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97 Articles

Create Spotify playlists

STEP 1 SIGN UP FOR FREE OR PAY FOR PREMIUM You might not think it to gaze upon the good doctor’s distinguished visage today, but it was his DJing skills that paid for that expensive medical degree. Well, that and backstreet organ transplants. It’s with glee, then, that Dr PlayStation notes the arrival of Spotify on PS4 (and PS3, too – although our guide focuses on current-gen) and with it the chance to silence unwanted soundtracks and replace them with ‘Wuthering Heights’. Let’s begin: after downloading that tiny 9MB install file, you can either sign up for the free service (with ads) or stump up the £9.99 per month for Premium. If you subscribe to Music Unlimited, you’ll get two months of Premium for free. If you’re already signed up, you can…

Create Spotify playlists

Picture an entire movie made of single tracking shots. You’re imagining the legendary Copacabana scene from Goodfellas on a loop for two hours, right? Well somehow, Alejandro González Iñárritu – helm of 21 Grams and Babel – manages to make a film where every scene acts as its own little one-shot play. It’s an incredible technical feat. It’s also one big meta piss-take on faded fame, the snobbery of critiquing theatre and Bruce Wayne’s alter ego. That Birdman (a darkly comedic satirisation of New York theatre culture) managed to pip Boyhood at the Oscar-winning post should say it all. Is this year’s winner of Best Picture and Best Director at the 87th Academy Awards a more impressive feat than a film shot over 12 consecutive summers? Debatable. Still, there’s no denying…

LIFE IS STRANGE: EPISODE TWO – OUT OF TIME

INFO FORMAT PS4 ALSO ON PS3 ETA OUT NOW PUB SQUARE ENIX DEV DONTNOD They say the second album is usually a difficult one. The initial success of a bombastic debut tainted by the need to prove you’re more than a one hit wonder. If such a struggle was felt during the development of Life Is Strange’s sophomore entry then Parisian developer Dontnod has done an admirable job of playing it cool, providing a confident follow-up to an intriguing if hyperactive inaugural episode. Right from its opening moments, you get the sense the studio is finally getting comfortable in its own skin, those forced references to obvious surrealist inspirations toned down in favour of a story that’s beginning to build on its own lore. There’s a renewed confidence in the plot as it…

LIFE IS STRANGE: EPISODE TWO – OUT OF TIME

MENAGE-A-JEUX Personal picks

Team OPM DINO CRISIS 2 Lizard-loving Dave Meikleham remembers Capcom’s Cretaceous great It’s a little known Meiksy secret, but there’s a chance I may be obsessed with dinosaurs. As such, I’m most fond of this seldom-remembered PS1 sequel, which contains copious amounts of large, leathery lizards. Channelling Resident Evil 3 in its more action-oriented combat, Dino Crisis 2 sings thanks to a cracking, raptor-ruining combo system. It also pits a T-rex against a tank. Reader DESTINY Nathan Davidson becomes legend, week by grindy week in Bungie’s cross-genre blockbuster Not everyone was in love with the darkness below in 2014, but for me it was the knight in shining armour that brought the MMO and FPS genres together for the first time. People accuse it of being a grind, but the weekly challenges take the sting out of…

MENAGE-A-JEUX Personal picks

A BRIEF HISTORY OF WAR

From a stunning recreation of Allied troops storming the Normandy beach, to far-flung depictions of enhanced supersoldiers bouncing around San Francisco like exoskeleton-ed fleas, the Call Of Duty series takes us on a journey not just across the world, but across time, too. Here’s our rundown of every Call Of Duty game to poke its head about the PlayStation parapet... 2004 CALL OF DUTY: FINEST HOUR PS2 / SPARK UNLIMITED A rather tepid debut for COD on PlayStation. At this point in time, Infinity Ward and Call Of Duty were pushing the boundaries of technology on PC, and both Spark Unlimited and the rapidly-ageing PS2 tech struggled to keep pace with such lofty progress. 2005 CALL OF DUTY 2: BIG RED ONE PS2 / TREYARCH Treyarch’s indecently-named debut actually refers the 1st Infantry Division – the oldest continuously-serving…

A BRIEF HISTORY OF WAR

BLACK TO THE FUTURE

Sometimes you’ve got to just come out and say the unsayable: Black Ops is the secret best Call Of Duty series. It’s the series that gave Treyarch (previously considered a ‘B-team’ studio that dutifully filled in the gaps in Infinity Ward’s schedule) the chance to break out and make its own mark on the COD brand, and it didn’t just grasp the opportunity – it dual-wielded it. Indeed, you could easily make the argument that thanks to the success of the Black Ops series, Treyarch, more than any other of the studios in Activision’s stable, is the one that’s truly spearheading Call Of Duty’s future direction. Not sure you agree? Then consider all the various features, modes and innovations that that first took a bow in Treyarch’s previous Black Ops entries –…

BLACK TO THE FUTURE

III CARBINECRAFT

Multiplayer loadouts still use the ‘Pick 10‘ system first introduced in Black Ops II – you can sacrifice, say, a grenade or your secondary weapon for an extra perk or weapon attachment, and vice versa. But amid the tinkering chaos it’s easy to lose your favourite weapon set-up as attachments fly in and out of favour in the search for the perfect set-up. Step forward Gunsmith mode, which offers a chance to save a favourite weapon, along with your preferred optics and attachments, so you can instantly introduce it into an experimental loadout. Here in Gunsmith, you can also customise three separate sides of a gun with up to 64 layers of decals per side, meaning we should see some really intricate cannabis leaves in month one… Additionally, you can tweak…

III CARBINECRAFT

THE OPM BREAKDOWN

WHAT YOU DO IN… BROKEN AGE FRIENDS & ENEMIES It isWil Wheaton! Seek him out if you need wood or metal worked. Her hubby’s in a cult, but she’s unfazed. Handy cobbler, too. An enigma wrapped in a mystery, shrouded in a wolf suit. Or is he? He is. THE FIRST FIVE HOURS… 1 The Bossa Nostra’s so cosy! But after a lifetime aboard it, Shay’s understandably bored… 2 So when Marek appears and suggests all’s not well aboard the ship, he’s all ears. 3 With one half of Act One complete, it’s on to Vella’s sugary climes (if you chose to play as Shay first, anyway). 4 The peril arrives early – can this bird help you avoid getting chomped? 5 Stomach avoided, puzzle mode’s fully engaged. SECOND OPINION COMING OF AGE I played the…

THE OPM BREAKDOWN

A GALAXY FAR, FAR AWAY

After years of waiting, Star Wars Battlefront is back. The massmultiplayer wargame has PS4 in its sights, and OPM was invited behind the scenes at the Star Wars Celebration in April to see the new game from Battlefield dev DICE in action. The old Battlefronts were somewhat bloated affairs, slopping together four factions from two movie timeframes. DICE’s reboot clears the decks: the focus is firmly on the original three films – on Stormies and Rebels, blasters and thermal detonators, with nary a whiff of Jar Jar. It spans at least five planets, including Hoth, Tatooine and Endor, and brings to life some of the trilogy’s most cherished set-pieces – the Imperial assault on Echo Base, the Rebel attack on Endor… It’s full-blooded fan service, but there’s an element of universe expansion,…

A GALAXY FAR, FAR AWAY

THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING 11 MAY Sneer at the predictability of Redmayne’s Oscar for portraying Hawking all you like – this is a touching film. INTO THE WOODS 18 MAY A big screen musical take on Little Red Riding Hood starring James Corden. As if anything further need be uttered. A MOST VIOLENT YEAR 18 MAY ’s are enjoying a record high in New York as Oscar Isaac vies to protect his family business. Violently. IT’S GOOD TO BE KING (WWE) 18 MAY The Hall Of Famer wasn’t always a bad commentator. He used to be funny. And he was a damn good grappler, too. This is his story. BIG HERO 6 25 MAY prodigy, giant inflatable robot. Now, make us laugh. Disneyfied Marvel escapade from the team behind Wreck-It Ralph and that Frozen film. WILD 25 MAY There isn’t a single problem in the world that…

MR TROPHY Iain Wilson’s PSN ID is Wilbossman, and his trophy cabinet is bigger than yours. Platinum x 62 Gold x 340 Silver x 1,364 Bronze x 5,638 Much like Dark Souls before it, trophies in Bloodborne are few and far between, with the majority awarded for beating the various horrible bosses you encounter during your hunt, or for discovering new areas. Thankfully there’s no real grinding required this time around, either in single-player or PvP, so with some careful planning (and a little bit of save file manipulation) you can grab all you need on a single run and not end up trapped in New Game+++ territory. As well as discovering various gems and runes, there are some groups of items you’ll need to gather to earn awards. There are 26 weapons in total that…

WHATSETSTHE XPERIA™ Z3 FAMILY APARTFROMTHE REST?

RUN THROUGH WALLS Use Xperia› Z3 from Sony to play any PS4 game in another room with your DualShock 4. SILENCE CROWDS Built-in Digital Noise Cancelling technology blocks out nuisance sounds nearby. STAY AWAKE FOR DAYS Up to two-days battery life will keep you gaming and connected for longer. SHAPE TOMORROW Pair Xperia› Z3 and SmartWatch 3 from Sony to revolutionise your lifestyle. SEE IN THE DARK Take stunning lowlight photography and capture jaw-dropping 4K videos on Xperia› Z3. HEAR THINGS OTHERS CAN’T High-Res Audio gives you studio-quality sound for an immersive gaming session. SURVIVE UNDER WATER Waterproof design lets you take snaps in a downpour without a drop of fear.…

WHATSETSTHE XPERIA™ Z3 FAMILY APARTFROMTHE REST?

THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE TO CURRENT-GEN’S GREATEST GAMES PS4 HALL OF FAME

1 GRAND THEFT AUTO V The magic of our favourite PS3 game’s reappearance on current-gen hardware isn’t in the improved textures, shinier cars or even the brilliantly executed new first-person mode. It’s in the way each addition and improvement combines to enthral and seduce you all over again to sink another blissful 50 hours into Los Santos without it ever feeling like a re-run. Also: an unhealthy dose of first-person cat-stomping. 2 THE LAST OF US REMASTERED This modern masterpiece just gets stronger with age, like a full-bodied stilton. A starkly brutal, emotionally honest take on the end of the world, Naughty Dog’s stealth shooter is quite simply one of the best written, most wryly paced videogames ever. 3 DESTINY Blurring the lines between single-player shooting and co-op camaraderie, Bungie has created an epic MMO…

THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE TO CURRENT-GEN’S GREATEST GAMES PS4 HALL OF FAME

When Sony unveiled PS4 for the very first time back in February 2013, it wanted to fully showcase its goals for global console domination. And the best way to do that involved a New York media conference starring a carefully selected group of developers and games; not there to simply promise greatness, but actually show it. Guerrilla Games and Killzone Shadow Fall provided the visual haymaker, bombarding console gamers with graphics like they’d never seen before. Evolution Studios and Driveclub demoed social connectivity features that simply didn’t exist in the PS3 years. And with Jonathan Blow and The Witness, Sony played one of its biggest trump cards of all: a new partnership strategy that would resonate with the rapidly-expanding independent development scene. Almost all of those reveal event games have long since…

Fallout 4 rumours aside, what do we want from E3 next month?

BETHESDA’S DEBUT E3 CONFERENCE HAS ME DAEDRA DREAMING… There aren’t many places in Skyrim I haven’t been by now. At this point I’m basically pouring the dust at the bottom of its packet down my throat and licking my fingers clean, and that’s not bad for a game that came out in 2011. I might be just about done with TESV’s particular Nordic power fantasy, but I’ll never grow tired of glitching up mountains or electrocuting market sellers. I’ll always want more Elder Scrolls. I’ve been humming the precise cosmic frequency which indicates that sentiment each night, so I’m pretty sure Bethesda must have sprung into action by now. Roll on that E3 conference. • FORGET FALLOUT 4: I WANT TO BE BLINKED ALL THE WAY TO DUNWALL FOR DISHONORED 2. I know…

Fallout 4 rumours aside, what do we want from E3 next month?

SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST

Last month, over 100 gaming elite ascended London’s Millbank Tower to take part in the ultimate Xperia™ Z3 Bloodborne survival challenge in the hopes that they might be crowned Remote Play Champion. A gruelling two-round competition powered by Remote Play on the Xperia™ Z3 fromSony saw entrants tasked with slaying the Cleric Beast in the quickest time possible, with a limited set of Blood Vials at their disposal. The fastest four then went head-to-head in a three minute final round in front of a raucous crowd in a race to fill their pockets with the highest number of Blood Echoes from Yharnam’s streets. Where dozens fell by the wayside, master Bloodborne Hunter Fang Lim rose to the challenge to first fell the towering beast in a brief 2 minutes and 55…

SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST

BATMAN: ARKHAM KNIGHT

FORMAT PS4 / ETA 23 JUNE PUB WARNER BROS / DEV ROCKSTEADY Here’s a spot of advice: if you ever find yourself in need of swift rescue, best not phone the Bat. That guy takes aaaaages to do anything. Yes, in case you missed it last issue, Rocksteady has announced Arkham Knight has been delayed. Again. Thankfully, the latest setback only pushes the game’s release by three weeks, with Wayne’s ‘trilogy’-closer now set to hit PS4 on 23 June. While you tap your watch waiting for the tardy hero, you can at least take solace in some fresh Gotham heroics. Recent footage – captured in real-time on PS4 – chronicles the Dark Knight saving GCPD keester in a demo that moves with real purpose and grace. The ‘Officer Down’ footage sees the…

BATMAN: ARKHAM KNIGHT

ASSASSIN’S CREED CHRONICLES: CHINA

INFO FORMAT PS4 ETA OUT NOW PUB UBISOFT DEV CLIMAX STUDIOS/UBISOFT MONTREAL Oh Ezio, what have you become? While this could be a question validly posed to the entire franchise, it can actually be answered when it comes to 2.5D side-scroller Chronicles: China. Neatly tying into the AC Embers short film, Ezio is mentor to young concubine-turned-Assassin Shao Jun, but here he’s relegated to the mere role of trainer. No need to get your blades in a twist though, this slice of stabbing through the East is far more enjoyable than you think… Squashing the Creed into a two dimensional stealth-athon, complete with awareness cones, Ubi collaborator Climax Studios has deftly handled its source material. Free-running? Check. Sync points? Yup. Eagle Vision? On it. Blending? Eventually. It turns out flattening the franchise actually forces you to…

ASSASSIN’S CREED CHRONICLES: CHINA

DON’T MAKE ME PLAY! THE LAST OF US

INFO PUB SONY DEV NAUGHTY DOG RELEASED 2013 GET IT NOW PSN, £24.99 (PS3) WHAT? The undisputed heavyweight champion of cinematic action-adventure gaming, and the one title it seems empirically impossible to voice a dissenting opinion against. Not that it’ll stop career contrarian Phil from having a pop. WHO? Emotion? Phil Iwaniuk hates the word, as he hates Hell, all Fireflies and thee. He’s been promising his OPM comrades he’ll finish The Last Of Us next weekend every week since June of 2013. Well, I ought to be ashamed, really. But I think if you’d experienced The Last Of Us the way I had, you’d feel the same magnetic repulsion. It’s less of a game to me, and more an item on a neglected self-improvement list, between going to the gym more and learning to cook risotto properly. I had…

DON’T MAKE ME PLAY! THE LAST OF US

FORMAT PS4 / ETA 2015 / PUB DAYBREAK GAME COMPANY / DEV DAYBREAK GAME COMPANY They say a camel is a horse designed by committee. The inference there being that when you get a whole bunch of folk together, attempting to focus them on any one element of a task will likely lead to sub-par end results. That’s a load of old guff if PlanetSide 2 is to be believed, as during our hands-on we found ourselves teaming up with hundreds of players at a time to optimally achieve our base-capturing objectives. But, just like the humble camel may be handy in a desert and yet equally liable to spit in your face, PlanetSide 2, at this admittedly early stage of PS4 development, has a few less endearing qualities. The most immediately obvious…

GAME OF THRONES S1E3 – THE SWORD IN THE DARKNESS

INFO FORMAT PS4 ALSO ON PS3 ETA OUT NOW PUB TELLTALE GAMES DEV TELLTALE GAMES This may be Telltale’s weakest work since the developer became the darling of the games industry with the first season of The Walking Dead, although it’s testament to how solid the output has been during that time that it’s still a perfectly serviceable two-hour slice of prickly politicking. The issue is that this third episode feels formulaic to its detriment, and the cracks are beginning to show. Those memorable choices that you’ve made up to this point? Turns out they probably didn’t alter much at all. And the biggies this time around don’t feel so momentous due to a lack of emotional investment in those affected, with things beginning to suffer due to the multiple protagonist structure. Half of…

GAME OF THRONES S1E3 – THE SWORD IN THE DARKNESS

THIS MONTH’S DUTY-BOUND WARRIORS…

Phil Iwaniuk GAMES EDITOR Dr PlayStation hurt his fingers this issue after playing too much Guitar Hero Live on p6. He had to apply some rock bandages. GAME OF THE MONTH Bastion FAVOURITE CALL OF DUTY Black Ops II Dave Meikleham NEWS EDITOR The only man made of 100% pure rage became uncharacteristically excited this month after he moved house. He got a semi. GAME OF THE MONTH Bloodborne FAVOURITE CALL OF DUTY Call Of Duty/COD Classic Dom Reseigh-Lincoln PRODUCTION EDITOR Star Wars-mad Dom went AWOL after watching the PS4 Battlefront trailer. It’s okay, he’s dewback soon. GAME OF THE MONTH Life Is Strange FAVOURITE CALL OF DUTY Modern Warfare 2 David Houghton GUEST WRITER Once cosplayed wearing crotchless Johnny Cage clothes. The only man for the job when we wanted Mortal Kombat X rated. GAME OF THE MONTH Bloodborne FAVOURITE CALL OF DUTY COD 4: Modern Warfare…

THIS MONTH’S DUTY-BOUND WARRIORS…

Silent Hills update scares us silly

03 Oh dear. In the wake of the reported fallout between publisher Konami and Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima, it looks like upcoming horror reboot Silent Hills could now be in a spot of bother, too. Previously, the MGS game director was set to spearhead the exciting scare ‘em up revival, following on from his work on last year’s bloody terrifying PT demo on PS4. But now changes to the game’s official site could spell curtains for Kojima-san’s exciting involvement with the anticipated horror comeback-of-the-century. As we reported last month, Konami was quick to remove all Kojima Productions branding from MGS V: The Phantom Pain’s site after the initial reports of a dispute. That same logo-stripping has now continued with Silent Hills; its hub page now also free of Kojima’s famous…

