Innehållsförteckning för Issue 288 från PC Powerplay

Okay, so good warnerds know that’s not quite the correct quote, but you get the idea. Full speed ahead could easily be the motto of the team behind World of Warships, especially as the game celebrates its sixth anniversary. I last saw Philip Molodkovets in his hometown of Saint Petersburg, which now seems like a treasured memory in these locked down times! And this issue we catch up with him again (though with less vodka) digitally to look back at the game and the state of Wargaming and development. And speaking of lockdown, it means a lot of us are probably sitting at our home computers a whole lot more... so look after your back (and your butt) with a roundup some of our favourite gaming chairs! “... look after…

Meghann O’Neill, is looking forward to becoming the teacher of the giant pizza class in Two Point Campus, the next in the series, due for release in 2022. Recently, I had to have a small surgical procedure. I queued at reception, sat on a bench, got admitted to a ward, chatted with a nurse (who totally had the Bedside Manner spec) and had my fluid analysed. The guy with the scalpel removed a rubber duck and I was discharged with a pleasant sounding ping. A cure icon and several thousand dollar payment floated peacefully above my head. Thank goodness this took place in a hospital someone else was running. It’s rare anyone emerges from my Two Point Hospital’s surgery alive, let alone cured. Why? Turns out that I’ve been playing…

BRITISH ARMOURED “The steel cavalry” These are the lads who helped me take Monte Cassino. Great for tank-lovers, this company uses mechanised tactics and the beefy Churchill tank to soak up damage, push through the front line, and protect infantry. BRITISH ARTILLERY “The bravest of the brave” This company makes use of devastating artillery strikes to soften up targets, both on the campaign map and during the RTS battles, preparing the enemy for an assault from elite Gurkha infantry. US AIRBORNE “We shine behind enemy lines” Infuriate the Germans with this company’s best trick: dropping paratroopers, heavy weapons, and resources behind enemy lines. It’s the perfect company for taking points quickly, and it’s pretty good at holding them too. US SPEC OPS “Never see us coming” This sneaky company uses…

Emperor Gary Spacetimes is in a heap of trouble. Not only has he inherited the Imperial Space Throne at the tender age of 18, but soothsayers across the galaxy are predicting civilisational collapse within the next 20 years, as resources grow scarce and planetary populations reach breaking point. Gary’s only hope is to reunite the six great houses. Such is the premise of Alliance of the Sacred Suns, which is what you’d get if you crossed the novel Dune with Crusader Kings and then beat the resulting hybrid to death with a kaleidoscope. It’s a game with grand ambitions, but a few of its design decisions left me a little concerned for the final product. While Crusader Kings is the most obvious comparison point for Alliance, there are a few…

CYBERPUNK 2077 Last year’s Cyberpunk 2077 needed a rapid hotfix after journalist Liana Ruppert discovered multiple seizure triggers in the game, including mandatory braindance sequences. RESIDENT EVIL: VILLAGE Capcom’s latest entry in its iconic horror series neglected to caption its sound effects, leaving the game more stark than spooky for deaf players. ASSASSIN’S CREED: VALHALLA Accessibility failures and successes can come from the same game, such as Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, which doesn’t subtitle Eivor’s frequent self talk.…

LEGO FUN TO BUILD 1995 Released in Japan on Sega’s educational Pico console, Fun to Build pushed the envelope. LEGO ISLAND 1997 Lego Island focused on the adventures of hapless youth Pepper Roni and a crime spree. LEGO CREATOR: HARRY POTTER 2001 Let players use Potter-themed blocks to build. LEGO STAR WARS 2005 The game that spawned dozens of crossovers. LEGO UNIVERSE 2010 Lego’s attempt to cash in on the MMO craze lasted barely 15 months. THE LEGO MOVIE VIDEOGAME 2014 The embodiment of modern Lego as a crossover-fueled powerhouse.…

PART 1 THE RULES 1. Ruler can only marry characters with the lustful trait (and if possible should have it themselves). 2. If romantic opportunities arise, they must be pursued. 3. Chaste characters must be expelled from court. A wise man once said “Make love, not war”. That man would probably have died in a week in Crusader Kings III’s world, but that is not to say he didn’t have a point. All this scheming, fighting, and murder… where is the compassion for one’s fellow man? I want to spread some love through the world of Crusader Kings, and I’m going to do it by creating the horniest dynasty in all of Christendom. I plan to take the game’s reputation as a dynamic bastard simulator literally, and attempt to conquer…

