Innholdsfortegnelse for August 2017 i PC Gamer

LET THE SPY FILL YOU IN ON SOME THINGS THAT WON’T BE HAPPENING AT E3 THIS YEAR The Spy takes pride in delivering new, relevant information every month and not offering rumours for games that are officially unveiled between an issue’s deadline and release. (What do you mean ‘Far Cry 5’?) This month, revealing timely information may be more of a challenge, as The Spy is trapped in a dungeon beneath an evil supervillain’s volcanic lair, itself aboard another evil supervillain’s space station. (The economy is tough for supervillains, too, and many have taken to subletting.) Due to The Spy s current condition, Wi-Fi access has been patchy. Instead, The Spy is transmitting this column using a satellite-enabled Morse code pen. This wouldn’t usually be a time-consuming job, but The…

1 EUROPA UNIVERSALIS III  Though it was the third entry in the complex flagship series, Europa Univeralis III, released in 2007, was the first game to be published by Paradox Interactive rather than its previous publishing partner, Strategy First. 2 CRUSADER KINGS II  Arguably the game that ushered in a new era for Paradox, it enjoyed a longer development time and more QA, allowing Paradox Development Studio to iron out a lot of problems previous games had launched with. 3 CITIES: SKYLINES  The timing couldn’t have been more perfect. The disappointmentof SimCity still fresh in people’s minds, Colossal Order created a panacea with Skylines – an elaborate, customisable city-builder with a lot of modding support. 4 PILLARS OF ETERNITY  By publishing Obsidian’s sprawling RPG, Paradox made it clear that it’s…

1 STAR WARS GALAXIES Before it was gutted by a series of updates so unpopular that they effectively killed the game, Star Wars Galaxies featured a rich sandbox world where players could be anything from soldiers to the dancers who entertained them at a bar. With a player-driven economy and nuanced class system putting it years ahead of its time, Star Wars Galaxies’ closure still remains a sore spot for many of its devoted fans. 2 CITY OF HEROES Held hostage by their sword and sorcery roots, City of Heroes swooped in to save the MMO genre with a fresh take on comic book heroism. Bolstered by a character creator that let you customise everything from your hero’s cape to their underpants, City of Heroes survived by slapping a fresh…

CARRIERS Fielding waves of frigate-sized automated fighters, carriers are powerful capital ships that excel at destroying Subcapital ships, such as Cruisers. DREADNOUGHTS Cheaper than Titans, these aren’t as risky to deploy in dicey fights. By entering ‘siege mode’, they lose in mobility what they gain in firepower. SUPERCARRIERS The nasty big brothers to Carriers, Supercarriers, like the Nyx, field heavy fighter drones that can tear apart other crucial capital ships. FORCE AUXILIARIES The clerics to EVE’s warriors, Force Auxiliaries, like the Minokawa, fit powerful triage modules to keep their fleets shields up and armour repaired. TITANS The atom bombs of EVE, Titans are fitted with weapons that can wipe fleets off the field. You better hope your side has more than your enemy.…

FITZROY, AUSTRALIA Rough roads cutting across a swathe of Aussie farmland. Watch out for gates and cattle grids, which can appear out of nowhere. POWYS, WALES Gravel roads twist through shadowy forests and open fields. It’s usually raining, too, which can make those tight forest sections particularly dicey. TARRAGONA, SPAIN Tarmac roads wind through the mountains. A smoother, even ride, but keeping your wheels on the slippy asphalt can be tricky. VäRMLAND, SWEDEN Rugged terrain and blizzards make Sweden a tough country to rally in. Watch out for the powdery snow banks lining the track. MICHIGAN, USA The golden autumnal forests of the American Midwest make for scenic driving, but the dark shadows of the tall trees can obscure the road ahead.…

