Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2016 i PC Gamer

HIGHS PlayStation Now You can now stream PlayStation 3 exclusives such as the Uncharted series straight to your PC. Immersive sims From Deus Ex to Dishonored, it’s a new golden age for PC’s flagship genre. GTX 1060 Nvidia’s new mid-range GPU delivers GTX 980-level performance for a mere £250. Unturned Only on PC could a 16-year-old develop a game and get 24 million downloads. Plus: adorable zombies. Custom PCs Someone built a gaming PC inside a life-size Nick Valentine. Because why not. LOWS Gamescom A lack of surprising announcements made this year’s show something of a washout. Dead Rising 4 Beloved protagonist Frank West gets a makeover, looks like a completely different person. Virtual reality The high cost of the Vive and Rift means that VR is still out of…

ALIENS: COLONIAL MARINES A digital sequel to Aliens was an exciting proposition, but Gearbox squandered it on a dumb, poorly designed FPS. SPORE Another procedurally generated space game that has become the go-to example for over-promising and under-delivering. DAIKATANA Romero’s first-person shooter had an aggressive marketing campaign, selling itself as the next big thing. And, well, it was just a bit crap, really. WATCH DOGS An impressive E3 trailer showcasing next-gen processing power proved to be a poor reflection of an average, gimmicky open-world game. THE ELDER SCROLLS ONLINE The promise of a massively multiplayer Tamriel was exciting, but the game was let down by its clunky, old-fashioned design.…

IT’S MUCH EASIER TO READ AND PLAY, GIVEN THE MASSIVE UI IMPROVEMENTS NEED TO KNOW RELEASE October 21 DEVELOPER Firaxis PUBLISHER 2K LINK www.civilization.com This is the quinquennial Civilization game. Since 1991, Sid and friends have cooked up a slice of history every five years and each time the old hands at Firaxis have been invigorated by a new lead designer, with a new big idea. Erstwhile boardgame creator Ed Beach was responsible for the salvation of the shonky Civ V , so he’s been called in for this one. As Phil described in issue 294, this time around the design change is about unstacking cities the same way that Civ V unstacked armies, so that mature conurbations sprawl across much of the…

HIRED GOONS In a pinch, you can spend a few thousand dollars to get some hired help. A slew of gangsters arrives almost immediately and open fire on your enemies. WEAPONS VAN Buy weapons at any time by radioing a barely inconspicuous, brightly van come top up your ammo and armour. CALL OFF THE COPS This is a handy one if you’re in the middle of a mission. Hounded by police? Radio in and throw a few bucks at the problem. They’ll be off your tail instantly. VEHICLE DELIVERY Have a specific car dropped off to your location, if you’re sick of driving ones aren’ capable of outrunning the cops.…

“YOU CAN BE THAT GUY NOW WHO SUMMONS TWO SWARMS OF RATS IN TWO DIFFERENT GROUPS” Harvey Smith played a key role on two of PC’s most celebrated games ever, Deus Ex and Dishonored . On November 11, after a four-year wait, we’re finally getting a sequel to the latter, set in an entirely new part of Dishonored’s universe and featuring two player characters this time: Corvo and Emily. Here, PC Gamer catches up with co-creative director Harvey Smith at QuakeCon in Dallas. Movingfrom Dishonored 1 to Dishonored 2, what did you want to do more of or explore more deeply when you went into this game? At the end of Dishonored 1, I wasn’t even that motivated about…

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…

CHRIS LIVINGSTON Specialist in Weird flora, fauna Currently playing No Man’s Sky This month Discovered a ‘wolf’ with a ‘shell’. It was just a dog stuck in a box. JAMES DAVENPORT Specialist in Fish, more fish Currently playing Abzû This month Punned about shooting fish in a barrel while taking screenshots. LEIF JOHNSON Specialist in Strategy, space Currently playing Master of Orion This month Told people he’d met Michael Dorn and John de Lancie. “Who?” asked millenials. ANDY KELLY Specialist in Platformers, joy Currently playing Grow Up This month Went off-brand to play a happy, pleasant game about plants, jumping and joy. SHAUN PRESCOTT Specialist in Platformers, dying Currently playing N++ This month Had many nightmares about the senseless slaughter of stickmen. PHIL SAVAGE Specialist in Stealth, murder Currently playing…

