Table of contents for Issue 311 in PC Powerplay

This month Finished the final level in PC Gaming Magazine Publishing, then relaxed deeply into his gaming chair, closed his eyes for a moment and smiled, before hitting Exit Game for the last time. It's never nice or easy to say goodbye, but, sadly, it is indeed time to farewell PC PowerPlay. This is the last issue of PCPP. For almost 30 years we've been sharing the gaming goodness with Australians, and we are all immensely proud of what we've achieved. For many of you, for a very long time, PC PowerPlay was the go-to source for all things PC gaming and gear. We shared our excitement, and we heard your passion in return. PC gaming is just the best damn thing there is, and we loved making every single…

Oh, hello again. It's been two years, roughly, since I last wrote for PC PowerPlay, delivering a dew-eyed recollection of what was then 300 issues – a magnificent unbeaten triple-century, bat raised in triumph to the Members Stand – of Australia's number one PC games magazine. Now I'm back, two years and eleven issues later, to eulogise the death of Australia's last PC games magazine; the innings faltered, the tail didn't wag, and we trudge back to the pavilion, all out for 311. I suspect Ben asked me to contribute here because of all the fine people to have written for PC PowerPlay over the last 30 years I think I may well have written the most. You may not have seen my name recently, but I was there for…

1 month METAL GEAR SOLID DELTA: SNAKE EATER RELEASE August 28, 2025 | DEVELOPER Konami Snake returns in, arguably, his most memorable mission to date. And this time he looks better than ever thanks to a UE5 glow-up. Tense espionage action awaits. HELL IS US RELEASE September 4, 2025 | DEVELOPER Nacon A stylish sci-fi third-person action-adventure game set in a future dystopia where the world has descended into civil war and strife following a mysterious calamity. BORDERLANDS 4 RELEASE September 12, 2025 | DEVELOPER Gearbox The mayhem-fuelled looter-shooter returns with promises of billions of weapons, outrageous enemies and intense co-op action. Here's hoping it's better than the movie! 2 months THE OUTER WORLDS 2 RELEASE October 29, 2025 | DEVELOPER Obsidian Entertainment Further interplanetary action and adventure from Obsidian,…

Presumably the name Tom Clancy's Syndicate was already taken, as Rogue Point takes the Rainbow Six template and fills it with mercenary goons working for rival corporations. They're not cybernetically enhanced – at least not in the demo build – as Rogue Point takes a more realistic approach to its corpo-combat. PLAYED IT This means you'll die easily, and as with other team-based tactical shooters you'll need a mix of planning, communication and teamwork to make it through the mission alive. Blasting the first merc you see with a shotgun may be effective in the short term, but this just means his boss inside is alerted, and will shoot you with unerring accuracy through the window while more bad guys (who come in various forms, including snipers and a berserkers…

With Jurassic Park back in the cinemas and not doing too badly, what better time to start running and screaming from dinosaurs? And so it goes, as you're shipwrecked on a mysterious island and asked to survive in the face of human mercenaries with guns as well as actual living dinos. FIRST LOOK The cretaceous creatures aren't always hostile. They're wild animals, but thanks to a device provided by a disaffected employee of the company that's behind both the reincarnated monsters and the mercs, you can attempt to communicate with them, control them to attack your enemies, or send them through small gaps to open new paths and sneak around the bad guys. There's even a baby T-rex. This is tempered with the usual busywork of the survival game –…

4 The Aspects are a faction devoted to harmony, balance, and peaceful coexistence with the peoples of Saiadha. They live in symbiosis with a living coral that connects them through a vast psychic network called the Chorus, allowing them to communicate and reach consensus. This unity was disrupted by a mysterious disaster known as the Great Dieback, which devastated the coral reefs and weakened many Aspects’ connection to the Chorus. Now, they must nurture the coral back to health to restore their realm and help bring balance to the world once more. Ideal for players who prefer economic growth and exploration over warfare, the Aspects expand not through traditional camps, but by placing coral spores. These spores spread across the map, turning tiles into coral-overgrown zones that offer vision, resource…

Not since Bob Hoskins’ Mario shoved his face down a woman's top have I witnessed such a bizarrely adult reimagining of a family-friendly character. While Shadow Labyrinth never goes that far this is still a game in which Pac-Man helps you slaughter monsters with brains on the wrong sides of their skulls. Then he helpfully swallows their spines afterwards so you can spend them at the shop. Well, technically it isn't Pac-Man. Here your companion is called Puck, a cute nod to what was almost Pac-Man's name/a helpful distancing of this monster from being considered the real deal. Because Puck is a manipulative, untrustworthy devil on your shoulder who's unlikely to be fronting any Saturday morning cartoons anytime soon. You actually play as someone Puck summoned from another dimension to…

