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ContentsNovember 2013

HIGHLIGHTSThe big 10

010 PLAYSTATION 4Next-gen gets underway on 29 November – and we’ve got every last detail of the PS4 launch.

the big 10

020 NEED FOR SPEED: RIVALSCriterion boss Craig Sullivan talks the series’ first PS4 entry, and holding off its rivals.

pREVIEW

036 WWE 2K14Yuke’s’ grappler returns with a host of past faves onboard – but can it strike Goldberg?

feature

050 PRE-ORDERS GUIDEPlaytesting the best ten games coming this Christmas – and saving you money to boot.

review

078 GRAND THEFT AUTO VThe definitive verdict on the world’s biggest game. Clue: it’s definitely better than a 3/10.

review

084 FIFA 14We assumed EA’s footy series was warming down on PS3 ahead of next-gen – turns out that prediction was wrong like Gervinho’s hair.

retrostation

106 GOD OF WAR IIHow Kratos changed the face of action gaming – by breaking the faces of his enemies.

ISSUE 089 NOVEMBER 2013 £5.99 officialplaystationmagazine.co.uk

BATTLEFIELD 4ASSASSIN’S CREED IV: BLACK FLAG CALL OF DUTY: GHOSTS

GRAN TURISMO 6 WATCH DOGS & MORE

Release date, lineup and peripherals

confirmed inside

HOTTEST GAMES COMING THIS CHRISTMAS, INCLUDING…

10

PS4 LAUNCH!

HUGE REVIEW! The biggest game in

PS3 history rated


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THE Games index070 ASSASSIN’S CREED IV:

BLACK FLAG

046 BANDFUSE: ROCK LEGENDS

052 BATMAN: ARKHAM ORIGINS

064 BATTLEFIELD 4

060 BEYOND: TWO SOULS

056 CALL OF DUTY: GHOSTS

046 CASTLEVANIA: LORDS OF SHADOW 2

042 THE CREW

047 DARK SOULS II

099 DEATHMATCH VILLAGE

047 DESTINY

088 DIABLO III

100 DISHONORED

086 DISNEY INFINITY

022 THE DIVISION

044 DRAGON AGE: INQUISITION

054 DRIVECLUB

043 EVERYBODY’S GONE TO THE RAPTURE

018 FEZ

084 FIFA 14

092 FINAL FANTASY XIV: A REALM REBORN

106 GOD OF WAR II

052 GRAN TURISMO 5

078 GRAND THEFT AUTO V

024 INFAMOUS: SECOND SON

091 KILLZONE: MERCENARY

062 KILLZONE: SHADOW FALL

047 LIGHTNING RETURNS: FINAL FANTASY XIII

094 LOST PLANET 3

094 MADDEN NFL 25

114 METAL GEAR SOLID IV: GUNS OF THE PATRIOTS

014 METAL GEAR SOLID V: THE PHANTOM PAIN

015 MINECRAFT

020 NEED FOR SPEED: RIVALS

094 NHL 14

095 ONE PIECE: PIRATE WARRIORS 2

090 PUPPETEER

038 RIME

099 SAINTS ROW IV

109 SIREN: BLOOD CURSE

040 SOUTH PARK: THE STICK OF TRUTH

098 SPLINTER CELL: BLACKLIST

016 THE WITCHER 3: WILD HUNT

068 WATCH DOGS

046 THE WOLF AMONG US

036 WWE 2K14

SUBSCRIBE NOWSave pennies pronto by taking out a sub to OPM – you’ll receive every issue direct to your door, and get 46% off the cover price! Hit p.48 for details.

officialplaystationmagazine.co.uk

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facebook.com/OfficialPlayStationMagazine

THE BIG 10

All the hottest news

FEATURESTo-the-point,

detailed analysis

NETWORKMax out your PS3,

online and off

PREVIEWSLatest info, screens

and playtests

REVIEWSIn-depth verdicts on every big new game

RETRO STATION

Classics revisited

010 050 097035 077 106

S E C T I O N S A T A G L A N C E

024

016

044

068

014

084

106

070

036

052

078


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Leon HurleyASSOCIATE EDITORAdmitted to liking the new Miley Cyrus single, making it the first pop song ever he hasn’t hated. Thankfully didn’t mark it by twerking.

GAME OF THE MONTHSplinter Cell: BlacklistFAVOURITE FIELDThe Windows desktop one

Dave MeiklehamACTING NEWS EDITORSadly Meiks departs this month, returning north for 10am Irn-Bru-drinking and Texas-listening. And yes, by Irn-Bru we mean Buckfast.

GAME OF THE MONTHGTA VFAVOURITE FIELDField Of Dreams

Joel GregoryDEPUTY EDITORSpent five consecutive days at home with GTA V to squeeze in this month’s review. Rest of team still seething with envy.

GAME OF THE MONTHGTA VFAVOURITE FIELDInternational Track & Field

Emma DaviesPRODUCTION EDITOR Alas, Em-Dubz is also off to pastures new – a secret project she insists isn’t a Dappy fanzine. Hmm. Happy Tulisa-hunting, ma’am!

GAME OF THE MONTHGTA VFAVOURITE FIELDA field in Hampshire

Hello.

T H I S M O N T H ’ S B A T T L E C A T S

GAME OF THE MONTHFIFA 14FAVOURITE FIELDSun Life Stadium

ISSUE 89 / NOVEMBER 2013Future Publishing Ltd, 30 Monmouth Street,

Bath BA1 2BW, United Kingdom

Tel +44 (0) 1225 442244 Fax: +44 (0) 1225 732275

Email [email protected] Twitter @OPM_UK

Web officialplaystationmagazine.co.uk

EDITORIAL

Editor Ben Wilson @BenjiWilson

Associate editor (online) Leon Hurley @leonHurley

Deputy editor Joel Gregory @j0el_g

Managing art editor Milford Coppock @milfcoppock

Deputy art editor Andrew Leung @CaptNorth

Production editor Emma Davies @emcetera

Contributing operations editor Helen Woodey @OPM_UK

Acting news editor Dave Meikleham @OPM_Dave

Staff writer Phil Iwaniuk @PhilIwaniuk

CONTRIBUTORS

Writers Alex Dale, Ben Griffin, Andrew Kelly, Debbie Lloyd,

Louis Pattison, Rob Pearson, Iain Wilson

Design Andy Ounsted

Production Damian Hall, Andrew Westbrook

ADVERTISING

Advertising sales director Nick Weatherall

Advertising sales manager Andrew Church

Account sales manager Ricardo Sidoli

MARKETING

Trade marketing manager Matt Cooper

Senior product manager Adam Jones

Group marketing manager Sam Wight

Senior marketing executive Tilly Mitchell

Marketing executive Antonella Matia

CIRCULATION

International account manager Rebecca Hill

Head of trade marketing James Whitaker

PRINT & PRODUCTION

Production manager Mark Constance

Production co-ordinator Vivienne Turner

LICENSING

International licensing manager Regina Erak

FUTURE PUBLISHING LIMITED

Editorial director Jim Douglas

Creative director Robin Abbott

Managing director Nial Ferguson

Deputy managing director Clair Porteous

Head of games Lee Nutter

Group senior editor Tim Clark @timothydclark

Group art director Graham Dalzell

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NEXT ISSUE ON SALE 25 October 2013

Printed in the UK by William Gibbons on behalf of Future.

Distributed in the UK by Seymour Distribution Ltd,

2 East Poultry Avenue, London EC1A 9PT. Tel: 0207 429 4000

© Future Publishing Limited 2013. All rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be used or reproduced without the written permission of the publisher. Future Publishing Limited (company number 2008885) is

Limited is at Beauford Court, 30 Monmouth Street, Bath BA1 2BW. All information contained in this magazine is for information only and is, as far as we are aware, correct at the time of going to press. Future cannot accept any responsibility for errors or inaccuracies in such information. Readers are advised to contact manufacturers and retailers directly with regard to the price of products/services referred to in this magazine. If you submit unsolicited material to us, you automatically grant Future a licence to publish your submission in whole or in part in all editions of the magazine, including licensed editions worldwide and in any physical or digital format throughout the world. Any material you submit is sent at your risk and, although every care is taken, neither Future nor its employees, agents or subcontractors shall be liable for loss or damage.

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with the rules of the FSC (Forest Stewardship Council).

The ABC combined print, digital and digital publication

circulation for Jan-Dec 2012 is

31,524 (Print 30,204 Digital 1,320)A member of the Audited Bureau of Circulations

Future produces high-quality multimedia products which reach our audiences online, on mobile and in print. Future attracts over 50 millions consumers to its

Technology, Entertainment, Music, Creative and Sports & Auto. We export and license our publications.

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Chief executive Mark Wood Non-executive chairman Peter Allen

Graham HardingTel +44 (0)207 042 4000 (London)

Tel +44 (0)1225 442 244 (Bath)

“WE’VE HUNTED DOWN THE BEST PRE-ORDER PRICES AND SPECIAL EDITIONS, SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO.”

Confession time. Remember that god-awful ‘Barbra Streisand’ song from a few years back? I’ve spent most of

this month with it stuck on repeat in my head, its four-syllable hook replaced by the words ‘Grand Theft Auto’. Yes, waiting for the biggest game of this or any other year actually sent me a bit loopy. So thank heavens that 1) The game is finally here and reviewed on p.78, and 2) You can now share my pain by having that tune stuck in your head for the next week. Thanks/sorry.

I’d wager getting lost in Los Santos is all you’ve got planned for the next month, but it’s worth remembering that there are other fine games looming on the PlayStation horizon – and this issue, we celebrate ten of the most exciting in our annual pre-orders guide. We’ve not only playtested every one, but also hunted down the best prices and special editions so you don’t have to. Phew. Enjoy the issue, and happy GTA-ing.

Ben [email protected]@BenjiWilson


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Just think, this glorious box could well be sitting under your tree come Christmas morn.

SONY HAS CUT DEALS FOR CROSS- GEN DISCOUNTS.

E V E R Y L A U N C H G A M EAssassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag Basement Crawl Battlefield 4 Blacklight Call Of Duty: Ghosts Contrast DC Universe Online Doki-Doki Universe Driveclub FIFA 14 Flower Hohokum Just Dance 2014 Killzone: Shadow Fall Knack Lego Marvel Superheroes Madden NFL 25 Minecraft N++ NBA Live 14 NBA 2K14 Need for Speed: Rivals Pinball Arcade Planetside 2 Pool Nation Extreme Resogun Skylanders: Swap Force Super MotherloadThe PlayroomTiny BrainsWarframeWar Thunder Watch Dogs


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The Big 10STORIES EVERYONE’S TALKING ABOUT

01The wait is almost over. In two months’ time that gloriously angular box will hopefully

be nestled proudly under your telly. Well, provided you acted sharpish on the pre-order front. PlayStation 4 will be released in the UK on 29 November, a semi-agonising fortnight after its US launch. Christmas really is coming early – by a whole 26 days.

After a strong Gamescom press conference where PS4’s release date was finally confirmed, we sat down with head of Sony UK Fergal Gara. “The target window was always November,” he confirms. “We’ve hit that now and it’s been in line for years, not days. It’s an incredibly complex process to bring a piece of technology like that to market, so to do so on time is tremendous.” Gara is also keen to hammer home how important hitting that festive window is: “You need to

be in the market before Christmas, and we need to know the volumes we have vs demand from consumers. All of those things are shaping up nicely.”

LAUNCH AND LEARN In additional air-punching news, 33 games will be available before the end of the year. That range spans everything from megaton fare such as Killzone: Shadow Fall and Watch Dogs, through to indie puzzler Tiny Brains. Unless you’ve pre-ordered, though, the overwhelming demand for PS4 means Santa may not be able to fit those Helghast into his, er, bulging sack.

“They’re higher than we’ve ever seen in 20 years in this business,” Gara admits in the wake of UK pre-orders for the console topping a million. “The ex-retailer in myself realises we’ve got a situation to manage – we need to help retailers set the expectations of their customers and not let them down. That’s why we advised them that after 5 August, shops should not guarantee anyone else that they will

A November to remember with PlayStation 4

Next-gen release date, games and peripherals confirmed. Dear Santa…

14 ZEROES TO HEROESMetal Gear Online returns.

20 SPEED FREAKThe inside track on NFS: Rivals.

24 SON SPOTInFamous’ Delsin Rowe gets touchy.


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get their unit on day one.” That’s right, little Quinton Quick-Off-The-Mark: now’s the time to gloat over that pre-order you placed in 2010.

If you’re lucky enough to get a machine for launch, that £349 price tag still represents a markedly more wallet-friendly option than Xbox One, although RRPs on games are set for a slight increase from PS3 titles. Currently, most online retailers are offering PS4 games between £47 and £55. Peripherals will also give your bank balance a bit of a pounding. A DualShock 4 costs £54.99 – but the fact you can plump for eyeball-arousing Wave Blue or Magma Red takes a tiny sting out of that figure. The PlayStation Camera, meanwhile, is priced at £44.99. Oh, and if you want to give your new pride and joy that PS2 chic, pick up a PS4 vertical stand for £15.99. You savvy buyer, you.

RISING SHUN It’s at this point you should spare a thought for your less fortunate Japanese counterparts. For the first time in the history of existence, they’re not getting a Sony console first. In fact, the poor blighters have to wait until 22 February until they’re allowed to become intimately acquainted with Knack – something Sony has made considerably easier by offering punters in Japan a First Limited Pack version of PS4 that

comes with a free download code for the bot-basher. Still, there’s going to be an awful lot of Yen barbecuing holes in pockets this Christmas.

Next-gen excitement should rightly have you quivering with anticipation, but Sony is also aware that transitioning between consoles is a difficult process. In response to this, the company has cut deals with publishers to offer digital discounts if you’ve already bought a select range of PS3 cross-gen titles. Activision and Ubisoft are both taking part in the scheme, with the former announcing that those who purchase Call Of Duty: Ghosts on PS3 will be able to download the PS4 version for just a tenner.

Cross-gen change purse savings are great, but what your heart should be beating at an alarming rate for is the system’s ever-expanding indie collection. With the likes of the recently announced, dazzlingly colourful Resogun and the distinctly Ico-esque Rime (see p.38), Gara is justifiably buzzing over the blossoming independent scene.

“We’re giving those studios freedom – creatively and commercially – and they seem to be loving it,” he says. “We took their feedback, which then went right into the heart of PS4.” Indeed, nurturing the indie scene has been a long-term vision for Sony to coincide with its next-gen baby. “This isn’t something we decided over the last five weeks – it’s something we’ve been building to over five years. Gamescom was a landmark in terms of being able to flesh it out in more detail.”

WRAPPED UPMore wanted than ten crates of Furbies nestled among a truck full of Tamagotchi being driven by a life-size Buzz Lightyear doll, Sony’s next-gen baby is the killer Christmas pressie. Wisely learning from PS3’s release, which was held back by a bloated price point and an underwhelming launch lineup, Sony has given itself an incredible platform from which to build a decade of PS4 dominance. With an exciting indie collection surrounded by a small triple-A must-haves such as Watch Dogs and Assassin’s Creed IV, plus an aggressive price point, you’re the real winner this festive season. We’ll see you in that freezing midnight launch queue.

IF YOU WANT TO GIVE YOUR NEW PRIDE AND JOY THAT PS2 CHIC, PICK UP A VERTICAL STAND.

If you look at this little chap at just the right angle he resembles a happy crab.

We’re big fans of these DualShock 4 twin colour schemes. Lovely, lovely red.

For your essential PS4 launch guide, visit officialplaystationmagazine.co.uk.

REMEMBER THREE If you’re staying rooted in current-gen territory, fret not. Gara confirms PS3 isn’t being put out to pasture: “I’m certain that lots and lots of major titles will continue to come out on PS3 through next year.”

A beautiful box you’ll cherish for one glorious car journey… then chuck in the attic for five years.


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Resogun and Driveclub both star in a 30+ game launch window line-up that’s easily the most diverse in the near 20-year history of PlayStation.

Killzone looks so good, we want to lick our 4K tellies… which we’ll be able to afford in 2027.

Knack’s getting a local co-op mode, folks. There’s plenty of dinky droid love to go around.


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02Aaand breathe. It’s been quite the couple of months for fans of mulleted stealth heroes. First Konami opens

a new branch of Kojima Productions in Los Angeles, then a fresh demo of Metal Gear Solid V emerges, before old Hideo makes the internet explode with a controversy bomb by revealing a scantily clad sniper. Give us a few moments here, we need a sit down.

Oh, and Kojima totally announced a new iteration of Metal Gear Online, too. One of the most beloved, esoteric experiences in the history of PSN, the multiplayer inspired frenzied fandom before its servers

were eventually closed in June last year, nearly half a decade on from its initial release alongside Guns Of The Patriots. What’s more, the new LA studio has been tasked with refreshing the plastic-duck shooting, cardboard-box cowering, Snake-hunting experience as the main wing of Kojima Productions cracks on with

delivering MGS V. The Phantom

Pain’s online component is clearly well underway, with Kojima tweeting the following on a

recent trip to California: “People at LA studio showed me the MGO that they are working with. Looked promising.” Reassuringly, veteran Metal Gear staffers are keeping tabs on the project to ensure it matches Old Snake’s much-loved covert

deathmatches, with Kojima confirming “original MGO dev staff” are checking the mode frequently. Although no concrete details have poked their head out of a rusty oil drum just yet, expect multiplayer to continue to follow the certifiable tone of bizarre teamwork and methodical stealth set down by its predecessor.

WE CAN BE ZEROESBut what of MGS V itself? Well, the hands-off demo presented in LA gives a more in-depth look at the utterly drenched military base originally shown in the very first Ground Zeroes trailer. Snake is able to explore the base like it’s a freshly erected borough of Liberty City, and this sandbox approach to stealth means guards can pursue you over much larger areas. Luckily, the game’s new slo-mo mechanic gives you the chance to silently cap the

Metal Gear Online is back as fresh Phantom Pain shots sneak out

KOJIMA MADE THE NET EXPLODE WITH A SCANTILY CLAD SNIPER.

dev talk“I know there are people concerned about Quiet. I created [her] as an antithesis to the women who appeared in fighting games… excessively exposed. Quiet, who doesn’t have a word, will be teased in the story. Once you recognise the reason for her exposure, you feel ashamed of your words and deeds.”

Hideo KojimaGame director,Kojima Productions

Solid news on Snake’s future

The Ground Zeroes portion of MGS V features a fresh-faced, pre-coma Snake.


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full

first baddie who spots you before he sounds the alarm.

Frustratingly, though, it’s still not clear how Ground Zeroes and The Phantom Pain slot together. We know the former acts as a more linear prologue to help acclimatise players to the controls before unleashing them on open-world deserts. What we’re still in the dark over is whether Zeroes will be released as a separate digital/boxed entity or come bundled with MGS V as an extended quasi-tutorial.

What structure Snake’s adventure will take is a cranium-scratcher, but it’s clear MGS V’s open-world elements are set to reinvigorate the stealth genre when it infiltrates PS3 and PS4. Be excited… and more than a tad confused.

For more shots of the new LA studio, head to officialplaystationmagazine.co.uk.

Block-based indie sensation is bound for PS4

Next-gen strikes Minecraft gold

RELIANT ROBIN Minecraft is also a survival game. At night, monsters stalk the world, so you have to build a shelter hide in. By day, you harvest materials, making weapons to defend yourself.

From idyllic villages to recreations of modern cities, the creation tools are deceptively powerful.

03If you build it, he will… get filthy stinking rich by selling over 20 million copies. Since its full release in

2011 – after two years in alpha and beta – breakout blocky masterpiece Minecraft has seen incredible sales, which are set to skyrocket further with the indie smash hit now coming to PS4, PS3 and Vita. Get ready to let your mind run wild in a Lego-aping sandbox where the only limit is your own imagination. Er, and free time.

“We’re delighted to spread the Minecraft love to a new family of consoles,” says a Mojang spokesperson regarding the series’ Sony debut. “It’s been one of the most requested games by PlayStation fans over the years.” Set in a strangely beautiful, randomly generated world, how you play is up to you. If you’re feeling creative, you

can harvest resources such as wood and stone, and use them to build – well, whatever you want.

People have used the game to build full-size replicas of New York City and Bioshock’s Rapture. There’s even a way to build working machines, taken to extremes by a gamer who constructed an actual functioning computer processor.

We’d probably set our sights on making something a mite less ambitious at first.

Multiplayer is a big part of the appeal, as you team with others to build wonders,

so expect it to take advantage of PS4’s sharing features. “We want to improve the social aspect – hopefully it’ll be easier to play with friends,” says creator Markus ‘Notch’ Persson of the series’ future. Anyone fancy building us a giant mansion shaped like Drake’s jawline?

PEOPLE HAVE BUILT FULL-SIZE REPLICAS OF NEW YORK CITY AND RAPTURE.

Let us know what you plan on building by emailing [email protected].

There’s no denying the Fox engine gives damn good volumetric lighting. Mmmm… volumetric lighting.


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This format – single image – works well with an update to a well-known game. e.g. Bioshock is delayed. Or E3 is in Vegas now.

CHOOSE IT OR LOSE ITPlayer choice is a huge factor in

Wild Hunt. As executive producer John Mamais tells us: “In terms of

game states, we have 32 different endings planned.” Best pick wisely.

2014’s surprise Game Of The Year?

The Witcher 3 wows with scale, spectacle and serious beards

04It’s not the visuals or the size that impress most in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – though both are remarkable.

It’s the attention to detail and production values that have gone into what is only a side-mission. With multi-part objectives, a cast of supporting characters, cutscenes and an ending cinematic, this is more effort than most games put into their main quests.

Perhaps we should be surprised rather than shocked, as The Witcher comes to PlayStation (PS4, to be specific) with a stellar reputation in the role-playing world, combining gritty tales with high fantasy, player choice, and freeform combat. But when you find out that Wild Hunt – the conclusion to Geralt Of Rivia’s tale, due out in 2014 – is 35 times bigger than the previous game, it’s hard not to be taken aback.

Equally so while that optional quest is playing out. The background to Geralt’s journey this time is fairly simple – intentionally on developer CD Projekt RED’s part, so that new players can get onboard without feeling like they’ve missed out. The Wild Hunt, a mythical and deadly force, has appeared and is laying siege to villages. Hearing of one survivor of such an attack, Geralt follows the trail and tracks the fellow down in the settlement of Fayrlund (awkward spelling is a Witcher staple). But just as the two are wagging chins, interruption strikes.

MYTH BUSTERA townsperson has been killed by an evil dwelling in the woods, and the residents can’t decide on how to

tackle it. Geralt, man of action that he is, decides for them, and takes on the task in exchange for payment (he may be on the side of good, but a Witcher’s got to make a buck). And so begins – should you choose to undertake it – an optional mission that involves tracking and researching the beast, negotiating with the villagers about how to tackle

it, discovering its sinister intentions, and ultimately striking it down by the medium of massive sword to its ugly skull head.

And that’s just one side-quest.

With one of the largest environments we’ve ever seen and 100-plus hours of high-quality action, this could already be next year’s game to beat.

THIS IS MORE EFFORT THAN MOST GAMES PUT INTO EVEN THEIR MAIN QUESTS.

For the latest on Wild Hunt, including new trailers, go to thewitcher.com.


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05There are three stories here. One is the tale of outspoken game creator Phil Fish, whose

retro platformer Fez was among the stars of 2012’s Indie Game: The Movie. Fez takes the 16-bit platformer and literally turns it on its horizontal axis, giving you the power to rotate little hero Gomez’s world at will.

Then there’s Fish’s Twitter outburst following insulting comments made by freelance

journo Marcus Beer, in which he announced Fez II cancelled and himself out of the games industry.

And now for the grand denouement: Fez lives on! Although the sequel stays cancelled, the original is coming to PS4, PS3 and Vita via Blit Software, with Cross Play available between the latter two. Along with Minecraft (see p.15) it’s another big name signing for Sony’s impressive indie roster.

PS4 reeling in more indie starsPhil Fish’s Fez goes next-gen

Excited about PS4’s indie prospects? Tweet us @OPM_UK.

the big shoteagle-eyed analysis

Protagonist Gomez had the ‘2D platforming’ thing sussed – but then a whole new dimension appeared.

What’s around the corner? If Vita and PS4’s touchpads aren’t used to rotate, we’ll be stunned.


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number gamewe do the maths

£33mThe budget of David Cage’s miserable masterpiece Heavy Rain.

$2,000 The price of buying GTA IV’s Niko a Perseus mustard sports coat.

1:54:11 Exact length of Sony’s conference at this year’s Gamescom.

2.8kg Weight of PS4. The beefy launchmodel PS3 tipped the scales at 5kg.

16Number of players GTA Online supports at any one time.

60° Temperature a PS3 overheats at, risking the Yellow Light Of Death.

20,000 Number of polygons Kratos is made up of in 2010’s God Of War III.

1860sDecade in which Metal Gear Solid 3’s ancient sniper The End was born.

There’s no guessing what lies beyond. Perhaps a single room, perhaps a completely new hub world.

You’re able to climb these vines and flip the perspective to cheat at physics and gain elevation.

This simple golden cube is to Fez what rings are to Sonic. They’re rarely this easy to locate, though.


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06 Much more than merely the annual update of a regular Christmas fixture that’s now as established as Kris

Kringle’s sagging gut, Need For Speed: Rivals is aiming not to blur, but to obliterate the lines between single and multiplayer racing. Criterion Games’ creative director Craig Sullivan talks us through the series’ most ambitious racer yet, and why PS4 is helping it reach never-before-seen speeds.

OPM: The series has been running for a long time now. When you came to this instalment, what was the overarching aim that you wanted to achieve with Rivals?Craig Sullivan: We wanted to figure out a next-generation concept for the series. We thought that if we completely got rid of single and multiplayer then there had to be something that allowed us to play together, and cops and racers seemed like there was already a game mode in [it]. If you put cops and racers together, one is going to run and one is going to chase. How can that work with Alldrive? How can

we get rid of lobbies? To tap into that next-gen thinking we got rid of those and then we came up with a progression system that allows us to truly have that Alldrive experience.

It’s always the case that the game you make now is not the game you were ready to make two or five years ago – your thinking constantly changes and you learn so much. We listen to our fans – NFS has been going for 19 years now, [and] I remember playing the original game on 3DO before I even got into the industry. So we [were aiming] to give people what they want.

OPM: You’re working cross-gen. Was the added power of the new consoles part of the reason you were so ambitious with Rivals?CS: Yeah, we wanted to push it as much as we could, because we’re launching on PS4 and PS3. There’s obviously going to be two different versions of the game, but we try to make sure that the basic experience is the same. The graphics will look immensely better on PS4, and the video sharing is something that’s just amazing – and actually lends itself really well to our style of gameplay. We can go further on

weather, graphical resolution of the environments… and the cars look amazing. The same basic experience is true of PS3, but it’s kind of more all-singing, all-dancing on PS4.

OPM: Other than the visuals, is there anything fundamentally different on next-gen or is it roughly the same experience that both consoles are going to get?CS: The visuals are obviously going to be very different, and the video sharing that the new hardware brings is different. There will be differences in terms of the weather and stuff like that, but the world’s the same, the car’s the same – the basic progression is the same. We haven’t finalised exact numbers yet – we will try for there not to be a big difference. But it might be that the number of AI characters is much greater on PS4 than on PS3.

OPM: How are you finding working with PS4 compared to PS3? Is it easier to develop for? CS: Yeah, I think it is. The thing with new hardware is that some things are easier. Some things you may have struggled to do on previous hardware might be easier, but then

dev talk“I think PS3 will be around for a while – there are so many [units] out there. Who knows when that tipping point will come in the future? For now we’re straddling both machines and making sure we get the best out of them. Our game looks up there with the best PS3 games, and we’ve still got a long way to go.”

Craig SullivanCreative director,Criterion Games

Need For Speed director on powersliding into next-gen’s fast lane

Ghost Games has been developing Rivals with close involvement from Sullivan’s Criterion team.

The Alldrive of your life


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something else might be harder as you’re having to do it on a new console. Some systems you have to rewrite, or find a new way of doing them. I think the second wave of games will truly be starting to harness the power of the new machines. I think here in this transition year, people immediately go for the ‘tick boxes’ of better visuals, but all games look really good these days – even some bad games look really good. To me, though, it’s about that next-generation experience of how is a game going to be different in this time frame.

On next-gen machines it’s way easier and way quicker to get to massive expansive worlds with very high visual fidelity and almost photorealistic cars, because you just have way more horsepower to work with. I think it will be easier to connect with people, and actually play with each other and have more communication back and forth than you could on PS3.

I’m really interested in how the controller works with the camera: I’ve seen some really interesting demos and we want to explore that going forwards. You just couldn’t do that before. That light being built into the front of the controller is something that other consoles don’t have, and I think that could be quite interesting in the future. The question is whether we’ll actually manage to get [this] into the game or not this time, but we have lots of cool ideas for it.

OPM: Are open-world racers here to stay? Is that almost a must-have for a new title now, or can they co-exist with menu-driven race-to-race experiences?CS: It’s our job to be aware of what everyone’s doing in the driving space. You’ve got Driveclub – we played that at E3 and it’s more of a track game than an open world. Gran Turismo 6 is there and we played that and it looked amazing, running on PS3 as well – but that’s tracks again. It’s going for photorealistic, perfection driving around a real track. I don’t think those games will ever go away –

because, you know, I want to play those type of games, too.

