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PC Powerplay|Issue 282WORLDS ENOUGH, AND TIMEOne of the very best perks of this job is being able to get a glimpse of great games ahead of the curve. It’s also one of the oddly annoying things, too – and in the case of this issue’s cover feature, it’s even worse. Yes, I have gotten to play a bit of Cyberpunk 2077. Yes, it is looking as good as all the hype suggests, and yes, I am now gnawing my own limbs off in anticipation of the game’s final release. I cannot say any more forcefully that five hours simply wasn’t enough, and that I am already deeply invested in this game. But I gotta wait.Thankfully, it’s not as if there’s not a whole mess of games I can sink my teeth into in the meantime,…1 min
PC Powerplay|Issue 282SUPER COLLIDERMost games are about one thing hitting another. A bullet and a soldier’s head; a platform and your foot; a sword and a demon’s arm; a jaw and a Shoryuken. And that means a lot of games are all about hitboxes, the invisible geometry which tells them when things collide.But while they’re ubiquitous, hitboxes also exist in a thorny tangle of hard math and soft player perception. There’s a real art to making them feel great to play with, and there’s real genius in getting them to work right, since computers are surprisingly bad at dealing with collision. The result is that different games take completely different approaches to the ways hitboxes work.In games like Monster Hunter World, your character’s hitbox pretty much matches what you see, so you can…5 min
PC Powerplay|Issue 282A COLLECTION ASIDELuckily she’s created her version of a blanket fort; Rimworld, where she’s been stockpiling rice and chocolate. Indeed, the threat of impending doom neatly ties together this issue’s collection, including vengeful, encroaching armies and murderously negligent hospitals. Even Thimbleweed Park’s Delores, in her own standalone adventure, notices ominous signs that things are not quite right. Read the indie pages, or hide under your bed’s covers. We respect your decision, either way.RIMWORLD: ROYALTYDEVELOPER Ludeon Studios PRICE $28.95 RELEASE Out now.ONLINE https://store.steampowered.com/app/1149640/RimWorld__Royalty/As you may recall, at the end of the last collection, I was neck deep in spiders, thanks to one of Rimworld Royalty’s many hilarious, new quests, involving a greedy pawn and his penchant for jelly. The expansion had arrived like appetising raiders to a hungry ice sheet (I devoured this…12 min
PC Powerplay|Issue 282HUMANKINDI SOON HAD A SECOND SETTLEMENT IN PLACE WHICH GAVE ME ACCESS TO HORSES.You start Humankind as a nomadic tribe in the Neolithic era. The wilderness around you holds pockets of treasure: a resource deposit here, a volcanic pool there. As I move my tribe across the map I’m rewarded for discovering the Great Blue Hole, a circular underwater ravine. I’m discovering the world, and I haven’t built my first settlement yet.Amplitude’s strategy games have been getting better and better since the studio formed in 2011. The Endless Space series introduced some truly bizarre factions to the space 4X formula, but Humankind owes more to the studio’s fantasy game, Endless Legend. Humankind has many similar features, in the way that your cities grow district by district, and battles taking place…3 min
PC Powerplay|Issue 282ESCAPE YOUR WORLDSometimes the real world weighs heavy on us all. This year, it’s felt like about 2,020 kilos’ worth. It can make luxuries like videogames feel pretty frivolous. But, at the same time, your PC can provide the perfect escape.Virtual worlds, despite more often than not being embroiled in their own wars and conflicts, are happier, simpler places, where everything makes sense and, as long as you keep plugging away, you’re always making progress towards resolution and success. They can show you beautiful, impossible things; provide a sandbox for your creativity and imagination; or just be a warm and pleasant space to exist in for an hour or two.When times are dark, that’s a magic worth celebrating more than ever, not dismissing. Over the following pages, that’s exactly what we’re going…1 min