Early in 2023, rumours began to circulate that Apple had plans to introduce a subscription service for iPhone hardware. Users would pay a monthly fee, and in return they'd get access to, but crucially not ownership of, the latest available iPhone model, whenever it was released. This was different to buying an iPhone in instalments, or a ‘buy now, pay later’ credit plan. There was no end point. No final payment, after which the hardware became yours. Like the software on Xbox Game Pass, users would simply have been paying monthly to use it and when the monthly fees stopped, the access dried up. By late 2024 those – rumoured – plans had been scrapped by Apple, said analysts. They cited regulatory concerns and software considerations. For anyone with a…

My name is Agent Michael Thorton, and every dialogue is a minefield: two thirds of the options will turn me into The Most Cancelled Man Who Ever Lived. The Mass Effect-y archetypes I'm provided with correspond to the spy guy holy trinity: Borne (Professional), Bond (Suave), and Bauer (Aggressive). Aggressive Mike is a Renegade psycho, greeting an information broker by slamming his face into a bar. Suave Mike is a pervert. I want to strap him to the Clockwork Orange chair just to make him watch corporate anti-harassment training videos. Professional Mike? Nice guy. A little slow. I like the cut of his jib. And by god are this Unreal Engine 3 potato man and all his deep state pals rubbing off on me? I was worried mission control stalwart…

Arecent study from the Survey Center on American Life reported that 15% of US men said they didn't have close friends in 2021, compared with 3% in 1990. In the same period, the number of men with 10 or more close friends decreased from 33% to 13%. It's become known as a ‘friendship recession’ – the sad, once-removed cousin of the male loneliness epidemic. And, without wishing to sound flippant, I think I have the solution. Play Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth, a game that teaches the value of drinking cup sake with middle-aged men who really want you to be happy. There's something inspiring about Infinite Wealth's celebration of sincerity. The cast skews older than in most games, and it's refreshing to see a group of post-40 guys supporting…

I fear Grow a Garden's entire premise was ruined for me less than 30 minutes in, when another player handed me a gigantic watermelon. The monstermel turned out to be worth 800,000 sheckles – I was still barely scraping 1,000 at a time from my handful of strawberry and blueberry bushes, and in a flash the joy of ‘number go bigger’ had been felled at the hands of a kind stranger. Even before a gigantic fruit squashed my sense of accomplishment, I couldn't quite understand what it is about Videogame that's caused it to become one of the most popular experiences on Roblox right now. When I was playing it during an early weekday afternoon, the Roblox app claimed to have 3.2 million people growing and cultivating their own non-denominational…

Sometimes in this job, my decisions are easy. I see a game called Cop Bastard has released a demo, of course I download and play that demo. Simple. The question is, is there anything to it beyond a very good name? The answer: sort of? Set in ‘90s Japan, but seemingly taking most of its cues from Hong Kong action movies, Cop Bastard casts you as… well, a cop who's kind of a bastard, having decided to just murder his way through an entire building full of criminals. That makes for some retro shooter action – not quite boomer shooter, but in an older realm of fast-paced, uncomplicated blasting. You enter a room, you shoot whoever's in it, you hoover up ammo, and then you sprint into the next room.…

Utterly charming, this relaxed city design game lets you build and rebuild without needing to worry about resources. There's a big dollop of Townscaper in both the way it looks and plays, and if it can maintain these levels of chill and enchantment could be a great new addition to the genre. The island is a paradise. Bisected by a canal, it's a maze of plazas, parks, trees and housing, topped by a stone castle keep on the highest part. Villagers keep joining the burgeoning settlement, as do dogs, cats, ravens, sparrows and watchmen, and they often comment on how much they love the trees. It's not quite clear where they're coming from, as no boats arrive, but I'm glad they're here anyway. They also keep telling me they want…

PLAYED IT Stardew Valley except you're Pierre and people like you. Your store is a discount supermarket in a pixel-art village, selling cheap unlike the high prices charged in Pelican Town (though you do have a monopoly), and it's up to you to lay it out, decide what stock you'll carry, and how you'll expand the business in the face of local opposition to a newcomer. Of course you'll be able to win them around with good service.…

2 The Necrophage are one of the most aggressive and relentless factions. Their entire economy is centred around a single city ruled by their Queen. Unlike other factions, they do not rely on diplomacy or alliances – only conquest. Their forces feed on the land and their enemies, turning the battlefield into a resource for expansion and survival. Though restricted to a single city, the Necrophage can construct a vast network of tunnels, allowing their units to move swiftly across regions. These tunnels enable strategic flexibility and make it possible to strike from unexpected directions. Even without founding new cities, the Necrophage can control territory by seizing regions and funnelling resources to their capital. Their military focuses on overwhelming force. Most units are designed to deal increasing damage and to…

