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CGMAGAZINE
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EDITORIAL EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Brendan Frye SENIOR CONTENT EDITOR Wayne Santos ART ART DIRECTOR Scott Dixon ILLUSTRATOR Jo Enaje COVER ART Jo Enaje ADVERTISING/MARKETING CORPORATE RELATIONS Melanie Emile MARKETING Carter Thomson CONTRIBUTORS Brittany Vincent Boyd Reynolds Bryan Calhoun Phil Brown Khari Taylor Reid McCarter Alexander Leach James Grifn Laura Thomas

GREETINGS, PROGRAM
CGM is back to being a monthly publication with this issue, except for one thing; youre either clicking away at this on your desktop computer, or holding it in your hand reading it on a smart phone or tablet. Thats right, the latest issue of CGM is digital. Thats not to say the entire magazine is going to be digital only, were just alternating between a print/ digital version one month, and a digital only edition the next. Its all just part of the changes that were seeing across many creative platforms. Theres a convenience and speed to digital that is rapidly overtaking the concerns of ownership that people had in the past. Just a decade ago it, would have been considered unthinkable to have a collection of games sitting in a hard drive, or a box of comics that didnt require their own polypropylene sleeves, because they only existed as a digital file on your tablet. But now even Im in a situation where Tomb Raider: The Definitive Edition is part of my collection, but has no box of its own while the monstrous Rising Stars compendium (thats over 600 pages of comics, kids) is not hogging space in my bookshelf, but sits comfortably inside my Nexus 7 alongside my digital copy of Neuromancer. Were moving into a time for both comics and games when the creators of this content are trying to sell us on the idea that access to our content is more important than owning it. After all, if you own a comic book, you can only read it if you happen to put it in your bag while youre on the go. But if you have access to a digital comic, you can read it on a public computer in a library or caf as long as you remember your Comixology account details, or switch back and forth between your phone, your tablet and your desktop computer as you go about your day. Your comic account can remember the exact place you left off and keeping up with you from device to device. In games, the same thing is happening. I may not have a copy of Tomb Raider sitting in my shelf next to my coveted copy of Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne, but at the same time, when people at the office ask, so whats Tomb Raider like? I can whip out my Vita, access remote play and let them play it on my PS4, despite the fact that theres no disc in the console, and the console itself is miles away. For some people, this is going to be a difficult time of transition. The hardest hit will be collectors, who like to see and touch their possessions. An original, physical copy of issue #1 of Action Comics from 1938 is worth a small fortune. A digital reproduction? Not at all. In that sense, the value of things, the perception we have of somethings value is going to change. After all, how can something be considered rare when anyone, any time, can simply pull it from some database? But digital has also made a great many things possible, such as breaking down the barriers between people when it comes to interacting. Co-op modes in games are trying new and interesting things as youll see in one of the articles this issue. Communication has also changed, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse in arenas like Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network. Digital has even allowed people who wonder what its like to be a police officeror even a dispatcherto make those dreams come alive in, wait for it, Grand Theft Auto IV. In the end, the digital platform is like any tool. It has a wealth of possibility that is both good and bad, and it is ultimately up to the people themselves to decide how they want to apply it.

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Senior Content Editor

Alex plays one of the first big Kickstarter funded games. Read what Alex thinks of Broken Age.

Rust is giving Reid a new type of multiplayer experience. He tell us about this new coop.

Frank Millers Dare Devil was an entirely new take on the character. Phil examines this in Origins.

WELCOME TO THE FIRST DIGITAL ONLY ISSUE OF CGM!

There are some new features to be found in our digital issue - so heres a guide to help you can get the most out of your experience with the March 2014 issue of CGM. Enjoy!
Missing the feel of full spreads in the digital era? Try tilting your tablet or smartphone to see pages how they were meant to be seen. Dots underneath a photo or screen shot represent interactive galleries. Swipe and tap to see more included art of games and comics. Each review in our digital issue comes with a video clip featuring footage from the title, along with a little author commentary.

OFFICIAL SEAL OF QUALITY CGMagazine #01 designed and hustled by:

Favourite pastime: Dayz Designed while listening to: Dayz
Favourite pastime: Dayz Designed while listening to: Dayz

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CONTENTS
March 2 014 # 01

Writing To Your Strengths

6 COPS! 18 Long Distance Art 30 The New Co-op 42 Endgame 74

12 A Force to Reckon With 22 Origins: Dare Devil 36 All Quiet on the (Online) Front 52 Reviews 76 Letters

Contrasts Alex Epstein on Writing

Words by Wayne Santos Most people would characterize getting a job as a screenwriter for film and television as a big score or win. Alex Epstein is not most people. Despite the credentials he has under his belt for both TV and movie contributions, it is gameswith their tricky, interactive naturethat he is most excited about, and his latest credit is the PS4 indie launch title Contrast. The game met with mixed reviews for its gameplay, but was well received for its surprisingly nuanced portrayal of a troubled marriage and the hope it inspires in children to try to fix the problem themselves. Alex Epstein, has the distinction of not only going to Yale University, but being in the same computer programming class as Jordan Mechner, who would go on to create Karateka and Prince of Persia. Now Epstein calls Montreal home, and he sat down with CGM to talk a little bit about his own approach to storytelling and what games need to do to keep evolving the form.

WRITING TO YOUR STRENGTHS

With credits from both TV and movies, Alex Epstein talks to CGM about Contrast, games, playing and his unique writing style.

Comics Gaming Magazine: Most of the time when people talk about stories in games, its adventure games and RPGs that get brought up. What made you decide to write a story for a platformer?
Alex Epstein: Well, the point of game play is to answer the question What do you do? The point of game writing is to answer, Why do you do it? Contrast is about an eight year old girl named Didi discovering the secrets of her familys past. Without that, youre just jumping around, which is fun, but its not emotionally involving. Stories are how we relate to other peoples problems. Without a story, you can have fun,
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you can kill dudes. But you will not walk away with any feeling at all. Its like having cotton candy; the moment youve eaten it, its gone.

CGM: Thats a big departure from the silent protagonist that games used to have. Theres that old argument that a mute main character allows players to project themselves into the game and be more immersed, but characters like Joel in The Last of Us run counter to that.
AE: I have to say, I never bought that argument. I come from movies and [in film] we project ourselves into characters all the time. One of the reasons Bruce Willis makes $20 million dollars a picture is because he has a personality that we want to project onto. It is not true that in order for us to project onto a character that character has to be a blank slate. You project yourself onto Joel in The Last of Us, because he lost his daughter, and you think Yeah, okay, if I lost my daughter, I would be reluctant to put my heart into this mouthy 14 year old
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sulky teenager that I have to schelp across the continent after the zombie apocalypse. Whereas with Fallout: New Vegas, you dont have an emotional takeaway, because whos the [protagonist]? You have no idea who youre playing. I dont think you can project yourself onto a blank slate, I think you have to project yourself onto a human being.

CGM: What is the move towards more open world games going to do for the job of the writer? Now players could miss entire chunks of story simply because they didnt explore one part of the map.
AE: Okay, two things going on here, because Ive been playing a lot of Far Cry 3 and [Assassins Creed IV:] Black Flag. In both of these games, they have a story, and then they have an open world. You give the player the building blocks of story. In the narrative sequences, you just give them the story. In the rest of it, you give them mythology, you create a world that the player can use to create a story for himself.

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Alex Epstein (pictured far opposite) was speaking at the Montreal International Games Summit when CGM caught up with him.

So in a game like Clash of Clans, what you can do is leave bits of mythology around that the player can find, so if the player finds a special sword, they get the story behind the sword. You can make that sword a character, you can give it character. Cause otherwise, its just optimization.

The Last of Us, because the whole game is about Joels evolving relationship with his surrogate daughter. So if you didnt end it the way you did, what was the point of all of that? Whereas a game like Red Dead Redemption could have given players a choice at the end.

CGM: You gave a talk about game narratives in which you said some games take agency away from the players, such as the conclusion of The Last of Us. What is your solution to this problem that still allows for writers to control an ending if the player still has agency?
AE: Well, I said in my talk that if you can come up with narratively satisfying choice endings, then you can provide players with a choice between them. If only one ending is satisfying, its going to give the player an emotional take away, then youre going to have to take away the players agency and tell the story the way it needs to be told. Im not sure there were two really valid endings for

CGM: What do you think of the audience reaction when theyre unhappy with a game ending? For example, a lot of people have said they wished they could have done things differently with the ending of The Last of Us.
AE: Well, theres what the audience wants, and what the audience needs. There are many movies that we enjoy where the main character winds up doing something that we dont want them to do. Throughout all of Hamlet were going, Dude! Just kill him! You dont give the audience everything that they think they want. You give them what you think they need. The ending to The Last of Us is the ending the story needs. The ending to Papo & Yo is the ending Vander Caballero wants us to have.
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CGM: One thing game narratives lack is morally ambiguous characters. Either theyre for you, or against you. Is that because of readability issues? Because developers dont want players to be confused either systems-wise or narrative-wise?
AE: That might be it. It might also be not understanding what we get out of such a character. We do have a traitor in Heavy Rain, with a character whos not what he appears to be. But it would be interesting to see a game where your sidekick was giving you trouble, but wasnt against you, who was for you, but had an agenda that was at cross purposes to your own. I think that would be a very human relationship. You know, youre trying to save the princess and this character is trying to rob tombs, so hell help you the extent that it allows him to rob tombs, but isnt necessarily going to be there when you need him. Why do we play multiplayer games? Because youre on a team and one dude wants to win, and another dude wants to tea-bag people. And thats not really helping the
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team out, but thats what hes there to do. And as far as hes concerned, youre there to provide protection while he tea-bags people. Thats part of the challenge and fun of playing with people. Now can you script that? Of course you can.

CGM: One thing you mentioned in your talk was the necessity of flaws in characters to make them interesting, but what if those flawsand now Im giving an extreme exampleinterfere with gameplay? Such as a narcoleptic soldier?
AE: Either you script those events, so they happen in a controlled situation, where the result is entertaining, or if the behaviour is emergent, you calibrate it, so the game knows whether youre fighting a boss or not. And youll probably have a squad that can pull you out of combat if you suddenly fall asleep. I wouldnt recommend making a game about a narcoleptic character, because thats not fun. But lets say you have a character whos reckless. If he sees an enemy, he just charges in screaming Leeroy Jenkiiiins!

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CGM: I think you just described 80 per cent of videogame players.

AE: (Laughs) Okay, well Im a cautious player. Im a sniper. In Far Cry 3 Im all about the silent sniper rifle, so I dont play that way. But you could sell me a game where 20 per cent of the time, my character will charge into combat. Then Im living his life. But if its an emergent flaw, it shouldnt do that when Im facing off against a boss and it shouldnt do that when Im at 20 per cent health. Or you could have a game where the characters alcoholic, and 20 per cent of the time when he sees a bar he goes there and suddenly its the next day, and you dont remember what happened, and wheres all my money? That wont hurt you against a boss because theres never going to be a boss in the bar. But now youre thinking, Do I really want to go into that town, because theres going to be a bar, and you might find yourself waking up on the floor of the bar. And thats the experience an alcoholic has. So dont make it a flaw like narcolepsy, but make it a flaw that inconveniences the player in an interesting way, that allows him to enter into someone elses frame of experience.
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The Mouse Moves in on Star Wars Comics

Words by Boyd Reynolds Its always good to start the New Year off with a bang. The same can be said in the Star Wars universe. On January 3rd, 2014, it was announced on starwars.com that Star Wars comics and graphic novels would be moving over to Marvel. This leaves Dark Horse Comics, who have produced Star Wars comics since 1991, out in the Hoth-like cold. But the move is really no surprise, as Disney, who now owns the rights to Star Wars, also owns Marvel. Its financially savvy but is the move good for us Star Wars fans?