But Need For Speed caters for those who aren’t simulation-driven and who want to charge around in an amazing car being chased by the cops – that [approach] doesn’t work on a track. The chase would be pretty boring if the cops were chasing you around Silverstone. I think circuit-based simulation and circuit-based racing are here to stay, and I think open-world racing is also here to stay.

OPM: You’ve previously mentioned that there is a narrative, which is something racing games normally

struggle with. What’s your approach to story in Rivals?CS: If you’ve seen the E3 trailer, that’s a good glimpse into how we’re going to tell

the narrative of the game. We’re not making Titanic: this is a driving game. Give me a narrative that explains why I’m driving and reflects the consequence of what I’m doing. It can’t be a story about world peace or a crisis in the Middle East: this is ultimately a story about what’s going on inside the cop’s head and how he reacts to the racer.

It’s about the rivalry that plays out as the two sides are essentially battling each other throughout this game. The narrative is there to completely and utterly support the gameplay – it’s not overly preachy and it’s not very long. It’s simply [told in] cutscenes that play out at certain times in the game.

IT CAN’T BE A STORY ABOUT WORLD PEACE OR A CRISIS IN THE MIDDLE EAST.

To watch the latest videos of Rivals, check out youtube.com/OfficialPSMag.

Deployable weapons like spike strips return, for use by both cops and racers.

info patchesupdate your brain

VITA’S NEW LOOKSony’s handheld has clearly been ditching the burritos for celery sticks with a redesign that sheds 15% of the original’s weight. Hitting the scales at 219g, it’s 20% thinner and has replaced the existing OLED screen with an LCD model. It’s out in Japan in October, with a European release still to be confirmed.

LAST PAST THE POSTEvery time someone says The Last Guardian won’t come out, a giant griffin thingie dies somewhere. At least Ico mastermind Fumito Ueda recently offered some hope on PlayStation’s most delayed game, saying it’s “under earnest development.” Keep as many fingers as you can spare crossed.

MOVIE MAGIC FOR GTPolyphony’s Kaz Yamauchi lifted the bonnet on the Gran Turismo flick at Gamescom. Apparently, it’s about a kid who plays too much GT but eventually becomes a pro driver – based on the real-life tale of Spanish racer Lucas Ordonez. At least it doesn’t sound like the Fast & Furious clone folk feared.

MEDIA CRACKDOWNNews channels are key to

Rivals’ story, says Sullivan. “Imagine racers speeding about

London posting videos: they’d hit evening news. It’s about the

media war that plays out.”


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the rumour machineour sources understand…

Dead Space may not have carked it as a franchise after all, with EA boss Frank Gibeau explaining “it’s not out of rotation”.

GT6 is being planned for PS4, but may

evolve into GT7 due to time issues, according to Polyphony.

The wait for a new Guerrilla’s IP could be glacial, with Steven Ter Heide hinting it “will be a while”.

Don’t hold your breath for Battlefield 5 next year. DICE has suggested it’s unlikely to get annual updates.

Metro: Last Light is due a sequel – Deep Silver admits it wants to continue the series.

07Ubisoft is going after second-screen support hard with its latest batch of PS4-based triple-A

treats. First there was Aiden Pearce getting his iPad-friendly hack on in Watch Dogs, and now Tom Clancy’s MMO-flavoured co-op shooter is also set to serve up tablet fun. Indeed, The Division’s recently announced companion app could yet outdo Pearce’s peeping tablet antics.

“It’s a drone,” elaborates game director Ryan Barnard in a Gamereactor interview. “It can scout for you and help in combat.” The usefulness of this dinky AI tablet sidekick is quickly apparent in the game’s latest trailer, which shows someone assisting their console pals with an app that’s been carefully crafted to offer tangible benefit. “We were very clear it had to be meaningful,” says Barnard. “It’s not for chatting or browsing your character – this

app interfaces with the HD client and has its own progression.”

Download the app and you’re instantly given a bird’s-eye view of the battlefields in an apocalyptic New York decimated by a contagion that’s spread through the handling of money. From here you can assist your allies by highlighting enemy positions or even providing pals with damage

boosts. The touchscreen system looks smartly streamlined, and is ably supported by a pleasingly chunky 3D engine.

The Division is also looking to

push boundaries when it comes to looting in its player vs player battles, which take place in areas called Dark Zones. “It has to be suspenseful, meaning scary,” Barnard comments. “You don’t actually know who’s a threat.” As Stone Cold Steve Austin might say: don’t trust anybody.

The Division shoots for app assistance

A friend in very high places

THE APP COULD YET OUTDO AIDEN PEARCE’S PEEPING TABLET ANTICS.

This hunkered-down solider could sure use a friendly eye in the sky to scout ahead.

Check out OfficialPSMag on YouTube for the latest trailer from The Division.


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PlayStation voicesthe month in mouthing off

“I played, but I got my rear end

kicked.” Turns out Ultimate

Warrior isn’t very

good at WWE 2K14.

“I was going to name her ‘Naomi Kay’, the anagram of Konami.” Hideo Kojima reveals Doctor Hunter’s original name.

“It’s not part of GTA V. It’ll grow on its own.” Rockstar North president Leslie Benzies sets the record straight on GTA Online.

Follow the action on ITV4, presented by Craig Doyle and Johnny Herbert.

08One day the stars will align and we’ll post an unbeatable leaderboard time in the GT Academy online shootout

– just before the heat death of the universe, by our current calculations – but until then, we’ll just have to make do with judging the Gran Turismo maestros who made the cut and found themselves at Silverstone for the UK finals.

Over a gruelling two days at the ‘Stone, 24 hopefuls were whittled down to six after being tested not only in Gran Turismo 5 but also on the real track, and via press conferences and fitness exercises. That half-dozen go on to the international finals for a chance to become real drivers for Nissan’s Nismo racing division.

Alongside other press attendees, we judged the finalists on their media skills and brand spokesman potential, sifting the silver-tongued from the Raikkonens. Big-ups, then, to Mark Ridout, Shane Ward, John Foster, Martin Hefferon, Adam Suswillo and Neil Williams – and best of luck to all when they compete against hopefuls from 17 territories in the final stages. And yes, should anything happen to Louis Walsh, we are available to step in on X Factor at short notice.

This year’s cream of the crop, battling for a chance to drive one of these for a living.

The Simon Cowell of GT Academy 2013

Our Phil helps judge UK finalists at Silverstone

MARDENBOROUGH LIGHTS Winning the Academy didn’t do any harm to 2011 victor Jann Mardenborough, who placed third in class at Dubai 24 Hour and currently races in Formula 3. He’s set his sights on F1, too, so remember that name.

Our man Phil samples life in the fast lane at the home of British motorsport and birthplace of Formula 1.


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For Second Son screens and video, visit officialplaystationmagazine.co.uk.

Meet Fetch. She’s single, spiky – and could barbecue you in half a second.

09For those still thinking the DualShock 4’s touchpad is a gimmick, Delsin Rowe has some

choice words (read: lethal energy bolts to the face) for you, as Sucker Punch’s upcoming open world uses your digits in exciting ways.

When Rowe uses a hand scanner, for instance, you replicate his gestures on the touchpad. Grabbing a power core, meanwhile, sees you swiping up on the touchpad with your left thumb and holding it there while you destroy it with punches of i. And let’s not forget

the touchpad’s functionality as a bona fide button: sapping neon energy from buzzing street corners requires a dual prod of the entire interface. It adds more interactivity to an already exciting prospect.

And that’s not all the controller does. If Delsin gets detected creeping somewhere he shouldn’t, a ringing alarm chimes through the inbuilt speakers. It’s the same with phone calls, which redirect voices to the controller. This spreading of sound results in greater immersion,

almost to the point of intrusiveness.

One of these callers could turn out to be Abigail ‘Fetch’ Walker. With emo earring, purple hair and scruffy

jacket, she’s certainly the rebellious type. She introduces herself in the latest trailer by exclaiming, “I’ve never hurt an innocent person in my life!” before… hurting an innocent person. She shares a unique bond with Delsin, seemingly transferring powers to him. If there’s any trouble, though, a few swipes of the touchpad should sort her out.

Delsin’s smoking hot powers will at times be controlled via innovative use of the touchpad.

GET DETECTED AND ALARMS PLAY VIA THE PAD’S SPEAKERS.

InFamous’ dual shocking innovations

Superhero sandbox debuts pad tech and a fiery gal

instant opinionstrong vs wrong

INDEPENDENTS YAYHotline Miami 2, Wasteland Kings, Mike Bithell’s Volume – these and plenty more are making their console debut on PlayStation.

REFUNDAMENTALS Can’t wait for PS4 before getting your COD/FIFA on? Game is offering a guaranteed £40 trade-in value when you swap your PS3 copy for the shiny next-gen version.

LB FREESackboy’s giving away his woven wares for nada. LBP Hub, coming later this year, is a gratis download featuring 16 levels, plus paid content.

SHOWER PLAYNo rain in Spain or anywhere else for PES 2014, as the game being built from scratch means the wet stuff has to wait a year.

COLOGNE IRRITATIONWith a cancelled hotel room, borked Wi-Fi, and no wurst of any sort, Gamescom coverage was no picnic but (hopefully) worth it.

ALIEN WARYXcom: Enemy Within is undeniably a tasty tactical prospect, yet having to pay full-price for an expansion – even if you own Enemy Unknown – is an unwelcome fiscal probe.


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PRISTINELY

10

BEN WILSONEDITOR

DAVE MEIKLEHAM ACTING NEWS EDITOR

PHIL IWANIUK STAFF WRITER

DAN DAWKINSCONTRIBUTING WRITER

What’s the greatest game ending of the generation?

THERE’S ONLY ONE PS3 PAIRING FIT FOR THIS GONG, AND IT MOST DEFINITELY AIN’T KANE & BLOODY LYNCH.

Look, I’m a hopeless romantic whose top ten films include Titanic, Enchanted, and… Music And Lyrics. Don’t say it, I know. So taken aback as I was by Joel’s Philadelphia-sized fib that closed out The Last Of Us and John Marston’s stark yet somehow glorious Red Dead demise, there can only be one choice here: Nate and Elena smooching and swapping affection-coated insults to wrap up Uncharted 2. “I kept your tears in a jar. I have proof,” Elena jokes after he denies crying over her apparent death. Drake may not have blubbed but many, yours truly included, did.

RED DEAD REDEMPTION HAS THE BEST ENDING ON PS3. WHY? BECAUSE THERE’S A GOOD CHANCE YOU’LL NEVER SEE IT.

That’s the real genius of Marston’s melancholy tale: you have to go out of your way to uncover its deliberately vague finale. After the doomed outlaw takes his final bow outside the family barn, the Western hits you with a moving burial scene. And for several of my mates, that was that. They never figured out that a little exploration as John’s son reveals an optional side-quest where the true full stop lies. The moment you finally track down and duel your pa’s killer is hugely cathartic and – more importantly – earned like no other ending on PlayStation.

BIOSHOCK INFINITE’S ENDING PUTS ALL OTHER GAMES – AND ITSELF – TO SHAME.

Most of the games I love finish with a polite cough rather than a mic drop. But I think nothing less of Skyrim, Heavy Rain et al when the credits roll with an air of embarrassed apology, because the past 20 hours eclipsed that stuttered final sentence. Infinite is the opposite: a staggering end that sends shockwaves through me and puts the preceding 12 hours to shame. “This is movie-quality writing,” I think, before realising said flick would be a VHS of Die Hard someone taped over with the final scene from The Prestige. Incongruity aside, nowhere else have so many questions been posed and answered so damn satisfyingly.

IT’S A GLORIOUS, OVERBLOWN MESS, BUT NOTHING BEATS MGS4’S FINAL SHARED CIGAR.

I almost said Mass Effect 2’s Suicide Mission, for crystallising 30 hours of exploration into a perilous set of high-stakes decisions. But nothing, nothing, beats the impact of MGS4’s overblown, wonkily scripted finale that makes the end of LOTR look concise. Forget the Mr & Mrs Smith nonsense of Meryl’s ‘final’ stand… it’s all about Snake’s haunting reunion with absent ‘father’ Big Boss, and their shared stogie. “This was good, wasn’t it?” asks Kojima, as the series draws to an enigmatic close. Powerful on its own, but devastating when you realise Koj’s father died when he was only 13.

just one more question…the team debate this month’s burning issue

END OF PLAYS Where a great finale can elevate a very good game to the level of a masterpiece (see: Ico), a deflating end can put an almighty, sometimes controversial, downer on proceedings (hey, Mass Effect 3).

SPOILERALERT

LOOK AWAY!


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@ScootaKuH If they can’t be bothered to do a proper FIFA Vita version then they don’t deserve our cash.

@RaidenPatel Borderlands on Vita? Are you silly? I cannot wait!!!

@tongoga Can’t stop smiling, the only date this year that matters: 29/11/2013.

@maganoo23 Great coverage of #Gamescom2013! My stream kept dying so the tweets were a god send!

@ProcrastiNYEtor Minecraft announced as a PS4 launch title – silence your mouth and accept my currency!

@EdStern I am wearing shorts and drinking coffee. What could possibly go wroAAEIAIGH!

@TheeLeeFerguson lol at Gamescom… A bit excited over them announcements were we?

@FALCAO Happy to be in the @EASPORTSFutbol FIFA 14 cover, and to confirm Colombian league is in.

@reverendanthony Holy shit, Spies vs Mercs classic is really fun.

@kierongillen Twitter this morning is disturbing in its lack of geek knowledge. Bruce Wayne is Batman. Doh.

tro

ll o

f th

e m

on

th

CAN I GET A RT?Tweet gold (and one troll) from this month’s @OPM_UK timeline

#88 First Watch Dogs hands-on & Saints Row IV review

REPLIES

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F facebook.com/OfficialPlayStationMagazine T @OPM_UK W officialplaystationmagazine.co.uk E [email protected]

Knives outThe first time I played Dishonored I attempted to preserve as many dastardly souls as possible for the sole purpose of getting a jolly ending – but this was an error as sneaking was not my forté. My second playthrough is different. I’m handling each situation as I see fit. I’m slashing, shooting and ‘sploding freely, and having a whale (oil) of a time. Here’s a tip for all you Corvos out there: don’t play Dishonored a certain way to get a certain ending – play it however the heck you want and see where it takes you!Horace Limpey via email

We’ll add to that tip by suggesting you play it in the exact opposite way you tried the first time round: incredible replayability awaits.

Hidden a genderI was truly inspired by your article ‘Extreme cakeover is a real triumph’ in issue #87. The designer Lauren has done a phenomenal job of converting her bedroom into a virtual Portal room – her hard work has

really paid off. I was left feeling both amazed yet strangely a little guilty. Was I the only one who was surprised to see (I’m ashamed to say it) that a girl had come up with a gaming theme for her own bedroom? I’ve asked my own girlfriend if we can have a bedroom makeover… but my Resident Evil idea hasn’t gone down that well! David Parker via email

It’ll probably blow your mind if we say Portal’s production lead was a girl, too, so we’ll suffice with having smashed just the one gender stereotype.

Fun loveI found the debate about the difficulty level on games really interesting.Does an easy difficulty level defeat the point? What exactly is the point? Is it the same for everybody? I reckon it isn’t, and maybe that’s why most developers give

a wide range of difficulties in their games. For me, the point of playing a game is to have fun – and that’s a word only Emma mentioned in her opinion. The day that enhancing my experience becomes more important than playing for the fun of it is the day I am unplugging my PS3.Aris Tsoumis via email

Having struggled bitterly through Catherine on medium, we’re inclined to agree. Catherine the game, by the way.

DOES AN EASY DIFFICULTY LEVEL DEFEAT THE POINT? WHAT EXACTLY IS THE POINT? THE POINT IS TO HAVE FUN.

Star letter Easy does it 13 years ago I suffered a stroke, and my physio suggested I use a console to help with my hand/eye co-ordination. It’d also help with my memory, as I’d have to educate my brain to remember which button did what. So I played Tomb Raider on PlayStation. Now I’m 67 and have wandered into the world of multiplayer via Black Ops II – but I wouldn’t have played on any console if it had not been for the easy option. Not everyone who plays games is young and fast. The older you get, the slower your reaction times become.Ray Foster via email

Inspirational stuff, Ray. Your twitch-gaming skills might’ve passed their peak, but you’d probably still wipe the floor with us at Black Ops. Have a year’s free subscription to keep you nice and sharp.


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EXIT POLLOur Facebook fans answer a final question

NEXT MONTHShare your tales of dastardly criminal capers in GTA V, PS4 pre-order excitement and Ultimate Team ultra-squads.

18% Couldn’t be happier about Borderlands 2’s Vita outing.

14% Love Sony’s games- over-tech approach.

13% Are bowled over by Sony’s diamond-strong games lineup.

14% Are all in for the newly announced Cross- Buy Vita games.

13% Have fallen in love with the shiny new UI, the design fiends.

28%Are all about

Vita’s timely price cut. Remote play,

anyone?

What was your Gamescom highlight?

GTA V Yes, it’s still hogging the top slot like a particularly infectious summer tune penned by meth scientists, but at least Rockstar’s everything-sim actually has actually hit the shelves at long last – finally giving someone else a chance to sample the dizzying heights of number one.

FORMAT PS3ETA OUT NOW

Watch Dogs A disappointingly cagey showing at Gamescom has done little to deter your enthusiasm for Aiden Pearce and his bag of high-tech tricks. Another silver medal for Ubisoft’s next-gen hopeful this month, but maybe once GTA arrives that top slot will come a-callin.’

FORMAT PS4ETA 22 NOV

inFamous: Second Son Rounding off a top three that’s undisturbed from last month, Delsin Rowe and co occupy your collective consciousness once again. The dev diary from Sucker Punch showing slick touchpad controls and use of the controller’s speaker can’t have hurt.

FORMAT PS4ETA SPRING 2014

Killzone: Shadow Fall At number four it’s [takes a big gulp of drink] Killzone: Shadow Fall! [Splurts drink everywhere.] Orange and blue are back this month, as is large-scale gunplay and beady Helghast eyes.

FORMAT PS4ETA 29 NOV

MGS V: The Phantom Pain The Phantom Gamescom Appearance finds itself relegated to a mere Europa League qualification slot, but expect all that to change next summer when we see more of Kojima’s Fox engine-powered open world.

FORMAT PS4/PS3ETA SUMMER 2014

best comments from officialplaystationmagazine.co.uk

029

READERS’ MOST WANTEDWhich games are you most fired up for?

VOTE NOW!

Tell us the five games you can’t wait to play at

[email protected].

“Hulk Hogan is the most overrated wrestler in the history of wrestling. Yeah, I went there!”Oh no you di-n’t, tubrogeek421… oh, you did.

“Puppies are CUTE, kittens are CUTE too. Well most baby animals are CUTE :D”Except naked mole rats, Carl-G.


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OPINION

Tim Clark

Why you ought to give PS4 the very best and nothing less

YOU ARE WEAK, AND YOU ARE NOT TRULY READY FOR THE NEXT GENERATION OF VIDEOGAMING. I AM HERE TO HELP, BUT IT IS

GOING TO HURT.

Truly, I have been waiting for this. You know that bit at the start of Apocalypse Now when Willard, Martin Sheen’s character, says: “Every minute I stay

in this room, I get weaker, and every minute Charlie squats in the bush, he gets stronger”? Well, you’re Willard and I’m Charlie. You’ve been sat there thinking, ‘I’ll just stick a pre-order down, and that’s my PS4 experience sorted.’ Dead wrong.

While you’ve been getting soft, I’ve been getting prepared. First there was the TV. When PS4 was announced, I had a perfectly lovely 50” Pioneer PDP-5080XD plasma. I loved her so much that she even had a name: Betsy. But Betsy is gone now. She was six years old, which in TV terms essentially makes her Catherine Zeta-Jones – still fabulous-looking but, if we’re being honest with each other, past peak performance. Speaking specifically, her resolution was only 1,365x768, which meant she wouldn’t display 1080p full HD. Unacceptable work, Betsy.

So now I have Amy. Her full name is TX-P55VT65. She’s bigger – obviously – at 55”, because people who buy smaller TVs should be sectioned, and she’s oh so beautiful. Let’s talk picture quality for a moment. The black levels are deep like waking up

on the floor of the Mariana Trench. The motion handling is

smooth like Robin Thicke after being dunked in a vat of melted

Nutella. I can’t wait to play the new Killzone on her. I don’t even like Killzone all

that much – but it’s going to look special on Amy.

Okay, so she cost the same amount as a decent second-hand hatchback, and I probably could have

saved half the cost if I’d

bought

last year’s model instead, because the difference in quality is almost impossible to discern with the naked eye, but I’ve been waiting years for next-gen. Also: shut up. Why do next-gen at all if you’re not going to do it right? Sometimes you need to pay over the top to get primo quality. (If only Arsene Wenger recognised this, I would not be so close to an actual breakdown – but that’s another column for a different magazine.)

IDIOT LANTERNSo, that’s visuals sorted. That leaves the sound. Amy’s built-in speakers, including a subwoofer, are clear, resonant, and powerful. Still not good enough. So I said goodbye to a kidney and hello to a brand-new Sonos Playbar and standalone sub. Coupled with some existing Sonos wireless speakers I had, we’re now rolling in full Dolby 5.1. Sure, the dog cowers under the coffee table trying to work out where the gunfire is coming from, but he’ll adjust. If dogs in warzones can, I really don’t see why a small French Bulldog living in the West Country shouldn’t.

All that’s left is seating. My existing electric recliner is comfortable like being held in God’s own chubby hand, but I’ve got my eye on a restored Georgian leather wingback. Because nothing says ‘videogames of the future’ like sitting in the finest chair of the past. And no, I can’t afford to eat, but that’s commitment. That’s what it takes to win. Are you ready? Can you truly stand to see even a pixel less than PS4 is capable of? Can I borrow a fiver? No, really, I’m absolutely skint. If not for me, think of the dog.

WRITER BIOTim Clark was once editor of this magazine before his crippling addiction to arguing about Arsenal on the internet saw him retired to the green pastures of middle management. He’s been obsessed with TVs since 18. The girls at uni called him ‘TV Tim’. It was a lonely time.


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Leon Hurley Phil Iwaniuk

Even me. I’m making a game right now. Thomas Was Alone’s Mike Bithell keeps

retweeting my progress updates. And, to be clear here, I’ve never tried ‘real’ programming before (unless you count the “10 PRINT ‘Hello’, 20 GOTO 10” stuff I did on a Commodore 64 back in 1900, and anyway…). But for most of this year I’ve been watching YouTube tutorials, making notes, trying stuff out and gradually learning Game Maker. You might have heard of it. It’s the same program used to make Spelunky and Hotline Miami – both games that made the leap on to PlayStation.

Using Game Maker’s actually a lot like a levelled-up version of LittleBigPlanet, only swapping out felt and comedy pistons for actual code. And it’s free initially, via a resource-limited version that’s perfect for learning the basics. Even the full program only set me back £60. Not interested in 2D? Fine, grab Unity: that’s a freebie, as well, and lets you make 3D stuff. Bithell’s using it for his new title, Volume.

As Sony is currently pursuing indie games for PS4

and Vita with the ravenous appetite of a starved animal, now is a very good time to start learning. Indie games are more mainstream and acceptable than ever – a few years ago the idea of one person making and selling a game was a bit of a freakish oddity. Now it’s a sales pitch and something that’s only going to take off further with PS4’s self-publishing and Sony’s desperation to pack Vita full of games. The internet made it possible for musicians to reach huge audiences and make a living without the need for big publishers. Sony’s indie program could do the same for bedroom coders.

CODE GREENIt’s taken me about eight months to get from ‘I have no idea what I’m doing’ to ‘showing off prototype gameplay’. In another eight months, who knows? The key thing is that it’s possible and achievable for anyone. At this moment in time, making games has overtaken playing them for me – and maybe one day you’ll see Shooter (er, the name needs work) on the PlayStation Store. Or perhaps something you’ve made?

D espite the fact this is an industry that lives and dies by its pre-orders, Grand

Theft Auto V gave you almost nothing to go on in the months before its release, other than That Name. You might perceive it as arrogance. As if Rockstar had such confidence in its flagship franchise’s selling power, it felt it could simply throw the occasional screenshot into the wild like bread crusts for the pigeons and still sit pretty atop the pre-order charts.

Which is exactly what happened, of course – it’s been wedged into the number one-spot all year, amassing over a million PS3 preorders in the US alone. And as we all know, gamers are a famously easy-going bunch – so absolutely no ill will was harboured toward Rockstar for being tight-lipped in the run up to release.

PRESS PAUSEWait, no – the opposite of that. It was frustrating for us in the games press, too: it’s our job to sniff out new info and secure early access with games, but since GTA V’s announcement there was

more chance of busting open the Kennedy assassination than landing a hands-on.

Whatever the reasoning for that borderline nonexistent PR campaign, it conveyed almost mythical value in the product. Hell, our review disc was hand-delivered by a Rockstar employee. Loading the game up for the first time felt genuinely momentous, and gathered an office-wide crowd full of schoolkid enthusiasm. In the time of dev commentaries, E3 demos and long betas, the magical feeling of playing a boxed copy for the first time and not knowing exactly what’ll happen is a wondrous rarity.

It wouldn’t have worked for GTA V if it hadn’t turned out to be easily one of the games of the generation – just as the same ‘top secret’ strategy would be suicide for all but a handful of the past seven years’ titles. If a publisher wants your pre-order bucks, it needs to inform you how its game plays, and there’s no sidestepping that. But if Half-Life 3 was announced tomorrow with an accompanying 14-minute gameplay video, don’t tell me you wouldn’t feel cheated out of some of the magic.

DON’T LIKE THE VIDEOGAMES YOU’RE

CURRENTLY PLAYING? THEN MAKE YOUR OWN.

ROCKSTAR’S MARKETING STANCE FOR GTA V MIGHT

HAVE BEEN FRUSTRATING, BUT IT WAS A GOOD THING.

WRITER BIOLeon Hurley spends most of his free time squinting at hundreds of lines of code trying to find the one ‘{‘ in the wrong place that’s ruining it for everyone. He hopes to have something others can play before the heat death of the universe.

WRITER BIOPhil Iwaniuk has been picking through Dan Houser’s bins since 2012, and insists on donning a Dick Tracy jacket whenever a new GTA trailer lands. He’s known for his rendition of the ‘I’m not listening’ song whenever Gabe Newell appears.

Sony’s big indie love means anyone can be a PlayStation developer now. Even you…

Call it arrogance or savvy PR, but Michael & co’s mystery means you’ll enjoy it more

OPINION


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Defying GravityGiving two fingers to Sir Isaac Newton with PlayStation’s floaty frolics

DEFYING GRAVITY

H O N O U R A B L E M E N T I O N S

Did we miss your favourite physics? Got a brilliant In The Mood For idea? Show and tell at twitter.com/OPM_UK.

SonicShow us a spiky mammal that claims to run through a loop- the-loop without breaking its neck and we’ll show you a liar.

SingularityThe Grav Manipulation power enables you to pick up and throw objects, but feels like a bit of Half-Life 2 rip-off.

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3Men with a history of shattered ankles somehow catapulting 60ft for an ollie is quite the slap in the face for Gordon Gravity.

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4 LIMBOGiant spiders, natives who spit poison darts, and mind-controlling worms that steer their victims into pits: Limbo really hates children. Its small, silhouetted boy also has to contend with a factory full of switch puzzles that kibosh gravity.

5 HALF-LIFE 2Ah, the distinctly non-humble Gravity Gun. Has the great videogame overlord in the sky ever blessed us with a finer weapon? Capable of turning Headcrab zombies into undead sushi, the physics-powered mutilator makes floating and firing buzz saws in the spooky Ravenholm a slicey delight.

6 DEAD SPACE 2Isaac Clarke is a man of many talents. He’s a space engineer, he can fillet a Necromorph like a Michelin– starred chef, and he’s able to punch physics square in the face. His second game contains several zero-grav puzzles involving floating mechanical parts. Hey, it can’t all be alien murderising.

7 INVERSIONVertical, horizontal – really, what’s the difference? In Vanguard City, black is white, up is down and hamburgers eat people (probably). Due to pockets of zero gravity, Davis Russel spends more time walking up skyscrapers than he does on terra firma. Take that, physics.

8 STAR WARS: THE FORCE UNLEASHEDYou’re not the boss of me, gravitation. Especially when I’m a badass Sith capable of fiddling with physics through my magic Force fingers. While levitating Wookies around on Kashyyyk would make Chewie cry, yanking a Star Destroyer from the sky is a gravity-assaulting treat.

9 CALL OF DUTY: MODERN WARFARE 3We’re going down! No, wait, we’re headed up. Aren’t the laws of the universe at 36,000ft a cad? Early in MW3’s campaign, terrorist mastermind Makarov hijacks the Russian prez’s plane, resulting in some levitating, stomach-churning firefights.

1 GRAVITY RUSHAs much as we love pictures of cats that resemble Z-list celebrities, none of them can touch the tabby in this Vita gem. Gravity Rush’s feline gives Kat (the game’s hero, not another kitty) the power to control gravity. Cue floating fun using the handheld’s gyroscope.

