’, thanks very much for the help with that cyclops. John Romero Romero releases a new level for the original Doom – a mere 23 years after it was released. LOWS Hitman The new game will now be completely episodic. That game has had a confusing journey to release. Marc Laidlaw The Half-Life writer reveals that he’s left Valve for good after 19 years. Upgrade or die Microsoft says Windows 7…

THE SPY LOVES THE FRENCH FOR THEIR MASTERY OF CHEESE, WINE AND DECAPITATION The Spy doesn’t make New Year’s resolutions lightly. Self-improvement requires you to admit that some part of yourself needs improving, and The Spy is practically perfect in every way. Not actually perfect, mind you. After all, isn’t perfection an unattainable ideal at odds with a complex reality that contains concepts as varied and nuanced as love, war and Guy Fieri? Not that there’s any harm in trying, which is why The Spy has committed to a series of achievable life goals. One: a 20% increase in each unearthed secret’s juiciness level. Two: a drastic reduction in introductory non-sequiturs. Three: the total annihilation of kale. If Kotaku’s anonymous sources are to be believed, Ubisoft should have a pretty…

DOTA 2 The Shanghai Major 2-6 March The second of Valve’s new series of Dota 2 Major tournaments will be hosted by Chinese publisher Perfect World in Shanghai. There’s a staggering $3m on the line and all eyes will be on resurgent 2013 International champions Alliance. COUNTER-STRIKE: GLOBAL OFFENSIVE IEM Katowice 2-5 March There’s always a brilliant atmosphere at IEM in Katowice, Poland, where the world’s best teams will fight for a share of more than $250,000, while hopefuls battle up through qualifiers for a shot at joining the big leagues. LEAGUE OF LEGENDS IEM Katowice 4-6 March League of Legends season play will be rumbling on throughout the month, but teams will take a break to compete for $100,000 in Poland in early March. This is a good chance…

1 Free Steam key for MURDER MINERS Get a Minecraft-inspired multiplayer shooter Murder Miners is a multiplayer first-person shooter from JForce Games that was the number-one rated game on Xbox Live’s Indie Games service previous to being ported to PC. It’s an arena shooter where up to 30 players try to infect each and turn their opponents into zombies, all while grappling their way around the environment. The developers host a play session every Wednesday at 6pm Central US time if you’re looking for peak player times to give the game a go. This free Steam key comes courtesy of Bundle Stars, a retailer of good value Steam keys and bundles. Find them at www.bundlestars.com. HOW DO I REDEEM MY CODE? This is a Steam key, so all you need…

1 SHORTCUTS You’ve fought your way past fiendish enemies and just bested a giant knight when you step in a lift. You go up and then realise where you are – back at Firelink Shrine. “The whole game is connected?! This is amazing!” you think. You’re right. 2 BOSS FIGHTS They’re not just scraps with horrific monsters. Try the fight with Sif, the giant white wolf companion of the Knight Artorias. This sombre battle is made all the worse by the fact the poor thing limps when down to the last bits of health. And that music, man. 3 JOLLY COOPERATION! Placing a summon sign and being transported into another player’s world to help them beat a boss is one of the best feelings in the world. The anonymous co-op…

DRAINING NEW LONDO RUINS New Londo was flooded to seal the Four Kings in the abyss, but the true cost of this act is revealed when you drain the water and find thousands of corpses clawing at the sealed elevator. LUCATIEL OF MIRRAH Lucatiel roams Drangleic seeking her brother and a cure for the curse of the undead. As you encounter her throughout the game, the curse begins to rob her of her memories. A sad allegory for the common dementia disease Alzheimer’s. KING VENDRICK You’re pointed in the direction of King Vendrick for the entire game and when you finally track him down in the Undead Crypt he’s hollowed completely. You can either leave him be or put him out of this miserable existence. POOR, CLUMSY TARKUS Black Iron…

