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Left 4 Dead New GeForce Cards Batman: Arkham Asylum
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Dragon Age: AN
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Origins
H
Overlord II
N!
Better on PC? Operatio
Heck yeah! Flashpointn
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THREE NEW GAMES!
IS BACK!
BATTLEFIELD 1943
The online classic reborn!
BATTLEFIELD HEROES
Why free gaming is the future!
BAD COMPANY 2
Single-player Battlefield?! NO. 187 • MAY 2009
REVIEWED
DISC EDITION
• Watchmen
• Chronicles of Riddick 2
• Tom Clancy’s EndWar COVER TITLES
ARE CLICKABLE!
7 more final verdicts!
PC GAMER MAY 2009 NEXT ›

MAY 2009
CLICKING A TITLE TAKES YOU DIRECTLY TO THE ARTICLE
Eyewitness Tom Clancy’s EndWar 29

Left 4 Dead – Survival 5 Watchmen: The End Is Nigh 30
17-word preview: FUEL 7 Men of War 31
Batman: Arkham Asylum 8 Necrovision 32
Team Fortress 2 – Scout update 9 Wanted: Weapons of Fate 33
America’s Army 3 9 Codename: Panzers – Cold War 34
Dragon Age: Origins 10 Drakensang 35
Braid 11 Hard Stuff

Operation Flashpoint: Nvidia GeForce GTX 295/285 40
Dragon Rising 12 Vigor Gaming Force Recon T7N 41
Dev Man Talking 13 Microsoft SideWinder X8 Mouse 42
Massive Attack: MMO news 14 Departments
Cortex Command 15 Ed Note 3
Overlord II 16 Letters 4
Interview: Chris Early 17 EXTENDED PLAY: DIY-Crayon
Classic Game Club: Painkiller 18 Physics, GTA Movie Making 36
Release Meter 19 Backspace 43
Features
PLEASE NOTE
Battlefield Blowout 20
Screen shots and other artwork in
Reviews
this pdf have been downsampled
BattleForge 24 and compressed. For the most
Fallout 3: Operation Anchorage 27 accurate representation of game
The Chronicles of Riddick:
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copy of PC Gamer.
Assault on Dark Athena 28
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MA
Hit me witH A THE PLAYLIST 0509 20
your bestINsHot !
#187 VOLUME 16, NUMBER 05 MAY 2009
gAry steiNmANMAY
editor
09in chief
ISSUE NO. 187
When the entire staff refused
MAY 2009 #187
to play Watchmen’s offline • NO. 187
A
++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 MAY 2009
n old friend of mine once wrote
in a similar space that you THIS
Ouch!
Now, lest you think I’m a glutton for
MAY 2009
co-op mode, MAYGary turned
2009 • NO. 187
to the janitorial crew for 187
MAY 2009
haven’t arrived until you get
ISSUE
punishment—a depraved masochist
help. They agreed, but for a
price...which is why Gary is
++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 ++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 200
your first piece of hate mail. who derives some sick thrill from your
MAY emptying trash cans instead
THEThe PLAYLIST A
Well, folks, it looks like I’ve arrived.
0509
first cut came in the form of a myself. I’m bustin’ with pride over
stones and arrows—let me explain ++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 of playing anything
2009
else.
VOLUME 16, NUMBER 05 MAYfiery

2009 missive from the aptly named what we’re doing in PC Gamer. In fact, ! LogAN Decker executive editor
MAY 09
VOLUME 16, NUMBER 05 MAY 2009
“QuebecISSUE Dragon.” Actually, it NO.
wasn’t all 187
I declare this issue the best one yet of Although he built The
#187I hate to stereotype,
that flamey. MAY but2009 the three that I’ve helmed. Especially Anchovy Project PC with
our self-monikered MAY 2009 •actu-
Mr. Dragon NO. 187 exciting to me is our Eyewitness sec- a Core i7-965 proc and
MAY 2009ally behaved in typical 187
MAY 2009 • NO. 187
French Cana- tion, which now takes up almost half
GeForce GTX 295 3D card
to tackle the brawniest of
dian fashion, sending our magazine, and games, Logan ended up
GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY the2009
magazine a very ++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 includes more original spending most of the month
GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY measured
2009 email ques-
++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 and exclusive game playing Braid.
tioning some of what I coverage than our
proudly proclaimed in previous Eyewitness ! DAN stApLetoN reviews editor
my first Ed Note at PC and Previews sections Dan is cranking up the dif-

ficulty on the Dawn of War
Gamer. The highlight combined. (Which,
II campaign in search of a
for me: “I know your by the way, we’ve real challenge...and getting
new editor in chief done this issue. Gorge his squads one-shotted by
meant well, but yourself on gorgeous Tyranid bosses. He needs
shame on him.” previews, done up in a better Wargear, and maybe
some co-op backup.
But it wasn’t until style that can only be
the next issue that a You are Rorschach. delivered in print, but ! eVAN LAHti AssociAte editor
few longtime readers I am generic no longer cordoned off
After a three-year hiatus,
began sharpening mercenary No. 742. in a sad little preview Evan returned to Counter-
their pitchforks. “Now ghetto.) It’s really, really
wait just a cotton-
Your job: Hit me great, if I do say so
Strike: Source, playing cs_
office exclusively. He boots
pickin’ minute here,” with everything myself. I’m also pleased up Dawn of War II when
began Grumpy you’ve got. Then as punch with all of his K:D ratio dips, grateful
that the Tyranids don’t have
Jim. “The FNG Gary we’ll finish up with a our usual departments, access to AWPs or Deagles.
somebody comes in cathartic hug. including our hard-
and Desslock, Norm, hitting reviews, stellar ! DAN fitzpAtrick LeAd designer
Mr. Mahood, and hardware coverage, Dan thought he was first in
even Dan’s columns are gone?! WTF?” brilliant cover story, and handy how-tos. line to download the Quake
A few days later, Stephen Simons took But you’ve heard me blather on about Live beta. Boy, was he wrong.
umbrage with our salacious cover: how good this magazine is for several After waiting seven hours in
the download queue, Dan
“Strike one, a nude picture of Alma, months in a row now. So why not
decided it would be a lot
barely covering her naughty bits with sharpen those pencils and see if you more fun to go “Quake Live”
some strategically placed lettering…I can top Chad, Stephen, and the Quebec on the staff instead.
know this isn’t the first time there’s Dragon by sending me your best hate
been a bit of gore-porn in the hal- mail. Go ahead, I can take it. After all, ! JosH AugustiNe LeveL 42 intern
lowed pages of PC Gamer, but this is I’ve arrived—and I’m here to stay. Being in the PC Gamer
definitely the worst.” But my favorite offices is even more
ZINE ++ MAY 2009 comment of the month came from the IN awesome than Josh had
imagined, although he’s still
ZINE ++ MAY 2009 oh-so-blunt Chad Brown: “Get rid of THIS not convinced that dancing
this clown before he drives the maga-
MER.COM +++ zine into the ground.”
ISSUE
/// gary sTEiNmaN, EDiTOr iN CHiEF ///
hourly to amuse the editors
is “something all the other
MAY interns did”.
AYLIST 0509 2009
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‹ BACK /// CONTENTS /// #187 VOLUME 16, NUMBER 05 MAY 2009
#187 VOLUME 16, NUMBER 05 MAY 2009 NEXT ›
MAY 09
ISSUE N
AWESOME
THE LOVE IS GIVEN CHATLOG PEOPLE
PC GAMER GETS A TIME OUT
+++ P C G 0 5 0 9 L E T T E RS +++
The omission in March 2009’s Strategic Command article // PC Gamer

really stung: Activision’s Battlezone pioneered the amazing used to review I’ve been a PC gamer longer than
the team has been around. Prob-
combination of real-time strategy with first-person shoot- classic, turn-
CONSOLE GAMERS
ably longer than most of the PC
DOUCHEBAGS
ing over 10 years ago, and did it amazingly. Take over any based, hex-
ERIK POUCH
map war games Gamer staff has been alive. I got
vehicle you own, or foot slog around to snipe enemy pilots like Korsun addicted back when PC gaming MORONS PC GAMERS
and take their tanks—beautiful! All while building a typi- Pocket and meant writing your own text-
cal RTS base, resource gathering, and teching. It’s a game
++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 IN
to study and learn from, in my opinion. Not only was it
Squad Battles: based adventures in BASIC. And
here’s something else: I’m also a
THIS praise
Vietnam (both
one of my favorite games, but PC Gamer’s constant awarded Edi- console gamer.
back when it was relatively unknownISSUE
ofMAYit 2009 was one of the tor’s Choice). I understand a little good-natured
ribbing and competition. But the out-
reasons my early subscription to your magazine became
+++ WWW.PCGAMER.COM +++ I know the
MAY turn-based, right insults are uncalled for. This last

A THE PLAYLIST 0509
permanent. Please give it some love! —DEATHYPOO
2009
hex-map war
games aren’t
issue I hardly made it two pages without
my hackles going up over a dig, not at con-
7 VOLUME 16, NUMBER 05 MAY 2009 the most popu- sole gaming but at console gamers. Obviously,
MAY 09 /// A shooter and a looter, with a high-tech scooter—Battlezone! ///
NO.187 as a magazine dedicated to the PC, you feel the We don’t think you’re a moron. In fact, we had
7 VOLUME 16, NUMBER 05 MAY 2009
ISSUE lar genre, but
#187 MAY 2009 there are still justified right to flaunt the PC’s superiority. But the folks in accounting run the numbers on their
MAY 2009 • NO. 187 a lot of gamers don’t assume that because I enjoy Rock Band and spreadsheets and, as the accompanying diagram
MAY 2009“My187
initial MAY 2009GO FILK
• NO. 187YOURSELF
Jonathan Coulton’s music
com) is the quintessential filk
song. It’s about what the crew
MO’ ON J.CO.
While looking through the
who love them—
publishers
LittleBigPlanet that I am a moron. —ERIK POUCH returned to us clearly illustrates, you’re awesome!
GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009

gasp was (featured in the February 2009
of the Enterprise do on their February issue, I turned the
like HPS Simu-
lations and
issue of PC Gamer) is gener- day off. Warriors have been page to find Jonathan Coulton
GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 soon ++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009
ally called filk music. PC Gamer singing about what they do for looking back at me. My initial
Matrix games
still crank ACCIDENTS WILL HAPPEN ning behind schedule, so you themselves on the inside of
followed readers will like much of it.
Initially it was created around
a long time, so it’s no surprise
that there are lots of war game
gasp was soon followed by my
fangirl squee! The funny looks
out fantas-
tic strategy
Does Evan Lahti really want
transporter accidents in a Star
do the one thing that you’ve
refused to do on so many oc-
your skull. You sit there for the
next half-hour, in dead silence,
by my print science fiction, but it has songs. “I Fought the Troll” by given by co-workers notwith- games that are
unique experi-
Trek game? Seriously? Let’s go casions: Use the transporter. unable to talk, unable to move.
since branched out. There is Tom Smith (www.tomsmithon- standing, the squees continued through a scenario to illustrate Using it just this once is fine; I Five years of dedication to
fangirl now a good bit of filk com- line.com) is one place to start. periodically for the next few
ences avail-
able only to
the problem. Star date: 2016, mean, statistically it’s the safest Starfleet—of your life—have
squee!” puter- and computer game-
related music. There is music to
For the WWII crowd, there’s
lots of period stuff out there,
minutes as the article was read.
Thank you, PC Gamer, for mak-
those of us
who refuse to
and being the avid Trekkie you
are, you bought the Star Trek
way to travel, right?
What happens next is hard
led to absolutely nothing.
So, are transporter accidents
cover whatever way you like to but their titles can be deceptive. ing my otherwise dull lunch buy an Xbox MMO as soon as it came out in to explain. An anomaly caused worth it? Absolutely not.
kill your electronic enemies. For example, “Panzerkampf ” period and day wonderful! 360.—Eric W 2011. After five years of dedi- by an explosion from a min- —RICHARD HARRISON
“Banned from Argo” by is about what’s waiting for a —KATE BUKOWSKI cation to Starfleet, beginning ing colony on Mars sucked a
// Microsoft is
Leslie Fish (www.lesliefish. Panzerkampf. —WAYNE GERDES as an ensign aboard a science substantial amount of energy We admit it would be tough on
not going to
Well stop yer grinnin’ and drop get my account
vessel patrolling the neutral from your starship just as it the player behind your scenario,
yer linen, Kate, because we’ve got or my credit zone and working your way up was beaming you down. Your Richard, but you’re forgetting one
a very special message for you card, nor will to captain of your own ship, screen fades to black and the absolutely crucial detail: It would
from the man himself (see left)! I purchase you find yourself preparing to words “Game Over” brand be a laugh-riot for everybody else.
carnival money accept a promotion to head the
POLICY SCHMOLICY to play games.
Starfleet Academy. Finally, your
PRTSCN
Bethesda made
Didn’t PC Gamer used to have a character has achieved his po-
a bad mistake
policy where the Game of the on using Games
tential in life—his calling, if you
Year couldn’t win an award as for Windows will—and you feel like all those
LETTERS the best of its genre as well? Live as the years of rigor and discipline
In a sense, PC
With Fallout 3 being the game of sole retailer have finally paid off.
Gamer is your the year, I think we can all as- of their ex- After the emotional good-
pansion packs.
magazine. In the sume that it’s also the best RPG byes to your first officer and the
—David Hicks
sense that while we of the year. rest of your crew, you’re run-
work long hours —JEREMIAH BECKHAM
// In your pre-
in a damp, gross,
view of Jump-
concrete-lined root WIN A COPY OF
cellar underneath a We did have that policy once, but gate: Evolution
single fluorescent when an RPG was declared the you mentioned BATTLEFORGE
bulb that flickers overall best game of the year and that you would Read the
constantly and the second-best RPG of the year like to see review on
ZINE ++ MAY 2009makes electrical IN was declared the best RPG of mech games page 56,
PCG 0509
P C G 0509
++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MA
snapping noises come back. I then email
ZINE ++ MAY 2009
like a Taser THIS the year, our small plastic
effigy of Saint Anthony,
recently found contests@
pcgamer.
being fired by a
M E R . C O M + + + cockroach so that
ISSUE the patron saint of bacon,
an old copy of
the game Heavy
com with
MAY 2009
+++ WWW.PCGAMER.COM
“Card-
we can produce this
MAY began to weep tears of fat. Gear II—the sharp!” in
AYLIST 0509 awesome monthly
publication, you can 2009
Message received loud and
clear. We ditched the rule.
game has so
much depth and
the subject
line, and
Is it a rave? A mosh pit? A thawed-out skating rink? Or just another
liquidation sale at Circuit City? Ryan M. of Rochester, New York, sent us
this haunting screenshot from Left 4 Dead that captures lethal zombies
A THE PLAYLIS
write us letters and is so much fun include in a rare moment of quiet and reflection.
AY 09 we will print them. Also, we didn’t include run- your full name and mailing
SUE Maybe. NO.

letters@ 187 ners-up this year because
even though it
address in the message body.
#187 VOLUME 16, NUMBER 05 MAY 2009 MAY 09
ISSUE
187 MAY 2009
pcgamer.com. we wanted to focus more
is old.
—Tim Camey
Contest ends May 15, 2009. See
Send your favorite screenshots, photos of your case mods and gaming setups, and anything else that you
think we might find interesting that doesn’t involve your naughty bits or anybody else’s, and if we print #187
MAY 2009 • NO. 187
on the++winners. IN IN
full contest rules on page 95. them in the magazine, you’ll not only become a permanent part of the PC Gamer Historical Archives, but
PCG 0509
PCG 0509
P C G 0509
P C G 0509
PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 ++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009

7 187
you’ll also be immune to zombie infections for three whole hours!
MAY 2009 • NO. 187 MAY 2009
/// Underneath the T-shirt, Jonathan Coulton is completely naked. /// ++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009
THIS
THIS
8 ++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009
MAY 2009

ISSUE
MAY 2009

ISSUE ++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 9
MAY MAY
A THE PLAYLIST 0509 A2009
THE PLAYLIST 0509 2009
‹ BACK PC GAMER MAY 2009 #187 VOLUME 16, NUMBER 05 MAY 2009
#187 VOLUME 16, NUMBER 05 MAY 2009 /// CONTENTS
MAY 09
ISSUE NO.187
/// #187 VOLUME 16, NUMBER 05 MAY 2009
ISSUE
WWW.GAMESRADAR.COM/PC
NO.187
NEXT ›
LEFT 4 DEA D
HANDS-ON
+++ P C G 0 5 0 9 E Y E W ITN E S S +++

MAY 2009
A THE PLAYLIST 0509

MAY 09
ISSUE
#187
NO.187
MAY 2009
MAY 2009 • NO. 187
: SAVE THE LAST BULLET
IN
THIS FOR YOURSELF—THIS
ISSUE
MAY TIME THE ZOMBIES WIN
2009 SURVIVAL TICK TOCK In Survival mode you never
get to play as a zombie, but you do
C
MAY 2009 187 MAY 2009 • NO. 187 compete against the foes on your Steam
friends list. Their Survival times will be
posted to an online leaderboard, and as
you’re playing the game you’ll be
GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 ++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009
notified when you’ve beaten a friend’s
GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 ++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 best time for that map. That’ll get your
alling Left 4 Dead’s competitive juices flowing!
new mode “Survival”

is a lot like naming a
game “Stay Dry” and
then pinning players to the
wall with a high-pressure
fire hose.
It’s exactly like that, actually, except that Valve’s hose is
hooked directly into a bottomless reservoir of zombies. No
matter what you do, no matter how good you are at slaying the
undead, they will never stop, and there is no safe room. Sooner
rather than later, the zombies will kill you and your friends. Ordi-
narily, I’d consider the inevitability of my own death a depress-
ing thought, but after playing a few hours’ worth of Survival at
Valve’s offices, I can’t think of a more entertaining way to die. I HATE
Valve designed Survival mode with quick play in mind: You LIGHTHOUSES!
can jump in and instantly be neck-deep in hungry zombies with-
out having to fight your way through an obligatory half-hour of
infested corridors and sewers first. For our first round, our team
(me, Evan, and a couple of Valve ringers) loaded up a modi-
fied version of a map from the No Mercy campaign where the
survivors are holding out until the elevator arrives. This time,
however, the elevator wasn’t coming.
We were well-equipped, at least—we had the advanced set
of weapons, and this version of the map was littered with many
more ammo stashes, pipe bombs, Molotovs, pills, gas cans,
and propane tanks (but only one med pack per player) than in
the campaign. Our Valve advisors warned us not to be stingy;
without liberal use of explosives, you won’t last long enough to
use them all anyway. Up until we pushed the button to call the
elevator (Valve says they have their best people trying to come
up with a reason the survivors would want to push a button that
does nothing but call the zombies) the map seemed small—
almost claustrophobically so, with most areas closed off with
locked doors you can’t bash or shoot through.
(Continued on page 14)
12 ++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 +++ WWW.PCGAMER.COM +++ +++ WWW.PCGAMER.COM +++ ++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 13
‹ BACK PC GAMER MAY 2009 /// CONTENTS /// WWW.GAMESRADAR.COM/PC NEXT ›

+++ P C G 0 5 0 9 E Y E W ITN E S S +++
/// The church in Death

Toll is an excellent perch
for hunters in Versus. /// VERSUS
PART II
As promised,
this update will
add Versus mode
support to the
two campaigns
++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 IN that didn’t have it
at launch: Death
THIS Toll and Dead
MAY 2009

ISSUE Air. These are
actually slightly
MAY modified versions
A THE PLAYLIST 0509 2009
of the campaign
maps, though
the changes are
MAY 09 subtle. “It’s not,
NO.187
ISSUE
‘Oh my gosh, we
#187 MAY 2009 put a whole new
MAY 2009 • NO. 187 building here.’
MAY 2009 187 MAY 2009 • NO. 187 It’s more like we
moved this thing
four feet to the
GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 ++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 right and it made
GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 ++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 all the difference
in the world,”
(Continued from page 12) says Valve writer
Chet Faliszek.
Then zombies came crashing in, blowing the doors alive for a full seven minutes—longer than most We noticed a
open and, in some cases, smashing through brick walls rounds, we soon found. few tweaks, like
like the Kool-Aid Man, opening up new areas with extra Next we tried out the one new map, Lighthouse, and a hole in the roof
deposits of weapons. At first it was a zombie rush like naturally went straight for the top of the titular tower. of the church
any other in the game—15 of the 16 Survival maps are From there we could see the entirety of the small map: crescendo event
where a smoker
variations on the “crescendo” events and finale stands water to one side, a cliff face on two sides, and a road tongue could snag
from the four campaigns—so we had a pretty good idea blocked off by the type of fence that zombies can’t an unsuspecting
of what to expect. But over the next five minutes, the resist climbing over. Our plan was to camp on the light- survivor, but
waves of zombies gained an intensity that we’d never house and the roof of the adjacent building—a strategy nothing dramatic.
seen before. In the campaigns and Versus mode, the that kept us alive for all of two minutes before a tank Even though
we’d each played
number of boss infected is limited to four, but in Survival scaled the lighthouse wall and punched half the team through Death
the number began to rise, creating situations where off the roof for instant kills. We found we had better Toll many times,
three hunters would attack at once, smoker tongues grab luck bunkering down in the generator room next to the it’s a whole new
at you from all angles, all while a boomer blinds you. tower, but even then lasting more than five minutes was experience when
There’s no guarantee of a 20-second reprieve before an epic challenge. you know there
are four real
they respawn, either. If that weren’t enough, about every We set our personal bests playing a map based on players out there
two minutes that menacing tank music kicked in and a Death Toll scene that takes place in the streets of a plotting against
compelled us to abandon our relatively safe corner. This town. The minigun certainly helped to cut down waves you…with you
is Left 4 Dead at its most frantic, adrenaline-pumping of zombies as they clambered over the large barricade scheming to
best, with little or no lull in the action. of debris that blocks off the street—even tanks can’t destroy them
in return. I was
stand that firepower for long—but hunters and smokers particularly proud
IT WAS AROUND THE six-minute mark that kept breaking down doors behind us, making sure we of nailing Faliszek
the AI Director decided to stop playing Mr. Nice… never felt safe. When we were finally overwhelmed, with a hunter leap
AI Director, and sent two tanks after us at once, plus eight minutes had passed. It’s a time that will probably off the steeple
at least a half-dozen boss infected as backup. We be doubled by the hardcore players the very day the of the church
for some epic
managed to catch both tanks in a Molotov and lasted free update comes out sometime this spring, but we’re damage just as he
long enough to see them go down, but were finished proud to have withstood the power of Valve’s zombie- emerged from the
off by a pack of hunters. Beginner’s luck kept us hose for that long. /// DAN STAPLETON /// safe room.
/// Valve’s zombie factory has been working

overtime to supply the many boss infected
you’ll face at a time in Survival. ///
‹ BACK /// CONTENTS /// NEXT ›

RECESSION PROOF
+++ P C G 0 5 0 9 E Y E W ITN E S S +++
SERVICE SELLS
ILLUSTRATION BY DAVID LYTTLETON

: PRICE CUTS AND CONSTANT times, including everything from minor
tweaks and bug fixes to major additions
UPDATES HELP VALVE
like new character classes. The best
DEFY
++ PC GAMER THE SALES
MAGAZINE CURVE
++ MAY 2009 IN
news: freebies, like map packs and guest
THIS
passes, actually spur sales.
C
MAY 2009 ut
your prices and you’ll see a
+ + + W W W .sharp
Serve your P C G A Mrise
E R . in
C O sales.
M +++
ISSUE
PRICE CUTS ALSO MAKE a huge
customers and you’ll be rewarded MAY When Valve ran a weekend
difference.
THE
with signifi PLAYLIST A 0509Sounds
cant spikes in revenue.
obvious, eh? Problem is, the game in-
promotion that cut Left 4 Dead’s price
2009
in half, sales jumped by 3,000 per-
dustry doesn’t
MAY always
09 follow these basic cent. “We sold more in revenue [that]
principles, ac- ISSUE NO. 187
weekend than
cording to #187 Valve’s MAY 2009 we did when we
the spy
MAY 2009 • NO. 187Pyro
Gold Rush Heavy
president Gabe Update Update launched the
MAY 2009 Newell. $20 Sale 187
Update
MAY 2009 • NO. 187
product,” Newell
But it’s not said. “We were
N
GAMER MAGAZINEalways the indus-
++ MAY 2009 Normal
++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 driving a huge ot even the threat of the
Sales
GAMER MAGAZINEtry’s ++ MAYfault.
2009In his Decay
++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 uptick in revenue burlap sack over the head and
keynote speech and attracting extradition can stop The Spy’s
at the recent new customers.” relentless pursuit of hearsay, and this
industry DICE Third-parties month comes the report that 2K Games
Summit, Newell Team Fortress 2 Sales Curve also benefited is building BioShock 2 multiplayer.
conceded that his from a holiday That’s right, the world of Rapture will be
Demo crowded with others. The Spy believes
Steam distribution $25 sale, during
Launches Weekend 2K Games is splitting the BioShock
portal lets him Launch Holiday Sale which units sold 2 load between studios. 2K Marin is
experiment with Presell increased by 600
Opens Sale listed as the developers of BioShock 2,
pricing in a way percent. The but 2K Boston—the developer of the
that retail simply most interest- original BioShock—is looking for a Lead
can’t accom- ing takeaway: Multiplayer Engineer with “the skills
modate. Steam Left 4 Dead Sales Curve The deeper the and passion for building world-class
has also allowed discount, the multiplayer experiences.” It’s common
Valve to continu- more revenue practice for publishers to divide single-
/// Valve games’ strong sales pulse continues. The player and multiplayer portions of games,
ally update their 2/13 L4D sale also saw a 1,600 percent increase in
the third-parties
and that’s the likely scenario here. The
games, following new Steam customers from the prior weekend. /// pocketed.
Spy has handed his 2K dossier over to PC
a service model A common Gamer for further investigation.
that defies the traditional ship-it-and- concern about variable pricing: It will ■
move-on mentality. confuse customers and cannibalize retail Judicious use of a fluorite lens and a
A perfect example of this: Team sales. Not true, said Newell. In fact, ceramic piezoelectric microphone leads
Fortress 2. Since its launch 18 months brick-and-mortar sales weren’t affected The Spy to believe that Call of Duty:
ago, TF2 has been updated more than 60 at all by the Steam price cuts. Modern Warfare 2 will be out this year.
In the parlance of the bean counters,
it’s out in “Q4,” which stretches from
September all the way into the end of the
year. With recent CoD games pitching up
THE 17-WORD PREVIEW*: FUEL well in time for Christmas, we’d expect
this one to be no different.
Dune buggies
■
Off-road The Spy also expects this year’s August
Blizzcon to bring forth information on
the next Blizzard MMOG. World of
IN
USA
ZINE ++ MAY 2009
and ATVs
over
Warcraft’s lead designer, Jeff Kaplan,
ZINE ++ MAY 2009
THIS as has already moved on to this as-yet
ISSUE barn-busting
tornadoes
deserted unnamed title.
blizzards roam.
MER.COM +++
■
Square Enix’s attentions on Eidos have
and MAY
AYLIST 0509 2009
not gone unnoticed by The Spy. The
Japanese giant, known for such games
as Final Fantasy, is looking to diversify
AY 09
SUE
187 Thanks,
187
MAY 2009
NO.
MAY 2009 • NO. 187
global warming. its output, and buying up the seemingly
always troubled Eidos lands, um, squarely
in its plan. Spy out.
7 MAY 2009 • NO.*A187

purée of pure fact, sans silly details. Hyphenated words count as one, ’cause we said so.


