Table of contents for Issue 249 in PC Powerplay

FEEDBACK #248 Matthew Schmidt: It was a good issue, really chockers - covered an excellent range of tech, games and 2015 GOTY. Also - as an aside - now DVD is back for all copies - it makes it harder for the postie to bend and jam the subscription in the mail box! BOO YAH! Less creases in my covers! MAKE YOURSELF HEARD! facebook.com/pcpoweplay www.pcpowerplay.com. au LETTER OF THE MONTH AAARGH! Hi guys. I’m beginning to find myself more and more disillusioned about the state of AAA gaming. I don’t know if I’m just being cynical, but 90% of the stuff that comes out nowadays just seems to be a sequel or a remake, and that remaining 10% just seems to be made up of unoptimised console ports. The…

“The Following is a big expansion approximately twice the size of the explorable areas in Dying Light” DEVELOPER TECHLAND PUBLISHER TECHLAND PRICE $49.99 AVAILABLE AT STEAM, RETAIL dyinglightgame.com Hang a sec...*wipes blood from eyes* Right, where was I? Oh yes, The Following -- Techland’s much anticipated expansion for Dying Light that also brings with it a free upgrade for the base game. This alone is worth the price of admission, adding updated models, improved AI, new sounds and weapons, and much more to the zombie survivalfest that is Dying Light. But The Following, oh boy, you’re in for a treat! Excuse me one moment... *molotovs a group of zombies getting too close.* Mmm... smell that crispy flesh! Right, so The Following is a big expansion approximately twice the size of…

“the class system of Grim Dawn is still incredibly deep and demands some serious theorycrafting” DEVELOPER CRATE ENTERTAINMENT PUBLISHER CRATE ENTERTAINMENT PRICE $24.99 AVAILABLE AT STEAM www.grimdawn.com It has taken a long time for Grim Dawn to finally reach release. First announced around six years ago, Grim Dawn is the indie brainchild of a number of ex Iron Lore developers who took the Titan Quest engine with them as part of a severance package when the studio was closed down. Modifying the already quite impressive engine and using the experience gathered creating the excellent Titan Quest and its sequel, Crate Entertainment launched a hugely successful Kickstarter campaign to finish their first independently produced game. After years of closed beta and early access feedback, the game has finally hit the virtual…

“A half-second lapse in effective raft control will leave Scout with two broken legs” DEVELOPER THE MOLASSES FLOOD PUBLISHER THE MOLASSES FLOOD PRICE $19.99 AVAILABLE AT STEAM themolassesflood.com Some of the most unsettling apocalypse stories are the ones where you’re never quite sure if there’s been a apocalypse, or if the apocalypse is still underway, or just revving up, or whatever. The original Mad Max is the lectotype for ambiguous apocalypse, and obviously The Flame in the Flood is very different... if not necessarily any less brutal. A closer match is Rivers, a novel by Michael Farris Smith that tells of a near future US constantly smashed by an endless line of hurricanes. It causes the collapse of civilisation along the Gulf Coast. The Flame in the Flood could be…

Another year has passed through the PC PowerPlay labs, which means I’ve mashed my fingers on countless motherboards, grazed my knuckles on a gazillion GPUs, and had the occasional electric shock or two while testing power supplies. It also means it’s time to sit back, take a breath, and see which goodies took out the Tech of the Year awards for 2015. I’ve now been blessed with the job of technology reviewer for over 16 years, and have to say that 2015 was a rather big one in terms of innovation. While it’s becoming trickier than ever for Intel and AMD to create faster CPUs, the rest of the hardware industry found ways to improve on their goodies. Monitors in particular picked up steam, thanks largely to Nvidia’s G-Sync technology.…

PRICE $249 www.logitech.com/en-au Logitech lost its grip on the gaming keyboard market in the years following the glory days of the G15, and the subsequent rise of the Cherrys. But it’s been fighting back and the G810 is its best yet, which is good because the last one, the G310 was an overpriced poorly designed bit of rubbish. The G810 is a good looking unit. It’s clean and classy with no silly style shenanigans to wreck the elegant vibe. The only bits that stand out are the media volume roller wheel, which looks fantastic, and the illuminated G, which also looks damn cool. A subtle combination of materials and surfaces add more class. The base is soft rubberplas, the edges a nice gloss black and the keys themselves have a…

01 View Master Price: $40 • Distributor: Mattel www.view-master.com Way before Oculus, before NVIDIA bundled shutter glasses with their high end video cards, consumer 3D experiences were delivered through the humble View Master. It was as simple as inserting a wheel of images into a plastic set of goggles, and clicking the lever. POWERED UP: Making use of a smartphone and app, the new View Master VR is essentially the same product, updated for the digital age. Look through to places you may never see in person. PLAYED OUT: Perhaps relying a little too heavily on nostalgia, it does seem like appeal would be limited to novelty value. 02 Cat S60 Price: $800 • Distributor: Caterpiller www.catphones.com Most of us know the pain of a dropped phone. That moment where…

