Dec 28, 2019

HITMAN™ 2

This diary was originally serialised in PC Gamer magazine. For more quality articles about all things PC gaming, you can subscribe now in the UK and the US. You can read part one here, and part two here.

No time to beat around the bush. Agent 47 has his work cut out for him. We’re assassinating targets in Hitman using a lotto spinner to choose our weapons. This time, we start at an unsanctioned militia training ground in rural Colorado, where there are a whopping four targets waiting for their unlucky numbers to come up. This includes militia leader Sean Rose and his three lieutenants: Ezra Berg, Penelope Graves, and Maya Parvati.

Agent 47 infiltrates the area through the undergrowth just outside the perimeter fence. I spin the wheel and out rolls an eclectic arsenal. Ezra Berg gets number 20—fiber wire. Graves gets 3—a shotgun. Parvati gets 2—a silenced pistol. And Sean Rose get 8—an axe.

As well as being the least glamorous of 47’s many murder-holidays, Colorado is also a hostile area from the start. I slip through the perimeter fence and find myself a basic militia disguise, hiding the knocked-out guard in a conveniently placed dumpster.

Able to wander freely, I plan my approach. I decide that I’ll tackle Graves last, since a shotgun blast will stir the hive like a bear pawing for honey. Parvati will also have to be handled later, as she hangs around quite a public area.

Hence, it’s either Berg or Rose first. I settle on Rose, as I know how to get rid of him fairly easily, via one of my favourite mission stories in the entire game. Rose, you see, suffers from OCD, and you can isolate him from his security by triggering it. It’s a particularly evil and insidious method, but also satisfying in its subtlety.

First though, I need to find an axe. Colorado is a messy level, so I use the online Hitman interactive map to pin down the axe’s location. It’s embedded in a tree-stump in the far corner of the map. I pick it up with little difficulty, and on the way find a shotgun. You practically can’t take a step without falling over a gun in Colorado (just like real life!). I already started with a silenced pistol and fiber wire, so I’m now almost completely tooled up for the mission. But I need one more item. Returning to the main house where Rose normally hangs around, I pick up a special hallucinogenic drug—used by Ezra Berg in his twisted interrogations—which I need to eliminate Rose.

I skulk around the back of the house, using the drug to spike the cigarettes Rose habitually smokes. I then try to get into the main house, but the guards are Rose’s personal retinue, and won’t let in the regular cannon- fodder. I sneak around the security checkpoint to the side of the house, where one of Rose’s men hangs around near a crate perfect for hiding bodies inside.

I knock him out and steal his clothes, but I’m caught in the act by another nearby guard. I pull out my silenced pistol and empty a clip into him before he can raise the alarm. A stupid slip up, and I also have to kill the unconscious guard as he apparently counts as a witness. Still, it could have gone a lot worse. I steal a uniform and hide both bodies in the container.

Heading into the house, I tamper with the clock and misalign the pencils on Sean Rose’s desk, then exit to the rear and await his arrival. A few minutes later he approaches, disturbed by his skewed stationary. The spiked cigarettes further elevate his panic (this really is a nasty way to kill someone) and he rushes into the toolshed to calm down. I help release some of the tension by slicing open his throat with the axe.

Tip of the iced berg

One down, three to go. I dump the body and head outside, running almost immediately into the masked face of Ezra Berg. I follow him around the house toward the outdoor entrance of the basement. I realise that, in doing so, we’re crossing through the area I cleared of guards earlier. Acting on impulse, I pull out the fiber wire and strangle Berg right there in the open.

It’s a huge gamble, but nobody notices. However I’d forgotten that I disposed of two guards in the nearby body container, filling it up. Consequently, I’m dragging around one of Rose’s dead lieutenants in an area swarming with guards with nowhere to put the body.

Eventually I realise there’s another body container just behind the main doors of the house. But between me and it is a security camera. Leaving the body on the patio, I head inside the house, disable the security system, and then head back outside. I drag the body right past the main security checkpoint, into the house where there are at least a dozen guards, and somehow dump it in the container without anybody noticing.