It’s a cover shooter that doesn’t want you to take cover NEED TO KNOW WHAT IS IT? Shinji Mikami’s third-person shooter about a smoker. EXPECT TO PAY £15 DEVELOPER PlatinumGames PUBLISHER SEGA REVIEWED ON R9 Fury X, i5-3570K CPU, 16GB RAM MULTIPLAYER None LINK www.platinum games.com Vanquish was originally released in 2010 for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. It was a product of its time, in that it felt like a response to – maybe even a subversion of – the wave of cover-based shooters that emerged in the wake of Gears of War. It’s got the third-person view and the waist-high walls, but also lets you rocket slide across the map, slow-mo decapitating robots as you go. It’s a dumb, brash shooter, but clever at the same time. You…

This is still Forza Horizon. The tracks are designed for racing NEED TO KNOW WHAT IS IT? Forza Horizon and Hot Wheels, making sweet brand synergy together. EXPECT TO PAY £16 DEVELOPER Playground Games PUBLISHER Microsoft Game Studios REVIEWED ON R9 Fury X, i5-3570K CPU, 16GB RAM MULTIPLAYER 2-12 online, 2-4 co-op LINK www.forza motorsport.net I’m not saying Forza Horizon 3’s Hot Wheels DLC has a subtext, but if it does, it’s about the importance of voting in local elections. You should know what your politicians are up to, lest they blow the budget for local infrastructure on constructing a network of orange plastic roads and you’re forced to do loop-de-loops on your way home from picking up the kids. Sure, it may solve the pothole problem, but can a…

MASTERPULSE Cooler Master £60 The MasterPulse headphones are an intriguing new design from CM, featuring both an open and closed back design, depending on how bassy a sound you want. The overall rigid design, and strong comfortable headband ensures they’ll last the test of time, and the sound quality is solid, too. www.coolermaster.com GLAIVE BLACK Corsair £70 I had my reservations when I first saw the Glaive, being a big fan of the M65. The design is lacklustre, and the professional flair Corsair once touted seems to have dried up in favour of a gaming-centric style. That said, it’s comfortable, precise and a solid palm grip mouse well worth your consideration. www.corsair.com OPTANE MEMORY 16GB Intel £50 £50 to speed up an old hard drive to SSD speeds, but only…

MOTHERBOARD Crosshair VI Hero Asus £214 The best Ryzen board out now. It provides a stable backbone for any early adopter looking to join the red core revolution. PROCESSOR Ryzen 7 1700 AMD £276 This is for the Twitch streamers, the pro gamers, and the video creators. Eight cores, 16 threads, stunning value. GRAPHICS CARD GTX 1080 Ti Founder’s Edition MSI £652 The king of high end performance right now. Don’t be fooled by its 11GB of VRAM, this will crush games at all resolutions. COOLER Kraken X62 NZXT £145 The Kraken is the culmination of three of our favourite things: an infinity mirror, a 280mm radiator and slick braided cooling. MEMORY Vengeance LED 32GB - 2666 Corsair £200 32GB of RAM is excessive for anyone gaming today. Use the…

JON MORCOM THIS MONTH Clicked on ‘Load Most Recent Save’ many, many times. ALSO PLAYED Oxenfree, Prey ANY SEMBLANCE OF STRATEGY I’M APPLYING TO THE FIGHT IS WHISKED AWAY ON A RIPTIDE OF PANIC Is there a finer treat in prospect than firing up The Witcher 3 for a fresh runthrough of all its quests and expansions and vacuuming up every single Gwent card out there? To be in the Northern Realms again, and to climb every mountain, ford every stream, follow every rainbow, ’til you find your dream? Sorry, suddenly started channelling Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music for a moment there. Anyway, I recently undertook the full-on Witcher 3 experience, which had been going swimmingly for many hours until I neared the finale of the Blood and…

1 PALETTE EXPANSION It may sound unexciting, but being able to customise characters is a welcome addition indeed. This adds five elegantly recoloured skins for each of the game’s 15 classes. bit.ly/DarkestMods1 2 WINTER WONDERLAND Christmas has come to the land, thanks to this chilly mod that drapes snow over the world. The white stuff has been integrated into the backgrounds seamlessly. bit.ly/DarkestMods2 3 GERALT When he’s not putting his feet up in the bath, Geralt is a dab hand at monster-slaying. This adds a wonderfully drawn Geralt skin for the Bounty Hunter class. bit.ly/DarkestMods3…

