PC Powerplay

Australia's No 1 PC games mag

PC Powerplay1 min read
Worlds Enough, And Time
One of the very best perks of this job is being able to get a glimpse of great games ahead of the curve. It’s also one of the oddly annoying things, too – and in the case of this issue’s cover feature, it’s even worse. Yes, I have gotten to play a bi
PC Powerplay1 min read
PC Power play
EDITOR David Hollingworth [email protected] CREATIVE DIRECTOR Troy Coleman [email protected] Group Advertising Manager: Cameron Ferris [email protected] Managing Director: Neville Daniels Sales Director: Paul Martti
PC Powerplay4 min read
Twitch Says Us Army’s Fake Giveaways Violated Its Rules
We learned last month that the US Army’s Twitch stream was being trolled by viewers who, instead of focusing on the games or players — the Army has its own esports team — insisted on asking about war crimes. The pointed questions put a spotlight on t
PC Powerplay3 min read
A Fool For Love
Yandere Simulator is the Star Citizen of indie gaming. In development for over six years now, it is a pig’s breakfast of spaghetti code and broken promises cobbled together by an egotistical hack who is demonstrably incapable of realising his vision.
PC Powerplay1 min read
Right Angle
Despite the name, hitboxes aren’t usually square. Most 2D fighting games use the rectangle, but Marvel Vs Capcom uses circles to avoid corners causing a hit where you don’t expect it. Platformers like circles, too. They help N++ feel more organic. In
PC Powerplay4 min read
Super Collider
Most games are about one thing hitting another. A bullet and a soldier’s head; a platform and your foot; a sword and a demon’s arm; a jaw and a Shoryuken. And that means a lot of games are all about hitboxes, the invisible geometry which tells them w
PC Powerplay1 min read
Bad Hitboxes
When Capcom reduced the length of Ryu’s crouching medium kick they undermined classic Ryu play and the competitive scene stopped playing him. A bug causes boss hitboxes to invisibly persist in the world after you kill them. Normally it doesn’t matte
PC Powerplay3 min read
Missing The Mark
I was doing OK for the first few weeks of Covid-19 isolation; glad to be teaching from home, helping my younger son with his (rather abominable) spelling, drinking lots of tea. Things got hectic; my older son broke his arm, my day job moved to shaky
PC Powerplay9 min read
A Collection Aside
Luckily she’s created her version of a blanket fort; Rimworld, where she’s been stockpiling rice and chocolate. Indeed, the threat of impending doom neatly ties together this issue’s collection, including vengeful, encroaching armies and murderously
PC Powerplay11 min read
2020 Visio Nary
One of the most important cyberpunk novels ever written opens with a stark image. “The sky over the port was the colour of a television tuned to a dead channel” – so begins William Gibson’s seminal book, Neuromancer. It’s a novel that went on to insp
PC Powerplay1 min read
The Peripheral
When you fire up the game, you’re greeted with one of the most varied set of character options I’ve seen in a game, and some of the most open. Much has been made online about the fact that you can choose such things as what kind of pubic hair you hav
PC Powerplay3 min read
Humankind
You start Humankind as a nomadic tribe in the Neolithic era. The wilderness around you holds pockets of treasure: a resource deposit here, a volcanic pool there. As I move my tribe across the map I’m rewarded for discovering the Great Blue Hole, a ci
PC Powerplay5 min read
Everspace 2
Space is mostly bleak and empty,” says Michael Schade, CEO of Rockfish Games, the developer of Everspace 2. Without getting too Douglas Adams about it, this makes open space combat games “boring, because most of the time you shoot at tiny pixel clust
PC Powerplay3 min read
Project Cars 3
Project Cars has amassed a large, loyal following of virtual motorsport fans, thanks in part to its impressively realistic car physics. But the series has always been missing a few of the features expected from a modern racing sim – something its de