NEED TO KNOW WHAT IS IT? The remake of a procedural puzzler. EXPECT TO PAY Abandonware DEVELOPER Hookstone PUBLISHER Psygnosis MULTIPLAYER None FIRST REVIEWED N/A LINK www.bit.ly/2bbJR96 What about No Man Sky’s formula-fuelled sense of the impossibly large? Is bigger necessarily better, or is it something my nan would look at, tut once, and say “well that’s neither use nor ornament, put it away”? Look, we’re not talking about No Man’s Sky , we’ve established that. So let’s talk about more abandonware. The first Sentinel game used an algorithm to generate 10,000 levels on an 8-bit computer. The idea was to absorb trees (1 energy) to build boulders (2 energy) and create an effigy on top of the boulders (3 energy) that you…

Z170I PRO GAMING Asus £140 It says it all that after reviewing this little motherboard I went out and bought one for my own watercooled gaming PC. With an M.2 PCIe x4 slot hidden underneath, easily moddable heatsinks, solid overclocking performance, and a well-crafted BIOS, what’s not to love about this mobo? www.asus.com X99A GODLIKE GAMING CARBON MSI £440 This X99 behemoth provides everything for those building a flashy high-end desktop. It’s for the streamers, and those looking for expandability and rendering capacity as well as ability. It’s pricey, though. www.msi.com MAXIMUS VIII FORMULA Asus £296 Asus’s Formulas lead the way in terms of innovation, and for Z170 that’s no different. Black and grey colour scheme, RGB LEDs, integrated EKWB watercooling blocks, thermal armour, reinforced backplate. This motherboard is killer,…

MOTHERBOARD ROG Maximus VIII Hero Asus £174 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 £260 Intel’s top-of-the-line Skylake processor. Its new chipset includes important memory/ storage speed boosts. GRAPHICS CARD GTX 1080 Founder’s Edition 8GB EVGA £620 Nvidia’s GTX 1080 is the new king of the hill. Although a little pricey, this superfast card is perfect for 4K gaming. COOLER Hydro H110i GT 280mm Corsair £100 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 CAS 12 Kingston £60 The low timings make these mid-range DDR4 sticks perfect for our advanced build, too. POWER…

SAMUEL ROBERTS I play games that offer real spectacle and only a slither of intelligence, which is also how I describe myself on OKCupid. MIRROR’S EDGE CATALYST www.mirrorsedge.com Some ropey combat aside, this free-running first-person platformer is a more complete version of the ideas in the first game, all set in a gorgeous sci-fi open world. I had to give it 78% in my review, since that was the right score, but I know I’ll play it for years to come in this new, more free-form arrangement. TOTAL WAR: WARHAMMER www.totalwar.com The old Warhammer Fantasy universe suits Total War to a tee, giving The Creative Assembly more space to create interesting interactions. A well-honed campaign game enables you to spin out a lengthy fantasy epic as your chosen faction, though…

CHRIS LIVINGSTON Specialist in Infinity, turtle dogs Twitter @screencuisine This month Lived inside No Man’s Sky for longer than is healthy for this month’s lead review. ANDY KELLY Specialist in Dystopias, the ocean Twitter @ultrabrilliant This month Found out how BioShock’s legendary Fort Frolic was made. See p58 for details. PHIL SAVAGE Specialist in Reviewing Hitman forever Twitter @Octaeder This month Was sent from Bath to Paris and back. Started at 6am, ended at 3am. Hates Samuel now.…

COULD IT BE A NEW METRO , OR SOMETHING ELSE FROM THE EX-STALKER DEVS? As summer ends, so does The Spy’s extended stay in a bunker off the coast of Panama. The reason for this sojourn? Playing the waiting game. Waiting until the current raft of intel improves, and produces some actual usable information. It’s been a lean summer in The Spy’s sphere: a political informant poisoned by a rogue sausage sandwich at a cricket test match here, a president forced to stand down after having a secret service agent murder a clown there. This is toddler-level stuff. While political intrigue itself takes a vacation, The Spy is hoping that with the end of summer come the last, probably rubbish two…