2 BIOSHOCK INFINITEBuck, buck, Bucking Bronco-aroo. Who needs a kids’ game about a rebellious horsey when you can control an emotionally conflicted dude with the power to fling men into the sky before bringing them down with an oh-so-satisfying crunch?

3 QUANTUM CONUNDRUMWhen you’re hanging with Professor Fitz Quadwrangle,

the rules of the inverse-square law on universal gravitation (ooooh!) can go do one.

After the madcap scientist gets trapped,

it’s up to his nephew to brave the Reverse Gravity dimension and save him.


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C O N T E N T S

WWE 2K14 36 | RIME 38 | SOUTH PARK: THE STICK OF TRUTH 40 | THE CREW 42 EVERYBODY’S GONE TO THE RAPTURE 43 | DRAGON AGE: INQUISITION 44 THE LATEST ON… 46

42 THE CREWWe go hands-on with PS4’s biggest open-world racer, fresh from the minds behind Test Drive Unlimited and Driver: San Francisco.


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PREVIEW

The Ultimate Warrior. Hulk Hogan. Razor Ramon. Ted DiBiase. Yokozuna. If your formative years were spent watching these underdressed beefcakes – all of whom feature in WWE 2K14 –

swinging unclenched fists at one another, you will heart Take Two’s debut wrestling effort like you loved Miss Elizabeth’s reunion with Macho Man Randy Savage at WrestleMania VII. This is a game built upon the very notion of fan service – and the longer you’ve adored wrestling, the more enjoyment you’ll get from it.

The inclusion of so many past heroes and heels – The Rock, Steve Austin, Ric Flair, Bret ‘Hitman’ Hart and Shawn Michaels are also present with authentic looks, entrances and movesets – is a direct result of 30 Years Of WrestleMania mode.

It works like Attitude Era did in THQ-published predecessor WWE 13: the scene for each of the 45 matches is set with a WWE-created video, before you get the chance to replay it in full. Every Mania right up to XXIX is represented (the 30th happens in New Orleans next March), with accurately-recreated arenas and logos. And in a brilliant touch, ring announcer Harold Finkel even has three different character models for complete authenticity. WALKING TALLProgress requires victory in each match as whichever grappler won the original contest. However, an on-screen list shows additional objectives that, when complete,

trigger specific cutscenes and unlock extra wrestlers, alternate outfits and other goodies. Playing as Shawn Michaels against Ric Flair in the latter’s 2008 retirement match, one such objective is to hit two super kicks on the Nature Boy. Once nailed, the second triggers the famous (in wrestling terms!) close-up where Michaels leans on the turnbuckles and whispers, “I’m sorry, I love you” at Flair – before the camera cuts back to the full ring, enabling us to hit a third Sweet Chin Music for the three-count.

The mode is shaping up excellently, and bolstered by Hogan’s presence in both ’80s and Hollywood flavour, despite him currently fronting rival fed TNA.

2K goes as far as to say the mode couldn’t have happened without him. “That was make or break: if we can get Hogan, we can do the concept. If we can’t, we’ll have to try something else,” explains creative director Cory Ledesma. “Hulk Hogan was such a huge part of WWE in the early years of WrestleMania. We knew once we got past that hurdle, everything else was going to be alright.”

THE GAMEPLAN Things are more than alright on the gameplay front, with last year’s excellent engine (ignore the haters – it underpinned the best grap outing in Yuke’s history) improved by quicker strikes and fewer chain reversals (countering an opponent’s punch or hold results in an immediate offensive move). New OMG moments, like a ring-apron DDT, are welcome too. If you hated WWE 13 then this is unlikely to win you over – but you’re more wrong than CM Punk’s new Wolverine sideburns anyway.

The only letdown is commentary. Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler are on announcing duty for the ’Mania mode, but there are still too many recycled lines from years past. Ledesma agrees this is an area that needs to be upgraded if the series is to truly replicate what you see on telly in the early hours of Tuesday morning: “We have a way to go on audio, and improvements we can make to match what you hear on WWE television. The commentators do such a good job in real life. We want to see if we can capture those performances and do them in a way that sounds like what you hear in a match.” Comms woe aside, this is shaping up to be a slobberknocker – just be prepared to have DiBiase’s theme stuck in your head after every single play. ‘Money, money, money, money, money…’

WWE 2K14Remember Slam Jam? Then this is your dream game

FORMAT PS3 / ETA 1 NOV / PUB 2K / DEV YUKE’S

F A C T R I C K

Best bit of the Mania mode: a grainy screen filter that makes ‘80s matches look genuinely old. Very cool.

1 . H D U N R E A D Y

Two-counts are back after Yuke’s fixed a disastrous bug, which made them

super-scarce in WWE 13.

2 . P I N N E D D O W N

Current stars confirmed include Dolph Ziggler, John

Cena, Antonio Cesaro, Ryback and Rey Mysterio.

3 . H A I L C E S A R O


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“MICHAELS LEANS ON THE BUCKLES AND WHISPERS, ‘I’M SORRY, I LOVE YOU.’”

Every WrestleMania is represented in-game – but if you prefer your stars current, book Rey Mysterio and Dolph Ziggler in a Universe mode spotfest instead.

Above Razor Ramon defeated Shawn Michaels for both real and fake Intercontinental Championship at WrestleMania X – now you can do the same.

John Cena smelt what The Rock was cooking at ‘Mania XXVIII: defeat for the jorts-wearing rapper.


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“IT REFERS TO A COLERIDGE POEM ON THE RELATIONSHIP OF MAN AND NATURE.”

Above Looks like the ideal spot for a day at the beach, but we suspect things are more sinister than a paddle and a picnic.

RIMEGame from Spain is anything but plain

FORMAT PS4 / ETA 2014 PUB SONY / DEV TEQUILA WORKS

One of the key themes seems to be an immense sense of isolation. That and craggy rocks.

With its upcoming indie slate, the head-swapping Puppeteer (see p.90), and now Rime, no one could accuse Sony of playing it safe. This is an open-world

adventure from Madrid-based Tequila Works full of Ico-esque towers with spiral staircases, wheat fields shimmering in the sun and the craggy cliff faces of a mysterious island. Gameplay specifics are scarce, but with a first showing as enigmatic as this, Sony could reveal it’s actually a washing-dishes-while-queueing-for-an-Adrian-Chiles-hosted-polystyrene-lecture-simulator and we’d only be a bit disheartened.

And the name? Either it’s an extreme measure to bag a unique Google search term, or a reference to the Rime Of The Ancient Mariner – a Coleridge poem about man’s relationship with nature, where ‘Rime’ is an archaic version of ‘rhyme’. Or both. Maybe that poem tells us something about the shadows that surround our hero as he sits by the fireside. Is he cursed by nature? Has he been shipwrecked?

Tequila Works’ previous game Deadlight worked the survival horror angle hard within a 2D side-scroller format, so don’t expect Rime to be all happy-clappy island exploration. It’ll certainly be interesting to chart its voyage into open-world territory from the constraints of 2D zombie-shooting. Just no one mention albatrosses, okay?


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PREVIEW

“A BRIGHT PINK DILDO IS SIR DOUCHEBAG’S FIRST WEAPON.”

SOUTH PARK: THE STICK OF TRUTHOld-school fusion set to offend all the family

If you’re worried that the tone of this turn-based RPG isn’t going to sit comfortably with the… non-PC nature of the long-running TV show, then

here are a couple of facts for you. Your character’s name is Sir Douchebag. The first weapon we see him using during our latest demo is a bright pink dildo. And we’re fairly certain that during the sizzle reel at the end of proceedings we see Stan’s dad being, ahem, ‘invaded’ by a piece of machinery.

We’re sure that Matt Parker and Trey Stone would approve. In fact, we know they do – because the whole of The Stick Of Truth is written by the dynamic comedy duo. And the plot they’ve penned involves two warring factions: the Elves, led by Stan and Kyle, and the Wizard and his crew, fronted by Gandalf-wannabe Cartman. You, Mr Bag, are the new kid on the block and have fallen into the ranks of the second of these groups.

DROLL PLAYWhat this means in the demo we see is a perilous journey deep into the Inn Of The Giggling Donkey with your magical leader, searching for the legendary Bard who may tell of the location of the titular wand. Although in actual fact you’re wandering into a front room that appears to be full of Skyrim cosplayers, and then popping down into the basement.

When not in combat, the game plays out like an old-school point-and-click. Not that you’re actually pointing-and-clicking, but you explore isolated environments looking for clues or objects that might help you in your quest. Then, once a battle does

begin, you’re in turn-based combat territory, choosing attacks and skills from radial menus.

The first fight we see involves our boy and Butters taking on three enemies, supported by the Bard dispensing buffs from the background. Abilities involve things such as throwing a hammer into opposition faces, dressing up like a bull for a head-on charge and, of course, farting. Always with the farting. Each has an interactive element to it, for instance twirling the analogue stick in order to charge your hammer throw, and timing button-presses to enact blocks.

In gameplay terms this is a familiar mix of whittling away hit points, upgrading characters and hunting down items. Whether it appeals or not depends on the allure of that authentic South Park overlay. So, here’s a foolproof test: pull my finger…

FORMAT PS3 / ETA WINTER / PUB UBISOFT / DEV OBSIDIAN ENTERTAINMENT

BATMAN: ARKHAM ORIGINSAn all-new staring contest simulator: fix your gaze and use special attacks such as throwing sand to force your opponent to blink. The Dark Knight is a final boss so tough you can’t even find his eyes.

FORMAT PS3 ETA 25 OCT

DESTINYRemember those ‘put the wooden blocks in the correct slots’ games you had as a kid? Well this is the ‘put the planets in the correct gaping ozone-layer holes’ version of that aimed at grown-ups.

FORMAT PS4 ETA 2014

MADDEN NFL 25Finally, market-leading antiperspirants are put to the ultimate test. Place a succession of high-profile sports stars under harsh floodlights to see if Gillette can manage to beat Lynx to the crown.

FORMAT PS4 ETA WINTER

on the boxjudged only by their covers

Above The game’s cast is familiar, even if Kenny looks prettier than ever as a Princess.

Gameplay is a mix of point-and-click-style exploration and turn-based RPG combat.


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PREVIEW

THE CREWFriends to the fore in free-roam racer

Sadly for loners, human company is a prerequisite to enjoying The Crew, a sprawling next-gen social driving experience that takes place across the

entire expanse of the grand old USA. Sure, you could feasibly have fun on your own dominating point-to-point sprints down Santa Monica Boulevard, trying the ‘don’t prang another car’ skill test in Detroit (good luck), or simply cavorting carefree through swaying Midwestern sunflower fields, but the real fun can only be found with friends.

Seamless drop-in co-op allows you to search for mates on the map, join them instantly, and then embark on hundreds of activities. For those that score a podium finish in the Racing Line challenge (you and a partner earn points by sticking to a thick neon-blue strip), Raid (find a route to the destination via experimental shortcuts), and Cop Outrun (survive as long as possible against a fleet of police cars and choppers), the rewards are XP, cash and car parts.

If your friends list is a barren wasteland, don’t fret: you could fill it easily by recruiting strangers into your gang, and then either taking on the world or developing some interpersonal rivalries. So while this immensely ambitious arcade racer is perfectly serviceable alone, you’ll need company to wring the most from it. It’s called The Crew for a reason…

“YOU CAN SIMPLY CAVORT CAREFREE THROUGH MIDWEST SUNFLOWER FIELDS.”

Three reasons why…The Crew’s car customisation will rock

1 Each car contains 19 elements to customise. Vehicles also have

different specs: a ride built for asphalt will be drastically different to one built for dirt.

2Unlockable perks will also impact various portions of your vehicle

– increasing brake power by a percentage point or two, for example.

3 It’s satisfying. Bonnets snap open, tyres fly off, and entire chassis

lift up. Imagine Michael Bay turned mechanic and you’re some way there.

FORMAT PS4 / ETA SPRING / PUB UBISOFT DEV IVORY TOWER/UBISOFT REFLECTIONS

Above With a promised 500+ skill tests and 200+ races, The Crew is quite the hefty game.

It takes 90 minutes to drive from East Coast to West, and all the major US cities are represented.


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PREVIEW

EVERYBODY’S GONE TO THE RAPTURE98, 99, 100… ready or not, here I – oh

A refreshing take on the apocalypse, this. There’s not a zombie in sight – developer The Chinese Room leaves that to the likes of Dying Light, Ray’s

The Dead, The Walking Dead Season Two and anyone else with an interest in the end of days and a computer science degree. Everybody’s Gone To The Rapture’s dark future looks positively cheery by comparison: a CryEngine 3-powered, first-person narrative adventure that puts you in the sweaty size nines of a scientist in the final hours before all life on Earth goes bye-bye.

If you played the Brighton-based studio’s previous game Dear Esther on PC, you’ll know what to expect. Minimal interaction, zero mechanics, lustrous production values and more voiceover than a Herzog documentary. The game challenged the nature of storytelling in the medium, placing it above all else on the shores of a bleak island. It guided you from place to place with a light source here, a building there, each location prompting another slice of narrative delivered by a man who could make cereal ingredients sound unbearably heartbreaking.

Except you won’t know what to expect, because The Chinese Room knows what you’re expecting.

Unlike its predecessor’s largely linear design this is an open world to explore at your will, and its haunting beauty surpasses even the frankly ridiculous visuals Dear Esther managed to drum out of the ancient source engine. Thanks again, Crytek. The team’s also keen to experiment with the formula by adding a new, top-secret component we have no idea about but firmly believe will be – whisper it – mapped to q.

DON’T SHOOTThe Chinese Room’s games aren’t for everyone. For some its first-person narrative design will feel like playing an on-rails shooter that’s been sabotaged by anti-gun protesters (and anti-jump protesters. Don’t get Jonathan Edwards started on that lot), but if you like your games challenging, brooding and poured slowly so you can savour each moment, this surprise PS4 exclusive might just be your favourite next-gen proposition.

FORMAT PS4 / ETA 2014 / PUB SONY / DEV THE CHINESE ROOM

Above What if the end of the world took place in a rural English village? Well, it’d be one seriously picturesque apocalypse, that’s for sure.

“THE TEAM’S KEEN TO EXPERIMENT WITH A SECRET COMPONENT MAPPED TO q.”

Details are scarce, but the game centres on six characters, and you’ll be trying to influence the events around you.


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PREVIEW

“SPY A GROUP OF ARCHERS ON A RICKETY BEAM AND YOU CAN TAKE THEM DOWN IN ONE BY TARGETING THE STRUCTURE.”

Above Using web app Dragon Age Keep, you can shape the world as you wish.

Inquisition is made up of many self-enclosed areas, but even the ‘medium’-sized of these is bigger than every area in Dragon Age II put together.

Above Hawke’s been given the elbow for a customisable player-created hero.

Hoping to recapture the glory of 2009’s (admittedly divisive) Origins and erase memories of a rushed sequel, Bioware is enlisting the help of DICE’s difference-

maker: the much-trumpeted Frostbite 3 engine that powers Battlefield 4’s supermodel looks.

“It’s an opportunity with the generation change, as well as the new engine, to revitalise things,” says producer Cameron Lee. “We’ve rebuilt everything from the ground up.” It’s a fresh start for players, too. With dreary hero Hawke gone, you’re able to customise your own fully-voiced avatar and embark on a quest that sees you sniff out the solution to a series of Fade rifts spilling demons into Thedas.

As well as increasing visual fidelity, Frostbite 3 has important applications behind the scenes. Loading has been drastically chopped, and you can now enter caves and mines seamlessly (the overworld is still split into self-enclosed environments Mass Effect-style, mind), and combat comes alive through environmental destruction. “We want players to look at a battle space and think, ‘What opportunities do I have to destroy something?’” says Lee. Spy a group of archers on a rickety beam, for instance, and you can take them down in one fell swoop by targeting the structure. Capable of bigger levels, better looks and more combat complexity, Frostbite might just hold the key to getting Dragon Age back on track.

DRAGON AGE: INQUISITION Bioware’s generation-straddling sequel gets a touch of Frost(bite)

FORMAT PS4/PS3 / ETA AUTUMN 2014PUB EA / DEV BIOWARE

Conquer a keep and you can make it either a political, military or espionage stronghold.

Apparently there are more than three dungeons on offer this time out. Rejoice!


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D I G I T A L E D I T I O N

Get Official PlayStation Magazine’s iPad edition on Newsstand now for just £3.99


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PREVIEW

Hot gossip from around the gaming globe, shepherded into an assortment of bite-sized chunks. This month we’ve got Telltale’s latest, the return of music games, Final Fantasy (twice!) and, oh, so much more…

PREVIEW ROUND-UP

THE WOLF AMONG US

FORMAT PS3 / ETA AUTUMN PUB TELLTALE GAMES DEV TELLTALE GAMES

The name Telltale Games used to be synonymous with gems such as Jurassic Park: The Game and Puzzle Agent 2. In that era, news that the studio was working on a cel-shaded episodic adventure based on Bill Willingham’s Fables comic books would have been greeted with the same enthusiasm as a new Go Compare ad featuring Nickelback. The Walking Dead changed all that. Anyone with a passing knowledge of how enthralling last year’s episodic hit was will be jonesing for this fairytale-blending adventure starring Bigby Wolf.

BANDFUSE: ROCK LEGENDS

FORMAT PS3 / ETA 19 NOV PUB MASTIFF / DEV REALTA ENTERTAINMENT GROUP

Like Keith Richards on ketamine, Rock Legends might be a bit late to the music game party – like, six years late – but it looks in fine fettle to fulfil the promise Rocksmith made last year and actually teach you how to play guitar or bass. By letting you plug a real instrument into your PS3 and offering a mix of Guitar Hero rhythm-action gaming and real tablature, the idea is to build your muscle memory and teach you the tricks of the trade. The on-screen action’s looking more intuitive than Ubi’s 2012 effort, and with endorsement from Slash it’s looking good for Realta.

ADVENTURE TIME: EXPLORE THE DUNGEON BECAUSE I DON’T KNOW!

FORMAT PS3 / ETA 12 NOV PUB D3 PUBLISHER / DEV WAYFORWARD TECHNOLOGIES

AT:ETDBIDK (!!) is an isometric dungeon-crawler with your favourite pals from Pendleton Ward’s Cartoon Network series. Ward was involved and events will crop up in TV shows. What events, you ask, because you’re so into Adventure Time it creeps us out? You must save the Candy Kingdom by delving into the Secret Royal Dungeon. Don’t expect Wayforward’s abysmal output to suddenly spike, but hopefully some mirth will shine through.

CASTLEVANIA: LORDS OF SHADOW 2

FORMAT PS3 / ETA 28 FEB / PUB KONAMI DEV MERCURYSTEAM ENTERTAINMENT

It’s been many moons coming, but a release date for Castlevania: Lords Of Shadow 2 was finally announced

by Konami at Gamescom. Set partially in modern times, Lords Of Shadow 2 is an expansive fang-filled world, placing you in the dusty old shoes of Dracula, a real A-lister of the vampiric dark lord circle. You must re-acquire the powers you’ve been stripped of, discover the secrets of your past and save yourself from the clutches of Satan himself.

YAIBA: NINJA GAIDEN Z

FORMAT PS3 / ETA SPRING 2014 / PUB TECMO KOEI DEV SPARK UNLIMITED/COMCEPT/TEAM NINJA

Been able to contain your excitement for this one? It is, after all, a ninja-zombie actioner from studios with less-than-stellar track records, carrying the name of a franchise not enjoying the finest form after Ninja Gaiden 3. However Keiji ‘Mega Man/Resident Evil/Dead Rising’ Inafune is involved. The zombs come in different breeds, but they’re dealt with in the same

tongue-in-cheek manner as in Dead Rising 2.

Don’t expect Ryu Hayabusa’s po-faced difficulty levels. Do expect a supporting adversarial role from the ninja’s ninja.


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FINAL FANTASY X/X-2 HD REMASTER

FORMAT PS3/PS VITA ETA 2014 / PUB SQUARE ENIX DEV SQUARE ENIX

Chug down a +5 disappointment potion, because Spira’s modern makeover just slipped to 2014. Still, you’ve waited 12 years to return to one of the best RPGs in PlayStation history – what’s another couple of months? No explanation has been offered, but Square isn’t half-assing this. The Japanese giant’s even updating the music. But before you morph into Angry Square Enix Forum Person, rather than new music, the instrumentation’s been made to sound less like a Casio keyboard’s demo mode.

BATMAN ARKHAM ORIGINS: BLACKGATE

FORMAT PS VITA / ETA 25 OCT / PUB WARNER BROS DEV ARMATURE

If there’s a more poorly run penitentiary system outside of Gotham, we don’t want to know about it. Seriously, another inmate uprising? That’s the setup for Armature’s Vita outing, set after the events of Arkham Origins on PS3 – a sequel to the prequel, if you will. The Man Of Bats is sent in to quell a rebellion in Gotham’s Blackgate prison. There’s a surprisingly open-ended structure that lets you choose the order of your boss fights, and you can even ignore them – which affects the game’s ending.

WOLFENSTEIN: THE NEW ORDER

FORMAT PS3/PS4 ETA 2014 / PUB BETHESDA SOFTWORKS DEV MACHINEGAMES

Watch your footing, BJ – oh, he’s slipped. Right off that red-barrel filled platform and into 2014. You’ll have to wait until next year for this tongue-in-cheek Nazi massacre, which feels like a hybrid of Duke Nukem Forever and Inglourious Basterds. BJ’s arsenal includes energy weapons from Nazi labs and a laser cutter that carves freeform shapes – cue volumes of genitals-based graffiti gracing the walls of just about everywhere. On PS4, the fine detail of your handiwork will be rendered as never before.

RIDGE RACER DRIFTOPIA

FORMAT PS3 / ETA AUTUMN PUB NAMCO BANDAI / DEV BUGBEAR ENTERTAINMENT

Namco went F2P with Tekken Revolution and it’s steering Ridge Racer down the same route with Driftopia, which looks as much about microtransactions as traction. It’ll offer shorter, sharper shots of tail-sliding racing and monetise things like repair kits, booster packs, vehicle packs and XP boosts. So a prang in the game costs real-world quids – now there’s a recipe for no-holds-barred, adrenaline-pumping racing. We’ll reserve judgement on the payment model, especially as stablemate Tekken Revolution has a fair system. Still, repair kits?

DESTINY FORMAT PS3, PS4 / ETA 2014

PUB ACTIVISION / DEV BUNGIE

LIGHTNING RETURNS: FINAL FANTASY XIII

FORMAT PS3 / ETA 14 FEB PUB SQUARE ENIX / DEV SQUARE ENIX

The sci-fi universe in which Bungie’s building its definitely-not-an-MMO-despite-displaying-all-the-characteristics-of-one

shooter is as influenced by traditional fantasy as the usual Star Wars shtick, and nowhere is that more evident than in its player classes. The Titan is your vanilla warrior, all health points and max damage, whereas the Hunter relies on stealthier tactics – the Barbarian and Rogue of traditional RPGs. The Warlock harnesses powers of the Traveller (the dude who saved humanity and left the floating orb above Earth), creating a Mage-like play style. Old warriors in new armour, those Guardians. Your foes are very ‘mythic sci-fi’ too, populating the world with zombies, robots, strange living cube formations and Halo-esque grunts.

Square’s already prepping your nostalgia fix with Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD, but there’s

yet more golden oldie material to come from Lightning Returns in the form of a FFVII Cloud Strife outfit. It’s part of the game’s pre-order bonus pack, which also includes a limited edition steelbook, and it adds Cloud’s victory poses and fanfare in addition to his trademark gear. Unspecified ‘abilities’ are also included, which means you might get to unleash Omnislash on the beasties of the Fabula Nova Crystallis universe. Not that such antics will raise much of an eyebrow in a dying world in which the 500-year-old inhabitants stopped reproducing centuries ago. They’ll need more than a nod to a 16-year-old RPG to save them.

DARK SOULS II FORMAT PS3 / ETA 14 MAR / PUB NAMCO BANDAI

DEV FROM SOFTWARE

When you hear talk of bravery, beta testers don’t get the mention they deserve. It’s all, “Fire-fighters this,

the guy who landed his plane on the Hudson River that”. What of the intrepid ones who endure unfinished, possibly buggy games for the greater good? Saints, the lot of them. And beta testers willing to take on the sequel to Dark Souls, a game more difficult than Higgs Boson Simulator 2013? Unfathomably brave. You’ll get your chance to enter the closed beta test from 12 October via the DSII Facebook page, you heroes, you.


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EXCLUSIVE ACCESSNews, previews and features you won’t find anywhere else, covering the biggest games on PlayStation.

OPINION AND INSIGHT Expert writers and editorial independence guarantee forthright views on the issues that matter.

NEXT-GEN KNOWLEDGE Unrivalled access to all things PS4, bringing you the future of console gaming before anyone else.

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PRE-ORDERS GUIDE

Our pre-orders guide charts the ten games most likely to keep you toasty throughout Xmas

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It feels almost as if GT’s sixth instalment caught up with Gran Turismo 5 on a B-road on

the approach to 2010, but just couldn’t find a place to overtake it. How else can one explain the unexpectedly imminent release of a game following such a famously tardy one?

Now that it has a firm 6 December release date on PS3, and Polyphony Digital boss Kaz Yamauchi cleared up initial murkiness regarding a PS4 version by suggesting at Gamescom that GT6 on next-gen may evolve into GT7 and is “some way off”, we can see the game for what it really is. Not a clever smokescreen deflecting attention away from the PS4 edition, but instead an honest-to-God evolution of Gran Turismo 5 that seeks to make the biggest driving game in existence go one bigger.

The handling model is fundamentally different. But you know that – you’ve played the demo. Polyphony asserts that its new course maker will be substantially different to GT5’s, too, offering 100 square km of space as your asphalt canvas.

This is not the Bruce you love and criminals cack their evil Y-fronts over.

As his loyal butler Alfred painfully spouts in a recent trailer, “You’re not some hardened vigilante! You’re a young man with a trust fund and too much anger.” Boyish, brutal and – crucially – perhaps better: against all odds the untested WB Games Montreal is creating a dark Gotham journey that could capture the cowl from Arkham City to become PS3’s most heroic adventure.

Regardless of whether this fresh-faced Bats can topple Rocksteady’s masterful work,

There’ll be a livery editor of some description, although Yamauchi’s downplaying its functionality to editing “beyond just colours”.

Its next best candidate for innovation is Vision Gran Turismo, a monthly DLC drop of one or two concept cars from various manufacturers that’ll keep the roster fresh and, well, weird. The previous game’s updates positively transformed the original

boxed version, and you should be expecting a similarly evolving package for PS3’s second helping of Gran Turismo.

Day/night transitions are being interwoven into Spa Francorchamps, Daytona and an updated Apricot Hill, so you can expect endurance races aplenty round the storied Belgian hills, endless banked lefts at the Florida NASCAR Mecca and long excursions to the technical corners of GT’s premier fantasy track (you heard us, Cape Ring sadists). As for the 1,200-strong car list, Polyphony still hasn’t managed to include all the cars in the world. But God bless it, it’s trying darn hard.

So if there’s a car you never bought, a championship you never beat, or – heaven forbid – a paint sample you never unlocked in

GT5, it’s time to tick them off your bucket list. Gran Turismo 6 is bigger and better in every metric, and although a more traditional wait looks likely before we see a staggering next-gen thoroughbred, the PS3

version is a no-brainer on the pre-order list of any self-respecting petrolhead.

F A N T A L K

“I’ve always been a GT fan, so I have this on order despite the fact it’s out a week after PS4. Yamauchi-San and his team really seem to be extracting an incredible amount from the PS3 hardware. I’m looking forward to seeing how GT6 on PS3 compares to NFS: Rivals and Driveclub on PS4, in both looks and experience. I have a feeling it might be closer than people think!”

LEE GROOMBRISTOL

GRAN TURISMO 6Flooring it on PS3’s final straight

R E V V E D U P10

“THE HANDLING MODEL IS FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT.”

FORMAT PS3

ETA 25 OCT

PUB WARNER BROS

DEV WB GAMES MONTREAL

BEST PRICE £37 (AMAZON.CO.UK)

SPECIAL EDITION YES (AMAZON EXCLUSIVE:

STATUE, ARTBOOK, EXTRA CHARACTER SKIN, EXTRA CHALLENGE PACK,

3D CASE)

PRE-ORDER DLC YES (PLAY AS DEATHSTROKE, TWO MAPS, TWO SKINS)

I N F O

FORMAT PS3

ETA 6 DEC

PUB SONY

DEV POLYPHONY DIGITAL

BEST PRICE £38.99 (ZAVVI.COM)

SPECIAL EDITION YES (GAME EXCLUSIVE:

STEELBOOK CASE, 1M IN-GAME CREDITS,

EXTRA CARS AND CUSTOMISATION OPTIONS, GUIDE)

PRE-ORDER DLC NO

I N F O


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Arkham Asylum featured a small likeness of the Batcave, Origins treats you to the blackened, full-fat original. Whether you want to pore over evidence, switch between bonus costumes or access those fiendishly addictive challenge maps, the iconic lair acts as a handy hub away from your crim-capturing activities in downtown Gotham.