A FORCE TO RECKON WITH

Things have changed. Disney now owns Star Wars - and with that, Marvel will now be taking charge of the Star Wars comics. Heres what this means.

Well Know in 2015.

But dont fret Rogue Squadron. There are positive signs in the Force. First of all, Marvel will undoubtedly want to impress, especially in the early going. Star Wars comic enthusiasts have become accustomed to not only the quality of Dark Horse issues, but also the large number of titles released per year. In 2013 alone, Dark Horse issued 11 separate titles. Marvel, being one of the biggest comic book producers, distributes globally and may very well bring in more of an audience for Star Wars comics than Dark Horse could. Additionally, Episode VII will be released in late 2015, the same year Star Wars comics move over to Marvel. Likely, Star Wars comics will be part of the much-anticipated marketing blitz to come; something fans will benefit from greatly. Further, this next film trilogy will be great and worthy of the moniker: Star Wars. The creative team behind the new films is serious about bringing our favourite galactic space opera back to the big screen. For Episode VII, Disney has brought in J.J. Abrams to direct and Lawrence Kasdan to help write. Abrams has established himself as a Hollywood heavyweight and his most recent success has been reigniting that other space story: Star Trek. Kasdan has penned such classic Lucasfilm scripts as The Empire Strikes Back (which he co-wrote with Leigh Brackett), Return of the Jedi and Raiders of the Lost Ark. Clearly, the Force is with Episode VII and this new era of Star Wars films.

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The unfortunate losers in this exciting time for Star Wars are the creators at Dark Horse. Recently, Dark Horses website reported that they were experiencing their most successful financial year ever. No doubt, this has to do with the significantly large number of Star Wars titles released. At the top of that list is Brian Woods series simply titled Star Wars. His work with artist Carlos DAnda have created not only a compelling story-line following the events just after Episode IV, but the series captures the true spirit of the original trilogy like nothing before. Reading Star Wars, Wood carefully connects readers to the characters we love. Dark Horses Star Wars is simply one of the best comics to come out of a galaxy far, far away. Comic fans can rest easy, though as Brian Wood does double duty right now. He also writes an X-Men series for Marvel. While it is unknown if his Star Wars comic series will survive the move, it is likely he will. As for the fate of Star Wars comics while its true the franchise is moving to a new publisher, at least its a familiar one.

Welcome Back To The Bullpen

2015 will be a homecoming for Star Wars comics. They began at Marvel in 1977. The first issue was released in July and set off a financial windfall for Marvel in the late 70s. Star Wars quickly became a phenomenon and with toys, t-shirts, vinyl records and yes - cash. Just as George Lucas had stumbled upon success with Star Wars, so too had Marvel. It was a surprise, embedding itself in popular
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Pictured: Various excerpts from Dark Horses long Star Wars publication history.

culture like nothing else, and Marvel had the legal rights to develop the comics. More importantly, the comics began expanding the Star Wars universe. Issues #1-6 followed the story line from Episode IV: A New Hope, but right after its conclusion began stories not solely from the mind of Lucas. The floodgates had opened on the Expanded Universe, and proved there was a healthy fan appetite for everything Star Wars. Yes, stories followed Han, Chewie, Luke, Leia and the droids, but they also included characters we didnt know existed. An entire universe was there to be explored by Marvel writers and explore they did, giving us stories of space pirates, gigantic sea monsters, and even a cyborg. The issue following Episode IV had the tagline: Beyond the movie! Beyond the galaxy! And go far beyond they did. The early issues may have been inaccurate in terms of plot as two more films were on their way and the comic writers werent privy to the scripts, but it didnt matter. They were Star Wars stories that any fan could read every month. Later issues chronicled the release of The Empire Strikes Back in 1980 and The

Return of the Jedi in 1983. These only fuelled Star Wars comics with even more stories, as there were new characters like Boba Fett and his merry band of bounty hunters, the charming rogue Lando Calrissian and those far too cute Ewoks. The sequels expanded the universe, and so too did the comic writers in the late 70s and the early 80s. Remember, this was a time when Star Wars could only found in the theatre. Once it was gone, it was gone. Star Wars wasnt released on Laserdisc and VHS until the early 80s. So beyond playing with your action figures and X-Wing Fighters, the Star Wars comic series forged a connection with fans young and old and kept interest from ever waning, as there was three years to wait between films. It kept fans attached which is what fans want most anyway: to feel like they can go into that world whenever they choose. Now, there was a way through the comics, and more importantly, through the Expanded Universe. All good things must come to an end. Star Wars comics had run its course at Marvel. But, as in the Star Wars universe, there was a new hope on the horizon.
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The Dark Horse Of The Force

In 1986, Star Wars and Marvel ended their comic book union. Marvel had produced 107 issues and three annuals. The series was quite successful, peaking in the heydays of the late 70s. Punch it to 1991, when Star Wars made its way back into the comic book world. This time it was with Dark Horse Comics, who consistently produced Star Wars comics up to the present day. Dark Horse began with Dark Empire I and never looked back. But an event happened just prior to the release of Dark Empire I that not only rekindled interest in all things far, far away but officially launched an explosion into the Expanded Universe. Star Wars came back into the consciousness of fans with the EU novel Heir to the Empire by Timothy Zahn. Released in May of 1991, the story picked up five years after the end of the Return of the Jedi when one of the Empires agents, Grand Admiral Thrawn, hatched a sinister plot to capture Luke and Leia and destroy the fledgling Alliance. The biggest draw in Zahns novel is not only the re-forged connection between
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fans and the beloved heroes but continued the stories of these characters far beyond the original Trilogy. Han and Leia married and had twins. Lando, Chewie, and the droids continued to fight for the brotherhood of the brave. Further, Zahns novel introduced new characters for fans to devour like Mara Jade. This complex female eventually became Lukes wife and mother of his son, Ben Skywalker. The success of the EU had such an impact on the Star Wars fan base that in 1998 Mara Jade slipped into the top 20 of fan favourite characters in a Star Wars Insider poll, proving the EU was not only relevant, but a force to be reckoned with. Heir to the Empire was a huge success and itself the first act of The Thrawn Trilogy. Two successive books were issued each year following Heir To The Empire. Subsequently, in December 1991, Dark Horse released Dark Empire I. The six part limited comic series was not a standalone adventure, but one that came right from Zhans plot lines in Heir To The Empire. Most notably, Dark Empire I explored the fate of Emperor Palpatine as his spirit cheated death through cloning. The EU now had a life of

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Pictured: various excerpts from Dark Horses long Star Wars publication history.

its own, and with Dark Empire I, Star Wars comics took off once again. This successful comic series was followed by Dark Empire II and Empires End. Both Star Wars EU comics and novels had kick started Star Wars lore, expanding it far beyond the movies. While plot-lines in comics and novels have gone on different trajectories since the early 90s, one thing is for certain, this resurgence set the tone for EU prosperity right up to present day. An argument can be made that expanding the Star Wars universe into comics and novels began an all-out assault of all things Star Wars. The movie experience was pushed further by the toys, which was a logical step both monetarily and to connect fans with that universe. But the comics and novels pushed fans into the outer limits of the Star Wars galaxy. Sure it was done to reap financial rewards. But it also broadened the fan experience with continual new adventures with favourite characters. Why does the Expanded Universe intrigue us fans so much? It comes down to a feeling. Watching Star Wars offers a terrific feeling, a fantastic feeling, something very

few films come close to. Some of this has to do with the age in which one watched their first film, but it also has to do with the films themselves; a timeless but unique fairy tale of good versus evil. Delving into the Expanded Universe allows us a chance to reconnect with our favourite characters, relive our favourite moments and even rewrite Star Wars history. What if Luke had joined Darth Vader at the end of The Empire Strikes Back? Writers have the power to recreate that. Star Wars has created numerous iconic characters, environments and plot lines. It is clear; the fan experience has been heightened by expanding that universe. And much of the ground work for whether this would be a viable business was laid with Star Wars comics. It proved the EU is worthwhile, both financially and for the fans themselves. Heck, where else can we get to on side adventures with any and all of our favourites - Boba, Chewie, and Lobot? Yes, even Lobot.
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COPS!
Roughly 300 people are part of this group of digital crime fighters. Some for fun, but others hope to use the experience to help their future job hunt.

Fighting Crime in the Seventh Generation

Words by Bryan Calhoun I climbed into a Toronto Police Department patrol car that had the number 1502 on the side and roof panels. My driver and the peace officer in charge of my ride-along identified himself as Glen. Unfortunately, there wasnt time to get acquainted with more than these simple facts. This city, like every big city, is full of people living on top of each other in crowded apartment buildings. Its full of people travelling around on a public transit system that was not built to handle their vast numbers. The city is full of people who are just trying to live their lives, but there is always some tension when so many people occupy the same space. Basically, it didnt take long for someone to request Glens assistance. 15-Oh-2, I am going to be on scene with a disturbance here. Eastbound Voxide Street. , came the voice of an unknown man over the cars two-way radio. Come back. Additional? Glen replied. 10-4. Was all that the voice on the radio said at first, but less than a minute later, the disembodied voice added, Runner! Full pursuit. Heading eastbound Voxide Street. Apparently, Glen had just volunteered us for the role of back-up unit during this unknown disturbance, so we turned around and drove off in the direction of this other officer and his suspect. The city streets were clear of rush hour traffic, so we easily moved through the concrete canyons while Glens siren blared a warning to move over. Despite the lack of heavy traffic, we still stopped at every intersection in case some civilian refused to give way. We finally pulled around the last corner, and we could see the man I assumed was the officer from the radio call. He was in the middle of a foot chase with a male suspect of average height and weight. Before the car came to a stop, the chase moved from the sidewalk to a set of stairs that lead into a nearby park. Glen parked his car beside the bottom step, and ran to offer assistance to his fellow officer. Since I was just a reporter on a ride-along, I