For a long time, PC roleplaying was dominated by Western games. Thanks to a torrent of remastered ports and a newfound Japanese understanding of Steam, Japan’s vast catalogue of roleplaying games are finally getting their chance on PC – and it’s an eclectic, weird and often wonderful genre of games. Here are some of the best titles that the genre has to offer. START HERE FINAL FANTASY VII It’s a cliché, yes, but Final Fantasy VII really is the best place for a budding JRPG fan to start. Its Lego-like character models and rough translation haven’t aged particularly well, but pretty much everything else has. It oozes charm and character, plus it has a fun, easy-to-grasp combat system and progression is made with deceptive depth. These are the things that…

NEED TO KNOW RELEASED September 1999 PUBLISHER Rockstar Games DEVELOPER DMA Design LINK www.gta2.com After the runaway success of the first Grand Theft Auto in 1997, DMA Design – now known as Rockstar North – had to keep the momentum going with a sequel. Grand Theft Auto 2 was released in 1999 and refined the freeform structure that made the original such a hit, but with a wildly different visual style and a new respect system. Reviews were mixed and sales were lower than expected, but it was an important step towards the series’ influential leap to three dimensions with Grand Theft Auto III in 2001. While the first game features contemporary caricatures of New York, San Francisco, and Miami, Grand Theft Auto 2 takes place in the entirely fictional…

JOHN STRIKE Specialist in Logos, Battlefield This month Designed all the logos and other gubbins for the PC Gaming Show at E3, which basically makes him as prominent as Geoff Keighley now. ANDY KELLY Specialist in Dirt, awkwardly leaving Twitter @ultrabrilliant This month Andy moved to York, but still works with us, only now we can’t shout at him across the office. PHIL SAVAGE Specialist in Numbers, names Twitter @Octaeder This month Almost died checking the names of over 5,000 games on a poster. Never again, lads.…

1 Some bold predictions are made by Ross Atherton in his Fallout 3 cover feature. “If the gaming world thought Oblivion was successful, this could propel the gang from Rockville, Maryland, into the elite group of super-studios. The RPG is once again the pre-eminent genre.” It’s hard to argue, given everything that happened to Bethesda in the years following Fallout 3’s release. 2 Colin McRae: Dirt receives one of the issue’s highest scores at 85%. How appropriate that we’re now reviewing the series’ sixth game. (Confusingly called Dirt 4.) 3 Our eight-page guide to overclocking is partly an excuse to publish pictures of CPUs with a blurring effect to make them look as if they’re speeding across the page. Still, it’s full of helpful advice, such as how to alter…

IT’S YOU AGAINST THE DOOMSDAY PREPPERS OF SMALL-TOWN AMERICA NEED TO KNOW RELEASE February 27, 2018 DEVELOPER Ubisoft Montreal PUBLISHER Ubisoft LINK www.bit.ly/ubifarcry5 I sat front row while Dan Hay, the creative director for Far Cry 5, talked about visiting the place I grew up like it was another planet. And I guess it is. Montana, the setting for the next Far Cry, is one of the biggest states in the USA with one of the lowest populations. I remember when we broke a million – my dad texted me saying, ‘We’re big time now.’ Big is right. There’s so much empty space in Montana, it doesn’t always feel attached to the rest of the US – a perfect home for the strange. Montana is where the Church Universal and…

There are few things as satisfying as the perfect headshot in PC gaming. Destiny 2 has some of the very best. The hulking Cabal legionary helmets explode with a loud pop and a gush of escaping air from their pressurised armour. The gangly Fallen bleed gas. The mechanical Vex are built around orbs of sentient gloop that smash beautifully when you place a bullet just right. The horde-like Hive burn away into dust. All four alien races died excellently on consoles in the first Destiny, now they get to die at 60fps in crisp 4K on PC in Destiny 2. And it feels amazing. For PC players, there is a lot to catch up on. Destiny 2 is an online multiplayer first-person shooter with a story campaign, a collection of…