STROKE OF LUCKThere’s also plenty of incentive to pre-order Bruce’s bonanza of homicidal clowns and innovative three-on-three multiplayer matches. Those who put their money down early are rewarded with a code for early access to

Deathstroke DLC (Batman’s obsessed, dual-pistol-wielding nemesis). Need a further excuse to drop those pre-emptive readies? Look no further than the sought-after Collector’s Edition.

If said version’s added Knightfall pack, extra skins and 80-page art book seems a little vanilla, just wait until you clap corneas on a very special statue. A limited-edition figurine featuring Batman throttling Joker, it’s a beautiful collectible. (See above.) Thankfully, with incredibly intense combat and the most exciting Rogues Gallery yet, the actual game is shaping up to be every bit as striking – although mercifully slightly less strange.

the Dark Knight is certainly in for a bracing Crimbo. Not only is his game one of the most anticipated titles of the festive period, but Wayne also has to contend with eight assassins who are all out to whack him – and on Christmas Eve, no less. The latest batch of screens show the tortured hero taking on Mad Hatter and Firefly. The latter is a pyromaniac who uses a winged jetpack to bring a fiery hurtin’ from above. Anyone else reminded of Metal Gear Solid 3’s demented, extra-burny astronaut, The Fury?

The Caped Crusader’s reassuringly dank home-away-from-million-bucks-home also makes its series debut. While

USUALLY, CALLING ANYTHING THAT COSTS 80 QUID A BARGAIN WOULD HAVE YOU INSTANTLY DISPATCHED TO ARKHAM ASYLUM. NOT SO AMAZON’S ORIGINS SET, THE HIGHLIGHT OF WHICH IS A 30CM FIGURINE THAT DEPICTS BATS DANGLING JOKER FROM A ROOFTOP. WHO’S LAUGHING NOW, EH?

B A T U E T T E

BATMAN A R K H A M O R I G I N SDark is the Knight for all

W A Y N E ’ S W O R L D

F A N T A L K

“I’ve already pre-ordered the Collector’s Edition of Batman: Arkham Origins. Every game in the series has been accompanied by a really nice Collector’s Edition, filled with genuinely unique extras – rather than the rubbish other games throw into their versions. I’m also really looking forward to getting back to the Arkhamverse, and seeing how it deals with the fact that this is a prequel.”

RHYS JONESVIA FACEBOOK


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ext-gen racing starts here. Think about that: an entire genre, jump-started by one

intrepid studio and its almost unnerving love for exotic cars. Not that Evolution’s any stranger to such pressure. The Cheshire-based studio’s PS3 launch title, MotorStorm, signalled the first powerslides and barrel rolls of this generation, setting an impressive graphical benchmark along the way with giant draw distances, impressive motion blur (if a tad heavy-handed for modern tastes) and detailed damage modelling. MotorStorm did the trick, so naturally Sony has put Evolution on point again to deliver the goods as it hurtles towards the conveniently placed ramp that’ll propel it on to next-gen Tarmac.

Driveclub’s ignored some GPS instructions during development

and ended up in arcade racer territory, some distance from the meticulous, seat material-obsessing sim destination we expected from its reveal back in February. Yes, the brake lights and cockpit surfaces are still accurate down to the last LED and carbon fibre trim (empty Haribo packets and miscellaneous receipts in the footwell will be available as post-release DLC, presumably), but insofar as recreating the experience of owning a supercar, Driveclub gives you cars that handle the way you want them to handle – rather than the way they actually do.

I’M FREE!Its pick-up-and-play appeal is especially important considering it’s available for exactly £0.00 for all PS Plus subscribers on PS4, which is everybody who wants to play their games online. The gratis

DRIVECLUBPS4’s horsepower leaves MotorStorm in the dust

FORMAT PS4

ETA 29 NOV

PUB SONY

DEV EVOLUTION STUDIOS

BEST PRICE £47.85 (GAMESEEK.CO.UK)

SPECIAL EDITION NO

PRE-ORDER DLC NO

I N F O

Premium-soaring paint scratches are the extent of Driveclub’s damage model. Ouchie.


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edition includes most cars and tracks, and trophy hoarders will be delighted to know they can still nab the platinum. It’s akin to the increasingly prevalent standard and premium edition model except, you know, the standard edition’s free. Now there’s a business model we can get behind.

Handling feels closer to Need For Speed than Gran Turismo, then, as Driveclub aims for instant accessibility among a huge user base, but there’s been no such about-turn when it comes to its social features. But again, we’re going to have to namecheck NFS, because Autolog is the Alpha and Omega of connected racing and forms Driveclub’s chief adversary out in the field.

As it happens Evolution owes a lot to Criterion and its mid-race and asynchronous challenges – throughout the duration of each race you’re coaxed into micro-games such as scoring points in drift challenges, nailing clean sections and maintaining high speed. They offer a chance to earn more ‘fame’ during the race than you would for simply crossing the finish line in P1. That fame is both

your personal XP and fuel for your club’s reputation. If Driveclub has a USP beyond Matt Southern rubbing his knees at exhaust pipes, it’s the idea of persistent clans pooling their fame together for the greater good, resplendent in their matching liveries.

DROP OFF There’s no telling what level of stop, drop and gawp the final build’s visual fidelity will summon, but the alpha gameplay, which

Evolution estimates to be around 35% complete (best stock up on the Pro Plus, boys), already shows encouraging signs. We’ve seen two tracks so far: Oliver’s Landing, a waterside highway sprint along Highway 99 in northern British Columbia surrounded by lush Canadian woodland, and the castles, dry-stone walls and rolling fields of Kinloch, Scotland.

Geographically they’re far from chalk and cheese, but they assert their individual personalities nonetheless. Kinloch’s roads are open and peppered with high-speed corners, a far cry from the mountain hairpins and claustrophobic trackside vegetation of Oliver’s Bay.

You don’t need to tease the McLarens and Paganis around either circuit with the numb-handed diligence required of a Gran Turismo hot lap. But that’s

not to say the cars don’t exhibit unique characteristics or try to squirm away on corner exits.

Driveclub’s free availability to Plus subscribers will give it an instant and sizeable online community. With a substantial handling model that makes the DualShock 4 purr in appreciation and the prettiest wheels on PS4, it’s already motoring along.

“THE STANDARD EDITION IS FREE. NOW THERE’S A BUSINESS MODEL WE CAN GET BEHIND.”

F A N T A L K

“My dream racer – a blend of sim and arcade with the prettiest graphics going. I love the look of the dynamic night/day and cloud systems, plus it’ll have great online capabilities. And the best part is that Evolution is going to keep adding stuff even after the game is released. Add all that up and you have the most awesome racing game on PlayStation 4.”

AMBROZ REMSKAR VIA FACEBOOK

Not pictured: a very nervous dry-stone waller who just finished the Kinloch estate by hand.

Above Hugely detailed trackside scenery sprawls on for miles and miles.


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F A N T A L K

“I still have some faith in Call Of Duty, so I pre-ordered Ghosts on PS4 (and of course had to do the same with GTA V on PS3 – because if I didn’t, I’d be a idiot). I’m excited for Ghosts, as it looks like Infinity Ward has finally accepted that COD is an arcade shooter, and that’s reflected in the new game modes it’s adding, such as Blitz. This looks to be a whole load of mindless fun.”

JACK FAIRBANKLONDON

07FORMAT PS4

ALSO ON PS3

ETA 29 NOV

PUB ACTIVISION

DEV INFINITY WARD


SPECIAL EDITION YES (AMAZON EXCLUSIVE:

COLLECTIBLES, BONUS MAP, STEELBOOK, PARACORD STRAP,

SOUNDTRACK)

PRE-ORDER DLC YES (GAME EXCLUSIVE: CAMO)

I N F O

According to executive producer Mark Rubin, Ghosts marks the series’

biggest multiplayer overhaul since 2007’s Modern Warfare. That’s a lofty claim indeed: COD4, remember, was the iteration that introduced killstreaks and perks – changes that shaped an entire genre.

You won’t find such sweeping refinements in Ghosts, but we can still see what Rubin was hinting at.

This is more of a silent revolution – an intelligent refinement that dares to challenge some of the franchise’s most ingrained rules.

Take the humble UAV as an example. Since the dawn of time, UAVs have been airborne creatures, requiring specialist equipment and nerves of steel to take down. But why, Ghosts asks, should a killstreak so powerful be so difficult to destroy? Ground-based units known as SATCOMs are

their replacement – these are placed on the floor like turrets, and because they’re so easily destroyed you’ve got to think before deploying them, searching out secluded spots or areas that see less footfall, so that you can enjoy their benefits for longer.

What might seem a minor change ends up having a drastic effect on match flow. Instead of online battles being boom-and-bust affairs as teams frantically

exchange radars, you find yourself relying more on defensive perks and good old-fashioned caution to gain your bearings, as well as a new feature known as Battle Chatter – where your soldiers bellow enemy positions at each other, increasing the value of taking strategic locations.

Other tweaks aim to solve existing problems by working with, rather than against, the community. The new Marksman

class – which bridges the gap between Assault and Sniper – combines the mobility of the former with the latter’s lethality. It’s a potent, if difficult to tame, hybrid class designed to decrease ‘quickscoping’ (running around like a loon using a sniper rifle as if it’s a Super Soaker).

Meanwhile, Create-A-Soldier replaces Create-A-Class, finally bringing character customisation

CALL OF DUTY G H O S T SNot relying on phantoms of past glories

B I G B A N G

WANT THE NEXT SPECIAL EDITION UP FROM ‘HARDENED’ (OUTLINED ABOVE)? THEN PLUMP FOR THE ‘PRESTIGE’ VERSION, WHICH INCLUDES – AMONG OTHER GOODIES – A 1080P HD TACTICAL CAMERA. SADLY IT’LL SET YOU BACK £179.99, AND DOESN’T EVEN INCLUDE A CERTIFICATE FOR HAVING MORE MONEY THAN SENSE.

P R E S T I G E

“TWEAKS AIM TO SOLVE PROBLEMS BY WORKING WITH, NOT AGAINST, THE COMMUNITY.”

Soldiers are more agile; able to vault over waist-high cover without breaking pace.


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to Call Of Duty. You can make up to ten of these soldiers – each with their own Prestige level – and there’s plenty of incentive to experiment. Squads mode is a tense one-on-one affair where players are flanked by AI-controlled versions of their fellow soldiers, handing the advantage to the more well-rounded players.

While Battlefield 4’s colossal 64-man skirmishes are stealing most of the column inches, there’s much to admire in Ghosts’ more restrained approach to next-gen warfare. Infinity Ward has taken the dawn of a new era of hardware as an opportunity to retool, refresh and reload Call Of Duty. It could well be enough to see the series start life on PS4 as it ended it on PS3: as the pace-setter.

BLU-RAY P R E - O R D E R S

ALAN PARTRIDGE: ALPHA PAPADIRECTOR DECLAN LOWNEYSTARRING STEVE COOGAN, FELICITY MONTAGUETA 2 DEC BEST PRICE £15.99 (ZAVVI.COM)There are two schools of thought surrounding North Norfolk’s infamous DJ: he’s one of British comedy’s finest creations, or you’re wrong. Here the hapless broadcaster is called in to defuse a hostage situation at his local radio station. Triumph.

THIS IS THE ENDDIRECTOR EVAN GOLDBERG, SETH ROGENSTARRING SETH ROGEN, JONAH HILLETA 4 NOV BEST PRICE £14.99 (ZAVVI.COM)Rogen and real-life chums send themselves up in this disarming, riotous romp. As the apocalypse hits LA, the desperate gang goes from performing a half-assed exorcism on Jonah Hill to making lewd jokes about Hermione from Potter. Funny stuff.

BREAKING BAD: FINAL SEASONDIRECTOR VINCE GILLIGANSTARRING BRYAN CRANSTON, AARON PAUL ETA 25 NOV BEST PRICE £19.99 (ZAVVI.COM) ‘Remember my name’, proclaims this darkly comedic cultural phenomenon’s curtain call. And thanks to Cranston’s masterful portrayal, you’ll never forget Walter White/Heisenberg’s moniker as the series ends with a breathless flourish.

DESPICABLE ME 2DIRECTOR PIERRE COFFIN, CHRIS RENAUDSTARRING STEVE CARRELL, KRISTEN WIIGETA 25 NOV BEST PRICE £14.99 (SAINSBURY’S) ‘Fun for all the family’ is rarely a phrase that bodes well – but stay with us. Legendary villain Gru may have settled down with a trio of daughters, but he and his army of minions haven’t lost their edge, as this light-hearted, tongue-in-cheek caper proves.

2 GUNSDIRECTOR BALTASAR KORMÁKUR STARRING DENZEL WASHINGTON, MARK WAHLBERG ETA 9 DEC BEST PRICE £15.99 (PLAY.COM)Two?! Fat chance. There are more firearms than one-liners in Denzel and Marky Mark’s Lethal-Weapon-inspired buddy comedy. The two play a DEA agent and a naval intelligence officer looking to bust a drugs cartel, one macho witticism at a time.

MAD MEN: SEASON 6DIRECTOR VARIOUSSTARRING JON HAMM, ELIZABETH MOSSETA 4 NOV BEST PRICE £24.45 (ZAVVI.COM)When Don Draper’s not having extra marital hanky-panky he’s firing clients. When he’s not firing clients he’s drinking to excess. And when he’s not drinking to excess he’s… probably asleep. Here DD starts to unravel in the world’s smoothest breakdown.

THE GREAT GATSBYDIRECTOR BAZ LUHRMANNSTARRING LEONARDO DICAPRIO, CAREY MULLIGANETA 11 NOV BEST PRICE £17 (AMAZON.CO.UK)Nestling amid the Roaring ‘20s’ glitz and sleazy underbelly, this adaptation of F Scott Fitzgerald’s classic was always going to be a tailored-suit fit for Baz Luhrmann’s excessive stylings. The type of film HD was made for, with DiCaprio on fine form to boot.

ONLY GOD FORGIVESDIRECTOR NICOLAS WINDING REFNSTARRING RYAN GOSLING, KRISTIN SCOTT THOMASETA 25 NOV BEST PRICE £15.99 (ZAVVI.COM)Visually arresting like coating your corneas in sulphuric acid, this Thai thriller offers an incredible sensory experience – and while its formlessness is disorientating, it makes for essential discussion. You won’t find a more sensationally shot Blu-ray.

MAN OF STEELDIRECTOR ZACK SNYDERSTARRING HENRY CAVILL, RUSSELL CROWEETA 2 DEC BEST PRICE £16.75 (AMAZON.CO.UK)This modern reinvention of Supes bears summer blockbuster hallmarks: origin story, Hans Zimmer score, spandex suit. But there’s also a serious post-9/11 commentary and plenty of one-camera sequences in this handsome superhero rebuild.

MONSTERS UNIVERSITYDIRECTOR DAN SCANLONSTARRING BILLY CRYSTAL, JOHN GOODMANETA 11 NOV BEST PRICE £16/49 (ZAVVI.COM)An origins story with a difference, as Pixar explores the beginnings of Sulley and Mike’s friendship by sending up all your favourite frat-tastic college flicks – minus the rude bits. Even so, the belly laughs come thick and fast for both kids and adults alike.

One of nine new match types, Cranked requires you to bag frequent kills – or die.


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hould you want to know how the PS3 version of EA Sports’ mammoth football

franchise has fared, flip to page 84 for our review (hint: it’s really rather good). But if you’re more interested in all things shiny and next-gen (and we can’t blame you for that), then read on. Because we’ve once again had the chance to go hands-on with the only football game coming to PS4 this year, and it’s still shaping up nicely.

The most striking difference is how much smoother things feel compared to the current generation counterpart. And with ten times the number of animations crammed in there, this is hardly surprising. It means players can react to the ball – and each other – in far more varied and realistic ways, allowing passes to run across them if the weight is

correct, turning in tighter circles and changing direction more quickly, or hopping over outstretched limbs in order to avoid contact. And when you do accidentally collide, or are on the receiving end of a Lee Cattermole-approved reducer, the outcome is now based entirely on how the players come together and at what speed, with no recourse to pre-canned results whatsoever. There will be blood substitutions.

Slightly less integral to the action on the field, although significant in terms of what it adds to the overall realism factor of individual matches, is that crowds are no longer populated by cardboard cut-outs whose support would come to a swift and messy end at a moderate gust of wind. Now fans are properly modelled individuals, which means they can react more authentically to the

FIFA 14Next-gen series looking to kick off in style

FORMAT PS4

ALSO ON PS3

ETA 29 NOV

PUB EA

DEV EA CANADA


SPECIAL EDITION NO

PRE-ORDER DLC NO

I N F O

With ten times the number of animations players move in far more realistic ways.


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on-pitch action – something that can significantly up the atmosphere when you see them go feral after a last-minute winner, or groan en masse as Nicklas Bendtner shanks another great chance into the stands.

MYSTIC MEGSAs you’d expect, the visuals have also been significantly kicked up – for one thing that game now runs in glorious 1080p. (For the technology-allergic among you this means sharper images and more space on the screen for fine detail. It’s ‘a good thing’ is the general thrust.) Additionally, player faces are more realistic than ever, grass looks like grass, there’s increased authenticity in the weather effects, and bespoke footballing styles mean you can identify the big names by their mannerisms to an even greater extent. Oh, and the game can predict the future. Not in the sense that you should ask it for the lottery numbers or if that seemingly sweet girl you’re engaged to is actually going to end up running off with your best friend, stealing your tortoise and taking… wait, what?

Oh yeah, FIFA’s all-new crystal ball. Known as Pro Instincts, what this really means is that player AI enables them to better anticipate how a given situation is going to play out. This might mean them making a more intelligent run into space so you can ping a penetrative through ball, stepping back into a defensive position in order to cover for a player who’s gone walkies, or trying to hurdle out of the way when a tackle comes flying in. (Even though they look

nice and realistic now, even computerised players are keen to avoid a studs-up leg-breaker.) And it definitely works: forwards and full-backs create far better passing channels when running in behind opposition defences, and your centre backs are less prone to idly wandering upfield as though they’ve spotted a really shiny penny in the centre circle.

So it looks better, plays better, and it’s already one of the biggest games on the planet. Add in the fact that the menus have finally been tweaked, online play is set to be more robust than ever, and increased connectivity means you’ll be plugged into the real world of football to an even greater degree, and there’s no denying that FIFA 14 is one of PlayStation 4’s most exciting prospects.

Plus, it’s not simply a prettied-up port of the current-gen version

(although no doubt it’d still sell four gazillion copies even if it was) – there are the kind of meaningful changes in there that you’re hoping for. And if you just can’t wait, then fear not: your rosters, in-game items and currency for Ultimate Team will transfer between the PS3 version and next-gen. Start filling that ‘gold Bale’ bank account now.

“THERE’S NO RECOURSE TO PRE-CANNED RESULTS. THERE WILL BE BLOOD SUBSTITUTIONS.”

F A N T A L K

“The FIFA series is my Call Of Duty – I refuse to miss one and play it throughout the year – and 14 appears to be a big step forward, particularly with the new Ignite engine looking the business. It’s a bit like Gareth Bale moving from Tottenham Hotspur (PlayStation 3) to Real Madrid (PlayStation 4): they’re both classy outfits, but the latter is just that tiny bit classier.”

ALAN O’CONNORVIA FACEBOOK

Above ‘Pro Instincts’ enable players to better anticipate how a move will play out.


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Rarely is it the case that you’re more familiar with the creator than the

creation in games, but director and agent provocateur David Cage enjoys that particular privilege for his outspoken stance on interactive dramas, and retaliatory punches against QTE- centric criticism his previous games Fahrenheit and Heavy Rain garnered. Does Beyond have an axe to grind, then? You bet.

Those events of a quick-time nature are still the cogs of the machine driving Beyond’s action, although Cage would likely shed a single tear to hear you say so. But while the timed button-presses and controller-waggles carry over from Heavy Rain, the less-than-Academy-Award-troubling calibre of the 2010 adventure’s cast is well and truly shed in favour of Hollywood heavyweights Ellen Page and Willem Dafoe.

Page takes centre stage as troubled supernatural savant Jodie Holmes. Her relationship with her otherworldly companion Idan forms the basis of the 15-year narrative span and core gameplay – the story charting her tumultuous adolescence stemming from her outsider status and freakish abilities, your control switches between Jodie and Idan.

Wait, did we say Jodie’s freakish abilities? Because here’s the thing:

alone, she can’t do jack. She’s just a girl who finds herself with SWAT teams after her more often than not. If you’re expecting to pick up the Dualshock and control Cole MacGrath with Juno’s face, you’ll fail swiftly, in a distinctly non-electricity-emitting manner.

It’s Idan that holds all the power, you see. Lucky for you, the two are inexorably bound to help each other out in a pinch. If you were being hyper-critical of the skillset

“GREAT PAINS HAVE BEEN TAKEN TO LOSE NOTHING BETWEEN MO-CAP AND IN-GAME CHARACTER.”

05FORMAT PS3

ETA 11 OCT

PUB SONY

DEV QUANTIC DREAM

BEST PRICE £37.98 (ZAVVI.COM)

SPECIAL EDITION YES (STEELBOOK,

EXTRA SCENE, SOUNDTRACK, DYNAMIC

THEME, AVATARS, ‘MAKING OF’

FEATURETTES)

PRE-ORDER DLC NO

I N F O

BEYOND T W O S O U L SThere’s no place like Holmes’

T O R N P A G E

The supernatural theme is a world apart from Heavy Rain, but Beyond shares its bleakness.

F A N T A L K

“Beyond: Two Souls excites because developer Quantic Dream is capable of telling great stories in a unique fashion. The blend of action and drama in what looks to be a gorgeous world just seems like the perfect swansong for PlayStation 3. You might be taking on the role of a ghost at times, but this proves there’s still plenty of life in the console yet.”

MIKE WILKINSON MANCHESTER


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Jodie brings to the table, you might comment that Idan appears much better at the whole ‘saving us from certain doom’ thing. After all, he possesses the abilities to, er, possess people, create force fields and move matter. Jodie? Well, that girl can certainly get her punch on when the occasion calls for it. But come on. Force fields.

Dafoe, who you might know as ‘that guy who’s been in every movie for the past 30 years’, plays Dr Nathan Dawkins, a government scientist who discovers Jodie’s powers at a young age and takes on a morally murky role as a father figure who may not always have her best interests at heart.

Great pains have been taken at Quantic Dream to lose nothing of the emotionally charged performances from either cast member in translating them from ‘gifted actor covered in miniature ping-pong balls’ to ‘believable in-game character’, employing the latest full performance capture techniques to build seamless audio and visual delivery.

It’s a notch shy of LA Noire’s uncanny Motionscan facial animation tech, but given the working conditions controversy and massive expense that came out of Team Bondi’s innovative project, you can understand Cage and co’s decision to duck out and skip the headache. Besides, what Beyond loses in minute facial detail, it gains in simultaneously captured body animations. Its on-screen cast looks human from the neck down, which is more than can be said about Aaron Staton’s Cole Phelps.

Hollywood stars, ambitious gameplay and a controversial creator spearheading the project: granted, it’s far from a guaranteed recipe for success, but Beyond’s ambition nevertheless looks ready to bear fruit. And whether the great experiment redefines interactive drama or falls on its star-studded behind, one thing’s for sure: this will be one of the last great talking points of PS3. How can you resist?

IF, LIKE OUR LEON, LISTENING TO GAME SOUNDTRACKS ALONE IN A DARK ROOM IS WHAT YOU CALL SUNDAY, YOU NEED A) HELP AND B) TWO SOULS’ SPECIAL EDITION, WHICH COMES PACKAGED WITH AN ALBUM’S WORTH OF THE GAME’S AMBIENT BACKING TUNES. (PLUS OTHER EXTRAS – SEE ‘INFO’.) IT’S ONLY £32.99 ON AMAZON, TOO. BUY, BUY, BUY.

S O U L F U L

TEAMP I C K SOPM Towerites’ most wanted deliveries – and why

FIFA 14Shocking admission: I love sports games. And while there’s still plenty of life in PS3’s finest – MLB: The Show and NBA 2K – in terms of on-field action, where next-gen really excites is in areas like atmosphere and fine detail. When ball strikes onion bag, I want to hear the crowd roar as if celebrating a vital goal rather than imitating the Katy Perry song of the same name. I want stadia in which supporters come to life, and opposition players who visibly wince in agony when chopped down by my digitised Mile Jedinak. And from dep ed Joel’s impressions on pages 58-59, it sounds as though next-gen FIFA is my genie in a bottle. You’re gonna hear me score. Ben Wilson

BEYOND: TWO SOULSYes, Heavy Rain is my favourite PS3 game thus far. And yes, that leads to a lot of arguments with people who refuse to believe anyone could enjoy a 12-hour button-prompt sequence more than Red Dead Redemption. But Beyond’s going to silence the haters who poke fun at that voice acting and occasional journeyman writing. It’s got acting clout. It looks beautiful. Its story spans 15 years of the protagonist’s life, and that protagonist’s brought to life by Ellen freaking Page. If that turns out to be anything other than an incredible journey and generation highlight, I’ll eat that origami booklet thing that came with the Heavy Rain special edition. Phil Iwaniuk

ASSASSIN’S CREED IV: BLACK FLAGI’ve been good this year, Mr Kringle. As reward for committing only 11 of the 14 atrocities on my naughty list, you owe me exactly one megaton pirate adventure. Learning from Far Cry 3, Black Flag has a wealth of worthwhile side activities: engaging in naval battles, infiltrating Mayan temples or laying the whaling smackdown on Free Willy’s great uncle. What could be better than waking up on a bitter December morn and treating your corneas to a gloriously tropical six-hour session in PS4’s most visually vibrant world? It’s a pirate’s life for me this Crimbo. Dave Meikleham

Mark Wahlberg will be furious when he discovers that young Jodie has stolen Ted.


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F A N T A L K

“I’ve pre ordered Killzone: Shadow Fall, because it’ll do exactly what it says on the ti… er… box. It’s a solid series that hasn’t disappointed me yet, and I have high hopes for this one. Guerrilla is an excellent studio and the game is looking beautiful. Plus, I’ve always enjoyed the storylines and characters – and so all things considered, this is a must for me.”

MARTYN BOWELLPEASEDOWN ST JOHN

04FORMAT PS4

ETA 29 NOV

PUB SONY

DEV GUERRILLA GAMES


SPECIAL EDITION NO

PRE-ORDER DLC NO

I N F O

Who’s a pretty boy? Those iconic orange eyes have never looked purdier thanks to PS4.


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Above Predictably, Shadow Fall’s lighting and particle effects are utterly glorious. Good job, Guerrilla.

Those helmeted space Nazis play by their own rules, man. And so can you,

thanks to a multiplayer experience that’s been built around confident layers of customisation (quiffing your hair James Dean-style and nestling a pack of fags up your T-shirt sleeve is entirely optional). Guerrilla is set to deliver another cinematic single-player campaign, and with a thoughtfully designed online mode, Shadow Fall is aiming to shoot to the very top of your PS4 hit list.

Sick of vanilla deathmatch slaughter? Then let us direct you towards custom warzones. These editable game variants let you tinker with match rules to an almost absurdly esoteric degree. If you’ve got a hankering for a deathly tense, stealthy team game, you can nix respawns, limit weapons to invisibility cloaks and daggers, and slow down health regeneration. Boom: you’ve got yourself a Cloaked Nightmare playlist. Alternatively, you could go for a full-on frenzy, put revive drones on and revel in a constantly escalating orgy of violence where folk simply won’t stay down. The choice really is up to you.

CREATE TO THE PARTYGuerrilla is obviously keen to foster a long-term Killzone community, and as such has given you the option to browse and hop into other PS4 gamers’ custom warzones, LBP-style. Offering 24-player battles is already impressive, but the ability to access such a potential wealth of varied user-created content could really set Shadow Fall apart in the savage online killing fields populated by Call Of Duty: Ghosts and Battlefield 4. Thanks

to the DualShock 4’s ultra-precise analogue sticks, aim-assist has also been kiboshed, meaning this could well be a more hardcore alternative to those megaton blasters.

The game is also generous to both your wallet and time. Treating the latter with respect is becoming an increasing rarity in shooters nowadays, with most forcing you to spend days and weeks grinding to unlock the best guns. Mercifully, Shadow Fall is the giving sort and opens up all its wares to you right off the bat.

“All of the game’s 22 weapons come unlocked, so you’re free to start building specialised classes from the get go,” confirms PlayStation Blog social media manager Sid Shuman. “It’s a move Guerrilla believes will help newcomers find an effective

loadout quickly.” Aside from the ten maps that you’ll be able to fully test those guns out on at launch, later DLC offerings are

also on the way, and they’ll be free to boot. We told you those Helghast types are givers.

FALL BRAWL Lone wolves aren’t being forgotten, either. Shadow Fall’s solo offering looks to be the most ambitious in the series’ insanely gruff history. The planet of Vekta also opens far more open environments from what you’ve seen from the series on PS3, offering more scope for altering your Helghast-mangling tactics on the fly. With Guerrilla also finally unleashing honest-to-goodness colour into its universe (our poor, singed corneas), this is perhaps PS4’s most visually dazzling launch title to date. Unlike COD: Ghosts, the game has been purpose-built for Sony’s new machine, rather than merely based on an existing PS3 engine that’s been given a spit and polish.

