Tạp Chí : Xbox Tháng 4 2014

Tạp chí Xbox tháng 4 năm 2014. Về Game

Hands-on: why this shooter

reboot is a surprise hit

FIRST PLAY

WORLD EXCLUSIVE

REVIEWED

PLANTS VS ZOMBIES

I’ve said a lot about how exciting

it is to see new worlds and new experiences arriving on Xbox One

This issue, we get to see how the old guard does it Rocksteady Studios has built an incredible reputation with

its first two Batman Arkham games, going

from little-known London studio to guardian

of one of the biggest heroes in modern

gaming, and it’s taking that responsibility

seriously Batman’s debut on Xbox One is the

biggest, best-looking version of Gotham to

grace gaming, and the fact that it’s seemingly

the studio’s last visit makes it all the more noteworthy

Meanwhile in Helsinki, RedLynx is doing great things

with Trials on Xbox One, and even Wolfenstein

is starting to impress after a lacklustre early

showing It’s starting to feel like next-gen

is the shot in the arm that the industry has

been waiting for, and that’s good news for

everybody Enjoy the issue.

“XBOX ONE HAS BEEN

THE SHOT IN THE ARM

THAT WE’VE ALL

BEEN WAITING FOR”

HERO FOR

NEXT-GEN

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AND GET A FREE GAME!

SEE P66

HOW REDLYNX REINVENTED TRIALS

The perfect arcade game gets better (p40)

BATMAN FACES HIS BIGGEST THREAT YET ON XBOX ONE

Our resident Bat-fan visits Rocksteady to see a new, truly open-world Gotham (p30)

INSIDE XBOX ONE: THE LAUNCH STORY

How Microsoft’s all-new approach paid off (p44)

THE ULTIMATE GUIDE

TO WORLD OF TANKS

Everything you need to get started on Xbox 360’s free-to-play hit (p99)

WHY WE WANT TO RETURN TO WOLFENSTEIN

MachineGames delivers a perfect blend of shooting & silliness (p52)

BATMAN: ARKHAM KNIGHT

This is what Rocksteady was doing while

Arkham Origins tided us over

DASHBOARD

NEWS AND INTERVIEWS CURATED FOR YOUR EASY DIGESTION

What lies ahead for the planet Sera?

Activision’s big-boy gets a new three-year dev cycle

18 Opinion

Ed stubbornly pines for the game that justifies Kinect

20 Essential Titanfall tipsGet up to speed ahead of the pack

XBOX EXTRA

GETTING MORE FROM YOUR CONSOLE

Games that have stuck in our mind and/or craw

How The Godfather failed, despite its ambitions.

Access to the whole of Arkham, unfettered use

of the Batmobile, and a brand new villain created

by Rocksteady itself: the Arkham Knight

40 Trials FusionHow do you make a sequel to one of the world’s simplest games, when the community have already built over 600,000 levels? You’d be surprised

We chat to Boyd Multerer about building the software that powers Xbox One What does Xbox’s Director of Development see coming next?

63 Metal Gear Solid V:

76 South Park: The Stick of Truth

79 Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z

80 Rekoil

87 Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Z

87 Far Cry Classic

METAL GEAR SOLID V:

Jon ‘Log’ Blyth

Associate Editor

Live OXM Log

Twitter @disappointment

Log achieved glory this

month by finishing an Inferno

level of Trials Fusion in 251

attempts, while a RedLynx

employee watched To that

man’s credit, he never once

screamed “oh god just let me

do it, you cack-handed tit.”

If you like the magazine format, but wish it looked

a bit more like it was trapped in the Phantom

Zone from Superman 2,

the iPad edition is enhanced with video content and is just four quid an issue Android users? Get onto Zinio, as that’s where you’ll find us

bit.ly/ipadoxm

Every day we add to the sum total

of all that is Xbox on our website, spearheaded by the capable fingertips of the estimable Mr

Evans-Thirlwell It’s a non-stop erotic cabaret of news, features and everything Xbox

Recent highlights: Why

Wolfenstein is better than you

think / Six ways Microsoft could improve the dashboard / Where

to get Xbox One games cheap /

What Respawn cut from Titanfall

Titanfall Beta

Good to see the universally euphoric

response to a game that should

prove to be a system-shifter.

The Stick of Truth

Polishing up those side missions after finishing the main game, just

to hear all the dialogue.

RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 6

Log is convinced that he could pull this off if he just lost another couple

of pounds and learned to sew.

Android Netrunner

The card game that defies you

to understand what’s going on for the first 16 games.OFFICE PLAYLIST > WHAT WE’VE SPENT OUR TIME ON THIS MONTH

to pop a cheeky Scotch Egg into his mouth as he works

Dan Griliopoulos

Contributor

Live GriddleOctopus Twitter @griddleoctopus

Dan has been at the location

of every major tragedy in human history, silently taking notes He’s also been at a couple of preview events, which he’s written up for

a range of gaming outlets

Flexible chap, is Dan

of jubilant profanity For a compact lass, she can’t half generate a blood-curdling torrent of blasphemy

Philippa Warr

Contributor

Live davenotdave Twitter @philippawarr

In an industry where sexism runs rampant, Philippa really isn’t helping matters by having a name that’s easily shortened to “Phwarr” She’s been reliving old Lionhead glories in our Now Playing section Phwarr

G E A R S H I F T

FENIX FROM

THE FLAMES

What’s the future for Gears of War,

now that Epic is out of the picture?

Couple of big chaps, just

enjoying the sticky cover

that they popularised.

Gears of War has a new home Microsoft has bought

the iconic Xbox series outright from its creator, Epic Games, and handed it over to its newest studio Black Tusk – where it’ll be overseen by series veteran Rod Fergusson, who we last saw at

Irrational finishing off Bioshock Infinite

Revealing the news at the end of January, Microsoft surprised the world when it unveiled its new custodian Black Tusk Studios (formerly Microsoft Vancouver)

is still best known for a trailer, that slick 30-second promo for

an unnamed stealth-action game that we saw at E3 last year What looked like a solid concept for a futuristic spy thriller, however, turned out to be just that “It was something that was done in Unreal [Engine 4] and more of a concept piece,” explained Microsoft Studios head Phil Spencer

The studio’s manager, Mike Crump, had previously said that Black Tusk was working on “Microsoft’s next big entertainment

franchise”, though Spencer suggested that this Splinter meets-Uncharted teaser wasn’t necessarily anything more

Cell-than a fleeting idea, a way for the fledgling studio to test their creative and technical expertise on the new version of Epic’s

Unreal Engine, on which the new Gears game will run.

SLOW BURN

Not that it’s likely to be with us any time soon Following the announcement, Spencer said that the new game would have

to “reignite the franchise and grow it,” adding that “it won’t be

a quick turnaround” but he believes “we’ve built the right team

to achieve that goal, I just want to give them the time.” The discussions to acquire the series’ rights from Epic had reportedly been ongoing since last autumn, so Black Tusk might have begun preparatory work on the game then

Indeed, there might even be something further to be read from Spencer’s initial Twitter response, where he referred to

Black Tusk’s “first original GoW” Could that potentially mean

a stopgap in the form of a remake of the first Gears? Microsoft

certainly has previous form with remakes, with rumours still

buzzing that we’re set to see a Halo 2 Anniversary Edition later

this year A tarted-up Gears box set for Xbox One would fit

Fergusson: he got BioShock Infinite shipped, and now he’s back on the Gears.

Don’t take any chances with the range of your shotgun.

