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PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2015Changing PC at E3For the past few years on PCGamer.com, in the days before the Electronic Entertainment Expo in June, we’ve published a joke article imagining “The E3 Press Conference PC Gamers Deserve.” It’s mostly been an excuse for us to daydream and write things like “...and then, through a fog of theater-grade dry ice, Gabe Newell materialized atop a unicorn to announce Half-Life 3.”E3, despite being a mostly exciting few days of announcements, has never given PC gaming an equal place at the table. We get valuable stories and interviews out of E3, but generally speaking it’s the time of year when Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo jostle for position about who can create the most buzz.We got tired of that.For the past several months, we’ve been working hard to organize the first…1 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2015HOT TOPICCould Halo still be relevant on PC?If they had released Halo 3 to PC with mod support it would be one of the best FPSes on PC and it would sell millions!Joakim TorkveenI wouldn’t say no to the remastered games on PC, even if they were capped at 60fps. At least we’d have them.Russell CopelandOf course. Halo is still a solid franchise. Is it for everyone? No. No game is. After playing the beta, I was pretty happy with the direction it’s going in. I also enjoyed Halo 4’s campaign and the multi worked flawlessly for me, so I have faith in 343. Damn shame MS is too stupid when it comes to this though. If it ported the remaining Halo games over it would make good bank, contrary to…3 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2015EVE VALKYRIE“It’s this opening that makes EVE: Valkyrie so memorable”The opening of an EVE: Valkyrie match is already one of the standout VR experiences. My ship is in a claustrophobic tunnel, surrounded by lights and noise. A siren blares and ‘Fly Safe’ flashes on my co*ckpit’s heads-up display. Then it happens: I’m ejacul*ted into space. The force is conveyed so well I can’t help but move my body backwards in anticipation. I emerge into a scene of devastation: the metal graveyard of a battle long past. It’s this opening that makes EVE: Valkyrie so memorable. It’s an instant and immediate thrill that plays well to the places Valkyrie has been demoed.Valkyrie started life as EVE-VR, a prototype space dogfighting game created by a small team within CCP. It was the reception…8 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2015RONINMy helmet-wearing avatar in this turn-based action platformer is dead. Again. This time, it’s because she was shot in the heel. I sigh. Reloaded. The old man must die. Sleep will slumber alone in my bed until my job is done.In Ronin, you play an acrobatic young woman out to murder five nefariouslooking figures from her indubitably dysfunctional childhood. You accomplish this through a mix of stealth and turnbased carnage, along with an optional dollop of Tarantino-flavored style.Set in a moody urban landscape, the preview build I played had three levels, all requiring me to initially either slip through computerized doors or break through windows. From there, it was a question of whether to go in sword blazing, or inch from shadow to ceiling in a bid to delicately murder…2 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2015A NEW HOPEIt’s day one of Star Wars Celebration in Anaheim, California, and I’m standing in the briefing room from Return of the Jedi, where Mon Mothma and Admiral Ackbar laid out the plans for the Rebel Alliance’s assault on the second Death Star. Barely an hour ago, Star Wars Episode VII director JJ Abrams revealed the second teaser trailer for The Force Awakens. Everyone in the room is starry-eyed, riding high on the rush of seeing Han Solo for the first time in 32 years.We’re not standing in the real briefing room from Return of the Jedi, of course, but a recreation built to showcase the public’s first real look at EA and DICE’s Star Wars Battlefront. The three-tier risers encircling the room are filled with journalists, not Rebel pilots. And…11 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2015BEST COAST“Everybody who actually lives in Los Santos hates it there”Need to knowWhat is it? The long-awaited new entry in the world’s most popular open-world crime sim.Influenced byGTA IV, Los AngelesReviewed on i5 760 CPU, 8GB RAM, 4GB GPUAlternativelyGTA IV, 92%Copy protection Steam, Rockstar Social ClubThere are times when I look at Los Santos and think ‘why would you even think to build that?’ This is, appropriately, a thought that I often have about Los Angeles. In GTA V’s case, the tone is different: baffled wonderment as opposed to baffled, y’know, despair.Rockstar has created one of the most extraordinary game environments you will ever visit. I look at it and I wonder at the vast expense of effort required to render every trash bag in every back alley just so. I…14 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2015BOY/GIRL THINGNeed to knowWhat is it? Tim Schafer’s tale of two worlds, connected yet separate.Influenced byDay of the TentacleReviewed on Core 2 Duo, 4GB RAMAlternativelyThe Book of Unwritten Tales 2, not reviewedCopy protection None“Highlights include an easily offended tree”And a year later, Broken Age is finally whole. I don’t think many of us were expecting over a year’s wait for its story to be concluded, for the girl who fought her fate to face the consequences and the boy who wanted an adventure to be given his wish. Talking about the result is tricky, as the nature of a certain key plot reveal at the end of Part 1 makes talking about just about any detail of Part 2 a major spoiler.I say ‘Part 1’ and ‘Part 2’, but it’s not…4 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2015MOUTHFULNeed to knowWhat is it? A new zone and questline intended for high-level players.Influenced by Conan the Barbarian, glow paint ravesReviewed on Intel i5 3.3GHz CPU, 16GB RAM, GTX 970Alternatively Go back to the Hinterlands.Copy protection Origin“It’s more Hinterlands than Winter Palace”Jaws of Hakkon adds a new open-world region to Inquisition: the Frostback Basin. Despite the name, this isn’t another icy plain: it’s a verdant, autumnal valley that varies from treacherous cliffside pathways to vine-tangled riverbanks and gloomy azure swampland.Your Inquisitor arrives in search of their predecessor, Ameridan, who vanished 800 years ago. This brings you into contact with the Avvar, Thedas’s southern barbarians. Their society is part-Cimmeria, part-Wildling, and they’ve never really been explored until now. One of the main draws of this DLC is getting to find out…3 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2015“Cersei knows I’m feigning loyalty to her idiot son”THE PC GAMER TEAMANDY KELLYThis month Tried to get on Cersei Lannister’s good side. Eventually gave up looking for it.Also Played Pillars of Eternity, GTA 5Game of Thrones is a show I love, and the gaps between seasons are torture. So I thought I’d play Telltale’s episodic adventure to tide me over. The show both entertains and stresses me, and the game is giving me the same feeling. This knife-edge tension is particularly sharp whenever the cruel, calculating Cersei Lannister is involved. She’s the mother of Joffrey, who is the ruler of the Seven Kingdoms and one of the most hateful, evil, punchable characters in the history of fiction.About an hour in I find myself in the great hall of the Red Keep, face to face with her, the famous…3 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2015“Click an enemy once and watch as they die from bears”CHRIS LIVINGSTONThis month Panda’d to his basest instincts in a fantasy RPG.Also Played Cities: Skylines, Grand Theft Auto VCan I play Pillars of Eternity as bears? Oddly, I don’t see the answer in Obsidian’s FAQ, so I’ve decided to find out for myself. I replace my entire party with rangers with bear companions, then leave my rangers standing still and proceed into the world as All Bears.Combat-wise, it’s similar to having six different party members, with one tiny difference: instead of strategically selecting different attacks, buffs, and spells, you just click an enemy once and then watch as they die from bears. Spiders don’t stand a chance, skeletons quickly become a pile of bones, and as for Wichts, I don’t even know how to pronounce them, but it doesn’t matter…1 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 20153 BLOODLINES: ANTITRIBUVampire: Bloodlines’ unofficial Wesp5 patch is pretty much essential for a first playthrough of Troika’s brooding, broken RPG, but once you’ve experienced the game as intended it’s time to go nuts and mod it for all it’s worth. The long-awaited Antitribu does just that; it’s an expansive and all-encompassing overhaul that adds a huge number of extra clans, disciplines and visual assets, along with a few new quests for you to undertake as well.The main draw of Antitribu is its seven new clans, drawn from the original pen-and-paper RPG. These include the voodoo-dealing Samedi (think zombie vampires in top hats), and the Egyptian Followers of Set. Each clan comes with a bunch of new abilities, including the power to turn sexy for exactly 15 seconds. Handy.www.bit.ly/Antitribu…1 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 20156 DEATH RAY MANTARob Fearon has been making very British, very silly shoot-’em-ups for years now, and he’s just made the lot available for free. Grab War Twat, Squid Yes Not So Octopus, and George’s Squizzy Griffin at the link below, but be sure to try Death Ray Manta.DRM bucks the modern trend for scorebased bullet hell gauntlets with a series of fast-paced stages that are over before you know it. Even as you die, thanks to a preponderance of puns and neon you’ll laugh and immediately begin again.www.bit.ly/DeathRayManta…1 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 20159 CITIES: SKYLINESModders of Cities: Skylines have already blown open Paradox’s game with all manner of structures, tools and welcome tweaks. Do you want to get rid of that annoying chirpy Twitter bird, or add a beloved local restaurant to your teeming metropolis? How about a famous landmark like the Combine Citadel? It’s all waiting in the Workshop.IN-AND-OUT BURGERThe industrious Gula, a former Maxis artist, has been making a bunch of high-quality assets, including a replica of the SunTrust tower, a Starbucks coffee emporium, and this, a version of the famous In-N-Out fast-food chain found across