Sony is rightly pushing Shadow Fall aggressively, and you’ll soon be able to buy a special PS4 launch bundle that includes a copy of the game, two pads and the PlayStation Camera. Costing around as much as an Xbox One, it’s a dang generous package – and should ensure many a Helghast finds a loving home this Christmas. Sony’s new baby looks to be in safe hands with this potentially killer shooter providing dead-eyed cover fire.

“REVEL IN AN ESCALATING ORGY OF DEATH AND VIOLENCE.”

C O L D W A R

K ILLZONE S H A D O W F A L LHelghast hath no fury like a killer FPS


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03FORMAT PS4

ALSO ON PS3

ETA 29 NOV

PUB EA

DEV DICE


SPECIAL EDITION NO

PRE-ORDER DLC YES, (GAME EXCLUSIVE: DOG TAGS, BONUS CONTENT,

EXCLUSIVE EVENT)

I N F O

There’s no quicker way to be branded a noob than crashing your squad into the trees.


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PLAYSTATION PRE-ORDERS

Settling into the War Room (our name, not theirs, but it seems fitting – not to

mention cool) in DICE’s Stockholm HQ, we’re told that the new multiplayer mode we’re trying out is called Obliteration. Each team has three objectives to defend, and a bomb will spawn in the middle of the map. All we need to do is grab that bomb, take it to one of the enemy objectives, arm it, and then protect it until it blows up. Do

that three times and victory is ours. Easy.

Also: hmmm. Because although the mode is clearly named after the effect the bomb has when it goes off, it might as well be referring to our team’s morale after a few rounds. Playing against what appears to be a squad of full-time professional FPS players, we’re soon as shattered as those three objectives we were supposed to be looking after.

And somehow things only get worse as we move to playing Domination. A miniaturised version of Conquest (it plays out within a smaller section of whatever map is chosen), we’re losing tickets faster than a hapless Lotto addict in a wind tunnel. Turns out Mother was right: you really do have to get along with others in order to succeed.

C O P T E R F E E L

BATTLEFIELD 4Taking about a Levolution


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But our team’s lack of co-ordination is not the most remarkable thing on show. Nor, in fact, are the two new modes, as they’re really just different slants on familiar multiplayer dynamics. What’s most striking is the map – or, more specifically, how the map evolves.

OCEAN COMBAT SCENEWere we DICE employees, we’d presumably be slapped around the head right now and sent to the Naughty Room (next door to the War Room). Because in BF4 things don’t evolve, they, er, ‘levolve’. Levolution is a key concept in this year’s game, and it’s a term used to describe how environments alter as you play the game. The first instance we saw was during E3, with a skyscraper crashing to the ground in downtown Shanghai. Now we’re playing something different altogether.

This map is called Paracel Storm, and it’s set on an island

group in the South China Sea. That means lots of navigating narrow waterways between the various chunks of land, be it via boat, jet ski or the age-old military technique of doggy paddle. There’s also a sizeable stretch of wide-open ocean surrounding the cluster, and one of the spawn points lies within a large battleship a way off the coast.

Inevitably, this geography affects playstyle in a number of ways. You can’t career across the map in jeeps or tanks, there are precious few tall vantage points to exploit as prime sniping spots, and carrying the bomb to its detonation location in Obliteration is usually a team pursuit, as someone needs to drive and/or protect your chosen boat. But then

that Levolution process kicks in, and things are shaken up even further. Remember the name of the map? Well, that nasty weather front comes closing in – darkening the skies and whipping up the waves. Seafaring is now more perilous than ever, sightlines on the ocean become obscured, and

helicopter and jet pilots have to contend with heavy rains lashing across their windscreens.

There’s also the small matter of the

turbines off the coast, which seem to be cracking, but surely that won’t… oh look, one’s just come crashing down. And in turn released the enormous battleship. Which has now ploughed right into the middle of the entire island group. Joy. It’s a huge, cinematic

F A N T A L K

“Can’t fail to be excited about Battlefield 4. Just think of the numbers: with over 5,000 knife kills, I’m most looking forward to those new animations, and on top of that you’ll be able to partake in huge 64-player online matches. Battlefield 3 was great, but this should blow previous games to pieces.”

LEE TAYLOR BOGNOR REGIS

“DICE IS HOPING TO SHAKE UP ITS ONLINE GAME FOR PS4.”

Above The bigger Levolution set-pieces completely change the appearance and dynamic of maps.


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FINISHEDS Y M P H O N Y

OPM: As we enter into next-gen, what’s the long-term future for ‘authentic’ shooters such as Battlefield?Patrick Bach: Right now our goal is to deliver the deepest, most exciting and above all fun Battlefield experience yet. Once that happens, our focus shifts to supporting the game post-launch and Battlefield 4 Premium, which

is building on the success we had with Battlefield 3 Premium and its 4 million members. Battlefield 4 Premium will give players a ton of post-release content, including five digital expansion packs, new maps, modes, weapons, unlocks and more.

OPM: With such a passionate MP community, where does the balance lie between giving people what they love and advancing the series?PB: I think we can do both – we’ve been doing so for the last ten years since the release of Battlefield 1942. In Battlefield 4, we have created a new design concept we call Levolution where the environment reacts to your every move. It’s taking what you know from destruction to places it’s never been in a multiplayer game, both on a big and small scale. You can reduce a skyscraper to rubble or shoot fire extinguishers to distract enemies, both of which you, the player, control. Our community is very passionate and vocal; they want more Battlefield. We are constantly listening to them to see what they are enjoying and what’s causing issues. Because of them, we’ve done a lot of work to a number of things in multiplayer – including the classes and loadouts. You can explore a wide range of combat roles and sub-roles when picking your loadout and kit.

OPM: The companion app for tablets is a focus this year. What does this add, and is something like this key for any triple-A title nowadays?PB: It has to offer something that enriches the overall experience – it can’t feel tacked on. For Battlefield 4 we’re using the second screen in a few ways. First, we’re bringing back Commander mode, which gives two players on opposing teams a bird’s-eye view of the battlefield, enabling them to deliver info and assets to their team. Originally introduced in Battlefield 2, it was a feature many fans wanted to see return. We wanted to enhance the experience – the second screen allows us to do that. Not only will Commander mode be playable on PC and console, but you’ll also get to play as a Commander on iOS or Android tablet via the internet. Another way we’re utilising the second screen is with our Battlelog app, which will feature the Battlescreen on next-gen and PC versions of the game. The Battlescreen offers an intuitive second-screen experience with key gameplay info in real time, including the ability to highlight attack points on the mini map. You’ll also be able to use Battlelog on the second screen to change your loadouts, create missions, check out geo-leaderboards and much more.

OPM: What early feedback have you been getting from people who’ve played or seen the game?PB: The reaction has been tremendous, and it’s provided the team back at DICE some great motivation as we cross the finish line of development. Something people have consistently wanted to see is more of the game! They’ll get a chance soon enough!

PATRICK BACH EXECUTIVE PRODUCER, DICE

DICE’s Patrick Bach on BF4

and spectacular moment, and its knock-on effects go beyond just wrecking a whole load of sandcastles on the beachfront. One of the landmasses has been cleaved in two, affecting navigation, and for whoever can gain control of the surrounding area there’s an anti-aircraft gun sitting on the ship’s deck that can be commandeered and used to fight back against death from above.

It’s with dynamism like this – as well as delivering 64-player battles at 60 frames per second – that DICE is hoping to shake up its online offering on PS4. The fundamentals of Battlefield multiplayer are already so solid and nuanced that a complete

overhaul would be madness – this, after all, is already the most deep and tactical of the megaton FPS games. New maps and modes are a given, but the potential of all of those is multiplied by the on-the-fly seismic shifts made possible with Levolution. (The concept, it must be said, also offers tactical options on a much smaller level. You can, for example, fuse the lights in a room before you breach it, or be made aware of an enemy’s presence when he accidentally sets off an alarm by bumping into a car.) Before, your military acumen let you command the battlefield. Now you can actually control and contort it. Bombs away.

“The next person who shouts ‘I’m on a boat!’ gets their knackers lopped off.”

Above Sure, it’s pretty, but this’ll wreck your retinas if you don’t look away now.


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F A N T A L K

“I pre-ordered a PlayStation 4 as soon as they were available, and had to get Watch Dogs reserved at the same time. After all, what other possible way is there to start off my PS4 career than with what looks like an amazing sandbox game that demonstrates every last one of PS4’s capabilities?”

GEORGE TSIELEPISWALTHAM ABBEY

02

So far, we mainly know Aiden Pearce as a man with a bandana over his face and

the world’s most powerful smartphone. And while his personality and goals will become clearer as you progress through Watch Dogs’ über-connected Chicago sandbox, that level of anonymity is a conscious design choice, as senior producer Dominic Guay tells us. “Right now we’re seeing a façade of Aiden, but when you follow in his footsteps you’ll be pushing to achieve his goals: to find his family and the people who hurt him, and get his vengeance,” he says. “But we don’t want Aiden to overpower you as a player and your own goals – we call [him] a vigilante but [you are] the one who really becomes a vigilante, as [you] decide what [you] want to do in the city.”

It’s this freedom to do as you wish that makes the game such an exciting prospect, because although many of the core open-world mechanics are familiar, the level of

interactivity with the game’s setting is a truly next-gen proposition. We already know breaking into CtOS towers enables Aiden’s hacking abilities, and we’ve seen the multiplayer invasion gameplay in action. But what our latest extended hands-on reveals is the mayhem that the man behind the mask can really wreak through the streets.

When an innocent bit of suburban gun-toting gets called in, the police are quickly on the scene. However – and here’s that interactivity at work again – it needn’t have gotten that far. The do-gooding civilian could’ve had the offending phone torn from their grasp, or blocked using a cell phone jammer, or we could have fled the scene before being properly spotted. However we don’t, and are instead treated to

a ten-minute chase that makes World’s Wildest Men In Pick-up Trucks Driving Like Lunatics look like a Sunday jaunt to the bowls

club. Squad cars are wrecked using bollards, sets of traffic lights are hacked leading to mass pile-ups, steam vents under the streets are

blown and take out vehicles with them – it’s carmageddon.

And that level of control over the environment is set to extend even further, thanks to the game’s crafting system. As Guay explains: “You can craft items such as remotely detonated explosives, or things to distract enemies from a distance, but Aiden can also mix in some hacking abilities with his items. These can be bought or found through the game, and some of the most precious stuff is actually software. These let you do the powerful one-time hacks, such as the blackout.”

WORLD PEARCEWe also see the impact of choice in the vigilante side-missions: a gun shop is being held up and we can intervene. But even trying to do good has alternate outcomes: the first time we play it through, we don’t respond fast enough and the clerk is shot. The next time we are as we’re ambushed in an alley.

The details of Watch Dogs’ story are being kept under wraps for now, but even if it didn’t have one at all this would be a must-have PS4 proposition. This is a game all about choice – but making the one to pre-order yourself a copy needn’t be given a second thought.

“THE MAN IN THE MASK CAN REALLY WREAK SOME HAVOC.”

B I G B R O

WATCH DOGSOpen-world options have us sinning in the city

FORMAT PS4

ALSO ON PS3

ETA 29 NOV

PUB UBISOFT

DEV UBISOFT MONTREAL


SPECIAL EDITION YES (GAME EXCLUSIVE: COLLECTORS’ BOX, CAP,

MASK, SOUNDTRACK, BONUS CONTENT)

PRE-ORDER DLC YES (BONUS SINGLE-

PLAYER CONTENT)

I N F O

Above Hacking is fun, but holding your gun sideways gets maximum cool points.


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FOR THE DOGGY DIE-HARD WITH 115 SHEETS BURNING A HOLE IN THEIR POCKET, THE DEDSEC EDITION IS A MUST. WHILE THE STANDARD SPECIAL EDITION COMES WITH CAP AND MASK, THIS INCLUDES AN AIDEN FIGURINE, BADGES, AND AR CARDS. WHO NEEDS TO EAT AT CHRISTMAS, ANYWAY?

H A C K F E S T

Once you’ve hacked the relevant CtOS tower, your phone is way more powerful than that gun.


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01FORMAT PS4

ALSO ON PS3

ETA 29 NOV

PUB UBISOFT

DEV UBISOFT MONTREAL


SPECIAL EDITION YES (STEEL CASE,

ARTBOOK, SOUNDTRACK, LITHOGRAPHS, BONUS

IN-GAME CONTENT)

PRE-ORDER DLC YES (TREASURE MAP PACK WITH FOUR ADDITIONAL

LOCATIONS)

I N F O

The ‘Zorro impersonator goes to burlesque’ look was big in the pirate heyday.


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They may take our open-ended assassinations, but they’ll never take our

freedom!” These famous words, never spoken by legendary Scot Mel Gibson, were sadly disproved by Connor’s American Revolution adventure, as both the stealthily murders of AC games past and the much-hyped autonomy promised pre-released failed to materialise.

But when we’re handed the pad for the first hands-on of Black Flag and told, “Do whatever you want,” it’s safe to say that all fears of a repeat performance sink to the bottom of the ocean. As, incidentally, do we, opting to try one of the game’s new underwater sections. Shedding his Assassin’s

robes for something more water-appropriate, Edward Kenway descends downwards in a rudimentary diving bell, finding himself on the seabed and surrounded by crystal-clear waters. The aim here is to recover treasure from seven chests scattered around the area, all while keeping an eye on Teddy’s oxygen meter and the slightly more intimidating danger of sharks and barracudas on patrol. It’s claustrophobic, panicky and more than a little bit difficult – but all in a good way.

And when we’re done we simply climb into our bell, ascend to the surface, and are back aboard the Jackdaw with the world at our hull. The vast map can be

S E A C H A N G E

ASSASSIN’S CREED IV B L A C K F L A GYou’re invited to the sail of the century

PRE-ORDERS GUIDE


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explored with nary a loading screen in sight. Spying an interesting-looking island in the distance we set sail, using the improved ocean navigation – there’s an all-new cruising speed for long-distance travel – and, upon arrival, drop anchor and dive into the water. Here, just like on many other of the game’s countless islands, is treasure to be discovered, assassination contracts to be undertaken, and various other side quests which can be accepted or ignored.

The sense of freedom is extraordinary, especially given the scale of the environment. In order to take advantage of the vast oceans – and to irritate PETA – we decided to go whaling, but before we can get our scurvy-riddled teeth into Shamu,

another of the game’s new mechanics comes into play. As you carouse around the world causing havoc on the high seas, a ‘wanted’ meter fills – much in the style of GTA. The higher this gets the more you’ll come under attack from enemy vessels looking to cash in the bounty on Edward’s head. And so, as three ships descend on us, there’s only one thing for it: breakdance fighting.

But it seems ol’ Captain Kenway must have done his knee, because we settle instead for some naval warfare, which is also hugely improved from ACIII. There it was like two elephants trying to joust in bumper cars – now we feel more like an AK-wielding llama driving an Ariel Atom. The side cannons are more responsive and easier to line up, likewise the swivel guns, and now there’s also a mortar for long-range attacks, and a shooter mounted on the front. The end result is far more control, and sea battles that don’t take longer than the denouement in the final Lord Of The Rings film. So as well as being seamless, the ship-to-ship combat is now

actually enjoyable.

MAST OR BAITOnce we’ve taken down

our ocean oppressors and decided what to do with

their leftovers (you can absorb defeated

vessels into your fleet, break them up for spares,

or use the parts to fix the Jackdaw),

it’s then time to see how Mr Gibson would feel about the first part of our imaginary opening proclamation. That the core assassinations were hardly present at all

in ACIII – and those that were included were such a letdown – was one of the game’s biggest problems, and something Ubi was keen to address this time around. It seems to have succeeded.

The key points are that they can be completed using actual stealth, and you have options in terms of how to proceed. We’re told that an enemy captain aboard a ship in a nearby port must be taken out (the ‘why’ doesn’t seem important), and are then left to figure out how. We reach the dock by sneaking through jungle undergrowth, avoiding patrols as best as possible and aided by the improved Eagle Vision, which marks enemies on

your minimap and enables you to see their outline when they move behind cover. Playing largely non-lethally, we take out one guard patrolling the

ship’s jetty, and then swim to the bow, shimmying up the side of the boat. From here we could rush in, swords slashing, or use guns to take the captain out from long range. Or maybe use a berserk dart to distract his guards, and slip some steel into his neck unnoticed. But, ever the showmen, we decide to shimmy up the mast for a cinematic airborne takedown. We patiently wait as he talks to his subordinates, and when his patrol finally brings him in to range, we leap, soaring through the air, blades extended… and kill totally the wrong guy.

But that’s on us. The game, however, is spectacular: everything we were promised from III, only bigger, better and much prettier. For the first time since the second game, we can confidently say that Assassin’s Creed is killing it – and for now, Black Flag looks to be the most exciting game coming to PlayStation this winter. Given the competition, that’s some feat.

LIKE BATMAN AND WATCH DOGS, ACIV ALSO OFERS UP AN EVEN-MORE-SPECIAL-THAN-SPECIAL EDITION: THE ‘BUCCANEER’ VERSION, PACKAGED IN A TREASURE CHEST WITH A 45CM EDWARD FIGURINE INSIDE. AT £79.99, YOU’D ALSO EXPECT IT TO BE WATERPROOF. IT ISNT.

L E T ’ S B U C

“WE LEAP, BLADES OUT… AND KILL THE WRONG GUY.”

Above Ocean wildlife gets pretty bitey, so don’t feel bad about responding with the spear of fear.


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F A N T A L K

“After III slipped far from the standards I expect Creed games to keep, it seems like Ubi has rectified its slip. The exploration just looks more fun, and prettier. No more dull colours; we want vibrant! To me, Edward seems like Ezio crossed with a pirate, which is awesome.”

MATTHEW GRAYMARTLESHAM

TREASURE H U N T I N GUbi’s Ashraf Ismael talks ACIV and internal rivalries

OPM: What other games that you’ve seen released during the development cycle of Assassin’s Creed IV have helped influence what you were doing with the game in any way?Ashraf Ismail: I loved Skyrim. Mostly from the exploration of the world, the way that it teased you with the content was

really well done. So we looked at some of those tricks, looked at some of the ways they were being advertised as a player, so that was one of the inspirations. Also Tomb Raider, the way it tells the story, in terms of scripted events and how they transition in the gameplay is very nice. And even internally, Far Cry 3. Far Cry 3 did some really awesome stuff for exploration, and for player progression. It really inspired us, and we actually brought on

a lot of people from Far Cry 3 to join our team to help us really fill the world with content, to give the player motivation to go and explore it, and to upgrade the ship, and to upgrade Edward himself.

OPM: In terms of other Ubisoft games, is there any sort of internal rivalry between you and other teams behind games, such as the people who developed Watch Dogs for example? Are you all genuinely friends?AI: Ubisoft Montreal has a lot of the same people [who’ve worked] on the same games in the past, so we’re all friends. For sure, there’s a friendly competition between all of us, but I would describe it as more as we’re the older brother and they’re the younger brother. We have a fanbase already, a big base of people who follow our game and [that’s] a new IP so it’s a very friendly competition between us, but we need it to be successful for the health of the studio here in Montreal.

OPM: How tough is it on you all at Ubisoft to be releasing a game of this magnitude on an annual basis?AI: It’s an annual release, but it’s multiple teams working on the various games. This team, when this game ships, we will have worked on this game for about two-and-a-half years. We’re Assassin’s Creed, we’re Ubisoft, so we do have a massive army of people working on this game. So we have a lot of advantages over a lot of studios, and we have a lot of very talented people. From a timing perspective, two-and-a-half years is a great amount of time to pull off a really fantastic game. We are working our butts off, especially now that we’re in the home stretch. People are driving really hard: a lot of content is coming in the game, we’re doing a lot of polishing work right now. Talking about resources, there’s no place like Assassin’s Creed, honestly. The development of Assassin’s Creed is a giant, a juggernaut. It’s a bit unstoppable.

ASHRAF ISMAIL, GAME DIRECTOR, UBISOFT MONTREAL

Ed Kenway is friends with the dolphins. Clearly he only buys responsibly caught tuna.

AC multiplayer has always been surprisingly solid, so expect the same again.

Wind farm NIMBYs clearly held no sway over development back in the 1700s.


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charges for the winning phone number. In the event of an entrant’s mobile and/or contact

telephone number changing and/or the mobile phone being lost, stolen or damaged, the

Promoter is not able to retrieve and amend any existing entries to a new mobile and/or contact

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reasonable requests to take part in publicity relating to this Promotion.

You will find the full prize draw terms and conditions here:

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Hauppauge HD PVR 2 GE Plus

Monster Mobile® ClarityHD micro bluetooth speaker – black

Garmin Edge 810 – the complete touchscreen GPS bike computer

Bladeztoys bubble blaster and water blaster RC helicopters

Kingston Technology MobileLite wireless

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Kymera wand remote control

Airhogs Helix 4

Monster High Definition HDP 850G PowerCenter™ v2 w/ GreenPower™ – UK

Monster® iCarPlay™ wireless 800 FM transmitter for iPhone

and iPod

PURE Jongo S3 wireless music system

Black MS-2 Marshall micro-amp

Unit Portables laptop bag

D6200 Netgear Wi-Fi router

Sonic Screwdriver remote control

Airhogs Atmosphere

Asics Gel Kayano trainers

Magicscreen screen protector pack, a Magicwand touchscreen stylus, a

Magicpotion screen cleaning kit, a pair of Artisanphonics luxury wood earphones, and

a case from the MediaDevil range

Mutewatch touchscreen watch

Sigma SD1 D-SLR camera and lens

Humax Youview box DTR-T1000

Netgear PTV3000 wireless display adaptor

Unique Track Days Radical Experience at Silverstone

HOW TO ENTER

TEXT: POM

TO 87474Texts cost £1 plus 1 message at your

standard network rate, usually 10p-12p

Or post your name & contact number to The Future Great Gadget

Giveaway, c\o Puma Source Solutions Ltd, The Lodge, Portobello

Docks, 551 Harrow Road, London. W10 4RH

Increase your chances of

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http://www.xploder.net



077

C O N T E N T S

GRAND THEFT AUTO V 78 | FIFA 14 84 | DISNEY INFINITY 86 | DIABLO III 88 PUPPETEER 90 | KILLZONE: MERCENARY 91 | FINAL FANTASY XIV: A REALM REBORN 92 MADDEN NFL 25 94 | LOST PLANET 3 94 | NHL 14 94 | ONE PIECE: PIRATE WARRIORS 2 95

10 INCREDIBLEThe kind of phenomenal experience rarely seen in a console generation.

9 OUTSTANDINGUnreservedly brilliant – this should be in every collection.

8 VERY GOODA truly excellent game, marred by just a few minor issues.

7 GOODA great concept unfulfilled or the familiar done well, but still well worth playing.

6 DECENTFun in parts, flawed in others, but more right than wrong.

5 AVERAGEWhat you expect and little more, this is for devotees only.

4 BELOW AVERAGEAny bright ideas are drowning in a sea of bugs or mediocrity.

3 POORA seriously flawed game with little merit on any level.

2 AWFULDisgraceful: the disc would be more beneficial as a coaster.

1 HORRIFICOwn this and you’ll be swiftly, justifiably, exiled from society.

OPM SCORES

GOLD AWARDAwarded to a game that’s brilliantly executed on every level, combining significant innovation, near-flawless gameplay, great graphics and lasting appeal.

EDITOR’S AWARDNot at the very highest echelon, but this is a game that deserves recognition and special praise based on its ambition, innovation or other notable achievement.

90 PUPPETEERAs mad as it is charming, and as varied as it is cute, this head-swapping platform-puzzler is unique if nothing else.

GOLD AWARD

EDITOR’S AWARD


WorldMags.net




078

“FEW EXPERIENCES DURING THE CONSOLE GENERATION PROVIDE AS MUCH JOY.”

We’re guessing this isn’t Trevor showing off his impressive new spare tyre to the gang...


WorldMags.net



079

REVIEW

GOLD AWARD

I N F OFORMAT PS3

ETA OUT NOW

PUB ROCKSTAR GAMES

DEV ROCKSTAR NORTH

@j0el_gCHASING STARS

From resolving global conflicts to slowly batting a little white blob back and forth (how often do you actually do that in real life?), all videogames exist as a form of escapism. But those that offer it most overtly aren’t

actually the ones that allow us to save the world single-handedly or let us control a cartload of chimpanzees with our mind (which, incidentally, sounds awesome). It’s those that offer a rough simulacrum of reality and provide us with the freedom to interact with it as we wish – including, not ignoring, the mundanities of life – that are the most compelling virtual holidays.

That’s always been one of the key appeals of GTA: regular guy makes good in (semi) regular world. And okay, he may make good in the most violent and psychopathic way possible, but no amount of squashed pedestrians can run over the games’ aspirational nature. And it is here that V’s greatest triumph lies. The scathing social commentary is, of course, present and correct. Likewise the eccentric cast of misfits and oddballs we’ve come to expect. And, now far more than ever, the ambitious, cinematic missions involving all kinds of spectacular carnage. But standing above all of this is the fact that no other virtual world in all of gaming is as fully realised and alluring as what’s on offer here. This is a glorious and jubilant reminder of the fact that – at their heart – games are supposed to be about having fun, and few, if any, experiences during this entire console generation provide as much pure joy.

Such is the frequency with which remarkable moments occur that no longer can they be called

Three men and a little LA deed sign the generation off in style

GRAND THEFT AUTO V


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REVIEW

Above Relationships between the three vary from fractious to murderous to bro-tastic.

Above left Catch your son before he falls out of your stolen yacht.

Above right Dirt bikes are among the most versatile vehicles in the game.

Left Trevor will do anything to protect his meth empire. Just like Walter White.

Right “Put your hands up, bend your knees…” T-dogg shows off his U-turn.

Michael has a mansion in the hills, fancy cars, and a nice line in tailored suits. So it stands to reason that he’s miserable.


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REVIEW

Below This is Franklin. He enjoys driving very fast and staring moodily.

highlights: the game’s standard operating mode is to have your mouth agape in amazement. Backflipping a motorbike over an airport terminal. Parachuting out of a cargo helicopter into a fully manned military base. Causing a 20-car pile-up on a freeway during rush hour by sniping a truck driver from half a mile away. Oh, and the stuff you’re tasked with during missions isn’t too shoddy, either.

SUN, SEA, AND SANDBOXThe scale and sense of freedom is so staggering that the initial wave of amazement never wears off – every now and then you’re hit with a whole new sense of ‘wow’ as you realise just how much is on offer to you at any one moment. This is not only the biggest world in Grand Theft Auto history, incorporating both the city of Los Santos and the sprawling countryside of Blaine County to the north, it’s also by far the most richly populated when it comes to activities, asides, and locations just begging to be explored. So luxurious is the level of design that vast structures that would be the environmental highlights of entire games are included without any overt purpose beyond enhancing the sense that this a real place. For instance, at one point I rode a dirt bike off the beaten track and discovered an enormous, Hoover-esque dam. Surely some secret is hidden up here? Or perhaps it’ll come into play as a set-piece during a later mission? Nope, it just… is. The game never directed me there, and I never came back. I simply leapt from the top to my death, a suicide made gleeful by the incredible care taken in constructing this virtual world.

And all of this is open to you from the very start of the game – there’s no waiting for bridges to be made passable or areas to be freed from lockdown. Any location can be visited in any order and in any vehicle, right from the minute you first set eyes on sun-drenched San Andreas. It’s partly the nature of this setting, in addition to the tech that’s been used to create it, that makes it such a pleasure to inhabit. The wide streets, verdant hills and shimmering ocean are in stark contrast to the fog-shrouded greys of Liberty City – riding down faux Sunset Boulevard in a faux soft-top Mercedes feels like a far more appealing version of the American dream than hopping aboard the decrepit LC subway ever did.

Five years of technological improvements mean that things look far prettier, and allow the world to be both more detailed and more populated. Where once city streets were deserted like a Daphne & Celeste comeback gig, now they hum with whiny software developers, irate mortgage brokers and disillusioned actresses rushing to casting calls. Certain roads get busier at certain times of the day; sun seekers flock to the beaches when ol’ shiny gets his hat on, and scarper for cover as the rain sets in (there’s a fully dynamic weather system); and squabbling foursomes fill the local golf course. Other crimes – some resulting in truly spectacular police chases – are undertaken by the city’s more nefarious

inhabitants; couples argue in the street; there are boat races, street races, bike races. There has never been a more convincing world in the whole history of gaming.

THREE SLEAZY PIECESBut while the environment is undoubtedly the star, it is more than ably supported by three protagonists, every one of which puts all of the series’ previous leads to shame. There’s Michael, the monied middle-aged misery who’s having a serious life crisis. Franklin, the up and coming street hustler looking to graduate from repo work

and gang crime. And then there’s Trevor, the psychotic trailer-dweller who defies classification as much

as he does convention. But such summaries fail to do justice to any one of them, and each showcases their three-dimensionality far quicker than should be possible. If you think you’ve already picked a favourite or that one looks like a weak link then be prepared to reconsider: each of the trio is far more interesting and nuanced than expected.