USER REVIEWS The Witcher 3. It’s one of the most beautiful and well written games I’ve ever played. Said the same thing eight months ago. Alex Hill It does take about eight months to finish. Longer if you get into Gwent. Binding of Isaac: Rebirth. Limitless possibilities and maximum fun. Who doesn’t like being a naked baby shooting tears at monsters? Ivan Every sane person on the planet? Rust. Always Rust. Forever Rust. PS: I work on Rust. Craig Pearson We’re only just realising this was a clever marketing ruse. FFS, Craig. Crusader Kings II. I’m trying to breed my genius family members to get the best traits without getting an inbred heir. Will Wormell Pulling a Targaryen is really only acceptable when you’ve got dragons. Team Fortress 2. How…

This should be a quiet month. At the other end of the office, console mag editors are looking pale and gaunt. Our review section tells a different tale, featuring a multitude of great games. This issue, there’s something for everyone. Fans of brutal, glorious failure can throw themselves against the exceptional XCOM 2. If you’d rather some enjoyable, streamlined action, there’s Rise of the Tomb Raider. Fancy taxing your brain meats? That’ll be The Witness. Want an eerie, atmospheric horror? Check out Oxenfree. A subversively deceptive comedy? Pony Island. A clever, sprawling RPG? Dragon’s Dogma. Or, just pretend to be a trucker with American Truck Simulator. With such an amazing start to 2016, the only downside is deciding what to play first. LET US KNOW WHAT YOU THINK Get in…

TOM SENIOR Specialist in Strategy, aliens Currently playing XCOM 2 This month Became humanity’s last, best hope for survival, but was too busy playing XCOM 2. PHIL SAVAGE Specialist in Action, bows Currently playing Rise of the Tomb Raider This month Got really good at killing animals. (In a game, PETA.) EDWIN EVANSTHIRLWELL Specialist in Puzzles, brains Currently playing The Witness This month Was lost in the maze of Jon Blow’s mind. Had a great time. ANDY KELLY Specialist in Sims, trucking Currently playing American Truck Simulator This month Had CW McCall’s Convoy permanently stuck in his head. MATT ELLIOTT Specialist in Adventure, law Currently playing Aviary Attorney This month Called upon his latent legal skills to review a game about birds in 19th century Paris. A N G U…

1 CHECK YOUR SURROUNDINGS There’s often a clue hidden in the vicinity, and some puzzles require you to make use of bits of the environment. Take a step back and soak up the view. 2 EXPLORE THE ISLAND Each region has its own theme, and introduces you to how it works. If you’re struggling, you may not have gathered the right insight yet. 3 FIVE-PART PUZZLE STRIPS These are usually designed to teach you what a particular symbol does, building up from simple problems. Be sure to do these first. 4 IS IT NECESSARY? You don’t need to solve every puzzle you come across to proceed. If something’s frustrating you, consider leaving it until another playthrough.…

You’re amply rewarded for taking the time to micromanage NEED TO KNOW WHAT IS IT? A ground-based prequel to the classic space RTS. EXPECT TO PAY £30 DEVELOPER Blackbird Interactive PUBLISHER Gearbox Software REVIEWED ON Intel i5 3.1GHz quad-core, 16GB memory, GeForce GTX 770 MULTIPLAYER Up to 6 players LINK www.desertsofkharak.com Deserts of Kharak takes place long before the events of Homeworld , but never feels overshadowed by what’s to come. As it opens, your civilisation is clinging to life on a vast desert planet, besieged by technologically advanced religious fanatics, the Gaalsien. Protagonist Rachel S’jek departs aboard the carrier Kapisi on a do-or-die mission to recover a powerful artefact from the heart of the desert, and all hell immediately breaks loose. The carrier fills…