“It used a custom artificial intelligence engine to simulate every single person involved” During the Lunar New Year sales I picked up Elite: Dangerous on sale, despite it being a somewhat dangerous proposition. Ah? Ah? Ah. The reviews on Steam are classified as “mixed”. More than most other platforms mixed on Steam is truly indicative of an ambiguous reaction to something; I find it genuinely hard to make a decision about a game when I’m confronted by that little word. But, being a sucker for space things I bit. It wasn’t a poor choice. Well, at least 41 hours later it hasn’t been yet. I appreciate the criticism. It’s an entire galaxy rendered for you, with about six things to do in it. That is highly problematic. The game feels…

If you bought a video game in 2015, congratulations! You’ve helped Australia’s video game industry reach its biggest year yet, to the tune of $2.83 billion worth of sales. That’s another year of double digit growth, with sales increasing year on year by 15 per cent from 2014. The figures, released today by the Interactive Games & Entertainment Association, track sales of software (both physically bought and digital), game subscriptions, and hardware across all gaming devices, including mobile. Digital has seen a huge increase, up 27 per cent to a massive $1.589 billion, outstripping bricks and mortar sales. They still rose, however, but only by two per cent. “It has been another very strong year of growth for the Australian video games industry” said Ron Curry, CEO of IGEA, in…

The HTC Vive VR headset has just gotten an official price in all 26 of its launch territories, including Australia. And, unsurprisingly, we get a little shafted by the good old Australia tax In the US, the Vive casts $US799 - which at current exchange rates is a hefty $1100 Australian. However, the official retail price of the Vive in Australia is $US899 - so, $1260 in our hard-earned local bucks. Of course, with the price being listed in US dollars a sudden and unforeseen resurgence of the Australian dollar would see the price drop. But that’s remarkably unlikely. HTC Vive pre-orders are open now, if you have the money to spare. You can see what other countries are paying here, on the official blog announcement - http://blog.htcvive.com/us/2016/02/internationalpricing-for-vive-pre-order/.…

DEVELOPER FROMSOFTWARE PUBLISHER BANDAI NAMCO DUE MARCH 24 www.darksouls3.com Starting Dark Souls 3 as a Thief is inadvisable if you’ve taken something of a hiatus from the series. Of all the classes available at character creation, the Thief is second only to the Deprived in terms of starting weakness, with a soul level of 5 compared to the 8-10 for most other classes. Armed with a dagger and a bow, the Thief has an interesting play style dedicated to head shot sniping and backstabs, but unless you have the timing of dodging down to a fine art they are also extremely squishy, something made all the more apparent by the slightly enhanced combat speed in Dark Souls 3. Although not as arcadey as Bloodborne, fights in Dark Souls 3 are…

DEVELOPER UBISOFT MONTREAL PUBLISHER UBISOFT PRICE $60.95 AVAILABLE AT STEAM, UPLAY, RETAIL Ubisoft.com/en-AU/game/far-cry-primal HOLLINGWORTH: Far Cry 4, for all its fun moments and whacky badguy lines, really did seem to be pushing the formula too far into formulaic. The car chases were getting old, climbing towers to open territory was getting old, even the hunting was getting old. I can remember thinking to myself that I really would not be interested in Far Cry 5 if it kept finding new and exotic locations to have the same old firefights in. Thankfully, Ubisoft seemed to be listening, and this… Far Cry: Primal, which is basically the same construction - a wandering hero must unite his people against a range of badguys, while claiming territory and generally killing his way to victory.…

“should I concentrate on the laughably weak story mode and the overall lack of content” DEVELOPER CAPCOM, DIMPS PUBLISHER CAPCOM PRICE $59.99 AVAILABLE AT STEAM streetfighter.com Street Fighter V is a hard game to review for a number of reasons. It makes you question your priorities when thinking about a review. Should I concentrate on the tight fighting engine, the mostly well balanced roster of characters, the excellent presentation and the cross-platform online multiplayer that is wonderful so long as you can get your machine to push out a steady 60fps? Or should I concentrate on the laughably weak story mode and the overall lack of content, the fact that the game launched with severe server problems that meant that player’s couldn’t access online content and had no real offline…

“Firewatch is a linear narrative with a bunch of embellishments that can be selected by the player” DEVELOPER CAMPO SANTO PUBLISHER PANIC PRICE $19.99 AVAILABLE AT STEAM firewatchgame.com Okay so first things first: would anyone have given as much of a shit about Firewatch if it had been a text adventure? I’m sorry: I mean, INTERACTIVE FICTION. Words on a screen. Verb-object responses to move the story forward. Do the graphics exist just to get the kids on board? The game has artistically beautiful (if technically reasonably modest) 3D visuals that push cartoonishly intense sunsets, impossibly green foliage, ultra-clean geology and occasional cute animals over realism. Yes, the screenshots got the game attention. But does the actual, you know, game part deliver? The reason I mention interaction fiction at all…