To venture into the details of their backstories or the circumstances of their meeting would be to stumble into Spoilerville (and this itself is a process that’s far more rewarding than anticipated), but evidently the specifics

of their criminal ambitions bring the three together. And it’s when they do converge that GTA V spreads its gameplay wings and showcases how

the ambition of its mission structure can match that

of its world building.Naturally each

member of the gang has a vast number of their

own objectives, but it’s the collaborative heist efforts that are the headliners. These multipartite undertakings involve planning, recon, decision-making, crew-hiring and, ultimately, execution. Payoffs are big, but only in accordance with

how smoothly all of these steps go – and there’s always more than one way to get your hands on the loot.

Take the first of the bunch, the jewellery store robbery. You first need to go inside and scope the security system and cameras. You then need to ascend to the roof in order to photograph the outlet vent of the air conditioning system. From there, it depends. You can go for a more traditional, head-on approach, or you can play it sneaky. Going for the latter, as I did, you require some extra kit: namely sleeping gas, which has to be requisitioned beforehand. This is then lobbed into the air con vent you photographed, knocking out the unsuspecting bracelet shoppers inside and allowing you a free run at the precious metals. That’s still not the whole story, though, because your success isn’t just dependent on the playable characters: additional team members need to be recruited. For this heist that means a hacker, a driver and a gunman. More capable crooks do their job better, but they also take a bigger cut of your loot. I hired a primo computer whiz, thus allowing me a larger time window to grab goodies inside the store, and a top-notch driver, meaning that we had the perfect getaway vehicles in place. But not anticipating any firefights I went for the poundstore gunman, who ended up bailing off his bike and dropping a third of the take. Turns out that, much like when visiting intimate waxing clinics, sometimes you really do get the results you pay for.

There are around half a dozen of these high-profile jobs, and each is totally different from the last in terms of motivation, setting and mechanics. While there could be more variation provided in the choice of approaches you’re offered for each – it pretty much comes down to ‘sneaky’ versus ‘loud’ every time – there’s precious little repetition in terms of content, and all are truly memorable high points.

PLANE CRAZYNot that standout gameplay moments are confined to these. Far from it, as GTA V is consistently brilliant in terms of the quality of both its main missions and its side-

“THERE’S NEVER BEEN A MORE CONVINCING WORLD IN THE WHOLE HISTORY OF GAMING.”


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082

“EVERYTHING IS MADE FUN OF, FROM THE MORTGAGE CRISIS TO ONLINE TROLLING.”

Right Pretty much every single name in the game features a pun.

Left Invade the Facebook – sorry, Lifehacker – offices early on.

quests – and to an extent never before seen in an open-world game. Again, to go into too much detail would be to sour the joy of discovery, but brief highlights include riding atop a moving train on a motorbike, driving an ATV out the back of a cargo plane, and landing one plane inside another. And it’s a case of quality and quantity, with 69 main missions, a huge range of emergent events, and dozens of Strangers & Freaks side-quests, which really do live up to their name.

All of these, heists aside, are specific to each character, bringing the switching dynamic into play. At almost all points (not mid-mission or if you’ve got the fuzz on your tail) holding 2 enables you to take control of any of the three, whatever they might be up to at that time. And what they might be up to varies a fair amount, from Michael having a nice refreshing cup of Bean Machine coffee (the brown stuff is almost as depressingly ever-present as it is in real life), to Franklin taking his Rottweiler for a relaxing walk in the Vinewood hills, to Trevor, um, strangling a biker and throwing him into the sea.

It’s testament to just how much brilliance there is in GTA V that discussing the revamped gameplay mechanics is this low on the priority list in terms of points of discussion. Because they really are excellent. Driving feels less like trying to steer a bendy bus across an ice rink than before, with cars more responsive while still maintaining a degree of realism and, crucially, all feeling pleasingly distinct.

Shooting has been massively improved too, bearing more than a passing resemblance to Max Payne 3 (although it’s not quite as solid or rewarding). Weapons – now customisable – are chosen from a handy radial menu, and most pack a hefty punch, with enemies dropping plausibly quickly, especially if heads are being shot. Another Max Payne nod is Michael’s special power: click both analogue sticks down and the action slows to a bullet-time crawl, enabling

you to pick off enemies at your leisure. Each of three has such an ability, with Trevor able to deal extra damage and become near-invulnerable for a short time, while Franklin’s lets him drive with more precision and is easily the pick of the bunch. Each also has eight stats determining, say, stamina or flying ability (in planes, not à la Superman), which can be slowly improved by undertaking the given activity.

FUNNY HOWEverything in the game is tied together with that trademark Rockstar sense of humour, poking fun at everything from the sub-prime mortgage crisis to online trolling to the modern obsession with coconut water. There’s perhaps no unifying theme to the satire in the same way that IV was concerned with the American dream seen through the lens of illegal immigration, but rather a holistic approach to scathing


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083

REVIEW

V E R D I C T

Above There are 50 stunt jumps to complete. Or die attempting.

Right Don’t pack the Coldplay album by mistake when skydiving.

Above Our automobile crash counter hit maximum inside the first five hours.

Everything you’ve ever wanted a GTA game to be, and a whole lot more. Consistently hilarious, constantly compelling and combining never-before-seen scale and ambition. This is going to make next-gen look bad for a long time to come. Joel Gregory

THE OPM BREAKDOWN

41% Shaking your head as you simply can’t believe what you’re seeing. Again.

10% Thinking that maybe banks really aren’t that hard to rob after all…

20% Exploring the most fully realised open- world ever.

6% Flicking back over to WCTR to hear the latest instalment of Chakra Attack.

14% Helping/murdering San Andreas’ weirdo population.

W H A T Y O U D O I N … G R A N D T H E F T A U T O V

9%Jumping out of planes before realising you

have no ’chute.

S T A T P A C K

Main missions across each of

the three characters. It’s also a dirty thing

– “LOL!” etc.

Choices of ending. Wait, you

went for that one? Seriously?

What kind of person are you?

Hours played to complete the

main game. That includes a fair chunk of side

activities, mind.

150 369 41The amount, in

millions of dollars, that

you’ll have to pay in order to own the golf course.

H O W T O … F LY A H E L I C O P T E R

Planes are kids’ play, but whirlybirds are a different story. i and p ascend and descend, but in order to move forward you to need to tilt the nose downwards. This, however, will cause you to drop altitude, so pay close attention.

T R O P H Y C A B I N E T

SO

LID

GO

LD, B

ABY

RED M

IST

SAN AN

DR

EA

S S

IG

HTSEER

BRONZEComplete all of Trevor’s

Rampage missions. And yes, they’re every

last bit as bloody as they sound.

SILVERExplore all of Los Santos and Blaine

County. This one might take you a while – it’s

kinda big.

GOLDAchieve 70 gold

medals on missions and Stranger &

Freaks activities. Well, go on then…

Given its shared setting, San Andreas

has a lot it in common with V, only this outing is bigger, more detailed, and a

whole lot prettier.

S E R I E S O G R A P H Y

Gra

nd T

heft

Auto

| 8

Gra

nd T

heft

Auto

: Vic

e C

ity

| 10

Gra

nd T

heft

Auto

2 |

9

Gra

nd T

heft

Auto

: San A

ndre

as

| 10

Gra

nd T

heft

Auto

IV |

10

Gra

nd T

heft

Auto

III

| 8

GTA

: Lib

erty

Cit

y S

tori

es

| 9

social commentary about all aspects of the modern world. Our characters chase wealth, but also acceptance and a sense of contentment that they know the money can’t bring.

Despite all this praise, the game is not perfect: there’s a slight sag in the middle section, and one mission in particular is deeply uncomfortable despite the overriding message behind it (sounds cryptic, but it’ll be clear enough). But honestly, that’s about it. And I haven’t even mentioned the car customisation, the property purchasing, the stock market, or the huge range of pastimes such as tennis, stunt jumps, yoga and hunting.

There’s more content to discuss than it would be possible to mention in a review twice this long, but that’s sort of the point. And stumbling across it for yourself and at your own pace is a joy that’s almost unique. It’s no exaggeration to say

that Grand Theft Auto V releases to perhaps the highest expectations of any game in history. It’s also no exaggeration to say that it, somehow, manages to surpass them all. The finest game of the generation? It depends on your perspective. It doesn’t have the storytelling chops of something from the Bioshock stable, the emotional resonance of The Last Of Us, or the artistry of Red Dead Redemption’s ending. But there’s simply more here than in any game before, and yet quality is never sacrificed for quantity. Personal favourites will persist, but it’s hard to put anything else on top of the pile.


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084

I N F OFORMAT PS3

ETA OUT NOW

PUB EA

DEV EA CANADA

FIFA 14Doubts over champion’s title hopes prove unfounded

The trouble with iterative sports games is that, year on year, you rarely feel like you’re truly getting a new experience on first play. Familiarity breeds contempt.

So cue up The Great Escape and prepare your clumsiest Ian Holloway touchline dance, because this season EA’s footballing colossus has changed more than at any time since the series moved to PS3 in 2007. It does feel like a new game, in the very best way possible.

Happily, this isn’t down to one big gimmick, but EA Canada refining and improving upon every fundamental of football. Shooting is tied directly to player animation and therefore more natural, so a perfectly timed volley both looks and feels like one. Momentum takes into account the speed and angle at which a player is moving, enabling you to beat opponents with a well-timed turn of pace rather than a ballet-worthy trick. Defending is less risk-reward. Team-mates make clever forward runs and track opposition players properly. Central midfielders get more time on the ball. Keepers are better.

The best part is how you swiftly stop noticing these upgrades and just become attuned to the smooth, fluid football FIFA serves up – never finding yourself bemoaning the AI’s super-human ball retention skills (gone!) or Messi-esque ability to score in every match (gone!). On

receiving the game, I lost six hours to one-more-match-itis before even considering Seasons, Ultimate Team, or Career. It’s that moreish.

SCOUT’S HONOUR Which isn’t to say those modes don’t swiftly develop into huge timesinks once you dabble in them. At time of writing Seasons and Ultimate Team are tough to test given that there’s no one to play online (more next month), but Career mode has undergone as spectacular an overhaul as the on-pitch action: new scouting system, new menus, new ways to tailor it to your liking (for instance, swapping teams between leagues before you start, or switching off the first transfer

A year of change has proven fruitful for Balo, and the same is true of EA’s footy series.

window to keep real-life squads intact. Nice).

Now, new menus aren’t usually something to get overly excited about unless you’re Paddy Kenny lining up a Domino’s Two For Tuesday, but these really do transform the long-term experience. Giant rectangular panels act as your navigation tools, leading to your team-management screen, scouting network, etc. It’s easier on both eye and brain: new emails appear in the top left of the screen while simming and can be opened by tapping w – but you’re mercifully no longer forced to traipse back and forth between home screen and inbox to handle every last one.

The scouting network feels more akin to Football

@BenjiWilsonGOAL PIGGY

“I LOST SIX HOURS TO ONE-MORE-MATCH-ITIS BEFORE GOING NEAR CAREER MODE.”


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REVIEW

Manager than FIFA – and for the better. Instead of searching for potential signings using attributes, you task scouts (six maximum) to find players with specific traits: eg, ‘centre back, tall, defensive-minded’ or ‘centre forward, prolific, first-team ready’. Once they’ve found targets who match those descriptions, you see a range of attributes pertaining to each, such as ‘Pace 68-78’ – but need to scout further for those ranges to narrow.

You can still search by name, club, or league, but unless listed for transfer or loan, you only initially see a player’s age and position. Again, scouting is key. The idea is that Career offers something deeper than just matches, and it’s a sound one, with results that suit your club: as Celtic in the Championship (remember what I said about swapping leagues?) I was presented with CB options such as David Wheater and Ron Vlaar, whereas my time as

Exeter boss threw up cloggers from Scotland and Germany who I’d never heard of. (Rightly so – for all his awfulness, even Joleon Lescott isn’t quite League Two calibre. Yet.)

These Career changes amount to a giant step forward for FIFA, as is the case elsewhere. Gameplay is the best it’s been on PS3, and presentation is improved, too, with Jeff Stelling’s pre-match, half-time and post-match links upping the broadcast feel yet again. Whatever your thoughts on annual sports games, you really mustn’t miss this one unless you want to spend the next nine months feeling like a defeated play-off finalist.

V E R D I C T

Right Players with a decent Strength stat finally hold opponents off properly.

Below Spurs vs Atletico. Not pictured: Nacer Chadli loitering in no-man’s-land.

Above left From team-mate marking to goalkeepers, AI is very much improved.

With the PS4 version set for a Bale-style arrival in November, expectations were low on PS3 – but FIFA 14 is brilliant. If Wenger can finance Ozil, you can definitely afford this. Ben Wilson

THE OPM BREAKDOWN

M U LT I P L A Y E R

EA says Ultimate Team is FIFA’s most popular mode, and it shows: it’s a cinch to navigate, and introduces the ability to search for players and more customisation options, such as squad numbers. Look out for an in-depth online test next issue.

I S I T B E T T E R T H A N ?

YES

Easily hammers last year’s big rival game. Same ahead of 2014?

Find out in next month’s review.

EA’s other big ‘football’ title has

finally been left eating turf by its soccer-infatuated broski.

YES

FIFA still can’t touch PSN’s brilliant baseball effort for realism or presentation. But it’s

getting closer.

T R O P H Y C A B I N E T

PE

RFE

CTION

WH

AT A

H

IT, SON

FIR

ST

M

ISSION

BRONZEScore a perfect hat trick – left foot, right

foot and header. Actually harder than the other two here.

SILVERHire a new scout

and send him on his first mission. Brazil, you say? It’s alright

for some.

GOLDScore with a dipping

volley. Will happen naturally if, like most, you only play as Barca

or Real online.

S T A T P A C K

Overall rating for Leo Messi, the game’s best

player. Cristiano Ronaldo is next

with 92.

Maximum human players offline

– more than you’ll get on PS4,

where the top limit is four.

Premier League stadia in the

game. Everton’s Goodison Park is the sole newbie

this year.

20 794 8Licensed

Brazilian clubs in FIFA 14. The only top flight one to

miss out is Bahia. Bahia humbug.

9% Marvelling that Jeff Stelling even has lines included about the Brighton-Palace derby.

17% Skipping substitution cutscenes. (Almost instantaneously this year. Phew.)

7% Thanking the ref for correctly punishing sly tugs.

11% Changing formation with the right stick while paused. Nice add.

14% Playing mates on ‘spins’ and wishing you’d taken Hull over Hereford.

W H A T Y O U D O I N … F I F A 1 4

42%Blaming anyone

but yourself every time the

opposition score.

NO


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086

REVIEW

I N F OFORMAT PS3

ETA OUT NOW

PUB DISNEY INTERACTIVE

DEV AVALANCHE SOFTWARE

DISNEY INFINITY Expansion figures highly in the House Of Mouse’s latest

Like so many of my generation, I spent many a happy, slack-jawed childhood hour in front of Uncle Walt’s finest VHS tapes. These days, however, kids

get their Disney fix in interactive digital form thanks to Infinity – the wonders of modern technology, and so forth. In the mould of Activision’s megaton Skylanders franchise, this is a cheerful, child-friendly action-adventure, with plastic figurines you slot into a base to unlock various elements. It’s a nicely detailed trip into some well-loved franchises, albeit rather biased towards more recent characters and with a steep price tag.

The game’s starter kit comes with the USB-powered base unit, as well as three figurines: Sulley, Jack Sparrow and Mr Incredible, and each of the trio boasts its own full storyline. There’s stealthy clambering, pranking and scaring your way around a rival university’s campus as a monster; you take to the high seas in your own galleon with the pirates; and there are Omnidroids aplenty to be smashed as you face off against Syndrome. Each character has a pleasingly distinct feel to their movement, from

Johnny Depp’s slightly mincing gait as Sparrow to Sulley’s heavy lumbering. Sadly, though, you can’t slot a character into a different universe for cross-franchise funtimes.

Once you’ve exhausted the three initial worlds, you can purchase extra playsets to expand your game, with the likes of The Lone Ranger dropping you into a Wild West town with your trusty six-shooter. And then there’s Toybox mode. Essentially an LBP-esque sandbox, you’re given a plot of terrain in which to run riot. This is the one place you can mix things up, as you arrange collectibles picked up throughout your questing. Want to see Barbossa zipping about in Mr Incredible’s sportscar? Here’s your chance. What’s more, a pal can hop in, too, using any figure they like.

COSTLY CHARACTERSThe missions are split into bite-sized chunks, and you’re frequently showered with confetti for achieving even the most minor of objectives. It’s

clearly – and successfully – designed to foster a sense of constant progression for kids. It does start to get a little repetitive, however, and anyone over the age of ten or so is going to yearn for something a little more meaty to sink their remaining milk teeth into.

And there’s no getting away from that pricing. While it arguably contains a wealth of content, you’re looking at around £55 for the starter kit. Additional playsets are then around £30, and extra figures cost £12. Once pester power enters the equation, you’re talking about a hefty outlay. Still, Skylanders has proved immensely popular at a similar price point, so there’s clearly a market. Don’t bet against this becoming the latest playground must-have come Christmas.

@emcetera TOON IN

V E R D I C T

“HERE’S YOUR CHANCE TO SEE BARBOSSA ZIPPING ABOUT IN MR INCREDIBLE’S CAR.”

Toybox mode unlocks all manner of cross-franchise fun, like Iain Dowie vs Johnny Depp.

A clever use of Disney licences that kids will absolutely adore, even if grown-ups will be less enamoured by the mission – and costly merchandise – structure. Emma Davies


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088

E

I N F OFORMAT PS3

ETA OUT NOW

PUB BLIZZARD ENTERTAINMENT

DEV BLIZZARD ENTERTAINMENT

DIABLO IIIPlayStation’s latest evil in residence is the hell of the ball

This is quite the coup – the threequel to one of PC’s most revered franchises, on your PS3. Over a decade in the making, and record-holder for day one sales in

the domain of mice and keyboards, Diablo III is a true heavyweight. If you’re uninitiated but you’ve heard the buzz and glanced at its high fantasy artwork, there’s a good chance you’re expecting an epic somewhere on the scale between Avatar and the Bible. With more amulets of 2-3% cold damage.

It’s time for a bit of expectation management, then. Diablo III’s story isn’t a life-affirming parable you’ll retell to grandchildren, nor does its gameplay tear down the very foundations of the dungeon-crawler and rebuild them in its own image. Despite its hardcore fanbase and menacing iconography, this is an accessible – even casual – proposition. Oh, excuse me a second. There’s one of those hardcore fans now, asking me to sign for this parcel marked ‘Anne Thracks’.

It’s simple. Your role in the fantasy kingdom of Sanctuary is to press q until there are no more bad things. If that sounds reductive, it is a bit: there are five classes to pick, each with their own energy resources and tactical intricacies, and the bad things in question are hellspawn of myriad variation. But it’s certainly not intended as a criticism. The greatest pleasure in Blizzard’s

storied hack ’n’ slash is doing exactly that, undistracted by secondary objectives or extraneous mechanics.

A LOOT POINTDiablo III fetishises mass slaughter expertly, throwing wave upon wave of unholy meatsacks towards you from all angles and letting you enjoy the power you wield over them. Then, when beaten, those meatsacks explode in a glorious, pornographic shower of gold and loot. This is the only game on PS3 that comes close to Borderlands 2’s obsessive item drops, turning each monster into a stumbling lottery ticket that just might hold a game-changing rare crossbow when scratched.

Know a local Barbarian who’s handy with a club? Nab them for some co-op.

Further to the cause of perpetuating the slaughter, you’re served delicious XP bonuses for massacring 20 or more enemies at a time. As you level up, you gain secondary killing abilities and increased character stats (though this is about the extent of its RPG leanings). Kill to amass loot and XP. Use loot and XP to do more killing. It’s an irresistible Skinner box that actually grows more enjoyable through repetition. And it is repetitive. Once you’ve run the 20-hour gauntlet once, the done thing is to play it again on a higher difficulty against larger hordes to find even more powerful loot. And then again.

It’s an altered beast from the troubled PC version that

@PhilIwaniukDEVIL’S ADVOCATE

“MEATSACKS EXPLODE IN A GLORIOUS, PORNOGRAPHIC SHOWER OF GOLD AND LOOT.”


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REVIEW

required a constant internet connection to play and thus led to Error 37-gate when the game’s servers couldn’t handle the traffic. There’s no such requirement on PS3 – although net co-op play is available, in addition to four-player local co-op that stays coherent by not splitting the screen and instead zooming out to oversee the bloodshed from a distance.

Menus have been redesigned as radial affairs for minimal fuss, and the camera’s been drawn towards the player – handy if you’re playing the Barbarian class, annoying if you’re a ranged character like the Demon Hunter who thrives on creating space between yourself and your targets.

Aside from its console tailoring, Diablo III is a hack ’n’ slasher that feels as though its design documents have been excavated from darkest 2001, and then been lavished with the highest production values 2013 can muster.

Starbreeze’s Syndicate, Ninja Theory’s DmC and 2k Marin’s original design for its Xcom shooter were all lambasted for taking liberties with their source material, somehow missing the point of their prequels. Diablo III by contrast is nothing if not the essence of the original games, and the anachronisms it displays in everything from an absence of character customisation to low-rent animations are more endearing than underwhelming. It’s an ancient evil residing in a new place, and the marriage of Blizzard’s defiantly old-school dungeon-crawling with its mesmerising craftsmanship works unquestionably.

V E R D I C T

THE OPM BREAKDOWN

32% Agonising between the amulet that increases your dexterity, or the one that speeds your mana regeneration.

3% Hearing the ‘level up’ noise and knowing that, for a brief second, the world is all okay.

15% Doing a sick when the Grotesque explodes in a mess of corpse-worms.

17% Blowing 10,000 gold on a weapon and instantly finding a better one.

10% Not admitting the Inferno level made you weep.

W H A T Y O U D O I N … D I A B L O I I I

23%Realising that

even in the best gear your Wizard

looks like a douche.

C O M P E L - O - G R A P H

First loot drop

Find mega-rare gloves

Fail boss fight. AgainKill 30

monsters

Replay in Nightmare mode

TIME0 20 hours

LEA

H CAIN

AZM

ODAN

KORMAC

A humble lass, and early ally, with immense

magical powers.

Lord Of Sin and all-round jerk. A tough

boss showdown.

Templar knight companion with a Sean

Bean-esque accent.

F R I E N D S & E N E M I E S

Right Get behind me, Satan’s absurdly muscular hellspawn!

Below It might look intense, but this scrap’s a relative lull in the pacing.

Above left New powers unlock at each new level, but they’re not always better.

A deceptively simple and expertly constructed Beelzebub-basher, translated smartly for a platform not immediately receptive to the genre. A new approach for a modern reincarnation. Phil Iwaniuk

M U LT I P L A Y E R

Smart camera-zooming keeps the action tidy in four-player local or online co-op, and you can play the whole campaign in this way if you wish. There’s PvP duelling, too, for a deathmatch fix, but the PC game’s online auction house has been cut.

I S I T B E T T E R T H A N ?

YES

Good God, yes. Both are traditional

dungeon-dwellers, but Diablo III has superior polish and panache.

NO

P4’s dungeon-crawling has less enjoyable combat, but it’s a narrative

heavyweight.

Miyazaki’s revered RPG stacks the odds

against you with a mechanical finesse lacking in Diablo III.

NO


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REVIEW

I N F OFORMAT PS3

ETA OUT NOW

PUB SONY

DEV SONY JAPAN STUDIO

PUPPETEER A bolt of originality with no strings attached

So to defeat Snake – a general of the evil Moon Bear King – you’ve got to ride a rat through the serpent’s toxic innards before cutting your

way through its throat with a pair of magic scissors. It’s a sequence that’s essentially Puppeteer in miniature, five minutes where the game throws a completely new mechanic your way before barrelling you through a breakneck set-piece of outlandish creativity and sinister cartoon violence.

Oh, the violence. “Don’t run with scissors!” said every mum ever. “Ignore boring old Mum!” replies Puppeteer before handing you the most moreishly addictive gameplay tool on PS3 and then encouraging you to dash all over the place cutting things to shreds. They’re called Calibrus, and the snippy satisfaction that comes with making tattered rags out of a hapless boss feels brilliant, like peeling dried glue off your fingers.

Puppeteer often brings out that kind of childish delight – it’s a game for ten-year olds, both real ones and the ones we all have buried under a layer of stony adult cynicism. The world is colourful, creative and wildly diverse – you

side-scroll your way through castle dungeons, haunted forests and pirate ships, to name just three – and is brought to life with Roald Dahl-esque wit and flair by a hilarious cast of characters.

HE’S BEHIND YOUThe game continually over-indulges in its concept, however. A framed narrative sees the action playing out on an in-game stage complete with curtain drapes, cheering crowds and panto style narration. Even the pause menu is playfully daubed ‘intermission’. It’s a brilliant idea, but Puppeteer regularly forgets that first and foremost it’s supposed to be a game and is instead constantly showing off how clever it is. Each ‘act’ is punctuated by lengthy cutscenes that – while entertaining and well-scripted – inevitably end with your thumbs anxiously twitching at your neglected controller, with the musical interludes really getting on my nerves.

But that’s the only thing preventing Puppeteer from

notching an even higher score. The game hurls its madcap two-dimensional world at you with boundless enthusiasm, constantly shifting gears and giving you new things to cut with those wonderful scissors. Later on you use them to solve puzzles and propel yourself through the air, too, indicative of how Puppeteer teaches you new gameplay tricks right until the end. There’s always something new to toy with, plus wooden hero Kutaro’s ability to jam different heads on to his tiny shoulders never gets old.

The platforming itself is solid if not spectacular, but then much like LittleBigPlanet it’s the warmth and creativity of the world that counts, and the world of Puppeteer is one of the most original on PS3.

@rob_pearson86WOODEN WONDER

V E R D I C T

“MAKING TATTERED RAGS OUT OF A BOSS IS LIKE PEELING GLUE OFF YOUR FINGERS.”

“Hmm, Tuesday… I’m cutting a dragon apart with magic scissors. Sorry, can’t do drinks.”

An example of the creative talent at Sony’s disposal, it’s one of PS3’s most unorthodox exclusives. Even the lovechild of Scrooge and the Grinch would smile at this. Rob Pearson


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REVIEW

I N F OFORMAT PS VITA

ETA OUT NOW

PUB SONY

DEV GUERRILLA GAMES

KILLZONE: MERCENARY Vekta graphics can’t save Guerrilla’s missed opportunity

This is a technical marvel, you understand. Watching a game that looks at first glance indistinguishable from Killzone 3 run on Vita’s pint-sized

circuitry is one of few novelties that never really wears off throughout Aaron Danner’s handheld Higg massacre.

Textures do give away a lower fidelity when you really peer at them up close, of course. But you’re rarely given apt pause for technical note-taking before a fresh batch of future-cockney-Nazis arrives to disturb your frames-per-second count. It goes without saying, then, that this is one of the best-looking titles on the platform. The hipster in me doesn’t want to give it the accolade outright and ignore the artistry of Hotline Miami et al, but in terms of triple-A aping it’s peerless.

Where shooters have mistakenly offered an overly pared-down experience on Vita in the past (lookin’ at you, Black Ops Declassified), Mercenary swaps out larger set-pieces and introduces arcade elements without diluting the blockbuster campaign vibe. You won’t find quite the same spectacle of Killzones 2 and 3 here in this tale of a side-swapping, planet-hopping

merc, but the leaner levels make sense on the platform.

What’s more, those arcade elements enhance some otherwise tediously familiar shooting galleries by introducing points payouts for headshots, multi-kills and the like. You can spend your bounty at weapons caches, found at several points in each mission, but giving you the power to choose your own arsenal plays haywire with difficulty spikes and leaves you ill-equipped for the task ahead.

HIGHLIGHT ZONEThese niggles aren’t the sole culprits keeping Mercenary from greatness. It isn’t Danner’s fault ‘brutal melee takedowns’ have become synonymous with everything we’re growing a bit fatigued with in shooters – orange and blue, facestabs, sweary men in huge boots – but fatigue does set in during Mercenary’s love letter to those maxims.

It’s with multiplayer that the game presents its strongest case for becoming Vita’s killer

app. The occasional tedium of its solo campaign makes way for 4v4 battles on maps that have a way of amplifying the modest headcount. While we’ve yet to see how it fares in the wild, it’ll likely prove Vita’s most popular hangout spot.

You find some elements you like about shooters here, and they’re done well. You also find some elements you didn’t know you liked about shooters, such as excited ‘headshot!’ UI messages with accompanying points payouts. The problem is, those moments don’t constitute a ‘thing’. The closest Mercenary comes to having one is in its touch controls – and as satisfying as they are, the marriage of console FPS and iOS game doesn’t manage to elevate it into the realm of the exceptional.

@PhilIwaniuk

V E R D I C T

“ARCADE ELEMENTS ENHANCE SOME OTHERWISE FAMILIAR SHOOTING GALLERIES.”

Those signature eyes burn just as brightly on Vita’s screen.

A better attempt than most to strip the triple-A shooter down into a leaner portable experience, but not the blockbuster that was billed.Phil Iwaniuk

MONEY SHOT


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REVIEW

I N F OFORMAT PS3

ETA OUT NOW

PUB SQUARE ENIX

DEV SQUARE ENIX

FINAL FANTASY XIV: A REALM REBORNThe guilds are alive with the sound of grinding

You wanted the bad news first, right? Well, you’re having it anyway: at the time of writing, Final Fantasy XIV’s servers are stretched, strained and

overflowing with disgruntled adventurers unable to log in or even create characters. With the EU hubs packed like a rush-hour tube, I’m unceremoniously dumped on a replacement bus service based in Japan, which comes packaged with a language barrier and the occasional bout of lag. Great.

