PC Powerplay - July 2016

RADEON RX 480 REVIEWED!
GTX 1070 & 1080 ROUNDUP
WE PUT THE NEW AMD CARD THROUGH ITS PACES
THEY MAY NOT BE CHEAP BUT BOY ARE THEY POWERFUL
THE BES
OF E3
THE MOST EXCITING NEW PC
GAMES PREVIEWED, FEATURING:
> TITANFALL 2
DAWN OF WAR 3 > THE SURGE
BATTLEFIELD 1 > SOUTH PARK
& MORE!
9 771326 564019
53
ISSUE #253
$13.99 Ï NZ $15.90 INC GST
YOUR GAMES
DVD INSIDE!
FURI
HOLOLENS
STAR CITIZEN
EVE VALKYRIE
THE SOLUS PROJECT
THE TECHNOMANCER
ELITE DANGEROUS VR
MIRROR'S EDGE: CATALYST
>PCPP
#253
ON THE COVER
THE BEST OF E3
p. 36
We head to E3 to find the best PC
games on show
6 PC PowerPlay
REVIEW
MIRROR’S
EDGE:
CATALYST
p. 56
Faith is back, for the first
time, and she’s not happy
CONTENTS
FRONTEND
12
20
24
News
Big Picture
PCPP Interview: World of
Warships
OPINION
18
22
30
Far Canal
JAM
Generation XX
FEATURES
28
32
36
46
48
A Collection Aside
10 to Watch
The Best of E3
System Shock
FFXIV: A Realm Reborn
GAME REVIEWS
53
56
58
60
61
62
63
64
65
The Technomancer
Mirror’s Edge: Catalyst
Eve Valkyrie
Elite Dangeouys VR
Onechanbara Z2 Chaos
The Solus Project
Anima: Gate of Memories
Furi
Star Citizen Alpha 2.4.0
TECH
69
69
70
78
82
82
84
86
88
Tt esports Level 10M
Advanced
BenQ XR3501 monitor
GTX 1070/1080 roundup
AMD RX 480
Roccat Suora keyboard
Ozone Blade keyboard
Hotware
Inventory
How Things Work
STATE OF PLAY
90
94
96
Thunkpiece: HoloLens
Hagionaut
The Last Word
REGULARS
10
11
98
TECH
Inbox
My PC
Next Month
p. 69
GEFORCE 1070 & 1080
ROUNDUP
TECH
p. 70
Third party devs up the power
p. 78
Is AMDs budget card all it’s cracked up to be?
AMD RX 480 REVIEWED
PC PowerPlay 7
Holding
g the Fort
In the space of a few weeks we had both Computex and
E3, respectively the biggest hardware and gaming events of
the year. It makes for a busy time, running around different
booths and trying to interview people on crowded show
floors. At least that is what my time at the events would have
been had I gone. This year I had to hold down the fort at
the PCPP bunker due to impending deadlines. Seeing both
events from a distance made them no less exciting this year.
On the tech front we have the new GPU war in which each
side has chosen a different battlefield – Nvidia the high end
and AMD the mainstream – and thus have already won, and
on the games front we’ve finally seen more of VR and the
potential it holds.
I’m of the belief that VR won’t truly take hold until the
PlayStation VR headset is released later this year. It’s not
as powerful or capable as the more expensive PC headsets,
but it’s cheaper and has little in the way of setup, making
it a perfect way for VR to infiltrate the lounge room, giving
developers more reason to support VR games in the future.
Computex also showed a number of proof of concept of
prototype backpack PCs designed specifically for untethered
VR, and I think we can all agree that’s a pretty exciting
concept. Then, of course, you have HoloLens. I personally
haven’t had a chance to get some hands on time with the unit
as yet, but David Hollingworth got a chance to play around
with AR (Augmented Reality) and was blown away. I find
AR far more exciting am idea than VR, but the fact that only
one company is currently developing a mass market product
looks to mean that any type of AR revolution is still some
time off. Oh well – I can wait. I’ll give it to 2020. That’s when
R. Talsorian Games and Mike Pondsmith promised me that
AR mirrorshades would be the fashion item of choice for a
maxxed out sarariman.
We also have a free trial of Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm
Reborn on the cover. You have two weeks to play and a level
35 cap. Have fun – it’s pretty great.
EDITORIAL
EDITOR Daniel Wilks
[email protected]
GROUP ART DIRECTOR Malcolm Campbell
[email protected]
TECH EDITOR Bennett Ring
[email protected]
SPACE LORD Ben Mansill
[email protected]
INTERN Lewis Vaughan
WORK EXPERIENCE Angus Renton
CONTRIBUTORS
James Cottee, Alex Mann, Terrence Jarrad, Meghann O’Neill,
Theo, Morte, Nathan Lawrence, Dan Staines, Dave Kozicki,
Joab Gilroy, Katie Williams, Heidi Kemps, Patrick Stafford,
Ashley McKinnon, John Robertson, Tavish Forrest
ADVERTISING
GROUP NATIONAL ADVERTISING MANAGER
TECH & GAMING
Cameron Ferris
[email protected]
(+16 2) 02 9901 6348
M: 0405 356 419
ACCOUNT MANAGER
Sean Fletcher
[email protected]
(+16 2) 02 9901 6367
M: 0402 585 124
ADVERTISING TRAFFIC
Alison Begg
[email protected]
02 9901 6346
PRODUCTION MANAGER Alison Begg
CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Carole Jones
SUBSCRIPTIONS
www.mymagazines.com.au
TOLL FREE
1300 361 146
Locked Bag 3355, St Leonards NSW 1590
COVER DISC ENQUIRIES:
Daniel Wilks
Editor
@drwilkenstein
[email protected]
02 9901 6100
Building A, Level 6
207 Pacific Highway
St Leonards, NSW 2065
Locked Bag 5555,
St Leonards, NSW 1590
CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER
David Gardiner
COMMERCIAL DIRECTOR
Bruce Duncan
PC PowerPlay is published by nextmedia Pty Ltd ACN: 128 805
970, Building A, Level 6, 207 Pacific Highway, St Leonards NSW
2065 © 2011. All rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be
reproduced, in whole or in part, without the prior permission of the
publisher. Printed by Bluestar WEB Sydney, Distributed in Australia
by Gordon & Gotch. ISSN 1326-5644. The publisher will not accept
responsibility or any liability for the correctness of information or
opinions expressed in the publication. All material submitted is
at the owner’s risk and, while every care will be taken nextmedia
does not accept liability for loss or damage.
QUOTES OF
THE MONTH
8 PC PowerPlay
“We all have the
space flu”
“Please don’t require
construction...
DAMMIT!”
“No more breakfast
meetings. Ever.”
Privacy Policy: We value the integrity of your personal information.
If you provide personal information through your participation in any
competitions, surveys or offers featured in this issue of PC PowerPlay,
this will be used to provide the products or services that you have
requested and to improve the content of our magazines. Your details
may be provided to third parties who assist us in this purpose. In the
event of organisations providing prizes or offers to our readers, we
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Inbox
A visual representation
of Wilks’ inbox
>
FEEDBACK
#253
> Matthew Schmidt: You rated
my *insert game title* too low!
You are the wrong! *insert death
threats* because how could you?
With that in mind I really liked
Wilks tail article the most. But
another fine edition overall.
MAKE YOURSELF HEARD!
I HAVE ONE TOO
LETTER OF THE
MONTH WINS!
Write in to PCPP with your
rants, considered opinions,
and endless run-on sentences
of pure awesome. The address
is letters@pcpowerplay.
com.au. Each letter read by
hand! This month out Letter
of the Month winner scores
themselves a copy of The
Technomancer, thanks to the
good people at Focus Home
Interactive and Reboot!
10 PC PowerPlay
To everyone at PCPP, Thanks
for keeping this dearly needed
Australian media running in both
print and digital form! With the
global print media industry in
decline, I’m hoping your subscriber
base and advertisers can keep
you guys afloat longer than the
inevitable big crunch of media
ownership, as smaller shops have
to sell up or close up, in the face of
decimated advertiser revenue since
clicks move to aggregator apps &
sites like Facebook.
Which brings me to the primary
point, Daniel Wilks’ excellent
article “Everybody Has One” on
review scores, and the untenable
position serious professional
reviewers find themselves in, not
only up against the usual fanboy/
girl invective, but also against
professional lobbyists/advocates
for publishers anticipating profit/
loss outcomes on aggregated
reviews from sites such as
Metacritic (and, dare I say, Steam’s
reliance on it), with complex
skewed weighting on various
reviewer sites/magazine scores.
Just as Mr Wilks points out,
there is no way a scale of 1-10
can ever do justice to, let alone
accurately or meaningfully depict
any given reviewer’s assessment
of every aspect and nuance of the
game, and aggregation of all of
those numbers become little more
than meaningless out-of-context
metrics yet taken as gospel by most
prospective game buyers, who as
Daniel points out, are often only
seeking reviews which reinforce
their own predispositions. Sure,
I can attribute this partially to
the plethora of content out there
for buyers to wade through,
but thanks to today’s TL; DR
generation of readers, there is now
an aggravatingly entitled attitude
of “My time is too important to
read what you took a great deal of
time and effort to research, write,
proof, subedit & publish, so can
you sum it up in one sentence, or
better yet, numerically?”. After
working for a couple of decades
of successive managers with that
very attitude (because my work
was technical but the managers
were... managerial), I suppose I
should have expected this outcome
in the wider community, but surely
not from PC enthusiasts who take
pride in their technical savvy
above that of the everyday console
owner (not that there’s anything
wrong with that). People need to
learn that complex work cannot
be ‘summed up’ without losing
facebook.com/pcpoweplay
www.pcpowerplay.com.au
critical meaning & key details.
<rant>Let’s all hope TL;DR
readers never get jobs in quality
control or as safety inspectors, I
don’t want my life in their hands.
</rant>
Morte.
Hi Morte, the greatest slightly
sinister but jovial floating skull
in gaming history. Thanks for
inflating Wilks’ head. He’s seriously
patting himself on the back for a
job well done. Seriously though, the
state of scoring and the impact it
currently has is becoming (or has
become if you want to be especially
pessimistic) to gaming as a whole.
Not only does this fracture between
scoring and words create a divide
between readers and writers as
well as potentially jeopardise
development jobs and salaries/
bonuses, it also leads to stagnation.
When scores play such a role in
the money end of games people are
going to be more adverse to risk
taking, sticking to what is known
and widely accepted rather than
trying new things. Is there a way to
escape this spiral? We don’t know,
but we’ll keep arguing until we’re
blue in the face.
2
3
6
5
4
1
GREG, 31, WA
FOUR MOST IMPRESSIVE FEATURES:
1. Sli 980m’s and i7-4800mq CPU
2. Streams to a 78” LED TV
3. It’ll whoop your desktop “probably”
14000+ in firestrike
4. The massive heatsinks I plastered onto
the intel pc stick to stop it overheating
LAST UPGRADE:
The Sli 980m’s I installed last as they cost
a bit
DREAM UPGRADE:
They Have just released the 990m “exact
same specs as the desktop version of the
gtx980” two of them would be nice but
probably overkill
WHY SO SPECIAL:
Built it from a 2nd hand bare shell which
is a very hard in a laptop. Heatsinks have
to be modified and every thing is so
fiddly. Build for a fraction of the price of
This month’s MY PC
brought to you by
a pre built one and because of the higher
quality clevo parts it’ll out perform a
prebuilt Dell or MSI laptop.
1. The body says Alienware
but the guts say heavily
customised
2. Just one of the three
screens used with this
machine
3. We’ll never complain about
fiddly PC builds again
4. Working around the heatpipes must
have been a nightmare
5. The second screen is a little smaller
than the 78” LED used for gaming
6. Not pictured: Multiple VR headsets
hiding behing the laptop. We can safely
say we feel more than a little jealous,
especially considering that Greg has an
OSVR headset in his collection
GREG WINS!
Thanks to the good people at Tt esports, Greg
scores himself an excellent Poseidon Z RGB
Mechanical keyboard. Enjoy!
winner!
WANT FREE STUFF? Send your MyPC entry today to [email protected]. Include the four most impressive elements of its
hardware, your last upgrade, your dream upgrade, your favourite feature and what you think makes your PC special. Make sure to include your
name, age and location. And last but not least, attach a 5MP or bigger image of your PC! No camera phone shots, and make sure it’s in focus!
PC PowerPlay 11
PCPP Tech Bytes
AMD ALSO ANNOUNCE
NEW CPUS - BRISTOL
RIDGE, STONEY RIDGE
AND SUMMIT RIDGE
MD have been busy, releasing their 7th
generation APU platforms - Bristol Ridge for
desktops and Stoney Ridge for laptops. These
are continuations of the Excavator architecture
that is designed to have a low TDP yet maintain
high quality integrated graphics. The Bristol
Ridge CPUs will use the existing FM2+ socket
and is a drop in replacement for any existing
FM2+ motherboard owners. Bristol Ridge
also brings DDR4 support to AMD’s platform.
There’s no benchmarks available yet, nor is there
pricing. Expect to see products with these new
ext few months. AMD also
ing 8th generation APU s AMD’s next generation
e, packs 8 cores, 16
tilises a new AM4 socket.
ng this platform will provide
in performance over its
ocessors. We will find out
nd Summit Ridge next year.
A
Expected Availability:
End of July
Expected Availability:
Mid July
Expected Availability:
June 29, 2016
Under embargo until June 29 2016 at 9 a.m. EST.
AMD RELEASE NEW RADEON GRAPHICS
CARDS, THE RX 4
MD has released the Radeon
on an all new GPU architectur
RX 480 is AMD’s mid-range card,
Nvidia’s new GTX1080 and GTX10
However, like its Nvidia competitio
based on the latest 14nm FinFET
process, bringing more performan
smaller package, with less heat ou
power consumption - only consum
it is will be certified for use with th
Rift, making it one of the cheapes
provide a smooth VR experience. T
processors, has a 256-bit memory
,
in stores early July for US$199. AMD also announced the RX 470 and EX 460 GPUs at
this year’s E3, but didn’t reveal much about those cards beyond their names and the
fact they’re single slot designs and that they’ll use even less power than the RX 480.
A
RAZER ENTER THE VR SCENE W
THE HDK2 HEADSET
ot wanting to get left in the cold when it comes to VR, Razer
has shown off an implementation of an Open Source Virtual
Reality based headset. OSVR is, like it says, an open-source proj
standardise virtual reality specs that any manufacturer can adop
and create hardware for. Razer’s HDK2 head mounted display
features 1080x1200 resolution OLED displays per eye with 90fp
support, a 100Hz IR camera for positional tracking and the abilit
to adjust the focus on each eye individually. The HDK 2 will be
available in July and sell for US$399. OSVR have also announced
US$5m development fund that parties interested in developing V
experiences with the OSVR SDK can apply for. OSVR and its part
will also help support marketing and promotional efforts to assis
developers achieving a return on their investment.
N
12 PC PowerPlay
Design Goals: Powerful Performance, Maximum Mobility
7TH GENERATION
AMD A-SERIES APU
PCPP Tech Bytes
SAMSUNG RELEASE THE
FASTEST CONSUMER
SSD AVAILABLE
amsung are about to release a 1TB NVMe
M.2 SSD. The new range of SM961 SSDs from
Samsung feature a redesigned controller that
generates less heat and feature MLC V-NAND,
the latest Samsung flash NAND innovation.
The combination of the latest NAND and a new
controller result in insane speeds over around
3.2 GB/s sequential reads and 450,000 IOPS for
random reads, making the SM961 the fastest
consumer SSD available - on paper at least. The
SM961 range also comes in 128GB, 256GB and
512GB capacities. They’re designed for OEM use,
so it’s unlikely you’ll find them in most computer
stores, unlike the Samsung 950 Pro. Luckily for us,
Australian store RamCity will be stocking
these super-fast SSDs, with pricing on
the 1TB model to be about $700
excluding delivery.
S
HP, ZOTAC, ALIENWARE AND
MSI DEMONSTRATE BACKPACK
COMPUTERS DESIGNED FOR VR
ackpack computers are now a thing. Thanks to the popularity of VR headsets,
Zotac, HP, Alienware and MSI have all decided to take the guts of their high end
gaming laptops, chop off the screen and add strapping. This new form factor allows
you to roam around in a VR fantasy land without tethering yourself to a computer on
a desk. HP for example, have detailed the Omen X, which features a top of the line
Intel i7 mobile CPU, DDR4 RAM and M.2 SSD, in a 4.5kg, thin plastic box. No detail on
the GPU inside, but it’s likely to be whatever mobile GPU is king of the hill when the
Omen X is eventually released sometime this year. MSI, Alienware and Zotac’s have
similar specs and also lack a specific ETA.
B
MSI PARTER WITH EK TO RELEASE GTX 1080 AND
1070 FACTORY FITTED W
SI are partnering up with EK Water Blocks t
1080 and 1070 graphics cards ready to be w
from the factory. No stuffing around with orderin
that don’t quite fit and then having to deal with
removing the manufacturer’s stock air cooling
apparatus. Just hook up your hoses and away you
go. MSI’s GeForce GTX Sea Hawk EK X cards a
nickel-plated electrolytic-copper water block tha
covers both the GPU and the VRMs. There’s even
cool looking dragon etched on the rear backplate
Besides the addition of the watercooling block, th
cards are also factory overclocked. How much the
overclocked, we don’t know. We also don’t know
be out or how much they’ll cost. But if you’re into
and want the least stuffing around for your new
or 1070, keep an eye out for MSI’s Sea Hawk EK
M
14 PC PowerPlay
PCPP Game News
CHECK THE AMAZING Z GAMING MOUSE FROM
NEW ZEALAND COMPANY, SWIFTPOINT
Packed with motion sensors, the Z is more than
your average
ere at PC Power
ourselves true c
the mouse. We use t
course, but mostly a
mess of different ga
that, to any PC game
of the most importa
up - after all, you’ll b
very physical way ev
for a session of Over
So, with that in mind, listen to us when we
say the Z mouse, just launched on Kickstarter,
is a pretty amazing looking piece of kit.
The Z - developed by New Zealand company
Swiftpoint - does more than just track lateral
movement. It not only has the usual mouse
sensor, but also a gyroscope, force sensor,
accelerometer, and even tactile feedback sensors.
Combined in the one mouse, this means it can
track mouse tilt pivots while on a flat surface, and
even pitch, yaw, and roll while held in the air.
The Z also boasts some innovative new
button and switch placement. Two trigger
H
buttons are placed above and behind the two
main mouse buttons, and these are designed to
be used with a ‘straight finger’ motion, or even
pulled - like a trigger. The two main buttons
also have smaller inset ‘fingertip’ buttons, and
the main buttons can also measure the force of
your mouse click.
In combination, there are 50 different button
combos, making the mouse supremely versatile.
50 fingertip click actions in 10 seconds!
In game the tilt function can be used, for
MORPHIES LAW – FPS BODYSNATCHING MAYHEM
Taking ass and kicking everyone.
orphies Law is a 3D FPS where nobody dies. That put you
off, didn’t it? Well, instead of dying, you get a bigger body.
When you shoot someone, their body mass is transferred to you,
making your body bigger. If you shoot their arms, yours get larger.
Want to jump higher? Take shots at their legs. Even little things,
like shooting their feet and getting bigger feet of your own,
makes it possible to kick players outside map boundaries!
Your team has an “Avatar”, which shows the total combined
mass of the team’s players, and at the end of a match, the team
with the biggest Avatar wins.
This looks to be really interesting and holds a lot of promise in
its design. The self-balancing aspect, for example. The better a
player does, the bigger he gets, making him easier to shoot, while
smaller players can hide in gaps inaccessible to anyone else. The
physics engine is incredibly advanced, with different body masses
reacting differently to hits, and well-placed shots able to toss
players great distances.
Yes, there will be trolls, as shooting your teammates to get
larger is a thing, but as a whole, the game could be one of 2016s
smash hit indies.
It’s coming soon to Steam Greenlight, so keep an eye out for it.
M
16 PC PowerPlay
instance, to lean in a first
person shooter, or you could
use the in-air controls to fly
aircraft without having to switch
between mouse and a joystick - perfect
for Battlefield-style games.
The Z mouse is up on Kickstarter now, and
Swiftpoint is looking for $140,000, and has
already made over $56,000. The lowest pledge
is $139, but that gets you the mouse, a mouse
mat, cord management cube (it’s cool, trust us),
and additional buttons and feet to customise
the mouse just for you.
We’ll be keeping a close eye on this one, and
will hopefully get a review model shortly.
OPINION / FAR CANAL
Don’t buy
a new
monitor
...just yet...
A
s tempting as it is to splurge
on one of the many sexy new
gaming monitors released in the last
few months – don’t. Better things are
coming, very much better, and very
soon. By the end of the year we’ll start
seeing screens that support the newest
Display Port 1.3 standard, and that’s
what you want to hold out for.
Lately we’ve seen ultra-wide screens,
curved screens, FreeSync and G-Sync,
along with the rise of Adaptive Sync.
IPS LCDs are getting cheaper and
OEMs are doing amazing things with
previously inferior TN panels. All good
things, for sure, but you would be well
advised to wait for DP 1.3 – and while
you do wait, over the coming months,
we’ll also see resolutions improve for
ultra wides, because the current best
of 1440 is just barely enough. The great
many ultra-wides running 1080 vertical
res are, IMHO, totally useless. Try using
the Windows desktop or a desktop
app at that limiting vertical resolution
while the horizontal landscape is
so disproportionately wide and you
quickly yearn for greater vertical space.
These things will improve, though, and
I expect the arrival sometime in Q4 of
DP 1.3 at the same time as new LCD
panels with more interesting and useful
resolutions and aspect ratios.
But it’s a wee cable that will have
the biggest impact. Like the evolution
of HDMI, each iteration of DP allows
greater bandwidth than before, so
for PC monitors the gains will be
seen in higher refresh rates at higher
resolutions. It’s all about smashing
the 60Hz barrier that the current
DP 1.2 standard limits us to (along
with DVI, which, while being phased
out in favour of DP has the same
18 PC PowerPlay
basic problem). As you can see from
the illustration on this page, DP 1.3
absolutely destroys the 60Hz (and
thus, FPS) limitation.
If you’re wondering what the
‘HDR’ is on the illustration, that’s the
next, next big thing. High Dynamic
Range is a new agreed-upon industry
standard, and while there have been
many products (cameras and TVs,
mostly) that have boasted ad hoc HDR
functionality in the past, this new HDR
It’s all about smashing
the 60Hz barrier that the
current DP 1.2 standard limits
us to
BEN MANSILL
thinks it’s real
is a fully ratified industry standard. In
short HDR delivers greater contrast and
colour accuracy, which means richer
colours and scenes, and bright whites
than can sit next to deep blacks at nearperfect contrast.
And again, that’s why DP 1.3 is
so important. As you can see from
the numbers, HDR imposes a fairly
significant hit on performance – or
more specifically – it soaks up more of
the available bandwidth, so we need as
much of that as possible.
THE VR FACTOR
But by then you may not even need or
want a fancy new monitor, because
VR. Facing the prospect of spending
a grand, or a grand and a half on a
new screen, versus the same money
on a new VR headset is going to be
a troubling decision many hardcore
gamers will face. It will boil down
to the sort of games you like to play.
Obviously 2D games and many if not
all FPS shooters will work best on a
monitor, but sims are just paradise
in VR.
As you may have noticed via this
page, I play a lot of War Thunder.
Last week I got a long term loan of
an Oculus and played my favourite
game in it, for the first time. It was by
far the greatest gaming experience
of my life. My expectations were
optimistic but it was so much better
than I ever dreamt possible. Thanks
to superscaling the resolution to 4k,
all the cockpit gauges are totally
readable and the terrain detail and
draw distance is mind blowing. I’m
there in the cockpit. Flying. Actually
doing it. Feeling the speed, the
vertigo, the panic as I crash and
the mind blowing exhilaration of
engaging in a turning dogfight with
other planes.
4K VR
I had a very interesting
chat with an OEM while at
Computex, who told me to
expect an explosion of new
high res VR HMDs from
Chinese brands, and by the
end of this year. That’s the
next big leap for VR, and I’m
so ready.
the big
picture
20 PC PowerPlay
Injustice 2
DEVELOPER NETHERREALM
PUBLISHER WARNER BROS INTERACTIVE
DUE 2017
www.injustice.com
OK, so Injustice 2 hasn’t been
announced on PC as yet - it was
announced as an Xbox One and PS4
exclusive, but considering the success
of Injustice on the PC, we think it’s only
a matter of time that the sequel to one
of the best fighting games in years is
released on our platform of choice.
PC PowerPlay 21
OPINION / JAM
The White
Death
Overwatch and Battleborn
have shown that there’s a
right way and a wrong way to
launch an online shooter. Can
you guess which is which?
I
f you don’t learn from history, you’re
doomed to re-heat it. This is the
only conclusion we can draw from
the greatest tragedy to hit the gaming
scene this year.
In recent months Blizzard, a
company with no real background
in first-person shooters, launched
Overwatch to widespread acclaim
and fantastic commercial success.
Meanwhile Gearbox, a company with
a long and storied history of launching
bold new FPS IPs, released Battleborn
– and it has sunk without a trace.
As of this writing, SteamCharts.com
is reporting that Battleborn is struggling
to get a peak of 1,000 concurrent players
a day, and is only the 261st most popular
game on Steam. It’s beaten easily by
Tom Clancy’s The Division (49th most
popular, 6,598 peak players per day),
Dirty Bomb (#79, 3,587 peak players per
day), and APB Reloaded (#135, 1,788
peak players per day). It’s even eclipsed
by the original Borderlands (#236, 1,074
peak players/day).
Battleborn looks cheap, but it was not
cheap to make – it reportedly cost more
than Borderlands 1 and 2 put together.
While punters and pundits alike are
concerned for the livelihoods of the hardworking Gearbox staff, it is nevertheless
baffling that they could get the look of
their new game so very, very wrong.
Team Fortress 2 set the standard for
accessible online FPS design way back
in 2007. All the TF2 characters have
distinct silhouettes that can be parsed
swiftly from any angle. A ruthlessly
iterative design process ensured they
all wore iconic costumes and possessed
likeable personalities, to the delight of
CosPlayers worldwide. Blizzard followed
the same playbook when crafting the
22 PC PowerPlay
Overwatch troupe, and for tumblr
memesters it was love at first sight.
