Tabla de contenidos para February 2016 en Gamesmaster

Blimey. 300 issues, eh? Them’s big numbers, no fewer than the most any gaming mag in the UK has ever accrued. Well done us! And over the last three decades we’ve covered the growth of the best hobby in the world through its most momentous evolutions. From bedroom programmers, through our first hops, skips, jumps, and ‘wahoos’ into the realm of 3D and beyond, we’ve collated some of the most important titles in gaming history as part of a massive three part 300 special feature blow-out. You also need to check out our super hard retro-themed quiz. Reckon you’re a real RetroMaster? Then give it a go and let us know how you get on! Before I let you get stuck in though: a quick thank you. Whether you’ve been…

Way back in issue 159, a young Charles Carter sent us his idea for a game. Now, over a decade later, he’s a full-time professional games developer. For our 300th issue, we asked Chaz to share his story with us: I started reading GamesMaster perhaps around 15 or 16 years ago. In those younger days I used to draw my own games magazines, inspired by GM, but I used to just re-word the reviews and scores! I made my first game back then too – a “choose your own adventure” type game that I created in Microsoft Excel, using the row numbers as the choices. Saving it on floppy disk and making a “big box” for it from a cereal box made it feel like a real game. I gradually…

While the focus at the start of any new year may be losing all the weight we tend to pile on over the Christmas festivities, back in mid-December, before a mince pie was even a twinkle in our eye, we were firmly focused on eating cake. Specifically gaming-themed cakes, baked for the third instalment of Gamerbake – the leading baking competition for gamers. The idea is simple: you bake a cake decorated to reflect a game of your choice, you bring it along to Gamerbake, and you let the masses – and some esteemed judges – drop it down their, ahem, cakeholes, before a winner is picked and proceeds donated to Special Effect. The latest event, which took place in London’s sufficiently geeky Loading Bar, saw the likes of Videogamer’s…

DUE SOUTH Keep your ears open for some cheeky indie announcements out of PAX South today. HEART’S TONE It’s Valentine’s Day! What do you mean you forgot? You remembered to get a card, right?! FIGHT NIGHT Get your gi on – Street Fighter V shoryukens its way onto shelves today. WELCOME TO EARTH Take back your planet or die trying (repeatedly) in XCOM 2, on sale now. PRIMAL RAGE It’s release day for Ubisoft’s mammoth new open-world game, Far Cry Primal. MONKEY BUSINESS Get ready to go bananas for Chinese New Year – 2016 is the Year Of The Monkey. BATTER UP Get a flippin’ move on! It’s time to get your batter in the pan for Pancake Day. WATCH OUT Let us guide you through the wilderness of gaming…

2016 TOM CLANCY’S ENDWAR World in conflict Erk. If Clancy is to be believed, we’re only a few months away from global catastrophe. With a nuclear attack on Saudi soil crippling the oil supply to the west – we’re rather less bothered by the 6 million dead, apparently – the US and EU sign a treaty to develop a ballistic defence system, which is so good at repelling nukes we congratulate ourselves by forming an alliance that is too costly for poorer countries to join, thus allowing Russia to take them over and become a dangerous new superpower within four years. Good work, everyone! 2017 EARTH DEFENSE FORCE Bug invasion Invading extraterrestrials go all Independence Day on us, sending giant ships to hover ominously above the world’s major capitals. In…

Everyone’s favourite spiky-haired swordsman is back, with a higher polygon count and skinnier arms than ever before. However, Cloud Strife’s malnourished pythons aren’t the only divisive changes on the table for this anticipated remake: Square Enix has announced that its JRPG classic will be distributed as a “multi-part series”, suggesting the publisher plans to break the game into episodic chunks. But there are encouraging signs too, for those who care to look. For instance, Square veteran Tetsuya Nomura, the man who designed Cloud Strife and invented the Limit Break, has been confirmed as the project’s director. Meanwhile, Yoshinori Kitase and Kazushige Nojima, who co-wrote the script of Final Fantasy VII, are attached as producer and scenario writer respectively. There’s a lot of senior talent from the original game on board,…

Virtual reality, for all of the industry hype that surrounds it, is still something of an unknown quantity, and it remains to be seen whether players will strap on injection-moulded goggles in their droves. But by now it’s abundantly clear that the technology has already got plenty of developers all fired up. That’s especially true of Andrew Willans, the lead designer of multiplayer VR dogfighting spin-off EVE: Valkyrie. “The arrival of consumer VR is the most significant event to happen in the games industry since Mario swapped his 2D dungarees for 3D in 1996,” he enthuses. “Technological innovations and improvements have given us a constantly expanding palette to create from, but until now this has largely been presented on a 2D screen.” For Willans, it’s this leap from flat, static…