You’d think Square Enix would have learned its lesson after the unanimous critical mauling the original FFXIV received when it launched on PC back in 2010, but if anything the server issues are even more annoying this time around – because the game is actually good. Very good, in fact.

Manage to chisel your way through FFXIV’s scabby technical crust and you find a world that’s beautiful, intimidatingly massive and thronging with life and possibility. It’s a slow burner, too, easing you in with story quests that play out much like a traditional single-player RPG before gradually introducing you to MMO concepts – raiding dungeons, joining guilds and bonding with a gang of strangers by hacking a giant mutant mushroom to bits.

The pacing is near perfect. Swords, loot and EXP get fatter along with the monsters. Eorzea

seductively peels back its boundaries as quests take you deeper into the land and lore, with deserts, forests and bustling cities creating a real sense of adventure.

DUTY CALLSMost impressive is how streamlined it all is. A fully customisable hotbar system means battle commands and inventories are never more than a single button-press away. Although the targeting system is disturbingly skittish, the fighting itself is an accessible blend of turn-based action and real-time movement. Cooldown times on your main attacks are balanced by the fact you can nip behind opponents to dodge their offensive. Hell, stick the ‘dance’ emote on your hotbar and you can Michael Flatley your way through brawls if you fancy it – it’s a system as flexible as it is simple.

It won’t be until you party up with mates that A

Realm Reborn flexes those tactical biceps, however. The ingenious Duty Finder automatically sticks you with suitable companions according to your chosen class (you’ll always need a tank, healer and ranged fighter, for example) before letting you loose on some brilliantly designed monstrosities. Pounding these into EXP soup really is the best way to make friends.

Hopefully, by the time you read this Square Enix will have given those servers a good kick up the caboose – and if that’s the case you can stick an extra point on that score, because A Realm Reborn is the pinnacle of online adventure, and easily the best MMO on PS3.

SECOND HELPING

V E R D I C T

Series veterans will recognise the Behemoth here. And be hiding behind the sofa.

Technical teething issues aside, FFXIV is a blinding online RPG. A huge, diverse world, bags of quests and a console-friendly UI make it simultaneously deep and accessible. Play it. Rob Pearson

@rob_pearson86


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094

REVIEW

NHL 14Still plenty of bang for your puck

Comically giant foam hands in the air, please, in honour of the sports game of the year… 2008. EA Canada’s NHL

efforts have been so strong for so long that the dev has understandably adopted an ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ approach to frozen hockey of late. The end result here is a puck-smacking effort right up there with MLB: The Show and NBA 2K14 in terms of on-field authenticity, yet of limited appeal if you own NHL 13. Or 12. Or 11.1

Incorporating FIFA’s Player Impact Engine sounds like a big change on paper, and does result in more oomph to bodychecks – plus laugh-out-loud humour when a dispossessed foe hurtles icewards, coccyx over chest. But physics was something the series already did superbly, so the engine’s effect here is less significant than its implementation into EA’s footy franchise. Utilising the Fight Night engine for on-ice punch-ups amounts to a more tangible upgrade, with blocking and timing crucial when it comes to KOing your opponent. Lovers of the film Goon, rejoice. Yes, all four of you.2

One very welcome addition is NHL 94 Anniversary mode, complete with everything you remember from the series’ Mega Drive days: garish blue ice, hammy organ music, and mates calling you C-words as borderline murder on their keeper goes unpunished. You’d be mad to buy the game just for one mode, but its sped-up action provides a fun change of pace (quite literally), especially in two-player. Otherwise, this is very much the impeccably presented EA hockey game you’ve grown to know and love over the last half-decade – but the series could definitely do with some buffing from a PS4-shaped Zamboni. Ben Wilson

I N F O FORMAT PS3 ETA OUT NOW PUB EA DEV EA TIBURON

MADDEN NFL 25Veteran bruiser shows its age

During the latter days of PS2, Madden was the yardstick against which all other sports series were judged,

offering up just the right balance of on-field authenticity and off-field fun. It’s never ascended to the same heights on PS3 – which perhaps explains why EA Tiburon has finally restored the single feature that garnered it so much acclaim in the mid-noughties: Owner mode.

To some extent it’s a sensible call, with the RPG elements it introduces enjoyable for a time – hiring and firing, setting prices for everything from burgers to replica jerseys, even relocating and building a new stadium should you see fit.1 (The most fun I had was moving the Jaguars to London and making their uniforms even more horrendous than in real life.) But this living, breathing world feels entirely disconnected from the one you inhabit once on the field. There are no other scores from around the league, no seasonal stats displays, no standings – just the sense that your match exists in its own little bubble. London, Jacksonville, Mars… it doesn’t matter: you spend every contest feeling lonelier than Akon.

So while the football is generally very good – defensive AI has improved and the QB gets a true ‘pocket’ to throw from for the first time in any Madden – it’s unlikely to keep you invested long-term. Anniversary features also disappoint: a selection of videos showcasing classic players and some loading screen imagery of previous games apparently provided the sole justification for changing the title to ’25’.2 This is by no means a bad game, but it’s crying out for next-gen reinvention more than any of its contemporaries. Ben Wilson

FOOTNOTES 1 In a nice touch, you can even play as real-life

owners. Remember to boo yourself as Jerry Jones. 2 The Madden

All-25 Team is the sole anniversary feature worthy of praise.

I N F O FORMAT PS3 ETA OUT NOW PUB CAPCOM DEV SPARK INTERACTIVE

FOOTNOTES 1 The first time you fire up the floaty holo-menu you

can almost hear a distant ‘Oi!’ from Isaac. 2 Locations really are

lovely, though – this is a good realisation of an arctic wasteland.

I N F O FORMAT PS3 ETA OUT NOW PUB EA DEV EA CANADA

LOST PLANET 3A cold end to the trilogy

We can’t deny you tried, you really did. You paid attention to some other great games to try to work out

why they were great. Mainly Dead Space 2.1 But, Lost Planet 3, while you made sure the mechanics were sound, there’s just a lack of any real sparkle and a few odd choices.

Case in point: on one occasion you’re besieged by spine-spitting monsters that force you to take cover, as they do the same. It’s not that it doesn’t work (although it doesn’t), more that it simply doesn’t make sense. The world of EDN III is meant to be filled with unique alien lifeforms, so why are they basically funny-shaped men with guns?

Firearms are satisfying when pulling the trigger but, as a rule, nerfed by enemies and combat scenarios. There are Facehugger things that aren’t much of a threat but get under your feet, forcing an antsy toe-shooting circle as you try to track them. Elsewhere enemies are bullet-sponges, making shootouts laborious. Mech sections – when you’re not trekking around Hoth-like ice bases in third person, you’re stomping around in a robot suit – are also a mix of fun and slog.2 The empowerment’s nice, but mostly spoiled by the fact that areas you explore are separated by constant loading.

It all adds up to a game that’s functional and at times enjoyable, but in a derivative manner that rarely stands out. This has studied better games well and worked hard to reproduce them – only without the feel. And it is a shame, because in places Lost Planet 3 has a tangible sense of something that could have been more satisfying – a whiff of lost atmosphere and soul that haunts the game rather than makes it. Leon Hurley

FOOTNOTES 1 Consider buying 3 On 3 NHL Arcade from PSN

instead – similar but with added power-up hilarity. 2 Goon actress

Alison Pill is the spitting image of our own Emma. See p.6 for proof.


WorldMags.net




STRAIGHT TO THE BARGAIN BIN

@j0el_g

095

REVIEW

I like endless runners. I think it’s the initial mind-numbing simplicity, which then gives way to the ‘jacked into the Matrix’ sense of serene brilliance as you start to see

the obstacles almost before they come on-screen. And all of this from a genre that can be played with a pad in one hand and a beer/hotdog/BB gun in the other. Runner 2: Future Legend Of Rhythm Alien has all of these qualities (though it’s not technically endless), combined with a lovely art style, calming music that pulses in time with your actions, and a title that, I’ve just realised, is an acronym for Flora. And wherever videogames cross over with delicious buttery spreads, that’s a happy place.

I’m really not sure what’s going on in Mars: War Logs. A man called Roy Temperance is looking after a kid called Innocence, and yet this isn’t a story

about a world-weary pimp and his young stripper dependent. In fact, it’s a third-person Fallout 3 clone… but only in the same way that a man with a blonde wig and melons shoved up his jumper is a ‘clone’ of Scarlett Johansson. Clomping around a fugly world bathed in colours ranging from red to crimson to carmine, engaging in ham-fisted melee combat, or the shooting of moles in a well, is every bit as fun as it sounds. And it sounds a bit like a pneumatic ‘nails on chalkboard’ device.

Narco Terror is sort of amazing. But amazing like an episode of Dirty Sanchez, or watching a Geordie punch a horse – you can admire the bravado and stupidity

on show, even if you wouldn’t recommend it. It’s a twin-stick shooter in which a man who makes Ray Winstone look softly spoken takes down a terrorist enterprise single-handedly (or in co-op), mostly by lobbing grenades or firing off bullets that appear to be the size of an average human head. The aiming’s fiddly, everything’s frustratingly slow, and it’s relentlessly one-note… but just like guiltily chuckling at John Matrix one-liners, there’s a peverse pleasure to be taken from its idiocy.

Snowy: Treasure Hunter, I hate you. Partly because you’re a ponderous, lo-fi platformer that’s somehow both overly simplistic and needlesly complicated. But mainly due to the fact that even doing a totally flawless runthrough on some of your levels isn’t enough to win a gold medal, because of the delay between reaching the end and the timer stopping. Not cool, Snowy. Joel Gregory

ABOMINATION OF THE MONTH

Below Luffy the pirate slayer – about 2% as alluring as Sarah Michelle Gellar.

Curse you, repetitive strain injuries. My thumbs are shredded to absolute ribbons

as a result of pressing w roughly 13,973 times during this scurvy third-person scrapper. Despite spectacular moves, stretchy-limbed seamen and alluring eye candy, limited combos and endless, identical cycles of attritional war turn this colourful fighter into a bit of a shipwreck.

Based on a manga series about a dude called Luffy who can Stretch Armstrong his limbs in a jiffy, One Piece: Pirate Warriors 2 is several tasty nautical treats short of a picnic hamper. Whether it’s a member of your Straw Hat Pirates crew sporting chest globes the size of the Epcot golf ball or a half man/half robot who’s more Optimus Prime than Blackbeard, this is a seriously surreal game.

Underneath its bizarre cartoon stylings, though, lies an experience very much rooted in the familiar. Tasked with capturing enemy territory while fighting off dozens upon dozens of on-screen dastards, this is Dynasty Warriors with a patch over one peeper and squawking Macaw on its shoulder. Visually, combos are much more interesting than the

feudal Japanese series – just wait until you see a bikini-clad pirate catapult 20 men into the air with an impromptu hurricane. Yet get past the superficial gloss and combat quickly feels cripplingly limited.

FOLLY ROGER Freezing enemies with u before unleashing a devastating finisher on e to wash away countless evildoers in a tsunami of manga murder is appealing in the short term. There’s also the new ‘Haki mode’, which enables you to call in support when you’ve filled a gauge, and a higher enemy count than in the original. But no amount of graphical flair can distract you from the repetitive fisticuffs that never evolve into anything truly reactive or primal.

With exquisitely directed cutscenes and some utterly bonkers high-seas antics, One Piece’s vessel is at least brimming with esoteric charm. It’s just a pity that the hugely wearing combat ushers your sanity off the end of the plank in such a hurry.

Beautiful and bizarre, the likeably certifiable antics on show are ultimately undone by a repetitive structure, lack of ideas and undercooked scraps. Dave Meikleham

I N F O FORMAT PS3 ETA OUT NOW PUB NAMCO BANDAI DEV TECMO KOEI

ONE PIECE: PIRATE WARRIORS 2 Borked buccaneer is a bottle of glum

@OPM_DaveCAPTAIN CACK

V E R D I C T


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096

Definitive review of Cage and Page’s supernatural exclusive

BEYOND: TWO SOULS

O N S A L E

25 Oct

Subscribe on page 48

N E X T M O N T H


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097

Splinter Cell: BlacklistWe prowl around the dark with questionable men in tight trousers in Sam’s sneaky Spies vs Mercs.

98

online tests

this monthonline dlc how to trophiesmovies music

platinum club105 Hotline Miami

on your xmb102 MudMatthew McConaughey tries his

best to keep his shirt on in this

affecting boat-based drama.

how to…104 Create a custom XMB theme

music103 This month’s hottest tunes

on the store100 Dishonored – The Brigmore WitchesDaud’s story arc ends as the deadly

assassin encounters the most

fearsome broom-riders on PS3.


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MULTIPLAYER MODES PUT THROUGH THEIR PACES BY OUR TEAM OF EXPERTSonline tests

what we’re playing now

MASS EFFECT 3Joel Gregory learns that in space, no one can hear you die again and againOkay, so my Adept may look a little generic – despite his fetching light- blue suit with orange trim – but I’m sure I can learn to love him, especially

once I’ve upgraded some powers and weaponry. So I’ll just load up this map for my first experience of Mass Effect 3 online… oh, I’m down. Oh, and no one’s coming to revive me because they’re all down, too. Oh, and look we’ve all bled out and the mission’s been failed. Great job, guys! This never would have happened with Shepard on the scene. Lovely, strong Shepard…

NBA 2K13A tale of pump-fakes and heartbreak from eternal hoop-dreamer Phil IwaniukThe best victories aren’t the ones where you work diligently and outclass your opponent – they’re the ones you don’t deserve. Never is that

sweeter than in a Celtics-Knicks match-up that goes to the wire, and gets decided by a last-second three-pointer from the halfway line. Having used up my quota of those for life, I’m left to ponder what next-gen might bring to a franchise that already gets so much right.

STEALTH INCDave Meikleham picks a clone of contention with the sneaker’s leaderboardsLook, I’m not pap at games. Sure, this indie darling’s online charts will tell you I’m only the 7,243rd speediest player on its tricksy Block Bridge

stage. Yet I fail to see how some folk can blitz a level in 9.24 seconds, when my mightiest run still balloons to well over a minute. In retrospect, spending one balmy Saturday afternoon stewing like a rotating suckling swine to achieve such a meagre online achievement was wrong-headed. Next time, I’ll go out in the sun for some soda pop and a game of ball in a cup.

098

review

A lone wolf Mr Fisher may be, but his latest game really wants you to play with other people. Pre-mission briefing screens are brazen in their

desire to get you playing co-operatively, and Blacklist’s entire competitive multiplayer component appears on your strategic mission interface (because: Tom Clancy) like it’s just another arm of everyone’s favourite stealthy pensioner’s UN-flouting global assault.

In fact, it feels like an entirely different game to the refined, mechanically impeccable and endlessly customisable solo experience. Both the old-school and reimagined Spies vs Mercs modes (the former sticking with two-on-two games and non-customisable loadouts, the latter with 4v4 and custom kit) lack something of Fisher’s finesse. The first-person view and movement speed of the Merc is, perhaps intentionally, frustratingly

pedestrian, while the repertoire of acrobatics and tech arsenal of the third-person Mercs can’t match Sam’s.

These are necessary compromises. If every Spy were as powerful as Sam they’d hack all three of each map’s terminals unseen before a single Merc finished tying his boots. Likewise, the Mercs handle like tanks because if they zipped around like COD noobstompers on uppers

there’d be genocidal scenes. It mightn’t feel immediately satisfying to play either party, but they are well balanced.

They’re far from underpowered, either. Insta-kills are commonplace in the unfathomably dark corridors that make up 90% of Blacklist’s multiplayer maps. Spies’ ranged weapons are tricky to use and low- powered, but they’re unstoppable at melee

Splinter Cell: BlacklistHide and critique with Spies vs Mercs reboot

INSTA-KILLS ARE COMMONPLACE IN THE DARK CORRIDORS MAKING UP 90% OF BLACKLIST’S MAPS.

I N F O

FORMAT PS3 PUB UBISOFT DEV UBISOFT TORONTOREVIEW ISSUE #88, 8/10


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099

Seeing as I’m not a 15-year-old boy from Idaho, I no longer find wang jokes or

beating down pedestrians with sex accessories a rich source of mega-lulz. But I have to give the superpowered devil his due here, because Saints Row IV is markedly more fun in co-op. The whole campaign is playable online with a friend, including all story and side-missions, with the latter proving a perfect fit for tag-team shenanigans – just wait until you destroy a city block playing a game of telekinetic hoop toss alongside a pal. Having another Superman-shaming prez by your side also makes mowing through endless waves of aliens less of a grind, and the streamlined matchmaking ensures this is the best way to enjoy the deliriously daft sandbox.

Saints Row IVFine co-op saves

superhero sandbox

An effortless online campaign ensures the Saints’ co-op seamlessly soars over their grind-tastic solo adventures. A heroic effort. Dave Meikleham

I N F O

V E R D I C T

FORMAT PS3 PUB DEEP SILVER

DEV VOLITION REVIEW ISSUE #88, 6/10

This little piggy went to market, this little piggy had roast beef… and the other fat

oinker squealed all the way home thanks to this botched F2P effort. Imagine a take on Worms with the kamikaze-ing invertebrates and exploding sheep replaced by athletic hicks who can wall jump while battling for control of pig pens. And yes, that’s exactly as confusing and inbred as it sounds in execution. With a camera that constantly struggles to keep track of your red-necked acrobatics, flinging yourself around 2D maps as you scythe and shoot five other players all trying to carry pork scratchings-in-waiting back to their pens is exhaustingly chaotic. A cynical pay-real-human-coinage-for-better-weapons system also makes fights horribly uneven.

Deathmatch Village

There’s only dismay in this tiny town

We’ve not been this sad over a messy debacle involving pigs since Wilbur lost his cuddly spider chum. Avoid this messy, joyless affair. Dave Meikleham

I N F O

V E R D I C T

FORMAT PS3 PUB FREEKY GAMES DEV BLOOBER TEAM

REVIEW N/A

It’s a daunting feeling heading online without Fisher’s arsenal or expertise, but the smart balance of Spies vs Mercs makes for consistently tense net play. Phil Iwaniuk

V E R D I C T

distance. As a Merc you can mow down a Spy with an assault rifle, although you’re in danger of being out-manoeuvred by nimbler adversaries.

Pulling the trigger or snapping a neck is just one element of the game of hide and seek Spies vs Mercs induces. Much time’s spent with an eye on the radar, wondering which air vent they’re hiding in, or hanging upside down, waiting for that ‘Death From Above’ button-prompt to appear. Map knowledge is key.

Work through the ranks and more multiplayer permutations appear: Extraction, Uplink Control and team deathmatch. These are variations on the number of control points, the role of each side in attacking or defending the control points, or just straight up murdering each other. Spies vs Mercs was a fan favourite in previous ‘Cells, so expect to see the middling map count to extend via updates.

DATA ENTRYEach map has three control points.

Spies must hack the terminal and remain nearby (and alive) until the

hack’s complete, while Mercs must kill them. The final

terminal is like The Alamo.

Ranged weapons have their flaws, but they’re absurdy powerful at melee range.


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EMPTY YOUR WALLETS NOW WITH THE LATEST DOWNLOADABLE DIVERSIONSon the store

THE LAST OF US – INTERROGATION MODEThe 1.03 patch for Naughty Dog’s masterpiece adds a free new online multiplayer mode. Interrogation sees two teams of four trying to threaten each other’s players in order to reveal the location of a lockbox.

SAINTS ROW IV – PRESIDENTIAL PACKTired of flying around as a giant Japanese tabby? This pack lets you dress your superpowered prez as some of America’s legendary leaders, including Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Barack Obama and George W Bush.

DEFIANCE – CASTITHAN CHARGE PACKYes, Syfy’s bad telly/equally bad game crossover hasn’t had the brightest of starts, but... look over there! New creepy albino-type aliens to play as! Apart from the Castithan class, this first piece of DLC adds new charge weapons, bosses, missions and maps.

dlc

Free

£2.39

£5.99

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Those of you who’ve not played The Knife Of Dunwall – the first of this two-part story DLC – use your freeze-time power and make that purchase. It’s a

fantastic expansion to the original game and, combined with this, effectively gives you a mini Dishonored 2. It’s that good – up there with the best DLC of the generation. There are new powers, fresh factions to meet/stab and a variety of previously unseen locations.

Giving Daud a voice (the gravelly Michael Madsen) has actually made your über-powerful hitman a far more compelling character than the mute Corvo ever was, too. Halfway through his quest for redemption we genuinely wanted things to work out for him, in an only semi-murdery way.

In terms of new abilities, you have a summonable assassin that’s carried over from The Knife Of Dunwall, plus a new telekinetic power, perfect for grabbing things from a distance. This latter really does give you new options as you yank guards into throttling range unseen.

Elsewhere, the tone differs enough to be fresh, while maintaining the core feel of the game – and it has all the freedom and openness you’d expect. Imaginative and atmospheric, this fantastic chunk of DLC manages to offer something new where it counts, making it an essential download.

ps1/ps2 games

expansion

TOMB RAIDER PS1 Run, jump and give Lara a double hernia stumbling over crevasses in this iconic PS1 adventure. The dino level is worth the asking price alone. Take that, T-Rex!

RESIDENT EVIL DIRECTOR’S CUT PS1 No braaaains, no gain in Capcom’s landmark horror. Spencer Mansion may be a tad blocky, but it’s still PlayStation’s scariest pad.

TEKKEN 2 PS1 Become King Of The Iron Fist Tournament (easy: just choose the leopard-headed dude) in this enduringly punchy beat-‘em-up. Still a superior scrapper.

GTA: VICE CITY STORIES PS1 £2Take control of Lance Vance’s brother in this PS2 port of the PSP spin-off. Still with us? Good, because this ’80s jaunt is a homicidal hoot.

FINAL FANTASY VIIIPS1 This role-player verges on sickeningly sentimental and lovey-dovey, but FF number eight packs in great dollops of cracking turn-based battles amid all the angst.

£7.99

£4.79 £7.99 £3.99 £7.99 £7.99

YOUR MICHAEL MADSEN-VOICED HITMAN IS MORE COMPELLING THAN THE MUTE CORVO EVER WAS.

Dishonored: The Brigmore WitchesExtremely Daud and incredibly close to a classic


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B A C K I S S U E S

#84 June 2013#81 March 2013

#85 July 2013

#82 April 2013

#86 August 2013

#83 May 2013

#87 September 2013 #88 October 2013

Killzone: Shadow Fall

Metro: Last Light

Diablo III

Batman: Arkham Origins

Killzone: Mercenary

Tearaway

Dead Space 3

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance

A-Z Of PS4

Watch Dogs

Call Of Duty: Ghosts

The Last Of Us

PS4 reveal

The Last Of Us

Destiny

Tomb Raider

PS4 Unveiled

The Hot 50

Battlefield 4

FIFA 14

Thief

PS4 launch lineup

Bioshock Infinite

Beyond: Two Souls

PS4 Pre-Order Guide

MGS V: The Phantom Pain

The Division

PS3’s Best DLC

Watch Dogs

GTA V

The Elder Scrolls Online

Saints Row IV

To order an issue of Official PlayStation Magazine, just call 0844 848 2852or visit myfavouritemagazines.co.uk

Never miss an

issue again, and save cash

Subscribe on page 48


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on your XMB

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Even dirt and homelessness can’t quite extinguish M&M’s appeal.

coming soon

THE PURGE Ethan Hawke features in this horror/thriller combo where a family is held hostage on the one night per year when all crime is legal and the emergency services are off.

STUCK IN LOVE Greg Kinnear plays a divorced novelist still obsessed with his ex-wife, while his also-a-novelist daughter struggles in love, too. Like father…

THE BIG WEDDING Divorced couple Don and Ellie attend their adopted son’s wedding and confront their past, present and future – minus the ghost of Marley.

THE LAST EXORCISM PART II A teen seeks refuge with a Christian group as she tries to rid herself of the demons she’s possessed by.

AFTER EARTH Will Smith and son Jaden team up in this sci-fi adventure, taking place on a future Earth where everything has evolved to eat humans.

BREATHE IN The arrival of a British exchange student inadvertently disturbs the placid lifestyle of one-time aspiring musician Keith and his family.

BONES SEASON 8 Emily Deschanel keeps detecting as forensic anthropologist Bones. Like Time Team, but with 100% less beard.

BEHIND THE CANDELABRA Based on the true story, this biopic focuses on the secret relationship of flamboyance and excess between Liberace and his lover.

EPICOne for the kids, centring on an advanced civilisation of tiny forest folk. Beyoncé voices Queen Tara, while Christoph Waltz leads the bad dudes.

THE WALKING DEAD SEASON 3 Andrew Lincoln and his grubby band of allies continue to fight for survival in an increasingly hostile, Walker-filled world.

30 SEP

30 SEP

30 SEP

7 OCT

7 OCT

14 OCT

14 OCT

14 OCT

21 OCT

21 OCT

There’s a love story in there, but the film is about the trials of growing up.

blu-rays

Given that it’s one of the biggest rivers going, you’d think there’d be plenty to do along the banks of the Mississippi. But it turns out

all 14-year-old boys have to entertain themselves with is pearl diving, door-to-door fish selling, and finding mysterious boats stuck up trees.

It’s the latter of these that provides the thrust for our plot here, as Ellis and Neckbone (seriously, mum and dad?) investigate the shipwrecked vessel. It soon transpires that it’s not as abandoned as first thought, with Mud – aka the world’s most ripped hobo (Matthew McConaughey) – seeking refuge within, and soon roping the pair into his plot to get the old girl seaworthy once again.

What follows is a coming-of-age tale focusing on Ellis’ relationship with Mud, and also his perspective on love, which fuels the majority of his actions. It’s seeing, understanding and empathising with the young boy’s turbulent

emotions that is the film’s strongest suit, and actor Tye Sheridan would appear to have a bright future. McConaughey is, as ever these days, rock solid, and there’s a strong on-screen chemistry between the two.

The desolate nature of the landscape is also well-portrayed – with muted colours and a washed-out palette – and the realities of life in the region are starkly presented.

While in this regard the film is not perhaps as worthy as it tries to be, Mud is nonetheless anything but stuck when it comes to even-handed emotional exposition.Joel Gregory

MudRescuing a hull from high waters


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Those hoping for a dose of magical surrealism in the vein of My Neighbour Totoro or Spirited Away best adjust those expectations. Instead of

Studio Ghibli’s usual ‘forest spirits and soot sprites’ fare, this is a more grounded tale of Yokohama teens that’s only slightly less enchanting for ditching the fantastical elements.

Umi lives in her grandmother’s boarding house with her younger siblings – their father is dead, their mother studying abroad. She spends much of her time helping out with the day-to-day running of the place, leaving her time outside for little else outside of school – aside from her mysterious daily ritual of raising nautical signal flags. Upon meeting Shun, however, she’s dragged into a world of extra-curriculars and proves instrumental in renovating the school clubhouse.

If you’re thinking this all sounds a little twee, you are of course correct –

this is a Ghibli film, after all. But, set in the run-up to the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, it’s underscored by tensions between old and new in postwar Japan, as well as interwoven with a sweet (albeit complicated by potential-family matters) romance.

While the subject matter may be a little surprising, the art style certainly isn’t: a typically gorgeous animation with the studio’s usual charm and eye for detail. Unfurling at a gentle, meandering pace, this is an unconventional period piece that will please the eyes, if not the adrenal glands.Emma Davies

From Up On Poppy HillLow-key Ghibli proves charming as ever

music

access playstationNext-gen hands-on and launch fever as autumn rolls in

Helmets/actually holding on would seem wise when going down a hill that steep.

HOLOGRAMS FOREVERFORMAT ALBUM ETA OUT NOW PRICE £7.99

Poverty-stricken Swedish teens turn out a second album of despondent synth-punk about not having two krona to rub together. Luckily, there’s fire in their bellies, with Flesh & Bone hitting an anthemic peak. capturedtracks.com/artists/holograms

October on Access is all about the run up to PS4 launch day as we follow the first public hands-on sessions across the UK. We’ll have video reactions, new gameplay and all the info you could want before the big day on 29 November.