PC Powerplay1 min read
Escape Your World
Sometimes the real world weighs heavy on us all. This year, it’s felt like about 2,020 kilos’ worth. It can make luxuries like videogames feel pretty frivolous. But, at the same time, your PC can provide the perfect escape. Virtual worlds, despite
PC Powerplay1 min read
Monster Hunter
Botchlings are deformed fetuses born from miscarried babies not given a proper burial. In Family Matters, you have the choice to either kill the being, or try to turn it into a kindly guardian spirit called a Lubberkin. It’s likely you’ll hear one o
PC Powerplay3 min read
Real Magical
The scene before me is unfathomably ghastly. Charred limbs and torsos the colour of charcoal are only things that suggest that these are humans littering the ground as I pick through the gore to find a man’s lost brother. I’ve witnessed the carnage t
PC Powerplay3 min read
Peak Performance
Hereby, I offer my apology to every environment artist working in games, past, present, and future. How many hours do they spend creating lavish, gorgeous, massive open worlds? Hundreds? Thousands? Huge teams spend years bringing to life spaces we
PC Powerplay1 min read
Peak Performance
Part of a series of hi-res texture packs by Pfuscher. Install them all, if your PC can handle it. Improves the static meshes of many in-game items, improving the appearance of everything. There’s a lot of trees in Skyrim, so it makes sense to have
PC Powerplay1 min read
Community Service
The reason space sim MMO EVE Online’s universe is so special – and enduring – is its relationship with its players. Thanks to an interwoven tangle of reactive systems, it’s a sandbox that plays host to dynamic politics, economics, espionage and warfa
PC Powerplay1 min read
Schooled
Meditation rocks are not only for a quiet rest but also inform the player of the different species they are looking at. The name of the fish appears at the bottom of the screen, and the camera switches from watching the diver to examining the fish, a
PC Powerplay3 min read
Driving In
Underwater levels in games can make you flounder. Weird water physics, breath timers, and clunky character movements have historically made submerged worlds daunting. But Giant Squid’s subaquatic adventure ABZÛ takes all that away, turning even the c
PC Powerplay3 min read
Rising Sun
It’s interesting how two of the most atmospheric, detailed and well-realised worlds on PC – Yakuza’s Kamurocho and Shenmue’s Yokosuka – are among the smallest. Each game presents a painstakingly recreated, but economical, slice of Japanese life, roo
PC Powerplay1 min read
New Tricky
When it comes to virtual tourism, it’s hard to beat the atmospheric streets of Sleeping Dogs’ Hong Kong. It’s at once an authentic snapshot of a unique and historic city, and a kind of exaggerated martial arts flick soundstage writ impossibly large.
PC Powerplay1 min read
World Tour
Set in the rural Outer Hebrides, this narrative adventure does a great job of recreating the look and feel of a remote Scottish island. Watch Dogs 2 features one of Ubisoft’s finest worlds. Natural lighting and fog bring this part of the USA brillia
PC Powerplay3 min read
Extra, Extra
The most compelling open worlds are the ones that feel like they would exist even if you never visited them, and the key to that illusion is to fill the world with convincing people. I’m not talking about the main characters, the quest-givers, or th
PC Powerplay1 min read
Try These
The extras are just as finely detailed as the world itself. It’s fascinating to simply watch people go about their day. They may not look like much, but some are skooma addicts, adulterers, or even evil cult members. The citizens of Los Santos are
PC Powerplay1 min read
Best Dressed
These gorgeous wings buff your jump, too. If you have thighs for miles, go with these elephantine leggings. They’ll stop laughing when you show off your newfound riches. Raises item discovery.
