Inhaltsverzeichnis für No. 204 in GamesTM

We don’t talk enough about the history of games based on books. It’s been a good run; certainly much stronger than the history of videogames inspired by movies or TV. The Metro series is just the latest in a long and quite excellent history of novels either adapted or extended through digital means. The entire Tom Clancy canon immediately springs to mind, having been started by Rainbow Six and Clancy’s own interest in moving his stories into the gaming world, but it dates back even further than that into classic fantasy and sci-fi titles. We’ve had popular classics given new life, such as The Hobbit, and we’ve had even older texts like Dante’s Inferno translated into game form in some weird and wonderful ways. The most recent successes have been…

Jupiter & Mars calls upon an interesting selection of influences and touchstones according to creative director James Mielke. “The inspirations that I had when I was designing this game were games like Panzer Dragoon II Zwei and Super Metroid,” he says. “Most people expect me to say Ecco The Dolphin, but that was absolutely not a real factor for me. I was aware that people were going to mention Ecco The Dolphin because there are not too many games with dolphins in them.” Additionally Mielke was able to call on the advice of The Last Guardian creator Fumito Ueda about how best to approach creating a game with an AI companion, in this instance your dolphin partner Mars. “We asked Ueda-san for advice and he said something interesting. He said…

While Metro Exodus’ wide-open stages will indeed be bookended by subterranean sections, classic Metro-style enclosures, it’s the big maps where the biggest innovations reveal themselves. To better improve immersion Exodus will feature a fully dynamic day-and-night cycle, not only changing the visual aesthetic but changing AI behaviours too. “This allows you to approach situations differently depending on how you want to play. It changes how you strategise your approach to situations,” teases executive producer John Bloch. “There is different weather depending on the seasons, and that will change the dynamic within the area.” We played through The Valley twice, using a rest point to turn the clock forward to dusk. It gave us the opportunity to approach the camps of enemies in entirely different ways, encountering different enemy behaviours as…

In a fun little nod to 1994’s Doom II, Hell will once again be descending upon Earth. It’s awesome to see; the familiar architecture with pentagrams burned into their framework, the sky a blood red, embers raining down upon the demon-littered streets. Earth provides a welcomed change of pace to the combat areas seen in 2016’s Doom, though it won’t be the only location we pay a visit. id has revealed that we will also be investigating (well, riddling with bullet holes and demon corpses) new areas of Hell, returning to the UAC facility on Phobos, and even visiting some locations that we’ve never been to before in a Doom game – that have only been referred to in a whisper through the Slayer’s Testament. Our money is on id…

“As a gay gamer, words cannot describe what it is like to be able to pick an LGBT+ character that actually reflects you,” Curtis Free, co-founder of London Gaymers, a gay gaming group, tells us. This might not seem like much if you’ve grown up seeing characters you felt you could relate to on a cultural, ethnic or gender level, but anyone who hasn’t will tell you it is such a powerful thing. What’s more, it feels as if there’s a positive expansion of experiences coming from game makers, so we wanted to explore the depth and breadth of that progress with community figures and developers on the cutting edge. Much like in other media, portrayals of LGBT+ characters have evolved over the decades. Back in the Eighties characters like…

Overcooked 2 turns up the heat with more recipes this time around, including ones we’re already familiar with from the original game – such as the burgers, pizza and burritos – plus some tasty new offerings, including steamed dumplings, pasta and sushi. If that sounds complicated, that’s because it is; getting to grips with the new ingredients – and how best to prep them – is vital to securing those Three Star ratings. Extra complexities such as mixers and steamers only serve to make things even more chaotic, and there’s a few additional preparatory touches to remember, too. Don’t let the super-simple tutorial fool you – it takes nerves of steel and an MBA in business management to keep these kitchens shipshape.…