DEAD ISLAND 2011 Zombies infest the fictional tropical island of Banoi, and four survivors are forced into a battle to escape a luxury holiday resort. DEAD ISLAND: RIPTIDE 2013 Another island in the Banoi archipelago suffers its own zombie invasion, and another team of survivors steps up to fight them. DYING LIGHT 2015 A fictional Middle-Eastern city called Harran is overrun by zombies, and an undercover agent is sent to infiltrate the quarantine zone. DYING LIGHT: THE FOLLOWING 2016 In this major expansion for Dying Light, the first game’s hero returns to investigate a potential cure for the virus.…

ast year’s instalment of The Game Awards celebrated the first Innovation in Accessibility award. This was alongside numerous other events recognising accessibility for the first time, and dedicated efforts like the Video Game Accessibility Awards. It’s a topic that’s more visible than it’s ever been, but does this reflect the real state of gaming today? While we might talk about some games as being ‘accessible to new players’ or an ‘accessible entry point to a niche genre’, accessibility here means access for disabled people – who make up 20% of working age adults in Australia, and 10.4% in the US. So while mainstream games awards may have their flaws – rewarding some of the industry’s darker aspects like crunch and abusive management – it’s still meaningful when they recognise efforts…

REMAPPING Remapping (or rebinding) has a huge number of accessibility applications, from macros and alternative controller use to remapping individual keys that are uncomfortable to use. Like thumbstick-clicks, which are the worst. As it stands, too few games offer robust options for players to make these changes, which can exclude many. TEXT SIZE Text in videogames is too small, and therefore, difficult to read. This a universal design complaint that comes from people who wouldn’t consider themselves as having vision problems (along with those who explicitly do). Some games have large text, or text size options – but I’ve yet to see the complaint that text is too large. COLOUR BLINDNESS Many games exclusively use colour to communicate important information, from using coloured silhouettes to indicate enemies and friendlies to…

1 Assyria starts with the religious Ashurbanipal and gets unique battering rams and siege towers. 2 Babylonia begins with scholarly Nebuchadnezzar ruling and boasts Akkadian and Cimmerian Archers. 3 Diplomatic Dido leads Carthage, which can field a pair of rather intimidating African elephant units. 4 Egypt begins with the construction-minded Hatshepsut and gets Light Chariots and Kushite Cavalry. 5 Militant Philip leads Greece, which can recruit Hoplites and Phalangites, unique infantry units. 6 Persia is led by the heroic Cyrus and defended by the likes of Palaton Cavalry and Cataphract Archers. 7 Rome starts with Romulus the tactician and can field Hastati and the iconic Legionaries.…

CODER’S COVE An underground hacker’s lair, hidden away in the flooded Black Lake district. You’ll find all kinds of shady characters. CLUSTER 13 A cramped collection of habitation pods, which are tiny apartments. There are some great dive bars here. HIGHSTREET A busy commercial district, lit up by thousands of neon billboards and protected by security guards and mechs. DEEPSTINK The bowels of the Arcology. A mess of pipes and machinery, with giant insect-like robots maintaining the place.…

SKULLGUN A gun in your skull. You take a point of damage for every shot, which sounds like fair penance. LIFE SENSOR See any living entity through walls, marked by a green dot, which is very helpful indeed. BOUNCY SUIT Fall damage is no more, but you are now a human bouncy ball. Expect to fly as high as you fall. GRAPPENDIX Send out your guts as a grappling hook. Not particularly sanitary, but all that airtime is worth it. GUNKBOOSTERS Goopy alien holes that allow you to fart your way up to greater heights in mid-air. Lovely! AMMO GLAND Auto reloading! Secrete it directly into your gun! It’s natural, so you know it’s healthy.…

It’s not often you’ll hear a PC gamer admit that the combo of keyboard and mouse is ill-suited for gaming. It does happen, though, and there are oodles of adventure games, sports games, and brawlers that play better on a controller. So, you’ll want one of the best controllers close at hand for when you run into one. There are many schools of thought on what makes one controller better than another, though, and the biggest divide undoubtedly comes down to thumbsticks: do you go for two parallel sticks, as is customary for Sony, or instead offer an asymmetrical approach? The latter championed by Microsoft, yet also an approach used by a good few more. Even if you firmly believe one layout is best, you’ll want to consider other potential…

James Cottee does not endorse any kind of nuclear strike on Finland, or any other country. The cult hit shooter Cruelty Squad has grossed over a million dollars and reawakened demand for strange and challenging new games. Games like Peripeteia, a cyberpunk RPG shooter set in an alternate timeline where social malaise and bionic implants collide. Peripeteia hit its Kickstarter goal in just three days, and I had the chance to talk to three of its lead developers, who go by the handles ‘Shodanon’, ‘Snake’, and ‘Shackleton’. Shackleton wanted to stress that the main thing their game will offer players is a kind of crackling green sensory overload, or as he put it, the *immersive* part of an immersive sim. “Peripeteia is very much about being able to literally feel…

The Grand Dames DAME SHIRLEY “People get on my comments and say, ‘How many times have you beat Skyrim?’ I absolutely hate that phrase.” DAME JESSA “I’ve always been drawn to story-based games… I say that I’m a gamer until somebody creates a holodeck.” DAME MERRIE “My first game was Pong. We had the Atari console at home and I sat there all weekend with the little paddles.” DAME BRITTA “If it’s cosmetic [DLC] I have no interest in it whatsoever. My fashion sense is very low.”…

