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PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2023“A RADICAL EXPANSION TO WHAT DIABLO OFFERS AS A GAME”ROBERT JONESTwitter@rnicholasjThis monthSlew demonic hordes within the walls of PC Gamer Towers. Oh, and also played Diablo IV.Arguably, Diablo as a series lost its edge in its third incarnation. Yes, the elite loot cycle that propelled us through the previous two titles was there still, but the lighter art style, tone and atmosphere felt as if Blizzard had lost its faith in what made Diablo a PC gaming mega hit.Diablo IV, though, sees Blizzard not just return to the series’ roots tonally, but also delivers a radical expansion to what Diablo offers as a game. We’ve played it, got exclusive dev access, and you can read why we’re worshipping at the altar of Diablo once more on page 30.TALK TO PC GAMERHave your say! Email us at letters@pcgamer.comThe PC Gamer…1 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2023TRANSLATION GAMEDragonbaby is a localization company based in Osaka, Japan, which was co-founded by Jeremy Blaustein and Sam Burton. If you recognize Blaustein’s name, it may be from his freelance work on games including Metal Gear Solid and Silent Hill. Burton has been translating for all his working life.“I’m probably more of an exception than the rule,” Burton says, explaining that he’s been in localization since graduating from the University of Manchester in 2015. This was because his first role, with a large localization company in London, was “very low paid, very long commute. But they accepted people with no experience”. Today, he’s head of localization.“I also think that I’m an exception,” says Blaustein, “but then again, I come from two generations earlier than Sam. I studied Japanese and I didn’t…4 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2023MORTAL SINThe first time I got really far in Mortal Sin and unlocked its third area, I thought I was overpowered. My character was basically Guts from the manga Berserk. On muddling through that third area and reaching Mortal Sin’s Early Access endgame though, I realized my error: you have to be overpowered to survive these final levels.Mortal Sin is a first-person melee combat-focused roguelike from solo developer Nikola Todorovic. And, in a really rather weird turn of events, we actually published a review of Mortal Sin last March (it’s still on the website) after an early version of the game was mistakenly labeled as a finished build by a third party representing Todorovic. Despite that mix-up, PC Gamer contributor Tom Sykes loved that early version of the game and its…3 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2023LIVING HELLDiablo IV has a Dsurplus of corpses. For every gangly demon, there are piles of bones just waiting to pop out. They bulge out of their stomachs like a rodent in a snake. One slice and they come tumbling out. It’s a bloody mess, but to my Necromancer, it’s an opportunity.To her, there’s value in what a body leaves behind. After all, bodies are a pain. They fight us at every turn and exist to get worse. Corpses, however, are a canvas. They birth friendly skeletons and deadly explosions. Those explosions lead to more corpses, and soon, my Necromancer is a spark in a world of gasoline.Don’t let the screenshots fool you: Diablo IV is an absurd game. It may be darker and more serious than Diablo III, but it…10 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2023ALL A-BOAT ITDredge isn’t shy about the horrors that lie mere feet under my fisherman’s dinky boat. Sure, my bright day hours are filled with peaceful fishing to gentle piano tracks, in a quaint loop of sailing around for catches and then selling them for money towards upgrades and tools. Then dusk sets, my paranoia kicks in and Dredge bears its monstrous, mutated teeth.Life in Dredge is Lovecraftian as hell, wonderfully ominous and effortlessly moreish all at once. Things start off simple enough: my poor fisherman has wrecked his vessel near the small island town of Greater Marrow. After being offered a replacement and a small debt for the pleasure, I’m on my way to start fishing.Getting a target to align with green zones dotted along various shapes reels fish in. Some…4 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2023CLOUDEDAfter a year of power creep letting us chew through enemies, Lightfall is here to bring some challenge back to Destiny 2. Abilities take longer to recharge, enemies hit harder and tank more damage, and it’s no longer possible to outlevel certain activities. We’ve spent a year gorging on ice cream, and now Destiny 2’s newest expansion wants to remind us that, no, we also have to eat our broccoli. In this analogy, the broccoli is machine guns.This was always going to be a hard sell. Destiny 2 feels different now – less approachable and quicker to punish a mistake. While many of its changes were necessary, I’m not surprised that players aren’t as hyped about what Lightfall brings.It doesn’t help that there isn’t even a great campaign to distract…10 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2023NET RESULTIf you’ve ever attempted to dunk a basketball you’ll know the pleasure that comes from trying to achieve perfection through repetition. Freekick Underground captures that pleasure with remarkable accuracy.You, the free-kicker, are trying to reach a distant soccer goal, which you have presumably lugged to the sewer for your subterranean pastime. Each of the 15 levels is a challenge of environmental geometry, as you try to apply just enough height and pressure to punt the ball into the back of the net with a single kick.As you can’t move the little player—just decide the height and power of their kick—there are only two keyboard keys to worry about: Up and Right. Up moves the height meter, and Right increases the power gauge. Get either wrong and the ball will smack…1 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2023MANTICORE WORLDSLet’s think of this in terms of karaoke. Nobody really enjoys it when someone’s actually good at it. What you want is a group of people who try very hard but consistently fail to hit the high notes and are endearingly rubbish. Dragon’s Dogma is the PC game equivalent of that.It dreams so big. It’s the person in the group who picks the Meat Loaf song, forgetting the required vocal range and three-minute instrumental bit. Dragon’s Dogma promises a dynamic open world and an epic story, with combat that feels eccentric and unusual. And, for the most part, it delivers. There’s something wonderfully adventurous about clambering up a cyclops and stabbing it in the eyeball, and the game’s systems are tactile enough that you genuinely feel like you’re interacting with…1 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2023“I find Simon hiding in a wardrobe’I’m in a dark, downtown, urban alleyway surrounded by rubbish and rats, and I’m vomiting up blood in vast quantities. Needless to say, my stylish French ankle boots are not looking so spiffy any more.I’m unsure if I’m hurling epically because I’ve just sent a innocent TV producer called Simon to his grave in the most gruesome, soulless way possible, or because I’ve just drunk blood from a hobo which, well, doesn’t agree with my refined, aristocratic, Ventrue tastes.SUCK IT AND SEESimon, you see, was the key to me getting two powerful occult items from an ancient flesh-eating vampire called Pisha. Simon had fled from Pisha after his seeing his entire TV crew attacked and consumed by her.Could I have killed Pisha for the cannibalistic monstrosity she is? Yes, sure,…2 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2023WARHAMMER 40,000: DARKTIDEShortly before last Christmas, after what I can only describe as a football-in-groin launch experience with Darktide, I wrote in PC Gamer issue 380 that I was “praying for death” after largely failing to play the game due to constant crashes and unfinished in-game systems. I finished that write-up hoping that “2023 sees Darktide evolve into the game we all want it to be”.Fast forward over a quarter of a year, and Darktide has now had five update patches and some serious changes in strategy from developer Fatshark. After a backlash from players over the state of the game at launch, Fatshark issued an apology and announced it was recalibrating its roadmap for the game. The paid-for cosmetics were being put on a back-burner, as too the Xbox Series X/S…3 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2023PREY BY PROXY PART IIIOver the last three months, I’ve been chipping away at Prey, with the added twist that I’m not allowed to kill anything Odirectly. I’ve been broadly successful thus far, using traps, environmental hazards and remote equipment like turrets to Wile E Coyote my way through the beleaguered space station Talos 1. But now I’m faced with the ultimate test, my personal Road Runner. Down in the station’s reactor room, I narrowly avoided being squished by the Nightmare, the biggest, toughest and nastiest member of the hostile alien race known as the Typhon, and in a fit of rageinduced stupidity, I vowed to exact revenge on it.This will be tricky, given how I originally swore a vow of—if not quite pacifism, then diminished responsibility. My tactics work well enough for basic…10 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2023MUST PLAYMONK-EY AROUNDPENTIMENTobsidian.net→ Monks, murder and calligraphy —Obsidian’s Pentiment has it all. A mystery spanning decades, this is an elaborate yarn full of lies and hidden motivations, bolstered by great art where even the fonts tell a story. And you can brush up on your history while