1 “ HE TRAVELER” A great big enigmatic ball, which has special powers. 2 “ HE WARMIND” An advanced AI that controls planetary defences. 3 “ HE HARVESTER” Futuristic gastropub, quite reasonably priced. 4 “THE EXO STRANGER” A robot who pops out of a portal to deliver plot exposition. 5 “ HE S PEAKER” A robed man who speaks on behalf of the giant space ball. Sounds like Bill Nighy. 6 “ THE CRYPTO MANGLER” Secretive goblin who alters comms messages for a laugh. 7 “ HE BUZZCUT” Close crop haircut, quite popular among military types. 8 “ HE COLLAPSE” Terrible apocalyptic event that destroyed most of civilization. 9 “THE NINE” Rulers of the Jovians, which reside far beyond the Solar System. 10 “THE DAD” Purveyor of terrible pun-based humour.…

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 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 of a significant game, our expert will revisit it…

It doesn’t look very good, and the animations are basic. It’s buggy, too NEED TO KNOW WHAT IS IT? Combat fan fiction that you set up and watch play out. EXPECT TO PAY £12 DEVELOPER Brilliant Game Studios PUBLISHER In-house REVIEWED ON R9 Fury X, i5-3570K CPU, 16GB RAM MULTIPLAYER None LINK www.bit.ly/2rD5Yu3 An extortionate amount penguins are waddling with murderous intent. Their target is a ragtag band of fighters – Roman legionaries, World War 2-era US infantry, medieval archers, axe-wielding fantasy dwarves and Chuck Norris, all standing in wait for the avian horde. Norris breaks off first, followed by the Romans. Each legionary kills tens of penguins before falling, but there’s still tens of thousands more. The ranged fighters do well for a while, but the mass of…

STICKY GRENADE Regular grenades are bouncy, Sticky Grenades solve this issue. HLR42 HEAVY LASER Slow and noisy, but powerful. If you fire this someone’s gonna notice. KATANA Silent, deadly, and cool as hell. Your best friend when a situation requires a bit of stealth. FAT SHOT PISTOL A gun that combines the mobility of a pistol with the deadly spread of a shotgun. BUNCH OF BANANAS If you have to ask why a killer needs bananas, you aren’t cut out for the job.…

While there is a training mode, it makes less effort to educate NEED TO KNOW WHAT IS IT? The latest iteration of the classic 3D fighting game, with a few new additions. EXPECT TO PAY £40 DEVELOPER Bandai Namco PUBLISHER In-house REVIEWED ON Windows 10, Intel Core i7-6700, 16GB RAM, Nvidia GTX 1070 MULTIPLAYER Two players, local and online LINK tk7.tekken.com When it purely comes down to fighting, Tekken 7 is glorious fun. Of course it should be, given that its combat model is only a slight refinement of the expansive, immediate and free-flowing setup perfected some time around Tekken 3 on the PlayStation. But an improved version of a near-perfect thing is definitely nothing to be sniffed at. Tekken’s combat focuses on freedom and breadth of possibility. Where other…

BOOST JUMP Pretty forgiving! Put pedal to metal and you should make it straight to the other side. Recommended speed: Christ alive! LOOP-THE-LOOP The classic. Put pedal to metal and you should make it to the other side. Recommended speed: Bloody hell! BIG DIP Are you starting to see a theme in how these stunts should be tackled? Recommended speed: Damn, that’s fast! WAVE Technically this is easier if you slow down, but where’s the fun in that? Recommended speed: Still pretty damn quick. SPIRAL What do you mean this needs braking and vehicle control? Blasphemy! Recommended speed: Slow and steady. SPLIT CROSS Nope, this is much too technical for me. Give me the boost jump over this any day. Recommended speed: Yaaawn.…

