Table of contents for November 2015 in Gamesmaster

Fancy a jungle expedition? You won’t have long to wait. Guild Wars 2’s first expansion, Heart Of Thorns, releases on October 23. It’s a major milestone for the MMO, doubling down on the open world endgame with new zones, a new profession, and a progression system full of fresh ways to discover and traverse the world. In other words, it’s more of what made Guild Wars 2 so good. After three years of subscription-free updates, Heart Of Thorns represents the first additional charge for new Guild Wars 2 content since its release, aside from a smattering of microtransactions. Rather than require new players to buy both the base game and the expansion, Arenanet has made the core edition free. “Our goal has been to make it as simple as possible,"…

Format PC Developer Radiant Entertainment Publisher Radiant Entertainment Out Winter 2016 For far too long, fighting games have been some of the most inaccessible titles on the market – complex mechanics and difficult controls, more often than not obscured by utterly inadequate tutorials. Now, finally, this rocket-powered robo-brawler is here to blow the genre wide open. It’s the work of veteran Street Fighter developer Seth Killian (after whom the final boss of Street Fighter IV was named), and the Cannon brothers, who created the EVO tournament, the GGPO software that’s used to eliminate lag in online fighting games, and the genre’s leading community site, Shoryuken. Though it’s currently in a bare-bones, open alpha state, it’s already clear that they’ve created something special in Rising Thunder. The core innovation is the…

You could say we’ve been working on it for 15 years,” says the game’s director Christian Elverdam. “The process for this new title began with a desire to try to distil the essence of the previous games, and the 15 years of evolution, to create the best possible game. We’ve taken the best bits of those past five games to build this new one.” From Blood Money comes large, sandbox levels filled with opportunity. From Absolution comes the increased fidelity and more complex AI behaviour. From Codename 47 comes… well, to be honest there probably isn’t much being carried across from Codename 47. Rather than create a mish-mash of d ate styles, IO has condensed its games down to a single, base idea, from which the new title’s elements can…

Format PC Developer 3BlackDot Out 2016 Web http://bit.ly/gmdeadrealm Completing our grim quintet of indie terror, guaranteed to make your bumps goose, is the ultimate game of horror hide and seek. Currently in Early Access on Steam, Dead Realm is just like the innocent game you used to play in the playground, but instead replaces one friend with a grim faced, horror movie-inspired ghost. No, it’s our turn to wear the mask made of human skin… Set inside the home of an eccentric electricity tycoon, where he of course murdered his family in a grisly fashion, this multiplayer horror currently includes three different maps. In each one, you are either the hunter or the hunted. Whether you’re the human or the ghost in each map, there’s a slew of abilities available.…

The Sunless Cell One of two that take place in The Dreadnaught, this foray into the giant ship fortress sees you assault a sprawling prison complex. The main enemy you encounter is the Hive, plus their Taken variations. Delve all the way in and you come up against an instantly memorable boss – Alak-Hul, The Darkblade. He’s dark by name and dark by nature, encountered after jumping blind into a seemingly bottomless pit. The arena you fight in is enveloped in darkness, apart from the dim light that spills down from above the centre of the room. Your fireteam of three gathers naturally here, waiting for the near-invisible enemy to show himself. He does so by walking slowly into the light to deliver devastating melee sword strikes. Cue frantic shooting…

Tuesday This is when everything kicks off in Bungie’s evolving Solar System. Today is when the weekly reset happens, rotating salient activities in your upcoming task roster. It’s also the – gulp – deadline for completing your weekly raiding. The King’s Fall raid is Destiny’s biggest, too. As if the GM team didn’t have enough deadlines to deal with… Wednesday Otherwise known as Armsday. turn up at the Gunsmith’s stall in The Tower today and he’ll have a collection of new guns for you to test. Do so to raise your rank with him and eventually you can order new guns to be delivered on this day each week. It’s like a recurring birthday! Thursday Or Xursday. Ol’ tentacle face is a bit different to before, no longer being a…

To say Mad Max feels like a promising racer, which at some point in its life has been converted into an open world adventure, is no exaggeration. It’s the car combat which really serves as the game’s standout feature, with cargo routes – marked out with red tracks on the map – playing host to whole leagues of vehicles skating across the desert, ready for you to take down. Different vehicles offer up different levels of defence, however. Standard buggies only need four or five smashes in order to trigger an explosion, though more weaponised cars – which are often surrounded by a clique of others for added protection – can require repeated attacks in order to take them out. These encounters can see you race across large portions of…