Silent Hills update scares us silly

THE OPM BREAKDOWN

WHAT YOU DO IN… TITAN SOULS HOW TO… KILL THE YETI BOSS 1 Enter the Yeti’s icy cave and activate the boss battle by firing off your arrow. He’ll immediately start firing a flurry of snowballs at you. Quick, roll away! 2 The snowballs are followed by a fast, deadly roll of his own, which will flatten you instantly. Watch out for a mean cascade of ice that falls from the ceiling. 3 Dodge all these dangers and position yourself so when the Yeti rebounds from the wall after a roll, you have a clear shot at his exposed bum. Pull back your arrow, let loose and victory is yours. COMPEL-O-GRAPH IS IT BETTER THAN? NO Still the last word on indie adventuring and boss-battling, with a real layer of RPG scaling on top. YES They draw on…

THE OPM BREAKDOWN

THE TALOS PRINCIPLE

FORMAT PS4/PS3 / ETA TBA 2015 PUB DEVOLVER DIGITAL / DEV CROTEAM Not all that long ago, Croteam was synonymous with knowingly silly shooter Serious Sam and teasing game pirates with invincible pink scorpions. So this chin-stroking first-person puzzler was a surprise when it hit PC late last year, especially when it turned out to be bloody clever. And bringing the game to PS4? That’s even smarter. No mere Portal clone, you awaken in the gardens of self-proclaimed god Elohim, who sets before you a series of challenges and one commandment: do not ascend his tower. Over 100 increasingly taxing puzzle chambers await, and you’ll work your way up from manipulating humble boxes to time itself in order to plunder the colour-coded Tetris pieces within. If you’re obedient, you’ll use these to…

THE TALOS PRINCIPLE

RAID TO REST You put away Atheon. You capped Crota. Now, with Destiny’s House Of Wolves DLC (out 19 May), you’ll… uh, be a bit sad. Yes, Bungie has confirmed HOW won’t get a new Raid. Instead, you’re treated to a three player wave-style battle arena called The Prison Of Elders. A new Trials Of Osiris PvP mode also debuts. STAR IN THEIR EYES Square Enix just can’t get enough of these announcements. Hello Star Ocean 5: Integrity And Faithlessness (catchy). Coming to both PS3 and PS4, it’s the first entry in the franchise since The Last Hope, released in 2009. The game promises a new real-time battle system and branching story choices. HOUSER CARDS You’re a controversy-courting games developer, Harry. Yes, Daniel Radcliffe is in talks to play Rockstar co-founder Sam Houser in a…

FORMAT PS4 / ETA 2015 PUB HOUSEMARQUE DEV HOUSEMARQUE Diablo with laser guns – that’s the top line for Housemarque’s new project. Over a lengthy hands-on playtest, we find much to be encouraged by from this upcoming isometric blaster – including a successful translation of the studio’s bullet hell sensibilities to a squad shooter. Massive explosions, environmental damage and retina-shattering weapon projectiles are all very Res0gun (with a splash of Dead Nation). Likewise the fast pacing of combat and your constant scrabbling for power-ups to keep a score multiplier going. Level layouts easily confuse in the early build, though.…

Meet PS4’s busiest triple-A composer

08 He might not be a household name in the industry, but the games Jason Graves has composed for certainly are. So far this year he’s penned the soundtracks for both Evolve and The Order: 1886, tells us he’s, “working on my third indie game in six months,” and has a portfolio of over 30 game soundtracks to his name. “Action is the decisive momentum behind the story in games,” he tells us in our exclusive chat, breaking up his busy day. “Meaningful, story-relevant dialogue probably occupies 15% of an entire game. That translates to a music score that essentially takes the place of the dialogue. It’s featured. It’s driving the entire production by providing momentum and narrative.” Graves has worked on 2013’s Tomb Raider (performing all the percussion himself), the Dead…

Meet PS4’s busiest triple-A composer

instant opinion

HOLY TRINITY Not only is PSN classic Journey headed to PS4 (and at 60fps), but That Game Company is also releasing a boxed PS4 trilogy containing the desert adventure, Fl0w and Flower this summer. LORD ONLY KNOWS Rhianna Pratchett is writing PS4’s newly announced Overlord: Fellowship Of Evil. Exciting. We’ll have much more in our Rhianna interview in next month’s issue. I GOT YOU, ABE Enjoyed Oddworld: New ‘N’ Tasty? You’ll be thrilled to learn Abe’s Exoddus is now being remade ‘n’ all. BORNE TO ROCK Want to hate yourself? Google ‘Bloodborne guitar’ to watch a guy finish the game with an old Rock Band controller… in nine hours. God, we suck by comparison. STREET CRED Ultra Street Fighter IV hits PS4 on 27 May. Brilliant! But we haven’t even seen it yet, let alone previewed it. Boo! HOME AND…

instant opinion

MISSION IMPROBABLE

Like its predecessors, the new Battlefront is a multiplayer-led title, but it isn’t devoid of offline options. The only ones DICE is talking about right now are Missions: “crafted challenges” featuring bots that are based on the best bits from the movies, with loads of custom options. PSN averse players can still sample these co-operatively in horizontal split-screen mode, but you can also go it alone. Enemies aren’t designed to offer quite the same degree of challenge as online players – DICE general manager Patrick Bach compares them to extras from the films. Think of Missions, then, as quick-fix time-wasters for when you lack the stomach for an online brawl, but still have a taste for some action. It’s possible that some Missions will start you off as Heroes or Villains –…

MISSION IMPROBABLE

FORMAT PS4/PS VITA / ETA TBC / PUB DOUBLE ELEVEN DEV DOUBLE ELEVEN/ Q-GAMES Coming from the collective minds of Japanese studio Q-Games (which also brought you the PixelJunk series) and Double Eleven (LBP Vita), Nom Nom Galaxy is a colourful oddity that’s just as weird as the outings that made its developers famous. You play the poor soul tasked with building an intergalactic soup kitchen, with gameplay combining tower defence elements with resource management and sandbox exploration. There’s also a big focus on co-op play, with the aim to have PS4 and PS Vita players exploring on the same servers.…

“THE PEOPLE ON MY PSN LIST HAVE JOBS. SO I’M GOING TO BE PLAYING THE DIVISION WITH STRANGERS PLUCKED AT RANDOM FROM THE VOID.”

WRITER BIO Rich Wordsworth is a freelance writer who has a total of eight mates and two strangers on his PSN friends list. Oh and he doesn’t talk to any of them. He writes for OPM, Kotaku, IGN and Red Bull. He usually does this on his own, behind a locked door, in fits of tears. Brace yourself, now: I loved Far Cry 3’s Jason Brody. I don’t think anyone else did, but we were smitten. We went hang-gliding together, made ourselves a backpack out of shark, blew up a pig with a landmine – a solid, five-out-of-five on TripAdvisor. Never once in those halcyon days spent on the Rook Islands’ beaches or splashing coquettishly together in the shallows did Ubisoft suggest I was a loser for not wanting three of my…

“THE PEOPLE ON MY PSN LIST HAVE JOBS. SO I’M GOING TO BE PLAYING THE DIVISION WITH STRANGERS PLUCKED AT RANDOM FROM THE VOID.”

INFO FORMAT PS4 ALSO ON PS3 ETA OUT NOW PUB TERRIBLE POSTURE DEV TERRIBLE POSTURE Tower Of Guns does exactly what its title promises. It’s a hard-hitting, fast-faring FPS roguelike in which your aim is to ascend a multi-tiered tower laden with – curveball! – guns. Lots and lots of guns. And they’re all aimed squarely at you. In lieu of a comprehensive cycle of weaponry, you instead carry a single weapon at a time to aid your upward quest, which can be upgraded by collecting blue chips which burst from downed enemies. The twist: your shooter’s power drops in tandem with your health, meaning preserving HP is doubly important in both defence and attack. You start with a pithy ‘Peas-NCarrots’ pistol and the sawblade-shooting ‘Portable Pizza Oven’, but a host of others…

ARMED AND OPERATIONAL

Let’s get the bad news out of the way first – DICE’s Star Wars: Battlefront doesn’t offer space combat, mainly because this would apparently create too extreme a divide between the infantry gunplay and dogfights. It does feature pretty much every other form of vehicular carnage, however, including giddy X-wing vs TIE fighter engagements over Tatooine’s canyons, the (suicidal-sounding) opportunity to ride a speeder bike through Endor’s forests, snowspeeder escapades on the glacial plains of Hoth, and air-to-ground strikes aboard the Millennium Falcon. Cockpit and external views are in the works, so you’ll get full enjoyment of those lushly outfitted models. And what’s that in the sky over Jakku – a Star Destroyer? We’ll be very surprised if you get to pilot it, but if the trailer for The Force Awakens is…

ARMED AND OPERATIONAL

Keeping it Tamriel

1 One of your first jobs after awakening from a nasty case of memory loss is to rescue Michael Gambon’s Prophet from the Wailing Prison at Coldharbour. 2 A journey into another realm kicks off a flashback that reveals one of the game’s evil doers, Mannimarco. There’s a lot of talking to get through, though. 3 One of TESO’s early successes is just how bustling its towns currently feel. You constantly spot all manner of races darting about looking for quests. 4 Willing to break out your gold? Then you can splurge on a pet that follows you everywhere. These include dogs, majestic big cats and… er… horned demons.…