It ensures you’re playing a game, not stranded in a lecture theatre NEED TO KNOW WHAT IS IT? An arcade game made by Satan himself. EXPECT TO PAY £4 DEVELOPER Daniel Mullins Games PUBLISHER In-house REVIEWED ON Core i5-3570K, 16GB RAM, GeForce GTX 780Ti MULTIPLAYER None LINK www.pony-island.com Imagine launching a videogame that satirises videogames in 2016. Terrifying! You submit yourself for comparison with The Stanley Parable , Surgeon Simulator and Saints Row 4 . Even Saints Row’s DLC failed to pin down what made it so cathartic and disruptive. Pony Island is of a different class. Not only does it succeed in having meaning and a point to make, but it…

There are no majestic herds of brontosaurus here. The dinosaurs are spread out, because you are hunting them. This also makes them feel endangered, making hunting them feel edgy and sexual. It’s the standard hunting game template, but benefits from an unexpectedly deep system of licences and unlockables. These can make life easy, so turn them off to feel more like the Nick Offerman parody that Nick Offerman already is. One thing, though: some of these dinosaurs aren’t carnivores. Why so ashamed of killing omnivores? Commit to murdering for a brief surge of self-worth or GTFO.…

1 THAT OC 4.2GHz speeds on an i7-5820K processor are not something to sniff at. Couple that performance with six cores and this thing is nothing short of a rendering monster. 2 GRAPHICS The GTX 970 garnered a lot of criticism over its 3.5GB of VRAM, but for 1080p gaming it’ll perform well above board. If you’re after 1440p, best grab yourself a GTX 980. 3 16GB RAM The new sweet spot for anyone building a gaming PC. 16GBs of DDR4 will provide you with more than enough headroom to game, stream and render to your heart’s content. 4 VR READY Looking to jump aboard the virtual reality hype train? Rest assured, the Titan Riptide is VR ready, and with hardware like this, you’re not going to be disappointed. OVERCLOCKERS…

TOTAL £1476 MOTHERBOARD Z170 Pro Gaming Asus £120 The latest revision of our favourite gaming motherboard, with an M.2 PCIe x4 slot, Intel network port, USB 3.1 and SLI support. PROCESSOR i5-6600K Intel £156 Intel’s new Skylake processor is nearly as fast as an i7 for gaming. Comes with some important memory/storage speed boosts. GRAPHICS CARD GTX 970 4G MSI £270 Offers the best price/performance ratio right now, and MSI’s model is cheap and overclockable, with a quiet cooler. COOLER Hyper 212 EVO Cooler Master £25 If it ain’t broke... the Hyper 212 EVO is a great cooler for the price. Save a bit of money in your mid-range build. MEMORY Vengeance LPX (8GB) Corsair £50 8GB of reasonably fast DDR4, and one of the cheapest deals you’ll find. Corsair…

DANIELLA LUCAS THIS MONTH Impulse bought a tiny monkey and went bankrupt. ALSO PLAYED Hot Date The life of a warrior of light isn’t a particularly lucrative one. Sure, quest givers will reward you with a decent wage for all the beasties you slaughter, and sentient brooms have surprisingly deep pockets if you cry for them on demand, but you’ve also got some serious overheads to deal with, such as food and swords. Unless you’re some kind of monster that dicks over the masses by playing the marketboard, Gil can be incredibly hard to save up. As in real life, sensible adventurers scrimp every coin in the pursuit of a house to call their own, or to invest in crafting for greater returns. But I am not a sensible adventurer.…

IT’S NOT THE FULLY FEATURED ONLINE COMPONENT YOU’D EXPECT FROM A GAME OF THIS CALIBRE NEED TO KNOW RELEASE Out now PUBLISHER Konami DEVELOPER Kojima Productions LINK www.konami.jp/mgs5 Finally, five months after it was released, Metal Gear Solid V has multiplayer. Select the Metal Gear Online option from the main menu and you’ll see the character you created way back at the beginning of the singleplayer game sitting in a tent somewhere in the jungles of Africa. This is the ‘freeplay’ zone – a safe, enemy-free space that serves as a training ground for testing the weapons and gadgets you’ll steadily unlock as you play. When you’re ready to play with other people, it’s simply a matter of bringing up the iDroid and diving into a…

