Lifting the Lid on Video Games
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ALL FORMATS LIFTING THE LID ON VIDEO GAMES SHOCK AND AUDIO Games that do new things with sound NINJA STARS Why the shinobi’s the hero of the hour GET LAMP Make your first text adventure Issue 31 £3 wfmag.cc Nightdive’s remake goes through the Looking Glass 01_WF#31_Cover V3_RL_VI_DH.indd 2 22/01/2020 12:55 JOIN THE PRO SQUAD! Free GB2560HSU¹ | GB2760HSU¹ | GB2760QSU² 24.5’’ 27’’ Sync Panel TN LED / 1920x1080¹, TN LED / 2560x1440² Response time 1 ms, 144Hz, FreeSync™ Features OverDrive, Black Tuner, Blue Light Reducer, Predefined and Custom Gaming Modes Inputs DVI-D², HDMI, DisplayPort, USB Audio speakers and headphone connector Height adjustment 13 cm Design edge-to-edge, height adjustable stand with PIVOT gmaster.iiyama.com It’s time to expect more from the games industry don’t think I’ve ever been this disinterested you buy isn’t just how you’ll be playing games, but your in a new console generation. I know it’s been entire identity; your brand is an extension of their brand. nearly a decade. And, sure, I’ve loved a lot of the And right now their brands are literally stealth I games, I’ll undoubtedly love some from the next. black slabs of boring plastic with more FLOPS than But Microsoft and Sony seem bored by their own might, last decade, and a tepid gimmick. Enhanced haptic and unwilling (and unable) to pitch their consoles as any DIA LACINA feedback? How long are we really going to hold onto more than iterations on iterations. rumble? I mean, really. More ‘immersive’ button-feel? Just Dia Lacina is a There’s been a lot of chest-thumping already about more things to turn off. Sorry. A DualShock trigger will queer indigenous FLOPS and hertz and native 4K. Phil Spencer decided to trans woman writer, never feel like drawing a bow, and immersion used this show off the chip powering the new Xbox by changing photographer, and way is tired marketing. his Twitter avatar to a photo of it. Promises of real-time founding editor of I guess that leaves backwards compatibility. Which , ray tracing and an elimination of load times. CapsuleCrit.com could be nice, but it’s literally looking into the past. a monthly journal But what does that get us? How will this dedicated to At best it’s a holdover until something more than a fundamentally change the way developers make games microgenre work handful of probably uninspired launch titles drop. It’s or the games they’re able to make? Everything so far just about games. not a reason to invite new devices into my home, it’s a sounds like an incremental nudging towards everything She tweets too much reason to not keep my old ones around. at @dialacina we’ve been doing, but more expensive. More polygons, Where’s the retirement home for old bigger textures, more square kilometres of Ubisoftian consoles anyway? Ultimately a landfill. Where they’ll open-world spaces that need to be filled with something linger, basically for eternity. That sucks. It’s not like new (whether it’s expensive set pieces or dozens of hours of consoles aren’t ecological nightmares to begin with, no procedurally generated, minimap cluttering busywork). matter what promises of lower power consumption The rest of this year, two giant corporations are going they offer. Between the conflict minerals, manufacturing to try and convince us once again that their incremental waste, planned obsolescence, shipping, to say nothing hardware refresh is the one that will change our lives of the monumental labour issues, the socioecological as gamers. That they’re the ones who truly get us, they’ve handprint of consoles on a corporate scale cannot got the exclusive games we want, and we absolutely remotely be offset by a more efficient standby mode. should give them our £400-plus for the privilege. A new console generation means more expenses. Remember when Sony promised us the PS2 would Not just the cost to make games (though that’s certainly be capable of rendering – in real time – the ballroom #31 true), but the human and ecological cost. I don’t need dance sequence from Final Fantasy VIII? Yeah, that more FLOPS measured in teras or petas. I need Sony never happened. But it felt inspired. Could you imagine and Microsoft (and Nintendo) to give a damn about their Sony or Microsoft using Squall and Rinoa waltzing as business practices, to care about the labour and lives promotional material now? of people making games for their platforms in a very I’m tired. And really, there’s no way to market around real way, and to be open, transparent, and committed how tired I am. It’s the same boring war that we’ve waged to real change