“The PC version of the game is a port of the limited edition Mega Black Label arcade machine” DEVELOPER CAVE INTERACTIVE PUBLISHER DEGICA PRICE TBA AVAILABLE AT STEAM deathsmiles.caveshmups.com Deathsmiles is what you get when you combine J-Pop, Gothic Lolita magic girls and one of the greatest ever shmup developers. It’s a colourful, crazy, highly addictive bullet hell nightmare featuring five colourful little magic girls each capable of blasting the hell out of the monstrous enemies with their impressive looking spells. Broken into four difficulty levels – 1, 2, 3 and 999 – Deathsmiles allows players to chart a non-linear course to the final destination, a showdown with an evil wizard who is not only responsible for all the monsters flooding the world, but is also looking to tear open…

After 10-years of gamer focused design and hardware implementation, the ASUS Republic of Gamers, or ROG for short, has time and again demonstrated an understanding of the needs and wants of gamers. This has resulted in the ROG R&D team pushing the boundaries of innovation. This innovation has led to many stunning gaming-focused hardware solutions and has built a reputation of high quality, great capability and striking design. Renowned for delivering definitive gamer focused hardware solutions, you can’t go wrong with ROG! ROG MAXIMUS VIII FORMULA The ROG Maximus VIII Formula represents ongoing development and a constant search for incredible, new and industry leading options for gamers. Whether you’re a hardcore gamer, casual gamer or even a hardware enthusiast focused on overclocking and gaining the utmost out of your system,…

PRICE $59 cougargaming.com The left and right buttons of the 450M, as well as the mouse wheel are excellent. The fast and accurate Omron switches in the left and right buttons have a nive resistance and a very satisfying click and the mouse wheel is situated in a gap between the left and right buttons rather than embedded in the body of the mouse itself, making it both a pleasure to use and easy to clean. The ambidextrous design of the mouse houses two thumb buttons on either side of the main body. THese buttons are positioned a little too far forward for our taste, but are still definitely usable and thanks to the pretty user friendly configuration software are easily programmable. The 5000 DPI optical sensor and 1000Hz polling…

“Why would people ask this? It may well be that Eve: Valkyrie could be too arcade-like for their personal taste” Back in the 1990s there was a small contingent of games that you couldn’t help but play even if you tried hard to avoid them. Games like Wolfenstein 3D, Doom and Descent were either on your PC at home, your mate’s PC or they were playing demos at your local department or games store. These games paved the way for games like Duke Nukem 3D, Quake and Forsaken. Descent (Parallax Software, 1995) was one of the harder of the three and in a genre all of its own because it was a shooter with six degrees of freedom – meaning that you could move your spacecraft in six different axes.…

This watercooled SFF gaming rig was built to replace my prehistoric Core 2 Duo & 9800 GTX - it was a phenomenal jump in computing power. 4 MOST IMPRESSIVE FEATURES: 1) 2 MSI GTX 970’s in SLI with full cover EK waterblocks and backplates. 2) A full custom loop. 3) The case, a Parvum S2.0. 4) Mayhem’s Pastel Ice White Coolant - I love the look it gives. LAST UPGRADE: An ASUS PG279Q for 1440p, smooth as butter gaming. DREAM UPGRADE: A better chair to support my posture and complete the look! I’ve been using an outdoor setting chair for far too long. FAVOURITE FEATURE: With high overclocks and continuous stress testing to achieve the best results possible, the temperatures remain incredibly low. I will never make the switch back…

“While Offworld is primarily a game of economics, Soren has made his game as scientifically plausible as possible” WHO SOREN JOHNSON WHERE MOHAWK GAMES WHY OFFWORLD TRADING COMPANY Soren Johnson has a great deal of experience in the strategy gaming genre – he coded the AI in Civilization III, and he was the lead designer of Civilization IV (he coded the AI for that, too). With decades of experience behind him, you’d think he’d be the last dev in the world to be second-guessing himself. Yet when he set out to create Offworld Trading Company he decided that the feedback made possible by early access would be invaluable. “Until you put your game in front of real people you only really know maybe half of what you need to know…

“A significant part of FSP’s testing process is a Highly Accelerated Life Test (HALT)” Power supplies may seem mundane, but they can make or break the stability of your gaming rig. Modern gaming rigs have intense power requirements, as well as looking good all lit up through the window of your case. That 400W grey tin box just won’t cut it in 2016. Luckily, FSP Group has you covered, both in reliability and in aesthetics. FSP GROUP You may not have heard of the FSP Group, but they’ve been around since 1993, developing power supplies for dozens of OEMs around the world. They worked together with Intel to develop the first ATX power supply - they’ve been in the game that long. Around 2003, FSP began developing their own brand…