If you think about it, games don’t really go away anymore, do they? The least memorable things that happened to you in 2011 are only ever a Steam search away. Spare a thought for the lost Assassin’s Creed games, middle children of an endless family that can only hope to be remembered as ‘the boat one’, ‘the first one’, ‘the good one’. Revelations isn’t any of those. It’s the ‘weird tower defence one’, although Constantinople’s quite nice and Ezio remains the series’ best lead. Even so, this is a bit like re-reviewing a Boots meal deal from half a decade ago. It was fine. Nobody died. The grapes were a bit soft.…

MOTHERBOARD H270M Bazooka MSI £84 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 £51 We saw zero framerate difference between this four-threaded Pentium and a core i7-7700K across multiple titles. GRAPHICS CARD GTX 1050 Ti 4GB Gigabyte £135 We gave the 1050 Ti another shot, and when buying a fresh system, it’s more than capable of driving most games at 1080p. MEMORY Fury Black 8GB @2400 HyperX £65 DDR4 packs higher speeds, better energy efficiency, and larger capacities. 8GB is still perfect for most games, too. POWER SUPPLY 600BQ G4560 EVGA £59 This system should only draw 225W from the wall. However, if you’re looking to upgrade, this PSU gives you plenty…

ANDY KELLY THIS MONTH Did a lot of hiding and not much seeking. ALSO PLAYED Everything I’LL STILL KILL PEOPLE, BUT ONLY IF I’M BACKED INTO A CORNER AND HAVE NO CHOICE A hundred people are dropped on an island full of guns, and the last one alive wins. That’s the beautifully simple premise of Battlegrounds, the survival game taking the internet by storm. A storm that I’m hopelessly caught up in. At first I was treating it like a deathmatch, tooling up with any guns I could scavenge and seeking other players out in an attempt to shoot my way to the top of the food chain. But I was dying quickly, and embarrassingly, without even scraping the top 50. So I decided to take a different approach. I…

MATT ELLIOTT THIS MONTH Failed to learn the ropes in Sailaway. ALSO PLAYED Alien: Isolation I’M CONTROLLING NATURE, HARNESSING FORCES LIKE A COWBOY BREAKING A STALLION I presumed that reading 20 books in Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin series might give me an innate understanding of sailing. I was wrong. Sailaway proves one of two things: 1) things have changed significantly in the 217 years I’ve been away, or 2) that reading historical fiction about flaxen-haired naval heroes is a poor foundation for learning. Perhaps both. My journey starts well enough. I understand that sailing into the wind requires me to tack, and some of the terminology sounds familiar – backstays, jibs, the sea, etc. But as I progress through the tutorial, I get the sense that instead of being a natural…

THIS IS EASILY THE BEST-LOOKING VERSION OF ANY STALKER GAME There is a scene in the classic Tarkovsky film Stalker, the game’s inspiration, where a fog rolls in and seems to change the landscape. The enigmatic Zone shifts around its guests, turning the familiar into the strange. Lost Alpha, an effort to recreate a version of Shadow of Chernobyl that never made it to the public, is like this. It’s a space you know and yet nothing is where you remember it. Those familiar with the games will wonder in confident only to find themselves lost. In that sense Lost Alpha was a remix. Not an improved or ‘ideal’ version of the original Stalker but rather a reimagining of it. Familiar components were reshuffled. Areas were redesigned, made bigger. New…

1 GRAB A CONTROLLER Have a controller at the ready, since many of the genre’s best began on console. These PC ports vary wildly in features, and in some instances you’ll definitely be more comfortable with a pad. 2 STAY ON COURSE Don’t be afraid to stick to the main path. JRPG stories are generally pretty meaty even before considering sidequests, with the critical path alone most often taking 40-plus hours. 3 WIDEN YOUR SEARCH Depending on who you ask, they’re not all Japanese. Many use the term JRPG to define a style of RPG that originated in Japan that’s now made elsewhere, such as the US-made indie hit Undertale.…