much of the United States. It’s growable, meaning it will spring up without needing to be built. www.bit.ly/Skylines1LOS SANTOSIf even Grand Theft Auto V can’t provide you with enough Los Santos, you can always explore the…1 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2015TAMRIEL: TAKE TWOMy career as a criminal begins in the little town of Rawl’kha, just after I ‘accidentally’ slam my twohanded sword into a guard’s face.I’m just goofing off in town as I always did before Elder Scrolls Online’s transition to buy-to-play, but today the guard’s not amused. He chases me down and demands 260 gold to let the incident pass. Cheapskate that I am, I run instead to the lonely fields of Reaper’s March, planning to let the bounty dwindle away while offline. But that gets boring, and I succumb to the thrill of crime under ESO’s new justice system. I kill NPCs and steal with abandon. By the time a guard cuts me down in Narsis, my bounty’s up to 15,612 gold, and it all automatically comes out of my…5 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2015Shield Tablet 16GB WiFiGame delivery hardware.The Shield Tablet is running the same GPU architecture that’s graced every graphics card of the Kepler generation. Its graphics tech is identical to the cores that made up the original GTX Titan. We’re talking 192 cores in the Shield’s Tegra K1 processor versus 2,668 in the Titan’s GK 110, but this is still a powerful mobile CPU.Which goes to explain why you can get PC games like Half-Life 2 and Portal 2 ported to the Android Lollipop OS it uses. Those are locally run too, so this thing isn’t just capable of streaming.I love being able to use the Shield Tablet in console mode, plugged into my 1080p TV, but being able to unplug it and still play on that crisp 8-inch screen wherever I am in…2 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2015NUC 5i3RYKIntel’s catchily-titled Next Unit of Computing is its attempt at creating a fullyfunctional PC with a tiny footprint. It can certainly do everything a standard laptop can do, which makes it a seemingly ideal candidate for dedicated streaming.In theory, that’s backed up by the Broadwell chip. The 14nm CPU is a mobile chip, not a desktop part— we’re still waiting for those to arrive in the summer—but the upgraded HD 5500 graphics component still puts it above the lowly Celeron chip in the Wind Box. Yet when it comes to in-home streaming, the extra power of the Broadwell GPU core doesn’t make much difference, although the i3 NUC still coped better than the more powerful Brix S i5 below. Maybe there are still some issues with early Broadwell drivers. The…1 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2015Pi 2Even I was surprised to see Shadow of Mordor running via this $44 computer, and I’m the one who installed everything. Even when I was finishing off the command line complexities needed to get it running, I was convinced it would never work. And yet there were the orcs and there I was with a big sword slicing them up.Running its own Raspbian OS, the RP2 requires a fair amount of Linux Fu to get game streaming running. The processor is not x86 compatible, so Steam and SteamOS are out, so I had to turn to a recompiled version of the Limelight app I use on the Shield Tablet. That means streaming on the RP2 is limited to an Nvidia host machine.At 1080p/60Hz the input lag is about four seconds,…1 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2015The PC Gamer RigIt’s getting increasingly difficult to justify a buildyour-own-PC philosophy. The manufacturers of prebuild machines can buy components in bulk, so it no longer guarantees any saving, for a start.Arguably, you’re also better off going for a pre-built PC because you’ll still have complete warranty if it’s overclocked, if that’s how you bought it. Once you’ve got your PC you still get to upgrade it to your heart’s content, so don’t think of it as giving up on DIY builds, just a good starting point.Hardware EditorWHAT ’S IN THE BOXThe components that make up the PCG RigCPUIntel Core i5 4690KThe Devil’s Canyon i5 is in the PCG Rig. Overclocking fun ahoy!FITTED October 2014MOTHERBOARDAsus Z97-PSome fantastic value Z97 motherboards have arrived on the scene.Fitted February 2015RAMCrucial Ballistix SportEight gigs of fast 1600MHz…2 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2015THE HOT MAILZeroes comes to mindI’d really like to see game reviews that also feature low- or mid-range rigs. There are a lot of us playing on older hardware who can’t pay, or who don’t want to pay, for high-end cards, CPUs and plenty of RAM, but it’s hard to judge what the performance of a game will be on the low end before you buy it. I’ve found the minimum given specs aren’t always accurate and they tend not to detail what kind of resolution, settings, or FPS you’d get playing with the bare minimum. I’d have pre-ordered GTA V if I knew I could get even 30fps on low settings at 1080p, but I’m just waiting for someone with similar hardware to post online about their experience.It would be great…2 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2015Deus Ex returnsThe next game in the Deus Ex series is Mankind Divided and will again star Adam Jensen. Developer Eidos Montreal is promising new augmentations, new locations and a “cloak