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didnt do any running. It was better for me to keep a safe distance from the action. With two officers on his trail, the suspect was cornered and caught. Despite being the last officer on the scene, Glen was the one who ended the chase when the suspect made a random course change in an attempt to throw off his pursuers. Without much more fuss, they put the suspect in the back of Glens car, and we drove this person to a nearby police station. I didnt really understand their police departments code, so the nature of the suspects crime remained an unknown to me. That being said, the whole situation was handled with a degree of professionalism that is never represented in the current crop of television shows or movies about the police. This could have even been some really good press for a police force that has been battling claims of overeager trigger fingers and unnecessary aggression since the G-20 summit that Toronto hosted in June of 2010. However, at the end of the day the Toronto press wont report on this arrest because there isnt a Voxide street in Toronto. To be honest, Glen isnt actually a member of the Toronto police, or any other law enforcement organization. The man we just dropped off at the police station was a series of 1s and 0s compiled by a computer programmer. Since were getting this all out in the open, my ride along was actually a YouTube video called Rookie Blue Patrol (in honour of the TV show with the same name). Glen and his group, the GTA 4 RCMP Clan, have posted a series of videos to show their patrols of Liberty City in Grand Theft Auto IV to the world. Glen, who only wanted to be known as Glen for this article, is described on the organizations website as the Commissioner of the GTA 4 RCMP clan, a youth aspiring to become an RCMP officer, and the co-founder of this group of roughly 300 virtual emergency service workers. The ages of their members range between 16 years old to unknown
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with many years of real world emergency service experience. Their self-appointed mandate is to serve and protect the virtual people of Liberty City, and while they started off as virtual police officers, the GTA 4 RCMP clan has also grown to include virtual dispatchers, firemen, and paramedics as well. Since they patrol a virtual city, I dont blame anyone for instantly picturing the fictional officers you would see in Lethal Weapon or Die Hard; however, watch one of the groups YouTube videos and you will quickly realize that these guys dont tolerate loose cannons. The group will get as close to actual police tactics as possible, but Glen explained why they dont perfectly mimic the actions of police officers. We try to make it so that the procedures that we use are not exactly the same as real police procedures just so that public safety is not jeopardized in real life. We dont want armed and dangerous people to know what the police will do because that would be unsafe for them. Anyone whos played a Grand Theft Auto game before will also understand what Glen means when he explained to me the technical issues that they experience. Liberty City in GTA 4 is kind of unstable at times, Glen elaborates. We try to make our procedures work with the game. One example of this is when a virtual suspect is arrested by one of Glens officers. There is no way to escort them to the car, so the game just instructs the suspect to follow the arresting officer until they get to a nearby precinct. Its not a perfect system, and as a result, while Glen and his group still patrol the streets of Liberty City to keep the average citizen safe, theyre also exploring the idea of role-playing. On occasion, different members of GTA 4 RCMP clan will take on the role of a suspect to allow the others an experience that is far more interactive. While it would be easy for someone to say the next

role-playing session will basically be the plot to Die Hard 3, Glens group is trying to keep their efforts as realistic as possible. Thats why it helps to have people in the group with real world emergency services experience when theyre brainstorming role-playing ideas. I cant tell you any names just for their sake, was Glens answer when I pressed him for more information about the type of experience his people have. But we have a lot of real patrol officers. A lot of real dispatchers. A lot of investigation stuff from real life. On top of that, while Glen appears to hold the highest rank on the police side of the groups activities, the heads of the groups virtual paramedics and firefighters are actual real world paramedics and firefighters respectively. Before ending my phone call with Glen, I explained my confusion over the presence of these real world emergency services workers in his organization. These people maintain employment in a high stress field that could easily lead to mental anguish, mutilation, and even death. Why in the world would they want to come home to continue that stressful work online? They like being role models for younger members, was how Glen explained it. The experience that these emergency services workers can pass on is invaluable, and according to Glen, its a good start for younger members to get a feel for [the job]. Sadly, I doubt other mainstream outlets will tell the story of Glen and the departments of virtual emergency workers he helped bring together. While CGM voted for GTA V to be one of the co-winners of our 2013 game of the year award, many mainstream outlets simply look on Rockstars flagship franchise as a series of murder simulators. Luckily, Glen and the members of the GTA 4 RCMP clan do not do this job for fame. I am sure the virtual people of Liberty City will sleep soundly knowing that Glen and his team patrol the city for the great good of everyone.
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Comic Origins: Daredevil

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Marvels Man Without Fear

Words by Phil Brown

SEEING IN RED

CGM take a look at the history of Daredevil, the people who made him into the crime fighter we know, and some of the best moments in his publication history.

As with most Marvel superheroes, the blind lawyer crime fighter Daredevil came out of the incomparable imagination of Stan Lee during the 1960s. However, other than his heightened senses, the Daredevil that youll read about in comics today cant really be attributed to Stan The Man. Nope, Daredevil changed forever in the early 80s when a young whippersnapper writer/ artist took over the book and transformed it into his lifelong dream of a gritty superhero noir comic. That description only could be the dream of a single man, and his name is Frank Miller. The comic book legend might have a tarnished reputation these days thanks to his excessively excessive contemporary work, but from the day Miller took over Daredevil until the publication of the first Sin City story, good ol Frank had one of the greatest and most groundbreaking streaks of any creator in the history of comics. His name will always be synonymous with Batman thanks to The Dark Knight Returns and Year One, yet without the years of work he put into reinventing Daredevil as a hard-nosed and realistic crime fighter in the charmingly goofy Marvel universe, those Bat-books might never have happened. More to the point, Daredevil likely wouldnt be around anymore if Miller hadnt gotten a chance to take a Marvel C-lister and turn him into the most beloved and ambitious superhero comic on the racks in the early 80s. Turn the clock back to the late 70s and Daredevil has been reduced to bimonthly publication on a slow walk to cancellation. Writers and artists were revolving through the series almost as a testing ground and readers couldnt have cared less. Then in 1978, Roger McKenzie took over the series. McKenzie got his start writing horror comics like Eerie and Vampirella and immediately brought a darker and gothic edge to good ol hornhead. It wasnt groundbreaking stuff, but it did bring a little life to the dead series by making it Marvels Batman and soon a 20-something wunderkind artist kicking around the Marvel offices wanted in. Frank Miller made his Daredevil debut as an artist in issue 158. Titled
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Frank Millers work on Daredevil was a major inspiration in shaping me in my formative years. I happened to see an issue of it as a child, before I ever read comic books, and it had a visceral effect on me. I came across the next issue by chance a couple years later at a second hand store, and now I could look at the panels and see the intelligence behind the design. I could see that there was a storyteller that was using every opportunity to shape the story and tone of the story: lighting, panel shape and design, rhythm, close ups, shadows, timing, panel size, everything was in service of the story... and it was that moment that made me want to write and draw stories in that medium.
DAVID MACK, ARTIST/WRITER FOR DAREDEVIL VOL. 2, ARTIST ON DAREDEVIL: END OF DAYS

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A Grave Mistake, the story featured plenty of McKenzies gothic shenanigans, but Miller made his mark instantly. Panels were composed and collected with the dynamic framing and contrast of movie storyboards. The action felt raw, and the characters looked more natural than usual, even if the story was still loopy. From that first issue, Miller was teamed with Klaus Janson as his inker and the duo instantly felt like a team. Millers dynamic layouts and poses were given added depth, detail, and lighting by Janson that young Frank couldnt manage alone. They were a perfect combo and by the end of the run, neither artist was sure where ones work ended, and the others began. Millers skill with layout soon began to impact on McKenzies storytelling, and within a few issues, the trio ditched the usual writer/ artist/inker credits and instead co-signed each issue as a joint production. The band stuck together for ten issues, and they were decent, but notable more for the art than anything else. Miller started basing his designs around actual Hells Kitchen architecture and with each issue the book took on a more grounded and fascinating

design as Miller/Janson became increasingly experimental in their artwork. The only problem was that the more realistic and noirish the book became the more it clashed with McKenzies traditional superhero storytelling sensibilities. Sure, it was fun to see Miller draw and design a fight between Daredevil and the Hulk, but the issues still felt like a third rate comic with a fancy facelift. Miller wanted to quit the book and move on, having recently started writing back up stories. Deeply impressed by Millers work, Marvel editor Denny ONeil fired McKenzie and let the kid take over Daredevil entirely. Daredevil #168 was Millers first issue as writer/artist and he kicked things off with a bang by introducing the ninja assassin Elektra to the series and tying her origin into a forgotten young love story with Matt Murdock. At the time, even having a ninja in a comic book was revolutionary, never mind having a morally ambiguous woman who works as a vicious killer (the early 80s were a strange time in comics, folks). Frank Millers new take on Daredevil connected with readers instantly. After only three issues, sales skyrocketed so substantially that the book went back into monthly publication.
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Miller would write and draw the book for 23 issues in his initial run that transformed Daredevil into one of Marvels most interesting characters. His action scenes were superhero stylized, yet seemed to depict real pain with dollops of blood. Every page was filled with radically unpredictable layout designs that changed size and structure to suit the story and emotions. Through Daredevil and Elektra, Miller crafted a tragic love story in which the heros greatest villain was also his greatest love. Any villain with supernatural powers disappeared so that Daredevil seemed to be fighting the Marvel Universe equivalent of street crime. Thought bubbles were slowly replaced with boxed captions of internal monologues tinged with the stylized wordplay and linguistic sting of classic detective fiction. All of these techniques and ideas are standard issue in comics today, and Frank Millers Daredevil run can be considered ground zero for all of them. As usual with Frank, the villains were possibly the most fascinating characters. Aside from introducing Elektra, the man also permanently reinvented two of Marvels most beloved villains. One was Bullseye, a costumed assassin who could turn any benign object into a lethal projectile. He was a stock villain in the Marvel roster until Miller turned him into a braindamaged psychotic with a personal vendetta against Daredevil. The other major villain was imported from the pages of Spider-man: The Kingpin. The big, bald, bad guy had been around for years, but it wasnt until Miller got a hold of him that he became the frighteningly brilliant crime lord we know today. In his third issue, Miller had Kingpin return from retirement and within a matter of hours topple Manhattans entire criminal empire to return to power. The writer also took away Kingpins true love to provide a psychological
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motivation for his coldhearted approach to crime. Kingpin became a three dimensional supervillain and served as a precursor to the hard-nosed crime villains that would populate Millers Sin City throughout the 90s. From issue 168-180, Miller crafted a long form story between Daredevil, Elektra, Bullseye, and Kingpin. The horns and the lady shared a complicated love story across the line of the law. DD replaced Spider-man as Kingpins most loathed New York superhero. Bullseye became Kingpins head assassin until he was humiliated by Daredevil, then the crime lord hired Elektra to do his dirty business. There were other side stories of course involving lovely diversions like cannibalistic sewer mutants (something of a Frank Miller specialty), but the focus was on those four characters, and it all came to a head with one of the most famous and beloved single issues in the history of Marvel Comics: Daredevil #181. Miller told that story from a particularly nutty Bullseyes perspective, making it something of the diary of a madman a la Taxi Driver. Through a series of psychotic adventures, Bullseye ended up killing Elektra, piercing her through the stomach with her own sai in one of the most notorious, influential, and ripped off images in all of comics. Its a nasty, action packed, disturbing, thrilling, and masterful issue that marked not just the climax of Millers initial Daredevil narrative, but also the arguable peak of his entire run. Miller stayed on the book for another ten issues (plus writing and drawing two excellent Daredevilcentric issues of What If), which had some definite high points. He got to do a drug-busting Daredevil/ Punisher team up that had been turned down for graphic content in the McKenzie days, dedicated a comedy issue to the loveable Foggy, and resurrected Elektra. Yet none of it was quite as strong as what came before. Eventually Miller left

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WHAT FRANK MILLER AND KLAUS JANSON WERE DOING IN DAREDEVIL WAS A REVOLUTION IN STORYTELLING FOR ME. IT FELT LIKE THE AUTEUR MOVEMENT THAT WAS HAPPENING IN FILM IN THE SEVENTIES... THERE WAS A VERY PERSONAL TOUCH IN THE CONTENT AND THE STYLE... AND I LOVED THAT EVERY PROJECT THAT MILLER WORKED ON HAD A VERY UNIQUE STYLE AND APPROACH THAT WAS CULTIVATED JUST FOR THAT PROJECT.