Berg down. Parvati next. The former Tamil Tiger captain is heading some sort of spec-ops training regime, making her difficult to isolate. However, as I shadow her patrol, I notice she briefly diverts from her training to have a discussion with a mechanic near a couple of large garages. I figure if I need to kill her with a straight shot, this is definitiely the best place.

At first I consider shooting her from inside the garage, through an open window. But there’s a guard patrol that runs right behind me. So I instead stand between the two garages and take the shot at a diagonal angle, instantly moving away from the scene once the shot is taken. It works, my identity isn’t compromised and the kill sticks.

Now for the big one. Graves’ patrol takes her through most of the compound, flanked at all times by two security guards. The only time she isn’t escorted is when she’s inside the main house. After watching her make her rounds, I notice there’s a brief moment where she stops to examine the grandfather clock I tampered with to kill Rose. Adjacent to this is a door leading to the militia’s server room. In theory I can stand in there and shoot her. Everyone will hear the shot, but nobody will see it. Er, in theory.

I let Graves take one last tour of the grounds. When she returns to look at the clock again, I take the shot. Blam. I rush to the end of the room and hide behind a stack of crates moments before a swarm of militia pile into the room. My status reads “hunted” which means if they see me, they’ll shoot on sight, and at one point a guard stands so close I’m sure it’s game over. Somehow though, they don’t notice me, and I’m able to complete the mission without any further noisy incidents.

Sushi gone

Hokkaido, Japan. The last and trickiest of the original Hitman levels. My targets are ICA defector Erich Soders and Yuki Yamazaki, a former lawyer to the Yakuza. Soders is undergoing a heart transplant at a high-tech and even higher security clinic in the Hokkaido mountains. It’s so tightly controlled that I can’t smuggle anything into the building, which means no sniper rifle, fiber wire, or silenced pistol can be used for this mission.

Nonetheless, I spin the wheel. The numbers that come up are 6 for Soders, which is a sword, and 19 for Yamazaki—“other environmental”.

I decide to focus on Yamazaki first, as she is considerably easier to access. Even so, the clinic is monitored by an AI security system with computer-controlled checkpoints, so I need to find a uniform that’ll give me better clearance. After spending some time getting my bearings, I find a security guard watching over the toilets beneath the restaurant area. And after giving him a coin to chase, he quickly provides me with a disguise.

Able to move more freely, I start looking for a way to eliminate Yamazaki. After considering several options, I wander into the kitchens and stumble upon an un-filleted fugu fish. My decision is made there and then. I gut the fish to get the poison, then knock out the two chefs so I can easily steal their disguise.

I head upstairs to the sushi bar and prepare extra- special, extra-deadly nigiri. It isn’t long before Yamazaki ventures into the bar to sample the dish. She collapses a few moments later, dead as the fugu that killed her.

It’s as well Yamazaki proves an easy kill, because it quickly becomes apparent that killing Soders with a sword is going to be a nightmare. First I need to acquire a sword, which tend not to be that common in a clinic. It turns out there’s a ceremonial katana inside Yamazaki’s suite. But to get to it I need a black security uniform with level 2 clearance, and none of the nearby guards are viable targets. In the end, I have to go all the way around the clinic, sneaking into the high security area just to get the uniform I need to get the sword.

With this done, I now need access to Soders himself. But he’s in the operating theatre undergoing some pre-surgery stem-cell treatment. Only surgeons have access to the theatre, so I need to scrub up. In the end, I home in on the chief surgeon, who keeps venturing outside to chat to a helicopter pilot. While he’s out there, I deal with two nearby security guards using the old, ‘coin-toss and hammer to the face’ trick, before nullifying the chief surgeon in the same way.

I drag the surgeon into the basement and don his scrubs. I can now access the surgery hall and kill Erich Soders. Unfortunately my problems are far from over. First of all, it turns out surgeons carrying katanas don’t go unnoticed in a high security hospital. Secondly, the operating theatre is overlooked by a control room and two viewing galleries, one of which is filled with doctors watching the operation.