In comparison the Battleborn roster
is a mess. A large soldier with a tiny
head, some sort of mushroom man, a
steampunk robo-gentlemen, and a host
of forgettables. I recently spoke with a
game store manager who despaired at
the stockpile of promotional figurines
head office had lumped him with.
And speaking of marketing, Gearbox
couldn’t even learn from their own
history. Anthony Burch’s writing and
characterisation in Borderlands 2
attracted controversy – and free publicity
– like a lightning rod. But no-one cared
enough about Battleborn to hate it, let
more than a few war nerds
would jump at the chance to
play as Simo Häyhä
JAMES COTTEE has a
confirmed kill count in
the quintuple digits
alone like it. Meanwhile, the ButtGate
brouhaha over Tracer’s taunt tukhus
guaranteed that every gamer in the
world knew of Overwatch.
Cliffy B. knows the score. As
predicted in these pages he’s been
laying the foundations for the
launch of LawBreakers in recent
months by stating strong opinions on
controversial topics. He’s criticised
the private ownership of motor cars
and firearms, and declared that all the
public toilets in the future world of
his new shooter are officially genderneutral bathrooms. His foresight and
groundwork are bound to pay off.
Likewise, every skerrick of
controversy surrounding Battlefield
1 can only work in EA’s favour, no
matter how misguided the complaint.
For in our content farm economy of
unlimited distractions, the only thing
worse than being talked about is not
being talked about.
More importantly, Battlefield 1 has
pushed the outside of the envelope
encompassing the variety of shooter
genres we can look forward to in the
future. It wasn’t that long ago that most
folks simply assumed that Tolkien’s The
Lord of the Rings books were unfilmable
– then Peter Jackson jolly well went
ahead and filmed them. Likewise,
Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man opened the
floodgates for a new wave of super-hero
cinema. Should DICE’s WWI shooter
prove a hit, then publishers will gain new
licence to explore theatres and conflicts
sorely neglected by our cherished hobby.
For my money, it’s high time someone
made a game about the Winter War.
The Soviet Union’s disastrous 1939
invasion of Finland saw astonishing
feats of heroism on both sides as the
tiny free Scandinavian state fought
Stalin’s legions to a standstill. It’s one of
the few wars in history where the body
counts you can rack up in a video game
actually happened – I’d wager that more
than a few war nerds would jump at
the chance to play as Simo Häyhä, the
Finnish soldier with an astonishing 505
confirmed sniper kills.
It’s a wonder there aren’t more bigbudget sniper games on the market.
The Sniper: Ghost Warrior and Sniper
Elite games are quite successful; new
instalments of both franchises are due to
drop in Q1 next year. Though if they do
make, say, ‘Tom Clancy’s Winter War’,
let us hope they don’t forget to market it
properly. What a tragedy it would be if
they held a war, and nobody came...
INTERVIEW
RULE THE
WAVES
We recently caught up with World of Warships global publishing
producer ARTUR PLOCIENNIK to discuss his experiences
updating World of Warships post launch, and the squalls his team
are braving to bring us the long-awaited Royal Navy update...
S
ince its launch last year, World of
Warships has delighted gamers
worldwide with its deft blend of of
meticulous historical detail and gripping
arcade combat. The game already includes
a raft of legendary American, Japanese,
German, and Russians vessels, yet the
omission of a British tech tree has grown
more glaring by the day. So when the
long, long awaited Royal Navy update was
confirmed for a late 2016 release, we sought
out the WoWS global Publishing producer
Artur Plociennik for the inside scoop.
As every nation in the game has its own
trademark strengths and weaknesses, the
first and most obvious question was what
distinct national character, or ‘flavour’ we
can expect from the Royal Navy boats. “This
is tricky to answer at this time, because
this flavour is likely to be different for each
class of Royal Navy ships, while we’re only
focusing on delivering a cruiser line for now.
We’re thinking of giving those ships the
ability to launch single torpedoes from their
multi-tube launchers, which according to
our research is something that only the Brits
really employed as a combat tactic. However,
we’ll have to see if it remains a viable
concept within the gameplay of the game.”
“The incoming cruiser line will be
fully composed of light cruisers with low
calibre main armaments, a good amount of
torpedoes, as well as decent AA capabilities.”
While the technical details of these ships are
known to Wargaming, Artur stated point
blank that his team ultimately cannot know
how they will disrupt the established meta.
“I feel that this sort of question can never
be answered by developers. We generally
have an estimate of how any new content
will behave in the meta, but that is always,
ALWAYS, verified by the community and
the way they choose to play it. We believe
that single-launch torpedo tubes can be an
interesting gameplay mechanic, but how it
24 PC PowerPlay
actually impacts the meta will be defined by
how players incorporate it in their tactics. It
might totally disrupt the meta and make all
other cruisers obsolete (we don’t think so) or
it might prove to be less than useful.”
When researching the RN ships Artur’s
team had access to a treasure trove of
historical data from the Greenwich National
Maritime Archive. Yet they soon found that
some of the blueprints totally contradicted
the historical photos of the ships. “Moreover,
they contradict themselves, as the
measurements on them don’t match with
the plan itself (which is strange and funny).
Those plans make our life a little bit harder.
“But there are positive surprises as
the Queen Elizabeth,
and King George
V-class battleships
will be there; HMS
Belfast will make an
appearance as well
well, as one blueprint contains all the
modernisations of a hull on it, painted in
different colours. So, unlike other nations
we have been working on, where every
modernisation has its own new blueprint, we
have one “super-blueprint,” and we can draw
all necessary information from it!”
While he wasn’t at liberty to reveal the
new tech tree in detail, Artur could confirm
that several legendary ships are destined
to make it into the game. “The most iconic
classes will surely be represented, like the
Queen Elizabeth, and King George V-class
battleships will be there; HMS Belfast will
make an appearance as well.”
Artur anticipates that some are already
destined to become fan-favourites. “British
WHO ARTUR PLOCIENNIK
WHERE WARGAMING SAINT PETERSBURG
WHY WORLD OF WARSHIPS ROYAL NAVY UPDATE
battleships are sure to be highly anticipated,
as is HMS Belfast—any ships that have left a
mark either in history or popular culture are
usually popular. Other than that there will
also be a few favourites chosen purely due
to their gameplay characteristics, though it’s
difficult to say which those will be right now.
We’d rather wait until the first internal tests
to make any predictions on that.”
Like in World of Tanks, World of Warships
organises its vessels into ten distinct tiers.
While this system works well enough for
game balance, it doesn’t always gel perfectly
with historical fact. “Usually, the difficulties
come from having too few designs to
choose from. With the Royal Navy this is
obviously not the case, since they have a very
interesting shipbuilding history. The main
problem was to choose designs that offered
the characteristics which formed a natural
progression of fighting abilities as you
progressed up the line, while still keeping
the most well-known and distinguished ship
classes in the first release branch.”
But were there any famous ships that they
just couldn’t include because of said format?
“Not too many, though there is one that we
are unsure of right now, due to the dilemma
described above: HMS Cavalier. We’ll see
if and how we can fit it into the gameplay
environment in the future, when we take a
closer look at the British Destroyer tree.”
That’s a dilemma for 2017 and beyond,
though. “As mentioned above, we’ll be starting
with British Cruisers. This is both due to
technical reasons with researching ships and
development workload, and because cruisers
are the most popular class in the game.”
Players have been particularly excited
about captaining the RN’s aircraft carriers.
Though the question naturally arises as to
which will be recreations of historical vessels
and which will be ‘paper ships’ – boats that
never left the drawing board, but that are
sometimes implemented in-game to fill out
the tech tree. “At this time the answer is yes. We will
have a paper ship at tier 10, while the other ships will
be historical ones, but this might still change in the long
time until that carrier branch can be released.”
Earlier this year Wargaming funded the full restoration
of an ultra-rare Australian Made tank, which was also
launched as a premium tank in World of Tanks. Thus we
were curious as to whether any Aussie warships could
show up as premiums on the new British tech tree.
“Yes, there’s one premium ship that served in HMAS
planned for release later this year, though as you will
know, due to the reality of those times, such ships will be
of British origin.” Artur did not elaborate, but a possible
contender could be the HMAS Sydney, a Town class
cruiser legendary for her service in the Battle of Cocos in
1914 where she defeated the German cruiser Emden.
We turned to the subject of Artur’s experience updating
the game post-launch, and he professed that he could easily
say enough on this topic to fill an entire separate article.
“Mostly we’ve been able to see our concepts proved or
disproved by a live audience—some things we now know
to work, some we found to be in need of improvement.
However, the harsh truth is that it’s much harder to operate
on a live patient, just because all the different audience
groups react differently to any single change we make. It’s
hard to please everyone, be seen as reacting to community
feedback, and reach our own development goals. Our
struggle to reach this goal continues.”
So what has surprised him about the way the
community has reacted to WoWS?
“Mostly how violent their mood swings are! But they’re
a passionate bunch of players for sure.”
This observation can be verified by a casual browse
of the sub-Reddit and the official forums, where players
argue endlessly over which ships and classes are under
or over-powered, and dispute myriad issues of game
balance. So which fan feedback has he been able to take
on board and use to refine the game?
“There’s been too much to list, though it’s worth
pointing out that where balance is concerned, we are
extremely careful not to take player opinions at face
value. There are just too many comments from guys
who just had a bad day in their favourite ship. We will
always filter those opinions through the performance
statistics we gather from battles. However, there have
been many, many instances where we’ve taken on board
player feedback regarding inaccuracies in our ship
models or other such details and we are always happy to
incorporate them whenever we can.”
The end user experience in World of Warships has
improved tremendously since launch. The graphics engine
has already had a major overhaul that added weather
effects, the UI has been upgraded to display detection
and weapon ranges on the mini-map, and load times cut
in half. Yet Arturs’ team is far from finished, and they’re
currently working hard on another two major upgrades.
“The first is major improvements to our UI technology
to both increase performance and expand the
possibilities for UI customisation even more; another one
is render refactoring which will allow us to implement
new cool stuff into the visual part of the game client.
It’s a long way off and we’re not yet at the very end of
it, but we can already see the finish line!” For news and
updates, visit worldofwarships.asia. JAMES COTTEE
PC PowerPlay 25
10 to Watch
Z. YEAR ONE
DEVELOPER DOWNLOAD VIRAL
PUBLISHER DOWNLOAD VIRAL/RNG STUDIOS
DUE JULY 2016
store.steampowered.com/app/430930
QA zombie card game. No joke. A
wonderful live-action trailer, but so
little gameplay. The screenshots are
promising, as is the premise, a turn
based, zombies vs. survivors card
game. Play alone, against others,
or co-op. Environmental features
can help increase your chances of
survival. The animations are reported
to be like Gears of War; bloody,
brutal, and satisfying. Can it hold up
to the hype? We think it can.
ESCAPE FROM TARKOV
DEVELOPER BATTLESTATE GAMES
PUBLISHER BATTLESTATE GAMES
DUE ALPHA IN SEPTEMBER 2016
www.escapefromtarkov.com
QEscape from Tarkov is a Singleplayer/MMO
FPS, a bit like The Division, where two opposing
PMC corporations fight for control of the titular
Tarkov. It features some impressive weapon
modding where, if you can find it, you can slap it
on your gun, and if it’s on your gun, you can strip
it bare. The game features an interesting DayZ-like
permanence as well; find your gun and it’s yours,
die and it’s owned by whomever finds your body.
No zombies though. Just Ruskies.
WINTER NOVEL
DEVELOPER DEXP
PUBLISHER DEXP
DUE LATE JULY 2016
store.steampowered.com/app/485350/
QWhen the monotony of being a
banker is explored, the first thing
to do is make a love story. Then a
game. This visual novel features a
pair of accountants who are forced to
work together on a project that may
change their lives. Made with the
ASCII art style, the 8-bit visuals could
detract from the story, or increase
immersion. Though, expect it to be
short, it’s hoping to be less than one
megabyte to download!
26 PC PowerPlay
ORIENTAL EMPIRES
DEVELOPER SHINING PIXEL STUDIOS
PUBLISHER ICEBERG INTERACTIVE
DUE Q3 2016
store.steampowered.com/app/357310
QOriental Empires is basically
Civilisation: China Only. The same
strategy applies; build army, grow
empire, create cities, end turn. The
difference is this will lead us through
the story of ancient China, seeing
empires rise and fall as you struggle
to lead yours into the limelight.
Purportedly, each individual
character will have variations in
clothing and facial features, so
Shining Pixel will have a lot on their
hands for when we ravage cities with
our million-man armies.
THROUGH THE WOODS
DEVELOPER ANTAGONIST
PUBLISHER ANTAGONIST
DUE Q3 2016
www.antagonist.no/throughthewoods
QImagine a quaint Norwegian town with
a wood outside. Those woods are filled
with creatures of Norse mythology. Thor
kidnapping your child would be a godsend.
Join the tale of a mother who has to dive
into a forest filled with Norse beasts to find
her missing child. Developer Antagonist had
GDC and PAX Prime around their finger with
the demo, so they are on the right track, but
will it stay scary for long enough to remain
satisfying?
KABOUNCE
DEVELOPER TIVARU
PUBLISHER TIVARU
DUE Q4 2016
store.steampowered.com/app/431930
QKabounce is a third-person
multiplayer pinball game. That was
going well until pinball came in.
The game looks like one big rave,
strobe and neon lights ravishing
the arenas, as you run into walls to
earn your points. 5v5 multiplayer or
bots send you on your way through
various modes and leaderboards.
No gameplay has been shown as
yet, but there is no doubt it’ll come
with a seizure warning. How much
content can you put into pinball?
We’ll find out.
PC PowerPlay 27
THE OTHER 99
DEVELOPER BURNING ARROW
PUBLISHER DECK13
DUE 2016
store.steampowered.com/app/415010
QThe Other 99 is fairly basic. You
wake up somewhere unusual, with an
ominous note. The note reads “The
only way off the island is through the
other 99.” Assuming you’re number
100, that wouldn’t be too bad if you
had a gun. But you don’t, so you have
to go through an island, crafting and
scavenging to survive. Even if you get
through the other 99, will you be the
same? Our advice: kill them quick.
SISTER LOCATION
DEVELOPER SCOTT CAWTHORN
PUBLISHER SCOTT CAWTHORN
DUE UNKNOWN
www.scottgames.com
QScott Cawthorn. The only man who
has kept the same characters through
a series and kept them scary. All we’ve
seen are a couple of teasers, but they’re
genuinely terrifying. A “sequel” to the
Five Nights series, the teasers show
upgraded animatronics and a whole
new location positively packed with
chairs in need of a browning. Some
rumours say that there will be open
world elements where the animatronics
cause problems, like jamming doors,
and you have to get up and fix them.
IN CASE OF EMERGENCY,
RELEASE RAPTOR
DEVELOPER ARCEN GAMES, LLC
PUBLISHER ARCEN GAMES, LLC
DUE 6 JULY
arcengames.com/in-case-of-emergency-release-raptor
QWhen dinosaurs ruled the Earth,
there was little threat to them, but when
one is reawakened in the future, it must
learn to survive again. Your objective
is simple, escape the dystopian city to
get to the wild, while tail-whipping any
robot that stands in your way. The E3
Trailer showed explosions, destruction,
and all around dinosaur mayhem. With
lots of modes and daily leaderboards,
completionists should fall in love with its
quick, but tricky, gameplay.
28 PC PowerPlay
WORLDS ADRIFT
DEVELOPER BOSSA STUDIOS
PUBLISHER BOSSA STUDIOS
DUE 2016
www.worldsadrift.com
QWorlds Adrift is an open world MMO from
Bossa Studios, creators of I Am Bread and
Surgeon Simulator. Feeling like they’re out of
their comfort zone? Well, the entire game is
physics based, and you fly giant space boats.
Float around big islands and find the tale of the
civilisation that came before, whilst competing
with others for the minerals that will keep your
ship afloat. Powering the MMO is SpatialOS,
allowing real time physics for the thousands of
concurrent players.
PC PowerPlay 29
OPINION / GENXX
Soundscapes
and
Counterpoint.
Designers who are also
composers approach sound
implementation in inspiring
ways.
I
t’s so good to find that place
where all the things you most love
about artistic mediums converge;
interactivity, meditativeness,
interesting sound and challenging
gameplay. Soft Body scratches all of my
itches and, as well as recommending
this as a game you might like, it’s also
the perfect pedagogical example for
the Interactive Media class I teach to
tertiary students. So many games have
linear music and sound, when the
potential exists for so much more.
You’re a splodge, on one stick,
and a ghost splodge on the other.
Everything you touch, and most things
in the game, react to your presence by
providing your ears with dissonance,
retro-reminiscent bloops, rubbery
squeaking and/or floaty electronica.
One of my students described it as
“engaging, but spiritual.” I asked sole
designer Zeke Virant for an interview
and he provided both insightful design
notes and rather lovely prose.
When asked what he wanted to evoke
in the player, and I’ll paraphrase, Virant
says, “That kind of lucid and reflective
dream-like feeling where you imagine
a beautiful future. In short, it’s being
able to have a wonderful conversation
with yourself. It’s being alone and
loving it. It’s making a memory out of
doing nothing. You don’t have to go to
the Grand Canyon or get in a terrible
carwreck. You just stare out the window
and think, seemingly forever.”
It’s certainly meditative, without
being easy. To mention gameplay first,
you have to address puzzle elements
like painting walls and moving balls
along rails, while avoiding both aimless
hazards and you-seeking missiles.
Sometimes, levels have several layers
30 PC PowerPlay
to master before you can progress.
You can die, but your ghost can’t, if it’s
detached. Virant cites his influences
as Brother: A Tale of Two Sons, Space
Invaders Infinity Gene, VVVVVV, Quake
2 and The Splits by Ilya Zarembsky.
On Strikers 1945 II, another influence,
he says, “I generally dislike top-down,
twin-stick shooters with slow, floaty
propulsion physics. This was the first
shooter I played with tight, immediately
responsive, controls and fast movement.”
I found that I could feel my way around
levels organically, even when using
both sticks. I also started relying on
musical cues to signal danger. If I heard
a diamond fire a missile, I knew to focus
on left stick.
It’s being alone and loving
it. It’s making a memory out
of doing nothing
MEGHANN O’NEILL,
can play recorder
duets with both in her
mouth and one hand
on each. It’s not pretty.
Indeed, the musical experience is
inseparable from play. Virant says,
“Music is a wonderful reference when
prototyping a game’s mechanics and
animations. I am always suggesting that
game designers put music in, before
they solidify gameplay. The background
music you hear in the title menu of Soft
Body played a key role in defining the
game’s feel and art style. It provided an
ideal to work towards and a strong but
non-conscious constraint when tuning
the game’s speed and movement.”
Essentially, you’re hearing sparse,
electronic soundscapes in the
background and the other, complex
pitch elements, reactive to player input,
form unusual consonant and dissonant
content. They loosely sound like
chaotic melodies and countermelodies.
On my favourite sound in the game,
Virant says, “What you hear when you
push the ball around on the Spitter/
Spawner enemy is a single sound effect
being played every 3 frames, then being
sped-up or slowed-down and layered
on-top of itself 10 or 20 times.”
Soft Body is a must play for musicians
and lovers of sound. Oddly, it may also be
the kind of experience that would appeal
to a bullet hell audience. I don’t play
them much, but I got the same sensation
of splitting my attention into two, when
trying to run, point and shoot at the same
time. The action unfolds at a similar
pace, except that you can often find a
place to rest and plan your next move
when things are overwhelming, behind
a wall or out of range. In fact, slowing
down to think saved me many times.
I also loved the subtle sense of
nostalgia created by occasional nods to
chiptune sounds, colour and geometric
design. It reminded me of the first game
I ever played; a black and white, sidescrolling space shooter. On the other
hand, it’s definitely a modern game;
innovative, subversive and artistic. In
most aspects, it contradicts itself while
maintaining a coherent whole. There’s
something about that dichotomy that
kept me playing for hours.
In conclusion, Virant says, “I really
wanted the game to be aurally unique.
It was important to make intelligent,
elegant design choices that, to quote
the Oxford History of Western Music,
‘asserted music’s full equality among
the arts as a bearer of meaning,
a necessary precondition to its
sovereignty.’ I think I’ll continue chasing
that goal for as long as I continue to
compose music and create games.”
A Collection As
If that cool girl jumped off a cliff, would you jump, too? MEGHANN O’NEILL is pretty sure that she
wouldn’t, at least nowadays. The games this month have somehow coalesced into a collection
about social/peer pressure. There are the endless knights willing to die for a questionable cause,
the girl who eschews interaction and a group of teens who sure like their party games. And
there’s a squad-based shooter where you’re really just in it for the money, not the friends.
LIFE GOES ON: DONE TO DEATH
DEVELOPER INFINITE MONKEYS ENTERTAINMENT
PRICE $13
www.lifegoesongame.com
Q Remember the classic PC game,
Lemmings? It could get pretty dark.
Sometimes by mistake, sometimes by
design, your little people would be sent
to their demise in an unstoppable, but
relatively cheerful, procession. Was
squishing, incinerating and causing them go
splat always necessary? I can’t remember if
it sometimes was or if I was just too young
to play optimally. Life Goes On: Done to
Death is a macabre Lemmings for a modern
generation, where dying is more than
required, it underpins design.
It’s amazing how quickly my platformerplayer mindset went from, “must avoid
all danger,” to, “must die precisely left a
bit.” Deliberate impalement felt wrong for
probably only two levels. Furthermore,
if you’re not great at platformers, like
me, you can kill a bunch of yourself
on spikes to make a larger corpse
RELEASED
platform to jump on. Hooray!
Although each level has a death par
immortality. There isn’t a lot more
and time limit that you are supposed
story, but that’s because designers
to aspire to, you can progress by simply
spent their writing budget on crafting
making it to a chalice.
pompous names for you to enjoy for about 3
The entire game is utterly incongruous,
seconds each.
but in a way that works. You can perhaps
No, seriously. Chevaleresse Roxanne Solo
imagine a knight risking her life to slay a
of Grimsby was the corpse I climbed on,
hostile dragon, but would she really jump
to reach the next platform. Brother Cedric
into a circular saw just so her corpse will
Schaffer was the corpse I used to clamber up
weight a trigger that turns off fire for the
a spiky wall. The Tart Jimbo I froze into an
next contender? This relies on the ironic
ice cube, pushed up rails to get momentum
idea that the realm’s king is afraid of
and rode on top of, over a fire spout and
death and one of these cups is sure to hold
across a chasm. I fed The Terrible Princess
Julie Gates of the Future to
Jeff, who is a hungry creature
providing an additional goal
for each level. Their monikers
made their violent ends all the
more personal.
Many of the puzzles are
quite tricky to solve, and you’ll
need to experiment, think and
make use of the strategies that
you’ve learned earlier. I don’t
32 PC PowerPlay
want to spoil one particularly poignant
moment of revelation, but noticing that you
can subvert the usual usage of a standard
platformer feature, in order to work your
way around death, is pretty great. With
68 progressively more complex levels,
sometimes involving time pressure, and
being shot from cannons, achievements
for squandering thousands of lives seem
appropriate.
This game reminds me of a staff meeting I
attended when I was a high school teacher,
shortly after the school had erected a spiky
fence around the oval. Many students found
going the long way around inconvenient.
One teacher asked, “What should the
punishment be for students scaling the
fence?” Another replied, “Impalement.”
That’s all well and good, but they didn’t
consider that a second student could
subsequently escape by using the first’s
corpse. This game may have changed the
way I think about death, in worrisome ways.
Be warned.
TASTEE: LETHAL TACTICS
DEVELOPER SKYBOX LABS
PRICE $15
tasteegame.com
Q Wouldn’t say I’m a massive player of
shooters, but I do love turn based
strategy games. As such, TASTEE:
Lethal Tactics couches unfamiliar
RELEASED
mechanics into a genre where I can
comfortably appreciate them. For
example, do you know how exciting it
is to explore line of sight options when you
are holding a gun and then find a perfect
shot? And that you can hide around walls
from other people when they are holding
guns? Yes? Well, good for you. I have
discovered a new, and very deep, love of
ranged weaponry. And snipers.
This squad-based duelling game relies on
more than just angles and making sure you
are facing in a good direction, though. It’s
both very deep and quite easy to play, which
strikes me as an unusual combination.
Simply, the game is reactive to a range of
possible conditions and everything makes
complete sense. If you’re facing forward,
running backward will require more of
one criticism, it’s that most levels don’t
your movement allocation. If the enemy is
require you to escape. Reaching a target half
behind cover, you will take longer to aim.
a second before being shot, but winning,
Be aware that turns are planned
feels cheesy.
simultaneously and not actually taken in
There are twelve characters to choose
turn. When playing one of thirty single player from, roughly divided into gunmen, snipers,
missions, the AI sometimes holds its ground
shotgunners and bombers. Each have
and you can accurately preview its demise.
different sight ranges, movement speeds,
But only sometimes. In fact, given how often
rates of fire, and such, as well as a special
I failed levels, I can conclusively say that the
ability, like tracking, scouting and “big
AI will move differently on each attempt. You explosions.” Play will combine use of area of
can also view a full playback after the match
effect abilities, hiding, seeking and being well
so you can see where the enemy was actually
placed to shoot first. I found that character
hiding and how your bad guess led to a bullet choice was tied to level design, which is
seemingly out of nowhere.
diverse and incredibly carefully done. The
Multiplayer matches feel more mobile,
train-yards completely stumped me.
partly because they are limited to 15 turns,
Aesthetically, it initially feels blokey.
as a maximum setting, and although
You’re working for a fast food joint that
characters are unlocked incrementally in
is clearly a front for organised crime
the campaign, they are all available. MP is
and levels are peppered with Utes and
incredibly tense, quite possibly because the
forklifts. Interestingly, though, there are
only current mode is elimination. In the SP
some powerful women to take along, as
campaign, your goal may be to explode a
well as people from a range of cultural
truck or capture drug packages. If I have
backgrounds. Loading screen tips feature
female pronouns. The overall impression
is one of thoughtfulness and polish, with
detailed art and engaging frontiersy music.
With the ability to plan turns, view
previews based on forecasted enemy
position and depth of systems, TASTEE:
Lethal Tactics is a compelling challenge. For
me, the difference between winning and
losing often relied on precisely where the
squad was looking and how this affected
their other statistics. It’s an aspect of games
I’ve never had much reason to reflect on,
but I found myself chasing every possible
advantage. I’m possibly also awesome at
shooters now, too. Possibly.
