PC Gamer

The PC Gamer Weekender is filling up! In ten days' time we're taking over the Old Truman Brewery and filling it with games. It's your chance to go hands-on with fresh gems like Super Hot, and play games that aren't even out yet, like Dark Souls 3 and Total War: Warhammer. You'll even have the chance to step inside the HTC Vive to experience the cutting edge of virtual reality technology.

You'll also get free stuff just for coming along. Tickets come with a Steam key for Dustforce, which we gave 90% and an editor's choice award at review. Sega will be there, handing out scratchcards granting you a free game from their catalogue. Plus, if you book before 11:59pm Thursday, you'll be entered into a draw to win one of four $130 Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 Limited Edition crates from LootCrate.

There's no time to lose. The LootCrate offer expires tomorrow, and you can knock 20% off the ticket price with the code PCG20, so book now. As the CoD commander likes to bark at their soldiers: "go go go!"

Outlast
Else Heart.Break()

I was burned out on Humble Bundles after the first couple. In part it was because my cup runneth over with games I've never installed and bundles contribute to Steam library shame in a big way. But there's also the fact that the quality is highly variable from one bundle to the next. Humble Indie Bundle 16 is obscenely well endowed.

You can pay what you want for Retro City Rampage DX, Never Alone (a lesson in Inuit folklore) and horror spectacular Outlast along with 80% off its Whistleblower DLC. For paying above the average ($6.17 at time of writing), you'll unlock Trine 3 and Door Kickers, which was one of 2014's tactical surprises. The bundle comes just as Door Kickers 2 has been announced. Coincidence? Well, no, not at all, but it's still a great opportunity to see what the series is all about.

Door Kickers

It's $2 above the average price that the bundle goes from great to stupendous. Those two dollars get you Else Heart.Break(), which Andy raved over in our review, and Sunless Sea, which I rave over if you stand still long enough to listen. It's a bundle packed with personality, and if you don't already own the standouts, it'll fill a gaping void in your collection.

ARK: Survival Evolved

The more I think about its name, the more it makes sense to me that Ark is doing its darnedest to patch in every animal under the sun plus some extra ones that take its fancy. And the more I think about the latest addition to the menagerie, the worse an idea it seems to put beavers on a wooden boat.

Castoroides are giant, rideable beavers. They can chew down and collect enormous volumes of wood like fluffy lumberjacks, but unique to the beaver, they can dam rivers, making territorial control that much easier. They're also handy amphibious mounts.

Studio Wildcard is also trying to spice up player relationships. Handcuffs are now in-game, helping you keep prisoners compliant or just screw with new spawns you find out in the wild. Expect a new wave of sadistic videos to hit YouTube any moment now.

PC Gamer

So by now you've probably determined that I'm really into audio. As in, really serious about audio. Audio is a touchy subject because well, it's highly subjective. Everyone's ears are different, everyone's preferences are different, and the fact of the matter is, no two headphones or speakers are exactly the same. That's why this time around, instead of relying on what my brain tells me, I'm going to rely on scientific instruments to determine what should and shouldn't be on my list.

Ossic VR's Ossic X 3D headphones for VR

A decade and a half ago, I was floored when I first listened to Aureal 3D. The company was revolutionary in terms of what it brought to the consumer market. Sound cards that used Aureal's chips were able to produce realistic and believable 3D positional sound from just two speakers sitting in front of you. The method? Head-related transfer functions, or HRTFs for short.

HRTFs measure the way sound responds to your ear, its shapes and features, as well as your head dimensions. Applying these calculations to the output of speakers trick your brain because the sound it hears are mimicking what would otherwise by accurate responses to how sound behaves when they reach your ears, allowing your brain to identify location. As you may know, Aureal 3D is dead.

Ossic VR's final design of its amazing Ossic X 3D HRTF headphones.

But Ossic VR is bringing back HRTFs in the form of headphones that automatically calibrate to your head and ears. With custom calibration, you're not limited to a one-size-fits-all HRTF model. I was lucky enough to be able to try Ossic VR's prototype in its lab just recently and was blown away by how realistic things sound. I could pinpoint any sound in true 3D space, and I reacted naturally to where I heard things. I want an Ossic X headphone, and I want one today.

What would the Ossic X do for me that I couldn't do now?

Stereo headphones don't have "imaging," period. Real imaging is only achieved by speakers that are placed appropriately and are in front or surround you. Headphones have drivers that sit directly facing your ears, so you get sound that exists in your cranium. That's not real imaging, no matter what the stereo headphone guys say.