ZAIBATSU The public-facing part of this corporation is entirely legitimate, but behind the scenes it deals in narcotics and assassinations. LOONIES A gang of anarchists with a twisted sense of humour, which is likely a result of the mysterious ‘happy gas’ that its members inhale. YAKUZA Led by the ruthless Johnny Zoo, the Anywhere City chapter of the Japanese mafia operates a lucrative drug empire in the downtown district. SRS A secretive group of evil, intelligent scientists involved in a variety of morally dubious experiments and advanced weapon development. REDNECKS Elvis-obsessed stereotypical hicks who worship the Confederate flag, live in trailer parks, and drive pick-up trucks blaring country music. HARE KRISHNAS Not to be confused with the peace-loving real-life religious group of the same name, this eccentric gang is as…

THE DRUNKEN HUNTSMAN This Whiterun tavern was named after an incident involving owner Elrindir and his brother. On a drunken hunt, his brother shot him in the arse with an arrow because he thought he was a deer. THE WINKING SKEEVER Located in Solitude, this tavern is named after a pet skeever the proprietor Corpulus Vinius had when he was a boy, which used to wink at him. He notes that skeevers were smaller and less aggressive back then. THE BANNERED MARE The most popular tavern in Whiterun, named after the legend of a Nord king. The unnamed monarch died in battle, but his trusty steed kept flying his banner and inspired the surviving soldiers to defeat the enemy. CANDLEHEARTH HALL A huge stone inn at the heart of Windhelm…

PHIL SAVAGE You spin me right round baby, right round, on an insignificant rock hurtling through a chaotic universe. Here are some fun games. THE SIGNAL FROM TÖLVA www.thesignalfrom.com It's rare for a first-person shooter to feel peaceful, but Tölva often does. The world is desolate and serene, and I enjoy soaking up the atmosphere while searching for resources and secrets. Then, when I tire of quiet contemplation, I track down some robots and use my trusty laser rifle to blast them to bits. SHADOW TACTICS: BLADES OF THE SHOGUN www.shadow-tactics.com I'm not far into this tactical stealth-’em-up, but already its quality is easily apparent. It's a treat for those content to sit, wait and plan. I love the ability to synchronise actions across the multiple characters, letting you plan…

ROGER THE BELLIGERENT LABRADOR $50 PER DAY Nature’s budget predator for a budget price. While reliably dickish in bounding into enemies or barking at them, there’s also a 50% chance Roger will be distracted by a biscuit – hence the discount price on his erratic services. MONKEY (DAVID) RIDING A MOOSE (CLIVE) $8,000 PER DAY Betrayed by their own in the jungle, this monkey fashioned a saddle out of bamboo and now rides his PTSD-ridden moose friend into battle. While neither are trained in the use of firearms, the monkey’s obscene shrieks operate at the exact frequency that causes an enemy militia to void their bowels. GARY THE SNIPER BEAR $11,200 PER DAY This grizzled and grizzly mercenary has overcome his lack of opposable thumbs, and now operates a Springfield…

1 RACE Guardians come in three flavours: Human, Exo, and Awoken. Exos are machines, and the Awoken are purple humans who ventured to the edge of the universe. 2 GUNS You can take loads of guns with you, but only three can be loaded into quick-access slots. You can switch them around in menus if you find a quiet moment. 3 LIGHT You hit the level cap quickly in Destiny, after that your Light level is what matters. All gear has a value that contributes your overall Light level. 4 CLASS ITEM You get a cosmetic item that improves your Light and looks cool, in theory. Hunters get cloaks, but Titans have waist-towels and Warlocks get a measly armband. 5 MOBILITY Classes have multiple types of jump – from gliding…