I am but a simple creature, my idea of a good gaming time with friends is yapping about how our days have been while blowing monsters to smithereens, it's a good way to take the frustration out. So in that respect, Killing Floor 3 does a great job. It places you and some friends into the heart of a horde of zeds with various weapons and says, “Have at it”. Killing Floor 3 is exactly what you would expect. It's you and a bunch of guns against hordes of bioengineered monsters. The matches are made up of five waves, with a boss fight at the end. Regardless of whether it's just you playing solo or with a team in multiplayer, things can get quite hairy in the later stages. Luckily,…

We meet Mick Carter as a homeless drifter. Due to some unspecified past trauma, he's abandoned his settled domestic life in a nameless Australian city for a self-flagellating transient existence. He's en route to home, where he's been beckoned to attend his mother's funeral. He does so reluctantly, because it draws him closer to a past he's deliberately abandoned. Shit hits the fan almost immediately. Not only is Mick forcibly ejected from his train carriage by a mysterious, possibly supernatural presence, but he's then framed for the murder of a homeless man in the seedy railway underpass he finds himself in. At first, The Drifter promises to be a dark character study wrapped in a mystery, but it proves to be more – to its detriment. The Drifter bills itself…

Like No Man's Sky if it had been doodled into an exercise book, Formless Star is a game about visiting an alien planet and recording all the weird animals that live there. And there are some really fascinatingly strange creatures here: like a sentient die, and a big pane of glass that insists on recklessly dashing everywhere, and an ‘animal’ that is actually the coolest pixel art mech I've ever seen. But Formless Star isn't a game about photographing these animals from a distance – it's a game where you discover the creatures by sidling up and interacting with them. Every one of the 61 creatures (well, maybe not the last one, which is a special case), rewards your curiosity with a funny factoid, and more importantly with unique functions…

You'd be forgiven for thinking that buying a GPU on a budget was a near-impossible task these days. But while retailer prices are still higher than we'd like, it's possible to pick up a brand new 1080p and 1440p graphics-cruncher from the likes of Nvidia, AMD, and Intel for sensible cash. From the surprisingly affordable Intel Arc B580 to the mid-range-munching AMD Radeon RX 9070, there's some serious competition in the reasonably-priced GPU market right now. So, if cash is king, these are your current options for keeping your bank balance frosty and your gaming PC bang up-to-date. GeForce RTX 5060 NVIDIA $649 Budget, but at what cost? 1 Nvidia's budget GPU has, on paper at least, a fair bit going for it. With a $550 to $650 street price,…

WHERE IN THE WORLD IS CARMEN SANDIEGO? A sneaky 1985 point-and-click that got us learning geography by accident. For shame, Carmen. THE OREGON TRAIL Pictured here in its modern form, this timeless dysentery sim has been teaching us that frontier life was hard for decades. DEMOCRACY Straight-faced strategy series less interested in you having fun than understanding the accountability of legislatures. THE MAGIC SCHOOL BUS That's more like it. A dangerously potent injection of primary colours and cheeriness, under the guise of learning.…

IAN EVENDEN THIS MONTH Lurked in the darkness, hoping not to be noticed. ALSO PLAYED Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines Stealth games are something I've always admired, ever since I sat and watched a friend playing Metal Gear Solid on his PlayStation, but have usually been unable to participate in. There's something about them that just rubs me up the wrong way. I'm not sure if it's the insta-fail nature of many of them, where a single moment of exposure leads to an army coming down on your fragile protagonist, or if it's the passive nature of hiding when you've invariably got an arsenal you could be using. I would much rather be an active participant in other people's doom. I am not a subtle gamer. There have been moments,…

It's tough to say goodbye. Especially when there's almost 30 years of amazing history in this story. But yes, the time has come and PC PowerPlay is bidding you farewell, and as you hold these pages, we know you're saying goodbye to us. Thank you. Every one of you, whether you've been enjoying PCPP since the 1990s, or have only ever bought a handful of copies over the years. We appreciate you being part of this adventure more than words can say. Ever since we started doing this, our single goal was to share the incredible excitement of PC gaming. To us, every day something cool would come along and all we wanted to do was to tell you excitedly about what we'd found, and what we know. We were…