Keeping it Tamriel

INFO FORMAT PS4 (DOWNLOAD ONLY) ALSO ON PS VITA ETA OUT NOW PUB DEVOLVER DIGITAL DEV ACID NERVE Titan Souls! That sounds familiar, and very deliberately so. The title of this genre-eluding indie-something makes very deliberate reference to the games of Hidetaka Miyazaki – Demon’s Souls, Dark Souls and now Bloodborne – a reference which is both warranted and not. Unwarranted because Titan Souls isn’t an RPG. You won’t develop skills, up your stats, or slowly carve out a character build – instead you’ll stay the same huddle of appealing pixels, a dot-eyed hunter with a bow, a single arrow and a good line in dramatic diving-out-the-way. While you will explore a mysterious landscape, there are no NPCs to engage with, no regular supply of enemies to grind, no villages to discover. Instead, there are environmental puzzles…

Who wants to watch a movie all about jazz drumming, then? Hands up, now. Try not to crush each other in the storm of sheer eagerness. Okay, it’s fair to say that the surface level of director Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash does little to entice: a young, gifted drummer enrols at a music conservatoire and meets an uncompromising mentor. Steady, now. But – those chortling at our little sneer – there’s plenty of portent in the paradiddles, and you’ll be agreeing with the apparent hype before the first chapter is halfway through. Aside from being a stylish and visceral movie bristling with energetic editing, Whiplash is a meditation on what it takes to be the best. Not just great; the best. Cantankerous tutor Fletcher (JK Simmons) sees that potential in young Andrew (Miles…

5 STAR WRESTLING

INFO FORMAT PS3 ETA OUT NOW PUB SERIOUS PARODY DEV SERIOUS PARODY Wow. No, really. WOW. Imagine you let a blindfolded gibbon watch 20 seconds of WWE, then dangled some bananas in front of a computer running the Unity game engine – the resulting frantic mashing of keys and dreams of powerbombing potassium-rich fruit would likely lead to this: perhaps the shonkiest wrestling game yet created. Brazenly ugly and with collision detection beyond any joke, 5 Star Wrestling aims to be a jovial parody of Yuke’s WWE games. Instead, this bargain bin grappler is roughly as funny as getting suplexed by Brock Lesnar… out of a 17-storey window… onto a pile of used adult nappies. Fresh ones. There are precisely two things to like about 5 Star. The names of the parody wrestlers are…

5 STAR WRESTLING

FORMAT PS4 / ETA 2015 PUB DREADBIT / DEV DREADBIT Headed up by lead designer (and Media Molecule alumnus) Dan Leaver, the Kickstarted puzzle-gamecum-war-sim Ironcast is headed to PS4 later this year. “A puzzler and a war game?” we hear you cry. It might seem odd, but its Bust-A-Move-esque presentation hides a much deeper experience than your average game of Bejeweled. Leaver brings years of experience from working on the LBP franchise and on Tearaway, and his chums at indie studio Dreadbit have set their game in a steampunkstyle alternative history where Victorian Era snobs wage war on one another with gilded mechs.…

the rumour machine

A rumoured online survey points to Mass Effect 4 being four times the size of its predecessor. It also apparently takes place in the Helius Cluster of the Andromeda Galaxy. Digital games analyst SuperData says a new Resi will hit this year. Sony allegedly wants the Uncharted film to be like Nicolas Cage’s National Treasure… Interweb chit-chat says WWE 2K16 will feature the biggest wrestling roster ever. Suplex City! Reports suggest Amazon has licensed Crytek’s CryEngine; a deal that helped the studio through its money troubles.…

the rumour machine

INFO PUB SONY DEV INSOMNIAC GAMES RELEASED 2011, PS3 GET IT NOW AMAZON, £10.59 NEED TO KNOW 1 Insomniac’s first FPS was actually Disruptor on PS1. 2 You could use a Nathan Hale skin in multiplayer. 3 A billboard for the game appears in the film Battle: LA. How sad it is to think you’ll likely never see the Chimera again. Oh sure, they may have tried to wipe out all of humanity on the odd occasion, and they did a bad thing to that church in Manchester, but Insomniac’s otherworldly menace really weren’t so bad. If nothing else, they inspired the Ratchet & Clank developer to new creative highs, in spite of its big-budget shooters never quite becoming as synonymous with PlayStation as Sony had probably hoped. Soon after Resistance 3, Ted Price and co packed up their Captain Qwark…

INFO FORMAT PS4 PUB SONY DEV FROM SOFTWARE REVIEW #109, 9/10 So, you’ve beaten/submitted to Gehrman, the First Hunter. Aren’t you a special little soldier? Ah, but Bloodborne is far from finished. Actually, thanks to the game’s procedurally-generated Chalice Dungeons, you’ll really never be ‘done’ with Miyazaki’s masterpiece. Still, at least you’ll have a hellish hoot with his game on PSN in what’s easily the most accessible online experience from From Software yet. Of course, this being From, nothing is ever explained. How do you summon a Chalice Dungeon? Well, you’ll need to bow at one of the special altars in Hunter’s Dream and be packing some Ritual Blood, a whole lot of Blood Echoes, the occasional Tomb Mold and, of course, the prized trinket itself. Simple, eh? The Chalices needed to unlock these underground labyrinths…

Paradise Lost (Valley)

FORMAT PS1 / PUB EIDOS / DEV CORE DESIGN / RELEASED 1996 / SCORE 10/10 Dinosaurs were super important to the original PlayStation. Alongside a majestic manta ray, a certain blocky, 32-bit T-rex captured a gaming generation’s hearts and mindsin those early PS1 tech demos. Just a year or so later, dinos would go on to rule the PlayStation land that time forgot once more in Ms Croft’s archaeology-inspired debut. Tomb Raider’s third level really is a belter. Tucked deep inside the bowels of a Peruvian mountain, The Lost Valley spawned what’s arguably Lara’s most iconic moments: namely her encounters with a pack of vicious raptors and, of course, Mr Rexy himself. For an icon who helped shape PlayStation as a whole (be it swan-diving off waterfalls or becoming the full-lipped face…

Paradise Lost (Valley)

FORMAT PS4 / ETA TBC PUB TEAM17 DEV MOULDY TOOF After causing quite a stir on PC, prison simulator The Escapists is finally sneaking a path to PS4. Okay, the words ‘prison simulator’ don’t exactly exude the most palpable sense of excitement, but there’s an addictive essence of danger that comes with planning your escape from the slammer. With its top-down perspective giving you a map-like view of your high-walled home, you’ll have to plan your exit while avoiding the gaze of guards. Slipping away and searching cells as well as trading with other inmates enables you to craft tools and weapons as you scout the prison for a path to freedom.…

FORMAT PS4 / ETA TBC / PUB FREESTYLE INTERACTIVE / DEV TAMMEKA GAMES First the good news: futuristic racer Radial-G is making its way to PlayStation 4. However (here comes the inevitable bad news), indie studio Tammeka Games says its focus is solely on the PC version at the moment, with a PS4 port planned for a later date. A bit of downer for sure, but Radial-G has been attracting a huge amount of buzz on the event circuit with its F-Zero GX-aping tubular track designs offering 360° of choice when it comes to finding the best racing line. Not only that, but Tammeka Games is even building a VR incarnation for use with Oculus Rift on PC. Okay, don’t start panicking, we haven’t gone all multiformat on you, but that…

ELDER SCROLLS ONLINE: TAMRIEL UNLIMITED

FORMAT PS4 / ETA 9 JUN PUB BETHESDA SOFTWORKS / DEV ZENIMAX ONLINE STUDIOS Whoa there. Where do you think you’re going, buster? Get back here. There will be no ducking of the next three pages just because your MMO Warning Meter is buzzing like crazy. Terrified of all things massive and multiplayer? We don’t blame you. Aside from a scarce few exceptions, it’s a genre that’s historically always been much more at home on PC. Relax: The Elder Scrolls Online really isn’t that intimidating for us simple, MMOshy PS4 folk. Promise. Let us guide you through our first few hours in Tamriel ahead of the game’s launch next month. Predictably enough, first impressions of TESO’s Beta are that it feels like being stuck in a car with Destiny and Skyirm; the…

ELDER SCROLLS ONLINE: TAMRIEL UNLIMITED

Deus Ex marks the spot on PS4

02 The story of Adam Jensen’s current-gen comeback all starts off a bit Nineteen Eighty-Four. No, not the year you’d expect to find Tommy Vercetti splattering his Hawaiian shirt with Goodfellas gore, rather George Orwell’s vision of a dystopic future; one where an oppressive surveillance state rules over society. Taking its inspiration from the classic novel, Square Enix teased the return of the legendary sci-fi series via a voyeuristic, interactive ‘Can’t Kill Progress’ Twitch stream. Of course, then Game Informer went and revealed Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, and all that enigmatic mystery – drummed up through moody interrogation footage of a transhuman locked in a cell – evaporated in a puff of augmented smoke. Party poopers. Ah well, at least the game looks super spiffing. Set two years after the events of Human…

Deus Ex marks the spot on PS4

WHAT WE’RE PLAYING NOW

GTA ONLINE Dave Meikleham torpedoes his sanity chasing the almighty dollar in San Andreas HOW ARE YOU THIS BAD AT GTA?! Something I’ve learned during my time with the recently added online Heists is that people on PSN really suck. Example: I’m clearing goons off the deck of an aircraft carrier docked at the Port Of South Los Santos, but my Lvl 100 robber-in-arms keeps getting shot within the first 20 seconds of every restart. Thanks to GTA Online’s savage team lives policy – most Heists only allocate a single life for a four-player crew to share – one cackhanded crim can ruin everyone’s fun. BATTLEFIELD HARDLINE Phil Iwaniuk’s all out of cop puns, but still having plenty of fun Seriously, the well’s run dry. So let me instead say this: I’ve once again enjoyed…

