Lifting the Lid on Video Games
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ALL FORMATS LIFTING THE LID ON VIDEO GAMES HARD ART OF MODE FIGHTING Serbia’s growing The devs making games industry accessible brawlers Issue 18 £3 wfmag.cc BASIC INSTINCT The creator of Assassin’s Creed evolves the survival genre UPGRADE TO LEGENDARY AG273QCX 2560x1440 Supporting adequate support ith all the chatter about Keanu Reeves, strong, stylish, not completely impractical. Character a new Xbox, and Watch Dogs Brexit, designs across the board these days not only feature you may have missed the true biggest more realistic anatomy, but much better outfits. W news at E3 2019: the “censorship” of I remember being surprised and pleased by the Tifa’s bust. The Final Fantasy VII character, resplendent redesigned Lara Croft in Crystal Dynamics’ 2013 Tomb in a stylish vest, black skirt, and red boots with knee- KEZA Raider reboot: cargo pants instead of hot pants! It makes high socks in the upcoming remake, was “restricted” MACDONALD so much more sense! Splatoon, meanwhile, clearly according to one English-language site’s translation of A games journalist for inspired by Harajuku fashion, has some of the coolest a Famitsu interview: she now has a black sports bra more than 13 years, looks in all of gaming. And have you seen Bayonetta? under the vest, and rockin’ abs. Keza MacDonald I am simultaneously awed and slightly frightened by The usual suspects on YouTube and Reddit were is currently video her outfits. I would absolutely wear them, if I were tall games editor at The quick to interpret this change as shrinkage and cry Guardian newspaper. enough and had twice as much body confidence. boobie censorship, reminding me of a viral tweet She once dressed her Disingenuous people often like to try and boil this that went around a few years ago in which one such baby up as Pikachu entire topic down to people being offended. This is internet genius complained that the Western version for Halloween stupid. I highly doubt anyone was ever offended by the of Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE removed the female original Lara’s triangle-boobs, or by Tifa’s vest. But they characters’ “vagina bones”. Square Enix is so terrified were unrealistic and, frankly, quite boring: now that we of offending feminists with unrealistic breasts that finally have the technology for detailed clothing and they’ve had to change the whole character! It’s political hair, why not give characters better clothes? If you think correctness gone mad. Tifa’s new look is less sexy because her boobs won’t As it happens, that original report was based on a bounce around everywhere, I feel slightly sorry for you. shaky translation: “secure” might be a more apposite Nobody wants all characters to be dressed in resolutely word than “restrict”. Director Tetsuya Nomura told unrevealing sweatpants and hoodies; boiling decades of Famitsu that they wanted a more athletic, military- interesting and informed criticism of female portrayals inspired look for Tifa – hence the MMA-style gloves in pop culture down to “sexy is bad and offensive” is a and sporty underclothes. Tifa’s original white vest gross oversimplification. People just want outfits that might have been fine for static 1997 polygons, but in a look cool, and not horribly uncomfortable. For me, state-of-the-art 2020 remake, it was going to look wildly the nadir of female outfits is Metal Gear Solid V’s Quiet, unrealistic in action scenes. One cosplayer tweeted who, far from rocking desert fashion, looks like she a video of herself jiggling away in Tifa’s original outfit, #18 hasn’t finished getting dressed (and desperately needs thereby inadvertently proving the point. If you’re going some new pairs of tights). to be moving around a lot, you need a supportive There are still plenty of games in which most of the garment: ask literally any woman who’s ever gone for a women wear little more than underwear or drastically run without one. Ever tried playing football with D-cups impractical armour: take a bow, Dead or Alive, although and no sports bra? Good lord, the pain. even its famously proportioned fighters have been Anyway, amusing as this all is, it’s really highlighted brought slightly more in line with reality in recent years. that games have come far since 1997 – not only in They cater, perhaps, to a diminishing sector of gamers terms of female representation and graphical realism, who like to beat off to their beat-’em-ups. Isn’t it a relief, but in terms of fashion, too. Tifa’s look is awesome: though, that they’re no longer the default? wfmag.cc \ 03 Contents Contents 6 Attract mode Interface 06. Ancestors 18. Art of Fighting Patrice Désilets chats about his Exploring a new wave of more evolving