Vietnam veteran Lincoln Clay means business in this crime caper set in ’68. In recent footage he scares info from a snout by stealing his car and driving like a maniac, then parks up and infiltrates a jazz club to ice drug-peddling mobsters. The largely loading-screen-free sandbox packs plenty of pursuits, from purging gang hideouts to dividing up your turf. Seamlessly blending cover-shooting, wheel-screeching, squad-building strategy and sightseeing set to a banging soundtrack, Mafia 3’s relocation to New Orleans looks a smart move.…

Ever the optimists, we’re choosing to look on the bright side of Naughty Dog shifting its cinematic actioner to April. With bigger, more reactive environments facilitating new combat moves (such as swinging off ropes and landing on people like an angry Tarzan), increasingly ludicrous setpieces (including a jeep chase through a very destructible shanty town), 60-fps multiplayer, and, in a series first, campaign dialogue options, a few more months in the oven should ensure that Uncharted 4 is PS4’s biggest exclusive bun (or ‘game’) of 2016.…

“You are a dog, lost in a sprawling and unfamiliar city. You wander the streets, searching for scraps, for shelter, for a friendly face. Slowly, you overcome some of your fears. You learn where you can snag a meaty bone, where you can sleep warm and safe at night. Strange streets become familiar territory, one by one. You find friends. Eventually, maybe, home. Home Free is an open-world action-RPG starring a dog lost in a sprawling, randomly generated city. Use your canine abilities to explore this strange, sometimes hostile environment, and find your place in the world. Shape the story of one dog’s survival through your choices and actions. Experience the world from the perspective of a creature who will never quite understand why that world acts the way it…

1 RAINBOW SIX SIEGE PS4 It needs to do more to enable tactical play, but when I’m in a pitched gunfight with a destructible environment and a sledgehammer, I’m happy. And in the game, too. Matt Sakuraoka-Gilman, Editor 2 STAR WARS BATTLEFRONT PS4 This game was the driving force behind me purchasing a PS4, and I can’t put it down. The fact that my eight-year-old son beats me on every mode isn’t a problem… honest. Sam Freeman, Art Editor 3 SUNLESS SEA PC Despite the clunky interface, loading up this game of Lovecraftian naval exploration truly feels like stepping into another world, in a way few others have ever managed. Robin Valentine, Production Editor 4 BORDERLANDS 2 PC Co-op gaming doesn’t get much better than this. I’ve been blasting through…

FIRE SALE Just what you’ve always needed: a six and a half foot Dragon Ball Z plushie Shenron. An ideal draught excluder as well as scarf and will curl up happily with you on the sofa. It’s all yours for 27,000 yen. Yes, that’s £146. Oof. Find it at http://bit.ly/gmdragon FINE PURRCHASE If you’re like us and can’t get enough of the digital felines of Neko Atsume then these toys mean the little critters will never leave without saying hello. However, there’s no guarantee that they’ll leave you any goldfish to save up for that new scratching post. Check it out at http://bit.ly/gmatsume STEIFF COMPETITION While you can now buy your very own personal Pikachu in Build-A-Bear Workshops, the ultimate electric mouse plushie is made by legendary German teddy bear…

1 Rainbow Six Siege One of the most unique FPS games to come to market in a long time. And just plain fun! 2 Warhammer: End Times – Vermintide Solid, polished co-op in a beautiful world with plenty of rats to kill. 3 Arma 3 Really can’t go wrong here with the amount of DLC and mods the community creates for this game. 4 Don’t Starve What an absolutely amazing indie game. You can spend hours gathering, surviving, building, and fighting. 5 Railgun My own game we’re creating. Because my team is working very hard to create a fun indie shooter! Nicholas Shain Ritter, Facebook You can check out Nicholas’ game here: http://bit.ly/gmrailgun. Disagree with his list? Let us know what yours would be!…