PC PowerPlay 33
THE AVERAGE EVERYDAY
ADVENTURES OF SAMANTHA
BROWNE
DEVELOPER LEMONSUCKER GAMES
PRICE FREE
choosetheoatmeal.com
Q My fondest hope for these indie pages
is to find special games and connect them
with the people who might uniquely value
them. As such, I’ve been spending time
ruminating on “empathy games.” Is the
genre label even appropriate? Why are
they often free? Should they be free? Who
are they for? Why do people make
them? Where do they fit into the
wider context of games? What
RELEASED
specific expectations do players
have? Is there a way to better
understand them? As usual, I’m
raising questions, but don’t have a lot
of answers.
Part of the difficulty is that these
experiences can be very different to one
another, both in implementation and
reception. That Dragon, Cancer was made
as a way to heal after the death of a child.
The fact it cost money upset a lot of people.
Of course, Depression Quest was free and
that also upset people. Beyond Eyes is $15,
but the criticism I’ve seen focuses on game
mechanics, not the price. Dys4ia is a wellknown and much cited “empathy game” in
academic spheres but its creator, in her own
words (on a blog post) “hates” it.
To me, a discussion of what this kind
of game “should” be, and whether it costs
money and such, feels inappropriate.
These aspects are uniquely tied to the
personal circumstances of any given
To me, it’s an exploration of failure.
designer who is willing to share their
Distressingly, Samantha feels everything
life experience. I think that a better way
is over where I clearly saw options or
to approach this is to ask people why
solutions, and it is this dissonance that I,
they might want to play it. Also, I can’t
personally, found very moving. One time,
imagine why anyone would want to play
I can’t even remember why the game
an “empathy game” if they thought they
ended. I dropped a spoon or something.
couldn’t respect the designer’s experience
A girl came by and asked Samantha if she
and approach. As such, compelling people
were OK. She said she wasn’t and that was
to play also seems wrong.
the end of the game. I wanted to know
And so, I played The Average Everyday
what happened next, because it may have
Adventures of Samantha Browne this
challenged Samantha’s worldview. I very
month. It’s free and about 15 minutes long.
much wanted the other girl to provide
It explores one girl’s journey to the college
useful, friendly assistance.
dorm’s kitchen to make packet oatmeal.
Sounds easy? Nope. Cue: social anxiety.
The corridor wobbles with every step,
people whisper incoherently behind their
hands and you worry a lot. Remember
in Leisure Suit Larry where you forgot
to use a condom and then died an hour
later? There’s no sex in this game, but you
can sure punish yourself as harshly for
forgetting a simple thing.
It explores one girl’s journey to the college
dorm’s kitchen to make packet oatmeal
34 PC PowerPlay
The game hinges on the idea that the
only path to success is within the confines
of social anxiety and Samantha’s narrow
thinking. You can succeed, but not without
significant stress, as supported by evocative
audio and music. My experience resulted in
being reminded that asking for help rarely
ends badly, in real life, and that it’s OK to
be kind to yourself. I imagine yours will
be different, whether it’s related to your
own life, or learning from someone else’s.
Samantha’s dorm is a place you are invited
to visit, even if walking in her shoes can
feel unsteady.
OXENFREE
DEVELOPER NIGHT SCHOOL STUDIO
PRICE $20
nightschoolstudio.com
Q When I was a teenager, I taught myself
to smoke to impress a guy. Did it work? No,
of course it didn’t work. He barely knew I
existed. It did leave me with a, thankfully
relatively minor, addiction to cigarettes for a
few years, though. This is why stories about
weighty issues, like death and grief, are
better told with a cast of teenage characters.
Instead of being given an unwavering,
mature perspective on the action, pressing
adolescent concerns break things up. Like,
“Oh no, we are in mortal peril. Hey, do you
want one of these funky brownies?”
Oxenfree is a very tight story about loss,
set firmly as supernatural horror. You’re
going to the historic, but mostly deserted,
Edwards Island for a night of mischief, a rite
of passage for local youth. You’ve packed a
radio, but no-one has told you what it’s for.
Only five people turn up, but there’s your old
friend, new step-brother and some cool girls
from school. At the outset, you learn that
Jonas’ dad has married your mum because
your parents split up after the death of your
older brother. After some experimentation
with the radio, things get scary very quickly.
The dialogue comes across very naturally
and only seems awkward to illustrate this
trait in the characters. One particularly
evocative line reads, “Truth or Slap is better
than Truth or Dare because it means noone ends up licking someone’s butthole.”
By providing the player with plentiful
choices as conversations unfold, you
can choose a response or silence.
If you don’t want to accidentally
RELEASED
miss anything, you do need to time
your responses carefully, because
they can function to interrupt what
someone was about to say.
The conversation system also relies on
walking long distances around levels. It’s
nice to have something to do with your
fingers while you’re listening to the story
unfold, but as the pace picks up towards the
end of the game, I was definitely sick of the
I wouldn’t complain about time spent in a
forest. (Which was otherwise beautifully
game’s world, but without fast travel, you
drawn.) There are certainly reasons to
have to really want to know more to retrace
replay, too, especially where the illusion
your steps again and again.
of choice is very compelling, or where you
After playing, I felt very satisfied by a
can discern the path to a radically different
well-told story. I looked up the meaning of the
ending. There is definitely an ideal ending,
title and, apparently, kids playing Hide and
which I didn’t get, but now believe I could.
Seek can call, “Olly olly oxenfree,” to signal
Puzzles aren’t difficult to solve, most
that everyone can now come out without
involving messing with the radio or clicking losing. Post-game, without spoilers, that
on features of your immediate surroundings. concept struck me as really sad. Also, the idea
Gameplay is fleshed out by finding places to that you might have some good reason for
interact with that add increments of story
calling people to you, but they stay hidden,
and form a more complete picture of events. is very frightening. It’s a good title. So, as you
This is great except that it requires even
prepare for this night away, take some advice;
more walking. Generally, especially given
if you decide to take mind-altering drugs,
the quality of the artwork and audio design, make sure you are with friends you trust.
PC PowerPlay 35
PREVIEW
WARHAMMER
40,000: DAWN
OF WAR III
The beauty of destruction is on full display in
Dawn of War III, writes ANDREW WHITEHEAD
DEVELOPER RELIC ENTERTAINMENT
PUBLISHER SEGA
DUE TBA 2017
dawnofwar.com
C
oming over five years after the last
expansion, and seven years after the last
main entry in the series, Dawn of War III has
a lot to live up to. Somewhat of a fusion of the
first two games, this new entry combines the
base building of the first Dawn of War while
retaining the focus on hero units as seen in
Dawn of War II. It’s also being developed with
those new to the Dawn of War series in mind.
“Even fans of the franchise may not have
played it for five or ten years,” Philippe Boulle,
game director on of War III, “so we wanted to
make a game that had a fun on-ramp so that
you could get into it. Play the campaign that’ll
take you through all three factions and expose
you to their mechanics and you can learn what
makes them fun and what makes them fun to
fight against.”
THE ICE PLANET ACHERON
My live demonstration featured an army
of Blood Raven Space Marines, led by the
legendary Gabriel Angelos, as they scoured
on the ice planet of Acheron as they fought
for survival. Going up against them were
the Eldar, the space elves of the Warhammer
40,000 universe.
36 PC PowerPlay
Hero unit Gabriel
Angelos led the charge
and used his devastating
hammer attacks to wipe
out infantry squads
The Space Marines had brute strength
on their side. Genetically engineered to be
killing machines they marched across the
frozen landscape, concentrating their fire on
approaching units and calling in drop pods for
reinforcements. Hero unit Gabriel Angelos led
the charge and used his devastating hammer
attacks to wipe out infantry squads.
“You saw [the Space Marines] fight the
Eldar, and they’re a lot more about mobility,
they do a lot of flanking manoeuvres and
hit-and-run type tactics. Then we have the
Orks who are much more wild maniacs
hordes. Both of those factions have their own
characteristics and abilities, but we’re not
quite ready to talk about that yet.”
Though specifics of story are also being
held under wraps the narrative was described
BEST
OF E3
by Phillippe as a “critical” part of the
development of Dawn of War III. It’s also
an important tool for introducing not
only the world to new players but to the
three factions and how to play them.
“[With the] Warhammer intellectual
property we have this really rich
background. And sort of like real time
strategy gaming in general, if you put
everything in front of someone, it can
be a little bit overwhelming. So part of
our narrative’s job is to introduce what
we fell in love with the [Warhammer
universe] to begin with.”
DID YOU SEE THAT?
Relic aim to keep the environments
of Dawn of War III richly detailed and
filled with personality. Right now
they’re only showing Acheron, a blue
ice planet that cracks and crumbles
beneath the player as their skirmishes
rage on. Rivers of lava flow alongside
giant glaciers while ancient statues lay
frozen just beneath the surface.
The game doesn’t have the same
level of unit detail as Dawn of War II
and leans more into the cartoonishness of the universe. For the developers
it was about ensuring players could
clearly see what was going on during a
battle and who was firing upon who.
Unit detail aside, the actual battles
are visually stunning. Bright glowing
lasers fly across the battlefield with
every surface of the ice planet glowing.
This isn’t a brown and red war game,
Relic used the full colour palette here. At
one point Gabriel called down an orbital
laser strike that briefly sucks units
off the ground before turning to ash
mid-air. It’s at those times when things
start getting really hectic you begin to
realise while Relic felt the need for a
clarification in the chaos adjustment.
Interview with Philippe Boulle
Game director on Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III
Do you play the tabletop version
of Warhammer 40,000 in the Relic
office?
Yeah totally. We learn what makes some of
the unit fun, I mean we don’t do a lot of direct
translation of the underlying mechanics
because a turn-based game and a real-time
game are quite different. But we look for
inspiration for mechanics and those moments
of fun. The amount of love that goes into
those miniatures is something we wanted to
reproduce in the digital space.
The first two Dawn of War games
had a big modding scene, will you
continue to support that?
We’re not really ready to talk about
modding, but I’ve got to say the amount of
mods for Dawn of War II and Dawn of War I is
really gratifying, and is definitely something
we want to support. It’s just the details of how
and the schedule of when isn’t something
we’re ready to talk about just yet.
How about multiplayer? What can
fans expect from Dawn of War III?
Multiplayer is something we’ll talk
about in more detail later on, but we’ve
always had team multiplayer in Dawn
of War as well as one-versus-one, and
that’s not something we would change.
We’re definitely going to ship with a great
multiplayer, that makes the game a more
fun. And with multiplayer, it’s like the
modding scene, it grows over the life of the
product. So we’ll release with something
great, but it’s only going to get better and
the fans get a hold of it and help it grow.
LOOKING FOR RECRUITS
It’s clear talking to the developers
about Dawn of War III how much they
Before each
battle players can love working on a Warhammer 40,000
choose three Elite game. They love the books, playing
Units to join them
the tabletop game, painting the
and potentially
figures. And they want to make sure
turn the tide
that love translates into a game that
of a conflict.
During my demo
players will love too.
I watched story
“There’s always a challenge of making
dependent
sure
we’re making the right choices in
characters like
there, being true to the property without
Space Marine
alienating people who aren’t familiar
Gabriel Angelos
will often take up
with it. But it’s really something that
one slot in the
I personally love, and Relic has been
campaign, but
working on these games for 10-plus
any free slots
years, we love this [universe].”
can be filled with
units like like a
Passion will only get you so far
squad of Assault
though, but thankfully everything I’ve
Terminators or a
seen of Dawn of War III is incredibly
Super Unit like the
promising. They’ve listened to the fans
Imperial Knight.
and want them to return, they’re after
new recruits too, and above all else
Relic have proven time and time again
Do you know what they know what they’re doing when it
it’s like to be a white
comes to honouring the bizarre world
man who can call
fire from the sky?
that is Warhammer 40,000.
HELP A
BROTHER OUT
PC PowerPlay 37
PREVIEW
THE SURGE
Cyborgs and killer robots have dark souls
too, writes HEIDI KEMPS
DEVELOPER DECK 13
PUBLISHER FOCUS HOME INTERACTIVE
DUE 2017
thesurge-game.com
T
he future’s kind of a mess, but if you’ve
played video games for any length of
time, you know that already. Rarely do we
have the Star Trek-style utopias of cooperation
and realizing mankind’s unified potential instead, what we usually get are violent, gritty
mechanical hellscapes where technology has
gone wild and humanity must do everything
in its power to merely subsist… including
making use of those machines that probably
screwed up everything in the first place.
Quite appropriately, there has been an
uptick in games where “struggling to survive
and progress in harsh environments” is key
to their appeal. One might even wonder why
nobody has yet married the brutal difficulty of
the Souls games to a futuristic sci-fi settings.
Well, wonder no longer, for we are soon to
experience The Surge.
The Surge is the second game from
developers Deck 13. Based on this title and
their previous game, Lords of the Fallen, the
crew has a deep-seated appreciation for the
Souls games -- the inspiration for Lords of the
Fallen was pretty clear, and The Surge follows
in very similar (albeit much bigger and more
mechanical) footsteps. That’s certainly not a
38 PC PowerPlay
bad thing: if you’re going to take inspiration
from a game series, it’s probably good to look
to one that’s won over the hearts and minds of
players worldwide.
But it’s also not fair to Deck 13 to call The
Surge a straight-up Souls knockoff, either.
The Surge takes place in one of those
dystopian futures we all know and love. The
planet is dying, social order is collapsing,
earth’s population is becoming old and
decrepit, and the only salvation seems to
come via the hands of giant corporations. The
developers have noted in various presentation
that their vision of The Surge’s future is what
would happen if the technology we know
and love today took a dark turn - like having
Google transform into a massive surveillance
state. It’s not the apocalypse, but it’s still not
an outcome anyone would want for our future.
Warren, the hero, is a typical blue-collar
worker. He does his daily job and doesn’t
think much of it - after all, the company was
working to help purify the environment.
Everything was great... until one day
where he wakes up in the wreckage of
what was once his jobsite. Apparently a
massive industrial accident has happened,
and William is the sole survivor - and he
now has an exoskeleton bolted to his body.
Unfortunately, with the facility’s security
systems gone haywire and his former coworkers transformed into horrible mutants,
he might not be able to retain that “survivor”
status for much longer.
BEST
OF E3
Just because
it’s a mechanical
society ruled
by corporations
doesn’t mean it has
to look drab
As you take your irst steps in the
world of The Surge with William, you’ll
likely take note of the game’s visual
style. You might expect a wrecked
world of broken-down machines,
destroyed industrial facilities, and
mass environmental malaise to look
like a mess of depressing brown and
grey. But for a game where the whole
planet’s gone to pot, The Surge looks
refreshingly different from a lot
of other high-profile titles. In fact,
it’s downright colourful: sunlight
bouncing off of building debris, old and
tattered signs and billboards littering
the landscape, and weeds and other
scrappy shrubbery littering man-made
ruins. Just because it’s a mechanical
society ruled by corporations doesn’t
mean it has to look drab, after all.
There’s no one “right” way to get
through certain areas, our demo leader
told us, but there are some “checks” in
place to ensure players don’t stumble
blindly into areas that are way too hard
for them. William will occasionally
stumble across barriers to progress
that can only be opened through
“overcharging” circuits that open doors
to other parts of the level. Depending on
his strength, William might be able to
unlock lower-level overcharge barriers,
but be stymied by higher-level ones.
You can’t just sit around and take
in the sights of the factory junkyard,
however. You’re going to need to
fight for your life with all you’ve got.
Fortunately, that “all you’ve got”
includes a cool, powerful exoskeleton.
Unfortunately, your foes are every
bit as tough as your new metallic
contraption.
Combat in The Surge is heavily
melee-based. You engage foes and
fight them, utilizing a carefully
strategized and choreographed war
dance of strikes, guards, and dodges
based on the situation at hand. It’s
pretty typical, but there are wrenches
thrown into the combat mix that
make machine-on-machine melee a
bit more complex.
HONING
THE CRAFT
Getting loot is one
thing, but really
making it useful
is something else
entirely. Much like
bonfires in Souls
games, William
will be able to
retreat to a base
of operations
where he can
dismantle and
reassemble gear
using the items
he’s accumulated.
Those chainsaw
blades you just
hacked off might
not be great now,
but with a bit of
work they’ll be
slicing and dicing!
When fighting foes head-on, you
can opt to target specific body parts
using the analogue stick. By expending
combat energy (a bar separate from
your health and stamina), you can
perform specific “finishing moves” on
areas of enemies’ bodies. By doing so,
you may discover that your enemy has
a weak point that isn’t immediately
obvious. There’s a far more satisfying
reason to target areas of a foe’s body,
though - if you can successfully hack
off an appendage bearing some cool
gear you’d like to appropriate, you can
get it as a reward. There’s a delightful
rush of adrenaline attached to seeing
a limb or head go flying, knowing that
what adorns it will soon belong to you.
Of course, strategic dismemberment is
rarely the easy way to fight, but if you’re
willing to put the effort in, you may find
yourself handsomely rewarded.
Or, if you screw up royally, you
could just wind up dead, and even the
sweetest of loot isn’t going to be of
much help then.
While the game wears its inspiration
on its sleeve, The Surge’s interesting
setting and rewarding new combat
mechanics look to set this apart from
the pack of Souls-likes. Deck 13 has
already proven that they have what it
takes to make an engaging, brutally
difficult action-RPG, so hopefully
The Surge will prove to be a solid
sophomore outing. Based on what
we’ve seen so far, it’s looking like it’s
got the touch.
PC PowerPlay 39
PREVIEW
BEST
OF E3
BATTLEFIELD 1
DEVELOPER DICE
PUBLISHER ELECTRONIC ARTS
DUE OCTOBER 21, 2016
www.battlefield.com
I
t’s a strange world we live in when the
latest Call of Duty is accused of being
too repetitive despite being set in space and
featuring zero-G combat, while Battlefield
1 is praised for innovation while going back
in time to World War I. But in a weird way it
makes sense. Gamers have conquered been to
the future already, but how often have they
fought in the Arabian desert or up high in the
Alps? Truthfully, I’m struggling to think of
many examples.
My time with Battlefield 1 was spent playing
32 versus 32 Conquest matches on a map
called St. Quentin Scar, an area based on the
French countryside. You know the drill, two
teams fight to hold flags and drain the enemy’s
tickets. Whoever reaches zero first loses.
One of the biggest changes I had to come to
terms with was how speciality vehicles work.
Whenever you hold a flag that can spawn either
a tank or an aeroplane you can only use it if you
spawn directly into it. It won’t be just sitting
there for anyone to grab anymore; you now
have to play as speciality classes for vehicles.
Pilots and tank drivers come with their own
load-outs too. Very weak load-outs. But they
do have their advantages, like tank drivers
40 PC PowerPlay
being the only one capable of repairing tank.
This small change will hopefully prevent one
side from stealing all the big guns from around
them map and not letting new ones respawn
back in.
The four basic soldier classes have also had
been shaken up. The Assault class now has
explosives for dealing with armoured vehicles
while healing and reviving is handled by the
Medic. Less affected are Support units who still
using machine guns for supressing fire and the
Scout class with their long-range sniper rifles.
So how did it all play? Speaking as a fan
of Battlefield 3 and 4 I can confirm I sucked
at Battlefield 1, but I know I can get better.
As a tank driver I had to get used to vehicles
sluggishness, which meant relying on my allies
in the gunner seats more than ever.
On foot I fared a little better. Aiming is
trickier with the low-tech scopes, but the new
melee combat options, like the bayonet charge,
made surviving close encounters more likely.
I also found myself staying with my squad
and flanking enemies more; team play feels
essential in Battlefield 1.
Working as a team play becomes even more
important towards the end of a match when a
behemoth class vehicle shows up. Each map has
one speciality vehicle that can turn the tide for
the losing side. In my demo it was a devastating
zeppelin, similar to AC-130 gunships but even
deadlier. These are the times you’ll be praying
for good pilots on your side.
It’s going to take some time to get used to
Battlefield 1 and its more grounded combat.
But I enjoyed what I’ve played, so I’ll put down
my Stinger missiles for a while and adapt to
change. ANDREW WHITEHEAD
PREVIEW
BEST
OF E3
VAMPYR
DEVELOPER DONTNOD ENTERTAINMENT
PUBLISHER FOCUS HOME INTERACTIVE
DUE 2017
www.vampyr-game.com
L
ondon, 1918. Things are rough, to say
the least. There’s a nasty round of the
Spanish Flu going around -- and many of
the more frail members of the populace
are falling victim to the illness. But there’s
something else lurking in the shadows, as
well: an ancient race of vampires, existing
since time immemorial. As Dr. Jonathan
Reid, you have a responsibility to treat and
protect the ailing people of London. But
you’ve also got an awful secret: you are
among the vampires, and your constant
thirst for blood may be the most dangerous
threat of all…
Dontnod, the French developers behind
Remember Me and Life is Strange, are taking
a very different approach with Vampyr, their
latest title. Vampyr is, at its heart, an RPG,
albeit one with the sort of challenging choices
Dontnod’s games have featured prominently
in the past. In this game, you can wield the
unfathomable power of the vampires - but at
the cost of the lives of the very populace you’re
supposed to be protecting.
Taking the role of Dr. Reid, you move
about London, attempting to help control the
spread of contagion and keeping the peace.
As a secret vampire, you must adhere to the
rules of your kind - you can’t enter a house
without being invited, for example - and you
must find a means to satiate your hunger for
human blood. Keeping the peace is perhaps
the easier process of the two: you’ll encounter
plenty of NPCs in the city, each with their own
personality, background, and relationships
with other characters. By conversing with
them (and, in some cases, giving responses via
a Bioware-style dialogue wheel) you can learn
more about them and their needs.
Of course, their needs are something you
can choose to ignore entirely in favour of
your needs. The very nature of the vampire
is draining the life of others, and in order
for Dr. Reid to survive and grow stronger,
he must consume human blood. Feeding is
a very delicate and interesting process - you
can always drain the blood from the vampire
hunters who have figured out your true
nature and foolishly attack you, but using
your supernatural wiles, you can also lure
unsuspecting citizens to secluded areas where you will proceed to suck the life right
out of them. Not only will this allow Dr. Reid
to power up his various vampiric combat
abilities, it will also have dramatic effects on
the storyline: for example, killing a particular
person might make another citizen’s life
better, but completely destroy the glue holding
their family together. By feeding on too many
people who are vital to the lifeblood of an area
- or letting the flu take hold - you run the risk
of having that region turn into a crumbling
stronghold for fierce vampiric mutants.
Dr. Reid will need to fight said mutants along with covert vampire hunters and other
threats - in order to help secure the peace
of London and, hopefully, help him concoct
a cure for vampirism. But can any goal
truly be considered noble when lives must
be offered up as a sacrifice? It’s the sort of
moral quandary Dontnod excel at, and we’ll
be seeing plenty more shades of grey upon
Vampyr’s release in 2017. HEIDI KEMPS
PC PowerPlay 41
PREVIEW
BEST
OF E3
TITANFALL 2
DEVELOPER RESPAWN ENTERTAINMENT
PUBLISHER ELECTRONIC ARTS
DUE OCTOBER 28, 2016
www.titanfall.com
Y
ou can take fans demanding more from a
game as either the developers didn’t put
enough content into said game or what they
made was so good fans are dying for more.
However you feel about that statement as it
relates to the original Titanfall one thing is
certain; Titanfall 2 is going to be bigger than
its predecessor. Much bigger.
“Definitely the feedback we got after the
last game was that people wanted more,” said
Jon Shiring, lead engineer on Titanfall 2. “So
for some of those people who thought that
they went through the content too quickly,
in this game there’s a lot more paths for
progression and things to do. I think people
will be very happy when they play the game.”
The biggest addition is a genuine singleplayer campaign, complete with a story about
a gruff soldier named Jack Cooper and his
Titan-with-a-heart-of-gold BT. The two of
them are more than just man and machine,
there’s a friendship here. And as ridiculous as
that may sound don’t act like you’ve never felt
something for a fictional robot before. Johnny
Five? Wall-E? I rest my case.
“We did a bunch of little experiments [for
the campaign],” explained Jon, “bite-sized
42 PC PowerPlay
things that showed what sixty seconds of
gameplay could feel like. And we did a lot of
those and saw which one work and which
ones don’t. And what we’ve created is a singleplayer campaign that is unlike other shooter
campaigns.”
The campaign may still be under wraps,
but multiplayer mode was up for a work
out. Sitting down with Titanfall 2 felt like
going home again. I knew what I was doing
immediately; how to wall-run, when to call in
my Titan, all the basics. There’s tweaks and
changes here and there, including a total of six
Titans now, but overall this is the same tight
controls and movement that made the first
game such a joy to play.
The biggest change to how you play is
the addition of a slide manoeuvre and the
grappling hook. You can use it to kick-start a
wall-run, grapple a fleeing enemies, or pull
yourself onto the back of an enemy Titan. And
if you need to avoid fire simply slide run away
and slide to cover. Make no mistake, of all the
little things that have changed in Titanfall 2,
pilot movement remains a fluid as it ever was.
As mentioned before, content is king. But
Respawn don’t want to just drop map packs
and splinter their audience. So instead they’re
offering free updates that will add substantial
content for all players.
“One of the lessons we learned from
Titanfall is that it’s really hard when you chop
up your userbase into different pack,” said
Jon. “So on Titanfall 2 all of the maps and
modes will be free for everybody. Anything
that affects gameplay will be a free update to
everybody.”
The solid foundation that was the first game
has paid off and Titanfall 2 is shaping up to be
brilliant. ANDREW WHITEHEAD
PREVIEW
BEST
OF E3
TROLL AND I
DEVELOPER SPIRAL HOUSE
PUBLISHER MAXIMUM GAMES
DUE 2017
trollandi.maximumgames.com
O
ver the past few years, we’ve seen some
very interesting examples of games
centred around a single player controlling
two characters, separately and cleverly using
the capabilities of each character to help
advance further. Developer Spiral House
and publisher Maximum Games are taking
this concept to new places with Troll and
I, a game about a young boy and his very
unlikely companion.
