Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2018 i PC Gamer

HIGHS Phoenix Point Julian Gollop’s X-Com spiritual successor looks great, and was one of the highlights of this year’s PC Gamer Weekender. Two Point Hospital Also at the Weekender, this spiritual successorto Theme Hospital is looking like a fine evolution. Assassin’s Creed Origins The educational Discovery mode is a great way to explore Ubisoft’s world. LOWS Destiny 2 We’re on a break from this right now, although the roadmap hints that welcome tweaks are incoming. “No Loot Boxes” Some publishers now announce their games won’t have microtransactions for marketing points. But is your game good? Red Dead Redemption 2 We still don’t know if it’s coming to PC. Will it? Won’t it? Tell us, Rockstar.…

1 In this issue of PC Gamer we chose the 50 best game developers, but cleverly avoided putting them in any kind of hierarchy. That would just be mean. We sang the praises of Introversion and Telltale in the indie developers section, and singled out the likes of Warren Spector, Dani Bunten Berry, and Tim Schafer for having a big impact on PC gaming. Still, ranking humans is a bit weird. 2 In reviews this month, writer Graham Smith describes Mirror’s Edge as “starkly gorgeous” and “refreshingly original”, but not as good as it could’ve been. 3 Elsewhere in the magazine, Jim Rossignol took an in-depth look at the Total War series, telling us how the series came to define wargaming on PC. Creative Assembly tells Jim that it was…

1 MULTIPLE LAYERS Various stamps give the impression of the parcel having gone through a chain of official processes and people to reach its destination. Zimonja created these stamp designs separately then overlaid them onto the label for the effect. 2 CORRECT ADDRESS This label features a rare mention of the space station Tacoma’s address: 1 Venturis Orbit. The address is a nod to Apple HQ’s ‘Infinite Loop’ street which is located on its California Campus. Apple’s mailing address is thus ‘One Infinite Loop’. 3 BY DESIGNATION The routing information section required Zimonja to create a fictional airport designation – FNP – for the game’s space elevator, the Fountain of Paradise. The other designation – SIN – is real and refers to Singapore Changi Airport, 4 REFERENCE MATERIAL Customs documents,…

CROUCHING IN BUSHES THE OPEN WORLD JUST ISN’T WORKING FOR ME Ireturned to Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun this month. I loved what I first played of the tactical stealth game, but didn’t get very far. Now, I’m determined to make it to the end. It’s going to take a while. I spend most of my time crouching in bushes, figuring out the most efficient way to proceed. I’m also enjoying Descenders. It’s an arcade-style mountain biking game, currently in Early Access, in which you speed down procedurally generated levels doing tricks and trying not to bail. It’s perfect for playing in bitesize chunks. Finally, I’ve spent a few hours with Dynasty Warriors 9. I’m a… well, not a fan of the series as such, but I do enjoy…

SWEN Having Fane in your party is best for the main plot, but I think Lohse has the strongest moments in the game, the strongest scenes; I have a hard time picking between them. I think I would have to pick both of them. JAN I’m not going to pick one of my own characters because that would be unfair. My pick would be Lohse. Sarah [Baylus, lead writer] has accomplished a very nice mix of humour and tragedy for the character. EDOUARD Definitely Red Prince. The guy who wrote him is Jan, and first off, this guy is my friend, and I like his style. Red Prince is Jan. He just has these great, obnoxious, condescending moments. He’s super, super fun. NICK Probably Sebille. I enjoy the character and…

2003 Divine Divinity’s gloomy palette calls to mind Diablo II, which also in part served as The Lady, the Mage and the Knight’s visual inspiration. 2009 With Divinity II, Larian wanted to make a third-person RPG using Oblivion’s Gamebryo engine, but limited resources held it back. 2013 Dragon Commander marked another shift. It was a kaleidoscopic RTS with larger-than-life, eccentric characters that looked the part. 2015 Original Sin continued what Dragon Commander started as Larian made an effort to move away from the brown and grey RPGs Divinity was lumped with.…