HIGHS Gordon sea man Gabe Newell says he spends every morning scuba diving. Walking into Mordor Lord of the Rings Online's ‘Great Hobbit Run’ succeeds as players get lost inside Mount Doom. Classic clips EA finally proves it's listening to fans, and will let Battlefield 6 beta players have classic weapons. LOWS Doomed Romero Games reportedly met with Microsoft just a day before it pulled funding. Keep Killing Games European game publisher group responds to Stop Killing Games, claims the proposal “would curtail developer choice”. Executive dvsfunction Xbox exec suggests folks laid off by Microsoft use AI to “reduce the emotional and cognitive load”.…

HARVEST MOON 1996 This farm sim set the template still in use today: a young character inheriting a family farm and befriending the locals. FARMVILLE 2009 A breakout hit in the early F2P era, players could pay money for certain resources or to grow crops more quickly. STARDEW VALLEY 2016 Harvest Moon's indie successor made the cute life sim so popular, it's now one of PC gaming's most crowded genres. FARMING SIMULATOR 2008 This 3D series focuses on industrial-scale farming, putting you behind the wheel of giant tractors and combines.…

An acclaimed – albeit struggling – RTS studio developing a cute turn-based tactics game full of retro sci-fi Martians and animal soldiers sounds like one of those terrible April Fools’ not-jokes that inundate my beleaguered inbox every April 1. But Relic's Earth Vs Mars is very real. Relic takes big swings. Homeworld still feels like a groundbreaking RTS more than 25 years after it launched. Dawn of War and Company of Heroes pushed the troubled RTS genre forward at a time when most 3D strategy games were falling on their faces. Even when it misses, I still find myself a captive general, eagerly diving into battle after battle. Company of Heroes 3's dynamic campaign was a mess at launch, but it had so much promise and still held within it…

Isn't it kind of messed up that we selectively breed cats and dogs into asthmatic oddballs and then sell them to each other because we think they're cute? I love cats, but yeah, and that's basically what inspired Mewgenics, a game about breeding cats and sending them on adventures with turn-based combat (they're outdoor cats). To pull one of PCPP's favourite terms out of the bag, Mewgenics is systems-driven to its core, with so many abilities, traits, items, enemy behaviours, hazards and other effects at play in each cat battle that I was rarely certain about what exactly would happen when I clicked something. That ability will blow that enemy over there and then he'll get harpooned on the next round, and if he's bleeding that shark will attack him,…

There's very little that is funnier than a medieval illustrator trying to draw a horse they've never seen from an unaccustomed angle, and the developers of Scriptorium understand this. And they should, having released turn-based donkey-farting simulator and all-round good time Inkulinati way back at the beginning of 2024. PLAYED IT This time around, you're creating the illustrations. “It would be an honour,” exclaims our illustrator, a demure young lady, in response to a retired knight's request to draw a beast. “Although I've never seen one…” So we start with a Great African Beast, with legs like oaks, a nose like a branch, and some big teeth. Getting to work, I use the body and head of a donkey as a base, with a literal branch hanging off the front…

Welcome to Saiadha. It's nice here. There's plenty of coastal real estate for refugees from Auriga to build a new life, rich in resources and blissfully separated by sea channels from other races who might be looking for a fight. There are none of the harsh winters of the first Endless Legend's setting, but this new planet does have some meteorological quirks of its own. Endless Legend 2, Amplitude Studios’ new 4X which will be heading into Early Access this September, with a demo available on Steam by the time you read this, picks up after the first game, with the survivors of a hasty exit from its frozen planet – some familiar, some new – landing on an ocean world and having to deal with their new home's idiosyncrasies…

It might be a game set at an intersection, but The New Flesh ably demonstrates how to keep a small space feeling exciting, even as you trudge round its streets for the third or fourth time. In this first-person exploration game, you've arrived in a weird parallel city looking for videotapes to cram into a flasher's abdominal cavity. This creepy fella is your first quest-giver, though to be fair the tapes aren't hard to find, as you explore a chunk of an empty city and get teleported to several fantastical locations. It's like someone lopped off a wing of Cosmo D's surreal exploration game Off-Peak, then made it a licensed tie-in for the band Red Vox. So yes, that last bit: this game is sort of a promotional thing, containing…

ANALOGUE: A HATE STORY Chiller about an abandoned ship, and two onboard AI assistants to help you unravel the mystery. NOT FOR BROADCAST Rather than poring over archival material and scrubbing through clips, you're doing it all live. HOME SAFETY HOTLINE Is it mice? Is it bed bugs? No, it sounds like a supernatural entity you've inadvertently pissed off. ALAN WAKE 2 Though I was left wanting more from its gameplay, this mystery remains a real page turner.…