june live magazine

JUNE 2015 ISSUE

How far have relationships come in Video Games?

CENSORED

This issue is rated

Gamers are unique. We spend hours, days and sometimes months and years playing a particular game. Some games lead us on journeys to different worlds, battling aliens or fighting the forces of evil. Often these games have us partnering with a NPC (non-player character). Sometimes these characters become our friends and when they die or get injured it can affect you emotionally. So what happens when games become even more real? When games have us perhaps even fall in love with our partners within the game? Like the movie, Her, where the main character falls in love with his OS, (operating system) we might end up head over heals in love or deeply depressed if we get dumped or they die.

This month we take a look at love and sex in games. How do publishers handle the tricky situation of sex in video games? Should there be sex and love in games? After all theres incredible amounts of violence, so why cant adults experience love or sex? Or is murder and death ok, but

Welcome

Why Censored?Originally our cover had the words sex & love in video games - but this was flagged by our host site even though our content really is nothing more than PG related material. It seems that anything to do with violence is fine, but mention the S word and it gets noticed, flagged, and censored.

Publisher: Rob Jenkins (Gametraders Operations Centre)

Art Director: Giselle Capozza (Gametraders Operations Centre)

Game Review & Preview Editors:Nick Getley & Kylie Tuttle

(Sticky Trigger)

Retro Writer: Paul Monopoli

Board Games: Jess Wilson

Comics: Scott Sowter

Sticky Trigger Writers: Kylie Tuttle Nick GetleyAlex HolmesSam Babu

Nick PearceAaron MilliganBen Rachow Elliott Buddo

Bridget SweeneySean Fox

Miranda NelsonTim Arnold

Matthew RaspeSasha KarenLiam Church

THE LIVE TEAM

INSIDE22 Feature: I LoveVideo Games36 Reviews & Previews58 Pop Culture76 Cosplay

not the expressions of love? Is being aroused worse then blood lust and vengeance?

One day, someone will create a game that has you deeply connected to your in game partners. You might just fall in love with them and want to spend more time with them then in the real world and perhaps thats could be the problem. Wanting to stay in a virtual world where youre happy and content rather then a world where youre struggling and unhappy

We also look at the issue of cosplay and sexy costumes. Are we viewing girls wearing risqu costumes as sex objects rather then the artists they are? We asked some top cosplayers and cosplay photographers their thoughts.

We hope you like our special issue we loved putting it together.

Rob JenkinsEditor

THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: A LINK TO THE PAST

Ask staff for details.

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past is an adaptation of the beloved, internationally bestselling video game originally released for Nintendos Super Entertainment System.

Long out of print, this stunning, full-color graphic novel by manga legend Shotaro Ishinomori is now available once again! In full colour and in Western left-to-right reading orientation!

A young boy named Link must go on a great adventure when the Princess Zelda summons him to save the Kingdom of Hyrule from the evil wizard Agahnim. To find the Master Sword that will defeat Agahnim, Link must travel through both Hyrule and its mirror copy, the Dark World. Will Link find the courage needed to defeat the wizard and restore peace to Hyrule, or will his adventure lead to certain doom?

Get it at Gametraders from June 10!

OUT10 JUNE!

THE WAIT IS OVER!OUT 24 JUNE 2015 - PC, PS4 & XB1

NEWSJUNE 2015

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ADERS

Take on the role of an ambitious demigod who is trying to claim a place at the summit of Mount Olympus. Recruit heroes, acquire artifacts, undertake quests and earn the favour of the gods. When your allies fulfill their destiny, they enter Elysium, and contribute to your legend. Once all the tales are written, a single demigod will join the Olympians.

The goal of the game is to earn as many victory points as possible. Victory points are won mostly with the legends that players will write through the cards that they have transferred to their Elysium, but also by employing the powers that they have assembled throughout the game by the means of specific cards.

Elysium is due to hit stores 1st July 2015.

HOT NEW BOARD GAME!

MAGIC THE GATHERING: MODERN MASTERS 2015 EDITION!

Product images have finally been released and we are loving them!Pre-order in store now so you dont miss out! Due to arrive late June 2015.

HARRY POTTER POPS!

Modern Masters 2015 presents magic fans with a heap of reprints for modern, making many difficult to acquire cards more eas-ily available. These high powered cards are sought after for competitive play in modern.

Also, we get the opportunity to draft a set that has challenging archetypes and a high level of complexity, which creates some exciting interactions. This is great fun for casual and organised players looking for a special chal-lenge and a new experience. Modern Masters 2015 is available in stores now!

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NEWSJUNE 2015

TECH

Blending the digital world with the real world, Microsoft promis-es us new ways to visualise our world, our work, new ideas and play. The HoloLens is basically a set of goggles or glasses that fits over your eyes and constructs holograms and images and vid-eo in front of you and it can blend with your environment.

Microsoft says:

Our vision for holographic com-puting is to transform the world with holograms seamlessly connecting the digital world with real life. With the ability to design

MICROSOFT HOLOLENSand shape holograms, you will have a new medium to express your creativity, a more efficient way to teach and learn, and a more effective way to visualize your work and share ideas. This means your digital content and creations will be more relevant when they come to life in your world.

With its own CPU and GPU not being powerful enough, Mi-crosoft added a third processor the Holographic Processing Unit that gives the device the real-time ability to understand where youre looking and to also under-

stand gestures and to map the world around you (from the Ho-loLens site).

It also features spatial sound to ensure that what you hear works in such a way that its coming from where you would expect it to originate from. A microphone is also in the device to capture commands.

No details on pricing or release date as yet but its an exciting device that could be an amazing gaming accessories that, if used right, would change the way we interact with games.

So youre a cosplayer or action sport enthusiast and want some cool footage of yourself.. maybe you cant afford a photographer or its a last minute thing you want to do - well the new LILY is here. LILY is a drone camera that follows and shoots video. It has four blades for flight and is sold as a camera.

Its got a 20 minute flight time and a waterproof rating of IP67.

LILYLILY flies at a max altitude of 15 meters and a max speed of 40kmh. The camera is 1080p 60fps / 720p 120fps using the H.264 codec and MP4 format. It can also take photos at 12mp. and has built in image stabilisa-tion and a fixed focus.

If you want to know more - check out the video here:www.lily.camera

Its quite a cool device and would be amazing for people who want to film themselves for training purposes or for just having fun.

Available as a pre order for $499 plus $20 shipping (U.S pricing) but Lily ships world wide accord-ing to the pre order page on their site.

While stocks last. Ask staff for details.

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Payday 2 Crimewave Edition

Operation Abyss New Tokyo Legacy

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Final Fantasy 14 Heavensward Bundle

Batman Arkham Knight with Preorder DLC

J Stars Victory VS

Yoshis Woolly World

Fossil Fighters Frontier

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NEWSMAY 2015

GAMING

Activision and FreeStyle Games have announced that theyre re-turning to the rhythm genre with Guitar Hero Live, the next itera-tion in the Guitar Hero franchise.Guitar Hero Live features live action footage said to fully recre-ate a live band experience, dis-carding the previously used 3D animated characters from other Guitar Hero games. The live ac-tion footage is split across two modes; GH Live and GH TV. GH Live aims to recreate a tra-ditional rock show experience by having a first person footage of a nervous guitar player walking onstage with a band to a crowd. Here, the visuals reflect directly with how you play; if you play poorly, the crowd will boo you and your band members will look at you disapprovingly. Likewise, play well, and the crowd and your band will approve. GH TV operates as a constant broad-casting of music videos, where players can pick a channel and start playing. Hundreds of videos will be available at launch to play along to, with the promise of new songs added to GHTV over time.

GUITAR HERO LIVE ANNOUNCED!GH Live can be played offline, but GHTV requires an Internet connection.

The controller featured in Guitar Hero Live will not have the five coloured buttons that has been seen in previous iterations for years, but instead features two by three rows of black and white buttons, closer to a real guitar. Only three of the six buttons will be used on the games easiest difficulty, but on the harder dif-ficulties all six buttons will be used, simulating chords. Guitar playing will be the focus of Gui-tar Hero Live, with no gameplay

focus on drums or vocalists, last seen in previous Guitar Hero games.

Artists included in the in-game setlist are ,The Black Keys Blitz Kids, Ed Sheeran, Fall Out Boy, Gary Clark Jr., Green Day, The Killers, The Lumineers, My Chemical Romance, Pierce The Veil, The Rolling Stones, Skrillex, and The War On Drugs. More artists are set to be announced at a later date. Guitar Hero Live will be available on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Xbox One, Xbox 360, Wii U, and select mo-bile devices later this year.

