Table of contents for No. 169 in GamesTM

Editor

The second year of a generation can often be a defining one, as developers get to grips with new hardware, push boundaries and generally settle into their groove. So what has been the overriding theme of this all-important sophomore year for the Xbox One and PS4? For me, it’s been stories. In particular, subtle, adult stories with character development and explorations of action versus consequence. The two games that exemplify this for me are Life Is Strangeand The Witcher III, both of which ultimately boiled down to how you treated and reacted to others to decide the particular outcome you got from each game. I’ll avoid saying too much more for fear of giving away spoilers as both are games you really ought to check out for yourselves, but to…

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GamesTM|No. 169

Reader Reaction

Which is the home console to own in 2016? PlayStation 4 Xbox One Wii U Steam Machine • “Most likely going to be Xbone, seeing as how the trend is going. #XboxOne #newyear2016” – RadShite_Gaming • “When Steam machine is doing worse than Wii U, you know there’s a problem.” – SeriousBimuth • “I only vote WiiU just because of exclusives. All other consoles are multiplatform machines” – xNYxKnux • “It’s got to be the PS4, Sony is absolutely killing it right now and VR is going to be great!” – RichSearle88 • “Sony finally has games out that aren’t Remasters, so it is PS4 all the way!” – PhazonUK • “Everyone knows PC is the way to play, but the Steam Machines are still too confusing for the general…

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GamesTM|No. 169

Think we know how to tell a story?

As an industry and a community, we tend to be pretty introspective. It’s a good/bad thing – gamers are extremely media-literate compared to fans of other media, but the flip-side can be that our references are often quite limited: other games, or media that presents basically the same content as most games. So, as it’s a good opportunity for an end-of-year/beginning-of-year type of thing, let’s not just talk about games. Let’s talk about what other mediums are doing that we could learn from. On TV, the highlight of the year splits between the UK and the US. Over here, the BBC just nailed it with Doctor Foster, a drama written by Mike Bartlett and starring Suranne Jones. On the surface it was a simple story – a woman discovering about…

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GamesTM|No. 169

MAKING SPELL CASTING MORE VIABLE

• From Software is making a few important changes to the way magic is utilised in Dark Souls III, changes that should make spell casters a little more viable – a welcomed move after the hefty nerfs made to magic users in Dark Souls II: Scholar Of The First Sin’s post-launch patches. The Academy Assassin will be your focused offensive spell caster and comes equipped with three magic attacks in the form of Soul Arrow, which fires powerful bolts of energy; Soul Greatsword, which summons a ghostly sword; and Soul Dart, a fast to cast but low damage projectile. These are cast with L1, with L2 giving you the opportunity to charge the attack and utilise one of the new Battle Art combat variations. The Herald Of White, on the…

ALAN WAKE (2010) • Hidden beneath the black waters of Cauldron Lake is The Dark Place; Alan Wake’s supernatural homage to the dark world of A Link To The Past. It’s a place where the darkness thrives, causing creative works of art to manifest themselves in reality. It’s a twisted mirror image of the natural world and sets the scene for the best moments of Remedy’s action thriller. DEADLY PREMONITION (2010) • A lot of Deadly Premonition makes little sense; it’s a glorious celebration of the works of David Lynch in a messy adventure. It’s also intimately weird in ways Lynch – confined by his chosen format – could never replicate, thanks to what bleeds out of the distorted Otherworld. A complex hallucination or a nightmare made reality? We’ll likely…

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GamesTM|No. 169

THE VAULT

CHILLBLAST ASCENSION 2 MANUFACTURER: CHILLBLAST PRICE: £1,849.99 IT’S WISE TO be naturally wary of the purchase of a gaming laptop. While owning such a compact and travel friendly device can prove to be a wonderful companion from the living room to out on the road, they are often obsolete from the second you take it out of the box. That’s a difficult reality to swallow when you’re no doubt dropping a bomb of money for the privilege of owning something that can’t usually be upgraded to play next year’s games, unlike a tower or your own personal build of a machine at home. That’s a problem you’ll quickly push to the back of your mind once you get Chillblast’s Ascension 2 in your hands. This thing is packing the one…