WHAT WE’RE PLAYING NOW

MLB 15: THE SHOW

INFO FORMAT PS4 ALSO ON PS3/ PS VITA ETA OUT NOW PUB SONY DEV SONY SAN DIEGO Were there a sports-style rankings system for #firstworldproblems, The Show developer Sony San Diego’s current plight would surely perch close to its summit. So great has its baseball series become over the last decade, so close to marrying the virtual and the real, season after season, that this year’s entry feels brilliant, yet also a bit… boring. Authentic but archaic. Exhilarating and exhausting, all at once. Football games will never be truly lifelike because at any given moment the AI must approximate realistic decisions for 22 different players. In baseball, the dynamics are much simpler: pitcher vs batter, then batter vs ball, then ball vs fielder. The Show had all those mechanics nailed as far back as its MLB 10…

MLB 15: THE SHOW

DAVE’S MEIKLE HAMMERING

Indie games, eh? They come here, they take our jobs… They refuse to feature loads of hardware-pushing graphics, then they have the temerity to skimp on marines with all-business back and side haircuts. A SKIN-FLAYING POX ON THEIR INDEPENDENTLY FUNDED HOUSES. Give me triple-A, or give me the angriest death ever. I don’t know about you, but MADMAN MEIKS came to PS4-ville for guns, COD/Battlefield budgets that dwarf the GDPs of developing nations and enough 1080p polygons to make my hateful Highland peepers weep claret. Games such as Towerfall Ascension, Hotline Miami 2 and Shovel Knight? Pfff, my cack-encrusted Sega Game Gear could run any of that EYE-AFFRONTING TOSS. Just look at the triple-A hate crimes being perpetrated over in our Hall Of Fame on p110. HOW IN THE MOST NIPPLE-STIFFENING OF…

DAVE’S MEIKLE HAMMERING

CEREMONY THE L-SHAPED MAN FORMAT ALBUM ETA 18 MAY PRICE £7.99 Formerly hardcore punks of an embittered stripe, California’s Ceremony have developed into a dark rock band of impressive intensity. ‘Exit Fears’ and ‘Your Life In France’ have brooding edges that recall the likes of Interpol, with extra crackling energy. ceremonyhc.com EARL SWEATSHIRT I DON’T LIKE SH*T, I DON’T GO OUTSIDE FORMAT ALBUM ETA OUT NOW PRICE £7.99 Forget their slightly misleading reputation as potty-mouthed troublemakers: LA’s Odd Future collective boast some of the most skilled wordsmiths in all hip-hop. earlsweatshirt.com COURTNEY BARNETT SOMETIMES I SIT AND THINK, AND SOMETIMES I JUST SIT FORMAT ALBUM ETA OUT NOW PRICE £7.99 Debuts don’t come smarter than the first album from this Melbourne singer-songwriter. Grungy slacker pop is her vibe. courtneybarnett.com.au ED SHEERAN AND RUDIMENTAL BLOODSTREAM FORMAT TRACK ETA OUT NOW PRICE £0.59 The Hobbitesque guitar-pop overlord…

DEVIL MAY CRY 4: SPECIAL EDITION

FORMAT PS4 / ETA 18 JUN / PUB CAPCOM / DEV CAPCOM Capcom really has this HD redux malarkey down. Earlier in the year the Resident Evil remake (aka REmake) damn near scorched our corneas off with pure pretty – hi-res Hunters are definitely ‘pretty, right? Now, Dante and fellow platinum-haired hero Nero want to rock up to the 1080p party in another blistering update. And this time, the cocky demon hunters are bringing some pals… Know Devil May Cry 4 like the back of Nero’s massive demon mitt? Then the most alluring feature of this PS4 Special Edition is surely the inclusion of three new playable monster murderers. While the contents of the campaign remain untouched, you now have the option of slicing and dicing through the city of Fortuna with…

DEVIL MAY CRY 4: SPECIAL EDITION

Four signs Mars has attacked

1 The first sign of Orphan’s alien invasion probably comes with, oh… ALL THOSE FRIGGIN’ UFOs! Thankfully, the kid can get weapons to stave off probing. 2 Ah, the humble pod. Cosy home for all those horrifically grown alien experiments and a sure sign those little green men are messing with forces they shouldn’t. 3 The really big aliens are called Destroyers. Predictably, they’re super good at… well, tearing shizzle up. Keep pumping those calf muscles, kid! 4 Armoured Seekers can spot the Orphan in the dark thanks to their flashlights. Hmmm, perhaps cowering behind that tree will save your bacon rashers?…

Four signs Mars has attacked

Final Fantasy takes the Diss

05 Cloud vs Squall: fight! Sephiroth vs Exdeath: fight! Lightning vs Zidane… you get the picture. Yes, every beat ‘em up-loving, Moogle-obsessing fan’s violent dreams are coming true, thanks to Dissidia: Final Fantasy Arcade. A reboot of 2009’s PSP fighter, this updated brawler/action-RPG hybrid is currently only confirmed for Japanese arcade cabinets… buuuut we’ve got it here for good reason. Y’see, Dissidia’s arcade decks are based on PS4 architecture and the cabinet’s controls could pass for a split-in-two DualShock 4. Square has even shown off a picture of Cloud in Midgar for a ‘what the game would look like on PS4’ comparison presentation, making a console release seem hugely likely once its year-long arcade exclusivity deal is up. Watch this space for a Western PS4 announcement soon… For more Final Fantasy, check back…

Final Fantasy takes the Diss

YOUR EVERY NEED FOR ON-THE-GO GOODNESS PS VITA HALL OF FAME

VELOCITY 2X A ludicrously enjoyable puzzle/platformer hybrid that should come with a health warning. So joyous is the side-scroller’s twin-stick teleporting, there’s a danger you may well grin your face clean off the bone. Masterfully designed, with arguably the best control scheme on PS Vita, Velocity 2X is utterly essential. PERSONA 4: GOLDEN This thoughtful and unique JRPG epic gives you another stab at high school – only this time with intrigue and superpowers instead of nerves, acne and an unpredictable vocal register. FEZ Gomez charms you instantly with his perspective-shifting puzzles and pin-sharp pixel-art, then blows your mind with a world of secret languages, hidden areas and beguiling background tunes. VIRTUE’S LAST REWARD This visual novel/puzzler just gets better over its 40 hours. The dialogue’s engaging, and however tough it gets, you’re never left rage-scouring for…

YOUR EVERY NEED FOR ON-THE-GO GOODNESS PS VITA HALL OF FAME

STREET FIGHTER V

FORMAT PS4 / ETA SPRING 2016 PUB CAPCOM / DEV CAPCOM When SF overlord Yoshinori Ono tells you his next project will be, “something nobody is expecting,” you can sure PS fighter going more than just an upgrade over SFIV. In an interview with our sister mag Edge, Onosan is excited for the future: “With Street Fighter V we have a fantastic opportunity to create something with a larger scope, a game that encompasses all that Street Fighter has become in the last few years, but which also expands on that to become something it has never been before as well.”…

STREET FIGHTER V

OPM TIME MACHINE 5 YEARS AGO

OPM TIME MACHINE 5 YEARS AGO

Zombie Army Trilogy

INFO FORMAT PS4 PUB REBELLION DEV REBELLION REVIEW #109, 7/10 Videogames don’t come more meat-and-potatoes than this, but that’s all part of ZAT’s charm. Your online options are twofold: shoot through the story in four-player co-op, or test yourselves against endless waves of goose-stepping dead in a single survival area. What did you want, 5v5 severed head basketball? Both modes are well-populated so you’re rarely subjected to significant lobby-lingering, and I’ve yet to experience a hint of lag in the sharp-shooter, even when playing behind a sometimes-problematic NAT setting. And that’s your lot. It isn’t doing anything new, or conceptually lofty, but the fact is ZAT is as close as you can get to uncomplicated Left 4 Dead multiplayer on PlayStation. Do you honestly need a better reason to join a server? VERDICT Perfunctory, lacking polish and still…

Zombie Army Trilogy

Guitar Hero Live answers the calls for an encore

01 It doesn’t take an expert industry analyst to explain why your once treasured plastic axe has been gathering dust for the last few years. Guitar Hero sparked a revolution in 2005 that extended beyond the realm of gamers, but over time the novelty of donning a cheap-looking peripheral and strutting around to ‘Killer Queen’ for an audience of tipsy student mates simply wore off. But with Guitar Hero Live, UK studio FreeStyle Games hopes to rekindle your dormant enthusiasm for simulated six-string heroics. It’s the biggest step forward the series has seen since the first game; from the breadth of genres it covers to a new first-person, live-action presentation style and – you might want to sit down for this – six buttons, split into two rows of three. As if…

Guitar Hero Live answers the calls for an encore

Plus/Minus I noticed there was a recent PSN sale on Rockstar games and I hoped GTA V had finally come down in price. Sadly, it didn’t cover PS4. When is Sony going to reward us for buying this console? If PS Plus is £5.49 a month and there are almost 8 million subscribers then it doesn’t take a genius to see Sony is making a fair bit of cash. So surely it can offer a decent title in the monthly games or give us discounts on good games, not the rubbish ones people played ages ago. Stop trying to flog us old titles no one wants! Les Stephens via email PS Plus isn’t just about offering older games, it offers new ones such as 9/10-scoring OlliOlli 2. And remember, the free games are…