BAT CHAT
/// For all his kevlar and brawn, no
+++ P C G 0 5 0 9 E Y E W ITN E S S +++
amount of special breakfasts from
Alfred will help you survive head-on
assaults in Arkham Asylum. Gliding
in from above to pick off guards,
then grappling-hooking away
produced the best results. ///

THIS
MAY 2009

ISSUE
MAY
MAY 09
NO.187
ISSUE
#187 MAY 2009 /// Combo-heavy combat
MAY 2009 • NO. 187 lets Bats transition
MAY 2009 187 MAY 2009 • NO. 187 among any foes that
surround him in
convenient circles. ///
BATMAN
What do Kevin Conroy (Batman) and
Mark Hamill (Joker) bring to their char-
acters, especially in a space where their
dialogue can be more mature?
Listening to Mark be the Joker again, he’s
spot-on like the Joker of old, but in terms of
the mood of the place and the more menac-
ing quality of gameplay, he might’ve taken
Arkham Asylum
the Joker’s voice a bit farther into madness.
There’s an even more dangerous quality
to him. Mark still does the wonderful shifts
that really make that character so great,
from being just diabolical to being friendly
and innocent. Kevin—he’s the ultimate
: PAUL DINI SCRIBBLES IN THE MADHOUSE Batman. As an actor he brings so much
N
o one pens a better Batman than Paul Dini. A veteran scribe don’t want to be here. It’s so intri- nightmarish funhouse where the to the character. There are some mo-
ROLL CALL at Warner Bros., Dini has nabbed five Emmys, two of which cate—it’s an old estate that takes
up most of an island that was fi rst
doctors have been locked up and the
patients are running around dressed
ments in the game where Batman is
really shaken to the core and has to
Who’s confirmed, were for our favorite classic cartoon, Batman: The Animated
and who we’d converted into a sanitarium, then it as doctors. He’s done this not only as examine what he’s all about—he
Series. Paul has also contributed writing, editing, or producing roles
expect (or hope) was a madhouse, then it became a a way of trapping Batman inside but has to go into his own mind to
to see revealed in on TV series like Lost, Batman Beyond, Justice League Unlimited, hospital for the criminally insane, also giving him the farewell party to examine whether or not he’s /// Wanna learn more
Arkham Asylum. Animaniacs, and Superman: The Animated Series. Few minds know the about Harley Quinn?
but it’s still a weird, old gothic end all farewell parties—one last, succumbing to madness. He
Dark Knight better, which is why we’re grateful to have Dini behind Batman can find
CONFIRMED madhouse. You get the idea that for big, grand night where he’s got to always brings something audio tapes of
✔ The Joker Rocksteady’s upcoming batgame, Arkham Asylum, as well as the op- as many hi-tech instruments and fight his way through and then con- new to Batman. Kevin villains’ therapy
portunity to talk about his role in creating what looks to be far and for all the scientific advances, this is front the Joker for a special surprise will always be Bat- sessions for
✔ Harley Quinn a place of ghosts and shadows and at the very end. man to me. ? insight into their
away the best Batman game ever. /// EVAN LAHTI ///
✔ Oracle madness. You just have an amazing origins. ///
✔ Commissioner PC GAMER: Is writing Batman for bit more. But especially in a game, feeling that comes from the place—
Gordon a game any different than writing whenever he puts on the mask, he’s it’s claustrophobic. PAUL’S PICKS
✔ The Riddler him for comics, TV, or film? going to be very terse. The more Study up...here’s four good graphic novels to help you get get geared up for the game.
✔ Killer Croc PAUL DINI: There are certain things he says, the worse off the character Yet the Joker doesn’t seem to
BATMAN: ARKAM ASYLUM: MAD LOVE THE DARK
✔ Mr. Zsasz around him that are always constant, becomes; he’s a character whose ac- feel confi ned within Arkham… A SERIOUS HOUSE ON KNIGHT RETURNS
SERIOUS EARTH Bruce Timm
such as his world and his mythology, tions speak louder than words. Joker has gone beyond thinking Paul Dini Frank Miller
FINGERS CROSSED his look, and the motivation that of Arkham as a place where he’s Grant Morrison
“It’s a take on &
keeps him fighting crime, but there Why Arkham? It’s an ideal, incarcerated—it’s more like a world “It’s not a literal translation of the the Batman-
Mr. Freeze game, but it’s a book that you can
are differences in how to write him. haunted house hub for gameplay of unlimited potential for him. He’s Joker-Harley BATMAN:
Two-Face really lose yourself in the writing and
When you’re writing a comic or a in the Batman universe, but how managed to gain control, and he’s the history of the characters, and
relationship, YEAR ONE
and a bit of Frank Miller
Poison Ivy novel about Batman, it’s very much do you make it work? turned everything that could be that’s not really the same luxury that that filters into
we have in doing a game. I’d point
The Ventriloquist a writer’s medium—you can go on at Arkham is just as much a character beneficial or helpful in Arkham into that to anyone that’s looking for a
the game, as
“Classics.”
well.”
Solomon Grundy length and you can use the written in this game as Batman and the a mockery of itself. He’s trans- primer on Batman.”
word to flesh out his world a little Joker. It’s scarier than hell—you formed Arkham into a macabre,
VITALS : DEVELOPER: ROCKSTEADY STUDIOS PUBLISHER: EIDOS RELEASE: SUMMER 2009 URL: BATMANARKHAMASYLUM.COM

EXCLUSIVE INTEL
+++ P C G 0 5 0 9 E Y E W ITN E S S +++
SCOUTING THE flash

SCOUT
W
IN
THIS
ith weeks of bat-swinging

MAY 2009

ISSUE
bang
FIVE FAST BROWSER-
BASED FREEBIES
A THEand Bonk!-guzzling
PLAYLIST 0509 under
MAY
2009
our belts, we prod Team Fortress 2
AMERICA’S ARMY 3
frontman
ISSUERobin Walker
MAY 09
NO.187for additional Bars of Black and White
#187 MAY 2009
recon on the February class update
MAY 2009 • NO. 187
Beware the barcodes! Escape
the room in this low-rent, high-
MAY 2009 187MAY 2009 • NO. 187 ANOTHER ADVANCEMENT IN THE GAME OF WAR minded brain teaser.
C
snipr.com/c9pze
an 10 million digital draftees be wrong? strategically placed in your magazine (tactically,
GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 ++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 There may be a lingering connotation that it could let you know when you’re running low
GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 ++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 investing hours in a government-spon- on ammo—or fool your opponent into thinking
sored shooter is the gaming equivalent of filling you’ve run out if you slot it in the middle), full
your stomach with MRE rations every night ballistic modeling will cause bullets to ricochet
when civilian grub is readily available, but we’re in an accurate manner, and educational-but-
pretty sure America’s Army 3 won’t be standard- interesting quirks like an ally-healing system
The Sandman issue software, based on what we’ve seen. can now go wrong if you botch the procedure. Closure
“A multi-purpose tool, and one that The free-to-play But this isn’t just about becoming a better kill- An elegant puzzler using light
combos really well with teammates, especially PC-exclusive is the ing machine: a robust player progress system and shadow to create paths.
Snipers. On offense it can prevent enemies AA So Far most ambitious quantifies your efforts into measurements of
snipr.com/c9q4w
getting away from your team’s push, slow an ■ More than 9.8 million iteration in the se- honor, selfless service, loyalty, and other army Gravity
oncoming uber, or help you stop an Engineer
from repairing his sentry gun.”
Bonk! Energy Drink registered players across ries yet. It runs on values en route to ranking up. Hook
“Useful for getting past chokepoints on maps like both games Swing-climb
Unreal 3 tech, it’ll We marched away impressed with audio
VALVE’S PREDICTION: A standard for Goldrush and Dustbowl. A Scout can push past the integrate a fictional modeling, especially—it’s nuanced enough to your way out
■ More than 240 million
defensive Scouts and harassers. defensive line, hole up somewhere for a few seconds of a mineshaft.
in-game hours played narrative into distinguish the sound of a bullet passing a few Amazing
while they regain their speed, and then start harassing
(nearly 25 hours per the single-player feet from your head from one that zips 30 feet 8-bit retro
the enemy line from behind. Done well, they can cause
player, on average) and multiplayer away. Multiplayer feels like a familiar cross soundtrack.
enemy Snipers and Engineers a bunch of pain.“
■ 1.5 million click-thrus modes (clash of the between ArmA and Counter-Strike—something snipr.com/
c9q7y
VALVE’S PREDICTION: Liquid getaway. Defenders from the America’s Army vaguely-former- that balances realism with a focus on conven-
may play more conservatively to prevent quick-caps. website to GoArmy.com Soviet Bloc- tionally strong level design and area-clearing,
■ According to the sounding nations!), check-your-corners shooting.
Army, as a result of supports 13-on-13 /// EVAN LAHTI ///
Force-A-Nature “The gun’s knockback effect will save your medical training in the adversarial play,
life when an enemy Pyro is rushing you, or if you find yourself face to face game, there have been will be distributed
with a Heavy. If you choose not to use The Sandman, the maneuverability you two reported instances
have with double-jump and the Force-A-Nature’s kickback will allow you to (and auto-patched)
of players who have
take new routes and traverse large spaces without touching the ground.” What Got Cut? been first responders through Steam,
and it’s planned
Ultimate Vending
Two Scout unlockables struck in accidents and have Machine Challenge
VALVE’S PREDICTION: A Pyro repellant, and the weapon-of-choice for provided life-saving as a platform for No loose change? Don’t let
assassin/intel-running Scouts. out: Valve considered a backpack
that allowed the class to pick up medical aid to the victims. continued develop- that stop you from nabbing a
items (health/ammo/metal) and ment (not unlike salty snack.
■ A lightgun, coin-op
drop them in the field (something Valve’s updates snipr.com/c9qer
arcade version of the
/// Modeled
CLASS TIME all characters could do in the
original TFC). A catcher’s mitt was
game was created
by GlobalVR in 2007,
for its multiplayer
titles), meaning the
/// Carried equipment affects your mobility. ///
Medic IN Pyro ■ Medic also on the table; it would’ve let
PCG 0509
here is the
P C G 0509
ZINE ++ MAY 2009
Update featuring eight training Army will roll out ++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MA
Update ■ Pyro Scouts catch and store an enemy
ZINE ++ MAY 2009percentage of
player time THIS ■ Heavy projectile, then throw it out at will.
minigames.
quarterly expan- ++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MA
Heavy
spent on each
+ TF2’s
M E R . C O M + +of
ISSUE Update ■ Engineer sions to introduce MAY 2009
more occupational specialties (combat medic +++ WWW.PCGAMER.COM

updated
MAY Engineer will be the first available), multiplayer maps,
AYLIST 0509 classes. Pyro
peaked the 2009 Mini-Update training, and story extensions. A THE PLAYLIS
most post- On paper, that ain’t bad for the $0.15 or so Infinite Chamber
AY 09 update, with we’re collectively paying in taxes to develop Cross #187
from VOLUME 16, NUMBER 05 MAY 2009
one side to the
SUE Engineer NO. 187 it. The gameplay has been tweaked to offer a
other. Then back again. And
MAY 09
ISSUE
187 MAY 2009
dipping equally /// Weapon training prepares players for the field. /// again. And again. #187
MAY
with 2009 • NO. 187
each greater sense of realism: A tracer round can be snipr.com/c9wa3
7 MAY 2009
update. /// • NO. 187 VITALS : DEVELOPER: U.S. ARMY PUBLISHER: U.S. ARMY RELEASE: SPRING 2009 URL: AMERICASARMY.COM MAY 2009 187

BETTER ON PC
DRAGON
+++ P C G 0 5 0 9 E Y E W ITN E S S +++
MAY 2009
IN
THIS
ISSUE AGE
Origins
MAY
MAY 09
NO.187
ISSUE
#187 MAY 2009
MAY 2009 • NO. 187
MAY 2009 187 MAY 2009 • NO. 187
Who cares if it’s
multiplatform?
BioWare’s upcoming
role-player will shine
brightest on the PC.
WHAT IS IT? over tactics, aim your area-of-ef- first time, meaning we’re expecting
Epic party-based fantasy RPG with fect fi re spell to catch both dryads a deep community of LOTR-lovin’,
multiple story starting points. in stride, and juggle your four-char- machiminima-makin’ modders to
acter party’s hotbar of spells, buffs, put forth great stuff with the promis-
WHY WE’RE EXCITED and abilities to stay alive. ing tools Origins will have in place at
Pausable, tactical combat. Single- Managing an inventory, fiddling launch. (A cutscene editor? Sold.)
character origin stories add genuine with a crafting system, flipping
replayability. Dragon Age also has through a quest journal, and program- WILL IT BE THE BEST BIOWARE
some of of the most mature side- ming combat macros for your party GAME YET?
plots we’ve seen (if the “Wrex” arc members are precisely the kind It doesn’t have Mass Effect’s
Effect
in Mass Effect stirred your moral of complex tools RPG vets want moody sci-fi sheen, but almost
conscience, get ready). to play with. We’re miffed a everything we’ve seen points
THE marketing decision by EA to a landmark franchise
BETTER WHY IT’S BETTER ON PC pushed the PC release to that’s perfect on our
ON PC
Strip out the fact that Dragon Age’s
spiritual influence, Baldur’s Gate, re-
line up with the console
version in autumn (our
platform. Complex
combat, an evil
CHECKLIST!
mains a treasured beacon of classic version was originally horde of dark things
✔Prettier on PC PC RPGs. Shrug off that the game’s due this spring), but to impale, layered
producer, Dan Tudge, told us BioWare assured us storytelling that
✔More features directly that development is lead- that it’ll only mean bends with your
✔Mod it! ing on the PC. In your hands, you more polish and an op- decisions, and
can’t imagine playing BioWare’s BG portunity to add more a cast of party
ZINE ++✔ Better
MAY 2009controls
reboot with anything but a mouse IN features (a battle members to let
✔PC heritage
ZINE ++ MAY 2009
and full slab of keys in front of you. THIS arena tournament, you pick fa-
✔ Because we say so!
When two dryads (evil trees!) are ISSUE please?) to the vorites—we
MER.COM +++ meleeing you with their branches, already ambitious won’t call
a goblin-like genlock is sniping MAY role-player. it KOTOR
AYLIST 0509 arrows at your mage, and a 15-foot 2009 Otherwise, sans light-
ogre is hurling a boulder at you (see BioWare will sabers, but
AY 09 above)—all of which we experi- roll out inte- you get
SUE NO.
VITALS : 187 grated sharing the idea.
187 DEVELOPER:MAY
BIOWARE2009enced in a recent playtest—you
NO. 187want a control system that lets you
PUBLISHER: EA
MAYRELEASE:
2009 Q3• 2009 of user-created
7 MAY 2009 • NO. 187pull back the camera and deliberate
URL: DRAGONAGE.COM campaigns for the /// EVAN LAHTI ///


BRAID
HANDS-ON
+++ P C G 0 5 0 9 E Y E W ITN E S S +++
: IT’S ABOUT TIME

THIS
MAY 2009

ISSUE
MAY
MAY 09
NO.187
ISSUE
#187 MAY 2009
MAY 2009 • NO. 187
MAY 2009 187 MAY 2009 • NO. 187

/// You can actually get through most of the game without gathering any of these jigsaw pieces or solving any of Braid’s puzzles, just
like you can get through most of real life without reaching for anything. But what would be the point of that? ///
/// Braid is a game about time. In fact, Braid does for time what Portal did for space, giving you the ability to manipulate it in all sorts of
brain-twisting ways in order to solve a problem. You can stretch it, stop it, speed it up, reverse it, and even copy it over itself. ///
Braid’s puzzles are

multilayered, tough, and
very easy to over-think. /// Each world gives you a unique way to manipulate time. In one, your /// In order to reach for something, you have to explore a world that can be
Intuition can help as much

movements left and right move time backward and forward. In another, a tricky and sometimes dangerous. Isn’t there a way, Tim wonders, to be able
bubble slows time down the closer you get to it. You can even rewind time and to learn from your mistakes, and at the same time undo the damage they have
co-operate with a duplicate of yourself doing what you did seconds ago. /// caused? There is, but things never turn out quite the way you expect. ///
as experimentation.
/// When tragedy befalls Braid’s diminutive, jacketed hero Tim—say,
if you mis-time a jump onto the head of a deadly Goomba—you can
reverse time, for example, and try again. Or sit back for a moment,
and examine the way the world operates for clues, as if you were
looking at clockwork. ///
/// Don’t let the lovely graphics—backgrounds shimmer and pulse as

if the entire world was taking deep, slow breaths—or the wistful
and melancholic music fool you. Braid’s puzzles are multilayered, /// You’ll notice that some objects are immune to your manipulations of the flow /// Tim made a mistake once. It was a doozy. As a result, he lost the Princess he loved, now in the clutches of a
VITALS : DEVELOPER: NUMBER NONE
tough, and very easy to over-think. Intuition can help as much as of time. And those fortunate circumstances might help you gather jigsaw pieces horrible evil. Tim wants to go back and make everything right. But that’s not what Braid is really about. You know PUBLISHER: NUMBER NONE RELEASE:
experimentation. /// scattered over the six worlds you’ll explore. /// what Braid is really about? /// MARCH 2009 URL: WWW.BRAID-GAME.COM

HANDS-ON
+++ P C G 0 5 0 9 E Y E W ITN E S S +++
OPERATION
FLASHPOINT IN
Dragon Rising
THIS
MAY 2009

ISSUE
MAY
: SPOILER: CONTAINS NO ACTUAL DRAGONS
I
MAY 09
ISSUE t’s almost like
NO. 187
the first game hated you,” admits Clive Lindop, Senior
#187 Game DesignerMAY on2009Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising. (This is a
man MAY
who2009
used• NO. 187 a fansite for the original game.) His comment
to run
MAY 2009 187 MAY 2009 • NO. 187
points to the direction that Codemasters is taking with the sequel:
where the original was expansive, unflinchingly realistic,
GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 ++ PC GAMERand consequently

MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009unforgiving,
Dragon Rising is aiming for a Why should
more polished, welcoming experience. we play
This doesn’t mean expansiveness has been sacrificed. Flashpoint
Dragon Rising takes place on a 220 square-kilometer chunk /// Co-op mode will be the 2 instead of
of land called Skira Island. Based on satellite data of a real online focus, more so
than versus play. ///
ArmA 2?
island called Kiska, Codemasters has tweaked its terrain We asked Senior
to allow for the kind of war they want, and repositioned it Game Designer
between Russia and Japan in service of their plot. Skira is rich Clive Lindop
this directly. His
in oil and being invaded by the People’s Liberation Army response? Even
of China, causing Russia to request Western assistance. if the original Op
That’s your cue—the U.S. sends in Marines, and you’re a the alpha build we played, but let us Purple Heart territory, these guys are ing a specific class alive. But while Flash dev is on
leader of a four-man squad in the deployed battalion. order a flank across the valley, lay smart enough to hold their position. ballistics and physics are still carefully ArmA 2, they aren’t
“Everything in Operation Flashpoint is presented from down suppressing fire by spotting And if the computer squadmates aren’t and accurately modeled and we were the same games,
and that he expects
a military point of view,” Lindop explains. “It’s not through our binoculars, march in a cutting it, you can take advantage of told that a single shot can kill, the
Flashpoint 2 to be
about being a buddy movie and learning to care line formation, or tell our team to the drop-in co-operative play. build we were playing had invincibility more experiential,
about your squadmates. You’re professional hop inside a vehicle and speed down The concessions made in favor turned on. Codemasters isn’t trying to adrenaline-
soldiers. You’ve probably fought in Iraq and the hill, Dukes of Hazard style. of accessibility that we were shown turn Op Flash into Call of Duty 4, but pumping, and
Afghanistan already. You know your business. Although missions will time out (if seemed small: having every squad it’s still unclear whether it’s possible to based in the actual
experiences of the
There’s no Vietnam-style banter. When you you don’t complete your goal by, say, member be able to revive wounded appeal to both a mass audience and
infantryman over
6 p.m.), there aren’t artificial bound- teammates or repair damaged vehi- those that loved the original at the being a strict sim.
aries preventing you from wandering cles, say, rather than relying on keep- same time. /// GRAHAM SMITH ///
off. This sometimes lets you acquire
new tools for the job; not far from our
insertion point, we recovered a Jeep
with a mounted MG. Other times,
TARGET REALITY
: COMPARING CODEMASTERS’ VISUAL AMBITION TO WHAT THEY’VE ACHIEVED
you’ll spot or join other skirmishes-
in-progress on the island. It’s a way
/// Squad AI will object if you issue rash of contextualizing combat: Code-
commands, like ordering a Jeep to make a masters says they’ve plotted out an
Taco Bell run through an artillery zone. ///
watch TV shows like Generation Kill [HBO entire war around the missions you’ll
miniseries about soldiers fighting in Iraq], you see that personally undertake. Go traveling
they’re very businesslike. They have to remain calm tive in the example mission we and you might bump in to retreating
and focused to communicate and get things done.” played, with the goal of wiping out convoys, bombing helicopters, or
Chinese forces occupying a small patrolling tanks.
THE CAMPAIGN IS SPLIT up into three days of village nestled in a valley. You can
steady fighting, each day beginning with a briefing on the carry out the assault either by using OUR OWN ATTEMPTS TO as-
overall progress of the war. The four or so missions you’ll a context-sensitive command radial sault the village, meanwhile, resulted in CONCEPT IN-GAME
carry out each day are communicated via radio and to issue movement or formation the squad getting shot up, losing faith
detailed on your map, but while you’re not going to be
pulled out for grand cutscenes to relate the plot, this
isn’t a sprawling open world in the Far Cry 2 sense.
We inserted a short distance from our objec-
commands to your squad on the fly,
or more carefully via a satellite map
of the island. The radial’s nested
commands felt a little awkward in
in our ability to lead, and abandoning
our initial “run straight at them, fire
wildly” plan of attack. Your soldiers do
their best to follow your orders, but if
E arly on, Codemasters produced images and videos to illustrate their game’s intended look. Clive
Lindop: “It’s like how an artist does a sketch. You don’t just grab a paintbrush and your oils and go
straight to the canvas...You do target renders. They allow you to visualize what you want...You to have
something to match the real game to and ask: ‘How close are we to this?’ It’s very much a developer’s way
of planting a big flag in the ground and saying, ‘We’re going to do this.’”
VITALS : DEVELOPER: CODEMASTERS PUBLISHER: CODEMASTERS RELEASE: JUNE URL: WWW.FLASHPOINTGAME.COM your ideas are stupid or lead them into
26
++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 +++ WWW.PCGAMER.COM +++ +++ WWW.PCGAMER.COM +++ ++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 27