In a recent announcement on Dead Island 2s TwitLonger post, developer Yager has confirmed that the first person zombie game Dead Island 2 has been delayed for a 2016 release.

The follow-up to Techlands Dead Island and Dead Island Riptide was originally set for a spring release. However given the high hopes from both the developers and fans, Yager went ahead and decided that delay a was in or-der to reach the games expecta-tions.

We have been looking at the

DEAD ISLAND 2 DELAYED FOR 2016

game long and hard, and we have decided we didnt reach that goal we set out to achieve quite yet, said Team Dead Is-land 2 . This is why we have de-cided to delay Dead Island 2 to 2016. Right now we are focusing purely on development, and we will have more info to share at a later stage.

The development team went on to say that given the extra time, theyre more confident in deliv-ering a better game to play as a result. Dead Island 2 is now ex-pected to arrive on Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC in 2016.

Get ready, dragon slayers! Drag-on Age: Inquisition is set to get a fairly impressive multiplayer expansion, and best of all its free!

BioWares latest content expan-sion for Dragon Age: Inquisition includes:

- Dragonslayer Multiplayer Ex-pansion adds thrilling dragon battles into the multiplayer dun-geon-crawling experience along-side an expansive new desti-nation and three new playable characters: an Avvar Skywatch-er with fierce elemental magic and melee mastery; ZITHER!, a Virtuoso whose music is deadly; and Isabela, the Raider Queen of the Eastern Seas.

- The Black Emporium pro-vides more ways to customize your Inquisition by adding four high-level stores which sell epic weapons, powerful accessories, new crafting materials and other hard-to-find items. Players can also change their facial appear-ance with the Mirror of Transfor-mation. This new area will be ac-cessible through the war table.

DRAGON AGE: INQUISITION GETS FREE MULTIPLAYER EXPANSION

From the creative team who brought you Banjo and Kazo-oie and Donkey Kong Country comes Yooka-Laylee, a new 3D platformer that has been recent-ly funded through kickstarter and is being developed by Playtonic Games.

Yooka (the chameleon) and Lay-lee (the bat) are a unique duo cre-ated by Steve Mayles, the same person behind original designs for Banjo and Koozie. Combin-ing each others strengths, Yoo-ka-Laylee carry with them a wide range of special abilities that can be used to tackle a variety of platforming challenges that lay ahead. Harking back to the gold-en era of classic Rare games, players can search and seek out hidden items and collectables across 5 gorgeous open world environments.

YOOKA-LAYLEES KICKSTARTER FUNDED

In addition, the game comes packed with an awesome soundtrack collaboration of some of the greatest game com-posers of Rare. With the help of David Wise (Donkey Kong Coun-try series), Steve Burke (Kameo: Elements of Power) and Grant Kirkhope (Banjo-Kazooie se-ries), players can expect a genu-ine auditory treat, with previews already giving us an idea of the playful nature expected within this newest title.

Having reached its end fund-ing goal of 175,000 in under 40 minutes, the game is now expected to launch day one on Windows, Mac, Linux, Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and WiiU. The game now stands with over 1,202,915, and is expected to run for an additional 43 days. Backers who pledge 10/$15

can expect to pick up a digital copy of the game when its finally released. Extras including digi-tal soundtracks, boxed versions, and a special 64-bit special edi-tion are listed as well as part of the games many pledge awards.Yooka-Laylee is set for release later in 2016. If you would like to pledge to the games funding or see some of the development progress, feel free to check out Playtonics kickstarter page.

FPS gamers who missed out on Ubisofts excellent Far Cry 4 will be delighted to know that the game is being bundled with all of its DLC for the Far Cry 4 Complete Edition. Thats a lot of elephants, yetis and open-world mayhem for your buck!

NEWSMAY 2015

GAMING

YOOKA-LAYLEES KICKSTARTER FUNDED

This comes from the official press release:

The FC4 Complete Edition in-cludes Far Cry 4 full game as well as the Season Pass com-posed of 5 downloadable con-tents. This new unique retail bun-dle gives access to all missions, weapons and environments of Far Cry 4. This Complete Edi-tion will be released on June 18, 2015 on Playstation4 and PC in Australia and New Zealand.Season Pass content:

- The Syringe DLC: Players must find a rare and potent recipe be-fore Pagan Mins forces use it against the rebels.

- Escape from Durgesh Prison DLC: Without anything to de-fend themselves with, players will have to complete a series of challenges to reach an extrac-tion point.

- The Hurk Deluxe Pack contains five missions and an arsenal of

UBISOFT ANNOUNCE FAR CRY 4 COMPLETE EDITION

five new weapons including The Impaler, Hurks harpoon gun.

- Overrun DLC allows players to team up as Rakshasa or Golden Path to swarm conflict zones, and overrun their opponents in maps based on Kyrats country-side.

- Valley of the Yetis DLC: After crashing in the Himalayas, play-ers must explore a new frozen landscape and discover the se-crets behind a mysterious cult.

For more information on Far Cry 4, please visit: farcrygame.com and facebook.com/farcry

Ubisoft has announced recently that their upcoming third person shooter, Tom Clancys The Divi-sion, has been further delayed once again.

Having been scheduled for a 2015 release, it was revealed in their publishers report that the game is now set for an early 2016 release. The Division, in case you missed our 2013 E3 coverage, is a game set in a post-apocalyptic United States. A nationwide pandemic has struck the country hard, and so-ciety has collapsed following the events. As a member of the Stra-tegic Homeland Division, its up to you in restore order back to the streets of New York City.

The game is currently being developed by Ubisoft Reflec-tions and Red Storm, the main developer behind the more re-cent racing title, The Crew. Co-developers behind the Far Cry series have also been reported to be working on it as well. Cur-rently operating under the new Snowdrop engine, the third per-son shooter is set to incorporate some role-playing aspects and online multiplayer. The Division is currently set for release on the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC.

THE DIVISION DELAYED TO 2016

A new Guitar Hero and a new Tony Hawks Pro Skater? All these franchise resurrections are making older gamers diz-zy with excitement! Earlier this week, Activision, Tony Hawk and Robomodo announced that Tony Hawks Pro Skater 5 will be com-ing to the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Xbox One and the PlayStation 4 in the near future.

This comes from the official press release: Skateboarding has al-ways been about the freedom of ripping with your friends, and creating a game that captures that feeling has been a vision of mine since the Pro Skater series began over 15 years ago, said Tony Hawk. Im beyond excited to see that dream finally come true with Tony Hawks Pro Skater 5, which takes the old-school at-titude of the original games on-line in a big way.

Tony Hawks Pro Skater 5 re-kindles the signature style of classic Pro Skater games in a brand-new set of levels with the same infamous focus on daring

ACTIVISION CONFIRMS TONY HAWKS PRO SKATER 5

objectives, fine-tuned controls and high-score tricks includ-ing manuals and reverts for endless shredding. New items like power-ups and projectiles change up the core skating ex-perience in a variety of fresh and entertaining ways. Tear up the pavement as one of todays top pros, including Tony Hawk, Ny-jah Huston, Riley Hawk, Aaron Jaws Homoki, Ishod Wair, Le-ticia Bufoni, Chris Cole, David Gonzalez, Andrew Reynolds, and Lizzie Armanto or custom-ize your own character.

Online multiplayer is where Tony Hawks Pro Skater 5 truly takes off, letting players drop in and out of online skate ses-sions with friends and challeng-ers from around the world for the first time. Complete missions, unlock new content and level up online or offline, or go head-to-head on the fly against all takers in competitive matches. Players can also build their own imagina-tive skateparks to share with the community.

Robomodo and Disruptive Games are developing Tony Hawks Pro Skater 5 for PlaySta-tion4 system, Xbox One, Xbox 360 games and entertainment system from Microsoft, and the PlayStation3 computer enter-tainment system. The release dates for the various versions will be shared in the upcoming weeks. Join the community on Facebook at facebook.com/To-nyHawkGames and on Twitter and Instagram at @tonyhawk-games.

Editors note: Now while the an-nouncement of a new Tony Hawk game is exciting, the last few en-tries with Tony Hawk in the title have been absolutely woeful. Tony Hawks Pro Skater HD had an engine that performed worse than the original, and the less said about Bam Margera Jack-ass-ing up Tony Hawks Under-ground 2 the better. Heres hop-ing that Robomodo have learnt their lesson with a rushed Tony Hawk title.

For more gaming news head over to www.stickytrigger.com

Nintendo announced in May that there has been issues with dealing with the distribution of amiibo, Nintendos venture into game-connected figures with select Wii U and Nintendo 3DS titles, and strategies on how they plan to deal with these issues.

In a statement, said they under-stand how frustrating it can be to try and find unavailable ami-ibo, to which they apologised. There are plans to increase cur-rent shipments.