ANDY KELLY Specialist in RPGs, saving Currently playing Kingdom Come: Deliverance This month Tested whether the real world will let you quicksave with booze. TOM SENIOR Specialist in JRPGs, bird horror Currently playing Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age This month Hasn’t been the same since he fought FFXII’s bondage owl. FRASER BROWN Specialist in Strategy, Scotland Currently playing Civilization VI: Rise and Fall This month Covered the world in golf courses for the glory of Scotland. NATHAN BROWN Specialist in Fighting, anime Currently playing Dragon Ball FighterZ This month Swears he can do a Kamehameha, but it would be unbefitting the editor of Edge. TOM HATFIELD Specialist in Sims, tutorials Currently playing Railway Empire This month Scoured YouTube to give you a better Railway Empire experience. A hero. PHILIPPA…

HUMAN DUSTBIN Henry can eat anything, even if it’s rotten. His stomach of iron means he won’t suffer the effects of food poisoning at all. HIGHBORN Henry earns a significant +3 speech boost whenever he’s talking to upper class types like merchants, nobles and royalty. DODGER With this, Henry can jump sideways during combat, which is handy for avoiding any incoming arrows or sword swings. STRONGHOLD Blocking an attack will use up 30% less stamina, meaning Henry can fight for longer before he runs out of steam.…

Old-school Age of Empires looks better at modern resolutions and with the updated UI, but the stiff animations and flat textures give away its age. The Definitive Edition lets you zoom in and out for extra clarity on the map, and not one element hasn’t been changed by the artists. Once a settlement gets dense with buildings in the classic game, units frequently get stuck between buildings and one another. While pathfinding continues to be an obstacle, units are better able to navigate busy town centres, so you won’t be kept waiting for your wood delivery.…

CREE Alliances and trade are the Cree specialities, and traders can even bring tiles under Cree control. GEORGIA This religion-powered civ likes to declare protectorate wars as it gets a 100% boost. NETHERLANDS Trade and culture is the Dutch brand, while rivers are where they should set up shop. KOREA A science-based civ with its own science district and benefits from having governors in cities. SCOTLAND A civ that balances science and production while filling the world with golf courses. MAPUCHE When Mapuche units beat up enemies, nearby enemy citizens become disloyal. ZULU A martial civ that can make corps and armies early and comes with a unique military district. MONGOLIA The Mongolians get cavalry bonuses, but it’s their trading posts that make them dangerous.…

I found myself restarting a lot, especially in the campaign The term ‘Robber Baron’ was invented in the 1850s to describe the kind of unscrupulous customer who ran America’s early railways. These ruthless men were known for their underhanded tactics, crushing anyone who dared compete with them. There’s definitely scope for a satirical game about that period, but Railway Empire isn’t that game, even though it sometimes tries to be. Instead it’s a fun, yet irritatingly obtuse, model train set. At times the game tries to grapple with the politics of the era. The railroad tycoons are unabashedly corrupt, and paying a shady saboteur to torch a rival station is as casual an action as hiring a new conductor. The sharpest moment of commentary came when…

I feel bad for The Culling. I played it a fair bit when it came out, in the pre-PUBG era when the potential of survival shooters was being drowned in hastily developed filler. At that time, it stood out for its production values: it leans hard into the dystopian gameshow thing, with a match narrator and fun effects for the variously deadly events that corral players towards the middle of the map. Yet it’s too heavy on crafting, asking players to spend as much time punching trees as one another. Throwing spears is fun: crafting spears, broadly speaking, isn’t. Today there’s almost nobody playing, so your only option is a one-sided scrap against bots. At least you’ll win.…