MANIAC OF THE MONTH! My fave gaming hero of 2015? Me, for playing so many games! And I have two kids… Samuel L-Jackson Hamilton, Facebook Has anyone ever done the special stages in Micro Machines? Even on an emulator with save states it’s hard. Shae, @ShaePQ92 Please, please bring the TV show back. With today’s consoles, it would totally work! Casual Gamer, @Termi187nator I want Kojima to make a successor to PT! Zed_psx, @dreamcast82 Donkey Kong launched Shigeru Miyamoto’s career, introduced Mario, and saved Nintendo. Gaming as we know it just wouldn’t exist without it. Andrew McGrae, @TGNProfessor Can you help me find the hidden Chaos Emeralds in Sonic 2? Richard Harris, @cigarboyrick82 All of Superman’s powers, no conscience… Kneel before Zod! Adam Wiper, Facebook Telltale’s doing everything but TWD…

“THERE SHOULD BE SOME LEVEL OF BEING KIND TO THE PLAYER, OF LEADING THEM FORWARD” At a recent Bandai Namco press event, the father of one of the most iconic videogames of all time humbly asked his audience: “Does everyone know Pac-Man?” After the disbelieving giggles subsided, Toru Iwatani gave a mini-masterclass on videogame design using his dot-munching, ghost-dodging classic as an example. “Fun first is one mantra,” he said, “and it’s also very important that the game is simple, so that the young, the old, people all around the world can play this game.” For Iwatani, making games “involves understanding people’s emotions. The structure of the game should be such that before you hit a wall, there should be some level of being kind to the player, leading them…

Videogames have come a long way over the years, and with 300 issues under our belts, GM’s been there longer than pretty much anyone else to chart their highs and lows. We’ve also compiled an awful lot of lists over the years, detailing these titles definitively. This is different though. This is not a list of the best games, nor of the games you should crack out and give a go right now (though you’d earn yourself a gaming education by doing so). No. These the most important, most influential games of all time. Oh, and they have to meet our totally scientific requirement of having been released before December 2010 .Disagree with our picks? Head to p98 and let us know! 100…

Spring-loaded stake launchers, 5ft flip razors, and a great ruddy wheel formed Bloodborne’s melee-focussed arsenal, but From Software’s other bastard-hard horror RPG heaves with tactically diverse combat: bows are back in number, magic packs a punch, you have a new spinning attack, and a flimsy wooden board is not your only shield option. It’s a slower and more cautious experience, somewhere between Dark Souls II and Bloodborne in pace, but with more incentive to try out different character builds. Oh, and you’re going to die a lot. Yay!…

Sometimes it’s hard to convey how a game makes you feel . Happy or sad just don’t seem to cover the great swathe of emotions that overcome us when we watch footage of this unique couch co-op ‘wrestling’ game. We put that in quotes because wrestlers aren’t normally connected like a snake made of two torsos, crawling around with only their arms and trying to gain control of a ball. What? Yes. Exactly . “The idea for connected bodies came when we were workshopping a bunch of different mechanics for a hypothetical 2v2 multiplayer game,” says game designer Michael McMaster. “One of the ideas was for both players to be tethered together somehow, and we thought that was a rich enough idea to prototype…

The basic setup of any of the game’s mazes involves a circular start area, and a small exit node somewhere on a grid. To complete the puzzle you simply have to draw a line between the two. This basic rule is quickly varied and changed with the addition of things like broken paths and symbols to interpret, with progression upping the complexity as you get to grips with the concepts. In this example you can see black and white dots. To complete the maze you have to reach the exit while separating the black and white dots with the line you draw. The first few examples teach you this with very basic layouts, but over time the puzzles escalate in size and complexity.…

One of the most challenging modes in Dirt Rally is Hillclimb. Based on a real event, also known as the Race To The Clouds, it sees you driving to the top of Pikes Peak in Colorado. It’s 12 miles of tight corners and deadly drops, and by the end you’ll have climbed 4,000 feet. The game features two versions of the track: one comprised entirely of tarmac, and an extra challenging variation with mixed surfaces. You’ll need nerves of steel to make it to the top without destroying your car or driving off the edge.…

You might already recognise the likes of Ifrit and Ramuh from elsewhere in the vast FF universe, but Explorers adds two new Eidolons to the series. Amaterasu is a light-elemental who sports seven floating blades and is wreathed in flame that shows off her affinity with fire, whereas Dryad is a poisonous plant woman with some seriously bad breath that inflicts several debilitating effects at once. Both add to the general Final Fantasy flavour and would actually make good fits for inclusion in the wider series going forward.…

Techland’s oft-delayed expansion to Dying Light will finally shamble out of the shadows this month, offering new locales, narrative intrigue, and the introduction of driveable vehicles to tool around Harran’s outlying outbacks in. As such, The Following takes place on a wide-open map that’s larger than the entire Dying Light base game, providing plenty of space for you to mow down rural walkers in your customisable dirt buggy. If all that revs your engine, the expansion is available on 9 February. But if the promise of lurid sunshine and overgrown greenery has you pining for a more domestic brand of destruction, perhaps it’s time to return to Rainbow Six Siege. Operation Black Ice will breach and clear its way onto Ubisoft’s servers on 2 February, introducing two new operators, a…