Gears is obviously less ripe for an

update, though a visual overhaul with a

few additions – perhaps adding Horde

and Beast mode to the original game –

would certainly be warmly welcomed

Spencer’s stated desire to “reignite”

the series is understandable in light of

the low sales of Gears of War: Judgment

Bulletstorm developer People Can Fly

was essentially handed a poisoned

chalice, tasked with continuing the story

of Delta Squad, whose narrative had

come to a natural conclusion in Gears

of War 3 Though generally praised by

critics, it was received poorly by buyers, and its first month sales of 425,000

copies was barely over a fifth of Gears of

War 3’s launch tally

In such circumstances, it’s easy to see why Epic would want to sell: it can now focus its attentions on PC-only

sandbox survival game Fortnite (other

games are also in development, we’re told) while licensing its ever-popular middleware out to publishers – Unreal Engine 4 has already been adopted by Microsoft for Black Tusk’s game and

Fable Legends, so it seems to be the

company’s next-gen engine of choice

At the same time, it’s easy to see why Microsoft wanted to buy: the franchise was one of the most significant Xbox titles of the last generation, and fans have been clamouring for its return

on Xbox One since the console was

announced While Judgment many not

have done the numbers, a proper reboot that shows off the power of the new console could be just as popular – and possibly as influential – as the first

Gears was on Xbox 360.

FERGIE TIME

The pressure is certainly on Black Tusk

On the one hand, it has to deliver a game

that appeals to existing Gears fans,

while ensuring that it feels ‘new’ enough

to justify its status as a first-party standard-bearer, something more than

a visual upgrade of a last-gen game That’s perhaps why Microsoft sought the experienced Fergusson, producer of the first two games and executive producer on the third, to take charge of development

Well, those

colours appear

to be confirming

multiplayer.

brief, then.

As for where the series might go under

Fergusson’s stewardship, we discussed

potential updates to the franchise in an

interview conducted around the release

of Gears 3 “I think there’s more we

probably could have done in terms of

customisation” he told us “Part of it is

what your franchise is built for We can’t

really do ‘weapon porn’, where we add a

stock and a scope because our weapons

are kind of unique” With contemporary

shooters increasingly offering more ways

to personalise your online experience,

that could well be part of Gears’ future

It’s also evident that he was keen to

bring new players into the fray, with more

accessible multiplayer elements – which

would tie into Spencer’s aforementioned

desire to “grow” the fanbase “We’ve

tried to make it frictionless so you can

be in and playing within ten seconds,”

said Fergusson, adding that he believed

it was important to cater to die-hards

and novices equally “Players who

compete in the alpha playlist you recognise as the advocates for your game They’re the champions, they’re the people you love dearly and so you make sure their needs are met But if you end up just aiming towards the hardcore, that audience gets smaller and smaller

as you go along, and so you want to keep bringing new blood into the mix.”

A third possibility is that Gears will follow the example of Fable Legends,

becoming a long-term service rather than a traditional boxed product With

an expanded universe taking in multiple novels and comic books, not to mention

a long-awaited film adaptation, there’s plenty of lore to draw from Happily, whichever direction Microsoft takes the franchise in, we’ll likely hear more

on those plans before too long, with Fergusson confirming he’d “share more with you all soon.” A teaser trailer at E3

is the very least we’re expecting

Chris Schilling

What’s been going on since Sunset

Overdrive’s awesome reveal.

How Sledgehammer will be keeping

Call of Duty relevant.

How The Division is an RPG first, and

cool gadget-shooter second.

p22

p24

How do you refresh a franchise that was so popular it became

an industry standard? You’re going to upset someone

WHILE ENSURING IT’S MORE THAN JUST A

1 Be a fan

I was already a fan of the

series There were definitely

moments when I could say: ‘What

about this moment; can we make a

piece of loot that refers to it?’

bit like BioShock

Mechanically, it’s a huge

departure, but the common

dimension was narrative

Narrative is hugely important on

almost all the games I’ve worked

on, and it was comforting to speak

to other writers and to know that

they care about the same things

to experiment

My big push was to integrate

free-form exploration where you

can use tools, combine them, and

mess with the environment If you

experiment with your tools and

affect your enemies before combat

begins, you can actually neutralise

them, imbuing them with a state

that will transfer into the combat,

making it easier

their path

We aimed for multiple paths

in ‘dungeons’ for the player to feel like they chose the way forward – that stuff is key to me, and it’s why I’m in games at all I feel like more

of that made it into the game since

I came on, and I’m proud of that

well as fun

I called it ‘contingent humour’ – what might the player

do, and how can we turn that into

a punchline? For instance, there’s that player archetype of a ‘cleaner’

who tries to open every door in the game Rather than having most doors be locked, we turned several

of them into jokes, which escalate

to the point where you almost don’t want to see the last one…

how to tell jokes

My past experience, not

just with BioShock, was

action-so that they could break them strategically That relationship felt good and correct; it was definitely not to teach them how to tell jokes

make the game better

If I played Spock at all, it was on a design axis I would say: ‘In 2014, this old-school mechanic will be thought of as more frustrating than funny.’ So there was a lot of back and forth about game design Matt, Trey and Chris Parker (product director

at Obsidian) were incredibly receptive It was a shockingly healthy collaboration, I felt, for being so three-headed

Matt Stone do the gags…

There are Skyrim references,

and that stuff came from them

It was more about finding spaces they hadn’t already tapped and asking: “What about this?” Some

of those jokes escalate, some are one-offs, some are structural, some are framed by the entire game, and

I feel like that was probably where the rest of us could help at all On the pure storytelling front, Matt and Trey supplied us

all canon

You’ve got one party member who’s adventuring with you, and you can rotate them out any time Refining the way in which characters with incredibly long legacies behave as systemic pawns… Matt and Trey had a lot to say about that, and rightfully That was probably among the most challenging intersections between story and game design

hardcore fans

The parody social networking mechanic was one place for that – collecting obscure characters is an excellent way of doing a totally arbitrary collectable object ‘thing’ and give it a soul The junk loot – each of those is a reference to something only the

hardest of core fans will get OXM

BACKGROUND CHECK

NAME Jordan Thomas JOB TITLE Creative Consultant BIO Started out at Psygnosis,

but his big moment was creating the legendarily terrifying Cradle level for

Thief: Deadly Shadows at Ion

Storm Moved to Irrational where he was lead designer

on Sander Cohen’s Fort Frolic

in BioShock; was then made

creative director of 2K Marin where he lead development

on BioShock 2 Went back to Irrational for Infinite, then went

indie - but he found the time

to consult on Stick of Truth.

departure from

BioShock , but the common dimension was narrative.”

Aoife goes that extra step to be better at

Dark Souls

Do you want to be better at

videogames? Well, you could always practice But one company is offering what it claims is a scientific edge It’s open to anyone who can spare £180

on a slightly cheap-looking red plastic head-brace, that delivers an electrical tingle to your forehead

Scepticism is to be entirely expected, but the technololgy behind the foc.us headset is supported by an impressive volume of real science Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation – passing

a low current across your brain – is actually a bona fide thing, mostly used

to help patients suffering from stroke and learning difficulties

tDCS wasn’t developed for videogames, and the documented benefits are more general in their

cognitive and learning nature But it’s gamers who’ve been singled out as a market with enough expendable income and hunger for self-improvement It’s nice, being a target demographic

The headset has minimal controls, making it difficult

to use unless you have the companion app (iOS-only, at this stage), and the fixed brace made

it difficult to fit correctly onto an over-sized head

Our experience? A warm, tightening sensation at the default 1.0mA, stepping

up to a prickly pulse at the upper limit

of 2.0mA, that lingers for minutes after your session It’s not painful, but it’s not exactly comfortable, and we

didn’t notice any particular leap in our

Trials Evolution times after a single

session Protracted use is required for measurable benefit, according to a company spokesperson, and we haven’t been able to spend enough time dressed

like a Star Trek

extra while playing

Battlefield to track

its impact on our K/D ratio

Still, recent research by the US Air Force suggests that tDCS can deliver enduring improvements in cognitive performance and even structural changes in the brain Whether this headset does the same remains to be seen, but if you want to give it a try you can find out more at www.foc.us

IN NUMBERS > DATAPOINT: NEWS IN NUMBERS > DATAPOINT: NEWS IN NUMBERS >

7%

65

The number of new developers recently announced for the ID@Xbox program.