Format 3DS Publisher Nintendo Developer Nintendo Out Now Players 1 This interior design-focused spin-off maintains a great Nintendo tradition of thrift, reminiscent of those tips columns in lifestyle mags where everyday items are ingeniously (or bizarrely) repurposed. You know the ones: tea cosies become winter hats; flat Coke cleans dirty coins; old deodorant lids double as egg cups. Think how Majora’s Mask remoulded Ocarina Of Time into something very different, a trick soon to be repeated with Tri Force Heroes, which borrows assets from A Link Between Worlds. So it’s no real surprise that Happy Home Designer adopts a very different approach to Animal Crossing, while still looking quite a lot like it. There, you had the freedom to pursue your own goals, but were bound to real-time routines. By…

Format PS4 Publisher NIS America Developer Nippon Ichi Out 9 October Players 1 Full of anime tropes and colourful sprites, this strategy series is a rite of passage for fans of quirky, JRPGs. This entry sees powerful demon Void Dark taking over every netherworld, leaving a trail of destruction in his million-strong Lost army’s wake. You must battle through the hordes to reach him, banding together with demons met along the way. Your companions are a bunch of misfits that don’t always get along, and the game world has a similar feel to it – moments of excellence rubbing shoulders with baffling irritants. While the cast is well-rounded, with plenty of quirks that make for some amusing sequences, main heroes Killia and Seraphina are poor stand-ins for original characters Laharl…

Format PS4 (reviewed), XO, PC, 3DS Publisher Capcom Developer Capcom Out Now Players 1 We can already picture the shell-shocked face of 2015’s modern gamer sampling this punishing collection of classics for the first time. Games didn’t pull their punches back then, that’s for sure. The run/jump/shoot formula remains one of the purest, and hardest, experiences gaming has to offer, and with its razor-sharp ruleset, it’s easy to see not only why it’s such a cult classic, but also why it’s so popular with speedrunners. Do it right and it looks easy, but you’ll need to do it wrong a hundred times to get there. The NES hardware is emulated perfectly, warts and all, but with some neat, modern extras. There’s optional border art to soften the 4:3 aspect ratio,…

ANTESCHER Ant Attack (Spectrum – 1983) For those looking to immerse themselves in history (and tangy ant venom). A whole desert city built from Sandy White’s SoftSolid 3D graphics? Rife with monstrous killer ants? Cutting-edge early ’80s nightmare fuel. MUTE CITY F-Zero (SNES – 1990) Risk your life with the fast cats in an F-Zero Grand Prix classic, home to a billion humans and aliens – and now part of the Smash Bros and Mario Kart universes too. No racists please. We love races! Do you see? MIDGAR Final Fantasy VII (PC, PS1 – 1997) FFIX’s Alexandria and FFXII’s Rabanastre should also be on your RPG city itinerary, but two-tiered powerhouse Midgar remains the most iconic FF urban sprawl: first to be explored in 3D, and dense with dark magic-industrial…

That corridor. That ever-looping corridor of fear. How could something so simple cause us to lose so much sleep? It’s been over a year since PT appeared on our PS4s, as a free demo for the now cancelled Silent Hills. It was a match made in horror heaven, as Mr MGS himself, Hideo Kojima, and film auteur Guillermo Del Toro worked together to reinvent Silent Hill. Add in a perfectly mocapped Norman Reedus from The Walking Dead, and it was going to be the horror event of the generation… until Konami pulled the plug. Sigh. With PS4s with the demo installed going for hundreds on Ebay, it’s clear gamers aren’t going to let PT just fade into urban legend. Aspiring game developer Farhan Qureshi, from Calgary in Alberta, is so…

THE MOST DEDICATED TEAM IN THE BUSINESS You can see it in our eyes: the intense glaring that we bring to bear on all the biggest games each month. Strengthened, no doubt by the orca’s body weight in caffeine we consume to meet deadline. Enjoy! Matt Sakuraoka-Gilman Our ed’s been spoiled rotten this issue, getting hefty chunks of alone time with Dark Souls III and Destiny: The Taken King. Don’t worry, we’ll be making up for it next issue – we’re making him do a retrospective on every bit of Train Simulator DLC. Sam Freeman Sam’s photoshopping spree continues, leading to our most spectacular final page in yonks. We do worry that the power’s going to his head – he’s now threatening that if we don’t bring him his tea…

