official xbox magazine - october 2015 usa

8/17/2019 Official Xbox Magazine - October 2015 USA

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/official-xbox-magazine-october-2015-usa 1/100

TOM CLANCY’S

GHOST RECONWILDLANDSThe Ghosts take on

an entire country!

HITMAN

IS BACK!One target,eight waysto kill…

Be Boba Fett. Fight on Hoth. Duel with Darth.The Star Wars game of your dreams hits Xbox One

ALSO INSIDE!ELDER SCROLLS ONLINE REVIEWED

DISCOVER XBOX ONE’S NEW FACE

EXPLORING MIRROR’S EDGE CATALYST

WE CONQUER ELITE: DANGEROUSLOPPING OFF HEADS IN FOR HONOR

NSIDE THE MYSTERIOUSWORLD OF RECORE

EXPLORING MIYAZAKI’SBRUTAL DARK SOULS III

HELP BUILD A GAME WITHXBOX GAME PREVIEW!

25XBOX 360 CULTCLASSICS WEWANT ONXBOX ONE



Cast an eye over this month’s

previews section and you’ll finda lineup with something foreveryone, whether it’s open-world hostage negotiations,

free-running in a dystopian future or,erm, chopping off a samurai’s headwith a viking’s axe. After two years ofpublishers awkwardly straddling thelast and current gens, it finally feels

like a proper Xbox One leap. And all thisbefore getting to our mighty cover star.Star Wars Battlefront blew us awayat E3, finally achieving what so muchpromotional puff has promised us inthe past: putting you in the movies.Step into Darth Vader’s size tens andprepare to cause some havoc!

“IT FINALLY FEELSLIKE A PROPERXBOX ONE LEAP”

EDITOR’S LETTERBigger, better, boxier

EMAIL [email protected]

LIVE OXM Pesto TWITTER @mrbasil_pesto

Emma Davies

Production editor

Live OXM Emma

Twitter @emcetera

Emma was the onlyteam member deemeddisposable enoughto be allowed to go toGlastonbury festivalthis year. Rumors thatshe spent the entireweekend furiousthat ‘deadmau5’isn’t capitalized are…

depressingly true.

Alex Dale

Deputy editor

Live ChocoboOfDoom

Twitter

@SporadicDaler

Alex wasted most ofthe month dreamingup Bolivia puns for hisGhost Recon Wildlands preview. ‘Seeing isBolivian’? Nope. ‘LaPaz-manian Devils?’That’s a reach. ‘Peru-tiful’? Wrong country,

you dummy.

Joe Skrebels

Community manager

Live OXM Joe

Twitter @2plus2isjoe

Joe spent a rowdyweek on a boat thismonth, as part of afriend’s bachelor partycelebrations. “Theexperience remindedme of a Rare game,”said an ashen-facedSkrebs the nextMonday. Cobra Triangle?

“Nope – Sea of Heaves”

Tom Stone

Staff writer

Live OXM Tom Stone

Twitter

@TheTomStrange

Tom subscribes tothe ‘method acting’school of gamereviewing: that’s whyhe expensed a tripto the zoo for Tembo,and spent the rest ofthe month on the golfcourse for PGA Tour . He

is so reviewing DOOM .

Meet the… OXM CONTRIBUTORS

ISSUE #179 / October 2015

EDITORIALEditor-in-Chief: Matthew [email protected] (Live: OXM Pesto)Deputy Editor: Alex [email protected] (Live: ChocoboOfDoom)Production Editor: Emma Davies

[email protected] (Live: OXM Emma)Staff Writer: Tom [email protected] (Live: OXM Tom Stone)Community Manager: Joe [email protected] (Live: OXM Joe)

Writing: Ben Griffin, Jenny Baker, Jenny Meade, Leon Hurley, Andy Kelly,Edwin Evans-Thirlwell, Justin Towell, Tom Senior, Martin Kitts, Samuel Roberts,Chris Schilling, Mark Green, Justin Towell, Dan Griliopoulos, Nathan Brown

ARTArt Editor: Rob [email protected] (Live: OXM RobC)Art Contributors: Mark Field

BUSINESSVice President, Sales & Business Development

Nate Hunt, [email protected] of Partnerships

Isaac Ugay, [email protected] of Sales

Stacy Gaines, [email protected] Sales Manager

Jen Doerger, [email protected]

Regional Sales ManagerBrandon Wong, [email protected] Sales Manager

Tad Perez, [email protected] Sales Manager

Austin Park, [email protected] Sales Manager

Jessica Reinert, [email protected]

PRODUCTIONProduction Manager Mark ConstanceProduction Controller Nola CokelyProject Manager Clare ScottProduction Assistant Emily Wood

SUBSCRIPTION QUERIESPlease visit us on the web at www.gamesradar.com/oxmcustomerservice-us, email us at [email protected], call us at 1-515-248-7682, or write to us at Official XboxMagazine Customer Care, P.O. Box 5156, Harlan, IA 51593-0656.

BACK ISSUESTo order back issues, please call us at 1-800-865-7240, or visit uson the web at www.totalxbox.com/shop-us.

REPRINTS Please contact us at Future US, Inc.,4000 Shoreline Court, Suite 400, South S an Francisco, CA 94080

Phone (650) 872-1642Fax (650) 872-2207Website ww w.futureus.comISSN 1534-7850© 2015 Future US, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole orin part without permission is prohibited. Microsoft, Xbox, and theXbox logo are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the UnitedStates and/or in other countries and are used under license fromMicrosoft. All other trademarks and copyrights are the property oftheir respective holders.

President, US Charlie SpeightVice President, Marketing & Operations Rhoda BuenoDirector, Human Resources Eric Buksa

Future US, Inc. is part of Future plc. Future produces carefullytargeted special-interest magazines, websites, and events forpeople who share a passion. We aim to satisfy that passion bycreating titles offering value for money, reliable information,and smart buying advice, and that are a pleasure to read or visit.Today we publish more than 150 magazines, 65 websites, and agrowing number of events in the U.S., UK, France, and Italy. Over 100international editions of our magazines are also published in 30other countries across the world.

FUTURE PLC

Chief Executive Zillah Byng-MaddickNon Executive Chairman Peter AllenTel +44 1225 442244 www.futureplc.com

4 / THE OFFICIAL XBOX MAGAZINE WWW.GAMESRADAR.COM/OXM


http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/official-xbox-magazine-october-2015-usa 6/1006 / THE OFFICIAL XBOX MAGAZINE WWW.GAMESRADAR.COM/OXM

CONTENTS

#179

PAGE

70

PAGE

48

PAGE

36

PAGE

60

PAGE

08PAGE

80

DASHBOARDNEWS AND INTERVIEWS CURATED FOR YOUR EASY DIGESTION

08 The Full 360Why backwards compatibility drives Xbox One forward.

16 The Making of Rare ReplayHow Rare is crafting the perfect retro compilation.

18 Hitman: Choose YourOwn MisadventureExploring the murderous possibilities of Hitman’s

‘The Showstopper’ level.

20Xbox One’s New DashboardA sneak peek at the new Xbox One interface.

FEATURES

28 A New HopeHow DICE is taking shooters to a galaxy far, far

away with Star Wars Battlefront .

52 Xbox Game PreviewMicrosoft’s latest initiative lets you buy unfinished

games at bargain prices – here’s how it works.

80Cult StatusVirtua Fighter ! Blur ! Spec Ops! The forgotten

Xbox 360 gems you must play.

PREVIEWS

36 Ghost Recon Wildlands40 Dark Souls III44 Assassin’s Creed Syndicate48 Mirror’s Edge Catalyst50 Need for Speed

REVIEWS

60 Elite: Dangerous64 Rory McIlroy PGA Tour66 The Swapper67 Tembo the Badass Elephant68 Devil May Cry 470 The Elder Scrolls Online:Tamriel Unlimited74 The Long Dark

76 The Swindle

PAGE

28

STAR WARS

BATTLEFRONTIt takes Tatooine to tango in2015’s biggest online shooter.

GHOST RECONWILDLANDSClancy goes southof the border.

OFFICIAL XBOX MAGAZINE (ISSN 1534-7850) is published 13 times a year, monthly plus Holiday issue following December issue by Future US, Inc., 4000 Shoreline Court, Suite 400, SouthSan Francisco, CA 94080. Phone: (650) 872-1642. Fax (650) 872-2207. Website: www.futureus.com. Periodicals postage paid in San Bruno, CA and at additional mailing offices. Newsstanddistribution is handled by Time Warner Retail. Basic subscription rates: one year (12 issues) US: $24.95; Canada: US$29.95. Canadian orders must be prepaid. Canadian price includes post-age and GST #R128220688. PMA #40612608. Subscriptions do not include newsstand specials. POSTMASTER: Send changes of address to Official Xbox Magazine, PO Box 5852, Harlan,IA 51593-1352. Standard Mail enclosed in the following edition: None. Ride-Along enclosed in the following editions: None. Returns: IMEX Global Solutions, PO Box 25542, London, ON N6C6B2, Canada. Future US, Inc. also publishes @Gamer, Crochet Today!, Mac|Life, Maximum PC, and PC Gamer. Entire contents copyright 2014, Future US, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduc-tion in whole or in part is prohibited. Future US, Inc. is not affiliated with the companies or products covered in Official Xbox Magazine. Reproduction on the Internet of the articles and

pictures in this magazine is illegal without the prior written consent of Official Xbox Magazine. Products named in the pages of O fficial Xbox Magazine are trademarks of their respectivecompanies. PRODUCED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

MIRROR’S EDGEFaith some more.



Armed with backwards compatibility and gamepreviews, the Xbox One of 2015 is a triumphant

marriage of nostalgia and ambition

BACK FROM THE FUTURE

THE FULL 360

So far, 21 backwardscompatible games havebeen announced, but manymore will be availablelater in the year.


XBOX NEWS, ANALYSIS, CULTURE, OPINION & MORE



Pitchford slates Aliens lawsuitGearbox boss Randy Pitchford hascommented on a failed lawsuit against thestudio over the quality ofAliens: ColonialMarines, describing it as a case of “Mafia-style extortion tactics” and insisting thatthe open market is the ultimate arbitrator.

ZombiU Xbox port rumouredAn Xbox One edition of WiiU launch titleZombiU appears to be in the works. Therumoured port (rather forlornly titledZombi) has been rated by both Taiwan andAustralia’s certification boards. Watch outfor an announcement from publisher Ubisoft.

Rare has described Sea of Thieves as its“most ambitious effort ever”. We can’t wait.

To know where you’re going, embrace whereyou’ve come from. Thus the subtext ofMicrosoft’s decision to support Xbox 360compatibility on Xbox One. The move is unlikelyto have much of a direct impact on the youngerconsole’s market uptake – previous generationshave demonstrated that backwards compatibility

isn’t a huge sales draw – though it’ll probably sway a fewlast-gen holdouts who are already tempted by the likes ofHalo 5 . But the symbolism of it can’t be overstated.

This is the final and most decisive of Microsoft’s efforts tore-establish the through-line with the halcyon years of Xbox360, the last piece of a puzzle the manufacturer has been

trying to solve since deterring many fans with a mixture ofKinect-heavy entertainment features and restrictive online

policies back in 2013. It’s not just that you can playBattleBlock Theater or Viva Piñata on your Xbox One now

– it’s that the era that gave us those no longer feelsat odds with the era that gave us Titanfall and D4.

This point extends to more than just backwardscompatibility, of course. It’s apparent in howMicrosoft has nurtured and evolved its corefirst-party properties, allowing new teams toget to grips with them while taking care notto depart too dramatically from its formula.The restoration of the original Gears of War alongside a suspenseful trailer for Gears 4 isa reassurance that we won’t be treated toanother Judgment -style experiment.

Halo 5 might have attracted umbragelately for its scripted-seeming campaignand lack of split-screen, but we’d challengeyou to sit through a colossal Warzone

threeway or a snappy bout of Breakout andnot feel as giddy as a Halo 3 player making his

first run on a Covenant Scarab.Forza’s deft alternation between the open

world mayhem of Horizon and the car anorakperfectionism of the numbered series is a masterclass inhow to innovate within a brand. And Rare Ltd, finally, is backin the spotlight for reasons other than its long dalliance withKinect. It’s early days, but the forthcoming Sea of Thieves

has the potential to be a wonderful meeting of past and

At $150 it’s notcheap, but the newElite controlleroffers an arrayof customizationoptions.

//BACKWARDS COMPATIBILITY IS THELAST PIECE OF THE PUZZLE MICROSOFT

HAS BEEN TRYING TO SOLVE//

THE OFFICIAL XBOX MAGAZINE / 9@OXM



Oh to have a livingroom big enoughfor a Forza setuplike this...

present – the cuddly esthetic and

action emphasis of a vintage Raregame, plus the water physics andonline community element of aKinect Sports Rivals.

It’s hard to get as excited aboutthe next Dashboard revision, whichswitches out the old ‘Metro’ tileinterface for a Windows 10-inspiredarray of feeds, but then again, that’skind of the point. Where Metro wasdesigned to push Kinect controls tothe fore, its large panels suiting grab-and-swipe motion controls, the newfront end is all about getting out ofyour way. Switching between functionsis noticeably faster, and accessingplatform features while playing agame is much less fiddly – rather thancompressing the view to fiddle witha Snapped app or retreating to themain Dash, you’ll pop out a tab thatunifies your Friends list, party invites,messages and key settings such asgame-to-chat volume ratios.

The introduction of Cortana,Microsoft’s Siri-style voice-controlledsearch app, also promises to make lifeeasier for multi-taskers: you can orderit to break off a chunk of footage,

upload it and add a caption in the

space of a few seconds. The new Elite

controller, meanwhile, is a celebrationof the lust for a competitive edgethat has defined Xbox Live since Halo2 ’s multiplayer. It’s an accessory forplayers who love to optimize – you canswap in thumbsticks or D-pads, tweaksensitivities and assign extra inputs tounder-mounted control paddles.

Were backwards compatibility theonly major step-change in Xbox One’sfuture, there’d perhaps be cause foraccusations of complacency. But the

feature was announced alongside Xbox

Game Previews, the first console-native take on Steam’s very successfulEarly Access program, which allowsstudios to sell work-in-progress games.

As with Steam, the genius of thisis that it transforms players who arewilling to overlook placeholder bits andrough edges into collaborators, fellowtravellers on the adventure that iscreating a game. In allowing studiosto tap into that audience early,it’ll take a little of the risk out

The new Elitecontrollerwill takethe Red vsBlue rivalryto a wholenew level.

Call of Duty stays frostyThe “Juggernog” edition ofCall of Duty: Black Ops 3 will ship with a working fridge, modeled on thein-game Perk-a-Cola machine. It’s an ice touch.




What Keiji Inafune has put at thecore of his new game, ReCore.

p14

When Cortana will be arriving onour console Dashboards.

p20

That Adam Jensen won’t getpunished for not choosing stealth.

p22

Some of the many murderous tricksAgent 47 has up his sleeve.

p18

Why we might feel a tad guilty

about drinking human blood.

p23

THIS MONTHWE LEARNED...

of developing an unfamiliar or

inaccessible concept. The result,hopefully, will be more games onXbox One that are as idiosyncratic ordemanding as The Long Dark , a survivalsim in which your greatest foe is MotherNature. There will be the odd totallybroken release, of course, but supportfor time-limited free trials should helpplayers dodge that particular bullet(more about that on page 52).

As always when processing thefallout from E3 season, there’s thetantalizing thought of what Microsoftdidn’t show. A notable absentee wasLionhead’s new, non-Fable IP – expectto hear more about that once FableLegends is out the door. There’s alsothe new zombie survival MMO fromUndead Labs, creator of hit Xbox LiveArcade release State of Decay , plusthe revival of a “beloved” strategyfranchise in development at Decisive

//OF COURSE, THERE’S THE FASCINATINGPROSPECT OF HOLOLENS, AND THESTILL-UNANSWERED QUESTION OF HOW

MUCH IT WILL TIE INTO XBOX//

Games. And by the time you read this

we’ll have laid eyes eyes on the much-coveted Crackdown reboot, Remedy’stime-bending shooter QuantumBreak and Platinum’s dragon ‘em upScalebound at Gamescom in Germany.

And of course, there’s thefascinating prospect of HoloLens,Microsoft’s holographic gamingheadset, and the still-unansweredquestion of exactly how much it willtie into Xbox. The device continues todazzle – turning a kitchen table into afully interactive Minecraft level is surelyone for the history books – but in thewake of E3’s revelations, it no longerfeels like Xbox One needs a dashof VR magic to sex up its appeal. Inrevisiting the golden age of Xbox 360,and adapting proven ideas from PC, theconsole has laid the foundations for agolden age of its own.Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

With 1TB of hard disk space as well as the option toadd more external storage, the new Xbox One consolegives you loads of room to store your games.

Xbox to skip TGSXbox won’t have a booth at this year’s Tokyo Game Show,reflecting its less-than-stellar sales in the region.Expect “updates” from Microsoft Japan, however.




A DOG’S LIFEAs Pacini describes it,Mack’s not the dog, but

the core itself. “Place himinto the dog and he’s Mack,the personality, but he’llalso inherit some of therobot anatomy – he’ll bark

and take animalisticanimations.”

ON THE PULLJoule’s arm-mounted

Extractor lets her yankout enemy cores. “You’ve notonly destroyed a creature,but gained something as

well, and that can be usedin an entirely differentgameplay system,” hints

Pacini.

GOING APEInserting the core intoother frames imbues Mackwith new traits. “Put himinto a gorilla-type frameand it’s still this gentlecharacter, but now he’sgruff and bangs his fistsand hoots like an ape,”

explains Pacini.

GETTING TO THECORE OF THE MATTERWe quiz Keiji Inafune on ReCore, E3’s most mysterious game

What’s the story?Never has a reveal been quiteso… unrevealing. Three minutesof teaser shows sand, a girl, anda soon-to-be-dead robotic dog.ReCore’s creator, Keiji Inafune,is almost as cryptic in person,recounting the entire trailer withadded color – she’s Joule, thedog’s Mack – and relishing in ourconfusion. “A lot of it is shroudedin mystery: where is this takingplace? Why has this place beentaken over by robots? Why am I theonly lone survivor?” Interview 101,Mr Inafune: we ask the questions.

Why should I care?Mark Pacini, game director atReCore‘s co-developer Armature,paints a more enticing picture ofa “third-person action adventurewhere there’s platforming, fastcombat and some shooting.”Deciding to drop his Riddlerroutine, Inafune is also keen toemphasise that it’s “not just afast-paced, ‘clear the level andhit the next level’ design. Thereis a relationship you form withyour companion, a whole differentdynamic that’s integrated into thegame and the story.”

What happens next?Armature makes the magichappen – it’s in full productionafter a year spent prototypingideas. Considering the studio isstaffed by Metroid Prime’s creativeleads, that’s a pretty potentmagic. There may even be someMetroid in ReCore’s DNA. “Yourrobotic companions become keysto the world, similar to [Metroid ’s]‘oh I have this thing that allowsme to grapple up there’.” Anygame that channels the spirit ofNintendo’s GameCube classic iswelcome in our Xbox One slot.

14 / THE OFFICIAL XBOX MAGAZINE

CORE BLIMEY

D A S H B O A R D

WWW.GAMESRADAR.COM/OXM



Uncharted + Mass Effect = Star WarsEA’s Motive Studio will work with BioWare’s Montreal outfiton a new Star Wars game, with ex-Uncharted director/writer AmyHennig in the creative director’s chair. That’s some pedigree.

RETURN OFTHE MACK

Animation subtletiesare key to bringing Mackto life. Pacini says no

matter what frame you placehim in, similarities survive.

“Mack always shakes hishead, so you’ll alwayssee that head shake nomatter what frame

he has.”

ICY RECEPTIONInafune cites Lost

Planet, or ratherits study of mankind’sremnants struggling ina harsh world, as one

inspiration for ReCore. “Ina similar way, I’m tryingto illustrate the end of

humanity,” he says,cheerily.

XBOX GAME PREVIEWTrying an unfinished game is the digitalequivalent of licking the cake mix bowlbefore the sponge is out of the oven.

GHOST RECON WILDLANDSBolivian marching powder is no longer

the country’s most addictive export.

GEARS OF WAR:ULTIMATE EDITION

A week spent liquefying Locust inthe brilliant beta and Gears of War 4 suddenly seems brutally far away.

ASSASSIN’S CREEDSYNDICATE

It’ll take more than a grappling hook andnifty top hats to justify a trip to London.

THE ELDER SCROLLS ONLINE“You are the chosen one! And so is

your friend. And his dad.” Fantasy atits most insincere.

NO HALO 5 SPLIT-SCREEN343 Industries’ dedication to 60 frames

per seconds is swell, but our couch

will be a lonelier place for it.

1

2

3

1

2

3

Joule is oneof the lasthumans on Earth.

Just what have the redsgot against the blues?


UPPERS &DOWNERS

This month’stemperature, taken

WHAT’S HOT?

WHAT’S NOT?


http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/official-xbox-magazine-october-2015-usa 16/10016 / THE OFFICIAL XBOX MAGAZINE WWW.GAMESRADAR.COM/OXM

TH IS MONTH :

TENPROTIPS

Guns, explosions, googlyeyes, sassy bird sidekicks- Rare Replay’s theater-themed menu’s got the lot.

1Put every gamefront and centerWhat all Rare games have

in common is this element offun. They’re exciting. Easy toapproach. Vibrant. But it’s alsoa very diverse selection. So

what we wanted to do to draweverything together was give afeel that each game was beingshowcased, and that’s how wecame up with the theater theme.

2Add fun flourishesWhen you scroll throughthe games on the menu

screen, you’ll discover that everyicon is animated and kind of hasits own life. If you watch themlong enough, you’ll see thingskick off. If you press the button,

you’ll go to the game’s individualfront-end, which is set out like astage of the game, with loads ofcharacters popping in and out.

3Dig through thearchivesWhen I say ‘archives’,

you probably think of this vault buried under the ground beneath Rare, but it’s not quiteas glamorous. It’s many, manycupboards and closets and stuff,where things are written to ROMand disc. We actually had to get

extra guys to sift through all the

material and get all the sourcecode of the games.

4Unearth hiddentreasuresIt really was an education.

We found old magazines, so we

scanned images. We found artcollections in binders. We evenfound books that had been bound

years ago, and hardback bookswith classic art in them. That wasreally exciting, really interesting.

5Modernize theart styleWhat’s interesting about,

say, Battletoads, is that since itwas originally released therehasn’t actually been that muchnew art. So we essentially justused the material we had to workfrom and put our own spin on it,kinda modernizing it and takingit forward in our own way.

6Soften the controlsOur designers have lookedat the control systems for

certain games, such as Jet ForceGemini, and where possiblethey’re going to try and makethings more accessible. They’vetreated them all on an individual

basis and done what they can to

make sure the players don’tget frustrated.

7Add new twists

A big feature we have inthe game is the snapshots.

We have 80 of them, and theyare basically bite-sized chunksof the games where we’ve madea challenge out of them. So forinstance on R.C. Pro-Am you canplay a challenge where you’ve

got to do a race without allowing your speed to drop below 45mph.One of my favorites is basedaround Battletoads – it’s aninfinite Turbo Tunnel.

8Be comprehensive…Getting a game like Knight

Lore, which was originallydesigned for the ZX Spectrum[a home computer released in1982] up and running was quitea challenge for our engineers. Iliken them to wizards, working

in mystical ways to bring theseobscure things back. Those guyshave done a great job. I couldn’t

begin to tell you how they do it.

9…to a pointThere were a couple oftitles that we were really

keen on getting in, like Mickey’s Speedway USA, but we ran intolicensing issues getting theminto the project. For other games,it was tricky to track down thesource code. But we still feelreally positive and really proudof the games we have got into it.They are 30 of our finest games.

10Future proof itWith all these new

builds we have of thegames, we’re certainly goingto keep them nicely archived.Having gone through all thechallenges we have gone throughto make this compilation, we’redefinitely going to be self-conscious about making sure thateverything is properly stored and

kept in an orderly fashion. OXM

BACKGROUNDCHECK

NAME Peter Hentze

JOB TITLE Art director

BIO Peter has worked as an

artist for Rare for over 15

years – his first title wasMickey’s Speedway USA for

the Nintendo 64. He cites

Conker: Live & Reloaded , a

2005 remake of Conker’s Bad

Fur Day for the original Xbox,

as his big break, working as a

dedicated concept artist. He

has also worked on a number

of unreleased prototypes,

which can be checked out in

Rare Replay ’s theater, in

a section voiced-over by

Peter himself.

Art director Peter Hentze explains how Rare Replaywill squeeze fans’ nostalgia glands

HOW TO BUILD THE PERFECTRETRO COMPILATION

EASTER EGG

Rarehasconfirmedthatthefamous B a t t l e t o a d s

glitchthatsaw thesecondplayerscontrollerceasetofunc

tionafterthe11thstagewillbefixed.



Another day in Paradise?Good news, DJ Atomika fans (fan?), Criterionis talking to Microsoft about makingBurnoutParadise backwards compatible on Xbox One.

U’RE FIRED! > QUOTES OF THE MONTH > BLAH BLAH > HE SAID WHAT? > YA

“It’s completely optional.It’s something that playerscan use if they’re having

trouble, but in general youcan unlock everything.”

MGS V community manager Robert Peeler,

defending the game’s microtransactions.

“I wouldn’t do thatnecessarily with humans butwhen you’re doing it with

demons, the gloves are off”

DOOM executive producer, Marty Stratton,

explaining why chainsawing people to death is

fine, as long as they’re not technically people.

“I’ve wanted to tell people,‘Hold onto your 360 games!’There were a hundred timeswhere people had to stop me

from tweeting that.”

Phil Spencer only just managed to keep

backwards compatibility under wraps.

can put our fears of heaving drywallacross the Wasteland to rest.

You can install electronics in yournew home, but they’ll require buildinggenerators. “It’s common sense visualstuff," continuesHines. “If it doesn’tconnect to thegenerator, thepower doesn’twork.” Luckily, heexplains, craftingspecific items hasnever been easier.“You can actually flag stuff to say ‘I’mlooking for this stuff because I want tomake this,’” which means when you’rescavenging “anything that fulfils therequirement gets flagged in the world.”

Fallout 4 is now so close, wecan practically taste it, which

probably explains why ourradiation poisoning levels arecurrently through the roof.

Speaking of the roof, (great segueincoming) that’s just one part of thehouse you can construct with thegame’s ambitious crafting system.Bethesda’s Pete Hines tells us more.

“For the larger building stuff it ’s not[stored] in your inventory, it’s in theworkbench that you’re using in thatarea,” explains Hines. “I deconstructedthis and it’s all stored over here andthen when I go to build it’s pullingfrom that inventory of stuff I have.”So building will rely on what we findin construction areas. Looks like we

Your options also don’t endwith successfully switching on thepower. “When you connect stuf f tothe computer terminal you have a lotof control and sort of fine tuning,”says Pete. “If you’ve got somethingthat plays music, you can actuallydefine how it’s playing the music,”and different devices give youdifferent options. “What color arethey [the lights]? What is the pattern?

Do they flash? When does the fireshoot out of the thing?” Hmm. It’sprobably best to test that last one

outside first.Lead producer

Jeff Gardinerclaims that he’s“played the gamefor probably 400hours, and I’mstill finding stuffthat I haven’t

seen.” At this rate, by the time we’vemastered all that crafting has to offerand explored all of Fallout 4, humanityactually will have been wiped out. Atleast the cockroaches will enjoy it.

Build thecomplexVault Boygrid, or goto bed? Toughdecision.Better sleepon it.

//400 HOURS, ANDI’M STILL FINDING

STUFF THAT IHAVEN’T SEEN//

BUILDING A NUCLEARHOUSEHOLDPete Hines on Fallout 4’s crafting system


D A S H B O A R D



HITMAN: CHOOSE

YOUR OWNMISADVENTUREThe most open-endedHitman game yet provesthat there’s more than oneway to skin a (fat) cat

Agent 47’s first foray onto new-gen tech might beslim of name (just Hitman – no subtitles this time,thank you please), but it’s fat with mischief. Todemonstrate the wealth of murderous optionsavailable to everyone’s favorite barcode-headed

assassin, developer IO Interactive invited OXM to take a tourof one of the game’s early stages, ‘The Showstopper’.