720p

The resolution you can now livestream videos via the Xbox One’s Twitch app.

Price reduction of the Xbox One’s official RRP – and we saw some going for £370.

USE SHOULD DELIVER COGNITIVE

SHOCK TACTICS

Can an electrical temple-tickler up your game?

WHAT

SLEDGEHAMMER SAYS:

“Having the honour of

developing the new, next-gen

CoD is a dev’s dream come true

The next CoD represents a new

era for this amazing franchise

Today is just the beginning,”

say Condrey and Schofield,

as though there’s an

option to say

anything else.

VAGUE BUT HOPEFULActivision is being proudly hands-off with development, claiming its studios have a lot of independence Sledgehammer has earned that trust with MW3 ,

it says, although details on what it’s up to are slim

“The proof will be in the pudding,” is the unhelpful summary.

NEXT GEN FIRSTAlthough we’re still

in the generational transition year, Activision’s focus is very much on Xbox One It’s has also addressed performance issues, saying that the tech of the next-gen platforms was still

“coming into focus” last year Expect better resolutions and rates.

games, it became a real horse race With next-gen hardware,

we want to make sure our developers have the time

to innovate and iterate.”

SLEDGEHAMMER IS

LEADING THE NEXT-GEN

CALL OF DUTY

Will the new schedule be good for

the long-toothed franchise?

What’s Sledgehammer, and why is

it making Call of Duty?

Glen Schofield and Michael

Condrey, who made their name with

Dead Space, defected to Activision

and founded Sledgehammer in

2009 to create a third-person

CoD spinoff That was almost

immediately abandoned after

the acrimonious departure of

Infinity Ward’s key staff, meaning

Sledgehammer had to pitch in on

Modern Warfare 3 Now, finally, it

gets to do its own game

Why bring in a new lead developer?

Sledgehammer isn’t replacing anyone As the glossier pixels of next-gen require ever more work, Treyarch and the new Infinity Ward have been moved onto three-year schedules Meanwhile, Activision has confirmed that it considers

Ghosts to be an offshoot with

legs So our speculation is that Sledgehammer is working on a

Ghosts sequel, while Treyarch and

IW deal with Black Ops 3 and MW4.

Is there any reason to be alarmed or excited?

Whisper it, but this might be the

point at which CoD gets to try something different If Titanfall

is as successful as expected, then there’ll be fresh pressure for Activision’s behemoth to evolve, and that’ll be (slightly) easier at

a studio that has more than 48 months to get its game made That said, a new generation means more work for devs, so this might just be Activision running to keep up

SOUTH PARK:

THE STICK OF TRUTH

It’s like an hours-long TV episode and we couldn’t

be happier

BIOSHOCK INFINITE

Snubbed in the Best Game and Best Story categories at the BAFTAs Harsh, or was the Emperor starkers?

ELDER SCROLLS ONLINE

Skyrim meets Morrowind, or an MMO

with pretty backdrops? Either way, that subscription fee is going to be pricey

LIGHTNING RETURNS

The best thing we can say about

it is that it’s over now It’s over, and we can move on

to be a billion-dollar powerhouse by snubbing millions of potential customers Sledgehammer’s game will be coming out on Xbox 360, but it’s making no secret of the fact that this will be a slimmed-down version of the Xbox One game.

If God’s a gamer, I’m

not going to heaven

After all, I’m a firm, if

occasional, fan of games

that rely exclusively

on the Kinect sensor,

and Kinect is clearly a device

assembled by Dark Powers to

lure the Righteous from the Way

of Ironsights Developers have

taken several stabs at the notion

of pure gesture control, most of

which haven’t really panned out,

and some of which have proven

utterly dreadful Here’s why I

don’t think Kinect-only gaming

is a busted flush, and to hell with

any bickering about the resilience

of your elbow tendons

In a nutshell, the problem with

most Kinect games is that they

secretly want to be

controller-based games Deprived of their

precious buttons and analogue

sticks, they’ll sullenly demand

that you tackle mechanics and

scenarios that were conceived

with controllers in mind, thus

opening a can of unflattering

comparisons Sega’s abysmal Rise

of Nightmares, for instance, wants

to believe that the human torso

is a giant, latency-free analogue

stick, as opposed to (in my case)

a bunch of potatoes held together

by elastic bands Far better, Mr

Developer, to throw all those

controller-based paradigms

out the window and start from

scratch – that way, you won’t have

to worry about your ungainly

motion-controlled shooter being

measured against the chilly

finesse of an Operation Flashpoint.

MAKING WAVES

Another, related problem is

that Kinect developers have

been oddly unimaginative,

doubtless for fear of deterring

the reactionary husks who

thought giving Devil May Cry

to Ninja Theory was a colossal

insult Faced with the boundless

possibilities of being able to stick

two fingers up at a videogame

character and have her tell you

to get stuffed, they’ll opt for mechanics like “tilt head to lean”

Yes, this kind of fine-grained interaction is more palatable now that Kinect has been treated to

a power boost, but that doesn’t make it any more entertaining

Here’s an act to follow: Xbox Live

Arcade’s Leedmees, in which you

stretch out your arms to create platforms so that tiddly Lemming-style critters can amble to safety

Or how about Lionhead’s

Fable: The Journey? Now there’s

a game that isn’t trying to beat

a dead horse The secret to this first-person caravan ‘em up’s success is that much of the time, your character doesn’t actually move – he’s just the guy holding the reins Thus, any problems of latency or misrecognition can be easily glossed as quirks of equine behaviour The game isn’t a triumph, mainly because it keeps insisting that you wash your horse, but it comes a lot closer to

the mark than Rise of Nightmares

It also comes closer to the

mark than Steel Battalion:

Heavy Armor, an immensely

ambitious project that appears

to have overestimated how accurate the first-generation Kinect sensor would be And yet, the most enduring of

Heavy Armor’s problems have

nothing to do with Kinect If

you manage the admittedly rare trick of perfecting the setup, the motion recognition is entirely workable; moreover, the kinks are completely compatible with the fiction, which puts you in charge of a cramped, lumbering, ergonomics-averse coffin I’d genuinely class it as an unreservedly Great Game, were

it not for the designers’ habit of continually throwing enemies

at you till you memorise the spawning pattern An Xbox One remaster could be just the thing.Kinect gaming on Xbox One isn’t off to a terrific start Yes,

Kinect Sports Rivals is highly

promising, but there’s also

Fighter Within to consider, and

the horizon is troublingly free of Kinect-only projects Hopefully,

an injection of indie how care of the forthcoming ID@Xbox program will set precedents for larger, more cautious developers to follow There’s a Kinect in every Xbox One-owning household now, so let’s make sure we give the damn thing something to do

know-NEXT MONTH Why we’ll never get auteur developers in AAA studios.

GAMES IS THEY SECRETLY WANT TO BE CONTROLLER-BASED GAMES, OPENING A

Fighter Within – a game that makes me want to hoof kittens into a snakepit.

Heavy Armor isn’t about fighting well – it’s about surviving against the odds.