I was so impressed with the demo I heard on the Ossic X that I started wondering if the sounds that were realistically modeled with true HRTFs were what they would actually sound like if I was standing in the environment where they were recorded. A pair of headphones may sound "good" but is it what you hear? No one listens to a guitarist play his instrument with their heads placed next to the strings, which is where the recording microphone would be. But that doesn't take into account the actual listening environment. I want to hear things as though I were present. The bottom line is, I never felt more present than I did wearing the Ossic X. It took the VR experience I know to a whole new level of immersion—true immersion.

The HP 3325A tone generator

What in the world is the HP 3325A? It's a tone generator. It creates sine waves, square waves, saw waves, etc. You choose the frequency, it creates a tone.

This thing was built to last. It'll probably outlive me.

The HP 3325A is also old. It's practically a relic. But it works and it works really well. It generates a pure tone with little to no distortion and it was build to last. The thing is made like a tank, and you literally can't find anything like it today. In fact, the buttons are mechanical and clunk hard when you push on them, delivering a sense of quality and physical satisfaction. Think of it like typing on a membrane keyboard and then switching to a Cherry MX mechanical keyboard.

So, what can the HP 3325A do for me that I can't do now?

Since it's so old, I actually don't have to lust for one, technically. You can find them on eBay for a bit more than they cost to ship. I'm starting to do a lot of serious audio testing, and the HP 3325A would be very cool to have.

I could generate tones using software, such as the very popular NCH Tone Generator, and there are online generators available as well. But generating a good pure tone isn't easy. Plugging the output into an oscilloscope will show you what's really happening. The HP 3325A is built well, and doesn't require a PC. It's reliable, and you can count on it to perform well because that's all it was designed to do.

The Rohde & Schwarz UPV audio analyzer

This one's a bit of a stretch, but it's a true dream machine. The R&S UPV audio analyzer has everything a professional audio engineer needs. Scope, spectrum analyzer, phase and impulse response, single-ended and differential balanced inputs, etc.—the UPV's got it all and more.

The UPV is the replacement for the UPL, which is expensive. A used UPL can be had for $10,000 and a brand-new UPV goes for over $40,000—yeah, that isn't a typo. But the UPV is state-of-the-art. It's incredibly accurate, clean, and versatile. In fact, the UPV is so stable in its measurements that you don't have to recalibrate it for over two full years.

My ideal setup for testing headphones look like this:

What you see above is the full Rohde & Schwarz analyzer and testing system paired with a Bruel & Kjaer Type 412BC HATS (head and torso simulator). With the software package from Listen Inc. called Soundcheck—used by manufacturers and engineers—the cost of this setup comes to a mind-numbing $100,000.

So, what could I do with the Rohde & Schwarz UPV that I can't do now?

It would allow me to test things with incredible accuracy. I could do it all from the interface, without worrying about the PC adding any delays. Of course, you can overcome this with ASIO-enabled testing software such as Soundcheck. But seriously, just look at that thing. It's drool-worthy.

In reality, I've been upgrading my testing platform all along to do headphone and speaker tests. How does it look right now? Wait until you see my next installment. If you're interested in how it's coming along, check out my guide on upgrading your PC audio experience.

PC Gamer
PC Gamer

If there's one thing you can rely on in 2016, it's this: if Valve release a sheet of code, people will pillage it for Half-Life 3 references. Valve recently rolled out the SteamVR Performance Test, which is designed to establish how fit a PC is for VR. Predictably enough, the community at Valve Time has stripped the program down and discovered a bunch of secrets inside. 

Among the interesting tidbits are a collection of images which appear to be an updated version of the Dog character from Half-Life 2. The same model has circulated online for a while, but the Performance Test has several new ones hidden in its files, one of which you can see below:

It's hardly evidence that Half-Life 3 is confirmed: as the source at Valve Time notes, the image could simply be a 3D sample model for a toy statue (the model's creator, Tristan Reidford, also collaborated on a toy version of the gravity gun). 

There's a bunch of other stuff in the files, most of which are half-finished VR demos using assets from Half-Life 2, Portal and Dota 2, among others. There is some evidence pointing to Left 4 Dead 3, though. In a directory marked "L4D3", textures for a character called 'Retired Engineer' were found. The textures don't reveal much more, unfortunately, and nor do other character textures that don't appear to belong to any specific Valve series. 