This stage takes place during a fashion show partyhosted in the grounds of a luxurious Parisian mansion, andwe’re told the explorable playing area is four times the sizeof anything we’ve seen in previous Hitman games. Agent47 fancies that this swanky soiree will provide the perfectcover to allow him to get close to his targets – ViktorNovikov, outgoing owner of the Sanguine fashion house, andhis partner-in-crime, retired supermodel Dahlia Margolis...

2 JANITOR

A great choice – itmight not bag you adance with the mayor’sdebutante daughter,but it will grant you abag of tools. And, moreimportantly, it lets youpoke around the backrooms unnoticed.What do you do next?

2A TAMPER WITH THEGARDEN HEATER

Our targets love themselves a craftycigarette. Puncture the garden heaterwith a screwdriver, and the escapinggas turns the smoking area into adeath trap waiting to happen. Allwe need now is for Novikov to stepoutside and spark up…

3A NOVIKOVNot hard to figure out

then, is it? Squirt some poisonin his Gatorade, or whateverit is rich people drink atparties, and scamper beforeanyone nearby can connectthe dots.

3 WAITERThis dapper outfit

not only guaranteesyou alone time with thecanapés (worth seeinghow many vol-au-ventsyou can fit in yourwaistcoat on the wayout), but it also gives youa golden opportunity totamper with the drinks.But who are you serving?

4A BLOW THEWHOLE ROOM UP

Subtlety – who needs it? Juststick a bomb in the corner ofa room or corridor, hide roundthe corner and when Novikovstrolls past, light the bluetouch paper. You can do thisbecause the security guardsare the only people who don’thave to go through the metaldetector checkpoints dottedthroughout the building.

4 SECURITYGUARD

The mansion is swarmingwith security guards,so isolating one andnicking his costumecan be tricky. But if youmanage to score one,you’ll be rewarded with adisguise that gives youaccess to most areas ofthe mansion. It’ll give youample opportunities toget in close with Novikov,but you’ll rarely be alone.What to do?

5A PLACE A BOMB ONTHE CANAPÉS TABLE

Not as stupid as it looks (as long asno one sees). If a party-goer spotsa suspicious object, she’ll inform asecurity guard who will disarm itand take it inside to the evidenceroom. Meaning you can swoop inlater and reclaim it, bypassing themetal detectors.

5 AU NATURALNothing gets

between an assassin andhis cheap suit – not eventhe mission. Fortunately,even if Agent 47 doesn’tfancy playing dress-up,there are still plenty ofopportunities for murder.Do you…

1 START Unbeknown to the attendees, the fashion

show is a front for Novikov and Margolis’ otherbusiness interest – the couple are involved witha spy ring, and are attempting to sell nationalsecrets to a mystery buyer on the top floor of themansion. Agent 47 needs to reach them; but if hewants to bypass the hefty security, he’s going toneed a disguise…WHICH COSTUME DO YOU GO FOR?


ALL CHOKED UP

D A S H B O A R D



HOW TOSPEAKDEVELOPERYour guide totranslating thoseinterview gems

Lego: Combat EvolvedHalo 5 ’s latest Warzone map, Raid on Apex 7, was unveiled in anovel way at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con – in the form of aMega Blox reconstruction, totalling over 89,500 bricks.

“We’d love tomake our game oneof the backwardscompatible titles.”If you think you’replaying that on yourXbox One without

buying our RemasteredSuper Perfecto-GreatEdition then you’re asstupid as we are rich.

“Our dev plan wassimple – we justmade the game we’dwant to play!”Look out for Corporate

Cretin Simulator thisholiday season.

“With Twitterintegration, youcan use our uniquehashtag to geteven more fun outof our game!”#innovationisdeadnoideasleftthewellisdryhowdiditcometothis

“When you take ona new entry in abeloved franchise,it’s important togive the fans whatthey want.”Thanks to them, we canpractically copy andpaste the last gameand don’t have to takethe ‘risk’ of addingany new features.

2B LOOSEN THE LOUDSPEAKERThe mansion is packed with objectsthat can be turned into comedy death trapswith a little elbow grease. Such as theloudspeaker overhanging the mansion’sbalcony. Every character in the level has aroutine that they run through like clockwork– including your targets. Learn Novikov’sroutine, predict when he’s going to beunderneath the speaker, and let it fly…

6 THEY’REDEAD!

Congrats, we guess.How do you makeyour escape?

3B NOVIKOV’S COMPANYIt’s hard to give a Russian

oligarch the garotting he deserveswhen he’s currently being interviewedby a journalist. Slip a laxative intoher drink and she’ll dart off to therestrooms in a panic, giving you somevaluable alone time with Mr Novikov.

6A THROUGHTHE

FRONT GATE?Classy. Low key.We approve.

6B VIA THEVICTIM’S

SPEEDBOAT?Touche.

6C VIA THEVICTIM’S

HELICOPTER,IN FULL VIEWOF EVERYONE?How gauche.

4B SET OFFFIREWORKS

If you can find the remote,you can set off the post-party fireworks early,creating a distraction. It’sloud too, so if your timingis perfect you can even getaway with putting a bullet inthe target’s head.

5B FETCH YOUR TRUSTYSNIPER RIFLE

Levels are built for replayability. After yourfirst playthrough you can ask the Agency todrop off advanced weapons in key strategiclocations. So you can plant a high-poweredsniper rifle in the garden shed, for example.Now line up the shot and snuff out the suit.

@OXM THE OFFICIAL XBOX MAGAZINE / 19



What’s on Gameswith Gold thismonth? How do Idelete that videoof me playing

Farming Simulator before I loseall my followers? NavigatingXbox One’s current interfacesometimes makes us want to

break down in tears, especiallywhen we accidentally unpin ourFox News app. This fall seesthe launch of a much improvedand, crucially, faster interface.Cosmetically, it shares more incommon with Windows 10’s XboxApp, with an improved focus onworking alongside your games.

In it, a double-tap of theXbox button brings up a sidebarmenu. This enables you to doalmost everything – change yoursettings, see who’s online orinvite friends to a party. Optionsonce buried in menus are now acouple of button-presses away.You don’t even have to pause

your game, although that’sprobably unwise if you’re in themiddle of a deathmatch. That’swhere Cortana comes in.

Back off, Siri: there’s a newdisembodied female assistant intown. Previously just a Windows10 feature, Cortana makesordering Xbox One about even

XBOX ONE GETS

A (INTER)FACELIFTEasier navigation, enhanced game recording and Cortana in yourconsole: Xbox One finally gets an update we want to install

//BACK OFF, SIRI:THERE’S A NEWDISEMBODIED FEMALEASSISTANT IN TOWN//

EVERYTHINGIN ITS RIGHT PLACERecently played games

stack up on the Home screen,with pinned games and Apps

living beneath them. Recentlyplayed games include links toany screens and vids you’vetaken and updates (patches/DLC) from the developers.


INTERFACE THE MUSIC

D A S H B O A R D




1 A new Hitman mission has

you taking outpeople who likedAbsolution.EXCITEMENT: 8/10

LIKELIHOOD: 3/10

2 FFXV: EpisodeDuscae 3.0 will have a discrelease, paidDLC, pre-ordercontent and 652microtransactionsEXCITEMENT: 3/10

LIKELIHOOD: 7/10

3 Shenmue 2.5:Pay Up, Fanboy

to be Xbox Oneexclusive.EXCITEMENT: 4/10

LIKELIHOOD: 6/10

4PETA claimsmaking animals

play Toro iscrueller to them

than actualbullfighting.EXCITEMENT: 2/10

LIKELIHOOD: 9/10

5One very luckyOXM reader

got a Jar JarBinks cover.EXCITEMENT: 1/10

LIKELIHOOD: 10/10

Xbox One gets more free gamesXbox Live users get more value for money, with Games with Goldnow giving us two free Xbox One games a month. Including thepair of Xbox 360 titles, that’s a free game per week. Madness.

COMMUNITY SERVICEOn the left, an activity feedshows what your friends are

up to. On the right, a smallersection shows off what’strending on Xbox Live. It’sthe friends tab reborn, but

more efficient andeasy to use.

“WELCOMEHOME, JOHN”

Cortana works acrossWindows 10 on PCs, tablets

and phones. You can even setreminders on your phone thatappear next time you turn

on Xbox One. “Cortana, remindus to play Arkham Knight

’til 5am.”

easier by doing away withmenus altogether. You canask Cortana which friends areonline, have her invite themto your game and pull themright into Forza race or Halo battle, without you having topause or leave the game once.‘Xbox, record that’ is primitive

grunting compared to whatCortana is capable of. You canask her to record a specificamount of gameplay footage,add a message to the video,then share it, all while you’restill playing.

Xbox One has gone throughsome big changes over its first

two years, but every tweakbrings it closer to perfection.This new interface addressesone of the consoles lastglaring issues, and improvessome of our favourite new-genfeatures. It’s a sleek, smartchange and we can’t wait forits launch later this year.


Rumour &SpeculationThe five biggestbits of gossipthis month



Second-screen experiencesare so 2015. By 2029 we’reabout 25 screens at once.

UPDATE

A terrorist attack starts off another globetrotting adventure

PUBLISHER SQUARE ENIX / DEVELOPER EIDOS MONTREAL / FORMAT XBOX ONE / ETA 2016

So Adam Jensen is aterrorist now?Thankfully not. Adamactually starts out ona mission to detain theleader of the AugmentedRights Coalition (ARC),believed to be responsible

for the attack. The ARCheadquarters is full ofbranching pathways.Extras and differentcharacters can be founddepending on the routeyou take, the gamerewarding you for going offthe beaten path.

Hold up. If his game’sso good, then why isn’tJensen smiling?Don’t think he knowshow. Shame, becausehe’s got some great newtoys. Nanoblades can pinpeople to walls, but can

also be detonated to takeout guards. There’s alsoa non-lethal Tesla gun,capable of knocking outfour enemies at once. Themost dubious ‘non-lethal’move we’ve seen since wesmashed all those peoplewith the Batmobile.

Can’t he also IcarusDash? Bet he’s not asfast as me.Correct – he’s muchfaster, with the Dashletting him move atimpossible speeds andreach new areas. Adam’s

Icarus Strike lets him landwith a shockwave, takingdown anyone who thoughtstanding around undera high ledge was a goodidea. Then there’s ‘Focusmode’ which slows downtime to help you dodge fireand line up headshots.

Takedowns? Headshots?I thought this was astealth game!This time Eidos Montrealhas tried to make theaction mechanics just asinteresting and deep asthe stealth. Cover-based

shooting looks tighter,and hopefully more augswill stop us from feelingguilty for not trying toghost the game. It’s beendesigned for players whodon’t want to opt for juststealth or just shooting,but a mixture of both.

But can’t we all justget along?Well, it is possible to talkyour way out of trouble.Adam’s conversation withARC’s leader can go inmany different directions,depending not just on

what you say, but howyou’ve played thus far.Murder his people, andyou’ll have more troublenegotiating. A game whereevery decision you makematters. Cheer up, Adam;this could potentially bethe best Deus Ex yet.

DEUS EX: MANKIND DIVIDED


UPDATES – NEW INFO ON THE BIG GAMES

D A S H B O A R D




This was our reaction, when we were told that

the game isn’t out until 2017.

Pretty surethat fangsbeat knife.Sorry, buddy.

Nice spelling, idiot.That’s actually the correctspelling. It’s a new RPG fromthe maker of Remember Me and Life is Strange in whichyou play a vampire hidingin London, at the height ofthe Spanish ’Flu epidemic.Not the merriest settingfor a game, but you shouldbe fine. What kind of lame

vampire gets the ’flu?

Playing a vampire? Soundsgreat! I particularly likehow there’s no catch!Well, there is a tiny one.Vampires have to feed to sayalive, which means choosingyour prey. You’ll learn yourvictims’ habits and hopethey like walking down darkalleys alone. If our victimsare as well-drawn as thecharacters in Life is Strange,this’ll be heartbreaking.

No it won’t be. You’re avamp – dream come true!You’re right! Sucking bloodlike a badass will also grantnew abilities. Combat will bea range of melee attacks,shooting and supernaturalpowers. We’re hoping for theability to turn into a bat. Butusing your supernatural giftsdrains energy, which means

you’ll have to feed duringcombat to survive.

Who’d be stupid enough toattack a vampire?You’re not the onlysupernatural creature onthe block. Other speciesaren’t fans and vampirehunters, oddly enough,don’t like you much - they’lluse tools and traps to huntyou down. We’re not comingout of our coffin until it’sreleased. In 2017. Oh.

Wish Assassin’s Creed had lessparkour and more bloodsucking?

PUBLISHER FOCUS HOME INTERACTIVE / DEVELOPERDONTNOD ENTERTAINMENT / FORMAT XBOX ONE / ETA 2017

UPDATE

VAMPYR

Apparently,this isn’t

lethal. It’dfinish us off– we’ve nearlydied choking onair before.




UPDATE

DARKSIDERS II: DEATHINITIVE EDITIONDeath comes to Xbox One (in a good way)

PUBLISHER NORDIC GAMES / DEVELOPER GUNFIRE GAMES / FORMAT XBOX ONE / ETA WINTER

Revengeance called.It wants its ‘dumbestsubtitle’ crown back.It’ll catch on. For theunfamiliar, this is an epic

Zelda-esque action-adventure where you playas Death, along with trustycrow Dust and noble steedDespair. Dungeon divingis the order of the day, asyou explore environmentsbased on heaven and hell.

Sounds bleak, one toavoid then?Darksiders II wasn’t themost original game, butthat didn’t stop it beingfun. It had some cleverpuzzle design and loadsof inspired gadgets (if‘inspired’ means ‘nickedfrom other games’). Itwas also huge. ThisDeathinitive Edition alsoincludes all of the DLC.

So they saved themerrier stuff for DLC?Hardly. It includes DeathRides, Angel of Death,Deadly Despair andShadow of Death. Youcan’t accuse it of goingoff theme. In responseto feedback, balancingtweaks have been madeto difficulty and lootdistribution. The moral?Send devs more hate mail.

Graphics any good?Paint me a word-picture!An improved enginewas used to relight thewhole game, so expectbetter ambience andshadows. Environmentsand characters have beentweaked and reworked tomake a handsome gamelook even prettier, too. It’llrun in 1080p now – so it’sa noticeable upgrade.

I’ll deathinitely bepicking this one up.Oh, good. It’s catching on.This is a worthy update,but it needs to be tocompete in a game-stuffed2015. Sometimes when weget a new-gen port, it’sbecause a sequel is on theway (as with Dishonored ).No word of a sequel here -could Deathinitive Edition be testing the waters?Nearly 7,000 people votedfor the Xbox 360 version tobe backwards compatible,so this could be a sleeperhit. It’s survived a studiorebirth (Gunfire formedfrom the remnants oforiginal developer Vigil), anew console generationand even the bankruptcyof THQ, but then whatelse would you expectfrom a game starring

Death himself?

We wanted a nice, smileyphoto of the gang to send

to their moms. Killjoys.

Nice to see the Iron Throne getting more work.

Our favorite Game of Thrones character.

“Is that bone meant to be sticking out of our

head?” – Common OXM office query.


UPDATES – NEW INFO ON THE BIG GAMES

D A S H B O A R D




We love hearing what youguys get up to everymonth, but when oneof you tells us that the

“best option available” to you wasto put a baby in the oven, well… In

other, less shocking, news we hada clear winner in our vote for amost-wanted Rockstar sequel…

Prime targetSo many people are getting excitedfor ReCore. I’ve even seen so-called‘gamers’ calling it their game of theshow! Uh, shouldn’t there be some lawthat says you can only win game of theshow if you show some actual game? Amy Harrison

We’re always wary of a game trailerthat doesn’t show any gameplay. Butwe think we can justify getting excitedfor ReCore mainly because of thetalent behind it. Keiji Inafune, of MegaMan and Mighty Number 9 fame, isworking with Mark Pacini, who was thegame director of the Metroid Prime trilogy– when he decides to make a new game,that’s worth getting excited for.

Buy before you tryI hate to admit this, but I pre-ordered

Fallout 4. Normally I don’t pre-ordergames, from experiences that otherplayers got from games like Aliens:

Colonial Marines. I usually waitand see if the reviews are good, butBethesda sold me so much I pre-ordered it the first chance I got. I wasreally convinced by what they said, and

you can call me an idiot if you want, but I believe Fallout 4 is in good hands.Tyler Knowlton

We don’t want to call you an idiot, Tyler,you did the logical thing. Pre-ordering canbe a risk, and it’s only really necessary

if you want a disc copy of a big game on

day one (so Fallout 4 makes sense). Alsoyou’ll get a free copy of Fallout 3 to tideyou over until November. Still, it’s worthkeeping in mind that we can downloadgames at home now from day one, with norisk of it being sold out. The size of Fallout

4 might wipe out our hard drive, mind…

Anti-social gamingI’m sure I’m not the only older gamerwho just didn’t get into the social sideof gaming. The concept of ‘friends’who I’ve never met just feels alien tome. Although I’ve tried, I just can’t getinto multiplayer/co-op gaming anddislike listening to or watching some ofthe idiots online. The problem is that,more and more, I see a bigger focus onmultiplayer, and games that I mightotherwise have loved ( Evolve?) don’tappeal because they don’t have single-player elements. Do you have any tipsfor older gamers that find the whole‘friends online’ thing a strange concept?Rob Woolley

You don’t have to be old to prefer single-player, and games like Arkham Knight andThe Witcher 3 prove that people who wantto be alone are still catered for. If you didwant to try playing online again, gameswhere you play as a team usually havea friendlier community – something likePayday 2 . Better yet, get a real-life friendto join you online, then you won’t feel aslonely when everyone’s screaming ‘noob!’down the headset at you. Which we hope

doesn’t happen, of course.

FRY BABYI loved the ‘worst thing you’ve done in The Witcher 3’part of your magazine [Issue 177]. Admittedly, burning73 people to death is a pretty bad thing to do, but Icouldn’t help but think of (SPOILER ALERT) the sidequest where I willfully decided to put a baby in the oven.I didn’t know the outcome, but the baby turned out to beokay in the end. That was also the best option availableto me. Very rarely are game developers brave enoughto throw up moral choices like that, so fair play to CDProjekt RED for developing some of the most absorbingside quests around.Craig Carroll

Well, what a wonderful insight that was into the kind ofperson who likes to read our magazine. Enjoy your prize,Craig. Thanks for the nightmares.

Prize: The Elder Scrolls OnlineThe best piece of correspondencewins a game from Matthew’s goody bag

Star Letter


Love letters, death threats,and some stuff aboutgames… your commentson the mag and on Xbox

MessagesCONTACT US f facebook.com/oxmonline t @oxm e [email protected] w gamesradar.com/oxm




It’s important to me

because I’m running outof space for all theseconsoles! Backwardscompatibility means moregaming freedom on theXbox One.Elene Laidlein

So, so, important. I can’t livewithout playing Half-Life

2 and BioShock . I have tounplug my Xbox One everytime and switch consoles.Backwards compatibilitywould be everything I need

Kendra Brainard

It ensures brand loyalty.I had a 360 and almostbought a PS4. Had youannounced backwardscompatibility earlier Iwouldn’t have evenconsidered changing teams.Dwight Smith

Backwards compatibilityis very important. How arewe to become invested on

a console when we can’tbring our games over fromthe previous one? I’vebought so many XBLA anddisc games that I hope willget transferred.Kevin Johnathan Ruiz

Not important to me. Ibought an Xbox One to playXbox One games. But that’s

just me...Nicole Ormes

It’s not only important forpeople who supported the360, but also for PlayStationor Nintendo fans who decideto try Xbox now. Backwardscompatibility helps catch upon what they missed out on.Steve Simpson

Not. I don’t think you’veshown what the Xbox Onecan actually do, the Xbox360 should be a thing of thepast already!Dan Kirk

The Annotated… Halo 5 at Comic ConYour response to 343 building a real-life Breakout arena for the show

AWESOME.Arturo Rm

So how many campersare there going to be?

Kevin Diaz

343 is the best!Bungie would havenever done this.

Taras Hrebinka

Hopefully it’s abouncy house so I can

double jump.

Matt Schollenberger

Oh god,wouldn’t it be

amazing to play onHalo with the HoloLens.Or Halo Wars 2 on the

coffee table!Lewis Steven Gray

MAX PAYNEA surprisingly poor showing for

Max – he’s slumming it in joint lastplace. Perhaps Max Payne fans arestill ploughing through the thirdgame? That was a loooong one.

BULLYWhile GTA and Red Dead

espoused freedom,Bully forced you intothe regimented worldof the schoolyard. We

think the template hasmore life in it yet,

and so do you.

RED DEADA clear winner – and not anunexpected one. Rockstar’sdepiction of the dyingdays of the Wild West was avisual feast on Xbox360 – imagine how itwould look onXbox One.

WHICH NON-GTA ROCKSTARSERIES WOULD YOU LIKE TOSEE RETURN TO XBOX ONE?

YOUR VOTE

RED DEAD –56%BULLY –16%

MANHUNT –6%

MIDNIGHT CLUB –7%MAX PAYNE –6%LA NOIRE –9 %


Hot topicHow important is backwardscompatibility to you?


http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/official-xbox-magazine-october-2015-usa 28/10028 / THE OFFICIAL XBOX MAGAZINE



A

few minutes into playing Battlefront – well, secondsreally – and it’s no surprise just how Star Wars-y it is.It drips with authenticity, from the blaster noises and

intercom chatter to the slightly stop-motion feel ofthe AT-ST animation and bad acting deaths of theStormtroopers (seriously, waving arms everywhere).What is surprising is that it doesn’t feel like astraight Battlefield remake, the shooter DICE is

better-known for. The gunplay is faster and more immediate; thecharacter setup and loadout system are breezy and light compared toBattlefield ’s arguably dry menu-fest. There are power-ups.

“We didn’t really feel like just creating a skin on Battlefield was the way to do Star Wars justice,” senior producer SigurlínaIngvarsdottir explains. “It was important for us to reboot Battlefront and to create something unique – to fit the franchise.” And toour hands it does feel, if not unique (it’s a shooter, after all), verydifferent to what you might expect. It’s speedy and lighter on its

feet, with far more of a focus on rapid-fire, from-the-hip blastingand… fun. This isn’t a po-faced army take on Lucas’ galaxy far,far away. There’s nothing stern or frowny here – when AdmiralAckbar shouts orders at you on-screen, he’s not a replacementfor a cigar-chomping, ass-kicking general type: he’s Admiral Ackbar . His face wobbles a bit because DICE has made himmove like a puppet, not an actual living creature. You can’thelp but smile and mutter, “It’s a trap.”

My first big battle is the Walker Assault mode. It’sessentially the start of The Empire Strikes Back , as theRebels fight to hold off an Imperial assault from hugestomping AT-ATs. There’s an asymmetrical setup here,with Team Rebel having to activate several relays inorder to call in a Y-Wing bomber run as Team Vaderclose in. Without that the AT-ATs are invulnerable,stomping ever closer to destroying the Rebel base.Once the bombers come in, though, the walkers areweakened, shifting the focus to trying to damagethem in any way possible. From throwing everyweapon and ship the Rebels have to hand atthem, to obviously including the iconic leg-looping harpoon Speeder run from the film.

Writer: Leon Hurley

THE OFFICIAL XBOX MAGAZINE / 29

A NEW HOPE

How DICE is returning Star Wars

Battlefront to gaming greatness



As all this is happening, the actionand presentation is so on point itmakes other licensed games seem

like they didn’t bother. The blastersfeel and sound perfect, while theirimpacts pop and spark like movieeffects. Hurtling around the snow aslaser bolts light up the air is far moreabout capturing that movie magicthan military procedure. As we tradefire and fight for ground between thetrenches, TIE Fighters and X-Wingsscream overhead and AT-STs’ owl-likefaces appear around corners. Insteadof ticking off obvious movie references,it’s like the very substance of the filmspermeates the game’s bones.

Through the chaos, guns andoccasional TIE Fighter faceplantinto a mountain, DICE’s skill withshooters shines through. “What arethe hallmarks of a DICE shooter?” asks

Ingvarsdottir. “Epic scale and greatvehicular combat. That’s a part of ourDNA and that’s obviously something so

applicable to Star Wars as a franchise.”And it’s been applied beautifully here:the guns have an impact and violencewhen you pull the trigger – more soeven than in the films, but necessary tocreate a satisfying sense of feedbackwhen you take a shot. Jumping into afighter, or taking the gunner’s seat inthe AT-AT gives you a bird’s-eye viewof the battle, as well, to really take inthe staggering size of it all.

It’s fast, too. You’re constantly ‘in’the action, with movement, power-ups and vehicles keeping everythingimmediate. Even respawning nevertakes you too far from the frontline.“Yeah, we wanted it to be very ‘pickup and play, get into the action fast’,”says Ingvarsdottir. “We thought about

Use the Force,Lu… Oh, youalready are.Never mind -as you were.

that a lot in the way that we’re doingour spawn-point design to have aquicker experience.” One of the other

things that literally propels the game’sspeed is the excellent jetpack. It’s gotplenty of forward momentum, firinga burst that flings the player into thefight or over a ledge. It’s such a joyto use that there are basically twostates in any given battle: using the

jetpack, and watching the cooldownuntil you can spark it up again.

That brings us on nicely to theslightly unusual weapon/power-upsystem in the game. The jetpack isone of the Star Cards you can equipto shape your character, which areactivated by either the bumpers or Y.There are no classes here, not even adefault secondary weapon. Everythingyou bring to the battlefield is definedby the cards you unlock and equip,

The Frostbiteengine’s ’80ssci-fi cablingrender istop notch.


F E A T U R E



“IT’S MORE MOVIE

MAGIC THAN MILITARYPROCEDURE”

Not only can you flySnowspeeders intobattle, but you get tolasso AT-AT legs.

You can’t actually drivethe AT-ATs, but you cancall in map-flattening

orbital strikes.

My favorite memory from a20-minute session of Survivalmode on Tatooine involved anAT-ST, an Ion rocket andvarious cries of “woah!”.Myself and my co-op buddy hadjust defeated five waves ofStormtroopers, who wereswarming to our position inImperial Shuttles and droppods. They were making avaliant attempt to kill usafter we’d been marooned fromthe space battle raging high

above our heads. So far, sofist-pumpingly good.But this is when we suddenly

heard the unmistakablemechanical whirs and clacksof a dreaded Chicken Walkersearching for us among thepillars of rock. Ah.Unlike in previous Star Wars

games, such as The Force

Unleashed or The Clone Wars –where these enemies were apoultry joke – here they feeldangerous. Since said AT-STis able to kill us with justa few laser blasts, my partner

and I chose to split up. Hebravely ran between its legs,while I jetpacked to a vantagepoint in cowardly fashion andreadied my rocket.Just as it swung to target

me, I fired. THWOOMPSWOOSH!The explosion was incredible.DICE gives it that familiarBattlefield bass but with theadded rush of the fact you’retaking down an iconic sci-fibaddie. With everything inBattlefront more grounded –and you more vulnerable – itgives these encounters extra

dramatic impact. AdmiralAckbar congratulating us onaudio comms is a nice touch.Ben Griffin

TALES FROM THEBATTLEFRONT

including things such as multi-shot‘Barrage’ grenade launchers, RPGs andother weapon enhancements, throughto that brilliant jetpack.

On the cards

“You have three cards,” explainsIngvarsdottir. “So we don’t haveclasses, but as you progress in thegame you are able to unlock more andmore of these cards. Your shields,your grenades, your jetpacks – all ofthese are cards, and you combine theminto what you feel is a good kit foryou going into battle. That’s how youbasically create the loadout that goeswith how you like to play the game.”These Star Cards are then essentiallycombined into various ‘hands’, a rangeof three pre-selected options that

define your character. You can havemultiple hands, switching betweenthem as your battle needs change.

You can also share these hands withyour partner, Battlefront ’s two-manreplacement for squads. “You havepre-selected hands that you bring intobattle [and] your partner can shareyour hand,” says Ingvarsdottir. “Thatbecomes a very interesting dynamic intwo situations: one, when you’re bothup to speed and kit yourselves out tocomplement each other [as] a reallycool unit. Or, if you are bringing a friendinto the game [who] hasn’t playedbefore, then you are able to give thema taste of the game by sharing unlocksthat you have.” You’ll also never loseyour partner thanks to an ever-visible


STAR WARS BATTLEFRONT



outline, and you can spawn on eachother at all times to stay in the fight.