PC Powerplay|Issue 282Peak PerformanceHereby, I offer my apology to every environment artist working in games, past, present, and future. How many hours do they spend creating lavish, gorgeous, massive open worlds? Hundreds?Thousands? Huge teams spend years bringing to life spaces we could only dream of exploring – resplendent fantasy vistas and detailed historical reimaginings both. And how do I respond to this work? By running face first into a mountain.IT TURNS OUT THERE’S ESCAPISM IN PREDICTABILITY AND ORDER.My strongest memories of Skyrim are of being pressed against a cliff texture. Yes, it’s a game filled with big moments – the dragon attacks, the dramatic battles, the fun sidequests discovered in unlikely locations – but those are punctuations on a game that’s often about simply travelling through an enormous world.Less than an hour into…3 min
PC Powerplay|Issue 282Rising SunWALK THE STREETS OF KAMUROCHO AND YOU’LL HEAR MUSIC LEAKING FROM BARS.It’s interesting how two of the most atmospheric, detailed and well-realised worlds on PC – Yakuza’s Kamurocho and Shenmue’s Yokosuka – are among the smallest. Each game presents a painstakingly recreated, but economical, slice of Japanese life, rooting their fantastic stories of revenge and conspiracy in a lavishly mundane reality. In both games, a grimy Tokyo real estate office or a budget travel agent will have as much detail, if not more, as the story’s more glamorous locations.In the Yakuza series we explore a semi-fictionalised version of Kabukicho, Tokyo’s infamous red light district; in Shenmue, the port city of Yokosuka. By the standards of most games, these are small spaces. But by focusing on a few streets, rather than…3 min
See Also
Moira Is Still the Best Designed Character in 'Overwatch 2'So Far, 'Battlefield V' Seems to Sand Away the Heart of 'Battlefield 1'[H] 600+ games [w] Wishlist, TF2 Keys, Gems (I WILL NOT READ UR LIST) (UPDATED JUNE 20)Nova PlayStation Plus chega ao Japão; veja a lista com os jogos disponíveis - GameHallPC Powerplay|Issue 282Extra, ExtraI TAILED HER FOR A LONG TIME AS SHE RODE OVER HILLS AND THROUGH FORESTS.The most compelling open worlds are the ones that feel like they would exist even if you never visited them, and the key to that illusion is to fill the world with convincing people. I’m not talking about the main characters, the quest-givers, or the speech-makers. I’m talking about everyone else – the background extras that fill the gaps in the world, the ones you tend to barely notice unless you slow down and start paying attention to them.Early in my life as Arthur Morgan in Red Dead Redemption 2, I came across a woman being abducted. After killing her kidnapper and cutting her ropes, she thanked me and told me she was going back home.…3 min
PC Powerplay|Issue 282Take it SlowEVERY MISSION FELT LIKE A REAL JOURNEY, WITH ALL SORTS OF DIVERSIONS.Fast travel is ubiquitous in open world games. I get why – it’s a time-saver in an industry more packed with massive games than ever. But I think it also undermines the scale of these virtual realms.More and more I find myself swearing off using it completely. Riding across the dunes of Assassin’s Creed Origins, I experienced so much more of a genuine sense of place than I would have zipping around the map. I came to learn the geography and its landmarks, and every mission felt like a real journey, with all sorts of diversions and twists along the way as I stumbled into other events and sidequests.Give it a try, next time you pick up an open-world…1 min
PC Powerplay|Issue 282TOOLS OF THE TRADEDISTRACTIONSGet guards to look the other way with cute animals, loud noises, or flirty conversation, then sneak past them or stab them in the back.TRAPSKeep your hands clean by making enemies walk underneath precariously balanced rocks, loose scaffolding, or your own nasty bear trap.GUNSWhen you get tired of sneaking around, take out groups of enemies quickly and loudly with guns. If that’s not loud enough, find some dynamite.MAGICThere’s witchcraft in the Wild West now, letting you possess humans and animals, or even magically connect enemies so you can kill with one shot.…1 min
PC Powerplay|Issue 282UNDEAD REDEMPTIONI’ve never been so pleased to see a witch. Wearing an antlered skull, and emitting the kind of presence you feel long before you see, “like a storm rolling in” according to Ron Perlman’s tar-thick voiceover, in another game she might be an end-of-level boss. In West of Dead, a roguelike set in a lugubrious wild west underworld, your interactions with her are the only persistent progress you can make.It always begins in the bar. However deep you get through the crypts, the snowcapped wilds where dogs prowl, the deepest mines of purgatory, death spits you right back here, minus whatever weapons, upgrades and abilities you picked up on your last run. So you dust yourself off and head down into the crypts all over again, picking up a couple…4 min