solving these crimes.FIND HOMESTRAYstray.game→ Explore the post-apocalypse through the eyes of a lost cat and try to find your way home. Stray’s simple puzzles and straightforward tale make it a relaxing, if sometimes melancholy, romp through cities and ruins, elevated by the way it does make you feel like a feline explorer.CHOOSE WISELYTHE WALKING DEADskybound.com→ Telltale’s best known adventure is still an impressive piece of interactive fiction, even if the puzzles ain’t great. The real headscratchers come when you have to figure out how…2 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2023PURPLE PATCHIt’s 1999. A young PC enthusiast living in a quiet town is having his little idiot mind blown on a weekly basis now he’s the proud owner of a personal computer. It’s a kaleidoscope of formative experiences: Half-Life. Thief: The Dark Project. PC Gamer magazine and its many in-jokes (beards and tanks were especially in-vogue topics of tomfoolery for then editor Jim Flynn’s band of raconteurs). Doing his homework by pasting passages directly out of the Encarta CDs that came with the aforementioned PC. And then, one day during a math lesson, comes something entirely different.AT SURFACE LEVEL, BONZI BUDDY MADE GOOD ON HIS PROMISE“He does all sorts”, my friend Thomas Frame enthuses. “Tells jokes, sings songs. You can type stuff in and he says it. He’s got games, too.”…5 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2023COUNTER-STRIKE KILLERAfter weeks of teasing Valve has announced Counter-Strike 2, the newest iteration of what some consider the greatest and most popular competitive FPS in history. Yes, it’s technically not the second Counter-Strike game, but the number feels like a statement of intent: this is the foundation for the next decade of Counter-Strike players and the esports scene).And on first sight you may well wonder what the big deal is. Valve says, “Counter-Strike 2 is an overhaul to every system, every piece of content, and every part of the CS experience,” but it looks, and plays, an awful lot like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. The big changes are technological, with the most eye-catching being the new smoke grenades: the billowing smoke they create now reacts to things like bullets and grenades. Once…4 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2023WAYFINDERFor nearly a decade, developer Airship Syndicate has felt like it’s building up to something. Formed out of the ashes of THQ and Vigil Games—the creators of the Darksiders series—it’s been quietly releasing very good games ever since, such as Darksiders Genesis and Ruined King. Its projects have been modest, but full of whip-smart RPG mechanics and progression systems, each feeling like a testing ground for bigger ideas. Wayfinder feels like the culmination of that work.The game is an MMO action-RPG—it’s published by Digital Extremes, and that’s appropriate, because really if you think of this as Warframe’s structure combined with the style and combat of Darksiders, you won’t be far off. Brought to life by Joe Madureira’s distinctive chunky, colorful art style, it’s an immediately pleasing fantasy world to escape…7 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2023WARTALESRats. They’re a staple of early RPG levels, and while some games have fun with them, like giving them psychic powers or hiding a single huge one under an inn, in Wartales they’re grotesque, their disgusting hole surrounded by the carcasses of their victims, the ground made sticky by blood.I hadn’t even picked up a quest, so I didn’t need to attack. I just saw rats and waded in with all the misplaced bravery of the level-two fighter. And frankly, I’ve had better mornings.This fight against rats hinges on killing the broodmother, a swollen monstrosity who summons more rats out of the ground every time she gets a turn. Wartales, from the French developer behind Dune: Spice Wars, has been in Early Access for a while now, and is aiming…7 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2023THE HISTORY OF DIABLODIABLORELEASED 1997 | DEVELOPER Blizzard North | PUBLISHER Blizzard EntertainmentWhere it all beganWhen you think of what’s important in a Diablo game, story might not be the first thing that springs to mind. Yet like all Blizzard’s games, Diablo’s mix of monster bashing and looting is built upon a vast lore foundation. It’s a complex web of shadowy creation myths, biblical conflicts between angels and demons, and nations and religions that rise and fall over the millennia.It’s also highly relevant to the upcoming Diablo IV, the story of which ties into some of the most primordial events in the game’s deep past. So we took a guided tour of Diablo’s history with Blizzard’s writers and loremasters, to better understand the backdrop to Diablo IV’s own dark fantasy tale. Along