Table of contents for Issue 258 in PC Powerplay

COUGAR ANNOUNCES NEW MINOS X3 ESPORTS MOUSE Dedicated DPI and polling rate switches are just some of the features Cougar may be aiming at serious eSports contenders with its new Minos X3 mouse, but the versatile rodent has a range of features that any dedicated gamer will appreciate. The Minos X3 features a high-end PMW3310 optical sensor, with true 1:1 tracking. The design of the mouse body has a tapered shape that suits both fingertip and claw grips, while rubber sides improve mouse-grip. Underneath the mouse, flanking the optical sensor, are two switches, which control the X3’s DPI and polling rate. You can change either on the fly without messing about with driver software. Otherwise, the Minos X3 has six buttons, and the apparently ubiquitous adjustable backlighting. We don’t have…

“Whatever weird niche you’re making in, there are people to value it” At PAX Australia this year, I cosplayed Killing Time at Lightspeed. I bought the tights and the t-shirt. I was yellow. Did it cross my mind I’d be dressed as someone’s game while trying to meet literally every other indie designer, as a reviewer? Sure, but I’ve already written up KTALS and John’s other game is one of two at PAX this year with my music featured. I’m press who connects games with players, a fan (with many t-shirts), and a composer. These communities are becoming one. Being able to engage flexibly with designers relies on Generation XX being a place I can simply talk about what I’m playing and thinking. A Collection Aside takes an informal approach,…

DEVELOPER CREATIVE ASSEMBLY / 343 INDUSTRIES PUBLISHER MICROSOFT STUDIOS DUE 21 FEBRUARY, 2017 halowaypoint.com/en-au/games/halo-wars-2 The original Halo Wars was, both an Xbox 360 exclusive and the swan song of real-time-strategy (RTS) powerhouse Ensemble Studios. Fast-forward to today and an unexpected Windows 10 PC sequel is inching closer to release, built in collaboration between Total War developers Creative Assembly and Halo custodians 343 Industries. It’s not just the first Halo Wars 2 game on PC; it’s the first Halo release since Vista-exclusive Halo 2. “As we’ve moved our strategy with Xbox to Play Anywhere, we really wanted to lead with a game that was very PC specific,” explained head of 343 Industries Bonnie Ross. “[When] we shipped the first Halo Wars, the first thing people asked was, ‘Where is it on…

“Scouring through a stranger’s phone is a strange and affectingly intimate window into their life” DEVELOPER MONSOONLAB PUBLISHER MONSOONLAB PRICE $1 (NAME YOUR PRICE) AVAILABLE AT MONSOONLAB.ITCH.IO/SIM monsoonlab.itch.io/sim A stranger finds a pretty young Asian woman’s phone. It’s mostly fried, with only around 14% of the function remaining amongst the corrupted files. You know this because of IRIS, a rather creepy Cortana or Siri-like app that seems to be a little too self-aware to be usable. It shows you a short video of the girl running, looking around frantically and crying. What do you do when a phone starts asking you to find its owner by trawling through her private life – through videos, photos, chat logs, emails, and music? Sara is Missing is a short, experimental game that plays…

We’re not sure how Alienware managed to make a touchpad that glows, but it sure looks pretty PRICE $4,315 alienware.com In many ways, this is a very, very similar laptop to the 15-incher opposite, but on steroids. There’s an accompanying price hike to go with it, but if you’re looking for one of the finest 17.3-inch laptops around, look no further. It’s an old-school behemoth that’ll chew through its battery in minutes rather than hours, and weighs more than a small bus (Alienware don’t actually list its weight anywhere). But that’s exactly what some gamers are looking for: a gaming laptop that they only need to move occasionally, with a screen to rival desktop gaming machines. Once again we see a beautifully crafted anodized aluminium chassis, and Alienware has backed…