of conspiracies.”It’s being built in a new engine called Dawn and the PC version will take advantage of DirectX 12 and the most recent version of AMD’s ridiculous TressFX hair tech. Jensen’s pointy beard is going to look amazing.New locations include Utulek Station, a ghetto in Prague for augmented citizens. We may also get to visit Montreal, famously cut from Human Revolution, and Paris, a key location in the first game. Fingers crossed for bigger city hubs this time around.The events of DX:HR were only loosely connected to the first game, but the sequel will have more explicit links to JC…2 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2015ENTER THE GUNGEONWhen Dodge Roll studio founder Dave Crooks tells me he’s brought Adam Drucker onto the team to provide the music for upcoming dungeon crawling indie shooter Enter the Gungeon, it sounds like a meeting of minds. Enter the Gungeon is, after all, the result of a lot of weird career moves.If you don’t recognize the name you might know Drucker better as rapper-poet DoseOne, a native son of Idaho who spent decades in the trenches of the midwest’s indie hip hop scene—a thing that does, apparently, exist. It’s only in recent years that he’s become active in armchair games development. His synth-hop tunes are already found in the soundtracks of games from Vlambeer and Double Fine Productions among others: Gang Beasts, Samurai Gunn, Gun Godz, Nuclear Throne.“One of the reasons…4 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2015MAGNETIC: CAGE CLOSEDYou’ve done something terrible, and now you’re on death row in a grim futuristic prison. But instead of spending your days padding around a cell waiting for the inevitable, you’re being forced to test an experimental weapon called a magnet gun. Sound familiar?Magnetic is a first-person puzzler heavily inspired by Portal, from its ‘test chambers’ to the sinister, unseen character pulling the strings. In Valve’s game it was a rogue AI. Here it’s the prison’s sad*stic warden.It doesn’t score many points for originality, but the magnet gun is a very different prospect to the portal gun. One button pulls, one pushes and another alters the strength of its magnetism. Point it at a metal cube, press the pull button and it’ll be drawn towards you. Point it at a metal…3 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2015THE CULT OF DOOMOver the past few years, many of the barriers to making and modifying videogames have been removed. You can grab a free version of Game Maker and knock out Hotline Miami or Gunpoint if you’ve got the time and the inclination. With the introduction of Steam Workshop and similar resources, modding has become both easier to implement and, if you’re on the other side of the fence, easier to benefit from.Yet id Software’s Doom has always had such a brilliant creative scene around it. Since the very beginning, people have been working out ways to mod the game and create their own unique experiences. Classic mods such as Aliens or Batman are remembered almost as fondly as the base game itself by those who were around during the scene’s infancy.…9 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2015GUTTEDNeed to knowWhat is it? The sick but slick sequel to the 2011 reboot .Influenced byStreet Fighter 4, Gray’s Anatomy (the book, not the show)Reviewed on Intel i5 3.3GHz CPU, 16GB RAM, Nvidia GTX 970Alternatively Injustice: Gods Among Us, 80%Copy protection SteamSkulls that crack like own-brand Easter eggsMortal Kombat has always felt brutish when compared to the elegant flow of Street Fighter 4: heavy-fisted, filthy pub-fu, focused not just on defeating your opponent, but destroying them utterly. This is the most elegant incarnation yet.The returning super meter, borrowed from Street Fighter, adds complexity: you can interrupt an opponent’s combo by using up two bars of the meter, creating an opening for a counterattack. X-ray moves are traumatic ultra combos, diverting a fight with damaging and humiliating specials. You quickly find…4 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2015GRAND SLAMNeed to knowWhat is it? Baseball’s most accomplished strategy series, now with real teams for the first time.Influenced byChampionship Manager, Eastside Hockey ManagerReviewed on Windows 8, Core i7-4770K, 16GB RAMAlternativelyFootball Manager 2015, 61%Copy protection Stream“This is a moonshot home run of a sports sim”OotP is the game that puts the ‘pro’ in procrastination; specifically pro baseball, as having just one more match overrides your instinct to do other important things like sleeping or washing up or, er, looking after your two-year-old daughter. (Yes, I’m going to hell.)Matches whizz by in a blur, and can be micromanaged to whatever level you’re content with. Want to throw every pitch and swing every bat, but let your assistant handle nuances such as fielding positions and baserunning? Done. Plays are handled via wonderfully nonrepetitive…4 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2015SQUIBNeed to knowWhat is it? A London-based multiplayer shooter.Influenced byEnemy Territory, BrinkReviewed on Core i7 2.8GHz, 8GB RAM, Nvidia 970AlternativelyTeam Fortress 2, 96%Copy protection Steam“Getting a character for free will take long time”Dirty Bomb is the latest of multiplayer