NORMAL Open doors and talk to NPCs. The same actions can be performed through a shortcut key, rendering this useless. SPORTY Run and jump, all with an exaggerated swing in your gait that would render even professional athletes exhausted. AGGRESSIVE Get up in an enemy’s face, assuming they don’t use ranged weapons on you. Makes you look drunk. DISCREET Twinsen’s impression of Elmer Fudd hunting wabbits. Each step is accompanied by a bass note, which is brilliant.…

NEED TO KNOW RELEASED November 2015 OUR REVIEW 88% EXPECT TO PAY £40 LINK www.fallout4.com Fallout 3 was about a world on the brink of total collapse. Humanity had splintered into factions, downtown DC’s only civilised people were ghouls and there was a super mutant behemoth stomping around the Capitol Building. Turning the water back on at the end was the one time during the whole game that you could say you made the world a significantly better place. Set years later, Fallout 4 is a thematically perfect follow-up because it shows us that better times are possible again. The skies are usually blue, and populated settlements grow edible crops. Life isn’t back to normal, and there are plenty of hot zones for raider or super mutant activity,…

DIAMOND CITY A noodle bar manned by a robot, a guy collecting baseball merchandise and a radio station – it’s Fallout 4’s version of a real place. SANCTUARY Rebuild your old home from scratch to recapture a lost world. Or, like me, build a metal shed with no windows and four dirty mattresses on the floor. GOOD NEIGHBOR Put to one side the mayor stabbing a guy to death and some other back alley shenanigans, and this is a solid town with a great dive bar. THE PRYDWEN No one can hurt you if you’re in the sky. This airship is a comfortable place to store power armour and take extended naps.…

PHIL SAVAGE I love all sorts of games, both big and small. My aim is to put all of the games into a big vat, and dive into it like Scrooge McDuck. DIABLO III: REAPER OF SOULS www.battle.net/d3 Despite its rocky start, Diablo III is in a great place. It’s much more generous now, thanks to the Reaper of Souls expansion. Hop in on one of the harder difficulties, and you’re guaranteed to be showered with lovely, gratifying loot. Rewards aside, it’s also one of the most satisfyingly explosive ARPGs around. BROGUE www.bit.ly/broguegame Brogue is a traditional roguelike with one important difference: it’s not unplayable. The UI and controls have been designed with accessibility in mind. It’s still complicated and difficult, but never feels obtuse. Being bashed to death by…

PHIL SAVAGE Specialist in Tombs, raiding Twitter @Octaeder This month Discovered that the new Tomb Raider is basically the same as the old one but still a lot better. ANDY KELLY Specialist in Trucks, teenage mystery Twitter @ultrabrilliant This month Got angry at a 15-year-old horror game’s 20-year-old inventory management. TOM SENIOR Specialist in Alien defence, strategy Twitter @PCGLudo This month Tom took time out of his busy schedule to review XCOM 2 for us. Read his words on p64.…

Kaidan! HE’S DULL, BUT HE DOESN’T HATE ALL THE ALIENS IN A GAME ABOUT ALIENS. Samuel: This month I started Mass Effect again because I apparently have all the time in the world. When I mentioned this in the PC Gamer office, it started a conversation about the old Ashley versus Kaidan scenario in the original game – and I was shocked to discover that both Tony and Phil saved boring old Kaidan Alenko at that crucial moment, instead of Ashley Williams, sexy space racist. The question is, why? Why would you ever choose such a boring option in that scenario, Phil? You’d never choose to talk to someone boring in the pub, so why is it any different in a spaceship? Phil: Why is this even a question? Ashley…