PC Powerplay|Issue 282LIGHT MY PYREHell is empty and all the devils are here. By here I mean on this train, teaming up with monsters to fight angels across the frozen wasteland that used to be their home, until they reach Hell’s heart and relight it with the last Pyre-flame. Surprisingly, the game beneath that wild idea is a deckbuilder so similar to Slay the Spire if I hadn’t seen the creators of both talking chummily on a livestream I’d have been a bit suspicious.Like every deckbuilder, the point is to discover combos.Where Slay the Spire had relics that changed the nature of a run, Monster Train has artefacts that sometimes have basically the same abilities. STS had unlockable difficulty levels called ascensions, Monster Train calls them covenants. I found myself not minding lack of…4 min
PC Powerplay|Issue 282COUNTER-SPIKEIt’s wild how quickly Valorant has captured the collective consciousness of FPS fans. Riot’s competitive shooter is just barely out of beta, yet it already stands toe-to-toe with the biggest games in its genre. It helps that Valorant comes from a gigantic studio and that its deviously smart partnership with Twitch streamers to selectively hand out beta access gave it a running start. But that enormous marketing push wouldn’t mean much if Valorant weren’t also very good.Valorantis the more accessible Counter-Strike I didn’t know I wanted.It’s true that Valorant is Riot’s best crack at Counter-Strike, but the ways it remixes Valve’s blueprint are what make it excellent. Anonymous gangs of counter-terrorists are replaced by a cast of vibrant agents with talents that match their personalities. It has the same upbeat…4 min
PC Powerplay|Issue 282AMD Ryzen 3 3100 and Ryzen 3 3300XPRICE AMD Ryzen 3 3100 - $175, AMD Ryzen 3 3300X - $205 ONLINE www.amd.comRemember that time just a couple of years back when a quad core CPU was regarded as high end? How far things have come! The new Ryzen 3 3100 and 3300X bring 4-core/8-thread computing to the masses. Along with 10th Generation 4c/8t i3’s, serious multi-threading power will now be found in all but the very cheapest PCs. The bar has been raised.Zen 2-based Ryzen 3000 processors launched in July 2019, with the range slowly filling out over the following months. Curiously, AMD didn’t address the low end of the market until now, with discounted Ryzen 2000 series and the Zen+ APUs filling this market segment. That’s all changed now with the release of the $175 Ryzen…6 min
PC Powerplay|Issue 282WAR WITHOUT ENDINFINITY WARD BALANCED THIS HELLISH GAME OF CHANCE WITH A SOMBRE TONE.There have been two Infinity Wards. The first invented Call of Duty; the second saved it from diminishing returns. In the middle was a cataclysmic event in game development, one that played out in public and left a world-famous studio forever changed.The origin point of Call of Duty, when you get down to it, was actually Medal of Honor: Allied Assault. While still under the auspices of a company named 2015 Games, the nascent Infinity Ward team established a new paradigm for first-person shooters.Where FPS protagonists in the preceding decade had been unstoppable steam trains let off the rails, Allied Assault’s Lt Mike Powell was unnervingly human – all too vulnerable to machine-gun nests and mortar fire, which seemed…5 min
PC Powerplay|Issue 282TWITCH SAYS US ARMY’S FAKE GIVEAWAYS VIOLATED ITS RULESWe learned last month that the US Army’s Twitch stream was being trolled by viewers who, instead of focusing on the games or players — the Army has its own esports team — insisted on asking about war crimes. The pointed questions put a spotlight on the dubious (some would say extraordinarily unethical) practice of seeking out recruits from among an audience that contains many young, impressionable gamers, and on top of the “UwU”ing being generally objectionable to many, it turns out the Army may have been outright decietful in its efforts.According to a report by The Nation, Army Esports streams on Twitch regularly featured an automated chat prompt with a link that promised a chance to win an Xbox Elite Series 2 controller. But Twitch viewers who clicked the…4 min
PC Powerplay|Issue 282BAD HITBOXESRYUSTREET FIGHTER VWhen Capcom reduced the length of Ryu’s crouching medium kick they undermined classic Ryu play and the competitive scene stopped playing him.ORNSTEIN AND SMOUGHDARK SOULSA bug causes boss hitboxes to invisibly persist in the world after you kill them. Normally it doesn’t matter, unless you fight two at once…PATHFINDERAPEX LEGENDSPathfinder’s hitbox was originally larger than his body, making him the easiest character to hit. After fixes, his thin legs made him seem one of the hardest.NERGIGANTEMONSTER HUNTER WORLDNergigante’s palm-slam attack can flummox newcomers who don’t know that when its arm is damaged, it grows spikes which make the hitbox bigger.…1 min