1 POWER DRAW Combine the i3-8100 with a GTX 1080, and 16GB of DDR4, and you’ll be fine with a 550W PSU running it. 2 NO OVERCLOCK? Some mobos may let you overclock this, but Intel doesn’t let you bump up its budget parts. 3 4K STREAMING Thanks to support for HDCP 2.2 you’ll finally be able to have access to those 4K streams without worry. 4 AMD COMPETITION The closest red rival for single core performance is AMD’s Ryzen 5 1500X, coming in at £143. INTEL CORE i3-8100  www.intel.com £105 CPU With Intel’s first foray into its Coffee Lake architecture, we saw one major difference from its seventh series processors: core count. Each part received two extra cores. In an effort to fight back against AMD, Intel redeveloped its design…

1 STORAGE SSDs are the best thing to happen to PC gaming since Half-Life. And now, they’re cheaper than ever. 2 CASES Using a case from 2003? This is the time for a makeover. That Windows XP sticker has seen better days. 3 MEMORY Upgrading RAM won’t break the bank. Even if the difference isn’t a massive one it’ll help with a bottleneck. 4 SCREENS If you want to go big with your spending, why not give a new monitor some thought?…

MOTHERBOARD Crosshair VI Hero Asus £220 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 1800X AMD £290 The 1800X, combined with 32GB of 3200 MT/s, dominates both single and multi-core tasks with ease. GRAPHICS CARD GTX 1080 Ti Strix Asus £950 This is the height of efficiency. Silent and well equipped to dissipate heat, the 1080 Ti GPU will power any title you throw at it. COOLER Kraken X62 NZXT £ 130 The Kraken is the culmination of three of our favourite things: an infinity mirror, a 280mm radiator and slick braided cooling. MEMORY Vengeance LED RGB 32GB - 3200 Corsair £400 Ryzen is the one processor that does benefit hugely from higher…

PHILIPPA WARR THIS MONTH Gazed at the Singularity and hoped it didn’t gaze back. ALSO PLAYED Oblivion, Swamp Alchemist, Subnautica THERE’S A WIKI IF I CAN’T REMEMBER WHAT A FILTER DOES, FOR GOODNESS SAKE Until this week, my most recent conversation about Astroneer involved bumping into former lead designer Jacob Liechty at GDC in San Francisco. He was in the process of leaving the company and we had a fascinating chat about his new work in AI safety. Playing Astroneer roughly a year on, that chat came back to me. I meant to check in with the game’s progress and fiddle around with multiplayer. What I ended up doing was listening to a 2015 episode of The Partially Examined Life – a philosophy podcast – featuring…

1994 The Elder Scrolls: Arena 1996 The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall Between Daggerfall and Morrowind was Battlespire (a standalone game) and Redguard (an action standalone). 2002 The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind The Tribunal and Bloodmoon expansions for Morrowind followed the main game as did Travels, a handheld series. 2006 The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Knights of the Nine and Shivering Isles followed Oblivion, although its most famous DLC is that horse armour. 2011 The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Skyrim had the Dawnguard, Hearthfire and Dragonborn expansions. Then Online arrived, followed by Legends.…

JOHN STRIKE My gaming library’s a rich base of retro covered in a sprinkling of contemporary mods, with one generous dollop of PUBG unceremoniously plonked on top. PLAYERUNKNOWN’S BATTLEGROUNDS  www.playbattlegrounds.com If you haven’t played this by now, or at least watched a man with a handlebar moustache play this whilst shouting, where have you been? PUBG somehow manages to make a hardcore game entertaining for casual drop-ins, and is one of the best games to play with friends. TIBERIAN SUN: TWISTED INSURRECTION  www.twistedinsurrection.net This ongoing standalone mod benefits massively from the legacy of Red Alert 2 and turns Tiberian Sun on its head. Vehicles, maps, campaigns and explosions are all bigger and better, and it offers plenty of its own ingenuity. It’s a dazzlingly detailed must-have for C&C fans. BLACK…