So, for example, you could chose aheavily offensive setup with a SmartRocket (high damage but slow tolock), the Barrage grenade launcherand Ion Shot (temporarily boostingyour main weapon’s damage againstvehicles), leaving shields to yourpartner, who can also pack the fasterdumb-firing Ion Torpedo for cover fire.That’s a pretty deadly AT-ST-destroyingunit combination right there.

Stuff like that comes in extremelyuseful during another mode weget to try, called Missions. This iseffectively a set of single-player orco-op challenge maps. In this case,two downed Rebel pilots fighting offwaves of Imperial troops while waitingfor rescue on Tatooine. As well as a

What Battlefront has overprevious installments is how muchthe rhythm of the action feelslike a proper Star Wars battle,rather than a madcap sandbox ofrandom stuff. The action takesplace in a giant snowy landscapepeppered with trenches in frontof Echo Base’s hangar. As aStormtrooper who seemed to keepmissing the opportunity to playin an AT-AT or TIE Fighter, Ispent the first half of my E3demo taking advantage of people

who thought they were safelyhiding, dropping in behind them,firing a spread of laser shotsthen running away. Probably the

TALES FROM THE

BATTLEFRONT

AT-ATs are

invulnerableunless theRebelscall in abombing run.

only opportunity I’d ever haveto finish in the top half of the

table – aided by the fact thatmost of my enemies didn’t seemto know how the controls worked.I was a sneaky Stormtrooper

who played dirty, which seemsbefitting of the Empire to me.As the focus of battle moved tothe hangar, I camped just toleft of it and killed ten or soRebels as they ran out beforebeing charging in and admiringthe location details inside; ifonly I could go off-brand andsteal the Snowspeeder within.I may not have got to play thehero, but taking advantage of

people who don’t understandshooter controls is basicallythe same thing.Samuel Roberts

“AT-AT GUNS LAYDOWN WHOMPINGCANNON BLASTS”

LUKE WHO’S HERETHE FORCE WILL BE WITH YOU

We’ve seen a lot of the DarkSide, so what happens when LukeSkywalker enters the field? A

power-up lands you 100 secondswith the Jedi Master, and he’sas overpowered as you’d expect.Standard players will have touse the jetpack to have anyhope of matching the heights ofSkywalker’s normal jump. He’sformidable in combat, too, astandard infantry characterwill be history after just acouple of his ‘normal’ attacks.But with just a minute and a

half of Skywalker’s company, whohas time for mere normal hits?Brutal heavy attacks slaughterenemies up close, or he can just

use Force Push and watch foesscatter across the battlefield.Impressive as it is, it’s allfiller compared to Saber Rush,which leaves nobody safe from hislightsaber strikes – anyone smartenough to try and escape is just ahop, sprint and slash from beinganother digit on his kill count.Skywalker’s not invincible, butyou’ll certainly feel that way.

F E A T U R E




promotes faster fire-and-forgetusage over hoarding. Power-ups dotthe landscape pretty frequently, too,so they’re far from being in shortsupply – although the more powerfulones are limited. While Smart Rockets

and Barrage are two-a-penny, takingcontrol of the AT-AT’s guns or a shipis limited by the number of slotsavailable. According to Ingvarsdottir,how these options appear in-game“depends on the rules of the mode[with] certain types of spawn andcertain conditions”. Some of it israndom, while “heroes spawn in certainlocations at a certain time”.

We never found a hero power-up inour playthroughs, or even saw one inaction, but we did get to commandeeran AT-AT. You don’t pilot these in thetraditional sense – they follow a set

path, progressing inexorably towardsthe Rebel base – but you can takecontrol of the guns, turning the headslowly to lay down heavy, whompingcannon blasts, or target orbital strikeson the tiny troops below. Comparedto the rapid, scattering gunplay ofthe ground troops, these behemothsprovide an entirely different flavor,towering over the fight and potentiallyturning the tide of battle. If the Rebelson the ground are battling the Imperialsfor a relay, then a well-placed orbitalstrike can make all the difference.

Another facet of the action, throwingyet more into the mix, are the ships.Again controlled by power-ups, whenone is activated your character goesdown on one knee with a finger tohis ear in a pose that says, ‘I don’tcare if this is war, I’m taking thiscall’. The screen fades and you’retransported to the cockpit of, say, aTIE Fighter screaming over the map.It’s immediately an iconic moment,from the almost painful sounds of theengines to guns firing while watchingthe distinctive back end of an X-Wingbob and weave under your sights.

Overall, after a few hours playingcertain things really stand out. Firstly,the attention to detail is astonishinglyhigh. The team at DICE worked

But there is one thing we haven’tcovered yet, and that’s the potentially

controversial power-ups. This almostretro touch is how you access certainweapons and abilities, as well as allof the weapons and hero characters.Unlike in Battlefield , you can’t just runfrom your spawn point and jump intoa waiting X-Wing. Instead, you haveto collect the appropriate power-upand then activate it by tapping bothbumpers at once. “The power-ups arebasically what you pick up in the level,”clarifies Ingvarsdottir. “So they mightbe an especially powerful weapon, ora hero token, which would then spawnyou as a villain or hero, depending onwhich faction you are playing.”

As in the rest of the game, there’san immediacy here – you can onlyhave one power-up stored up, which

range of Stormtrooper types – basicgrunts, more advanced jetpack troops

and snipers – there are also plenty ofAT-STs every couple of waves.

Tat’s entertainmentLike the multiplayer, it’s brilliant,chaotic fun that even swapping inAI for other people can’t reallydiminish. It also proves that thegreat looks of the Hoth level weren’ta fluke. The sun-baked dust of thedesert planet is far less forgivingthan snow, and even under such aharsh sky it all looks beautiful, fromthe Stormtroopers’ worn armor to thecraggy environments and movie-aping special effects. It’s edging intoterritory where, if we hadn’t held thecontroller in our own hands, we’d betempted to doubt the footage.

Like specialweapons and

vehicles,the herocharactersare accessedby collectingpick-ups on thebattlefield.

Luke’s primary

weapon is hislightsaberbut he alsohas rangedattacks.





closely with LucasArts and Disney– specifically the production andstory groups – to ensure that all theelements of Star Wars were dealt withcorrectly. “They have a set directionfor how things work and how things

are,” Ingvarsdottir tells us. “We workpretty closely with them so they tell us,‘This works this way; this works thatway. We can tweak this; this we can’tchange. They have some very specificopinions about how things need towork and how they are in order to beconsistent with the logic of the Star

Wars universe.’” An example here beingthe fact that you can’t shoot throughyour own shields, something thatmight make sense from a gameplayperspective but doesn’t happen in theoriginal movie universe.

There has to be wiggle room,

however, as Ingvarsdottir points out:“Of course, games are not movies.Things that are obvious from a movieperspective don’t necessarily work ina game. If it isn’t fun as a weapon, oras a hero, or as a vehicle then nobodybenefits. [LucasArts] understandsthat and there aren’t many cases ofsomething that we really wanted to dothat didn’t make it.”

Bending the rulesOf course, cinematic accuracy cancause a few problems. “There are

no Rebel Walkers, as an example”highlights Ingvarsdottir. “The Imperialshave the Walkers and there is nocounterpart,” she continues. “Thatposes a very interesting [situation thatdemands] balancing. The conditionsare so different between the Rebelsand the Empire.” It’s something thegame has turned to its advantage.“The Walkers become the objective,a moving objective because we haveto design very asymmetrically. It’sinteresting because it creates a veryunique game mode.”

The other thing that we reallytook away from our hands-on is thatBattlefront is both a strong shooter andslightly different from the establishedtemplate. The former’s helped by the

Even for someone like me,a man with no particularlove for those silly GeorgeLucas films, Battlefront proves rousing. Don’t getme wrong, I might not gethet up over Wookiees, Ewoksor uncomfortable-lookingmetal bikinis, but there’ssomething about the soundof a ’70s-era blaster thatmanages to thaw even myapathetic heart. And whileI may not have the films onBlu-ray, playing Battlefront conjures up potent memoriesof those epoch-makingfirst moments with DarkForces, Rebel Assault oreven Rogue Squadron.DICE’s take on Hoth’s snowy

wasteland is an evocative

portrayal, and stepping outinto the as-yet-unbloodiedpowder under the shadow ofan AT-AT, hot plasma beamswashing the landscape invibrant pinks and greens,is overwhelmingly exciting.Things get even betterwhen I find the floatingtoken that gives me controlof my own AT-ST – eachclanking step matched witha long-range artillerypummeling of the weak-minded Rebel forces or thepuncturing of another white-

hot hole in a Snowspeeder’sflimsy fuselage. For thetime I have the driver’sseat I feel invincible, andI let the Dark Side washover me entirely.Ben Maxwell

TALES FROM THEBATTLEFRONT

AT-STs are more vulnerablethan AT-ATs, and can beeasily taken down withblaster fire and rockets.Never hurts to call in anX-Wing, though.

In one modeyou fightoff waves ofStormtroopers.

“IT’S BOTH A STRONGSHOOTER ANDSLIGHTLY DIFFERENT”

F E A T U R E




That reloading/cooldown mechanicaside, the tweaks to the expectedFPS mechanics are subtle but doa surprising amount to distancethe experience from the obvioustouchpoint of Battlefield . That

shouldn’t pass by without praise:DICE could have easily kicked theBattlefield 4 cast out the door dressedas Stormtroopers, changed a few modenames and called it a day, but it hasn’t.

“For people outside of DICE, it’san obvious point of reference,”understates Ingvarsdottir, “becausethat’s what they know about us. Evenfor DICE itself, Battlefield ’s an obviouspoint of reference.” But Ingvarsdottirmakes it clear that “there was nevera sort of ‘We’re not going to makeBattlefield ’ [vibe]. It was more, ‘we’regoing to make it what we want it to be.’”

It’s certainly a plan that’s paid off,because after all our time playing,Battlefront feels like a Star Wars gamethat was crafted with love, rather thandollar signs in the eyes. In terms offan impact, it’s right up there with theupcoming JJ Abrams film, The Force

Awakens. Even if you don’t like themovies, months ahead of its November17 release, it already feels like acontender for shooter of the year.

“Come play in the snow!” theysay. “Unprintable words in afamily magazine,” I respond.My hatred of the white sludgeisn’t just limited to the realworld, either. Ice levelsin videogames are a hugered flag for me – too oftenthey’re a miserable excusefor developers to make thecontrols more slippery. SoI was more surprised thananyone when I fell forDICE’s recreation of Hoth

(not just an ice level,but an entire ice planet).Considering the last time Iexplored Hoth in a game was

TALES FROM THE

BATTLEFRONT

in Lego Star Wars, I wasexpecting a step up. I wasn’t

prepared for a Rebel’s-eye viewof The Empire Strikes Back.Over-reliance on hiding

places has turned me off a lotof multiplayer shooters, soHoth’s wide-open snowscapes areexactly what I’ve been lookingfor. Good luck sneaking offwhen you’re leaving a trail offootprints wherever you go.It’s a multiplayer deathmatchwhere I felt I might feasiblysee all 40 players (I certainlygot killed by a fair number ofthem), especially when I triedthe giddy highs of the jetpack

jump. Forget shivering outside:this is where I’m spending allmy winters from now on.Paul Randall

powerful-feeling guns and rapidly cyclingaction, while the latter comes from thedifferent ideas such as power-ups andthe hip-fire focus of the action (thegame doesn’t have iron sights, per se,but scoped weapons can be zoomed).There’s no way you could ever mistake itfor anything less than a triple-A shooter,but the texture’s just varied enough tocreate a slightly different feel.

There are a few concessions toexpectations, though. Things such asan ‘active cooldown’ replacing suchun-sci-fi concepts as ‘reloading’.“We have blaster-based weapons[that] don’t have bullets, so you don’tneed to reload,” admits Ingvarsdottir,“but we have a cooldown/overheatmechanic where you play a mini-gameto counteract the overheat if you’reshooting at a very rapid rate.”





Two years on from the sad lossof Clancy himself, his namecontinues to power on – likeWalt Disney with a BIG GUN.

P R E V I E W




There are twoschools of thoughtonWildlands. Onesays it’s a brashGTA wannabethat betrays Ghost Recon’s groundingin team-basedtactical warfare.

The other side argues it’s a much-

needed modernization of a flaggingseries; one that transplants the actioninto an exotic, reactive open world,where stealthy stake-outs are still onthe menu, but players have the agencyto blaze a louder trail to their objective.

It’s important, then, we make clearwhich side of that divide we fall on,

because while we loved what we saw behind closed doors at E3,Wildlands is

going to upset as many hardened TomClancy fans as it captivates. And, sorrytraditionalists, but we fall firmly onthe side of the debate that allows us tocommandeer a drug baron’s car, escapea high-octane chase by rocketing offa piece of corrugated iron jutting outfrom a canyon edge, and then nail aperfect landing on a salt plain below,where we can extract our gung-ho

asses to the next mission by chopper. Yeaaah! So ask yourselves before we begin: are you in or out?

DivisiveWildlands might proveto be, but the view from a helicopteris majestic enough to hush the most

vocal of critics. The open worldenvironment, we’re told as we thunderover peaks and troughs, is the largestin any Ubisoft game to date – a vast,

Tom Clancy’sGhost ReconWildlandsGhost Recon gets an attitude - and an altitude -adjustment in the biggest, wildest Clancy game yet

PUBLISHER UBISOFT / DEVELOPER UBISOFT PARIS / FORMAT XBOX ONE

Ubisoftcontinues totinker withthe tacticalmilitaryshooter series,which in itstraditional

state is maybetoo slow forkids today.Now it’s anopen-worldblastfest setin Bolivia.

Bluffer’sGuide


P R E V I E W



Bolivia’s landscape containspockets of rainforest, thethick canopies providing amplecover for sneaking.

This is what’s known as aplan going awry. Fortunately,there’s always a chance toformulate a plan B, C, D or Z.

If the Bolivian mountains aren’tquite high-altitude enough for you,you can go even higher. Everywhereyou see, you can explore.

Offroad vehicles are your best betif you plan to explore the wildlands– outside of the salt flats, you canexpect a rocky ride wherever you go.




Open all hoursThere’s a time and a place foreverything. If by ‘everything’ youmean ‘counterterrorism’This mock-up of Bolivia runs on a day/nightcycle, and also features a dynamic weathersystem. If you choose to strike during daytimeit’ll be easier to tag enemy patrols, but at theexpense of nighttime cover. While Wildlands isset in the modern day, one hangover from Future

Soldier remains - deployable air drones.

//Wildlands is different by design– it’s an arid world, but one fertilewith opportunities to raise hell//

It’s wiseto properlyscout atown’s layoutbefore wadingin, all gunsa-blazing.

The game is built for co-op. Much ofthe challenge lies in successfullycommunicating and executing a planacross your team. Will it be equallyengaging to complete the missionsall on your lonesome?

FIX THIS…

Metadata

rugged playground that stretchesacross the Andes in Bolivia. Usuallythe trend for open-world games suchas this is to show us how ‘teeming withlife’ they are, but Wildlands is different

by design – the endless, maddeningdesertscape is punctuated only by tinypockets of life and color that flourishin the areas where the mountains peter

out, where the ground is arable enoughto allow villages to spring up from thedust. It’s an arid world, but one fertilewith opportunities to raise hell.

With our head in the clouds, these villages appear as mere specks in thelandscape, but we can see that thereare over a hundred, each packed withobjectives that players can tackle inany order they desire (or so it wouldappear). The player in the chopperdecides to inspect one at ground level(via base jumping, because apparentlyWildlands is happy to invite Just Cause

3 comparisons) and up close, we learn

that these settlements are typical South American riots of bustle. While some arenaturally sleepier than others, there’susually something kicking off that draws

your senses as you explore on foot.

Put the hurt in HuertasIn the rustic village on our screen,the entire community had spilled outonto the streets to explore a farmer’smarket. Our eyes dart to one of theother screens in the room – in all, thefour players are co-habiting the gameworld, but are spread miles apart, left

to their own devices. In one, we seea town enthralled by a local concert.On another screen, less harmoniousscenes play out, as members of a drugcartel rough up some locals and holdthem hostage. They’re why you’re herein the first place – Bolivia, in Wildlands’fiction at least, is the world’s biggestcocaine producer, and the Santa Blancagang are the country’s de facto rulers.By completing missions, you weakenthe ties between the cartel and thecorrupt government, and strangle thesupply line that’s piping cocaine to theworld. Tantalizingly, it seems you can do

bad as well as good – we later witnesseda massacre that, we were told, was adirect consequence of a mission thathad been completed earlier.

Back on our screen we launch into amission, and all four players convergeon a small mining town called Huertas,on a job to track down a high-rankingsmuggler named Luis ‘El Chango’

Alvarez – who is willing to sell intel onhis boss. His snitching nature hasn’texactly gone unnoticed however,which is why he currently finds himselflocked in a cage. It takes a while for

all four to arrive – early birds set up

vantage points in the hills, waiting forstragglers to arrive fashionably late.

Missions are unscripted and players begin each one wherever and howeverthey like. And within this footloosestructure, the lopsided composition ofWildlands’ open world of crowdedurban areas surrounded byhuge expanses of nothingnesssuddenly makes sense. Thecleanest way to take outthe guards surrounding ElChango’s prison is to snipefrom afar – the mountain

ranges overlooking the town arean embarrassment of camping riches.

But then, things get messy if you haveto swoop in and collect somethingafter raising the alarm, and besides,this approach also denies you thechance to squeeze valuable intelfrom footsoldiers on the ground, Sam

Fisher-style. Here’s where a littlelocal knowledge comes into

play – how heavily guardedis the city (in Huertas’ case,

very), and what distractionscan you use to ghost unseen

to your target?Once we spring El Chango

from his cage, we’re gratefulto be only a minute’s drive fromthe wilderness. After springing ElChango’s head against a drug baroncar’s hood to ensure his continuedco-operation, we steal the ride and

burn off towards the edge of a canyon,with half of Santa Blanca in pursuit.Things look bleak until we spy a pieceof corrugated iron glistening in thedistance. We change direction, and…well, you already know the rest. So,that’s how it works. Only one questionremains: are you in or out?Alex Dale

ETA2016

P R E V I E W

THE OFFICIAL XBOX MAGAZINE / 39 @OXM



You have to feel forHidetaka Miyazaki.Here is a director ofgames renowned forthe way they go againstthe industry grain –punishingly difficult

at a time when so many games aresprints to the finishing line, aloofand mysterious in an era of needyhandholding, complex and focused inan era of sprawling open worlds.

Yet when DSIII launches early next year it will be the fifth From game of itstype, and Miyazaki’s fourth, in seven

years. What was once celebrated for itsunique otherness is beginning to feellike a template, and there are times inour demo when we get the impressionMiyazaki would rather be somewhereelse. When asked what he’d like to do

next, he speaks of From’s experience in

other fields, but here he is, introducing yet another medieval low-fantasy sort-of-roguelike, and we need only lay eyeson the game for a few seconds to knowexactly what it is…

Still, this may be the fifth game inthis loosely connected series, but it

will be only the third on Xbox, andMiyazaki held only a supervisoryrole in development of DSII . In thatcontext, what we see feels like a truegenerational leap, even comparedto 1080p DSII: Scholar of the

First Sin. That crumblingmedieval stonework hasnever looked so good, itspathways and rooftopslittered with scenery, andstrewn with hollowed undeadpraying mournfully to a fadedsun. Weapons and armor glisten in the

sunlight; fabric sways in the breezethanks to striking cloth physics. Thearea in which our demo is set, Wall OfLodeleth, might be familiar, but it hasnever looked so good.

The actual mechanics of play aremore familiar still, though as in anylong-running series it’s the littlechanges that count. The big one thistime is the Ready Stance, which seesour hero raise the sword’s hilt two-handed to eye level, the blade pointingstraight out in front, and gives rise to anew range of weapon-specific attacks.With a longsword it’s a lunging strike

that instantly breaks an opponent’sguard; with a greatsword it’s anupward slash that sends even a burlyknight up into the air, then smashesthem back down for huge damage.

It’s not all about damage, either.It’s about style, too: when we find

and equip a scimitar, there are two ofthem, and they’re being dual-wielded,the Ready Stance move a multi-hitspinning attack that clears a room ofweedy undead in one go. As well as

having more attacking options,the protagonist is nimbler

now, dashing and rollingat speed to evade attacks.

As pleasing as it all is tosee, with it comes a certain

trepidation. Miyazaki isn’tthe sort of kindly gent to give

us something new without asking for

something in return: all these newoptions give him the excuse to rampup the difficulty further than ever.

While we suspect we’ll be cursinghis name next spring after we fall toa boss for the umpteenth time, it isMiyazaki’s involvement that makes

Dark Souls III such an excitingprospect. The last outing was oneof the best games of 2014, but it wasnot without its missteps, its worldan incoherent sprawl, its enemyplacements cheap, its healing andfast-travel systems ill-advised. Gettinginformation out of Miyazaki on howsuch elements will be treated is likegetting blood out of a stone – or bloodout of Dancer Of The Frigid Valley,the area boss who summons a second

blade mid-fight and sends our heroquickly to his doom – but he does saythe world design will be more likethat of Dark Souls than DSII . That,and confirmation that he is helmingthe project, is more than enough fornow. From Software is back on Xbox,Miyazaki has returned to the director’schair, and 2016 has its first trulyessential game.

Nathan Brown

ETA2016

Dark Souls IIIThe legendary Hidetaka Miyazaki is back on Xbox. Prepare to die

Come on,you can’tbluff yourway throughDark Souls:

pretendersneed notapply. Butif you haveto ask, it’sa third-person actiongame with apredilectionfor extremeplayer death.

Bluffer’sGuide

PUBLISHER BANDAI NAMCO GAMES / DEVELOPER FROM SOFTWARE / FORMAT XBOX ONE

Jump and shoutFor the zero people who thought Soulsgames weren’t already scary enoughMiyazaki skipped DSII because he was workingonBloodborne , and despite its low-fantasysettingDSIII contains a few trace elements of thePS4 exclusive’s Lovecraftian horror, with a newfocus on jump scares. As we pass by one groupof passive undead it suddenly erupts in a swirl ofblack smoke, and an indescribable black demon-thing appears from the ether to one-shot us tothe afterlife. Yeah, we jumped.

With Miyazakielsewhere, thiswas the mongreloffspringof pedigreeparentage. Dogreferences over.

A great game setin a complex,interlockingworld, souredonly in that itran like a dog onXbox 360.

PREVIOUSLY IN…

Metadata

P R E V I E W




This fellow’s a big unit, buteven the larger enemy types canbe knocked on their butt with aReady Stance attack.

Fire tech has been greatly improved,and now sets anything it touchesablaze for a few seconds.

Praise the Sun! Or don’t,because it’s on its last legs,lending the world a faded,slightly washed-out look.

Once again, Miyazaki uses passiveNPCs to signify the desperate stateof the world. Keep an eye on thislot, though.

A lesser publication wouldmake a ‘crowning achievement’

gag here. We’d never stoopto that, obviously.




Should we pick Montana,mini-gun wielding manmountain? Or Thorn,deadly with a bow-and-arrow? How about Rath,with his dual Katanas,or maybe Marquis,

robot butler and sniping enthusiast?

Definitely not Miko, the healercharacter – we’re selfish jerks, not teamplayers – but the variety is undeniablyimpressive. That’s only five of the25 characters Gearbox is promising,presumably hoping everyone will finda play style that suits them. We’ll behappy just to be able to settle on one.

Luckily, we won’t have to. Eachmission starts your team on Level

One, quickly going up to Ten, andconstantly rewards with new powers.Refreshed leveling also means you’renot committed to any one character’sprogress, which encouraged us to trythem all. Except Miko, of course, butas we say, we’re selfish. It’s a moreaccessible game, but the lack of long-

term leveling up may hurt longevity.Shooting will feel familiar

to anyone who played Borderlands, which is no badthing. Oscar Mike’s assaultrifle packs enough punch tokeep shooter veterans happy,and Montana’s mini-gun brings

back fond memories of someof that series’ more OTT weapons.

Cutlass strikes and crossblade slashesfeel like worthy, damaging alternativesto emptying bullets into alien scum.Getting up close can cause brutaldamage with the right character, butleaves you more vulnerable to attack.Even when we felt we’d picked one ofthe weaker characters, they all have

advantages. Sometimes hanging backand shooting the odd arrow is

smarter than rushing up to bash someone with an axe.

Once Level Five isreached, a character unlocksan ultimate ability. These

range from ‘quite useful’to ‘ridiculous game changer’,

another great incentive to try all thecharacters. Long cooldowns on thesepowers stop you from relying on them,and teamwork is important to survival.Hang back to revive and protect teammates and they won’t be as annoyedwhen you always muscle in as Rathand refuse to wield Miko’s healing ray.

Novel as some of the heroes are,we’re still bashing numbers out ofenemies using weird and wonderfulweapons. Those solid foundationsare probably why the game feels well

balanced, despite various players usingmagic, guns and swordplay, sometimesall simultaneously. Good luckkeeping that balance when another17 characters enter the fray, but asit stands now, we’re really lookingforward to trying more.

Tom Stone

This is some of the bestcel-shading we’ve everseen. It looks damn tastyin full motion too.

PUBLISHER 2K GAMES / DEVELOPER GEARBOX SOFTWARE / FORMAT XBOX ONE

BattlebornHands on with Gearbox’s genre-defying multiplayer madness

ETA2015

//Shooting will feel familiar to

anyone who playedBorderlands //

Multiplayershooter inwhich youprotect thelast star inthe galaxy

by shooting/stabbing/firing owls atalien scum.

Bluffer’sGuide

Got the powerJust firing a gun is so 2014…Ultimate Abilities are special moves that usuallychange your team’s strategy from ‘let’s worktogether, gang’ to ‘kill, kill, KILL’. Our favoritesinclude Thorn’s Field of Corruption, dealing hugedamage every half a second to anything foolishenough to take a stroll in it. Rath also performsan almighty spin attack, basically transforminginto some kind of samurai Beyblade, whichinstantly won Rath our highly coveted ‘why thehell did we pick Thorn?’ award.

P R E V I E W




Koei’s Dynasty Warriors

series is not everyone’sthing, that’s for sure.For the uninitiated, thegames take place onlarge-scale historical

battlefields, filled withhundreds of soldiers there to be sliced

and diced, plus meatier unit types whooffer a worthier challenge.

Fans love the strategic elements –it’s less about swordsmanship and moreabout seeing the bigger picture, notingwhich parts of the battlefield areswamped and making your presenceknown there. Detractors simply can’tget over the unsatisfying monotony ofthe combat – the bulk of the game.

For Honor, then, is a brand newmultiplayer-heavy offering thatplays out like a mass market DynastyWarriors game, samurai armor andall. In our hands-on session, weplayed a four-on-four multiplayeroffering called Dominion – which isonly a few letters away from being

Call of Duty’s Domination,and only a few rule tweaks,too. The eight of us were setloose on a huge medievalplayground with three zonesto capture, two of which wereclustered close by in a fieldshadowed by an imposing castle,while the third requires a detour,through one of two winding

passageways, to a lonely rampartoverlooking the battlefield.

We also shared the battlegroundwith dozens of CPU-controlledknights on both sides, who make a

beeline for the zones and immediatelystart clashing, creating an environment

that feels dirty and dangerous.

These AI drones can’t seizeterritories – instead you takea zone by lopping throughthem with your sword.

Foot soldiers killedalso adds to your points

total, which goes up or downdepending on how many zones are in

your control. The idea is to nudge yourteam’s score to about 1,000, at whichpoint the human-controlled playersstop respawning. Finish them all off

before your score dips below thatmagic mark, and you’re the victor.

But offing a human knight is acompletely different proposition. Itworks like a deadly game of SimonSays: aggressors attack from one ofthree different directions – up, left, orright, and their choice flashes brieflyup on the screen, giving you a shortwindow to match it with your shield.Complex it isn’t, but it’s weighty,satisfying and visceral in a way

Dynasty Warriors’ flimsy fights aren’t,and the addition of friendly fire means

For Honor’ s duels have the capacityfor the kind of tactical depth that can’tfully be explored on the E3 show floor.

Alex Dale

Knights used todefecate in theirarmor, you know.They never show thatin these games.

PUBLISHER UBISOFT / DEVELOPER UBISOFT MONTREAL / FORMAT XBOX ONE

For HonorOn with our hands, and off with their heads

ETA2016

//The battles work, in effect,

like a deadly game of Simon Says//

It’s knightvs samuraivs vikingin UbisoftMontreal’snot-strictly-

historically-accurate newgame, whichaims to bethe Call ofDuty of meléefighers.