PC Powerplay|Issue 2822020 VISIO NARYOne of the most important cyberpunk novels ever written opens with a stark image. “The sky over the port was the colour of a television tuned to a dead channel” – so begins William Gibson’s seminal book, Neuromancer. It’s a novel that went on to inspire many other writers, and was certainly part of the sinew of the roleplaying game that Cyberpunk 2077 is based on.But in Cyberpunk 2077 glimpses of the sky are few and far between, mere snatches of darkness and light caught from the ground, as skyscrapers, billboards, and vectored-thrust vehicles crowd your vision. Only the rich get a view in Night City – everyone else has to crane their necks from the depths of steel and concrete canyons…If you’re thinking that we might be waxing a…14 min
PC Powerplay|Issue 282EVERSPACE 2Space is mostly bleak and empty,” says Michael Schade, CEO of Rockfish Games, the developer of Everspace 2. Without getting too Douglas Adams about it, this makes open space combat games “boring, because most of the time you shoot at tiny pixel clusters in the distance without having a concrete sense of player orientation and movement”.We’re playing the prototype build of this space shooter, the one that appeared at PAX East back in late February and which would have been shown off at this summer’s entertainment shows if they hadn’t been cancelled. It’s playable, in that it functions – you fly through space exploring, shooting and trading. It’s not exactly coherent yet, however, with little sense of purpose or mission structure. A whole mission-tracking system exists in the game but…6 min
PC Powerplay|Issue 282MONSTER HUNTERBOTCHLINGBotchlings are deformed fetuses born from miscarried babies not given a proper burial. In Family Matters, you have the choice to either kill the being, or try to turn it into a kindly guardian spirit called a Lubberkin.WRAITHIt’s likely you’ll hear one of these before you see them: They’re known to scream in pain and linger in places special to them in life. These spirits remain due to a sense of being wronged, driven by an eternal anger.SIRENThese adept hunters are known to use their bodies to seduce sailors before killing them with razor-sharp talons. Legend has it they weren’t always hostile: it’s said that Sirens once accepted the courtship of men.…1 min
PC Powerplay|Issue 282Community ServiceThe reason space sim MMO EVE Online’s universe is so special – and enduring – is its relationship with its players. Thanks to an interwoven tangle of reactive systems, it’s a sandbox that plays host to dynamic politics, economics, espionage and warfare on a grand scale.Whether it’s hitmen spending ten months undercover to bring down a rival corporation, or explorer Katia Sae embarking on a nine year journey to visit all 7, 805 solar systems, or an enterprising pirate scoring loot worth US$60,000 in real money from one month-long raiding spree, it’s a game that has spawned a thousand fascinating stories – with more arising every day.…1 min
PC Powerplay|Issue 282WORLD TOURDEAR ESTHERSet in the rural Outer Hebrides, this narrative adventure does a great job of recreating the look and feel of a remote Scottish island.WATCH DOGS 2Watch Dogs 2 features one of Ubisoft’s finest worlds. Natural lighting and fog bring this part of the USA brilliantly to life.EVERYBODY’S GONE TO THE RAPTUREAnother game from the creator of Dear Esther, this time set in a fictional village in Shropshire.GRAND THEFT AUTO VWalk along Venice Beach at sunset and you’ll realise just how bang-on Rockstar’s portrayal of the area really is.…1 min
PC Powerplay|Issue 282TRY THESEASSASSIN’S CREED: ORIGINSThe extras are just as finely detailed as the world itself. It’s fascinating to simply watch people go about their day.THE ELDER SCROLLS 4: OBLIVIONThey may not look like much, but some are skooma addicts, adulterers, or even evil cult members.GTAVThe citizens of Los Santos are rude, crude, and prone to both panic and violence. They’re also creative with their profanity.HITMAN 2The perfect game for watching NPCs walk around, because you absolutely need to learn their routines. How else can you steal their clothes?…1 min