the…18 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2023LOOTING STARSThe fact that 2003’s Freelancer never got a sequel is one of the greatest travesties in PC gaming. Digital Anvil’s third-person space shooter plonked you into a galaxy with a linear storyline but enough freedom to trade and fight as it suited you. PC Gamer gave it 90%, calling it an “expertly crafted space adventure” and “one of the best examples of this genre we’ve ever seen”. Remember that.Everspace 2 is not Freelancer. If anything, it’s better. It’s the same sort of third-person open worldish interplanetary adventure, Diablo in spaaaaaaace, an RPG in which you play a conglomeration of engines and lasers as much as its pilot, and a sequel to 2017’s Everspace. It’s different from its predecessor in one crucial way: the roguelike elements are gone. In Everspace, death…9 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2023DICING WITH DEATHClash: Artifacts of Chaos is like the anti-God of War. It bears a family resemblance to Sony’s franchise revival, enough to invite comparison, but its design philosophy could hardly be more different. In particular, if you ever thought God of War would benefit from a more hands-off approach to nudging you through its adventures (“Shut up Atreus and let me figure it out for myself. God!”), then rest assured Clash: Artifacts of Chaos keeps its sweaty palms strictly to itself.If that sounds heavenly for those who prefer their games not to be littered with symbols and NPC chatter telling them where to go and how to get there, however, beware the old adage ‘be careful what you wish for, you might just get it’. Pushing through Clash’s lush world and…8 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2023A NOVEL IDEAFor as long as there have been written stories, people have been trying to theorize what makes them tick. Some interpret stories as a series of acts, for example, while others view them as different varieties of a hero’s journey, or riffs on seven basic plots. Storyteller, meanwhile, posits that it’s fun to muck about with time-honored structures and tropes, and see what sticks. And frankly, it’s hard to disagree.In Storyteller’s comic-strip world, any tale can be told in three to six panels, and it’s your job to figure out how. Each canvas of panels is a puzzle, which you solve by placing scenes and characters to create an outcome that matches the story’s title. Perhaps the title is ‘Eve dies heartbroken’, for example, and you’re handed two scene types…4 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2023DOCTOR DOCTORYou play as a hospital janitor in this turn-based RPG, which combines a Silent Hill-like setting with vivid characters and enemies reminiscent of Persona. It begins with the solitary Vasilis (that’s you) cleaning up spills around the hospital as usual, before a blackout turns your familiar world on its head.Most of the staff and patients disappear, although there are now monstrous creatures and ghosts roaming round the halls. Initiate a fight—most won’t attack first—and you’re in familiar 16-bit RPG territory, especially when you’ve picked up a few party members.There isn’t a lot to chew on when it comes to combat, with only a few abilities per character, meaning you’ll use the same tactics again and again. However, battles are a surprisingly small part of the game, and you’ll go long…1 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2023GOD GOALSRounding up the vague, mythical creature theme is Hades, a game that gets ten extra points because Cerberus is a big red dog you can pet, rather than a group of cash-stacked probably-racists. It’s also the best game you’ll ever play that lets you chat with sexy gods every time you die.And die you will. Over and over and over again. But Hades is constructed in such a way that death rarely feels punitive. Supergiant excels at the story-driven stuff, and the additional narrative treasures you unlock at the start of each new run often outweigh any frustration. Hades is a flex; a powerlifter doing gymnastics, just to demonstrate that they can.Those narrative threads are expertly woven into the weapons and upgrades, too. Some of these feel deliberately Hellenic, such…1 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2023“I could finally fit my zoo out with mesmerizing butterfly species”Witness the untamed glory of my shining empire, in her majesty’s name. Here at the dawn of industry, my friends and I have been setting sail on the high seas, probing the new world for fascinating beasts and trinkets, and witnessing strange metamorphoses in Anno 1800—that last one a feature the devs snuck in, and one that shocked me to my very core.Thanks in no small part to the resolve of the HMS Tube Worm’s faithful crew, my city had expanded further than ever before. My artisans were