YOU’RE FIRED! > QUOTES OF THE MONTH > BLAH BLAH > HE SAID WHAT? > YADDA

“There were some things I’m not allowed to talk about – I was like, ‘Wow! That’s interesting Why don’t you tell people that?’”

DayZ creator Dean Hall on talking to Microsoft

about bringing his game to Xbox One

“We know we want it and we

know it should exist, but we

don’t know what it is yet

But we are doing things that

we’ll announce soon.”

Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford, on the

possibility of a Borderlands 3.

“It was hard to see the numbers, as they were lower than we wanted

That’s always hard on any game team.”

Microsoft Studios’ Mike Ybarra on Ryse’s

mixed critical reception

NEED FOR SPEED

HEADS TO HOLLYWOOD

Director Scott Waugh speaks to us about turning games into movies

formative years on film sets and behind the wheels of various stunt cars So how could he be sure he’d make a film

Need for Speed fans would appreciate?

“When I approach my subject matter

in any film, I really try to be very respectful of the fans,” he replies “And

so when we were making this film, I studied the games

a lot I wanted to

be very accurate and authentic to the game Not just camera angles, but the format and the cars that were used.”

FAN SERVICE

“[EA] originally developed the screenplay,” he continues, “and then

EA’s racing franchise is the

latest games stalwart to make the jump to the silver screen, with the just-released movie directed by former stunt man Scott Waugh His experience makes him ideal for the task, he told us “I’ve been

so lucky in my career, because

my life was a real videogame, if you think about it,” he says “So with

my movies I’m always trying to put the audience into the boots of my characters so that they can see what I’ve been so lucky to have seen And I think that’s why, maybe, my style works

so well for videogame titles My films are purposefully no CGI, very realistic, and the stunts are all real.”

Waugh is, by his own admission, not

a huge gamer; he spent most of his

Dreamworks and Steven Spielberg got involved, and we’ve been collaborating with them ever since.” One big plus for

NFS: “it didn’t have a storyline that was

built for the game When you make a storyline for a different genre, like for a videogame, sometimes they don’t make great movies, because the story wasn’t

made for a movie.”

There’s a bit of change going on in Hollywood, Waugh concedes; it may finally be waking

up to the fact that videogames are hot property “What happened with comic books, and how they’ve become huge movies – definitely Hollywood has its sights on videogame titles right now.”

ITS SIGHTS ON GAME

1 SHOOT YOUR

OWN GRENADES

The Smart Pistol locks onto them,

allowing you to surgically target

the blast wave

2 USE THE

TITAN AS BAIT

Park it in Guard Mode and wait

for somebody to Rodeo the thing

Providing they aren’t cloaked, they

should be easy enough to snipe

3 RIDE SHOTGUN

You’re protected by the Titan’s

bodyshield while perched on its

shoulder – and you can still use

your anti-Titan weapons Watch

you don’t shoot your ride in the

neck, though

4 USE AUTO-EJECT

PLUS NUCLEAR EJECTION

Cornered by two or more

Titans? Punch randomly till you

automatically eject, then watch

as your severely beaten attackers

expire in a cloud of radiation

5 BLOCK SMART

Try to engage your Vortex Blocker after an enemy player does – theirs will expire before yours, leaving them defenceless against your riposte

6 TURN A WALL-RUN INTO A SNIPING SPOT

Ram your knife into a wall with the left trigger, engage your cloak and get busy with that Smart Pistol

Be sure to move on once you’ve scored a couple of kills – you’re awfully exposed

7 BLOW UP THE DROPSHIP ON ATTRITION

Why let that Epilogue end with

a daring escape? Three Titans focusing their fire ought to do it

You’ll even get some bonus points

in the process

12 USE YOUR DOUBLE JUMP TO AUTO-CORRECT

It’s possible to change direction

a bit using the boost Let’s say you want to bounce sideways through a window after a wall-run, for instance

13 SWITCH TO SLAVED WARHEADS

These home-in on your reticule, transforming your Titan’s shoulder launcher into an effective ranged weapon Beware of Vortex Blockers, though

14 EJECT EARLY

Tap D-pad Up, then mash X to trigger manual ejection – a handy trick when you need to reach the dropship on Attrition, or when you’re being rodeoed Equip Nuclear Ejection for extra hilarity

8 USE A TITAN LIKE A MORTAR

Try dropping yours directly into a crowded battle Anything caught beneath it will die instantly – including other Titans

9 THE SMART PISTOL

IS YOUR GRUNT MOP

Smart Pistol bullets kill Grunts in one shot Run through a crowd of them and you’ll clean up This will shave tens of seconds off your Titan clock

10 CLOAK SMART

Just ejected? Cloak while airborne

to camouflage your landing

Just fired a rocket? Cloak again

Crossing open ground? You know what to do

11 CHAIN YOUR WALL RUNS

Your jump boost refills when you run along a wall Keep stringing them together and you need never set foot on Mother Earth again

The world’s most anticipated next-gen shooter is

out now Here’s how you can stand apart on the battlefield

TITANFALL TIPS

1 Bethesda will

announce Dishonored 2 at this year’s E3 It’ll release next year on Xbox One

EXCITEMENT: 8/10 LIKELIHOOD: 7/10

2 Nordic Games

will reboot the Darksiders franchise

with a bit of help from…

PlatinumGames, creator of

Bayonetta.

EXCITEMENT: 7/10 LIKELIHOOD: 1/10

3 Lionhead’s

unannounced non-Fable game

is a play MMO.

free-to-EXCITEMENT: 6/10 LIKELIHOOD: 7/10

4 Neither The

Division nor Halo 5 will release in 2014.

EXCITEMENT: 0/10 LIKELIHOOD: 5/10

5 Far Cry 4 will

be announced this year It’ll

be a new story with a new cast, and set in the Himalayas.

EXCITEMENT: 9/10 LIKELIHOOD: 4/10

// DROP YOUR TITAN INTO A CROWDED BATTLE TO INSTANTLY KILL ANYTHING BENEATH IT – INCLUDING OTHER TITANS //

15 KEEP YOUR

TITAN CLOSE

Call it to your side from across

the map, and it’ll probably get

blown up on the way

16 USE GRUNTS

FOR RECON

They aren’t that tough, but they

will expose or distract other

Pilots Try escorting a pack of

them from on high

17 TAG-TEAM A TITAN

Rather than fighting one-on-one,

leap from the cockpit, engage your

cloak and flank the other Titan

while it attacks yours

18 STAY CLOSE

Titanfall’s maps are big – they’re

built for Titans, after all If you’re

hurting, finding a safe area should

21 TITANS DON’T LIKE BUILDINGS

Titan weapons don’t splash damage through walls, so Pilots inside buildings can be hard to kill Try to catch them in the open

Our Titanfall review is available now on totalxbox.com, and will be printed in the next issue of OXM.

It’s neither confirmed nor

ruled out It’s an ambitious

open-world experience, with

a persistent environment

that feels new But beyond

the graphical strain of

building convincing virtual

tech, there’s the simple

fact that the Snowdrop

Engine is designed to take

advantage of Xbox One

Ubisoft may yet buckle, but

an Xbox 360 version would

but after GTA V, we’re not

terribly impressed by just sunsets More striking is the weather cycle, which shows crisp, fresh snow being warmed to a glistening sludge in the sunlight It looks amazing, but we haven’t seen it in-game, so

it may still be screenshot smoke and mirrors

if you play solo, the game will tailor the enemy AI and special challenges you face to test you to the right degree

What’s the best gadget?