PC Powerplay|Issue 282GamesSCORING SYSTEMPCPP scores its games on a 1 to 100 scale. The higher, the better – though 100 is by no means a “perfect” game. We’re not convinced such a thing exists, so consider a 100 a masterpiece of PC gaming, despite its inevitable flaws. A 50 is a decidedly average game; one that doesn’t excel in any particular area, without being an affront to our senses – the ultimate in mediocrity. Below this, you’ll start to find the games our reviewers suffered an aneurysm getting through; above it, the titles truly worth your time and money. And remember: a score is only a vague indication of quality. Always read the full review for the definitive opinion!…1 min
PC Powerplay|Issue 282PUTTING TOGETHER A CREWCOOPERThe leader of the group, Cooper’s out to avenge his dead dad. He’s the dullest of the bunch, but his two pistols and throwing knife come in very handy.KATEThe least lethal of the gang, Kate can put on a disguise, slip into off-limits areas, and manipulate guards. If things go south, she carries a gun for backup.HECTORHector’s big, loud, and he carries a huge bear trap everywhere. With his brutal shotgun and the strength to carry multiple bodies, he’s great at clearing out groups.ISABELLEIsabelle’s the only character who can use magic, and more importantly she’s the only character with a companion: an adorable, distracting cat.MCCOYMcCoy makes up for being a complete dickhe*d with his impressive sniping skills. When he finds a good perch, nobody is safe from his pin-point accuracy.…1 min
PC Powerplay|Issue 282OLD SCHOOLStarting a new school is a difficult time for anyone. But the teenaged protagonist of Atlus’s sprawling JRPG has it particularly tough. Having moved from the bustle and bright lights of Tokyo to the supposed rural calm of Inaba, he’s barely unpacked his bags before a series of gruesome murders shocks the sleepy town. So he bands together with a group of classmates, each holding supernatural powers, to investigate this disturbing phenomenon.Combat is brisk and engaging without being especially innovative.First impressions aren’t especially promising. This is, after all, a port of a port: it’s based on the eight-year-old PS Vita version, which was a refined edition of the 2008 PS2 original. As such, it’s showing its age visually, even if strong art design mostly compensates for its technical shortcomings. And…4 min
PC Powerplay|Issue 282AMAZON MAKES GAMES NOW?Yep, Amazon has had its own gaming division since 2012. Don’t worry, I forgot too. After seven years of making mobile games exclusive to Amazon’s app store, PC and console games seem to be its new focus. Crucible is the highest-profile game to come out of the studio, but that may change with Amazon’s upcoming MMO, New World.BREAKAWAY (CAN CELLED)A multiplayer brawler that unfortunately never saw the light of day.THE GRAND TOUR GAME (JAN 2019)The official video game adaption of the Amazon Prime TV show.CRUCIBLE (MAY 2020)A disappointing hero shooter. Read more about it on this page!NEW WORLD (AUG 2020)An MMO with active combat and an ambitious 17th century setting.…1 min
PC Powerplay|Issue 282Alienware m15 R3PRICE $6,399 ONLINE dell.com/en-au/The Alienware m15 laptops have been a staple of Dell’s gaming laptop range for years now and as per the company’s business model you can get this new 15-inch rig with just about every CPU and GPU combo you could want.At the lower-end this includes a new 10th Generation Intel Core i7-10750H CPU, an Nvidia GTX 1660 Ti GPU, 16GB of RAM and a tiny 256GB PCIe SSD for $3,199. If however, you’re after a top-tier pro setup then you can drop $6,399 on a unit with a Core i9-10980HK CPU, a Nvidia RTX 2080 Super GPU, 32GB of RAM and a 1TB PCIe SSD. The entire range come with a base FullHD 144Hz (7ms response time) IPS panel with G-Sync that can be swapped out at…3 min
PC Powerplay|Issue 282HTC Vive Cosmos ElitePRICE $1,699 ONLINE www.vive.comThe Cosmos Elite is essentially the original Cosmos bundled with the first generation base stations and controllers, and a different faceplate attached to the headset. If you’ve already bought the Cosmos, you can upgrade it with a new faceplate, although you’ll need to buy your own base stations separately to use it. This modular approach also means that you add such goodies as the wireless adapter, but this solution can get expensive quickly.There are a few things to set up with base station-based VR, and there’s a regimented order for getting everything up and running too. It isn’t just about plugging in the headset and throwing yourself into a virtual world like it is with the Oculus Rift S or the original Cosmos. Luckily the first port…2 min