“Each earcup houses 40 mm drivers that deliver crisp, rich sound throughout the entire audio range” PRICE $469 astrogaming.com/A50 At $469, the Astro A50 headset is well into audiophile territory when it comes to price. It’s a huge amount of money to put down on a headset that is tethered to your PC (or console – the two versions of the headset are both compatible with PC but are also optimised for PS4 or Xbox One), but in this case you actually get what you pay for. The unit comes in two parts, the headset itself and the large base station that contains a charging cradle, external DAC, and Dolby 7.1 system. Setting up the headset is simplicity itself – plug in the base station, wait for the software to…

“If 1080p is where you want to be, this is one of the best widescreen monitors on the market right now” PRICE $1349 lg.com/au Pity the monitor manufacturers right now. They’re caught in an inflection point for panel technology. They can integrate all these amazing gaming-specific feature like “black stabilisation” and “dynamic action sync” and “1m motion blur reduction” but doing that on a 1440p (let alone 4K+) monitor would make the product too expensive. And that’s even before they curve it. So to bring this tech to a big 21:9 display at a price that’s merely extreme rather than untenable, they’ve had to drop the resolution to 2560x1080. That’s right: this gaming entry in LG’s excellent range of curved 21:9 monitors has a vertical resolution that won’t stress any…

“Cooler Master has made it very clear that this is not designed to be a high-performance water cooler” PRICE $160 coolermaster.com Cooler Master has taken the traditional All-in-One water cooler and utterly changed what to expect. This is a radically different take on the AIO design, merging all of the separate components into one rather sexy whole. But does it do a decent job? Most AIOs are comprised of a water block with built-in pump, attached to a separate radiator by way of a couple of tubes. They’re an easy way to get into water cooling, but they take up a lot more space than a standard air cooler. The MasterLiquid Maker 92 takes all of these bits and pieces and smooshes them together into a single unit that is…

PRICE $109 coolermaster.com The Masterpulse Pro has, without a doubt, the best build quality we’ve seen in a $110 headset. The earcups are sturdy, large enough for all but the most elephantine of ears, and well padded, and the aluminium band that holds the whole thing together is robust and gives a real feeling of quality. A sprung strap seats the headset comfortably and negates the need for any extendable arms or other potential break point. The aluminium strap also makes for a good clamp, passively blocking a great deal of noise. A rather over-large in-line control/DAC gives access to volume control, mic muting, turning 7.1 surround on and off, and a number of EQ presets, but the fact that the switches are placed on the side of the controller…

PRICE $179 lucidsound.com The Lucidsound LS20 is the smaller brother of the excellent wireless LS30 headset. The design of the smaller headset is much the same as its premium grade sibling, with a well padded and sturdy metal headband, well cushioned earcups, and easy to use controls on each cup. The major difference comes with the size of the earcups. Instead of the over-ear design of the LS30, the LS20 instead features an on-ear design. This is perhaps the biggest drawback of the headset. The clamp is quite tight, so the on ear design isn’t comfortable over long periods, and the pressure makes your ears hot quite quickly. The headset is wired, but also can be charged to utilise the preset EQs and some amplification. The build quality is excellent…

CRITICAL RECEPTION I read an interesting story today and it made me wonder whether people in the games media copped the same kind of flack that film critics do. Apparently director Alex Proyas is a great hater of film critics, frequently slagging them off or calling them failed filmmakers and the like. He doesn’t seem to believe that anyone who isn’t a filmmaker is incapable of talking about film, and that criticism is a form of jealousy rather than critique. Do you guys get the same thing from game developers? There seems to be an equal amount of ego involved in both, but I’d argue that game developers are even more invested in their product that directors, given the amount of time, money and sweat put into a game, especially…