shooter specialist Splash Damage’s multiplayer shooters. It has a plot, but it’s about as relevant as the plot of Heidi. Near-future London has been evacuated because of the titular explosion. Large piles of abandoned money apparently make mercenaries immune to radiation, so they’re fighting in the deserted streets.The setting has almost nothing to do with the game. This is a skinned-up Unreal engine Enemy Territory-style shooter. It’s about 8v8 team combat, hip-firing, rapid movement and wall-jumping, not bobbies on the beat. It’s about picking the right character, staying close to your…4 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2015“It really helps if you pay off all of your accumulated debt”CHRIS THURSTENThis month Used a videogame to explore the fantasy of paying off debt.Also Played Pillars of Eternity, Dota 2, GTA 5I’m an appalling industrialist. Not in the cigar-chomping, toupe-combing, sense. That would be fine. That kind of appalling industrialist would know how to exploit Mars’s bountiful natural resources. I don’t. Not yet, anyway.Offworld Trading Simulator is an RTS without armies—a competitive business sim that plays like the lovechild of Settlers of Catan and Total Annihilation. Like any other strategy game it’s a matter of assembling the right resources at the right time, but my stupid brain struggles with a model of power that doesn’t involve tanks of some kind. There are many lessons to be learned, lots of them via Steam’s community guide feature.READ MERELEASED Early AccessOUR REVIEW N/ABUY…1 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 20151 BRUTAL HALF-LIFEInspired by Brutal Doom, Brutal Half-Life is, well, you get the idea. But where the former adds more blood and dismemberment to an already violent shooter, this mod builds on a relatively bloodless and inert game.It’s a... bit weird, this, as if you’re ‘improving’ a graceful, story-led FPS with all the gore and giblets Valve forgot to include the first time. Enemies who would once crumple to the ground now render their limbs unto the ceiling, their blood unto the walls, while a couple of imported weapons let you truly explode their sense of self-worth. And their stomachs. And their brains. You get a gun from Opposing Force and the BFG from Doom, which here functions as a murdery alternative to a paint roller.Blasphemous it might be, but this is…2 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 20154 GRAB THEM BY THE EYESTerry Cavanagh’s latest freebie casts you as a burger-stand owner whose livelihood is suddenly under threat from a rival stand. You have to court the most customers in a single week. Obviously, this is done by focusing solely on the quality of your neon sign.www.bit.ly/GrabThemA YOUR SIGN At the end of each day, you can bolster your sign at the shop with different colors, borders, messages and so on.B THEIR SIGN Your rivals will do the same, at the exact same time, so try to nab all the best sign parts first.C THE CUSTOMERS Your fickle punters will get bored fast, so you’ll need to constantly add new sign bits to keep them coming.…1 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 20157 DEADBOLTHopoo’s follow-up to their runaway hit Risk of Rain is shaping up to be something special. You play the grim reaper, who has put away his scythe and cloak in this modern era, in favor of knives, guns and a handsome coat. You’re still shepherding the undead to the afterlife, which of course means fighting hordes of zombie gangsters who occasionally wander around their dens without a head. In the full game you’ll be tasked with dispatching vampires (night-club owners) and other paranormal creatures, but there are more than enough monsters to shoot in this five-level alpha demo in the meantime.It plays like a sideways Hotline Miami, with gallons of claret and a dozen instant restarts, but with a much lighter tone to its cartoon violence. It also mixes Hotline’s…1 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 201510 PROWLSome games simulate worlds, economies, or life as a long-haul truck driver—Prowl simulates the back seat of a limousine. Not in a Limo Seat Simulator way, but locking you in place as a shadowy night-time city passes by your rain-slicked window. You might not be able to open the car door or even switch seats in Nate Gallardo and Danny Gallagher’s experiential indie game, but you can roll down the electric window, flick a light on or off, or open a nearby briefcase. These actions ultimately achieve nothing— they don’t change the outcome or reveal more about your situation—but having a bunch of stuff to interact with does help to anchor your body into a convincing virtual world.As you might have guessed, there’s an Oculus Rift version, but the immersive…1 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2015“The nanosuit is the hero, Alcatraz a bag of leaky meat”READ MEFIRST REVIEWED March 2011, 89%DEVELOPER CrytekPUBLISHER EARELEASE 2011Crysis 2 gets a lot wrong. Its AI is criminally stupid. Its story is a convoluted mess. Its characters are hackneyed archetypes. Worst of all, its narrower environments and more limited nanosuit restrict the potential for emergent play, which was the essence of the original game. As far as sequels go, many of Crytek’s design decisions for Crysis 2 are