Sony has announced a slew of new games as part of its showing at this year’s Tokyo Game Show, including a PS4 sequel to a GM favourite. Gravity Rush 2 sees the return of gravity-bending protagonist Kat, of course, but this time she’ll be flinging herself around more colourful, detailed, and expansive environments than ever before, as the transition to more powerful hardware allows for significant improvements to draw-distance and character detail. What’s more, Sony has also tasked BluePoint Games with porting the original Gravity Rush to the console too, in a package that includes all of the DLC released for the Vita original, as well as visual and performance enhancements to get the cel-shaded stunner running at 1080p. Gravity Rush Remastered is due for a European release on 10…

There’s something special about systemic games. They have an authenticity, they establish rules. XCOM and Civilisation are games that you can lose – and the ability to lose a game is very powerful. In more cinematic, directed experiences, being able to lose is rare, because all that would happen is you would have to replay the same thing again. In a systemic game, the fact that you can truly fail means that when you do succeed, when you achieve victory, you’ve achieved something authentic. In XCOM, the possibility of actually losing soldiers makes your connection to them much stronger. Even if they don’t die, you realise that you’re risking them. A systemic game doesn’t know who your favourite soldier is, and it doesn’t care. Nor does it care what it…

Format PS4, XO, PC Publisher EA Developer DICE Out 26 February 2016 Scamper across a tall building, hop off the edge, land with a graceful roll, and keep going: Mirror’s Edge Catalyst makes something dangerous and exhilarating look oh-so-simple. Underneath the smooth, clean surfaces, however, lies a fascinating tangle of conflict. Style versus playability. Innovation versus iteration. Punching versus sprinting. Catalyst must appease whooping series fans, yet still offer something fresh. It has to retain the crisp, clinical design of the original, but provide players with an open world there to be explored, not admired. Not so simple. Thankfully, senior producer Sara Jansson is on hand to outline exactly how DICE is managing this Faith-like balancing act. “It’s definitely a challenge,” she says. “Mirror’s Edge has a lot of fans,…

Format PC Publisher 2k Games Developer Firaxis Out 5 February 2016 Underground secret bases are alright, but there’s just something very… stationary about them. They’re no good when you suddenly get the urge to fly your entire organisation halfway around the world. For that, you need a bloody great alien spaceship. The Avenger is just such a beast, and it’s your new home in XCOM 2. Forget excavating into the Earth – this time you’ll be expanding your operation by reclaiming the massive UFO room-by-room, clearing out alien doodads and green-glowing gubbins and slotting in the facilities you’ll need to fight the good fight. “When you’re making a sequel you have to go back to the original and see what rules you can break,” explains creative director Jake Solomon. “We…

Format PS4 Publisher Koei Tecmo Developer Team Ninja Out Summer 2016 We get told off on a pretty much daily basis for talking about Dark Souls when we chat current gaming trends. Many of that title’s design philosophies have passed into the wider realm of our fine hobby, so it’s genuinely hard not to constantly reference it. And here we really do have a strong case to bring up Miyazaki’s finest. The moment you lay eyes on Ni-Oh being played, you’ll know what we’re talking about. It has the same weighty feel to its sword-based slashery, and seemingly the same focus on stamina management. What sets it apart is the aesthetic. In the lead role of a blonde-haired samurai, who’s half local warlord and half westerner, we’ll battle through a…

The dream combination is finally here – the series has arrived in Victorian London. And with it comes the double trouble of twins Jacob and Evie Frye, gang warfare, a rope launcher, battles atop trains, and a sprawling city map that, frankly, gives us OCD-induced night terrors. Getting our final hands-on before release, it’s hard to know what to do carriage? Switch out Jacob’s hat for a hood and stalk the inventor Alexander Graham Bell, who takes on s : the only way is up. In true series tradition, clambering to a viewpoint and synchronising with your surroundings unfogs the map, revealing a slew of tasks and objectives. After climbing nimbly skyward at the start of sequence three, we’re faced with the Whitechapel district, under the strict rule of the…

What’s not to love about Star Wars? The lightsabers, the droids , the Jedi mind tricks, Lando Calrissian’s awesome cape, even the wheezy breathing apparatus – it’s all pure magic. Wrangling that cinematic sorcery into a game worthy of the franchise? That’s no mean feat – but Swedish studio DICE, housing the minds behind Mirror’s Edge and the long running Battlefield series, has taken to the task with gusto, investing its massive reboot of the long-thoug st multiplayer shooter series with more authentic detail and atmosphere than you can shake a Twi’lek’s tendrils at. At first glance, the game does share much i ommon with Battlefield – the huge onlin s, the varied arsenal of weapons and equipment for players to experiment with, the impressive selection of combat-ready vehicles to…