Troll is a mythical monster that’s been
living in the Nordic wilderness. As with
many cryptids, he’s the target of people
who want to prove his existence, and one
such person has sent out packs of hunters to
uncover Troll. Unfortunately, said hunters
are also causing serious environmental
damage in their quest, opening portals for
hordes of nasty creatures to emerge and
ransack everything in sight. Otto’s sleepy
village is the victim of one such attack, and
as he flees from the carnage, he meets and
immediately befriends Troll. Can the pair
work together to survive and repair the
havoc that’s been unleashed?
Throughout the demo we played, we
encountered numerous situations where
we had to figure out how to effectively
combine the skills of Otto and Troll to get
past obstacles. For example, Troll’s large size
makes it harder for him to climb to certain
areas the thinner, nimbler Otto can reach
easily, but when Otto can’t jump across from
one high area to another, the player can
switch to Troll, have him pick up an object to
act as a plank, then move near where Otto is
and hold up the plank to serve as a platform.
The two can also fight off their enemies in
distinct ways - Otto with his tools and Troll
with brute, creature-smashing strength - or
combine their strength to defend themselves
against threats. Of note is that you don’t
control the characters simultaneously, as you
would in a game like Brothers - you switch
between the pair to utilize the skills of each.
That is, unless you command the two to
pair up -- then you turn into a war machine
consisting of a boy riding a huge troll,
eagerly and gleefully stomping down foes
and crushing obstacles.
It might sound like the sort of heartwarming family tale you’d see in a CG
animated feature film, but Troll and I is
surprisingly harsh. Troll’s merciless fists
smash his foes, sometimes smacking them
so hard that their heads fly right off. The
comparatively frailer Otto can die very easily
if he falls too far or takes too much damage,
leaving players to witness a horrified Troll
mourning his unfortunate death. (There are
hints that Troll can learn skills later on to
help Otto recover, but we didn’t have any of
those in our play session.)
While the demo we played was brief,
it did a fine job of showcasing the game’s
dual-character approach to progression,
combat, and puzzle solving. The developers
are promising more varied puzzles and
environments as you progress further into
the game -- given the game’s lush setting
of the Nordic wilderness, there’s a lot of
potential in its setting that we hope the game
fully realizes. Troll and I will be debuting on
PC in early 2017. HEIDI KEMPS
PC PowerPlay 43
PREVIEW
BEST
OF E3
SOUTH
PARK:
THE FRACTURED
BUT WHOLE
DEVELOPER UBISOFT SAN FRANCISCO
AND SOUTH PARK DIGITAL STUDIOS
PUBLISHER UBISOFT
DUE DECEMBER 6, 2016
southpark.ubisoft.com
P
romising more than twice as much
content as the last game, builds upon
what made The Stick of Truth so good by
adding a few layers of complexity without
going overboard.
Set a short time after the last game South
Park: The Fractured But Whole has you once
again playing as the New Kid, who can now be
a boy or a girl, and quickly learning that fantasy
stuff is lame now. Superheroes are where it’s at.
Cartman leads the Coon and Friends squad as
they battle in a ‘Civil War’ like event with their
bitter rivals, the Freedom Pals lead by Timmy as
a sort of Professor X character.
There’s three key areas the developers are
expanding upon in Fractured. The first is
interactive humour, so that more jokes happen
with your input. The second is the combat that
is now a grid-based battlefield. And finally
rewarding exploration, which includes finding
random items and using them to craft new
weapons and power ups.
Near the beginning the game you can pick a
class which can later be changed and mixed in
with other classes. For my demo we watched
as a Speedster (i.e. The Flash) version of New
Kid went on his quest to help Cartman find
someone in South Park with a connection to
Netflix. For a spin-off of course.
Even after a short demo it’s clear; The
Fractured But Whole is shaping up to be
every bit as great as The Stick of Truth and
won’t let new and old fans down. ANDREW
WHITEHEAD
Though Loading Human is a VR-based, its
roots are in one of the most classic of genres:
the adventure game. As Prometheus, you’ll
need to explore environments in a first-person
view to find items, reveal clues, and solve
puzzles needed to progress. Your main method
of interacting with the world around you is
with your hands: you can pick up, examine, and
use a multitude of things found in the world
around you. Sometimes these interactions are
simply atmospheric, like opening and reading
a book or playing some music. At other times,
like having to pick up, hook, and pull a crowbar
to unseal a locked passage or grab and swing
around an extinguisher to put out a fire, the
actions are absolutely crucial to your missions.
Loading Human is set to be an episodic
adventure. Though no specific release date
has yet been set, the first episode looks to be
shaping up very nicely. If all goes well, look
forward to immersing yourself in Loading
Human by year’s end. HEIDI KEMPS
LOADING
HUMAN
DEVELOPER UNTOLD GAMES
PUBLISHER MAXIMUM GAMES
DUE 2016
www.loading-human.com
A
common theme throughout sci-fi is the
crossroads of technology, unseen forces of
the universe, and how these things help define
our experiences as human beings. Developer
Untold Games is now taking these concepts to
a frontier that seems highly appropriate with
Loading Human for Oculus VR.
Loading Human, like many a good sci-fi
tale, is set in a technologically advanced
future. As the tellingly-named hero
Prometheus, you have returned to your ailing
father’s lab in the Antarctic at his urging.
He has given you a request: travel through
the furthest reaches of spacetime to find
the Quintessence, a metaphysical force of
unspeakable power and potential. It could
be the only force in the universe capable of
saving his life.
44 PC PowerPlay
BEST
OF E3
PREVIEW
SPACE
HULK:
DEATHWING
DEVELOPER STREUM ON STUDIO/CYANIDE
PUBLISHER FOCUS HOME INTERACTIVE
DUE 2016
spacehulk-deathwing.com
T
he Warhammer 40K universe has seen a
fair few game adaptations of late - see our
highlight of Dawn of War III this issue - but
despite having a lot of trappings that would
be perfect for a big, action-heavy first-person
shooter, there hasn’t been one set in Games
Workshop’s sprawling sci-fi setting for quite
some time now - the closest we’ve gotten
was Warhammer 40K: Space Marine, a third
person shooter from 2011. However, with the
upcoming release of Space Hulk: Deathwing,
that’s about to change.
Space Hulks, in the universe’s terminology,
refer to derelict masses of broken ships space
debris that have accumulated and formed
into large chunks floating in the black.
In the original Space Hulk board game, a
player controls a squad of Space Marines.
Here, however you are in the role of a lone
Terminator class marine. You’re not just any
old super-soldier, either: You’re one of the
Deathwing, the elite 1st class from the Dark
Angels Space Marine Chapter.
One of the many dangers a Space Marine
can face while exploring a Space Hulk are
Genestealers: grotesque alien creatures capable
of wearing down even the toughest of Space
Marines with swarm tactics. And swarm they
do in this game. Hordes of Genestealers will
keep spawning if given the chance. They can
do some serious damage to your armour if left
unchecked, and if they damage a specific part
enough, they can even cripple your abilities.
Thankfully, you’re not alone in your job - as
the head of a squad, you can give orders to
your teammates. Their aid is invaluable as you
explore claustrophobic corridors and blow
away doors and wreckage that impede your
path. In the single-player campaign, you’ll also
get access to psychic Librarian abilities with
which to decimate your enemies. You’ll be able
to assume other classes in co-op play, though
the developers still haven’t released the details
of what those classes might be.
Space Hulk: Deathwing is due for release
later this year, so until then, you’ll need to
keep your miniatures out if you want your
Warhammer 40K fix. HEIDI KEMPS
meaningful. And we don’t always want that to
be combat related either.”
The cartoonish art style plays right into
the game’s light-hearted tone. Sea of Thieves
is firmly in the pirate fantasy camp and
features giant sea monsters, booze drinking,
and the occasional friendly sing-a-long. You
can play solo, but you’ll have to manage all
aspects of your ship, including lowering the
sails and manning the cannons when things
get serious.
Though still in development, and with
aspects like the consequences of death being
worked out, Sea of Thieves shows a lot of
promise. It’s lining up to be one of those
games that spawns a thousand GIFs of people
doing stupid stuff with friends that they’ll
talk about long after logging off. ANDREW
WHITEHEAD
SEA OF
THIEVES
DEVELOPER RARE
PUBLISHER MICROSOFT STUDIOS
DUE 2017
seaofthieves.com
S
omeone at Rare read my mind and finally
made a pirate game, complete with the
cool stuff like treasure hunting and ship-toship combat, and without all other stuff, like
syphilis and gangrene.
Taking place in a huge shared world Sea of
Thieves encourages you to get social and team
up with friends to explore the uncharted seas.
While playing the game will be seamlessly
populated with other players, so there’s no
lobbies to join, but the developers are making
sure the world never feels overstuffed with
other players.
“Every time you see another group of
players we want you to say ‘hey, we’re a crew,
we’re on this adventure together, there’s a
ship, they’re on an adventure’,” said Rare
studio head Craig Duncan “We want that to be
PC PowerPlay 45
PREVIEW
BEST
OF E3
SYSTEM SHOCK
DEVELOPER NIGHTDIVE STUDIOS
PUBLISHER NIGHTDIVE STUDIOS
DUE DECEMBER 2017
systemshock.com
N
ightdive Studios is taking a rather
interesting tack with its recently
announced remake of System Shock. Rather
than invest in the time and often difficulty of
working in a high end graphics engine, the
company’s instead making the game in the
rather more robust – and far less graphically
intensive – Unity engine.
And while the game’s still in its Kickstarter
phase – it’s already earned $US773,000 of
its asked-for $US900,000 – there’s already
a playable demo of the game to see what
backers are getting themselves in for.
Unity is an interesting choice of engine,
but it’s one that makes a lot of sense. For one,
it makes the game much more open to older
systems, and it means the devs can focus on
gameplay rather than graphical finesse.
Which is not to say that Unity – and the new
System Shock – suffer in the graphical area.
It’s no Battlefield or Doom, to be sure, but the
slightly lower fidelity (at least in the pre-Alpha
demo) actually works for the game. It still
feels very much like the System Shock of old.
In fact, I daresay this would be how many of
the game’s fans remember it to look in the first
place – the mind can play those kind of tricks,
46 PC PowerPlay
making you remember a game as being far
more detailed than it actually was.
But on top of that, the feel of the game’s
original exploration is perfectly preserved. As
you awake about Citadel Station you quickly
discover something Very Bad™ has happened,
and you’re practically the only survivor. As
you find various cybernetic bits and bobs, the
game’s interface comes alive, and you start
to get somewhat of a handle on everything –
still, the handful of enemies you do face in the
limited demo are a pretty solid reminder that
System Shock’s never been about run & gun.
Even when you do get a firearm, ammunition
is limited, so you’re constantly juggling the
need to stay away from enemies, or shoot
them from range – safer, but consumes much
needed energy. There are puzzles to decipher,
keypads to find the codes for, and many a
crate full of useful stuff. And also crates just
full of crumpled paper and body parts.
And it must be said, that while the graphics
are lo-fi, and the environments deceptively
simple, the game is more than capable of
providing some impressive visual spectacle.
The high point in the demo is when you come
across a small lounge area, with a panoramic
window overlooking the planet that Citadel
Station orbits. Bright yellow sunlight streams
into the space, as shadows track and loom
across the room. The swelling music and
majestic vista make you pause, as you take
a break from the horror around you. And,
despite the beauty, it’s also a stark reminder.
You are alone, you are vulnerable, and
beyond the next corner something will try to
kill you. In other words, it’s looking to be a noteperfect remake. DAVID HOLLINGWORTH
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FEATURE
From
Launch
Nightmare
to Final
Fantasy
The underdog tale of how producer/director
Naoki Yoshida took on the herculean
task of performing digital alchemy on the
disastrous launch of Final Fantasy XIV to
convert it into the shiny A Realm Reborn.
NATHAN LAWRENCE
48 PC PowerPlay
M
ore than a few starry-eyed
publishers have tried to tap into
the success of MMORPGs like World of
Warcraft – taking an existing beloved
IP and transferring it to the MMO
space. But none of them have managed
to achieve the lofty heights of WoW’s
coveted peak numbers in the tens of
millions.
One such example of a big-name
IP trying to tap into the MMO market
is Final Fantasy, which has had three
distinct cracks at the MMO space. The
two bookend instances were victorious,
but the one in between was particularly
disastrous. Final Fantasy XI launched
in 2002 to positive critical and fan
reception. A decade after its release,
then-president of Square Enix Yoichi
Wada described Final Fantasy XI as the
most profitable title in the franchise.
In September 2010, the second crack
at a Final Fantasy MMO, Final Fantasy
XIV, officially launched. In terms
of critical reception and fan
feedback, it was a train wreck.
Director Nobuaki Komoto was
demoted to lead designer, while
producer Hiromichi Tanaka
accepted responsibility for the
game’s myriad issues and was
removed from his role. Komoto
and Tanaka were both veterans of
the beloved Final Fantasy XI. Such
was the extent of the Final Fantasy
XIV issues at launch that PC
subscriptions for the multiplatform
MMO were suspended indefinitely.
In fact, Square Enix lowered its
projected yearly income by 90
percent.
A year later at the 2011 Tokyo
Game Show, Wada acknowledged
that “the Final Fantasy brand has
been greatly damaged,” by the lessthan-stellar launch of the franchise’s
second MMO. Chief designer on
Dragon Quest X, Naoki Yoshida, was
brought on board to salvage Final
Fantasy XIV three months after it
launched, in a dual producer/director
role. It was up to Yoshida to take on
the seemingly impossible task of fixing
Final Fantasy XIV and restoring fan
faith in a series whose latest entry had
under-delivered in terms of internal
and external expectations.
It wasn’t until Yoshida’s Game
Developer Conference presentation in
2014 that the full picture of the uphill
battle he accepted in December 2010
became clear. Yoshida listed one of the
core reasons for Final Fantasy XIV’s
Before the relaunch, FFXIV
was a train wreck
World of Inspiration
According to Yoshida, the developers on Final Fantasy XI
spent a year playing Everquest, the dominant MMORPG
of the time, to try and crack what made the game so
appealing. In analysing where Final Fantasy XIV went
wrong, he admitted to Kotaku that the developers might
have been better served playing World
of Warcraft for a year and answering
the same questions. Yoshida reportedly
instructed his team to familiarise
themselves with the MMORPG
competition when he took over.
Yoshida spoke of a
decidedly unfriendly
user interface;
confusing level
design; a broken
combat system
failure that Square Enix believed every
problem could be patched away after
release, which meant the core game
was released with critical design flaws
and was nigh unplayable.
Yoshida spoke of a decidedly
unfriendly user interface; confusing
level design; a broken combat system;
an overall lack of meaningful content
for players, including lacklustre
narrative in a series renowned for
strong storytelling; and all of this
on top of roughly 400 server crashes
every day. The game was so broken
when Yoshida took the helm, he
took on the incredibly ambitious and
unprecedented task of rebuilding
the core game while simultaneously
creating a rebranded relaunch, whose
PC PowerPlay 49
FEATURE
Dressed as an iconic Black Mage from FINAL FANTASY
XIV, Naoki Yoshida starts proceedings at Fan Fest.
title was not without a sense of irony – Final
Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn.
This title was to be the third MMORPG in
the Final Fantasy series, and it would go on to
enjoy critical, commercial and fan success. So
how the hell did Yoshida achieve this goal and,
more pertinently, how did he do it in less than
three years?
He started by confronting some harsh
truths about how Final Fantasy XIV had
failed. Final Fantasy XI had been such
a success for Square Enix that Yoshida
described a false sense of security and a lack
of acknowledgement of how the MMORPG
landscape had evolved in the eight years
between Final Fantasy-branded MMO titles.
In the time between Final Fantasy MMOs,
Blizzard Entertainment had released World
of Warcraft and forever changed the core
expectations of what makes for a compelling
gameplay experience that keeps players
coming back for more, time and time again. In
short, prior to the launch of Final Fantasy XIV,
content was seen as king in the MMO space
(thanks to WoW), and this simply wasn’t
reflected in the launch of Final Fantasy XIV.
At launch, Final Fantasy XIV prioritised
graphical fidelity over everything else in order
to maintain the franchise tenant of beautiful
visual presentation, in what Yoshida described
as an “unhealthy obsession with graphical
fidelity” during his GDC post-mortem. This
design decision had a substantial computation
impact, and Yoshida used the example of a “the
loveliest flowerpot in an MMO” whose 1,000
polygon count and 150 lines of shader code
were the equivalent of a player character’s
avatar. In order to prioritise visual fidelity
above all else, the original Final Fantasy XIV
team had to compromise on one of the main
reasons why people play MMOs: they limited
the player count to 20 players max on screen.
Paradoxically, there were also reportedly
very few experienced MMO developers
working on the project. Yoshida would go
on to promote these few MMO experienced
developers to leadership positions. On top
of this, internal development processes
were streamlined to allow the team time
to perform the delicate balancing act of
implementing changes to Final Fantasy XIV
while building A Realm Reborn. For instance,
Yoshida said he eliminated waiting time by
making and approving 400 fundamental
design decisions early on.
The notion of planned game design was
elevated to pole position, and coding was
strictly forbidden until the systems were
first properly in place. While balancing the
patching of one game and the creation of
FROM
NIGHTMARE
TO FANTASY
SEPTEMBER 30, 2010:
FFXIV releases to negative
critical and fan reception
50 PC PowerPlay
DECEMBER 3, 2010:
Yoshida becomes producer/
director of FFXIV
DECEMBER 12, 2010:
First minor updates roll out
to address major issues
JANUARY, 2011:
A Realm Reborn
development commences
another sounds inherently tricky, it also
allowed Yoshida and his team a platform for
testing A Realm Reborn’s features within Final
Fantasy XIV.
As if the juggling of dual projects wasn’t
enough, Yoshida wanted A Realm Reborn
to be both appealing to seasoned MMORPG
players while simultaneously appealing to
genre newbies, including those who were
fans of Final Fantasy and those who weren’t.
“When we consider the normal market, I
do feel that the Final Fantasy franchise is
becoming a really niche market,” said Yoshida
during an interview with PC PowerPlay in May
2014. “It’s more like a Japanimation: some
people really love that particular game style,
but that’s a limited number of the market.
I don’t think it’s where you want to be, and
that’s how Final Fantasy is supposed to be like.
“We really are providing a game for
current-generation users, what they’re
expecting, and we really need to make sure
[A Realm Reborn] is giving a huge impact
to the current gamers. We’ll never give up
challenging and trying to bring something
new but, at the same time, Final Fantasy is at
this turning point. We don’t think that what
we’ve been doing so far is something we can
continue to expect this modern generation to
enjoy this game in a wide meaning. But we
will constantly try to challenge what we can
do and make sure we bring the excitement
and the impact to new gamers.”
To regain the faith of those fans burnt
by the original release of Final Fantasy XIV,
In order to
prioritise visual
fidelity above all
else, the original
Final Fantasy
XIV team had to
compromise
APRIL, 2011: Planned Primal
Titan is replaced in wake of
2011 Tōhoku earthquake
JUNE, 2011: Update
overhauls problematic
battle system in FFXIV
Yoshida fostered a sense of transparency
with the player base, instituting a
number of initiatives to create an open
dialogue including official forums, live
‘Letters from the Producer’ events, and
real-world fan meet-ups. It’s because of
this type of transparency and the drastic
aforementioned changes that A Realm
Reborn launched to a positive response
from critics and community alike.
Since its release, the development team
operates on a schedule of quarterly major
updates, with minor patches released in
between to address bugs and balancing
concerns. These quarterly updates
are thematically named (beyond their
incremental patch numbers, 2.X to reflect
the rebooted nature of A Realm Reborn)
and include meaningful content, such
as additional story missions, raids, PvP
battlefields, and all-new gameplay features.
The release of the first major expansion,
Heavensward, in June 2015 brought A Realm
Reborn to version 3.0, and followed the MMO
trend of raising the level cap, introducing
new ways to play, and adding a new playable
race, the Au Ra. There’s another mysterious
SEPTEMBER, 2011: First of
Yoshida’s Letters from the
Producer videos goes live
OCTOBER 14, 2011:
A Realm Reborn is
officially announced
Free to pay
Defying recent
MMO trends, Square
Enix has remained
staunch on offering
a subscription-based
service, without shifting
to or adding a freeto-play option. While
Yoshida acknowledged
pros and cons of both
models during his
GDC presentation,
an unnamed agency
reportedly conducted a
player survey in 2014
and discovered that a
whopping 82 percent of
the player base wanted
to stick with the
subscription model in
its then-current form.
OCTOBER–DECEMBER,
2012: A Realm Reborn
enters alpha test stage
expansion in the works, which will bring A Realm Reborn to version
4.0, and is set to bring with it the kind of content that justifies a
premium price outside of the incremental major content patches
that are covered by a monthly subscribing player base.
It’s difficult to deny the chalk-and-cheese nature of the two
Final Fantasy XIV-branded products. The original game was a
disaster at launch, but through company accountability, and a
change of leadership that led to big internal changes as well as a
new Final Fantasy MMO, Yoshida and Square Enix converted a 90
percent projected income loss for Final Fantasy XIV to five-million
registered players two years after the release of A Realm Reborn.
Fan faith has been restored and the evidence that Square Enix
learnt from the mistakes of Final Fantasy XIV is more than evident
in the infinitely superior offering of A Realm Reborn.
NOVEMBER 1, 2012:
Final revision of FFXIV
is released
NOVEMBER 11, 2012:
Final in-game battle before
FFXIV server closure
FEBRUARY–JULY, 2013:
A Realm Reborn enters
closed beta stage
AUGUST 27, 2013:
A Realm Reborn
officially launches
PC PowerPlay 51
253
Games
YOUR GUIDE TO PC GAMES
W
hat is worse? Aiming high and failing, or failing to aim high in
the first place?
It’s a question that’s stymied writers and directors for years. Francis
For Coppola famously said in the excellent documentary Hearts of
Darkness, about the making of Apocalypse Now, that “My greatest fear
is to make a really shitty, embarrassing, pompous film on an important
subject, and I am doing it.” What he’s alluding to is the consequence of
aiming high, and knowing you’re not hitting that mark.
Technomancer reminds me a lot of that particular folly of creators
over-reaching themselves. On one level, it’s an amazing creation, full
of incredible locations, amazingly realized creatures, and a scope that
is AAA in its ambitions. Sadly, the studio behind it does not have a AAA
budget to play with, and so the final product is one that is deeply flawed
- you can read more about that over the page in Daniel’s review.
But that question I opened with still lingers. In fact, it can be reduced
down to another popular filmic reference. The Jedi Master Yoda believes
that one should “Do, or do not. There is no try.” However, while that
may be fine for a budding Jedi, I’m not sure it applies to the rest of us,
and certainly not to games like The Technomancer. I’d rather see people
reaching beyond their capability - because then at least even the failures
will be honest ones.
David Hollingworth
Digital Editor
WE
PLAY
ON:
52 PC PowerPlay
Contents
53
56
58
60
61
62
63
64
65
The Technomancer
Mirror’s Edge:
Catalyst
Eve Valkyrie
Elite Dangerous VR
Onechanbara Z2
Chaos
The Solus Project
Anima: Gate of
Memories
Furi
Star Citizen Alpha
2.4.0
SCORING SYSTEM | PCPP scores its games on a 1 to 10 scale. The
higher, the better – though 10 is by no means a “perfect” game. We’re
not convinced such a thing exists, so consider a 10 a masterpiece of PC
gaming, despite its inevitable flaws. A 5 is a decidedly average game;
one that doesn’t excel in any particular area, without being an affront to
our senses – the ultimate in mediocrity. Below this, you’ll start to find
the games our reviewers suffered an aneurysm getting through; above
it, the titles truly worth your time and money. And remember: a score
is only a vague indication of quality. Always read the full review for the
definitive opinion!
950 PRO
REVIEW
The Technomancer
Return of the electric Jedi
DEVELOPER SPIDERS
PUBLISHER FOCUS HOME INTERACTIVE
PRICE $44.99
AVAILABLE AT STEAM
www.thetechnomancer-game.com
S
piders has a rather patchy history as a
developer, receiving mixed to negative
reviews for most of the games it has created,
with the only real exceptions being the
console ports they have done for a few
adventure games. Faery: Legends of Avalon, a
fantasy RPG in which players took the role of
a faery from the court of King Oberon, looked
and sounded fantastic but was hobbled by
samey quests and threadbare turn-based
combat. Of Orcs and Men had an interesting
premise with the player taking the role of
a stealthy Goblin and a fearsome Orc on a
mission to free their captive brethren from
an evil human empire, but it failed to be
particularly impressive as either a stealth or
an action game. Mars: War Logs, a prequel to
The Technomancer, aimed for the sky with
a story about rival corporations fighting for
water on a dystopian colonised Mars but
featured a terrible combat camera, muddled
story, poorly defined characters and silly
morality system. Bound by Flame, a fantasy
RPG that featured a plot point about banging
your sister also featured the same muddled
combat from Mars: War Logs, constant,
inappropriate and poorly-delivered swearing
from all characters, and some truly bizarre
pop-culture references that felt unbelievably
out of place. While these games, for the
most part, had different problems that led
to their middling reception, the root cause
of the problems remains the same. Spiders
isn’t a bad developer, just a developer with
ambitions that greatly outweigh its budgets
and capabilities.
The Technomancer follows suit in that
it shoots for the moon and falls short, but
for all its failings it’s undoubtedly the best,
most interesting and most successful game
it’s developed thus far. Players take the
role of a Technomancer named Zachariah,
newly inducted into an order of semi-ascetic
warriors capable of wielding electrical
powers. During his final initiation rights,
Zachariah learns the terrible secret of the
Technomancers - they are in fact mutants who
generate excessive amounts of bioelectricity,
and in a world in which mutants are treated
as disposable slave labour, this is a secret
that must be kept at all costs. The dystopian
corporatocracy of Mars is defined by a rigid
PC PowerPlay 53
REVIEW
class system, with each citizen of
the spartan, brutalist metropolis of
Ophir having their surname define
their position in society. Zachariah
is a Mancer due to his place in the
order but he is something of a novelty
in the city - one of the few who has
left the station he was born into - the
unwelcome and unwanted Rogue
faction that lives in the slums - and
ascended the social hierarchy.
What The Technomancer does best
is flesh out the world of corporateruled Mars. Ophir looks like a
brutalist Soviet dream, all enormous
concrete structures and wide but
functional boulevards. The slums
under Ophir are a rabbit warren of
shanties, warehouses, market stalls
and lowlifes looking for their next
score. Noctis, an independent trade
city Zachariah travels to later in the
game, looks something like a postapocalyptic, underground souk next
to a palace carved into the living rock.