PC Powerplay|Issue 282Thermaltake s100 TGPRICE $89 ONLINE www.thermaltake.com.auIf you do have 2.5in SSDs installed, things are going to be particularly cramped.While Thermaltake continues to push various iterations of its hyper-designed Level 20 series, the case-maker is still keeping a watchful eye on on the budget end of the market, and the S100 Tempered Glass is a great little sub-$100 case for the frugal builder. Thermaltake calls it a ‘micro chassis’, but it is a nonetheless squat and broad case that still makes quite a physical statement.The case’s big selling point is right there in the name; one side panel is a single piece of smoked tempered glass, and this sits in a drop hinge. It’s secured closed by a pair of magnets, so it can easily swing open at any time, making upgrades and…2 min
PC Powerplay|Issue 282HOTWARE01 C-Face Smart MaskPRICE $60 DISTRIBUTOR Donut Robotics www.donutrobotics.comGiven how 2020 is going we’re surprised this didn’t happen sooner. Of course it’s a smart mask. Because we’re living in a world now where wearing a mask outside might be the only way you get to keep living.POWERED UP: ANYWHO, this thing hooks up to your phone’s Bluetooth, translates speech to text, makes calls, or can just amplify your voice – like if you wanted to loudly and incredulously ask “CAN THIS YEAR GET ANY WORSE?!?”PLAYED OUT: Doesn’t actually protect you – it’s to wear over your OTHER, MORE PROTECTIVE mask. Yay 2020.02 Toadi Robot LawnmowerPRICE $3550+ DISTRIBUTOR Toadi www.toadi.comYou might be thinking “Wow! Three and a half thousand dollars sure is a lot of money!” And you’d be right. You…2 min
PC Powerplay|Issue 282RAGDOLL SLAPSTICKMy fondest gaming memory: half a dozen boys squeezed tight into a uni halls bedroom, gathered around a monitor watching two boxy men stumble and push each other over, in endless loops. We’re losing our minds, laughing so hard that we gather a crowd from the flats above and below.The game is Sumotori Dreams, a free .exe I’d downloaded off the internet on a whim. Imagine a Virtua Fighter game set outside a kebab shop – a face-off between two cubist combatants with incredibly poor control over their bodies, so that every movement risks sending them tumbling to the ground. These fighters, they get knocked down, but they get up again. Or at least, they try to. Just standing up is a challenge, and that’s before you factor in the…4 min
PC Powerplay|Issue 282A FOOL FOR LOVEYandere Simulator is the Star Citizen of indie gaming. In development for over six years now, it is a pig’s breakfast of spaghetti code and broken promises cobbled together by an egotistical hack who is demonstrably incapable of realising his vision.On paper, Yandere Sim seems like a winning formula. You control a high school girl who is hopelessly in love with one of her classmates, and who will do absolutely anything to eliminate her perceived romantic rivals. A Hitman clone with the visual trappings of a cheesy anime show – the perfect opportunity to deliver emergent stealth gameplay and black comedy. Heathers for the 21st Century. What could go wrong? As it turns out: absolutely everything.For the first few years of development fans and onlookers were willing to give the…4 min
PC Powerplay|Issue 282MISSING THE MARKI was doing OK for the first few weeks of Covid-19 isolation; glad to be teaching from home, helping my younger son with his (rather abominable) spelling, drinking lots of tea. Things got hectic; my older son broke his arm, my day job moved to shaky ground and I gave myself shin splints by jogging too much. Somehow, my fragile peace of mind now entirely depends on whether a guy from work finishes Florence, by Mountains. I know he got to Chapter 8 and I haven’t heard from him since. I can’t quite ask again.I often say that recommending games to people is my raison d’être. In the absence of other things I love, like Thai food and swimming laps, Covid tested this assertion. It holds up, if a little…3 min
PC Powerplay|Issue 282THE PERIPHERALWhen you fire up the game, you’re greeted with one of the most varied set of character options I’ve seen in a game, and some of the most open. Much has been made online about the fact that you can choose such things as what kind of pubic hair you have, and what kind of genitalia, but the fact that your sex organs aren’t linked to the gender you present as is – as far as we’re concerned – pretty fantastic. And so’s the fact that you can just choose to keep it all tastefully hidden away if you’d rather not see your junk, or simply don’t want to present either way in that much detail. You can even choose a masculine or feminine voice.On top of that, the sheer…1 min