There are a number of new fighting trainers scattered throughout hub areas. Once you’ve formally introduced yourself, you can consult them from the pause menu and pay them your hard fought for gold for just a little bit of their expertise. Each one is associated with a special move you’ll learn no matter what, offering more moves based around that specialism. This gives you a number of options to cultivate your own fighting style or generally make things a little easier, like allowing Juan to recover from being knocked down quicker. It’s well worth investing in though be warned, it can get a little pricey. These are professionals you’re dealing with, after all.…

BEFORE IT STARTED releasing games on home systems, SNK was best known for its arcade games. Formed in 1973 by Eikichi Kawasaki, it was initially known as Shin Nihon Kikaku, a name it held until it was officially changed to SNK in 1986. During the company’s early years it released a variety of interesting games, and would publish across a number of different genres, including maze games and shoot-’em-ups. As it continued to make a name for itself in the west, publishers of home systems began to take notice, eventually securing licences for several of the company’s titles, most notably Ikari Warriors, Athena, Psycho Soldier and Guerrilla Wars. For many, it’s the Nineties where SNK truly came alive thanks to its Neo-Geo technology, which ensured its (expensive) home console and…

Released: 1992 Format: Sega Mega Drive Publisher: Sega Of America Developer: Malibu Interactive Key Staff: Chris Shrigley (programmer, design), Terry Lloyd (artist, design), Bernard Whang (producer and additional design), Bob Jacob (design, studio head), Jayne Shrigley (front end presentation, additional design) “I ACTUALLY OWNED A COMIC BOOK SHOP CALLED ‘THE NEW FRONTIER’ IN DERBY CITY CENTRE” CHRIS SHRIGLEY LOOKING BACK TODAY, MANY COMIC FANS VIEW THE EARLY-TO-MID NINETIES WITH CAUTIOUSLY NOSTALGIC EYES. The explosion of new titles in the medium, instigated to a certain degree by the formation of Image Comics in 1992, created a surge of interest in comic books across the world, reviving old franchises and generating new stars, often fashionably conflicted anti-heroes such as the devilish Spawn. Malibu Comics, based in California, had been formed in 1986 by…

1 Chris Shrigley’s wife, Jayne, helped with storyboarding, design, front end and story art. Of particular note was her evocative drawing of a destroyed LA city skyline. 2 Starting development in October 1991, Ex-Mutants took approximately eight to ten months to create. 3 The game was originally envisaged as having a one-hit-dead system until Terry Lloyd, after playing games such as Ghouls ‘n’ Ghosts and ESWAT , decided to add an energy bar. 4 A SNES version was planned, but abandoned shortly after development began. 5 The original design called for all six characters to be playable. It became apparent at an early stage that this was not going to be possible, resulting in just two playable main characters.…

FORMAT: SWITCH | PUBLISHER: NINTENDO | DEVELOPER: SORA LTD., BANDAI NAMCO STUDIOS | RELEASE: 7 DEC 2018 | PLAYERS: 1-8 It has become increasingly difficult to shake the feeling that we’ve seen all of this before. No, wait. That isn’t quite right… you know what, we change our mind; it isn’t all that difficult because, well, we have seen all of this before. In fact, we’ve seen it time and time again. Super Smash Bros. is quickly approaching its 20th anniversary and, to celebrate, Nintendo is going all in for the series’ debut on Switch – the roster expanding in such a way that long-time Nintendo fans are likely to feel a little dizzy in the head – though it isn’t necessarily doing so in the way that we had…

The rickety old weapons have always been one of our favourite aspects to the Metro games, and you’ll be happy to learn that little has changed on that front. Exodus features some truly fantastic weapon systems; the guns handle well, the feedback is sharp and the customisation system continues to impress. Much like in previous games, progression is presented through the guns themselves rather than any skill trees or EXP. Each of the weapons that you come across, be it through the course of the story or hidden out in the world, are made up of five components. You can switch out the scope, the barrel, the magazine, stock and an attachment on each; switching these around will affect the weight, handling and recoil. You can switch out these elements…