finally satisfied, growing fat on a diet of sausages and stew. And having discovered an essentially limitless source of income from shipping soap to the stinky boys at the local jail, I was doing well enough that I was able to raise…2 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2023SONS OF THE FORESTLike the zombies that often inhabit them, Early Access survival games are a genre that just won’t die. No matter how many times players have been burned by buying a buggy, unfinished survival game, they keep coming back for more, from the early days of DayZ to the smash-hit dino-survival game Ark: Survival Evolved to 2021’s Viking adventure, Valheim.The latest success in the genre is Sons of the Forest, the sequel to 2014’s The Forest—which also launched in Early Access and took four years to reach a full release in 2018. While it doesn’t have zombies, technically, Sons of the Forest does have plenty of mutants and cannibals, and it also comes with a nice surprise. It’s an Early Access game but it’s not really all that buggy, and is…8 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2023INNOCUOUS SETTINGS IN HORROR GAMESSome horror games are set in spooky castles, abandonedmental asylums, derelict spaceships, or circuses with an unwise hiring policy regarding murderclowns. Others are set in suburban streets, shopping malls, hospitals, schools, or homes. I find the second kind have the most impact, haunting my thoughts long after they’re over like a picture I shouldn’t have looked at on the internet.The Silent Hill games are especially good at this, and have made me feel even more ambivalent about hospitals than I already did. Hospitals are already stressful places, but Silent Hill 2 takes in apartment buildings, a nightclub, a historical society and even a bowling alley, all of which it imbues with terror. A brief scene in a cemetery turns out to be a rare moment of safety. Though eventually Silent…4 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2023SPEAKERS AND SOUNDBARSThere are days when I want to throw my gaming headset off my head. Not out of rage. No, I suffer from something called uncomfortable ear lobes from wearing those damned things all day. It’s in these tough times that I look to my pair of trusty PC speakers to deliver bass-thumping audio instead.For many years PC speakers have been ruled by nondescript towers that left a lot to be desired in terms of audio quality and oomph. Thankfully, PC gaming’s obsession with overkill has led manufacturers to craft some truly extraordinary speakers to set down on your desk. Even going as far as a soundbar with a head-tracking, beam-forming AI built-in. Neat.There really are many options to choose from nowadays. Thankfully that’s why our team exists. We’ve put six…7 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2023CORE RETURNSNo longer must those of us who love FromSoftware’s build-your-own-mecha series languish in purgatory, stuck playing the last Armored Core’s merely OK (and now decade-old) multiplayer on modded PlayStation 3s. Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon is blazing its way onto PC.If you’ve been a dedicated PC player for your whole life and the whole ‘mecha anime’ thing passed you by in the ’90s and ’00s, the hype from fans of FromSoftware probably seems odd. What you need to understand is that there are other games with mechs, but they are not Armored Core. In the same way that Elden Ring is an all-encompassing experience, Armored Core has long striven for that same ideal with giant robots. This sequel is a promise to fans that’s been decades in the making.WAR…5 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2023WARHAMMER 40,000: BOLTGUNWhen you get right down to it, is there really any difference between Warhammer 40,000 and Doom? Permanently angry space marines, giant guns, sci-fi installations being invaded by demons from literal Hell… basically all the same, innit? Really, it’s a wonder no one’s made a Warhammer boomer shooter before now.Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun keeps things gloriously simple. After a charmingly unsettling opening cutscene, the preview build just drops me on a planet full of Chaos cultists with a chainsword and a dream, and tells me to have at it. Immediately I’m racing around the map sending up pixelated sprays of blood, finding guns that would be banned under the Geneva Conventions, and slotting comically large keys into control panels to open doors to places full of even more enemies.It’s an absolute…3 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2023ISLE OF MAN TT: RIDE ON THE EDGE 3The Isle of Man TT is regarded as the greatest motorsport event on the planet, offering the ultimate prize in motorcycle racing. Fresh from the success of RiMS, does Ride on the Edge 3 developer RaceWard Studio have