IN THE OPENING SECONDS, YOU COME INTO BEING JUST AS YOU FINISH FALLING TO YOUR DEATH NEED TO KNOW RELEASE 2016 DEVELOPER inXile Entertainment PUBLISHER In-house LINK www.bit.ly/200SJRY You’re the Last Castoff, a body discarded by a self-made god who leaves newly self-aware selves behind every time he or she decides they fancy a new form. In the opening seconds, you come into being just as you finish falling to your death, and what follows is a sequence that sees you rebuild yourself from within your own infinity-variable consciousness. With me so far? Good – because then you’ve got some memory-spelunking, body-switching time travel to do. And then the tutorial ends. Once in the world proper, your quest is to free yourself from the Sorrow – a formless beast tracking…

“THE PROCESS OF BUILDING A WORLD IS VERY INSPIRING” How does From Software put its stories together – is the whole narrative written down somewhere, then broken up and spread across item descriptions and environmental elements? That’s a really difficult question. I don’t think we really have a specific process that is one or the other, but the story grows from both of these elements. We’ll have an idea of the worldview and theme and as we develop the environments certain things will arise and give detail. The process of building a world is very inspiring and I think that helps create new ideas even after the original thought. Are there story details the designers choose to omit or obfuscate to create that sense of mystery that encourages fans to…

IT’S YOUR JOB TO LIBERATE MIDTOWN MANHATTAN FROM VIOLENT FACTIONS There’s no /dance command in Tom Clancy’s The Division . Standing in the social zone, I type it into the chat box. “/dance,” I announce to the server – three other critics and two developers – revealing my current avenue of investigation. I feel a bit silly. The Division is set in what Ubisoft calls a “mid-crisis” New York. The world hasn’t ended, but it is ending. This is not, it has to be said, a suitable dancefloor on which to get down. In response to my unintended message, a developer’s character gives me a /wave. The Division isn’t an MMO, but it borrows MMO elements. It’s an open-world…

Why has StarCraft II, the first instalment of which launched in 2010, stood the test of time while much of the blockbuster RTS scene has crumbled? In part it’s a simple question of having an unrivalled pedigree and more cash to burn – Blizzard, after all, is the creator of World of Warcraft and a subsidiary of the industry’s largest publisher, Activision. But according to Stardock’s Brad Wardell, StarCraft II also owes its success to how Blizzard nurtured the enormous following it had built up around StarCraft: Brood War. “First, it’s an excellent game. There is no substitute for thousands and thousands of hours of balancing of three unique races. Second, Blizzard has spent a great deal of time and money supporting its community. Third, Blizzard invested early and heavily…

Wherever possible, we finish a game before finalising the 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 the reviews section is to help you make buying decisions. ALPHAS & BETAS This means we’ll review any released 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 in their current state. 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. THEY’RE BACK Whenever there’s a bargain or re-release…

PNEUMA: BREATH OF LIFE A puzzle game built around lines of sight, in which the player’s character begins by declaring himself to be God. THE TALOS PRINCIPLE A morally conscious robot is asked to complete puzzles involving drones, turrets and forcefields. Bloodier than The Witness, and more sinister. F E Z A 2D platform hero discovers his world is secretly 3D, and can be rotated to create new routes. Linguistic dilemmas and black holes result. QUANTUM CONUNDRUM Your mad scientist uncle has created four dimensions with different physical properties. Just as well you’ve got your magic glove with you.…

It only kept me going until I beat it, and my motivation was spite NEED TO KNOW WHAT IS IT? A turn-based strategy game that gives you ten turns to get to Mars. EXPECT TO PAY £11 DEVELOPER Choice Provisions PUBLISHER In-house REVIEWED ON Intel Core-i5 3570, 8GB RAM, GTX Titan MULTIPLAYER None LINK www.totallychoice.com/games/tharsis Tharsis isn’t very good, which sucks, because it’s so alluring to me. It’s got a spaceship diorama – hell yes – and science, and gambling. It’s actually played by rolling dice in space . It looks good, and it’s full of things I want to manipulate: a crew of down-on-their-luck astronauts on a journey to Mars, a spaceship with modules I can mess with, dice that…