Format PC Developer The Deep End Games Out June 2016 Web http://bit.ly/gmperception Who is... Founded by Bill Gardner, who spent the last twelve years at Irrational Games, The Deep End Games is made up of a team of creatives who have worked across titles such as Bioshock, Bioshock Infinite, Rock Band, and Dead Space. Bill and his wife Amanda – Perception’s producer and writer – had been working on the game in their home office before their Kickstarter success. Horror hides best in darkness. Nightmares lurk in the shadows under our beds, or inside wardrobes, where the glow of a light bulb just doesn’t reach. But now, imagine a world only of darkness – a world without sight. This is what Perception’s blind heroine Cassie is faced with, but she…

Format PS4, XO (reviewed), PC Publisher Warner Bros Developer Avalanche Studios Out Now Players 1 This is a game with lots of instructions to give. One of the unforeseen downsides to the endless wave of open-world games (the scale of most now rendering the term ‘sandbox’ simply far too restrictive) flooding the console scene is that, to make sure the player completes the missions rather than wandering off aimlessly into the world they inhabit, developers have to offer plenty of guidance. The opening hours of this wasteland drive-’em-up/ brawler are full of detailed prompts as a result, displaying the kind of persistence previously only demonstrated by your mum when she wanted you to tidy your room. These instructions lay out everything from how to fill a canteen with water and…

Format PS4 Publisher Sony Developer Media Molecule Out Now Players 1-2 Somewhere on a wall in Media Molecule’s Guildford HQ will be a cluster of Post-Its. It’s a common sight in dev studios, ideas roughed out in sticky notes that can be moved around or thrown away without disrupting the rest of the plan. ‘Tickle bad guy’. ‘Gopher basketball’. ‘Paper aeroplane selfie’. If you didn’t know they formed the outline for a game you’d assume they were the multicolour ravings of a lunatic. Lunacy, however, is something Media Molecule does rather well. There was plenty of it in the original Tearaway on Vita, where the studio made brilliantly creative use of all the system’s weird little features – its front and rear touch, its dual cameras and gyroscopes. And there’s…

Format PS4 (reviewed), XO, Wii U, PC, PS3, 360 Publisher Disney, LucasArts Developer Avalanche Out Now Players 1-2 There’s a real temptation to don our cynical hats while booting up Disney’s latest contender in the behemoth toys-to-life genre. Its opening sequence (read: glorified advert), in particular, raises an eyebrow – highlighting game worlds you can’t access without shelling out for more playsets and figures. And yet, it’s hard not to crack a smile as the Millennium Falcon blasts TIE Fighters out of the sky, Darth Maul emerges from the shadows lit up by the sheen of his dual-bladed lightsaber, or Inside Out’s cast bound through a typically colourful Pixar world. While Disney sure knows how to milk every last drop of pocket money from its fanbase, it’s also aware of…

Format PS4 (reviewed), XO, PC, PS3, 360 Publisher Konami Developer PES Productions Out Now Players 1-4 The day veteran commentator Peter Drury rolled up at Konami’s offices to record for the latest Pro Evo must have been a particular highlight for the development team. For any PES newcomer – to the last few iterations of the series at least – no other feature in play makes quite as big an impression during the opening few matches as Drury’s deafening tones. “And it’s Naaasriiii!” he screams, as the French midfielder takes a speculative shot from well outside the box that stands a greater chance of taking out a Russian satellite in orbit than it does of scoring. Later, during a tame 2-1 win at a club with a startling (but not…

Format XO Publisher Microsoft Studios Developer Turn 10 Studios Out Now Players 1-24 Remember, back in 2013, when Forza Motorsport 5 came out? Cripes, it was good, wasn’t it? Except that there weren’t that many cars to begin with. And the track roster was about half as full as it should’ve been. And there were all those microtransactions. Well, that’s old Forza, because new Forza comes scrreeeeeaaming round the hairpin, and it’s not only doing things right, it’s doing the right thing. Out go the microtransactions, and in comes fun, supercharged by a tank-full of brand-new ideas to make it feel fresh. It’s bursting with personality, partly thanks to the return of May and Hammond (though Jeremy ‘Hot Dinner’ Clarkson is conspicuously M.I.A.) and a few other guests who introduce…