“Destructible demons are the ultimate celebration of the ultrauiolence of Doom” SUPER SHOTGUN The Super Shotgun returns from Doom (2016), although it has had a pretty huge upgrade and update. It now features an under-slung grappling device, the Meat Hook, designed to let you grapple between enemies and quickly traverse huge distances. This weapon has completely changed the composition of Doom’s core combat loop. BALLISTA This is a brand new weapon designed for Doom Eternal, potentially replacing the Gauss Cannon. The Ballista launches kinetic projectiles with precision, though it can also be used to unleash powerful charged shots that will literally rip demons apart. We can’t wait to see what mods are made available for this one. PLASMA RIFLE Many of you will likely remember the Plasma Rifle from Doom…

A NORMAL LOST PHONE RELEASE DATE 26 January 2017 PC, Mobile, Switch You’ve found a stranger’s phone with access to all of their photos and details, but you don’t know who they are or where you might be able to find them. That’s more or less how this smart interactive story begins as you delve into the life of Sam and work out what could have happened. It deals brilliantly with issues of identity and prejudice. NIGHT IN THE WOODS RELEASE DATE 21 February 2017 PC, PS4, Xbox One, Switch, Mobile We’ve waxed on the merits of Night In The Woods many times, with particular focus on how the game tackles depression, both mental and societal, as it happens. Another core aspect is its cast of characters who, while zoomorphic…

The three playable characters are distinct enough, each offering an interlocking story arc from three very different perspectives. Arthur is saddled with regret over losing his brother as part of the alluded Very Bad Thing, Sally is a chemist helping to create a newer strain of Joy, while Ollie is ex-military living in the outskirts of Wellington Wells, and with it the social norms that come with Joy use. They each have their own playstyles, too, with Arthur focused on blending in, Sally more about stealth and Ollie having a preference for combat. This doesn’t change too much about the game, but the intersecting paths and stories make for an interesting variety of characters.…

We highly recommend giving the Trashopedia a good read through at the end of each stage. On the surface it may appear to be a simple chronicle of all of the objects you’ve managed to eat up on the preceding stage, but in actuality it’s a momentary glimpse into the mind of BK, the racoon with the hole app that’s wreaking havoc on his town. His descriptions of the items he has collected ranges from the wonderfully simplistic to the utterly confused. And they sort of tell a story too, with his seeming hatred of birds, distrust of rabbits and love of anything trash related. The fact that he seems very confused about what a donut really is when he runs the donut shop also becomes more and more apparent.…

One new feature to fights in The Banner Saga 3 is a time limit. Such a simple, otherwise unspectacular addition, but one that adds layers to the existing template. Put simply, you have to deal with all the opponents on the battlefield before the turn counter runs out – fail, and more enemies arrive, and things continue to be difficult. Succeed, and you earn brief respite, allowing you to switch out injured party members for healthy ones in reserve and, should you so choose, to carry on the fight. Win against all the waves, and you bag an item. Or, of course, you can quit and run off which… isn’t that bad an idea a lot of the time. It still falls in the same traps…

How did you get the job of coding Tank for Ocean? I was working for Choice Software in Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland at the time. The office was about 15 minutes’ walk from my home. I started when I was 15 years old as a hobby summer job, and took a full-time job when I was 16. Ocean subcontracted many conversions over the years to Choice, and Tank came along in 1987. It took us about three to six months to do the conversion. Did you have access to the coin-op machine during the development? Yes, we had the coin-op, and it’s what we used for reference. The graphics all came from the arcade machine. Choice owner Colin Gordon was an electronics whizz, and he was able…

SADLY WE JUST CAN’T REMEMBER HOW TO WRITE 6502 ASSEMBLY CODE ANY MORE We see you’ve found another unreleased Dizzy game. Can you tell us more about this? Philip Oliver: Sure. It’s a game called Panic! Dizzy, which we wrote in 1992 when we were looking for game ideas for the NES. It was based on a game called Dizzy Panic, which we’d released in 1990 for the Spectrum, Amstrad, C64, ST and Amiga but since we hadn’t been entirely happy with that game, we felt the best way forward was to design it from scratch and resolve the problems. Unfortunately the game wasn’t released at the time so it was backed up, put in the loft and forgotten about. When the retro revival emerged in recent years, however, we…