1 SDATCHER  A seven-episode radio play that follows on from the events of Snatcher, a 1988 cyberpunk adventure game created by no less than Hideo Kojima. Scored by Silent Hill composer Akira Yamaoka, the play is voiced by the Japanese voice actor for Metal Gear’s Solid Snake. 2 KILLER IS DEAD  A spiritual successor to No More Heroes, this hack-and-slasher puts you in the shoes of a katanawielding assassin with a transforming bionic arm, battling mutants on the Moon. Western reviewers weren’t keen – particularly as regards the game’s sadly adolescent Gigolo Mode. 3 SINE MORA  A tough but fair bullet hell shooter in which taking a hit shortens the mission timer, while dealing damage increases it. The game is set in the same place at alternate time periods, so…

“IT WOULD BE BETTER TO HAVE AN UNBALANCED GAME WITH CRAZY FACTIONS” NEED TO KNOW RELEASE September (Early Access) DEVELOPER Amplitude Studios PUBLISHER Sega LINK www.endless-space.com The Lumeris are Endless Space 2 ’s trading faction. They’re masters at generating Dust, the currency of the galaxy’s more primitive inhabitants. An hour into my session with Amplitude’s 4X sequel, I’m generating hundreds of Dust per turn. An aggressive minor faction sends a fleet of ships in my direction. In retaliation, I bribe them into subjugation. If you’ve played Endless Legend, you’ll be familiar with Amplitude’s asymmetrical approach to factions. The differences go beyond units and bonuses – each has its own specific purpose, ideology and systems. For instance, the Lumeris don’t send big ships filled with millions of…

Gwent was always the joker in the pack. CD Projekt Red only included the minigame in The Witcher III: Wild Hunt as a throwaway extra in the great tradition of KoTOR’s Pazaak or Fallout: New Vegas’s Caravan. Yet the collect-’em-all card game drew an unexpectedly large following, many players (myself included) finding themselves speeding from vendor to vendor, greedily amassing every card in the game, and ignoring the main quest. With that in mind, the revamped version I’ve just spent two days playing at CD Projekt’s Warsaw headquarters is definitely not a surprise. The core systems are as simple as ever. Each card has a strength and some special rules. You draw a hand of cards, and try…

Los Santos, the city of angels. Or is that Los Angeles? The line between the two is blurred. The hills of the wealthy overlook a city where shuttered shops line the streets, graffiti on their walls. The white peeling paint of picket fences betrays the lie behind the dream. But where one urban sprawl is wreathed in smog, the other has a bluish haze that fills the horizon. The virtual cars rolling down its streets and highways aren’t the cause. Instead, it’s a technical pollution – the virtual world straining up against the limits of the hardware it was built for. Enter the graphical modders of Grand Theft Auto V. They saw the sights. Did some crime. They had a lot of fun, but they always came back to that…

00%-10% A game of absolutely no value. Are you playing one of these games? Take 3d6 emotional damage. Example Big Brother 11%-39% Yikes. Technically broken, or so fundamentally flawed that it’s ultimately not worth any time or money. Bad. Examples Trials: Blood Dragon, 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, Homefront: The Revolution 60%-69% An interesting idea poorly expressed, or a derivative idea executed averagely. Comes with caveats. Examples SimCity, Just Cause 3, The Division 70%-79% Good, but not a classic. This score is a recommendation, just not a glowing one. Examples Broken Age, Mirror’s Edge Catalyst 80%-89%…

I no longer hunt down every icon: I already know what I’ll find NEED TO KNOW WHAT IS IT? A vast procedurally generated space and exploration game. EXPECT TO PAY £40 DEVELOPER Hello Games PUBLISHER In-house REVIEWED ON Intel i5-6600K @ 3.5GHz, 8GB RAM, Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 MULTIPLAYER No one’s seen any LINK www.no-mans-sky.com After 45 hours, I’ve warped through hundreds of solar systems, landed on almost 200 planets, and catalogued over 500 alien species. Yet oddly for the biggest open-world game ever made, I don’t have many stories to tell. My experience has been at times enjoyable and relaxing, at others awkward and frustrating, but never all that interesting. I’ve touched an infinite universe and walked away with some nice vacation photos. No Man’s Sky, the first-person space…