Scuttling seeker mines and turrets aside, our favourite is the watch that projects a scale map of the area onto the floor around you It’s a smart system that doesn’t snap you out

of the action Because this

is a squad game designed around online play, you don’t want to be lost in menu screens on the hostile streets, and the watch solution is equally awesome and elegant

Why’s everyone excited about a car door?

During a demo, when a player was using a car for cover, the soldier placed one hand on the car door, and gently closed

it In terms of combat,

it affected nothing It’s just that Ubi thought to elegantly introduce and solve a car door obstacle, all in the name of cool realism It was basically code for “we really, really care Please care too.”

THE DIVISION

Tom Clancy’s posthumous poster-boy for the post-apocalypse

PUBLISHER UBISOFT / DEVELOPER UBISOFT MONTREAL / FORMAT XBOX ONE / ETA TBC 2014

UPDATE

Will your map appear on another player’s screen?

If so, that’s great for planning and communication.

Are you really comparing The Division to The Crew?

Why not? The creative director called it a role-playing game, and there seems to be the same seamless multiplayer

There’s also the same next-gen ambition, led from the top by Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot The only difference between the two games, and to be fair, it’s a big one, is that

The Crew puts you in a car,

instead of a virus-sodden apocalypse And you’ll be able to leave New York and nip over to San Francisco in

a collaboration between Liverpool’s Ubisoft

Reflections, which made

Driver: San Francisco, and

Ivory Tower It’s the latter developer’s first game, but the studio heads have open-world racing

experience with Test Drive

Unlimited The maps will

feature densely-packed cities – Ubisoft claims that its New York will be just as

big as Liberty City from GTA

IV The idea, and it’s one

that we remember well from

Skyrim, is that “if you can

see it, you can go there”

So when is it coming out?

Well, it’s already been delayed once, and the studio seems to have gone into a months-long period

of press hibernation We wouldn’t be surprised if the game gets delayed again – Ubisoft can be a bit of a perfectionist But then again, it also churned

out Fighter Within, so who

knows what’s going on?

You can see the sun, but you can’t drive into it Caught you in a lie, Ubisoft.

THE CREW

Another update, another persistent open-world from Ubisoft

PUBLISHER UBISOFT / DEVELOPER IVORY TOWER/UBISOFT

REFLECTIONSFORMAT XBOX ONE / ETA AUGUST 2014

UPDATE

Is it an MMORPG?

Absolutely not, says

Insomniac It’s got an open

world, yes, and there’s a

lot of cloud-based stuff

and multiplayer washing

around, but you won’t

have to be online to play

it, and there will be a

campaign of sorts We’re

fairly confident you’ll be

better off playing with

friends, though This feels

a bit like co-op Crackdown.

Anything else to report?

Well, rumour has it that the game is set in the future, and that the cause

of the mutant outbreak

is an energy drink called

“OverCharge Delirium XT”

A vaguely credible internet source also claims it’ll release in October, and that there’s enough post-release content stacked

up already to last the game for an entire year

How does it handle?

It’s a third-person action adventure, which appears

to move like Assassin’s

Creed would if you dressed

it up like an MTV video extra There are melee weapons and guns that can be accessorised with, for instance, underslung energy cannons The weapon effects certainly fizz – we’re eager to get to grips with them

What’s the story?

The game takes place

in a city that has been overrun by weird orange mutants That’s bad news for humanity in general, but good news for your character – a worn-down blue collar worker in need

of a lifestyle upgrade It looks like there’s more than one playable character – either that, or you’ll be able to create your own

It’s quite user- driven, then?

Seemingly so It’s not just that you get to climb up and jump off pretty much everything – skyscrapers, billboards, parked cars, rooftop cafes, and so forth Insomniac also wants to introduce things to the world on an extremely rapid basis in response

to player behaviour So

if everybody’s getting a little complacent about visibility, for instance, the developer might warp

in some nasty weather This will apparently extend to riffing on the latest internet memes, thus allowing players of

Sunset Overdrive to be

110% hipper and smugger than ordinary Xbox Live members Can’t wait for the first “took an arrow to the knee” gag

SUNSET OVERDRIVE

Insomniac’s Xbox One exclusive has its head in the cloud

PUBLISHER MICROSOFT STUDIOS / DEVELOPERINSOMNIAC GAMES / FORMAT XBOX ONE / ETA 2014

This is one of several possible leading

men and women, we hope.

The sheer volume of pop culture crammed into the look is a bit jarring.

UPDATE

02 NEED FOR SPEED:

THE MOVIE

The long-running racing series gets a film of its own starring Aaron Paul

(Breaking Bad) in the driver’s seat Can it usurp Fast &

Furious from the podium?

XBLA’s Dustforce and score

yourself a clean sweep?

Metal Gear Solid V proper?

We’ll find out today

This time last year, we were sure Ubisoft was pulling our leg when it announced

Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon It

wasn’t More surprises like this today please, devs!

ONE FEATURES

The first major update to

Xbox One has now arrived,

retooling the Party system

and fixing TV judder Find

out how to use the new

features at totalxbox.com.

NEW FRIENDS

Looking for someone to play

Titanfall with? Sign up to

the totalxbox.com forums, and join in with the regular gaming nights held by our friendly community.

30

It’s been 30 years since Hulk Hogan and Mr T teamed up in the very first Wrestlemania, which suddenly makes us feel incredibly old.

THE WINTER SOLDIER

The Cap is back, and this time he’s joined by Black Widow

from The Avengers and new boy Falcon, to face-off against

The Winter Soldier – who may or may not be a face from

the Captain’s past We daren’t say any more than that in

fear of Aoife’s spoiler-rage.

AT GDC

The Game Developers Conference starts today in San Francisco Keep an eye

on totalxbox.com for the news and reveals coming out of the annual event.

W mechs and we couldn’t

be happier Now all we’ve got to deal with

is the post-Titanfall hype void

What will we look forward to with

a sense of breathless anticipation

now? How will we ever drool again?

And what if we’re like those sharks

that die if they stop swimming?

Thank God for Arkham Knight – our

newest reason to never sit down

and behave like sensible humans

Anyway, letters!

Proud Mrs Doyle

I couldn’t help but notice a multitude of peculiar things in Issue 108 Like how much the man behind Clementine on page 21 shares an uncanny resemblance

to Handsome Jack out of Borderlands

2 – just without the staples keeping his

face on Could this be the person he stole that face off? Another thing – in

the Alien: Isolation feature, you mention

the Alien’s top speed is eight metres per second Well, Usain Bolt can run at 12.27 metres per second Just thought I’d tell you And if you print this letter, can I just say hi to my mum?

Josh Doyle That’s Bigby, from The Wolf Among Us – and yes, he does look a bit like Pandora’s bad honcho It’d be great if there were a parallel universe, where games characters interact with each other away from the gamer’s eye

Ah, hang on We’re describing Wreck-It Ralph, aren’t we? As for relative speeds, did you know the Pacific Leatherback Turtle swims at 9.8 m/s? If you imagine an Alien holding a knife and fork and chasing

a turtle down the river, suddenly it seems less threatening And yeah, hi Josh’s mum!

Aoife madness

Just read February’s Messages page

while waiting for Skyrim’s loading

screens I just wanted to say I

completely agree with Aoife’s review

of Ghosts, and David is a plonker I’m

a woman who happens to like Call of

Duty, but I won’t stand up for a game

series that has failed to do anything innovative for years The last two campaigns have been naff to say the least I keep buying it simply because I

am addicted to the multiplayer, which

is probably the case for many players I also noticed nobody has mentioned how appalling the whole Xbox One interface

is The Xbox 360 seems miles ahead in terms of tidiness and ease of use

Kim Bowes Thanks for the vote of confidence, Kim, and

we humbly concur with your assessment of our correspondent As for the Xbox One, the interface has just had a bit of a functionality makeover (see “The Annotated…”) The teething troubles might be over soon.