PC Powerplay|Issue 282PROJECT CARS 3IF YOU DON’T LIKE A PARTICULAR EVENT, YOU CAN SPEND CURRENCY TO SKIP IT.Project Cars has amassed a large, loyal following of virtual motorsport fans, thanks in part to its impressively realistic car physics. But the series has always been missing a few of the features expected from a modern racing sim – something its developer is remedying in this scaled-up sequel.First up, career mode. This has been rebuilt from scratch, with the intention of giving players a better sense of progression. In your career you’ll progress through ten car classes, earning XP as you go, unlocking upgrade parts and new events. But if you don’t like a particular type of event, you can spend in-game currency to skip over it. This is so players don’t feel tied down, forced…3 min
PC Powerplay|Issue 282Real MagicalThe scene before me is unfathomably ghastly. Charred limbs and torsos the colour of charcoal are only things that suggest that these are humans littering the ground as I pick through the gore to find a man’s lost brother. I’ve witnessed the carnage that remains of this battle between the forces of Nilfgaard and Temeria before in the deceptively-quaint region of White Orchard before, some years ago – so what possessed me to return to this nightmarish world?Well, for a start, The Witcher 3 isn’t all battlefields and rotting flesh. In fact, it’s frequently staggering in its beauty, from the rugged pastoral scenes of Skellige to the bustling metropolis of Novigrad. Nevertheless, amid the bucolic rolling hills and the sparkling rivers running between them, tragedy lies. Civilians are murdered by…3 min
PC Powerplay|Issue 282Driving InUnderwater levels in games can make you flounder. Weird water physics, breath timers, and clunky character movements have historically made submerged worlds daunting. But Giant Squid’s subaquatic adventure ABZÛ takes all that away, turning even the clumsiest of player inputs into the graceful movements of an aqua-dancer. It’s an effortless, relaxing adventure that makes you feel totally at home in its aquatic world.ABZÛ is a wordless story set within the depths of the ocean. You play as a diver who’s helping restore life back to parts of the sea that are decaying. As you delve deeper, you’ll begin to unravel the mysteries of an ancient civilisation and start to understand the diver’s origins. The game has moments of quiet reflection, rushes of action, and playful interactions that use its underwater…3 min
PC Powerplay|Issue 282New TrickyVENDORS PLY THEIR TRADE, ILLUMINATED BY THE GAUDY LIGHT OF NEON SIGNS.When it comes to virtual tourism, it’s hard to beat the atmospheric streets of Sleeping Dogs’ Hong Kong. It’s at once an authentic snapshot of a unique and historic city, and a kind of exaggerated martial arts flick soundstage writ impossibly large.On hazy streets, market vendors ply their trade, illuminated by the gaudy light of countless neon signs above. Cars honk their way along clogged roads, towered over by forests of skyscrapers. A world gorgeous enough to simply stroll through, transporting yourself to another place – but also dynamic enough to sprint and leap across for yet another parkour chase, scattering crowds and plates of street-dumplings like John Woo doves. Not bad for a studio based in Vancouver, Canada,…1 min
PC Powerplay|Issue 282Grimdark GoofsMany fervent Dark Souls fans have written off Dark Souls II as an accident. But, in the words of Bob Ross who’d no doubt look over Medula with a tear in his eye, the sun setting over an endless sea, bathing the ruins of a once proud civilisation in golden light: it’s a happy accident.Dark Souls II has all the ‘serious’ series staples, of course. There are ruined castles, dead kings, piles of lore implying terrible histories of avarice and sorrow. But in contrast with those expectations, Dark Souls II folds in endless absurdity, humour, and creativity, particularly in its boss design. This is a grim fantasy world, but it’s one that never takes itself too seriously, which is why I remember more of Dark Souls II beat-by-beat than any…3 min