We get it, having a nice, basic RPG about dragons is so 1980-2017. Now it’s all medieval intrigue this, educational tourism of Egypt that. Well fine, have it your way. If you want pedantic adherence to history, you got it pal. NOTHING WILL HAPPEN Work every day for the benefit of a bloated, syphilitic minor lord who, according to all rules of society, is your superior despite him not being able to tie his own shoes. Did they have shoelaces back then? We should probably hire a researcher. YOU WILL DEFINITELY DIE Die unexpectedly of period-accurate diseases, including the plague, dysentery or, we don’t know, being eaten alive by wild foxes (or whatever animals it is they had in the past). HORSE SHIT EVERYWHERE Absolutely everywhere, covering everything. We only…

TOM SENIOR Specialist in Strategy, disloyalty Twitter@PCGLudo This month Conquered Creative Assembly’s home turf to bring us this month’s cover feature. PHILIPPA WARR Specialist in Indie, excavation Twitter@philippawarr This month Went exploring for upcoming indie games and uncovered In the Valley of Gods. FRASER BROWN Specialist in RPG, fantasy Twitter@FraserIBrown This month Summoned Swen Vinke from the depths to learn all about the making of Divinity: Original Sin II. ANDY KELLY Specialist in RPG, history Twitter@ultrabrilliant This month Toured medieval Europe looking for a bed. A lesser editor would make an ‘and in the game’ joke.…

Game jam Event Game release Esports PC Gamer 3 – 11 MAR 7DRL CHALLENGE In the 7DRL Challenge, participants are given seven days (the ‘7D’) to make a roguelike (the ‘RL’). It’s an event that, each year, offers up a tweaks and subversions to the formula – past years have featured prototypes of Hoplite and MichaelBrough’s 868-HACK. You can find this year’s submissions at www.bit.ly/7drlchallenge. 8 – 17 MAR NO SHIT SHERLOCK JAM “Detective games are broken,” states the pitch for this game jam. It’s an event that hopes to fix them. 15 MAR SURVIVING MARS A city builder about creating a new home on the Red Planet – albeit with a more sci-fi bent than that one Matt Damon film. Surviving Mars is being created by Haemimont Games, the…

It’s easy to think about dialogue within its traditional role in other mediums; as the spoken conversations characters have to flesh out characterisation, convey progression and deliver exposition. Videogames defy this, because everything from the pieces of the ground you can walk on, to the dimensions of the text box that appears on your screen, have to be strictly defined. To have a tangible effect on a player, messages have to be reinforced through every aspect of a game, down to the color, motion, and speed of text. Despite the complexity this suggests, dialogue games potential narrative expression unlike any other medium. “I’ve been using dialogue in my games a lot lately,” says indie creator Zenuel. “It’s an often underappreciated effort. You wouldn’t expect text in a game to be…

SLIME RANCHER A life sim about corralling and crossbreeding rambunctious slime critters in outer space. LIFE IS STRANGE Five episodes of teen drama. The first is free so you can dip a toe in before taking the plunge. DOTA 2 This might take anywhere between ten minutes and 100,000 hours of your life. SUNLESS SEA Boat-based pottering lets you absorb Failbetter’s wonderfully atmospheric stories. THE WITNESS Puzzles abound on this island. Some will take seconds to solve but others can take far longer.…

1 I arrive somewhere and it’s just a void of empty space. I build the arena, then I go and see the writers and find out what the enemy is like. 2 I have to be super careful about colours. If the monsters are red and the ground is red, that’s not going to work. It’s very visual. 3 It can’t be all melee enemies, as they’ll just swarm the player. The most interesting fight is party vs party, a reflection of your own team. 4 Then I’m able to name enemies. You have to have a poetic component that makes it cool, and an informative one that explains what it does.…

Novice players have easy access to all the fundamental tools Fans of one of the biggest names in all of anime have been somewhat underserved by videogames, in quality if not in quantity. Licence-holder Bandai Namco churns out tie-in games at a right old lick, but they’ve always felt like cash-ins: products that sell because of the name on the box. Well, no longer. Not only is Dragon Ball FighterZ comfortably the best game this licence has ever produced; it’s a cracking fighting game, too. It is also a gorgeous one, a far cry from the rough edges of Dragon Ball games past. Developers Arc System Works make the Guilty Gear Xrd games, and the game engine that underpins what was, until now, the most beautiful…