utterly baffling.Yet for all its mistakes, Crysis 2 gets one thing right: destruction. From its low-key beginning to its apocalyptic final act, this grim fairytale of New York is a masterclass in disaster fiction. If you embrace this theme of obliteration rather than fighting it, Crysis 2 is at times even more enjoyable than the original.The game puts you in the boots…5 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2015PICO PI320Pull it from its packaging, and you’re going to be as surprised as I was at just how small this Windows PC is. The onboard storage is pretty small too, however you end up with around 15GB after Window 8.1 takes its share.Given that this little device is really made for streaming rather than local work that’s not a huge issue. You also get a microSD slot in the side, so you could double the storage without a problem, and there are three USB 2.0 ports across the side and back too.The Pico’s streaming capabilities lie with the Baytrail CPU’s ability to decode video ably, but not brilliantly. The fact that it’s a Windows-based machine means only a standard Steam installation is needed to hook up with your desktop rig’s…1 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2015SENDCLICKpcgamer.comLIKEfacebook.com /pcgamermagazineSHOOTsteamcommunity.com /groups/pcgamerWATCHyoutube.com /pcgamerFOLLOW@pcgamerSENDPC GamerFutureUS4000 Shoreline Ct. Suite 400South San Francisco, CA 94080Milk us for moreRiot Games recently announced that it’ll be doing Chroma packs for skins, which is pretty awesome. The kicker? It looks like Chroma packs will cost a cool $5. Now, $5 isn’t an absurd price, but according to modders in the community, changing the colors of a skin takes almost no time at all. Riot has justified the price of the color change by saying it pays for the labor. This is, of course, untrue according to the modders, as the labor is extremely minimal, meaning that Riot is overcharging us for some simple color changes.I’m getting tired of companies trying to milk us for more money than products are actually worth. Brandon OgonIt’s an interesting…1 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2015THE SPYIt’s a point of pride for The Spy that he finds two sources for everything. Not just information: food, water, even friendship and personal values. There’s no better way to confuse a would-be hitman than to live two contradictory lives, arbitrarily flipping between them on a whim. This protective reflex either makes The Spy uniquely suited or uniquely unsuited for political office; appropriately, he has never been able to choose.It’s with a certain amount of trepidation, then, that The Spy presents leaked Mass Effect 4 details so unverified, so reliant on a single source, that they might well be total nonsense. They don’t sound like nonsense, however. The rumor goes that the new game will be set in the future of the Mass Effect universe, as humanity sets out to…3 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2015STARCRAFT II LEGACY OF THE VOIDReturning to StarCraft for the Legacy of the Void closed beta is a fast way to learn just how much it’s possible to forget in a couple of years. I come at the game from the perspective of somebody who played a lot of Wings of Liberty, a little Heart of the Swarm, and then moved my competitive gaming interests elsewhere. I’m a lapsed player, somebody who used to know what he was doing but doesn’t any longer—one of several categories of experience that Blizzard is looking to cater to with this, the final game in the StarCraft II trilogy.Getting to grips with Legacy of the Void is difficult given the structure of this test. It’s multiplayer-only with no AI and, given that the beta requires starting a new account,…4 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2015AVIARY ATTORNEYI’m at Rezzed, exploring the cramped oddities packed into the show’s Leftfield Collection. There are weird puzzle games, eccentric peripherals and many, many roguelikes. There’s a coffin on the floor, which tantalizingly offers an “immersive coffin experience”. It’s about as indie as you can get in here. Given the originality on show, standing out is an achievement. Aviary Attorney does stand out, partly because it looks beautiful, but also because it feels reassuringly familiar.If you’ve played Capcom’s long-running Ace Attorney series, you’ll know what to expect from Aviary Attorney. Look past the presentation—a cast of anthropomorphic animals and art sourced from a 19th century caricaturist— and it’s a game in which you play a defense attorney tasked with proving his client’s innocence. As in Ace Attorney, the game uses a…2 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2015THE PC GAMER INTERVIEWMike SimpsonJob title Creative directorCreditsTotal War: Attila, Shogun 2, et alBio Mike’s first game, Swords and Sorcery, was released in 1985 for the ZX Spectrum. He’s spent the last 15 years growing the Total War series at The Creative Assembly. He likes Orks.IsTotal War: Warhammera turning point for the series, or will you continue the historic war games?No, we’re absolutely going to make historic war games. That’s still the core of what we do. The only reason we haven’t done a fantasy game earlier is because we couldn’t do it earlier without slowing down or