DEV MAN TALKING
+++ P C G 0 5 0 9 E Y E W ITN E S S +++
A WRITER
IN EVERY BOX
MAY 2009

IN
THIS
ISSUE
VITALS
NAME: Michael Austin
TITLE: CTO, Hidden
Path Entertainment
RECENTLY RELEASED:
Defense Grid (Lead
Design)
FAVORITE ALGORITHM:
Fourier Transform
FAVORITE CLASS:
Druid
MAY
7 VOLUME 16, NUMBER 05 MAY 2009 DEFENSE
MAY 09
GRID LEAD DESIGNER,
NO.187 MUSES ON THE VALUE
MICHAEL
ISSUE
#187 AUSTIN,
MAY 2009
OF SELF-CREATED
MAY 2009 • NO. 187 STORIES IN GAMES
187
B
MAY 2009 MAY 2009 • NO. 187
ack in college, I ran a MUD with some of my friends. It was about to die, he missed me—my last shot killed him, leaving
was
GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 a fantasy ++
world unoffi
PC GAMER cially based
MAGAZINE ++ MAY off
2009of Robert Jor- me with a sliver of health. It was awesome.”
dan’s “Wheel of
GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 Time”
++ PC GAMERseries, and++ we
MAGAZINE MAYhad
2009a pretty loyal The developer provides the world, but the player provides the
base of several hundred players. When a player reached real story.
the top level, we’d create a very difficult custom quest for The game development process is changing. We’re building
them to go on with a lot of ceremony on their return—players would tools that can create more complex content than ever before. To-
line the main thoroughfare cheering, and we’d arrive to personally day we can take a handful of template faces and turn them into a
transform them into their new role in the next tier of the game. It hundred thousand variations by exposing sliders to blend between
was such a powerful experience that players were still recounting it them to a player. Tomorrow I may be able to create new quests
years later, long after they had moved on. from other quests, or create new characters and AI based on rules
Creating a compelling and interactive world where a wide range and templates. Not only will the stories be personal, but the con-
of stories can take place is difficult. There’s been a long-standing tent itself will be more personal. ?
debate in the game industry about the role of writers in games.
Ideally, we’d ship a writer in every box, someone able to improvise
responses and situations based on the choices of the player. More
often, the fallback is a linear set of blocks that railroad a player
through a story written like a movie script.
MODERN GAMES ATTEMPT to create AI writers,

but humans are great at pattern recognition. We recog-
nize mad-lib quests and situations, and get frustrated
when we think the computer is cheating to create
drama. A computer can create infinite variations of
“Go to the mountain to the south and collect three
bird feathers,” but once a player has experienced all of
the patterns, there will be no surprises.
As game developers, it’s expensive and counter-
ILLUSTRATION BY ISTOCKPHOTO.COM/RUSSELLTATEDOTCOM (WRITER) AND FILO (BOX)
productive to scale content to account for every decision

we think a player is likely to make. New approaches like Left
4 Dead’s AI director, where the AI adjusts the pace instead of
the writing, are interesting, and with multiplayer games like World
of Warcraft and Counter-Strike, there is novelty in other players.
Whenever someone tells me their favorite moment in a game,
it always is something like:
ZINE ++ MAY 2009
“The CTs had all been killed except for me. I was guarding the IN
ZINE ++ MAY 2009
bomb site, and hoping that I’d have a chance to take out a few of THIS
them before they killed me. I saw a grenade bounce into range, and
M E R . C O M + + +before I turned my vision went white. I just started spraying bullets
ISSUE
everywhere. And when I could see again, I saw three of them dead MAY
AYLISToutside 0509 the entrance to the tunnel.” 2009
Or: “We were in Dire Maul, and our tank died. The ogre king
AY 09 went straight for the healer, taking him out in one hit, then finished
SUE NO. moment later. We were sure it was a wipe. I started
off the rogue
187
187 MAYa 2009
shooting
MAY 2009 as•fast
NO.as I can, then laid down a frost trap and ran in
187
7 circles.
MAY He was
2009 • NO.on me before I knew it, and right when I thought I
187


MASSIVE ATTACK
The MMO
+++ P C G 0 5 0 9 E Y E W ITN E S S +++
Times-Picayune
WARHAMMER:Wh at Now? ■ Misery Loves

Company
When the largest player
alliance in EVE Online
was betrayed from within,
N
a record 48,065 players
: BORED RAIDING THE SAME
++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 IN othing says Warhammer like a half-naked Dwarf wildly clashing axes with Ork Choppa—two new careers being introduced in “Call to Arms,” WAR’s first live logged on to watch it
burn. Rival alliance Goon-
OLD DUNGEONS? MEET THE NEW
THISa wantonly vicious Ork that just loves to smash things. And while there’s expansion. After some exclusive hands-on time with the new careers, we chatted up Swarm claimed responsibility for
the dissolution that plunged Band
CAREERS
MAY 2009
THAT WILL BRING YOU
ISSUEbeen plenty of Ork-on-Dwarf violence in Warhammer Online up to now, Producer Adam Gershowitz, who provided extra insight into the two careers along
of Brothers’ former territories into
BACK TO WARHAMMER ONLINE nothing has been as furious as what we expect to see from the Dwarf Slayer and with the new “berserk meter” combat system they introduce. /// JOSH AUGUSTINE /// chaos as stunned members fell
MAY
victim to pirates and looters.
■ 10 Our Blizzards,
MAY 09 5 Hail Warcrafts
NO.187 Separated at Birth?
ISSUE
University of Colorado student
#187 MAY 2009
Theo Zijderveld ruffled a few
MAY 2009 • NO. 187 Despite their difference, these two feathers when he called World of
MAY 2009 187 MAY 2009 • NO. 187
new classes have a lot in common: Warcraft the newest religion in
his thesis, arguing that it meets a
The purest of pure melee DPS classes, sociologist’s definition by provid-
GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 ++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 ing culture, community, ethics, and
the Choppa and Slayer may be lacking emotion.
utility but they’ll reward anyone
reckless enough to unleash their full ■ You Won’t See GW2
damage potential. Anytime Soon
After rumors that Guild Wars 2
They are near-mirrors of each other was delayed to 2011 circled the
with 60–70 percent equivalent abilities. interwebs, NCSoft insisted they
had never set a release date for
Newbies welcome! The combat the game and are taking a Blizzard-
mechanics aren’t very complex, designed esque “it’s done when it’s done”
approach to its release. If that
to be accessible to first-time players. translates to a polished game at
launch, it can only be a good thing.
Be sure to train up your apothecary
crafting skill—if anyone would need ■ u r hit by ez enemy,
healing potions, it’d be a Slayer want 2 attack?
or a Choppa. Who says pesky necessities like
eating and driving need to inter-
Slayers wear significantly less armor rupt your grinding session? The
than your average Dwarf, but all the first MMO with robust cell-phone
gear slots are available and they’re even integration, Fantasia, has entered
closed beta in Korea, and The
classified as medium armor due to their Agency promises to bring similar
extreme hardiness. integration to the Western market
later this year.
■ Changes a’Brewin
DWARF SLAYER Last Chance at Redemption ORC CHOPPA Happy to Be Hacking Patch 3.1, WoW’s first major con-
tent update since the Wrath of the
“Dwarves are very grumpy, dour old men, but like all old men they stick close to their friends and their word “The Ork Choppa is the epitome of simplicity. Orks love to hit things. They fight with Lich King
is their bond. Whenever a Dwarf feels shamed because he wasn’t able to fulfill an oath, they take the Slayer’s themselves, they fight with other people…they get in fights all the time. While Black Orks expansion,
oath, which basically says the only way I can make up for my deficiencies at being a Dwarf is to die gloriously are more controlled, leading the battle and keeping Da Boys in line, a Choppa can kind of brings
sweep-
in combat. They shave their heads, spike their hair up in a traditional orange mohawk, and forgo shields or get lost in a battle, not because he’s angry, not because he’s trying to redeem himself—he ing class
armor, only keeping their weapons and adornment, like jewelry. Slayers can only be male. We joke about just finds it really fun, it’s what he enjoys. They love bashing heads, it’s a treat. It’s like changes,
having female Slayers, but a topless Dwarf wouldn’t really be in line with our rating.” –Adam Gershowitz guys who like to play rugby; that’s what Choppas are all about.” –AG dual talent
specs, the
ZINE ++ MAY 2009 IN PvP Arena’s 6th season, and new
raid dungeon Ulduar.
ZINE ++ MAY 2009
THIS
Let’s
ISSUE Go Crazy! Adam Gershowitz explains the Berserk Meter Which Path Is Right for You? ■ Quote of the Month
MER.COM +++
“Think of an RPM meter on a car: There’s a green Meter, releasing all their pent up anger in one thunderous
The cost and benefits of each Mastery Line for the new careers “I don’t think [online multiplayer
ILLUSTRATION BY JOSH AUGUSTINE
MAY
section, a yellow section, and a redline section. The blow. These players are going to be like racecar drivers “BIG HIT” LINE “AOE” LINE “MIXER” LINE games] get impacted at all, be-
AYLIST 0509 2009
minute a Slayer or Choppa gets into a fight, the meter that are shifting gears constantly. The other type of player Giant-Slayer (Dwarf) Dragon-Slayer (Dwarf) Troll-Slayer (Dwarf)
cause people who play them are
addicts. Losing their jobs makes
starts moving very rapidly. The higher the meter goes will redline their character as fast as possible and flail about Da Hitta (Ork) Da Wrecka (Ork) Da Savage (Ork) them more likely to play because
AY 09 the more damage you do, and when you hit the red wildly, either laughing it off when they get face-planted or
SUE 187
NO. line, the more damage you take. At the yellow section of rely on a tank or healer to keep their frenzied attack going.
Constantly exhaust your rage
in big hits on a single target
Keep your berserk meter
maxed and swing two axes
For the strategist who wants
the freedom to switch be-
they have more time to play.”
—Wedbush-Morgan financial
187 MAY 2009
MAY 2009 • NO.the
187 meter, the Choppa or Slayer still has control over his The berserk mode is like Leeroy Jenkins: ‘Uh, where’d he using a great weapon for like crazy to deal damage tween aoe and spike damage analyst Michael Pachter
describes why he thinks
MAY 2009 • NO. 187 can use execution abilities to reset their Berserk
rage and go? Ah, son of a bitch, get a healer on him! Go, go, go!’”
7 spiky damage (great for RvR). indiscrimately around you. as the situation warrants.
MMOs are recession-proof

INDIE UPDATE
+++ P C G 0 5 0 9 E Y E W ITN E S S +++
Yes,
/// Tommy Guns, la-
sers, flak cannons,
I would like to shoot a rocket launcher at zombies. Yes, I grenade launchers, environmental destructibility that gets /// Aside from explodey physics, the sub-
glocks, and an us off, along with the charming chip- terranean cross-sections are one of our
would appreciate the opportunity to jetpack-boost gener- favorite visual elements in Cortex. ///
armory of 45 are tune soundtrack, which evokes early
ously into the air and casually wire a missile into a pack of open to your pixel ’90s game music at its finest. “Some
pixilated undead, kicking their guts and limbs every which way. platoon. ///
of the best aspects of the games from bases that will generate income. Con-
a decade or two ago came about tinually upgrading and managing your
Any
++ PC right-minded
GAMER MAGAZINE ++gamer MAY 2009would swear IN
pistols, and bombs to shoot at zombies and due to technical limitations,” says bases will be critical, as they’re your main
this
++ PCoath—we
GAMER MAGAZINE
shoulder-mounted
love (killing) zombies, we love
++ MAY 2009
things that go boom, we
THIS
robodrones, make it mod-able, and you’ve
got something that perfectly suits the PC.
Daniel Tabar, development director
at Data Realms. “There’s no reason
source of cash flow. When an attack
happens, you can choose to actively try
MAY 2009
love
+ + + Wconvenient
W W . P C G A M backpacks
E R . C O M + + +that make us
ISSUE
The catch? It’s incomplete: a game-in- to abandon such things as good 2D to defend it yourself, where you take the
hover. Cortex Command carries all three, and MAY
progress that indie dev Data Realms contin- gameplay/art and strong melodies reins on the ground and it turns into a
it’sTHE
part of PLAYLIST A
the reason we’ve had 0509
our eye on
the 2D title since early last year, coveting it as
ues to upgrade. The current version sports
2009
three campaign missions, a skirmish mode,
just because the technology now al-
lows us to do fancy 3D and orchestral
defense mission—or you can choose to let
your governor brain that has been posted
a colorful
project
MAY imbued
09 by retro spirit, but split-screen four-player multiplayer, and a few soundtracks.” down there do it automatically. If you or
rendered with ISSUE modern tech. In your hands, NO. 187
editing tools. But the slim content can’t deter your governor fail to defend the base, it
it’s Metal Slug #187 or real-time Worms withMAY PC 2009 us. CC’s 2D physics engine is really some- ALL CORTEX NEEDS now is more cam- and all you’ve invested in it is lost!”
MAY 2009 • NO. 187
values—strap jetpacks to tiny, pixilated ro- thing to behold: Kicking up dirt and destroy- paign content to put the pretty tech to work. Even if it’s currently a shell of characters,
MAYbots 2009 187
MAY 2009 • NO. 187
and soldiers, strip out the side-scrolling ing terrain lends itself to reckless sandboxy The next major update to the game should “Some of the best weapons, and environments, CC is a toy that
GAMER MAGAZINE
linearity for fully navigable environments,
render it with
++ MAY 2009 a fully dynamic ++ PCphysics system ++ MAY
GAMER MAGAZINE
sessions, like calling in tripod machine gun
robots
2009 from your menu and watching their
use your delivery vehicle (a hovering shuttle)
as a kamikaze to crush them, and leave a
solve that, says Tabar, who’s planning to add
to Cortex a turn-based, strategic metagame
aspects of the games we’re hoping blossoms into a gem of retro
charm and strategery. In the meanwhile,
GAMER MAGAZINE and ++detailed
MAY 200916-bit era art,++throw
arsenal of AKs, grenade shooters, lasers,
in an
PC GAMER metal
MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 skin dent and flake away from the AK
your AI enemy’s firing off. Then, maybe you’d
smoking crater (shaped based on your angle
and velocity) behind.
similar to Syndicate. “You start out as a boss
of a mining exploration company who has
from a decade or two Cortex’s community contributions are good
stand-ins: We downloaded a flying Kool-Aid
The engine makes simple gameplay ac- come to this new Earth-like planet on a ago came about due to Man model to spar with our Space Marine
tions (flicking gatling gun fire or a sniper rifle large ship (a ‘TradeStar’) along with many skins, then grabbed some weapon sets
/// Story, the way it’s
meant to be: a classic round into a pack of enemies) dramatically other entrepreneurs and adventurers. The technical limitations.” modeled after Crusader: No Remorse and a
setup for classic old- displayed (lopped off limbs, dynamic debris TradeStar stays in orbit around the planet, nuclear bomb mod. And through all the ac-
–DANIEL TABAR, DEVELOPMENT
school action. /// with full collision detection, or a mound of acting as a safe haven and marketplace for all tion overhead, our brain sat comfortably in
CORTEX COMMAND
DIRECTOR, DATA REALMS
robot junk left behind). Every patch of pixels ventures down to the surface. Your first task an underground bunker, wading in a gel-filled
can be molded and deformed, and it’s this in the campaign will be to establish mining fishbowl. /// EVAN LAHTI ///
PLAY IT
A demo version of Cor-
tex Command is avail-
able on this month’s PC
Gamer disc. You can
also download the trial
at datarealms.com, or
purchase a registra-
tion key for $18.

CHARACTER STUDY
+++ P C G 0 5 0 9 E Y E W ITN E S S +++
OVERLORD II : MEET THE NEW BOSS…
S
ame as the old boss? Not quite, but not so far off either. Although Codemasters was quick to assure us that Overlord
II is a true sequel, our sneak-peek demo revealed the game to be a series of modest yet intriguing enhancements
to the original formula. But that’s just fine with us, because we dug the goofy, good-natured evil that characterized
the original,
IN
and knowing that writer Rhianna Pratchett will once again be handling the game’s story has heightened our
hankering
THIS
to dominate this rollicking fantasy world. /// GARY STEINMAN ///
MAY 2009

ISSUE
MAY
ATRUE
THE PLAYLIST
FACE OF EVIL 0509 2009
Disappointed with the softer side of the
?MAY 09 promised that MEET THE MINIONS
first Overlord? We’re
ISSUE NO.
evil will be much more of a reality in MAY 2009
187 The Overlord might be in charge, but
#187
this sequel, with your only options the real stars are the Minions that you sum-
MAY 2009 • NO. 187 mon with a wave of your arm. The four pri-
being domination or destruction.
2009Codemasters saw theMAY 2009 • NO. 187
MAY(When 187 mary types are unchanged—browns are your
doubt in our eyes, they imme- basic fighters, reds are your fireball-wielding
diately showed us a minion archer-types, greens are your stealth as-
gleefully clubbing a baby sassins, and blues are your healers—but
GAMER MAGAZINE
seal.++Evil
MAYindeed.)
2009 You ++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 they’ve been significantly improved...
also can get up
to three mis-
tresses this MOUNTED MAYHEM
time around. Spot a pack of wild
wolves over yonder?
Sweep your browns to-
PLAYING ward them, and they’ll
WITH POWER mount up. Your wolveriders can
Last time, the then jump gaps and crash through
Overlord himself armored foes like cavalry. Other
was a bit of a Minions can hop atop critters too:
buffoon: none too Reds ride on fire salaman-
strong, with a dopey walk that ders, effectively turning
made us wonder if he was them into mobile turrets,
due for a diaper change. and greens grab onto
This time, you play the spiders, giving them
role of a more powerful, a web attack and the
more imposing, ability to scale walls.
and more agile
Overlord.
SERVANTS FOR LIFE
…AND BEYOND…
Find yourself growing attached to
a certain Minion? This time around,
each member of your horde will have
a unique name, and when that personal
favorite inevitably dies in your service, you
LAYING SIEGE can now sacrifice lesser Minions to resurrect
him—with all his special equipment intact. While
Capture a siege engine and use you’re at it, you can also sacrifice any Minion
it to decimate an opposing army. on the fly for a vitality boost (no more need
It’s all part of the goal to to root around for those sacrificial pits).
offer even larger, more
epic battles than before.
ZINE ++ MAY 2009 BOY WONDER IN

The
ZINE ++ MAY 2009
THIS
game starts when you’re about this high,
a wee Overlad who has yet to learn about
MER.COM
ISSUE
his true powers and role in this world. All you
+++
JOIN THE HORDE
know is that you’re different, and the Possess a Minion and lead your horde
MAY
townfolk don’t like you for it. You’ll through Minion-only missions. Attack from
AYLIST 0509 2009
find out soon enough that you’re the front lines as a brown, or lead a stealth
part of a long line of Overlords, squad as a green. When you’re not a Min-
AY 09 and that you’ll have the fight of VITALS : DEVELOPER: ion, you’ll be happy to know that Code-
SUE NO. 187
your life against the Glorious TRIUMPH STUDIOS
PUBLISHER: masters is working on improved Minion
187 MAY 2009
Empire, which is doing its CODEMASTERS pathfinding, so you’ll no longer have
MAY 2009 darndest
• NO. 187to eliminate all RELEASE: JUNE URL:
to double back to retrieve an errant
7
WWW.CODEMASTERS.COM
MAY 2009 magic
• NO. 187
from the world. critter stuck behind some bush.


EARLY
THE PCG INTERVIEW
+++ P C G 0 5 0 9 E Y E W ITN E S S +++
BETTER
OFF DEAD?
Reviews Editor
Dan Stapleton rips
Microsoft a new one
EXIT ‘‘
over its neglect of PC
gamers and GFWL
IN
Despite the efforts of
THIS
++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 Mr. Early and his team,
MAY 2009 : WITH THE HEAD OF
ISSUE in its current form the
GFWL service is miles
GAMES FOR WINDOWS LIVE
behind the competition,
RECENTLY LOPPED
A THE PLAYLIST 0509
MAY
OFF,
2009
WHITHER MICROSOFT’S We felt the same and the gap is only
getting wider. Services
frustration when we weren’t

like Steam and XFire
MAY 09 ONLINE SERVICE? both do a better job of
NO.187
able to release all the features

ISSUE connecting PC gamers
’’
#187 MAY 2009 to each other, even if
MAY 2009 • NO. 187 they don’t connect us
that we wanted to.

B
MAY 2009 187 MAY 2009 • NO. 187
ack in January, Microsoft announced the first layoffs in company history. One name
to Xbox players (no
big loss, considering
stood out on the list of the recently unemployed: Chris Early, formerly General that only three of the
GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 ++Manager of Windows
PC GAMER MAGAZINE Gaming Technology. We got Early on the phone to discuss
++ MAY 2009 15 GFWL titles allow
cross-platform play), and
GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 his efforts on the
++ PC GAMER Games
MAGAZINE for 2009
++ MAY Windows Live (GFWL) project and to share his insight on offer more and better
Microsoft’s true level of support for PC gaming. /// DAN STAPLETON /// at initially charging $50 a year for it like Xbox Live, know as well as I do that Windows is a significant features. A half-assed
and realizing then and now that that probably was not piece of Microsoft’s revenue, and to lose gaming as a approach can’t keep up
PC GAMER: When you took over as head of GFWL able to attract for this last holiday season, we were something that helped us grow early on. Being able to differentiator is not something that Microsoft wants.
with Valve’s full-assed
in 2007, what were your objectives? What did you defi nitely on the right track. There’s no question that efforts. Relegating the
correct that was a strong win.
want to see the program achieve? we were the Windows team in the Xbox division, and entire Windows gaming
Did Microsoft ever approach Valve about teaming
program to a small team
CHRIS EARLY: When I moved over to GFWL (that’s as such we accomplished a lot for a relatively small Based on the lack of Microsoft-developed or even up to make Steam the official Games for Windows within the Xbox division
the key difference to understand—when people talk tight-knit team. published PC games over the past year or two, platform? is simply not enough.
about Games for Windows often it’s the branding it feels to us like Microsoft has abandoned PC I don’t know that it’s appropriate for me to comment We aren’t asking for the
program, and my focus was on GFWL), the key first What did you think of the reception of GFW and gaming, despite their protestations that they’ll about, but in general Microsoft does work well with moon—but two years in,
objective was essentially to move the business GFWL by the press and the gaming community, continue to treat the PC as “a top-tier gaming Steam. In fact, there are a number of GFWL titles there still isn’t a desktop
of Xbox Live onto the PC platform. Personally, I and did Microsoft take the feedback well? platform.” Was Microsoft’s treatment of PC that are distributed on the Steam platform, and I application to let us see
think there’s a huge market opportunity for a PC Well, answering the last part first, I’d like to think gaming consistent with how you’d expect them to know that there are some titles that are adopting if our friends are online.
gaming service that services both the publisher and so. At some level, the folks who built the product treat a top-tier gaming platform? some Steam features coming forward that have That’s not good enough.
developer, and the player. Now, as you probably probably knew as much or better exactly what the I think that the question there has to revolve around necessitated Steam and GFWL work together and Microsoft needs to
remember, we had a bit of a stuttering start with press and the players were feeling because we’re how Microsoft versus the rest of the world defines make sure they’re not stepping on each other from make up its mind: Either
GFWL and by the time we came out with our all PC gamers at heart. And so we felt the same that. I clearly can’t speak for Microsoft anymore, but an update process or DRM or things like that. dedicate the resources
midpoint and then our fall release last year, we’d frustration when we weren’t able to release all the my experience while I was there was that to them it necessary to make GFWL
made significant improvements and the system was features that we wanted to, or even if you look back meant that they made the operating system into a The main problem that has arisen from mixing a real player in online PC
significantly better as well. great gaming platform. And there was a lot of work the two is people having to log into two different gaming, or get out of the
that was done and continues to be done on the services to play their games. It feels like an extra way and stop saddling
Did you get the impression that Microsoft really Windows platform to support gaming. What they hoop to jump through. great games like Fallout
wanted you to succeed? Did they give you the didn’t do, which is what everybody sees, is go to the In an ideal world, would you have to do that? 3 with annoyances like
support and resources you thought you’d need to Microsoft Gaming Studios and make PC versions of Hopefully not. But the reality of it is that both the terrible GFW Market-
make it happen? some of their games.
place when they could be
/// GFWL Valve and the GFWL team have PC gaming at their
In all fairness, I don’t think that anyone at Microsoft using the more conve-
launched a forefront, and in their hearts I think that’s why there’s
ever gets all the resources they need. When J
nient Steam or Impulse
redesigned Do you think that that message is being effectively so much cooperation between those two teams,
services instead. (No, we
[Allard] was making the Xbox, the very first time look in conveyed to the PC gaming public? because when you take that step back it doesn’t don’t want to have to
around, which was the darling of the division, he November, Well, somewhere along the line there certainly is a become a turf war of “Oh, we’re not going to support pay for 1,000 “Micro-
didn’t have enough resources. Did we have enough but added perception problem, because there’s a strong push you because you’re supporting a competitor’s soft points” to buy an
to make a difference? I think that when you look at no new in the Windows division overall to recognize gaming service,“ or anything like that; it’s more about making 800-point piece of DLC.
the success of the product with the titles we were features. /// as a differentiating factor for the OS. You probably sure that PC gaming stays strong. That’s a ripoff.)
IN
PCG 0509
P C G 0509
ZINE ++ MAY 2009 ++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MA
ZINE ++ MAY 2009
THE 15 LIVES
THIS OF GFW LIVE ++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MA
MER.COM +++
ISSUE
2007 2008
MAY 2009
+++ WWW.PCGAMER.COM
Since launching
MAY
in 2007 with
AYLIST
Halo0509
2, Games 2009 A THE PLAYLIS
for Windows
AY 09 Live has been
SUE used in 15 NO. 187 #187 VOLUME 16, NUMBER 05 MAY 2009 MAY 09
ISSUE
187 MAY 2009
PC titles. How #187
many
MAY do2009 • NO. 187
7 you
MAYown?
2009 • NO. 187 MAY 2009 187

CLASSIC GAMES CLUB
+++ P C G 0 5 0 9 E Y E W ITN E S S +++
PCG REPLAYS THE GREAT GAMES OF OLD TICKET TO PARADISE?