WARHAMMER 40,000: DAWN OF WAR III DEVELOPER RELIC ENTERTAINMENT PUBLISHER SEGA DUE 2017 dawnofwar.com Relic Entertainment’s original Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War was, for the most part, a traditional RTS, complete with the usual trappings: base building, economic considerations, and managing your army. For the sequel, Relic took a step away from the RTS balancing of macro (economy/base building) and micro (controlling squads and individual units) considerations and forged a campaign that was more Diablo than Dawn of War, ditching big picture stuff in favour of a small-scale, exclusive solo (or co-op) experience. For Dawn of War III, Relic hasn’t gone back to the drawing board as much as it’s thrown the first two games into a blender. From what I’ve played of it and discussed with game director Philippe…

DEVELOPER DYNAMIC PIXELS PUBLISHER TINYBUILD DUE 2017 helloneighborgame.com In 2003, Capcom released a PS2 survival horror game based on a computer generated anime series called “Gregory Horror Show”. The art style was simple and childish, with boxy characters and brightly colours. It was also a deeply unnerving game. Hello Neighbor is a similarly bright and colourful game that is equally unnerving. You play as a new home owner in a quiet suburb or town. As you begin moving into your new abode something goes horribly wrong, your sinisterly moustachioed neighbour apparently covets your house, and, after a brief altercation he makes it his. What’s worse is that your neighbour seems to be doing something terrible in the house. The opening cutscene shows glimpses of a young boy trapped in the…

“If difficult yet approachable puzzling isn’t your cup of tea, how does online bragging sound?” DEVELOPER GRITFISH PUBLISHER GREEN STRIPE SNAKE PRICE $9.99 USD AVAILABLE AT STEAM mallowdrops.com Good puzzle games ease players into the mechanics and style of the game and slowly ramp up the difficulty until things become deviously hard. The best puzzle games ramp up this difficulty in such a way that no matter how hard the puzzles become, the player can always find the solution through the skills they have eared playing up to that point, so never feel stupid or that the game is unfair. Mallow Drops is amongst this upper echelon of puzzle games. It’s a mix of simple controls and logical but complex mechanics all wrapped up in an appealingly colourful art style.…

“The narrator likes it when you kill things and tries to get you into as many scraps as he can” DEVELOPER SHANGHAI FANTABLADE NETWORK TECHNOLOGY CO., LTD. PUBLISHER X.D. NETWORK INC. PRICE $10.99 USD AVAILABLE AT STEAM n/a You are a robot girl named Icey. You have been brought online to kill someone named Judas. To achieve this end you have access to a huge number of combat moves, each unlockable or upgradeable through experience earned in fights. You are not alone. The world is crawling with all kinds of mechanical menaces that must be destroyed, and you are constantly accompanied by a disembodied and very pushy voice always telling you where to go. It’s possible to play through the entire game following the commands of the unseen narrator, and…

“Cooper is a trooper (and a trouper) who really wants to be a Titan pilot but isn’t one yet” DEVELOPER RESPAWN ENTERTAINMENT PUBLISHER EA PRICE $89.99 AVAILABLE AT ORIGIN, RETAIL www.titanfall.com The biggest problem with the Mechwarrior games has always been the way you can’t get out of your mech. Or in the various examples where you can do that, the way you can’t then bounce around the environment shooting people in the face. Titanfall popped up on our various gaming systems back in 2014 and was a (kinda brief in the mainstream) multiplayer hit. Texan tweens really dug the way they could crawl all over the walls and then jump into a giant robot and blow up the entire building. But Titanfall was multiplayer only. It had no singleplayer…

“The HP Support Assistant proved to be a major pain in the posterior – we recommend uninstalling it immediately” PRICE $3,699 hp.com This one appropriately named laptop. The dark red and black colour scheme hint at some kind of evil force trapped within, like Damien from the Omen. But fret not, gentle reader: there are no trapped horrors here. It just happens to be HP’s latest gaming laptop. In the past we haven’t been blown away by their efforts, but the Omen has definitely learnt from the lessons of the past. This is a large 17.3-inch model, with the screen using the good old HD standard, 1920 x 1080. There’s no high refresh rates, but it is G-Sync enabled.HP has gone for a very plain design, with the plastic chassis…