“I HAVE A MAGIC PLACE IN MY LIFE FOR THIS MAGAZINE” Unmissed connections I have been playing on my Nintendo GameCube lately and it feels so refreshing using a console that does not want to connect to the internet. No firmware update, no games requiring a patch because there are so many bugs, no DLC, just decent games that I can enjoy from the off. I think the internet has taken the fun out of gaming. Justin Dale, Facebook We definitely see where you’re coming from, Justin – it’s frustrating loading up a new game you’ve been desperate to play, only to have to sit there staring at a progress bar. But without connected consoles, we wouldn’t get free content updates, convenient digital downloads, online multiplayer, and loads of other…

1 FINAL FANTASY VII REMAKE Format PS4 ETA 2017 No surprise that maybe the most exciting remake ever is number one – find out all the new details on p59. 2 UNCHARTED 4 Format PS4 ETA26 April Nathan stays at second for another month. His latest adventure is so close we can taste it! Mmm… archaeology. 3 MASS EFFECT: ANDROMEDA Format PS4, XO, PC ETA Winter A whole new adventure in a whole new galaxy. We can’t wait to see Bioware’s classic series return. 4 MIRROR’S EDGE CATALYST Format PS4, XO, PC ETA 26 May A parkour open world that we can flip, sprint, and tumble around at will? We’ve got Faith this is going to be amazing. 5 DEUS EX: MANKIND DIVIDED Format PS4, XO, PC ETA 23 August…

“PART OF ME FEELS THAT DEVELOPERS PUTTING THEIR IDEOLOGIES IN GAMES IS SCARY” Nintendo loves to prove Zelda’s essential timelessness by remastering past classics, from Ocarina Of Time, via Majora’s Mask, to Wind Waker, but just what is it about these fantasy quests, beginning back in 1986, that continue to chime with players across the world? “I feel that it’s particularly this universal thirst for adventure that boys – and I believe girls as well – have, that resonates across generations throughout the Zelda series,” the man at the franchise’s helm since 1998, Eiji Aonuma, tells us. “I think that what users are looking for is entertainment (and it was the theme of our development in Twilight Princess), whether they can sink into the game world, and enjoy a special…

MATT’S PICK Doom I’ve got a soft, squishy spot for ’90s era shooters. Circle strafing and speedy movement are tenets of the genre that were seemingly abandoned long, long ago. Harking back via Shadow Warrior and its ilk fills a hole, but Doom promises to be the contemporary genre update I’ve longed for. Head on over and read our preview on p56 and I reckon you’ll feel the exact same way. PS4, XO, PC – Summer ROBIN’S PICK Divinity: Original Sin 2 The first iteration was one of my favourite RPGs in years, and I can’t wait to see its innovation expanded on in this Kickstarted sequel. All I need to do now is round up a group of trustworthy co-op partners to join me on my adventure… Get your…

HEY! LISTEN! A blind gamer has successfully completed The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time, making use of carefully placed stereo speakers and an emulator’s quicksave function to conquer the N64 classic. Terry Garrett began streaming his adventures in Hyrule in 2011 and finally finished off Ganon at the beginning of 2016, when he uploaded the final video. TURTLE POWER Although Platinum Games’ adaptation of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is yet to be announced, artwork from the rumoured project has appeared online. It looks like the inspiration comes from the comics, not the cartoons – and you can see Splinter and Shredder in the background! STALK LIKE AN EGYPTIAN The next Assassin’s Creed will be set in Ancient Egypt and is scheduled for a 2017 release, it’s rumoured. Following negative…

We’ve cast our eye into the past and reveled in nostalgic gems – now it’s time to look around and enjoy the present. It’s a brilliant time to be a gamer, with so many wonderful titles on shelves these days that we can practically hear them groaning under the weight. We’ve gathered our 100 favourites, every one of them a modern classic you can’t go wrong with. We’re not talking the most important or influential games, or nailing down the objectively best titles – this is purely about which games you’ll get most fun out of if you slip them into your machine of choice today. For this list, our rigorous and not at all arbitrary criteria is that each must have been released after December 2010…