EAR FORCE 450 STEALTH Turtlebeach £100 Turtlebeach is known more for its console peripherals than PC excellence, but don’t be fooled: although its on the small side this wireless set has a crisp sound signature and fantastic features. It does lack a premium feel, due to its plastic housing. www.turtlebeach.com MY CLOUD 2TB Western Digital £95 Ever fancied owning your own cloud streaming service? Western Digital’s stunningly simple My Cloud 2TB is one solution. Able to store up to 2TB worth of movies, photos, music and other files, this NAS can stream its content to any of your devices. www.wdc.com Z170A TOMAHAWK MSI £100 For £100 you’re not going to get a better value motherboard. MSI has managed to cram in two M.2 ports, right-angled USB headers, separated audio PCB…

TOTAL £2685 MOTHERBOARD ROG Maximus VIII Hero Asus £172 Fantastic overclocking and stability, with a great UEFI BIOS from Asus. M.2, USB 3.1 and on-board power, reset, CMOS, etc, buttons. PROCESSOR Core i7-6700K Intel £263 Intel’s new top-of-the-line Skylake processor. Its new chipset includes important memory/ storage speed boosts. GRAPHICS CARD GTX 980 Gaming 4G MSI £415 Right now the GTX 980 is the best value single-GPU card for ultra 1080p and 1440p gaming, bar none. COOLER Hydro H110i GT 280mm Corsair £92 Quiet, cool and capable of providing even the most aggressive overclocker with more than enough headroom to hit that 5GHz mark. MEMORY Savage Black 16GB @2400 MHz Cas12 Kingston £100 Thanks to insanely low timings, these two 8GB sticks of DDR4 are more than enough. POWER SUPPLY…

I’M LEFT WOOZY BUT SATISFIED. I’M ALSO CONCERNED I’LL HAVE GOUT BY THE TIME THIS SERIES ENDS MATT ELLIOTT THIS MONTH Drank a whole bottle of sherry, fed spider webs to urchins. ALSO PLAYED Don’t Starve, Knights of the Old Republic I get off to a poor start with The Adventures of Bertram Fiddle. There’s nothing wrong with the game, you understand – it’s charming and eccentric, like a supper date with David Suchet – but I’m playing it with entirely the wrong drink. It’s best accompanied with amontillado sherry, not insipid, post-watershed tea. It requires something as sweet and nutty as the game. Tea discarded. Schooner filled with sherry. I am ready. I have much in common with Mr Fiddle. He eschews real work in favour of tepid adventure,…

1 SKULLDASH This mod adds a strict time limit to Doom, with the threat of a gory death if you fail to collect the various Skulltokens and escape in the allotted time. www.bit.ly/2015Cacowards1 2 VALIANT A huge ‘megawad’ of five episodes and 32 new maps. Valiant is rare in that it mucks about with the basics, changing enemy data and adding weapons and monsters. www.bit.ly/2015Cacowards2 3 RETURN TO HADRON If you like your mods chock-full of monsters, you might want to return to the site of the Large Hadron Collider for this add-on. Hadron is pretty brutal, so prepare to die. www.bit.ly/2015Cacowards3…

“It’s as endearing as it is unpolished” NEED TO KNOW RELEASED 1997 PUBLISHER EA DEVELOPER Adeline Software LINK www.littlebigadventure2.com I will admit, I was nervous about returning to Little Big Adventure 2 . For the most part, the games of my formative years have held up, but LBA2 is different: it never found its place in the PC canon. It’s a niche, cult adventure – intensely loved by a group of people who, for all I know, were equally deluded. When stripped of the comforting blanket of nostalgia, it’s probably rubbish. Right? Well, yes, a little bit. Little Big Adventure 2 hasn’t aged well, and some of its ideas must have been questionable even when it was released back in 1997. It’s also…