Nintendo said that they are looking into re-release out-of-stock amiibo, and to improving communication about amiibo, through future press announce-ments, updates on social media and working with retailers.

This has come out after Nin-tendos Third Quarter Financial Results Briefing in February, which Nintendo CEO and Presi-dent Satoru Iwata announced that over 5.7 million amiibo had been shipped at the end of last year, with amiibo sales do-ing particularly well in Canada, the U.S., and Australia. Despite this, Australia receives only 3% of the worlds supply of amiibo, yet sells through 90% of said shipment. At this briefing, Iwata mentioned that it was difficult to promise continuous shipment of amiibo.

Future plans for amiibo include the release of more amiibo se-ries, and software to interact with the amiibo, such as the recently

NINTENDO ADMITS AND APOLOGISES ABOUT AMIIBO PROBLEMS

released free Wii U download amiibo tap: Nintendos Greatest Bits, which presents three min-ute demos of NES and SNES ti-tles unlocked via tapping amiibo. Various scenes are available to be played out in these demos, giving a variety of gameplay to try. Other titles coming out soon that have amiibo functionality in-clude Code Name: S.T.E.A.M., with amiibos from the Fire Em-blem franchise in the Super Smash Bros. amiibo series un-locking characters, and Kirby and the Rainbow Curse, adding daily different gameplay me-chanics.

At least three different amiibo se-ries are planned to be released throughout this year. The Super Smash Bros. series includes new additions, such as Greninja and Jigglypuff, available on May 29th, Palutena, Dark Pit, Ga-

nondorf and Zero Suit Samus, available in June, and Olimar, Bowser Jr., and Dr. Mario, will be available in July.

Other amiibo series that are planned to be released soon are the Splatoon, Yoshis Woolly World, and the Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer series. The Splatoon series includes Inkling Boy, Inkling Girl, and the Inkling Squid, all due to coincide with the release of Splatoon on the Wii U on May 30th. Yoshis Woolly World series of amiibo will be three plush Yarn Yoshis in green, light blue and pink, due to be released later this year. Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer series of amiibo will be released as amiibo cards and will be released alongside Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer for the Nintendo 3DS later this year.

NEWSMAY 2015

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FEATURE ARTICLE

Weve all said those words some of us say them all the time. But have you ever wondered if its possible to actually fall in love with a video game character? That is, to actually feel those emotions towards lines of code, voice acting and an entirely fictional character?

While we gaze to the future, its always important to learn from the past. So with that in mind, lets take a look at how relationships have been portrayed in video games in the past, as well as the present.

Early video games were completely devoid of relationships, and it wasnt until Shigeru Miyamoto tasked play-ers with rescuing Pauline (originally named Lady) from the maniac ape Donkey Kong that we saw one of the earliest relationships of a man and woman depicted in a game. Af-ter that, we had a more detailed re-lationship portrayed in The Legend of Zelda for the Nintendo Entertain-ment System, though this yet again more of a damsel-in-distress based relationship than a proper romantic one.

Funnily enough, it was in 1987 (only one year after Zelda on the NES) that we received a male protagonist in search of love, and in the unlike-

liest of places. Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards was a DOS adventure game that featured Larry Laffer, the original 40-year old virgin who traveled to the city of Lost wages to finally lose his virginity. While this beginning plotline and the promise of some pixelated nudity might have been a somewhat controversial sell-ing point of the game, Larry actu-ally loses his virginity quite early in the game. Realising there really is much more to life than sex, he then embarks on a quest to find true love.

Though the game was primarily a comedy, the emptiness Larry feels after having meaningless sex was conveyed perfectly through the

HUMBLE BEGINNINGS - THE 80S

games narrator. It struck a chord with the player and while Larrys true love didnt actually last all that long (there were sequels to be made, after all), it felt rewarding to finish Larry with a truly happy end-ing.

During this time, Japan saw a surge in visual novel games. While many of these were strictly adventure games (or even eroge games), many of these explored romantic relationships. Many of these, how-ever, did not make it outside of Ja-pan and therefore, did not influence how romantic relationships are portrayed in the majority of video games today.

As PCs and consoles became more advanced, developers were able to create more complex video games and as a result, deliver deeper nar-ratives. Soon Japanese developers would be developing RPGs with hugely evocative stories, though few could match the emotional storytelling found in Square Enixs (Squaresoft) magnum opus, Final Fantasy VII.

From a narrative and relationship standpoint, Final Fantasy VII was unmatched at the time. Here we had a game where characters had rich backstories and pre-existing relationships. The characters of Cloud and Tifa were childhood friends before the events of the game, though the events and their

interactions during Final Fantasy VII have had many a gamer specu-lating if there was more to the re-lationship than being simply friends which is probably due to how well the games narrative and dialogue was written. Since Final Fantasy VII, Japanese developers have ex-plored romantic relationships to a much greater extent, though limita-tions of the JRPG subgenre have become more apparent over time. For one thing, many JRPGs have an art style which has anime or manga-based roots. While the per-sonalities of characters make them relatable, it can be hard to invest in an interactive romance where the two characters look like theyve been ripped out of an anime.

A BUDDING ROMANCE DEVELOPERS BEGIN EXPLORING RELATIONSHIPS

Japanese RPGs also have a ten-dency to be quite linear, with en-vironments being closed-in, and stories having little to no player choices, and the dialogue between characters having no player inter-action. Essentially, you are playing the battles between the events of the story, like reading a novel that requires you to punch the pages in order to turn them.

The seeds of romantic relation-ships in games had well and truly been planted thanks to JRPGs, and it wouldnt be long before Western developers began exploring roman-tic relationships as well.

It might seem like were skipping through time rather drastically here, but in the grand scheme of things, exploring romantic relationships re-alistically is still pretty new to video games. When video games first emerged, the audience was primar-ily young males, and it wasnt un-til the last ten years that we saw a surge in female gamers. In fact, ac-cording to an article on The Guard-ian, the balance has shifted 52% of gamers are women, and 48% are men.

Perhaps gamers grew too quickly for developers and publishers to keep up. Publishers went from be-ing able to safely recycle the same game every year for one demo-graphic to having to appeal to a number of different demographics with future games. In any case, the gaming community had become richer and more diverse over the

years and the time for romance and more complex relationships was overdue. So which franchises ex-plored relationships?

Bioware have a knack for romantic subplots in their games, with titles such as Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 1 and 2 offering play-ers the chance to experience ro-mantic trysts with characters in the games. With romance being forbid-den for the Jedi order, the players faced difficult decisions for them-selves and their romantic partners.

In later years, Bioware would ex-plore relationships again within the Mass Effect trilogy of games. With the ability to create a male or female protagonist, and the ability to have multiple romantic relationships with both female and male characters, the Mass Effect games offer per-haps some of the most realistically

IT MUST BE LOVE HOW THE LAST TWO GENERATIONS PORTRAYED RELATIONSHIPS

portrayed relationships in games to-day. Combine that with the fact that each potential romantic partner has a truly unique personality and youll find that Bioware truly did raise the bar for other developers in regards to how relationships are portrayed.

Last generation saw a number of games explore relationships, but few have visions quite like Pe-ter Molyneux has for his games though they never turn out the way he describes. Molyneux might have promised much more than he could deliver with Fable 2 (something he has become quite known for), but Fable 2 offered the completely op-tional side activities of dating, mar-riage and procreation. Fable 2 even offered the opportunity for same-sex relationships, though it wasnt until Fable 3 that Albions same-sex couples could adopt a child. Still, progress is progress!

So after taking a look at how ro-mantic relationships have been por-trayed, its fair to say the like com-edy, romance is subjective. What some might find romantic or appeal-ing, others may not. Ive heard peo-ple use the L word for video game characters as far back as games on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, but its hard to look back at those sprite-based characters and agree with them.

As far as the current generation is concerned, the flames of romance have died down from a roaring fire to a few flickering embers. There a

few games with decent romantic re-lationships (Dragon Age: Inquisition, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt), though the majority of games see publish-ers falling back on their strengths usually shooters that dont explore relationships. Its something that disappoints me, though I cant ex-actly blame developers for not tak-ing risks with a new console gen-eration.

So where do we go from here? What does the future hold for romance and relationships in video games? Will we ever truly fall in love with game characters?

CURRENT GENERATIONS LOOKING TO THE FUTURE

Its hard to say where games will go from here (in regards to romantic plots and subplots), but one would think if the demand is there, that the games will come. Now more than ever though, it seems as though developers and publishers have a hard time listening to gamers. Were going back to the future with Call of Duty: Black Ops 3, were getting a new Guitar Hero with live action footage and Skrillex on the soundtrack, and were still getting games that have seen graphical downgrades and features cut be-fore release.

