Table of contents for Issue 281 in PC Powerplay

Nvidia’s RTX 2080 Ti remains the most powerful graphics card in the GeForce lineup, and with that hallowed ground comes an equally harrowing Founders Edition price tag of US$1,199. Yet that hasn’t halted efforts to build bigger, better, and even more expensive graphics cards. In the true spirit of one-upmanship, MSI is now set to be the first to shove 16Gbps memory into its enthusiast-grade RTX 2080 Ti Gaming Z Trio. According to MSI’s news post, the memory switch counts for a 5% performance increase over the otherwise identical 14Gbps RTX 2080 Ti Gaming X Trio. Both feature the same GPU boost clock of 1,755MHz, and the cooling solution remains the same beefy, slightly screwy, design. However, the tweaked memory on the Gaming Z Trio tips it over the line…

In the fiercely competitive and innovative world of the PC, it’s always an exciting thrill seeing products and technologies come along and shake things up and move the industry forward. We use and choose good gear because of the performance on offer, the nice design, the new things it lets us do. We buy something for these reasons, and are always mindful of the value when comparing options. It is these tangibles that drive the Australian PC Awards each year. The Awards are a joint undertaking by several of Future Publishing’s technology titles, being APC, TechLife, PC PowerPlay, TechRadar and PC Gamer. The teams behind these magazines and sites live, love and breath PC tech, and together we have distilled all of the most notable releases of 2019 across all…

In the summer of 2019 a group of Olympians assembled in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, to discuss development of the god-themed MOBA, Smite. The Olympians were players halfway through their year-long terms as council members, each there to represent player interests across Smite’s multiple modes, platforms, and community niches. The idea for using player councils originated with Smite’s sibling game Paladins in the run-up to the 2018 Hi-Rez Expo event. The Paladins team were focusing on quality and community, explains brand director Alex Cantatore. Their thinking was, “It would be great to actually just get [the community] involved in the decision-making process and give them early looks at the things that we’re doing and find out if this is something we should be doing.” There had also been a slight shift…

A SPACE FOR THE UNBOUND DEVELOPER MOJIKEN STUDIO • PRICE TBA • RELEASE TBA https://mojiken.itch.io/a-space I played A Space for the Unbound without realising that it was a demo (it’s just an opening chapter, about 20 minutes long), but I’m hooked. When I was a kid, my mum used to hide new toys in the hall cupboard, then she would magically produce them when I was bored, or stuck inside. This is a ‘rainy day’ game, for sure. In fact, the action opens with two friends creating a sad story together, in the boy’s trailer, while sheltering from a steady drizzle. It has the kind of relaxed, wordy presentation I enjoy most when there’s not much else to do. In their story, the space princess is dying and wants to…

WARTORN COVE Two valleys open out into a cove where a tank sits, waiting to dominate the map. CTF matches were full of heroic and foolish warthog runs, trickery with the teleporters, and hopeless assaults on that tank. NEW MOMBASA CLASSIC An at-the-time awe-inspiring recreation of Bungie’s 2003 E3 demo for Halo 2, turned into a multiplayer map. Vehicles could dominate the wide city streets, but the sewers made sneak attacks a thrill.…

DEVELOPER RIOT GAMES • PUBLISHER IN-HOUSE playruneterra.com Idon’t think I can stomach buying another booster pack after playing Legends of Runeterra. It’s a necessary part of physical card games where cards often have real-world value, but their prevalence in digital card games is just an excuse to sell the worst kind of lootboxes. It’s enough to make anyone cynical. But thanks to a generous reward system that avoids booster packs altogether, Legends of Runeterra is one card game that’s easy to love. You’d be forgiven for rolling your eyes at the thought of a free-to-play card game based on League of Legends. The card genre is full of these spin-offs. But Riot Games’ take is full of clever innovations and tense duels dictated by your skill rather than how much…

PRICE From $4,299 aorus.com Aorus is Gigabyte’s premium gaming brand and the Aorus 17 is the biggest and most powerful gaming laptop the company makes. This weapon can be fitted with an Intel Core i9-9980HK CPU, 32GB of RAM and a Nvidia GeForce GTX 2080 GPU if you go all out. But even the entry level Aorus 17 XA comes with an Intel Core i7-9750H CPU, 16GB of RAM, and a GTX 2070 GPU, which is more than enough for some fast paced Full HD gaming. High refresh rate, low latency screens are starting to become more accessible, and the advantages for competitive gamers is becoming more apparent. So it is an excellent time for Aorus to have introduced a 240Hz panel to its most premium device. The 17.3-inch FHD…