PC Powerplay3 min read
Grimdark Goofs
Many fervent Dark Souls fans have written off Dark Souls II as an accident. But, in the words of Bob Ross who’d no doubt look over Medula with a tear in his eye, the sun setting over an endless sea, bathing the ruins of a once proud civilisation in g
PC Powerplay1 min read
Take it Slow
Fast travel is ubiquitous in open world games. I get why – it’s a time-saver in an industry more packed with massive games than ever. But I think it also undermines the scale of these virtual realms. More and more I find myself swearing off using i
PC Powerplay1 min read
Games
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 a
PC Powerplay6 min read
Quick Draw
Every one of its stealthy encounters is its own puzzle, and every puzzle is a chance to experiment and, more often than not, fail. Desperados III is all about a team of specialists working in sync, using preternatural precision and timing to overcome
PC Powerplay1 min read
Tools Of The Trade
Get guards to look the other way with cute animals, loud noises, or flirty conversation, then sneak past them or stab them in the back. Keep your hands clean by making enemies walk underneath precariously balanced rocks, loose scaffolding, or your o
PC Powerplay1 min read
Putting Together A Crew
The leader of the group, Cooper’s out to avenge his dead dad. He’s the dullest of the bunch, but his two pistols and throwing knife come in very handy. The least lethal of the gang, Kate can put on a disguise, slip into off-limits areas, and manipul
PC Powerplay1 min read
Play It Again
Two guns, two abilities, narration in a southern drawl. An unsung classic. If at first you don’t succeed, pretend you were playing it for the soundtrack. Tactical isometric cover shooting, in meticulous turn-based fashion.
PC Powerplay3 min read
Shark Weak
I’ve lost track of how many people I’ve eaten. My mission was to consume ten golfers, and since people don’t golf in the ocean I had to jump out of the water and shimmy my way onto the golf course to start chowing down on them. Three patrol boats fil
PC Powerplay3 min read
Undead Redemption
I’ve never been so pleased to see a witch. Wearing an antlered skull, and emitting the kind of presence you feel long before you see, “like a storm rolling in” according to Ron Perlman’s tar-thick voiceover, in another game she might be an end-of-lev
PC Powerplay1 min read
Watching The Detectives
Arcana: The Magician Loyal, accident-prone, considers himself a ladies’ man. He isn’t. Arcana: The Chariot Tomboyish, likes kung-fu and steak. Can be a bit full-on at times. Arcana: The Priestess Quiet, shy, intelligent and prone to giggle fits.
PC Powerplay1 min read
Need To Know
A port of the enhanced PS Vita version of one of the best PS2-era JRPGs Atlus Atlus Intel Core i3-8350K CPU, 12GB RAM, GeForce GTX 1060 No atlus.com/atlus-titles/persona4-golden/ ■
PC Powerplay3 min read
Old School
Starting a new school is a difficult time for anyone. But the teenaged protagonist of Atlus’s sprawling JRPG has it particularly tough. Having moved from the bustle and bright lights of Tokyo to the supposed rural calm of Inaba, he’s barely unpacked
PC Powerplay1 min read
It’s Dinnertime
A special piece of armour that collects all the delicious souls. How can you harvest the souls of the dead without a good ol’ scythe? A cube of immense destruction that uses souls to unleash a high-powered beam. A tome that siphons souls and then re
PC Powerplay6 min read
Breeze Block
I’m in a dark crypt, surrounded by skeletons and creepers. I’m blasting mobs with my firework arrows which explode into a cloud of colourful sparks, dual-wielding sickles that freeze enemies, and harvesting the souls of the fallen to power my laser c
PC Powerplay1 min read
Monster Mash
The classic Minecraft undead mob. Still very slow and break easily. A teleporting weirdo who has long spindly arms that are not for hugs. A big chunky dude that loves lava but hates fiery arrows to the head. The ones in the cages are good and the
PC Powerplay1 min read
Hell Yes
Pushes back tanky enemies, exposing the fragile ones to your champion. Frostbite’s damage-over-time effect is devstating. Lets the Umbra power up by eating morsels before combat. Move a unit down a floor while healing them significantly. Turns ar
PC Powerplay3 min read
Light My Pyre
Hell is empty and all the devils are here. By here I mean on this train, teaming up with monsters to fight angels across the frozen wasteland that used to be their home, until they reach Hell’s heart and relight it with the last Pyre-flame. Surprisin
PC Powerplay1 min read
Amazon Makes Games Now?