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GamesTM|No. 169

2016 could be the best year for gaming ever

Had you asked Shuhei Yoshida what he made of the unprecedented success of the PlayStation 4 a year ago, the Sony Worldwide Studios boss would have celebrated it with cautious optimism; now we can only imagine he’s laughing. The PS4 has sold more than 30 million units worldwide, making it the fastest-selling Sony console in PlayStation history – if that isn’t cause for celebration, we aren’t sure what is. But what does it mean for the competing consoles as 2016 beckons? This level of success for Sony, this early into the eighth console generation, is truly impressive. It has left Microsoft and Nintendo in something of a precarious position; the Xbox One is struggling to keep up the pace, while Nintendo is just about keeping its head above water. None…

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GamesTM|No. 169

Are the Steam Machines destined to fail?

• THE PROBLEM WITH the Steam Machines, is that they still don’t offer a clear benefit to the consumer. Valve – along with an array of hardware manufacturers – has essentially unleashed a device designed to cater to a niche within a niche. Valve has been eager to bring Steam, easily the biggest propagator of PC gaming wares, into the living room for a while now and this looked like it could be the answer. But that isn’t the only element at play here; this was also Valve’s chance to try and force its Linux-based Steam OS into the mainstream consciousness. Of the 7096 games listed on the Steam store, only 1691 of them will actually function on your Steam Machine. That number will increase no doubt, but it requires…

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GamesTM|No. 169

DATA STREAM

THE OFFICIAL STEAM VR HEADSET, THE HTC VIVE, WILL LAUNCH IN APRIL 2016 PETER MOORE IS MOVING TO THE EA’S NEW ESPORTS GROUP, THE COMPETITIVE GAMING DIVISION VALVE REVEALED THAT AROUND 77,000 STEAM ACCOUNTS ARE ‘HIJACKED’ EACH MONTH YOU CAN EXPECT TO SEE INDIE HIT ROCKET LEAGUE LAND ON XBOX ONE IN FEBRUARY 2016 WITHIN TWO DAYS OF LAUNCHING IN JAPAN, THE NEW MONSTER HUNTER X MANAGED TO SELL 1.5 MILLION COPIES SYSTEM SHOCK 3 HAS BEEN CONFIRMED TO BE IN DEVELOPMENT BY INDIE TEAM OTHERSIDE ENTERTAINMENT…

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GamesTM|No. 169

Wanted: Dead Or Alive

Koei Tecmo’s recent statement that it has no plans to release Dead Or Alive Xtreme 3 outside of Japan came as something of a surprise, but that doesn’t stop it being one of the smartest and most progressive decisions made by a major publisher in recent memory. You may not agree, and that’s cool, but just hear me out on this one. There’s been an influx of lewd games lately, from the strip cook-offs of Senran Kagura: Bon Appetit! (as well as the ninja action of the main series, of course) to the Vita-jerking nonsense of Monster Monpiece. These are gamesoriginally designed for an audience and a culture significantlydifferent to our own here in the West – with that in mind, that they came out over here at all beggars…

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GamesTM|No. 169

TO INFINITY… AND BEYOND!

THE INFINITY ENGINE was created at BioWare with the intention of developing isometric role-playing games, initially the game Battleground Infinity, which eventually morphed into Baldur’s Gate. For gameplay, it used real-time movement combined with semi-real-time combat – the action could be paused at any time for the player to take stock and order their characters. Graphically, the isometric viewpoint used pre-rendered 2D backgrounds with sprite characters and permitted intricate detail on both. After Baldur’s Gate, an updated version (1.5 as the team called it) was used for Icewind Dale with refinements and additions included for Baldur’s Gate sequel, Shadow Of Amn. However, with 3D graphics cards gaining increased popularity in the late 90s and early 00s, the engine soon began to look dated and it was succeeded by BioWare’s Aurora…

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