what it takes to grab the Tourist Trophy from previous custodian Kylotonn?The first thing to note about Isle of Man TT: Ride on the Edge 3 is that this isn’t simply a cynical re-skin of the previous games in the series. It’s all too common an occurrence these days that the old adage ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ takes root —certainly when it comes to popular gaming franchises—but Isle of Man TT: Ride on the Edge 3 is a great example of how to take an established series and turn…7 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2023THENEWWESTThe exquisite tension of the pervasive unknown,” is how general manager David Fifield describes Hunt: Showdown in a sentence.Fifield joined Crytek in July 2022 after working on huge games like Halo and Call of Duty but fell in love with Hunt, determined to work on this weird multiplayer FPS. “The atmosphere is moody and forlorn, the landscape is corrupted and threatening, the tension builds with every step that you take, every noise that you hear… and that just keeps building and building, far longer than a typical shooter lets that build up before it just breaks into a gunfight.”Anyone who’s stepped into Hunt knows exactly what Fifield is talking about. When it launched into Early Access five years ago, it made a strong impression by putting you in a hostile…8 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2023LEON MEMuch like Leon S Kennedy, Capcom was never in for an easy ride with this one. There are games so forward-thinking and complete that they shape entire corners of our industry. In Resident Evil 4’s case, every third-person game since has worn its love for Capcom’s masterpiece on its over-the-shoulder sleeves: Gears of War, Dead Space and The Last of Us run because Capcom showed them how to walk. This is a remake of a game that remade a genre.Capcom almost managed it and, for the longest time, you’ll think it did. The opening is outstanding, streamlining the original route into the village in order to get you into the first big set piece: a knock-down drag-out village brawl that, almost immediately, takes place with the constant sound of a…9 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2023HEART AND SOULI love Tchia. I completed the main story quest in 12 hours, but I’ve played for twice as long just to explore more, complete challenges, collect cosmetics, find secrets and take photos. At least four of those hours were spent just following a long series of treasure maps filled with hand-drawn landmarks and other clues, testing my detective skills and knowledge of the world to uncover them all. And I’m not done playing yet, not by a long shot.Tchia is a third-person open world adventure where you play as a little kid (named Tchia) living on an archipelago based on the real-world South Pacific island of New Caledonia. While beautiful and tropical, Tchia’s island is no paradise. An evil overlord named Meavora has filled the island with creepy, golem-like foot…4 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2023PRESTIGE TVThere hasn’t been this much horror in a TV screen since the terrifying film Ring. Thankfully, nothing crawls from the screen in Nightmare Zapper, but it does contain a whole network of channels that tell a connected horror story. You control it by clicking ‘Next’, as if browsing listlessly one night with the TV remote. While the majority of the numbers are tuned to static, you’ll stumble across lots of horrific little snippets.One channel tells the story of some kids playing football, as it starts to get dark outside. Spitefully, a kid kicks the ball out of sight—then has to live with the dreadful consequences. Like half of the vignettes in Nightmare Zapper, this story isn’t interactive, bar your ability to leave at any time by clicking the Next or…3 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2023NORMANDY MOREPlaying Mass Effect 2 again is like waking up after a night out with the worst hangxiety of your life. Did I dance in the club? Punch that journalist? Accidentally join a human supremacist paramilitary organisation? You’re reminded of every bad decision you’ve ever made, and, best of all, you get to make them all over again because nobody ever changes.It’s practically impossible to behave differently in a game that requires so much emotional investment. Every time I promise myself that this time, I’ll play as a Renegade, but deep down I know I’m lying. I’m the person who never released Grunt from his tank on my first playthrough of Mass Effect 2, because the idea of unleashing a genetically engineered Krogan super soldier seemed too risky. (There’s a Kroginger’s…3 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2023EXTRA LIFE CONTINUED ADVENTURES IN GAMING“The constant fear that I’m going to uppercut a lamp is a little distracting”One