Thankfully, indie developers work outside of the constraints of pub-lishers and marketing trends. In fact, there is a video game being

developed right now that draws inspiration from romance novels, and in particular, those written by female authors. Thats just one ex-ample, but there are many indie de-velopers who are looking to tell the stories less experienced in games, with romance being a major source of inspiration for them.

Another thing to consider is that Virtual Reality is extremely close to becoming a household staple. We will have personal movie viewers, VR video conferencing, VR social networking and of course, video games that will make use of VR.

Virtual Reality opens up the poten-tial of interacting in a virtual environ-ment, and being immersed in video

THE FUTURE IS ALMOST FRIGHTENING, THANKS TO VR

games like never before. If a devel-oper was to predominantly focus on exploring relationships in a virtual environment with complex charac-ters, we could see the first relation-ships between man and program form people could date and form romantic relationships with video game characters and people simu-lators. Suddenly all those movies like Surrogates and Minority Report dont seem so far out, do they?

So what do you think, has a video game ever touched you in that spe-cial way? Has Cupids 8-bit arrow ever struck you in the heart? Or are we truly yet to see a convincing ro-mantic relationship in video games?

Some of gamings couples are bound to stand the test of time. Their endless love and blissful romance is a roaring fire of passion. Other couples though, are beginning to see cracks in the veneer. Their once-glorious fire is now dangerously close to being snuffed out, like a Charman-der on critical health.

Weve contacted Dr Polly Gonne, a reknowned video game pyschologist and marriage counselor to video game couples everywhere. Shes co-authored a number of books, including Bowsers A Villains Guide To Dating: Capture That Romance and Donkey Kongs Guide To Swinging, and has even conducted research alongside Dr Robotnik and Dr Wily. Shes taken a look at some of gamings most well-known couples, and offered her advice to them.

with Dr Polly Gonne

FEATURE ARTICLE

When Guybrush and Elaine first met, it was a tale of love at first sight at all. In an attempt to pass one of the three trials from the Pi-rate Leaders, Guybrush attempted to break into the Governors man-sion and steal a valuable idol, only to be caught (and attacked) by Fes-ter Shinetop, the towns sherriff.

After Elaine breaks up the fight, her curiosity gets the better of her and she attempts to get to know Guy-brush only to render Guybrush completely speechless. Their initial awkwardness aside, Guybrush and Elaine did end up together, though

trouble has a habit of finding Guy-brush.

During their time together, Elaine has been kidnapped multiple times, and even turned to gold thanks to a cursed ring that Guybrush used to propose to her. While he claims to be a mighty pirate, Guybrushs true strength lies in his determina-tion, and that no matter the danger, he would travel to the ends of the earth for Marley (and treasure).

Dr Gonne says: Its my profession-al opinion that Guybrush and Elaine take a break from their respective

GUYBRUSH THREEPWOOD AND GOVERNOR ELAINE MARLEY (THE MONKEY ISLAND GAMES)

professions in order to reconnect as a couple. Guybrush has a tendency to be rather accident prone, and at times, inept in his pirate ways. Elaine knows all of this and most importantly, knows patience. Its for this reason that I see Guybrush Threepwood and Governor Elaine Marley as a particularly strong cou-ple, taking a vacation together will help them get away from it all it also means Elaine is far less likely to be kidnapped or turned into a solid gold statue.

Relationship Status: Safe, but in need of some rekindling.

Rarely in games do we see the com-mitted couple. Much more interest-ing is the new spark of love. See-ing two people grow closer over a long journey, overcoming enemies, trials and inner demons on their path to bliss is a deeply interest-ing premise, especially against the backdrop of saving the world. As a puzzle game framed with adult rela-tionship drama, Catherines mostly-mundane focus allowed it to delve into much deeper territory.

Our hero, Vincent Brooks, is a man stuck firmly in the everyday. He has a job thats okay, he goes out drink-ing with the guys a little more than he should, and his longtime girl-friend Katherine McBride (subtlety) has been pressuring him to take the next step: the dreaded marriage. Happy with things as they are (or just too lazy to change), Vincent is in no hurry to shake up his comfort-able world.

Then along comes Catherine, a buxom blonde bombshell who is exactly his type. Flirtatious, ener-getic and equally reluctant to be tied down, a few drinks turn into some-thing much more. Vincent finds himself torn between the stability of Katherine and the freedom of Cath-erine and faced with the troubling task of making sure one doesnt find out about the other.

Obviously, cheating is inexcus-able. Its in the moments in between which makes Vincents relation-ships with the two women shine. A far cry from the indulgent harem scenarios of other games a fan-tasy world where every woman is attracted to the main character and nobody is ever possessive or jeal-ous Vincent is wracked with guilt, drowning himself in drink and as-saulted by lethal puzzle-platforming nightmares nightly. But this strug-gle, and Vincents choices, form

VINCENT AND CATHERINE/KATHERINE (CATHERINE)

the true strength of the relationship: whichever woman is chosen in the end, Vincent has grown and faced the consequences of his actions, able to take control of his life once more. Thats a better ending than most romantic comedies already.

Dr Gonne says: No good can ever come from cheating. Vincent needs to lay off the booze and face the re-sponsibility of a single, exclusive re-lationship. It says a great deal about the man when he turns to booze and has horrific nightmares in times of stress. My opinion ladies, give Vincent the boot and get a man that respects you!

Relationship status: Dead in the water unless Vincent can learn to dedicate himself to one relation-ship. He should seek counseling immediately.

Theres no getting around it: the Prince is kind of a dick. As a young, arrogant royal, the Prince accompa-nies his father on his latest war cam-paign, thirsty for the glory of battle. Things hit a small speedbump when he is instead tricked by his fathers evil vizier (are there ever good vi-ziers?) and releases the Sands of Time, turning everyone into sand monsters. The only ones spared are himself, the Vizier himself, and Farah, the outspoken princess, now their captive.

As one might imagine, turning an en-tire city into monsters and enslaving her people has given Farah a poor opinion of the fledging Prince. The two bicker and fight through most of the game, barely united by their desire to reach the Vizier and seal away the Sands of Time once more. Conflict brings unity through this, and respect begins to grow, then closeness, then love. Like Vincent,

the Princes arc is one of matura-tion: privy to his inner monologue, we see him slowly come to admire Farahs commitment and self-as-suredness as much as he does her beauty. The two challenge each other, growing to become some-thing better. By the end, the Prince is even able to admit his attraction to Farah to himself without reserva-tion, the trials of their journey hav-ing slowly sloughed away his layers of pomp and self-importance.

Unfortunately, this is a time travel story. As one might expect, the end-ing has the Prince turn back the block and restore the city, leaving himself as the only one with any memory of what had happened.Two games later, this leads to a rather awkward situation when he meets Farah again, already utterly in love despite the two having never really met. Through this, their rela-tionship becomes something more

THE PRINCE AND FARAH (THE PRINCE OF PERSIA)

than just falling in love: it becomes proving to her and to himself that he can be a prince, not just a man, and act as a worthy leader to his people. It might take a few twists of time, but by the end, the Prince and Farah have truly become who they were destined to be.

Dr Gonne says: The Princes growth stands as a positive exam-ple of what can be achieved when a person sees what is truly important in a relationship. Though he already knows Farah when they meet for the first time (in a strictly chrono-logical sense), he does not use his knowledge he learned traveling time to take advantage of her. There are men out there who could rewind time constantly and still manage to get the foundations of a relationship wrong. Kudos to you, Prince!

Relationship status: Blissful

The first and the best: Super Mario and Princess Peach. The nucleus of the Nintendo family,this stalwart plumber and kidnap-prone prin-cess have never been anything but wholesome. Traversing worlds upon worlds of danger to save the Princess never netted Mario any-thing more than a kiss or some cake, but our moustachioed hero has never complained, happy to be of service to the kingdom.

For all that, its hard to nail down exactly what Mario and Peach are to each other. Is he her bodyguard, brought along for protection? Is he the hero of the Mushroom Kingdom, his focus on defeating Bowser as

much as saving Peach? Are they friends who enjoy karting, partying and 3D-landing together, or more? Clearly the relationship is more than professional: more than that, it ap-pears utterly devoted and not en-tirely one-sided. Peach might have created some of the most golden moments in the Super Mario RPG/Paper Mario series, actively trying to escape on her own and smack down her captors, but when the man in bed busts into Bowsers cas-tle, theres always a certain swoon in her voice when she calls Marios name.

So its not really clear, nor will it ever be. What matters is the close-

MARIO AND PRINCESS PEACH (CMON, YOU ALREADY KNOW)

ness. Mario will always be there for Peach, and Peach always for Mario. Sometimes, thats enough.