Format PC Pub Harebrained Schemes Dev Harebrained Schemes Out Now Players 1 Despite its isometric, turn-based trappings, this sword-and-sorcery-meets-cyberpunk RPG is halfway to being a text adventure. There’s certainly a lot more time spent reading and picking conversation options than scrapping with security guards and hacking computers – but thanks to some truly excellent writing, you’ll find yourself utterly immersed none the less. Freshly released from corporate prison, you’re on the hunt for your adopted father – but soon find yourself caught up in a dark conspiracy. Despite creating your own character, the main story manages to feel remarkably personal, through dialogue that lets you define your own history with its characters. The bizarre world of Shadowrun itself, filtered through the unique culture of Hong Kong, is brilliantly realised, and…

Hoo boy, do we have a prize for you this month! It’s sold out absolutely everywhere, but somehow, some way, GM has managed to get our hands on a copy. That’s right – it’s the real-life Fallout 4 Pip-Boy, and we’re giving it away to one lucky reader. Who says we never do anything nice for you? In this much-sought-after box of pure joy, you’ll find a copy of Bethesda’s latest open-world epic, Fallout 4, along with the incredible replica Pip-Boy. Stick your smartphone in there, download the official app, and it actually functions just like the ones in-game. Once you’ve slipped it on, you can manage your character’s inventory, perks, and more, all from the comfort of your own… wrist. And that’s not all! The set also comes with…

Gear up, hunters, it’s time to return to the plague-ridden streets of Yharnam. Sony used its pre-Tokyo Games Show conference to announce the first expansion for PlayStation 4 exclusive Bloodborne, and The Old Hunters looks set to deliver a solid splattering of fan service alongside all its new enemies and areas. First and foremost, it promises to bring to life aspects of Bloodborne’s lore that have up til now only been hinted at. Chief among them is Ludwig, the first hunter of the Healing Church, and the man behind everyone’s favourite Holy Blade. Not only will The Old Hunters provide players with more info on this enigmatic figure’s past, but he’ll be one of several fearsome new boss characters for you to dispatch. Hunt work Fortunately, you’ll have plenty of…

Previously code-named Project Bluestreak, Lawbreakers is the first game from Cliff Bleszinski since Mr Gears Of War surprisingly handed over his Epic Games door pass back in 2012. From his very own Boss Key Productions studio, this is a first-person shooter with a couple of twists. Firstly, it’s free-to-play, and secondly, it’s all about gravity. Or the mind-bending lack thereof. In what must have been an exceptionally unfortunate series of events, the Moon has been split in two in a catastrophe known as The Shattering. This has thrown the very laws of physics out of whack, leaving the world in a state of flux. While Earth recovers as new tech enables humans to adapt to this uncertain world – lucky us, obviously – two affected factions are now at war.…

Format 3DS Publisher Nintendo Developer Intelligent Systems Out Summer 2016 We’d forgotten how much it hurts. Deep into our import playtest of the latest Japanese tactical RPG affair, an integral team member hits the dirt. He’s dead. His outline fades away, and suddenly we remember what this means. That’s a bloodline wiped off the face of the game world. A potential spouse left behind mid-wooing, and future sproglings doomed to existence only in hidden flowcharts, out of our current playthrough’s story view. This is, of course, how Fire Emblem is meant to be played, with the permanent death of your personality-laden minions switched on. Failure is supposedto hurt, and having one of the cast hit the deck for forever means both missing out on potential story beats, and a heart-wrenching…

Format PC Publisher Larian Studios Developer Larian Studios Out Winter 2016 You know an RPG is special when a long fight ends by electrifying the blood-covered ground to fry your enemies. Divinity: Original Sin was a game built on a rich set of interlocking systems that brilliantly let you exploit the elemental properties of the world to your ends – so this ambitious sequel is giddying news. All the best aspects return: its turn-based combat, unique magic, and an open world where you can kill any NPC. But there’s plenty that’s new, too: for one, you now pick a race and an origin story. Both have significant consequences, from wholly different dialogue with NPCs to bespoke objectives within quests. Your unique slant on the world comes alive in multiplayer, too.…