No looking back

I just want to say thank you I have been going online asking friends, asking in stores and buying magazines all so I can find out if the Xbox One will play original Xbox and Xbox 360 games

You answered my questions, and while

it wasn’t the answer I wanted, I was reassured by your confidence that Xbox

360 will be around until the end of 2016

Michael Wood

FROM THE MOUTHS

OF TOTALXBOX.COM

Excerpted comments from our web site

Eyes on the prize

Thank you for printing my letter about how difficult I

found your magazine to read You asked for comment on

your redesign, and I’m pleased to let you know that the

new layout is a big improvement (And the purchase of new

reading glasses helped even more!) On another subject,

thank you very much for your Telltale feature (Issue 107) –

it was very enlightening The image of Clementine would

make an awesome poster, in my opinion How about it?

Robin Kuipers

You mean to say we redesigned our entire magazine for you,

and all you needed was a new pair of glasses? Our art editor is

going to be furious! And in response to your poster request, we

agree – that is a great image We’ll see what we can do.

Prize: Battlefield 4 on Xbox 360

The best piece of correspondence

wins a game from Jon’s swag bag

Star Letter

I barely remember anything from Halo

2, so I’m looking forward to the HD

remake Halo 3 with Halo 4 visuals

would make me wet myself, though!

Johnbhoy69 gets a little too excited

listens to a dick.

Meanwhile, on iPad

I have recently changed to the digital

version of OXM The free videos

and screenshots make it even better

However, it would be nice to see more

from the writers in these videos rather

than just game ads Are there any plans

to include interviews or reviews with

this in the future?

Billy Wiggins

Recently we’ve included Log and Aoife

chatting over Lightning Returns, Jonty

playing XCOM, and Edwin playing Titanfall

But this is something we’re definitely

planning on doing more of Let’s face it, the

world needs more of us, spanning every

format like media behemoths.

Old pixels don’t die

For the first time in my life, I bought a

brand new console on the midnight of

its launch Sure it was expensive, but

it’s the price I pay as a gamer to finally

feel the excitement of a new piece of

technology on its release day Xbox

One is just incredible – it has blown me

away already I sat on my sofa laughing

when it recognised me and signed

me in, and the voice commands are

totally responsive Even my

two-year-old daughter was mesmerized by it!

But let’s remember this isn’t a new generation to replace the old No games console has ever been forgotten about (except the Philips CD-i) Old, blocky games are just as great as the technically overwhelming epics of today Bust out those old, dusty consoles and give them

a bit of love from time to time

Craig Evans While they may not be entirely legal, PC emulators are a great way of providing access to games that might otherwise get forgotten When we finally decide to have an office baby, we’re going to give it

an accelerated console course, starting with Pong and moving up a generation every Christmas Sure, its geography and chemistry education might suffer, but when was the last time you talked about tectonic plates and covalent bonds in the pub?

and everything about Titanfall

I am so hyped for this game Give me beta info!

@RoccityRoller1

Final Fantasy should spend

less time on cutesy costumes and more on making a game with some semblance of character depth

Paul Thunderbolt

When I’m in a Titan, will it give me points and a fanfare every time I extravagantly stomp on a spider?

@godoflemmings

I’d love to see a new

TMNT game And a new Double Dragon.

Mike McKelvery

Erm, we’ve just had two rubbish TMNTs and Double

Dragon Neon Keep up Mike.

When will Xbox One get a notification system for when friends come online?

@hamovtan

I don’t care how long Ground

Zeroes is – I played all of the MGS games over and over

collecting everything It’s going to be amazing!

@toastedsoldier

Bummer that Warface isn’t

coming out on Xbox One

I could really be doing with that game

@SavageWolf

Titanfall shouldn’t be released

on Xbox 360 The same for

Battlefield 4 – these games

were meant for next gen

Shane Bewarder

I’d love to believe Take

Two about GTA Online’s

microtransactions, but I can’t They cut the mission money rewards in half – that said it all

@Thunderflap

I’m all for SmartGlass

support but Titanfall’s fast,

and looking away would

be suicide Maybe you’ll use it while you wait for a respawn?

Kamil Bazydlo

// Old, blocky games are just

as great as the technically overwhelming epics of today //

Voice chat in Dark Souls 2 won’t

appeal to me The charm is the slow, oblique journey Chatting would ruin the immersion

Baryonyx is not to be disturbed

Square needs to go away and do

some non Final Fantasy RPGs for

a little while, play some classic FF

then give us a proper sequel

Abe Hikura agrees with us

There’s one thing that bothers

me about Dead Island: if the place

is deserted, who’s charging you for repairs?

Metalrodent smells a rat

looking games aren’t automatically better.

The Annotated… Dashboard Update

The forums respond to the changes in the Xbox One Dash

Not really a fan

of the Windows 8 Interface thing It’s bearable for Xbox, but functions like a brick on PCs.

Sexualchocolate

I hope one of these updates lets us get rid of the black UI And

I can’t wait for a fix to Party Chat It’s the worst part of the Xbox One

XB1

Battery Indicator and the ability to see and manage hard drive storage… excellent

Those two small things will make a difference.

dfused

Nice to see they’re separating Games and Apps I can see the current list becoming a slog in the future, otherwise.

Plamsa Wing

Is it me, or does

it look exactly the

same other than the

battery indicator?

(Which I’m glad to

see back!)

Mantequ1lla

Panic on the streets of Gotham as Rocksteady completes its trilogy

Words: Aoife Wilson

BRINGING

HOME

THE

BATS

t’s raining in Gotham City

tonight On the streets

and the skyscrapers, on

the cops and criminals,

and on the one man

who’s gone further to

protect its citizens than

anyone else Tonight, he

faces his greatest threat yet

Rocksteady has been working on

Arkham Knight since its previous game,

Arkham City, shipped in 2011, and it’s due

for release in the not too distant future

of winter 2014 It’ll feature an open-world

map roughly five times the size of Arkham

City, it won’t have any kind of multiplayer

mode (“we wanted to focus on creating

the best single-player experience that

we possibly could”), and Rocksteady

confirms former co-writer Paul Dini is no

longer attached to the script this time

around And one last bombshell: Arkham

Knight will serve as the final entry to

Rocksteady’s Arkham series

Good knight

Set approximately one year after the

events of Arkham City, and again taking

place over the course of a single night,

Arkham Knight begins with Gotham in

the midst of a full-scale evacuation

Rocksteady won’t be drawn on many story particulars right now, but it will say that this is Batman at the very peak

of his power and physical prowess The Joker is dead (as far as we know), and crime in Gotham is at an all-time low as the other supervillains have been quietly planning their next move: a huge, co-ordinated, personal assault on Batman

himself “This is the biggest Arkham

game we’ve ever made,” says game

“THIS IS THE BIGGEST ARKHAM

GAME WE’VE EVER MADE, BUT

IT’S ALSO THE MOST PERSONAL”

Rocksteady promises that the Batmobile

is incapable

of causing fatalities, but that doesn’t mean it can’t pack

a punch.

director Sefton Hill, as he introduces

Arkham Knight to us at Rocksteady’s

London HQ, “but it’s also the most personal This is an attack on Batman;

Gotham’s supervillains are trying to destroy him and everything he stands for.”