Bluffer’sGuide

Faction JacksonSamurais and Vikings collide in ForHonor ’s weighty single-player offeringThere is a single-player campaign, but little isknown at this point, except that you can choosefrom one of three sides – The Legion, TheChosen and The Warborn, which translates asKnight, Samurai and Viking respectively. You cancustomize your soldiers’ weapons and abilities,and choose from several stylish types of armor.You can also pick your gender, as if you couldever tell underneath all that scrap metal anyway.

P R E V I E W




They say the streets ofLondon are paved withgold, but in Assassin’sCreed Syndicate’s 19thCentury mock-up of theBritish capital, it’s the

rooftops that glisten with opportunity.We’re in the sodden boots of JacobFrye, the male half of Syndicate’s

brother-sister double act, and we’reon the run from a gang of streettoughs, after a mission to rescue someunfortunate members of our gang, theRooks, from a vicious Templar beatinggoes horribly wrong.

Previous Assassin’s Creed gamestrain you to look to the ground foropportunities to break your pursuers’line of sight – hay bales, wells, swarms

of crowds – but your first instinct will be to look to the skies. Jacob’s ropelauncher tool was born out of necessity– Victorian London’s paved streets aretoo wide to allow you to bound fromrooftop to rooftop without mechanicalassistance – but it comes in ratherhandy when you’re in a tight spot, too.

Look up to the heavens and where your gaze meets a ledge that’swithin rope-launching range,a prompt to press LB willappear. Jacob latches on tothe targeted area with hislauncher and ziplines directlyup to it, albeit slightly slowerthan Batman, and without thesame impressive range.

But Ubisoft Quebec doesn’t wantthe rope launcher to be an ‘instantescape’ get-out clause, so your enemieswill continue to give chase, homing inon your last known location. This isrepresented on screen by a ghosted-out silhouette, a conceit previously

seen in Assassin’s Creed Unity, but

with its origins in stablemate Ubisoftseries Splinter Cell.

In its current guise, Assassin’s Creed Syndicate is having trouble reconcilingthe authenticity of its world with theneed to keep up the thrill of the chase– enemy foot soldiers bound up theside of buildings after you in a mannerthat looks faintly ridiculous, and needs

refinement before release.Either way, we manage to

evade detection by hangingoff the side of an adjacentrooftop, and sure enoughthe guards lose interest,

allowing us to resume. Backin stealth mode, we find that

picking off the remaining enemies ismore traditional Creed fare, with theemphasis on scuttling around rooftopsand picking off stragglers whenever

you get the chance. We finish bydiscovering the LB button has one lasttrick up its sleeve – focus on a windowwhen it’s in grabbing range and you’ll

leap straight through in one fluid

ETA23 OCT

Assassin’s Creed SyndicateHands-on time has us swinging – if not singing – from the rooftops…

The newlyexpandedUbisoftQuebec’s firstbig AC titlewinds theclock forwardto IndustrialRevolution-era

London, wheretemplars andtechnologycollide…

Bluffer’sGuide

PUBLISHER UBISOFT / DEVELOPER UBISOFT QUEBEC / FORMAT XBOX ONE

Jacob’s dapper canehandily doubles upas a weapon.

//Focus on a windowwhen in grabbing range

and you’ll leap through//44 / THE OFFICIAL XBOX MAGAZINE WWW.GAMESRADAR.COM/OXM

P R E V I E W



Q A&

motion, making it easier to transition between interiors and exteriors.

We’d be lying through our top hatsif we said our time in London didn’tfeel disjointed – Syndicate bears allthe hallmarks of a series that’s tryingto rebuild on the fly, throwing newfeatures plundered from other gamesonto an ageing framework. It’s not theroot and branch overhaul the seriesneeds, but with the rope launcher atleast, Assassin’s Creed has hit upon amechanic that’s solid gold.Alex Dale

François PellandSyndicate ’s senior producer on the trials of draggingthe series into the 19th century

You havetwo leadcharacters,and also twoplay styles.

What’s the reasoningbehind this split?I remember two yearsago we started tothink about how wecould tell a modernstory in a modern era,

and we decided atthat point to tell thestory of twins with verydifferent personalities.Jacob is an extremelycharismatic, confidentpersonality. He’s aleader. On the other side,you have Evie who tendsto be more cautious,more on the strategicside. She has stealthskills that are specificto her. It’s that dualitybetween the two withinthe story that reallymakes those charactersstand out. I guess that itwas a creative direction,it was a story andnarrative direction rightfrom the start.

One of the main featuresof London is that it’s splitinto two by the Thames.How do you make movingabout feel cohesive?

We treat the Thamesalmost as its ownborough, because itreally does have its ownstory, it has its own wayof functioning, I shouldsay. Without getting intotoo much detail too farin advance, we knewwe needed to be trueto what the purpose ofthe river Thames was

back then. London wascontrolling a quarter ofthe population of the

entire world. It was thecenter of the industrialproduction of the world.So it was a key port,with boats shippingproduction in and out.We’ll be going into moredetail about this later.

We’re glad to see theseries coming closerup to date. How has themore modern settingaffected the combat?One thing that werealized right at thestart was that we’repast the medievalperiod, so there could

be no more swords.We’ve moved into anage where if therewas any kind of brawlon the streets, it wasmaking the headlines.So that’s certainly verydifferent from what wesaw only 75 years beforethis period, with theFrench Revolution. Sowe wanted to give the

combat a more brutaland visceral feel to it,hence the emphasis on

concealed weapons. Tothat end, we’re bringingback the multi-kill multi-finisher from ACIII.

Can you jump ontrains in free-roam, ifyou time it right?Oh yeah, absolutely.At Victoria station, forexample, you can climbon top of a train. You canunhinge wagons, youcan stay on the maincarriage, and you cango all across the city bystaying on there. It’s acool fast travel tool if youwant to explore the city.

//”We’ve moved into an agewhere a street brawl wouldmake the news”//

It’s takenlong enoughfor the

series toreach thegreatest cityon Earth.

This man might well be about to find outhow unwise it is to spill Jacob’s pint.

Tearing around Victorian London inan untameable carriage is as wildand woolly as advertised – it reminds

us of the horse carriage bit fromAssassin’s Creed II, right down tothe rooftop scuffles.

BEST BIT…

Metadata

P R E V I E W




There’s been a bit of a fussabout The Taken King ,to put it mildly. Destiny’sthird official expansionwill, we’re assured, besubstantially larger thanthe two that preceded

it, but then it should be. This, unlike

the others, will be a full-priced release,available either in standalone formfor existing players to upgrade to, or

bundled together with the base gameand its prior expansions.

It’s the latter that’s got players’ backsup the most, with a costly Collector’s

Edition announced as the only wayto lay hands on an exclusive set ofemotes and other cosmetics. After thepredictable outcry, Bungie relented, andsaid it would sell them separately, asa digital bundle. A snip, you’ll surelyagree, at $20. Somehow, Bungie madeout like it was doing us all a favor.

Bungie isn’t getting specific withthe numbers – either on mission countor level cap – but we’re shown a newarea and promised fresh missions,quests, bounties and strikes. Whilethe new enemy faction, the titularTaken, is just another reskinned

version of existing enemy types (albeit

with twists, such as the Psion thatsplits into two again and againuntil you wipe them all out),there will be plenty of newways to put them down. Anew subclass for the threeplayable classes means newgrenades, perks and supers – alightning storm for the Warlock,a Void-powered bow and arrow for theHunter, and for the Titan an absolutelygigantic solar hammer that caneither be thrown at distant enemiesor used as a melee weapon, withthose hit by it careening off into the

distance (and setting anything theytouch on fire).

While we’ve often felt like usingsomething like that on Bungie’s designteams, all will be forgiven if the newraid can match the quality of the Vaultof Glass. Bungie says this will be thegame’s biggest raid to date, and that it

shows the studio’s new way of thinkingabout encounters, mechanics

and puzzles. We certainlycan’t wait to find out. Destiny players are an odd bunch: wemoan incessantly – and moreoften than not, with good

reason – but we never quitemanage to stop playing. Even

Bungie must know that the party can’tlast forever – and that when the musicstops and the lights come up, it’ll takemore than a $20 bundle of dancemoves to put things right.Nathan Brown

Around the time ofThe Taken King’s launch,Xbox players will finallyget some previouslyPS4-exclusive Strikesand weapons.

If you can’t takethe heat, stayaway from the newSunbreaker Titans.

PUBLISHER ACTIVISION / DEVELOPER BUNGIE / FORMAT XBOX 360, XBOX ONE

Destiny: The Taken KingNew gear, a bigger raid, and a very particular set of skills

ETA15 SEP

The thirdexpansionto Bungie’sintoxicatingsci-fi MMOFPSin which you

shoot thingsin the hopeof gettinggood loot,then shoot thesame thingssome more toupgrade it.

Bluffer’sGuide

Balance of powerHow do you top a rocket launcher withheat-seeking follow-up cluster bombs?Though we’ve had a play with a few new legendaryweapons, none had been upgraded to unlocktheir perks. While the final game will surely havemore to offer, we’re keen to find out how Bungieis treating the current game’s most powerfulweapons. Will there be meaningful alternativesto Fatebringer, Gjallarhorn and the like, or will wenot be able to use them because they’re no longerpowerful enough? Bungie is saying nothing.

P R E V I E W




The year is 2027 and

you’re 462km aboveEarth, which puts you inthat sweet spot between‘Instagram-worthy

view’ and ‘burning alivein the planet’s upper

atmosphere’. Oh, and there’s been a

problem. Just a small one.Since you’re on a microgravity

research laboratory, however, there’sno such thing as a small problem.Even the tiniest issue can snowballinto something mission-destroying.Waking up groggy among wreckage,

you don’t know exactlywhat wentdown, but you know it was bad

because there are a lot of glass shards

and alarms going off and holes wherethere shouldn’t be.

Six months since our first hands-on,in which we did little more than floatthrough a tunnel for several minutes, Adr1ft feels more like an actual game. Your main job now is survival – torepair the only evacuation vehicle and

return home. Annoyingly, and life-threateningly, your suit is leakingoxygen, so there’s a constantneed to grab floating canistersand replenish it. It gives anecessary nagging tension.

Our next task is getting thecommunications array onlineso we can rendezvous with Earth,and this involves travelling through

the damaged station to three silos andrebooting them. With its design, thedev strikes a balance between realismand futuristic fantasy: one chamberhouses an immense, blossoming treesurrounded by thousands of petals.Each is a physical object that reactsto your movements. The ISS is the

current largest habitable satellite inexistence, but upon taking the

Spiritus’ elevator and castingeyes over its gleaming solararrays, trusses and numerousmodules, this looks at leasttriple the size.

Using our thrusters on theright trigger we approach an

audio log. These are a major fixture,and give an otherwise lifeless worldcharacter. This one belongs to TheresaLopez who shares a touching anecdoteabout dressing as an astronaut forHalloween, and how she’s thankful forfinally getting to realise that dream. Inthis so-called ‘first-person experience’,guns and violence are swapped foremotional impact as you unravelthreads of story to their conclusions.

This silent vacuum is the perfectplace in which to mediate on theirmeaning. At its core, Adr1ft seems to

be a game about surviving a world-inverting disaster and finding a wayto turn things around for the better.But as revealed through your crew’smusings, that disaster – and how youovercome it – is different for everyone.

Ben Griffin

The visuals are majestic,the power of Unreal Engine4 rendering thousands ofparticles at once.

PUBLISHER 505 GAMES / DEVELOPER THREE ONE ZERO / FORMAT XBOX ONE

Adr1ftYour station is broken and everyone’s dead. Try not to scream – it won’t help here

ETASEP

//Annoyingly, and life-

threateningly, your suit is leaking//

Float aroundyour ruinedspace station,the Spiritus,fixingthings and

intrusivelylistening tocrewmates’audio logs.

Bluffer’sGuide

Roll over, BeethovenSnooping on a man’s private lifeSpiritus systems specialist Andrew McDonaghis involved in a poignant early subplot. Throughaudio logs he admits his failure as a father (“Ipromised Lucy I was going to be there for her.I promised myself I wouldn’t leave her like thisagain”) and expresses pride over his daughter’spiano talents. As you spot his body floatinglifelessly among wreckage and Lucy’s renditionof Beethoven’s Sonata No. 8 plays delicately inthe background, the effect is heartbreaking.

P R E V I E W




People saying things like,“The setting was thereal protagonist of thispiece,” is usually cause topunch them directly inthe face, but with Mirror’s

Edge that sort of windbaggery is verynearly justified. Here was a gleamingfuturistic city rendered in bold primarycolors, a perfect playground whereeven the sewers were picturesque.Seven years on, Mirror’s Edge Catalyst shifts focus to Faith Connors, no longerfleetingly glimpsed as a reflection orshadow, but the fully fleshed-out heroof an epic origin story.

Faith is a data courier living offthe grid, eschewing WhatsAppand Snapchat to deliver top-secretinformation the old-fashioned way– with parkour. In the City of Glass,privacy is over as citizens willinglyrelinquish their freedoms to an all-powerful conglomerate for peace andconvenience. Some factions make astand, however, and Faith is drawn

into their struggle. The story spans

decades, with flashbacks detailing herchildhood, training, a stint in prisonand how she got that badass tattoo.

Our hands-on begins witha man named Icarus givingFaith a high-tech contact lensthat displays stock prices,advertises health foods, andreports entertainment newssuch as fan outrage over Gameof Thrones parody ‘Play of Woes’.

Already the world feels bigger, richer.Thankfully she can turn off the feed(it’s used primarily for waypointingand video calls) and concentrate onwhat’s important: running quite fast.

Icarus’ route finding options leadus to the Centurion Yards. Sincethe world is now a sandbox, we cango anywhere we see – all accessedwithout a loading screen. We’ve gotthree activities to choose from now.Dash is a 30-second sprint and showsoff Faith’s speedy flair. Aside from

being able to now seamlessly navigaterounded corners there’s not much

in the way of new moves, but she’s

noticeably faster. Catalyst is all aboutpreserving momentum by chainingtogether jumps, hopping up ledges and

sliding under scaffolding.We try Billboard Hack next,

not so much a test of reflexesas spatial awareness as Faithattempts to electronically

tag a huge monitor. Thesepuzzles involve pausing to find

your next route, and althoughsome argue the original game’s stop/ start nature was irritating, it’s at leastauthentic – there’s more to the sport ofparkour than running in a straight line.

ETA26 FEB

Mirror’s Edge CatalystFaith’s open-world origin story is no walk in the parkour

After Faithencountersshady goingson within thecorporation-controlledCity of Glass,she mustrally againstevil CEO

Gabriel Krugerand becomea catalystof change.

Bluffer’sGuide

PUBLISHER EA / DEVELOPER DICE / FORMAT XBOX ONE

With enough momentumyou’ll barely breaka sweat in combatwith KrugerSec.

Mirror’s Edge’s gunplay was arguablyits weakest part: firearms feltweak and wielding them compromisedyour climbing. Catalyst dodges theproblem by preventing Faith frompicking them up altogether.

FIX THIS…

Metadata

P R E V I E W




Catalyst isn’t as aimless as you’dthink, despite being open-world.Setting a waypoint on your map uses

your contact lens to paint relevantpieces of scenery red, and organicallycarves out a route. Although it’smore vertically diverse than before,level layout aids flow: stacked ledgesfunction like staircases, platformsspringboard you to new heights andziplines let you descend in style.Controls are more nuanced, too: LBtriggers ‘up’ actions such as jumps andspringboards; LT triggers ‘down’ oneslike crouching, sliding and rolling.

Delivery is the last mission anddemonstratesCatalyst’s vastlyimproved combat. Faith must delivera package and eliminate a squad ofKrugerSec guards – and with multiple

variations she has her work cut out.There are lightly armoured Protectorswho rival Faith in speed, and bulkySentinels wielding heavy weapons.Between them sit Guardians, who use

both freerunning and guns on you.

DICE’s choice to eliminate clumsy

shoot-outs focuses the spotlight onpure melee combat – the only gunsFaith uses are the two attached to hershoulders. Momentum is your greatestally, letting you KO foes with a singlepunch or kick, and the way enemiesare positioned often enables you tostring mad combos. First we performa wall-run-into-flying kick, then slideand upwards-punch another in thegroin before triggering a new slow-moTransference Attack that switches

the camera to third-person as Faithspectacularly channels her speed into a

violent finisher. It’s fast, fluid, and youfeel untouchable.

But while combat’s smarter andnavigation’s faster, the most importantimprovement concerns characters andstory. A protagonist with personalityand a grand setting that’s no longer anexquisitely empty husk gives Catalyst some much-needed emotional impact.Ben Griffin

//A futuristic contactlens reports fan outrageover Game of Thrones

parody ‘Play of Woes’//

Fascism has never lookedso stylish. Move over,Mussolini! Oh, you’realready dead.

The City ofGlass lookslikely toinclude afull day/night cycle.

Bag ladyCollectibles in the City of GlassSpread throughout the environment are floatingholograms called Gridleaks. It’s not yet clearwhat you’ll get from collecting them (XP? Mapdata?) but, like the floating tokens inCrackdown , they encourage exploration. Thereare also Runner bags. Whereas the first gamecontained a mere 30, Catalyst featureshundreds. We grabbed one stashed in a vent,but we didn’t open it – is there an option tosend it to lost property?

P R E V I E W




At first thought, the idea ofa Need for Speed rebootis ludicrous. It’s not likethere are fansites out therededicated to unravelingthe intertwining plot

lines that cleverly link the grimyunderground scene of Need for Speed:Carbon with Porsche Unlimited ’shighfalutin’ tour of Europe, is it? Butmaybe it’s not a need to reset theseries’ plot, but to reset its form.

The Need for Speed badge has beenpinned onto so many types of racinggame by so many developers over the

years that the name means differentthings to different people. The seriesis now sensibly in the hands of a singlecustodian – Swedish dev Ghost Games

– and this ‘reboot’ is an attempt tomeld the best parts of 15 years ofracing heritage and evolution into analloy that’ll shine for everyone.

So it stands to reason that beforewe were set loose on the streetsof Ventura Bay, a nocturnal open-world playground styled on the WestCoast, we paid homage to the series’Underground heyday by delvinginto the garage and fine-tuningour car – a BMW M3 SportEvolution – to infinity. Thelevel of customization isimpressive – everything fromheadlights and hoods to skirtsand side-mirrors can be deckedout in neon colours previously thought

beyond the visible human spectrum.It’s also possible to stack spoiler uponspoiler until your car’s back end lookssuitably aerodynamic/ridiculous.

It’s all for show, of course, butthen the game is structured aroundsocial interaction and one-upping

your friends (with the trade-off that

an internet connection is required),so there’s every motivation to look

your best out on the streets. Moretangible changes can be made tothe car’s performance by heading

back into the garage and tweakingthe handling – you can make large-

brushstroke changes to the suspensionor transmission, or you can go further

down the rabbit hole, tweakingthe steering response and the

pressure in your tires.But you can also just pick

one of two preset styles –‘grip’ or ‘drift’. This is where

things get interesting, because both are analogous to the

handling of games past. Grip replicatesthe wild, front-heavy steering ofUnderground , Most Wanted (2005

vintage) et al, while Drift channels thetighter, powersliding focus of the laterCriteron games, such as Hot Pursuit and Most Wanted (2012).

Crafting an open-world

environment that can successfully

ETA3 NOV

Need for SpeedReboot takes the junk out of the trunk

EA’s attemptto reinventthe wheel.A shot atunitingthe open-worldgoodness ofmodern Needfor Speeds

with thestreet racingculture ofthe series’heyday.

Bluffer’sGuide

PUBLISHER EA / DEVELOPER GHOST GAMES / FORMAT XBOX ONE

Rep Attack is an eight-player skirmish in whichracers compete to earnas much ‘rep’ as possiblewithin nine minutes. Repis earned, as always, bydriving like a madman.

//It’s an attempt to meldthe best parts of racing

heritage into an alloy//50 / THE OFFICIAL XBOX MAGAZINE WWW.GAMESRADAR.COM/OXM

P R E V I E W



Q A&

accommodate two very differentdriving styles is going to be somechallenge, but our hands-on sessionsuggests that the downtown portionof Ventura Bay, at least, is up to thechallenge – packed with tight 90ºturns to throw your car into. It remainsto be seen whether the rest of thearea’s curvy roads – which take instaple Need for Speed sights such ascanyons and harboursides – will be asaccommodating, but what we’ve seenso far has our engines revving.Alex Dale

Marcus NilssonGhost Games’ executive producer on bringing NFSback to its roots, and why pretty pics = prizes

It wasn’t so long agothat you would see twoor even three NFS gamesper year. What did youlearn from that period ofoversaturation?Taking the year off isobviously an answer tothat, right? We used itto figure out who we areand what we should be.Was it confusing to have

Need for Speed: The Run [six months after having]Shift 2 ? Absolutely. Itis – not only does itsaturate Need for Speed ,but it also confuses you,‘What is the experienceI get from Need forSpeed ?’ So, this rebootof the franchise is aboutgetting our foundationcorrectly laid out – whatyou see here is whatthe Need for Speed experience will be for theforeseeable future.

You’ve got two baselinehandling models,which seem to beroughly aligned withUnderground and Rivals .For me, those two typesof handling modelswere integral parts ofthe games, and theywere built aroundthem. What was the

challenge of makinga game that workedsimultaneously withboth models?That idea actually camefrom Craig Sullivan, thecreative director. Hesaid to me, “If we’regoing to make thisdefinitive Need for Speed experience, we have 100million people who have

played the more grippyUnderground style, andwe have the 30 or 40million people that haveplayed the Rivals style.

Let’s cater to both!” Sowe put in a lever that youcan just pull.

Controversially, Needfor Speed requires analways-online internetconnection: what’sthe pay-off for theinconvenience?We’ve been pretty bigwith Autolog throughoutthe years and, as weknow, it’s a reallypowerful feature. Thistime around we’re goingto give it more of a

human voice. It will treatyour friend’s play as if itis part of the narrativeexperience. We alsohave a new snapshotsystem as well, which istaking pictures of a lotof different moments –[they go] out to the Needfor Speed network wherepeople can ‘like’ them,and those likes are being

pushed back into thegame as currency. Soyou get progressionfrom sharing yourphotos. The Xbox One

has really good built-insystems to make videosand stream them, whichwe are also going to use.

There’s a wave of mid-noughties nostalgia atthe moment. What itis about that era thatcaptures people?To some degree it’sobviously nostalgia,but we love the chanceto rebuild experiencesthat you’ve had in thepast but with muchmore capabilities.

//What you see here is whattheNFS experience will befor the forseeable future//

Transitionsbetween FMVand racing

action are asslick as, er,a slick tire.(Sorry.)

You can slap on as many decals as you fancy.Makes it easier to find it in the car park.

FORZA HORIZON 2Classic simhandling, butyou’re set looseon a sun-soakedopen-worldplayground.

NFS: RIVALSGhost Games’first NFS dida good coverversion of Most

Wanted , butlacked identity.

OR TRY…

Metadata

P R E V I E W




T h e o r i g i n s a n d f

u t u r e o f X b o x G

a m e P r e v i e

w

U N F I N I S H

E D

S Y M P H O

N I E S

W r i t e

r : D a n i e l

G r i l i o

p o u l o

s



DayZ started as a free mod forthe hardcore military sim ARMAIII, but became a standalonegame at the end of 2013. It’s

a survival sim where food and

water are scarce, and the only

things more deadly than its

zombies are everything else.

“Originally our aim was to look

at releasing traditionally,on both console platforms.However, Microsoft fairlyaggressively chased us downearly on to discuss the ideafor a Game Preview program.It was clear it was serious,and the idea and motivationbehind it seemed exciting– the next step in bringingconsumers ‘behind thecurtain’ when it comes to gamedevelopment – so we signed on!“We’re not talking dates for

console releases just yet, butas the title will hit consolesmuch later than on PC, theconsole experience will be morerefined, and feature-complete.I envision console gamers willsee more gameplay and contentevolution, and less of thefeature and engine developmentthe PC users were able toexperience, as they come on soearly in development. For thePC, we’re hoping to see thetransition into beta at the endof this year with an intended

release from Early Access mid

next year… For us, I don’tthink there is much differencebetween the two platforms. PChas the strength of modding,but the Xbox One has its ownstrengths. With the core enginework we’ve been going through– moving to DirectX 11, andfollowing up with DirectX 12– it sets us up early for the

Xbox One. We’ll have to changeour approach to server hosting,but I think it’ll make for amore streamlined approach togetting into the game.“The approach, moving into

development for Xbox One, isspecifically aimed at designinga DayZ experience that plays tothe platform’s strengths. Forthe Xbox, that stretches fromsocial aspects of the Dashboardand Xbox Live service, to usingtech like ‘Meld’ to communicatethe development of the game.“We’ve still got some

outstanding areas of DayZ tocome. Base building, advancedvehicles, character life spanand soft skills, and evenaerial transport! In additionto that, DayZ development willcontinue past 1.0, with morecontent and features comingthroughout the followingyears. Bohemia Interactivehas a 15-year history ofshipping excellent games andoutstanding experiences – DayZ

will hit 1.0, and keep going!”

DayZINTERVIEWEE BRIAN HICKS, PRODUCER

DEVELOPER BOHEMIA INTERACTIVE / PREVIEW RELEASE TBA

T

o a cynic, playingunfinished games onconsoles doesn’t soundlike anything new.Many of us tried to play

Assassin’s Creed Unityor Fallout: New Vegasat launch, and those

certainly weren’t finished until monthslater. Older readers might remember thefirst Saint’s Row , which was so buggysomeone wrote a song about it. Butwe’re talking about games that are onlypartially developed and will be finishedlater, but which you can buy now. Theyare mostly functional, but are probablyunbalanced and have many missingfeatures. As The Long Dark’ s Raphael vanLierop put it to us, “Our game is alreadyshippable as a complete experience,

we’re just not finished with it yet.”What we’re talking about is the Xbox

Game Preview program, announced atE3 by Chris Charla. Here you can buygames, starting with The Long Darkand Elite: Dangerous, and watch themdevelop. If you’re not sure whetheryou want the game or not, or if it’s in astate you’re not happy paying for yet,there’s a 60-minute trial available totry it out (something we’d like to seeextended to all downloadable games).

So why would you buy a game fromEarly Access, rather than waiting for

it to come out? Well, firstly, it shouldprove cheaper. The first game to do thisin a big way was Minecraft , way beforeit arrived on Xbox 360. Notch releasedthe first terrifyingly buggy and simpleversion of the game free in 2009, thenit crept up to €5 for pre-alpha then €10at alpha, before hitting €15 at beta,and €20 at launch. At each stage,players got a bit more for their money.

Secondly, on PC at least, you canbe part of the development process.Developers, you may be surprisedto hear, are human beings just likeus. Unless they’re doing a reallyboring genre-heavy title, their designdocument is normally a mess offeatures that they’d love to includeif they had infinite time, talent and

Flaunt toomuch sweet

gear in DayZ and you’llbecome atarget forbandits.

You may want toget hands-onearly with DayZ,if you’ve neverplayed a game withzombies in it.

UNFINISHED SYMPHONIES




The Long Dark is a first-personsurvival game set in remoteCanadian mountains. Though thesetting is post-apocalyptic,the threats are real – cold,starvation and wild animals –which makes the game much harderthan a simple zombie-shoot.

“When Microsoft approached usto be a Game Preview launchtitle, we were enticed by theopportunity to be the firstsurvival game on Xbox One, aswell as one of only two titlesto launch with Game Preview.“It took 26 days to go from

Xbox One dev kits to a completedXbox One version that passed

Microsoft cert – which is

The Long Dark INTERVIEWEE RAPHAEL VAN LIEROP, FOUNDER

DEVELOPER HINTERLAND / PREVIEW RELEASE OUT NOW

money. Input from players lets themknow what is and isn’t working, andwhere they should focus their efforts.

Thirdly, the developer gets paidwhile it’s making the game. That might

not seem huge to you, but in thesedays of straitened economics, nothaving to borrow money from the banksignificantly improves a developer’squality of life, and the likelihood that itwill continue working on the project.

There are problems, of course. TakeDouble Fine for example. Although it’smade some of the most characterfulgames around – like cult classicPsychonauts and Heavy-Metal-strategy-Jack-Black-’em-up BrütalLegend – and though studio founderand industry legend Tim Schafer isbetter loved than nine out of ten

puppies, its Early Access games haveactually been a bit miss and miss.