PRICE $349 www.hyperxgaming.com The Cloud Flight S is somewhat similar to the original Cloud Flight, although not as much as the names might suggest. Whereas the earlier model featured striated ear cups, red highlights and loose wires in the headband, the Cloud Flight S is a much more low-key, elegant device. It’s almost all black plastic, with an adjustable, notched headband and a white “HX” logo on either ear cup. The left ear cup is where most of the special features live, including a detachable, flexible mic, a power button, a 7.1 surround sound button and a micro-USB charging port. But what’s more interesting are the four circular indentations that dot the left ear cup like directions on a compass rose. You can program these buttons to do almost anything,…

PRICE $599 www.seagate.com Docking stations aren’t anything new, and neither are external hard drives, but how about combining them both? That’s exactly what Seagate has done with its FireCuda Gaming Dock. It combines the plug and play ease of an external HDD with the connectivity options of a dock into a single unit that’s connected via a Thunderbolt 3 cable. We have to say, it really looks awesome too. The FireCuda Gaming Dock is a somewhat unusual looking device. The majority of it is basically a drab looking box, but there’s a stylised section that features RGB lighting, and the overall effect is a fantastic combination of subtlety and bling. It really does look like a sophisticated piece of kit. It comes with a built in 4TB hard drive. Some…

“You’ll set out to influence the course of the world through the application of “soft power”. Did you ever say to yourself when you were young, “When I grow up I want to be the Pope?” No? Well here’s your big chance anyway, sort of: Pope Simulator, a new addition to the menagerie of weird, ultra-niche sims on PC that promises to immerse players in a “realistic” depiction of life as the Pontiff. The game begins on Conclave day, when the College of Cardinals elects a new Pope – that’s you. You’ll begin your reign by choosing a coat of arms, which will apparently impact the course of your papacy, and from there you’ll set out to influence the course of the world through the application of “soft power”: Organising…

Codemasters has announced that F1 2020 will be released on July 10. The racing sim will launch on Steam, PS4, Xbox One, and, for the first time in the series, Google Stadia. F1 2020 will feature a new team management mode alongside its already established career mode. The new management mode, called ‘My Team’, lets players act as a driver and manager of their own F1 team. There have also been changes to Career mode that will now allow players to choose between a 10 race season, 16 race season, or the full 22 race season. Additionally, the Hanoi Street Circuit in Vietnam and the Zandvoort Circuit in the Netherlands will be joining the other racing tracks. Formula 2 will stay in the game after being added to the series…

EVE ONLINE The players who form the Council of Stellar Management assist and advise CCP on the game’s development. DOTA 2 Icefrog, the lead developer of Dota 2, is believed to contact pro players to get their opinions on game balance. NIER: AUTOMATA Players can also take development into their own hands – here a fan-made patch fixed issues with the PC port. SUBNAUTICA Unknown Worlds’ Early Access success involved player access to the developer task board and more.…

DEVELOPER TRIPWIRE • PUBLISHER IN-HOUSE • RELEASE MAY 22 tripwireinteractive.com/games If it were easy to make games about being a shark, I’d be able to name more than just Jaws Unleashed – a 2006 game Tripwire played as it figured out how to build its shark-based RPG. With the caveat that there isn’t much competition, Maneater may be the best shark action yet. Fish don’t talk, which makes storytelling difficult. To solve that, Maneater is framed as a reality show akin to Deadliest Catch, with actor Chris Parnell narrating your movements in the water, explaining your shark nature as you swim around devouring hapless beach-goers. You have a human nemesis, a shark hunter who’s the star of this reality show, as well as underwater enemies, apex predators who’ve muscled into…

“I thought it was great. We allowed Midway to do whatever they wanted to do with Doom. They were a real game dev company who had been around for decades. Smart people, great programmers. We could trust that they would do a good job with Doom. When they made PlayStation Doom they did an incredible job, but with Doom 64 we said they should do something different than just replicating the original game. Aaron Seeler, who programmed Doom 64, came to Texas and he had an office on our floor so he could pick John Carmack’s brain at any time for tips on how to get the Nintendo 64’s chip to run fast. The lighting was great, they were making great levels, and we were very happy with Doom 64.…