We begin our hands-off demo at the start of the game, in the very heart of Gotham City Scarecrow is on the loose again after his apparent death at the hands of Killer Croc,

and he’s preparing to launch a full-scale chemical weapon attack on the city’s populace Vigilant detectives may have already spotted hints towards Crane’s imminent

attack during Arkham City, where a

hatch on an old, presumably abandoned boat moored in the North Gotham Docks could be unlocked and accessed using the passcode ‘cityofterror’, to reveal a sizeable shipment of fear toxin stored below deck Not only that, but a series

of coded messages in the game could

be deciphered using the cryptographic

sequencer, revealing a series of messages in which Scarecrow personally vows to take revenge on both Batman and the entire city

Welcome home

“Yesterday there were 6.3 million

people in Gotham City,” growls Arkham’s

opening voiceover from Commissioner Jim Gordon, as criminals run amok on the

streets “Today, not

so many It took just

24 hours for us to lose control of the city Tonight, Gotham’s relying on one man to save us all.”

We pan up for the hero shot; Batman standing tall on the edge of a skyscraper, silhouetted against the night sky and overlooking the entire city sprawled below Batman’s suit has undergone a bit of a makeover

since Arkham City It’s darker, more

menacing, and has much heavier armour

It suggests a more hardened Batman – one who’ll be able to push further and fight harder The Dark Knight is at

Game over?

Hill told us that Arkham Knight would

be “the conclusion of the Rocksteady

Arkham trilogy.” It’s unlikely that

this will mean the end of the series altogether – WB Montreal could be charged with carrying on the story

of Batman’s early career, having

created last year’s Arkham Origins

the absolute top of his game, having

had another year to hone his combat

skills, and he means business He’s also

brought to life once more by veteran

Batman voice artist Kevin Conroy, who

inadvertently let slip the existence of a

new Arkham game last summer.

From this opening reveal, it’s a

near-seamless transition from CG cinematic

to gameplay Even before Rocksteady

later confirms it, it’s immediately

obvious that Arkham Knight is a true

Xbox One game; nothing has been held

back or compromised by the need for

simultaneous development on Xbox

360 “This isn’t a cross-generational

game,” confirms Hill “It’s a game

designed purely to get the best out of

the new consoles.” As soon as control

of the Caped Crusader is handed over to

Hill, we’re treated to a swoop down and

over the city – it looks incredible We

can’t help but ogle the way the

rain patters off Batman’s cape as he

glides, or how the city lights twinkling

through the rain bounce from the

puddles collecting on the slickened

streets As Hill shows off some of the

improvements made to gliding – faster

game will helpfully go into slow-motion while you’re targeting Once you’re fully into combat, things will feel familiar, but there are a few new systems being introduced to ensure that the classic Rocksteady combat still feels fresh For example, when you’re countering, you can push the thumb stick in the direction of the thug attacking you, and Batman will throw him, rewarding you with double damage You can also pick

up and smash your victims into other enemies – if you’re fast enough

Belt up

After a quick introductory tussle with a crowd of goons, we save a police officer and get a lead on the vehicle we’ve been chasing on behalf of Commissioner Gordon There’s no way we’ll ever catch it on foot, but luckily Bats has a plan With the full-throated roar of an engine, the Batmobile thunders onto the screen In a first for the series, you’ll be able to take control of one

of fiction’s most iconic vehicles and drive it around the streets of Gotham It’s a beast of a thing, looking a bit like

a cross between the Tumbler of the

grapple boosts, 180-degree flips and the like – the wind roars, the night envelops us, and we’re itching to get our hands on the controller

The act of getting around the city seems more effortless than before, thanks to Batman’s new suit and superior gadgets And from the air at least, Gotham looks more vibrant and alive It’s a bit of a shame that it’ll once again be populated almost exclusively

by thugs, without any normal everyday citizens, but it does look like a real city this time, and not a smaller, closed-off version of one that’s been left to rot

Gotham proper, the main setting for

Arkham Knight, is a far more built-up and

densely populated area than Arkham City Because of that added height,

at any time while you’re gliding above Gotham, you can press the left trigger to have Batman fire out his line launcher between two buildings, thus creating a stationary perch to keep an eye on the streets from on-high

On top of that, Batman can now use certain gadgets while gliding You can throw Batarangs just as you’re swooping

in on a crowd of thugs, for example – the

Batman is stronger than he’s ever been, and that translates directly to

Arkham Knight ’s combat.

“FOR THE FIRST TIME, YOU CAN TAKE CONTROL OF THE BATMOBILE AND DRIVE IT AROUND GOTHAM”

Riddler: Where would we be without Riddler driving

us to distraction with his smug, self-satisfied gloating? He returns with new challenges to test motor as well as mental reflexes.

Harley Quinn: Rocksteady confirmed that Mister J’s former lady love will make an appearance We imagine she’s still upset about that whole Batman contributing to the death of her boyfriend thing.

Penguin: Cobblepot has a way

of enduring almost anything, and despite being one of the weaker villains, something would be amiss if he didn’t make one final showing for Rocksteady’s big send-off.

Two-Face: Harvey Dent has

apparently escaped his

incarceration at Arkham,

and is teaming up with

Penguin and the other

villains to make sure Bruce

has a night to remember.

Where they were once divided, Gotham’s supervillains are now working together to beat the Bats.

R E T U R N I N G R O G U E S T HE VILL AINS CO MING BACK FOR BATS’ FIN A L FLIGH T

Christopher Nolan Dark Knight films and

the more classic-looking Batmobile

models of old Rocksteady’s aim,

Hill says, was to create a game that

featured the ‘ultimate’ car We’re told

the team spent a lot of time working out

how the Batmobile could comfortably

integrate into a Batman: Arkham game

after the Dark Knight had been hoofing

it for so long “We want it to feel like the

Batmobile has always been there, ready

for Batman to use,” he explains It does

dovetail neatly with the man himself and

his updated get-up – like the car and

the suit evolved naturally side by side

The Batmobile is available to you at

any time while you’re exploring the city,

by way of a simple button press that will

call it to you Hill takes us on a joyride

through Gotham’s Chinatown, as we

chase down a car full of thugs in order to

quiz them on Scarecrow’s whereabouts

The Batmobile has the ability to lock-on

to other vehicles with a specialised, non-lethal rocket launcher called the

‘immobilizer’, and the car itself can smash through pretty much any obstacle

or material – from stone and steel to street lamps And we won’t lie – there’s something oddly thrilling about watching someone do donuts in the Batmobile

It’s clear the team have spent a fair amount of time and effort on getting every aspect of the Batmobile just so, from the squeal of the tyres – which have been customised with little Bat-symbol treads, naturally – to the crack and burst of nitrous flames from the exhaust every time you use the car’s rechargable boost to accelerate While you’re inside the vehicle, there’s no world mini-map – a deliberate design

choice, we’re told, as Rocksteady wants you to be paying attention to what’s going on around you, rather than using

a map display to navigate “We’ve done a lot of work to ensure that the information for the objectives is within the city,” Hill reassures us You can, however, set waypoints, and tyre tracks will periodically appear on the ground to highlight the way ahead

And if you’re wondering – as we certainly were – how Rocksteady could possibly ensure players wouldn’t break Batman’s one rule by chasing down bad guys in a vicious hit-and-run killing spree, it has got that covered Pedestrians will always jump out of the

way of the car, Midtown Madness-style,

even if you’re ploughing towards them

at top speed It’s also fitted with a taser system so that if anyone comes up to

it or does get hit, they will be knocked away, unconscious but relatively unscathed One of the nice asymmetric things about the Batmobile, Hill says, is that, generally, thugs are terrified of it It’s invulnerable to machinegun fire, so while some criminals might fancy their chances with Batman mano a mano,

“WE WANT IT TO FEEL LIKE THE

BATMOBILE HAS ALWAYS BEEN

THERE, WAITING TO BE USED”

Rocksteady claims that the Arkham Knight is

an original creation

Is that the whole truth?

the spot, for when you’ve invariably managed to wedge yourself into a lonely Gotham side-street Rocksteady also implies, though won’t confirm, that you’ll be able to upgrade the Batmobile later in the game.