It shouldn't come as a surprise that elements from Valve's past games have appeared in their VR software: programmer Jeep Barnett told Kotaku last year that the company often repurposed old assets to use in their demos. Still, some will find it reassuring that brand new assets related to Half-Life 3 and Left 4 Dead 3 are out there

Go and have a look at the full archive, which includes an aborted virtual tour of Valve's Washington offices, a surreal cockpit demo and, um, whatever the heck this is:

PC Gamer
PC Gamer

Can your PC run a remake of a ten-year-old game? It depends whether you want to run it at 4K or not, which is an option the forthcoming Gears of War: Ultimate Edition will offer. The specs below reportedly leaked on the Windows 10 store earlier today, and Windows Central were quick enough to capture the details before Microsoft pulled them down again. So without further ado, here's what you'll need:

Recommended for 1920X1080P

  • OS: 64 bit Windows 10 - version 1511
  • Processor: Intel Core i5 @3.5GHz+ or AMD FX 8-core
  • Memory: 16 GB RAM (4 GB VRAM)
  • Graphics: GeForce GTX 970 or Radeon R9 290X
  • Hard Drive: 60 GB available space
  • DirectX 12

Recommended for 4K

  • OS: 64 bit Windows 10 - version 1511
  • Processor: Intel Core i7 @ 4Ghz or AMD FX 8-core
  • Memory: 16 GB RAM (6+ GB VRAM)
  • Graphics: Geforce GTX 980 Ti or Radeon R9 390X
  • Hard Drive: SSD + 60 GB available space
  • DirectX 12

Minimum Requirements

  • OS: 64 bit Windows 10 version 1511
  • Processor: Intel Core i5 @ 2.7Ghz or AMD FX 6-core
  • Memory: 8 GB RAM (2 GB VRAM)
  • Graphics: Geforce GTX 650 Ti or Radeon R7 260x
  • Hard Drive: 60 GB available space
  • DirectX 12

Of course, since Microsoft was quick to pull that info down, it might change between now and whenever the company sees fit to put it back up.

Gears of War: Ultimate Edition released for Xbox One last year, and is expected to release for PC in March. In addition to 4K support it'll boast an uncapped framerate. It's not the only Xbox game coming to PC: Killer Instinct is on the way next month, and Quantum Break is coming on April 15 though it will be a Windows Store exclusive (read: it won't be on Steam).

PC Gamer
Simon 'Sottle' Welch

Photo from H2K Gaming.

Simon Sottle Welch is a multi-Legend rank player, tournament winner, and caster who regularly streams on Twitch. He also writes guides for Icy Veins, all while finding time to be a national Yo-Yo champion.

Like most of you, I watched with shock and awe as big names tumbled from the recent EU Winter Preliminaries. Unlike most of you, I was doing it from the relative comfort of the Blizzard casting desk in California. As much as anyone, I was guilty of selling the narrative that what we were witnessing was proof of the strength of the unknown player—the noble ladder grinder who completely masters the meta away from the glare of Twitch chat—but was that really the case?

Let s make one thing clear from the start: Unearthing new talent is very much the goal of the Hearthstone Championship Tour in 2016. Everyone operates on a level playing field, and the nepotism that has previously plagued competitive Hearthstone is gone. In past years, competitive Hearthstone has resembled an old boy s club, with the established players—backed by their organisations—receiving invites to high profile tournaments, which increased their reputation, led to even more invites, and eventually saw them seeded in tournaments that granted HCT (then WCS) points to qualify for the World Championship directly. If this process had been allowed to continue it would have been hugely damaging to the game.

But let s be clear on another thing: Hearthstone is a game that contains a higher level of variance than most esports. A better player will have a favourable winrate against a weaker one, but not by anything like the distance that you would expect in a MOBA, FPS, or fighting game. The measure of a player s consistency is taken over months and years, not individual tournaments. The tension between these two aspects of Hearthstone has led to furious debate on Twitter, Reddit, and in Twitch chat, about whether the results of the EU Winter Prelims meant the game was not viable competitively, or whether it meant the people we thought were the top players have actually just had it easy and are now being exposed.

So what exactly happened in Europe? For those who didn t catch the action, a string of high profile pros including current World Champion Ostkaka, Europe Champion Thijs, Gaara (see top video), Xixo—who made his  feelings clear on Twitter—and many others fell by the wayside, leaving the top eight populated by complete unknowns. North America followed a similar pattern the following week with huge names like StrifeCro, Tidesoftime, and ThatsAdmirable (who did come within a series of qualifying) failing to make the cut, whilst Chakki, Amnesiac, and arguably Fibonacci, were the only recognisable names to qualify. 

These unknown players didn t simply turn up and luck their way through a single tournament.