PRICE $219 asus.com.au Now that the low-end variants of Nvidia’s new Pascal GPU are starting to become more available, we’ve been sent a couple of other brands’ versions of this entry-level gaming card. The Asus GeForce GTX 1050 Dual Edition is arguably the cheapest of the bunch, at just $220 for a card that will deliver excellent performance in most games at middling settings. Has Asus had to take an axe to the GeForce GTX 1050 to get the price so low? To be frank, when we’re talking about graphics cards at this price point, manufacturers don’t have much wiggle room regarding budgets to add extra features, so don’t expect anything mind-blowingly different to other GeForce GTX 1050s. Asus has gone for a dual fan solution, and it’s covered by…

PRICE $69 modmic.com I rarely use dedicated gaming headphones when gaming – I much prefer the audio quality offered by high-end cans. But that leaves me with the dilemma of how to speak to my squad buddies. The Modmic solves this in one fell swoop, as it’s a clip-on mic that turns any set of headphones into a set ready to rock with your VOIP solution of choice. The mounting system is simple. There’s a tiny disk that sticks to either ear cup via regular sticky tape already pre-mounted to the disk. This is actually a small magnet, and the microphone boom then attaches to this. There’s a tooth-system so you can position the boom in just the right spot on the disk, and the boom itself also bends. Two…

PRICE $89 zowie.benq.com Although there are three different versions of the ZA mouse, the ZA11, 12 and 13, there are no internal differences as far as tech goes. Instead the number actually refers to the size, with the 13 being the smallest and lightest and the 11 being the largest and heaviest (though the 10 grams between the two is hardly noticeable). We tested the mid-sized model, the ZA12, and, for the most part have been quite impressed. Designed for pro gaming, the ZA series doesn’t feature macro recording, profiles, or any of the other fluff usually seen in gaming mice, as all those things are banned from competition. Instead what you get is a nice and accurate PixArt 3310 sensor, 5 buttons, and not much else. DPI can be…

PRICE $129.95 roccat.org The Cross is the most discrete headset released by the German peripheral manufacturer to date. Instead of large branding, massive earcups, and the attached boom mics that typified the Kave and Renga lines, the Cross instead looks like a normal set of headphones as at home connected to your phone or music player as to your PC. To this end, the Cross comes with two cables, one with a boom mic for gaming and the other with an in-line mic for use with a phone. The headset itself is elegantly understated and very light, weighing in at 185g. The earcups aren’t overlarge, but still roomy enough for most ears and the padding is comfortable. The only problem we had with the build quality was that the material…

01 Jyn’s Jacket $260 • Musterbrand musterbrand.com Stop the presses! Musterbrand has new Star Wars Rogue One gear! POWERED UP: Styled after Jyn Erso’s jacket in Rogue One, this light jacket is made of 100% cotton, with a Rogue One badge on the right sleeve and rippled tape effect on the left. The lining features a large rebellion logo. And as you can probably tell from the picture, it looks amazing. PLAYED OUT: Only made in the tapered style of a woman’s jacket, so if you aren’t okay with this, you can choose to miss out, or buy something in a fit you prefer (sizing charts are on the site). 02 Matrix Powerwatch $150 • Matrix The bane of smartwatches is their batteries. Use them for a couple of days…

“Gaming for me is a way to confront chaos and create order – to exert control over the uncontrollable” After months of planning and promising myself, I finally took the plunge and ordered parts for a new PC. It’s my first new PC in five or so years, if you don’t count my upgrade from a GTX 550 to a R9 380 last year. To go along with the new PC I’ve also purchased my first new monitor in a decade, upgrading my beloved 21” monitor with its offset stand making it look a whole lot bigger to a shiny new 27” 1440P G-Sync 144Hz Acer Predator XB1. In keeping with my normal rather spendthrift nature I am skimping with the GPU a little bit, opting for an ex-review GTX…