Familiar faces

With the Riddler temporarily bested,

we return to the original objective

of checking in with Oracle at her Clocktower hideout Technically, this

is part of Arkham Knight’s main story

mission, but Hill claims the game has been designed so that there wouldn’t

be just one main storyline and a lot of optional side objectives “The city is full of all these different, co-ordinated attacks by the various supervillains,”

he says “They’re all designed to push Batman to his limit We wanted it to feel like there isn’t one key main path and [then] all these side missions; all of these different components and attacks

none of them are brave enough

to mess with him when he’s safely

inside his motor

However, picking and choosing when

to use the Batmobile and when to just

use Batman on-foot is a big part of

the game The car may be practically

invincible, but Batman on his own has

a superior stealth advantage, as well

as that added element of verticality

for getting on top of buildings That

said, gliding and driving don’t have

to be mutually exclusive At any time

while speeding through the streets in

the Batmobile, it’s possible for you to

forcefully eject from the vehicle and use

the generated velocity to glide further

up and over the city

To show us what the machine can do,

Hill briefly takes us off the main mission

path to one of the Riddler’s many

hideouts, where he has constructed

an underground racetrack of sorts to

test the Great Detective’s ‘grotesque

ego mobile’ Over three increasingly

challenging laps, the Batmobile is

able to perform jumps and barrel rolls,

drive on walls and even, momentarily,

drive upside down It can also turn on

“THE CITY’S FULL OF DIFFERENT, CO-ORDINATED ATTACKS, MADE

TO PUSH BATMAN TO HIS LIMIT”

Rocksteady is eager to ensure that Batman’s suit and the Batmobile are stylistically similar, like they share a symbiotic bond with the man himself.

Gotham all lit

up at night and glimpsed from

a Bat’s eye view is really

a sight to behold.

Driving Batty

Take a spin through the archives of one of the most iconic motors

The Batmobile debuted in May 1939, in issue

27 of Detective Comics A simple, red sedan,

it wasn’t quite as high-tech as it is today

It wasn’t referred to as the Batmobile until years later in 1941 Over time, the vehicle evolved to feature more Bat-centric designs and gadgets In later storylines the car ended

up more closely resembling a tank, with firepower to match – though sentry guns were always loaded with rubber bullets, naturally

by the supervillains have their own really

interesting story that you can follow.”

Series stalwarts Penguin and

Two-Face appear briefly in our demo during

the opening cutscene, and Rocksteady

confirms that Harley

Quinn will also be

returning (fans who

found a certain Easter

egg in Arkham City

may remember that

she’s apparently

pregnant with Joker’s

child) The developer

isn’t talking about

any other villains or

characters at the

moment, but it does

concede that certain

storylines begun or

teased in Arkham

City – such as Hush’s

‘Identity Theft’

side-missions or Azrael’s

mysterious prophecy

that “Gotham will

burn” – will likely be further explored and

concluded in Arkham Knight

Inside the Clocktower, for the first

time in the series, we meet with Barbara

Gordon, aka Oracle, face-to-face – and

she’s just as feisty and razor-sharp

as you’d expect her to be There are some brief references to The Killing Joke during Babs and Bats’ back and forth, but before long we’re on our way again, with the intention of repurposing

an antenna in the Falcone Ship Yard to track Scarecrow

While attempting

to gain access to the guarded antenna, Hill talks us through

a few tweaks that have been made to the game’s Predator mode You can now enter combat “in a spectacular fashion”

by smashing through glass into a room full

of hostiles Batman also now has quicker, long-range access

to floor grates – one button tap and he’ll move towards the nearest spot automatically without you having to fumble at close quarters You also now have access to a skill called the Fear Takedown, whereby Batman can instant-takedown groups of up to three isolated enemies simultaneously

Joke’s on him

Those who completed Arkham City

will know that Batman’s arch nemesis appears to be gone for good From what we saw, it seems Scarecrow (and probably the mysterious Arkham Knight) are stepping up to fill this position Is it possible that Joker is truly dead this time? Surely Rocksteady won’t be able to resist resurrecting him for one last laugh

Wally Wingert, Troy Baker and Nolan North all return to voice Gotham’s various rogues.

We’re hoping to see plenty more

of Oracle, aka Barbara Gordon

in Arkham Knight Bats could probably use the help.

The catch – because there’s always

a catch – is they need to be in close proximity, and you need to creep up to them while remaining completely unseen and undetected It’s an impressive display, and we free the cop they had been holding hostage, appropriating the antenna at the same time As we leave the room there’s a gunshot, and suddenly Batman is on his back, knocked down by some unseen force

“You’re not going anywhere,” a voice growls “This ends tonight.”

The Arkham Knight

A figure stalks into view He’s wearing

a kind of robotic Batman-like cowl kind of robotic Batman-like cowl

Unusual suspects

The unconfirmed characters we’re willing to place money on making some kind of return in Arkham Knight

All told, we haven’t seen a huge

amount of Arkham Knight aside from

the very broad strokes There’s a huge new area of Gotham to explore, Batman comes with a heap of new skills and gadgets, including his awesome new car, and Rocksteady has said that it will continue some of the storylines hinted

at in Arkham City It’s perhaps not quite

as ambitious as the long-rumoured

Justice League game, but Batman: Arkham Knight looks like it’s focusing its

efforts on the aspects that have made this franchise great – making them bigger, better and even Battier than before Rocksteady hasn’t disappointed

us yet Let’s see if that rain can’t finally wash this city clean Q

“THE ARKHAM KNIGHT DOESN’T APPEAR TO BE ON THE SIDE OF GOOD, AND HE’S NO AMATEUR”

Thanks to the throw mechanic, Batman’s chucking thugs around like rag dolls

that covers his entire face, and there’s

a stylised ‘A’ symbol emblazoned on

his heavily armoured chest There are

shades of Prometheus and Wrath about

him, even a touch of Jason Todd’s Red

Hood in the pseudo military get-up

he wears Apparently, though, he’s an

original Rocksteady creation – a first

for the franchise His name is Arkham

Knight, and he’s clearly modelling

himself as a kind of anti-Batman figure

Whoever he really is, he doesn’t appear

to be on the side of good, and he’s

certainly no amateur either, judging

by how he managed to get the drop on

Bats so easily And there, tantalisingly,

our demo ends

AZRAEL

This mysterious

figure stalked

Batman’s every

move in Arkham City If

you found him enough

times, he warned you

that: “Gotham will

burn, and you will burn

too.” Not the kind

of thing that gets

ignored in a sequel.

HUSH

Tommy Elliot was

a childhood friend of Bruce Wayne’s Canisters

of Scarecrow’s fear gas can be found in Elliot’s hideout, suggesting a partnership between the two villains.

CALENDAR MAN

He’s not all that smart or intimidating,

so Julian Day has never been a major player in Gotham’s criminal underbelly

But to his credit,

he is one of the few rogues known to have escaped Arkham City.

BLACK MASK

Roman Sionis also escaped Arkham City after Joker’s death, and it’s unlikely that he’s just been sat around licking his wounds since If,

or when his revenge does come, expect it

to be brutal.

CATWOMAN

Selina was

a playable character in Arkham City, but it’s possible Rocksteady will want to play down her involvement here, after it came under fire for her heavily sexualised portrayal last time.