So, time has passed, and No Man’s Sky is now out, bagging a 3.0 user score on MetaCritic. Who remembers the great BioShock backlash of 2007? Stunning art! Allusions to books! A twist that subverts the notion of free will, delivered in innately ironic game genre! But then… a split ending so ass-backwards in its binary good-bad banality, that it could only have been triggered by a moral choice as slack- mouthed as MURDER LITTLE GIRL (Y/N). Then an anti-backlash! A pious “In Defence Of BioShock” article from an industry legend! I guess it was OK. BioShock Infinite was rub, though. Sizzling opinions, right here every month. Roll up!…

MOTHERBOARD Z170-A Pro MSI £81 Our budget build’s gone through an upgrade thanks to this new Z170 chipset. Plenty of capacity for upgrades in the future. PROCESSOR Core i3-6100 Intel £96 Grants access to that brilliant Z170 chipset, is super energy efficient, and delivers meaty performance even in AAA titles. GRAPHICS CARD RX 480 AMD £200 AMD’s new budget card has incredible performance for the price, just pipping the GTX 970 in our benchmarking tests. MEMORY HyperX Fury Black 8GB @2133 Kingston £29 DDR4 packs higher speeds, better energy efficiency, and larger capacities. 8GB is still perfect for most games, too. POWER SUPPLY EVGA 500W 80PLUS Certified ATX12V/EPS12V EVGA £33 A reliable PSU with enough juice to run your CPU and a reasonably power-hungry GPU. SSD Torch LE 120GB SSD…

HEARTHSTONE Europe Summer Championship September 24-25 Rather unintuitively, the Europe Summer Championship is taking place in LA in September. Players will be doing battle for a spot at the world champs at BlizzCon. OVERWATCH ELEAGUE Finals September 30 Televised in the US, this is one of the biggest Overwatch tournaments to date. The competitive side of Blizzard’s uber-popular team shooter is still finding its feet, but it’s been exciting so far. COUNTER-STRIKE: GLOBAL OFFENSIVE ESL One New York October 1-2 One of the highlights of CS:GO this autumn, the world’s best teams head to the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York with $250,000 on the line. STREET FIGHTER V South East Asia Major October 7-9 After a rough start, SFV is now exciting to watch. This has been an esport…

WHEN BATTLE IS JOINED, FORCES BLAST EACH OTHER INTO BLOODY CHUNKS NEED TO KNOW RELEASE 2017 DEVELOPER Relic Entertainment PUBLISHER Sega LINK www.dawnofwar.com One of the Eldar faction’s biggest war machines is a wraithknight piloted by twins – one dead, one alive. The living twin pilots the walker using its psychic connection with the dead twin. As I sucked the knight off its feet using an orbital space laser and slowly roasted it to death, I wondered if this counts as one kill or two. The wraithknight requires overwhelming force. Once it gets set and unleashes its mega-laser, everything it touches gets melted. It can also create a searing maelstrom that can damage even the lumbering dreadnought mechs of the Space Marines – the Eldar love a good maelstrom. I…

IF YOU DON’T SAVE A CHARACTER, THE STORY WILL MOVE ON WITHOUT THEM NEED TO KNOW RELEASE Late 2017 DEVELOPER Ice-Pick Lodge PUBLISHER In-house LINK www.pathologic-game.com 1 Street urchin Sticky will be a major character in the story of the ‘Haruspex’ protagonist, joining him as a follower. “Games often offer guidance by providing the main character with a mentor or teacher,” says Golubeva. “But what if you have to deal with an eager student?” 2 Herb Brides are said to be ‘betrothed to the Earth’. “What exactly that means isn’t clear to an outsider,” says Golubeva, “but it’s no secret they perform ritual dances.” Unlike the original, Pathologic’s culture will be expressed through animation and action – not just text. 3 As in the original, the game’s mysteriously afflicted town…