impacting in some way on the historic stuff. We’ve finally got to the point where there are enough of us to do that. That’s why we’re doing it now and not ten years ago when…6 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2015ISLE BE BACKNeed to knowWhat is it? A colossal Kickstarter-funded fantasy RPG.Influenced byBaldur’s Gate, Icewind DaleReviewed on GeForce GTX 970, Intel i5-3570K @ 3.4GHz, 16GB RAMAlternatively Divinity: Original Sin, 87%Copy protection SteamI’ve fallen in love with this richly painted worldAlmost an hour had passed, and I was still on the character creation screen. That’s how I knew, before I’d even started, that this homage to classic computer roleplaying games like Baldur’s Gate, Icewind Dale, and Planescape: Torment was authentic. Created with the help of 77,000 Kickstarter backers, Pillars of Eternity is Obsidian’s love letter to those beloved Infinity Engine RPGs that have come to represent the best of the genre.It would have been easy to create a cynical nostalgia trip, dining out on the legacy of those old games, but Obsidian has…13 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2015BITE SIZENeed to knowWhat is it? Survival horror in episodic form.Influenced byThe Walking DeadReviewed on GeForce GTX 970, Intel i5-3570K @ 3.4GHz, 16GB RAMAlternativelyResident Evil 4, 85%Copy protection SteamRevelations 2 is the latest Resi spin-off. It has the over-theshoulder combat of Resi 4, the co-op stuff from Resi 5, and a sprinkling of the original’s slowburning horror. It’s no Resident Evil 4 (what is?), but it’s one of the better attempts to modernize the formula.Split into four episodes, it tells the story of four characters. There’s Claire Redfield, hero of Resident Evil 2 and Code: Veronica. She’s joined by Moira Burton, daughter of series favorite Barry, and the pair find themselves trapped on a zombiefilled island. The other main character is Barry himself, who travels to the island six months later…3 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2015DEEPNeed to knowWhat is it? A survival game set on an alien ocean-planet.Influenced by MinecraftReviewed on GeForce GTX 970, Intel i5-3570K @ 3.4GHz, 16GB RAMAlternativelyDayZ, alphaCopy protection Steam“You don’t belong in this ecology, and it feels like it”Your starship has crashed on a distant planet, stranding you in the middle of a vast alien ocean. All you have is a life pod with a machine that creates objects from raw materials. Yes, this is another Early Access survival game. It’s from Unknown Worlds, developer of the Natural Selection series, and it’s an interesting underwater twist on the crowded open-world survival genre.Dive off your pod into the water below and you find yourself in a beautiful undersea landscape similar to our own ocean floor, but with bizarre alien life. Shoals of…3 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2015“It’s like watching a chihuahua try to take on a cat. Not gonna happen”SAM ROBERTSThis month Took on a three-decades-old conflict in a two-decades-old RTS.Also Played Max Payne 2, Dragon Age: Inquisition, GTA VLast issue’s top 20 strategy games list has galvanized my interest in Westwood’s wonderfully unbalanced ’90s RTS. When I was younger, I always had a thing against the Allies because they were ass compared to their Soviet rivals. Particularly in skirmish mode where they lost exclusivity rights to Tanya, the deadly one-person buildingwrecker, which could take out an entire base in about 30 seconds providing there were no unit-zapping Tesla coils nearby.I gave Red Alert another go with the goal of playing as the Allies in skirmish mode and actually beating the Soviets, which I’m fairly certain I managed zero times back in the day.The problem is firepower. In no…4 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 20152 INFINIFACTORY PUZZLESYou’ve finished Infinifactory, but you don’t want your brain to relax just yet. Let these user levels put it through its paces.…1 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 20155 MARK ELLIS: TRAIN BRIDGE INSPECTORSet in a glorious sunset world at the tail-end of 2002 for some reason, this two-day jam game asks you to make a choice, over and over, putting your reputation on the line. Or rather, Mark Ellis’s reputation.That choice is whether to approve a wonky physics bridge for use on a working railway line, or to declare it unsafe for public travel. A cute little choo-choo train will then traverse the teetering trackway, with jittery physics hilariously proving you right or wrong. Either way, disastrous crash or no crash, the game will continue, and you’ll play on tomorrow to try and redeem Mark’s reputation.It’s not always easy to tell whether a bridge is safe just by looking at it, and that’s where the fun lies in this beautifully silly physics…1 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 20158 ELDER SCROLLS: TOTAL WARThey gave that whole ‘co-existing mostly peacefully’ thing a go, but now it’s time for the races of Tamriel to settle their differences once and for all. This mod for the statesmanlike (ie, old) Medieval 2: Total War plugs 20 Elder Scrolls factions into Creative Assembly’s strategy game, taken from Skyrim, Daggerfall, Cyrodiil, Morrowind and so on, and with many of the great houses and evil entities