Dr Gonne says: While Im sure their family and friends are dying to know, theres something to be admired about the private relation-ship between Mario and Princess Peach. After a lifetime of partying, tennis and golf tournaments, Go-karting and kidnappings, Mario and Peach are still very close. Its my professional opinion that if they are a couple, theyd be a very happy one.

Relationship status: Unconfirmed, but happy if they are indeed a cou-ple.

Quite opposite to the steadfast cou-ple of Mario and Peach is the peren-nial pair of Sonic the Hedgehog and Amy Rose. More stalking than a re-lationship, Amys entire personality can be summed up as Sonics self-proclaimed girlfriend. No amount of rejection or outright revulsion can deter the pink hedgehog from go-ing after Sonic. It could be because shes 12, it could be shes a little unhinged, or it could just be that he keeps saving her life, confirm-ing her delusion that he truly, really loves her.

Though she befriends everybody she meets and has a relentlessly optimistic view on life, Amys priori-ties still lay solely on that which is blue and spiky. She follows Sonic, enters competitions to be near

Sonic, makes up boyfriends to get Sonic jealousthe list goes on. In a somewhat concerning twist, the Sat-urday morning cartoon Sonic Boom actually offers her most fleshed-out portrayal. The archaeologist and organisational head of Team Sonic, shes tasked with keeping the group together amongst their various ad-ventures, her crush on Sonic rel-egated to a mere facet of her per-sonality.

Still, learn to read the signs, Amy. If a guy is actively shoving you away from him when you try to kiss him after stalking him to a whole new country, maybe take that one as a no.

Dr Gonne says: In my expert opin-ion, Amy suffers from a classic case

SONIC AND AMYof Hedgehog fever. We saw a surge in this during the 1990s, though eventually people caught some-thing much worse though ultimately more fleeting: Bandicoot-fever.

Amy is also unable to accept the fact that Sonic is not currently look-ing for a romantic partner. This cre-ates awkward situations for both herself and Sonic, though she un-fortunately cannot see this. She needs to give Sonic some breathing room and focus on herself. If you love Sonic, Amy, let him go.

Relationship status: Non-existant. Amy should seek professional help immediately.

When these two first met, Johnny was a young, egotistical brash hot-head. Sonya was a tough and un-forgiving member of the Special Forces. Since then, theyve had a child (Cassie) and grown older, and little else has changed. Both set in their ways and especially stubborn when interacting with each other, Johnny and Sonya have a strangely endearing relationship that has en-dured countless assassination at-tempts from Outworld, the stresses of saving the world through winning the Mortal Kombat and perhaps most hellish of all, raising a child.

Even though they are no longer to-gether, theres hope for the Johnny and Sonya yet, as their daughter Cassie reminds them at the end of Mortal Kombat X. If only Outworld would stop attacking long enough for them to realise that!

Dr Gonne says: Johnny Cage and Sonya Blade are the relationship equivalent of when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object. Here we have two very strong-mind-ed and stubborn individuals that while constantly bickering, manage to bring out the best in each other. Sonyas leadership and sense of re-

JOHNNY CAGE AND SONYA BLADE (MORTAL KOMBAT)

sponsibility rub off on Johnny, and Johnny manages to break through Sonyas hard outer shell to find her softer side.

Johnny, Sonya, its time you two stopped fighting each other and had some fun like you used to have. Take a day off, head to the country-side, and rip out some ninja spines. You know, fun stuff.

Relationship status: Safe, but in need of some TLC. These two need to focus on their Friendship, not their Brutality.

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gameSREVIEWS & PREVIEWS

REVIEW

REVIEW

PROJECT CARS

borderlands: the handsome collection

RIDEREVIEW

gameSREVIEWS & PREVIEWS

REVIEW

THE WITCHER3: WILD HUNT

PROJECT CARS

PROJECT CARSreview

Some years ago, Namco and Slight-ly Mad studios posed each other an interesting question: why dont we ask the people who play our games to help make the next one? I know right?! A game for the fans, by the fans. And, after several years of input from people just like you and me, along with several professional racing drivers, here is the fruit of their/our labour: Project CARS.

Project CARS lets you create your own driver and identity, then lets you loose in the big wide world of auto racing. Choose a starting se-ries, and youll earn invites to events and find yourself surprised at how quickly you unlock a host of differ-ent cars from different disciplines. CARS goes a long way to making sure youre immersed in the life of an auto racer youll receive emails from your driving team as well as potential sponsors, not to mention special offers to various events that help break up the routine. Theres also a calendar of all the race meet-ings on each month, letting you see when your next race is, as well as what other events are on that week-end.

You can skip practice and qualifying sessions, and adjust the sessions length, the AI level, and whether or not you can restart. Along with the usual championships, once you prove yourself youll end up be-ing invited to invitational meets as well, which can help you advance into other series and gives you a nice break from whatever discipline youre currently competing with. An-other nice touch I liked is the Fan chat that appears beside the menu for your career. Its very twitter-esqe, with posts about the coming season, and how youve been do-ing. Seeing people cheer for your team, congratulating you on win streaks, and being able to prove wrong the people who write you off,

is all a part of the experience. The characters are well thought out as well; you can almost hear the regret in your engineers voice when you tell him youre leaving for another team next season.

The game itself is quite pretty to say the least. Its hard to remember at times that you arent looking at real photos of places, or that you arent watching the replay of a real race. With a full 24 hour day and night cycle, and a host of weather effects that can come and go even during a single event, the world of Project CARS is without a doubt the pretti-est place Ive ever raced. Many fa-mous circuits are a part of the tour, including our very own Bathurst (a track that is fast becoming a pre requisite for racing sims.) There are street circuits, road rally stages, real world tracks and fictional ones, all designed to test you and your machine. Sand traps actually work as they should, grass is your enemy if you drop a wheel, and I highly rec-ommend staying clear of the ripple strips, unless you want to have a bad time. Its highly detailed; from

the plumes of smoke you can leave as you slide out of corners, the lit-tle pieces of rubber that fly off your tyres, and little things like the real-istic sun glare, rain drops that race each other down the windscreen, and the constellations that change throughout the night sky.

But of course, the real star in game with a name like Project CARS is of course, the trees. Yes, the trees are very well textured, and several tree experts were brought in to over-see theiroh wait, wrong game. I meant the CARS! Whilst the list isnt as long as other titles, they have tried very hard to give you diver-sity in all disciplines. Heck, when it comes to Le Mans prototypes, they have even built their own models of cars to race with, alongside the more established names in endur-ance racing. Everything from karts, road cars, supercars, touring cars, GT, open wheel (including F1/not F1 because copyright etc) is at your disposal. It really is as simple as de-ciding what you want to start in, and where you want to go.

REVIEW

PROJECT CARS

The handling can be a bit of a trick at first; open wheel cars demand preci-sion and gentle inputs of throttle, the legendary Group 5 cars are as every bit of a handful as they should be, and even the supercars twitch and fight, like a wild horse youre trying to tame. If youre used to the more re-laxed Forza and Gran Turismo titles, you might be frustrated at first. But its a good feeling when you finally tame the beast, and whoop the field with it. Slightly Mad studios have a long and esteemed history with sim titles, and they know what theyre talking about when it comes to making cars as they should. I own a BMW 1 se-ries coupe like the one in this game, and you know what? Project CARS is the first title where theyve nailed it-the sound, the feel, the handling, it all feels familiar to me.

Project CARS has been in devel-opment since 2011. In that 4 years Namco and Slightly Mad have taken

the time and effort to listen to the pros, and listen to you, so that they can make a game that we actually want to play. Not many other com-panies do that. They asked us what we wanted, and delivered it the best they could. And thinking back on my gaming career, thinking of all the racing titles I dearly remem-ber and love the most, there are lit-tle things in this game that remind me of all of them at one point or another. Theyve captured what a racing sim should be; taken the sort of action those PC mater race jocks brag about and put it in a game for all to enjoy. Whether youre a nov-ice who is just starting, or a pro settling in for another season, its all about your choice, your race, your career. Where you want to go is entirely up to you, and consider-ing Gran Turismo 5 took about the same amount of time to develop, believe me when I say this guys.... you did it much better.

9/10

PROS:LOOKS STUNNING

LOADS OF PLAYER CHOICE IN CAREER MODE

IMMERSIVE

CONS:VEHICLES SOMEWHAT LACK CUSTOMISATION OPTIONSMORE CARS WOULD HAVE

BEEN GREATINCONSISTENT A.I.