“What impressed LOGAN Painkiller doesn’t feel dated
PAINKILLER
to me at all. The environments are
me the most is so stylized and fantastic that I never
think…well, like I did when I fired up
the game’s utter the Tokyo level in Soldier of Fortune,
: LOTS OF MEAT, LITTLE ELSE, IN THISINUNAPOLOGETICALLY ARCADEY SHOOTER
commitment
which I had remembered as being
THIS spectacular, but by today’s standards
looks like crap.
MAY 2009

ISSUE to being a pure
MAY shooter.” GARY I couldn’t agree more.
Painkiller proves that style goes a lot
further than substance, and that lack
MAY 09 of ambition goes a long way toward
NO.187
ISSUE used to kill the boss in some way, but keeping a game from feeling dated.
#187 MAY 2009 weren’t. And even if you did look up, The purity of the gameplay helps
MAY 2009 • NO. 187
the thing you’re supposed to shoot is it stand out from all the highfalutin
MAY 2009 187 MAY 2009 • NO. 187
darkly colored and subtle, and doesn’t hybrid adventure/shooters out right
exactly scream “shoot me.” There now, and the goofy yet gory hordes of
GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 ++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 are several other instances where the baddies amuse me thoroughly.
GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 ++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 level design fails to tell you what you
were supposed to shoot, which can DAN It has definitely aged well, and
be a total buzzkill—and the one thing can be enjoyed today as much as the
in Painkiller that should not be day it came out. But while it’s
killed is the buzz. certainly a good time, it
SAVE lacks the depth that I
LOGAN I loved the 10% ON usually look for in a
TROUBLE IN PURGATORY
bosses. Loved ’em.
If they made dolls
PAINKILLER game that I’ll play
more than once. I
Join the fun by buying
JOSH I’m impressed with the mon- of the bosses, Painkiller from our friends can sum up Pain-
ster design. They’re similar enough I’d take them to at GoG.com before April 30, killer in three simple
to fit in one theme (you know, the bed with me and and you can save a buck! steps: 1) Shoot ev-
INITIAL IMPRESSIONS DAN Don’t sell the story short— crazy Hell demon theme), but diverse cuddle. And that Enter the code “PCG1” at erything that moves
LOGAN I don’t even know where based on the opening cinematic, I’m enough to keep you interested in occasional puzzle checkout to score your until it stops moving.
to start with this one. Seriously. pretty sure that the moral is that you tearing up another several hundred element in the boss DRM-free copy for 2) Follow the compass
The stake gun. The four-story boss should never make deep, loving eye- of them. The bosses have been pretty fights…I’m pretty sure just $8.99! until you see more
fight. “Monster juggling.” The thing contact with your significant other, anti-climactic so far, though; I didn’t the developer was just moving things. 3) Return to
about Painkiller is that it was pure or you’ll end up in a hell-dimension. even realize I had killed the first boss screwing with us. They knew step 1. Having spent some good
game. Yeah, it had a story: dead That’s sound advice. because I had entered rage mode and that once you buzz-saw your way hours with it I’m ready to move on to
/// Beware of
wife, war between heaven and hell, one-shotted him. I was pleasantly through a level, you get confident and something else and not look back…for
low-flying gibs. ///
assassinating Lucifer’s generals. EVAN I echo the arcade feel; so surprised to see that the third boss (in arrogant, so they threw a curveball a while at least.
Whatever. It was really just about much so that I wish the main char- the caverns) required some much- just for laughs. The result isn’t really
taking everything that’s fun about acter was dropping catchphrases needed strategy. I don’t even know the height of entertainment, but I EVAN Good weapons don’t age, they
shooting things to pieces and between kills like Duke Nukem, even how many times I jumped back and imagine they laughed their asses off ferment. Painkiller’s philosophy seems
cramming it all into a single game. though he doesn’t fit that stereotype. forth across the fire pit emptying all watching people struggle a bit. to be that duct-taping two dissimilar
And that’s why you can have levels There isn’t a lot of level design hap- my ammo at the boss before I noticed but devastating pieces of afterlife
that include ancient monasteries, pening here (barrels!), but it’s not the pentagram on the ceiling. It was EVAN The level design is kludgey as ordnance together produces the best
orphanages, modern military bases, really about that—just gunning down a simple mechanic to bring in light hell in some spots—the glowing red results, and it’s a thesis I endorse.
and even a swamp, and yet it all everyone that God doesn’t like. I hate and lure the boss into it, but it was runes you have to walk over to enter It’s rare that I grow tired of shooting
feels cohesive and right, because to say it, but I wish it had more gore. a welcome change of pace from the a new area (and trigger the script shurikens, but when I do, my right-
everything in the game is about run-n-gun gameplay. that piles more enemies into a room) click is an inch away, ready to con-
shooting swarms of enemies with GARY Catchphrases? More gore? aren’t the most brilliant design. Also, nect an arc of blue electricity to my
ZINE ++ MAY 2009 IN very extreme prejudice. What the heck is wrong with you? I DAN That boss “puzzle” was a sometimes you find yourself in a enemies. I can imagine a TV shopping
ZINE ++ MAY 2009
THIS missed Painkiller when it first came travesty! Whenever Painkiller deviates massive acre-sized room or mile-long network host selling up the conve-
ISSUE out, and what impressed me most from its great run-and-gun formula it icy bridge populated with just a half- nience of a flamethrower/assault rifle
MER.COM +++ is the game’s utter commitment to shoots itself in the foot with a stake dozen enemies. It seems wasteful, or rocket launcher/minigun (“It slices!
RELEASED: APRIL 2004
MAY
DEVELOPER: PEOPLE CAN FLY being a pure shooter. The action is gun. Most of us got stuck there (in- but it lets me do what I’ve always It ventilates! It breaks crates with
AYLIST 0509 2009
PUBLISHER: DREAMCATCHER fast and the twitching is furious. So cluding you, Josh, I happen to know), wanted: strafe some ninjas at insane extreme prejudice!”) and it’s really
PC GAMER FINAL VERDICT: what if there aren’t any intellectual and had to Google for the solution be- range while bunnyhopping, and arcing that ability to rain 12 different kinds
AY 09 challenges or character development? cause up until that point in the game a single stake into one of their eye of death upon your everyday samurai
SUE NO.187 84% (JULY 2004)
I couldn’t stop blasting away—and it there was absolutely no reason to look sockets to watch them cartwheel into from hell, or flaming-skulled warlock,
187 WHAT WE SAID
MAY THEN: “A QUIRKY,
2009
HELLISHLY
MAY 2009 • NO. 187FUN SHOOTER.” was all the better knowing I was fight- up. The room was littered with things the ground, impaled vampire-style. that earns my appreciation.
7 MAY 2009 • NO. 187 ing for God. that looked like they should be shot or

TREND WATCH
+++ P C G 0 5 0 9 E Y E W ITN E S S +++
IN
release
PCG 0509
P C G 0509

TH
MAY 2009
ISS
meter
A
THE PLAYLIST 0509

WHAT YOU’LL BE PLAYING
MAY 09
MA
20
NO.187
++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 IN Dear Electronic Arts, ISSUE

#187 me mixed MAY 2009
I feel like you’re sending
THIS signals. When you pushed back
MAY 2009 • NO. 187
the
MAY 2009
ISSUE MAY 2009 187 MAY
release dates for Dragon Age: Origins,
2009 • NO. 187

The Godfather II, and Sims 3, I was
MAY
A THE PLAYLIST 0509 afraid you might
++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009be just a tease. But MAGAZINE ++ MAY 200
++ PC GAMER
2009 then,
++ PC GAMER out++of
MAGAZINE nowhere,
MAY 2009 you offered a MAGAZINE ++ MAY 200
++ PC GAMER
beautiful bite-sized Battlefield game

MAY 09 for Q2. So I just need to know where
NO.187
ISSUE
we stand. Check one box and pass the
#187 MAY 2009
note back.
MAY 2009 • NO. 187
MAY 2009 187 MAY 2009 • NO. 187 Do you like me?
■ Yes ■ No
GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 ++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 f Q2 2009

Champions Online 2K
Arma II 505 Games
X-Men Origins: Wolverine Activision
GAME ADS GETSILLY

Ghostbusters: The Video Game Atari
Bionic Commando Capcom
Dark Void Capcom
Street Fighter IV Capcom
EXPECTING A CHILD? WANT FREE GAMES? READ ON… FUEL Codemasters
“W
Ride to Hell Deep Silver
anting people to listen, you THQ’S CRUSH A CAR Battlefield Heroes EA
can’t just tap them on the THQ decided that the best way to get your
Battlefield: 1943 EA
shoulder anymore. You attention focused on Warhammer 40K: Dawn
The Sims 3 EA
have to hit them with a sledgehammer, of War II was to build a full-scale APC from
Divinity 2 Ego Draconis
and then you’ll notice you’ve got their the game, customizing a real-world tank
Batman: Arkham Asylum Eidos
strict attention.” Good old Kevin Spacey, to resemble the Rhino. It then decided that
Battlestations: Pacific Eidos
toward the end of Se7en. Nowadays, in- destroying a car would be fun. We can’t
Blood Bowl Focus Home Interactive
stead of a serial killer he’d be a market- disagree, as the video we’re about to link
Cities XL Monte Cristo
ing man for a games company. to is clearly the best thing not in this mag:
Two Worlds: The Temptation SouthPeak
snipurl.com/c1peq.
Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor THQ
F.E.A.R. 2 CATS
Anno 1404 Ubisoft
With Friday the 13th close to F.E.A.R. 2’s CODIES CALL FOR JASONS
Demigod Stardock
launch, Warner Bros. decided to take ad- If you don’t have a better half willing to name
vantage. It draped lovely, cute, probably a child “Jason” in order to win a year’s supply
terrified cats in F.E.A.R. 2 jackets and of Codemasters’ games, then we’d suggest f Q3 2009
walked them around London. Anyone you start preparing separation documents. Borderlands 2K
seeing the cat then instantly bought a Codies, to promote Rise of the Argonauts, Machinarium Amanita Design
copy of F.E.A.R. 2. That, friends, is the asked people to do just that. You can find the Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty Blizzard
power of advertising. details here: www.bringbackjason.com. Jumpgate Evolution Codemasters
Dragon Age: Origins EA
Section 8 SouthPeak
ZINE ++ MAY 2009
ZINE ++ MAY 2009

DUKE
IN
THIS
NUKEM PRESENTS:
“Yeah, but what about this OTHER game
Prototype
Edge of Twilight
Sierra
SouthPeak
Hearts of Iron III Paradox
MER.COM +++
ISSUEthat’s taking its sweet time?!” CrimeCraft Vogster
MAY f Q4 2009
AYLIST 0509 Hey, Guild Wars 2, when are
2009 BioShock 2: Sea of Dreams 2K
AY 09 you going to get off your fat, lazy ass Mafia II 2K

NO.187 Global Agenda Hi-Rez
and come out already?
SUE
187 MAY 2009 Aliens: Colonial Marines Sega
MAY 2009 • NO. 187 Metro 2033 THQ
7 MAY 2009 • NO. 187


BATTLEFIELD IS /// The new engine makes
explosions pretty enough
to marry. ///
/// You, sir, have just angered a tank.

Say “goodbye” to your testicles. ///
: THE PC’S
FAVORITE
SHOOTER
RETURNS—
BATTLEFIELD 1943
: RELOADING THE FPS LEGEND
THRICE
F
or PC gamers of a cer- two theaters for the 24-person will either hold all the areas, or
tain age, Battlefield 1942’s multiplayer matches the game have more points at the end of
Wake Island map is the will host. Three maps is not a the match. You’re able to grab
map. That oddly shaped hunk lot, but 1943 isn’t meant to be any driveable vehicle, be it a
of rock in the Pacific has been a traditional big release. It rep- boat, tank, jeep, or plane, and
home to battles ever since it resents an experiment in frugal have at it. My own memories
W
hat is the future of PC gaming? When developers are becoming more and more Battlefield: Bad Company 2. PC was released as the 1942 demo. coding for a team most known of 1942 are filled with watching
risk averse, while our own expectations are only rising, the future is important. gamers didn’t get to play the THE Six years later, people are still for fun but bloated games dogfights spinning overhead,
How will we buy games? How will we be sold games? How are our tastes chang- first version of this single- and PITCH throwing fighter planes, sub- held together by humongous the losers parachuting as their
multiplayer shooter. That mis- Fun, frantic shooter. marines, tanks, jeeps, and soft patches and witchcraft. This flaming planes leave fiery trails
ing? These questions matter, because if a developer gets it wrong, they’ll go under. Old school, but in an
take is being remedied. human bodies at each other. time, they’ve crammed the in the sky.
engine pleasing enough
This is the situation the Bat- the game that launched DICE’s adds addictive leveling and This isn’t all. In a recent con- for modern, newer
So the decision to make maps and a new, physics- Wake Island is shaped like
tlefield team face. How do they best series: Battlefield 1942. And customization. The risk here is versation, PC Gamer asked pro- audiences. BF 1943 an homage to that heavy multiplayer engine into someone’s beaten up the let-
produce a game we’ll love, and it’s going to cost far less than a astonishing: The team clearly ducer Patrick Liu if Battlefield 3 earlier classic seems entirely just 350MB, and the results are ter V. The Japanese military is
play, with as little risk as pos- standard game. states that to be a success, was still being made. He admit- justified. Bring it back, shine definitely fun. moored off the wide, welcom-
sible? They’ve come up with The second is Battlefield Heroes will have to be the most ted: “[DICE executive producer] it up. Wake Island will be one The format remains the ing mouth, and the American
three answers. Heroes: a free-to-play cartoon popular Battlefield game they Ben Cousins did say we were of three maps that make up same: The goal is to capture military is dug in. The engine
The first is Battlefield 1943: a shooter that takes the silliness have ever created. working on five Battlefield titles. 1943’s re-imagining of the areas on the island, gaining creates a slightly cartoonish
high-tech but limited update to of multi-vehicular warfare, and The final roll of the dice is You do the math.” classic series, Guadalcanal points as your team holds look for the sky and water,
and Iwo Jima being the other positions. The winning team though not as cartoonish as
IN
PCG 0509
P C G 0509
ZINE ++ MAY 2009
THIS ++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MA
MER.COM +++
ISSUE MAY 2009
+++ WWW.PCGAMER.COM
MAY
AYLIST 0509 2009 A THE PLAYLIS
AY 09
NO.187
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187 MAY 2009 #187
MAY 2009 • NO. 187
7 MAY 2009 • NO. 187 MAY 2009 187

BATTLEFIELD IS BACK!
WAKEY WAKEY
Every major Battlefield game has had its
own version of Wake Island. 1943’s feels
just like 1942’s: the layout gives you a view
of all the action. From one side you can
see the other, and swim, boat, drive, or fly
there to help the cause. Any old Battlefield
hand will feel at home here.
Heroes. You pick from

Battlefield Heroes cles and drive it into the trees,
a pared-down group of three crushing them under my wheels.
character classes: infantry, anti- This is awesome: Only Crysis’s
tank, or scout. ludicrous DX10-only multiplayer
In my first try-out I spawn as mode comes close. A tank pops
infantry on the Japanese side. over the hill and fires a shell. I
I rush for a boat and head to a leap from my jeep and turn back
village already in control of the to see it flip over, sparks and de-
Japanese. Then the bombers fly bris flying. It’s how the elements
/// A plane versus a shed. We’re
overhead, introducing me to the come together that make taking bets on who will win. ///
new airstrike mechanics: At stra- Battlefield an idea worth revisit-
tegic points you’ll find bunkers ing. I keep telling myself that a
that give you remote control 350MB game can’t possibly be
of three-plane bombing runs. doing all of this—but it is. remote control for the TNT ap-
These are nowhere as Everything in pears in my hands. Click.
nimble as the regu- this demo is tinged As my plane detonates im-
lar planes, but they I attach with nostalgia. The pressively, my enemy flies harm-
lessly through the debris.
carpet-bomb a larger
area. The Frostbite TNT to a best thing about the
game (also being My second attempt to show
engine, created for
Battlefield: Bad Com-
friendly developed for con-
soles) is that I’m in a
off a little later, by flying under
a low bridge, ends with the de-
pany, produces all
kinds of sexy effects:
aircraft room full of console
journalists, seeing
struction of the bridge and my
plane. Again the engine excels:
trees splinter under this stuff for the first This is no pre-scripted collapse,
tanks, the sides of buildings can time. Time to show off the sort but a thing of concussive beauty.
be punched through by explo- of awesome stunts I’ve been This is definitely Battlefield in
IN
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sives. When there’s nothing left pulling in Battlefield for years. form—and considerably more
ZINE ++ MAY 2009
THIS of the building you’re cowering I select the scout, run up to functional than before. Tarting it ++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MA
ISSUE in, you either think on your feet a friendly aircraft, and attach a up in the new engine, tweaking MAY 2009
MER.COM +++ or die. stick of TNT. From the air I en- a few fundamentals, has done +++ WWW.PCGAMER.COM
MAY I die. And respawn on the joy the battles scarring the Pa- nothing to break what’s still an
AYLIST 0509 2009 island. The Battlefield jeeps have cific island below, before spotting experience that delivers intense, A THE PLAYLIS
the potential for high comedy: I another plane. In a normal game silly chaos. For the projected
AY 09 hop into one of these strangely it would be time for a dogfight, price of under $20, Battlefield
NO.187
/// Flying fighter planes into this #187 VOLUME 16, NUMBER 05 MAY 2009 MAY 09
SUE bridge results in ’splodey ISSUE
speedy, tight-cornering vehi- but I want to show off here. As 1943 could be a huge hit for nos-
187 MAY 2009 bridge disease. /// #187
MAY 2009 • NO. 187 we fly toward each other, I jump talgic fans and new players alike.
VITALS : DEVELOPER DICE PUBLISHER
7 MAY 2009 • NO. 187 EA URL WWW.BATTLEFIELD.COM out. My parachute opens. The /// CRAIG PEARSON /// MAY 2009 187

/// The Big Lebowski
cast should be easy
enough to make. ///
/// Weekend forecast:

raining small suns. ///
/// The three classes,

left to right: Soldier,
Commando, Gunner. ///
BATTLEFIELD HEROES
new weapons and clothes, and on the last beta, so we feel pretty
Hero Points to unlock abilities or good about the addictiveness of
upgrade your current ones. If you the game.”
choose to buy Points with real As noted, Missions task players
: FIGHTING FOR FREEDOM, FOR FREE money, however, they can only be with Achievement-style goals:
T
his is the first time PC tumes that would otherwise take like a hindrance at first, but once “THE GREAT THING IS,” spent on costume parts, not up- “Kill five Commandos” or “Deal
Gamer has ever put a time to earn. you perch your dapper grunt says Cousins, “because we can grading abilities or weapons. Real 1,000 points of damage to ve-
free game on our cover. Heroes is a huge risk. Senior on the wing of a Spitfire during monitor people’s reactions to cash can’t buy you a bigger gun, hicles.” But they can also have
Thanks to the influence (or ir- Producer Ben Cousins told us takeoff, it starts to make sense. different features on the fly, we unlike in real life. time-limits. “It’s a really addictive
rational fear) of piracy and the that in terms of simultaneous There are no one-hit kills, which learn whether a feature is worth The first closed beta launched way to play the game,” says Cous-
phenomenal success of some players, it will need to be the means the weapons do feel putting in or not. If we actually without these fea- ins. “You’re not just
pioneering free games in Korea, most popular Battlefield game of gamey rather than realistic, but hit our targets in terms of how tures, and the result playing to have fun, or
we’re at a point where one of the all time in order to be profitable. that also eliminates the most sticky and addictive and fun the was sobering for the Sticky is to win the round.”
/// Firing indiscriminately
major PC game developers feels
they can charge nothing for their
Their strategy for making
sure that happens is
tiresome moments of other
Battlefield games.
game is without adding a certain
feature, then we now realize
DICE team. “Because
we had none of this a word Ben But isn’t there a
danger that personal
at villages is standard
hero practice. ///
next game. to design their game THE It does feel like a we don’t need to invest time in persistence,” Cousins
uses a lot objectives will dis-
Battlefield Heroes is a bright,
IN while people are PITCH return to the comic adding it.” explains, “and we tract players from
PCG 0509
P C G 0509
simple, third-person team playing it: There Free, easy, lightweight violence of Bat- Sticky is a word Cousins uses only had two maps... teamwork? Cousins
ZINE ++ MAY 2009
THIS
shooter with a pseudo World have been two ex- Battlefield with tlefield 1942, but a lot. Since the mechanics of people’s average playing time was doesn’t dodge the question: “It ++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MA
ISSUE
War II setting. It costs noth- tensive closed beta persistent character
progression.
the real joy of it Battlefield Heroes are very simple, only a few hours.” That’s in total, certainly does distract you from MAY 2009
M E R . C O M + +ing
+ to play, it’s only 350MB tests, and there will is agonizing over the game relies on persistent rather than per session. Heroes your teamwork, that’s right. One +++ WWW.PCGAMER.COM
MAY
to download, and there’s no be another beta ver- which abilities to level character development, Achieve- just wasn’t sticky. of our stated goals with Heroes
AYLIST 0509
server 2009
browser: You’re simply sion open to the public up and which costume ment-like “Missions,” and a The second beta, with charac- was to create a game that wasn’t A THE PLAYLIS
automatched with people of before the game’s proper parts to unlock. Every player global metagame to keep players ter progression and missions, is just about jumping in and, in a
AY 09 roughly your skill. It’s funded by release in April. looks completely different, which interested. As you play and level faring better. “We’re looking at the traditional Battlefield sense, trying
SUE
small ads on
187
NO.the 2009
game’s launcher We’ve been playing in both, adds a nice personal touch to the up, you earn Valor Points to buy graphs now, and it’s certainly not to win the round.”
ISSUE
187 MAY #187
and
MAY website,
2009 •and NO.the
187ability for and Heroes is already fun. The grudges and revenge stories that trailing off as fast as we thought it The global map, referred to
VITALS : DEVELOPER DICE PUBLISHER
7 players
MAY 2009to buy weapons
• NO. 187 and cos- third-person perspective feels will surely play out. EA URL WWW.BATTLEFIELD.COM would, and certainly not as fast as internally as the “metagame,” MAY 2009 187

isn’t in the current beta. When it “From a faction point of view,” buy for your heroes get more mask-wearing hooligan types. hilariously, rent that luxuriant
does launch, it will be a way for Cousins explains, “it’s just the exotic as you level, so high-level They’re a scruffier faction and pair of pantaloons for three days
players from the two factions to Royals versus the Nationals...but characters often look nothing they’re bigger, more muscular at a much-reduced fee. You’ll
wrestle for control of the world. we’d like to create more of an like World War II soldiers. guys. Kind of [thugs]. In a kilt just be naked when they expire,
Cousins elaborates: “You can overarching story to it and see “Guys in the mime outfits and maybe, with a T-shirt that says that’s all.
point your character toward the territories changing control. stuff will be uber-high level,” ‘I’m with stupid.’ And a woolly Heroes is so different from
investing his Valor Points in any I don’t know if you’ve played Cousins warns. “The artists hat.” previous Battlefield games, and
one of 12 fictional countries. PlanetSide, but that’s the kind of spent quite a lot of time thinking Character progression is the so obviously simplified, that it’s
So if you’re Royal Army, you’re feel we want to create.” over this stuff. So the National most exciting element of Heroes easy to be put off by it the first
putting your points into Belgium, army tends to be German- in its current state. It’s easy to time you play. Keep playing. You
and if the Royal Army has more THE ROYALS ARE based influenced uniforms, then it’s the get enthusiastic about upgrading, may find that one of the three
points in Belgium at the end on the Allies, and the Nationals pirate look, a bit more of a goth for example, the Commando’s classes, once you unlock and
of the month, everyone who’s are the Axis. You’re free to cre- look, sort of like Jack Sparrow, Poison Knife ability. And the understand its core abilities,
invested points into that from ate a Royal hero and a National The Joker, kind of look.” fancy-dressed loons you see suits you. Battlefield Heroes’ Mis-
the winning side would get some one on the same account if you “Then the Royal army goes charging around certainly inspire sions make it easy to achieve
points back.” It sounds like fun... like, but you’ll probably want more toward action heroes, so the urge to earn more adventur- something in a 15-minute game,
although we think Belgium might to concentrate on one to level Mr. T, Indiana Jones...and then ous outfits. If you can’t afford and once you’re into it...well, it’s
actually be a real place. him up. The costume parts you at the really high level, hockey- to buy them outright, you can, sticky. /// TOM FRANCIS ///
LEVEL CAP The variety of

clothing you can purchase is
I EARNED THIS Each of the three absurd. The selection is different
classes has several weapons, and for the game’s two factions, and
better versions of most of them can
be bought from the game’s store.
the silliest items are the most
expensive. They can be bought
THE
The currency for this, though, is Valor with real money or game currency. PITCH
Points—earned through playing, not Four angry men in a
bought with real money. very smashable world:
the only full-formed
BATTLEFIELD
single-player
Battlefield.
REAL MEN WEAR SKIRTS While

you have a lot of freedom in your
choice of outfit, there are themes
BAD COMPANY 2
: NO EA JOKES PLEASE
F
to each faction. The Royals here
have a manly vibe, so obviously kilts rom a PC gamer’s per- we’ve been playing since BF Bach, Senior Producer at DICE.
are on the menu. spective, Bad Company 1942, which means there will be “We aim to deliver ultimate
is the dark horse of the three new versions of it on the vehicle warfare. You won’t have
series: We never got it. PC this year: Heroes, 1943, and experienced this in any modern
This console-only release Bad Company 2. warfare game, and this is in both
was, uncharacteristically, a Gold Rush is more novel: One our single- and multiplayer.”
story-driven, faintly humorous, team is on offense, trying to (I tried to think of things I
primarily single- break open crates of haven’t experienced in any
player game, based gold bars to unlock modern warfare game, and
around destruction. Gold Rush the next stage of the came up with the emotionally
You were the leader
in a rogue four-man is more map. The defenders
win if they can keep
exhausting dread of returning
home to a spouse you no longer
squad of likeable
loons who’d aban-
novel the crates intact until
the round ends.
love. So that’ll be interesting.)
Bach is tight-lipped to the
IN
PCG 0509
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AZINE ++ MAY 2009 ++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MA
doned their duties to Vehicles are a point of absurdity about every-
AZINE ++ MAY 2009
THIS fight through open-ended levels key part of the Bad Company thing else. From my ++interview, PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MA
MER.COM +++
ISSUE in search of, um, gold.
The two multiplayer modes
formula: Half the reason to
build an engine with 90 percent
I was able to glean that:
player will be challenged
MAY “The
2009
+ + + W WtoW.PCGAMER.COM
MAY from Bad Company will return destructible environments is solve the problems presented to
LAYLIST 0509 2009 for the sequel: Conquest and to have a tank burst through a them in many differentTHE A ways,”PLAYLIS
Gold Rush. Conquest is the brick wall at the drop of a hat. “It’s a true battlefield,” and “The
AY 09 same flag-and-ticker mode DICE is hinting that they’ve got infantry#187fighting
VOLUME 16, contains
NUMBER 05 MAYeve- MAY 09
NO.187
2009
SSUE ISSUE
something special planned here: rything you’d expect.” So, it’s a
#187 MAY 2009 #187
MAY 2009 • NO. 187
VITALS : DEVELOPER DICE PUBLISHER “Bad Company 2 will take this game, on a battlefield, with sol-
EA URL WWW.BATTLEFIELD.COM/BADCOMPANY2
7 MAY 2009 • NO. 187 to the next level,” says Patrick diers in it. /// TOM
MAY FRANCIS
2009/// 187
++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 +++ WWW.PCGAMER.COM +++ ++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 53