- DAVID MACK

with issue 191, and when he did, the writer delivered one of his finest issues of Daredevil: an exploration of why anyone would choose to be a hero if they had superpowers, told while Daredevil was playing Russian roulette with a silent, paralyzed Bullseye in a hospital. Its a doozy. When Miller left Daredevil, he was a comic superstar. One big enough to talk DC into letting him write the first widely released prestige format graphic novel Ronin (which well discuss here another time, Im sure). From there it was a lateral move to Dark Knight Returns, but first Miller returned to the issues of Daredevil one more time with the seven issue graphic novel Daredevil: Born Again. Written and released the same year as DKR, the book can be read as a ground zero for many of the themes in that Batman masterpiece. The story involved the Kingpin learning Daredevils secret identity and systematically attacking every element in the heros life until he was left homeless, costumeless, and destroyed. Matt Murdock then rebuilt himself piece by piece in a disturbingly realistic and Catholic-tinged redemption tale that examined the psychological weight of being a hero with insight and gravity never before attempted in a superhero yarn (aided immeasurably by gorgeous, grounded art by Millers future Year One collaborator David Mazzuchelli). Born Again is a classic, but one that remains deeply underrated and sadly under-read by most comic book fans. It should be considered one of the great works of superhero fiction/ deconstruction and certainly would be were it not for the fact that it came out the same year as both The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen. Yet, despite that prestige format shadow forever cast over Daredevil: Born Again, it is a superhero fiction masterpiece. Not just the finest bit of writing that Miller ever did for Daredevil, but easily one of his greatest accomplishments full stop.

Miller would return to the adventures of Hells Kitchens finest crime fighter a few times after Born Again (first in the concurrently released Daredevil: Love And War with Bill Sienkiewicz, then in his Elektra spin-off books, and finally with his somewhat muddled 1993 Daredevil origin mini-series The Man Without Fear). However, all of those amusing works are postscript. Once Miller got his hands on Batman, Daredevil felt like a step back. Yet, theres no denying that without the years of pioneering work that Miller did over at Marvel, its unlikely that Millers Batman work would be so strong. It was there that Miller defined and refined his cinematic comic/noir style. It was in the pages of Daredevil that Miller first got inside the head of a superhero and found a damaged human beneath the mask. And it was in Born Again that he first told a closed off superhero story with all of the layers, meanings, depth, and breadth of a novel. They say that after Miller, all Batman books have been about Frank Millers version of Batman. Thats probably true, but his impact Daredevil was even more dramatic. Not only have all Daredevil runs since Miller been written and drawn in his style, theyre arguably still telling the exact same stories. After Miller was done with Daredevil, there was no going back and it was even hard for creators to find ways to go forward (though admittedly there have been some hugely entertaining tales by folks like Ed Brubaker, Mark Waid, and Kevin Smith). In one Daredevil-shaped swoop, Frank Miller not only kicked off his vastly influential career, but also started the 80s comic book renaissance where superheroes stories could suddenly be for adults. Its arguable that the entire contemporary comic book industry started with Frank Millers first Daredevil issue as writer/artist. And to think, if Miller had quit during the Roger McKenzie era as planned, Daredevil probably would have been cancelled.
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Art That Goes Anywhere

Sonny Liew is now one of the great comic book success stories of Southeast Asia in general and Singapore in particular. He joins a very smallbut growingstable of artists living outside the West that have managed to break in and prosper in the more lucrative North American and European markets. The most surprising aspect of this is that hes managed to do it without having to move from his home in Singapore, a tiny island sandwiched between Malaysia and Indonesia. Despite the fact that he lives on an island known more for its busy port and famous Hainanese chicken rice, than its contributions to pop culture, he has worked with writers such as Mike Carey and Tommy Kovac and has garnered Eisner nominations for himself. Hes even started promoting the work of other artists in the region with his ongoing compilation Liquid City published by Image Comics. And he does all this without needing to live in New York or London, thanks to the Internet. Because of the Internet, communication and more importantly, all types of informationcan be sent in an instant regardless of where on the planet you live. If there were no Internet, it would tremendously impact Sonnys ability to work. It would be trickier, for
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sure, he admits. Having to ship pages in the mail, without email for communication... Its much easier to work remotely these days. Ironically, even though Sonnys career is now done via long distance, thats not how it started. Its easy to say in retrospect that his talent made his success a foregone conclusion, but that wasnt the case 13 years ago. In 2001, with nothing other than the hope that he had what it took, he made the pilgrimage to the San Diego Comic Con, and it was there that he found himself in front of Chris Claremont, responsible for one of the most memorable runs of the X-Men, and Sonny showed the legendary writer some of his work. Claremont was impressed enough to show Sonny around the Comic Con and eventually give him his big break, letting him make a contribution to the Marvel Universe Millennial Visions comic. The rest, as they say, is history, but it still took a crucial face to face meeting to get Sonnys career off the ground. From there, however, technology took over.

Working Relationships
There are a few things required to make it feasible for people on different continents to put together a comic book. One of the most important is planning. The jazzy

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Images from Sonny Liews portfolio of comic and illustration works.

improvisation of an artist and writer riffing off each and making it up as they go along doesnt work on a global scale. For example, when Sonny Liew worked with Mike Carey, it was a continental balancing act with an artist in Singapore, a writer in London, and the main offices of DC Comics in New York. Sonny didnt even initially meet his creative partner in the flesh, something that many creatives are used to these days. Usually it starts off with email, Sonny says. No meetings, except at conventions later. Sometimes theres a conference phone call, just to say hello. But even something as simple as a telephone conference is no longer so easy with three different time zones to take into account. So once again, its the Internet to the rescue. Its 95 per cent email! Sonny says. Most of it is sending thumbnails and character designs for approval by editors and writers. Once everything has been given the okay, its time to actually produce the work, with the writer putting out scripts which, once approved, are handed over to the artist. The artist in turn shows off what they have in mind, normally referred as thumbnails to reflect the quick, unfinished nature of these sketches that are designed to convey the general idea of layout and structure. All of this needs to be figured
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out well advance of a comic ever getting near a printer and heading out to the shelves of various retailers. This is especially true for something thats expected to release every month, like a mainstream comic series. When asked how far in advance this kind of planning goes, Sonny said, Six months. Thats with periodical releases like at Marvel, where they want maybe three issues ready to run before release. You work on the rest thereafter. Its a different story of course for other projects, like graphic novels. With books, Sonny says, it all depends on the lead time required for marketing, and such. This is where the final element comes in that makes all this work possible; trust. And that has to be there at the beginning. For the most part, thumbnails have to be approved, Sonny explains. Once thats done, the next thing you send is finished art. I guess they kinda trust you once they hire you to do decent, finished art. It would bog things down tremendously if every line, word of dialogue and colour had to be approved before it could be committed to paper, which is one of the reasons why professional relationshipswhen they work wellare so important to maintain. An efficient, creative team is one of the most valuable commodities in the comic industry, simply because it means theres less to worry about. Constant supervision requires time, which in turn costs money.

Digital Delivery
The one thing that the Internet has done for comic collaborationespecially with larger companies such as DC and Marvelis make speed and efficiency viable no matter where in the world you live. In the
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past, pencilled art had to be physically mailed from the artist to the inker, letterer and colourist, whereas now, the same digital file can be sent to all relevant staff in an instant, simultaneously. In the same way, changes to everything from the script to the colour can be discussed either via email or numerous real time conferencing tools from phones to videos to programs that directly show the images on someones computer in real time. All of these advances in technology have taken days even weeksof production time out of the equation, much of it lost simply because of the decision makers needing to wait for deliveries back and forth between the creative talent. It has unshackled both artists and writers from a need to live and work in the same city as the publisher just to make sure something gets out within the deadline, and has made it possible for many others like Sonny to get work. Of course, theres also a downside to this. As many in North America have discovered, outsourcing work to people in other parts of the world can often mean equal, or higher quality work at a lower cost than what a domestic artist would demand. Its a dilemma that has yet to be fully worked out, and its one of the many challenges that almost any industrycreative or otherwisefaces as the Internet breaks down the traditional barriers of time and distance. But for now, it does ensure one thing. Talent, no matter where it lives in the world, now has an opportunity to shine on a global stage. Collaborations like those between Sonny Liew, Mike Carey and DC are proof of this.

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Games: Next-Gen Chat

Words by Khari Taylor

If youre among one of the millions of early-adopters who recently spent money on either Sony or Microsofts next-gen console and have been playing a great deal of online multiplayer, by now youve probably noticed a trend. Its quiet out there. Odds are if youre venturing by yourself into an online game of Call of Duty: Ghosts, Forza 5, or even a 64-player match in Battlefield 4, youre likely to encounter an eerie silence that directly contradicts the intense online experiences promised by the launch ads, not to mention the large install bases that both consoles have achieved worldwide to-date. Take a glance about the playfield in any online match and youll see plenty of live players competing, fighting and dying, but few, if any, are talking, despite the fact that both the Xbox One and PS4 support and encourage voice communication more aggressively than any of their predecessors did. So why now, are next-gen gamers so incommunicado?
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There are a lot of new elements going on in next-gen console multiplayer - but talking isnt one of them. Why are players so reluctant chat with one another?

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Well, a simple answer is that most Xbox Live and PlayStation Network (PSN) gamers havent suddenly gone mute; theyre just playing with their friends in Party Chat, a feature thats on both consoles. Why this has now become the norm rather than the exception requires a bit more explaining however. Believe it or not, it wasnt always like this. Most gamers old enough to remember the 2002 launch of Xbox Live on the original Xbox and Sonys introduction of the PlayStation Network likely recall those days with rosecoloured glasses, as it was unquestionably a golden age for voice chat on consoles. Regardless of whether you played on Xbox Live or PSN, gaming online on a console required a significant financial commitment. For Xbox Live, it was a $50 US per year subscription fee in the form of a Starter Kit, which included a headset, and while there was no subscription needed for PSN, those players initially paid even more for the mandatory PS2 Network Adapter and official headset, which were both sold separately (the latter could be purchased bundled with a game, like S.O.C.O.M.). Either way, early online console gamers were seriously invested and thus and were much more inclined to put their headsets to use. Now thats not to say that communication on the original Xbox Live and PSN was perfect. Far from it. Hopping onto Xbox Live or PSN during the first few years was a lot like being dropped in the middle of the Wild West. From the minute they entered a game, online newcomers were exposed to the unfiltered, racist, sexist and homophobic language of their hobbys unwashed masses, and while there were mechanisms in place to filter out the miscreants (e.g. muting the player or filing an official Xbox Live complaint), these methods were at best futile and temporary. It was the online console school of hard
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knocks; in order to get into the rare 20 per cent of games where players were civil, team-oriented and fun to play with, there was no choice but to tolerate the other 80 per cent of games filled with children and overgrown children. Still, it was worth the trouble, because it was within the aforementioned 20 per cent where the true Xbox Live and PSN communities were. That was where the magic happened, where players could instantly meet and form friendships with other gamers who liked the same games, played them regularly at the same time as they did, and were equally passionate about those games, even more so than ones real-life friends might be. To paraphrase the popular 2003 Xbox slogan, it was good to play together. Regrettably, it couldnt last. As Xbox 360 and Xbox Live became more mainstream and the majority of its paidsubscription audience shifted from core gamers to families and casuals, it became inevitable that Microsoft would have to make changes to address the still-wild, untamed nature of communication on Xbox Live. Improvements had already been made over the years; Xbox 360 players now had the ability to rate other players via a reputation system and could avoid or mute individual players not only during a gaming session but across all of Xbox Live indefinitely. But it still wasnt enough to ensure that the majority of ones experiences on Xbox Live would be free of verbal harassment. So in 2008, alongside several sweeping changes to the look and feel of the Xbox 360 interface via the New Xbox Experience (NXE), Microsoft introduced the Party/Party Chat system and fundamentally changed the service forever. For the first time ever on a console, Party Chat allowed players to form a private chat room with up to seven other Xbox Live Gold members on a separate audio channel independent of whatever game or activity they may be