“Its sense of humour might occasionally be too caustic for some, while others might be uneasy at the pot-shots it takes at other games..” DEVELOPER SIZE FIVE GAMES • PUBLISHER SIZE FIVE GAMES sizefivegames.com Genuinely funny games are a rarity. So without overlooking the ingenuity of a game that fuses point-and-click adventures with platform-puzzlers, the highest praise I can give Lair of the Clockwork God is that it made me laugh from start to finish. Its central pair – alter-egos of creator Dan Marshall and co-writer Ben Ward – would hate the phrase ‘interactive comedy’, so I’ll simply say that this is a gag delivery device with an outstanding hit rate. It opens in a Peruvian jungle, immediately establishing its central hook. While Ben is dedicated to point-and-click conventions, Dan…

PRICE $229 au.creative.com Chances are, your Windows PC or Mac speakers come with middling, if not terrible audio quality. Or maybe they’re decent, but not quite good enough to truly enjoy what the music or games you spend time listening to. Cue the Creative Sound Blaster X3, a USB DAC (digital-to-analog converter) with a headphone amplifier that can produce virtual 7.1 surround sound, and offers a variety of ways to enhance the audio coming out of your computer or game console. It’s like an external sound card that’s compatible with PS4, PC and Mac and has the added bonus of harboring SXFI, Creative’s audio technology that simulates 3D sound in a pair of stereo headphones. Creative found a way to keep things simple, yet provide different avenues to pursue all…

DEVELOPER TOTALLY GAMES • PUBLISHER ACTIVISION • RELEASED MARCH 8, 2002 bit.ly/bridgecommander If you’ve ever been a Star Trek fan, you’ve probably imagined what it would be like to sit in the captain’s chair of a Federation starship. Over the years there have been dozens of Star Trek videogames on PC, from point-and-click adventures to first-person shooters. But Star Trek: Bridge Commander is the closest a digital recreation of the show has ever gotten to deeply simulating the experience of being in command of a Starfleet vessel. The game starts with a bang, literally, as a star mysteriously destabilises and explodes, killing the captain of the USS Dauntless. The ship’s relatively inexperienced first officer (that’s you) is then forced to take over command and find out what caused the explosion.…

Crytek has now officially confirmed that Crysis Remastered is on the way. A release date hasn’t been announced, but the now-updated website at crysis.com says it’s “coming soon.” The game was revealed, seemingly accidentally, on Crytek’s website. The page is gone now, but screenshots were all over social media. According to the official description on the site, Crysis Remastered will have “new graphic features”, higher quality textures and “CRYENGINE’s native hardware and API-agnostic ray tracing solution.” The Crysis series kinda lost its way as it went on, but the original features some brilliantly chaotic, freeform action set-pieces. But will it hold up almost 12 years later, even with the addition of ray tracing?…

The Gold Award is given to the company deemed to be the very best of 2019. To stand out in a field of such spirited competition, in the ever-evolving cauldron of PC tech, requires a team that has focus, talent, fresh thinking and the ability to deliver. Winning is the mark of a team that has it all. Taking home the Gold is an honour its winner can be especially proud of – and that’s because it is you that decided this one. Voting has been running across our sites and we hope you had your say! WINNER: Asus Consistent quality, range and innovation across a huge variety of categories. Asus wants to be number one at everything it does, and its untiring efforts lead to great choice for…

“OUR PILLAR HERE IS TO ALIGN TO THE LEGACY GAMES AS BEST WE CAN” Slayer!” Is there a voice clip I’ve heard more in my life than Halo’s gravelly announcer preparing me for combat? Maybe one of his other callouts: “Double kill.” “Triple kill.” “Overkill!” (OK, now I’m just bragging). If there’s anything truly and utterly timeless about Halo, it’s that voice playing over the warm blue sky and dusty fields of Blood Gulch. Halo: Combat Evolved, now released for TheMaster Chief Collection on PC, looks today exactly as it always has in my mind’s eye: the same as it was on chunky CRT TVs at splitscreen LAN parties, the same as it was on  the PCs in my high school 3D modelling class. My memory, of course, is wrong.…

Ten years after the Wright Brothers outwitted gravity at Kitty Hawk, the revolution they started went into overdrive when European militaries realised flying machines were useful for more than just reconnaissance. Microsoft Flight Simulator experienced a similar growth spurt a decade after its birth, but happily in its case all-out war wasn’t the spur. Flight Simulator 4.0 inadvertently turned a franchise into a hobby by throwing open the hangar doors to all and sundry. The 1989 release came with a simple tool that allowed users to tinker with airframes and flight characteristics. More significantly, it was designed with the kind of porous edges and friendly file formats that helped people to build tools for it. Soon meddlers had access to a pair of powerful aircraft and scenery editors. Within a…