BATTLEFORGE
+++ P C G 0 5 0 9 RE VIE W S +++
: STRIKE WHILE THE IRON IS HOT, FROZEN, HEXED, OR ENTANGLED

++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 IN /// Nothing penetrates
THIS the defenses of Tim “The
Tower Spammer.” ///
MAY 2009

ISSUE
MAY
MAY 09
NO.187
ISSUE
#187 MAY 2009
MAY 2009 • NO. 187
MAY 2009 187 MAY 2009 • NO. 187

/// Why are floaty heads
always so angry? ///
L
ast summer I sold a load of old Topps cards on eBay. What was striking few minutes? Oh wait—I don’t have a base.
was (a) the prices people were willing to pay for cards of shaggy-haired And, in addition to the power cost, there
are cool-down periods and monument re-
Belgian soccer players, and (b) how many decade-old unopened packets quirements. Battle-turning goliaths like the
are up for sale. How could anyone resist tearing them open to see what’s inside? Colossus and the Dreadnought are out of /// The bright art style looks
like the result of an explosion
That’s the whole joy of it! reach until you’ve built four monuments (the
at the Crayola factory. ///
pre-located sites for which are usually close
EA Phenomic, the German team behind It sounds like a recipe for total chaos: to power sources) and dedicated them to
this genre-blurring online RTS, understands How can I plan or protect my base if entire the appropriate faction.
this. Their whole business model is based on armies are materializing out of thin air every
the assumption that folk love NOW WE ARRIVE AT the stonemen with mallet fists). you find yourself in the forge—a
tearing open foil envelopes really ingenious part: All units In the final stages—assuming hub area in which auctions can be
full of Mysterious Cardy
Goodness. To create Bat-
IN YOUR ELEMENT and spells belong to one of
four factions and are repre-
all is going to plan—Boom
Brothers (goblin-
organized, cards traded, and units
tested. In front of
tleForge, they’ve plucked the :
I’M HALF FROST, HALF FIRE. WHAT ARE YOU? sented by virtual cards. Before crewed howitzers you is a large map.
heart from Magic: The Gather-
ing, stitched it into the mus-
1 2 a match begins, rather than
choosing a side or having one
mounted on ogres)
and Emberstrikes
Storming the As missions unlock,
they appear on this
cular torso of Warcraft III,
then attached the limbs and
thrust upon you, you build a
deck of up to 20 cards. The
(fire-lancing geo-
morphs) shoulder
map in a vast map. Some will be
solo affairs, some
head of World of Warcraft. more cards you own, the more most of the and angry will require the
The resulting Fun Golem is deck combinations and tactics slaughter. combined efforts of
both a deeply seductive and a are possible. And those units conga line two, four, or even 12
faintly disturbing creature. Brilliantly, DIY army- are just the tip of players. Comrades
At the sulfurous core of the smithing applies to both the iceberg/vol- are easily found.
game is a fast, charismatic /// Distrust anything with more than /// Interested in blitzkrieg, arson, and single-player and multiplayer. cano. The basic Twilight Edition Just click to establish a game and
fantasy RTS brimming with two legs, arms, or eyes? Pack your demonology? You’ll be wanting a hand Whether you’re carving your of BattleForge comes with four strangers will come.
decks with Frosty humans. /// full of Fire cards. /// /// Playing co-op makes
great units and spectacular way through the story or skir- faction decks of 16 cards each, The missions themselves have
smashing things more fun. ///
violence. The tempo is kept mishing with fellow skylords, plus 3,000 BF points (in-game a pleasing whiff of Warcraft III
3 IN 4
PCG 0509
P C G 0509
high by two things: the omis- you’ll be doing it with a force currency sufficient to purchase about them, and feel like they’ve
ZINE ++ MAY 2009
sion of traditional base-build- THIS you fashioned. 12 eight-card booster packs). been honed over many months ++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MA
ing, and a “spawn anywhere”

M E R . C O M + +unit-summoning
ISSUE At the moment my current Right from the outset you’re in for maximum fun. One excursion MAY 2009
+ dynamic. deck of choice—Slush II—is possession of a good mix of the might involve escorting a treas- +++ WWW.PCGAMER.COM
Though you need to capture MAY a mix of Frost and Fire. Early 200 card types, and the potential ure blimp through badlands; the
AYLIST and0509
tap scattered power 2009 on in a fight, Master Archers for crafting interesting and robust next, exterminating Twilight-in- A THE PLAYLIS
sources to fund army con- and Thugs (orcs in football battlegroups is huge. fected villages or destroying forti-
AY 09 struction, troops themselves gear) wreak the majority of my Your first taste of deck fashion- fied walls blocking the path of a
SUE NO.
can materialize
187 #187 VOLUME 16, NUMBER 05 MAY 2009 MAY 09
ISSUE
MAY anywhere havoc. Mid-game, I call upon ing is likely to come in the cam- Titan-pursued potentate. Often
/// Idolize Bear Grylls? Named your /// Obsessed with skulls? Already made
187 2009 daughter Juniper? Heal your way to your own funeral arrangements? #187
on
MAYa map as •long
2009 NO. as
187a living Spitfires (magma-spewing sky paign. On logging in (even solo in the co-op scenarios, different
victory with Nature. /// Shadow is for you. ///
7 friendly unit is nearby.
MAY 2009 • NO. 187 galleons) and Tremors (stompy play requires a net connection) starting positions mean different MAY 2009 187

+++ P C G 0 5 0 9 RE VIE W S +++

THIS
MAY 2009

ISSUE
MAY
A THE PLAYLIST 0509
/// Need, got, need, got, got, got, need, got. ///
2009
MAY 09
NO.187
ISSUE
#187 MAY 2009
MAY 2009 • NO. 187
MAY 2009 187 MAY 2009 • NO. 187

/// Wear a lot of purple? You may
be undead. ///
/// Another multiplayer defeat beckons. ///
roles. Red and Green could find themselves nowhere near as appealing as co-operating
rescuing prisoners, while on the other side
of the map, Blue and Yellow might be de- And, oh yes, wrath– with them. Whatever the map, I seem to be
getting trounced on a horribly regular basis.
stroying siege artillery or overseeing an
arcane ritual.
there’s lots of that Losing RTS skirmishes is rarely fun. Losing
them inside two minutes because you’ve
Invariably you’ll bump into your brothers- been rushed by units you simply don’t know
in-arms at some point, and embark on Bat- explains what the hell is going on, but, how to counter is miserable.
tleForge’s trademark activity: the Rampage frankly, cutscenes and load-screen brief- Such defeats bring bitter “They only won
of Kill. Storming through unconquered ings should have had this covered. After because they had the best deck!” feelings.
portions of a map in a vast angry conga line many days of play all I can tell you about Though there is something called a “tome
is a riot in both senses of the word. I’m grin- the story is: Twilight = bad, Rogan Kayle mode” where each player takes to the field
ning just thinking about it. One of the few = good, and some lady with a name like a with a deck built from virgin booster packs,
things that could improve it is integrated venereal disease has lost her mind thanks there’s no option to play with the vanilla 16-
voice chat—right now, everyone’s too busy to a SoulStone (or possibly a SoulTree) and card faction decks, so there is never a truly
slaying to exchange typed messages. MUST BE STOPPED. And, oh yes, wrath— level playing field. For all its checks and
there’s lots of that about. balances, BattleForge would seem to favor
SADLY, THE WARCRAFT III vibe Crafting a coherent plot in a game where the player with the fattest deck.
doesn’t extend to backstory brilliance. The players can romp to victory with Franken- Not bothered? Only intend to play single-
plot cobwebbing all the missions together stein armies is obviously no easy task, but player? Sorry, things aren’t quite that simple.
is poorly relayed, and stale as old buns. Phenomic should have done better. To have any chances of conquering the later
There’s a book of lore in the forge that Right now, fighting your fellow players is campaign challenges (many of which are
RARER THAN ROCKING-HORSE POO

: DO A LITTLE DANCE IF YOU FIND ONE OF THESE ULTRA-RARES IN A BOOSTER PACK
1
ZINE ++ MAY 2009 IN 2 3
ZINE ++ MAY 2009
THIS
MER.COM +++
ISSUE
MAY
AYLIST 0509 2009
AY 09
SUE NO.187
187 MAY 2009
/// He’s big, he’s mean, he’s the Avatar of Frost. /// Harvesters summon skeleton squads and draw /// When Parasite Swarms aren’t reciting pi to ten
MAY 2009 • NO. 187
This walking damage sponge will turn your foe’s strength from nearby corpses. Their steel claws million places, they’re mind-controlling the feeble-
7 MAYto2009
blood • NO.
ice and their187
knees to jelly. Mmm...jelly. /// are perfect for wall demolition. /// brained or zapping them with a mental fzzzzzt! ///


UMBRAGE AT THE SUNBRIDGE
+++ P C G 0 5 0 9 RE VIE W S +++
This number is crucial. It’s your

++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 IN power count. Without power you
THIS can’t summon units or weave spells.
With it—lots of it—you can fill the
MAY 2009

ISSUE screen with warriors in seconds.
MAY
MAY 09
NO.187
ISSUE
#187 MAY 2009
MAY 2009 • NO. 187
MAY 2009 187 MAY 2009 • NO. 187

Because Giant-Walking-Temple-
With-Roof-Mounted-Howitzer
was a bit of a mouthful,
Phenomic has chosen to call this
unit a Construct. It’s slow, but
To play the most powerful cards in Frost’s ultimate siege tool.
your deck, you’ll need to find and
build upon at least four of these
monument sites. In co-op games
there’s usually plenty to go
around, but squabbles can occur. The Coldsnap spell stops even the
chunkiest abomination in its
tracks. Frozen foes are vulnerable,
but, sadly, a swift Duke Nukem
kick in the plums won’t smash
them to smithereens. Bah.
just harder versions of earlier ones) you’ll MMO subscription. Even if you don’t get but they aren’t silver bullets. A skilful pauper
need to upgrade your cards. Upgrades— cards you need, you can always auction off with a modest card selection will still be
non-tradeable cards dished out as single- the cream of your haul. Every pack is guar- able to vanquish a talentless spendthrift with
player rewards—can only be utilized with anteed to include one “rare” card. Perhaps a monstrous stack.
the help of multiplayer victory tokens. A one in 20 will contain a precious “ultra- As long as you approach BattleForge
lack of success in the arenas means the rare.” That $2.50 is also buying you the knowing that it will take all your money and
story’s later stages will be bastard-hard. nerve-tingly excitement of a treasure-hunt. leave you sleeping under cardboard in an
The trouble with the MMO argument underpass given half a chance, it’s hard to
BUT THAT’S NOT THE most controver- is that BattleForge, for all its savage splen- envisage disappointment with its deck-build-
sial aspect of the design. What’s creating the dor and addictiveness, doesn’t provide ing and co-op carnage. /// TIM STONE ///
most furor in forums is the availability of Bat- the player-versus-environment scope and
tleForge points. Many different currencies— color of a WoW or a Lord of the Rings On-
gold, honor tokens, battle tokens—slosh line. There isn’t that comforting sense of
HIGHS// Inspired build-your-own army system;
about inside the game (most for no apparent progress, either. You can spend 30 minutes creative unit designs; Magic: The Gathering-style
reason) but BF points are the only way to buy on a mission, get defeated, and emerge with card trading; awesome co-op rampages.
ZINE ++ MAY 2009
boosters and cards at auctions. Once you’ve IN absolutely nothing. LOWS// No in-game voice chat; too many point-
ZINE ++ MAY 2009
exhausted your initial fund (3,000BF) you THIS The game’s best defense against accusa- less in-game currencies; unbalanced multiplayer
battles; meaningless mess of a plot; booster
must cough up real cash to acquire more. For ISSUE tions of commercial cynicism is something packs cost real cash.
M E R . C O M + +one
+ dollar you can buy 100BF, so an eight- I hinted at earlier: extra cards are by no
card booster pack costs around $2.50. MAY means essential. The initial batch will take BOTTOM LINE// BattleForge adds the benefits
AYLIST Bargain? 0509I’m genuinely undecided. You 2009 you far, as long as you upgrade them (mean-
of collectable card games to a colorful and action-
packed fantasy RTS, but with those benefits come
could argue that buying a few booster packs ing plenty of multiplayer play). Rares and the downsides of lopsided battles and added cost.
AY 09 a month is no different from paying an ultra-rares will turn heads on the battlefield,
SUE NO.187
187 MAY 2009
VITALS : DEVELOPER: EA PHENOMIC PUBLISHER: EA REQUIREMENTS: 1.8GHZ CPU, 1GB RAM, 128MB GEFORCE 6 SERIES/RADEON 9500
MAY 2009 • NO. 187
>> 81%
VIDEOCARD, INTERNET CONNECTION RECOMMENDED: 2GHZ DUAL-CORE CPU, 2GB RAM, 512MB GEFORCE 8800GT/RADEON 4850 VIDEOCARD
7 MAY 2009 • NO. 187

MAX PLAYERS: 12 ESRB: T DRM: ONLINE ACTIVATION; 5 INSTALLS; NON-REVOCABLE
++ EXCELLENT ++


/// Chinese soldiers are easy kills. ///
/// Psst! Behind you!

Emote, damn it! ///
/// Get your own robot buddy! ///
FALLOUT 3:
OPERATION ANCHORAGE
: THE FIRST DOWNLOADABLE ADD-ON FALLS FLAT
W
hile Operation Anchorage creates You do keep your character’s stats, and
what it sets out to—a combat- can still use VATS on demand. As god of
focused experience set during the the small gun, the whole module was a
Fallout universe’s biggest cakewalk for my character; for
war—its ambitions are other builds, it can be trickier.
oddly opposed to every- On the plus You’re rarely alone, but
thing Fallout 3 does well. It’s friendly AI is not one of Fallout
like Call of Duty letting you side, you get 3’s strengths. The second mis-
into Hitler’s bunker, only to sion lets you summon troops
challenge you to a Fuhrer- goodies at at will to fight alongside you,
themed round of Peggle.
(Clearly, you’d only get
the end but they’re not particularly
useful unless you’re a special-
one ball. But I digress.) ist in unarmed combat, staring
Most of the action takes place inside a in confusion at that metal death tube in
military training simulator, which makes your sweaty fi sts. On the plus side, you /// Blue and gray is the new brown and gray. ///
little sense unless the U.S. military of 2077 get goodies at the end, including an ex-
wanted recruits to build tactics around the tremely nice sword and power armor.
easy availability of health and ammo re- Anchorage makes for a couple of mildly HIGHS// A couple of solid hours of gameplay;
PCG 0509
P C G 0509
charge points scattered throughout enemy diverting hours, and the combat focus and cool new gear at the end.
installations. The quest is a three-part cor- new setting are anything but more of the
LOWS// Fallout doesn’t do shooter gameplay
ridor shooter with a few hints of freedom, same. But the changes in gameplay are MAY 2009
very well; no choices or expanded story.
but not many. No moral decisions to make, mostly for the worse, and it’s not much con- +++ WWW.PCGAMER.COM
BOTTOM LINE// It’s an interesting diversion
no real characters, and annoyingly, no feel tent for $10 (or 800 Microsoft points—you
for what the titular battle was all about. have to deal with the Games for Windows ting and gameplay, but Operation Anchorage A THE PLAYLIS
and a break from Fallout’s post-apocalyptic set-
It’s a small-scale scrap, with precious little Live Marketplace to buy it). Here’s hoping doesn’t play to the game’s roleplaying strength.
background information or narrative. the next DLC is equally ambitious, but plays #187 VOLUME 16, NUMBER 05 MAY 2009 MAY 09
ISSUE
Because it’s just simulated, you can’t
take wasteland items into the battlefield.
closer to Fallout 3’s many strengths.
/// RICHARD COBBETT ///
>> 63% #187
++ AB OV E AV ERAGE ++
VITALS : DEVELOPER: BETHESDA PUBLISHER: BETHESDA REQUIREMENTS: FALLOUT 3 MAX PLAYERS: 1 ESRB: M MAY 2009 187
+++ WWW.PCGAMER.COM +++ ++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 63

+++ P C G 0 5 0 9 RE VIE W S +++
RIDDICK’S GOT A BRAND-NEW GUN

1 2 3

THIS
MAY 2009

ISSUE
MAY
A THE PLAYLIST 0509 2009 /// The Scar fires little bombs that you can
7 VOLUME 16, NUMBER 05 MAY 2009 ’splode with the right-click button. Handy for /// In some puzzles you need to use the Scar’s /// And when the death is dealt, the Scar’s
MAY 09
NO.187
7 VOLUME 16, NUMBER 05 MAY 2009 killing, particularly if you hold off and rig multiple bombs, like in this one where you use a detonation unlimited ammo lets you play with the bodies,
ISSUE
guards for a one-button kill. /// to move a block. /// launching them across the level for fun. ///
#187 MAY 2009
MAY 2009 • NO. 187
MAY 2009 187 MAY 2009 • NO. 187
but revert to the autonomous type when sticky explosives. The mini-bombs are a ment and remove much of what’s unique
THE CHRONICLES
the link is severed by an attack. The AI is very powerful concussive force, killing and fun. The boss fights, in particular, are
stupid, and guards can be lured away from single guards with one bang, and you can tedious, numbered attack scenarios.
their prescribed patrol patterns into the line up five at a time for boss fights and fun Their tedium highlights the largest flaw
shadows, where you’ll have a chance to times (see above). across both games: the checkpoint-save
OF RIDDICK:
swiftly dispatch them one at a time. system and lack of quick-save. On more
In both games, jailors’ efforts to contain AS YOU’RE GIVEN DIFFERENT than one occasion it saved when I had
Riddick eventually escalate to a tipping tools, the environments shift to accom- just a sliver of health, forcing continual
point where the action goes from being a modate. Later levels in Dark Athena are a restarts when facing a boss or a room full
stealth bludgeoner to something more like mixture of ingenious locations, like in the of enemies. In some ways it forced me to
ASSAULT ON DARK ATHENA a traditional shooter. Aside from the usual

shotguns and assault rifles you’re provided,
a tranquilizer gun renders guards helpless
ship’s gravity core where the reward for off-
ing the guards is to see them scooped away
by the core, and slightly dull ones on the
improvise, but dying over and over through
no fault of my own is an appalling decision
by Starbreeze.
: DEAR DIARY, TODAY I GUTTED 200 MEN...
as you finish them off, and can sever the surface of a planet. Whenever the game It’s certainly off-putting, but Riddick is
I
was stamping three guards to death when I realized that I was the monster in a good way), hideous death animations. remote-controlled drones’ connection. The places you in shooting galleries (you’ll find too distinctly adult, funny, and fun for that
Riddick. Is it any wonder that when the fourth guard blundered into that room, You’ll see screwdrivers slide easily into most entertaining weapon is Dark Athena’s many in the second half of Dark Athena), misstep to keep me away.
armpits, knives popping eyeballs, and, if Scar gun, which fires remotely detonated it does tend to take Riddick out of his ele- /// CRAIG PEARSON ///
he attempted to shoot me after seeing his colleagues on the ground in fetal you block a gun melee attack, Riddick will
positions with bits of their faces stuck to my boot heels?
GET RIDDICK TO RUMBLE

spin it under the attacker’s jaw and perform
a skillful lobotomy.
In The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on first being a remake of the original melee-
Dark Athena (henceforth known as Dark focused first-person shooter Escape from SHADOWS CONCEAL RIDDICK. It’s
Athena), you are the creature of the dark, Butcher Bay from 2004, and Dark Athena, particularly relevant in Dark Athena, where
LIGHTING SMITING The dark hides
sliding out from the shadows to snap, taking up the story after Riddick’s escape the entire ship is stitched together with a myriad of crimes, and any
pummel, maim, and otherwise reduce from the prison aboard a spaceship. It fluorescent lights and slanted shadows. fluorescent bulbs can be shattered.
the general population of mindless drone continues the good work of the original, Riddick’s enhanced eyes can see where his Smashing the overhead lights to
guards to crumpled heaps. In any other melding adult themes and dark characters enemies need flashlights, and sneaking up mask movements can become an
obsession.
game, you’d be hunting, well, you. Riddick’s with an interesting anti-hero. on them enables instant kills. There are a
story is split over two included games, the Prisoners and mercenaries respect few flavors of guards: meaty humans, self- TUNNEL RAT As is the way of
violence, and controlling Riddick there’s controlled drones that are unable to see these games, the vents enable
ample opportunity to practice the art. The in the dark, and remote-controlled drones travel around the Dark Athena,
stitching together locations and
mechanics haven’t evolved much since that can track you down with flashlights, providing cover from guards. If I
2004: Riddick can use his fists, shivs, bats, ever build a mercenary ship, the
and eventually guns to slaughter his foes. entire thing will be smooth,
The melee system enables four differ- brightly lit, and vent-free.
ent strikes with every weapon, using the
IN HIGHS// Excellent melee combat system; effec-
PCG 0509
P C G 0509
WASD keys to move before tapping the left tive stealth system; adult humor.
ZINE ++ MAY 2009
THIS mouse to execute and the right mouse to
LOWS// Dumb guard AI, some uninteresting set-
ISSUE block. It’s all in the timing: Controlling the tings, no quick-save.
MAY 2009
MER.COM +++ flow of the fight gives much more satisfy- +++ WWW.PCGAMER.COM
MAY ing and devastating results than spamming BOTTOM LINE// This chronicle of Riddick’s is a
AYLIST 0509 2009
/// This is what Vin Diesel does to people who
the mouse button. The latter will see a
brutally enjoyable stealth shooter that revisits and
builds on the success of the original Escape from GLAIVE GLEE Riddick makes use
of many deadly weapons, but I
CREATIVE KILLER Deaths this
guy could expect are: pummelled
A THE PLAYLIS
series of punches and slashes that can win Butcher Bay.
didn’t go to see Fast & Furious. /// stuck with this for most of the with fists, stamped on, stabbed in #187 VOLUME 16, NUMBER 05 MAY 2009
AY 09 a fight; the former rewards with awful (in
NO.187
SUE attacks. The timed kills sees you the eye, or having his attack ISSUE
187 MAY 2009
VITALS : DEVELOPER: STARBREEZE PUBLISHER: ATARI REQUIREMENTS: 2GHZ DUAL CORE CPU, GEFORCE 6800/RADEON 2600 XT >> 80% cross your hands and jam the two reversed. The first-person fighting #187
MAY 2009 • NO. 187
IN IN
points in at neck height, then really sets Riddick apart.
PCG 0509
VIDEOCARD, 1GB RAM (2GB VISTA), INTERNET CONNECTION RECOMMENDED: CORE 2 DUO 2.4GHZ, 512MB GEFORCE 8800GT/RADEON 4850
PCG 0509
P C G 0509
P C G 0509
++ EXCELLENT ++
7 MAY 2009 • NO. 187
VIDEOCARD, 2GB RAM MAX PLAYERS: 12 ESRB: M DRM: ONLINE ACTIVATION; 3 INSTALL LIMIT; NON-REVOCABLE
THIS
swiping away.
THIS MAY 2009 187
MAY 2009

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MAY 2009

MAY MAY
ISSUE
/// CONTENTS
NO.187
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NO.187
NEXT ›
/// Helicopter gunships are the paper to tanks’
rock and armored transports’ scissors. ///
+++ P C G 0 5 0 9 RE VIE W S +++
/// Upgrading your troops and players is probably the best way to play it
vehicles beefs up their stats, with a friend.
and can add cool new armor EndWar isn’t the most strategically deep
or doodads to the models. ///
or visually stunning of games—its tanks
and choppers pale in comparison to World
of telling you which enemy in Conflict—but it is the best implementa-
++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 IN is which unless you mouse tion of voice command in games in a long
over them, so you’re forced time, if not ever. Even though there’s a
THIS to rely on the poor camera long way to go before this mode of control
MAY 2009

ISSUE and mouse controls more replaces the mouse, it wins some serious
than would be ideal. A points by delivering a very unique and very
MAY
“sitrep” mode gives you a
zoomed-out tactical view of
playable gaming experience.
Finally, a warning: This is not a game you
7 VOLUME 16, NUMBER 05 MAY 2009 the map (as long as you have a command can play quietly with your headphones on.
MAY 09
NO.187
vehicle deployed), but it doesn’t have your If there’s anyone else within earshot while
ISSUE
#187 MAY 2009 EndWar is the best unit info displayed on screen. you’re playing, you’re going to sound com-
MAY 2009 • NO. 187
MAY 2009 187 MAY 2009 • NO. 187 implementation of Because of the inherently basic nature
of a strategy game with no base building,
pletely ridiculous. /// DAN STAPLETON ///
voice command in no player-controlled unit abilities, and

three essentially identical factions, mis-
games in a long
sions become repetitive sooner than other
GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 ++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 HIGHS// Voice command system actually works
games. There are no units available at the
time, if not ever end of a fight, or the entire campaign for
well; good pacing; wide variety of maps.
that matter, that weren’t available from the LOWS// Clumsy mouse and camera controls;
shallow strategy; repetitive gameplay.
start, so each battle plays out pretty much
options per turn—though the choices you the same except for the map. To EndWar’s BOTTOM LINE// EndWar successfully pulls
/// Just say “Deploy tanks” to have reinforcements flown off voice command in a real-time strategy game
in from off screen. Would you like fries with that? /// make do have a major impact on the way credit, the several dozen maps offer a good
better than we could have hoped, and this new
TOM CLANCY’S
the war plays out. From this screen you variety of settings. command experience carries the simple gameplay
can also spend credit earned in battle to In multiplayer, the need for speed and a lot further than it would have gone on its own.
ENDWAR
improve your veteran units, allowing you to precision will make you want to abandon
pump up and specialize with your favorites.
But EndWar turns a deaf ear to concerns
the voice controls in favor of the mouse,
but that’s experiencing EndWar at its most >> 77%
about the interface doing a lackluster job frustrating. Playing co-op against two AI ++ G O O D ++
LEND ME YOUR EARS

: CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?
I
’ve waited a long time for a game that actually lis-
tens when I shout at it. Well, specifically I wanted
one where yelling “Die you bastards!” would cause ORDER OFF THE MENU Holding
the enemy to explode, but this is the next best thing. the spacebar brings up this handy
menu, letting you see what your
voice command options are and LAND GRAB Using infantry
The voice-command system in Tom four…Khaaaaaaan!) until it learns your is helicopter gunships—under anti-aircraft what’s been understood. to capture uplinks will let
Clancy’s EndWar, which lets you use a voice a little, but once I got used to it—and fire they often literally fall out of the sky you call in reinforcements
microphone to coordinate near-future mili- it got used to me—it was surprisingly effec- faster than you can bark “Unit five, move quicker. On some maps,
simply controlling them will
tary hardware in a World War III real-time tive. My troops correctly interpreted orders to bravo!” win the game.
strategy, comes off as gimmicky at first. roughly 95 percent of the time—enough Fortunately, there’s no base-building to
You’ll have to speak in a William Shatner- that I barely ever felt the need to issue divert your attention from verbally abusing
like cadence (unit…one…attack…hostile… orders with the mouse. Being able to com- your troops, aside from upgrading captured
mand a battle by barking orders really does uplink centers to enable battlefield support
give you a new sense of authority. abilities like airstrikes and EMP attacks.
Of course, the mouse and keyboard has The goal of most maps is to either secure
GUESSING GAME
proven the best interface for real-time strat- the majority of these uplinks or completely
IN Up close, you can see
PCG 0509
P C G 0509
egies because of its speed and accuracy, destroy the enemy, and it’s difficult to do the number assigned
ZINE ++ MAY 2009
THIS and voice command sacrifices that advan- the latter without first accomplishing the ++ PC GAMER
to this hostile unit. MAGAZINE ++ MA
ISSUE tage for the sake of novelty. But EndWar former. There’s a resource economy only in Further away, it
MAY 2009
appears as a red
MER.COM +++ slows down the pacing enough to let you that the more uplinks you hold, the faster +++ WWW.PCGAMER.COM
square—not enough
MAY speak commands that would’ve taken one- you can call in reinforcements, so don’t
AYLIST/// 0509 2009
In SitRep view I can see everything and what
number they are—but which of my transports are
tenth the time to click, and units in combat expect a deep management game. Z MARKS THE SPOT
You can order your
A THE PLAYLIS
information to decide
how to attack it.
manage to stay alive long enough for you When you’re not in battles, the war units from map point
carrying soldiers? /// #187 VOLUME 16, NUMBER 05 MAY 2009
AY 09 to tell them what to do. The one exception campaign is managed from a global screen,
NO.187
to map point. It’s #187 VOLUME 16, NUMBER 05 MAY 2009 MAY 09
SUE ISSUE
which looks like it’s going to give you full imprecise, but it
187 MAY 2009
VITALS : DEVELOPER: UBISOFT PUBLISHER: UBISOFT REQUIREMENTS: 1.8GHZ CORE 2 DUO, 1GB RAM (2GB VISTA), 256MB GEFORCE 7600/ works well enough. #187
control over where to fight next but then
MAY 2009 • NO. 187
IN IN
PCG 0509
RADEON X1600 VIDEOCARD, RECOMMENDED: 2.4GHZ CORE 2 DUO, 2GB RAM, 512MB GEFORCE 8800GT/RADEON 4850, HEADSET WITH MIC
PCG 0509
P C G 0509
P C G 0509

7 MAY 2009 • NO. 187
MAX PLAYERS: 4 ESRB: T disappointingly limits you to a couple of
THIS
THIS MAY 2009 187
MAY 2009

ISSUE
MAY 2009

MAY MAY
MAY 09
ISSUE NO.187
ISSUE
NO.187
NEXT ›
/// When the law
+++ P C G 0 5 0 9 RE VIE W S +++
gets in your
way, grab it by
the ear and give
it a drubbing. ///

THIS
MAY 2009

ISSUE
MAY
MAY 09
NO.187 /// Next on Fox: Ballroom Dancing Gone Wrong. ///
ISSUE
#187 MAY 2009
MAY 2009 187

MAY 2009 • NO. 187
MAY 2009 • NO. 187 YOU WILL
COOPERATE
I
WATCHMEN:
n a decidedly retro move with no justifica-
tion that makes any sense at all to me,
Watchmen offers co-op play that’s offline,
split-screen only. And since the game is
pretty awful with mouse-and-keyboard,
you basically need two gamepads along
with two gamers willing to crowd around
THE END IS NIGH

one monitor for a console-style game. The
execution is decent enough, but it’s just not
a reality for most of us.
: THE END COMES QUICKLY, TOO
I
like punching things as much as the next guy. It’s the perfect solution to just corner to see if there’s a power-up nestled
about any conundrum. Angry? Punch something. Happy? Punch something. behind that dumpster.
Hungry? Punch something. Need to make a download-only tie-in to a block- Best to think of Watchmen as great
fan-service and leave it at that. Finally,
buster movie adaptation of what’s universally hailed as one of the greatest
you get to punch things as Rorschach and
graphic novels of the 20th century? Punch something! Nite Owl—reason enough for some of you
So it goes with Watchmen: The End Is Nigh, in a maze of back alleys. You get the idea… to shell out less than $20 for this quickie.
a prequel story focusing on the ferociously Good thing all that punching is as solid For the rest of you, perhaps punching
feral Rorschach and his tech-savvy partner as can be. You’ll get nothing revolutionary baddies just isn’t enough. I humbly dis-
Nite Owl. The conceit here? This is set in here—this is old-fashioned combo-based agree, but I fully understand.
the early ’70s, about a dozen years before beatdowns, with light attacks, heavy at- /// GARY STEINMAN ///
the events of the classic comic, allowing tacks, and throws, along with a few specials
you to experience a caper alluded to in the moves for each character. But what a rush
original storyline playing as the crime- it can be when you plow through waves of
fighting duo in their prime. cops and mercenaries, pulling off a series HIGHS// Satisfying beat-em-up action; great
ZINE ++ MAY 2009
In other words, you get to kick (and IN of brutal finishing moves, leaving a trail of
job of capturing the essence of these iconic
characters.
ZINE ++ MAY 2009
punch) a whole lot of ass. THIS battered bodies in your wake! At least it all LOWS// Short, with limited replay value;
And that about sums up this entire ISSUE looks brilliant, with detailed environments, extremely straightforward; offline split-screen
co-op only.
M E R . C O M + +game—all
+ five hours of it. You start off incredible character models for our two
with a prison riot, requiring you to punch MAY heroes, and some stunning lighting effects. BOTTOM LINE// Finally, fans get to play as
AYLIST your0509
way through a horde of incarcerated 2009 Unfortunately, that’s all you get. The these two beloved comic heroes. But while the
game does them justice in terms of combat, it
hooligans. Next, you square off against the story never develops to its full poten- doesn’t do enough to raise itself beyond being
just a solid (albeit fun) brawler.
AY 09 Knot-Top gang at a broken-down amuse- tial, the levels provide no puzzles, and
SUE NO.
ment park.MAYAfter2009
that, you face down bikers
187 exploration is limited to peeking around a
187
MAY 2009 • NO. 187
VITALS : DEVELOPER: DEADLINE GAMES PUBLISHER: WARNER BROS. INTERACTIVE REQUIREMENTS: 1.8GHZ DUAL CORE CPU, 1GB RAM, >> 71%
7 MAY 2009 • NO. 187
256MB GEFORCE 6800/RADEON X800 VIDEOCARD RECOMMENDED: 2GB RAM, 512MB GEFORCE 8800GT/RADEON 4850, 2 GAMEPADS
MAX PLAYERS: 2 ESRB: M DRM: STEAM
++ GOOD ++


WAR MACHINES NEED LOVE TOO
+++ P C G 0 5 0 9 RE VIE W S +++
BOX CAR WILLIES Hiding

behind solid cover is the best
++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 IN way not to be machinegunned SO SMOKIN’ Chimneys
THIS to death. Use the terrain wisely.
TRACTION ENGINE
Tanks like this can be
like this one provide the
perfect perch for snipers.
MAY 2009

ISSUE used as mobile cover, Send them up trees, too,
allowing you to push for excellent cover fire.
MAY
forward under fire from
entrenched enemies.

MAY 09
NO.187
ISSUE /// The maps are sprawling,
#187 MAY 2009
with dozens of little dramas /// Vehicles and scenery alike
MAY 2009 • NO.playing
187 out by themselves. /// are excellently explodey. ///
MAY 2009 187 MAY 2009 • NO. 187
MEN OF WAR

a single mistake could potentially see your
tank destroyed and your heroic protagonist
sent to an early grave.
That said, this is also a game where indi- DECK OF CARDS Buildings
vidual units display astonishing autonomy. might look solid but they won’t
: ANOTHER VICTORY FOR SELF-EXPLANATORY GAME NAMES The little guys will take cover, shoot at stand up to sustained attack. A
S
nearby enemies, or even patch themselves couple of shells will dust this.
hould the bone balloon of your skull be good at retaining reams of TIN CANNED Tanks are far more
up if they have a medical kit. Yet all the exposed than you might think, and any
quasi-useless information, you might recall our love for the 2004 strategy, macro level stuff, such as designating a pri- soldier with an anti-tank grenade can
Soldiers: Heroes of World War II (September ’04 issue, 83%). mary target, heading off to new areas, or potentially disable or destroy them.
searching the inventories of dead soldiers
The Russian RTS was a minor revela- of a pair of Russian conscripts, then moves (and every soldier has an individual inven-
tion, eschewing the Command & Conquer on into German and Allied campaigns tory) still has to be done by hand. Your
model and instead heading for the hand- after a few hours. This is a colossal game, helpful omnipotence will decide the fate of
some realm of fiddly, scripted realism. in which each level can take up to an hour these brave few.
It proficiently balanced simulation and to get through. These missions can be re-
accessibility by delivering a beautifully played in co-op mode too, and are so dy- THE SECOND LEVEL demonstrates a moving shield from light arms fi re, and you attempt to heave your way out of an
detailed 3D world populated by heroic namic that they will never unfold in quite this mix of autonomy and careful man- a destroyed one can still make for a new impossible situation. These frustrations do
men. Men of War is its direct successor, and the same way twice. agement admirably, with the unit count A game that surprised beachhead as you assault an enemy posi- mount up over time, especially when later
achieves exactly the same things, only this The fi rst two levels serve as a useful mi- suddenly upped to dozens of soldiers, tion. Little ghost images show how your levels become too hard to beat sensibly,
time with more detail, greater visual flair, crocosm of the entire game. The fi rst sees deployed guns, and a handful of tanks. me again and again men can be deployed against a trench, even on easy settings.
and an even keener sense of the history of you controlling just a handful of soldiers, You can interfere and tweak the actions of wall, fence, or haystack. And almost Nevertheless, this is a virtuoso display
World War II. patching up a tank, killing some German any unit on the field, but if you just leave everything is destructible, too. Heaps of of strategy game creation, and a splendid
The Men of War campaign begins with soldiers in a village with said tank, and them alone they’ll still engage the enemy, or holding a point behind cover until they sandbags will be sent flying by a shell hit, experience for gamers with a modicum
an epic, wide-roaming series of battles and then fighting for control of a hill. It’s a proc- and even perform heroic actions such as are utterly overwhelmed. As you watch while even sturdy factory buildings will be of patience. It’s a game that surprised me
skirmishes punctuated by the adventures ess of critical micro-management, where lobbing anti-tank grenades onto vehicles these micro-level dramas play out all by ripped apart by an extended tank battle, again and again, over many hours of hun-
themselves, you start to realize how apt revealing the guts of machinery inside. gry play. Sure, it’s somewhat frustrating,
the title of the game is: These little dudes but don’t let that dissuade you from plung-
ULTIMATELY, MEN OF WAR provides
LIFE AND DEATH ON THE RUSSIAN FRONT
on the field are fighting and dying for your ing your spare time into a game that pays
objective, and will act even if you do not. a superb battlefield on which you can prove off in special brain gold.
: WHERE OTHER RTS GAMES FEAR TO TREAD There’s a weird flicker of poignancy to the yourself, with overwhelming odds provid- /// JIM ROSSIGNOL ///
discovery that every soldier on your side ing the backdrop for astonishing victories.
1 IN 2 3 4 has his own name. It’s often too hard, and a little too obscure,
PCG 0509
P C G 0509
Before we move on, I have to come back and will be off-putting for people expecting
ZINE ++ MAY 2009
THIS again to the idea of detail. This is a game professional voice-acting and Americanized HIGHS//Extreme detail; total terrain++ destructa-
bility, dynamic missions; co-op play.
PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MA
ISSUE that thrives because of the detail the de- accessibility. Not everyone will appreciate
LOWS// Frequently frustrating; poor
+ + pathfi
MAY 2009
+ W W nding;
MER.COM +++ velopment team has imbued it with. Partly Men of War’s fearless approach. The game inconsistent level design quality.
W.PCGAMER.COM
MAY this is in the environment design, the AI, is riddled with tricky foibles, such as poor
AYLIST 0509 2009 and the comprehensive animations, but pathfinding, or situations from which it’s BOTTOM LINE// An aptly named game, Men A THE PLAYLIS
of War will surprise strategy aficionados with its
it’s also in the dynamic nature of the game impossible to recover. Not all of the level detail and depth.
AY 09 entities. Everything solid can serve as design is especially good, either, which can
SUE /// Snipers are 187
NO.a useful addition to /// Tanks are lethal, but a single /// The trenches cut across many /// This gun emplacement is defend-
ISSUE
187 MAY
any fight. You can2009
get them to climb infantryman with a sticky grenade maps can be crucial, especially if ing a port. During the Sevastopol cover for your men—a tank might provide lead to multiple reloads of checkpoints as
>> 85% #187
trees
MAY for extra
2009 range.
• NO. 187/// can disable or destroy them. /// you’ve got a few heavy guns. /// evacuation it is turned inland. ///
IN
++ PC : IN
PCG 0509
PCG 0509
P C G 0509
P C G 0509
++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 VITALS DEVELOPER:

GAMER BEST WAY
MAGAZINE PUBLISHER:
++ MAY 2009 ASPYR/1C REQUIREMENTS: PIII 1.8GHZ, 512MB RAM, 128MB GEFORCE 3/RADEON 9600
7 MAY 2009 • NO. 187

VIDEOCARD RECOMMENDED: DUAL-CORE CPU, 2GB RAM, 256MB 8800GT/RADEON 4850 VIDEOCARD MAX PLAYERS: 4 ESRB: M
THIS
THIS
++ EXC E L L E N T ++
MAY 2009 187
MAY 2009

ISSUE
MAY 2009

MAY MAY
MAY 09
ISSUE NO.187
ISSUE
NO.187
NEXT ›
/// Gas masks: the savior of animators
and caricaturists everywhere. ///
+++ P C G 0 5 0 9 RE VIE W S +++

THIS
MAY 2009

ISSUE
MAY
MAY 09
NO.187
ISSUE
#187 MAY 2009
MAY 2009 • NO. 187
MAY 2009 187 MAY 2009 • NO. 187
NECROVISION
: ICH BIN EIN CRAPBURGER
I
t’s the fi rst-person shooter with long hair and a leather jacket. It has tattoos
and piercings. It plays power-chord electric guitar through a distorted ampli-
fier. It smokes those Death cigarettes that were briefly available in the ’90s.
It is a European metal band. Like most hard-riffi ng solo-mongers, Necrovision
is ludicrously unfashionable. But it just doesn’t care.
The reference points are Doom, Seri- Necrovision is a time-warp, a mummified
ous Sam, and Painkiller, rather than more design accidentally unearthed and allowed
contemporary shooters. This wouldn’t be a to walk upon the Earth. Confusing level
bad thing at all, and if Necrovision had man- design, ubiquitously muddy visuals, and
aged to mainline the pace and energy of excruciating cutscenes do nothing to aid
those foundational shoot- the mistaken muddle that is
ers, it might well have ex- the story. Dual-wielded ga-
celled on the skull-draped
stage of shooterdom.
Dual-wielded tling guns do not redeem it.
There’s no reason why
But all of its talk of gatling guns do games had to take the path /// Dudes appear, dudes get shot. And so on. ///
undead and a parallel WWI they did, except that some
battlefield where demons not redeem it evolutionary trends tend to
came out of the ground is win out—the ones that make
a messy footnote to the gaming more fun. Necrovi-
ZINE ++ MAY 2009
game. Not even a real footnote, but one IN sion doesn’t offer a vision of an alterna-
HIGHS// Lots of zombies to kill; some old-school
FPS appeal; dual-wielded gatling guns.
ZINE ++ MAY 2009
scribbled in the margin by a stoned student. THIS tive path, much as I wish it did. There is LOWS// Confusing level design; muddy visuals;
He assumed that a constant barrage of zom-
M E R . C O M + +bies,
ISSUE no “retro-FPS” clarity here, in the way mess of a story.
+ one-liners (“Respect...my skillz!”) and there is with Quake Live. No, this is a be-
murderous Germanic archetypes was all MAY wildering appeal to the old gods, the ones
BOTTOM LINE// Necrovision attempts to tap
into the simple joy of blasting German zombies,
AYLIST 0509
a game required to be entertaining. But he 2009 who were smelly and talked in sentences but fails to infuse its action with the fundamental
energy and pacing that makes games like Serious
was wrong. His tastes had been irredeem- you assumed to be riddles, but were actu- Sam a blast.
AY 09 ably warped by years of dyeing his hair ally just poorly translated.
SUE NO. Lobo comics. 187
187 black and MAY
reading2009
MAY 2009 • NO. 187
/// JIM ROSSIGNOL ///
>> 35%
7
VITALS : DEVELOPER: THE FARM 51 PUBLISHER: ASPYR/1C REQUIREMENTS: P4 2.4GHZ, 1GB RAM (1.5GB VISTA), 256MB GEFORCE 6600/
MAY 2009 • NO. 187 ++ DON’ T B OT HER ++
RADEON X1600 VIDEOCARD RECOMMENDED: 1.8GHZ CORE 2 DUO, 2GB RAM, 512MB GEFORCE 8800GT/RADEON 4850 MAX PLAYERS: 16
ESRB: M


PARABOLIC PARABELLUM A
visual distortion marks the bullet’s
+++ P C G 0 5 0 9 RE VIE W S +++
CAN’T HIDE Low-level thugs go path to its target. Later in the

down with a single slug, but bent game you unlock a multi-bullet
bullets can force bigger bad guys shot that explodes on impact.
out of cover for an easy kill.

THIS
MAY 2009

ISSUE
MAY
MAY 09
ISSUE NO. 187
#187
POP SHOT About a third of MAY 2009
MAY 2009 • NO. 187
the chapters are spent
MAY 2009 187
playing Wesley’s dad,MAY
who 2009 • NO. 187
wields dual pistols and SMGs.
WANTED:
WEAPONS OF FATE
: BENDING SPOONS IS FOR CHUMPS
I
f Wesley Gibson had to pay a quarter to the swear jar for every F, B, A, or C-
bomb dropped, Wanted: Weapons of Fate would pay for itself in the first hour of
gameplay. The game immediately follows the events of last year’s equally
profane action film about Gibson joining a than a gamepad)—thank you, Grin, for
secret society of super-assassins that takes treating the PC version as more than an
their orders from a napkin-making machine. afterthought.
But the fact that the main character does Bending projectiles is greatly satisfying
more cursing than I did while playing is a for special kills, but you do the bulk of your /// James McAvoy’s stand-in does a pretty good
favorable sign for a game based on a film. slaughter during slow-mo leaps between job putting a voice in Wesley’s foul mouth. ///
cover during which you can pick off the un-
SURE, IT’S SHORT, straightforward, remarkable and repetitive enemies at will. ness, though, it its cost-to-length ratio; being
and derivative (direct hat-tipping to Max All four bosses can be beaten by applying single-player-only and around six hours
Payne for the slow-motion inspiration, this move, which represent a missed oppor- long, it’s hard to imagine us bending open
please), but these traits are a good fit. tunity to break up Wanted’s strictly linear our wallet to pay the full $49.99 for Wanted.
Wanted’s most vaunted feature is the super- gameplay with a different gimmick or two. /// EVAN LAHTI ///
natural ability to curve a bullet’s trajectory. Still, as a quickie shooter it gets the job
It’s a mechanic that adds something new done—the cover system is intuitive and
into a cover-based game; rack up “adrena- useful, ragdoll and blood effects give good
HIGHS// Easy-to-use cover system; pleasant
line” by popping enemies, then spend it visual feedback for successful shots, and
ZINE ++ MAY 2009
on arcing ammo and other slow-mo feats IN shiny character models look great. I do wish
popcorn action; perfect mouse and keyboard
controls; visually appealing.
ZINE ++ MAY 2009
to kill more efficiently. Wiring a bullet THIS the environments sported more destructible LOWS// Very brief and linear; repetitive enemies;
around barriers to wound enemies is as ISSUE scenery—the lack of touches like exploding underwhelming bosses; only four weapons.
M E R . C O M + +easy
+ as bending a line in Photoshop—tap fruit and prevalent concrete columns that BOTTOM LINE// A pretty but simple action
the spacebar to grab cover, hold shift and MAY chip away when you shoot ’em (they pretty game that makes the right decision to not
AYLIST 0509
left-click to lock a target, then drag your 2009 much only exist in boss battles) may be the attempt to be something more than it is and
concentrates on a well-executed bullet-curving
mouse to an angle that hooks the slug into only thing holding Wanted back from being gimmick. It just happens to be overpriced at $50.
AY 09 your foe. All of this controls smoothly and on par with simple-but-entertaining action
SUE NO. 187
187 logically with
MAYa mouse
2009 and keyboard (better
MAY 2009 • NO. 187
games like Stranglehold. Its greatest weak-
>> 68%
VITALS : DEVELOPER: GRIN PUBLISHER: WB INTERACTIVE REQUIREMENTS: DUAL-CORE CPU, 2 GB RAM, GEFORCE 8 SERIES/RADEON 3870
7 MAY 2009 • NO. 187

VIDEOCARD RECOMMENDED: CORE 2 DUO E6540, 2 GB RAM, GEFORCE 8800GT/RADEON 4850 MAX PLAYERS: 1 ESRB: M DRM: DISC CHECK
++ AB OV E AV ERAGE ++


+++ P C G 0 5 0 9 RE VIE W S +++
MECHANICAL MAN Certain types of

soldiers can set up temporary structures.
Here I’ve set up a mechanic’s tent. All MULTIPLAYER FLAVORS OF COLD WAR
my nearby tanks are healed by its magic
floating wrenches.
: ALONG WITH SINGLE-PLAYER CAMPAIGN MODE, THERE ARE OTHER WAYS TO WAGE WAR
1 2 3 4
THIS
MAY 2009