involved in, making it simpler to meet up online and jump into games together as a group. At first, it was a blessing. Players could now choose to speak only with the friends and players that they liked, while filtering out neer-do-wells that had tormented them since the early days of Live. Unfortunately, over the years that followed, the feature also gradually brought about the end of the organic, open-nature that the Xbox Live community was once known for, segmenting entire rooms of players into gated, friends-only communities. Dedicated Game Chat channels that once overflowed with chatter, be it good, bad or ugly, now greeted newcomers as empty, soundless voids. Fast-forwarding to present day, its apparent that the fresh start offered by the next-gen consoles has done little to change this paradigm shift; if anything, its gotten worse. Not only has the Party Chat become just as indispensable a feature on Xbox One as it is on Xbox 360 (despite its initial problems), but now a nearexact PSN equivalent exists on PS4 also, a direct result of Sony wishing to replicate the success of Xbox Live in the previous generation. Obviously, for seasoned Xbox Live and PSN gamers who have migrated into the next-generation with pre-existing friends lists, this is a non-issue. But for the sizeable contingent of Xbox One and PS4 owners new to Xbox Live and PSN, the onboarding process can be a quiet, lonely road. Like an unsettling, empty dance floor in a popular nightclub, the Game Chat channels where online players once gathered and communicated with each other in now serve as little more than filler between the private booths that Party Chat rooms now occupy. Theyve become phantom zones, frequented only by lone-wolves who refuse to use their headsets and non-talkative gamers unaware that
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Battlefield 4 Modern multiplayer is awfully quiet with games that can support 64 interacting players.

their microphones (or Kinect/PlayStation cameras) are live, unwittingly broadcasting the sounds of their family squabbles, heavy breathing, death metal, and wailing, neglected children out to the world. So how is a next-gen gamer new to Xbox Live or PSN supposed to make new friends in this increasingly insular online environment? Well, the bad news is that the Xbox Live and PSN communities that once breathed life into the Game Chat channels arent likely to return, as people will always choose to talk with friends as opposed to strangers. But the good news is, thanks to the powerful, next-gen social media features built into Xbox One and PS4, no one is a stranger anymore, and literally anyone can become a fast-friend. One just needs to use the tools and put in a little effort. Case in point, The PS4s built-in live-streaming capabilities not only allow players to broadcast their gameplay in real time via Twitch and UStream, but also allow other PS4 owners to see, hear and interact with them as well via the Live with PlayStation interface (if the broadcasting player so chooses). Thus gamers looking to find and add friends for specific games with can now screen potential candidates, observing and listening to
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how that player interacts with others in that game before sending a friend request. If they like, they can even launch the same game from the interface in order to join or challenge that player online directly. In a similar fashion, Upload Studio for Xbox One lets players edit and upload pre-recorded gameplay videos to Xbox Live (complete with voice narration), where in-turn other Xbox One owners can publicly view them, filter them by interest and even follow or friend the creators by sending a friend request directly to their attached profiles. When these two services are coupled with the PS4s ability to upload edited gameplay clips to Facebook and the Xbox Ones ability to do the same for YouTube, it becomes clear that even a next-gen newbie can quickly and easily build their own custom-tailored community of friends from scratch, and with Xbox Live and PSN extending their maximum friends list caps to 1000 and 2000 respectively, those communities can become quite large and extensive. So dont be bashful, newcomer. Your ideal next-gen console community of friends is sitting right under your nose; its just waiting for you to build it. So get out there and for the love of chatter, dont be afraid to use your headset for the common good!

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The multiplayer environment created by titles like Rust (pictured) is a new front on how we plays games with one another.

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Playing videogames with other people used to be a more intimate experience. You could get together with a few friends and either pass the controller or hook a few extra up to the console to experience the same game together. Maybe, if you were feeling adventurous, you could get a handful of people to lug their computers into the same room, set up a local area network, and play a shooter together, marvelling all the while that the enemies in the game were actual people and not scripted opponents. Times have changed. The ubiquity of broadband Internet connections has transformed social videogame playing in ways that may have seemed unimaginable in the past. Nearly every big budget release provides a multiplayer mode alongside its single player campaign as a matter of course, complete with standard deathmatch and capture the flag game types. Wirelessly
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connected consoles and games with quick match features make finding human opponents at any time of the day or night simple. And yet this technology, so impressive when the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 launched, is beginning to seem almost primitive in light of multiplayer gamings continued evolution. The scenario described above is an anecdote from Rust, a multiplayeronly survival game from Facepunch Studios currently available for purchase while in its unfinished, alpha iteration. Rust is a game that starts players with next to nothing (two bandages, a torch, and a rock) and asks them to go forth in the world and find a way to craft guns, armour, and even houses by making use of only their meagre possessions and the natural environment. This could make for an interesting game in its own right, but what elevates Rust is its inclusion of nearly anonymous multiplayer features. The

island setting is populated by other real people, who each have their own unique motivations and concept of what makes the game fun. Running into another player is a roll of the dice. One person, Internet handle floating above their head, may shoot or bludgeon you to death on sight in order to take your items (or just because they find the act of digital violence enjoyable). Another player may give you a few of their supplies, point you in the direction of valuable lumber and stone, or offer to join up with you and make a loose pact of mutual protection and support. This represents a fairly new model for multiplayer one that is only possible in a time when developers can take stable Internet connections for granted. Rather than create game lobbies where a purely cooperative or adversarial mode of online play can be selected, teams like Facepunch Studios blur the lines between these two previously

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RATHER THAN DIVIDE GAMES INTO RIGID MULTIPLAYER MODES, THIS NEW CO-OP MAKES IT IMPOSSIBLE TO CREATE DISTINCTIONS BETWEEN THESE SIMILAR FORMATS.
distinct types of experiences to make something far more interesting. Rust is not quite single player and its not quite multiplayer. Its a new type of gameplay that may very well be an indication of the mediums future.

***
Thatgamecompanys Journey was a great game for many reasons. It was visually and aurally beautiful and told a great story through simple yet enjoyable gameplay. But it also made me realize, after its credits had rolled, that I had spent some portion of it effectively communicating with a player (online handle rendered in Japanese script) who, quite possibly, I may not have been able to exchange more than a few simple sentences with in real life. Just the same, our languages boiled down to Journeys chirp, jump, and movement controls, and we solved problems and explored a fictional world together. The type of co-operative play that Journey offers is a distilled form of the nearly anonymous play style represented in Rust. Without a chat function, customizable character appearance, or any indication as to who your fellow players are until

***
Another time, another place, and Im exploring the sand dunes and broken stone pillars of a strange new world. While working out the solution to an environmental puzzle a shape appears on the horizon. Its another character who looks almost identical to my own. At first it seems like this character might be a scripted part of the game, but then it begins to react to my actions in a way that no current artificial intelligence could. I press a button to chirp at it. The other character chirps faster and leads me to the solution of the puzzle. We explore the world together for another few minutes before it vanishes. I never learn who she or he was.

a little list of PlayStation Network names pops up after the credits, there is no way to tell who the friends you cooperate with in Journey are. Thatgamecompanys approach is, like Rusts, only possible because the PlayStation 3 is capable of staying constantly online. It is a multiplayer game that uses real companionship in place of the more limited behaviours that an artificially intelligent character never could have created. The human element is absolutely paramount in both titles. Rather than divide the games into rigid co-operative, solo, and competitive multiplayer modes, this new style makes it nearly impossible to create proper distinctions between these sometimes similar formats. Whether its accomplished by crafting systems that make judging whether or not another player is friend or foe as in Rust or by taking away formal communication and names as in Journey, the end result is the same:
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THIS KIND OF SECOND SCREEN EXPERIENCE IS NOW BEING WIDELY TOUTED BY MAINSTREAM DEVELOPERS AND PUBLISHERS AS AN IDEAL WAY TO ENRICH GAMEPLAY.

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multiplayer that enriches gameplay by defying compartmentalization.

***
I hold a battle axe in one hand and a shield in the other. Just past a fogshrouded door is a gigantic dragon with a gaping, toothy mouth where its head and shoulders should be. It has killed me many times, but I keep returning to try again. On this latest visit I see a glowing sentence written on the floor. Try the tail, it says. I hit the tail, defeating the monster and grabbing a powerful axe in the process. The helpful message was left by an anonymous person during some unknown time between the games release and the present day.

***
Changing the landscape even further are the traditionally singleplayer videogames that choose to incorporate other players in their campaigns. From Softwares Demons Souls and Dark Souls are both titles that can be completed without any

interference from other people, but benefit enormously from the inclusion of unique multiplayer features. The Souls games are littered with tiny bits of writing left by other people inhabiting the games servers. These notes, made up of single sentences that offer advice or warnings pertaining to the current area, are a bizarre form of asynchronous co-op. A player who killed a tough boss a month before you arrived at it in your own game may give a hint as to its weakness; the edge of a cliff may be marked with graffiti instructing you to jump off of it. In some cases this writing can help you discover secret areas, shortcuts, and combat strategies. In others it may lead to your death because, well, an anonymous person at some point in time was playing a prank on the hapless readers of their note. Perhaps even more interesting are the invasion and summoning mechanics that, when certain gameplay criteria are met, allow others to jump into the players

usually lonely exploration of the world to either help them fight boss monsters or just kill their character for souls/experience points. Like Rust, the world is perpetually online, and the addition of real people makes for gameplay that is more varied than scripted NPCs. Watch Dogs, a nearfuture science fiction title currently in development by Ubisoft Montreal, is set to continue the approach to multiplayer taken by From Softwares Souls games. In it, other people will be able to join another players campaign without any notification from the game itself. Similar to Demons/Dark Souls murderous invaders, this new opponent covertly attempts to hack the players phone and steal information from them to use in their own. Watch Dogs, a game that is aiming for a far more widespread audience than the Souls series, is likely a sign of things to come, serving as further evidence that our understanding of single and multiplayer gameplay will continue to change.
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WHERE THIS WILL ULTIMATELY LEAD US IS IMPOSSIBLE TO SAY, BUT JUST KNOWING THAT THE FUTURE HOLDS SURPRISES THAT CAN REVOLUTIONIZE HOW WE CURRENTLY THINK OF VIDEOGAMES IS EXCITING IN ITS OWN RIGHT.

***
The White Whale is a legend among the pirates of the West Indies. Ive harpooned (and felt kind of bad about harpooning) any number of Bull Sharks, Great Whites, Humpbacks, and Orcas, but have never seen the mystical White Whale. Then, many, many hours into the game it appears on my map. After a long fight that sees the creature ramming several fishing boats into splinters, I manage to defeat it. And, since Ive been able to confirm its existence, everyone on my friends list now knows not only that the White Whale is real, but where to find it.