Adeline closed in 2003, but that didn’t stop rumours of a planned third Little Big Adventure game. Called Little Big Adventure 3: Genesis of the Stellar Entity, it would have supposedly centred on Twinsen and his son Arthur. Recently, a remastered version of the original LBA was released on iOS and Steam. Series creator Frédérick Raynal stated that if sales of the new version do well, LBA3 could be on the cards – albeit not as a big-budget production. Even with that caveat in place, I’m not holding my breath.…

ONE CITY – ONE RETIREE – ONE MILLION DOLLARS OF DISEASE “It's finally happened, Jack,” he said, nuzzling his cheek against the smooth metal of his single-action, semi-automatic M1911, gently caressing his fingers against the grooves of its custom grip. “The money has turned against us.” Jack Ryan was in the Navy. Then he was in the CIA. After that, he was the President for a bit. Then he quietly retired on a solid pension, his only companion a stout, manly dog. Like a German Shepherd, or a Boxer. Definitely not a poodle. Now, he faces his most dangerous assignment yet: shopping in New York on the day the money went bad. Terrorists have capitalism in a chokehold, and Wall Street’s too dead to sell. Only Jack Ryan can dropkick…

EVE: VALKYRIE An incredibly exciting space dogfight shooter set in CCP’s EVE Online universe. DON’T LET GO Keep your hands still, as dinosaurs, bugs, and other distractions are thrown at you. EURO TRUCK SIMULATOR 2 Yeah, really. This is one of the most convincing VR experiences. SKYRIM VR support has been hacked in, but it works well. Skyrim’s never felt so massive. BLUE MARBLE A short game in which you, an astronaut, drift peacefully away from the Earth. ELITE DANGEROUS Looking around those super-detailed cockpits in VR is an amazing feeling.…

1 FIRST GAME The original Re-Mission, published by HopeLab, launched for PC in 2006. A third-person shooter, it would go on to reach more than 200,000 players. 2 TESTING, TESTING Young cancer patients put Re-Mission 2 through its paces to great success during its testing phase. They also helped with the research and development of the game. 3 TREATMENT SCENARIOS Re-Mission 2 is a browser-based extension of the original, offering six new games that explore different types of cancer treatment scenarios. 4 FORMER PLAYER Nick now works for the Ronald McDonald House Charity but once used Re-Mission to help overcome bone cancer. He now shares the game with young cancer sufferers.…

GAPING DRAGON A gigantic dragon with a huge mouth full of razor sharp teeth instead of a body. Has a normal mouth too. Weird rating: 89% GRAVELORD NITO A giant skeleton made out of loads of other skeletons. Unsurprisingly, the lord of the Skeletons. Weird rating: 72% THE DUKE’S DEAR FREYA A two-headed spider the size of a building and as terrifying as you’d expect that to be. Weird rating: 80% THE DEMON OF SONG Imagine, if you will, a giant frog. Now imagine inside its mouth a huge skull face and two grabbing arms. Weird rating: 67% CEASELESS DISCHARGE A big, sad man made out of lava. Also sounds like a deeply personal problem. Weird rating: 74% THE ROTTEN Basically, Gravelord Nito, but made from rotting corpses rather than…

GROUND CONTROL A pure tactics-driven sci-fi real-time strategy game, with an emphasis on unit orientation, line of sight and flanking manoeuvres. AGE OF MYTHOLOGY It offered Civilization at warp speed, with upgradeable towns, god powers and dramatic tech shifts from era to era. DUNE II The archetypal RTS, a game that brought together many of the genre’s most important elements for the first time. COMMAND & CONQUER: RED ALERT Perhaps the best-loved C&C, with a flexible UI, online play and great asymmetrical faction balance. WARCRAFT III A quintessentially Blizzard blockbuster that introduced levelling heroes to the genre – paving the way for the MOBA. TOTAL ANNIHILATION Innovative in all sorts of ways, it came with a unique economic model, order queuing and powerful Commander units.…

