PC Gamer
Skyrim: Nordrick in Windhelm





















PC Gamer
Every week, Richard Cobbett rolls the dice to bring you an obscure slice of gaming history, from lost gems to weapons grade atrocities. And at the risk of annoying any idiots who think the end of the world is coming in 2012, here's a slightly more grounded fictional apocalypse to sink your teeth into.

Before The Elder Scrolls hit the big leagues, Bethesda was best known as the company that made Terminator games - though not necessarily the best known Terminator games. The awful platform games, with the infuriating mechanic of having to shoot human enemies in the legs to maintain the second movie's no-killing rule? Other guys. The for-the-time-impressive light-gun game? Nope.

Instead, with the exception of the deservedly beloved FPS Future Shock, one of the first to combine on-foot action and vehicles, certainly in a way that actually made it fun to jump behind the wheel, none of them were particularly remembered. Admittedly, in the case of the action RPG style Terminator 2029 and Wolfenstein-level teched FPS Terminator: Rampage, that's probably for the best.

But their first attempt? It's the only Terminator game that lets you risk destroying humanity by buying Kyle Reese a pack of condoms while protecting Sarah Connor. How did that get forgotten?

The Terminator isn't a great game. It's buggy as hell, incredibly short, and however it ran on systems at the time, it stumbles like a dead dog under the mighty DOSBox. That doesn't mean it's not a game worth respecting. With nothing but 1990s 3D technology, it presented an open world action game set in modern-day Los Angeles, while even the mighty John Carmack was busily working on engines like this.

It's also a surprisingly advanced playground, with cars to drive, a map based on the actual city (or so it says here, though I wouldn't use it to try and get around the place in real life), interior locations like a shooting range and assorted stores to stock up on gear from, and even some RPG elements. In contrast, the most noteworthy thing about its similar looking rival Resolution 101, released around the same time and also offering urban combat in a sprawling city, is that that it makes you fight Daleks with boobs.

Rather than offering a campaign, missions and all the stuff you'd expect in the average shooter, The Terminator is a glorified duel. Whether you choose to be resistance hero Kyle or the implacable Terminator, both are simply dropped stark naked (though have presumably at least found some trousers by the time the game starts) in the middle of Los Angeles on a mission to kill or be killed. Kyle teams up with Sarah, who can be ordered around and be an equipment mule as the two are hunted around the city, while the Terminator is a ****ing Terminator. Needless to say, he's by far the easiest choice.


Most of the game is spent preparing for that fight, and exploring a version of Los Angeles so large, its map has Fast Travel. Most importantly, you need equipment, which you can get in a couple of ways - buying it or stealing it. Robbing a bank is guaranteed to get the cops on your back, indicated by the wonderfully coy phrasing "Come out of the bank please. The police are here and would like to have a word with you..." but is a good way to get set up if you have a getaway car to hand. Other destinations include the Gun Store, Hospital, Shooting Range and most bizarrely, the Drug Store.

Normally, this wouldn't be that weird. And indeed, most of what it sells isn't. Stores in the game sell things like Running Shoes that speed you up, and the Compass that works like the Compass app on your phone and maybe even a compass. The Drug Store is your go-to place for handy items like a Crowbar to help you break into tougher buildings. So far, sounds like standard RPG economics. Right?

Except that unlike most games, stores in The Terminator don't just sell questing items...

(And yes, that's where you'll find the condoms. No, sadly, they don't do anything.)

Tooled up, whether to take on the police or your rival, you quickly realise that the combat is both pretty janky and pretty awful, but very far from actually pretty. The most satisfying part about killing enemies is a little death cam in the bottom corner that shows them folding over, though the re-use of the same animations mean that methodically gunning down everyone in LA soon loses most of its appeal - even when you finally bump into Kyle Reese and obliterate his hilariously awful pudding-bowl haircut.

In an unusual twist, the easiest way to see the ending is to pick the other character and let them die. One side's lose sequence is the other's victory party - though thanks to the power of bad lightning effects, neither end up looking anything like as badass as the artists obviously intended.

While the first two movies still stand up reasonably well, time definitely hasn't been kind to The Terminator. Playing it though, it's hard not to glance at most modern games' lists of objectives that boil down to 'walk onto this map pointer and maybe hit something while you're there' and wish they could be something more than the sum of their objectives. Where are the espionage games that give you a stack of resources and a mission to complete however you like? Where are the GTA games where important NPCs exist outside of cut-scenes, to be assassinated or not, and can be trailed and observed for your own benefit instead of just shot in the face on command? Where are the strategy games following the example of something like Jagged Alliance 2, which lets you be the one calling all the shots, but in a world with enough detail and narrative to let you troll the villain with a bouquet of flowers? Sigh.