Oh, and there’s also another surgeon inside the theatre itself. It would be easier to walk into an actual theatre and kill the lead actor on stage, because at least the audience might think it was part of the act.

There’s no way for me to this do subtly, so I’ll have to settle for doing it quickly. I walk through the (mercifully empty) corridor into the surgery prep room, then pass through the door into the hall itself. Immediately the suspicion of everyone nearby starts rising. I walk up to the table, katana in hand and... It turns out the game won’t let you kill Erich Soders with a melee weapon.

Because of Soders’ unusual situation, alongside the fact that he’s so closely monitored, Hitman assumes that you won’t be stupid enough to attempt to kill Erich Soders with a large sword. I don’t get a cue to kill him by hand or even throw the weapon at him. All I get is Agent 47 staring blankly at the operating as the whole hospital explodes into chaos.

The alarm goes off, guards boil into the theatre from all sides. They demand that the mysterious assailant surrenders. I look around... and raise my sword.

Dec 28, 2019

This year Destiny 2 showed us that service games can still be good

Destiny 2

Part of me wishes I could quit you, Destiny 2, but I can't. This year you split from Activision and reinvented yourself as a free-to-play game, but that didn't change much really. You're still a compelling shooter with beautiful sci-fi art and glorious futuristic guns. You're still a great social game with smart raids and some decent PvP Crucible modes. You're still the game I boot up after the pub to hang out with friends and shoot aliens until the early hours.

I admit I've been cynical about the idea of a 'service game'—an evolving entertainment platform that you can return to every week to find something new. I worry that the rewards for successfully developing a service game discourage publishers from backing great singleplayer games. A few games have shown me how good the model can be, however: Warframe, Fortnite, and Destiny 2.

This year Bungie has moved from a traditional expansion model—which created doldrums periods between releases—to a purely seasonal update schedule. Each season adds new weapons, a new mode, PvP crucible updates, and lots of little quests to grind out. Part of me craves new environments and enemies (sure to come with the next major expansion, but will it be Destiny 3?) but there's enough there to encourage me to suit up my Warlock, raid my gun locker for some old favourites, and fly around the solar system destroying hopelessly outgunned aliens.

Right now players are feeding resources to space cannons to charge a giant time machine on Mercury. This is a very Destiny thing to do. The game does a good job of dressing up its grind in cool space nonsense, and I love it for that. The seasons are enhanced with week-long events that transform the tower hub and give you even more space debris to grind for. The Halloween event, for instance, invites everyone to wear masks of their favourite Destiny heroes and villains.

Almost every week when I log on the game gives me a message giving me a heads up for the wild new events that are about to land. It has taken a while for Bungie to reach this cadence, but I think it suits the game nicely, even as we keenly wait for the next massive update. Bring on those big evil pyramids!

It's simply a gorgeous game to look at as well. I struggled to sit with The Division 2 because I missed Destiny's vivid, brightly coloured universe. Military fatigues seem so dull when I can wear a hat moulded from the skull of an ancient space dragon. Also I have a gun that fires a billion bullets a second and auto-reloads when it gets a kill. Sometimes I go into the bowels of the moon just to kill a bunch of Hive in seconds with my Huckleberry.

The sandbox supports many pleasures. You can collect, compete, and co-operate across dozens of different challenges. The raid-like dungeons Bungie has added in the last year or so have been great, and raids are still some of the most fun you can have with other players on the internet. I can't wait to see what Destiny does next.

Dec 27, 2019

The diary of an RNG Hitman, part 2

HITMAN™ 2

This diary was originally serialised in PC Gamer magazine. For more quality articles about all things PC gaming, you can subscribe now in the UK and the US. You can read part one here.

We’re in Marrakech, the Big Haggle. Agent 47 is on the trail of rogue Swedish diplomat Claus Strandberg and wannabe military dictator Reza Zaydan. We’re killing targets with weapons chosen at random using a lotto spinner. Before we turn the bingo- wheel of fate, however, we need to talk about odds.