The cities look remarkably different
and the cultures within reflect those
differences. There is a general sense of
despair in Ophir, with the Rogues in
the slums doing whatever they need
to survive and even those in the city
proper biting their tongues in fear of
falling foul of the secret police, who
are all too eager to label someone as
a traitor to the corporation and exile
or execute them. Noctis, on the other
hand is alive with possibility. Mutants
freely walk the streets and ply trades,
and while there is still poverty and
crime there isn’t the sense of nihilism
that there is in Ophir.
So far so good. The story and
atmosphere of The Technomancer
are good, sometimes even great, and
there is a real moreish quality to the
main quests, in discovering the true
Developer Spiders really
has a fondness for bugs
A deadly swarm of crocodile
cockroach glowbugs
The story and atmosphere of The Technomancer
are good, sometimes even great
WHY
SHOULD
I CARE?
+ You like men
with scars
+ You react
to all news
with mild
detachment
+ You don’t
move your
eyes, only your
mouth
+ You liked
Mars: War Logs
history of the Technomancers, the
plots of the Ophir secret police, the
corporate wars and the reasons why
contact with Earth was lost so long
ago; but to reach that enjoyment
players have to wade through some
rather unfortunate mechanical flaws,
chief among them being the frequent
combat. Technomancer combat
revolves around three different
styles - knife and gun, mace and
shield, or staff. Each of these combat
styles features different moves and
specialities. Knife and gun style is
fast and allows Technomancers to
poison enemies. Mace and shield is
slow but allows for blocking as well
as dodging and is good for disrupting
enemy attacks. Staff style is flashy,
has good range and is also capable
of doing AOE damage. Each of the
styles has its own skill tree that can
unlock additional active or passive
abilities, buff damage, attack speed
and the like. It would be a decent
enough combat system if battles were
infrequent, but due to the fact that
combat seems to be one of Zachariah
Mancer’s main pastimes the cracks
show often. It’s too simple a system to
sustain the sheer amount of combat
involved in the game and although
new abilities are opened up via the
skill trees they never have enough
of an impact to make them feel like
you’re really progressing in your
chosen style.
Likewise the Technomancer abilities,
SEQUENCE
MARS:
QUEST LOGS
1. NPCs that want your attention will call you over
54 PC PowerPlay
2. Sometimes you can talk your way out of a fight
3. But sometimes you just have to slog through battle
5
4
3
1
6
2
MARTIAN
TERRAIN
1. Zachariah
always has
facial scars,
but otherwise
his appearance
depends on gear
Those lamprey/
anenome things are
actually mutated birds
the very ones whispered about by
other characters as being terrifyingly
powerful and capable of turning the
tide of any battle, don’t feel particularly
powerful or useful at all. With the
exception of the ability to electrify
your weapon to do extra damage
and give it a chance to stun enemies,
Technomancer abilities come across as
all too inconsequential thanks to the
limited number of times they can be
used in a fight unless you constantly
chug the game’s equivalent of mana
potions. When it comes to defence,
players have a few options - dodging,
blocking (if you have the right fighting
style) and gearing, but thanks to the
aggressive AI of the enemies, the
number they often attack in, and the
rather average camera, the only real
defence against constant, frustrating
and arbitrary death is running around
like an idiot and playing on easy.
There are numerous flaws in
The Technomancer, from the facial
animations that start and end with
the mouth, making for some serious
bizarre uncanny valley, to voice acting
that lacks any real affect, controls
that use the same button for loot and
drain serum (a polite euphemism
for murder) that negatively affects
your karma score, and level design so
labyrinthine that it’s a wonder that the
streets aren’t packed with the corpses
of NPCs who went for a walk and got
horribly lost. Even with that litany
of problems, there is still something
about The Technomancer that makes
it an appealing RPG prospect.
Spiders has set out to emulate a
number of beloved modern RPGs like
Knights of the Old Republic, Mass
Effect and The Witcher, but without
having the expertise of companies
such as CDPR and BioWare, or the
budget of any of the more successful
games. But despite that, it has
delivered a fascinating story set in a
rich, well-realised world.
The fighting gets to be a real slog,
but if you stick with it there’s a lot
to like about The Technomancer.
Hopefully next time the developers
visit Mars they may have a budget
somewhat in line with their ambition.
DANIEL WILKS
OR TRY THIS:
KOTOR II
MASS EFFECT 2
OBSIDIAN
ENTERTAINMENT, 2004
Amazing Star Wars
roleplaying
Looks dated
BIOWARE, 2010
Beautiful, nuanced
SF RPG
Mass Effect 3
butthurt
THE WITCHER 3:
WILD HUNT
CD PROJEKT RED, 2015
Amazing open world
roleplaying
No more Witcher
2. Stances are
bound to Z, X
and C, and skills/
consumables
are bound to the
number keys
3. You can have
two companions
at any time, each
of which has a
relationship meter
that can be filled
through questing
and conversation
4. Technomancer
skills require focus
5. Some quests
have time limits
or delays
6. The mini-map
is not detailed
enough to be
helpful
VERDICT:
Although hobbled with a
dull combat system and
voice work that lacks any
real emotion, the story
of The Technomancer is
a real pleasure.
6
PC PowerPlay 55
REVIEW
Mirror’s Edge: Catalyst
In the grimdark future there is only parkour
DEVELOPER EA DICE
PUBLISHER EA
PRICE $89.99
AVAILABLE AT ORIGIN, RETAIL
mirrorsedge.com
I
am an unashamed fan of Mirror’s
Edge. As a lover of interesting
movement mechanics, the sometimes
disorienting but always fast and
spectacular first person parkour of
the 2008 game proved to be a real
joy, as did the protagonist, Faith, a
hard as nails but generally agreeable
blackmarket courier and accidental
freedom fighter. Due to the relatively
lacklustre sales figures of the original
game, the announcement of Catalyst,
a prequel/reboot came as quite a
pleasant surprise. Of course, being a
fan of something sets you up for a fall
when a follow-up doesn’t live up to its
promise.
Set before the events of the first
game, Catalyst sees Faith being
released from prison and slowly
regaining her place with the other
runners, taking courier jobs where she
can get them and, of course, sticking
it to the corporations whenever she
can. While certainly no classic, the
story of Mirror’s Edge was personal
and propulsive, with Faith becoming
embroiled in a plot to train police to
move like runners after her sister, Kate,
is framed for murder. Faith’s actions
were her own and she fought for family
and friends, gaining a pyrrhic victory
at best, escaping with her sister to
parts unknown while Project Icarus
gained momentum. Catalyst is the
opposite. It starts as personal - at least
if you read the prequel comic - and
expands to become a story about rival
corporations, nanotechnological mind
control, long lost sisters, and generally
being the only person who can save the
world. On top of the muddled story is
the fact that the game is nothing but
dour. There is little to no humour, and
The line leads us, the
line knows the way
the grapple is limited to certain attach points so
as to not make other movement skills redundant
WHY
SHOULD
I CARE?
+ You are sullen
and angry at the
world
+ You have
amazing freedom,
but whatever
+ You like to chase
strangers across
rooftops
every character is so grim, abrupt, or
just straight up obnoxious that it’s hard
to like any of them. The characters have
been reduced to little more than the
generically pretty but bitchy characters
from any number of teen TV shows.
Thankfully, even though none of the
characters seem to take any joy from
their freedom of movement, players
can still get that rush of a perfectly
executed parkour line. The movement
system has been expanded from that
of Mirror’s Edge, with Faith gaining
skill points throughout the game to
spend on movement, combat and gear,
each of which can unlock new abilities
or expand the use of existing ones.
Initially Faith is a little slower and less
limber than she is in Mirror’s Edge,
but after an hour or so of play she feels
like her old self, effortlessly traversing
the rooftops of Glass city. Later in the
game, Faith comes into possession of a
grapple allowing her to swing over gaps
or quickly scale buildings. As fun as
new forms of movement are, thankfully
the grapple is limited to certain
attach points so as to not make other
movement skills redundant.
The biggest new feature in Catalyst
is undoubtedly the open world, and
unfortunately it delivers a somewhat
mixed bag. The rooftops of Glass are
austere and beautiful with more than
enough places to explore and run
around to make it a pleasure to be in.
Rather than the simple progression of
missions in the first game, this time
SEQUENCE
ANATOMY
OF FAITH
1. Accept a quest to screw with the corporations
56 PC PowerPlay
2. Complete quests to gain XP and skill points
3. Spend skill points on movement, combat, or gear
5
2
4
1
6
3
RUN FOR
THE HILLS
1. Picking up
leaked intel,
hacking billboards
or stealing
security chips is a
good way to grab
some extra XP
xxxxxx xxxx xxxxx
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
xxxxx xxxx xxxxxx
around Faith has to run from one
location to the next to follow the story
missions. In between there are time trials
to find, billboards to hack with various
activist messages and honest to goodness
courier jobs that require Faith to deliver
a package in a time limit. Players can
also create their own time trials for
upload to a central server, and this acts
as something of a shortcut to finding
some of the most enjoyable runs in the
game. It all sounds good, and when it
works it’s a real thrill, but because of the
pervasiveness of runner’s vision - a neon
red line highlighting where you have
to go next - you’ll often find yourself
concentrating on following the red line
instead of actually enjoying the city.
Combat has also been revamped
with the removal of the awful shooting
mechanics of the first game, but the
clumsy melee it has been replaced
with doesn’t do the game any favours.
Combat is built around movement
and momentum, two things that Faith
excels at. Momentum can be built up
into a shield, effectively protecting Faith
from gunfire as long as she is moving
fast and fluidly. Taking down a single
opponent feels wonderful, as Faith can
effortlessly switch from a movement
into a devastating attack and keep
her momentum, but when faced by a
number of opponents, especially in the
arena style encounters she sometimes
finds herself trapped in, combat soon
becomes a frustrating, clumsy parade
of first person brawling and keyboard
thumping. Without momentum, Faith
is just punching and kicking dudes in
masks. Sometimes, especially when
facing Enforcers, the combat is so
shoddy that it makes you long for the
days of guns.
Mirror’s Edge: Catalyst isn’t a bad
game, but it is one that doesn’t seem
to have a clear aim. The open world
seems more like “me too!” game design
than an actual open world, and the
characters have become grimdark
parodies of themselves. Guns have
thankfully been removed only to be
replaced with something equally
frustrating. Even if Faith can’t find
any joy in running, you probably can,
especially if you search for user created
time trials. TAVISH FORREST
OR TRY THIS:
MIRROR’S EDGE
WELKIN ROAD
SPEEDRUNNERS
EA DICE, 2008
Superb first person
movement
Terrible shooting
GREGOR PANIC, 2016
First person parkour
puzzles
Still Early Access
DOUBLEDUTCH GAMES,
2016
Awesome parkour
time trials
Side scrolling
2. Although it
doesn’t appear in
this screenshot,
the red Runner
Vision line will
lead Faith to this
quest marker
3. Hit Ctrl after
a long fall to
roll and keep
momentum
4. Gain
momentum to
keep your Kinetic
Shield charged
(the white line
bottom left)
5.The yellow orb
is an XP pickup
6. The only time
you ever see the
streets is when
you are falling to
your death
VERDICT:
The movement in Mirror’s
Edge: Catalyst is still
strong, but the unlikeable
characters and clunky
combat get in the way of
complete enjoyment.
7
PC PowerPlay 57
REVIEW
VR Eve Valkyrie
REVIEW
More than a spreadsheet
DEVELOPER CCP
PUBLISHER CCP
PRICE FREE/$89.99
AVAILABLE AT STEAM AND OCULUS STORE
www.evevalkyrie.com
T
here’s a reason that Valkyrie
is shipping for free with every
version of the Rift Consumer Version
1 kit - it’s arguably the best VR
experience currently available for the
platform. It seems tailor made for the
Rift’s strengths - designed for a seated
experience, and perfectly usable with
the Xbox one controller, it doesn’t need
those extra features offered by the HTC
Vive. And yet it’s also a prime example
of how we’re still at the very first
generation of VR games - take away
the VR headset, and there’s actually a
remarkably shallow experience here.
Oculus rates this as one of the more
intense VR experiences around, which
means it’s probably not the best game
to fire up when you first bust out your
HMD. It’s fast and frenetic, so unless
you’ve already spent some quality time
acclimatising to VR, there is a good
chance you’ll be reaching for a bucket
after 30 minutes of play. Having said
that, the game does include a few
empty levels that are perfect for slowly
getting used to the controls and head
mounted movements. It’s also easily
one of the prettiest VR launch titles,
which makes it hard not to turn to
when you first get your HMD.
From the very first moment you sit in
your virtual space fighter, it’s hard not
to be impressed by just how real it feels
to be sitting in these cockpits. I’m a
flight simmer from way back, and even
have a custom cockpit with HOTAS
controls, but it’s not a patch on actually
sitting in a 360 degree recreation of
a pit, where I can lean forwards and
sideways to look around me. Once
you’re in the pit, a short countdown
procedure activates, as the launch tube
Somebody needs to
make a Space: Above
and Beyond mod
58 PC PowerPlay
WHY
SHOULD
I CARE?
+ You’re in love
with Katie Sackhoff
+ You like the idea
of Eve Online but
already have a job
+ You got it for free
with your Rift
ahead of you energises, before flinging
you out of your carrier and into deep
space. It’s a thrilling and exciting
moment that you just don’t get without
that VR sense of presence.
The first time you do this is part of a
very short tutorial, which teaches the
basics of handling - and to be frank,
they’re rather rudimentary. You have a
short boost which has limited fuel, and
then the usual aircraft based controls.
Unlike other space sims, Valkyrie
has gone for a very basic handling
system that is not a true physics-based
approach. Just two different weapons
are available in the first ships - a
cannon system that fires ahead, which
can be tricky to use unless you lock
on to your targets and thus get a nice
little bead that leads where you should
shoot. But by far the coolest weapon is
the head-tracked missiles. By looking
around the cockpit, you can lock onto
other spacecraft that are well off
centre. Trust me, after a few dogfights
you’re going to get some rather bulky
neck muscles, as learning to look all
around is a huge part of the game.
Lock on to another fighter long
enough and you can fire several
missiles - which again take time to
recharge. In defence your ship is
equipped with auto-cannons; hear
the missile lock warning, turn on the
cannons and hopefully you won’t
get blown out of the sky. It’s all very
exciting at first, and the tutorial puts
you right in the middle of a massive
scene with gigantic spacecraft
stretching kilometers in length.
And then you realise that’s about all
of the singleplayer content there is. A
Even with the poor
handling, Eve Valkyrie
still looks amazing
handful of other missions allow you
to explore the maps and sometimes
take on AI, but the amount to do
on your own can only be described
as threadbare. Nope, this game is
currently firmly focused on multiplayer,
with the predominant mode being
team death match. One of the nicest
VR touches is the lobby system - as you
wait for the game to begin, you’re in a
virtual room surrounded by your fellow
pilots, all inhabiting special chambers
waiting for the game to begin. It’s hard
to explain, but by seeing them there, in
full 3D, it actually feels like you’re about
to storm out onto a playing field with
people beside you.
Sadly the combat itself isn’t exactly
amazing. Perhaps it’s because I’ve
flown a lot of simulators, but I found it
simple to beat other players who were
piloting much higher level spacecraft
(yep there’s an unlocking system here,
but it’s relatively shallow). Gone are
the epic carriers from the tutorial - it’s
just you and a bunch of smaller fighters
flying in endless circles around each
other. There’s usually some kind of
structure in the middle of the flying
area, such as a space station or asteroid
field, but I found it rare for other
players to use these for avoidance.
When they did, chasing them through
these cluttered, 3D spaces was
exhilarating, but most players stick to
the open areas of the field. Adding to
the issues is the fact that missiles rarely
seem to do any damage - I generally
relied on my cannons for kills, which is
the least enjoyable weapon.
Don’t get me wrong, my first few
hours in the game were wondrous - I
was in Battlestar Galactica, zipping
around in a real space ship rather
than pretending to look at a screen.
Yet the lack of depth in both content
and handling leads to an ultimately
repetitive experience. Thankfully
CCP are introducing new modes as
they learn what works in VR, with
an upcoming carrier battle mode
replicating the trench run from Star
Wars, and I’m sure they’ll add deeper
systems and handling to the combat.
But until then it’s merely a nice Day 1
experience that is in dire need of more
time and attention - the good news is
that CCP is exactly the kind of company
who provide that. BENNETT RING
VERDICT:
While the first few hours are incredible, sadly a
lack of depth in handling and content leads to a
game that needs a few more hours in the oven.
7
PC PowerPlay 59
REVIEW
VR Elite Dangerous
REVIEW
Evil AI are hunting players (true story)
DEVELOPER FRONTIER DEVELOPMENTS
PUBLISHER FRONTIER DEVELOPMENTS
PRICE $29.99
AVAILABLE AT STEAM AND OCULUS STORE
www.elitedangerous.com
Y
es, this is the second time I’m
reviewing this game. And I
absolutely it adored it the first time it
came out, when I played it on my good
old HD projector with sim-pit. Yet I
felt a re-review for the VR version was
absolutely crucial, as it’s a lesson in
why games not built from the ground
up for VR often fail so horribly with
today’s VR kits.
Let’s start with the basics - getting
this sucker to run. Elite has a
bucketload of graphical options, but
getting them to play nicely with the
Rift was a total nightmare. Even when
I chose the VR preset, weird artefacts
would show up on screen. Simply
logging into the game is also a pain in
the arse, as it has its own front end that
requires a user-name and password;
at the time, I’d have to remove my Rift
headset, plug this in via my PC monitor,
then put the headset back on.
It’s when you really get into the game
that the primary problems become
apparent - resolution, and controls. Elite
is a game with a vast draw distance,
where you can see enemy fighters
from dozens of kilometres away. It
also has an intricate cockpit, with fine
text and dozen of control screens.
These both render beautifully on a
1080p PC display, but fire it up on the
relatively low resolution Rift headset
and everything becomes a blurry, hazy,
jaggy mess. Spotting distant enemies is
more like playing “Where’s Wally” than
a space simulator. Even trying to read
my 3D radar was confusing and basically
impossible - within minutes I was
craving my boring old 2D screen simply
so I could see what was going on. It’s
fine when you’re inside a space station
and everything is up nice and close, but
You’re not my dad - YOU
capture the flag!
when you’re wearing a HMD, you can’t see the
keyboard, so you’re basically screwed
WHY
SHOULD
I CARE?
+ You adore fiddly
setup procedures
+ You have a
HOTAS setup with
all the buttons
+ You love motion
sickness
today’s HMD’s simply can’t resolve the
fine detail required for long-distance,
detailed graphics.
And then there’s the control scheme.
I’m not sure if you’ve played Elite, but
simply looking at the control options
screen is a scary nightmare - there are
hundreds of different controls. If you’ve
got the skills of an F-15 fighter pilot,
you just might be able to bind most
of these to a HOTAS controller and
remember them, but folks like me have
to rely on using the keyboard as well as
my HOTAS. But when you’re wearing
a HMD, you can’t see the keyboard, so
you’re basically screwed.
Oh, there’s also the issue of rotational
control in VR games. Rotating the
camera is a great way to bring on
motion sickness in VR, but it’s a move
that Elite players do all the time during
dogfights, navigating and docking. So
not only can you not really see where
you’re going, or be able to control many
of your systems, you start to feel quite
queasy in the meantime.
As a huge fan of Elite, I have to say
the VR experience was one of the most
disappointing I’ve had.... yet I knew
it would be. The resolution issue in
particular means that sims just aren’t
good in VR yet. Thankfully there are
already HMDs with 4K screens per eye
already in development, which will
change the ballgame entirely, but even
then games like this will really need to
think about their control schemes and
camera motions. BENNETT RING
VERDICT:
The original might be
amazing but it simply
doesn’t work in VR yet
thanks to the limitations
of today’s HMDs.
60 PC PowerPlay
6
REVIEW
Onechanbara Z2: Chaos
Sometimes freedom of artistic expression just isn’t worth it
DEVELOPER TAMSOFT
PUBLISHER MINDSCAPE
PRICE $39.99
AVAILABLE AT STEAM, RETAIL
www.d3p.co.jp/anez2_chaos_pc
D
oes every piece of art, by simply
existing and declaring itself as art,
have artistic merit? Can we point to the
creative output of another human - or
group of humans - and say that what
they have done truly has no value?
The concept of bikini girls fighting
zombies and boss monsters in order
to unlock progressively ridiculous and
revealing outfits isn’t in itself offensive.
But when that concept is executed as
badly as Onechanbara Z2: Chaos, it
becomes offensive. The female figure is a
beautiful thing. It is expressive, a superb
piece of evolutionary engineering. It is
not a semi-rigid slab of plastic with a
couple of helium-filled balloons attached
to the front with lace. Usually.
This... game... attempts to tap
into some kind of Japanese fighting
action RPG tradition, with a baffling
control scheme, multi-hit combos,
tag-teaming other characters, bonus
points and charged-up special attacks.
Play basically involves frantically
hammering keys as the characters
spool through animation sequences
that don’t quite mesh with the scenery
properly, zombies explode in candycoloured splodges of blood and gore,
and then a screen full of text pops up as
a reward.
Naturally, all the art budget went
to the jiggle physics and the different
kinds of cowboy hats each scantilyclad girl can unlock. But that means
the environments and enemies look
like something from 1998. From the
ARCADES, in 1998.
The genre of “badass hero flips
around the middle of the room while
waves of baddies hurl themselves onto
his gunsword” is well-established,
popular, and includes many fine
Breaking news:
Horror at the Real Doll
factory. More at 5!
Life is full and rich and thanks to Tamsoft,
Onechanbara: Z2 Chaos is now part of it
WHY
SHOULD
I CARE?
+ Three words: sex
doll fetish
+ Bikinis, cowboy
hats and swords
make sense to you
+ You want to see
a schoolgirl use a
chainsaw
+ You think breasts
evolved as a
buoyancy aide
games. Why the Tamsoft’s team of
febrile hikikomori decided to make
this game, we may never know. HOW
they managed it is mystery too, but
given the quality of the graphics and
gameplay I suspect each gave his
mother the latest build on a zip disk,
and she had it couriered across town to
shove under the bedroom door of the
next team member.
No, seriously, Tamsoft is a real
developer and made, for instance,
the Battle Arena Toshinden series
which did so much to bring true 3D
to fighting games. Their heart clearly
remains with the original PlayStation
though, which might explain why this
game looks so terrible.
Incidentally, Onechanbara means
OR TRY THIS:
“big sister sword fighting”, more or
less, and the story, such as it is, involves
these under-dressed young women
shouting at each other for reasons I
could never figure out. Probably the
reason they are all fighting each other
is so the training level at the very
beginning makes sense.
Look, I’m not here to judge your
predilection for women in bikinis and
cowboy hats getting splattered with
zombie gore in low-poly dungeons. Life
is full and rich and thanks to Tamsoft,
Onechanbara: Z2 Chaos (Colon Position
Variable) is now part of it. What has
been done, cannot be undone.
You don’t need to play this thing
though. It’s really terrible. ANTHONY
FORDHAM
VERDICT:
DMC:
DEVIL MAY CRY
NARUTO
SHIPPUDEN 3
2013, NINJA THEORY
Mad combos to the
max!
Hipstercore reboot
2013, CYBERCONNECT 2
Amazing looks and
combat
Swimsuit pack
DLC, sigh
BATTLE RAPER II
2005, ILLUSION
Rape now removed
Title makes no sense
Commits the
quintessential crime of
the T&A brawler: the
girls aren’t even hot
2
PC PowerPlay 61
REVIEW
The Solus Project
The Survival trend has infected our indie FPS adventure games now...
DEVELOPER HEORENCES, GRIP GAMES
PUBLISHER TEOTL STUDIOS
PRICE $19.99
AVAILABLE AT STEAM
www.thesolusproject.com
S
eems we’ve reached a point in the
evolution of PC gaming where
it’s impossible, as a small studio, to
release anything on Steam unless it
has “survival” mechanics - even if
survival mechanics don’t really gel with
whatever it is you’re trying to do.
Take the Solus Project. At first
glance, it’s a spiffy-looking, Unreal
Engine 4 powered FPS adventure
game. Ship crashes, wake up on an
alien planet, crawl around looking for
bits and pieces to stay alive and solve
the mystery of what went wrong.
In the good old days, this would have
been a Sierra-style adventure game
with a little space-dude on the screen.
Hotspot hunting, all that. Today, it’s in
first-person and there is the aforementioned survival element.
This means the player has to eat
every now and then, and also stand
near a fire to warm up. That’s about
it. There are items like rocks and
pipes and plant roots to combine into
various tools, but the inventory is really
restricted and even from the get-go, the
most common thing you’ll see written
on the screen is “inventory full”.
So the player wanders, following
a “forward vector” projected into the
world by a sort of PDA thing. Initially,
it’s about exploring an alien coastline
and ducking down into caves. The
coastline looks interesting, with its dark
sea and huge moon orbiting overhead.
The caves, less so. Simple geometry,
basic rock textures, and every object is
more or less the same shade of grey.
Weirdly there are alien artefacts lying
around everywhere which do everything
from boost total HP to expand inventory
space. They serve as a reminder of the
survival elements of the game.
Nice el-cheapo Tricorder
you’ve got there buddy
the player has to eat every now and then, and
also stand near a fire to warm up. That’s about it
WHY
SHOULD
I CARE?
+ You can’t get
enough of okaylooking alien
worlds
+ You prefer your
FPS to be kind of
frustrating
+ You hate guns
and shooting
+ You’ve played
literally everything
else on Steam
Solus’ big problem is that nothing
feels real. Despite the texture detail
(outdoors anyway) and the various
post-processing effects, the world just
doesn’t have the solidity of other semisurreal adventure or puzzle games - the
Witness being a prime example.
That the control system feels
borderline epileptic doesn’t help either.
A number of the early obstacles must
be circumvented using a sort of discbased teleporter device. Throw the disc
to a new location, then teleport after
it. Thing is, the player character has a
really weak throwing arm and the disc
normally just sort of flops out a couple
of metres. Great for getting through
tight spaces, not so good for scaling the
many walls and rock chimneys you’ll
OR TRY THIS:
62 PC PowerPlay
encounter. Of course, because of the
survival stuff, there are upgrades...