But I digress. If you only go back in time to play one Terminator game, obviously, it has to be Future Shock. The Terminator proper though deserves far more credit than it's ever received though, at least for what it tried to do - even if that did involve biting off a bit more than the technology at its disposal could chew. It's a rare example of a game license that tried to capture the spirit of the original, and bring us something new. Good or not, if this had been the pattern others had followed, and they'd tried this hard, just maybe... maybe... licenses wouldn't have been condemned to be an industry joke.

Bit of a shame it was followed by this, really.

Never mind though, eh? Happy New Year! See you in 2012 for more oddness from the archives - the good, the bad, and the just plain weird. Until then, why not check out any you may have missed, while feeling sorry for my hard drive and some of the forgotten horrors it's currently holding for you.
PC Gamer

The Elder Scrolls games have been brilliant for long time: huge open worlds that let you go wherever you fancy, get wrapped up in hundreds of different stories, and make a life for yourself. But until Skyrim, they weren’t particularly good at one of the most exciting things about other RPGs: levelling up.

You levelled up, of course, but you didn’t get to spend any terribly valuable points on any terribly exciting skills. In Skyrim, you do. It’s the perfect compromise between a traditional RPG and the organic practice-based system of previous Elder Scrolls games. You still get incrementally better at whatever you do, but each level gets you a perk point, and the perks on offer are absurdly tempting.

So your character adapts both to how you end up playing, and the grand ideas you have for them. I started out as an archer, but all the sneaking around made me stealthy enough to pull off backstabs. That was more satisfying than I realised, so I shifted towards it and improved it dramatically with perks.

The organic progression influenced my conscious progression, and resulted in a character build I hadn't set out to create but which suited my play style perfectly. I became an assassin who can hide in plain sight, vanish mid-combat, and kill almost anything in a single strike. I'd tailored my own custom stealth god, through 84 hours of practice and 41 perk choices.

Now I’m working on a tank: an unstoppable orc clad in hand-crafted brass, with a shield the size of a small country and an axe I’ve sharpened beyond anything money can buy. I already have a perk that lets me bash people away with my shield, and next, I want the one that lets me knock everyone flying when I sprint at them. Then I'm making an illusionist.

It's a sense of excitement I never had with Oblivion. When I started again in that game, it was usually because I’d messed up my character. I start again in Skyrim because there are so many possible characters to try, lives to lead, possibilities to explore that it would be rude to the developers not to seek them out. That, to me, is the definition of a great RPG.

Read our Skyrim review for more.

Highly recommended: The Witcher 2, Dawn of War 2: Retribution.
PC Gamer


Christine Love. Download it from Christine's website.



9. The Wager

Surprised Man. Download it from the official website.



8. Proun

Joost van Dongen. Download it from the official website.



7. Sweatshop

LittleLoud. Play it on the official website.



6. At A Distance

Terry Cavanagh. Download it from the dev's blog.



5. BeGone

NPlay. Play it on NPlay's website.



4. Stealth Bastard

Curve Studios. Download it from the official website.



3. Wonderputt

Damp Gnatt. Play it on the dev's website.



2. Nous

DigiPen. Download it from the official website.



1. Team Fortress 2

Valve Software. Grab it via Steam.






PC Gamer





Read our Deus Ex: Human Revolution review for more.

Highly recommended: Battlefield 3, Orcs Must Die!
PC Gamer
Marathon 1 Pistol
Halo creators Bungie have given the official nod to Aleph One, fan-made updates and remakes of the originally Mac-only Marathon series. The project reached version 1.0 in early December, with all three games now available for free. It’s an impressive update, too: all three games include HD texture packs, network play, and work on modern operating systems.

They’re exploration-based FPS games that look a little like Doom but play rather differently. From the beginning, Bungie were more interested in narrative than combat, and it shows: weapons and enemies are fairly standard fare, but its doomed starships and alien worlds still retain a bit of their old atmosphere. There’s more writing than you’d expect, too, with world building-handled by AI-controlled computer terminals that feed out in-character plot and location info.

Marathon 2 even has voice-acted, short-lived teammates that fight alongside you for brief periods before biting the dust or teleporting away. The games feel like a glimpse into a parallel evolution of the FPS, one that - for better or worse - did a better job of anticipating the explosions-and-exposition future of the genre than anything id were making at the time.

As a package, it’s something of a museum piece: but a well-curated one that’s worth getting to know. The games themselves are polished, fun, and even creepy from time to time - just be willing to re-learn how to run around with the map open pressing use on everything. A note of warning: some of Marathon 2’s menu noises sound exactly like an incoming Steam message. Don’t be fooled! Your friends aren’t really talking to you. Happy New Year.

Download it here.
PC Gamer
Star Wars The Old Republic - space combat
Star Wars: The Old Republic has been a huge undertaking for developers, Bioware. It's taken massive investment and untold man hours to bring it to light. It's also Bioware's first MMO, which makes it a risky move into an unfamiliar genre. We asked Star Wars: The Old Republic game director, James Ohlen why Bioware decided to move online. He revealed that the decision was made by Bioiware's founders, Dr. Ray Muzyka and Dr. Greg Zeschuk, who thought the MMO genre could be the future of the RPG.