Again, let s not pretend that the results from two tournaments can present a convincing argument that the big-name pros are washed up, nor do they prove we re about to usher in a new, glorious age of ladder heroes. It s important to put what happened in context. These unknown players didn t simply turn up and luck their way through the tournaments. Even reaching the preliminaries is a long, grueling road that these players set out on months ago. Endless ladder grinding to secure those vital top 100 finishes in seasons that have been super-competitive, alongside victories in stacked open tournaments, means that these guys have already been tested extensively before they showed their faces on stream. The same can be said for the pros, though—nothing was handed to them this time, they had to do it the hard way like everyone else.

The key question is: Did the unknown players at the prelims actually play well? And the answer is yes and no. A few series between the unknowns provided a less than glowing testimony as to their overall skill, but equally some of the standout performances also came from the lesser lights. Alskyhigh perhaps encapsulated the hit and miss nature of the new faces by following up an incredibly high level Tempo Doomsayer play to set up Jarraxus by completely failing to play around Grommash Hellscream in a game he was otherwise set up to win. (See video below.)

For me, the Hearthstone community arguing about whether the game is a viable esport is missing the point. We already know it s a competitive game in which the better player can win with acceptable consistency over a long enough timeline, and it s clear that all the players who ended up qualifying were very good at what they do. The real issue is with the current state of the Hearthstone meta. The most powerful decks right now, particularly Secret Paladin and Midrange Druid, are far too simplistic, and offer disproportionate rewards for very little investment. Which is not to say you can win a high level tournament with Secret Paladin or Druid without being a very good Hearthstone player—that would be a ridiculous assertion—but it does mean that there is less room for a dominant player to assert his superiority when the strong decks offer so little room between their skill floor and skill ceiling.

Midrange curve decks like Paladin and Druid compress the field, giving less of an edge to the stronger player...

High skill decks exist in Hearthstone: Patron Warrior, Freeze Mage, and Oil Rogue to name a few. These decks offer so many intricacies and matchup specific concerns that very few—possibly even zero—top level players would claim to have mastery of all of them. In a meta where these are the top decks, players who have ascended to the lofty heights of Freeze Mage mastery will have more of an opportunity to impose their dominance on lesser skilled adversaries. The range of play is greater, the decisions more impactful, and the level of required strategic knowledge is much higher. Simple midrange curve decks like Paladin and Druid compress the field, giving less of an edge to the stronger player since the gap between absolute perfection and the basic acceptable level of play is so small.

And so you have your culprit for the high number of upsets. The Hearthstone Championship Tour initiative is a noble one, and seeing who ultimately comes out on top over a year-long format with no favouritism, regardless of reputation, team support, or stream viewership, is a fascinating prospect. However, the state of the game currently hinders that goal.

And so to our potential saviour: the sunlit uplands of Standard Mode await us, where all will be balanced and skilled! Well, maybe. We ll need to see what s in the new expansion, and the accompanying nerfs to the Classic cards, to truly evaluate the impact of Standard—but in the context of the EU and NA HCT prelims, the gutting of Secret Paladin s core cards, along with the the widely anticipated nerfs to at least something Druid related, will hopefully go some way to re-opening the skill gap in competitive Hearthstone. And then we can put all this petty squabbling aside and let the cards do the talking.


Pcgp Logo Red Small PC Gamer Pro is a new channel dedicated to esports and competitive gaming. Check back every day for exciting, fun and informative articles about League of Legends, Dota 2, Hearthstone, CS:GO and more. GL HF!

Counter-Strike 2

Valve just announced that all future CS:GO majors will have a prize pool of $1 million. The previous purse for a major was $250,000, a figure that many major or unofficial CS:GO events have equaled but never exceeded. The first $1 million tournament will be MLG Columbus 2016, which takes place March 29 through April 3. Although it's the only major on the calendar so far for 2016, there were three each in 2015 and 2014.

According to an MLG official, tournament winnings will be structured thus:

  • Winner $500,000 
  • Finalist $150,000 
  • Semi-Finalist $70,000 
  • Quarter Finalist $35,000 
  • Group Stage $8,750

With this announcement, posted unceremoniously on the Counter-Strike blog, Valve's financial commitment should further stimulate the scene and encourage existing teams to dedicate themselves to CS:GO even more in the face of upcoming, esports-friendly FPSes like Overwatch. "The professional CS:GO community has been growing at an incredible rate," Valve says in the announcement. CS:GO was the second-most watched game on Twitch during 2015, after League of Legends, and it remains the second-most played game on Steam (in terms of concurrent players) after Dota 2.

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