difficulty for the novice boxer is the way other boxers try to punch you in the face, and what to do about that. Beginners often turn away and hunch over, which communicates the thought “please stop punching me”, but does not stop the punching, and certainly does not project the kind of skill and decorum a judge is looking for. This may be a rare problem that videogames can help with.I got into amateur boxing a couple years ago, and I spar just about every week. I try to spend lots of time training at the gym between those sessions, but alas, I often have to be at home, since it’s where I live. There are…3 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2023“There’s also a certain joy that comes from negotiating the twisty roads”Taxi work has arrived in GTA Online, and with it an invitation to cruise through a game world which has continued to evolve over the course of a decade. Where previous updates have brought new missions, business and automobiles, working for the Downtown Cab Co introduces simple, pacifist errands to the Los Santos of 2023, liberated from unskippable cutscenes and repetitive gunfights.Don’t get me wrong. It’s completely banal. Once you’ve either purchased a taxi or arrived at the Downtown Cab Company, you can start taxi work at the press of a key. A customer’s blip will appear on the radar. Once you’ve collected them you’ll receive destination coordinates, while a tip value appears on screen which reduces the longer you take.It’s precarious employment. Rolling your ride will knock a few…2 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2023SURVIVE THERESIDENT EVIL 4 REMAKE1 SAVE YOUR BULLETSWhile blazing away at every villager in sight might kill them quick, saving ammo is vital if you want to survive—especially on higher difficulties. Try shooting enemies in the face or kneecap to open them up to a kick that can help you make space.2 PERFECT PARRYOne of the new combat changes in the remake is that you can use your knife to parry close-range weapon attacks, or even thrown weapons. A perfect parry offers you the opportunity to melee an enemy, knocking them down for some free damage.3 MAN AND KNIFEStabbing and parrying enemies reduces the condition of your blade, so upgrade its durability, and repair it with the merchant. If you shoot all of the Clockwork Castellan statues, you’ll unlock the Primal Knife, which you…3 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2023OUTCASTAll truly great pieces of art stem from ambitionStep with me my friend back to the [checks official PC Gamer 2023 calendar] now very distant past of 1999. Stepping out of our time machine we now exist in a PC gaming world where beige PC tower rigs rule the roost, 3dfx Voodoo graphics cards are still a thing, and Team Fortress Classic is being played over LAN in PC Gamer Towers. Oh, and Outcast is hitting store shelves in all its big-box PC glory.And, despite sales that will go on to be described, at best, as modest; and the fact that its maker Appeal will go on to bankruptcy within two years of it release, Outcast is about to change the scope and vision of videogames as a medium forever.…7 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2023CHARGE DEPLETEDPlaying our PC games anywhere other than a dedicated room full of beige machinery was, not so long ago, a profound and supremely challenging undertaking. It meant carrying around not just the discs of the interactive wonders we hoped to sample in a train carriage or car backseat, but also a gaming laptop whose cooling fans could drown out a fire alarm.Portable gaming once referred to this very specific thing: a laptop with high specs which you could, in a pinch, use to play games on. Providing the sun wasn’t too bright or you wouldn’t be able to see the screen. And there was an available plug socket at all times. And you didn’t mind being responsible for the sound of a Boeing 747 jet engine idling while you played.…6 min
PC Gamer (US Edition)|July 2023BUYER’S GUIDEKEYBudget buildPC gaming is for everyone. Pick the parts you want to build a new, well-rounded PC for a good price.Mid-range buildYou want to run every new game at 1080p 60fps. This recommended build will see you through.Advanced buildYou’re looking for the best PC on the market and superior components. But you still want to spend smart.BUDGET BUILDEnjoy 1080p gaming without breaking the bankMOTHERBOARDB660M Pro RSASRock $120This is as cheap as we want to go while still offering room for expansion and upgrades down the line.PROCESSORCore i5 13400FIntel $196Intel’s added four more cores to its entry-level Core i5 and it’s become even more fantastic value.GRAPHICS CARDRadeon RX 6600AMD $220AMD’s RX 6600 has become a budget champ for its affordable price and great 1080p performance.COOLERLaminar RM1 (included with CPU)Intel FreeThere’s room…5 min