"Back in 2004/2005 it was something we knew we needed to get into," he said. "It seemed to be one of the possible future paths for role-playing games in general. One thing Ray and Greg are always doing is looking at ways to make sure Bioware is not going to be left behind. So they're looking at all the futures going and then try to make sure we kind of diversify, and that was one of the areas we wanted to diversify in."

Besides, Ohlen points out that Bioware aren't entirely unfamiliar with multiplayer. "We're now known for single player RPGs. But Baldur's Gate was multiplayer back in the day, so was Neverwinter Nights. In fact Neverwinter Nights, a lot of people used that toolset and engine to create little mini massively multiplayer games. So we do have experience with multiplayer. We just hadn't built a huge online game before."

Since then, Mass Effect, Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age 2 have all done very well, and The Witcher 2 and Skyrim have all proved that the single player RPG is far from dead. The success of Star Wars: The Old Republic doesn't seem to have affected Bioware's love of single player RPGs, either. Mass Effect 3 is due out in march, and Dragon Age 3 is currently in development. If you've just started The Old Republic, you can join our guilds. Our European guilds, The Mint Imperials and The Revel Alliance are on the Nightmare Lands server. In the US, the Coconut Monkeys are on The Crucible Pits.
PC Gamer








Highly recommended: Team Fortress 2, World of Tanks.
PC Gamer
Egress Landscape
It’s hard to get into the meat of why Egress: The Test of STS-417 is special without spoiling it, but at its core this is an adventure game that not only sets a puzzle in front of you but cares how you solve it. If you’re tired of games that ignore your failures and treat the time you spend flailing for a clickable hotspot as storyless limbo, then you should absolutely put aside time for it.

Egress is a short sci-fi point and click adventure by one-man Australian studio Krams Design. After a deep-space repair mission goes wrong, you’re stranded on an alien world and must locate your missing crew members and attempt to find out what abducted you and why. This involves solving puzzles that range from spatial reasoning to branching dialogues and traditional use-item-on-the-thing procedure. Some are far more successful than others: one early puzzle in particular is pretty hard unless you figure out that the game wants you to perceive a 2D backdrop from another perspective. As the game keeps track of your blunders, this can feel a bit unfair.

For the most part, though, Egress is a big success. In a large part this is due to the simple hand-drawn art and elegant animation that sells the subdued, lonely other world that you find yourself on. It’s also effectively creepy, at points: far more so than you might expect. Tonally, it’s somewhere between LucasArts adventure The Dig and Eric Chahi’s Another World. If those names mean something to you, give Egress a shot - download it here.
PC Gamer

Launch bugs and connection problems can’t dent Battlefield 3’s sense of ambition. Call of Duty might have bagged the ‘modern warfare’ label, but Battlefield 3 shows us what a modern online shooter can really be. Developers DICE have tapped into the potential of modern PCs to create online battles on a massive scale, and with technology that makes its competitors look years out of date.

A 64 player scrap on one of Battlefield 3’s largest maps creates a tapestry of war stories. Your experiences as a lone footsoldier form just one strand in that overall picture. You can spend half an hour in a tense sniper battle for control of an important ridge, while another player can spend that time in an AA vehicle hunting choppers in the skies above.

Battlefield 3 is at its best when these stories intersect. Fighting for control of a hilltop in the middle of the sprawling Caspian Border map, I found myself lying in a bush, taking fire from an attack chopper. There was a sudden hefty CRUNCH, and the flaming corpse of the helicopter crashed to the ground, only six feet from my head. A friendly jet blasted overhead, barrel rolled to celebrate the kill and then flew off to become part of someone else’s story half a click down the road.

Battlefield 3 only fails when it tries to force these moments. The single player campaign’s linear progression of scripted street battles disappoint somewhat, but online, the moments of drama the designers try so hard to shoehorn into the story mode happen organically, and they happen all the time. It’s co-op on a massive scale. Quite reassuringly, the smart XP bonuses dish out the same rewards for supportive play and teamwork as they do for aggressive actions like shooting lots of men and blowing up objectives.

The squad system works beautifully, it is more important than ever on the biggest maps. Squadmates provide mobile spawn points that all but eliminate spawn camping. Squad experience bonuses encourage teams to stick together and fight as units, providing useful focus on maps that could all too easily become overwhelming.

They also give friends a way to stick together. It’ll be hard to forget the fantastic round I spent with Graham, Owen and Rich riding around Tehran Highway in an armoured personnel carrier we dubbed the “battle bus.” We skidded up to each control point in turn, diving out, tearing apart defenders, capping the objective and then vanishing into the night. You can never single-handedly win a game of Battlefield 3 for your team, but there’s just enough room to be a hero. In those moments, those rare, joyful, exhilarating moments, Battlefield 3 is better than anything else online.

Read our Battlefield 3 review for more.

Highly Recommended: League of Legends, Minecraft.

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