If you’re a Xbox Live Gold member,you may have played its quirky fantasy

tactics game Massive Chalice. Thiswas a fun-sounding game – XCOM meets Golden Axe meets Decline &Fall – which attracted a reasonableKickstarter backing, and went quickly

into Early Access. The game’s eventualrelease, however, had core designflaws including the regular death ofyour characters and a slow, smallworld, which undermined efforts toreplicate XCOM ’s success. The EarlyAccess period ended quickly andquietly, and the game was pushed outwith a limited feature set.

This wasn’t the first time thatDouble Fine had failed to deliver onan Early Access game. Previously, itsDwarf Fortress-inspired space stationmanagement sim Spacebase DF-9 raninto trouble in Early Access, and its

ambitious five-year development cyclewas truncated to just 18 months. Thestudio was spending more making itthan it was taking in, as Schafer wrote

unheard of. We were only able todo it, really, because we builtthe game on Unity, and we had aton of support from Microsoft.“We did a fair bit of work

to overhaul the UI and getcontroller support working,but our Steam players have beenasking for this for a while so wefelt good about it. We discoveredwe had a lot of work to do to getthe game running at a smooth 30FPS – we have big environmentswith tons of objects and a longdraw distance. We still havework to do there. But in generalthe development effort wentpretty smoothly – it was justintense because we were trying

to hit a very tight deadline: E3.

“The greatest challenge wasgetting a Game Preview up andrunning, as they were buildingthe program as we were bringingthe game to console. Therewere a lot of shared momentswhere we were all asking eachother, ‘We’re going to get ourstuff done but are you guysgoing to make it?’ It becamekind of a running joke.“The Long Dark is super solid.

On average our players put 10-15hours into the game and manyare in the 50+ hour range, sowe offer great value for the$19.99 price point. And just ason Steam, anyone buying on GamePreview will get full Season One

story mode episodes on launch.”

Why sit inyour roomdoing nothingwhen youcan sit in

this post-apocalypticroom instead?

DayZ is so named because a day’sabout as long as you can survive.(Er, this might not be true.)


F E A T U R E



at the time: “We wanted to keep workingon Spacebase for years. But Spacebase spends more money than it brings in,and that’s just not something we canafford to do any more. Set up against

the expectation of the game being indevelopment as long as Prison Architector Dwarf Fortress, it’s hard not to findfault in the game by comparison. Butwe continued to sell the game, and willcontinue to sell the game, because wefeel that based solely on its own merits,Spacebase DF-9 is still a fun, clever,hilarious, beautiful and complete game.”

That explanation didn’t satisfy manybuyers, who didn’t agree with Schafer;to them, the game was truncatedcompared to the description thatinspired them to buy the game, and theyfelt they’d been misled. Playing it now, it

does feel empty – but that’s part of therisk of Early Access. What you’re buyingisn’t the ultimate aim of the creators,but access to a work in progress.That’s why Early Access games tend tobe considerably cheaper than others –because they’re feature-light and maynever even make it to that final version.

Double Fine is a high-profilestudio, with large overheads fromits expensive, established staff, soit’s not entirely surprising that EarlyAccess hasn’t worked out well forit. Smaller, more agile studios have

turned Early Access to their advantagewith more success, including a gameSchafer mentioned, Prison Architect.British developer Introversion (knownfor Uplink and Darwinia) released thisprison construction and managementgame on an Early Access programin 2012. The game was in alpha andcertainly not feature-complete. Despitethat, it went on to rack up over amillion sales, and looks set to have afinal version released late in 2015.

Similarly, Simon Roth’s MachineStudios had almost exactly the samemodel and route as Double Fine –getting a reasonable amount of moneyfrom Kickstarter for a sandbox spacegame, Maia, then raising more bytaking the Early Access path – but by

You are butone button

press awayfrom either astash of foodor a funeralfor Sarah.

Sheltered is a sandboxsurvival game about gettingyour nuclear family through anuclear apocalypse.

“Unicube was originally atwo-person team founded by mycolleague, Dean Foster, andI. However, since signing toTeam17, we’ve been working

within their studio, with sixof us working on the game.“Sheltered is a complicated

game under the hood. We’vegot some really cool stuffplanned: crafting, encounters,exploration and there are a lotof different variables. Whichmeans that there are a lot ofinterconnected interactionswhich all combine to have animpact on how the game willplay. We wanted to make a gamethat will even surprise uswhen it’s finished!“Our inclusion in this

program means we’ll havelots of eyes on the game toensure it’s balanced and playswell. Responding to communityfeedback and suggestionsmeans we can deliver the bestpossible game. Because we’reusing Unity as our developmentplatform, it has been fairlyeasy to rapidly test thechanges we make on the console.Since working with Team17we’ve led development so far

using the Xbox One controller

to ensure it feels and playsgreat on console. How usersinteract is so important,we’ve spent a lot of time toget this right and like tothink we’ve got something thatworks really well.“We feel the Xbox Game

Preview program is a greatopportunity for us to

increase the scale of thegame gradually, resultingin a better end product. Theconcept of the program isquite a departure from thetraditional model of buyingfinished products. We weren’tsure how players were going toreact to it, so we really feltobliged to deliver somethingvery stable that players couldhave fun with straight away.“At the moment we’re working

on a lot of customizationoptions for the shelter. Whenyou begin you’ll be able tofully customize your startingfamily, which is a choice oftwo parents and two children– they can all be any gender,color and have their owncustomized clothes. You evenget to choose a family pet!You’ll start in a pretty grimshelter at first: it’s dark,there’s graffiti and any itemsyou craft will be their mostbasic version. But eventuallyyou’ll be able to improve and

customize your shelter…”

Sheltered INTERVIEWEE SONNY MEEK, FOUNDER / DEVELOPER UNICUBE

PREVIEW RELEASE 2015





SPACE ENGINEERSA multiplayer sandbox where youconstruct giant space stationsand spaceships, and mineasteroids. A lot more fun than it

sounds. No, honestly.

PRISON ARCHITECTA simple premise – build andmanage a maximum-securityprison – but the depth of thesimulation makes this fiendishly

difficult and curiously emergent.

FROZEN CORTEXA turn-based American Footballsimulation where the players arerobots? A huge variety of gamemodes and cunning mechanics

make it a joy to play.

SUBNAUTICAWe could describe this asa real-world submergedMinecraft or an underwateradventure, but that wouldn’t be

doing it justice.

DARKWOODAn unforgiving survival horrorgame, experienced from the top-down,Darkwood looks creepy,kooky and very, very spooky, and

we want to explore.

T H E E A R L Y A C C E S S G A M E S W E W A N T O N X B O X O N E

A follow-up to David Braben’sstunning Elite games, set ina beautiful 1:1 recreation ofour galaxy which you traversein a small spaceship, trading,fighting and simply exploring.

“We had such a positive

experience from doing the PCbeta that the opportunity tobe part of the Game Previewprogram was too good to miss.It allows us to engage withplayers, responding to feedbackand refining areas of the gamemore quickly than with a fullrelease. It’s also a chance todo something completely uniquein the console space.“What you get on Xbox One is

the full game – the trainingmissions, the full massivelymultiplayer galaxy. We alsomade some additions, like a

Elite: Dangerous INTERVIEWEE GARY RICHARDS, XBOX ONE SENIOR PRODUCER

DEVELOPER FRONTIER DEVELOPMENTS / PREVIEW RELEASE OUT NOW

new controller UI layer, newcontrols, and all the thingsXbox One players expect –Achievements, Hero Stats,Friends List support and so on.“One thing we HAD to do was

create a truly great controllerlayout. We’d always supported

the Xbox controller, but for XboxOne we created a new UI layerand context menus on every facebutton, to squeeze an incrediblydeep control set onto a gamepadwithout needing a keyboard.“Coming to Xbox One has

allowed us to develop our new PvPmode – Close Quarters Combat.We’re testing that as part ofEarly Access, too, then bringingit to all formats later.“We already had a multi-

platform engine (our COBRAtech has powered a number ofXbox games) so bringing Elite:

Dangerous to Xbox One wasn’t aschallenging as it could havebeen. That’s not to downplaythe team’s talent. Getting thegame running on Xbox One is onething, but getting it runningwell is another matter.

“A big challenge is supporting

features such as Friends List,voice chat, Achievements andHero Stats. We already had ourown voice chat and Friends Listbuilt for PC and Mac, so we hadto do additional work to supportthe equivalents on Xbox.“Elite: Dangerous was always

meant to be a constantlyexpanding game and we’ve had anumber of huge updates on PC andMac already (all are in the XboxOne version) but we couldn’thave invested so much time andwork into CQC if we hadn’t beenbringing the game to Xbox One.”

Docking in Elite may lookserene, but it’s hard ashell. You’ll crash loads.

The interfaceis elegantlytuned to fitthe Xbox Onecontroller.It’s a smart

port of agiant game.

F E A T U R E




keeping his team size low and keepingsales going through regular updates,he’s managed to keep production goingfor much longer than DF-9 .

“Using Early Access purely for funding,and relying on it for anything otherthan a supplement to the developmentwar chest seems to be where the highprofile mistakes have come from,” hesays. “You need to be able to grow andshrink development based on what is

coming in and going out at any time, andcan’t take anything for granted. Timeand money can disappear very quickly,and so can your reputation.” That’s aflexibility that Double Fine didn’t seemto have, but smaller indies like Roth do.

So if you want to avoid gettingburned buying a Xbox Game Previewtitle, it’s worth watching out for thegames that change regularly anddevs who listen to the community.“Early Access was a genuinely uniqueopportunity to work with my communityin building the game,” Roth told us. “Itfundamentally changes the way youapproach building a title. Every single

SPACE BEASTTERROR FRIGHTAn awesome name matchedwith hardcore gameplay. Playco-op as marines dispatched

to abandoned spacecraft.

THE MAGIC CIRCLEA first-person and terribly metagame about the blockbustergames industry itself, comingfrom the designers behind

BioShock 2 and Thief III.

INFINIFACTORYA puzzle game in which you’vebeen kidnapped by little greenman and women and made towork in their craft workshops. You

can even make your own puzzles!

INVISIBLE, INC.A turn-based cyberpunk strategygame where your fragile agentsinfiltrate major corporations inpursuit of riches. And cyber is by

far our favorite kind of punk.

SUNLESS SEAA shipbound exploration ofthe hellish seas surroundingFallen London, Sunless Sea is apuzzling, story-heavy dystopia,

and very difficult indeed.

decision I make has to be justified tothousands upon thousands of players,forcing me to reflect deeply on mydesign all throughout development.”

That doesn’t mean that failures areconfined to the big devs and successesto the small. Several Early Accesstitles have failed completely, andmore spectacularly than SpacebaseDF-9 . The Stomping Land , a multiplayerdinosaur survival game headed up by

an ex-Skyrim animator, was extremelypromising when launched on Kickstarterand then Early Access in early 2013,with a launch date of May 2014. Thenthe lead developer vanished. In late2014, Valve pulled the game from EarlyAccess; after a short reinstatement,it was pulled again in early 2015, andshows no sign of reappearing. Bothbackers and gamers lost their money.

Roth admits that it’s a difficult routefor a developer to go down: “The mainchallenge of early access is support.You are releasing something a hundredtimes buggier than what users wouldexpect from a final shipped product.

This means you spend a huge amountof time working with users to solvetheir issues. On PC this is a terrifyingtime-sink, it cost us many months onMaia, and can be quite demoralizingwhen issues flood in at a high rate.Although, I imagine releasing an alphaon fixed hardware such as the Xboxwould make it far more manageable.”

That’s a key point. The single-size-fits-all hardware of the Xbox One

means devs don’t have to customizethe game to every single machine, aswith PC. The single operating systemmeans that the developer knows thatthe game will work and no softwareshould interfere. All they’ve got to worryabout is making the game work well.

And that’s not a problem confined toGame Preview titles, of course. Althoughthere are only two of them at the timeof writing, we’re confident you’ll see anawful lot of weird and wonderful gameseither moving from PC, or comingstraight to Xbox One. Given that thetrials will be totally free, we expect you’llend up giving most of them a try.

“EVERY SINGLE DECISION IMAKE HAS TO BE JUSTIFIED TO

THOUSANDS OF PLAYERS…”

One of Elite’s planned updateswill allow you to walk aroundinside the ships, marveling atyour hard-earned equipment.

Trading too sedate? Time tounleash your weapons.





SUBSCRIBE & SAVE 77%

Subscribe to Official Xbox Magazine today and get every issuedelivered to your door for just $2.08 per issue!

* PRINT EDITION: Savings compared to buying 12 full-priced issues from US newsstand. This offer is for new US print subscribers only. Overseas savings mayvary. Prices correct at point of print and subject to change. DIGITAL EDITION: Free trial available to new subscribers only. 30-day free trial available via Apple

Newsstand, Google Newsstand and Kindle Fire. 14-day free trial on Nook. No free trial via Zinio.

> Stay up-to-date with the latestXbox news, the most reliable

reviews and the best features

> Get every issuedelivered straight

to your door

> Pay just $24.95 per year -saving an incredible 77%off the cover price!

SUBSCRIBE NOWGet your print or digital subscription

at bit.ly/1lKTdXT

Download OXM to your phoneor tablet and try two FREE issues

with a 30-day trial*

PREFER

DIGITAL?



THIS MONTH WE…

Went out clubbing p64 Followed false generals p70Got nostalgic over Dante p68 Froze to death p74Cloned ourselves p66

THIS MONTHIN FACTS

ALEX: Earth. Breathableatmosphere, drinkablewater: this sucker’s

got the lotTOM: Pluto. Although Inever understood why hehad to live in a kenneland Goofy got to have

a mortgageEMMA: Venus. Prettygood at tennis, for a

celestial body without anydiscernable limbs

MATTHEW: Mars. Soft andcreamy. What? Shut up, this

is my magazine

ROB: EagleEMMA: BirdieJOE: GooseyALEX: BogeyTOM: Turdie

MATTHEW: (That’s enoughgolf handicaps – Ed)

The distance that anelephant can smell. Withthat, you’d think 6/10Tembo could smell his

own stench.

OXM’S FAVOURITEPLANETS (THATAREN’T MARS)

OXM’S PGA TOURHANDICAP

ELITE:

DANGEROUSThe whole galaxy on your TV screen. (p60)

12 MILES


REVIEWSThe most important Xbox releases rated



Most of your time will bespent peacefully driftingbetween star systems, butwhen a fight breaks out,it’s like being in thethick of the best Star Wars

space battle ever.


R E V I E W




A

t the start of Elite:Dangerous, you’renothing. You have100k of credits in your

bank account and aSidewinder spaceship.From these humblebeginnings, your goal

is to become Elite: the highest rank givento pilots in the fields of combat,exploration and trade.

The exciting thing is, how youget there is completely up toyou. Your journey from space-rags to space-riches is shapedentirely by you, at your ownpace, and will be different to thethousands of others who inhabit

this evolving, connected andmassive replica of the Milky Way.If you want to make an honest

buck, you can, but if you wantsomething a little more exciting(and illegal), there’s plentyof work out there for pirates,smugglers and bounty hunters.Open-world games often makelofty, but ultimately hollow, claimsabout playing your own way –but here it’s totally possible.

New pilots start their careers ina backwater station in Federationspace. This tiny corner of thegalaxy is densely populated by humans,and a great place to start making money.Your Sidewinder is a decent all-rounder,but a small cargo hold and puny weaponsmean you’ll start by doing the starshipcommander’s equivalent of odd jobs– delivering fish to a neighboringsystem or mining asteroids.

But hard work is rewarded withcredits, and soon you’ll be able toafford a new ship. This is where Elite:Dangerous really begins. You can sell yourSidewinder and buy a Hauler, a ship thatmakes up for what it lacks in firepower

with a fat cargo hold. This will let you start

buying goods from one station and thenselling them on at an inflated price.

Or maybe you’ll upgrade to an Eagle, aship with an equally tiny hold, but which is

much better at holding its own in combat.The Hauler’s a bulky space-truck, butthe Eagle’s a tough little fighter that youcan fit with missile launchers and lasers.This will give you the power to hunt down

wanted criminals and claim theprice on their head.

Above all, it’s money thatkeeps the galaxy spinning,and – much like in real life –the amount you have dictateshow exciting your life will be.When you’ve grafted enough toearn large amounts of cash, you

can buy even more specialized,and powerful, ships.Exploration is a lucrative

career path, and one of themost fun. There are 400 billionindividual star systems in thegame, and most of them havenever been seen by anothersoul. In fact, if you’re the firstperson to discover and scana system, your name will beetched forever on the galaxymap. But even if someone hasalready found it, you can stillscan the planets and stars

there and sell the data back to stations.Exploration is also the best way to soak

in the game’s haunting atmosphere. You’llsee fiery suns a hundred times larger

than our own, and planets circled byenormous rings of ice and rock,thousands of miles across. You’llencounter black holes, whichtwist and distort the stars around

them, and space stations spinningin orbit around Earth-like worlds.

A ship such as the Asp is perfect forexplorers, with a long jump range that letsthem cover greater distances. But it can

handle itself in a fight too, with thick

PUBLISHER FRONTIER DEVELOPMENTS / DEVELOPER FRONTIER DEVELOPMENTS

FORMAT XBOX ONE / RELEASE DATE OUT NOW

ELITE:DANGEROUSAn epic space RPG on atruly galactic scale

ANDY KELLY

Live ultrabrilliant@ultrabrilliant

THE KNOWLEDGEWHAT IS IT?

A space role-playerset in an utterlyhuge, freelyexplorable galaxy.

WHAT’S IT LIKE?

A great game withawesome spacecombat and loadsof potential.

WHO’S IT FOR?

People who lovefreedom and hugeopen worlds.

REVIEWER

XBOXGAME

PREVIEW




armor and a variety of hardpoints toattach weapons to. Eventually earning

enough credits to buy powerful, multi-use ships like this lets you dabble in alot of different play styles at once.

Other ships available include theOrca, a luxury space-yacht that willbe a glinting prize to passing pirates,and the Anaconda, a floating battleplatform that’s the most formidable– and expensive – craft in the game.There’s a ship for everyone, whetheryou’re low on cash or loaded.

The one thing every ship has incommon is that they all feel fantasticto fly, with their own distinct handlingand personalities. There’s a greatfeeling of weight as you accelerate andturn, giving you a very real sensation ofbeing strapped into a rocket-propelledhunk of metal. You hear the engines

spin and groan as you go faster, andthe creak of the chassis as you shift

into a hyperjump. You spend the wholegame in your chosen ship’s cockpit,and the more you play, the more it feelslike an extension of you.

Ships such as the Eagle feellight and nimble, while the hulkingLakon Type-9 Heavy is ungainly andchallenging to squeeze through thenarrow docking slots of stationswithout scraping the paintwork. Asmuch love has gone into the tiniestdetails of the ship simulation as thegrand scale of the galaxy. And it reallyis a simulation. You can manage thepower of your systems – pumping morepower into weapons to let you fire themfor longer, for example – and every partof your ship can be controlled, fromthe landing gear to the lights. Your first

attempt at docking will undoubtedly bea disaster as you forget to switch on

the landing gear and crash headfirstinto the landing pad, but you getsteadily better, and a smooth landingis one of the game’s greatest joys.The way these deep, complex controlsare mapped to the Xbox pad – usingheld buttons to reach a hidden layer ofmenus – is a porting triumph.

Star warsIf the idea of being a galactic drifter,picking up whatever job comes along,doesn’t appeal, you can always fightin a war that’s perpetually raging in asmall corner of the galaxy. Ten powersare fighting for control, and you can

join them to help their cause.The community’s actions alter the

landscape of the galaxy, with starsystems constantly changing hands.The benefits include extra credits,access to special weapons and uniqueships. The downside is that pilots fromother factions can attack with impunityif you stray into their territory. But, trueto Elite’s dedication to freedom, neutralplayers can take advantage, too. Assystems are plunged into war, supplyand demand for food and weapons are

dramatically affected: great for traders.

The interiors of stations reflect the wealth of theowners – this is the result of a strong economy.

Everywhereyou go in

the MilkyWay there’ssome amazingscenery togawp at.

Homeward boundYou can travel to our own solar system,Sol, if you have a special permit.

Making a pilgrimage to Earth issomething every Elite: Dangerous playershould do at least once. And you can

visit other cosmic tourist hotspots,too – including the rings of Saturn,

terraformed Mars and the Moon.


R E V I E W




Equip your ship with a mining laser and you’ll be ableto extract precious minerals from ring worlds like this.

Elite’s biggest problem is repetition.Missions are randomly generated, andit shows. You never feel like you’redoing anything of importance and themission text is meaningless. You end upnot caring what you’re delivering or whoyou’re hunting because it’s really justabout earning credits. You’ll also get tothe point where money doesn’t reallymatter and you don’t want to fight in thewar, which is when the boredom sets in.

But then you’ll discover a systembathed in the fluorescent blue ofa nebula, or get into a knife-edge

dogfight with a much bigger ship andwin, and you’ll be drawn back in. Elite is a game where you’ll do somethingdifferent every time you play, andboredom is never permanent. Even justflying around, checking out the sceneryand visiting space stations, is enjoyable.Only the occasional game crash disruptsthe mood, but then the purpose ofGame Preview is to iron out such kinks.

You can play solo, but open play –where others share the galaxy with you– is the best experience. You’ll formuneasy alliances with strangers and

make enemies as you explore. Or, toeven the odds, you can call in friends

and form a Wing, allowing you to sharecredits. Unlike fellow Game Preview,The Long Dark , Elite is far closer to its‘final’ form - what you get here can bebought on PC as a finished retail game.If anything, it’s great value for $30.99.

The really impressive thing is thatElite: Dangerous is being constantlyupdated. You can buy it now, but it ’sfar from finished. Frontier has bigplans, including the ability to landon planets and board other players’ships. So in a year, this review might beworthless. But even at this early stageit’s a totally unique experience onXbox, and one of the best open-worldRPGs on any platform. With some moreimprovements and new ways to play, itcould become a classic. OXM

“There’s a real sensation of being ina rocket-propelled hunk of metal”

Dogfightsbenefit from

spectacularspace vistas.Would beingejected intothis reallybe that bad?

Elite: Dangerous is a thrillingspace RPG offering anunprecedented amount offreedom. There’s a lot itcould do better, but there’snothing else quite like it –or as huge – on Xbox.

OVERALL

The OXM Verdict

If you have illegal cargo, switch to silentrunning while docking to avoid the police.

PRO TIP

Finally earning enough credits to sell yourcurrent rust bucket and buy a shiny beast.

THE BEST BIT DID YOUKNOW?

?Elite:Dangerous wasfunded on

Kickstarter. Over25,000 backerscontributed a grandtotal of £1,578,316.

XBOXGAME

PREVIEW


R E V I E W



Some say golf is a good walkspoiled. We personally considera good walk a tedious, healthychore. At least golf lets usstop that walk 18 times to vent

our frustrations by hitting somethingwith a club. The PGA Tour games havealways been cursed with their own formof virtual ‘walking’ – loading times.Enter Rory McIlroy PGA Tour , whichproudly promises no hole-to-holeload times. We’d be more impressed ifit hadn’t come at the cost of a lot offeatures that made this series great.

Gameplay will be familiar to anyonewho’s played previous PGA Tour games.Classic mode reduces striking the ball

to a few button presses, and feels likea relic from a bygone era. If you actuallywant to feel like you’re swinging theclub, you’ll want Arcade or Pro mode.Arcade has you pulling the analog stickback to lift your club and then down toswing, ideally as straight as possible ifyou don’t want a close up of the bunker.

Arcade mode also gives you thepower to spin the ball, dictating whichway it’ll roll, and you can zoom in tosee where you’re likely to land, helpingyou judge your shots. It’s not simply amatter of just choosing where the ballgoes and then hitting the win button.You have to judge wind, how the ball islikely to bounce, make sure your swing

is swift, as well as straight, and avoidtrees, bunkers and bludgeoning theskulls of anyone in the crowd.

Purists might balk at ball spin andzoomed-in views, but things aredifficult no matter what playstyle youopt for. For the first few hours, it’s likeplaying the toughest, most unforgivingRPG ever. You level up throughout themain tour, with each hole completedgiving experience depending on howimpressive your shots were. Thisupgrades skills such as drive distance,putting and the like, but until you’veleveled up a few times, and learned froma lot of failure, your drive will constantlybe too short, your ball will consistentlyfind the rough and putting feels like it ’sbeen imported straight from hell.

Putting guides appear on the greenon Arcade and Classic, but early successis so slim they’ll feel sarcastic. It’ll be afew hours of trial and error until you’rereading them properly. Once you haveit down, it’s one of the most rewardingsystems we’ve seen in any sports game.

Only when you’ve mastered Arcade

do we recommend adjusting to Pro.

Didn’t get a screen of our hole-in-one. Besides,you’d only accuse us of lying. Accurately.

RORY MCILROY PGA TOUR

PUBLISHER EA SPORTS / DEVELOPER EA TIBURON / FORMAT XBOX ONE / RELEASE DATE OUT NOW

Still a great golf game, but where’s the rest of it?TOM STONE

Live OXM Tom Stone@TheTomStrange

THE KNOWLEDGE

WHAT IS IT?

Xbox One debut ofthe excellent PGA

Tour golf sims.

WHAT’S IT LIKE?

PGA Tour 14, butwith a new starand less stuff.

WHO’S IT FOR?

Newcomers, whodon’t mind lesscontent inexchange for shorterloading times.

REVIEWER

War CourseThe fantasy courses are fun, including abizarre Battlefield 4 one (which soundslike the most misguided crossover sincesome goon decided to pitch FamilyGuy meets The Simpsons ). They’re welldesigned, but it didn’t stop us noticingthat there were far fewer courses thanthe last PGA Tour game.


R E V I E W




Nightclub mode has this delightful old dude.His outfit should’ve been a pre-order bonus.

Note to self:fire thischump andget a lesscheery caddy.

This takes away the putting guides,zoomed-in shot previews and ballspinning, but gives you more controlon curving your shots. More realisticand insanely difficult, it’s a great stepforward for any virtual golfer. Seriesveterans might be wondering whenwe’re going to talk about what’s new.Sadly, that’s not going to take long.

Graphical roughPGA Tour uses the Frostbite engineto load whole courses, meaning noloading times between holes. Butmuch as we detest loading times, weunderstand why they’re a necessaryevil. Now pop-in and graphical glitches

are common, far more so than in recententries. Player animation and thecourses often look fantastic, but it’sdisappointing to see an Xbox One gamesuffering from glitches we stoppedaccepting generations ago.

Too much is missing. Creating yourgolfer used to boast ridiculously deepcustomization options. Now, you haveto settle for a small amount of set facesand hairstyles. It’s also surprisinglyrestrictive on how your golferprogresses. Each time you level up, thestat that gets a boost is decided for you,depending on how you’ve been playing.

New mode, Nightclub, features funmini-games that have you hitting targets

and score rings to music far too trendyfor a golf sim. You’re helped by ridiculousboosts, like a power up that makes theball leap back into the air mid-flightor stick wherever it lands without

bouncing into another damn bunker.Fun as this new diversion is, it doesn’tmake up for other compromises. Theexcellent Legends mode – where youplayed through some of the most iconicmatches in golfing history – is gone.PGA Tour 14’s welcome introduction ofthe LGPA – the first time a women’s-only career mode was featured in a PGA

Tour game – is also gone, with just two(fantasy) female characters this year.Online multiplayer allowed up to 24people last time, here it’s capped at four.

Fans might wonder why they shouldaccept all these missing features.Newcomers will be impressed by the lackof loading screens, but those who’veplayed PGA Tour 14 will never crave Xbox360 backwards compatibility more. OXM

“Write about what’s new? Sadly,

that’s not going to take long”

Plays as great a gameof golf as ever. But withprevious titles boasting somuch more content, it’shard to justify shelling outfor an Xbox One start thatfeels like a step backwards.

OVERALL

6

The OXM Verdict

Just look at it go! Pulling off apower shot never gets old.

THE BEST BIT

Finally, female players in FIFA! So wherehave all the PGA Tour ones gone?

THE WORST BIT WHAT HAPPENSNEXT?

?At least onenew coursewill drop asDLC. Hopefully

it’ll become amore substantialpackage in thecoming months.