1 Nothing says “we’re the baddies” like a wee skull on your tank. Thanks for keeping it simple, Nazis. 2 This tank looks just like me the first time I went roller skating, though I didn’t use quite as many sandbags. 3 That flag is going to get so muddy. Maybe this is actually an act of rebellion, like burning a flag. Good for you, crew! 4 I’ve been saving the best for last. Is it a bush? Is it a tank? Next time you’re in the woods, keep your eyes open.…

With the Avengers already doing their thing, Square Enix is giving us another superhero group to muck around with, this time from Deus Ex studio Eidos Montreal. These heroes are pretty different from Adam Jensen, however, who you’d never see hanging out with a murderous raccoon. Yes, it’s the Guardians of the Galaxy. A roguish band of space adventurers might sound like a good fit for yet another co-op live service affair, like Marvel’s Avengers, but Eidos Montreal is thankfully sticking to what it knows: a singleplayer game with a narrative bent. It’s a linear misadventure that will see you jetting off around the galaxy as Peter Quill, aka Star-Lord. Senior creative director Jean-Francois Dugas tells me that playing against expectations was a big “driving force” for the team. Games…

HADES Hades’ introduction of God Mode was well-loved, ensuring disabled players didn’t hit a wall in the roguelike with its incremental increase of Zagreus’ demigod defences. PARADISE KILLER Detective game Paradise Killer is stylish, but not murderous on the eyes – letting players disable the psychedelic backgrounds that could cause vertigo or motion sickness. CHICORY: A COLORFUL TALE Chicory is a notably colourblind accessible painting game – and it also allows players to disable ‘wet sounds’, which can be bad for players with misophonia.…

SCORING SYSTEM PCPP scores its games on a 1 to 100 scale. The higher, the better – though 100 is by no means a “perfect” game. We’re not convinced such a thing exists, so consider a 100 a masterpiece of PC gaming, despite its inevitable flaws. A 50 is a decidedly average game; one that doesn’t excel in any particular area, without being an affront to our senses – the ultimate in mediocrity. Below this, you’ll start to find the games our reviewers suffered an aneurysm getting through; above it, the titles truly worth your time and money. And remember: a score is only a vague indication of quality. Always read the full review for the definitive opinion!…

GET STARTED Cities can only be built in certain places, making the race to expand more tense. It also means you won’t end up somewhere awful. CHOOSE A LEADER Every city has a ruling family that you get to pick. Each family has its own focus and interests, like construction or warfare. EXPAND Cities are used to recruit units, but construction is done by workers that develop tiles around them, erecting various buildings. CLAIM VICTORY Each city has a points value, depending on its size, and together with wonders contribute to your total victory points.…

1 The Agathians escort two giant siege towers to the Mason walls. 2 The Masons do their best to defend a capture point on the wall. 3 The Agathians burn a bunch of tents, which seems unnecessary. 4 After rudely burning some tents, the Agathians push siege ramps through the town. 5 With the last walls scaled, the Masons try to hold the gallows outside the central keep. 6 Inside the keep, the highest-scoring Mason player spawns as the Heir.…

The best gaming chair can round off your PC gaming setup (and prevent you from rounding off your spine). That’s something we can all appreciate. We’re not just talking about the most luxurious gaming chairs in this group test, either. There’s everything from gaming thrones to humble office chairs in the running to be the best for your back. Titan Softweave SECRETLAB $619 Simply the best 1 Secretlab’s Omega has been our top pick for the longest time, basically since we first reviewed it back in 2018. But now, ever since the Softweave version of the Secretlab Titan has slid beneath our butts, we don’t ever want to stand up again. Some of that success comes down to its lumbar support, which rivals those you’d find on far more expensive…

I love a fantasy RPG with a good story, but aside from one main dude, it’s difficult to give a party of five or more characters their own time in the spotlight. But after playing Wildermyth, I came away with loads of stories about my group of hearty adventurers – so many I could write a book. And only after playing a handful of hours, too. It’s kind of incredible how a small games studio from Texas has managed to pull this off. Wildermyth uses both crafted tales and procedural stories spun from character-driven traits to create a truly dynamic RPG. Characters fall in love, create bitter rivalries, grow old, have children, make terrible decisions, leave behind legacies, and eventually die. Everything they go through is folded neatly into the…

ARIANNA A warrior who loves books and poetry. Realised her lifelong dream of finding the Library of Light and from then on decided to write down the party’s adventures. ELEANOR A mystic who has a nasty scar, but it doesn’t stop her from being a flirt. Nicked an egg from a Crag Eagle and now has a flying bird who brings her treasure. TESS A snarky archer that got caught by a gorgon. The monster left a mark on her face that has consumed one of her eyes. Wild at heart and a local legend. FIONWAY A rough-tongued blacksmith turned buff warrior. One night she met an old crow-woman who granted her two massive wings, the coolest thing ever.…