Meet Hellblade’s heinous horsey

07 Hey, beautiful. Come here often? Ninja Theory’s enemy designs may not win any Miss Teen America pageants, but at least the nasties Senua is due to face in Hellblade are a ton more interesting than your garden variety coffin-dodgers. “As the game is set in a hellish underworld, the original idea was to create an undead army of Vikings,” says Tameem Antoniades, co-founder of Ninja Theory, speaking on the game’s official site. “Call it zombie fatigue, if you like, but I felt that we could and should take it in a more original direction.” PAR FOR THE HORSE Which naturally enough leads to the facially-challenged chap on this ‘ere page. What a looker, eh? The Horse Helmet Guard wouldn’t look out of place in a From Software game; all twisted musculature…

Meet Hellblade’s heinous horsey

The Skylanders is the limit for Lego

04 Goodbye Skylanders! Adieu, Disney Infinity! (Give us a call when the inevitable Star Wars range of figures is due, yeah?) The future’s all about Lego. Not Lego Jurassic World – though we’re still clutching our plastic T-rex models in anticipation of its June release – but the newest toys-to-life game, Lego Dimensions. So long, sweet cash! A plastic adventure guaranteed to max out the plastic in our wallets, Lego Dimensions is all about buying physical Lego minifigs, vehicles and gadgets and scanning them into the game to play with digital versions. It’s the same driving principle behind Disney Infinity and Skylanders, but Lego’s wide range of licenses means we’ll be *ahem* toying with the likes of Gollum, Emmet and Wonder Woman, all in the same world. While the inner workings of…

The Skylanders is the limit for Lego

A FIELD OF STARS

When the new Battlefront was unveiled, there were fears that DICE might just reskin Battlefield – bolting S-foils to all the helicopters, and introducing Tuskan Raiders to the hills of Caspian Border. Here’s evidence that the developer understands what made the old games tick: you can switch freely from first to the original third-person view, in order to see further when in cover or bossing allies about. Iron sight aiming has been kept to a minimum, too – some blaster rifles have scopes, but for the most part you’ll be shooting from the hip. This shifts the emphasis from quickdraw and computer-enhanced accuracy to agility, positioning and good old-fashioned hand-to-eye coordination. Hey, it’s just like bullseyeing womp rats in your T16 back home, right? That’s not to say Battlefront doesn’t share DNA with…

A FIELD OF STARS

PARANORMAL PURSUIT: THE GIFTED ONE Hidden object games are still coming for PS3. This tale of a psychic boy and an evil politician is classic point-and-snore material. MONSTERBAG Bit of a charmer, this PS Vita-based puzzleplatformer. Help titular monster V journey his way back to lady friend Nia, taking in all the colours along the way. WE ARE DOOMED Pessimistic twin-stick shooter, drenched in a swathe of pastel pinks, sunset oranges and a retro visual appeal that’s more early PS1 than 16-bit. BRANDISH: THE DARK REVENANT Somewhere out there, someone’s still making PSP games. And charging £12.99 for them. It’d better be Half-Life 3 in all but name to justify that. AARU’S AWAKENING PS4 hand-painted and spellbinding platforming all the way from sunny Iceland. Master the power teleportation and wow your friends and family with some tricky puzzles.…

FORMAT PS4 / ETA TBC PUB HAPPY BADGER STUDIO DEV HAPPY BADGER STUDIO Starting out as nothing more than an idea for a mobile game, this oddball hovercraft racer from St Louis-based dev Happy Badger Studio has morphed into a PS4-bound curio. Rather than building a regular racing setup with a list of normal tracks, SmuggleCraft instead offers a series of procedurally-generated routes. Each track will also have a set of quests that task you with picking up contraband. What these quests are and how they’ll benefit you in the long run remains to be seen, but its clean art style and lofty ambitions have certainly piqued our interest.…

READERS’ MOST WANTED

1 Batman: Arkham Knight Even a slight delay to the Dark Knight’s current-gen debut wasn’t enough to knock it out of your good books, with the B-Man leaping from second place to first in a single month. Hungry for extra? Head over to p38 for more info on all things Arkham Knight. FORMAT PS4 ETA 23 JUN 2 The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt The White Wolf himself rides from last month’s fourth place and bags a silver medal for his troubles. Thinking about picking up The Witcher 3? Join us in next month’s issue (out 5 June) for our official Geralt verdict. FORMAT PS4 ETA 19 MAY 3 MGS V: The Phantom Pain While the muddled mess with Kojima and Konami may have helped in MGS V’s fall from first place to third in your Most Wanted list, the…

READERS’ MOST WANTED

Playtonic is breaking bat

06 Once upon a time the 3D platformer was king. Back when dinosaurs ruled the earth and cavemen were filling their memory cards with ISS goal replays, Ape Escape’s primates, Spyro and a bandicoot in jorts dominated. And that was just on the PlayStation side of the fence. If you peered into Nintendo’s porch in the late ‘90s you’d have found Super Mario 64 and Banjo-Kazooie capturing hearts, minds and thumbs. Well, thanks to the enduring legacy of that bear and breegull, the 3D platformer is set to make a spectacular return on PS4. Don’t call it a comeback… Enter Yooka-Laylee: a bold reimagining of the sort of platformer Rare used to make in its Nintendo-affiliated heyday. Colourful worlds where brown is a naughty word. A cheeky cartoon duo who share a…

Playtonic is breaking bat

1 UNTIL DAWN Run, cheerleader from Heroes! Run for your clichéd horror life! Actually, best hide yourself under a bed instead – Until Dawn’s clown-masked serial killer boasts some serious cardio powers. You’ll also want a steady hand: the game tasks you with holding your DualShock 4 perfectly still to avoid detection at key points. 2 SIREN: BLOOD CURSE Why can’t those Shibito leave Bella Monroe alone? Oh sure, like the rest of Siren’s cast, the ten-year-old is capable of ‘Sight Jacking’ her foes; a power that enables her to see through enemies’ eyes to help her evade capture. But magic peepers or not, the nipper still has to cower under a lot of tables. 3 ALIEN: ISOLATION Don’t worry, we’re sure that nasty xeno won’t be able to spot you in that locke… oh,…

“IT’D BE A REAL SHAME IF KOJIMA ONLY MADE METAL GEAR GAMES AND PT IS PROOF OF THAT.”

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about Hideo Kojima. In part due to rumours he’s leaving Konami soon, but also because I’ve been going through a gaming malaise for the last few months. It’s a strange state of disconcert that’s unfamiliar to me. I’ve always felt confident in my love of games, it’s a big part of my identity, but recently I’ve been struggling to connect with them. These are games in genres I love. Acclaimed experiences perfectly aligned with my tastes. Games that I should enjoy, but can’t find a place for in head or heart. At the risk of being presumptuous, I imagine Kojima might be wandering equally murky territory in relation to his creative output. Now in his 50s, Kojima’s legacy is close to being cemented as Metal Gear.…

“IT’D BE A REAL SHAME IF KOJIMA ONLY MADE METAL GEAR GAMES AND PT IS PROOF OF THAT.”

THE ESSENTIAL COLLECTION OF LAST-GEN CLASSICS PS3 HALL OF FAME

GRAND THEFT AUTO V No game could live up to the pre-release hype that surrounded Rockstar’s latest open-world effort, and yet somehow expectations were surpassed by the phenomenal final product. The largest entry in the series is also one of the most ambitious games ever, but its fusion of thrilling missions, entertaining characters and scathing satire looks effortless. There can be no better way to bring a generation to a close. UNCHARTED 2: AMONG THIEVES The game that sparked a million mancrushes, with a perfectly pitched script, crunchy combat and set-pieces like no other. In three words: unprecedented. Unequalled. Uncharted. RED DEAD REDEMPTION A near-perfect open-world fusion of engaging storytelling, truly compelling characters and a living environment ripe for experimentation. No sandbox since has got us quite so invested, and the bold ending still resonates…

THE ESSENTIAL COLLECTION OF LAST-GEN CLASSICS PS3 HALL OF FAME

MORTAL KOMBAT X

INFO FORMAT PS4 ALSO ON PS3 ETA OUT NOW (PS4), TBC (PS3) PUB WARNER BROS DEV NETHERREALM STUDIOS For a long time, playing Mortal Kombat has been a lot like maintaining that embarrassing hold-over friendship from school. You know the one. They were never the smartest of the bunch, but they were funny, and back then that was enough. And hey, they’re a mate. What were you going to do? But then you grew up and suddenly their adolescent antics didn’t quite make up for their shortcomings. But you stayed friends, because they’re a mate, and what are you going to do? It does get a bit awkward at times though… That’s Mortal Kombat. The series has perfected the art of distracting from its faults rather than truly fixing them, its various entries upping the gore, expanding the…

MORTAL KOMBAT X

J-STARS VICTORY VS+ Various anime and manga characters combine to throw the most bitchin’ house party ever. With such a large gathering, punches are quickly thrown when the cheese and biscuits run out. FORMAT PS4/PS3/PSV ETA TBC GODZILLA: THE GAME In this interpretive art adventure, you take control of an irradiated iguana who brightens up Japan by spraying harmless black ink everywhere. Watch out, Picasso: G-man has this art lark down to a ‘T’. FORMAT PS4/PS3 ETA SUMMER NARUTO SHIPPUDEN: ULTIMATE NINJA STORM 4 Japan gets round to making its PS4 Zoolander tie-in. Copious catwalk-strutting and sexy pouting ensues. FORMAT PS4 ETA AUTUMN…

INFINITY RUNNER

INFO FORMAT PS4 ETA OUT NOW PUB WALES INTERACTIVE DEV WALES INTERACTIVE Sometimes on a rainy day, ol’ Phil sits in his rocking chair and thinks back to 2013’s Master Reboot, an unpolished gem from Wales Interactive that offers horror/puzzling experiences like no other. Infinity Runner… isn’t like that. This time out, the Welsh studio has attempted to merge Temple Run with Mirror’s Edge, but has fallen several storeys short and instead created a first-person endless runner which doesn’t feel even close to being at home on PS4. Beneath its B-movie story about space werewolves lies a rough-edged, stumbling game in which you never feel totally confident of your control inputs because they feel so imprecise. Turning corners requires not just a tap of the right stick but a prolonged touch, for example. How…

INFINITY RUNNER

“THE ORDER: 1886 WAS A DISTINCT FAILURE – AND IT DESERVES A PROPER SEQUEL.”