R E V I E W



As a scavenger stranded in anabandoned research station,your objectives are as follows:find out what happened tothe crew, and escape. You’ve

essentially crashed a party long afterthe main event, but just in time toclean up the mess. Your only real friendis The Swapper, which allows you tocreate clones of yourself.

You can make up to four duplicates –not enough for a field hockey team, butenough to explore a space labyrinth.They can be used to press buttons, moveblocks, and access out-of-reach placesvia soul transfer. Be warned though,accidents happen – materializing yourfirst clone over a drop only to watch it

crumple like a candy wrapper causesyou to question the moral and practicalimplications of swapping – and as thepuzzles get harder, sacrificing clonesbecomes standard practice.

Real difficulties arise as newobstacles start to emerge, like zero-gravity areas, asteroid belts, and neonlights that fry clones on the spot. Inorder to minimize frustration you haveto plan ahead, because every clonecopies your movements exactly andyou can’t undo them at the click of abutton. If you prefer an experimentalapproach, you just rinse and repeat.

This might be a straightforwardplatformer with a clear-cut concept,but its intricate environments set

it apart. From the overgrown spacegarden to the communal lounge,every background is in fact a photo ofa hand-crafted clay model. Exploringareas reveals ever more unsettlingscraps of info in the form of memos andfuzzy telepathic comments – spacerocks sure like cryptic one-liners.

Gradually unveiling the truth, alwaysfeeling that the more you discover theless you want to know, The Swapper ultimately forces you to make aShakespeare-worthy choice: to swap ornot to swap? With an atmosphere youcan taste, a philosophical storyline,and roomfuls of unique puzzles, thisis a thought-provoking indie gem setwithin a unique sci-fi world. OXM

Its old-school aesthetic is reminiscent of a time when makinghorror movies involved releasing bunnies into model villages.

The Swapper’slike a portableEasy Bake Oven– one batch ofclones getsfried, anotherbatch pops out.

JENNY BAKERLive Private@jennybaker23

THE KNOWLEDGE

WHAT IS IT?

A Portal-esque 2Dplatformer thatquestions what itmeans to exist.

WHAT’S IT LIKE?

Solving puzzles witha cloning devicewhile ponderingwhat it means tohave a soul.

WHO’S IT FOR?

Brainiacs who believefun and logic can becompatible.

REVIEWER If a clone falls in a space station does it make a sound?

PUBLISHER CURVE / DEVELOPER CURVE/FACEPALM / FORMAT XBOX ONE / RELEASE DATE OUT NOW

THE SWAPPER

An atmospheric 2Dplatformer with a uniquesci-fi setting, challengingpuzzles, and a storyline thattakes you on a philosophicalvoyage. One of the bestindie titles since Limbo .

OVERALL

9

The OXM VerdictCOMPLETIONCLOCK

5HOURS

KEY INFLUENCES

40% Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee 40% Dolly the sheep20% The Prestige

40 40 20

Endlesslyinventive clonepuzzles

Bleak humor inclone murder

Lumpy clay propsadd to creepiness

Not the jolliestof games you’reever likely to play

Self-murdersmay haunt you

Occasionallyfiddly controls

PROS/CONS


R E V I E W




Elephants never forget. If only wewere blessed with such gifts,as we’ve just finished Tembo and are already struggling toremember it. It’s a forgettable

retro platformer that occasionallyrockets along on destructive charm,but has no new ideas of its own. Apartfrom the odd rubbish one.

That’s not the fault of its hero. Tembois a war vet who won us over from themoment he arrived with an almightyroar from his face trumpet. He’s a joy toplay, whether smash dashing throughhouses, or morphing his trunk into ahammer to strike enemies. Our favoritetouch is his habit of plonking rescuedcivilians on his back, where they’llcheer him on for the rest of the level.

Shame the inspired design stopswith the lead character. Tembo’s best athigh speeds, either smashing throughlevels or dashing through thrillingchase sequences. But these have toshare screen time with combat areasand fussier platforming, making theSonic the Hedgehog mistake of trappinga speedy hero in a slow game. Tembo’sone ‘unique’ idea, his ability to shootwater from his trunk, forces you tostop dashing and endure fiddly aiming.Putting out flames is awkward enoughto control when you’re stationary –good luck pulling it off in motion.

Even if you try dashing throughlevels, the game won’t let you proceedunless you’ve killed a certain number ofenemies. It’s a lazy way to pad out

a short game. As are later stages,which have screens packed withenemies, and tedious, oft-repeatedmini-bosses.

Harsh design makes it hard to seewho Tembo is for. The lovely cartoonstyle implies a game aimed at children.But the arbitrary difficulty means theonly child we’d recommend this to isDamien from The Omen. Checkpointsare infrequent and extra lives requirefinding 300 peanuts (three times morethan the average platformer). Levelsare long, and having to restart themafter running out of lives makes it hardto want to keep playing. If you force achild to complete Tembo, be warnedthat you might be grooming themtowards a future in poaching. OXM

Barrelling through goonswhile letters tumble outof your ass is great fun,but rarely happens.

TOM STONE


THE KNOWLEDGE

WHAT IS IT?Unashamedly old-fashioned platformer,almost savedby a wonderfullead elephant.

WHAT’S IT LIKE?

Late-’90s 2Dplatformers,sometimes for better,too often for worse.

WHO’S IT FOR?

Those who’veaccepted this’ll bethe closest they

come to beingbadass. Tragic.

REVIEWER

Didn’t pack enough new ideas in its trunk

PUBLISHER SEGA / DEVELOPER GAME FREAK / FORMAT XBOX ONE / RELEASE DATE OUT NOW

TEMBO THEBADASS ELEPHANT

At worst frustrating, usually just reminiscent of better,more innovative platformers.We respect our war veteranshere; we wish Game Freakhad done the same by puttingTembo in a better game.

OVERALL

6

The OXM Verdict

REAL ELEPHANTS

We did some research andactual elephants apparentlyalmost never rescuepeople, butt-stomp tanksor help the military save theworld. These hacks havenothing on Tembo.

BETTER THAN… DID YOUKNOW?

? Elephantsare one ofthe fewmammals

who can’t jump.Natural choice foryour platforminghero, then…

RAYMAN LEGENDS

Musical levels, incredibledesign and it does awaywith the outdated livessystem altogether. Still thebest platformer on XboxOne, if not the best 2Dplatformer ever.

WORSE THAN…


R E V I E W



Forget the revamped visualfidelity, improved frameratesand flashy extras. The bigquestion that surrounds anyre-release and/or remaster is:

does the core game still hold up today?Given that the seven years since DevilMay Cry 4’s release has seen its fairshare of stunningly executed actiongames, the question is particularlypoignant in this instance. Action, boththe genre and the concept, is, after all,fast-moving and constantly evolving.

Said action may not have thesophistication of Bayonetta, or therazzle-dazzle of Metal Gear Rising:Revengeance, but it does provide aspectacle in its own right. Playing

through again what was at the timea gem among its peer group remindsyou that the series’ pre-DmC rebootoffered fans of combat and (very) lightexploration an experience that is attimes exceptional, so long as you’reprepared to put the work in.

It would be remiss to pretend thisis one of those experiences thatimmediately draws you in. It doesn’t.Much of this disappointment comesdown to DMC4’s new protagonist, Nero;a young upstart lacking in the areasof charming narcissism and delightfulself-confidence that Dante does sowell. Nero ticks both the narcissisticand self-confident boxes, but he isneither charming nor delightful.

Once the Nero/Dante story reachesits second half, however, and you’refinally given control of the latter, thingstake a decidedly improved turn. Notonly are you back at the reins of acharacter that you actually want to seesucceed, but it’s at this point the coresystems start to click back into place.Enemies’ patterns become familiarenough that you can string long,uninterrupted combos together.

Additionally, vitally, the abilitiesat your fingertips have moved pastthe initially lackluster offering of thefirst few hours to become somethingaltogether more flexible and open-ended, further facilitating violentself-expression and sowing the seedfor replaying the entire thing again on atougher difficulty setting.

It’s during these moments that youcan’t help but mourn the modern lossof this ‘original’ Dante. As camp, playfuland blasé as they come, he alone isreason enough to step back into thisworld of giant demons and gothicarchitecture, allowing us some downtime from the ‘why so serious?’ attitude

of the bulk of current games.

This flaming demon doesn’t know how to stop, drop and roll. Teachhim a lesson by hitting him with your sword. Safety first.

DEVIL MAY CRY 4:SPECIAL EDITION

PUBLISHER CAPCOM / DEVELOPER CAPCOM / FORMAT XBOX ONE / RELEASE DATE OUT NOW

Sparda Wars: Return of the Devil

JOHN ROBERTSON

Live Lollipop Gun@robertson_john

THE KNOWLEDGE

WHAT IS IT?

A re-release ofthe 2008 original,featuring newplayable characters.

WHAT’S IT LIKE?

Once the noveltypasses, much thesame as sevenyears ago.

WHO’S IT FOR?

Anyone that enjoysaction games servedwith a dollop ofcheesy one-liners.

REVIEWER

Dark KnightIf you’re coming at this special editionfrom the perspective of a Devil May Cry pro, then you owe it to yourself to optimmediately for the Legendary DarkKnight difficulty setting. It’s open fromthe start, so you’ve no excuse for atleast trying to overcome its quite franklyridiculous, merciless challenge.


R E V I E W




You’re not confined to playing asNero and Dante here, though. There arethree other optional characters, eachbringing a new combat style. Vergilis cut from the same demon-cloth asDante and is a dab hand with a samuraisword, his true value coming in theform of staying out of trouble until thechance to counter arises. At whichpoint a well-timed strike can deal agiddying amount of damage.

The entire campaign can be tackledin isolation as Vergil, but the other twonewcomers, Lady and Trish, come as apair akin to Nero and Dante, effectivelyproviding three character options withwhich to tackle the campaign. Thesetwo are the epitome of yin and yang

game design; one focused on agility,the other on force.

Trish excels in closing distancequickly, unleashing a volley of strikesand then backing off before giving hertarget a chance to retaliate. A hit andrun affair in which mastery of jumps,dodges and standard movement speedis of paramount importance. Given herfondness for bazookas and grenades,Lady is concerned with dealing heavydamage from as far away as possible.She does sport the option of launchingmelee attacks, but the less said abouttheir effectiveness the better.

Given that any of the three optionshas the tendency to get repetitive,hopping across each of the character

options is possibly the best way ofplaying. This runs the risk of you losingthe flow of each moveset, but thepotential for tedium is removed.

No matter which way you play, therecan be no cause for complaint when

it comes to volume of options and thequality of construction. Everythingruns smoothly, and while the visualsapplied to characters and environmentdo appear dated, the upgrade allowedby Xbox One’s hefty guts has workedwonders for the animation clarity. Inturn, that makes those long combosall the more satisfying.

Definitely not a game for everyone,then, but if you’re craving an approachto action that has largely fallen by thewayside in recent years then you’ll notbe disappointed. If you do take theplunge, make sure you give yourselfa weekend to truly engage with itssystems – it’s an investment that willstand you in great stead to appreciateit for weeks to come. OXM

“The Dante on offer here is as camp,playful and blasé as they come”

A commendably well craftedre-release that doesn’trest on its laurels. It’s notperfect, but what’s servedup here does cause youto crave modernexperiences of this kind.

OVERALL

8

The OXM Verdict

Your mastery of the combat system is judgedby how many ‘stylish points’ you rack up.

Playing asthe originalDante onceagain doesrevive yournostalgia.

COMPLETIONCLOCK

30HOURS

NINJA GAIDEN 3

Another hack and slashseries from Japan whoseglory years are rootedin the early noughties.Unfortunately, whenTomonobu Itagaki left theseries, so did the finesse.

BETTER THAN…

BAYONETTA

While DMC4 has the sameover-the-top approach tostory and character, it’sthe unrivaled quality ofBayonetta ’s combat thatcontinues to elevate it abovethe competition.

WORSE THAN…

Trish’s speedmakes her oneof the moreinstantly

engagingcharacteroptions –pretty muchany combomakes you looklike a pro.


R E V I E W



Events such as these are ones where it pays to have a seasonedgeneral in charge, rather than some ballsy stranger. Oh well!


R E V I E W




T

his review is written inmemory of ‘StefanLemon’,the unsung fallen hero ofTamriel. We ran into the manwhile doing our bit for the

Aldmeri Dominion in Cyrodiil –hitherto the setting for Xbox360’s acclaimed The Elder

Scrolls IV: Oblivion, now home tothe arresting PvP component ofan intricately imagined but deeplyconflicted MMO.

Accessible at any time viathe inventory screen after youhit Level 10, Cyrodiil is whereTESO ’s three multi-speciesalliances – Daggerfall Covenant,Ebonheart Pact and our belovedDominion – come together to

engage in week-long spatsover territory. This boils down tofour kinds of mission, which areoffered by NPCs at each side’smain base: the vanilla kill-X-of-this variety, missions whereyou scout out farms and minesthat are protected by tooled-upAI characters, assaults on thecastles that house spawn andfast-travel points, and missionswhere you fight for ownership ofan Elder Scroll and the associatedAlliance-wide stat buffs.

The framework creates a stronger teamethic than many MMOs – slaughteringsix Orc bravos in as many seconds won’thelp if the nearest castle falls, denyingyour Alliance a vital shortcut ahead of anattack on a temple’s Scroll. The strategicaspect is never forced on you, however,and those who can’t be bothered to joina guild or matchmake with nearby teamscan participate in the war fairly easily, bylatching onto any player who looks likethey’re heading somewhere important.

In this way, hasty lone adventurerscommonly find themselves leading adisorderly swarm of people in putrid

medieval bling, all riding make-believe

steeds and dogged by fantasy pets. Wemet StefanLemon at the head of onesuch aimless army, and were struck byhis unique approach to generalship.It consisted of running up to foes and

declaring, “We’re not going to kill you,”whereupon everybody behind wouldtriumphantly loose all their spells and

abilities at once, swamping thebewildered target in firestormsand poison. This bizarre tacticwon our gallant leader manyallies despite his modest rank(level gaps are erased in PvP,but higher ranks obviouslytend to indicate a knack forleadership). It proved less thaneffective, however, when wefound ourselves in the vicinity of

an enemy fortress. Say what youlike about reverse psychology,but it doesn’t offer muchprotection against trebuchets.

Why have we just spentparagraphs telling you aboutsome stranger in PvP? Well, tobe frank, of all our adventuresin Tamriel, this wayward yetcolorful encounter sticks outthe most in hindsight – notleast because it represents thepart of the experience where thenetworked environment and the

fiction are more or less aligned. Its winninglyunconventional competitive multiplayeraside, this is a game in search of an identity,straddling genres in a way that dissatisfieswhether you approach it as another ElderScrolls epic or a real-time MMO.

The trick to enjoying the non-PvPportion of the game, overall, is to forgiveit for not being Skyrim. This is difficult,because The Elder Scrolls Online really,really wants to be Skyrim. Its interface,handling and world design are in keyrespects identical. There’s the samespongy yet serviceable melee combatand the same slightly ungainly capped

inventory, with items such as potions,

PUBLISHER BETHESDA SOFTWORKS / DEVELOPER ZENIMAX ONLINE STUDIOS

FORMAT XBOX ONE / RELEASE DATE OUT NOW

THE ELDERSCROLLS ONLINE:

TAMRIEL UNLIMITEDZeniMax wraps Skyrim’s UI aroundan MMO. Worth the strain?

EDWIN EVANS-

THIRLWELL

Live dirigiblebill@dirigiblebill

THE KNOWLEDGE

WHAT IS IT?

A subscription-lessmassively multiplayerrole-playing gamewith talking cats.

WHAT’S IT LIKE?

A playground for allthe Chosen Onesleft over frompreviousElder Scrolls games.

WHO’S IT FOR?

Scrolls buffs and fansof big but slightlyinsipid RPGs.

REVIEWER




enchantment glyphs or craftableresources smeared unintuitively acrossdrop-down menus. Quests are built

around the familiar rhythms of fetchingartifacts, carrying messages andcarving holes in ne’er-do-wells. There’smuch more in the way of hotkeys forspells and abilities, but the pace ofbattle is the same: slash, strafe, ability,slash, healing item, block, slash.

It’s often easy to forget that you’replaying an online game, particularlywhen you stumble out of one ofTamriel’s many cavemouths to find avalley at your feet, glistening faintly inthe morning sun. The game certainlylives up to its subtitle when it comesto the environments, which span bothfamiliar areas and regions we’ve nevervisited – expect islands covered withtumbledown Khajiit temples, mountainshoneycombed with sunken Dwemer

installations, and frequent expeditionsto the planes of Oblivion. At timesthere’s the same sense of awe you may

have felt while scaling the Throat of theWorld, as lighting and weather effectsflow together to hide the limitationsof Zenimax Online’s midrange graphicstechnology, and cunning layouts hint atperil and treasure just out of view.

But then you notice discrepancies.The absence of Oblivion and Skyrim’snuanced object physics, for example.The relative aridity of the landscapes,with fewer evocative jumbles ofarchitecture to distract you. And ofcourse, the omnipresence of otherplayers, all jogging around and througheach other on their separate, yetawkwardly conflated adventures.

The Elder Scrolls Online’s critical flawis that it fails to reconcile the thrustof its narrative, in which you play yet

another Chosen One out to save theuniverse from demon invaders, with thefact that half the people you meet have

also been chosen to carry out exactlythe same end. The plot and multiplayerelements merely squat side by side,refusing to acknowledge each other,and the result is that none of the epicmoments feel truly yours to savor.

Dungeon disasterThis is most painful when it comes todungeons. The majority of the game’squests can be played solo, but themajority of those we’ve sampled alsotake place in public zones, which leadsto the farcical spectacle of bosses whoexpire at the hands of one player onlyto resurrect before your eyes as thenext hero approaches.

Special rewards are handed outby NPCs in dialogue upon questcompletion, so you at least don’t haveto worry about latecomers filching thatrare Axe of Burnination once you’veknocked down a Daedric prince. But noamount of axes can make up for therepeat revelation that what’s presentedas a private odyssey is, in fact, a publiccommute. It feels like the game wasdrawn up as a single-player outing,then converted overnight into an MMO

at the behest of shadowy executives.

Away with you, butt-thrusting ghost! Back to theshadows! Seriously, there are children present.

Most townsoffer afull slateof craftingstations.No, there’sno needto queue.

Space outIf you have one priority, make itexpanding your inventory. Anybody

looking to do lots of crafting or cookingwill quickly fill up the starting 60-itemlimit. You can buy measly 10-item

upgrades at vendors, or store goodsin a bank where characters from othersavegames can access them.


R E V I E W




As ever faces animate like the scum on aboiling Cup-a-Soup. Nice lighting, though.

Overcoming the disappointment allthis breeds takes a good few hours,but there’s much to enjoy here if youmanage the feat. The Elder Scrolls

Online is one of 2015’s most generouslyproportioned RPGs. The world mightbe less characterful than those of itspredecessors, but it’s just as saturatedwith activities and utterly unbotheredabout the order in which you undertakethem. The main story is high-falutin’fantasy fluff, and there’s the customaryBethesda-brand voice-acting to winceat, but the script does manage to cookup moments of wit and pathos.

Mostly, though, you’ll persist for thesake of the skilltrees. There are anabsurd quantity – three per class tostart with, plus one for each weapontype, and countless others unlockedby joining certain factions, speakingto certain people or participating inPvP. The result is a daunting spread ofpossible loadouts, with no restraints onweapons or abilities save your level.

In the long run, this spread ofopportunities outweighs the deflationyou may feel at cracking the lid on along-forgotten mausoleum, heart inmouth, only to encounter six other

players galloping in the oppositedirection. Add in the impressivelyunusual head-to-head multiplayer

and the workmanlike quest design,and Tamriel Unlimited manages tobe a worthwhile purchase. Reachingthat point of reconciliation takes realeffort, however, and the feeling that anopportunity has been missed refusesto vanish entirely.

The Elder Scrolls Online isn’t somuch a game you master as one youlearn to live with. It’s an exercise inendurance, like edging a battering ramcloser to a castle gate while ballistabolts stab the earth nearby. There’s arewarding RPG to discover beneath itstortured surface, but we suspect thatunearthing it will take more patiencethan many players can muster. To thosewho can - we’ll see you in Cyrodiil.Watch out for the trebuchets. OXM

“Bosses expire, only to resurrectbefore your eyes for another player”

Siegeweapons arebought inCyrodiiland deployedlike thosepop-up tentsat musicfestivals.

Vast, occasionally beautifuland absolutely loaded withthings to do, but rarely asmagical as the numberedScrolls games. Survive thefirst few hours and it’s amemorable adventure.

OVERALL

7

The OXM VerdictKEY INFLUENCES

60% Skyrim 30% Ride of the Valkyries 10% Benny Hill music

60 30 10

DEFIANCETrion Worlds’ 2013TV/game crossover MMOoffers more in the wayof public events, but isseverely let down by itsunexciting world andquest design.

BETTER THAN… WHAT HAPPENSNEXT?

?Cyrodiil’sdemon-hauntedImperial City

and Orc stompingground Orsiniumwill eventuallycome as DLC.


R E V I E W



We should never have leftthe house. But who canblame us when the greatoutdoors looks so, well,great ? Painted in a cel-

shaded style, The Long Dark ’s isolatedmountains remind us of Telltale’s TheWolf Among Us. Little details - thesmoke on the horizon, or beams of coolmoonlight - impress, while happeningupon a shimmering waterfall has youhankering for the next surprise. Butwho would think somewhere so prettywould want us so dead?

In its lone sandbox mode (episodicstory is due in a later update), you’refree to explore, the only goal being tostay alive as long as possible. Fatigue,hunger, thirst and cold all are slowly

rising. Let one go into the red, andyour health will fall. At first you’re nottoo worried: it’s a bright, beautiful dayand status bars seem easy to track.We planned to just trek across thewilderness until we were loaded downwith stolen resources, then take a napin a warm cabin. The Long Dark ?They should have called it TheRelaxing Winter Holiday .

Then you get lost. Really lost.There’s no map screen, andwhile there are visual hints asto which routes will lead somewhere,they’re easy to miss. You’re alone, too,with only the occasional frozen corpsefor company. It’s often silent, and thesounds you do hear only make the senseof isolation run deeper. As your journey

becomes a mess of backtracking, thetree clusters all start to look alike.It’s The Blair Witch Project: The Game,except with more wolves and less snot.

Alas, wolves are the least of yourworries. Let night fall when you’refar from shelter and The Long Dark

stops being a survival game andmorphs into a dark survivalhorror. It’s near-impossibleto see anything and the coldgets unbearable, turning blood

to ice. You’re left to freeze,punished for not planning ahead.When night finally passes, the sunrisehas never looked sweeter, thoughyou’ll probably watch it from a bodybag. Die and it’s game over. No optionto reload. Dead is dead.

With death a real, tangible threat,you have to play smart to survive. Youcan carry a fair amount of supplies,but naturally never as much as you’dlike, forcing careful rationing. Foundfood is in finite supply, so you’ll have tolearn to hunt and fish. Then you’ll haveto cook the spoils. Then weep intoyour braised leg of deer when you seehow much precious inventory space it

eats up. None of these ideas are given

Couldn’t find the axe. Looks like we’re takingthis tree down with our teeth, then.

THE LONG DARK

PUBLISHER HINTERLAND STUDIO / DEVELOPER HINTERLAND STUDIO / FORMAT XBOX ONE / RELEASE DATE OUT NOW

Survival of the fittest. Oh, and usTOM STONE


THE KNOWLEDGE

WHAT IS IT?

Brutal but rewardingsurvival adventure,set in the Canadianwilderness.

WHAT’S IT LIKE?

Walking in the forest,then realizing youforgot to leave a trailof breadcrumbs.

WHO’S IT FOR?

Explorers, fans of

survival games,homesick Canadians.

REVIEWER

What was that?Footsteps that you’re pretty sure aren’tyours. Unsettling noises in houses yousearch. The creaking of a wooden bridgeyou have to cross. Ice cracking beneathyour feet and a wolf howling in thedistance. The excellent use of soundhas your nerves on edge, and makes theworld feel truly alive.

XBOXGAME

PREVIEW


R E V I E W




Frozen corpses didn’t boost our confidence of survival.Thanks for letting us nick the supplies, though, guys!

Don’t have aLara Croft-ycry when youshoot a deer– your tearswill freeze.

discrete tutorials, but it’s intuitive enoughthat common sense leads to success –and you’ll feel more like a survivor for it.

You have very human limitations.You can’t jump and you definitely can’tfall, unless you want to break a fewbones. Less realistically, wolves willattack whenever they see you. They’rerare, though, so it feels like an event.An intense, nerve-wracking event wewish we’d RSVP’d ‘never in a millionyears’ to. At one point we were sureone had spotted us. No cabins nearby,no weapons on us and no way we couldoutrun it. Then a squirrel darted pastus, and we ducked behind a tree as thewolf sprinted after it. We ran and neverlooked back. Exploiting the food chainfor your own survival is where The Long

Dark really sank its hooks into us. We’lltake those over wolf teeth any day.

Excitement cools whenever the actionmoves inside. Searching abandonedshelters for supplies is essential buttedious. At this stage of developmentinteriors are nothing but loot crates,with no flavor text or differing designs– simply a chance to stock up andtake a quick nap. Searching anythinginvolves watching a small bar load,which quickly gets irritating whenyou have a whole kitchen of drawersand cupboards to scavenge through.Ransacking one hut now and againisn’t so bad, but a cluster elicits groans– kind of a perverse in a game whereevery glimpse of civilization should bea glorious life raft. If Hinterland was

trying to encourage us to spend moretime outdoors by making being insideextra dull, it certainly worked.

That said, even with only the basicskeleton, we’re sold on The Long Dark .After a few deaths you start to learnthe locations of buildings, pathways

and no-go zones from memory. It’stough, often frustrating – particularlyfor a generation of gamers raised onmagical maps that pinpoint your exactlocation – but it’s key to survival. Youslowly learn where everything lies inrelation to everything else and startseeing why real explorers do this. Ourmain concern is that once it’s exploredthere’ll be little reason to keep playing.The quest to survive isn’t as satisfyingwhen there’s nothing new to strive for.

So longevity will rely on what comesnext. This feels like the setting for agreat survival tale, just with no storyto tell yet. Understand that you’reonly getting the foundations here, butthey’re the foundations for a potentiallyoutstanding survival adventure. OXM

“Sunrise has never looked sweeter,but you’ll watch it from a body bag”

An excellent debut for thesurvival genre on Xbox One.It might be too harsh forsome, but is one of the morerewarding games we’veplayed in a while – here’s toa long, bright future for it.

OVERALL

XBOXGAME

PREVIEW

The OXM Verdict

Dying after five truly valiant days ofsurvival. It’s enough to make us cry.

THE WORST BIT

Surviving a wolf attack. Yeah, we’re goingstraight back inside now…

THE BEST BIT WHAT HAPPENSNEXT?

?Story modeand moreregions areincoming. If

there’s no horror inHinterland’s tale,that’ll be a hugemissed opportunity.


R E V I E W



O

nly the most desperatescoundrel would become a thiefin The Swindle, where burglarshave the life expectancy of a

chocolate bunny in lava land.Fortunately, every time one of theserogues is kabobed by a spike pit orbludgeoned to death by a robot guard,you step into the shoes of another tocontinue the cycle of petty theft andhorrible death in the next robbery.

You have 100 heists over which togather funds and stop the governmentfrom switching on an omniscientcrime-ending snooping device. Eachheist drops you into the grounds of aprocedurally generated 2D building fullof robot guards, small lumps of cashand a handful of lucrative terminals thatcan be hacked for big bucks. You have tobarge in, avoid the cops, fill your pocketsand return to your ship in order toescape and bank your haul. You can then

use your ill-gotten gains to buy securitypasses, unlock new tiers of challengeand access the final swindle itself.

It’s quite hard – and deliberately so.

As you amass cash, guards becomemore plentiful and new threats startto appear, such as cameras, flyingcameras and flying cameras with gunson them. Soon, every room is rammedwith guard bots, scanning theirenvironment with a flurry of sight cones.Alert these guards and the robot policearrive. Most hits kill you instantly, whichmakes your odds of beating the bots inblue pretty slim once they’ve arrived inforce. Occasionally, this creates thrillingmoments of close escape and comicalmoments of failure, but more often thannot The Swindle’s initially interestingroguelike structure encourages morefrustration than it does fun.