PC Powerplay|Issue 282QUICK DRAWEvery one of its stealthy encounters is its own puzzle, and every puzzle is a chance to experiment and, more often than not, fail. Desperados III is all about a team of specialists working in sync, using preternatural precision and timing to overcome seemingly impossible odds, but the journey to perfection is full of slapstick escapades and catastrophes. A split-second or an inch can mean the difference between an effortless display of teamwork and a team full of corpses, but with quicksave in one holster and quickload in the other, you’ll get there eventually.Maybe your very clever attempt to drop an entire wall on someone was foiled because a guard turned around and spotted you at the last moment, so you try again but this time send someone in a…8 min
PC Powerplay|Issue 282SHARK WEAKI’ve lost track of how many people I’ve eaten. My mission was to consume ten golfers, and since people don’t golf in the ocean I had to jump out of the water and shimmy my way onto the golf course to start chowing down on them. Three patrol boats filled with gun-toting shark hunters appeared, so I ate them, too. I’m probably up to about 17 humans eaten now, though I still need to eat three more golfers to finish my gory quest list.More hunters in patrol boats and on jetskis arrive so I consume them too, along with a few divers. And then a celebrity shark hunter appears, flanked by several escort boats. It’s Candyman Curtis, important enough to warrant his own introduction in a cutscene. I leap from…3 min
PC Powerplay|Issue 282BREEZE BLOCKI’m in a dark crypt, surrounded by skeletons and creepers. I’m blasting mobs with my firework arrows which explode into a cloud of colourful sparks, dual-wielding sickles that freeze enemies, and harvesting the souls of the fallen to power my laser cube that obliterates everything in my path. Throughout this whole spectacle, the llama I’ve summoned keeps charging head-first into mobs in a throw of spitting rage. It’s ridiculous, and I’m enjoying every second.The story is mostly just a reason for mindless brawling.It’s safe to say that Minecraft Dungeons doesn’t take itself too seriously. It’s set in the same universe as its sandbox predecessor, but there’s no crafting or building in his world. It’s a dungeon crawler that challenges you to furiously hack-and-slash your way through hordes of enemies with…8 min
PC Powerplay|Issue 282SUB-PRIMEChecking all of the boxes needed to fit into the service game climate Crucible has: a roster of heroes with diverse abilities, cosmetics, a battle pass with dozens of progression levels, and snippets of lore that suggest a larger world. Unfortunately, it wraps these familiar elements around a competitive third-person shooter that isn’t very good. Even for a free-to-play game, I can’t find a reason to stick with its boring combat and spotty performance.So much of Crucible feels like a misguided effort, starting with its game modes. Heart of the Hive is a 4v4 race to farm Essence (experience points) and be the first to collect three hive hearts. Efficient farming is the best way to out-level opponents and get an edge in fights, but it’s so boring that I…4 min
PC Powerplay|Issue 282SOLID STATE DRIVESStorage may not get the blood racing in the same way that a CPU or graphics card does, but it is an increasingly important component of any gaming system. With the next-gen consoles both looking to make the most of their PCIe SSDs, it seems only reasonable that tomorrow’s games will put a greater emphasis on storage than they currently do. And as it is, there’s a lot to be gained from moving up to speedy SSDs, from games loading quicker to day-to-day operations just not taking as long and Windows booting almost instantly.When we’ve looked at SSDs before, you’d find this list stuffed with SATA-based drives from top-to-bottom, with potentially only one or two PCIe SSDs lurking at the high-priced extreme end. It’s now becoming increasingly hard to recommend…8 min
PC Powerplay|Issue 282Steelseries Apex ProPRICE $389 ONLINE https://steelseries.comSteelseries’s Apex keyboards are all respectable offerings – high-quality peripherals for the discerning PC enthusiast. Each model has a dinky display and textured wheel for multimedia controls, and the same degree of overall design polish. But the Apex Pro brings something more than build quality and RGB lighting; it offers an end, finally, to the key-switch debate.Mechanical or membrane? Linear or tactile? Clicky or quiet? The arguments may rage across reddit forever, but Steelseries has provided the answer with the new OmniPoint mechanical switch. This switch already ticks all the boxes for performance, with an incredibly fast 0.7ms response time an actuation point below 1mm, but here’s the kicker: the Apex Pro’s OmniPoint keys (which includes the entire main keyboard block, save the function keys, arrow keys…3 min