***
Ubisoft Montreal, the developer behind Assassins Creed IV: Black Flag, is leading the charge on an even stranger combination of single and multiplayer gaming. Black Flag, a game that mixes Assassins Creed traditional stealth action with ship sailing and hunting mechanics,
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sports a Social Sharing feature that augments its solo campaign. When the player or one of their friends spots the White Whale, unique convoys of ships, or special chests, the event is tagged and broadcast for everyone on their maps. And, gameplay can continue away from the console with a smartphone or tablet that can manage ship fleets and accrue in-game resources. This kind of second screen experience is now being widely touted by mainstream developers and publishers as an ideal way to enrich gameplay companion applications were available as a form of augmented single-player in games ranging from Dead Rising 3 and Beyond: Two Souls to Grand Theft Auto V and Battlefield 4 in 2013 alone. Though there hasnt been a game to truly make good on the benefits of second screen mechanics yet, the fact that products like Microsofts Smartglass, Sonys PlayStation Vita, and Nintendos Wii U tablet controller exist means that the evolution of

multiplayer will likely involve these devices in the future. How to make them feel essential to gameplay experiences is an interesting question, but its only a matter of time before a savvy developer finds a way. And this may be one of the most exciting elements of videogames going forward. As difficult as it would have been to believe that games such as Rust, Dark Souls, Journey, and Assassins Creed IV: Black Flag could exist in the past, now they do. Their developers have understood that sophisticated technology and accessible Internet connections make splitting co-operative, competitive, and single-player games into distinct categories is an anachronism. As future designers continue this work, our concept of social gameplay will become even stranger (and more interesting) still. Where this will ultimately lead us is impossible to say, but just knowing that the future holds surprises that can revolutionize how we currently think of videogames is exciting in its own right.

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Thisis .Heknows it'shisjobtoteachhissonScotty whatthiswholegamingthingisabout. Theageratinghelpshimpicktheright games,butbeingagooddadmeans healwayswantstoknowmore. ThatsexactlywhattheESRBs ratingsummariesarefor. Searchforagamesrating summaryatESRB.org.

Richard

Lafayette,IN

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Deja Tomb
Hey, wasnt I just talking about this game in March of 2013? Thats right, Tomb Raider is back, but now, its on the PS4 and Xbox One, and its got a bold new addendum, calling itself a definitive edition. In straightforward game-talk, that means of all the versions of Laras reboot that are floating around, this latest release is supposedly the one to get. So, is it? Pretty much, yes, but that doesnt necessarily mean you should get it for a number of reasons.

More Particles & Fog, Same Yamatai

For people that are unfamiliar with the history, Tomb Raider is actually a reboot of the entire Lara Craft/ Raiding Tombs intellectual property that came to last generation consoles in 2013. It took the Lara Croft of old and unleashed a Batman: Begins style origin story on her. Her previous history was wiped awayexcept for the basics about her being a rich orphanand rather than just start her off as an accomplished Tomb Raider, already somersaulting and dual wielding pistols, Crystal Dynamics told the tale of Lara Croft as an uncertain college student, thrust into her first, traumatic adventure. Plenty of dramaand grievous bodily harmabounded as Lara was forged from the fires of a trial for survival into the beginnings of a capable globetrotter. But here, in this story, mostly she gets kicked around a lot, learns

to shoot a bow, and gets a small preview of her growing skill with guns. It was a game that made Lara Croft a bit more realistic (proportionally speaking) and a bit less sexist for a 21st century audience, and it overhauled the design of the game. Taking nods from Uncharted (which in turn was itself inspired by Tomb Raider), the exploration and tomb puzzle solving were reduced, and the emphasis was switched over to the gunplay and action. It was a bold makeover for the series, but it was one that worked. Tomb Raider was well received at many outlets including CGM itself, which is why this latest addition can be problematic. Content-wise, this is the same game that came out in 2013, with all the DLC includedthough thats not as impressive as it sounds since it amounts to an extra tomb, some costumes and some extra maps for multiplayer. There are also a few added interface tweaks to take advantage of the new gimmickry that comes with the PS4 and Xbox One. Everything else is the same fun, well designed game that was released last year, and thanks to how recently the title came out, it still holds up wonderfully as a game. The main event here is the fact that the game got a serious graphical face-lift, and the job they did is impressive indeed.

An HD+ Re-Master
It seems a bit premature to already do HD re-masters of games from the last generation, but Tomb Raider has the dubious honour of being one of these HD+ games
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since its graphics were already high definition to begin with. This, right here, is the selling point Square-Enix is hoping will bring people back to the game if theyve already played it before. Originally, the plan was to take the existing PC version and port that over to the PS4 and Xbox One, but then something more elaborate happened, and Crystal Dynamics took another pass at the graphics, creating a new model of Lara Croft, adding in more physics and particle effects and considerably bumping up the resolution of the textures, as well as bumping up the frame rate. In all likelihood, they saw this as a training wheels project to get more familiar with the newest hardware, and from an efficiency point of view, thats a great idea. Surprisingly, the new look of the game is noticeable to even the untrained eye. Textures are much crisper and more detailed. Particle effects are everywhere now, with sparks of flame, smoke from explosions and fog rolling into areas. Even the foliage is more vibrant thanks to
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physics that now let leaves and branches sway in the wind. Lara herself is not quite the same Lara from the 2013 version thanks to the new model and addition of Tress FX or hair physics, which were brought over from the PC version, and, most impressive of all, theres a considerable bump in the frame rate, at least on the PS4 version, which is averaging over 50 frames per second throughout. All of these little things on their own might not have been so noticeable, but when put together, the average player can tell Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition really is the best looking version of the game, managing to surpass even the PC version. The frame rate increase is probably the first thing people will notice, but aside from that, other touches, like Lara standing in a forest while fog rolls through, trees wave in the wind, and her equipment jingles and shakes as she moves will contribute to a definite sense of improvement. This is a far more drastic upgrade than what players got moving between Assassins

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Creed IV on last gen and current gen systems. But with all these welcome improvements come a suite of changes that dont need to exist at all. Unfortunately, thanks to the new and shiny accessories that come with the new consoles, Crystal Dynamics felt obliged to experiment. Tomb Raider now has the option to use voice commands, and while its unnecessary, it works most of the time. Menus can be navigated, even weapons can be switched, and the game is good at recognizing the words on its command list. What its not good at is being so paranoid about missing commands that words with no similarity at all can suddenly cause the game to pause. Even explosions and in-game sound effects can occasionally cause the games listening icon to pop up on screen, terrified that it might have missed a voice command from you, the player. Theres also an optionas with Assassins Creed IVto use the touch pad on the PS4 to swipe through menus, or pinch to zoom in and out. It adds nothing to the game but doesnt hurt it either.

Similarly, when using a torch in the game, the DualShock 4 will now flicker, rapidly switching between red and orange light. None of these additions feel useful, and in the case of voice commands, youre probably better off deactivating it as quickly as possible, but at least they dont impact the gameplay. The multiplayer is what it is. It works, and some fun can be had with it, but it was never the main attraction of the game, and its doubtful that it will gain much traction with the community on either the Xbox One or the PS4, unless something catastrophic happens to Battlefield 4 or Call of Duty: Ghosts. Again, there have been no changes here, so aside from some extra DLC, its the same functional experience it was last year.

The Double Dip Dilemma

So now, we get to the crux of the matter. Should you buy Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition? The answer depends largely on who you are. Square-Enix is charging the full

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retail price of $60 for this game at the time of launch, so if you already bought the game when it first debuted, this means youre committing to spending a grand total of $120 for the same game. However, if youve somehow never played the game before, this latest version is the one to own, theres simply no argument about that. First time players can safely buy this game with a clear conscience, as its a quality piece of entertainment that now performs better than it ever has before. If, however, youve already bought the game, and youre thinking of pulling the trigger again, you have to ask yourself, How starved am I for a new game on my new consoles? Or, How much of a graphics enthusiast am I? People with the disposable income who just want to see what their new console can do can also safely buy this game with the confidence that its jazzed up enough to justify a nextgen label being slapped on it. Its a worthy demo piece for the new consoles.

The people that shouldnt buy the game are everyone else.
If you own it already and want to enjoy the same
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experience, but with more bells and whistles, and also happen to have a reasonable amount of patience, just wait. Its safe to say that in a few months, the game will drop to $40 or even $30, which is a much more reasonable price for a graphics upgrade with no major content additions. Theres even a chance it might end up on massive discount or even free on PlayStation + someday. This is a fine game, but the important thing to note here is its the same game. Despite the shinier graphics, its not going to play any better or be more fun than it was in 2013, especially if youve already played it before. In the end, Tomb Raider proved itself last year with gameplay and now improves itself even further with shinier graphics, but at an asking price of $60. However, it is the start of a new year, and currently there is no other new, high profile, AAA title from any developer until Square-Enix returns with Thief at the end of February. If you absolutely, positively cannot wait that long to play a new PS4/Xbox One game, then go ahead and get it. Everyone else can probably afford to wait. Unless youve never played the game at all, in which case, youre in for a treat.

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Dance Dance Revoluton. Rock Band. Beer Pong. Seven Minutes of Heaven. These are games that you are supposed to play with friends. If you have an uncontrollable addiction involving the slapping of plastic guitars, or a fetish for closet space, you can play some of these games alone; however, theyre all better when you have someone else around. The same can be said for Nidhogg, a game that is at its peak when someone else is in the same room. Although, I should point out that I am getting ahead of myself. To start from the beginning, Nidhogg is a game named after Nhggr the dragon. In Norse mythology Nhggr gnaws at the roots of the World Tree, and as someone whose favourite multiplayer callsign references a demon in Native American mythology, I can appreciate the unconventional choice of title. That said, I am sad to announce that despite the dragon name, this title has very little dragon action in it. Nidhogg is actually a side scrolling sword fighting indie-game that looks a bit like 1982s Pitfall! Nidhogg even feels like a call back to the days of the Atari 2600, but the design of Nidhogg is still too current to actually be of those days. I feel like the best comparison I can find for Nidhoggs gameplay is American football with the ball replaced by swords. Each player is a team made up of one stickman. It could be a team of two things if you count the sword youre given every time you re-spawn. You and

your sword must fight a similar looking stickman with a sword. The person who draws first blood is instructed to run towards the opposite side of the map, but the direction can change if the other stickman draws second, third, fourth blood, etc. The goal is to sword fight (or regular fight if you lose your sword) the other stickman in a running battle to the end of three chambers. Once one of you gets past the final chamber, the winner will

I FEEL LIKE THE BEST COMPARISON I CAN FIND FOR NIDHOGGS GAMEPLAY IS AMERICAN FOOTBALL WITH THE BALL REPLACED BY SWORDS.
find themselves in the other teams end zone. Here Nhggr the dragon makes a cameo appearance by eating the winner, and thats the game. Nidhogg is a bit of a one trick pony in the gameplay department. It dresses up the idea of this running sword fight with a number of level modifiers, multiplayer modes, local tournaments matches and the single-player campaign; however, at the end of the day everything
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comes down to winning the virtual sword fights. I will say this for Nidhoggs one trick; its still a pretty good trick. Especially when there is another human is sitting beside you playing local multiplayer. Nidhogg is a game based on the simple controls of jumping, attacking and general movement; but, they can be combined into epic battles that can be turned on their figurative heads by a well-aimed dive-kick. A roll that allows you to avoid combat while picking up a dropped sword in time to block your opponents next strike can look great, but can also change the flow of the match. This game is full of fast paced action, and jaw dropping moments of combat that culminate in your ability to throw your sword into the other players face. Unfortunately, being a good trick does not keep it from gets old fast if you play Nidhogg often. Luckily, when you challenge a friend in the same room, the

whole situation becomes about the friendly smack-talk and the challenge that you offer each other. It feels similar to the idea that poker is really about the people around a poker table and not the cards those people are holding. Although, this shouldnt diminish the generally positive reputation that Nidhogg has earned. In order for any theoretical enjoyment to happen, Nidhogg has to be involved in the first place. I was also hoping to solve Nidhoggs problem of a quick burnout of interest with the online multiplayer feature, but I never found a great match. There are not that many people playing Nidhoggs online multiplayer mode. I tried to play the game online at various times throughout the days I reviewed it, and the largest player count I found was five people online at once. On top of that, I was never part of a lag free match. Every online game of Nidhogg ended with either me or my