Last issue, I used a bespoke list of weapons for each level I played, assigning each weapon a number corresponding to a number in my spinner. However, I’ve noticed that simply listing all the weapons that appear in a Hitman mission skews the odds in favour of melee ones, simply because there are so many of them. Hence, for this entry, I’ve rewritten the list to be slightly more general, to best ensure each weapon class (gun, melee, explosive, environmental) has roughly the same number of entries on the list. You can see this updated lineup in the boxout overleaf.

This less stabby list seems to pay off immediately. The numbers for Zaydan and Sandberg respectively are four, which is an automatic weapon, and 16—lethal poison. One loud, one quiet, neither melee. Strandberg is holed up in the Swedish embassy south of the market, while Zaydan is preparing his coup at a former nursery school to the east.

Gunman, chronicles

I decide to head for Zaydan first, the first of multiple mistakes I’m going to make on this mission. I start out by re-familiarising myself with the twists and turns of Marrakech market. As I do so, I overhear a conversation about the school’s former headmaster, who still has the school’s master key. I sneak up to the rooftop garden where the headmaster is, and quietly steal his keyring.

Now I need to get past the security checkpoints, so I start scouting for a military uniform to steal. The streets are way too busy, so again I look to the rooftops. Eventually I find a soldier whose patrol takes him to a quiet spot in a rooftop garden. I knock him out with a wrench, don his uniform, and hide the body. This turns out to be a complete waste of time, as the uniform I’ve nicked is for a rank too junior to get past the checkpoint.

Frustrated, I wander around some more, until I find a guarded entrance to a shop. Hopefully there’s a way through to the school. Sneaking past the guards here is easy. I slip through the shop to the rear exit, where there’s a small, walled-off courtyard.

As it happens, this route leads to a secret tunnel running under the market to the embassy’s car-park. I make a note of it for later. Right now, I’m more interested in the lone soldier wandering around wearing a more senior uniform. I knock him out, change clothes, and take his assault rifle, which is exactly what I need to kill Zaydan. Suitably disguised, I make my way to the school undisturbed, using the key to get inside. Reyza Zaydan is milling around both floors of the school. He doesn’t have any bodyguards, but with so many soldiers patrolling the school, he doesn’t need them. Killing him with a Very Loud Gun is going to be tricky.

I spend a good 20 minutes examining his circuit of the school. Eventually I notice that he stops by a window on the first-floor corridor, while behind him is an empty classroom with a clear line-of-sight. I stand inside and wait for him to come around again, before putting an end to his ambitions with a single shot to the head.

Not very subtle, but it was never going to be. I hope for a repeat of Paris, where I slipped out the window quickly enough that nobody clocked the creepy bald dude making a very quick exit. Sadly, trained soldiers are slightly more perceptive than fashionista bodyguards. The dreaded notification “Hunted” appears in the bottom-left corner of the screen. I hide until the heat dies down, but my disguise has been compromised, meaning I must sneak out of the school grounds.

I can’t walk through the checkpoint either, so I shimmy up a drainpipe and creep along a ledge, stumbling right back into the headmaster’s garden.

Goddamn it. After all that effort, I could’ve just slipped down the drainpipe straight into the school. I take out my frustration on the headmaster, knocking him out and nicking his clothes. Now I need to find some lethal poison, so I look up the locations on the Hitman Interactive Map. There are two lethal poison pickups. One is back at the school (sod that). The other is down in that secret entrance I noticed earlier. Retracing my steps, I slip past the guards again and descend. The tunnel reads as a hostile area, so I return upstairs and change into that basic soldier uniform I stole earlier. Ugh, still hostile. The only disguise that will work down here is the one I have already compromised. Smashing.

The only disguise that will work down here is the one I have already compromised

I’ve no choice but to press on. The underground corridor leads to a square chamber bristling with both guns and guards. It’s going to take some masterful stealth to get that poison unnoticed. Fortunately, I don’t need to worry about this for long, as I completely screw up knocking out the first guard, alerting the whole room to my presence and ending up in a massive gunfight.