ISSUE
MAY
MAY 09 /// TEAM MATCH Destroy the /// DOMINATION Fight for control of /// MP MISSION It’s co-op, but not /// HEAT MODE A special
NO.187
ISSUE opposing team, with no reinforce- 14 maps, capture Points of Interest on the standard campaign. Achieve Domination mode: You have a spe-
#187 MAY 2009 TANK RUSH My tanks, traveling in a
pack and firing at will at anything that
ments and everyone starting with to increase your prestige until all new and specific objectives with cific number of Prestige Points to
MAY 2009 • NO. 187 the same units. Seven maps. /// are yours. /// friends in special missions. /// gather within a time limit. ///
moves. I could camouflage, I guess, or
MAY 2009 187 MAY 2009
FLAGPOLE This is• aNO. 187
Point of Interest,
and in this instance it both heals my
flank, but there’s no need. They go
bang, enemy go boom.
troops and plays home to a Prestige
GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 Flag. This
++ PC means
GAMER that it earns
MAGAZINE me
++ MAY 2009
fighting through the streets of Berlin with flamethrowers or anti-aircraft guns. aid tents, but most fights are still won simply
GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 points
++ PCI GAMER
can spend on reinforcements.
MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009
only a small group of soldiers. Where fighting Other than making sure one of your tanks by having your tanks swarm everything as
with tanks requires little more than left-click is a healer, the only time you might want to a pack. It’s a highly polished, occasionally
select and right-click attack, infantry combat issue anything more than the simplest of satisfying, wholly unremarkable game set not
proves one of the few moments requiring ac- commands to your vehicles is when navigat- in WWII, but in an imagined reality where it
tual tactics. Your tiny fighty men benefit from ing around cover. Your metallic brood will had a sequel. Not World War III, but WWII 2.
greater micromanagement. happily go wherever you point /// GRAHAM SMITH ///
You can tell them where to them, to the detriment of any-
MEDIC! One of my squads has a
medic as its leader, enabling them to
duck and cover, rather than It’s not new or thing in their way. This is helpful
hoping they’ll do it them- and entertaining when you send
provide healing to nearby troops.
Like the magic wrenches, but magic
selves. You can position interesting, them barrelling off through
CODENAME:
plus signs for human beings. squads inside buildings, pro-
viding protection for snipers and it grows some trees, and considerably
less so when they drive directly
and allowing for ambushes.
You can direct them to lob
repetitive through the only cover your
soldiers had to hide behind.
PANZERS – COLD WAR

grenades of smoke, fire, or The detail is plentiful: loca-
explosion. It’s worth the effort to keep your tion damage on vehicles, guard towers to be
men alive, as they’ll gain experience that they manned, defensive mines to be placed, and
can then carry over to the next mission. barriers to be built. But it’s not new or inter- /// Another war in Eastern Europe, you say? Less
than a decade after the last one, you say? Yawn. ///
Vehicles, meanwhile, require only the esting, and it grows repetitive. Harder dif-
: TURNING UP THE HEAT…A LITTLE BIT activation of special abilities. Most crucially, ficulty levels require you pay more attention
W
hile in reality the Cold War was won by diplomacy and economics, lack of variety fast spreads from the setting APCs can be equipped to repair nearby ve- to your troops’ ammo levels and utilize your
Codename: Panzers – Cold War has decided that’s a bit dull. Real wars are to the action. hicles, but others can swap machineguns for squads’ ability to set up mechanic and first-
fought with bullets and dying. Thus, history must be re-written. Optional objectives refer to other Points
of Interest placed on the map. The base you
Basically, this is the Codename series rec- lain from Raiders of the Lost Ark, and that inevitably have to attack or defend is one
ognizing that while we love bloodshed and they’re after nukes for the motherland. PoI, others will be repair depots that fix up /// Tanks: bullies on the
period dress, we’re bored with World War II. Oh, that wacky Stalin. nearby units and helicopter pads that deliver playground of war. ///
The clock has been wound forward to reinforcements. Certain PoIs will generate
1949: Russia has tired of sharing control SO BEGINS AMERICA’S BATTLE Prestige points (the game’s only resource)
of Berlin with the West and decided some to push the invading Russkies back out of over time that can be spent on new units /// The cranky old man down the block can’t tell you
fightin’ is in order. Europe, with the help of their ever-faithful either mid-battle or at the market screen be- to get off his lawn if you drive a tank through it. ///
The advantage of being close to WWII sidekick NATO. Each mission is broken down fore each mission.
in era, location, and units is a feeling of into objectives either mandatory, optional, The conditional objective is that your
IN
PCG 0509
P C G 0509
authenticity that fictional confl icts often or conditional. The mandatory ones mostly hero units survive. Heroes are stronger
ZINE ++ MAY 2009
lack. The disadvantage is that it also THIS involve defending a base, attacking a base, or than normal soldiers, but they’re still men HIGHS// Detailed environments; tactical
combat; satisfying explosions.
infantry
retains the musty dullness that’s come ISSUE both. Certain tasks are more specific—repair on a battlefield of metal death machines,
LOWS// Setting is too similar to WWII
+ + + to
W feel
MAY 2009
W W . any
M E R . C O M + +to
+ characterize the period. This is still a dam or defend a retreating convoy—but and vulnerable even when inside a vehicle. PCGAMER.COM
battles over Spandau prison, Berlin, and MAY the strategy required is almost always the Their death means insta-fail and a return to
different; repetitive gameplay; dull tank combat.
AYLIST 0509
other locales recognizable from a dozen 2009 same. Get a posse of tanks together, shoot at the last autosave, thus, for all their strength, BOTTOM LINE// Polished as it may be, Code-
name: Panzers – Cold War does nothing to inter-
A THE PLAYLIS
other games, fought mainly with units the enemy a lot, and overwhelm their forces you’re usually better off leaving them a safe est players who weren’t already into WWII RTSes.
AY 09 from the ’40s. with your greater strength and/or numbers. distance from any battle. Like at home. It’s a
SUE NO. 187 #187 VOLUME 16, NUMBER 05 MAY 2009 MAY 09
ISSUE
187
ity
The plotMAY
MAYfun.2009
does2009
Through
offer some alternate real-
• NO. cutscenes
187 we learn that
There’s an almost hack-and-slash style of
satisfaction to this—explosions feel good—
self-defeating game mechanic.
It’s only worth using hero units for urban
VITALS : DEVELOPER: STORMREGION/INNOGLOW PUBLISHER: ATARI REQUIREMENTS: 1.8GHZ DUAL-CORE CPU, 1GB RAM, GEFORCE 6800/RADEON
>> 73% #187
7 Stalin is in league
MAY 2009 with the toadish vil-
• NO. 187 but with so little tactical nuance required, the warfare. An early rescue mission has you X800 VIDEOCARD RECOMMENDED: 2.2GHZ CORE 2 DUO, 2GB RAM, GEFORCE 8800GT/RADEON 4850 VIDEOCARD MAX PLAYERS: 8 ESRB: T ++ G O O D ++
MAY 2009 187

/// It’s hours
before combat
+++ P C G 0 5 0 9 RE VIE W S +++
needs better
tactics than a
big dog-pile. ///

THIS
MAY 2009

ISSUE
MAY
MAY 09
NO.187
ISSUE
#187 MAY 2009
MAY 2009 • NO. 187
MAY 2009 187 MAY 2009 • NO. 187
THE DARK EYE:

DRAKENSANG
: STICK WITH IT, IT GETS BETTER
A
fter playing so many D&D variants, it’s easy to forget what a beast its game with which to slay evil.
systems really are. I just found myself typing something about what a Some of the problems remain, not least a
few badly phrased quests that either totally
complex, very, very German RPG Drakensang is, but really, it’s not.
fail to tell you where to go, or are way too
What it reminded me of most was my In the case of Drakensang, it’s not the big vague about it. That, and combat AI that
first time playing The Witcher. Both feature dramatic moments that make the difference forces you to constantly page through your
worlds that seem generic until you dive in so much as a lot of the smaller details com- whole party to get proper use of their spells
a bit deeper, both open with a couple of ing together. You finally start getting fights and special abilities. If there’s a crime on
chapters so boring that they could replace that demand more than just having every- the docket, however, it’s that even at its
diamond as the drilling industry’s tool of one storm in, swords clanking. The fiddly, best, Drakensang is amiable rather than
choice, and both improve right about the frustrating character development system legendary. If you can tolerate its quirks and
time you’re ready to uninstall. never stops being fiddly, but you start overly familiar world, you can defi nitely do
to realize the benefit of the extra worse in the current RPG void.
control—especially with a full party. /// RICHARD COBBET ///
With a full party, the initially horrific
camera and control system actually
makes sense. The list goes on. You
have to force yourself to get to this HIGHS// Fantasy world eventually comes into its
ZINE ++ MAY 2009 IN stage, and RPG designers need to
own; complex battles make use of complex D&D-
style mechanics.
ZINE ++ MAY 2009
THIS realize that “get into the town where LOWS// Dull first few hours; frustrating character
ISSUE the game starts” isn’t an acceptable development; poor combat AI.
MER.COM +++ opening objective, but at least your BOTTOM LINE// Drakensang never really
MAY patience is rewarded with something distinguishes itself, but if you’re willing to devote
AYLIST 0509 2009 more satisfying than just bigger the time to get past the dull start and into the
meat of the game, you’ll find a serviceable fantasy
numbers and heftier whacking-sticks RPG experience waiting.
/// Um...are
AY 09
SUE you ok? ///
NO. 187 VITALS : DEVELOPER: RADON LABS PUBLISHER: THQ
187 MAY 2009
MAY 2009 • NO. 187
REQUIREMENTS: P4 2.4GHZ, 1.5GB RAM, 256MB GEFORCE
6600/RADEON 1000 SERIES VIDEOCARD RECOMMENDED: >> 72%
CORE 2 DUO 2.6GHZ, 3GB RAM, 512MB GEFORCE 8800GT/
7 MAY 2009 • NO. 187 RADEON 4850 VIDEOCARD MAX PLAYERS: 1 ESRB: T
++ GOOD ++


+++ P C G 0 5 0 9 E X T E N D E D PL AY +++
HOW TO ... MAKE A 0 5 RAMP UP 0 6 INVERTED WORLD
GOOD CRAYON
Now that our vehicle has First we need an upside-
oomph, we don’t need a down ramp. You can use the
downhill ramp. Try replacing Move tool to rotate your
it with a gentle upward curve. current one 180°. In fact, you
You’ll probably find one Force can do the same with your
PHYSICS LEVEL
isn’t enough—feel free to at- car chassis, you’ll just need
tach more to the same pin. You to reposition the wheels.
might also find your crayon con- Now point your Force arrows
++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009IN vertible has terrible clearance—
draw bigger wheels. If it tips,
upward, and try it out. Whee!
This, you’ll notice, is pretty
: GRAVITY, ROCKETS, AND ALL THETHIS
try to move the pin close to the goddamn weird. That’s a
COLORS
MAY 2009
ISSUE center of the car. You may find
the ball falls out—draw a pincer-shaped cockpit to keep it in. If you did it
good thing. We could add
a fixture to stop the car falling off the edge of the ramp, but that’s a chal-
OF THE RAINBOW!
MAY right, you’ll probably end up with a weird space-age buggy that looks like it lenge best left to the player—building a good level means giving the player
ADIFFICULTY
could drive upside down. So let’s make it drive upside-down. a situation they can solve.

Skill: Very low
Time: UnderMAY an 09
hour
ISSUE NO.187 07 GET OUT AND ROLL 08 ROCKET FUEL
#187 MAY 2009
PROGRAMS MAY 2009 • NO. 187 Our map so far is pretty The coolest thing not cur-
MAYCrayon 187 MAY 2009 • NO. 187
2009 Physics Deluxe—unless you want entertaining, but there’s not
much more we can do with
rently in our level is a rocket,
so let’s put a rocket in our
to scrawl crayola all over your LCD it if the ball is trapped inside level. The trouble is, they’re
GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 ++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 a crazy inverted car the wildly unpredictable. So
RESOURCE HARVESTER
whole time. Let’s redesign let’s constrain ours a little.
our chassis yet again: make Put a pin in the middle of
 Player-made levels: pg.crayonphysics.com it a hook shape that’ll keep your level, draw a long, thin
 Clever solutions: www.kloonigames.com/blog the ball in while it’s upside hammer attached to it. Get
down, but leave a gap large a rocket from the Advanced
 How to draw a straight line: snipurl.com/axtee enough for it to fall out the menu and put it on the head
right hand side, as shown of the hammer. Two pins will
 Buy some damn crayons: snipurl.com/axt6m above. Now if the player manages to stop the car, he or she can get the fix it in place, so it can only
ball out and start industriously steering it toward the star with platforms move in a fixed arc. Make sure some of the rocket’s shape strays outside
and weights and string. the hammer head.
01 GETTING IN SHIP SHAPE 0 2 INTENTIONALLY BLANK

09 GO EASY 1 0 GET HARDER
Making levels in Crayon Let’s make a basic ramp and fix
Physics is a lot like play- it to the page—draw a closed
If your rocket arm is moving Whenever you’ve got more
ing the game itself: You shape (style points: rhombus!)
out of position when you hit than one pin in a shape, the
sketch out shapes and and drag two pins to it. Click
Play, draw a little platform game assumes you want them
edit with most of the the Play button, and watch the
below the booster and all to be invisible anchors to
same tools, then join ball roll down your incline. It’s
double-pin it to the paper to hold that shape in place. To
them with pivot points. easy to factor in the player’s
stop that happening. If your set it straight, bring up the
Use pins to tack items to creativity when making levels,
level is anything like mine, it’s Advanced menu and drag a
the paper—drag them in and end up with something that
difficult for the player to draw Pre-set Game Pin from there
from the icon at the bot- either solves itself or dictates a
something that will block the instead. It’s still tricky for the
tom. One pin through a single solution. We don’t want
car from falling off the top of player to stop the car in time,
single shape skewers it to to do that, but we do want to
the screen before that hap- but it’s now do-able once they
the page, and lets it swing make something a little less
pens. Let’s pin a small block realize what they have to do.
freely. Two pins will fix it in place, but don’t fret over the aesthetics: The open-ended than most of the original game’s levels, so the player can’t
near the edge of the platform In fact, right now, it’s way too
pins won’t be visible when a player is drawing all over your design. just use his fallback solution.
and give them a pre-existing pivot to attach a quick stopper shape to as easy to get the star once you’re out of the car. Let’s be a jerk and move it
soon as the level starts. Hey, wait, where did our pin go? to just above where the ball starts, but out of its path.
03 I HEARD YOU LIKE BALLS 0 4 FORCE POWER

11 THE STORY SO FAR 12 THE FINAL INSULT
So let’s put the ball in a car. Embedding the ball inside
To recap, the player now has With any luck, your level is now
Draw the wheels first, then other objects (like our
PHOTO BY ISTOCKPHOTO.COM/GARNHAMPHOTOGRAPHY
to quickly stop the car, get fun. It has enough constraints

make sure the chassis you car’s chassis) can be a little
the ball out of its cockpit, to make the default ball-and-
sketch out overlaps the glitchy. So let’s make the car
drop it onto the rocket arm, pulley solution impractical,
centers of the two circles a convertible—the model
and activate the rocket to but it’s not so restrictive that
(as above). Next, drag a we’ve drawn here should
fling the ball back across to there’s only one way to go
pin to the middle of each wedge the ball between
where he started and get about it. If you want to make it
tire: they’ll function as the windshield and the
the star. In our level, the car trickier, add another star in an
axles. Don’t worry about back seat. Still, technically
gets in the way of that, so annoying location. Bring up the
push-pinning the car body speaking all we’ve made so
once the ball’s out he has to menu and save it, then choose
to the page—if you impale far is a wagon—the car has
find a way to drag it off the Upload Level. This will share
overlapping shapes with no power of its own. Drag a
edge of the ramp after all. your level on the Crayon Physics
a pin, it cleverly only fixes “Force” to the chassis from
Having just one star in the Playground—the online equivalent of your mom putting your picture on
them to each other. Once you’ve pinned your wheels to your chassis, hit the Advanced menu at the bottom of the screen, use the Move tool to
bottom left could suggest that the player’s supposed to stop the car right the fridge, except the whole world can play and rate your creation on their
Play and check that it rolls smoothly down the ramp. point it forward, and a pin to fix it to our car. Wagon. Whatever.
there—feel free to drop in another star if it suits your design. way to a midnight snack.

DRIVE-BY
MAY 2009
A THE PLAYLIST 0509

IN
THIS
ISSUE
MAY
2009
MOVIES: GETTING THE MOST OUT OF THE GTA IV VIDEO EDITOR
T
MAY 09 he PC release of Grand Theft Auto IV We’re here to help you capture such emergent
NO.187
ISSUE
may have been strangely double- artistry to its best effect.
#187 MAY 2009
edged—it’s a brilliant game trapped
MAY 2009 • NO. 187
in a deeply, ruthlessly awful technical PANNING THE CAMERA
MAY 2009 187 MAY 2009 • NO. 187
experience—but there’s one aspect that’s pure There’s no preset option to track a mov-
joy: the video editor. ing target from a static camera position, but
GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 ++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 There are hours of extra pleasure here, and that doesn’t mean you can’t do it. First, set a
GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 ++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 a humungous addition to the standard game: marker (press “M”), choose Custom and then
fresh purpose to your aimless wandering/mur- Free settings and place the camera where you
dering/exploding. Your greatest moments of want it. Select Linear under the Movement
madness are perfect fodder for options. Next, run the video a few
films. You should be hitting F2 seconds (the action will move out
and saving the best bits habitu- of the frame) and pause—use the
ally by now. You should Spacebar to control this. Set a new
Though reasonably simple
to use, the video editor is sur-
be hitting F2 marker. Now, hold the right mouse
button and spin the camera until it’s
prisingly powerful. It’ll create habitually pointing just where you want. This
some amazingly sophisticated will give you the simplest pan.
effects if you’re willing to put by now
in a bit of time. Perhaps the FLYING THE CAMERA
most incredible thing, how- By selecting Blend rather than
ever, is how long it’s taken developers to catch Linear under the Movement options, you can
on: Reflections Interactive’s Driver (1999) had smoothly chain together as many panning
© istockphoto.com/ktsimage
a very similar editor and it, too, was brilliant. movements as you like. And don’t forget, each
In typically GTA style, then, this isn’t actu- time you set a marker, you can alter the cam-
ally innovating so much as “borrowing” in an era in any way you like—speed, field of view,
inspired way. height, angle and so on. As long as you’ve
If you thought GTA’s Euphoria animation selected Blend, the transition from the previous
system was impressive, the video editor is here settings will be smooth. You soon find you can
to show you just how much you’ve missed. In create quite complex effects this way, from a
just one terrible assault, we learned that cops Matrix-style 360° spin (set the time to its mini-
drop their guns if you run into them hard mum (5) and create six or seven equally spaced
enough, that guns can go off just from waypoints) to a Jaws-style “crash zoom.” The
hitting the ground, and that if a cop is latter is when you zoom in on a subject while
spinning through the air and his widening the FOV: the background appears
finger hits the road, his arm to shrink away in horror. It’s tricky to balance,
rebounds realistically. As but a lovely effect: use the Linear movement
a mix of frantic AI be- setting, keep the duration short, don’t move the
havior and helpless camera too far, and don’t use the extreme ends
ragdollery it’s of the FOV setting.
astonishing.
CUTTING OUT THE DULL BITS
This is another simple procedure that has no
simple command but, again, it’s easy to work
around. Say you have a clip with great stuff
at the beginning and end, but it’s dull in the
middle. How to edit it out? First, review the
good stuff and set a marker at the point you
‹ BACK /// CONTENTS /// NEXT › ‹ BACK /// CONTENTS /// NEXT ›
GRAND THEFT AUTEUR
PUBLISHING
FINDING AN AUDIENCE
Hint: it’s not Rockstar Social Club
W e found everything associated with publishing videos to the
Social Club to be excruciatingly horrible—consequently, we
recommend YouTube instead. It’s easy. Simply go to My
Documents/Rockstar Games/GTA IV/videos/rendered, and take
the relevant video (it’s the .wmv file of the three files with the
same name) straight from there. This is a good point to add your
++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 IN own music in Windows Movie Maker, too (see Adding Music).
THIS
MAY 2009

ISSUE
pace, but beware. Overuse of huge sweeping your last marker, and adjust the camera from
MAY
shots that could only have been generated memory each time, or simply use the skid/
Awant
THE PLAYLIST
the clip 0509
to stop. Make sure this marker
is highlighted, then drag the gray tab from
with a helicopter (or worse, CGI) can spoil
2009
things, emphasizing the artificial nature of
blood marks as references. They stay on the
road after your first watch-through, even
the right-handMAY end09of the timeline along your video and backgrounding the (mania- though—now you’ve rewound—the event
to it. You’ve now cut everything fromNO.

ISSUE
the 187
cal) humanity that makes it interesting. hasn’t happened yet. Don’t worry, they’ll
#187
marker onward. So what about the great
MAY 2009
disappear when you reload/render it as a
MAY 2009 • NO. 187
action at the end? Simply drag MAYthe same • NO. 187 FIELD OF VIEW (FOV) finished video.
MAY 2009 2009
clip into the main Editor timeline (hit Esc to 187
This setting is easy to overlook, but incred-
reach this) again (don’t copy and paste the ibly useful. At its most basic, it allows you to ADDING MUSIC
version
GAMER MAGAZINE you’ve
++ MAY 2009 already worked on, asMAGAZINE
++ PC GAMER this get
++ MAY around one common problem—keeping
2009 It’s incredible what a difference music can
retains
GAMER MAGAZINE your
++ MAY edits). Repeat++the
2009 same process
PC GAMER your
MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009target in range. Increasing the FOV lets make to your videos. Just try swapping
as above, only this time setting the marker you move the camera closer to the target that angry rap for, say, Jean Michel Jarre
just before the great stuff at the without losing everything and see for yourself (it’s almost certain to
end and dragging the gray tab else from the frame. Mostly, be funny). Inappropriate music often works
up to it from the left. Now you
have two separate clips of the
FOV is a
however, it’s a brilliant tool
for tuning your shots. Physi-
better than obvious stuff. But whatever you
use, timing is the main thing. Songs can be
good bits, and the middle bit’s brilliant tool
cally distant shots with an nudged along on the main Editor page, so
gone. Note that it’s possible almost telephoto zoom have a to line up the start just highlight the relevant
to set the gray tab anywhere, for tuning
particularly personal look, for marker, remember the time, press Esc to
but if a marker’s highlighted it
won’t travel past it. This handily
your shots
instance, and emphasize de-
tails. At the opposite end, very
reach the front page, and nudge the song to
that exact time.
allows you to set the marker wide angle shots are great for Timing a beat within the song to some-
precisely on your chosen cut. capturing the multitudinous thing (impact, gunshot) is harder, but two
heights of the city without having to point audio settings can help. First, the Global set-
REALISM VERSUS DRAMA the camera straight up. ting on the Editor’s options menu, where you
It’s good to have a variety of different shots can alter overall levels for music, SFX and
(static, moving, zooming, overhead and POSITIONING CAMERAS speech. Secondly, each marker has the same
so on) but if you go too mad it just gets You can get some really nice effects by audio options for more specific control (turn-
nauseating. And it’s worth bearing in mind having a crashing vehicle/dying person ing off speech for slo-mo bits, for instance).
there are two basic types of shot: those from sliding toward the camera and coming to a If you want to stop and start music on a
the characters’ point of view, and those from halt right in front of it, rather than slavishly particular cue, markers are the easiest way.
a godlike point of view. Using the former following the action. Perhaps they end with
(over-the-shoulder views, close-ups of faces, their eyes looking right into it, or the badge MAKING TRANSITIONS WORK
or anything up to around six feet high) helps of the car filling the frame. But to do that The video editor is pretty easy to use, but
anchor proceedings in a believable, personal you need to know where the object ends up, sometimes a bit vague about what it’s doing.
world. The latter can add real drama and right? Either you can repeatedly watch from Transitions—the switch between one clip
and the next as you stitch your masterpiece
together—are potentially confusing. Why?
Because even though you’ve added a new
/// Night filming turns out really dark.
Try Star Junction if you must. ///
clip to the timeline, there’s no way of playing
the movie right through. All you can do is
play each individual clip in isolation. So are
they really stuck together OK? Quick answer:
yes. The video editor just can’t show you
them in sequence. The only way to see it
all run together is to render it as a finished
video (the Web, 720, or 1080 options) and
watch it in the Gallery. The default join is a
simple cut, so don’t forget to drag and drop
alternatives (fade in, fade out, and so on)
from the Transitions menu to the timeline.

/// Are we evil? Or are

they just really clumsy? ///
/// It’s always worth

cycling targets to see
what they’re doing. ///

THIS
MAY 2009

ISSUE
MAY
MAY 09
NO.187
ISSUE
#187 MAY 2009
MAY 2009 • NO. 187
MAY 2009 187 MAY 2009 • NO. 187
/// A wide FOV enhanc-
es large scales—as do
low cameras. ///
FIXES
TROUBLE SHOOTING?
Then here’s our troubleshooting guide!
ARGH! THE CAMERA KEEPS
CHANGING BACK!
Unfortunately, custom cameras don’t like being too far
from Niko, and will automatically revert to a standard,
“safe” view. You’ve probably realized this and added
another shot to fix it. But is it still flicking back to that
“safe” view? The problem is, the video editor has created
its own marker, and it’s still there. You need to find and
delete it, but fix the problem first or the marker just
regenerates. The easiest way to locate stray markers is
with the previous/next marker buttons—if you click on
them directly, you risk dragging them out of position.
Also, markers can easily get hidden under others. It’s easy
to delete the wrong one.
HOW DO I SAVE IT?

Frequently. Badoom-tsh! But seriously, make a habit of
clicking the little tick—you don’t want to lose all your
markers in the (cough) unlikely event of GTA IV crashing. I CAN’T FIND
Also, once you’ve gone back to the main timelines screen, INDEPENDENCE FM
hit F6 to save the whole thing. Giving your video a name Tragically, your own music is not available in the
helps when you want to track it down later. The final way is video editor for deeply dreary reasons of
to render the video (the Web, 720, or 1080 options), copyright protection and fun-not-having. On the
though it’s a lengthy process and only worth doing when other hand, there’s an easy way around it. Find your
you’re completely happy with your edit. finished, music-less video (documents/Rockstar games/
GTA IV/videos/rendered) and copy the .avi file to
I’VE LOST MY CLIP! somewhere convenient. Then open it with Windows Movie I CAN’T SAVE IN SINGLE PLAYER!
Looking for videos you’ve half made can be a chilling Maker and use that to add your chosen mp3. Done. Ludicrous. If you’ve been duped into opting for an online
experience—all your edits will appear to be lost if you’re Games for Windows account, you need to be online and
silly enough to be looking in the largely redundant Clips MY FINGERS ARE CHEAP SAUSAGES. signed in to Games for Windows Live in order to save your
section. But don’t panic. Make sure you search under the HOW DO I MAKE FINE ADJUSTMENTS? offline, single-player game. This makes going back into the
Editor tab, and don’t be put off by the thumbnail pictures The arrow keys are your friends, so don’t hesitate to rely game for more footage even harder work. Happily, there’s
not matching your memory—they get increasingly on them. Left and right set your movie playing in slow-mo, an amazingly simple way round it. Open GfW from within
misleading as you cut things up. So long as you’ve saved but for finer control use up and down. These move the the game (press Home), opt to sign in with another
your work at least once, it’ll be there. To avoid the horror, video one frame at a time, letting you select exactly the account, and create an offline account. It only requires a
name your video at once and set a new thumbnail. Hit U point a gun fires, an accident starts or an old lady arcs into character name—what, no password, security question and
while watching the video in the Editor tab. That moment the filthy waters of the harbor. card details? Gawd bless you Mr. Microsoft!—and you can
will become the new thumb. now save your game locally.
I CAN’T EDIT THE CLIP!
© istockphoto.com/jrroman
HOW DO I GO BACK TO MY You’ve made the classic mistake of watching a video under THE ENTIRE GAME DOESN’T WORK!
EARLIER CAMERA POSITION? the Clips tab, instead of the Editor one. We’ve all been Update your graphics card drivers, Social Club, and Games
Want to cut away, then go back to the same angle, but there. It’s a little unwieldy—hit Escape, enter the Editor for Windows Live stuff just as hard as you can. Light a
can’t match it up? Simply set two markers without section and launch the clip there. Can’t find it? Note that candle. Next, kill three crows, nail them eyeless to ebony
changing anything, then alter the first to be the cut away you can scroll down for more clips in many of the Editor’s posts in a frosty field under a waxing moon and pray.
shot. The second retains the original settings. screens, it’s just not always obvious. PRAY HARD.