Your hobbity little burglars arewoefully ill-equipped for the task

at hand. In the beginning, you canonly jump and punch. New abilitiesare unlocked with cash back at yourhigh-tech airship and some, like the

£10,000 bionic eyes that let you lookup and down, should really be availablefrom the start. You can’t even hackterminals without a £100 hackingupgrade, so expect to spend a numberof your missions scooping up pettychange. Door-hacking skills, wall-cracking bombs and the scanner thatpoints you towards treasure-stuffedterminals are also essential, becausethey help to fix shoddy level generationthat can frequently screw you over.

Why, robot?We’ve landed in multiple levels whereonly a single room of the complexwas accessible. Without the £2,000double-jump, we’ve found ourselvesstuck in rooms at the bottom of longshafts that we couldn’t escape from– there’s a suicide option in the menufor a reason. We’ve dropped downother shafts onto a bed of spikes wecouldn’t have seen without thosebionic eyes. Difficult games are greatwhen you can only blame your ownlack of skill for failure. Unfortunately,The Swindle too often punishes youarbitrarily with factors outside of your

control. We headed into each new level

Why do the robots wear clothes? Who put that deadlyexplosive mine there? The Swindle is full of mysteries.

THE SWINDLE

PUBLISHER SIZE FIVE GAMES / DEVELOPER SIZE FIVE GAMES / FORMAT XBOX ONE / RELEASE DATE OUT NOW

Imagine if Ocean’s Eleven was a platformer with spike pits…TOM SENIORLive Private@PCGLudo

THE KNOWLEDGE

WHAT IS IT?

A heist platformerset across randomlygenerated levels.

WHAT’S IT LIKE?

Hard and repetitive,with moments ofslapstick humor.

WHO’S IT FOR?Platformer fans wholove a challenge,even if it’s unfairat times.

REVIEWER

Trade secretsMines start to appear in levels, readyto blow up both intruders and a nine-block chunk of the level. If you getreally close, you can hack them using aSimon-says press-the-direction mini-game. When the mine turns green, youknow the next guard bot is going toget a nasty shock.


R E V I E W




feeling as though we were rolling diceand hoping to get lucky rather thanmastering a challenge. If terminals arelocated deep inside a facility, it’s often

better to generate a new level andkeep regenerating until the preciousterminals are within a few easy hops.

We’d forgive it more if the moment-to-moment jumping and whacking was moreinteresting. The dumb mechanical guardsmarch back and forth, and can’t bemanipulated or distracted. What’s more,the sheer number of them means there’sno room for alternative approaches.Expect to spend a lot of time slidingdown a wall, then hopping back upagain, hoping for a tiny gap to open in asea of roaming sight-cones. Meanwhile,cameras and flying drones cast angleddetection lasers back and forth, andif the level spawns a guard on a singleblock, their cone of vision swivelsabout wildly like a frenzied lighthouse.

Once you’re 30 missions into a run,rooms turn into awful discos thatare a nightmare to navigate withoutexpensive smoke-bomb upgrades, andthat’s before the introduction of flatrazor-backed robots that add yet morespike pits to a world already full ofspike pits. Where fellow 2D stealth-’em-up Mark of the Ninja is a game ofpositioning, timing and the surgicalremoval of threats and throats, TheSwindle is about desperate ramshacklethuggery in rooms overflowing withinsta-kill enemies. The best strategyis just to shrug and chance it. It’s ashame, because The Swindle is a great

idea with a neat structure. There’s evena sweet spot before the levels becomeovercrowded with enemies that hintsat a better game – albeit one still inneed of improved level generation anda rebalanced upgrade system.

The game doesn’t start until you’vegot a few key abilities, but buying thoseabilities stops you from purchasing thekeys you need to progress. This viciouscycle traps you in those impotent earlyphases, and it takes oodles of patienceto break out. That would be fine, butThe Swindle lacks the fundamentalquality that makes great roguelikeswork: failing isn’t fun. OXM

“Burglars have the life expectancy

of a chocolate bunny in lava land”

A pretty crime-caperplatformer with good ideas,wounded by a systemthat creates inescapabledeathtraps. Only themost patient and self-flagellating need apply.

OVERALL

5

The OXM Verdict

To hack systems you have to press the direction screamedat you. The screen zooms in to increase tension.

Avoidrooftopsif you’vetrippedan alarm.

Robot policeships willgun you downfaster thanyou can say,“Stop, I’man innocentrooftoppedestrian!”

COMPLETIONCLOCK

HOURS

YOUR THIEF

When your crook is killed(which happens ratheroften) a new one isprocedurally generated foryou. Young, old, scarred,or smiley, they always lookperfect for the part.

COOLEST CHARACTERS

SPELUNKY

The gold standard forprocedurally generatedplatformers. Only availableon Xbox 360 for now, butthis is a challenging gamethat succeeds in every waythat The Swindle fails.

WORSE THAN…


R E V I E W



O N T H E D O W N L O A DLatest add-ons and indie games rated


1 GTA V – ILL GOTTEN GAINSMore guns, clothes, cars and even an iFruit

watch, all in this generous free update.

Price: FREE

2 BATMAN: ARKHAM KNIGHT –

NEW 52 SKIN PACK

New costumes for Batman, Robin and

Nightwing are completely free!

Price: FREE

3 THE ESCAPISTS –

ESCAPE TEAM

Play as Mr T and steal a tank, in another

cute piece of Escapists DLC.

Price: $4.49

4 THE WITCHER 3 – FOOL’S GOLD

A new quest has Geralt visiting a village

populated entirely by pigs.

Price: FREE

5 MINECRAFT –

MINECON 2015 SKIN PACKCelebrate Minecon! By not being able to go.

Bah. Download this free DLC instead.

Price: FREE

6 TETRIS ULTIMATE –

HAUNTED DLC

Tetronimos becomes invisible when you

level up. Stop trying to fix what isn’t broken.

Price: $2.99

I

f you were hoping for aHardline DLC pack thatreasserts Battlefield ’s old

fondness for huge spatsbetween armored vehiclesand aircraft, Criminal Activity isnot that pack. Instead, it bumpsup the emphasis on close-quarters infantry tactics withnew mode Bounty Hunter – astraight riff on Kill Confirmedfrom Modern Warfare 3 , in whichyou must claim coins droppedby slain foes to score points.

This dramatically tightens upthe risk-reward loop of basicteam deathmatch. You’ve gotto pick your moment, cappingopponents either up-close

//It bumps upthe emphasis onclose-quartersinfantry tactics//

BATTLEFIELD HARDLINE:CRIMINAL ACTIVITYGet ready for a game of finders-keepers-campers

PUBLISHER EA / DEVELOPER VISCERAL / FORMAT XBOX ONE, XBOX 360 / REVIEWER EDWIN EVANS-THIRLWELL / PRICE $14.99

In Bounty Hunter, collect coins from your own team toprevent your foes finding them and gaining points.

ALSORELEASED

From best to worst,the latest additions toXbox Live Marketplace

A respectable butunadventurousaddition,which skewsthe gamefurther towardsinfantry warfare.

The OXM Verdict

7We don’t thinkyou’ll be findingmany bargains inthis Black Fridayshopping mall.

or away from open ground.Needless to say, Bounty Hunterdoesn’t lend itself to lone wolf

sniping – you need to partnerwith a fast-moving enforcerwho’s able to gather the fruitsof your kills. Solo marksmen dotend to fare well on the pack’snew Backwoods map, however– a rollingstretch oflumber-strewnforest with epicsightlines. It’sthe map thatfeels most likemilitary Battlefield , offering plentyof underbrush to lose yourself in.

The Beat and Black Fridayare more in keeping with thecampaign’s vibe. The former is alow suburban expanse featuringa gas station, straggly roadsideinteriors and an ambush-friendlyapartment complex. Black Friday,meanwhile, is a two-level mallwith many a blind corner – run-and-gun central, in short, andhellishly intense when it comesto holding a flag in Conquest.

Code Blue is all about twothings: annoying snipers on

rooftops, and the eponymouscentral club, which playsintriguing games with the

aesthetic. You may find it difficultto make out crucial HUD markerswhile roaming the dancefloor,with its neon wallscreens andblue-lit tunnel to the rear bar.

Criminal Activity ’s mostenduringmechanicaladditions maybe its armor-piercing roundsand tacticaltoolkit, which

lets you capture objectivesfaster, a decisive advantagewhen playing Blood Money inparticular. That aside, it’s funbut inessential. Put it this way –you’d have a hard time pickingthis out of a police line-up. OXM


http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/official-xbox-magazine-october-2015-usa 79/100THE OFFICIAL XBOX MAGAZINE / 79@OXM

CHRISTMAS ROCKS!

Play a tedious rhythm game, whileawful commentary tells ‘jokes’.Santa needs to put a stop to this.

*****

MUSICKNESS

Hit the good notes and avoidthe infected ones. You’ll be sickof this in no time.

*****

MUSIC ISLAND

Kill turtles and fish, to a pleasantbeat. Surprisingly not as horribleas that sounds.

*****

ZOMBIE HERO

Guitar Hero but with more zombiesand no guitars. Or songs. Or fun.Shoot it in the head.

*****

PROJECT RAP

More like Project Cra… actually, sillymultiplayer fun has you rhymingagainst the clock.

*****

Music Special / A themed look at those hidden indie gems and DIY disasters

A nice idea, lazilyexecuted. One ofBats’ biggestvillains iswasted in agame that barelylasts half an hour.

The price of aburger getsyou a uniquefighter of style,spectacleand surprisingsubstance.

The OXM Verdict The OXM Verdict

4 8

Included as a ‘bonus’ to thosewho pre-ordered Arkham Knight on Xbox One, this is almost as

disappointing as accidentallygetting the PC version. Playing

as Harley Quinn, you break intoBludhaven police station to causehavoc that ties into the maingame. We won’t spoil it, but thestory is as slight as they come,with almost no new insight intothe main campaign.

Not thatwe’d have hada problem witha standaloneadventure, andHarley makesfor an engaging

lead. Chatteringover her earpiece is The Penguin,basically her Alfred, if Alfred wasa few classes lower and a fewshades more horrible. Combatis almost exactly the same as

Arkham Knight , except witha lot less moves and slightly

more brutal takedowns (severalbaseball bat hits to the crotchleft us wincing). Stealth is alittle trickier, as Harley prefersher takedowns to be as loud as

possible. Fewer gadgets make ita less fun game. You’ll mainly justwander around, listening to weirdSherlock -esque music, waiting forguards to split up.

Harley gets a few gizmos,but they’re just Batman’s with

sillier names.An explosive

jack-in-the-boxis the explosivegel. Laughinggas is the smokebomb. The snare

trap that ties upenemies is fairly new, but mostly just stands in for the Batarang.

Plus it’s so short it feels lesslike a prequel to the main gameand more like a demo. Sadly, acompletely forgettable add-on toan unforgettable game. OXM

Literally hunching over sohe can fit into the frameof the action, the Predator

(yes, that Predator) makes for apredictably awesome sight– and,

if your fighting style of choice isfast, aggressive and relentlesshe will make a formidable additionto your Mortal Kombat X roster.

Actually one of the morenuanced fighters in the game, thePredator’s moveset lends itself toa patient game,where you lurethe opponent intoposition with avariety of setupmoves, beforewading in and

doing massivedamage. The special moves reflectthe flavor of the character; he hasa cloaking shield that reducesblock damage and lets himreduce the gap between himselfand his opponent. But much moreuseful is his Smart-Disc. Although

this homing projectile can easilybe destroyed if it’s deployed at adistance, it’s massively distractingto your foe. If it connects inmid-air they find themselves

momentarily suspended,making them a sitting duck fora high-impact close-quartersattack – an attack such as thewince-worthy low-range but high-damage X-Ray move. He beginsby searing his foe’s face off with

an energy blast,before leapinginto the air andsevering thegrounded victim’sspinal columnwith a well-aimed

Smart-Disc.The Disc later re-emerges to becrammed into his beaten foe’sbrain. All this gore and, ironically,the best thing about thecharacter is his lime green blood;it’s a throwback to the family-friendly SNES port of MKII . OXM

BATMAN: ARKHAM KNIGHT –HARLEY QUINN STORY PACK

MORTAL KOMBAT X:PREDATOR

FORMAT XBOX ONE / REVIEWER TOM STONE / PRICE SEASON PASS ONLY FORMAT XBOX ONE / REVIEWER ALEX DALE / PRICE $4.99

Lob the box at him? Baseball bat to thenoggin? Leave him be, turn life around?

Get up close to see thebest of the Smart-Disc.

//Stealth is tricky– Harley preferstakedowns to be asloud as possible//

//Lure your foeinto position, thenwade in and domassive damage//

R E V I E W



CULTSTATUS

Backwards compatibility is brilliant news – not only because we were

running out of power sockets, but because it gives us an opportunity

to return to some last-gen favorites. Not all games get the time in the

spotlight they deserve, of course – so here are the Xbox 360 games

we’re hoping to see get a second chance on Xbox One

THE HIDDENXBOX 360 GEMS

WE WANT ONXBOX ONE

Writer: Chris Schilling


F E A T U R E



EL SHADDAI: ASCENSIONOF THE METATRON

With a title like that, and a story based on anancient Jewish religious text, it might come asa surprise that El Shaddai didn’t break all salesrecords. Okay, maybe not. But this is a belter:part brawler, part platformer, all mindblower.Mechanically, it’s simple, though its combatis robust and its 2D platforming interludesserviceable. What made this so special is

its unforgettable visual journey through anunpredictable world, drawing inspiration from

Tron, The Bible, MC Escher and Jean PaulGaultier – sometimes seemingly all at once.

DEADLY PREMONITIONSo bad it’s good? Nonsense. Deadly Premonition

is both bad and good. Originally designed forthe PS2, it’s not much to look at, its third-

person shooting is clunky and its car handlingwoeful. Yet as the wonderfully abrasive

Francis York Morgan investigates a murder inthe quiet rural town of Greenvale, both the

central mystery and the cast of oddballs drawyou in, while you’re afforded the freedom to

investigate far beyond the key story missions.Atmospheric and idiosyncratic, it owes a

significant debt to David Lynch, but its strange,

off-kilter ambience feels unique in games.

ALPHA PROTOCOLBourne, Bond or Bauer? Obsidian’s spy sim

allows you to pick which kind of agentyou’d prefer to be, though a slew of glitchesmeans you often end up looking more likeBlunderer or Buffoon. Technical wonkinessaside, this is that rare game where your

actions genuinely make a difference, ratherthan giving you a binary choice that leadsto either Happy Cutscene A or Sad CutsceneB. And with some memorable characters

and great twists, it weaves a ripping yarn,whether you’re winning folks over withcharm or waving a gun in their faces.

RESONANCE OF FATEForget the none-too-subtle Tower of

Babel metaphor, and that scene whereVashyron expresses a preference for thelarger-bosomed lady via the medium of

dance. This is the great JRPG time forgot,featuring one of the most inventive battlesystems. A blend of real-time movement

and turn-based tactics, it asks you toinflict ‘scratch’ damage on robotic enemieswith sub-machine guns, before depleting

their health with pistols and grenades.Once mastered, you’ll regularly pull off

elaborate displays of gymnastic gunplay.

NIER Persevere past an awful opening and this action RPG’s rough edges melt away, leaving you

with a game that constantly reinvents itself: Zelda one minute, a bullet-hell shooter the next.Its ambitious story only grows more engrossing the further you get, and its biggest twistsdon’t arrive until second and third playthroughs cast fresh light on the actions of the first.PlatinumGames is working on a follow-up with creator Taro Yoko – a man who makes Suda51 look like the model of restraint – which, to say the very least, is exciting news: Yoko’s

brilliantly bonkers storytelling allied to the studio’s knack for slick, satisfying combat shouldmake for something really special. But we want this first.

#01

#04

#03 #05

#02


CULT STATUS



BINARY DOMAIN

This one’s worth buying for its combat alone.Shooting robots has never been so much fun:every round that lands causes a satisfying

spray of shards, while targeted fire allows youto remove limbs and heads, though enemies

are only temporarily inconvenienced by missingarms and legs. Beyond that, its pulpy story

blends B-movie thrills with surprising smarts,while its cast of archetypes exhibit genuinecharacter growth as the plot motors onward.And what other game features a bandana-

wearing French robot purring his approval ofyour leadership qualities?

LOST ODYSSEYA traditionalist JRPG, Lost Odyssey tells thestory of Kaim, an immortal hero whose stoicdemeanor belies a lifetime of heartache: itturns out living forever isn’t a whole heap

of fun when your mates keep dying on you.Its turn-based scraps are fine, if nothing

especially new, but you’ll find it hard to forgetthe impossibly sad tales of Kaim’s thousand-year past. Beautifully written (and translated)

and soundtracked by Final Fantasy regularNobuo Uematsu at his bottom-lip-wobblingbest, you’ll be blubbing like a kid denied a

second slice of birthday cake.

VANQUISHIt’s a scandal that Vanquish is considered

a cult hit, rather than the skyscrapingsuccess it deserved to be. It’s up there

with Resi 4 in the pantheon of third-personactioners, a high-speed shooter with

the jagged intensity of the best manga.It barely pauses for breath, unless you

count the brief cig breaks hero Sam Gideontakes, flicking the stub out to draw fire

before vaulting back into the fray. Slo-moknee slides, crunching melée attacks, a

DLC pistol as brilliant as Master Chief’s, androbots bopping to pulsing techno: all win.

BLURThe arcade racer: once considered a

mainstay of any gamer’s collection, inrecent years it’s struggled to find anaudience whose need for speed now

tends to be sated by the authenticity ofthe modern sim. Blur ’s brand of weaponizedracing – think Mario Kart with real-worldcars – flunked in sales terms, but with

hindsight it’s clearly a lot of fun, boostedby great track design, sublime handling anda neon-tinged arsenal of power-ups withwhich to shunt and bash your rivals out ofcontention. This is well worth another look.

SHADOWS OF THE DAMNEDThis much-trumpeted collaboration between two of Japan’s brightest talents – Shinji Mikami

and Suda 51 – didn’t quite live up to the billing, coming across as a hodgepodge of ideasthat couldn’t compare with either creator’s best work. Yet we still feel this is a fine game

in its own right: an entertaining shooter with some great boss fights, and Suda’s trademarkkitchen-sink invention in frequent evidence. Throw in some striking visual design and

genuinely funny interplay between protagonist Garcia Hotspur and sidekick Johnson andyou’ve got not only the weirdest game EA’s ever published, but a comedy horror that’s more

than the sum of its copious wiener gags.

#07

#09

#08 #10

#06


F E A T U R E




CHILD OF EDENTetsuya Mizuguchi’s spiritual successor to Rez

didn’t enjoy similar critical acclaim. PerhapsEden’s uplifting J-Pop didn’t have the cool

factor of Rez ’s ultra-hip electronica, but thelatter would have been a poor fit for a game withsuch an optimistic outlook. With a controller, it’sgreat, but its rhythmic shooting is transformed

by Kinect: your sweeps and pushes feel likeyou’re conducting a digital orchestra. At times,it offers a sensation of heady euphoria, not leastthe sublime moment when the music reachesa crescendo and a space whale is suddenly,thrillingly reborn as a shimmering phoenix.

CATHERINEThe dictionary definition of ‘not for everyone’,Catherine is a highly eccentric game of twohalves – and one of those halves is a block-

pushing puzzler. For the eight people who

didn’t skip to the next entry immediately – well,you’re potentially in for a treat. These tense

sequences, which see you building stairwaysto escape a series of nightmarish creatures,

are punctuated by story interludes involving atwisted love triangle that dares to paint its lead

as a pitiable, indecisive schlub. Equal partsrisky and risqué, it’s a provocative, hallucinatoryexperience that is grounded enough to leave youpondering a few uncomfortable emotional truths.

TOP SPIN 4

It might lack the arcade immediacy andconvincingly sweaty players of VirtuaTennis, but Top Spin 4 is playing the long

game. It’s a tennis sim that demandsyou master its nuances before hittingthe court, whereupon you’re offered afull range of drop shots, stop volleys

and cross-court passes. Where in VirtuaTennis your shots will almost always stay

within the tramlines, there’s a greatertension to rallies here, with riskier shotsgiving you a better chance of a winner.

SPEC OPS: THE LINE

After years of shooting bad guys in the facein the likes of Call of Duty , Yager’s ambitious journey into the heart of darkness strives

to make us feel bad for doing so. That itsucceeds (to a point) is down to some

strong writing and powerful set-pieces,which unflinchingly confront the horrifying

cost of war. If it could easily be retitled‘Post-Apocalypse Now’, there’s a novelty inseeing these ideas explored interactively,

as it draws a deep line in the sand toseparate itself from the shooter crowd.

ASURA’S WRATHAn interactive anime in which the world’s angriest man gets even madder, growing extra armsto punch holes in gods, spaceships and entire planets. A good deal of your time with Asura’sWrath is spent watching rather than playing, and yet it’s hard to mind: the brawling is fittingly

simple for a man powered exclusively by rage, while the intensity of Asura’s trials – yourbutton-mashing, stick-twirling inputs amplifying the physicality of his actions – makes you

glad of the moments where you can put the pad down for a bit. A triumphant, primal roar of agame, Asura’s Wrath is deliriously absurd, and all the better for it.

#15

#12

#11 #13

#14


CULT STATUS



THE CLUBDespite describing it as “a racing game withguns” Bizarre Creations stepped well outsideits comfort zone for this unsung score-attackshooter. It’s like a racer only in the sense thateach level has a perfect line to follow if you’reto reach the finish line in the fastest possibletime. Speed is of the essence, then, but you’ll

need to learn and adapt to the behaviors ofyour foes – the process of which is repetitive

but rewarding. It didn’t find an audience, sadly– perhaps a result of its grimy, oddly bleak lookssitting uncomfortably with its arcade-style run-and-gun action – but it’s worth another shot.

CALL OF JUAREZSome would say their favorite entry in thisseries was Bound in Blood ; others might

plump for the recent Gunslinger . But there’ssomething special about the original – for all

its occasionally ramshackle feel, it’s a gamemade with an unfakeable affection for the

genre it’s pastiching. It’s basically two gamesin one: you alternate between mistakenly

accused youngster Billy and his charismaticpursuer, the Reverend Ray – a man whose

voice suggests a daily diet of dirt, gravel andWoodbines. As Ray lays waste to enemies

Billy carefully sneaked past, it’s a resourceful,imaginative brand of shooter.

WHEELMAN

Some people think Wheelman is trash.They’re wrong. It’s half-trash. Themoments where plastic-faced Vin Diesel

exits a vehicle to shoot identikit bad guysare at best boringly generic. But once

you’re behind the wheel, as you skid andswerve through narrow Barcelona streets,

the arc of a handbrake turn scatteringchairs and tables from roadside cafés, itthrills. The addition of right-stick shunts

and lurches gives the car chases anaddictively tangible feel. Try it.

EARTH DEFENSEFORCE 2017

It’s not often we’ll recommend a gamewith so many bugs, but here we’ll make

an exception. Admittedly, we’re nottalking about technological flubs; rather

the giant insects who swarm up buildings.Robots and spaceships soon join in as

the invaders keep upping the ante, whileyour hapless crew of soldiers attempts to

splatter them. It’s low-budget fiftiessci-fi in game form, but who cares when

it’s this much fun?

SID MEIER’SCIVILIZATION: REVOLUTION

A simplified version of the popular PC strategy series, Civ Rev (as it became known) wasmocked in some quarters for the crime of daring to be more accessible. Its immediacy is

a boon, allowing you to get to the more interesting stuff quicker, as you compete againsta series of famous historical leaders for world domination. The caricatures of Napoleon,

Cleopatra and company are amusingly drawn, and whether you aim to win by force or simplyamass more riches than your rivals, the process is always absorbing. Be warned, however:

that Gandhi dude isn’t nearly as nice as he makes out.

#20

#17

#16 #18

#19


F E A T U R E




SINGULARITY

A BioShock -inspired FPS with wibbly-wobblytimey-wimey elements thrown in for goodmeasure, this is ostensibly meat-and-potatoes

stuff. But the chefs at Raven are experts atthis kind of thing. Its temporal puzzles arehardly taxing, though they work as gently

stimulating pace-breakers, and if it magpieselements from the best, at least it’s smart inits thievery, most notably offering a fun riff onHalf-Life 2 ’s Gravity Gun. Raven knows how to

make guns feel good, and if, broadly speaking,we’ve been here before, a return visit proves

surprisingly worthwhile.

THE BOURNE CONSPIRACYIt might have been too short to pass muster

as a full-price retail release, but this capturesenough of the pace and intensity of the JasonBourne movies in its thumping fights, thrilling

vehicular pursuits and aggressively shakycamerawork to be worth a buy at a lower price.Matt Damon might be conspicuously absent, butdigital Bourne is as capable as his silver screen

counterpart, and there’s a palpable weightbehind every blow in the outstanding hand-to-hand combat sequences. It’s as linear as theycome, but this will fill the gap until Damon’s

cinematic return as the titular super-spy nicely.

VIRTUA FIGHTER 5The best version of a great beat-’em-up, VF5 ’s belated arrival on Xbox was

tempered by a series of tweaks from thePS3 original, and an online mode that

worked better than its Sony counterpart.Street Fighter might be the populist pick,but VF is the fighting game connoisseur’s

choice, its one-on-one battles anelegantly restrained dance next to the

pyrotechnics and histrionics of its peers.Its accessible but deep systems are well

balanced, and though the online audiencemight have dwindled, this remains golden.

IL-2 STURMOVIK:BIRDS OF PREY

The kind of title that prompts baffledlooks when you ask for it at your local

retailer… even during launch week. Thefirst console entry in a series that hadattracted admirers on PC, Birds of Prey introduced a friendlier control scheme,

making a famously unforgiving game moreaccessible. Purists shouldn’t worry: you

can turn off all assists in Simulation mode,where you’ve got a fight on your hands

simply to keep your plane from stalling, letalone prepare for a bombing raid on Berlin.

KINGDOMS OFAMALUR: RECKONING

Unfortunately renowned as the game that brought the career of Curt Schilling (no relation) asgame developer to a premature end, Kingdoms of Amalur is a not-half-bad role-player thathas few new ideas of its own, but ticks plenty of boxes. Its combat is satisfying, its world isoften very pretty, and if it’s a little too fond of dialogue of the ‘Flarglefarg of the Jurgleburgs’variety, its side stories are often as interesting and involving as its main quests. Pleasinglyaccessible and surprisingly substantial without overstaying its welcome, it deserves better

than to be remembered as a flop.

#22

#24

#23 #25

#21


CULT STATUS



NEXT MONTH

A

l l c o n t e n t s

s u b j e c t t o

c h a n g e .

S o r r y

a b o u t t h a t .

FALLOUT 4: THE LATEST FACT BOMBS

SCALING NEW HEIGHTS WITH CRACKDOWN

HOW QUANTUM BREAK REINVENTS GAMING

ON SALE15/09/15SUBSCRIBE ON

PAGE 58


SCALEBOUNDDRAGON RAGE! PLATINUM’S FANTASY EPICLEADS OUR GAMESCOM BLOWOUT



Squeezing more from your machine every month

FALLOUT 3If dog is man’s best friend, the feeling isn’t mutual.

88 OXM InvestigatesBolivia! India! New Zealand! The hotspots that

your Xbox will have you visiting this winter.

90 Now Playing:Fallout 3Martin Kitts slayed his dog and scattered

human remains on a DJ booth. As per usual.

92 Now Playing:Final Fantasy Type-0 HDThis spin-off has some strange ideas on how

the passing of time works.

93 Now Playing:Shovel KnightRevisiting the Xbox-exclusive Battletoads stage.

And remembering how much we hate them.

94 Live Spotlight

The Witcher 3 ’s finest free DLC pack explored,

plus how to make Project CARS run smoother.

96 OXM ReplayWhy you’ve ‘garotte’ (got) to play Hitman: Blood

Money – Agent 47’s finest hour.

98Fallout Perks We WantHello, Bethesda? We want rumbly sidekicks andthe ability to dine on bottlecaps, please.

PAGE

90

PAGE

92PAGE

96PAGE

98

PAGE

88




This year’s E3 line-up was a well-traveled bunch of games – between the lot,they take us to all six continents (we’re not counting that crummy cold one).Here’s where you can expect to go this winter...

AROUND THE WORLD

GHOST RECON:WILDLANDS

BOLIVIA

Deserts, mountains, forests– the ever-changing South

American terrain means you’llhave to switch between a

rotating cast of dune buggies,dirt bikes and parachuting to

get around the place.