WRITTEN BY BEN RACHOWWWW.STICKYTRIGGER.COM

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BORDERLANDS:THE HANDSOME COLLECTION

BORDERLANDS:review

THE HANDSOME COLLECTION

Theres no denying the immense popularity of the Borderlands series. Upon its debut in 2009, Borderlands quickly established itself as a fun and unique shooter, blending ele-ments from open-world games, oth-er FPS titles, as well as role-playing games like Diablo.

The series currently stands at three games (not including the episod-ic adventure game from Telltale Games) Borderlands, Border-lands 2 and Borderlands: The Pre-sequel. Borderlands 2 and Border-lands: The pre-sequel were both released towards the end of the last console generation, meaning that many shooter fans missed out on all the addicting mayhem that they

offered. Thankfully, both sequel and pre-sequel (still technically a se-quel) have been re-released for the current console generation, in the Borderlands: The Handsome Col-lection.

So is there anything new?

Ultimately, nothing is new here. You are getting two fantastic FPS games in a single package, as well as all the previously-released download-able content for those games. The graphics are still cel-shaded and stylish, though the games now run in 1080p resolution and at a but-tery smooth 60 frames per second even with 2 player split-screen multiplayer! From a visual perspec-

tive, Borderlands doesnt get much better than this!

While two-player splitscreen run-ning as 60FPS is impressive, so too is the fact that The Handsome Collection can be played with up to three friends, making for a four-player split-screen lootfest! Who says couch multiplayer is dead?

Is it worth getting?

With the ability to port your existing last-gen console saves across to the current-generation of consoles (Xbox 360 to Xbox One, PlaySta-tion 3 to PlayStation 4), existing vault hunters will be able to hit the ground running, and find that the

borderlands: REVIEW

borderlands: 9/10

PROS: SPLIT-SCREEN MULTIPLAYER

ENGAGING CAMPAIGNSTONS OF BANG FOR YOUR

BUCKLOOKS GREAT AND RUNS

BUTTERY SMOOTH

CONS:UNABLE TO SWITCH

BETWEEN GAMES WITHOUT QUITTING TO THE

DASHBOARD

WRITTEN BY nick getleyWWW.STICKYTRIGGER.COM

games are just as fun as their origi-nal releases, if not more, given how well the game performs on the new hardware.

If you havent played Borderlands 2 or Borderlands: The Pre-sequel, theres no better time than now. Both Borderlands 2 and The Pre-sequel received favourable review scores upon their release, with Bor-derlands 2 having a score of 89/100 on Metacritic (from 38 critics) and The Pre-sequel having a score of 75/100. They are an absolute blast to play, especially in multiplayer, and the RPG and open-world ele-ments are integrated in a clever and refreshing way. While other devel-opers shoehorn in game mechanics

with the subtlety of a bull in clogs, 2K manage to meld genres in a very organic way they belong and complement the chaotic shooting perfectly.

Ultimately, Borderlands: The Hand-some Collection packs a ton of explosive value into a single sexy package. Both games are a ton of fun to play and thanks to modern console hardware, run like a dream. While its loot-centric shooterama gameplay might not tickle every-one, Youd be hard-pressed to find this much story, action and brilliant game design in another FPS. The Handsome Collection is well worth checking out!

the handsome collection

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OUT 24 JUNE

OUT 24 JUNE

RIDEreview

Its not very often, if at all, that you come across a dedicated motor-cycle racing game for consoles. So naturally when Ride arrived, the newest bike game to hit the shelves, they naturally got methe touring car driver. The guy who has never ridden a bike, and never even played Road Rash. So, am I riding off into the sunset? Or is it two wheels bad?

Ride features more than 100 dif-ferent motorbikes, from many of the worlds most famous manufac-turers. Theres street bikes, light-weights, modified and of course the full blown race spec machines. There are hundreds of ways to cus-tomize both the bike and yourself. New outfits, gloves, helmets and accessories, so you can strut your stuff (or look cool when you inevi-tably high side.) Bikes can have the wheels, exhausts, handlebars and other cosmetics altered to your liking, and although you can paint your ride the options are a bit lim-ited. Theres plenty of performance parts as well, and its quite easy to understand the tuning options avail-able. No vinyls though; sorry folks this isnt NFS Undercycles.

There are several world-wide cir-cuits to race around, a nice mix of fictional street circuits, and dedicat-ed tracks that are famous for Moto racing, such as Englands Don-ington Park. The game itself looks quite pretty, not that youll have much time to see it though. The AI will certainly keep you busy; even on the easier settings, they can easily keep up, and pass you when you least expect it. I quickly began to regret blowing my starting budg-et on shiny things and cool paint. Thankfully though, money is easy to come by in the world of Ride.

Payouts throughout the world tour are quite generous. Win one race and youll already be able to afford some of the bikes on offer. Even in quick race or time trial modes, you still earn credits for turning laps. So its worth perfecting your skills be-fore trying it out against the rest. Earn enough reputation, and youll also advance up the worldwide leader boards, eventually unlock-ing invites to elite events with the worlds best. Dont expect to find me there though.

The game itself is very user friend-ly. There are many options for the humble beginner like myself, to the seasoned bike veterans who want to feel every bit of gravel as you slide off the track. Assists, AI ad-justments, tutorials and many more options. You can bump a bit in the easier settings, but if you want to be a pro then get the elbows up. This isnt Gran Turismohitting walls, and opponents, or going off track can have catastrophic consequenc-es. Whilst rewinds are available, you cant use them back to back. So if you make a mistake, dont think you can just try the same thing over and over again.

I had a lot of fun learning the game, and although it can be a challenge, winning the first race felt just that bit better knowing that you had to work for it. A lot of my frustration with the game came simply from the fact Im dumbfounded by a machine that has half the wheels Im used to. Im not much of a bike person, but Ride does go a long way to immerse you in the world of motorcycle racing. The feeling of speed, the freedom, the way the bike twitches when you push it, as if youre trying to tame a horse. This horse wont kick, but it will throw you if youre off guardI ended up with more high sides, low sides, wall sides and god knows what sides in an hour than Ive seen in 10 year Moto GP highlights.

It really does feel like Forza with bikes. The large career mode, the many difficulty options to cater for just about anyone, the customiza-tion, and many more things com-bine to make Ride very worthy of being called a racing sim. Even for a car guy like me. Its a well pol-ished title, and is sure to keep you entertained for quite some time. Now, if you will excuse me, I have to do and dig my Ducati out of the gravel trapagain.

REVIEW

RIDE

WRITTEN BY BEN RACHOW

PROS:CASH AND REWARDS ARE

EASY TO COME BY. THE BIKES ARE WELL

REPRESENTED. MANY CHOICES FROM MANY

BRANDS, AND THEY LOOK SIMPLY STUNNING. THE

CUSTOMIZATION MAY NOT BE THE BEST IVE SEEN, BUT

ITS DEFINITELY A LOT OF FUN.

THE SATISFACTION YOU GET FROM LEARNING TO TAME

THE BIKES IS GREAT.

CONS:CUSTOMIZATION COULD BE

A BIT BIGGER. A FEW VINYLS OPTIONS WOULDNT BE BAD

EITHER.WHILST THE AI DOESNT SUFFER FROM RUBBER

BANDING AS SUCH, WAS ANNOYING THAT THEY CAN SEEMINGLY CATCH UP AND

PASS YOU WITH EASE NO MATTER WHAT.

SEEMS TO HAVE INHERITED GRAN TURISMOS LOADING TIMES. BUT THEN AGAIN ITS

THE ONLY PART OF THE GAME THAT REALLY RUNS SLOW.

WWW.STICKYTRIGGER.COM

8/10

OUT NOW!

POP CULTURERETROBOARD

GAMES & THE RELATIONSHIPS

THEY CREATE... Kotobukiya Street Fighter

Bishoujo StatueCOLLECTIBLES

NIGHTTRAP

POP CULTURESUPERHEROES

COMICSHAVE FEELINGS TOO...

Now, the world dont move to the beat of just one drum. What might be right for you, may not be right for some. To those of you born af-ter the 1980s, this is the theme tune to 80s sitcom Diffrent Strokes. Useless fact: That theme tune was partly composed by Alan Thicke, who played the father in another 80s sitcom Growing Pains (and is Robin Thickes father in real life). So why am I sitting here, typing about 80s sitcoms? Good question. As the theme tune to Diffrent Strokes says Everybodys got a special kind of story, and none could be truer than the cast of Diffrent Strokes

The saddest part of that show is what happened to the children of the cast following its cancellation. That could be a whole article in itself, but thats a story for a non video game re-lated magazine. Today were going to look at Dana Plato, who played Kimberley in the show. Danas ca-reer took a large nosedive after the show, and she turned to drugs and ended up acting in some dodgy mov-ies. She also starred in a very dodgy video game which is what Im here to talk about today. Lets take a look at the thriller, that wasnt very thrilling, Night Trap

Originally designed to be released on the Hasbro Nemo system (which never saw the light of day), Night Trap, released on the all new Mega CD system in 1992, was an at-tempt at being an interactive movie.