For a game like the Solus Project to
be worth your time, it has to have an
amazing setting or a gripping story, or
some kind of innovative mechanic that’s
super fun to play around with. Solus
has none of these. It looks... pretty
good, but not a patch on many of the
other nine billion or so actual survival
games on Steam at the moment.
The Solus Project is a difficult game
to recommend. Not because there’s
anything specifically WRONG with it.
But because it’s almost impossible to
come up with a reason to play it over
something, anything, else. That may
be the worst condemnation of all.
ANTHONY FORDHAM
VERDICT:
THE WITNESS
SUBNAUTICA
STRANDED DEEP
2016, THEKLA
Myst, for maze-lovers
Sense of artistic
superiority
2014, UNKOWN WORLDS
Creates an amazing
world
Survival limits
exploration
2015, BEAM TEAM
Realistic shipwreck
sim
Die, die and die again
Survival mechanics
obscure an otherwise
competent but
uninteresting adventure
5
REVIEW
Anima: Gate of Memories
JRPG by way of Spain
DEVELOPER ANIMA PROJECT
PUBLISHER BADLAND GAMES
PRICE $19.99
AVAILABLE AT STEAM, HUMBLE
www.gateofmemories.com
A
nima may not be a known
commodity in the English speaking
world, but in Spain and France it’s a
popular commodity. A tabletop RPG
designed by Carlos B. Garcia Aparacio
and the Anima Project Studios, Anima:
Beyond Fantasy (the core book) invites
players to adventure in the world of
Gaia, a land heavily influenced by the
art and style of Japanese RPGs, with
Asian inspired honour codes, martial
arts and spirituality but still clinging
to some traditional Western fantasy
concepts as well. Although the game
was briefly released in an English
translation around 2010, Anima never
really took off outside of Spain and
France. In its home country Anima
has had multiple editions, many
supplements, a 32mm miniatures game,
a card game and more.
Anima: Gate of Memories is the
second Anima videogame to be
released. Successfully Kickstarted in
2013, the long development time shows
in the look of the game. The art style is
pretty but it looks dated when compared
to games coming out today. Set in the
Anima world of Gaia, players take the
role of The Bearer of Calamities, a
rather generic busty, amnesiac blonde
mage who is possession of a possessed
book that is also sometimes a buff
sexy demon guy named Ergo. Players
can switch between the characters at
any time instantly, making use of the
different skills of each character to
either navigate traps or fight enemies.
Switching between characters also
allows players to string together combos
of ranged and melee attacks.
The Bearer is a specialist at ranged
magic combat and has skill trees that
can increase her magical powers. Ergo is
Dammit camera,
concentrate on the
boss, not the butt!
Bosses are more akin to bullet hell encounters
than traditional action RPG boss fights
WHY
SHOULD
I CARE?
π”ƏƉƆƈƄƓ”Əƍ
Ɗ“‹ƄƂƉ”•ƕƄ
“•ƕƂƏƎƓ
π”ƏƑƄƍƄƉ”ƃƈƄƕ
Ɔ•“ƍ””ƊƑƆƎŒ
ƎŒƄƃ”ƍƋƄ”ƅ“
ƕƄ“ƕ‹”ƕ
π”ƏƉƆƈƄƂ”Ƅ
Ǝ”ƂƄƃƍ“ƔƓƕƄ“ƎŒ
ƋƍƆ•ƈƉƄƍ
a melee fighter, slashing at enemies with
his claws and devastating combos. Like
The Bearer, Ergo’s skill trees enable him
to learn new and more powerful melee
moves. While the idea of these two
very different combat styles makes the
combat system sound nuanced, outside
of boss battles this is by no means the
case. Most enemies can be taken down
with little effort by spamming basic
attacks. Combat looks pretty good - at
least when the camera isn’t being a
pain in the arse and showing the enemy
instead of trying to perv on The Bearer –
but it overstays its welcome.
Boss battles are much more enjoyable
for the most part, with these mammoth
enemies not only having amazing
backstories hidden throughout their
OR TRY THIS:
preceding levels, but also echo some
of the feeling of boss battles in the
excellent but underappreciated console
(boo hiss) RPG, Nier. Bosses are more
akin to bullet hell encounters than
traditional action RPG boss fights, and
they’re mostly great. Unfortunately
late game bosses come across as more
than a little cheap and unfair, often way
outstaying their welcome.
Gate of Memories doesn’t have much
in the way of story – it’s all quite generic
and predictable – and the combat
ranges from great to pretty average.
That said, there’s still enough in the
game to keep you interested, especially
if you’re hankering for some third
person action curing this rather dry
time of the year. TAVISH FORREST
VERDICT:
CODE OF PRINCESS
STUDIO SAIZENSEN, 2016
Really fun combat
Low res sprites
DRAGON’S DOGMA:
DARK ARISEN
CAPCOM, 2016
Amazing combat
Silent protagonist
HAND OF FATE
DEFIANT DEVELOPMENT,
2015
Card based level
design
No sequel yet
Mostly great bosses
and some nice narrative
flourishes do a lot to make
up for the fairly repetitive
combat and generic story.
7
PC PowerPlay 63
REVIEW
Furi
The only way out of prison is through your gaolers
DEVELOPER THE GAME BAKERS
PUBLISHER THE GAME BAKERS
PRICE $24.99
AVAILABLE AT STEAM
furigame.com
T
here’s not a lot of story in Furi,
and what there is remains vague.
You are a nameless, silent prisoner. To
escape your imprisonment you have
to fight your way through a series of
“jailers” to reach a nearby planet and
the hope of freedom. A strange man
in a rabbit hood is aiding you in your
escape and filling in details of what is
going on. You are a strange warrior in
a strange world, and the only way to
achieve your goals is through killing
everything in your path.
Furi is essentially a boss rush game,
with the only parts of the game not
taken up with epic battles spent
walking to the next opponent. The
world is strange and beautiful, a neon
dreamscape, but it’s also deadly.
There is no progression outside of the
linear trek through the succession
of bosses – no equipment to worry
about, no skill points to assign, no
new moves to master. The only thing
you can do to improve is to master the
controls and get better at recognizing
patterns. It’s a game that challenges
the player to get better, not to improve
their character.
If you don’t have a control pad,
forget about playing Furi. Trying to
play with a keyboard and mouse is
an exercise in frustration and failure
thanks to the fact that Furi combines
elements of twin stick shooters, bullet
hell and spectacle fighter games. The
prisoner is equipped with a sword and
a gun, both of which can be charged
to do extra damage with attacks.
Defensively, the prisoner can dash
and block. It’s an incredibly simple
system but that works in the game’s
favour. By limiting the number of
skills available, The Game Bakers
Afro Samurai the
white guy version
Boss battles aren’t short affairs, sometimes
lasting for 20 minutes or more
WHY
SHOULD
I CARE?
π”ƏƑ“•ƎƓ”Əƍ
“ƃƎƆ”•Ǝ”ƂƄ
•“ƍƍ“ƎƄƕƂƓ“
ƅƏƍƍƓ
π”Ə”Ƒ•“
ƃ”•Ǝƍ”ƉƉƄƍ
π”ƏƉƆƈƄƍƄƋƉ“ƓƆ•‹
ƼƞƊƆ•ƏƎƄƂ”
ƅƆ‹ŒƎ
force players to master the abilities
available rather than exploiting
powerful unlocked abilities.
Boss battles aren’t short affairs,
sometimes lasting for 20 minutes or
more, as each one has a number of
health pips as well as a health bar.
Each time the health bar is depleted
the boss loses a pip of health and
transitions to the next phase with new
attack patterns and behaviors. One
phase could see the boss standing
in an inaccessible position firing a
frightening number of projectiles at
the player, forcing them to dodge and
shoot while the next may see them
aggressively attacking the player
with their melee weapon. There are
no mid-fight checkpoints, so if you
OR TRY THIS:
VERDICT:
TITAN SOULS
ACID NERVE, 2015
One hit boss rush
One hit boss rush
64 PC PowerPlay
die it’s time to start over again. This
frustration may lead you to wanting
to lower the difficulty, but doing so
makes the game ridiculously easy and
removes the appeal of the combat.
Furi is an interesting experiment,
something like a simplified, purist
Dark Souls meets Devil May Cry.
When it works and you get deep
into the flow of dodging projectiles,
blocking sword slashes and retaliating
with a spectacular combo, Furi
becomes an engrossing, nearly
meditative experience. When you
die and have to start all over again
you want to smash your controller.
DANIEL WILKS
THE BINDING OF
ISAAC: REBIRTH
NICALIS, INC, 2014
Twin stick bullet hell
Creepy crying
children
METAL GEAR
RISING:
REVENGEANCE
PLATINUM GAMES, 2013
Free sword mode
Revengeance?
Seriously?
The difficulty makes Furi
pretty inaccessible, but if
you like to be punished,
this is the game for you.
6
REVIEW
Star Citizen Alpha 2.4.0
Could the longest wait in gaming actually be worth it?
DEVELOPER CLOUD IMPERIUM GAMES
PUBLISHER CLOUD IMPERIUM GAMES
PRICE $60+
AVAILABLE AT ROBERTSSPACEINDUSTRIES.COM
robertsspaceindustries.com
U
ntil this point, fiddling around
with Star Citizen has been like any
alpha: dropped frames, glitchy lighting,
long load times and occasional crashes.
But Alpha 2.4.x brings the first hint of
coherency, and once you set out on a
mission, the promise of this game starts
to shine through.
Here’s what it’s like. You move
through the snug corridors of Port
Olisar to the airlock. The lock cycles.
You strike out across the pad in
dazzling sunlight, the butterscotch
curve of the planet Crusader over
your shoulder. Ships are moving
everywhere. The platform vibrates as
something large lifts off.
And there’s your ship. Your brightred M50 Interceptor which (in the full
game) you finally bought after hours
of combat and trade. You approach the
cockpit, the ladder folds down, you
climb inside. The ship comes to life
around you and your FPS viewpoint
locks straight ahead as various
readouts appear. The game controls
switch to flight mode. You’re in space.
Hit B for navigation mode, find the
mission indicator and hit F to engage
quantum drive. The stars blur. A comm
array slams into view - your target.
Then, alarms sound. Two pirate
ships are detected. They close for the
kill. Then, it’s a familiar dogfight,
like Wing Commander 25 years
ago except somehow more intense,
more immediate and more real. The
explosions and debris are little short of
cinematic. You are victorious.
Then, you park the M50 adjacent
to the comm array, and hit Alt-F (this
shortcut keeps changing, build to
build). The faceplate of your suit ices
up momentarily as the M50’s canopy
As cynical as we
might get, nobody can
deny the appeal of
an image like this
having seen what the game can be, perhaps a
little optimism is at last in order
WHY
SHOULD
I CARE?
+ You think $60
is a small price to
pay to be part of a
dream
+ You want to
punish your 980Ti
SLI rig
+ Even a tiny bit
of space is better
than no space
+ You hate Derek
Smart
opens. You are in space, inching toward
the array on wispy manoeuvring jets.
You crawl along the surface of what is
now a huge structure, until you find an
access point.
Then, you twist and turn through
pipes and vents until you find
the array’s maintenance panel.
Reactivating the array is as simple as
touching a few icons. Then, wriggle
your way out, jump over to the M50,
and power on out of there.
The galactic internet notes your
success, and credits your account with
1000 UEC, the in game currency.
What next? Fly back to Olisar and
get another mission? Pop over to CryAstro, fill up on fuel and buff out any
scratches the pirates put in the M50’s
OR TRY THIS:
beautiful red paintjob? Land on the
planet and go clothes shopping? Find
some friends and form a corporation?
What will the 1.0 release actually
hold? A slim fraction of what was
promised? Even that could be a huge
game, and I’d be happy with that for my
US$45 investment. But others who’ve
sunk thousands into Star Citizen on a
promise of a game-to-end-all-games may
never see the reality match their dream.
Still. Over 1.4 million people have
pledged. And the ongoing crowdfunding
campaign is still bringing in at least
US$1 million a month. With that kind
of audience, and an unprecedented
budget, and having seen what the game
can be, perhaps a little optimism is at
last in order... ANTHONY FORDHAM
VERDICT:
ELITE DANGEROUS:
HORIZONS
2016, FRONTIER
Planetary landings,
heaps of new stuff
Kind of bland and
British
FREESPACE OPEN
2014, VARIOUS
Updates the greatest
for pure combat
Need original
Freespace 2 retail
WING
COMMANDER 4
1996, ORIGIN
Best FMV in the series
All about the FMV
Keep your fingers
crossed and your
wallet open: Star
Citizen could be all
it promises
$$
PC PowerPlay 65
ISSUE 253
DVD Contents
DISKYPOO
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The PCPP Team.
35 FREE GAMES AND GAME DEMOS!
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Legends of Callasia
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66 PC PowerPlay
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253
Tech
YOUR GUIDE TO PC GAMING HARDWARE
SHOTS FIRED
One war with two distinct battlegrounds
he GPU wars have well and truly begun. Nvidia’s GeForce
GTX 1070 and 1080 have started to hit the market in waves
of samples built by third party manufacturers, while we finally
got to benchmark AMD’s new Radeon RX480.
To be frank, I was a little disappointed at the differences
between the various Nvidia cards. Only a handful from Asus
had truly unique features – the rest are all about RGB lights,
new coolers and maybe some better power circuitry. In the end
it’s going to come down to pricing and brand loyalty for most
buyers. Or whichever one has the flashiest robot on the box.
As for the AMD Radeon RX480, I’m a bit undecided about this
card. We’re getting royally ripped with pricing starting at $439
compared to US$229 in the US; yes, our dollar is weaker than
my liver after last month’s many Computex parties, but it’s still
not enough to justify a more than doubling in price. Hopefully
prices will drop soon enough, making it killer value… but Nvidia
has its entry-level card waiting in the wings. We’ll be checking it
out next month, along with AMD’s new RX460 and RX470.
Regardless, as a lover of silicon that makes my games look
pretty, it’s been an exciting couple of months to at least see new
products. Read on to see which one is worthy of an upgrade.
T
Bennett Ring
Tech Editor
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Our Power
Award is given
to products
that are best in
class no matter
your budget.
Our Smart Buy
Award goes
to products
that balance
performance
with price tag.
69
69
70
78
82
82
Level 10M Advanced
BenQ XR3501
GTX 1070/1080
Roundup
Radeon RX 480
Roccat Suora
Ozone Blade
THE PCPP TESTBENCH
CPU
INTEL I7 3770K
www.intel.com.au
MOBO
GIGABYTE Z77X-UD3H
www.gigabyte.com.au
SSD
CORSAIR NEUTRON
www.corsair.com
RAM
8GB PATRIOT DDR3 2,133MHz
www.patriotmemory.com
GPU
RADEON HD 7970
www.amd.com
PSU
CORSAIR AX860I
www.corsair.com
DISPLAY
DELL U2711
www.dell.com.au
68 PC PowerPlay
Contents
REVIEWS / TECH
MOUSE
Tt esports Level 10M Advanced gaming mouse
The best a hand can get
PRICE au.ttesports.com
pon initially examining the
exuberantly OTT design of this
mouse, one may conclude that so
much style must surely be overcompensating for a lack of substance.
Not so! Under its many-faceted skin
lies a gaming mouse that’s on par with
the very best you can buy. Only the
recent Logitech G502 is its equal, and
for the same reasons. This mouse (and
the Logi) has bang-on-perfect cursor
movement on-screen. There’s no lag or
acceleration to mess you up. Straight
away, as soon as you plug it in it just
feels right. Install the software for
expanded DPI options and a bit of RGB
personalisation, and it only gets better.
The laser sensor feels more like a
really good optical, in that movement is
beautifully smooth and natural, without
the harsh movements a laser can often
U
impart.
DPI peaks
out at 8200, which is
plenty enough – unless
you’re running a 4k screen.
Ergonomics are superb, and
the longer one uses this the more it
becomes apparent that the seemingly
style-driven shapes and protrusions
are actually sublime substance. A rest
for your fingers and thumb feature on
each side, and I haven’t used a mouse
that lets my hand fall so naturally into
perfect position so effortlessly for a
long time. The left thumb buttons are
raised round things, a bit unusual and I
think much better than flat slab buttons.
And if the style isn’t to your tastes
you can overlook that, cover it up with
your hand and just enjoy a supremely
good gaming mouse. BEN MANSILL
SMART
BUY
w w w. p cp o w e r p l a y. co m . au
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VERDICT:
A delight to use onscreen and under-hand,
this is as good as a
mouse gets today.
10
MONITOR
BenQ XR3501
Curves in all the right places
PRICE www.benq.com.au
curve still carries a hefty per-pixel
price premium. This fine gaming
monitor from BenQ, for instance, has
fewer pixels than a 27” professional
monitor, for roughly twice the price.
But a curve brings a lot to the
experience. At 34-inches, the XR3501
is very wide. It sweeps and, thanks to a
tighter than normal curve, it envelopes.
This display has a 2000R curve instead
of a 3000R - meaning a circle made up
of XR3501s arranged edge-to-edge
would be only four metres across, not
six. Smaller radius is better, see.
Making up for the 2560x1080
resolution is a 144Hz refresh rate,
though there’s no FreeSync or G-Sync
here. Speed is a game-friendly 4ms
grey-to-grey and various contrast
settings allow for inky blacks and
a nominal contrast ratio of 2000:1.
Colour is great too, and there’s PIP
functionality and audio pass-through.
A
Position fine tuning is limited to
front-back tilt - there’s no height
adjustment - but you can wall mount
it with an optional VESA kit. Which
would look weird, but whatever.
Basically the XR3501 is a good
“all-rounder” curved monitor. Without
fancy sync tech onboard, it’s between
$500 and $700 cheaper than some
other curved displays at this size, and of
course you don’t need to declare loyalty
to either GPU manufacturer.
Don’t be put off by the 1080p. Your
desktop might be a little grainy, but
games look amazing and of course big
framerates will be possible on modest
hardware.
The ultra-rich will want to drop
$1700+ on a 1440p curved monitor.
For the rest of us, there’s the XR3501.
ANTHONY FORDHAM
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VERDICT:
What it lacks in vertical
resolution, it makes up
for in colour, speed and
immersion
8
PC PowerPlay 69
70 PC PowerPlay
1070 & 1080 ROUNDUP / TECH
Xxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxxxxx xxxxx xxxx
The GeForce
arrives in
Force
Now that third party manufacturers are able to
make their own cards, the new crop of Nvidia
GPUs are more powerful than ever. Bennett Ring
pologies for having to refer to these
cards by their full names – in the past
I’d just say a GTX 1080, but Nvidia has
insisted we use the full names moving
forwards. So you can look forward to
reading the word GeForce about 100
times over the following pages.
Last month we did a deep dive on
the new Pascal GPU architecture that
powers the GeForce GTX 1080’s GP104
process, comprised of a whopping 7.2
Billion transistors. The secret to the new
card’s success is the move to a 16nm
FinFET manufacturing process, which
has allowed NVIDIA to dramatically
increase the speed of the GPU. They’ve
also strapped the new, faster type of
video card memory to it, in the form
of GDDR5X. And yet in many ways it’s
very similar to the Maxwell cards that
powered the GeForce GTX 9XX series.
We used NVIDIA’s Founder’s Edition
version of the GeForce GTX 1080 for
last month’s review, but we’re now
seeing a flood of cards from third party
manufacturers. Which ones it’s time
for one thing - a roundup! We’ve also
got stock of the newer, less expensive
GeForce GTX 1070, so let’s take a quick
look at how that differs from the GeForce
GTX 1080.
A
GEFORCE GTX 1070 – THE CUT-BACKS.
With an average price of around $899,
the GeForce GTX 1070 is around $200
to $300 less expensive than its bigger
brother. It’s not quite the big price drop
we expected. In the use the GeForce GTX
1070 is just $379, around half the price
of the more expensive card in the series,
yet here we save a mere 30%. There have
been concerns around supply issues
driving up the prices, yet we’ve got a
feeling it’s just the Australia tax at work
once again.
So, what do you get for your 30% price
saving? Some rather severe cut-backs
to be frank. At the heart of both cards is
the same GP104 GPU, which at its core
is powered by Nvidia’s CUDA cores. The
GeForce GTX 1080 has 2560 of these,
while the GeForce GTX 1070 slashes
these 25%, down, to 1920. There’s also
been a sharp drop in the number of
Texture Units, dropping another 25% from
160 to 120. However, the GeForce GTX
1070 has the full complement of ROPs
as its bigger brother, with all 64 intact.
Despites these drops, both cards are
built from 7.2 Billion transistors – it’s just
that many of them are disabled on the
GTX 1070. This is common procedure for
Nvidia. High-end cards that have faults in
some of the transistors often have these
banks disabled. These banks are known
as SMs – there are 20 on the GeForce
GTX 1080, with 15 on the GeForce GTX
1070, and each is comprised of a certain
amount of CUDA cores and Texture Units.
This allows for more affordable products
that can still be sold, rather than having
to trash the chip. It also means the card
uses less power, with a TDP of just 150W,
which is rather amazing given that it out
performs a GeForce GTX Titan X.
Like the GeForce GTX 1080, its
lesser cousin comes with a full 8GB of
onboard GDDR5X memory, but it’s been
downclocked from 10Gbps to 8Gbps. This
means that the GeForce GTX 1070 has
a top theoretical memory throughput of
256GB/sec, whereas the faster card has
320GB/sec. It also runs over an identical
256-bit memory bus, and uses the
latest iteration of delta colour calibration
that Nvidia has used in its last several
products.
The final performance decrease comes
in the form of the GPU speeds. Where the
GeForce GTX 1080 had a Base clock of
1607MHz and a Boost clock of 1733MHz,
the cheaper card has a Base clock of
1506MHz and a Boost clock of 1683MHz.
These aren’t that severe, though it
PC PowerPlay 71
TECH / 1070 & 1080 ROUNDUP
GPU Benchmarks
METRO LAST LIGHT Benchmarks
SHADOW OF MORDOR Benchmarks
1440p Ultra
Min FPS
Asus Strix GeForce GTX 1080
Gigabyte G1 Gaming GTX 1080
MSI GeForce GTX 1080 Gaming 8G
MSI GeForce GTX 1070 Gaming X
Asus Strix GeForce GTX 1070
34
34
36
30
30
Avg FPS
103
101
101
85
84
3DMARK Fire Strike Extreme (2560 x 1440)
2880 x 1620, Ultra Settings
Min FPS
75
74
74
MSI GeForce GTX 1080 Gaming 8G
Asus Strix GeForce GTX 1080
Gigabyte G1 Gaming GTX 1080
MSI GeForce GTX 1070 Gaming X
Asus Strix GeForce GTX 1070
102
102
101
63
62
83
83
3DMARK Fire Strike
Score
9895
9752
9682
8261
8226
Asus Strix GeForce GTX 1080
MSI GeForce GTX 1080 Gaming 8G
Gigabyte G1 Gaming GTX 1080
Asus Strix GeForce GTX 1070
MSI GeForce GTX 1070 Gaming X
Avg FPS
Score
17456
17345
16866
15457
15429
Asus Strix GeForce GTX 1080
Gigabyte G1 Gaming GTX 1080
MSI GeForce GTX 1080 Gaming 8G
Asus Strix GeForce GTX 1070
MSI GeForce GTX 1070 Gaming X
4K SLI Benchmarks - twin GTX 1080s
METRO LAST LIGHT Benchmarks
Min FPS
Twin 1080s
Single 1080
35
27
83
58
does give the card around 70% of the shader,
geometry and texture performance of its fullypowered version.
If there is one benefit to these cuts, it’s that
the GTX 1070 should overclock extremely well.
With fewer enabled transistors, it has a lower
thermal output, which helps when overclocking.
Like the GeForce GTX 1080, Nvidia and third
party manufacturers are offering “Founders’
Editions” of the cards, which use Nvidia’s sexy
aluminium blower design. Strangely, it costs
more than the third party cards (US$449), yet
runs at reference speeds, whereas the third
party cards mostly have factory overclocks. So
you’re paying more for a card that runs slower,
though does look sexier. No matter which
company is selling the Founder’s Edition, they’re
all absolutely identical, so your purchasing
decision will come down to price alone.
SLI AND OTHER FEATURES
Nvidia is now promoting SLI as a two-card
feature, suggesting that users avoid triple and
quad-GPU setups. It’s still possible to run more
than one, but don’t expect the performance
leap to be substantial. A new SLI bridge has
been introduced that is rigid, unlike the cabled
72 PC PowerPlay
Avg FPS
Min FPS
Twin 1080s
Single 1080
models of the past, increasing bandwidth from
400MHz to 650MHz. We benchmarked twin
GeForce GTX 1080s in this article, and some of
the performance improvements were simply
incredible. 3DMark Fire Strike Ultra posted
a huge 76% increase, while our other two
benchmarks showed that twin GeForce GTX
1080s can handle 4K gaming with Ultra detail
and maintain an average FPS of 60fps – last
month’s testing showed that a single GeForce
GTX 1080 could not. So, if you want real 4k
gaming performance with every detail on Ultra,
and maintain a 60fps average, it seems like
twin GeForce GTX 1080s are the way to go.
The GeForce GTX 1070 comes with all of the
other new features found in the new Pascal
cards. The new Ansel screenshot capturing
Nvidia is now
promoting SLI as a twocard feature, suggesting
that users avoid triple and
quad-GPU setups
42
73
60
Avg FPS
106
software is supported, but this is a software
feature which is backwards compatible with
GTX 9XX series cards. More important is the
new inclusion of hardware-based Simultaneous
Multi-Projection (SMP), which can deliver
a huge performance boost in multi-screen
setups, such as VR. Instead of having to render
the scene twice, once for each screen, it only
renders it once, but then takes viewports
(basically virtual cameras) into the world,
instead of the one viewport traditionally used.
Nvidia claims this can boost VR performance by
up to twice the performance, giving these cards
a huge advantage when it comes to AMD’s
products, which don’t feature SMP.
Now that we’ve given you a run down on
the new GeForce GTX 1070 compared to its
more expensive sibling, let’s check out five new
products that have recently hit Aussie shelves.
Note that all cards were tested in their preconfigured overclocked mode on an i7-6700K
in an Asus Z170 Pro Gaming motherboard,
running 16GB of Ballistix DDR4-2400MHz
memory, with twin Corsair SSDs used to house
the operating system and benchmarks. We also
tested at higher resolutions than usual, as these
cards are designed to operate beyond 1080p.