No game has ever indulged our lack of humanity quite like Rust Rust makes better use of voice chat than any game I’ve ever played. You are naked and alone on the world’s silliest island. There is no announcer, so instead you submerge yourself in the quiet of grass crunching beneath your feet, as you smash a rock against the nearest pine tree. Perhaps you’ve also harvested some mushrooms and flax – enough to stave off the hunger pangs and fashion yourself a burlap shawl to cover your shame. But then you hear it. Faintly at first. Carried on the tip of the breeze. It’s another idiot. Rust has a distinctly regressive effect on the human species. The voice chat merges with the draw distance, so…

COOLER MASTER COSMOS C700P www.coolermaster.com £260 A premium case with a legendary heritage. The C700P is a fantastic combination of aluminium, RGB and design merged into a XL Tower. With an array of great features, it’s perhaps one of the best chassis out there at this price point. PHANTEKS ENTHOO EVOLV FLOW www.phanteks.com £200 This is an upgrade to the ATX variant, and thanks to its honeycomb cutouts, enables superior internal airflow to its predecessor, making it ideal for anyone looking to craft a liquid-cooled system. FRACTAL DESIGN MESHIFY C www.fractal-design.com £80 The Meshify may be at the more budget-oriented end of the spectrum, but it still touts an arsenal of features. Whether that’s the support for up to a 360mm radiator, tempered glass side panel, or great cable management support, it’s a…

MOTHERBOARD Z370-A Pro MSI £110 What better place to start than with MSI’s Z370-A Pro. With plenty of expandability, it’s perfect for any entry rig. PROCESSOR Core i3-8100 Intel £105 Intel’s new Coffee Lake processors add an additional two cores to the lineup. Think of this as a Core i5 processor, but cheaper. GRAPHICS CARD GeForce GTX 1060 3GB EVGA £270 Its prices are haywire due to cryptocurrency mining, but this is still the best deal you can get right now. MEMORY Ripjaws V Series 8GB (2x4GB) – 2400 G.Skill £96 Memory prices are horrendous right now, however this 8GB 2400 MHz kit is perfect. POWER SUPPLY 500BQ EVGA £56 It may be cheap, but this 500W PSU is more than enough to handle any budget build. This rig only…

1 INSPIRATION Before you start, study the work of established photographers and be inspired. Whether it’s the landscapes of Ansel Adams, the portraits of Annie Leibovitz, or the photojournalism of Steve McCurry, you can learn a lot from them. 2 TIME OF DAY Shifting light in games with day/night cycles can change the mood of a scene. So bide your time, and wait for the right moment to shoot. A location can look uninspiring at midday, but transform into something beautiful at dusk. 3 FIELD OF VIEW Widen the field of view of the in-game camera to show more of a landscape or large object and make it feel more dramatic. But don’t go too far or you’ll create an ugly effect, making your image look warped and unnatural. 4…

Listening in on an audio wiretap of the PC Gamer office, The Spy learns that the team has had enough of the latest discourse. At least, The Spy thinks that’s what they said. Maybe they’re annoyed about the latest ‘diss course’, which The Spy can only assume is an adult learning programme about coming up with snappy burns with which to lampoon a rival squad. The Spy can’t tell you what the latest gaming discourse concerns because The Spy’s 1998 Packard Bell PC has been buried in concrete for a persistent leaking of thermal paste that the IT repairman described as “crying at the sheer pain of its continued existence”. Switching channels, The Spy tunes into the bowels of Take-Two, where the marketing department is arguing over the exact wording…

2008: HALF-LIFE 2 MOD Dear Esther started as a Half-Life 2 mod — part of Dan Pinchbeck’s research at the University of Portsmouth. 2012: INDEPENDENT GAME Robert Briscoe began an overhaul of the mod in 2009. Over the following years it became a standalone game. 2017: LANDMARK EDITION This version offered dev commentary, remastered audio, a switch from Source engine to Unity 5 and more. 2016-2018: LIVE TOUR The live version of the game features a new build of the game, live narration and a live performance of the score.…