Generally, I’m against the idea of franchise-building. It’s a transparent, financially-propelled imperative that dilutes a good 350 pages of novel into a trilogy of Hobbit films, and dictates that whatever good ideas Ubisoft Montreal has must forevermore be dressed up in a dozen fancy belts and a hood. Marketing types might argue that it’s somehow immature or naïve to ask for creative media to stand on its own two feet rather than rest on the crutch of a roman numeral or ostentatious subtitle. But they would say that, wouldn’t they? However, in the case of The Order: 1886, I ally with my marketeer foes. As a videogame it’s an inarguable letdown, but of a very specific type: technically spellbinding, built on a fascinating alt-history universe, and almost entirely bereft of engaging content.…

“THE ORDER: 1886 WAS A DISTINCT FAILURE – AND IT DESERVES A PROPER SEQUEL.”

FORMAT PS4 / ETA 2015 PUB PARADOX INTERACTIVE DEV RUFFIAN GAMES So as not to stick out like a sore thumb when it arrives on PS4 later this year, team-based shooter Hollowpoint has already ticked that most current-gen of boxes: procedurally-generated levels. Yes, because pre-designed layouts are soooo last gen. With up to three other players, you’ll fight your way along a CounterSpy-esque 2.5D plane, clearing through an endless stream of random enemies and environments. The big selling point is the ability to switch out of the 2.5D plane at the touch of button and engage baddies in the background like a militaristic shooting gallery.…

FORMAT PS4 / ETA TBC PUB BLOOBER TEAM / DEV BLOOBER TEAM Horror. Party games. Three words that were probably never meant to sit together in a sentence. Or two sentences, even. Well, tradition be damned because Polish studio Bloober Team has thrown the two genres together with wanton abandon and come up with a cross between Bomberman and one of those Goth club nights where neon and black rule like sad-faced kings. In fact, it’s a lot like that seminal multiplayer series with a top-down perspective, a maze-like arena and… well, lots of bombs. We’re promised eight different characters, each with special abilities (including teleportation and the ability to freeze enemies with a Medusaesque stare), a story mode and the option for local/online multiplayer.…

What a difference a decade can make. Turn back the clocks and flick back the pages on the calendar and, for the majority of PlayStation gamers, Treyarch was viewed as a team muscling in on Infinity Ward’s baby. Now, the Black Ops creator is widely regarded as the franchise’s leading, most innovative development studio. Two-and-a-half years removed from its last entry, Call Of Duty: Black Ops II, we catch up with the current king of first-person shooters to find out what else has changed. OPM: This is Treyarch’s first three-year development cycle for a Call Of Duty game – what has that extra time enabled you to do? Mark Lamia: Without a three-year cycle, we wouldn’t have been able to take the kind of risks that we took on this game, frankly.…

FORMAT PS4 / ETA TBC / PUB UBISOFT / DEV UBISOFT MASSIVE/UBISOFT RED STORM/UBISOFT REFLECTIONS Things have been a little quiet on The Division news front, but a few bits of information have been slowly trickling out of the trifecta of studios working on the post-apocalyptic shooter. In a recent interview with Crave Online, audio director David Polfeldt from Ubisoft Massive admits to being confused at the number of games being released with issues. “This generation of consoles is in fact easier to develop for,” he tells Crave, hopefully indicating that The Division’s delays will result in a game that feels utterly complete come day one.…

Evolve – Behemoth and Hunter DLC

This should be so simple: there’s a new monster and four new hunters available. But good crikey, the pricing appears to have been devised by the devious mind of The Riddler himself. For example, new monster the Behemoth, which was previously available to pre-order customers for free, is now available to all for £11.99. Meanwhile, the four new hunters are included in Evolve’s ‘Hunting’ season pass for £19.99, or for £6.19 each. We’re not out of the woods yet – the Behemoth isn’t included in that same season pass, so if you want him and the new hunters, you’re looking at an outlay of over £30. Beyond simply ‘convoluted,’ it’s enough to make a Greek economist reach for the working out paper. Oh, and just to tip you over the edge,…

Evolve – Behemoth and Hunter DLC

Tempting as it may be to focus only on Call Of Duty: Black Ops III and Star Wars Battlefront (read our exclusive hands-on feature with the first on p46, and our behind-the-scenes report direct from Anaheim’s Star Wars Celebration for the latter on p56), this issue’s about so much more. In the pages ahead we play Guitar Hero Live, The Witness and F1 2015, and reveal Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, Lego Dimensions, Banjo-Kazooie spiritual successor Yooka-Laylee, Dissidia: Final Fantasy, Orphan and even more besides. Why so many new games? As PlayStation veterans should know, we’re on the cusp of the annual gaming festival known as E3 – and it means we’re officially entering busy season. Yes, this issue’s line-up is the stuff of dreams, but know this: so is next issue’s. To…

CAN I GET A RT?

@IAMXERO Right Bloodborne done. Now I need to play something to calm down… Bloodborne NG+ it is. @PG_JP I’m gonna spend so much money on Lego Dimensions… :) @MISSTERIOUS_GAL I am finding Battlefield Hardline quite fun, but it’s not because I’m any good at it! @BRUTAL_ATLAS My most wanted: Persona 5, JC3, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, TESO, FFXV. I’m sure there’s others, too. @AUTOFAUX I wonder whether I should set aside a whole week to play The Witcher 3. That game will take me over. @THEAVERAGEJOE16 The Rainbow Six Siege Alpha is a bit rough, but it’s still fun as hell! Definitely buying it. TROLL OF THE MONTH @PSYCHTYSON Finally, first-person Guitar Hero. You can now watch a bottle of piss fly towards your face as you mess up. @TORMESSER Hotline Miami 2 has been fun so far, but man, the over-reliance on guns and shooting…

CAN I GET A RT?

BORDERLANDS: THE HANDSOME COLLECTION

JACK’S BACK INFO FORMAT PS4 ETA OUT NOW PUB 2K GAMES DEV 2K AUSTRALIA/ GEARBOX SOFTWARE/ ARMATURE STUDIO Long before Destiny, Borderlands was nailing the RPG/shooter recipe. It showered us in a ‘bazillion’ guns and the kind of boyish humour that had many of us cracking near-permanent grins. Further to that cause, it's back with a current-gen makeover and enough content to fill a decent lifetime, bundling 2012’s excellent Borderlands 2, last year’s follow-up-of-sorts The Pre-Sequel, and every DLC expansion to date. When it comes to value for money, few PS4 games can swagger with quite as much conviction as The Handsome Collection. Alongside two full-fat shooter/RPGs, there are the nine batches of BL2 DLC (Tiny Tina’s Assault On Dragon Keep is still a must), two DLC campaigns for The Pre-Sequel, and enough extra characters to keep…

BORDERLANDS: THE HANDSOME COLLECTION

THE CREW – RAID CAR PACK A Volkswagen Touareg, a McLaren F1, a Cadillac Escalade... will the new cars for The Crew ever end? Yes. In fact, they just did. This trio of mud-loving motors completes the season pass content. A McLaren off-road, though? Hmmm. THE EVIL WITHIN – THE CONSEQUENCE The concluding chapter to intrepid detective Juli Kidman’s spooky spin-off, which began with last month’s Assignment DLC. Season pass holders get both for £15.99, but you can pay £6.99 for this alone if you love discontinuous narrative. TRIALS FUSION – AFTER THE INCIDENT This last of six downloadable drops adds a bunch of new tracks, challenges, trophies and additional track editor objects. Unlike previous DLC packs, it also pulls the curtain back on the disaster that turned the world into such a bike-friendly wasteland.…

III SPECIALIST ATTRACTIONS

RUIN The mardy Russian pictured above loves war. We mean, he loves it, loves it. So much so that he voluntarily had his arms ripped off and cybernetic replacements plugged into the holes. Now that’s dedication. UNIQUE POWER 01 Gravity Spikes Do your best Hulk impression and launch high up into the air before slamming down to the ground, killing everyone who’s standing nearby. UNIQUE POWER 02 Overdrive Sprint like a maniac for a short space of time. It looks a little silly, but it’ll make you everyone’s best friend during Capture The Flag. SERAPH Seraph grew up in Singapore’s quarantine zone, where she learned how to fight through prolonged exposure to the criminal underground. Everyone’s got a sob story, haven’t they? Boo hoo. UNIQUE POWER 01 Annihilator Seraph has a robotic arm, and it’s the only reason she can fire her…

III SPECIALIST ATTRACTIONS

THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACH

OPM sits down with DICE head honcho Patrick Bach to discuss capturing the magic of the original trilogy and why space battles aren’t a consideration… OPM: Will you include any areas from the prequel trilogy? Patrick Bach: The whole idea and core focus for the game is to stay with the first three movies. That’s where we are. And then of course we tie into Episode VII, with the Battle of Jakku – you see the aftermath of that battle in Episode VII 30 years later. We give you the actual battle, which you won’t see in the movies. OPM: Which elements did you want to improve from the first two Battlefront games? PB: I think what we did was instead of trying to build upon the old games, we went back and said…

THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACH

FORMAT PS4 / ETA 12 JUN / PUB CODEMASTERS / DEV CODEMASTERS We’re just waiting on one of these guys’ lawyers to sign off on it,” says a Codemasters developer at a recent F1 2015 showcase, pointing to the game’s box art. “Can you guess which one?” Well, let’s see. There’s Vettel, looking all lovely and approachable, and next to him stands the suave Alonso, typically bearded. And then, sandwiched between them, is poster boy Lewis Hamilton, strangely sullen and unkempt like he just rolled out of bed. Why so grumpy, chap? Does your Rolex snag your arm hairs? Have they not got around to mapping your mansion in Google Earth yet because it’s been built too recently? Maybe it’s just a bad photo. Whatever the cause, it can’t be anything to…

INFO FORMAT PS3 ALSO ON PS VITA ETA MAY PUB PQUBE DEV 5PB/NITROPLUS Plenty of damage can be done in just 30 characters, from ill-judged tweets to drunken texts to your mother. But factor in time travel and those messages become the flutter of digital wings at the heart of a world-rebuilding butterfly effect. Or so goes the central hook of Steins;Gate, where a Tokyo teen's microwave oven naturally develops the ability to zap emails back in time. It's kind of like head-messing sci-fi gem Primer recast with bickering teenagers with weeny noses. AKA: a disaster waiting to happen. As a visual novel, an illustrated radio play of sorts, it's about as interactive as a sunset. Actions are limited to answering calls or emails, each tiny tweak potentially splintering the story. Branching paths…

INFO FORMAT PS4 ALSO ON PS VITA ETA OUT NOW (PS4)/TBC (PS VITA) PUB SUPERGIANT GAMES DEV SUPERGIANT GAMES There are a great many instances in which having a disembodied voice narrating your every move would be profoundly irritating: public speaking, late-night toilet trips, assembling furniture… But as Bastion demonstrates with whiskey-soaked ease, hacking and slashing your way through an isometric apocalypse isn’t one of them. Supergiant Games’ debut garnered plenty of deserved praise when it debuted on PC back in 2011, and what you’ll find here on PS4 is like-for-like in all but its controls. Which is great news, because even after nearly four years, Bastion remains as impressive in its mechanics as in its unique, narrator-driven storytelling. BAST IN SHOW It’s the surface-level pleasures that hit you first. The way the world…

SAINT SEIYA: SOLDIERS’ SOUL – KNIGHTS OF THE ZODIAC

FORMAT PS4/PS3 ETA AUTUMN / PUB BANDAI NAMCO / DEV DIMPS Featuring a roster populated with veteran Saint Seiya brawlers and newcomers alike, the hyper-stylised fighting series is back. It’s also the first time the Gold and Silver Saints have appeared on current-gen, with its Greek mythology-themed roll call throwing down over something called the God Cloth. For the uninitiated, it’s essentially a cross between the armour-clad battles of SoulCalibur and the over-the-top theatrics of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure.…

SAINT SEIYA: SOLDIERS’ SOUL – KNIGHTS OF THE ZODIAC

1 “DRIVING AROUND IN CIRCLES WHILE THOUSANDS OF NOISY ALABAMANS HOLLER AT YOU IS HARDLY THE ALCHEMICAL RECIPE FOR INSTANT GAMING GOLD IS IT?” 2 “HE’S WEARING THE SAME OUTFIT AS IN THE MOVIE, AND THE BOX IS A BIT LIKE THE POSTER… YEAH, IT’S COINCIDENCE. AND MY REAL NAME IS MR BOJANGLES.” 3 “ANIMATIONS COULD BE BETTERED BY SOCK PUPPETS, AND YOUR OWN RIDER SLIPS THROUGH THE PELOTON LIKE A SAD GHOST, UNABLE TO MAKE SPACE.” 4 “JERKING THE CUMBERSOME CROSSHAIR ABOUT FEELS MORE LIKE YOU’RE DRIVING A FORKLIFT TRUCK THAN FIGHTING WITH NAZIS TROOPS.”…

The New Day pray to A Realm Reborn

09 Ask any WWE superstar what it’s like to be in a videogame and they’ll tell you it’s an ambition fulfilled. But for The New Day’s Xavier Woods, starring in WWE 2K15 means being immortalised in his favourite hobby. “It’s awesome. Especially with me loving games so much,” says Woods of his WWE game debut when we meet at WrestleMania. “It’s cool because a lot of my friends have children, and they’re playing this game and they swipe over my character. My buddies who don’t watch wrestling go, ‘wait, hold on, I went to school with that guy!’ The fact that I’m in one is just amazing.” Also amazing? That being on the road all the time while touring with WWE hasn’t got in the way of Woods’ PS4 time. He isn’t…

The New Day pray to A Realm Reborn

QUBE: DIRECTOR’S CUT

FORMAT PS4/PS3 / ETA SUMMER / PUB GRIP GAMES DEV GRIP GAMES/TOXIC GAMES It’s been locked to PC and Mac since 2011, but first-person puzzler QUBE is preparing to make its PlayStation debut. Grip Games (the dev behind Unmechanical Extended and FPS romp Tower Of Guns – reviewed on p88) has taken over porting duties from original studio Toxic Games – and the Prague-based team has packed it full of extra features. Alongside a fresh 1080p resolution running at 60fps (for the PS4 version only) there’s a new story mode written by Rob Yescombe (he of Haze fame) and a new time trial mode called ‘Against The Clock’.…

QUBE: DIRECTOR’S CUT

FORMAT PS4 / ETA JAN 2016 / PUB WINDY HILL STUDIO / DEV WINDY HILL STUDIO Alright, let’s get this out of the way. Yes, it looks a lot like a certain purgatory-loving platformer. “I knew immediately it looked like Limbo,” admits Brandon Goins, founder of the one man operation Windy Hill Studio. “But I never set out to emulate Limbo. In fact, the first game I can remember seeing such a style in was Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee, which is one of my prime inspirations,” he tells us during our chat. Whether it owes more to a legendary Mudokon or a silhouetted sprog, there’s no denying Orphan is an astoundingly pretty 2D platformer. It’s been quite the couple of months for Goins and the diminutive star of his indie adventure; a small…

THE OPM BREAKDOWN

WHAT YOU DO IN… MORTAL KOMBAT X 30% Ploughing through the best MK movie ever made in story mode. 20% Fighting up the tournament Towers to unlock miscellaneous stuff. 5% Trekking through the new first-person Krypt, fighting off dogs and spiders. 5% Frantically waggling the D-pad in an attempt to remove body parts from your bloody fists. 10% Puzzling at how the character variants work, no thanks to the brief tutorial. 30% Beating the marrow out of your friends and cackling all the way. LOVING/HATING BRUTAL LEG ENDS The returning Brutality finishers are smart and hilarious. Fulfill certain in-match criteria, end on the right move, and boom. Full-on punch decapitation. No messing about. STORE-O, MORE LIKE Goro is on the character select screen, but you can’t select him. Trying to fires up a link to the PlayStation Store, where you have…

THE OPM BREAKDOWN

BROKEN AGE – THE COMPLETE ADVENTURE

INFO FORMAT PS4 ALSO ON PS VITA ETA OUT NOW PUB DOUBLE FINE PRODUCTIONS DEV DOUBLE FINE PRODUCTIONS Don’t question the maths of that strap line, just go with it. Shay and Vella live in entirely separate universes, conjoined only by a recurring theme of over-protection and a call to adventure that leads them to question everything they thought they knew about the world around them. Separate, or so it seems – until Broken Age reveals that you’re very much in the same situation with its dual protagonists. Shay (voiced brilliantly by Elijah Wood) shuffles despondently to and fro on the corridors of a spaceship constructed for the sole purpose of keeping him safe. A cheery ‘Overmother’ robot wakes him in the morning, peps him up for the day while a mechanical arm selects his cereal, and…

BROKEN AGE – THE COMPLETE ADVENTURE

You’ve already got the world’s most powerful console nestled under your television set, but did you know that PlayStation gaming extends far beyond the big screen? With the Xperia › Z2 and Xperia › Z3 series from Sony, you can continue to play your favourite games around your home thanks to Remote Play. The only smartphone and tablet range compatible with PS4 Remote Play, the Xperia › Z2 and Xperia › Z3 series enable you to play the best PlayStation 4 games when somebody else wants to watch television. By pairing your Xperia › Z3 device and your DualShock 4 with the Game Control Mount GCM10, and syncing up to a PS4 on the same WiFi network via the PlayStation App, you’ll be able to slay Bloodborne bosses in the bedroom…

Battlefield Hardline

INFO FORMAT PS4 PUB EA DEV VISCERAL GAMES REVIEW #109, 8/10 As the collective internet hivemind would have it, Visceral had one job with Hardline: make the multiplayer work. Never mind swapping soldiers for SWAT teams, or designing clever maps, or the trillion other tasks that actually went into making this such a slick online experience. After Battlefield 4, the one thing this game absolutely had to do was work. And it does! Hooray! Server issues, glitches, exploits and crashes do exist (including an issue just after release that prevented some from joining servers and kicked others off, which has since been resolved) – but they’re uncommon and usually dealt with swiftly. Polish and new content will continue in the coming months, but this has been an encouraging start for Hardline. VERDICT There’s only been one notable blemish…

Battlefield Hardline

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