Yep, Amazon has had its own gaming division since 2012. Don’t worry, I forgot too. After seven years of making mobile games exclusive to Amazon’s app store, PC and console games seem to be its new focus. Crucible is the highest-profile game to come o
PC Powerplay3 min read
Sub-prime
Checking all of the boxes needed to fit into the service game climate Crucible has: a roster of heroes with diverse abilities, cosmetics, a battle pass with dozens of progression levels, and snippets of lore that suggest a larger world. Unfortunately
PC Powerplay1 min readWars & Military
Know Your Weapon
Expensive pistol with high damage and even higher recoil. A risky pick for pistol rounds. A powerful rifle with lots of recoil. Knocks down enemies with a single headshot High fire rate rifle that’s easy to control, but lower damage than the Vand
PC Powerplay3 min read
Counter-spike
It’s wild how quickly Valorant has captured the collective consciousness of FPS fans. Riot’s competitive shooter is just barely out of beta, yet it already stands toe-to-toe with the biggest games in its genre. It helps that Valorant comes from a gig
PC Powerplay2 min read
Alienware m15 R3
PRICE $6,399 ONLINE dell.com/en-au/ The Alienware m15 laptops have been a staple of Dell’s gaming laptop range for years now and as per the company’s business model you can get this new 15-inch rig with just about every CPU and GPU combo you could w
PC Powerplay4 min read
AMD Ryzen 3 3100 and Ryzen 3 3300X
PRICE AMD Ryzen 3 3100 - $175, AMD Ryzen 3 3300X - $205 ONLINE www.amd.com Remember that time just a couple of years back when a quad core CPU was regarded as high end? How far things have come! The new Ryzen 3 3100 and 3300X bring 4-core/8-thread c
PC Powerplay6 min read
Solid State Drives
Storage may not get the blood racing in the same way that a CPU or graphics card does, but it is an increasingly important component of any gaming system. With the next-gen consoles both looking to make the most of their PCIe SSDs, it seems only reas
PC Powerplay2 min read
HTC Vive Cosmos Elite
PRICE $1,699 ONLINE www.vive.com The Cosmos Elite is essentially the original Cosmos bundled with the first generation base stations and controllers, and a different faceplate attached to the headset. If you’ve already bought the Cosmos, you can upg
PC Powerplay2 min read
Steelseries Apex Pro
PRICE $389 ONLINE https://steelseries.com Steelseries’s Apex keyboards are all respectable offerings – high-quality peripherals for the discerning PC enthusiast. Each model has a dinky display and textured wheel for multimedia controls, and the same
PC Powerplay1 min read
Inventory
THE BEST BUILD FOR EVERY BUDGET ■
PC Powerplay2 min read
Thermaltake s100 TG
PRICE $89 ONLINE www.thermaltake.com.au While Thermaltake continues to push various iterations of its hyper-designed Level 20 series, the case-maker is still keeping a watchful eye on on the budget end of the market, and the S100 Tempered Glass is a
PC Powerplay2 min read
Hotware
PRICE $60 DISTRIBUTOR Donut Robotics www.donutrobotics.com Given how 2020 is going we’re surprised this didn’t happen sooner. Of course it’s a smart mask. Because we’re living in a world now where wearing a mask outside might be the only way you get
PC Powerplay4 min read
War Without End
There have been two Infinity Wards. The first invented Call of Duty; the second saved it from diminishing returns. In the middle was a cataclysmic event in game development, one that played out in public and left a world-famous studio forever changed
PC Powerplay3 min read
Ragdoll Slapstick
My fondest gaming memory: half a dozen boys squeezed tight into a uni halls bedroom, gathered around a monitor watching two boxy men stumble and push each other over, in endless loops. We’re losing our minds, laughing so hard that we gather a crowd f
PC Powerplay1 min read
Keeping Tabs
All the elegance of smashing someone with a block of Styrofoam. Frodo spliced with salmon DNA – leaps headlong at enemies. A one-wheeled apple-launching terror steered by… is that Bob Ross? Pretty sure he s actually three halflings on each other’s

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