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opponent complaining that unknown forces caused the games frame rate to turn into something that resembles a vacation slideshow. Strangely, this only happens after someone leaves the 1st chamber of any match. This is actually a phenomenon that I also experienced in local multiplayer and the single-player campaign (which is basically a slobber knocker match or ladder mode depending on your chosen parlance). Every time I got outside of the first chamber there would be a significant drop in the frame-rate. Luckily, it was a problem that would go away quickly when a match of Nidhogg was being played on a single machine. Im also not a fan of the decision to ship this product have four maps. The game plays the same regardless of the map you are on, but to the developers credit each map does try to bring a unique twist to the game

of Nidhogg. Unfortunately, four maps are not enough variety and the limited number only helps the game feel old at an accelerated pace. In the end, Nidhogg will cost you $15, and while I did have fun with the game, I am not sure I had $15 dollars worth. My biggest issue with this game is the same one I had with Need for Speed Rivals in 2013. The underlying concept of both games is good, and fun can be had with both titles; however, with each game I had to go out of my way, and work outside of the games systems to set up the multiplayer experience that I wanted. With Nidhogg this usually meant lugging around my heavy laptop, which is something I gladly gave up when tablet technology became common place. I guess that comes off as the ultimate first world problem, but why jump through hoops for Nidhogg when $15 can buy a large selection of experiences that dont require anything more from me?

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THIS IS A GAME A LOT OF PEOPLE HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR.

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This is a game a lot of people have been waiting for. One of the first ridiculously-successful Kickstarter games, this is certainly the most well-known, putting the model on the map. Its goal was to prove that the adventure game was in demand, and that the nostalgia for Monkey Island and Day of the Tentacle could be recaptured. Tim Schafers history was a huge selling point, and it represented a bold idea for game development where games were funded directly by gamers consumers, even, to drive the point home. After two years and concerns with the delays, its finally out, and it presents a beautiful product. Broken Ages first act is a traditional point and click adventure, but without the tedium of those games, featuring a much better interface and less obtuse puzzles. Whether its worth the $3.3 million dollars it was given is a matter of debate, but its certainly a well-designed, nearly-flawless game for the time you get from it and the rest will be delivered to us, for free, within the year. It should be noted that I am more lenient about the games short length due to the coming second act, though much like with BioShock Infinites Burial at Sea, it does affect perception. However, this act stands on its own, giving just enough information to introduce the setting and plot, and hinting at future events. The plot is divided into two parts one followed baker Vella as she tries to find a way to stop the looming monster threatening to devour her, and the young

spacefarer Shay who seeks to escape his coddling ship AI and experience real adventure. The two seem very different, though they do eventually integrate, albeit in a way never fully explained. However, they manage to both exude a similar aesthetic and tone, as well as shared themes of defiance of social norms and desire for adventure and excitement. The art design is what makes the game compelling. The yarn-and-toys ambience of Shays ship, and the fantastical look of Vellas homeland have a whimsical, storybook style that gives everything a rather archetypal tone. Even dark scenes are bright and colourful, and have a pastel-like tone similar to that of a storybook. Its a rather unique take on the genre, even compared to some of the great legendary adventure games. Likewise, the orchestral music ranged from a light, playful theme to a loud, imposing roar during more tense scenes, and largely compliments the scene. The characters, thanks to setting, are wildly diverse ranging from vapid girls dressed as giant cakes to knitted robots, to wolf-costume wearing mysterious strangers and sky prophets. Theyre all pretty interesting and well-acted. Shay and Vella, (voiced by Elijah Wood and Masasa Moyo, respectively), are compelling; Shay sounds like a terminally bored young boy desperate to break out of his sheltered life, while Vellas sarcastic and critical dynamism shines through. The voice actors were a point of contention in the games development, with
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people critical of how much money was being given to get big name stars. Both they, and the lesserknown actors perform without flaw, contributing to an intriguing set of characters. Theyre largely varied, and their inter-relations provided some interesting exchanges and developments. This is aided by humorous writing and good comedic timing; the jokes are strangely subtle and cleverly implemented. Its woven together into an adventure that comes across as a family movie: bright and cheerful without seeming juvenile, possessing gravity without becoming macabre, and fanciful without seeming overly surreal. The puzzles, however, are the core
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NONE OF THE PUZZLES ARE GOING TO STRAIN A MENSA MASTER, BUT THATS NOT REALLY WHAT ITS ABOUT.

of the game, and their execution was clever. I found myself stuck a few times, only to find a simple solution from combining items in my inventory, and returning to speak to people, or offering other items. However, none of these were due to unfair or tediously-placed click locations or timing. The game has no game over element, and does occasionally give rather strong hints as to what you have to do, but in general most puzzles left it up to you to figure out. There were some that were actually quite clever, and relied on items youd received in earlier areas there were even some items that had no use (at least until act two). Whats most

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THE GAME ITSELF IS GREAT, AND IS A LARGELY FUN ADVENTURE EXPERIENCE, BUT IT ONLY AMOUNTS TO A COUPLE OF HOURS.

important, though, is that none of the puzzles feel pointless; theres a sense of accomplishment when you realize the solution to a problem you have. None of the puzzles are going to strain a Mensa master, but thats not really what its about. Its about an adventure where you find solutions to problems, often with a MacGuyverworthy assortment of random objects. You never actually have to hunt for that one pixel, with all the click areas being sizable enough, and there being enough diversity for you to not be led to a single obvious object. Broken Age seems to be largely flawless in terms of bugs. I found two, exactly a scene where the

subtitles didnt take, and one where the dialogue started a bit too late, but neither affected gameplay or the ability to finish the game. The game seems smooth and actually finished, despite being only the first half of a longer game. The interface was smooth, and responded as I did, and travelling about can be accelerated by double-clicking. Its a game thats put together and well-tested, and you have to honour that. The game itself is great, and is a largely fun adventure experience, but it only amounts to a couple of hours. The second half (which, again, will be given for free for whomever purchases the first act, reportedly later in the year),

presumably, will be about as long, which still leaves the game at less than ten hours. That seems quite short, though given the content it might be fine the original goal was only $400,000 dollars, less than a sixth of the final tally. That extra money essentially covered the cost of the games for the truly staggering number of backers (whose credits truly dominate the entire scroll by many times), and can be seen, not just in a few Hollywood actors, but in the art quality and amazing polish the game sports. The game is $25 for both acts, which isnt terrible for 8-10 hours (action games have been shorter). Backers essentially got the game for $15.
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Lightning Strikes Thrice

For the first time in a console generation Square-Enix has broken with tradition and released three consecutive Final Fantasy games that take place in the same world, with the same cast. In theory, this seems like the framework for a great epic, with each game building on the foundations of the previous title. Instead, what we have is a fragmented, divisive game that epitomizes the desperation of Square-Enix during the previous console generation.

13 Days To The End

The story of Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII is stretched to the breaking point at best, and utterly nonsensical at worst. Like FFXIII-2 before it, Lightning Returns brings a whole new mythology and world that somehow manages to drag previous characters into it with no convincing explanation. Because of the cataclysmic events in FFXIII-2, the survivors of the land are now immortal, and the world has been in decline for 500 years. Chaos, a catchall term for bad stuff that corrupts people and does other things as/when the plot requires it is swallowing up the world, and there are only 13 days left until the end of all things finally comes. Lightning, the central character of the entire series, is now a demi-goddess figure known as The Savior who has been appointed by a god, Bhunivelze (pronounced
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boo-ni-vel-za), to redeem souls, and it is her job to travel through what remains of the world, collecting these saved souls. In return, her sister, Serah, will be returned to her once her job is done and a new world is remade, or so Bhunivelze promises. If that all sounds confusing and unrelated with what has come before, thats because it is. The biggest issue here is that this entire run of the FF series has tried to tell three entirely different stories with the same cast of characters. This results in some pretty incredulous twists of the plot to rationalize the hows and whys of these characters surviving for over 1000 years, somehow gaining new abilities and generally doing or saying cosmic-scale things while still being tied down to the Power of Friendship trope that dominates the genre. FFXIII-2 went off the rails with its plot, but Lightning Returns is the smouldering crater this story finally crashed and burned into. JPRGs live and die by two things; their gameplay and their story. Lightning Returns fails at the latter, unsuccessfully tying too many disparate plot points and undeveloped characters into a story that belonged to some other game. It is possible to engage in science fiction, theology and personal relationships all in one game; Monoliths Xenosaga series managed the trick, albeit not always successfully. Lightning Returns tries the same trick, but with its own mythology and falls flat. If the characters were likable, that might have alleviated the storys

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problems somewhat, but even here, Squenix dropped the ball. Lightning, Hope and all the rest are barely human, expositing on plot points and pseudotheology with all the engagement and charm of a dead cactus. The delivery is flatdeliberately so, in some cases to reflect their post-human statusand when the story tries to humanize them by getting them to recall every day, emotional moments it feels like a robot tap dancing; the moves are there, but the life is not. All of this is wrapped up in the aging Crystal Tools engine, which is clearly at its limit. The frame rate regularly stutters, and textures often look blurry and indistinct up close, a trade off of the more open, less linear environments the game takes place in. The sound is good, but quite a bit of it has been recycled from both FFXIII and FFXIII-2, so while no one is going to complain about a good, rousing, orchestral score, when that score is five years old its hard to get excited. On the other hand, for fans of systems, theres a lot of interesting stuff going on.