survival game accessible fighting games 10. Control 24. Deus Ex Machina 2 Remedy on moving out of their How Christopher Lee lit up comfort zone Mel Croucher’s sequel 12. Children of Morta 44. Development: Serbia Loss and sacrifice in a gorgeous- Inside the country’s growing looking hand-painted RPG video games industry 16. Incoming 50. Remembering Irem Mythical monsters, vicious circles, The studio behind Disaster Report, 44 and mellow jazz R-Type, and so much more 04 / wfmag.cc Contents WELCOME Even if you weren’t around to experience the impact Street Fighter II had on gaming, there’s an easy way to see how it affected the fighting genre: simply play a few examples released before 1991. While it would be unfair to say that all fighting games were rubbish before Street Fighter II, it’s at least true that none were as tactical or complex. Data East’s Karate Champ introduced a bit of strategy with its measured 18 pace and blocking moves, but there was nothing approaching the scale of kicks, punches, and combos seen in Street Fighter II. Konami’s Yie Ar Kung-Fu featured a roster of colourful fighters and a decent number of moves, but bouts could still be won by cornering an opponent and mashing the same attack button. Even the original Street Fighter was, inevitably, a bit of a rough draft: early versions of the coin-op had large pressure- sensitive pads that left players with sore hands from hitting them; these were swiftly replaced by the six standard buttons that would become the series’ standard. Street Fighter II, unlike any one-on-one beat-‘em-up before 60 10 it, required skill, memorisation, and a solid understanding of each character’s strengths and vulnerabilities. Its success Toolbox Rated did, however, have another unforeseen effect: the fighting genre became so complicated that it put all but the most 30. When to say ‘no’ 56. My Friend Pedro seasoned players off. But as Studio advice from the producer A cracking shooter unlocks our Matteo Lupetti’s feature on of Splinter Cell inner John Woo page 18 points out, a generation of developers are attempting to rebalance the genre; rather 32. Making mazes 58. The Sinking City than return to the simplistic Using algorithms to draw Terror and tentacles in Bigben’s button-mashers of old, they aim fiendish labyrinths survival horror to mix tactical depth with more accessible mechanics. That, surely, can only be a good thing. 36. Game trailers 60. Cadence of Hyrule Handy tips for cutting the A Zelda spin-off mixes rhythm Ryan Lambie perfect promo with roguelike Editor 40. Source Code 62. Draugen Code 3D Monster Maze’s A noir mystery leaves us pining nightmare setting for the fjords wfmag.cc \ 05 Attract Mode Mode Interview Ape Escape Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey – Patrice Désilets’ first game for a decade packs in eight million years of evolution he pressure’s on. Patrice Eight million years in one game – just Désilets is still a formidable how do you go about cramming it all presence when it comes to in there? T gaming’s creative minds, but It’s true that it was a big challenge for it’s been almost ten years us – things on my side, on the design, has since the man saw a project actually finish been quite hard on me. How do we move and release. Ancestors: The Humankind forward that many years, right? And so it Odyssey will break the silence, coming via was really designed around [compressing] Désilets’ own studio, Panache Digital, and time. So when you don’t do anything, Take-Two’s indie publishing wing, Private [when you’re stood still], time passes with Division. Aiming to stuff in several million one second equalling one second. If you years of human evolution in a survival leave your game on and don’t move the game based on the entirety of the human controller and come back 24 hours later, species’ development, Ancestors is not a 24 hours would have passed. It’s the straightforward project to return with. same. And then as soon as you move, time Tasked with developing their lineage moves a bit faster. So 24 hours… that takes and starting around eight million years around 12 to 15 minutes. ago somewhere on the African continent, And then you make babies, then move players must ensure the survival of their forward 15 months, and then you can band of apes. You eat, sleep, breed, and pass a generation, and that’s 15 years, evolve as you choose, with the overarching and eventually, you can try to evolve. goal of becoming something more human. Then – because we’re tracking all the Learning to identify foodstuffs, becoming things you can do in the game as feats, or adept at carrying items, even learning missions, depending on what you’ve done to use tools – it’s a survival game in the in those missions, different amounts of purest sense of the term.