“the player is outnumbered and outgunned by the faceless red goons that shatter like glass” DEVELOPER SUPERHOT TEAM PUBLISHER SUPERHOT TEAM PRICE $24.99 AVAILABLE AT STEAM Superhotteam.com Originally developed as part of a seven day game jam, Superhot isn’t quite like anything you’ve played before. Best described as a puzzle FPS, the core concept of Superhot is that time moves at a crawl, only speeding up to real time when the player moves, turning a gunfight into a series of intuited moves and strategic positioning. The conceit of the game is that you have been given the cracked code to an unreleased game by a friend, breaking between gaming sessions to grab a newly cracked version of the game and have a chat with your friend about your experiences in…

“There’s possibly a child, too, if the creepy and empty children’s room is anything to go by” DEVELOPER BLOOBER TEAM SA PUBLISHER ASPYR PRICE $US19.95 AVAILABLE AT STEAM layersoffear.com/ Layers of Fear takes its time building up its scares, but when they do start coming, they will leave a serious tingle at the base of your spine, and an urge to sleep with the light on. And it delivers those scares with an amazingly light touch. When the game starts, you – the player, taking on the role of the game’s main character – are more or less in the dark. There’s no pre-amble, intro scene, or text-crawl – you’re at the door of a house, that’s it. You need to puzzle every last detail out via exploration – who…

“WATD is no hack and slash RPG and won’t be to everyone’s taste” DEVELOPER WHALE ROCK GAMES PUBLISHER WHALE ROCK GAMES PRICE $14.99 US AVAILABLE AT STEAM www.wearethedwarves.com In a time that can only be described as a ‘renaissance in gaming’ when indie games developers are producing games with original concepts and back to basics playability, it’s become increasingly difficult for developers to find exciting new stories and game concepts that break new ground. We Are The Dwarves does this and for that it should be praised. It’s a single player tactical RPG that tells the story of three Dwarven astronauts whose home world power sources are dying, so they venture out into space only to have their spaceship crash and be wrecked on a strange alien world. It’s a…

PRICE $99 www.rapoo.com While some segments of the mechanical keyboard market are exploding upwards into $300+ territory, there are low-cost options, such as this $100 unit from Rapoo. With a street price likely to be closer to $80, the V500 is butting heads with premium membrane or scissor-switch keyboards like the Roccat 300K. Products like the Roccat offer a full spread of keys including media controls and a numpad, while the Rapoo V500 is a short tenkeyless design. So it comes down to the feel of the mechanical keyboards. Proper Cherry switches are used, and I tested a Brown model. It, of course, fees exactly the same as any Cherry Brown keyboard, including those close to $300, so there’s a good start. The styling is minimalist with no notable protrusion…

PRICE $49 www.gigabyte.com The first peripheral launched in Gigabyte’s new “Xtreme Gaming” line isn’t exactly what you would normally call extreme (or xtreme if you prefer), but it definitely shows real promise for the new line. Designed to be ultra ergonomic and suitable for all right handed grip styles. As a result the mouse is a little on the large side but still very comfortable. Under the matte plastic shell sits some great hardware, with Omron switches for the left and right mouse clicks and a pretty damn good optical sensor. The Pixart 3988 optical sensor isn’t the terrifying powerhouse featured in some far more expensive mice, but it’s definitely as gaming workhorse, thanks to a top resolution of 6400 DPI (hardware accelerated) adjustable at 50 DPI increments. The Xtreme…

“software will take your 3d object model and mathematically slice it up into layers” One of the “hot” topics at the moment is 3D printing. The idea that you can quickly and easily print out plastic parts, sculptures and pretty much anything your mind can imagine has lit the creative fires under many people. Even though they may be outside the price range of most users, the technology is becoming more accepted and prices are coming down (you can get a DIY kit now for around the $500 mark). But just what is a 3D printer. What components go together to make it up and how does it work. Let’s take a look. There are several competing technologies that power 3D Printers, which wildly affect the price. 3D Printers can…

“For an indie team, their game is everything. They literally have everything riding on that one title” Oh Street Fighter, why do I still love you so, even when your latest iteration is more of a tease than a real game? Street Fighter V is emblematic of a problem that is pervasive in PC gaming – the all too common failure to launch in a meaningful or even finished manner. In the case of Street Fighter, even though the server problems were apparent during the beta weekends, the game still launched with severe connection problems, something that wouldn’t be so bad if there was any meaningful single player content or if players were even rewarded in a meaningful way for what they did offline. None of those were the case.…