OVERKILL’S THEWALKING DEAD

WASHINGTON

We can’t wait to rescue thepresident/run away screamingfrom President Zombie in this

Washington set co-op shooter fromthe Payday 2 developers.

LEGO MARVEL’SAVENGERS

NEW YORK

If you recall the end of themovie, New York takesquite a pummeling. It

should be easier to rebuildwhen it’s made of Lego

bricks, yes?

ASSASSIN’S CREED:SYNDICATE

LONDON

The industrial revolution allowsfor more modern gameplay and

gadgets (like, er, a rope launcher),and its smog-filled streets should

be the perfect place to pull offsneaky assassinations.

THE DIVISIONNEW YORK CITY

Seeing a once populated city completelyempty has the 28 Days Later effect. It’sunsettling, disarming, keeps you alert

– exactly how you need to be to play TheDivision if you want to survive.

HITMANPARIS

A Paris fashion showfull of glitz and glamour.Bright lights. Fireworksdisplays. Chandeliersthat ‘accidentally’ fallon the host’s head. Astylish start to Agent47’s latest world tour.

JUST CAUSE 3THE MEDITERRANEAN

Real beaches just can’tcompete with the funwe’re going to have inJust Cause 3, gliding

over crystal-blue waters,casually tethering

holidaymakers with redbarrels as we swoop

past.

FORZAMOTORSPORT 6

RIO DE JANEIRO

A beautiful city trackthat’s so vivid, it makesLos Santos look like Sin

City. How are we supposedto keep our eyes on theroad? *crashes into thatbig statue. You know the

one.*

FALLOUT 4BOSTON

Birthplace of the AmericanRevolution, a city of great

technological prowess andthere’s a subway station that’s

just perfect for feral ghouls. Theperfect place to call home after

an apocalypse.

HOMEFRONT 2:THE REVOLUTION

PHILADELPHIA

Cheese steaks all round!Maybe not, as this futurePhilly is controlled by theoppressive, steak-hating

Korean People’s Army. Time

you rang the Liberty Bell loudand took back the state.


X B O X E X T R A



N 80 GAMES**May feature slightly fewer than 80 games

CALL OF DUTY:BLACK OPS III

CAIRO

50 years in the future,Cairo’s definitely

seen better days. Butdestroying real-worldlocations is one of Callof Duty ’s best tricks –

nothing helps establish aglobal threat than seeingthat the bits of the world

we like are on fire.

ASSASSIN’S CREEDCHRONICLES: INDIA

INDIA

Our private investigator soldus some more hot info – this

game’s apparently going to beset in Japan. He’s so fired.

ASSASSIN’S CREEDCHRONICLES: RUSSIA

RUSSIA

Our private investigator sold us some hot info– this game’s set in Russia, during the messyaftermath of the 1918 revolution. We’d arguethat’s a setting worthy of a proper 3D Creed .

DEUS EX: MANKINDDIVIDEDPRAGUE

2015 Prague is lovely. 2029 Prague? Aonce progressive city, now forcing the

augmented to live in overpopulated slums.Did you really think daytime scenes meant

Deus Ex was getting lighter?

METAL GEARSOLID V: THE

PHANTOM PAINAFGHANISTAN

Real-world politicsand the chance to

ride a horse througha sandstorm – just

the mad blend of sillyand serious that HideoKojima was never going

to be able to resist.

RISE OF THETOMB RAIDER

SIBERIA

Sparsely populated,draped in thick ice,

packed with treacherousterrain and, it’s rumored,

a lost city that you

simply won’t find onGoogle Street View.

MAD MAXAUSTRALIA

From the desolated wasteland,to the mutated freaks who

chase you down, the attentionto detail is outstanding.

Years must have been spentin Australia to capture its

essence so truly.

SEBASTIEN LOEB RALLY EVOAUSTRALIA

As part of Loeb’s esteemed career, we’ll betearing it up on Australian turf. We anticipate aslightly different racing experience to Mad Max .

Uncoveringthe other side of

Xbox gaming

OXM

INVESTIGATES


X B O X E X T R A



Does anything aboutthis getup suggest‘responsible dogowner’ to you?


X B O X E X T R A

The games we’restill going back

to, and why

NOWPLAYING




BECAUSE… “The Capital Wasteland is still my favorite game location”

LOVING How abandoning morals reveals new possibilities. HATING Flying insect enemies. No fun at all to fight.

So, in Fallout 4 you get to beaccompanied through theWasteland by a dog. Great,

you might say. That’s soFallout . But what if maybein Fallout 3 you had a bad

experience with dogs and – end of theworld or not – have proved yourself to bea completely unsuitable dog owner?

My own problems with Fallout 3 ’sDogmeat began early in our relationship.I rescued him in Minefield because itseemed like the thing to do, but heswiftly became a liability. I’d commandhim to go off into the ruins and find mesome cool stuff. Hours later he’d comelimping back with nothing. After a couple

of failed expeditions I refused to wasteany more valuable Stimpacks on him, sohe’d hobble around looking annoyed.

Unfortunately for the both of us,Dogmeat would frequently demonstrate

running round in circles and yapping atmy murderers, who couldn’t even bebothered to attack him.

Upon reloading my save, I stockedup on ammo and collected Dogmeat forhis final journey. We didn’t go far – anypatch of Wasteland would do. Look atthe flowers, I suggested halfheartedly,before unloading a shotgun into hisface. A three-rocket salute ensuredhe didn’t come back for a secondhelping, and that was the end of it.No more Dogmeat. No more betrayals.

Coincidentally, tiresome DJ Three Dogsuffered a similar fate. I had to dispatchhim within the confines of his ownstudio because I couldn’t lure him

outside, and thanks to the Bloody Messperk there wasn’t a whole lot left ofhim. I managed to salvage his luckysunglasses and bandana, which I latersold to a fan, and I arranged some of hisbody parts in a respectful pattern on themixing desk. His reluctant replacementnow keeps calling me an asshole on theradio, which I really don’t appreciate.Perhaps it’s time for another specialguest appearance.

//Look at the flowers, I suggestedhalfheartedly, before unloadinga shotgun into his face//

Released

Oct 2008

Dev

Bethesda

Pub

Bethesda

FormatXbox 360

Score9/10

Recap

Drink toiletwater! Shootoff a man’sarm! Weep for

mankind’sdemise! Allthis and moreawaits you inthis epic RPG.

DETAILShis sour disposition by attackingabsolutely anything within a half-mileradius. His ears would prick up, he’d

scamper over a hill, and when I wasbeginning to wonder if he’d finallyfallen down a well he’d returnpursued by packs of Radroaches orthose annoying poisonous, flying,stinging things.

There was a lot of fight in thathalf-crippled irradiated hound, buthe’d frequently bite off more than hecould chew. Naturally, I’d have to facethe consequences, and eventually mypatience wore right through. Low onammunition, sneaking past a supermutant camp, I was almost clear of

danger when Dogmeat decided to take achunk out of one of them. All hell brokeloose, and pretty soon I got blastedinto meaty slow-mo chunks. The lastthing I saw was Dogmeat, still alive,

Four secondslater, the dog’sface was cloudedwith sadness.

Martin Kitts is playing…

Fallout 3


X B O X E X T R A



As a new cadet in FinalFantasy Type-0 HD ’smanga-worthy magicacademy, Akademeia, I’vefound lots of fun waysto pass the time. You

can earn XP and stat boosts by sittingthrough lectures, level up in the arenawithout expending a single Hi-Potion orenjoy a cool glass of back-story in theready room. The list is a lengthy one,but there’s a cruel catch: not all of myfavorite activities are free.

Attending Akademeia is like goingon a day trip to a military-themedamusement park where time is money.Two hours will buy you the essentials – aflashback, a lesson about defensive

schedule, and the exchange rate is prettyunforgiving too. I have often sacrificed twohours for just a few seconds of dialoguewith an angry Moogle – “&!#% you, kupo”.

Of course, time isn’t the only currency.Gil can be handed over for inventorycandy, SPP for equipment, and freebiesare bountiful. In fact, some of the mostenjoyable activities have taken placewith my wallet shut and watch frozen.You can breed new varieties of Chocobo,run errands, and fight soldiers to yourheart’s content. Technically, you canreach the level cap without taking a stepoff-campus, but who has time for that?Other than a cadet with a neat schedule.

Type-0 ’s usage of time means sleepis skipped over without so much as an‘oyasumi’, but you’re also fully immersedin the cadet lifestyle. Achieving S-rankresults is no longer just about acing yourassignments. If, like me, you want tograduate top of Class Zero, you need to

invest your free time with care.

Jenny Baker is playing…

Final Fantasy Type-0 HDBECAUSE… “Time stands still when you’re having fun”

LOVING Paying zero hours to train in the arena HATING Paying six hours to enter the world map

Released

Mar 2015

Dev

Square Enix

Pub

Square Enix

Format Xbox One

Score 7/10

Recap

The darkestFinal Fantasy to date.Containsone magicacademy, fourcrystals and13 Moogles infancy dress.

DETAILS

What, you meanyour schooldidn’t have giantfighty robots?

magic, an awkward conversation with aTonberry – six will buy you entry to theworld map where you can enjoy someall-you-can-pillage dungeons, and 12will buy you an Expert Trial (a quest typeakin to getting a plushie out of a clawmachine). As the old saying goes: ‘ifyou’re not having fun, you need to take acrash course in time management’.

Converting time into events isn’ttricky. Hours and days are distributedas a variable lump sum whenever youcomplete a mission, and all you have todo to spend them is interact with NPCswho display the ‘!’ icon. However, it isimportant to remember that hours can’tbe hoarded. Surplus time disappears ifyou take on your next mission ahead of

//As the old saying goes: ‘if you’re nothaving fun, you need to take a crash

course in time management’//92 / THE OFFICIAL XBOX MAGAZINE

X B O X E X T R A

NOWPLAYING




To me, the Battletoads werenever anything more thanbudget-bin Ninja Turtles.Instead of eating pizza, you’dimagine they dined on cold

garlic bread. Instead of living in thesewer, they’d live in… I don’t know,wherever it is the waste goes when theTurtles flush their toilets.

But there’s no denying the NES gamethey star in has the charisma they lack.While it’s somewhat overrated – afrustrating beat-’em-up with infuriatingdesign choices – it does have style, withiconic moments such as a bungee-jumpplunge down a crow-infested cave, andthe infamous ‘Turbo Tunnel’ level: a side-scrolling hoverbike section so tough youcould knock a rhino out with it.

Like anyone with a soul, I can’twait for Gears of War: UltimateEdition. Digging through my oldgames I gave Gears of War 2 another go, and was pleased

to see how much it holds up. It’s stillan action-packed, fast-paced, nicelyvaried, Locust-blasting thrill ride with

– beginning with the rope descent,transitioning to a hoverbike sectionbefore finishing with a boss fight. It’sa greatest-hits package, but within amodernized, fairer world.

Or at least that’s the pitch. In reality,it brings out the worst in Shovel Knight .Both sections are littered with one-hit obstacles: walls that appear from

nowhere and, in the cave, these jerksthat snip your rope if you don’t takethem out first. The Battletoads stage iseasily the worst part of Shovel Knight,in fact – an annoying outlier in a gamethat otherwise pays homage to theunmistakable charms of the NES withoutrepeating its mistakes. Get back in thewherever-the-waste-from-the-sewergoes, you insufferable toads.

significant other was kidnapped in adevastating inter-species war, I’d atleast be a bit annoyed. Now I’m not sosure. Maybe I don’t have a soul after all.I guess my lack of compassion could bebecause the plot is actually pretty poor.But that’s just the kind of brutal logicyou’d expect from a robot like me.

I tried to keep playing until I caredabout the tragedy of Mrs Dom. Onplaythrough 37 I shed a few tears,but that was probably just because Ihadn’t slept in weeks. Gears of War 2 finally confirms me as the psychopathwe all suspected. Worrying, but whocares about trivial things like healthyemotional development when the

shooting is still that spectacular?

Alex Dale is playing…

Shovel Knight

Tom Stone is playing…

Gears of War 2

BECAUSE… “I had an itch to revisit Zitz, Rash and Pimple”

BECAUSE… “It’s my last hope for emotional wellbeing”

LOVING The rope-swinging duel with, er, which Battletoad is that? HATING One-hit kills. ONE-HIT KILLS.

LOVING That the excellent shooting has aged really well. HATING My complete lack of empathy for Maria.

Released

Apr 2015

Dev Yacht ClubGames

Pub Yacht ClubGames

Format Xbox One

Score 9/10

Released

Nov 2008

Dev

Epic Games

Pub

MicrosoftStudios

Format Xbox 360

Score 9/10

DETAILS

DETAILS

So when I learned the Xbox One

version of Shovel Knight has an exclusiveBattletoads crossover stage that lets merelive these moments without having toendure the brutal original, I had to dig in.The stage is discovered in a pleasinglyretro way – by hacking away at a brickat the back of the Hall of Championsuntil a passageway appears. Your rewardis a whirlwind gauntlet run that takesin Battletoads’ two most iconic stages

some of my favorite shooting in anygame. Bar the graphics, and a loveaffair with the ‘color’ gray, only onemajor flaw stands out for me – I stilldon’t care about Dom’s missing wife.

Back in 2008, this made sense. I wasa young, emotionally underdeveloped

jerk. I had no time for backstories; I justwanted to chainsaw Locusts. Sevenyears later, I thought I’d changed. Iweep during sad movies. I help oldladies cross roads. I’ve even stoppedthrowing dynamite into strollers. Theice around my heart is starting to melt.

But the fate of Dom’s wife still getsa roll of the eyes and a ‘skip cutscene’from me. At the time of writing, I’m not

married, but I always assumed if my


X B O X E X T R A



Despite having the silliest of

all developer names (exceptmaybe Heimlich ManeuverStudios, which we just madeup), CD Projekt RED getsbuckets of love from the

gaming community. People feel it cares – and who could argue, given that it’sbucked the system to give every Witcher3 owner 16 blobs of no-questions-asked free DLC. It’s quite the offer.

Some of it is thin: the beards andhairstyles DLC is only for people whowish Geralt looked more like Jeff Bridges(so basically just Jeff Bridges). But thenthere’s July’s ‘Where the Cat and WolfPlay’: a quest that’s teeny-tiny, but stillexemplifies much of what makes WildHunt such a bundle of brilliance.

It’s set in early-game area Velen, andthere’s something faintly nostalgic aboutreturning to its whispering woods andthe medieval twangs of its melancholicambient music – you probably spent agood 20 hours here as a novice, so it

feels oddly like home. If it’s possible tofeel at home in a place where an appletree is as likely to have a dead body

hanging from it as an actual apple.It’s not all depressing, though. Oh,wait, yes it is: you find an entire village slaughtered. Geralt playing SherlockHolmes with his Witcher Sense nevergets old and, before long, the culprit’sunearthed. Cripes: it’s another Witcher .

This is the big moment: kill the killer,or swallow his story of a deal betrayedand a momentary lapse of judgment?Such is the weight of CDPR’s world-building, we’ve seen players talk aboutputting down the controller to stroketheir metaphorical Geralt-beard andponder what the Witcher would do.

We decided to let the guy go. Geraltseemed glumly resigned to this worldwhere brutality is banal. But he did geta pretty sweet sword out of it. And animpressively touching little adventurefor the bargain price of $0 – making usgiddy about what’s in store for October’sfirst full-on paid DLC. But enough of allthat: anyone for Gwent?

//Geralt playing SherlockHolmes with his Witcher

Sense never gets old//

The Witcher 3: Wild HuntFree DLC: for when you’re worried 200 hours of game just isn’t enough

Level 26 andusing shield ona Level 5 wolf?Safety first!

ON THE CLOCK

Details Dev CD Projekt RED / Pub CD Projekt RED / Reporter Mark Green

Geralt finds some candles toaccidentally extinguish.

Oh, a picture of Gwent. How

did this get in here?

IF YOU DO ONE THING IN WILD HUNTTHIS MONTH, MAKE IT… Grabbing thealternate set of Gwent designs. Didwe mention Gwent at all?

How we spent ourtime in the game

95% “How about agame of Gwent?”5% Playing theactual game


X B O X E X T R A

Reports fromXbox’s biggestcommunities

LIVESPOT-

LIGHT




Do you find 55 frames per second unacceptable? Well, patch

1.4 came out with the aim of making Project CARS ’ rate 5%smoother (for the 5% who care)… only, it didn’t. At least,not for everyone. Things started to noticeably chug afterthe update for some players (us included), making the

game look far rougher than before the patch came out. Weird thingis, some people lapped up the patch’s enhancements like it wasambrosia from the racing gods. It seemed fine to them.

The culprit, amazingly, is Xbox One’s power-saving mode. Youknow how you can make a choice between ultra-fast wake-uptimes and saving the planet in the console’s settings? Well, the1.4 patch uses some back-end system resources which the non-

power-saving optionalso apparently uses.So if you just change itto ‘on’ and restart yourmachine, it’s magicallysmooth again. Amazing.

Even so, some vocal community members are still dissatisfied.One forumite drew up a fake 3.0 patch notes list to point out howungrateful people are being. “16-way local split-screen will beintroduced” is a personal sarcastic highlight. Still, the game’s playingbetter all the time and patch 1.5 is on its way, with Slightly Madtargeting 60fps (or as near as possible) everywhere in the next update.Who knows – maybe the lollipop man will even get some crew to hangout with in the pits before the sequel is out. It looks lonely in there…

Can we take it as a good sign when a demo gets a moregenerous patch than most fully released games? We already

knew about the incoming dodge roll and more combat options– and both make welcome additions. It’s the new side queststhat contain the best surprises. Now allies sometimes suggest

breaking off from the foursome for their own quests. These vary fromwatching a dull meteor shower, to learning powerful new team attacks.

Once learnt, these can be triggered by your teammates in the thickof battle. They cue a series of timed attacks, your teamwork rewardedwith massive damage. Nothing revolutionary, but they do break up thebutton-mashing combat. You can now loosely control how your swordstrikes an enemy by holding the analog stick in your desired directionwhen slashing. It doesn’t make a huge difference in the demo, but we

expect weak spots andshielded enemies mightmake it more necessaryin the finished game.

Previously stuck in thebackground, one of the

Catoblepas (the huge monsters in the lake) now comes up on to land.You can fight it, but it takes about 20 minutes to take down even witha fully leveled party, and it can still crush you in one hit. New playerswill want to avoid it like the plague, but fans hankering for a traditionalFinal Fantasy grind will be in heaven.

Some framerate issues persist, and we still want to warp around themap, but both of these have improved and will hopefully continue to doso. This return to form is looking better every time we see it.

Dev Slightly Mad Studios / Pub Bandai Namco Entertainment /Reporter Justin Towell

DevSquare Enix / PubSquare Enix / ReporterTom Stone

Project CARSThought patch 1.4 broke the framerate?Bet you don’t recycle…

Final Fantasy XVEpisode Duscae 2.0 is far more than thesimple performance update we expected

IF YOU DO ONE THING IN PROJECT CARS THIS MONTH, MAKE IT…A race at Suzuka-esque Sakitto as the sun sets.

IF YOU DO ONE THING IN FFXV THIS MONTH, MAKE IT… Pickingmushrooms with Prompto. Trust us, a dull fetch quest has a twist.

The onlinemode still

has plenty ofplayers whenyou searchfor a race.

“Attacking thiswas definitely agood idea, rightgang? G-g…gang?”

//Why have youforsaken the rest of us,

O polygonal deities?//

//Fans of the traditionalFinal Fantasy grind

will be in heaven//


X B O X E X T R A



Rarely does the announcementof a game’s sequel comewith a tacit apology for itspredecessor, but that’s whatseems to have happened with

the new Hitman. It’s almost as if IOheld its hands up and admitted that

Absolution is indeed the Jar Jar Binksof Hitman games. In a world of micro-managed PR blandness, the candor iscertainly appreciated. Everybody makesmistakes, after all.

Although Absolution wasn’t a badgame, it was hardly what fans of theseries had hoped for. After six years ofwaiting, all they wanted was a repeatof Blood Money , the exquisitely craftedlabor of love that represented thepinnacle of Hitman’s genre of one.

The first three Hitman games eachmade tangible steps toward somethingtruly special, but always with roughedges that needed polishing next

time around. Critically underrated atthe time, Blood Money was whereit all came together – the engagingstory of Silent Assassin, the moreforgiving gameplay of Contracts, andthe ambition to rekindle the sense ofwonder we had the first time we sawol’ barcode head in Codename 47 .

Blood Money plays out likeclockwork. Left alone, the world ticksalong in perfect synchronization aseach actor performs a designatedroutine. The delivery man arrives onschedule, the security guard glancesaway from his monitor, the party gueststeps into the waiting elevator…

In the background Agent 47watches, probing for opportunities.Removing variables from the equation,changing things here and there andwatching for ripples. It’s a sandboxfull of potential but it’s also a game ofrepetition. While it’s easy to beat anylevel via brute force, Blood Money ’s truedepth is revealed through countlessreplays. A messy conclusion meansincreased notoriety for the publicity-shy Agent 47, and newspaper reports

with increasingly accurate drawings

of 47’s face start turning up in latermissions. Returning to previouslycompleted hits and trying a stealthierapproach reduces notoriety and makesguards a bit less wary.

In one of the best known missions, ANew Life, the target is a mob informantholed up in a posh neighborhood,guarded by FBI agents. It’s probablythe smallest level in the game butthe number of possible approaches isdaunting. Getting close is impossiblewithout a disguise, but there are fedsin a van nearby. Perhaps they mightswap their clothes for some druggeddonuts. Or, how about that clown who’sbeen hired for the family’s pool party?The neighbor’s treehouse overlookingthe garden – maybe there’s a way intothe basement, if only that guard dogwasn’t so alert. Isn’t the guy across theroad a veterinarian?

This is all before you even getinside the house, where the guardswatch impassively as the tipsy wifeeyes up the pool boy, the glass roofof an outbuilding gleams dangerouslyand a gas-powered barbecue invites

sabotage. In the teenage daughter’s

//Perhaps the feds mightswap their clothes for some

drugged donuts//

DETAILSDev IO Interactive

Pub EidosInteractiveReleasedMay 2006

Scored 8/10

Hitman: Blood MoneyExactly where the developer should look for future inspiration, says Martin Kitts

Appearances can bedeceiving: here, you’reactually protectingthe politician.


X B O X E X T R A

Revisiting theresolutionally-

challenged

TH E OX MREPLAY




Our story begins when 50Cent plays a concert in anunnamed Middle Easterncountry for which heexpects to be paid $10

million in cash. How much does itcost to see a gig in Unnamed MiddleEastern Country that this couldpossibly be a good investment for

the promoter? Tothe surprise of50 Cent, and noone else in theworld, the poormusic promoterdoesn’t have ten million dollars.Instead, after bravely threatening toshoot the promoter in the chest,poor Fiddy has to begrudginglyaccept a priceless diamond skull inpayment. He might be the leastsympathetic character we’ve everplayed in a videogame, and we’vecompleted GTA V .

After terrorists steal the diamondskull, which is possibly the least

terrifying thing a terrorist has everdone, 50 Cent tours the nation,killing hundreds in pursuit ofmaterial gain. Gameplay? More likeshameplay. Blood on the Sand is aboring shooter with no new ideas ofits own, utterly unremarkable barits hateful protagonist whothreatens people, treats women

like dirt andexpects to bepaid ten milliondollars a show.Trevor Phillips,all is forgiven.

But if you’re a 50 Cent fan – justlike we clearly are – you’ll beabsolutely delighted to hear thatour hero actually recorded 18 newsongs for this. Including a bizarre,yet appropriate, cover of MyFavorite Game by The Cardigans. Itplays over the end credits. Justcomplete the whole game if youdon’t believe us. It’ll be worth it.Plus, Fiddy needs the money.

THIS MONTH…

//He might be the leastsympathetic characterwe’ve ever played//

50 CENT: BLOODON THE SAND

empty bedroom there’s a glimpse ofBlood Money ’s jet-black humor – if youdouse the girl’s panties with ether,you’ll end up knocking out an FBIdeviant when he sneaks in for a sniff.

There’s a lot more to discover, too, oryou could simply bypass the entire thingby bringing a sniper rifle, crouching inthe garage opposite and shooting thetarget through his TV room window.

The bigger levels are every bit asdetailed, and even if you’ve run throughthem a number of times it’s unlikelythat you’ll have seen every permutation.Blood Money is alive with possibility,yet built on entirely predictablesystems. Nobody uses psychic powersto see through your disguise, youknow exactly where the target will be,and the game never penalizes you fordoing things the wrong way. There is nowrong way. It’s your game, your 47, yourdeadly clockwork toybox.

This may look like a quiet, ordinary street,but just trust us – the possibilities forbrutal murder are near endless.

INFLUENCED BY…

TENCHU:STEALTH ASSASSINS

Ninja wetwork from 1998.

INFLUENCE ON…

DISHONOREDArkane’s magic adventureshows similarities.

WHAT HAPPENED NEXT

Absolution ruined the disguisemechanic and turned Hitman into agame of shuffling behind low walls.

GAME

R O U L ETTE

Publishers send OXM games.Loads of games. Good, badand downright stinky. Everymonth, we delve into ourGames Cupboard of Doomand replay a howler…


X B O X E X T R A



The Fallout games have always enabled you to customize your character’s skillset by offering upa number of unique and weird perks – new abilities that change how the game plays. Here are 20such boosts we’d like added to the post-apocalyptic RPG series’ latest outing from the bunker…

THE FINAL COUNTDOWN

NEXT ISSUE OF OXM ONSALE 15 SEP. SUBSCRIBE AND SAVE MONEY: SEE PAGE 58 FOR DETAILS

02 Daddy Long Legs Your legs are now 25%

longer, and a number of babiescrawl around after you.

03 Bird is the Word

You develop super-hearing, but only for distant bird sounds.

04 Hello, I Am The AmazingGarbage Eating Man,

Who The Hell Are You You can now eat bottlecaps torecover small amounts of health.

20 PERKS WE’D LIKE

TO SEE IN FALLOUT 405 Dog Gone It

There’s a 30% chance yourdog will turn around mid-V.A.T.S.and bark a cheat code at you.

06 Red Tape Expert Your custom-built shelters

no longer require 17 arduousmonths of fighting with yourstate’s planning department.

07 Hop Ons Adds a 10% chance a

Wasteland NPC will let you jump on their back and havethem carry you around for therest of the day.

08 Haggle KingUnlocks option to say, “Are

you sure? Are you suuuuure?”

while waggling your eyebrowsfor a 70% bartering discount.

09 Go Away, Rumbly Bob You are now being followed

by Rumbly Bob, a cool new NPCwho makes your gamepad vibratewhenever he’s near.

01 Check Out MyVery Tall Hat You are now able

to wear impractically tallhats. What a towering gent.

glitches through landscape and buildings due to its new size.

17 Keen EmpathWhile NPCs are speaking,

you now have the ability to say“mm-hmm”, “no way” and “yeah,

yeah” while looking concerned.

18 Philosoph-O-Pocket Cuts a hole in the bottom

of your pocket. The inventoryscreen now contains everyobject in the world.

19 Master Thief +10% to Sneaking, +15% to

Lockpicking, +12% to Traps,+40% to Hiding Inside aComplete Set of OrnamentalMedieval Armor.

20 Action Man You gain an additional two

action points in combat, thoughthey must be used to turn thecamera and say “check, please!”.

12 Radio Gaga A repeating, three-minute-

long clip of a random episode ofThis American Life is nowavailable on the Pip-Boy 3000.

13 Most Haunted Animals killed in V.A.T.S.

have a 5% chance of following you around the wasteland makingspooky sounds and calling younames forever.

14 Tunnel Snakes Rule All NPCs are now Tunnel

Snakes because Tunnel Snakes rule!

15 Iron StomachUnlocks “Dare me to eat

that whole thing?” dialogueoption when in proximity toreally big food, even when noother NPCs are nearby.

16 Regrettably Large Dog Your dog is now ten times

larger than it should be and

11 Mystery ShopperDuring V.A.T.S it’s now possible to select anitem of an enemy’s clothing and see where it

was bought and if it was on sale.

ReducedPrimark Sale Item

10 Radder ScorpionsRadscorpions now wear cool shades and ridearound the Wasteland on skateboards, flipping

the bird to grown-ups and acting as if they own the place.


official xbox magazine - october 2015 usa

Documents