The plot involved a group of young women who are staying in a house for the night. The problem is that the last lot of girls who stayed there disappeared. You have to work with Dana, who plays Sega Control At-tack Team agent Kelly to protect these new girls. Spoiler alert: Some near-vampires called Augers are the cause for the disappearing girls!

Yes, the story is lightweight and the gameplay is questionable. Why are the girls staying in a house that has recently had some mysterious, un-solved disappearances take place? Who knows? The game received a mixed reception upon release with scores ranging from downright abys-mal, to 80%-90%!

Essentially, Night Trap is an experi-ment in voyeurism. You have a house full of girls in their nighties and bras and youre just there watching them, flicking between scenes and find-ing the vampires. The game teases you with possible hints at something overtly sexual happening but it never does. If you play this game looking for a cheap thrill you will be disap-pointed. Sorry!

In 1993 the game garnered some controversy when the US Govern-ment was looking to place blame on the corrupt youngsters of the 90s. Video games were seen as the devil and Night Trap was one of its pri-mary scapegoats. Consequently the game was pulled from the shelves.

There had been plans to convert Night Trap to other systems (with the Sega references removed) but these were put on hold. A hearing was held, and it was clear that those involved had not actually played the game, seeing as they could not even describe the concept of Night Trap. Documents from the hearing stated that the game was about trapping and killing women, when the actual objective is to protect them from this.Any efforts to actually explain what he game was really about fell on deaf ears. No one wanted to know about it. The Government had its scape-goat and it was going to run with it as long as it could. Thankfully people have a short memory. The contro-versy eventually died down and the game was released on PC, Mac and 3DO in 1994 and 1995, with an en-hanced version released for the 32X/Mega CD combination also getting a release.

So what is my personal opinion? Im glad you asked! Flicking between screens gets very samey and the traps keep repeating themselves. Where do these traps even lead to? Holes in the floors, secret walls It doesnt make a lot of sense. Even Dana Plato walking around in a bra, giving constant knowing looks to the camera does very little to make me want to play this game again. So while Im not a fan of the game, as the theme tune says It takes, Diffrent Strokes to move the world!

retro

...night trap!

...night trap!

WRITTEN BY PAUL MONOPOLI

This month we take a look at the lat-est from Kotobukiya and their amaz-ing Street Fighter Bishoujo statue. You can get these at Gametraders and if a store doesnt have them in stock they can order them for you. Ok on to our review.

Kotobukiya describes the figurine as there new art collection designed by Shunya Yamashita, a well known Japanese illustrator and game de-signer, famous for his beautiful fe-male characters.

Bishoujo Juri is a member of S.I.N and is well known for her impressive kick attacks as well as her Feng Shui Engine eye. They statue looks strong and powerful and is posed gracefully on one foot with her other ready to strike out with a kick. The billowing pants and wide sash belt, fingerless gloves and her chest harness are all well detailed and look incredible. The

Kotobukiya Street Fighter

Bishoujo Statue Review

COLLECTIBLES

stand is solid plastic and comes with a decal/sticker you can apply to the base to give an even better display.

The figurine comes with a quality box and plastic packaging.

The facial details are very good with nice hair details too. Fingers and toes are well defined and have painted nails with no imperfections. The stomach is flat and the skin is smooth, clothing too is nicely done with her pants billowing as it would be in a fight situation and her facial expression is cute and cheeky, al-most tempting the opponent to at-tack.

If youre a fan of Kotobukyia then this is a must have, particularly if youre into Street Fighter characters. The box also says that Sakura is coming soon!

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Lets talk about it yes, the more adult side of comics. The romance, love making and serious side of our favourite heroes! You see when a man loves a woman... Or a man loves a man... Or a woman loves a woman... Its all very complicated af-ter that and I dont think you are old enough for me to tell you how it all works. But I can talk to you about three very interesting facets of love and romance in comic books. Firstly, there is the sensualisation of su-perheroes, the way they are drawn. There is the love and romance itself within the pages of the story. Finally, there is the sexuality aspect of the characters.

There is no denying that comic book characters have always been drawn in, well, interesting proportions. The men are nearly always ripped, bar-rel-chested, square jawed ideals of masculinity. The women... well, large breasts, slim waists, long legs, and most importantly very revealing out-fits. There are many complex rea-sons as to why this is, people have been reading into it for years. It is a trend that has outraged many peo-ple. Feminist groups feel it objectifies women (which is a fairly accurate as-sessment) mens groups feel it pre-sents an unrealistic expectations for the male body.

I for one, have a very simple expla-nation for as to why this is the way it is it helps sell comic books! At the end of the day comic book com-panies want to make money. What better way to do that than give young men (the main readers) what they want, hot babes in next to nothing kicking butt. As a younger man I al-ways remembered having a crush on Mary Jane. Peter Parkers long time girlfriend, the ultimate girl next door. I was certainly effected by the images of the beautiful red-headed beauty who always stood up for Peter and always had his back. Its interesting to the degree in which

these characters and they way they are drawn can leave an imprint on us.

Another popular theory as to why he-roes are drawn in the evocative style is that heroes are inspired by the he-roes of times gone by. The heroes of Ancient Greece are always drawn or sculpted as large, strong brutes nearly always naked.

Another interesting idea when delv-ing into adult situations in comic books is the love scenes themselves. Two in particular come to mind, both of which present the same very warped idea. In Alan Moores classic comic book Watchmen Silk Spector and Night Owl engage in some very raunchy love making in the cockpit of Night Owls ship. The interesting part is that they keep their costumes on. Night Owl himself prior to this mo-ment had been suffering from a case of erectile disfunction, but after com-ing out of retirement, suiting up and saving some lives with Silk Spectre, well... It really gets him in the mood. Both characters keep their costumes on during, which presents some very interesting fetishistic ideas about sex in comic books.

The other example is in a very recent comic. In an issue of the New 52 Catwoman comic, Catwoman and Batman get together, once again though, keeping their costumes on. Looking at these two interpretations

of love making in comic books it is easy to see how the image of re-ally kind of messed up individuals is presented. These heroes are so focused on their false identities that they cannot connect with another human being in the most intimate way possible without keeping their costumes on. It goes to show that even deep down the heroes are a lit-tle messed up.

While for a long time comic book characters have always been viewed through a heterosexual lens, we are now in an age where homosexual comic book characters are becom-ing more and more common. Which is fantastic! It is great that young gay people can now pick up a comic book and find a hero they can con-nect with on a different level. Heroes that are just like them. A couple of years ago comic books saw its first gay marriage. The X-man Alpha Flight married his long time boyfriend Kyle and it was spectacular. The is-sue featured a full cover spread and was a point of pride for Marvel. It was great to see every spectrum of life represented in comic book form.

Sex is one of the most important as-pects of life, and comic books are a great way to explore those ideas. I cant wait to see what else comes our way as the world becomes a more tolerant and open place to talk about these things.

SUPERHEROESCOMICS

HAVE FEELINGS TOO...

SUPERHEROES

WRITTEN BY SCOTT F. SOWTER@SCOTTFSOWTER

Images from Wikipedia.

BOARD GAMES

& THE RELATIONSHIPS THEY CREATE...

board games

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WANT TO WIN our review X-FILES BOARD GAME?

What is it about board, card and video games that makes us strive for victory? Do we feel that we want to support and help the other play-ers to give us more of a competitive game or is there always a driving felling to completely annihilate our opponents? For me it depends on the game we are playing and whom I am playing against. In this article we take a look at what drives us to feel the need for victory and why sup-porting other players is beneficial to the game and also our relationships. Playing board games helps us to im-prove our relationships and connec-tion with others. The laughter and fun resulting from play reinforces intimacy, compassion, empathy and trust with our peers. Board games can also help to improve our rela-tionships with strangers. They can help to break the ice helping to cre-ate new friends.

These points mentioned above are the basis for why we crave victory when playing. Fun and laughter is shared between all players while playing a competitive game. This feeling of enjoyment urgers on our need to win as we can hold on to the feeling for longer than if we were to lose. Winning and the urge to win gets our emotions flowing showing others how much it means to us. This could be seen as a weakness but it can also be seen as a strength. Showing our emotions to others make people feel safer and closer to us, they learn more about us with our actions then with our words. Our determination and passion shows a side of us that others can feel safe

in knowing how passionate we can be in regards to things that are im-portant to us. Losing at a game can also shows others how you deal with conflicts in your life.