CAMERA WORK Capturing the wildlife and varied species of Hillys is a major part of the game experience. It’s thanks to the camera that you are able to expose the actions of the Alpha Sections with the help of the IRIS network and bring down the DomZ conspiracy. FLUID COMBAT It doesn’t seem like much now, but Jade’s ability to take on multiple enemies at one time in fluid melee combat without the need to lock on to them, and the ability to break off from one to another mid-flow with a little flip or spin, was pretty impressive. ACTION SEQUENCES We often cite the rooftop chase as one of the greatest moments in gaming history, delivering the kind of exciting action set piece that would go on to be…

1 LINK ROSTER NUMBER: 03 Link is heavily stylised to reflect his most recent appearance in Breath Of The Wild. He’s donning the Champion’s Tunic as standard, the Hookshot is out of the equation (Link now performs grabs like regular characters) while the Sheikah Slate has been introduced to let the Hero Of Time throw remote detonation bombs out into stages. He can also now fire two arrows at once and his Final Smash involves the use of the Ancient Bow. 2 SNAKE ROSTER NUMBER: 31 Solid Snake is making his highly anticipated return after his debut in Super Smash Bros. Brawl oh so many years ago. But that isn’t what has us really excited; you see, original voice actor David Hayter has confirmed that he will be reprising the…

One of the best changes to Call Of Duty’s UX presentation comes courtesy of the mini-map, a familiar element of the HUD which now has a layer of fog applied to it. It means that the map is largely obscured beyond a variety of small circles, denoting the position of you and your allies. While some perks, such as the returning UAV, will increase visibility this shift actively encourages communication between the Specialists on the field. No longer can you merely go off in search of enemy icons for easy kills; the most immediate change here ensures that you spend more time actively surveying the stage in front of you (rather than letting your eyes drift to the map constantly), which reduces the number of occasions you get caught off…

Filling up your time in an open world is so important and Rockstar has been pretty good about giving you things to entertain yourself with between missions in the past, but perhaps not as well as others have done since its last big release. Red Dead Redemption II seems to be chocked full of busy work, but thankfully it seems to have learned the lessons of Roman constantly calling you to spend time bowling or playing darts, as these won’t be essential chores, just interesting ones. Managing your camp with the rest of the gang looks like the biggest side-occupation, as you can do jobs around the campsite, hunt and fish for food or generally interact with your group by playing games of cards or other hobbies. This is also…

ARTYOM  ■ All Artyom has ever known is Moscow under the shroud of nuclear fallout. The protagonist of the series has lived his entire life in the Metro, only occasionally going to the surface if it is in service of risking his life to protect all that he knows. In the time following the conclusion of Metro: Last Light, Artyom has been heading topside with an old radio transceiver, attempting to establish some communication with the outside world. It’s as he picks up a spike that he decides to leave the Metro behind and head off in search of a new beginning. ANNA  ■ In many ways, Anna is the driving force behind the story of Exodus. Artyom feels compelled to provide a better life for his family than the…

After the Doom Slayer caused havoc in Hell, the demons are now storming Earth with everything they’ve got. That means we should expect to see a suite of new enemies along with the return of some Doom and Doom II classics. The likes of the Arachnid Tron and Pain Elemental have been updated, their models updated to not only look more terrifying, but to also take advantage of the new destructible demons system, which will see bits of flesh and bone tear out of their bodies as you pepper them with bullets. We’ve also been given a small tease of the new enemies to come, though id was not forthcoming with information. The first that caught our attention was the Doomhunter, who id went as far as labelling as Doomguy’s…

Ellie THE LAST OF US Chances are, if Ellie were real and capable of reacting to the concept of being considered an icon of any kind she would be horrified, appalled and not a little uncomfortable with the concept. But that’s part of why she’s so special; she’s a grounded, pragmatic, caring but steely person. She’s a fully rounded character with desire and a rational mind, and that makes her special in the gaming world. Iron Bull DRAGON AGE: INQUISITION Perhaps the thing we love most about Iron Bull is how upfront and self-actualised he is. There’s no great artifice to his character. He knows who he is, he knows what he’s capable of and he knows who he wants to be romantic with. Those are pretty admirable qualities. We…