I prevail, but I end up killing somewhere between five and ten non-targets, which in Hitman’s book is a disaster. Reluctantly, I step over the corpses to pick up the poison and carry on. The car park is crawling with more of Zaydan’s goons, but I manage to creep through without being spotted. I then sneak across the front of the embassy to a small guardpost where I pick up an embassy security guard uniform.

This mission has been a complete mess, but I at least end on a high, sneaking into Strandberg’s office and poisoning his wine unnoticed.

By the time he drinks the poison, I’m already outside the embassy. It’s a somewhat hollow victory, but at least I feel like I earned the single star I’m awarded for my otherwise dreadful performance.

Bangkok dangerous

Somehow Hitman 2 doesn’t delete my save out of sheer embarrassment, and in a jiffy we’re off to Bangkok, specifically the exclusive Club 47 Hotel. My targets here are Jordan Cross, indie rock-band megastar and weapons-grade arsehole, and his equally nasty lawyer Ken Morgan.

The numbers that roll out of my lotto machine are next-door neighbours. Jordan Cross gets 16, which is death by falling, and Ken Morgan gets 17, which is drowning.

After the mess in Marrakech. I’m relieved by the clean and quiet approaches the machine has chosen. It almost seems a like a sign. Turns out it’s more of an omen.

Let’s quickly go over Cross. As far as I know, there’s only one way to kill Jordan Cross via a fall. That’s by playing through a mission story wherein Agent 47 infiltrates Cross’ recording session in the guise of a replacement drummer. This is the method I follow. There might be other ways to do it, but given what happens next, I’m glad I opted for the straightforward approach.

With Cross dead, my attention turns to Ken Morgan. I’m told in the mission briefing that Morgan hangs out in around the restaurant area, so my first thought is to spike the restaurant food with emetic rat poison, then drown Morgan in whichever toilet he subsequently chunders into. Unfortunately, when I try this, Morgan instead empties his stomach into a nearby bin. Unless it hasn’t been emptied for a long time, typically you can’t drown someone in a bin, so that’s the end of Plan A.

Fortunately, Club 47 is located at the side of a river, and Morgan’s circuit of the hotel takes him to a patio area on the riverside. My new plan is to knock him out, then haul him over the balustrade into the water below. But there’s a small issue with Plan B, namely all the witnesses in this very public area. Not only does Morgan have a bodyguard shadowing him, there are five hotel staff in close proximity, another guest who frequently walks through the area to talk on his phone, and a gardener trimming the verges nearby.

The locations of these individuals are burned into my mind, because I try countless times to enact this plan. I try poisoning the bodyguard to get Morgan alone. I try knocking out all the nearby witnesses. I try tossing coins to get Morgan into a position where he can’t be seen by anyone. I try completely losing my shit and murdering half the hotel. It all ends the same way, panic, chaos and death. Finally, after over an hour of this nonsense, I succeed in getting Morgan over the rail without anyone noticing. I celebrate for exactly one microsecond before I hear the loud crunch of Morgan’s body landing on the rocks beside the river. Ffffffffffuuuuuuuu-

At this point it’s clear that drowning might not be a viable tactic for Morgan. Certainly not for someone of my limited skill. So the only thing I can do is spin the wheel again. Out rolls number 11—fire extinguisher. Oh great, explosives, the perfect weapon for assassinating one specific person in an extremely public area.

I feel like giving up and going back to my virtual hotel room. Then I have an idea. The area where Morgan makes his phone call, although highly visible, is vacant of people most of the time.

What’s more, my hotel room balcony looks down on that same corner of the front patio. As I mentioned in the first diary, I always bring a sniper rifle as my smuggled item, which is located in my hotel room.

I rush upstairs, grab the sniper rifle, and check to see if the shot is viable. I can’t clearly see the actual area where Morgan makes his phone calls, as it’s obscured by folding screens. But there is narrow stretch that he walks through where I can get a clear shot. Plan C is officially a go. I head downstairs, grab a fire extinguisher off the wall, and drop it outside, much to the confusion of everyone around me. Then I head back up, get into position, wait for the moment, and take the shot.