SCOIA’TAEL Faction Power: At the beginning of one round, you choose who goes first. Eithne – Transforms all loyal cards with Swap into power-8 archers. Francesca – Discards two cards to draw two cards Brouver Hoog – You can pick one character from deck and play them. MONSTERS Faction Power: A random non-hero stays on the battlefield at the end of each round. Dagon – Can spawn any weather card. Ge’els – Discards two cards, then picks any card from deck. Eredin – Appears on the battlefield himself as Sauron, a power-15 hero. NORTHERN REALMS Faction Power: if you lose a round, draw a card. Foltest – Spawn a copy of a loyal troop. Henselt – Gives +6 strength to all units on one row, including heroes. Radovid – Choose…

METRO STATION It’s here you’re first introduced to Cohen as he seals off the bathysphere and forces you to take a detour. ATRIUM Fort Frolic’s impressive central hub, decorated with neon signs advertising the shops and venues within. POSEIDON PLAZA A shopping and entertainment district with bars, casinos, and Eve’s Garden, the club where Jasmine Jolene performed. SOUTHERN MALL A trendy, upmarket commercial district containing a neon-lit cocktail lounge, a fancy high-end clothes store, and a beauty salon.…

Purposely infuriate I picked up a copy of PCG 295 at my local newsstand, but there seemed to be a few pages missing. Perusing your 100 Greatest PC Games list, I saw no mention of Borderlands or Borderlands 2. After further investigation, I determined that no pages were missing and the magazine was intact. This throws into question the veracity of PC Gamer magazine as a whole. Am I to trust your reviews, hardware tests and recommendations after such a grievous oversight? I would understand if the list was comprised of 100 killer games, but some of your entries are a joke. Trust me, I know computer games. At 65 years of age, I have been playing longer than most of you have been alive. Please tell me that this…

In December 2013, Hello Games – the creators of Joe Danger – revealed their next project: the beautiful, procedurally generated space exploration game, No Man’s Sky. Almost three years later, it’s here. Does the final game live up to the sense of wonder hinted at in those early trailers? Not entirely, no. Turn the page to read Chris Livingston’s analysis of its successes and limitations. Elsewhere this issue, James swims with the fishes in vibrant underwater adventure Abzû, and Andy jumps for joy at the charming and irrepressible Grow Up. Also, finally, N++ arrives on PC. It’s the definitive edition of 2005’s quirky, physics-based hardcore platformer, and, as such, earns the highest score of the issue. LET US KNOW WHAT YOU THINK Get in touch via our ‘Network’ section on…

I’m bouncing around in a psychedelic marine documentary NEED TO KNOW WHAT IS IT? A gorgeous underwater exploration adventure. EXPECT TO PAY £15 DEVELOPER Giant Squid PUBLISHER 505 Games REVIEWED ON Windows 10, i7-6700K, 16GB RAM, GeForce GTX 980 Ti MULTIPLAYER None LINK www.abzugame.com This giant squid isn’t the kind who’d take down a ship or duke it out with Moby Dick. Still, it’s huge, roughly three times my length from tip to tentacle. Its pancake eyes look me up and down. I’m getting sized up by an intelligent, curious creature. We swim together, then I do a somersault to signal I’m off. The squid doesn’t care, which is fine. But for a moment, I was with an impressive, abstract being, thinking about what it might be thinking about. I…

You’re going to feel like a ninja with an interpretative dance degree NEED TO KNOW WHAT IS IT? A virtually endless twitch-oriented action-platformer. EXPECT TO PAY £11 DEVELOPER Metanet PUBLISHER In-house REVIEWED ON GeForce GTX 980M / 97-4720HQ, 16GB RAM MULTIPLAYER Up to 4 (local) LINK www.nplusplus.org There isn’t much of a narrative in N++, but the one that does exist is as threadbare as they come. You’re a ninja, thus you’re able to run and jump very well. You enjoy gold, so you collect it but, more importantly, you like to live – even though your life expectancy is “1.5 minutes” according to developer Metanet. That’s a charitable estimate. Even that deliberately banal premise risks complexity: the bottom line is, like the original flash game…

Well I don’t know about you, but that brush with modernity has made me want to get straight back to the ’80s. No Man’s Sky features alien languages you can learn, but if you’re going to get all DuoLingo about videogames, why not play the abandoned Captain Blood? This French game is so profoundly French that it came on three 1.44Mb installation onions. Scour planets for your five clones, so you can suck out their blood, of which you are possibly the captain. Aliens had to be wooed with a huge deck of communication icons. NICE GREAT DNA, you would say, fluttering your eyelashes. “YOU WHAT MATE” came the reply.…