Q. JUANNY DADDY? Yup! The sequel treats the last game’s good ending as canonical, with Juan and El Presidente’s Daughter uniting in the land of the living, going on to get married and start a family. Q. BUT AM I STILL PUNCHING SKELETONS? Yes, though it isn’t because your young family is directly imperilled. There’s a new group of big bads in town but they’re after some godly guacamole. Q. IS IT SILLY? Very. From puns to pop culture references to its tasty MacGuffin, the first game’s sense of humour returns in full force.…

When did you first experience Windjammers ? Three years ago, when people started organising contests at the office. I was instantly hyped after one match! Why choose to revisit Windjammers ? Windjammers is one of the best ‘sports versus’ games that we played. It is so simple and very deep at the same time. You instantly understand how to play, but when you start mastering it you understand that it will take a lot of effort and time to really get good. It is also fantastic to watch. All these elements make a perfect combination for today’s players’ expectations, especially with the esports scene. That’s why we felt it was the right time to bring this awesome game back. Why is the new version…

“The game itself is a lot more fun than the look suggests. It’s basically an amalgam of umpteen platform games. Ultimately, it’s not the best at anything, but far from the worst of all” Mean Machines, 1992 “Ex-Mutants is a classic arcade platform slash-‘em-up. If you like a bit of a challenge and platformers are your thang, then this game is definitely worth buying” MEGA, 1993…

“In the late-1990s, Philip Oliver said he and brother Andrew devised another puzzle game concept that tasked players with swapping blocks to match them in lines. “We called it Swap-It and pitched it at various publishers, since it was great fun,” Philip says. “Sadly no publisher was interested in puzzle games due to high inventory and marketing costs and low perceived customer value but in May 2001, we became aware of Bejeweled which overcame the need for expensive inventory by being based online. This inspired Candy Crush Saga – one of the most successful games in the world.”…

■ Jade went through a few subtle redesigns to her look from the game’s first reveal to release. The final and most significant made her look much more grown-up than her original design, so that she looked more like a seasoned professional. ■ Beyond Good & Evil released in the same month as Ubisoft’s other massive release of the year, Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time, which proved to be far more commercially successful. ■ It’s been suggested that Michel Ancel’s wife was the primary inspiration for the personality of Jade, helping to make her more approachable and believable.…

FULTON Inspired by the wonderfully bizarre but incredibly effective balloon shipping service from the Metal Gear series, we really love this tee. It might be the somewhat resigned look of the sheep that really sells it to us. www.insertcoinclothing.com NO MO RULES Honouring Ryuji Sakamoto from Persona 5, this tee is a direct replica from the character, but also a wonderful celebration of the core energy and philosophy of the series. It’s anarchic, fun-loving and very cool. www.insertcoinclothing.com CRASH BANDICOOT ‘HIGH FOUR’ Lots of things to like about this design. The chunky outline of the character art is very cool, the greyscale colouring that features both orange highlights and overaps. It’s packed with Crash’s trademark energy. www.playstation-gear.com…

FIGMA REAPER PRICE: £69.99 This superposable figure has some fantastic detailing on it, as well as a number of swappable items that allow you to recreate classic poses and actions from Overwatch. As ever, Reaper is one of the coolest and most physically expressive (even if not facially) characters in the game, and this Figma figure captures that really well. gear.blizzard.com NENDOROID D.VA PRICE: £44.99 Everyone knows that Nendoroids are officially the cutest figures in all of toy-making. This has been proven in lab conditions, but they don’t get much cuter in Overwatch than true gamer legend D.Va, and this little creation captures all of her personality and attitude nicely in chibi form. You can find some other heroes in this form too, of course. gear.blizzard.com WINSTON PLUSH PRICE: £34.99…