I’ve just recently built my first gaming rig in the past 6 months I’ve spent a lot of my spare time researching about building gaming desktops. I’m a father of 4 month old twins so time is hard to find, I managed to buy a few things second hand for a good price gumtree is definitely a life saver. I haven’t got the room for a actual computer desk but my change table does the job, after all gaming is life. And my babies love watching me play games when I can. MOST IMPRESSIVE ELEMENTS: 1. InWin 805 full tempered glass mid tower 2. G1 gaming gtx 970 3. Intel i5 6600k 4. 2x 16gb hyperx fury ram LAST UPGRADE: InWin 805 case DREAM UPGRADE: A z170 motherboard would be…

“Letting friends play together regardless of which headset they own will enhance the social nature of our games” As we’ve mentioned in past columns, virtual reality is going to live and die on the strength of its audience penetration. This is true of any new technology, but the cost of entry for VR is high enough that if you can’t find anyone else to enjoy multiplayer VR titles with, the platform will be in trouble. There’s already a lot of single-player content on VR platforms, but it’s multiplayer that provides a really sticky experience, and it’s what keeps players coming back to games over and over. It’s the communities that make and sustain games like Battlefield or World of Warcraft. But how do you build that on a platform which…

DEAD STATIC DRIVE DEVELOPER MIKE BLACKNEY PRICE TBA deadstaticdrive.com The first cab off the rank for this PAX round up is actually a modified, stolen car. We don’t know much about Dead Static Drive’s protagonist as yet, except that they can appreciate upholstery and aren’t averse to nicking anything convenient, including a police vehicle at a desert lock up. The sandbox-style demo begins on a dusty road with one objective; “I should find somewhere to crash.” You can turn on your headlights, but get an immediate feeling you shouldn’t. Seems like a normal road to somewhere, but something is not quite right. The game is very early in development and I chose it for the collection because, given my appreciation for how Australia’s indies have improved over the last two…

“you can hack into a camera, then another camera in line of sight, and then hack into a target” DEVELOPER UBISOFT MONTREAL PUBLISHER UBISOFT PRICE $79.95 AVAILABLE AT STEAM, UPLAY, RETAIL watchdogs.ubisoft.com After a two week delay following the console release, we’re pleased to say that not only does Watch_Dogs 2 play perfectly fine on PC, but that it may well be the best version of the game. Hacking and getting around San Francisco with a keyboard and mouse feels far more powerful, and a free day-one High Res Texture Pack makes the game look amazing. Ubi may have delivered some dodgy PC ports in the past, but we’re happy to report that Watch_Dogs 2 is not one of them. As to the game itself, it’s a far flight from…

 DEVELOPER GIANTS SOFTWARE “Maintaining a farm is a process similar to creating a massive Rube Goldberg machine” PUBLISHER FOCUS HOME INTERACTIVE PRICE $34.99 USD AVAILABLE AT STEAM, RETAIL farming-simulator.com It’s difficult to understand the overwhelming popularity of the Farming Simulator franchise, given the fact that it’s essentially a job simulator in which you perform repetitive tasks and virtual backbreaking labour to keep a farm afloat. While it is possible to hoon around on tractors, trucks, threshers and what have you, there’s a cost to not doing things in an orderly way. If this sounds kind of dull, that’s because it is. It’s also bizarrely satisfying. For those unfamiliar with how Farming Simulator games work, FS 17 features a set of basic tutorials to get city folk up to speed with…