KORN THE PARADIGM SHIFTFORMAT ALBUM ETA 7 OCT PRICE £7.99

After a brief flirtation with the bassbin-trembling sounds of dubstep, Korn get back to what they do best: emotionally stunted nu-metal funk-outs that roughly approximate what it might be like to be lodged in Satan’s armpit. Kinda rocks, mind. korn.com

EARLSWEATSHIRTHIVEFORMAT TRACK ETA OUT NOW PRICE £0.79

Move over Tyler, The Creator, and go tell Frank Ocean: Earl Sweatshirt is shaping up to be the real hero of Odd Future. Foul-mouthed and with a vocabulary to shame the OED, this is hip-hop at its rawest and realest. earlsweatshirt.com

JESSY LANZA PULL MY HAIR BACKFORMAT ALBUM ETA OUT NOW PRICE £7.99

She might hail from the Canadian outpost of Hamilton, Ontario, but when it comes to dance music, Jessy Lanza’s got her finger right on the pulse. Her debut album, recorded with the help of Jeremy Greenspan of electro-pop duo Junior Boys, is a sweet froth of sultry slow jams and future-facing electronica. hyperdub.net


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http://korn.com

http://earlsweatshirt.com

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how to…

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1 2 3

You’ll need two things to get started: an image editing

program such as Photoshop (or MS Paint if you’re a Luddite), and a .zip file containing all the elements you’ll need to compile the theme. You can grab the zip here: bit.ly/16e7rq0. With your digital easel and canvas in place, you’re now free to let your inner Rembrandt run riot and alter the images however you please, from changing colours to redesigning images and fonts from scratch or importing photos. Just make sure you retain the original dimensions and name of each file you edit, and save them in .PNG format when you’re done, or the compiler program won’t be able to read your files later on. Follow this process to make both icons and the wallpaper, and your quixotic dreams of an all-cats XMB can be made into magnificent, if hugely unsettling, reality.

You’ve already nailed the hard part: making art

happen. Now it’s time to get techy and export those newly created art assets into a theme file that your PS3 can read. As you’d imagine, this is a bit less fun. Start by opening up separate windows for the ‘Step 1_create’ and ‘Step 2_assemble’ folders. Now drag the “PS3Theme_template.xml” file on to the ‘p3tcompiler.exe’ program within the “Step 2_assemble” folder.

You’ll see a new, DOS-like window appear as your new files are imported back into one theme package, then an unceremonious ‘done’ message once all files have been added. Way to treat our visionary new creation, p3tcompiler.exe. Your new icons and background have been merged in one installation file. All that’s left is to actually install the thing on your console.

Now we’re on the home stretch, let’s head back to

the ‘Step 1_Create’ folder and locate the newly created GIM files. These are temporary files made in the compiling process that can now be trashed. You’ll also see a new file called ‘PS3Theme_template.p3t’ which is your custom theme. Copy this on to a USB drive, creating this directory path for it to live in: \PS3\THEME. The caps are important: PS3s only read angry file directories.

Now head to ‘Settings’, ‘Theme Settings’ and then ‘Theme’, in your PS3’s XMB, and finally hit ‘Install’. Punked! You just bricked the console forever. If ‘bricked the console forever’ can be considered a synonym for ‘successfully installed your custom theme’. Which it can’t. Your console’s fine. Congrats, your new creation will now be up on your telly for all to see!

Make a custom XMB themeTake your cat-meme creating prowess to the next level

doctor playstationOur console medic fixes your tech woes with actual science

the problemThe fatigue of experiencing your PS3’s vanilla XMB theme 24/7 is more ‘minor grievance’ than ‘problem’, but if you’re a creative type, the chance to redesign it is just too tempting.

the verdictIt’s surprisingly easy to import your custom themes, but predictably difficult to create something that doesn’t resemble the brushstrokes of an artistically challenged toddler unless you’re an adept ‘shopper.

STEp 3 INSTALL YOUR CUSTOM THEME

STEp 2 COMPILE IT ALL IN A THEME FILE

STEp 1 CREATE YOUR NEW ARTWORK

next monthThe Doc takes you through calibrating your TV for the ultimate gaming experience. Next stop: inky blacks and singed retinas.


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Platinum ClubOur man is stealing trophies as well as lives in Hotline Miami

NEXT ISSUE Mr Trophy prowls about darkened alleys… and also rinses Splinter Cell: Blacklist of all its trinkets.

PATCH YOUR GAME BEFORE STARTING – THE ORIGINAL IS PLAGUED WITH A FEW

POT-KIBOSHING GLITCHES.

For the second month running we’re having memory problems: all we know this time is that the ‘80s are drawing to a close and

a series of mysterious phone calls are sending us on a murderous rampage. Just remember to patch your game before starting – the original version is plagued with a few pot-kiboshing glitches.

With that taken care of, your first task is to punch, swing and shoot your way through all 20 chapters and beat the epilogue. This unlocks most of the available masks, as long as you achieve decent scores, but a few need to be picked up on certain chapters,

so keep an eye out. For the final mask you also need to

solve a puzzle, which is an element of the game that’s easy to completely miss if you

aren’t aware of it.

In each of the first 16 chapters

there’s a tiny glowing square that unlocks a letter when picked up, and finding all of them gives you Eye For Details. You can then access the puzzle from the pause menu and rearrange the letters to spell out IWASBORNINTHEUSA, unlocking the Springsteen-inspired award The Boss and allowing you to receive the final

mask from the epilogue by using this password on the computer. With all facial adornments collected you’ll receive Zoo Keeper, and using each one at least once gives you the Sounds Of Animals Fighting gong (if you don’t like a particular mask’s enhancement you can just immediately restart the level).

Next, it’s time to mop up some of the challenges, and if you haven’t already managed to rack up a 12x combo for Combo King then the bonus level Exposed features a great open area in which to do so. To get Knife For Pros and Always On Top you need

to perform every melee attack and ground kill, but some of these involve unique weapons that only appear in a single level, so make sure you don’t miss them when completing the set.

The last hurdle to leap over is Get A Life, which is by far the toughest in the game as you have to get an A+ score on every

chapter. To boost your tally you should wear the Zack mask, as it gives you a longer combo window to chain kills together, and aim to execute as many enemies as

possible for extra points.With that out of the way, as

long as you’ve killed 1,989 enemies and died 1,000 times in the process (both very likely) then the appropriately named Trophy Addict will be yours. As getting A+ scores is highly dependent on fast reactions as well as a slice of luck, it could take anywhere from ten to 20-plus hours to wrap all the accolades up, but the prize is a satisfyingly hardcore platinum pot to add to your cabinet.

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Mr trophyIain Wilson’s PSN ID is Wilbossman, and his trophy cabinet is bigger than yours.

Platinum x 48

Silver x 1,039

Gold x 251

Bronze x 4,280

join the club

Hey! What’s the hardest

trophy you’ve snagged? Tell

us at [email protected].

Six kills = 400 points. Carry the four and that leaves the square root of mass murder.


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INFOPUB SONYDEV SONY SANTA MONICARELEASED 2007, PS2GET IT NOW PSN, £13.99

NEED TO KNOW

The game has sold over a whopping 4.2 million copies.

Corey Burton also voiced Zeus in Disney’s Hercules.

The HD remake sadly uses the original cutscenes.

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The Colossus Of Rhodes is one of the finest boss scraps you’ll find on PS2 and makes for an ace intro to the game.


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retrostation

Show Zeus’ other son who’s the stabby boss. The Pegasus flights are suprisingly graceful. It wouldn’t be GOW without a scrap against a Titan.

How do you make a deity vulnerable? After all, when you’re a strapping slab of irritable Ancient Greek muscle who can zap himself into a skyscraper-sized

slaphead, you’re not going to sweat a narked-off Harpy. After Kratos conquered Ares and claimed his godly seat on Mount Olympus in the original, Sony Santa Monica had set itself quite the challenge in creating a worthy follow-up to PS2’s most iconic actioner.

Sensibly, God Of War II immediately nerfs your antihero’s Olympian powers, reducing him to a mere… uh, near-unstoppable killing machine. Ah well, at least your freshly man-sized, surly Spartan has to contend with a sentient statue that makes the giant metal dude in Jason And The Argonauts look like a garden gnome. And that’s what really defines this sequel: scale.

As the Colossus Of Rhodes politely reveals before stomping you into a squidgy paste, it’s definitely about the size of the Cerberus in this fight. Bigger in almost every conceivable way, GOWII is a veritable kill list scrawled with the names of Greek mythology’s A-listers. It’s this irresistible combination of sprawling grandeur and X-rated monster murder that makes old

homicidal britches’ pursuit of the Sisters Of Fate such a success.

Now, while Kratos’ first tale was a lean and muscular action game carved out of sturdy combat and set-piece spectacle, it was also a bit of a tease. After opening with one of best sustained scraps on PlayStation, GOW’s mighty Hydra scuffle is followed up by just two other boss fights in the entire game. Compare that to the sequel’s dozen offerings and the increased scale of Ghost Of Sparta 2.0 is as striking as a tiara-sporting Cyclops entering the Miss Teen USA Bikini Finals.

And oh, what bosses they are. Eviscerating Perseus (cutely played by Clash Of The Titans’ Harry Hamlin), yanking off the serpent-encrusted noggin of a big-boned Gorgon that looks like a cross between Kaa and Lisa Riley, or impaling the monstrous Kraken on what’s essentially a giant fish tackle; God Of War II’s headline battles are a masterclass in spectacle and controlled fury. Oh, and did we mention the baddy

with a thousand boobs? Yeah, perhaps we’ll save that story until the young ‘uns have trotted off to bed.

What we will tell you about is the game’s impeccable pacing. Although this is an experience still based on decapitating hundreds of identical beasties, Sony Santa Monica keeps your journey constantly breezing, thanks to varied set-pieces and a revolving carousel of evocative locations.

Whether it’s clambering across the Steeds Of Time (imagine four Mount Rushmore-sized ponies) or tumbling down a near-bottomless cavern as you tussle with Icarus over his wings, God Of War II constantly cycles through grisly sights to keep you enthralled. Hell, there’s even a Pegasus flying bit where you gut an armada of Griffins.

GET SPARTA Released in the UK just over a month after PS3, Kratos showed PS2 was still capable of technical feats that could wow in the era of the Cell chip. Indeed, in terms of sheer spectacle, Sony’s new baby arguably had nothing to match God Of War II until the Titan-taming third adventure. It also proved the series could blossom without the vision of David Jaffe, as the first game’s lead animator Cory Barlog effortlessly slid into the sweary creator’s loafers to steer the sequel to critical acclaim.

It’s a dirty great barrelling boulder of a game. Relishing in over-the-top pantomime violence, God Of War II reimagines the works of Homer and Hesiod as an R-rated Ray Harryhausen picture where gory polygons, not plasticine, prove God is a Greek.

Each month we celebrate the most important, innovative or just plain great games from PlayStation’s past. This month we drop in on everyone’s favourite constantly irate immortal, as Kratos looks to reverse his fate in a monumentally murdery sequel

M i n o t a u r c r a f t

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IMPALE THE MONSTROUS KRAKEN ON WHAT’S ESSENTIALLY A GIANT FISH TACKLE.


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It was sack to the future for OPM #24, as we went crazy for the debut of a certain game named LittleBigPlanet

IF YOU’RE CRYING OUT FOR SOMETHING DIFFERENT, THEN GET INVOLVED – THIS IS ONE OF THE MOST IMAGINATIVE AND REWARDING BLASTERS OF THE YEAR.

1

Guess the four games, and their scores, from these review quotes

Name that game

OPM TIME MACHINE

5 YEARS AGO

Above So many weapons and so much shooting to enjoy them with… As Operation Flashpoint 2: Dragon Rising attempted to reinvent the FPS, we took an in-depth look at its arsenal, asking if it could be too hardcore for the Call Of Duty crowd.

Far left Dead Space’s gore factor meant rumours of it being banned abroad came as little surprise. Good job it hit UK shelves.

Left We heard, saw and spoke Evil in a world-exclusive chat with Shinji Mikami.

ANSWERS1. Borderlands 2, issue #76, 9/102. Duke Nukem Forever,

issue #60, 4/103. Final Fantasy XIII, issue #43, 9/104. Madden NFL 07, issue #05, 3/10

STAY WITH IT AND YOU’LL BE SMITTEN THROUGH TO THE UNBELIEVABLE END. NO DOUBT.

3

OVERALL IT’S A MESS OF CONCEPTS, EXPECTATIONS AND EXECUTION. THERE AREN’T ANY HIGHS AS SUCH, JUST MOMENTS OF NOT SUCKING.

2

THE BEAUTIFUL GLOSS MASKS A HORROR SHOW OF A GAME. IT’S LIKE BUYING A FERRARI ONLY FOR IT TO FALL TO PIECES AS YOU DRIVE OUT OF THE DEALERSHIP.

4

Below left Who’d have thought a sack doll could do so much? We delivered the verdict on LittleBigPlanet.

Below right We spoke to inFamous director Nate Fox and got exclusive shots of the superhero epic.

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This isn’t fair. Not really. All the rest of the team have had to do is play a game they have a moderate distaste for. I, however, am being forced to

play something that could well cause a large amount of psychological distress. I should probably inform HR.

The idea of horror games does absolutely nothing for me. Movies I can understand, and even tolerate – other people’s shoulders make a marvellous shield, after all. At least cinema’s a medium I can take in passively – forcing myself to physically push on through the fear with a pad holds no appeal. I thought games were meant to be fun?

Initially, I actually surprise myself. The first of the three Blood Curse episodes I play resolutely doesn’t scare me. Instead, I’m just rapidly frustrated by the awkward control scheme

and limited visuals. Why can’t I look around properly? Why don’t I have any weapons? Why is it so goddamn dark? One cheap jump shock aside – at which, I admit, I may have screamed a little – I am a very brave girl indeed. Episode two is slightly less irksome, but only mildly more chill-inducing. Hey, maybe I’m not such a wimp, after all!

By episode three, however, I am not a happy bunny. I’m playing a small child, trying to escape from a terrifying abandoned hospital. Creepy operating theatre? Check. Evil nurses making ominous-as-all-hell noises? Check. Hiding in an incinerator, desperately hoping those legs I can see through the peephole don’t turn in my direction? Oh God, check. I find myself consulting the map a lot, simply to give myself frequent breaks to recover. Then, just as I think I’m safe, a man starts yelling at me about how he’s going to get me. I don’t like this any more. Frantically, I hit the ‘off’ switch. I’d like some warm milk and a cuddle now, please.

WHO?Emma Davies only watches horror films if she can do so from behind a pillow. The Dark Knight Rises gave her nightmares, and she still half-believes there are monsters under her bed.

Don’t like it. Never tried it. Every month we force one of the team to play their most feared game

INFOPUB SONYDEV SONY JAPAN STUDIORELEASED 2008, PS3GET IT NOW PSN, £10.99

It was playing as young Bella (top right) that eventually broke Emma. Because nothing says ‘abject terror’ like a powerless little kid being pursued through the dark by nurses with bleeding eyeballs.

DON’T MAKE ME PLAY!

SIREN: BLOOD CURSE

OPERATING THEATRE? CHECK. EVIL NURSES? CHECK. HIDING? OH GOD…

WHAT?This third-person survival horror sees you doing your utmost to avoid death at the hands of the zombie-like Shibito. The Sight Jacking mechanic enables you to see through enemies’ eyes… making hiding from them even tenser.

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BIOSHOCK INFINITEPerhaps the best narrative of the entire generation brings one of its finest series to a staggering climax. The original game would be well deserving of a place, but the mind-boggling revelations here run a whole lot deeper.

PORTAL 2Only Valve could turn advanced physics, impossi-puzzles and a voice cast comprised of a disembodied AI and Stephen Merchant into such a unique and undeniable work of genius. Hands down the funniest first-person experience on console.

MASS EFFECT 2While Bioware’s trilogy-ender sends Shepard out in fine style, it’s the middle slice of the delicious sci-fi sandwich that remains its best. A brilliantly scripted action-RPG, the closing ‘suicide mission’ provides an incredible finale.

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THE ELDER SCROLLS V: SKYRIMHad it worked from the off? Top ten, no doubt. It’s testament to this impeccably detailed dragon-blasting RPG that even after the issues, Skyrim is still one of PS3’s biggest and best open worlds.

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GRAND THEFT AUTO IVSharply satirical and legitimately funny, this sandbox feels uniquely relevant to real life, with its jibes at reality TV and dark tale of the American dream gone wrong. Liberty City also conveys a brilliant sense of life and is huge fun to drive around.

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HEAVY RAINFrom controversial purveyor of interactive cinema David Cage comes this psychological thriller that plays like no other game on the system. So many games promise real consequences to your actions, but none deliver like this masterpiece.

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METAL GEAR SOLID 4: GUNS OF THE PATRIOTSThe most gleefully playful and imaginative stealth game ever. Whether you’re watching a monkey slurp soda or revisiting the site of the PS1 original, no game honours its past so poignantly.

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CASTLEVANIA: LORDS OF SHADOWBest-in-class adventure-brawler that manages to refine every mechanic of the genre, all while layering on inventive puzzles and an epic narrative. Plus the ending is jaw-drop fodder, make no mistake.

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CALL OF DUTY 4: MODERN WARFARESimply the finest COD ever made. From that nuke to Captain Price’s mesmerising ghillie suit stealth mission, few games can match Modern Warfare’s thrilling scripted spectacle.

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DARK SOULSAkin to nothing else you’ve ever played. It may be impenetrable like an Amish girl’s undercrackers, but persevere and there’s a brutal and beautiful challenge within that you will never, ever forget.

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BATMAN: ARKHAM CITYThe most compelling bit of Bats action money can buy… that doesn’t involve Heath Ledger’s Joker. Thanks to an acutely detailed open-world chunk of Gotham, Rocksteady’s classic is simply the best superhero game ever made.

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RED DEAD REDEMPTIONA near-perfect open-world fusion of engaging storytelling, truly compelling characters and a living environment ripe for experimentation. No sandbox since has got us quite so invested, and the bold ending still resonates to this day.

THE LAST OF USPS3’s premier developer proves a misbehaving pooch can learn new tricks in this extraordinary apocalyptic adventure. Blending intense horror, ferocious shooting and a wonderful script, this is one of the most emotive games in history.

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ICO/SHADOW OF THE COLOSSUS HD The only double bill that lets you hold a princess’ hand before stabbing up a labradoodle-cute monster the size of a shopping centre. Both games share the capacity to make you cry like nothing else on PS3.

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UNCHARTED 2: AMONG THIEVESThe game that sparked a million mancrushes set the new standard for adventuring, with a perfectly pitched script, crunchy combat and set-pieces like no other. Highlights come thick and fast – the train! Flynn’s heel turn! Chloe! Tibet! That ending! – so while sequel Drake’s Deception is on par in quality terms, it’s Among Thieves that’ll go down as the iconic PS3 game. In three words: unprecedented. Unequalled. Uncharted.


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GRAN TURISMO 5Still the king of racers, even though it trundled up to the starting grid in neutral upon its tardy release. Polyphony’s patches have since made this an irresistible love letter to locomotion, with more Skylines than the view from the Shard.

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THE ORANGE BOXIt’s not a great port. But it’s a not-great port of one of the all-time best games in Half-Life 2 (plus Episodes One and Two), magnificent puzzler Portal, and fearsomely well-designed class-based online shooter Team Fortress 2. Absurdly good value.

BULLETSTORMUproarious shooter with an ingenious twist – a scoring system that rewards kills according to their goriness. As colourful as it is crass, there’s nothing on PS3 like it, and its lack of a sequel is one of this generation’s greatest travesties.

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ASSASSIN’S CREED IIUndoubtedly the finest entry in one of PS3’s foremost franchises, this is the realisation of all the promises made in the original. An engaging lead character, open-ended hits and diverting side-missions are what this series should be about.

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SUPER STREET FIGHTER IVEarns the distinction of PS3’s best fighter for adding an unbelievable amount of polish and tweakability to SFIV’s endlessly playable comeback kid. New characters arrive perfectly balanced and drenched in that wonderfully distinctive art style.

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19 LA NOIREIf the delivery had matched the scale of its ambition we may well be talking about the greatest game ever made. And while it couldn’t quite manage that, what we’re left with here is a deep, bold and thoughtful experience.

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DISHONOREDA daring new IP that came from nowhere and at once resurrected a treasured bygone era of open-ended stealth gaming, turbocharging it with supernatural abilities. You’re empowered on the streets of Dunwall like nowhere else in the genre.

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FIFA 13Every team, every kit, every gigantic swear when you lose a nail-biter with seconds to spare. And yet who doesn’t insist on getting instant revenge with ‘just one more game’, every time? That’s the genius of this footy classic.

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BORDERLANDS 2The best co-op experience on the system, and one of a precious few that manages to weave a worthwhile plot in among those multiplayer mechanics. It also looks gorgeous and features the most (bizarre) weapons in history.

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FAR CRY 3The open-worlder that lets you duff up a komodo dragon with your fists is a brilliant example of thoughtful sandbox design. With a hugely addictive crafting system, Jason Brody’s island shooter is stuffed full of wonderful distractions.

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LA NOIREPhil Iwaniuk ponders the crime caper that was almost a McNamasterpieceIf only all failures turned out this well. A few hours into this class act of a period procedural, it’s clear that some of Team Bondi’s grand ambitions went a bit squiffy during its considerable development time. What you’re left with isn’t as player-driven as expected, but it’s nontheless a world rich with old Hollywood allure and absolutely unique gameplay.

UNCHARTED 3: DRAKE’S DECEPTIONJuanita Tsikata is all love and NateThe latest instalment of Naughty Dog’s franchise takes the gong. I still find myself mesmerised by the stunning graphics every time the need for a spot of treasure-hunting calls. So, even though I’ve never played the game on Crushing difficulty, due to my gung-ho, guns-blazing, shoot-in-every-direction tactics, this game will always be one of my favourites.

BATMAN: ARKHAM CITYKonami’s Manorito Hosoda is all about the superhero shenanigansI like the Batman films anyway, and then this was pretty simple [gameplay] while also being an open world. You can clear missions by using [your] equipment. It’s a little like the inFamous games, which I also love for the freedom they offer the player. I can’t wait to see where this type of non-linear game goes in the next [console] generation.

The games that we – and you – hold in the highest regard

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I FIND MYSELF MESMERISED BY THE GRAPHICS EVERY TIME TREASURE-HUNTING CALLS.

Bruce Wayne’s wealth of gadgets and gizmos in open-world Arkham was enough to secure the admiration of Hosoda.

MENAGE-A-JEUX

Personal picks

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HOTLINE MIAMIPart puzzler, part top-down murder-‘em-up that’s as brutal as almost anything else on PlayStation. It’s hard but never frustrating, with instant restarts and lightning-fast gameplay.

BROTHERS: A TALE OF TWO SONSEngrossing, varied and touching, this Nordic puzzler offers a unique variety of single-player co-op as you take control of one sibling on each analogue stick.

THE WALKING DEADWith this episodic zombie series now drawn to a close, it stands among the best downloadable games ever, with emotional ties and tangible consequences for your actions.

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PIXELJUNK SHOOTERIt was expanded on by the sequel, but the inventiveness and satisfyingly simple twin-stick gameplay mechanics of the original mean that this is still the best PJ title around.

LARA CROFT AND THE GUARDIAN OF LIGHTIgnore the looks and know that this is one of Lara’s finest outings ever. Great two-player action plus loads of treasure hunting. A co-op essential.

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MLB 13: THE SHOWThe long wait is over: the best sports series around has landed in the UK with ace presentation, deep but approachable gameplay, and a life-sapping Franchise mode.

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LIMBOThis understated, monochromatic tale of a lone boy’s escape from a danger-filled forest is as gorgeous as it is frustrating. A glorious combination of eye-caressing art and gut-punching gore.

STACKINGTim Schafer puzzler-cum-adventure-cum-headtrip in which you solve mysteries by stacking Russian dolls with unique abilities. Intelligent, insane and totally immature.

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THOMAS WAS ALONEPlatform-puzzler that manages to imbue a bunch of quadrilaterals with personality thanks to a witty script and clever gameplay mechanics. A shining example of making a lot out of a little.

BRAIDIf you want to make the argument that games are art, this is the place to start. An achingly beautiful hand-drawn style combines with brilliant but brutal time-bending puzzles.

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PAC-MAN CHAMPIONSHIP ED DXHow do you update an all-time classic? Why, up the pace, throw in loads of neon and add some of the most satisfying sound effects ever. Sold!

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RESIDENT EVIL 4 HDOne of the best games on PS2 gets a hi-def makeover. Still the pinnacle of survival horror, you’ll get scared, shooty and decapitated by a chainsaw. And that’s a triple win, quite frankly.

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OKAMI HDBeautiful like Nathan Drake standing in front of a Hawaiian sunset, this tale of a wolf goddess and her celestial paintbrush is still unique six years after its original release.

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FLOWERMore ‘experience’ than game, this collect-’em-up sees you steering a petal on the breeze by tilting your Sixaxis. It’s a soothing mix of colour and music; a lovely deviation from frantic action.

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JOURNEYAn object lesson in how less is more, this two-hour voyage crafts an incredible, immersive narrative and a genuine emotional connection using little more than near-silent figures, marvellous sand physics and floating pieces of cloth. A remarkable and unique experience, as well as a new high for PSN gaming.

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VIRTUE’S LAST REWARDThis visual novel/puzzler just gets better over its 40 hours. The dialogue’s engaging, and however tough it gets you’re never left rage-scouring for clues.

2 FIFA FOOTBALL The sequel’s a shameful rip-off that only updates kits and rosters, so unless you find them both for the same price, this entry is still the best way to get a footy-on-the-move fix.

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LITTLEBIGPLANETSackboy’s back, smaller but just as loveable as ever. His platforming antics work perfectly on Vita, and the new control inputs complement the level creator brilliantly. Also: d’awww.

4 SUPER STARDUST DELTAHR policy frowns on heroin, but we can’t imagine this is any less moreish. An ace port of the PSN shooter, you’ll never stop scratching the high-score itch.

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METAL GEAR SOLID HD COLLECTIONTwo of PlayStation’s finest adventures scale down beautifully, with enough cutscenes to fill a transatlantic flight. Even less excuse not to play, then.

6 URBAN TRIAL FREESTYLETaking more than a little inspiration from its Xbox counterpart, this tricks and tracks biker is absurdly addictive. ‘Restart’ will take quite the hammering.

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GRAVITY RUSHUse a gravity-defying cat to break the laws of physics and zoom across the skies of a floating steampunk city. With stylish comic-book looks and a sassy heroine, this is a rush to remember.

3 TALES FROM SPACE: MUTANT BLOBS ATTACK Simple but gloriously addictive. Make your ball of goo grow to vast proportions in this B-movie romp, taking in all the pop-culture zingers in the background.

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LUMINES: ELECTRONIC SYMPHONYPart block puzzler, part mobile disco, this is as certain to have you nodding along to ace choonage as it is to keep you returning for more reflex-testing action.

5 BLAZBLUE: CONTINUUM SHIFT EXTENDThere’s almost too much content here – the wealth of game modes is a total nerdgasm for fans, and the characters are insanely diverse.

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UNCHARTED: GOLDEN ABYSSDrake proves he’s just as adept at adventuring on the go. A prequel story that’s classic jungle action, and crammed full of typical Uncharted charm.

7 UNIT 13 Free of any half-arsed story or COD-posturing, this shooter embraces Vita’s features without being gimmicky. Its solid mechanics make the generic warfare more than forgivable.

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RAYMAN ORIGINS He of no limbs finds the perfect home on Vita’s OLED screen. Beautiful visuals and flawless platforming make Rayman a handheld delight of quirky cartoon ridiculousness.

8 ULTIMATE MARVEL VS CAPCOM 3 Imagine the full-fat version, only smaller. Now add some optional nonsense touch controls, all the DLC characters and a near-PS3 level of prettiness.

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PERSONA 4: GOLDENIf ever a game could make you forget the existence of anything outside the Vita’s screen, it’s this thoughtful and unique JRPG epic. Essentially it gives you another stab at high school – this time with intrigue, mystery and superpowers instead of acne, nerves and an unpredictable vocal register.

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Big Boss bonding Signing off with MGS4’s final cemetery salute

Smoking really is bad for your health… and, as it turns out, your tear ducts. The moment Big Boss and

Old Snake put two decades of bad blood behind them over a fateful, distinctly final cigar puff is perhaps PS3’s most emotional moment. Ambiguous, reflective, redemptive; the father and cloned ‘son’ share a cathartic goodbye that puts a full stop on a series obsessed with philosophising, 007 references and arse gags.

Series creator Hideo Kojima famously loves to talk players’ ear canals off until they flood full of

sad-faced exhaustion – and the ending of Metal Gear Solid 4 is by no means an exception. An ultra marathon of exposition-heavy cutscenes, it juxtaposes a manic depressive cyborg playing 2.4 children with a wedding involving a dude suffering irritable bowel syndrome over 90 increasingly draining minutes.

How Kojima somehow steers the ship away from the motor-mouthed iceberg that threatens to sink the climax of a 21-year-old saga is a minor miracle.

Starting with a tease of Snake topping himself in a graveyard,

a post-credits epilogue reunites your stealthy pensioner with his pop for the first time since the series’ days on the MSX2. After 15 minutes of prattling about evil AIs, Big Boss is suddenly stricken by a deadly dose of FoxDie – MGS’ covert, killer pathogen.

As the life slips out of Snake’s father, the hostility between the two fades. Cryptically murmuring “This is good, isn’t it?”, Big Boss takes one last drag on his stogie, reuniting the two Metal Gear icons on-screen for the first time on PlayStation in a wonderful moment of quiet reflection.

FORMAT PS3 / PUB KONAMI / DEV KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS / RELEASED 2008 / SCORE 10/10

No.5

SPOILERALERT

LOOK AWAY!

Heavy Rain Drop in on

PlayStation’s most down Dad,

as Ethan Mars does some homework

with his son.

Next Month

Batman: Arkham Asylum Join The Dark Knight as he suffers a trippy boyhood dream.

Last Month


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