1 INTEL CORE I7-6770HQ Not to be confused with the quad core Intel Core i7-6700HQ, this tweaked mobile equivalent comes with integrated Iris Pro graphics, 1GHz clock speed and 128MB of eDRAM (think VRAM). 2 CASE DESIGN Still looking for the latest NUC for an office PC or theatre, but worried your colleagues will laugh at the skull emblazoned on top? Worry not: this Skull Canyon NUC comes with a plain backplate as well. 3 NEW FORM FACTOR It may not still be square, but it’s still fully compliant with the 100x100 VESA mount standard. If you’re looking to fit one of these on the back of a monitor or a TV, you’re still all good to go. 4 MORE BENCHMARKS? Far Cry Primal averaged 8fps, The Division, 9fps, Firestrike…

MOTHERBOARD Z170 Pro Gaming Asus £111 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 £195 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 1070 FE Nvidia £400 The new king of midrange, this card is perfect for high refresh rate 1440p gaming, and gives you a monitor upgrade path. COOLER Kraken X31 NZXT £60 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 Savage Black 16GB @2400 MHz CAS 12 Kingston £60 Thanks to insanely low timings, these two 8GB sticks…

1 BREACH & CLEAN FREEWARE Enjoy good clean fun with this freebie Spare a thought for your poor hotel cleaner. Your room doesn’t just magically tidy itself; no, a staff member has to sneak in, probably while you’re still asleep, flushing toilets and discarding pubic hairs against the clock. That’s how cleaning functions in the aptly named Breach & Clean, anyway, a wonderful silly freebie that’s equal parts Rainbow Six and Viscera Cleanup Detail. On each floor of a big hotel, you’re tasked with tidying a bunch of rooms against a strict time limit. As you clean, you’ll have to deal with the increasing ire of the hotel’s ungracious guests, who for some reason don’t want you fiddling with their toilet while they’re watching Pointless. You’ll mop up mysterious spills,…

1 BLUEPRINTS This simplifies the tedious business of building stuff, letting you turn existing constructs into easy-to-access blueprints, which spit out exact copies when used. You can transfer these between saved games. www.bit.ly/RimMods1 2 HOSPITALITY From time to time, your colony will be visited by outsiders. You can now entertain them, for instance by offering them somewhere to sleep. In exchange they’ll offer you rewards, as is traditional. www.bit.ly/RimMods2 3 GLITTER TECH RimWorld makes mention of “glitter worlds”, distant worlds with more advanced human societies. This mod imagines those factions – and all that advanced tech – and then helps itself, adding it to your game. www.bit.ly/RimMods3…

“By comparison, the opening of Invisible War is a paddling pool” NEED TO KNOW RELEASED 2003 PUBLISHER Eidos Interactive DEVELOPER Ion Storm LINK www.bit.ly/2bRxIqF Deus Ex opens on Liberty Island pier. Under the nighttime glow of New York’s skyline, JC Denton gets to work, first making his way across the island, then infiltrating the statue and taking out the NSF terrorists inside. As an intro, it’s indicative of the game to come: large, open and potentially alienating. No concessions are made. Deus Ex throws you straight into the deep end and challenges you to swim. By comparison, the opening of Deus Ex: Invisible War is a paddling pool. Alex ‘D’ gets to work, walking through a blue-grey corridor – not…

NEED TO KNOW RELEASED 1997 OUR REVIEW 96% EXPECT TO PAY £7 LINK www.half-life.com In the original Half-Life, as Gordon Freeman makes his way to work on that fateful day in the Black Mesa Research Facility, you find a break room. A scientist sits at a table drinking from a coffee cup, and another paces the room. Then you see it. A microwave with a container of some unidentifiable food within, begging to be interacted with. There’s no button prompt on the screen telling you to do so, but you just know that if you press the use key next to it something will happen. Something incredible. Something messy. So you press it, and it beeps. Nothing. You press it again, and this time it beeps at a slightly higher…