The Plays The Thing

Where Lightning Returns story tries to dance into your heart and ends up sliding on a banana peel straight off the
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building, the gameplay attempts many new and challenging things. One of the oddest concepts to get your head around is the concept of time. Rather than the silly, time-traveling escapades of FFXIII-2, Lighting Returns has a countdown to the end of the world. The plan is for the world to end at the appointed time, 13 days from the start of the game, but the time allotted to the player is actually shorter than that. Lightning gets more time, by completing main story and side-quests. The kicker here is that theres a real clock ticking, except during combat, and cutscenes, counting down about a minute of game time per real second. At 6 a.m., game time, Lightning is pulled from whatever shes doing and is returned to the Ark her base of operations, while the game tallies up how many quests shes performed, and either grants more time, or forcibly moves the calendar ahead one day. This creates an interesting tension where time management is essential; players must juggle between side-quests for character advancement and the main story quest in order to actually save up enough time for the game to run its full 13 day countdown. It adds an urgency to the game that most RPGs lack, and it means that most players unless they resort to a walkthrough on

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their first gamewill likely not be able to do everything the game offers as they madly dash about trying to meet deadlines. Theres also no set way to go about the adventure. Lightning is now free to go almost anywhere from the start. There are only four areas in the game, but they are large, open environments, filled with side-quests and monsters both weak and strong. This means that, as with more open world RPGs like Bethesdas Elder Scrolls series, its possible to wander into areas where monsters are too powerful for the player to currently handle. Some light platforming is also part of the gamealthough the engine doesnt handle this well but it contributes to a sense of freedom and openness that encourages players to explore while at the same time keeping an eye on that ticking clock. This really doesnt feel like any Final Fantasy game that has come before, and for some that may be a good thing. As is usual for an FF game, theres been a drastic overhaul of the systems, particularly the battle system. Unlike traditional JRPGs, Lightning Returns is a solo affair, with Lightning fighting primarily by herself. Occasionally guest stars will join in the fray, but usually Lightning herself is taking on the FFXIII roles of Ravager, Medic and Commando roles established in the previous games. The game manages this trick by introducing Garbs, which is essentially a return of the dress sphere system from FFX-2, where switching outfits brings new stats, weapons and abilities to use in battle. Now, however, the trick is that players must manage this all with just Lightning. This translates into one of the fastest paced combat systems in a JRPG in recent memory. By using the shoulder buttons, players can quickly change back and

forth between different outfit sets, seamlessly changing from magic to melee and something in between. In addition, individual skills can also be customized to outfits. This, combined with the almost RTS feel of combat, makes for a battle system that demands both quick reflexes, quick thinking and elaborate pre-battle preparation. It discourages brute force button mashing in favour of measured, strategic thinking, and people who rely on spamming only one attack will die very quickly. And heres where Lightning Returns separates itself from contemporary games. It is hard. Even the Normal difficulty level would be considered hard by todays standards, sitting closer to the ruthless difficulty of Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne than the ridiculous ease of the original FFXIII. This is an old school JRPG, similar to the Souls series, in that the only way to succeed is to master the games systems. The RPG nut that enjoys tinkering with different skill configurations, coming up with optimal weapon/skill sets will enjoy this game. People that want to bash things will get shut out quickly and quit from frustration. In the end, Lightning Returns is a game that feels almost as if it were done by two different teams. The team that designed the gameplay did something bold and experimental, resulting in a challenging game of strategy, time, and management that surprises and engages. The team that created the story and characters floundered in the narrative mess of the past two games, tying it all up in an unsatisfying conclusion. At least we can now close the book on this storyline. Hopefully Squenix will return to new stories with every FF game in the next generation. Lightning and friends have wrapped up their tale, and while their final game was good, their plot resolution was a train wreck.
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JRPGs have become relics this past generation. With a lack of innovation, and an overdose of nostalgia, its hard to recommend many modern counterparts of the genre. Then along comes Bravely Default, a little title that promises to bring relevance to a dying breed. With twists like a random encounter slider, Default spins the way we thought turn-based combat works on its head. Add customizable difficulty settings, and the game sets itself up as a revolution, rather than just a step forward. Unfortunately, beneath the changes lie the traditional genre we once cherished; just updated for a newer console.

Crystal Chaos
The tale of Bravely Default is lovable, if a bit clich. The four crystals that hold the world together are being destroyed, and its up to our fabled adventurers to make the world of Luxendarc right again. Tiz, Agnes, Ringabel and Edea all fall under classic fantasy archetypes, but gain depth as their characters develop. Tiz is a carefree farmer who has his entire village destroyed. Agnes is responsible for protecting one of the crystals. Ringabel is a womanizer with amnesia. And Edea is part of a royal family who finds out her country isnt as honourable as they seem. Their journey commences in a tedious manner, but as more twists and turns are revealed, it transforms into something more intriguing and endearing. If you have no interest in fantasy or melodrama, skipping the cut-scenes is always an option.

Luxendarc is rendered in beautiful hand-drawn landscapes that help hide the pixelated limitations of the 3DS. This is in stark contrast to the atrocious character designs, which are done in the cutesy, Japanese chibistyle. Its a shame, because the four main characters would have been much more relatable if they had been drawn in the same style as the backgrounds they explore. It adds a disconnect to the gameplay, and the cut-scenes suffer as well, feeling static. These problems might have been forgiven if the voice-acting was passable. Having to listen to Agnes whine incessantly in her vapid, transparent manner is a thing of pure horror. Luckily, there is an option to change the voices to Japanese, which are considerably less painful to the ears.

Old Job System Is Old

Let me turn your attention to the beloved Final Fantasy V. While not known for its narrative, it had an extremely robust job system, allowing for tons of different character classes. This allowed players to customize their team (i.e. do I want a dragon master, or a wizard). At the time it was considered the peak of turn-based combat, despite its shortcomings. Fast forward to 2014, and Bravely Default decides to use (with basically no change) the exact same job function. And here lies the irony of the entire game. It experiments with many essential advances for JRPGs, yet relies heavily on overdone traditions. This is by no means a
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reason to avoid the title, but the idea that this game uses old mechanics as a crutch to stand on takes away from its desperate attempts at innovation. There are 24 job classes to choose from, each with their own skills and strengths. The one issue is that the later jobs are much better than the ones before it, giving you only a handful of options by the end of the game.

To Brave, Or Not To Brave

Players might be a bit disappointed by the gameplay, as it follows every old-school trope imaginable. Theres a map screen, a battle screen, and a small mini-game to hold your attention. But if youre not prepared to trudge down memory lane, the novelty fades quickly. The new battle features, Brave/Default, do little in the way of variety. Much of the battles revolve around Brave Points, or BP. By building these up, characters are allowed to attack multiple times in one turn. The Brave function allows a member of your team to attack up to four times in one turn. By doing this, he loses as many Brave Points as turns he attacks. If you go under 0 points, you begin losing turns. On the other side is the Default feature, which allows characters to defend in order to build up Brave Points.
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...THE IDEA THAT [BRAVELY DEFAULT] USES OLD MECHANICS AS A CRUTCH TO STAND ON TAKES AWAY FROM ITS DESPERATE ATTEMPTS AT INNOVATION.

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The above images act as AR cards for the Nintendo 3DS.

Theoretically, such mechanics would add a huge risk/ reward function to battle. Ultimately, though, I found myself just using the Brave function as much as possible to get through battles quicker (rather than for strategy). In the end, its an idea that sounds good on paper, but becomes repetitive in practice. Apart from this, youll find all the spells, moves, and equipment from classic Final Fantasy titles. To put it bluntly, its Final Fantasy with a different name and a few new additions.

Back From The Future

Some new features actually do work to improve the genre. The random encounter slider allows you choose how many enemies you, well, encounter. For the heavy grinders, you can increase random encounters to max out your character and job levels. And for those who want a challenge, you can play the entire game without any random encounters, using strategy to defeat the boss encounters. Theres also an option to take away experience, to attempt beating the game without going past Level 1. While initially subtle, this adds for substantial replay value, and a vast array of experiences.

Ironically, the most creative portion of Bravely Default is the Norende mini-game. By meeting players through certain spots (your friends, through the net, etc.), you can use them to help rebuild the town of Norende. Rebuilding towns, and shops, yields items as rewards. Its the perfect multiplayer option for a JRPG. Imagine Farmville, but the rewards amount to something actually substantial. Finally, there are the micro-transactions. Purchasing Sleep Point drinks can help with difficult battles. After using it initially, I never tried it again. At no point do they feel like a necessity, and are only there for those who struggle with JRPGs. Its not a pay-to-win model, so no, we dont have to worry about that.

Not So Brave After All

For better or for worse, Bravely Default is a disjointed experience. It has great new ideas, but they are exercised in a lethargic re-imagining of an aging genre. Despite this, you can bet that Defaults strengths (like the random encounter slider) have given JRPGs a much needed injection of new flexibility. Rules that should set a benchmark for all future turn-based titles. And I think we can all agree, its about damn time.
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ENDGAME
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The year was 2009, more than three years before The Dark Knight Rises would hit screens and only three years after the monumental success of The Dark Knight. Batman was right there at the top of the superhero heap and people wanted more. So what did DC Comics do? They killed him. Final Crisis, as confusing as it was, killed off Batman. Bruce Waynes death left some big shoes to fill and a few series were left hanging. One of those was Detective Comics, the longest continually running comic in the world. It had been Detective Comics Presents: Batman since 1937 and without Batman people wondered if the series was done. After a three month hiatus Detective Comics returned and it had a new star, the recently revitalized Batwoman. Batwoman, a character created in the mid-50s and retired not long after, had returned in 52, but it was Greg Rucka and J.H. Williams IIIs Elegy story arc that turned Kate Kane into the amazing character she is today. Gone were the purse and dark hair, in
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Laura Thomass
was pale skin, bright red hair, and a backstory that would put Batmans to shame. When I picked up issue #854 of Detective Comics the first thing that struck me was the art. J.H. Williams III has a style that will leave a reader breathless. Colours swirled as Batwoman flew through the air and her eyes carried an intensity that is near impossible to capture with pen and paper. Then I got into the story and was blown away all over again. Greg Rucka is one of the finest working writers today and his characters are all flushed out full people who you cant help but care about, even the villains. And what a villain Batwoman finds herself faced with. The psycho Alice and her religion of crime are fascinating. Alice is beautiful and horrible and always speaks in riddles. She knows more of Kates life than even Batwoman does, and as her secrets unravelled I found myself gasping. Their stories are two sides of the same coin and Williams art makes everything come alive with beauty.

When the Batwoman arc on Detective Comics came to a close at issue #860 all I wanted was more. The two story arcs given to Kate in the series told me so much, but her character was so interesting and downright inspiring that I needed more. Thats what really stood out about Batwoman, especially in her Elegy run. The more the creators revealed of her backstory, the more inspired I became. Kate wasnt selected by Batman and shes never really been part of the Bat Family. She put on the cape and cowl because she knew she needed to make a difference. She wants to help people who need helping and stop people who need stopping. She wears the bat symbol so people know what side she is on. Of course she admires Batman, but

that doesnt mean she has to follow his orders. She always thought for herself and does whats right. Oh, and on top of all that, shes an out lesbian. Being proud of who she is got her kicked out of the navy and made her lose her first love, but she stayed true to herself. When I reread Elegy in its hardcover form I was left thinking that this was what a superheroine could be. I was inspired by her intelligence, her strength, and above all else, how real she was. With Batman gone (for a short time) Kane made a phenomenal stand in. When people look back at the Batman R.I.P. days of 2009, most will think of Dick donning the cowl and how short lived the actual death of The Dark Knight was. What Ill always remember is the seven issue run of Batwoman in Detective Comics. It was inspiring, beautiful, and heartbreaking.

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LETTERS TO CGM
Send your letters to Letters@CGMagonline.com to have them answered by our editorial staff.

Are you guys looking forward to Oculus Rift?

Some of us are. Some of us remain skeptical. Im not sure how old you are, but the VR concept has been with us for a couple of decades now, first dating back to William Gibsons seminal concepts in the 80s and coming to disappointing fruition with the first head set attempts in the 90s. A few of us in the office have had the chance to try various stages of the Oculus Rift prototype at trade shows like E3, and while the promise of new, immersive worlds is closer than ever before, there are still some serious interface issues. Its still going to be years yet before all the mechanical challenges are worked out, and while weve got some clunky solutions in the meantimelike the adult sized baby walker to handle VR movementthese alternatives are hardly ideal. Still, its an exciting future and one that were all keeping our eyes on. You can bet some of us will take the plunge when the first retail units finally ship.

Has CGM ever considered covering anime?

The fact of the matter is, no, we havent considered it, and thats not because we dont love anime (lots of us do), its just that the scope of anime is too broad. To do anime justice, youd need an entire dedicated publication and between covering comics and games, squeezing anime in there would simply mean less coverage for everything. That doesnt mean were not above referencing anime when appropriate, especially when it comes to looking at relevant cultures, like Japanese games and manga. But its not really the focus of our publication and it deserves a lot more of a spotlight than we could give it in our already crowded roster of topics.

Flappy Bird

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