P
W
G
T
means top-quality gaming parts from
Asus, and Strix indicates the best of the
best. It’s around $170 more expensive
than entry level GeForce GTX 1070 cards
such as the Gainward Phoenix, so what
does that extra cost get you?
The easiest difference to spot is the
huge three-blade DirectCU III cooler,
which takes up twin slots. Asus claims
this delivers 30% better cooling three
times quieter than the default cooler, so
we were a little surprised when it turned
out to be the loudest cooler, at 48dB.
This fairly noticeable under load, but
we’re sure it’ll quieten down if the card
isn’t run in OC mode.
A very cool (literally) feature are the
twin 4-pin fan headers on one end
of the card. These can be connected
to standard case fans; when the card
detects it’s getting a little steam, it’ll
independently power up and control
these case fans. It also has Asus’ new
Aura RGB lighting system. Plug it into
an Asus motherboard with the same
features, and all of the RGB lights can be
configured to flash certain colours when
it detects certain sound effects – say,
lighting than any other card we’ve see
though we’re next exactly big fans of
this distracting light whilst gaming.
Another unique feature is the use of
twin HDMI 2.0 ports, alongside twin
Display Ports and a single DVI-I port.
This makes it fantastic if you’re running
VR, as it’s easier to plug in a second
monitor using HDMI than DisplayPort,
at least in our experience. Power is
delivered via a single 8-pin plug, which
is then delivered to Asus’ “Auto Extreme
Technology with Super Alloy Power II”.
Basically this refers to the fact that the
cards are created 100% by machines,
and use aircraft grade components. Yet
it only uses a 7 phase power design
(6+1), though the use of quality power
components shouldn’t make this much
of an issue.
When it comes to clock speeds, this
card uses the GPU Tweak II software for
one-button clock adjustments. It’s still
possible to use other pieces of software
like EVGA’s Precision X 16, but GPU
Tweak II makes the process quick and
easy. In Gaming mode, the Base clock
sits at 1632MHz, while the Boost clock
hits 1835MHz. Activating OC mode
increases the Base clock to 1657MHz,
an insignificant amount, while the Boost
clock bumps up to 1860MHz, again a
relatively overclock. There’s also a silent
mode, but we weren’t able to test the
speeds of this.
It might cost significantly more than
entry-level GeForce GTX 1070’s, but
the inclusion of twin HDMI 2.0, the two
fan headers and Aura lighting make
this a very interesting product, where
that extra price point doesn’t seem
unreasonable.
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VERDICT:
By including features
unique to this card,
Asus has helped the
Asus ROG Strix GeForce
GTX 1070 really stand
out from the pack.
9
PC PowerPlay 73
TECH / 1070 & 1080 ROUNDUP
T
A
to see what Asus had done to make this
card shine. Once again it’s part of Asus’
ROG Strix premium range, which is why
the price of $1249 is around $240 more
expensive than the cheapest GeForce
GTX 1080 on the market, Gainward’s
Phoenix GeForce GTX 1080.
Once again Asus has used its new
DirectCU III cooler, which is a rather large
dual-slot design. Asus claims that is
now using special patented Wing-Blade
fans on this cooler, which apparently
increase static air pressure by 105% over
the GPU. Like most GPUs these days, it
also supports 0dB mode; when you’re
only doing light 2D work, the fans are
disengaged entirely, making for a silent
PC. It’s only once the GPU hits a certain
temp that they kick in. Nvidia claims
this new cooler is once again 30% more
efficient yet 3x quieter than the default
cooler, yet it proved to be the loudest in
our roundup, at 50dB. This was under
OC mode though.
The same twin 4-pin fan connectors
found on its little brother make an
appearance on this card, as does the
use of twin HDMI 2.0/Twin DisplayPort
connectors. However, this time the
power system has been given a kick in
74 PC PowerPlay
plug, whereas this card has an 8-pin
plus a 6-pin to deliver additional power
and power stability to the card. This is
routed through a 10 phase (8+2) power
system, and uses the same high-quality
power components found on other
Strix graphics cards. Yet we did notice a
very low-level of what sounded like coil
whine, which we also heard on the other
1080 cards. It’s nowhere near as bad
as many products in the past, and will
probably be inaudible in a case though.
Thanks to the RGB phase, this card
is decked out with the same lighting
system as it’s little brother, with RGB
strips around each fan and on the
backplate. It supports the same Auro
lighting system as the cheaper Strix
too, and the lights can be set to static,
breathing, strobing, colour cycling, music
effect or GPU temperature.
Using the same GPU Tweak II
software as the other Strix review, we
first ran it in gaming mode. Here the
Base clock is set to 1759MHz, while the
Boost clock jumps to 1898MHz. Hitting
OC mode increases speeds again, with
a Base clock of 1784MHz and Boost
clock of 1936MHz, making this one of
the fastest factory overclocked cards on
speeds, and found the Boost clock was
actually around 2050MHz, even better
than the numbers claimed by Asus. Sadly
we don’t have actual running numbers
for all of our cards – it turns out that
GPU-Z has a bug that shows the wrong
speed on the front page. It was only
after a friendly PR rep informed us that
you have to check the secondary speed
setting on the second tab that you’ll
get accurate numbers, but we’d already
finished testing all of the cards by then.
With the fastest performance of all
cards, not to mention the extra features,
Asus has established the Asus Strix
GeForce GTX 1080 as arguably the best
premium GeForce GTX 1080 on the market.
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VERDICT:
It’s not cheap, but it’s
certainly worthy of note
given its lightning speed
and extra feature set.
9
$1139 it’s very we p
with almost all of the performance of
the more expensive Asus ROG Strix
GeForce GTX 1080. It also has a couple
of aces up its sleeve that help make it
noteworthy.
The Windforce 3X cooler is very
similar to previous Gigabyte coolers,
though the aesthetics have been given
a touch up. Powered by three fans,
it too has a unique fan design, with
special 3D stripes on that Gigabyte
claims improves performance by 23%.
Our fan test showed that it’s relatively
quiet, at 47dB. As well as the usual
RGB strips on the front of the cooler, a
glowing Gigabyte logo sits on the edge
facing the exterior of your case. What’s
more interesting is the “Fan Stop” logo,
which lights up whenever the fans
deactivate to 0dB mode under certain
temperatures – it’s actually a useful
piece of info to have.
As with all GeForce GTX 1080s, this
card comes with a sturdy backplate,
power design (
components carry Gigabyte’s Ultra
Durable branding, pointing to the use of
premium capacitors and chokes.
Gigabyte has stuck with the reference
video output design on this card, with
triple DisplayPort 1.4, a single HDMI 2.0
output and one Dual Link DVI-D for older
monitors. As with the Asus products,
this card comes factory overclocked, and
it the various modes can be changed
using the XTREME engine utility. It
appears the chips on this cards have
been binned (tested to see which
ones are better than average), as the
company claims it uses “GPU Gauntlet
Sorting”, explaining that this, “guarantee
higher overclocking capability in terms
of excellent power switching, ensuring
the highest performance without
compromising system reliability.”
Running the card in Gaming mode
saw it hit a Base clock of 1695MHz,
1835MHz. S
increased the Base clock to 172
while the Boost clock increased to
1860MHz. That’s 66Hz less than the
Asus card, and yet the performance
numbers show very little difference
between the two cards.
If you’re looking for a well-priced
GeForce GTX 1080 that comes with
a solid factory overclock, Gigabyte’s
Gigabyte G1 Gaming GTX 1080 could be
just the card you’re after.
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VERDICT:
Offering excellent
value for money, this
card is basically as
fast as models that
cost $100 more.
9
PC PowerPlay 75
TECH / 1070 & 1080 ROUNDUP
won’t get a 23% boost in performance
over the entry-level cards, so what do
you get?
As usual, let’s start with the cooler
design. Unlike other manufacturers, MSI
has gone with a twin-fan setup, but
they’re bloody big, at 100mm across.
These use a new twin-ball bearing
design that apparently last longer while
running quieter. Each fan also houses
two types of blade – a dispersion fan
that accelerates airflow, alongside
normal fan blades which blow straight
down. At just 47dB in our fan test, they
seem to do the job nicely. Obviously
there’s a 0dB mode for when you’re
doing boring old 2D work. The RGB
lighting on this cooler seems to be a
little subtler than on the other cards,
with not quite as many lights.
At Computex we got to see the
interior of the new heatsink, which
uses a new heatpipe design to better
move heat to the cooling fins from
the copper base plate. The fans are
apparently now also targeted better on
76 PC PowerPlay
power circuitry. Reference GeForce
GTX 1070’s use a single 8-pin power
connector, but MSI has beefed this up
with an additional 6-pin power supply.
This pushes power to a 10-phase power
system (8+2) which is surprising for
a GeForce GTX 1070, and goes a long
way to explaining the increase in cost.
The power system carries MSI’s Military
Class 4 branding, which shows it has
passed the MIL-STD-810G certification
process for extra reliability.
As usual, a solid metal backplate is
in place, but it’s got a lovely dragon
etching on it… which will be invisible
once the card is mounted in your
PC. Given the higher pricing, factory
overclocking is a must, and this can
be activated via the easy-to-use MSI
Gaming App. In Silent Mode, the Base
clock downclocks to 1506MHz, while
Boost clocks also decrease, this time
to 1683MHz. Heading to Gaming mode
increases the Base clock to 1582MHz
while the Boost jumps to 1171MHz.
Finally, OC mode sees the Base clock hit
,
1800MHz, at 11797MHz.
As you can see from our benchmarks,
the GeForce GTX 1070 is around 20%
slower than a GeForce GTX 1080, which
isn’t that great an improvement. If it
was half the cost of a GeForce GTX 1080
it’d be much better value, but until that
happens the GeForce GTX 1070 isn’t
quite as impressive as earlier GeForce
GTX X70 cards. And MSI’s version in
particular isn’t quite as impressive as
our final review, the Asus ROG Strix
GeForce GTX 1070, as it lacks several
key features, but is the same price.
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VERDICT:
If the price was a little
lower, or this card had a
couple of unique extras,
we’d recommend it without
hesitation. Sadly the Asus
beats it on most counts.
8
come down to your brand preference.
Once again we see what appears to
be an identical cooler to MSI’s GeForce
GTX 1070, which uses the new Torx 2.0
fan to deliver 22% more air pressure.
It’s got the same double ball bearing
and twin-blade design, and it worked
brilliantly. Even in OC mode, this card
recorded the lowest fan noise, at just
46dB. That’s even quieter than the
lower-powered GeForce GTX 1070 from
MSI! The same improvements to the
heatsink and air-fin design are present
here, with the new heatpipe design,
nickel-plated copper heatsink and six
heatpipes. There’s also cooling over
the memory, though no mention of it
over the power system. It has the same
understated RGB lights, which offers
all the usual features – responding to
music, breathing, flashing, always on, or
always off. We’ll take the latter thanks.
MSI uses a larger PCB than reference
cards, which apparently also helps with
cooling and lowering EMF interference.
The same MSI Military Class 4 testing
output config is in use, with a single
HDMI 2.0, triple DisplayPort 1.4 and o
Dual-Link DVI. So far, so very similar to
the Gigabyte card, apart from the use of
twin fans instead of three.
As expected at this price, the card
comes pre-factory overclocked, and
the same MSI Gaming App as its
GeForce GTX 1080 is used. Silent mode
drops the Base clock to 1607MHz,
while Boost clock lowers to 1733MHz.
Gaming mode increases the Base to
1683MHz whilst also upping the Boost
clock to 1833MHz. Finally, OC mode
sees the base clock hit 1708MHz,
while the Boost clock hits 1847MHz.
That’s a mere 13MHz difference to the
Gigabyte card.
As you can see, they’re both basically
identical in features and performance.
The MSI card does have an extra power
plug, which suggests it might overclock
better, but that’s no guarantee.
Therefore choosing which one to buy
will come down to brand loyalty more
than anything else.
The MSI card does
have an extra power plug,
which suggests it might
overclock better, but that’s
no guarantee
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VERDICT:
Gigabyte or MSI? It
really comes down
to brand loyalty, and
maybe that extra
power plug.
9
PC PowerPlay 77
TECH / REVIEW
AMD
Radeon
RX480
VR for the masses. Bennett Ring
PRICE $439
www.amd.com
n case you hadn’t noticed, VR is the big
thing of 2016. With two excellent VR
kits on the market, prospective users
now need the power to deliver the ultrasmooth framerates that are necessary
for a comfortable VR experience. NVIDIA
has gone for the high-end, releasing its
GeForce GTX 1070 and 1080 products
for the ultimate in framerates, but AMD
is taking a very different approach.
Their stats show that 84% of gamers
buy video cards between US$100 and
US$300 in price, so their new RX400 is
targeting this broader audience. We’re
still waiting for the RX460 and RX470 to
arrive, but have finally got our mitts on
the Radeon RX480, the only one of the
cards that is officially rated for VR. PC
PowerPlay was recently invited to the
official RX480 launch in Macau to see
what makes this card tick.
I
78 PC PowerPlay
PC PowerPlay 79
TECH / REVIEW
THE PRICE
SUCKING DOWN THE JUICE
Today’s PCIe bus is rated to handle a mere
75W of power, but recent testing by PCPer
has found that early samples of the RX480
are pulling up to 80W, while another 85W
is being fed via the 6-pin power plug. This is
simply strange behaviour for a 150W TDP
card based on a new low-power transistor.
In fact, when overclocked, the card has
been measured pulling in over 100W over
the PCIe bus, with another 100W over the
6-pin fan connector. AMD has responded to
these issues with the following statement.
“As you know, we continuously tune our
GPUs in order to maximize their performance
within their given power envelopes and the
speed of the memory interface, which in this
case is an unprecedented 8Gbps for GDDR5.
Recently, we identified select scenarios
where the tuning of some RX 480 boards
was not optimal. Fortunately, we can adjust
the GPU’s tuning via software in order to
resolve this issue. We are already testing
a driver that implements a fix, and we will
provide an update to the community on our
progress on Tuesday”. It’ll be interesting to
see what kind of fix is implemented, and
whether that impacts performance.
80 PC PowerPlay
this card is selling for a mere
(8Gb), far cheaper than most
nos expected. Unfortunately,
not quite as affordable here
Australia, with the average
ce being $439. Even when you
our low dollar into account,
oubling in price definitely
nreasonable, and puts it on par
y-level versions of the past
on of AMD card, the Radeon
R9 390X.
The biggest change to the new Polaris
10 chip within the RX480 is a move
a new manufacturing process. Unlike
NVIDIA, who is using GlobalFoundries’s
new 16nm FinFET process, AMD has
leapfrogged them to a 14nm FinFET
process. This is the first time in over a
decade that AMD hasn’t used TSMC for
its manufacturing process. The major
benefit of this is a dramatic drop in
power usage, with AMD claiming up
to 1.9X performance per Watt, though
you can read our boxout to hear about
a few issues AMD has been having in
this regard. These are arranged into
36 Compute Units, making for a total
of 2304 Stream Processors and 144
Texture units. That’s quite a drop from
the 2816 Stream processors used in the
R9 390X, or the 2560 in the R9 390, but
slightly more than the R9 380. 32 ROPs
end the rendering pipeline. AMD claims
each of these Compute Units are 15%
faster… than the R9 290 series, not the
most recent cards.
It’s been able to do this without a
massive redesign of each Compute Unit;
instead delivering smaller improvements.
These include better instruction prefetch,
improved single-threaded performance,
tuned L2 cache behaviour and Native
FP16 and Int16 support. They’ve also
added something called a Primitive
Discard Accelerator. This detects triangles
that are too small to be used, and
removes them from the rendered scene.
The Base clock speed is just
1120MHz, while the Boost clock jumps
up to 1266MHz. This is a long way
behind the frequency increases NVIDIA
saw in its jump to the new FinFET
transistor design, and we’re not sure
why. A total of 5.2 billion transistors
make up the Polaris 10 GPU.
In terms of onboard memory, AMD
will be offering two different variants.
A 4GB version will come with 7Gbps
memory, while the 8GB version
increases this to 8Gbps. Both variants
are using GDDR5, but it’s over a 256-bit
memory bus, just half that of the 512bit memory bus of the R9 390.
AMD has borrowed Nvidia’s blowerstyle design for its cooler, but it’s made
from a much more affordable plastic
design. It’s nice and quiet, measuring
just 44dB during our load test. It’s
great to see that AMD has also finally
updated the video outputs, including a
single HDMI 2.0b and triple DisplayPort
1.4 ports. This makes the card fully
compatible with the upcoming range of
HDR monitors and TVs that are starting
to make their way to the market.
WATTMAN
AMD has introduced a new overclocking
utility with this card called Wattman.
This is in charge of GPU voltage, engine
and memory clocks, fan speed and
temps. It’s biggest new feature is a
histogram that shows how a given
card performance during a single
game – from there the user can build
per-game profiles. Wattman takes the
GPU Benchmarks
METRO LAST LIGHT Benchmarks
SHADOW OF MORDOR Benchmarks
1080p Ultra
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place of the existing AMD OverDrive
tab. We managed to hit a Boost Clock
of 1345MHz, while the memory maxed
out at 8800MHz, a decent 10% or so
increase. Speaking of drivers, AMD is
moving to a new method of releasing
drivers. Rather than ensuring they stick
to a specified timeline with drivers,
releasing beta drivers when necessary,
the company will now be releasing
drivers more frequently, for better day 1
support of game launches,
DESIGNED FOR VR
If there’s one message AMD is pushing
with this card, it’s that the RX480 is the
first truly VR-ready card at an affordable
price point. Their goal is to get this card
into the hands of 100 million VR gamers
in the next few years, but we have a few
concerns with this approach.
At the launch of the RX480 we were
able to verify that it did indeed run all
of today’s launch VR programs with the
desired frame rate of 90Hz. However,
we should point out that today’s VR
games are just the launch generation
– they’re comprised of incredibly
simplistic graphics. We’ve played the
next generation of VR games that are
on the way, and the increase in graphic
fidelity is massive. There’s also the fact
that we’re looking at 4K HMDs in 2017,
and if the RX480 can only just handle
today’s VR HMDs with their 2K screens,
there’s no way they’ll be ready for next
year’s products. It’s all fine and dandy
to have an affordable VR product that
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works now, but what happens in a year’s
time when it starts to struggle? There’s
also the issue that Nvidia’s cards include
the very unique Simultaneous MultiProjection feature, which can double
performance in VR scenarios, and is
likely to be included in its upcoming
GeForce GTX 1060 card. AMD doesn’t
have a comparable technology, which
will put it at a severe performance
disadvantage in more advanced VR
experiences.
Before we look at the performance
numbers of this card, we should
highlight a demo that AMD showed
at the Macau launch. It showed two
screens, both running Ashes of the
Singularity demo. One machine was
powered by NVIDIA’s new GeForce
GTX 1080, while the other had twin
RX480s in CrossFire mode. That’s a
US$749 card versus a combined total
of $US399… and the AMD setup ran the
game more smoothly, with much lower
CPU utilisation. However, this DX12
demo is renowned for running better on
AMD hardware, so we weren’t quite as
impressed with this demo as many of
the others in the room.
11579
10361
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3847
Because the Aussie price
is so high compared to the US,
we’re better off buying the
previous generation
roughly the same price. And therein
lies the problem. Because the Aussie
price is so high compared to the US,
we’re better off buying the previous
generation. It’s not a new problem
unique to AMD; we’ve seen this
countless times, even with the recent
Nvidia product launches.
More worrying is how these cards
will handle future VR experiences which
are likely to be much more demanding
than today’s simplistic experiments in
VR gameplay. Right now the RX480
offers decent value for money if you’re
looking to build an affordable VR rig,
but whether it’ll be VR ready in 12 to 24
months is another question entirely.
Next month sees the arrival of the
RX460 and RX470 products, which will
be even cheaper, so stay tuned for our
upcoming review.
PERFORMANCE
As our benchmarks show, the new
RX480 is relatively closely paced to
the R9 390X. Unfortunately we didn’t
have an R9 390 for testing, and we
should point out our R9 390X is factory
overclocked. Still, even a base R9 390X
would likely beat out the RX480, for
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VERDICT:
If AMD can shave $75 off
the price of these cards, it’ll
have one of the best value
performers on the market.
8
PC PowerPlay 81
TECH / REVIEWS
KEYBOARD
Roccat Suora
Nothing but the keys
PRICE www.roccat.org
lthough we’ve loved most of the
Roccat mice we’ve had a chance
to review, the same can’t be said for
the company’s keyboards. Most of
their range is enormous and stuffed to
the gills with all the bells and whistles
that have come to define “gaming”
peripherals. The Suora is different. It’s a
barebones as can be, with only a single
LED backlight colour (Roccat Blue), six
keys that double as programmable
macro keys, a minimal bezel and little
else. Getting such a sparse keyboard
form a company normally known for
packing in all the extra functionality
it definitely came as a surprise, and a
rather pleasant one at that.
Rather than using Cherry MX
keys, the Suora instead features TTC
switches with a 1000Hz (1ms) polling
rate. It’s fast and responsive and quite
the pleasure to game or type on. The
keys do come across as a little clacky
A
and don’t feel as resistant as Cherry
Red or Brown, but they still come
across as nice and springy. Spacebar is
especially good as it feels responsive
across the entire length instead of
just the sides as is the case with many
mechanical keyboards. The keyboard
is supported by Roccat’s easy to use
and excellent Swarm software, making
profiles and macros a breeze to create.
If there’s one thing standing against
the Suora it’s the price. As it currently
stands, the keyboard appears only to
be available through EB, meaning that
$169.95 is the cheapest option. Given
that you can get the excellent K70 or
K70 Rapid for around $150 the Suora
comes across as a little overpriced.
DANIEL WILKS
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VERDICT:
Definitely our favourite
Roccat keyboard to date.
Excellent response and
design slightly hampered
by the price tag.
8
KEYBOARD
Ozone Blade Membrane Gaming Keyboard
Plastic nightmares
PRICE www.ozonegaming.com
ack in the day when membrane
gaming keyboards were still a thing,
the Blade night have been worth the
asking price, but in today’s market it just
comes across as an overpriced lump
of plastic that is well past its prime.
There is truth to that last part. The
Blade is old. It’s actually a product from
2013, finally released to the Australian
gaming market in 2016. In 2013 the
Blade may have been an appealing
alternative to the more expensive
gaming keyboards around at the time,
with the likes of the Corsair Vengeance
K70, Logitech G710+, Logitech G510s
and Razer BlackWidow Ultimate
dominating the marketplace and setting
the price ceiling pretty high. Compared
to them, the Blade may have seemed
like something of a bargain. In today’s
market the features, build quality
and feel are equalled by membrane
keyboards less than half the price and
B
82 PC PowerPlay
trumped by mechanical keyboards
costing only a few dollars more.
The keyboard features 10 macro
keys, four dedicated keys to the left
of the keyboard and the other six
being F keys. There is a red or blue
backlight and a slider to shift intensity.
The keys themselves feel mushy but
are responsive for gaming. If you’re
looking to type look elsewhere, as
typing is unpleasant and the keyboard
feels rather uncomfortable after any
extended typing session. The matte
finish is also remarkably glary. If you’re
after an overpriced, cheap feeling
keyboard, good for you. For anyone else,
look elsewhere. The Ozone Blade arrived
on our shores three years too late to be
anything other than forgotten. DANIEL
WILKS
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VERDICT:
The Ozone Blade is a
product from 2013 and as a
result feels dated in the fast
moving world of gaming
keyboards. The price just
makes things worse.
3
TECH
HOTWA
01
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Plume WiFi
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84 PC PowerPlay
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Vi AI Personal Trainer
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04
Xbox One S
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AT
TECH / BUILDS
INVENTORY
ow that third party
manufacturers can make
their own GTX 1080 cards,
we can really see wha tthe
new generation is capable of.
Amazingly we’ve been able to
put two cards more powerful
than the Founder’s Edition in
the Beast and the price opf the
mammoth machine has gone
down. Next month we should
have a bunch of third party RX
480 cards as well as GTX 1060s
to test, so the Performance rig
should definitely be getting an
upgrade.
We’d love to hear your
feedback on how we can
improve these builds, especially
the Budget and Performance
machines – head to our
thread on the forums at www.
pcpowerplay.com.au to let us
know what you’d do differently.
N
BUDGET
PERFORMANCE
The perfect entry-level gaming PC
Most bells and whistles, without breaking the bank
CPU
AMD FX-6300 6 Core
Black Edition Processor
$155 www.amd.com
AMD still has the punch to compete in the budget range.
MOBO
Gigabyte P55W v5
$2099 www.gigabyte.com.au
If you want real gaming performance
in a laptop, $2k is where it starts
Origin EON17-SLX
$5699 www.originpc.com.au
Twin 980s and a 4GHz CPU, all
running quietly. Hella yes.
MOBO
RAM
G.Skill-NT 8GB Single
DDR3 1600
$45 www.gskill.com
8GB is plenty for our entry-level rig.
VIDEO
PowerColor R9 380
PCS+ 4GB
$330 www.sapphiretech.com
AMD’s new 960 killer
POWER
Cooler Master
Thunder 500W
$65 www.coolermaster.com
The budget beast doesn’t need a lot of juice
SOUND
Plantronics RiG 500
$95 www.plantronics.com/au
A little pricier than our previous
headset but far superior.
STORAGE
1TB 7200RPM
HDD (any) $63
The cheapest 1Tb drive should house
a good 50 games.
CASE
NZXT S340
$97 www.NZXT.com
Beauty on a real budget
KEYBOARD
Tt eSPORTS Challenger
$55 www.thermaltake.com.au
Built for PC gamers.
Macros, shortcuts, the lot.
MOUSE
PREMIUM
$365 + $115 www.intel.com
RAM
$109 www.asrock.com.au
A cheap home for AMD’s cheap gaming CPU.
$179 www.aocmonitorap.com/anz
24” and 2ms response for under $200?
BUDGET
Intel 5th Generation
Core i5-6600K +
Noctua NH-D15
Asus Z170 Pro
Gaming
AOC e2450Swh
LED Monitor
Gaming on the go
CPU
Asrock 970-PRO3
R2.0 Motherboard
DISPLAY
LAPTOPS
THE BEST BUILD
FOR EVERY BUDGET
Rapoo V20 Optical
Gaming Mouse
$35 www.rapoo.com
The disco mouse is a pleasure to use and looks great.