DEVELOPER CAPCOM • PUBLISHER IN-HOUSE residentevil.com When I first encountered the Nemesis in Resident Evil 3, a monstrous bio-weapon sent by the Umbrella Corporation to hunt and kill protagonist Jill Valentine, I felt my pulse rise. This towering stack of ugly muscle can move alarmingly fast, snag you with a pair of slimy tentacles, and even use weapons, including a colossal rocket launcher. You can outrun the Tyrant in the Resident Evil 2 remake fairly easily. Wait for a gap to open up, then slip through it. The worst he can really do is give you a firm slap. But running can’t save you from the Nemesis. It stalks you relentlessly through the zombie-ravaged streets of Raccoon City, and always feels one step ahead of you. Seeing something that big…

DEVELOPER BONUSXP • PUBLISHER EN MASSE ENTERTAINMENT bit.ly/2OswL9e I love strategy games. I love The Dark Crystal. But heading into this adaptation of the Netflix TV series, I was pretty sceptical of the idea of squishing the two together. It’s a pleasure to report that while Age of Resistance: Tactics never fully justifies the combo, it’s a far richer and more substantial game than you might expect. For those unfamiliar, the show (itself spun out from a 1982 cult movie) takes place in a strange fantasy world, represented primarily through puppetry and animatronics, where the peaceful Gelflings are oppressed by the parasitic Skeksis. The game loosely retells this story, with a few new diversions, though in a way jumbled and fleeting enough that anyone who hasn’t watched the series will…

DEVELOPER ID SOFTWARE • PUBLISHER BETHESDA SOFTWORKS bethesda.net/game/doom I just finished Doom Eternal and I’m feeling anxious and exhausted. I’ve kneed the underside of my desk too many times to count from tensing up. My hands are soft from sweating and my knuckles crack when I try to make a fist. A computer game actually managed to hurt me. Doom Eternal is a celebration of excess. Excess in sin, in violence, scale, speed, and volume. I’ve never played a shooter this intense and demanding. Doom Eternal also runs beautifully on a wide range of hardware and feels designed for a mouse and keyboard first. It’s a modern classic, with a few caveats. Cheap deaths from getting stuck on geometry happen too often. There are six or seven layers of unnecessary…

PRICE $6,499 www.amd.com “The 3990X operates at a base frequency of2.9GHz but can boost up to 4.3GHz when thermal and power conditions allow it..” AMD has been going from strength to strength with successive iterations of its Zen architecture, most recently culminating in the ultra-high end Threadripper 3-series. The entry level 24-core 3960X we reviewed last month decimated Intel’s entire HEDT lineup, and by some margin. The 3970X 32 model is equally impressive. But, the best was yet to come. Hidden away inside a press deck was a tease of the 3990X, a 64 core flagship behemoth that teased unprecedented levels of parallel computational power. It introduces a completely new paradigm to the consumer marketplace. So powerful is the 3990X, it may be too much processor for consumer level software…

PRICE $429 www.seagate.com PCIe 4.0 SSDs have been trickling onto the market ever since the launch of AMD’s X570 platform, though they remain very much enthusiast- and prosumer-oriented drives, at least until we see budget chipset support and particularly support on Intel platforms. Seagate is the biggest company yet to jump aboard the PCIe 4.0 train with its FireCuda 520 series SSD and its specifications look very tasty indeed, easily faster than the best PCIe 3.0 drives. At $429 for the 1TB model, it’s definitely on the pricey side though. Is all the raw speed worth it? The Seagate FireCuda 520 is a standard form factor M.2 2280 (80mm length) NVMe drive. In something that’s rare among PCIe 4.0 drives, the FireCuda 520 doesn’t come with a heatsink. This might…

ECHO SIGMA BUG-OUT BAG PRICE $250 • DISTRIBUTOR ECHO-SIGMA echo-sigma.com As we wall ourselves up inside our homes, it’s difficult not to want to be more prepared. Something that could help is a bug-out bag. With a bit of research it’s easy to build your own, customised to your needs, but if that sounds like too much work and you still want that safety net, consider something pre-made. POWERED UP: Rations, tools, first aid kit, safety gear, weather protection... you get the idea. All the essential items you’d need for immediate survival if you ever had to just get up and go. PLAYED OUT: Feels like a short step from this, to burying a bunker in your backyard. ASTRO SLIDE 5G PRICE $839+ • DISTRIBUTOR PLANET https://bit.ly/2ytAgXA Haven’t we been…