Oh deer Technically it’s an elk, but youtry writing an elk pun. Herbivores sit at the bottom of the food chain – you can’t tame them for combat purposes, but they can be fashioned into some helpful upgrades. Unbearable Chubby little cubby all stuffed with fluff? Sadly not. The cave bear has no appetite for fluff, preferring a slice of succulent caveperson. At least his monstrous size makes him an easy spearing target. Fangtastic The saber-toothed tiger is all bite and no bark. Bag one of these toothy beauts and you can ride him into battle, like a jeep that eats people. You’ve just got to hope the jeep doesn’t get a taste for its driver… Tusk, tusk Let’s address the literal elephant in the room: yes, you will be…

Andromedons Shadowy aliens housed in hulking battle suits, these meldings of meat and machine can destroy cover and humans with equal ease, and, as a cheeky bonus, fire corrosive acid grenades. The Faceless One moment, a seemingly helpless civilian bystander. The next, a towering, melty monstrosity. Now that the aliens have mastered shapeshifting, no one can be trusted. Just what XCOM needed. Archons The unthinkable has happened: the aliens have gotten into PR. The first game’s Floaters have been given a new look to make them less horrifying to the general population – though no less deadly, of course. Chryssalids They’re back, and worse than ever. Their bites now turn victims into cocoons which, if not destroyed, will spawn threemore adult Chryssalids. Oh, and they can tunnel through the earth,…

The Stick Of Truth? “That was barely even an RPG, Kyle! The combat sucked. We’re going to do it bigger, and we will settle for nothing less than a 9.5 on Gamespot.” Although Cartman’s not a fan, the last game’s turn-based scraps return in this free-roam adventure that sees the boys play superhero. Cartman, dressed as the Wolverine-clawed Coon, leads his backyard Avengers against Butters’ Professor Chaos. There’s Kenny as the immortal Mysterion, Kyle as the flying Human Kite, and Stan as Toolshed, who mentally controls power tools. The disparity between fantasy and reality is rinsed for gags: Token’s alter-ego is a cyborg, but he’s actually just wearing tupperware, and Mint-Berry Crunch literally throws cereal. We’re grinning already. GM Instant Reaction THRILL-O-METER Another hilarious RPG in the making.…

Good news for PS4 players: you’re getting six exclusive contracts in which Agent 47 travels the world to take out former members of a brutal paramilitary unit called CICADA – and no, we don’t mean take out to dinner. Good news for everyone else: Hitman is Hitman again, with broad levels set across France, Italy, Morocco, Thailand, Japan, and America, all rife with unique kills. Ahead of a March release, try February’s free beta, set 20 years back, in which our icy assassin enters the icier ICA training facility and meets long-time handler Diana.…

#1 MANIC MINER Written in just eight weeks for the ZX Spectrum in 1983 by 17-year-old Matt Smith (who went on to make Jet Set Willy), Manic Miner is one of the earliest platformers. It sees you as a miner hurtling through various treacherous caverns, collecting items before your oxygen runs out. Stressful. #2 FLAPPY BIRD Scoff if you like. Flappy Bird has defined a generation of screen-tapping games. So popular was it in 2013 that Vietnamese developer Dong Nguyen, feeling guilty about its addictive nature, removed it from the App Store. Developed in only a few days, it was at one point earning $50,000 a day from in-app ads. #3 MINECRAFT The literal blockbuster that this list couldn’t exist without, this global phenomenon was all started by Markus Persson…

This handy contraption is not only a great introduction to redstone engineering, but to automatic farming as well. Tending crops provides you with plenty of valuable materials, but requires an awful lot of upkeep, so a device like this is great for letting you concentrate on the more important things in life. 1 Place a row of eight sand and a row of eight wood parallel to each other, with an empty row in between. Place a filler block between the two rows and use your bucket to fill the middle channel with water. 2 Build a two block high wall behind the row of sand, then climb up onto the row of sand. Layer eight pistons along the top of your wall, followed by a second layer of eight…

Okay, so you know Black Flag and Black Ops like the back of your battered hand, you’re a fiend at FIFA Ultimate Team and there’ll be no jumbling up of Far Cry and Just Cause on your watch. But how far back does this expertise stretch? Back to when GM first settled on your nearest newsie’s shelf? For this special issue, we’ve turned the RetroMaster tables to let you demonstrate how well you know the classics of generations past. Plus a few non-classics for the sake of balance. So let’s be having you, fearless readers! Gird your loins and square up to our grand RetroMaster challenge! How close can you get to the max score of 300 points? PART 01 Heroes Questions worth 3 points Easy start! Can you identify…