TOTAL: $1,078
$259 www.asus.com.au
Our fave affordable Z170 board
HyperX HX421C14FB2K2
16GB DDR4 2133MHz
$101 www.hyperxgaming.com
16GB at a great price
VIDEO
Galax GeForce GTX970
EXOC Sniper Edition
$499 www.galax.net
Performance well worth the price.
POWER
Corsair VS650
$85 www.corsair.com
This affordable PSU delivers a clean and
reliable source of energy.
SOUND
Edifier Luna Eclipse speakers +
Kingston HyperX Cloud
Revolver headset $265 + $149
www.edifier.com/au/ www.kingston.com
STORAGE
OCZ Trion 480GB +
2TB HDD (any)
$195 + $95 www.ocz.com
A speedy gaming drive + heaps of storage.
DISPLAY
AOC G2460PG
$565
www.aocmonitorap.com/v2015/au
24” of 144Hz, G-Sync glory.
CASE
Fractal Design Define R5
$169 www.fractal-design.com
Our new favourite mid-tower.
KEYBOARD
Steelseries Apex
M500 $150 steelseries.com
One of the best mechanical keyboards
we’ve ever used.
MOUSE
Tt esports Level 10M
$89.95
au.ttesports.com
Our new fave mouse.
TOTAL: $3,101.95
THE
When overkill is barely enough...
CPU
Intel 6th Generation Core i7 6700K + XSPC
RayStorm D5 RX240 V3 Water Cooling Kit
$525 + $587 www.intel.com www.pccasegear.com.au
You want power, here’s real power.
MOBO
MSI Z170A XPower Gaming
Titanium Edition
$499 www.msi.com
Sexy, silver and super fast.
RAM
Corsair Vengeance LPX 3600MHz
2 x 8GB with cooler
$399 www.corsair.com
That high speed will show real gains in large open-world
VIDEO
BEAST EXTRAS
STEERING WHEEL
Fanatec ClubSport Wheel
base, Formula Carbon and
CSP v2 Pedals
$589 + $239 + $329
www.fanatec.com/au-en/
There’s nothing better than “Germangineering” to deliver
the most precise force feedback around.
JOYSTICK
Saitek X56 Rhino +
Saitek Combat Pro pedals
$337 + $225 www.Saitek.com
Our beloved Logitech controller is now impossible
to find, but Saitek is still innovating..
2x Gigabyte G1 Gaming GTX 108
$2278 www.gigabyte.com.au
The best power and price around. We’ll take two and run
some sweet 4K.
POWER
Silverstone 1500wST1500 Strider
$314 www.silverstone.com
1500W should be plenty for the three GPUs running alongside an
overclocked CPU, as well as the storage within.
COCKPIT
Obutto oZone with Buttkicker
gamer 2 and TrackIR 5 Pro
$1100
You’re going to need somewhere to mount
your wheel and joystick, and the Obutto frame
is a favourite of ours.
SOUND
Creative Soundblaster ZxR
$389 www.creative.com
Paradigm Cinema 110 + Marantz SR5009 amp
$3299 www.aussiehifi.com.au
STORAGE
2 Intel 750 1.2TB SSD +
2x 4TB HDDs (any)
$2990 + $480 www.intel.com
Over 2TB of the fastest SSDs around and 8TB of mass storage.
DISPLAY
Asus ROG Swift PG27AQ
$1349 www.asus.com.au
This 4K panel comes with G-Sync and some of
the fastest pixels in the biz.
CASE
PROJECTOR
Sony VPLVW1000ES
$25,999
www.sony.com.au
Sure, it’s $26k and you’ll need a big room
to make the most of its huge image. But it’s
worth it when you see games running in 4K
on a 3-metre-wide screen.
VR
HTC Vive
$1350 www.htcvive.com
Until Oculus releases its Touch controllers,
the Vive is the only all-encompassing VR
experience.
Cooler Master Cosmos II
Ultra Tower $415 www.coolermaster.com
It’s big, it’s beautiful, and it’s also nice and quiet.
The compartmentalised interior ensures everything runs ice-cool.
KEYBOARD
Corsair K70 Rapidfire RGB
$219 corsair.com/en-au/
Super fast and a pleasure to use. A new PCPP favourite.
MOUSE
ROUTER
NETGEAR R8000
Nighthawk X6 Tri-Band
WiFi Router
$300 www.netgear.com.au
We’ll upgrade to the AC5300 routers when their
MU-MIMO technology matures, until then this
will do a dandy job.
Tt esports Level 10M Advanced
$89.95 au.ttesports.com
Incredible performance and feel. The best mouse we’ve used in ages.
HEADPHONES
Audio Technica ATH-ADG1
$249 www.audio-technica.com
Plug these into the Marantz amp for maximum
sound quality.
TOTAL: $14,081.95
Ultra-fast 802.11ac Wi-Fi router
Smooth 4K/UHD video playback
STREAMING
Steambox and
Controller
$75 + $75
store.steampowered.com
Why build a second PC for the lounge room
when this $150 pack will do the job just as well?
TOTAL: $30,618
TECH / BUNKER
How Things Work
ALTERNATIVE
LIFESTYLES
ASHLEY MCKINNON wants you to experiment
88 PC PowerPlay
F
or a long time now nearly everyone
has been comfortably sitting in the
Windows OS camp. It’s easy to use,
takes advantage of modern technology
and let’s face it you can pretty much find
software for any application on it. There
are alternatives however to Windows –
and I’m not simply taking about Apple
MAC OSX (though it is an option). The
popularity for other Operating Systems
like Linux and Android shows that
people are both curious and willing to try
new things. Let’s take a look at some of
the options available out there to try.
Linux has been around for some
time but is now at the stage where it is
a serious rival to the Windows (some
would say it has surpassed it). Being
open source as well means that people
are constantly working on it, tweaking
it and general adding features and
capabilities all the time.
As it is open source it has spawned
numerous variations (over 800) each
with their own name but they basically
branch out from a few base versions.
These variations have progressed to
a stage where most are very similar
in look and feel to Windows so the
transition to using Linux is nowhere near
as dramatic or painful as it used to be.
The gaming world is embracing Linux
as well, with many titles currently
available. You can also use utilities such
as Wine to allow you to run Windows
programs from within Linux, opening
up your existing library to be used. Even
the gaming behemoth Steam has used
a variation of Linux to produce its own
OS; SteamOS but unfortunately you can
only get that by buying pre-approved
machines loaded with the software.
What is nice about Linux though is
you can easily run it from a USB stick,
as compared to Windows it is very
lightweight. This means you don’t have
to compromise your system by installing
a new OS, but can try it out via USB.
uBuntu may be one of the most
popular Linux distro’s available as there
are versions dedicated to gaming.
These include Fedora GameSpin, Ubuntu
Gamepack and Play-Linux. These come
with many games pre-installed – with
more available for download from their
respective repositories. While Linux
itself doesn’t really have any native
games that you would rate as AAA (like
Call of Duty or Grand Theft Auto), you
can run high end Windows based games
through WINE or similar utilities.
If you are interested in trying one
of the Linux based Operating Systems
you can try running them in a virtual
environment first. This way you don’t
need to worry about backing up
software, formatting hard drives or
reconfiguring your system until you test
them out first.
One of the easiest virtual machine
emulators is VirtualBox. This is a
free download from Oracle at www.
virtualbox.org.
VirtualBox installs and uses free hard
drive space to setup an environment
in which to install another operating
system. You can setup multiple
operating systems as long as you
have the free hard drive space to
accommodate them. You can then run
the virtual operating system and install
software on it like you would normally.
What is also good is that the virtual
Operating Systems are saved as a single
file – so you can easily transfer them or
back them up for later use.
RemixOS is basically Android for the
desktop. While, at the time of writing,
it is still in beta version what is there
is fully functional and shows you were
they are going. What is nice is that
RemixOS allows you to download apps
and games from the Google PlayStore
– which means you have access to over
1.6 millions options.
Installation can be done either to a
USB stick or onto a hard drive – where it
will install side by side with your current
Operating System. You can download
Remix OS from their website at www.
jide.com/remixos-for-pc.
Another Android alternative along
the same lines as Remix OS is Phoenix
OS. It too gives you access to the
Google PlayStore with its vast amount
of downloadable content. From their
website they confirm Phoenix OS works
well on PC’s up to 5 years old and
though you may think Android without a
touchscreen might be unusable Phoenix
OS (and Remix OS) show it can be done
and quite effectively.
Installation can be done to a USB stick
or like Remix OS put side by side with
your current Operating System.
Ever since Apple made the bold
announcement back in 2005 that
they were transitioning to using Intel
processors instead of the PowerPC
processors from IBM, getting Apple
MAC OSX software running on your PC
has been getting easier. OSX has been
gaining popularity in recent years as well
– due in part to how popular other Apple
devices like the iPad and iPhone have
swayed people over to how easy Apple
products are to use. Gaming on the OSX
platform too in recent years has come
a long way as we now see major titles
being released on OSX alongside their
Windows counterparts.
While I did say it was getting easier,
it’s not quite at the stage yet where you
can just put in an OSX cd into your drive
and install it like any other operating
system. There are a few hoops you need
to go through to get it up and running.
There are many tutorials out on
the internet detailing how to go about
install OSX on your system but the
most popular ones centre around using
RemixOS is
an Android OS
designed for
desktop usage
The gaming world is
embracing Linux as well, with
many titles currently available
a software utility called Unibeast. This
utility helps you create a bootable USB
drive which prepares the system to
install the OSX software. A great set
of tutorials can be found by visiting
the Hackintosh website (http://www.
hackintosh.com) which will give you
several options based on which version
of Apple MAC OSX you want to install.
Be pre warned though – OSX is not a
free product like Linux so expect to fork
out some dollars for it.
I trust now you’re inspired to try
something new and different. As they
say “fortune favours the brave”.
PC PowerPlay 89
THUNKPIECE
Could AR be more exciting than VR?
DAVID HOLLINGWORTH thinks that could well be the case, after trying Microsoft’s HoloLens.
T
he HoloLens is seriously one of the most
exciting things I’ve ever fooled around
with in my life. I’ve messed about with VR –
though, admittedly, haven’t had much time
actually gaming in it – but there’s something
so wonderfully… delightful about the way
the HoloLens can merge the real world with
the virtual.
And this is just the ‘Development Edition’!
In fact, despite its pre-consumer nature,
the HoloLens is already a supremely wellengineered piece of kit, and it’s well worth
delving into that a little before we drool over
what that hardware does.
The big thing about the HoloLens is that it’s
cordless – everything is built into the headset
itself. It’s powered by what Microsoft is calling
a Holographic Processing Unit, or HPU. This
comprises of one Inertial Measurement Unit
(which itself has a gyroscope, magnetometer,
and accelerometer), four environment
cameras for mapping where you are, a depth
camera, a 2MP still/video camera, mixed
‘reality capture’ device, four microphones,
and an ambient light sensor. All of this is
powered by an Atom chip, 2GB of RAM, and
64GB of storage.
The actual projection hardware is run via
two HD 16.9 light engines that can measure
pupillary distance, built into see-through
holographic lenses.
Just packing all that into a single
unit is hella impressive, and that unit is
stunningly designed. There are no fans to
keep the innards cool – all the HoloLens’
cooling is done passively, and it never gets
uncomfortable – which is a big plus. There
are two built in speakers, as well, so you
can hear what you’re seeing, or take calls or
chat with other HoloLens wearers for some
collaborative shenanigans. Extra care has
been taken with how the unit sits on your
noggin, too. A simple screw mechanism
opens up an inner band, which you then
effectively ‘clamp’ – though it really is quite
comfortable – onto your head, and the
actual HoloLens depends upon that, so the
90 PC PowerPlay
There are no fans
to keep the innards
cool – all the HoloLens’
cooling is done
passively, and it never
gets uncomfortable
computing hardware isn’t actually ever in
contact with your person.
So what can all this tiny computing
power do?
Our demo started off small. While
we were getting the unit I was wearing
calibrated, another guy was already hooked
up, and working on the augmented space
that I was about to enjoy. Since it was the
CSIRO that was hosting me, it was a good
chance for them to show off their work on
insect scanning. I was told “Turn around,
there’s a bug on the table,” and lo and
behold… a bug larger in my head was now
hovering over the table in front of me.
It was pretty amazing, and though these
features weren’t in place for my demo, it
will be possible to annotate and manipulate
such objects, but just being able to take a
look at the incredible detail up so close was
amazing. And outside of the small demo
room, the building itself had been seeded
with a range of other simple experiences –
astronauts floating in the air, tigers prowling
in long grass… all tagged to location, like a
scavenger hunt.
Most of those interactions were little more
than walking around a corner and finding
a satellite hovering before you. Things got
more interesting when we were able to mess
around with the version of Windows running
in the HoloLens itself. It’s possible to use a
clicker to navigate, but using hand-gestures
is simple. To click on something you just tap
your forefinger and thumb together, and
to move up a level in the interface you use
the ‘bloom’ gesture – holding your fingers
and thumb together, pointing up, and then
opening up your hand slowly, hold your
palm flat and uppermost.
Using this you I started to get a greater
grasp on the power of the HoloLens. I was
playing with little more than animated
dioramas (no bent Wookies, sadly), but it
was a good illustration of how a data worker
could set up a highly personalised workspace
that quite literally breaks beyond the
confines of monitors. And for collaborative
work – such as studying the aforementioned
giant bug, or engineering problems (hello
Tony Stark!) – it’s ground-breaking.
BUT HOW ABOUT GAMING?
Despite Microsoft’s rather impressive
footage of Minecraft being played with
a HoloLens, there’s nothing quite that
good yet. The closest I got was a relatively
simple game – robotic insects breaking
out of walls, that you had to ‘shoot’ by
targeting them with the click gesture. But
even that was revelatory. The environment
mapping meant that as the real walls
around me could collapse away. As the bugs
approached me, I could move away, dodge,
and then shoot them, and every part of this
virtual environment remained persistent.
Can you imagine DayZ, mapped to your
own house? Or being able to play the
monstrous chess game from Star Wars on
your own dining table?
With HoloLens, it feels like the sky’s the
limit.
PC PowerPlay 91
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MA/253
THE HAGIONAUT
The Game that Wanted to be a Film
The full-motion video craze of the late 1990s reached its absolute peak with Chris Roberts’
brother ERIN ROBERTS’ uneven opus Privateer 2. Here’s why a star-studded cast should never
take centre stage to gameplay...
Privateer 2: The Darkening
DEVELOPER ORIGIN SYSTEMS
PERSONALITY ERIN ROBERTS
RELEASED 1996
NUTSHELL Ostensibly set in the Wing Commander
universe, it used no Wing Commander characters,
ships or locations. Instead it was populated
by surprisingly serious actors like John Hurt,
Christopher Walken and Clive Owen. Obviously,
gameplay suffered.
F
MV. Full motion video. What a
triumph of technology it was. Tiny
snippets of blurry film stitched into gaps
in the low-res gameplay of the 1990s, like
a tiny smear of caviar on dry toast.
The 486s and Pentiums of the day were
so underpowered, full-scene video had
to be heavily interlaced to effectively
halve the vertical resolution. Even then,
framerates rarely hit the 30s.
The first great FMV experiment was
was space-sim auteur Chris Roberts’
Wing Commander 3. He made one smart
decision: actors performed in front of
green screens, so only the characters
needed to be animated. The backdrops
were static, pre-rendered, and video
could play (640x480 mind you) at a
decent speed.
Privateer 2 upped the ante by having
the actors perform on real sets. Moving
cameras, multiple points of view, jumpcuts and slam-zooms, this was proper
filmmaking, but in a videogame.
It took massive resources. Privateer
2 was the pet-project of Chris Roberts’
little brother Erin. Fresh from an
apprenticeship at the knee of Richard
Garriott, Erin returned to England to take
the helm of this ambitious new title.
Yes, it was a sequel to Privateer, set
in the Wing Commander universe with
Kilrathi and everything. But no, it would
not feature any of the ships or characters
so beloved of PC gamers. It was all new.
And it had a heck of a cast to help with the
world-building.
When doing the PR circuit in the
1990s, Erin Roberts spruiked Christopher
Walken as the “main character”. In fact
he had more of a supporting role. The
actual main character, Lev Arris, was
94 PC PowerPlay
played by Clive Owen. Then a relative
unknown, Owen has of course since gone
on to become a bankable Hollywood star.
Others included John Hurt, Brian Blessed,
Jürgen Prochnow (who among many
other roles, was an excellent Leto Atreides
in David Lynch’s troubled Dune), David
McCallum, and David Warner (the Master
Control Program from Tron).
It was an impressive troupe, made
possible by a sort of madness that
had gripped the acting world as the
millennium waned. Everyone - or at least
everyone’s agent - thought “CD-ROM
interactive games” were the next big
thing. Actors who should perhaps have
known better allowed themselves to be
They poured
millions of pounds of
development money
into elaborate sets and
costumes
signed up to all sorts of odd projects.
And of those projects, it was Origin’s
space combat sims that got the most
attention. Go figure. At the same time
Erin Roberts was making Privateer
2, Chris Roberts was directing Mark
Hamill and Malcolm MacDowell in Wing
Commander 4.
Gameplay? What was that? They
poured millions of pounds of development
money into elaborate sets and costumes.
The Roberts boys were living the dream
of being Hollywood directors, with the
added cachet of making cool games at the
same time.
Unfortunately for Privateer 2, the “cool
game” part was given second place to
all the play acting. While the stars got
trailers and spent hours in makeup, the
actual programmers sweated in a regular
office, miles away from the film shoot.
Nobody seemed to care that Privateer 2
could handle 100 space ships on screen at
once, that the player could buy and fly 18
different ships, that there were dozens of
different object types and unique optional
missions.
When Privateer 2 finally hit shelves,
there was no Wing Commander branding
on the box. In fact, you’d be forgiven
for thinking the game was called The
Darkening. Whatever that meant.
The FMV was fantastic. Moodily shot
with imaginative sets, it made you feel
like you were watching snippets from a
byzantine sci-fi drama that never was.
Sure, the story was disjointed and there
was only about 40 minutes of total
footage, but it just evoked this sense
of... something. The interlacing didn’t
help, like watching everything through a
venetian blind.
The gameplay on the other hand... With
18 ships, there was no money to design
cockpits for each of them. So in flight,
every ship felt more or less the same - only
little readouts in the corners told you if
you were going faster.
Pirates attacked constantly, the
navigation system was arcane, and every
weapon was a different coloured laser
beam. Getting a new ship was... meh.
Completing a mission and getting money
was... meh. Everything you did, you did
to get to the next snippet of FMV. Where’s
Brian Blessed? Are we up to his bit yet? I
want to see his teeth! And so on.
BEST LANDINGS EVER For a very odd half-decade, one of the benchmarks of PC graphics was,
uh, the pre-rendered landing sequences in Origin space sims. No really. In Wing Commander
2, the little clips showing your Epee or Broadsword sweeping in for a landing on the Concordia
blew the minds of many a 486DX-owner. Privateer 2’s landing sequences were a cut above.
Hugely ornate and complex, each planet or asteroid was a swirling, whirling riot of colour and
shape. Ships would rush across an alien landscape and sink into unknown geometries. PostBladerunner neon would spark and gleam as weird biomechanical service gantries reached out
for an invisible ship. Every landing was a trip. An actual “did they make this on drugs” trip. But
only if you had a 2X CD-ROM or better. Otherwise the FMV would crash the game.
It took a few more years, but eventually
Hollywood came to a more nuanced
understanding with the videogame
industry. FMV, it seemed, was not to be the
future. A weird digitised creepy uncanny
valley version of yourself strutting about
in-engine is the future. Hundreds of
actors have subjected themselves to THAT
treatment in the last decade.
And now it comes full circle. Star
Citizen’s military sub-game Squadron 42
features a digital Gary Oldman, chewing
digital scenery within a completely
rendered world.
Still, at least it means we got rid of
that bloody interlacing... ANTHONY
FORDHAM
DRUGS, SURELY DRUGS For a long time,
I was convinced my memory of the end
of Privateer 2 came from a dream I had
about it, not the actual game. Clive Owen
had to find his long-lost brother, who
was head of the Kindred (space mafia).
Jürgen Prochnow warned Clive Owen that
Clive’s twin brother, Kronos, was head
of the Kindred and had taken so many
drugs he now had to drag his brain around
on like a flesh rope outside of his body.
So I did a bunch of missions, broke into
Kronos’ flagship, fought with him, shot
him, stepped on his brain and made goo
shoot out, then nonchalantly walked away
as everything exploded saying “I’m going
home!” However, in my research for this
article, it turns out that is indeed exactly
how the game ends. Drugs I tell you.
PC PowerPlay 95
THE LAST WORD
“Professional Critics”
DANIEL WILKS has obviously been paid off by PC PowerPlay
I
nverted commas have become a typical
way of disparaging critics, insinuating
that the people who write reviews aren’t
professional or critics, but rather some type
of paid shill determined to either artificially
inflate or lower the score of a game, movie,
piece of tech, album or what have you for
some nefarious but rather nebulous purpose.
Reader reviews are not at all a new thing,
but in recent years there has been an ever
growing level of hostility towards the press
in reader reviews, and a habit of scoring for
“justice” rather than using the score as a
numerical representation of the experience.
As such, the readers that often decry the
“professional critics” seem to be more the
shill than any critic they decry.
Let’s take a look at two recent examples
of reader reviews and some of the erratic
reader scoring and attendant reasoning that
go with the scores. By chance, both of the
properties are from, by varying degrees,
Blizzard Entertainment – Overwatch and
Warcraft: The Beginning, the former being
almost unanimously praised by the press and
the latter roundly panned.
For the record I really, really disliked
Warcraft: The Beginning. The film tried to
pack in too much lore and fanservice, and
in doing so truncated plots to the point that
the story was more of a series of vaguely
linked vignettes rather than a true narrative.
There was no sense of time or distance so
many of the cuts felt truly jarring. In one
scene Lothar’s son has a large head wound
but in the next there’s not a mark. Is this
a continuity error or do the scenes take
place weeks apart? Characters stop at all
the important Warcraft locations but spend
no meaningful time there, and the travel
between locations is either by teleportation
or by gryphon/quick cut, giving no
indication of distance or time. I could go on
for a long while about all the things I didn’t
like about the film, but rather than writing a
review, I’m just stating my position. Because
I think this way doesn’t mean that I think
the few reviewers who liked the film were
bribed, but I also don’t think audiences that
liked the film are wrong either. The session
I sat through was filled with competition
winners and Warcraft fans. Many of them
seemed to enjoy the film. More power to
them, but their enjoyment doesn’t cover up
the flaws of the film in the same manner that
my dislike doesn’t stop them from having
96 PC PowerPlay
fun. Of course, you get to the reader reviews
and they are dominated by claims that
reviewers hate fantasy, weren’t paid, aren’t
gamers and various other accusations aimed
at proving the so called “professional critics”
don’t know what they’re talking about.
Overwatch, on the other hand, has been
roundly applauded by critics and gamers
alike, but there is the vocal minority who
jump on Metacritic claiming that reviewers
have been paid off by Blizzard (while
ignoring the massive sales figures and
general popularity of the game) and that
all it really is, is a rip-off of Team Fortress
2 and should be free to play. Again, people
are allowed to have their own opinion about
their enjoyment
doesn’t cover up the
flaws of the film in the
same manner that my
dislike doesn’t stop them
from having fun
the game. If they think it’s a simple rip-off
that should be free to play, more power to
them, but to spin that idea into anyone who
disagrees being a paid shill is ludicrous.
Both cases lead to what I call Justice
Scoring. Rather than scoring a product on
its merits, reader review forums often fall
into the trap of scoring to rebut another
reviewer’s score, doing it for justice or to
balance out what they feel is too low or high
a score. You can see it in the negative reader
reviews on Metacritic. Overwatch has 810
negative reviews at time of writing, many
of them being zero. If you can justify the
score in your review, good, have at it, but
writing something like this “Overwatch is
a very enjoyable team shooter. The game is
a perfect casual game where you can jump
in for 5-10mins and shoot up some people.
The characters are fun to play and I do love
that the game tells you what your team
comp is lacking or has too much of. A nice
thing that other team games should put in.”
and then giving the game a score of zero
not only seems unjustified but smacks of
trying to lower an overall aggregate score
for no reason other than the firm belief
that the score is otherwise too high and
justice must be done. To put it more bluntly,
reviewer “hellkary” pretty much sums up
my argument, scoring the game a zero but
saying “this game deserve a 5 but seeing how
many people keep giving this piece of *** a
10..... lacking a lot of thing, too few characters
and maps, a real TF 2 sequel, they dont even
bring anything new to the game”. Or maybe
this gem from Arronmax, “I couldn’t wait
to play this game. I have to give this game
a 3/10 reasons being. How this gets a 98
blizzard paying for it.” Or maybe Tyggna’s
contribution, “Here’s what you need to know:
Blizzard clearly bought favorable reviews
from professionals to build hype--hence the
disconnect. This game is not awful--it might be
your favorite game ever. That’s the nature of
FPS games, some resonate with you and some
don’t. If you don’t enjoy a wide variety of FPS
games, or FPS games in general, then give it a
try and see if you like it. I scored a 0 because
I have enjoyed many FPS games dating back
to DOOM2”. Forgive the lack of (sic) in the
above quotes, but word counts are tight in
print and I couldn’t fit them all in.
The positive reviews aren’t immune
from the urge to score for justice either,
though the reasoning seems to be a little
less blatant. Across the range of scores on
the top end, 10 is far and away the most
popular option, even when people point out
flaws with the game (many of them similar
to complaints found in negative reviews).
10 is an evangelism of love rather than a
score reflecting most (not all) of the positive
reviews. Giving a 10 for love when the
number isn’t backed up by the review is as
skewed as giving a zero for justice.
It goes back to what I was saying last
month. Review scores have lost all meaning.
They have become the focus of the review
rather than the exclamation point at the
end. The score on a review, by a professional
or a gamer in a reader review should have
the same purpose - it should be a numerical
representation of the well-argued words that
came before it.
PC PowerPlay 97
NEXT MONTH
#254 ON SALE
AUGUST 18
98 PC PowerPlay