NO.187 ISSUE
MAY 09 VOLUME 16, NUMBER 05 MAY 2009
2009 A THE PLAYLIST 0509
+++ P C G 0 5 0 9 H A RD S T UFF +++

HARD STUFF
MAY
ISSUE MAY 2009
THIS ++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009
WITH LOGAN DECKER IN 92

94
GEFORCE FAMILY VALUES

: TWO NEW CARDS MAKE THE GTX 200 SERIES PROUD
N ASUS GEFORCE
vidia’s reign of terror on gaming benchmarks initiated by the GeForce
GTX 280 continues with two new cards unleashed on the PC gamo-
sphere. But is the performance worth spending what little cash Bernie
GTX 285
$399, USA.ASUS.COM
Madoff left us with? Logan Decker investigates.
B
asically, it’s the single-GPU, 1GB
GEFORCE GTX 295 10-only benchmark Vantage (also from Fu- version of the GTX 295, and for
$499, WWW.NVIDIA.COM tureMark), and the GTX 295 now breezes $100 less than that card, you get
through even the most hectic and complex performance that’s reasonably close to its
W
hen ATI’s dual-GPU Radeon HD scenes of nuclear devastation in World in more expensive sibling and on par with
4870 X2 went stomping all over Conflict—at 2560x1600.
the benchmark records previously But this isn’t as surprising as it used to
set by the GeForce GTX 280, you just be, and truth be told, you’re not getting
knew Nvidia wasn’t going to stay humbled any more excitement out of Half-Life 2:
for long. So it slightly shrank the GPU from Episode One, for instance, at 280 frames
the GTX 280 and glued two of the new per second than you were at 128 frames
chips together inside the GeForce GTX per second with a GeForce GTX 260,
which you can bag for nearly half the price
of a GTX 295. And the slow trickle of
CUDA-based applications that utilize your
GPU for processing is surprising, consider-
ing the amazing speed of the Badaboom
Media Converter, among other things the far more expensive dual-GPU Radeon
(sure, some folks have criticized the result- 4870 X2!
ing image quality, but hell if I can see any But the arguments against the GTX 295
artifacts on my iPhone). That’s too bad, apply here as well: You’ll probably do just
because a slew of cool CUDA-based apps fine with a GeForce 260 for yet another
would make the price tag of the GTX 295 $140 less, especially if you’re playing at
sting a lot less. 1920x1200 or below. Asus does sweeten
So, even if you own a 30-inch display the pot a bit in its package with a nice
295. It sounds scary at first, as you might (lucky dawg), it’s tough to get excited suite of utilities that include the ability to
expect it to take four six-pin power cables about dropping $500 on a GTX 295 when overclock the videocard even while you’re
and require a license to operate, but Nvidia even a GTX 260 or Radeon HD 4870 will playing a game—helpful for quickly zero-
tweaked the power draw to the extent that, pull you through just about anything at ing into a comfy spot between perfor-
like the GTX 280, the GTX 295 gets by max res except Crysis at its most extreme mance and stability while playing instead
with a single six-pin and a single eight-pin settings. The GTX 295 is powerful, but of repetitively relaunching just to perform
cable. The card contains—brace yourself— with so many brawny cards on the shelves stress-tests. Oh, and you get a cool leather
a decadent 1.79GB of GDDR3 texture already and the economic climate what it mouse pad, which shows that your mouse
memory (that figure is still outdone by the is, power isn’t as much an issue as value. has a taste for the finer things in life.
awesome 2GB on the Radeon HD 4870 X2,
VERDICT: 84% VERDICT: 85%
however), and operates at a standard clock
PCG 0509
P C G 0509
of 576MHz. ++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MA
It’s been true of videocards since the BENCHMARKS 1600x1200/2560x1200 MAY 2009
late 1700s, and it’s still true today: Two 3DMark06/ Half-Life 2: World in + +Company
+ W W W . of
PCGAMER.COM
Crysis
GPUs won’t give you double the perfor- Vantage Episode One Conflict Heroes: OF
mance over a single one whether you’re

talking about SLI or a dual-GPU graphics
GeForce GTX 295
Asus GeForce GTX 285

19608/18261
17504/15036
62/28 fps
44/22 fps
320/280 fps
241/202 fps
75/58 fps
57/38 fps
A THE PLAYLIS
60/60 fps
60/51 fps
accelerator. But the performance increase Radeon HD 4870 X2 18949/11995 47/32 fps 237/194 fps
63/49
#187 fps 16, NUMBER 05
VOLUME 58/57 fps
MAY 2009 MAY 09
is nonetheless substantial in both gam- ISSUE
ing benchmarks and “synthetic” ones like
GeForce GTX 280 16650/10639 34/15 fps 219/122 fps 52/33 fps 58/42 fps
#187
3DMark06 and especially the DirectX IN
GeForce GTX 260 15697/9854 28/12 fps 240/128 fps 43/25 fps 55/32 fps
PCG 0509

THIS MAY 2009 187
All benchmarks run at 1600x1200 and 2560x1600 under Windows Vista except where noted, with 4x full-screen anti-aliasing and 16x anisotropic filtering turned
on. All games run with graphics settings at “high,” except where noted. Vantage run at Performance preset. Half-Life 2: Episode One run with HDR at Full.
MAY 2009

MAY
A THE PLAYLIST 0509
2009
‹ BACK
7 VOLUME 16, NUMBER 05 MAY 2009 MAY 09
ISSUE NO.187
/// CONTENTS /// NEXT ›
+++ P C G 0 5 0 9 H A RD S T UFF +++
VIGOR GAMING FORCE

RECON T7N : JUICED UP, LOUD AND PROUD
W
ith one athlete after another being stripped of his or her medals or
++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 IN humiliated before a grand jury, a friend of mine asked, “What’s the
THIS point? Why not just let athletes take whatever they want and see what
MAY 2009

ISSUE
happens?” Well, we nerds already know what will happen, and it’s awesome.
Overclocking has been commonplace for ages among gaming rig vendors, and
MAY
A THE PLAYLIST 0509 as a result, the top-performing PCs are almost always overclocked—and conse-
2009
quently they come with a unique roster of quirks and drawbacks.
MAY 09
NO.187
ISSUE Which brings me, not coincidentally, to
#187 MAY 2009 the Force Recon T7N from Vigor Gaming.
MAY 2009 • NO. 187 It acknowledges that the economy is feel-
MAY 2009 187 MAY 2009 • NO. 187
ing a lot like Wile E. Coyote these days by
taking the relatively affordable low-end /// The
Core i7-920 from Intel and throttling it up
++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 clear side
from 2.66GHz to 3.6GHz. Vigor keeps the
panel is
proc in good company with twin GeForce nice, but
/// Stand tall eliminates
GTX 295s, 6GB of RAM, an 1100W PSU,
and loud. /// acoustic
and a 150GB WD VelociRaptor drive for paneling as
the OS and another terabyte of storage for a sound-
everything else. And all this TLC shows proofing
SYSTEM SPECS up in the terrific benchmarks, which option. ///
Motherboard: ASUS P6T X58 seem even more impressive considering
CPU: Intel Core i7-920 3.6GHz (overclocked) the breathtakingly modest $2,499 sticker
/// The
Memory: 6GB DDR3-1600 price (that’s with two GTX 295s). luminous
Video: GeForce GTX 295 1.79GB (x2) centerpiece
Storage: WD 150GB 10,000RPM, WD 1TB BUT YOU NEED STRONG cooling for of the T7N’s
7,200RPM HD this degree of an overclock, provided in cooling
Optical: LG GGC Blu-ray burner scheme. ///
the Force Recon T7N with Vigor’s own
Case: Antec P1200
hefty Monsoon III LT air cooler, as
PSU: Topower Powerbird 1100W
well as the Antec P1200 case’s
OS: Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit
numerous fans and gigantic
VITALS : URL: WWW.VIGORGAMING.COM
MSRP: $2,499 CATEGORY: DREAM 200mm intake fan on top.
As a result, the T7N’s noise
level is about on par with an
air conditioner, and though
the fans can be manually
HIGHS// Twin GeForce GTX 295s make this ag-
gressively priced system even more valuable as a dialed down somewhat, it’s
future-proofed rig. still loud, and even at full bore
LOWS// It’s loud, and it’s not going to get much I had a (single) crash during a
quieter without watercooling. Minor instability, no stress test. And was it an oversight
Blu-ray playback software.
or overzealous cost-cutting that led to a
BOTTOM LINE// If you don’t mind the noise and system with a Blu-ray drive but no Blu-ray
want a system with peak-level performance and
built-in longevity, the Force Recon T7N brings it disc playback software?
all home for less than $2,500. Sweet. Vigor backs up its steeply overclocked
rig with a three-year warranty, and you
ZINE ++ MAY 2009IN >> 84% could easily spend double this price on
a system that wouldn’t be any faster—
++ E X C E L LEN T ++
THIS
ZINE ++ MAY 2009 though, hopefully, it would be quieter. ? /// A massive top-
ISSUE
BENCHMARKS
MER.COM +++
mounted 200mm helps
force air through the
MAY 3DMark06/ Crysis Half-Life 2: World in Company of system. ///

AYLIST 0509 2009 Vigor Gaming T7N ($2,499)
Vantage
21296/32818 72 fps/30 fps

Episode One
307 fps/282 fps

Conflict
85 fps/69 fpss
Heroes
59 fps/59 fps
Digital Storm ($3,025) 21195/21404 59 fps/14 fps 315 fps/191 fps 82 fps/54 fps 59 fps/58 fps
AY 09
SUE NO.187
Acer Aspire Predator ($2,199) 13455/5775 15.5 fps /1.5 fps 127 fps / 23 fps /10 fps 40 fps /21 fps
187 MAY 2009
All game benchmarks run with 4x full-screen anti-aliasing and 16x anisotropic filtering turned on, and graphics settings at “high.” Half-Life 2: Episode One
MAY 2009 • NO. 187
PCG 0509
P C G 0509
run with HDR at Full. Vantage run at “Performance” settings. System prices reflect price at time of initial review. Mänti is a language created by autistic ++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009
7 MAY
savant 2009
Daniel Tammet.• NO. 187
MAY 2009
A THE PLAYLIST 0509

MAY 09
ISSUE N
+++ P C G 0 5 0 9 H A RD S T UFF +++
Q&A: SPEAKER TRIAGE

MICROSOFT
SIDEWINDER Q:
Both of my speakers have
been crackling lately when
I’m playing games, usually when
lem persists, plug in a different set of
speakers—even a pair of cheapies—or
a headset. If you still hear the crackling,
X8 MOUSE
then the problem is with your soundcard.
there are loud sounds, which is
In that case, you’ll need to try an alter-
almost always. They don’t crackle nate set of connectors, if your sound-
: THEY BLUE IT!
THIS
if I move them, though, so I don’t card has them (if, for instance, it has a
D
MAY 2009
on’t be put off ISSUE
think it’s the cables. Are the front-mounted connector bay), or simply
speakers ruined? Shouldn’t you replace the soundcard (ouch).
by what’s easily
MAY If you don’t hear the crackling with
THE PLAYLIST A 0509
the most, well,
off-putting list of mouse
be able to play sound with the
2009
volume knob on the speakers another set of speakers or headset, then
the problem is indeed with your speak-
VOLUME 16, NUMBER 05 MAY 2009 specs in history. 13,330 turned all the way up without
MAY 09 ers. Speakers do age and develop these
75 187
ISSUE image processing! NO.
frames per second having to worry about blowing problems, and it’s unlikely that it would
Gs maximum #187 MAY
acceleration! 120 inches per 2009 them out? —Mike R.
MAY 2009 • NO. 187 be worth the trouble or expense to have
second maximum speed! All you really
187 MAY 2009 • NO. 187 them fixed. It’s better to take bad news
A:
MAY 2009
need to know is that Microsoft man-
It’s possible to blow your speakers and turn it into good by using it as an
ages to outdo its award-winning (ours) out even if the volume knob on excuse to upgrade to better speakers, or
original SideWinder Mouse (94%, De- the speakers themselves is turned down,
GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 ++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 a cool new 5.1 setup. ?
cember 2007) with the SideWinder
X8, because that doesn’t necessarily limit
in which the company trots out its new the strength of the signal you’re sending
BlueTrack technology inside a wireless to them. But I don’t think you blew your
chassis that’s almost identical to the speakers out. If you did, they’d probably
original SideWinder. But the X8 does, just be making muffled, grunty noises (if
in fact, track smoother at resolutions up they made any sound at all).
to 4000dpi (switchable on the fly), and Here’s what I recommend in order to
now operates wirelessly at 2.4GHz. isolate the problem. First, check your
Don’t panic—there’s no perceptible cables carefully for kinks, twists, or signs
lag (not to humans, at least) and the of wear, and try unplugging them and
coolest feature is the recharging cable then plugging them back in. If the prob- /// Crackling is for cereal. ///
that snakes off of the USB-connected
HARD STUFF TRINITY

F DREAM SYSTEM F MID-RANGE F ENTRY-LEVEL
CASE AND PSU CASE AND PSU CASE AND PSU
COOLER MASTER ANTEC P180; GENERIC CASE;
COSMOS; 1000W PSU $367 850W PSU $223 450W PSU $135
PROCESSOR PROCESSOR PROCESSOR
INTEL CORE i7-965 INTEL CORE 2 DUO AMD ATHLON X2
/// Magnets: not just for 3.2GHZ $1,015 E8500 3.16GHZ $185 6000+ 3.1GHZ $75
refrigerators any more. ///
MOTHERBOARD MOTHERBOARD
MOTHERBOARD
INTEL DX58SO $261 ASUS P5N-E SLI $155
ASUS M2N-MX $56
transceiver; it attaches magnetically MEMORY MEMORY
and effortlessly to the front of the CORSAIR 3GB CORSAIR 2GB
MEMORY
mouse and juices up the removable DDR3-1333 $121 DDR2-800 $50 CORSAIR 2GB
DDR2-800 $50
internal battery even while the mouse OPTICAL DRIVE OPTICAL DRIVE
is in use, so you never have to suffer LG GGC-H20L BLU-RAY/ LITE-ON LH-20A1H $34 OPTICAL DRIVE
any downtime. There are also three HD DVD/DVD MULTI $109 LITE-ON LH-20A1H $34
ZINE ++ MAY 2009types of mouse feet included, as well IN HARD DRIVE
HARD DRIVE
WD 500GB HARD DRIVE
ZINE ++ MAY 2009as a macro recording button. And for a
hundred bucks, there had better be. ?
THIS WD 150GB RAPTOR, WD
500GB WD5000AAKS $233
WD5000AAKS $60 WD 250GB WD2500JS
7,200RPM $54
MER.COM +++
ISSUE SOUNDCARD
SOUNDCARD
CREATIVE LABS X-FI SOUNDCARD
$98
MAY
VITALS : URL: WWW.MICROSOFT.COM/HARDWARE
CREATIVE LABS X-FI
XTREME GAMER $98
XTREME GAMER
ONBOARD $0
AYLIST 0509 MSRP: $99.95 CATEGORY: DREAM
2009 VIDEOCARDS
VIDEOCARD
VIDEOCARD
GEFORCE GTX 280 $346
GEFORCE GTX 295 $516 GEFORCE 8600GT $53
AY 09
SUE NO.187 92%
187 MAY 2009 >>
MAY 2009 ++ ED ITORS’

• NO. 187 CHOICE ++
$2,720 $1,151 $457
PCG 0509
P C G 0509

7 MAY 2009 • NO. 187
MAY 2009
A THE PLAYLIST 0509

MAY 09
ISSUE N
BACKSPACE BY EVAN LAHTI
REINFORCEMENTS
HAVE ARRIVED THE WORLD’S BEST-SELLING PC GAMES MAGAZINE
N
EDITORIAL
o matter what Dan says, my squad of flying mechafemme super soldiers (Rocket EDITOR IN CHIEF Gary Steinman
EXECUTIVE EDITOR Logan Decker
Angels) will always beat a pack of armored war bears in a fight. Cybernetic implants REVIEWS EDITOR Dan Stapleton
or not—ursinekind
IN
cannot hover, and I don’t recall them sporting wing-mounted ASSOCIATE EDITOR Evan Lahti
PCG 0509
P C G 0509

INTERN Josh Augustine
photon swarm rockets, y’know? We keep coming back to Red Alert 3, and the game renews
THIS
a context for relevant playground rhetoric: Could, as Josh asserts, a platoon of sonic dol-
CONTRIBUTORS Richard Cobbett, Tom Francis, Craig Pearson,
Jim Rossignol, Graham Smith, Tim Stone
MAY 2009
ISSUE
phin commandos beat up Gary’s dad? What if Gary’s dad happened to be spinning the helm
PRODUCER Debra Guilfoyle
of a 4000-ton Shogun Battleship? These are the questions, my friends.

MAY ART
A
These very debates weigh collectively on our mind as RA3’s fi rst expansion, Uprising,
approaches. Let’s get a jump on any who’s-tougher-than-who talk, and compare two of our
LEAD DESIGNER Dan Fitzpatrick
CONTRIBUTING DESIGNER Shelley Szudera
PHOTOGRAPHERS Mark Madeo, Samantha Berg
favorite
#187 units
VOLUME 16, NUMBERfrom each game.
05 MAY 2009
MAY 09
NO.187
#187 VOLUME 16, NUMBER 05 MAY 2009 BUSINESS
ISSUE GENERAL MANAGER Kelly Corten
#187 MAY 2009 ASSOCIATE GENERAL MANAGER Kristen Salvatore
TANYA  DESOLATOR
MAY 2009 • NO. 187 EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR INTEGRATED SALES Nathan Hunt
187
REGIONAL SALES DIRECTOR (South West) Isaac Ugay
MAY 2009 MAY 2009 • NO. 187
TROOPER 949-218-0981, iugay@futureus.com
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++ PC DEX:
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++ MAY 2009
Soviet
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650-238-2548, arecio-ang@futureus.com
INT: 8 ■■■■■■■■ STR:++ MAY
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KEY FEATURES: Female; Time Belt A/S/L: 25/M/Quarantined Siberian Barracks PRODUCTION COORDINATOR Dan Mallory
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KEY FEATURES: In-armor mini-bar;
VS
fanboys. pilots immersed in soothing aloe vera.
CONSUMER MARKETING
PRIMARY WEAPON: Twin Desert PRIMARY WEAPON: 500 liters of weap- DIRECTOR CONSUMER MARKETING Rich McCarthy
Eagles. Also: tank tops. onized Mountain Dew. CIRCULATION MANAGER Stephanie Blake
NEWSSTAND DIRECTOR Bill Shewey
WHY WE BUILD HER: Finding a girl that WHY WE BUILD: These robosuited gas CONSUMER MARKETING OPERATIONS DIRECTOR Lisa Radler
considers C4 a hobby ain’t easy; reckless station attendants fill enemy vehicles with RENEWAL AND BILLING MANAGER Mike Hill
use of catchphrases. BUSINESS MANAGER Elliot Kiger
our favorite alternative fuel: nuclear jello. SR. ONLINE CONSUMER MARKETING MANAGER Jennifer Trinkner
WEAKNESSES: 80,000 volt Tesla towers. WEAKNESSES: Enemies out of hosing ASSOC. ONLINE CONSUMER MARKETING MANAGER Jong Lee
CUSTOMER SERVICE MANAGER Mike Frassica
HOBBIES: Long-distance swimming; pink range, blueberry muffin top cereal.
champagne enthusiast. Winner of Little WORST FORMER JOBS: Gardener, FUTURE US, INC.
Miss Commando pageant, 1989. slurpee machine operator. 4000 Shoreline Court, Suite 400, South San Francisco, CA 94080
www.futureus.com
QUOTES: “Shake it, baby!” QUOTE: “I still am has child, yes?” PRESIDENT Jonathan Simpson-Bint
VICE PRESIDENT/CFO John Sutton
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WINNER:TANYA VICE PRESIDENT/INTERNET DEVELOPMENT Tyson Daugherty
EDITORIAL DIRECTOR/GAMES Stephen Pierce
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EDITORIAL DIRECTOR/MUSIC Brad Tolinski
GENERAL COUNSEL Charlotte Falla
KIROV GIGA FORTRESS HUMAN RESOURCES DIRECTOR Nancy Durlester DuBois
AIRSHIP FACTION: Rising Future US, Inc. is part of Future plc.

FACTION: Soviet Sun (on lease from Future plc produces carefully targeted
the Decepticons) special-interest magazines for people who
STR: 8 ■■■■■■■■ share a passion. We aim to satisfy that passion
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countries across the world. The Future plc is a public company quoted on
KEY FEATURES: In-flight Cold War era
KEY FEATURES: Zordlike, transforms the London Stock Exchange (symbol: FUTR). This month’s most memorable
VS
movie (Solaris), loudspeakers broadcast gaming moment came in a multiplayer demo session with Valve for the Left
“Ride of the Valkyries” during slow into floating artillery platform, totally sick 4 Dead DLC, in which the PC Gamer crew repped hard. Playing Death Toll
approach,
ZINE ++ MAY 2009 IN
fully stocked kitchenette. Honda NSX spoiler.
PRIMARY WEAPON: Mouth-mounted
on versus mode for the first time, Dan and Evan (joined, admittedly, by two
capable Valve programmers, Kerry and John) rolled Valve veterans on each
PRIMARY WEAPON: Bombs,
ZINE ++ MAY 2009
jaws, inability to love.
THIS
robust
laser beam.
map, causing producer Chet Faliszek to team-bash one of his coworkers
with the line “Fred is a terminally ill cancer patient, and playing with us is
his Make A Wish wish,” in blame of the poor performance in the very game
ISSUE
WHY WE BUILD: Texting “oh the humanity”
MER.COM +++
WHY WE BUILD: Blood of our enemies may they helped design. Pro-tip: don’t get smoker’d into raging orange flames.
to enemies while enrubbling their construc- eventually transform it into the Tera Fortress.
MAY
tion yards with armored air balloons. WEAKNESSES: Teams of color-coordinated
FUTURE plc
30 Monmouth St., Bath, Avon, BA1 2BW, England
AYLIST 0509 2009units
WEAKNESSES: Darts, skyscrapers, teenagers that pilot giant robots.
www.thefuturenetwork.plc.uk / Tel +44 1225 442244
CHIEF EXECUTIVE: Stevie Spring
GROUP FINANCE DIRECTOR: John Bowman
that make fun of his high-pitched voice. Emo- RANDOM FACTS: Holds the high score in
AY 09
NO.187
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SUE SUBSCRIPTION QUERIES: Please visit www.pcgamer.com, email
187 QUOTE: “Is good
MAY year to bomb.”
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PC Gamer Customer Care, P.O. Box 5158, Harlan, IA 51593-0658.
MAY 2009 • NO. 187 ISSN-1080-4471
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Left 4 Dead New GeForce Cards Batman: Arkham Asylum

THREE NEW GAMES!

PC GAMER MAY 2009 NEXT ›

CLICKING A TITLE TAKES YOU DIRECTLY TO THE ARTICLE

Eyewitness Tom Clancy’s EndWar 29

Batman: Arkham Asylum 8 Necrovision 32

Team Fortress 2 – Scout update 9 Wanted: Weapons of Fate 33

America’s Army 3 9 Codename: Panzers – Cold War 34

Dragon Age: Origins 10 Drakensang 35

Braid 11 Hard Stuff

Release Meter 19 Backspace 43

+++ WWW.PCGAMER.COM +++

VOLUME 16, NUMBER 05 MAYfiery

my first Ed Note at PC and Previews sections Dan is cranking up the dif-

++ PC GAMER wholeMAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009

4 ++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 +++ WWW.PCGAMER.COM +++

A THE PLAYLIST 0509

The omission in March 2009’s Strategic Command article // PC Gamer

MAY turn-based, right insults are uncalled for. This last

GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009

SUE Maybe. NO.

PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 ++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009

+++ WWW.PCGAMER.COM +++

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7 VOLUME 16, NUMBER 05 MAY 2009

++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009

+++ WWW.PCGAMER.COM +++

A THE PLAYLIST 0509

alling Left 4 Dead’s competitive juices flowing!

new mode “Survival”

‹ BACK PC GAMER MAY 2009 /// CONTENTS /// WWW.GAMESRADAR.COM/PC NEXT ›

/// The church in Death

+++ WWW.PCGAMER.COM +++

/// Valve’s zombie factory has been working

‹ BACK /// CONTENTS /// NEXT ›

ILLUSTRATION BY DAVID LYTTLETON

7 MAY 2009 • NO.*A187

16 ++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 +++ WWW.PCGAMER.COM +++

‹ BACK /// CONTENTS /// NEXT ›

++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 IN

+++ WWW.PCGAMER.COM +++

GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 ++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009

‹ BACK PC GAMER MAY 2009 /// CONTENTS /// WWW.GAMESRADAR.COM/PC NEXT ›

SCOUTING THE flash

ith weeks of bat-swinging

+++ WWW.PCGAMER.COM +++

Medic IN Pyro ■ Medic also on the table; it would’ve let

more occupational specialties (combat medic +++ WWW.PCGAMER.COM

‹ BACK PC GAMER MAY 2009 /// CONTENTS /// WWW.GAMESRADAR.COM/PC NEXT ›

++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009

++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009

22 ++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 +++ WWW.PCGAMER.COM +++

‹ BACK /// CONTENTS /// NEXT ›

: IT’S ABOUT TIME

+++ WWW.PCGAMER.COM +++

GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 ++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009

GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 ++ PC GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009

Braid’s puzzles are

Intuition can help as much

/// Don’t let the lovely graphics—backgrounds shimmer and pulse as

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+++ WWW.PCGAMER.COM +++

GAMER MAGAZINE ++ MAY 2009 ++ PC GAMERand consequently