00%-10% A game of absolutely no value. Are you playing one of these games? Take 3d6 emotional damage. Examples Big Brother 11%-39% Yikes. Technically broken, or so fundamentally flawed that it’s ultimately not worth any time or money. Bad. Examples The War Z, Sonic: Lost World 40%-49% This game is functional, but majorly flawed and disappointing. Examples Firefall, Star Trek, Armikrog 50%-59% Mediocre. If it has any interesting ideas, they don’t work well. Might suffer from bugs or technical issues. Examples Primordia, Painkiller: Hell & Damnation 60%-69% An interesting idea poorly expressed, or a derivative idea executed averagely. Comes with caveats. Examples SimCity, Just Cause 3, Blood Bowl 2 70%-79% Good, but not a classic. This score is a recommendation, just not a glowing one. Examples Broken Age, Batman: Arkham…

Telltale have brilliantly made the phrase “Jeff will remember that” into instantly recognisable shorthand for “Yeah, there’s actually only a very slim chance that your behaviour will have any impact on Jeff, but it’s important to our game design that you to feel invested in your decisions.” Jurassic Park may have been instrumental in breaking the Telltale illusion, as it feels way more like a monorail ride than Walking Dead, and had far fewer jokes than Sam & Max. With no inventory, failed QTEs simply making you try again, you’re effectively left with a moderately interactive six-hour movie.…

TOTAL £787 MOTHERBOARD H81M-P33 MSI £34 A bargain-priced microATX board that pairs nicely with the Pentium G3258, letting you overclock into 4GHz+ territory. PROCESSOR Pentium Anniversary G3258 Intel £48 Ludicrously cheap and overclockable, the dual-core G3258 rivals far more expensive processors in gaming performance. GRAPHICS CARD AMD R9 380 2GB Sapphire £159 AMD’s R9 380 is a refreshed R9 285, but it still packs enough power to handle 1080p gaming at a decent price. COOLER Hyper 212 EVO Cooler Master £25 A legendary cooler, still the best for its very reasonable price. Overclock to your heart’s content with this. MEMORY Crucial Ballistix Sport 1600MHz (8GB) Crucial £40 Cheap, low-profile, and reliable. Does its job. The best 8GB you’ll find. POWER SUPPLY EVGA 500W 80PLUS Certified ATX12V/EPS12V EVGA £33 A reliable…

ALL OF A SUDDEN, I’M THE SECOND MOST POWERFUL MAN IN MAINLAND ENGLAND PHIL SAVAGE THIS MONTH Got ideas above his station. ALSO PLAYED The Witcher 3, South Park: The Stick of Truth I’m from Warwickshire, a small and slightly pointless county in the middle of England. It has a scattered rural population, and a constant trickle of tourists for whom ‘Shakespeare was born there’ is a good enough reason to visit a place. During a recent trip, I visited the region’s premier medieval attraction, Warwick Castle, and found my usual indifference momentarily displaced. It was seeing the world’s largest trebuchet that did it, and then seeing the burnt ruins of a historic boathouse that, months earlier, had become a casualty of the world’s largest trebuchet. Crusader Kings II was…

UNDER BIG BEN I HEAR PEOPLE ENTERTAIN THE ABSURD PREMISE OF HAVING LADIES IN POLITICS BEN GRIFFIN THIS MONTH Temporarily became very smart by being nosey. ALSO PLAYED Just Cause 3 My favourite pastime in Syndicate is sniffing out snippets of chit-chat wafting on the wind, like a hungry cartoon cat hunting something delicious. This has somewhat spoiled the experience by exposing the infinitely looping dialogue that serves to prevent immobile citizens running dry of conversation and staring awkwardly at each other, but I am now temporarily knowledgeable about Victorian London. My magical learning adventure begins when I spot hairy-armed men salting fish by the Thames and feel compelled to observe – and by that I mean stare inches from their faces. Why aren’t these gorilla idiots using fridges? Well,…