Rather than detonating on impact, the shot kicks the fire extinguisher away. It explodes a second or so later. Morgan goes down, but isn’t killed. I have just enough time to spit a curse at my screen before security busts down the door of my room and riddles me with bullets.

On reload, I decide to try the same thing, but this time with three fire extinguishers. Again the explosion isn’t powerful enough to kill Morgan. At this point I’ve been playing this mission for over two hours, so I decide fuck it, no more half measures. I put every fire extinguisher I can find in a pile, then add a propane flask for good measure. If you want to get technical, I’m pretty sure the concussive blast of an exploding propane flask would extinguish any nearby fires. It would just cause a lot of other fires in the process.

After a heart-pounding wait, Morgan appears. I take the shot. The resulting explosion throws his body ten feet in the air, and the blessed words “Target Eliminated” appear on my screen. I quickly pack away the sniper rifle, exiting the room just as the guards burst in. (I’m dressed as a guard, by the way, and have been for almost the entire mission.)

All that for one target. But at least I put the ‘bang’ in Bangkok. Ho ho. Morgan’s death even registers as “Accidental”, which is fantastically stupid. The next stop is Colorado, where there are four targets I need to eliminate, all surrounded by gun-toting militia. I’ve got a feeling it’s going to be quite the show. Until next time!

Check back tomorrow for the final part.

Dec 27, 2019

Observation is great because it understands that less is more

Observation

I like my science fiction slow, thoughtful, and creepy, which is why one of my highlights of 2019 was Observation. Riffing on stylish, muted '70s sci-fi flicks like Solaris, Alien, and Silent Running, No Code's game tells its strange, eerie story with real class and restraint. Set aboard a stricken space station, whose design is based on the real-world International Space Station, you play as an artificial intelligence named SAM that has, somehow, become self aware.

While this sounds a lot like 2001: A Space Odyssey: The Game—which the marketing leaned heavily into, including press being invited to a screening of Kubrick's movie—the comparison is ultimately quite superficial. SAM is not HAL. They're both advanced AI struggling with a newfound sentience, in charge of the fragile lives of vulnerable astronauts. But SAM is much more benevolent, with motives that are never really clear—at least until that mind-bending finale.

But even then, a lot is left unanswered—which is, again, another quality Observation shares with the classic sci-fi that influenced it. Dig into the crew's computers and you'll discover enough information to piece together a narrative—but a lot is also left to interpretation, to your own imagination. I really respect this approach and how developer No Code resisted the urge to hand players everything on a plate. Great sci-fi makes you do some of the mental legwork yourself.

The station itself is a brilliantly sinister, claustrophobic setting. I like how No Code set Observation in the near future, because that familiar technology helps ground the game. We've all seen astronauts smiling and floating around in the ISS, which gives exploring a dark, abandoned version of it extra resonance. I also appreciate the amount of research that went into realising the station, with hundreds of tiny details giving those head-spinning corridors a real richness. You could imagine people living and working here before things went bad.

Puzzles are at the heart of Observation, which are all presented in the form of arcane futuristic computer interfaces. No Code founder Jon McKellan was the lead UI designer on Alien: Isolation and brought some of that same utilitarian, retro-futuristic design sensibility to his own game. I found it interesting that he had to break his own rules of usability to create interfaces that were, in the game's universe, designed as readouts for SAM, not humans. This let the designers create puzzles that are as satisfying to figure out as they are to solve.

I'm just glad a game like Observation exists, and that its publisher, Devolver, was willing to take a risk on something so, well, weird. This is a smart, understated, slow-burning game; an anti-blockbuster that asks you to think about what's happening on the screen, not just sit there and passively absorb it. For all those reasons it was never going to sell five million copies. But if you want a game that gives you something a little more nutritious to chew on, it's worth investigating. No Code is already hard at work on its next thing and, after this and similarly unique Stories Untold, I can't wait to see what they dream up next.