W hen sci-fi’s first writers imagined virtual realities, they’d never have guessed the ease with which we could access them. With just a few clicks of a mouse, we can step into online worlds filled with adventure. We populate fictional cities, we create digital cultures and we tell stories together while exploring strange new horizons. MMOs are defined by their immense scope. They take the basic foundations of roleplaying games and stretch them over massive worlds where countless players coexist together. Whether you’re diving into dungeons, hawking goods in a market or plotting the downfall of a rival guild, MMOs are at their best when they inspire us to be social. Here, I’m going to explore the history of this genre by touching on ten of its greatest examples. These…

Steam Greenlight is dead! In its place is Steam Direct, which lets developers pay a $100 fee to submit their games to Steam’s store. This sounds like a big deal, but it’s just an extension of something that’s been true for a while now: there are more games than it’s possible to review. What’s a magazine to do? In our case, we try to identify those games our readers might be interested in. Some are obvious: Endless Space 2, Dirt 4 and Vanquish all have a pedigree, and are all worth your attention. But we also want to highlight weird, interesting games that fall under the radar (Bokida – Heartfelt Reunion), and warn of disappointments (Danger Zone, Ultimate Epic Battle Simulator). You can help. If you see a game you…

VIVEC Makes your nearest IRL city look like an armpit, with its eight cantons gleaming in the sun and local living god denizen for prime selfies. All the useful stuff for adventurers is easy to find. RED MOUNTAIN You can see this mighty peak from pretty much wherever you happen to be on Vvardenfell, and, brilliantly, it changes to evoke the state of the obviously cataclysmic main story. SADRITH MORA The size of the fungal towers here relate to the power of the mage residing within. Insert your own joke about them overcompensating for something… then shake your head in mild shame. ALD’RUHN You didn’t think you’d get through this list without an apostrophe muscling in, did you? This settlement close to Red Mountain is where you find Skar, a…

TITAN SOULS A whole game that’s just the boss fights. There are 19 titans to defeat and you only have one arrow, and one hit point. EITR Dark Souls but isometric and with a shieldmaiden hero questing through a pixel-art version of the Norse realms. ASHEN Forthcoming game set in a sunless, barren world where thirst is as dangerous as swords. NECROPOLIS A roguelike Soulslike. The levels are procedurally generated and you only have one life to explore them with. SALT & SANCTUARY Dark Souls but 2D, with some Castlevania and comic strips mixed into its family tree. CODE VEIN Bandai Namco’s new game is promising to combine Soulslike combat with vampires and anime.…

KAZUMI Younger than she looks (that will be the demonic infusion), Kazumi is deeply linked to the fundamentals of the Tekken story. AKUMA The Raging Demon brings over his SF move list. He’s a monster in the right hands, but never stops feeling slightly out of place here. CLAUDIO Dapper he may be, but Claudio is a member of an order of exorcists. Having holy power is useful for punching out demons. GIGAS Your standard-issue Hulking Great Big Thing. In accordance with the character archetype, Gigas is heavy, slow and tricky to handle. LUCKY CHLOE A freewheeling whirlwind of punches and kicks, Chloe’s style is ‘Freestyle Dance’. Which translates to ‘is ludicrously perky’.…

Tell you what: every month I’m going to try to pull something back out of the last couple of years that you probably missed at the time. That’s the point of this, right? Alright, so, Dyad: it’s one of them ‘flying down a neon tube’ score attack acid games like Rez or Thumper. You’re a little disco squid and you pull yourself forward by grappling coloured lights with your squid arms, gaining speed as you match colours and avoid collisions. You can also build up a charge and ‘lance’ forwards to smash through obstacles. Different levels get you to do different things, which keeps it varied. The soundtrack is, in the parlance of its day, ‘an absolute banger’.…

1 GPU POWER Boy, do you need some serious GPU grunt to power this screen. At a minimum, you’ll need a single GTX 1080, or a 1080 Ti, to enjoy it fully. 2 IPS PERFECTION? IPS (in-plane switching) is, by far, the most accurate when it comes to colour reproduction. 3 NO 120HZ? Is this the end of 4K 60Hz being the best? Asus, Acer and AOC have announced 120Hz 4K panels coming this December, priced at £2,000-plus. 4 PRICE TAG? AOC’s AG271UG isn’t the first to market, but it does at an attractive price – almost £70 cheaper than the Asus equivalent. MONITOR AOC AGON AG271UG  www.aoc.com £650 Choosing a monitor is possibly the most difficult decision you’ll ever have to make when it comes to your gaming rig. Which…