Format PS4, XO, PC Dev Broken Window Studio Out Dec Web http://bit.ly/gmgrave The woods, a cabin, a mine, or, in the case of recent scare-laden jaunt Until Dawn, all three. These are horror staples, but Grave is doing things differently. This Kickstarter success sees you alone and afraid in sun bleached scrublands. It gets dark there too y’know. “I’ve lived in the deserts of New Mexico and Arizona for the majority of my life, so I’ve always had a fondness for the desert,” says Broken Window head Tristan Moore. “The most direct inspiration was when I read Stephen King’s The Gunslinger. I really got turned onto the idea of merging the West with surrealism and alternate realities. The goal was to capture a feeling of isolation and loneliness within a…

Format PS4 (reviewed), XO, PS3, 360 Publisher Activision Developer Bungie Out Now Players 1-16 It doesn’t matter how heavily entrenched you are into the booty systems of this trail-blazing shared-world shooter. It doesn’t matter how deeply you’ve delved into the hidden corners of lore laid down over the last 12 months, nor how keenly you’ve picked the bones of Year One’s two raids, endless PvE arenas, or elite PvP events. No matter how much you might have played Destiny up until now you will, amongst the millions of others as enamoured with the series as you, have come up with some way – likely manyways – that Bungie’s all-conquering blaster could be improved. The Washington-based studio has chipped slowly and delicately away at these niggling complaints over some 40-odd patches,…

Format PS4, PC (reviewed) Publisher Frictional Games, Sony Developer Frictional Games Out Now Players 1 Oh God, how to review Soma without spoilers? Interpretative dance? Nope, that’s not going to work. To say almost anything about the story of Frictional Games’ dark sci-fi tale would ruin it. It delves deeply into heavyweight philosophical issues around ideas of ‘self’ and what makes you you. Don’t glaze over: this isn’t a dry intellectual heave of theories. It takes a couple of mind-bending concepts and weaves them into an oppressive and unsettling horror game that forces you to confront some deeply disturbing situations. In the broadest of strokes, the story sees you trapped on an underwater research base, and desperately trying not to be. There are robots who think they’re human, and tortured…

Format PS4, XO (reviewed), PC, PS3, 360 Publisher EA Developer EA Canada Out Now Players 1-4 You know those odd mini-tournaments that run in the summer months when there’s no World Cup or European Championships to distract from the horror that is your particular club’s dire transfer dealings? The ones sponsored by car manufacturers or pharmaceutical giants eager to bask in the glow of the beautiful game? This game has those. In fact, for anyone who leaps straight into any of FIFA’s career modes, those vacuous tournaments will be the first competitions of any kind they’ll play. In the real world, such events are nothing but a bit of promo-focused fluff. In FIFA 16, they’re an example of the small steps the franchise takes with each iteration not only to…

Format Mobile Publisher Team17 Developer Team17 Out Now Players 1-2 Let’s be clear: This is not Worms 4: Mayhem, the 3D PS2 game. This is essentially a modern version of the original, Worms from 1995 – two 2D teams of squiggly earth-burrowers facing off in classic turn-based, cartoon combat. The premise has lost its edge somewhat over the past 20 years – even more so thanks to the lack of visible bloodshed here. But, undeniably, there’s still something gleefully evil about thwacking foes with baseball bats, blasting them away with shotguns, and leaving sticks of fizzing dynamite at their feet. Modernity comes in the form of upgradeable weapons, unlockable costume elements, and daily challenges, and you can even choose your own gravestone for when a worm’s hit points reach zero.…

Developer Square Publisher Square Released 2000 Format PS1 Get it PlayStation Store The Dark Souls games aren’t the first to credit their players with a dauntingly high level of skill and dedication (or to be hard as all hell just for the sake of it, depending on your perspective). There have always been games like terrifyingly competent drill instructors of their era, from Defender on up. And in the dying days of the original PlayStation, it was Square’s turn to throw down the aggro gauntlet. The origins The time: mere weeks before the PS2 launch. The game: a new undertaking from Yasumi Matsuno, the man behind Ogre Battle and Final Fantasy Tactics. There, in the shadow of the PS2 looming like a newly built motorway flyover, Vagrant Story – a…

This month, Matt settles down with a decanter of Ico Did you know that this humble Japanese adventure puzzler set Miyazaki, famed creator of the Souls series, on the path of game design? Well it did. You can see why, too. Its delicious conundrums always made you feel cleverer than an Oxford professor of block dispersal, and the delicately told tale of a horned boy attempting to rescue a captured princess resonates through the ages. Shadow Of The Colossus is the better known, but you owe it to yourself to give this a go.…