represented too. Control a horde of Daedra, be some reanimated skeletons or a clowder of Khajit, vow to wipe the Empire and Patrick Stewart from the face of the Earth. Between battles, there’s a giant campaign map of Tamriel for you to attempt to conquer. There are a few problems with this in-development mod, notably that it’s in Russian, so the English language…1 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2015MACHINIMAThis somehow spins a story from the simple act of splattering villagers and sheep. After peasants appeal to a just king for liberation from the tyrannical Queen Wynnfrith, he constructs a series of machines and messily invade her turf.www.bit.ly/BattleForIpsilon1 LockkingMoved by the peasants’ appeal for help, the unnamed monarch ponders how to respond to their urgent plight. For years, his best engineers have been building war machines, but they’ve yet to be tested in battle.2 BulldozingHeavily outnumbered, the King uses scouts to scope out the Queen’s domain, before swooping in with a coordinated aerial attack. These airships are particularly impressive, leveling her vicious bulldozer machine.3 Queen takes kingQueenie responds, building anti-air cannons that make short work of the King’s flying machines. She also constructs a device that drops mines everywhere,…1 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2015STREAMINGThe technology already exists to liberate PC gaming from the machine on your desk and send it to another device, such as the TV in your living room. This month I’ve pooled together a bunch of different devices that all have that ability in common.Why would I want to do this?Because you want to game in comfort, and gaming PCs are rarely kept in the most comfortable room in the house.Does it work with every game?Every game can be streamed, but some you may not want to. Homeworld 2 Remastered is simply not winnable without a keyboard, for example. But other games are just as playable—sometimes more so— with a wireless gamepad and a big TV. Any arcade game is going to be stupidly satisfying when played on your sofa…2 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2015Wind Box DC111This came as something of a pleasant surprise, as the old range of Wind Box mini-PCs never really set the world alight. Now that Microsoft is supplying Windows 8.1 to manufacturers essentially for free, however, MSI is able to offer this much more impressive device at a great price.Like the Zotac Pico this is a miniPC, but a far larger machine. That enables this stormtrooperwhite box to contain 4GB DDR3 RAM and a 500GB hard drive, which gives you a huge amount of storage for any local media content you want to throw its way. You also get four USB 3.0 ports on the rear along with the necessary HDMI connection, and a pair of USB 2.0 ports on the front.So that’s the hardware, but how well does it stands…2 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2015Brix SGigabyte’s Brix S is essentially just a larger version of Intel’s own NUC, which allows it to fit in a caddy for a 2.5-inch hard drive or SSD. The Brix S does also come with a low-power Core i5 processor, but before you get too excited be advised that this is mobile Broadwell stuff again. So we’re still talking a dual-core CPU with HyperThreading, but this time with Turbo.But because Broadwell is a dieshrink over Haswell it comes with higher efficiency, and that means Gigabyte was able to beef up the base clockspeed of the CPU. The i5-5200U runs at 2.2GHz as standard while the Haswell version was stuck at 1.6GHz. This i5 also Turbos up to 2.5GHz, and as it’s the new Broadwell tech it’s got a mightier GPU…2 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2015DokoFor a lot of people the fact that the Doko is resolutely stuck rendering all its streamed content at 30Hz is a complete dealbreaker. It may be one of the cheapest devices in this test, but for it not to be able to cope with streamed games running at 60Hz means it can’t really stake a claim for that special place between your TV and the desktop gaming behemoth you want to stream from.The problem is the ARM 11 SoC chip at its heart: it simply doesn’t have the processing power to decode at the speed games need. I can forgive the Raspberry Pi 2 because it’s got a cute name and costs less than some of the games I’m trying to stream through it.It’s a real shame because the…1 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2015IT’S ALL OVER...A toast to lost friends, side-plots that went nowhere, and the moon that crushed a WookieeBELOVED HAN SOLO ANALOGUE #1RIP Dash Rendar, bog-standard roguish archetype, who ably pretended to be Han Solo while the real Han Solo was frozen in carbonite. Last seen destroying Prince Xizor’s unconvincing Death Star-like side project, Skyhook.BROADLY UNLOVED SITH APPRENTICEThe little-k nown Galen Marek, better known as canon-breaking heathen Starkiller, alleged to have founded the Rebel Alliance on a whim apparently in between acting as Darth Vader’s apprentice, is no more. Also dead: his sarcastic droid and sassy love interest.ROGUE JEDI MASTER’S JOURNEY ENDSThe Jedi Exile, known to some as Meetra Surik and known to others by thousands of other names including ‘CoolJedi420’ and ‘lololololol’, has died. Denied a proper ending in his or her…2 min