MOTHERBOARD X370 SLI Plus MSI £133 MSI’s X370 SLI Plus is identical to the gaming series motherboard that costs £20 more, so why waste money? PROCESSOR Ryzen 5 1400 AMD £150 Four cores, eight threads, and half the price of the Intel equivalent. Gaming performance is solid, and streaming capability is robust. GRAPHICS CARD Windforce GTX 1070 8GB Gigabyte £350 The 1440p killer, Gigabyte’s GeForce GTX 1070 will run quiet, cool and absolutely keep you at 60fps, even at WQHD. COOLER Kraken X31 NZXT £51 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 £140 Ryzen demands high-spec memory, and you can’t get better than adding…

PHIL SAVAGE THIS MONTH Backdoored the interflange through a TCP spatchnozzle. ALSO PLAYED Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain If you watch US procedural dramas with any regularity, you’ll have doubtless been subjected to a hacking scene. It probably featured a spunky head of IT typing frantically on multiple keyboards, shouting panicked instructions at a second, more traditionally nerdy sidekick. “It’s no use,” they’d likely lament, “he’s backdoored the interflange through a TCP spatchnozzle.” Their boss, almost certainly a lightly-stubbled technophobe, reaches down behind the PC and yanks. The screens go blank. He holds up the power cord and rolls his eyes. Cut to an advert, probably about car insurance. Network television never learned the lessons of ’90s cyberthrillers, or of games such as Uplinkand Hacknet. Hacking works best…

1 THE DETECTOR IS YOUR FRIEND Use your detector to find anomalies until you can learn to detect them by sight/sound. They’re near-invisible and deadly in the early game. 2 LOOK UP FROM TIME TO TIME These strange growths populate even the starting area, and, like most unidentifiable growths on ceilings, are best avoided. 3 ALWAYS BE ON YOUR GUARD Campfires with fellow Stalkers remain the safest areas in the game world but you’re never truly safe. Attacks can and will happen here too. 4 STAY AWAY FROM RADIATION When your screen desaturates and becomes filled with static, you’re soaking up radiation. Listen out for your Geiger counter. 5 WATCH OUT IN THE WILDS Be wary of these moving anomalies out in the wilds. They can chase after you and…

This is a ‘last-man-standing’ online shooter, in which up to 100 players parachute onto an island in order to scavenge, fight, run and hide until only one person is left alive. It’s an Early Access phenomenon with over 3 million players, and the PC Gamer team wants to know what the fuss is all about. We’ll be playing squad mode, meaning we must work together as a four-man unit in order to become the most lethal lads on the island. Sounds simple, but there’s a problem: three of us have never played the game before. ATTEMPT 1 Andy: Every Battlegrounds game begins with a leap from a plane. But in multiplayer you have to make sure everyone jumps at the same time, otherwise you’ll all be scattered around the map.…

NEED TO KNOW RELEASED November 2011 OUR REVIEW 94% EXPECT TO PAY £30 LINK www.elderscrolls.com Skyrim, located in the icy northern reaches of Tamriel, is an unforgiving land of freezing blizzards, ruthless bandits, and fire-breathing dragons. But nestled among all this danger, warmed by fires crackling in stone hearths, are the taverns. These cosy, calming sanctuaries offer weary adventurers respite from the cold and chaos, if only for a few minutes. The hardy, resourceful people who call Skyrim home have mastered the art of comfort and hospitality, as anyone surviving in a place as cold and brutal as this would have to. And as you step into one of their inns, stone walls lit by the orange glow of the fire, tables stacked with cold mead and hunks of red…