“It’s during the second act that Tyranny’s problems become harder to ignore” DEVELOPER OBSIDIAN ENTERTAINMENT PUBLISHER PARADOX INTERACTIVE PRICE $44.99 USD AVAILABLE AT STEAM tyrannygame.com Tyranny’s a game about what happens when the bad guys win – appropriate, given recent political events. You are a minion in the armies of the all-powerful Kyros, a mysterious and terrible figure possessed of almost godlike arcane power. Kyros imposes her will with Edicts: magical decrees with enormous areas-of-effect that are activated and dispelled when certain conditions are met. During her war of conquest, Kyros uses Edicts to break stubborn resistance or to coerce disobedient underlings into action. Few things motivate like the wrath of a demigod. You’re a Fatebinder -- a kind of medieval Judge Dredd charged with executing Kyros’ law in occupied…

Comprised of sharp lines carved from anodized aluminium, it simply reeks of high-end manufacturing PRICE $3,099 alienware.com Alienware has come out of its corner swinging this quarter, releasing two sexy new laptops that adopt a beautiful new chassis design and top-end specs. Being Alienware we can expect some premium pricing, but with that comes build quality that’s hard to beat. We’re not big fans of overt neon lighting schemes, but Alienware has pulled it off perfectly here. A very slim line of neon extends around the sides of the chassis, including the lid, and the touchpad magically glows the same colour. The rest of the design is comprised of sharp lines, carved from anodized aluminium, and it simply reeks of high-end manufacturing. The entire unit is based around a 15.3-inch…

“Helpfully, Gigabyte supplies its own Xtreme engine utility to deliver one click performance adjustment” PRICE $245 gigabyte.com.au The performance increase between the GeForce GTX 1050 and 1050 Ti when measured as a percentage is almost identical to the price difference. That calculation is slightly different for this card though, as Gigabyte has gone for a $20 price premium over the competition with its version of the GeForce GTX 1050 Ti. Let’s take a look to see where that extra money went. Compared to the GeForce GTX 1050, the TI series gets double the memory, with this card shipping with 4GB of memory. That fact alone might be enough to persuade many gamers to spend a little extra, especially with the ultra-high resolution textures that we’re now starting to see more…

PRICE $329 ocz.com/us/ssd/vx500-ssd You’d be hard pressed to tell this was an OCZ product. After being acquired by Toshiba a couple of years back, they’ve relegated the OCZ branding to a tiny mention in the product name – the rest of the box is covered in prominent Toshiba branding. This is a standard SATA 3 (6Gbit/sec) 2.5-inch form factor drive; in this day and age of M.2 PCIe NVME drives it’s not exactly exciting, but the performance is good enough that you probably won’t notice whilst gaming. Most SATA 3 drives top out at the limit of the SATA 3 interface, and this drive is no exception. We measured a sequential read speed of 543MB/sec, while sequential write speeds hit 511MB/sec in the CrystalDiskMark 5 test. When it came to…

PRICE $199.95 roccat.org The Roccat Suora FX keyboard is the upgrade of the regular Suora frameless mechanical keyboard, adding the ever popular RGB lighting to the already very good keyboard. Rather than opting to use one of the more popular brands of key switches, like market leader Cherry or Kailh, the German peripherals manufacturer has instead gone with TTC switches for the Suora line. While this may seem like something of an odd choice, TTC has a fairly long history of creating micro switches for mouse buttons and reportedly has an ISO lab on site for switch certification. What does this all mean? It boils down to price and reliability. By going with a switch that is underutilised in the market (only MEK and Gamdias seem to be using TTC…

PRICE $145 soundblaster.com The aluminium headstrap and stirrups that hold the large earcups of the H5 headset are highly reminiscent of the design of the HyperX Cloud II. That’s not a bad thing at all. It’s a sturdy construction with an excellent clamp to prevent sound bleeding in or out, and it makes the headset feel like a premium bit of kit. The headset weighs in at 280 odd grams but thanks to the well-padded headband and large earcups it’s very comfortable for long gaming sessions. That said, the earcups are quite hot, so no matter how comfortable the headset is you’ll want to vent your ears on a regular basis. The headset comes with base metre or so long cable with in-line controls for volume control and muting the…