TEXT BOXES One of the oldest and potentially most familiar dialogue systems around (as well as the one most often replicated), the humble text box can be seen in a wide variety of genres, from platformers, to RPGs, to puzzle games. THE DIALOGUE WHEEL BioWare’s dialogue wheel changed the way many players viewed, interacted with and weighed the moral consequences of their choices. So much so, that BioWare patented its radial system in 2007. VISUAL NOVELS Its recent, surprising rise on Steam, the free development tool Ren’Py, and the relative accessibility of the genre (even when incorporating more complex elements) has made the Visual Novel more prominent than ever before. INTERACTIVE FICTION In the beginning was text. Description. Dialogue. Choices. Everything. It was the age of interactive fiction – and…

My rocket touches down on Mars and a dozen tiny drones spill out. Until I’m ready to bring humans here, this is my workforce. I’m surrounded by an endless red desert, but it won’t be barren for long. I make my first mark on Martian soil by building a machine that turns the regolith into concrete, which I’ll need to start constructing buildings. Surviving Mars is a game about building a colony on Mars and, well, surviving. It’s a neat take on the city-building sim, and a lot more challenging. If an earthquake or some other disaster strikes your city in Cities: Skylines, you can always just rebuild. But if a comet smashes into a geodesic dome or a power generator here, the damage can be catastrophic. Being 140 million…

Larian Studios is, for now, the Divinity: Original Sin studio. Its last two games, both Kickstarted and publisher-free, are the biggest successes the studio has ever seen. The Belgian developer didn’t go from obscurity to success, however, and it has been designing notable RPGs and strategy games, within and without the Divinity universe, for over two decades. Founder Swen Vincke picks 1997 as the year when Larian started, and an RTS called LED Wars as the studio’s first game, though there had been some experiments and projects before that. Indeed, one of them, The Lady, the Mage and the Knight, had many of the hallmarks of today’s Original Sin series, 20 years before it made its debut. “It was an RPG where…

How do you want to spend your next 100 hours of gaming? How about forging your destiny in a deadly medieval world? Kingdom Come: Deliverance is an ambitious (and buggy) undertaking that offers an astonishing degree of freedom. Turn the page to see how Andy was enchanted by this magic-free RPG. Alternatively, spend 100 hours in a deadly underwater world. Survival adventure Subnautica has left Early Access to become one of Pip’s favourite games of the last few years. Not that I’ll play it – it has plants that look like jellyfish. Elsewhere, another Final Fantasy arrives on PC, Dragon Ball FighterZ balances simplicity and depth and a new Civilization expansion appears. Whatever your taste, your next 100 hours of gaming are sure to be memorable. LET US KNOW WHAT…

1 HUNGOVER If you hit the ale too hard you’ll wake up with a hangover, which will cripple your strength, agility and charisma. You can either sleep it off and lose a whole day, or find a potion that’ll clear your head. 2 STARVING If you don’t eat your nourishment will slowly drop until you starve. Buy food from a marketplace or, if your purse is light, try stealing some. Just don’t get caught or you’ll end up in jail for a few days. 3 SICK Perishable foods like fruit and meat will rot over time. Eat them and you’re liable to get a bad case of food poisoning, dramatically reducing your strength. But sometimes you have no choice. 4 INJURED Falling from a height, being thrown from your horse…

GOHAN A keen aficionado of early electronic music, Gohan – real name Steve Warbles – chose his stage name in homage to Dave Gahan. TIEN Something of an upstart, it says here, always picking fights he can’t win. That’s a third eye on his forehead, by the way. Stop laughing. TRUNKS Jack Trouble was forced to abandon a swimming career after a not-so-freak swordfighting accident. His name is a tribute to what might have been. KID BUU Named after his two loves – Kid Rock and Han-era Chinese general Lü Bu – this shit is a nightmare to face, and we hope he is patched to death.…