The trust and empathy we learn about others while playing board games comes from supporting oth-ers during the game. While learning to play a new game I feel it is always important to support others as it makes the learning process easier, especially if it is quite a complex game. Supporting others while play-ing can also help to ensure a com-petitive game is played. The more competitive a person is in life will de-termine their feeling towards winning an easy game with no competive-ness over an edge of your seat, one move will could result in you being victorious or losing everything type of game. When winning a game that isnt a challenge you do not get that all consuming feeling of achieve-ment or satisfaction then when you win a hard fought, tough slog of a session. Someone who doesnt care about the challenge and just wants to win to have bragging rights would not get to hold on to that winning feeling for as long as someone who appreciates a win. Teaching and supporting also helps to improve our cooperation with others resulting in better relationships.

I love to support the other people I am playing with while learning to play a new game or while playing a game that we have played countless times. When playing a game that is a family and friends favourite I dont

feel the need to win as I know I may have won this game many times. It just becomes a time of fun and en-joyment that I love, spending time with people who are important to me. There is one however one game that I do not like to lose at. It is not a board game but a video game. Mario Kart is my exception. I am de-termined to win while playing and I do not like to lose. An overwhelming desire to see Yoshi place first time and time again overcomes me and it is all I am focused on. All loyalties go out the window while hunting down the person who has managed to get into first place before me.

We play board, card and video games to connect with others around us, help relieve stress and too of course have fun but they are also important in improving and developing our re-lationships with others. Winning at games is always great but dont let the aim to win consume you result-ing in you missing out on spending time with those you love. Bringing people together, sharing laughs, ex-periences and connecting around the kitchen table for an afternoon or night is an amazing thing board games can do. They are something I look forward to and I hope many oth-er people also appreciate the magic they create.

WRITTEN BY JESS WILSON

Picture yourself in the era of discoveries: after a long voyage of great depriva-tion, your ships have fi-nally reached the coast of an uncharted island. Its name shall be Catan! But you are not the only discoverer. Other fearless seafarers have also land-ed on the shores of Cat-an: the race to settle the island has begun!

CATAN

COLLECT EM ALL AT GAMETRADERS!

BASE GAME

CATAN BOARD GAMES!

COLLECT EM ALL AT GAMETRADERS!

CATAN BOARD GAMES!

EXPANSION EXPANSION EXPANSION

EXPANSION

GET EM AT GAMETRADERS!

GET EM AT GAMETRADERS!

Check with staff on availability and release dates. Cant see the Pop! you want? Ask our friendly staff - theyll order it in for you!

COSPLAYINTERVIEW

INTERVIEW

INTERVIEW

KELANORD

CAPTAINCOSPLAY

SOPHIE VALENTINECOSPLAY

NIGHTHAUNTER

INTERVIEW

ASHARICOSPLAY& PROPS

INTERVIEW

COSPLAY = CONSENT

CREATINGTHE FEEL

COSPLAYTUTORIAL

GIRLS ON FILM

4 TRICKS FOR REVEALING

COSTUMES!

COSPLAY = CONSENT/

SPECIAL REPORT

CREATINGTHE FEEL

SPECIAL REPORT

PHOTOGRAPHY TIP

KELANORD

www.facebook.com/KELANORD

COSPLAYHi and welcome to Live Maga-zine! Tell us about how you got into cosplay.

First of all thank you for this op-portunity! My name is Guillaume Fortin and Im a graphic artist/designer/painter from Montreal, Canada.

I got into cosplay about 3-4 years ago, I was researching for a Hal-loween costume and stumble across the costuming club, the Mandalorian Mercs Costuming Club (MMCC). From there, I dis-covered a totally new world, one where I could let my creative juic-es flow through something else other than drawing and graphic design. I always loved dressing up, but since then, Ive been able to take it to another level. I love it! I wish I had more time to spend building and wearing costumes.

You have awesome Boba Fett inspired costumes, tell us how long youve been creating those.

Ive created at least 5 or 6 com-plete Mandalorian costumes over the past 3 or 4 years. As well as helped with a lot more. Most were commissions for people I met through facebook or the MMCC forums. A build can take up to 2 or 3 months to complete (mainly because I cant work entire days on costumes, with work, training, my girl friend, my family). I would say, if I could work all day on a costume, it would take maybe a week from start to finish...

How much work goes into mak-ing your costumes?

A LOT! I mean no costume is re-ally finished in my case. Im al-ways upgrading my stuff. That is one of the reasons I dont have a ton of different costumes. I work hard to build as much stuff as I can for each of my costumes (not that I look down on people who buy their costumes, not everyone has the time or wants to put all the effort needed to build from scratch) so I become attached to each. The more I add to a cos-tume, the more I like it and the more I want to add stuff to it... And so on and so forth.

Do you go to any cons and which are your favourites?

I go to conventions, maybe 4 to 6 a year. And I plan on having this number grow in the coming years. My favorite convention so far has been the one from my own city, Montreal. Ive been to Ottawa, Toronto, Providence, etc... Im planning to hit New York City this year, well how that turns out!

What about photo shoots - do you do any and how do you prepare?

Yeah, photo shoots are the best. I love to see how talented photog-raphers see my work, the image-ry they can come up with always amaze me! I usually work on some upgrades the week before

a shoot. Even if its something very subtle, its a great way to mark my progress.

Any tips for male cosplayers starting out??

I feel like I am starting out myself, so I dont know how I feel about giving other people advice about that. I see so many talented peo-ple out there, and I fell like its me who should be asking advice!! lol, but seriously, I would say the same thing I say to anybody cos-playing: Have fun! Be creative!

Finally where can our readers go to see more of your cos-play?

Folks can follow my builds, pho-to shoots, nerdgasms, rants and other adventures on my facebook page at www.facebook.com/KelanOrd. I always like interact-ing with people, talking about movies, cosplay (of course) and whatever kids are into these days! Hehe!

They can also follow me on Ins-tagram @000wil000 (although I must admit I do not post nearly as often as I should over there...)

Photographer: Nicolas Fortin-Blanchette | www.facebook.com/nicolas.fortinblanchette

Photographer: Nicolas Fortin-Blanchette | www.facebook.com/nicolas.fortinblanchette

Photographer: Jocelyn Thibault | www.facebook.com/Belziir

Photographer: Erik Paredes | www.facebook.com/erikparedesphotography

- Kelan Ord

I always loved dressing up, but since then, Ive been able to take it to another level. I love it ! I wish I had more time to spend building and wearing costumes.

Photographer: Ghost Monkey Productionswww.facebook.com/GhostMonkeyProductions

Photographer: Eric Lajeunessewww.facebook.com/EricLajeunessePhotographe

CAPTAINCOSPLAY

www.facebook.com/pages/Captain-Cosplay/519033871501098

COSPLAY

Hi and welcome to Live Maga-zine, Tell us how you got start-ed in cosplay?

Friends of mine were cosplayers but the thought had never crossed my mind to do it myself. The idea of me doing a cosplay didnt hit until I was in I was in an army sur-plus store in Japan. I saw a few pieces from a costume I had seen In Captain America and I thought to myself, I might as well give it a go.

What are your favourite cos-plays youve done.

All my costumes are my favourite in different ways, but if I were to chose one overall it would have to be my Bucky rescue Captain America.

What cons are you attending

and what have been some of your most memorable past mo-ments at cons?

This year the only con set in con-crete is Sydney Supanova but if time and money allows Ill try to get to others.

The two most memorable mo-ments would have to be, the first con I attended as a cosplayer. My cosplay was really well received and it was just a great first expe-rience all around. The second is a little disappointing but none the less funny. The first con I took my Rick OConnell costume to not a single person recognised me as him, they did however think I was Captain Mal from Firefly.

Do you find being a male cos-player that you have to work harder to promote your work?

Yes and no. I do feel as a male cosplayer you do get a little less recognition and it is harder to gain an audience. But if youre cosplaying for the fun of it then that shouldnt matter.

Any tips for other male cos-players just starting out?

Dont limit your costumes to char-acters or costumes that you think will be popular with other peo-ple. Cosplay for yourself, cosplay characters you like, avoid cos-playing for others and youll al-ways have a good time.

Where can readers go to find out more about you?

I have a number of places that you can find me, but the best place to start would be my Facebook page under captain cosplay.

Photographer: KJ Photography | www.facebook.com/kjphotographycanberraEdited by Captain Cosplay

SOPHIE VALENTINECOSPLAY

COSPLAY

Hi Sofia! Tell us abit about yourself, where you are from and how you got into cosplay?

My name is Sofia and I am 23 years old Buenos Aires the capi-tal of Argentina. Ive been cos-playing since I was 8. At first, I did not know much about it, un-til I went to conventions and saw people with cosplay and I loved t