with regard to the environmental havoc over graphics cards and processors, but somehow made that multibillion-dollar multinational corporations bring more dire because multibillion-dollar companies have with them. I need them to care if they’re going to expect pushed billions into crafting a world where the console me to. And right now it seems like none of us do. wfmag.cc \ 03 Contents Contents 6 Attract mode Interface 06. System Shock 18. Return of the ninja Nightdive give us the tour of Why fleet-footed shadow warriors their stunning 2020 remake are so hot right now 10. Minute of Islands 24. Glitchfall An adventure-puzzler with a A platformer that explores the gruesome edge dark side of nostalgia 12. Table Manners 44. Pet sounds It’s awkward first dates: The indie devs pushing the game the video game audio envelope 16. Incoming 48. The genius of M2 Bear attacks, dogs, and a return Profiled: the masters of porting 44 to Wasteland classic games 04 / wfmag.cc Contents WELCOME Syd Mead, the late industrial artist and futurist who sadly passed away on 30 December 2019, wasn’t best-known for his contribution to the video game industry. All the same, it’s well worth taking a moment to consider just how important he was. Mead served as a concept designer on 1995’s Cyber Speedway; designed the aliens 18 in Wing Commander: Prophecy in 1997; and, that same year, consulted on Westwood Studios’ fondly remembered Blade Runner adaptation. Mead had other credits on video games, too – his reworked Light Cycle for Tron 2.0 was another highlight – but it was his work in film that arguably had the biggest impact on our favourite medium. His concept art for Blade Runner’s city of angular buildings and curvaceous flying cars resulted in a future we’ve seen endlessly borrowed from and referenced in video games since 1982. And his ships and vehicle designs for Aliens have left a similar impression on game designers as they’ve come up with their own 48 56 futuristic military hardware. Mead’s grounding in industrial design meant that everything he created looked solid and Toolbox Rated functional, whether it was his Sulaco spaceship in Aliens or the creepy Voight-Kampff 30. 56. machine from Blade Runner. CityCraft Phoenix Point Given that video games are Tools for building and managing Familiar tactical antics from the partly about making imaginary virtual cities creator of XCOM designs look like real, functioning objects and places, 32. Automated testing 61. Golem it’s little surprise that Mead’s How it can transform your A PSVR adventure let down by its work has left such a lasting after-image on video games. game design jarring controls Ryan Lambie 36. A guide to Quest 62. Legend of Bum-bo Editor Make a text adventure with this Edmund McMillen’s back with a free engine lavatorial roguelike 40. Source Code 64. Backwards Compatible Code your own top-down Virtua Racing on PICO-8, and lots rolling road more retro goodness wfmag.cc \ 05 Attract Mode Interview SHOCK THE SYSTEMThe original kickstarted an undisputed era of classics; 2020’s remake of System Shock wants to raise the bar again his is the third time Nightdive faltered, many of the original project’s Studios will have released a developers left following disagreements System Shock game. It’s not with the game’s direction, aspirations T System Shock 3 by any stretch (and funding requirements) ballooned, of the imagination – not least additional funding wasn’t secured, and because there is a fully fledged sequel ultimately the whole thing was put on in the works, entirely unrelated to this hiatus while the future of System Shock’s project, from OtherSide Entertainment. remake was refocused. No, this is a remake in the true sense; What re-emerged from the shadows a step up from Nightdive’s previous was a different beast to what the project remaster-only projects, and the first had become: now it would be a focused time the studio has sat down and made System Shock remake, made in Unreal something from scratch. On the one hand, Engine 4 – dropping Unity – and with a you have to admire the boldness of taking team of around 20 people working hard to such a step. On the other, it’s a hard place bring a straightforward vision of a renewed, to intentionally put yourself in, with fan revitalised classic to the world. It’s never expectations being of the sky-high variety. nice to have to start over, but it looks like in Initially shown off as a Unity-made game this case it was the right thing to do. and shopped out to Kickstarter, System Appetite for sci-fi terror suitably Shock bagged itself $1.3 million (£1m) whetted, we sought out Nightdive Studios before the campaign closed.