CREEPVINE SEED CLUSTER Just outside the shallows are the creepvine forests. Creepvines are useful as sustenance if you’re trying to live a veggie life, and you can use the glowing seeds to make silicone rubber for early game tools. ACID MUSHROOM Combine these colourful mushrooms with copper ore (abundant in the shallows) to create batteries. Be careful, though – if you strike them with a knife they release damaging acid as well as useful spores. GIANT CORAL TUBES You can chip chunks off these huge structures with your survival knife. The pieces of coral tube you get can then be combined with salt to make bleach which can be used to create a more efficient water supply. METAL SALVAGE These large clumps of mangled metal can each be collected and…

Rust has inspired a legion of YouTubers who narrate the game’s most impressive clan raids. Here are three greats. CASTLE CRASHERS CM Gaming and a group of spelunkers take on a fortified castle, complete with airlocked doors. www.bit.ly/2ob8WFO ROCKET SWARMS VERTiiGO Gaming and friends assault a Borg Cube-like citadel with a constant spray of rockets. www.bit.ly/2Groc82 MOUNTAIN CLIMB Phaedo 82 hunkers down in a dank, pop-up staging area before assaulting a citadel in the mountains. www.bit.ly/2BE4rer…

This month I’m going to do something different: I’m going to check in on all of the battle royale and survival games that got hit by a big asteroid called ‘PUBG’ followed by a smaller asteroid called ‘Fortnite’ about eight months ago. The funny thing is: these games aren’t old! And yet: doomed. First up: Last Man Standing. Fundamentally PUBG but bad, this is a game of wonky animations, unsanctioned cheating, and a form of sanctioned cheating via paid-for boosters. If you have always resented that other battle royale games don’t let you pay real money for landmines, here you are. Its proximity to PUBG ensures that a few hundred people are still playing it.…

Q&A Big brand or local builder? You can either go with a big-name brand or a more local system builder. The big names can be cheaper but offer less tailored support and shorter warranties. Local system integrators tend to use off-the-shelf parts too, so they’re much easier to upgrade later. AMD/Intel/Nvidia? It comes down to personal preference and budget. You’ll want to prioritise graphics performance over just about everything else. Dictionary Small form factor (SFF): A PC or case that it is smaller than the usual tower. All-in-one cooler: CPU coolers that use liquid to pull heat away from the CPU. Overclocking: Several of your PC’s components can be cranked up beyond their default settings. Forget the hassle of having to build your own PC. We’re delving into the world…

MOTHERBOARD Z370 Tomahawk MSI £140 This is a nice-looking bit of kit at a good price. Couple that with two M.2 slots, and it’s the perfect place to house that Core i5. PROCESSOR Core i5-8400 Intel £180 Intel’s latest boasts six of its Coffee Lake cores, with great single-core performance. It even gives last-gen’s i7 a run for its money. GRAPHICS CARD GTX 1070 SC Gaming ACX EVGA £530 Trying to balance prices, we’ve opted to drop down to an SC Gaming card. Don’t worry, you only lose out on a very minor overclock. COOLER MasterLiquid Lite 240 CoolerMaster £45 This 240mm, dual-fan, all-in-one liquid CPU cooler is ludicrously cheap, but performs well and stays quiet, too. MEMORY Ballistix Sport LT 16GB (2x8GB) – 2666 Crucial £167 This is the…

1 If you need something from an NPC which cannot be obtained by murder or pickpocketing, I suppose you will have to chat to them. 2 Open up the cheesewheel of conversations. There are four chunks we use to chat: Admire; Boast; Coerce and Joke. 3 Each chunk moves one space clockwise when you select a tone. Mouse over each tone to see how much grimacing or smiling the NPC does. 4 Click the smiley quarters when the big chunks are in them and the frowny quarters when the small chunks are in them. Just like a real chat.…