Dec 27, 2019

Best Design 2019: Slay the Spire

Slay the Spire

Turn-based roguelike Slay the Spire wins our Best Design award for 2019 thanks to the many revelations offered by its intricate deckbuilding. We'll be updating our GOTY 2019 hub with new awards and personal picks throughout December.

Evan: Walking in the footsteps of other PC Gamer GOTYs of yore (Into the Breach, FTL, Spelunky), Slay the Spire is a series of difficult, pleasant epiphanies that you acquire through failure. Oh, relics might be more important than cards. And huh, maybe removing cards is just as important as adding them. I'm starting to think block is more important than damage. Wait, this boss isn't the real end boss? A lot is owed to how transparent Slay the Spire makes information and enemy intents, which stacks some certainty into each shuffle.

Tyler: I love that it's not just about getting to the last fight. You have to be godlike enough to live through it. I take a lot of risks during each run, because I know it's all for nothing if I limp up to the final boss (the real final boss) with anything less than combos that make angels weep. Every decision I make is about that final encounter. I'll take on an early boss fight with 15 HP to my name if I don't think healing is the right thing to do in the long run, and the delayed gratification when high risk choices I made floors earlier pay off is sweeter for the wait.

Wes: That feeling when, after stacking buff after buff, you channel an entire maxed out arsenal of lightning orbs as Defect, and watch the bolts smash down one at a time for a boss's entire health bar. Damn, it feels so good.

Evan: I think there's two things at work there, Wes: the lively, concussive sound design of those lightning strikes, ice avalanches, a dozen overlapping knife pokes, or, my personal favorite, poison canisters that bounce like a sing-along ball between enemies, dousing them in toxin. But secondly: for how many games are about power accumulation, surprisingly few manage to allow you to achieve that feeling of outsmarting the game's systems. Slay the Spire invites you to beat it by breaking it. Sometimes this means stumbling on an infinitely-looping build, like pairing Unceasing Top ("Whenever you have no cards in hand, draw a card") with cards that allow you to discard your hand. Evident in the whole experience is the depth of understanding that the game's designers have for the deckbuilding and roguelike genres. It isn't a coincidence that one of these designers, Anthony Giovannetti, runs the largest Netrunner fansite on the internet.

Wes: I still haven't managed to beat the true final boss, though I've gotten quite close more than once. I think my weakness in games like this is taking too many cards, as I see the potential in a dozen different card combinations stretch out before me. Focusing makes all the difference. But I really admire how many viable ways there are to build each character once you throw in relics and the randomness of a run. My only real criticism is that some playstyles work splendidly until you run up against that one enemy or boss that is all but immune, ending two hours of build-up in an instant. I admit this may actually say more about my decks than the game itself.

Chris: Speaking as someone who doesn't typically play card games, I'm so impressed at how easy it is for a complete newbie like me to grasp the essentials and immediately start having fun—while also getting a sense of the depth of the design. Slay the Spire is also incredibly mod friendly which means players have been adding characters, cards, and even entirely new rulesets, making it even more replayable than it already is.

Evan: And even if you never touch that stuff, the main mode of play is plenty to chew on. After beating it with all three archetypes, I felt like I'd earned genuine merit badges—I couldn't wait to pin them to my Steam profile. It feels special to be one of only 5.3% of players to earn "The End?"

Dec 26, 2019

Working a 9-5 in GTA 5 roleplay is the best way to enjoy Grand Theft Auto

Grand Theft Auto V Legacy

Ever had your private parts gnawed on by a hungry police dog while you’re laid flat on your back, oozing blood, on the tiled floor of a jewellery store’s vault room? I have. Several times. And after an exhilarating run of murder, deceit, robbery, and, um, vampirism and death-by-undead in Grand Theft Auto 5 roleplay, I must admit: I’m knackered.

For a long time now, I’ve flirted with the idea of truly committing to a server’s RP rules without listening to the pint-sized devil on my shoulder. When not chasing missions in Story Mode or GTA Online, I bet you’ve had a bash at playing by the book in Grand Theft Auto. I bet you’ve driven at the speed limit and stopped at red lights. I bet you’ve had fun, for a wee while, before strolling down the sidewalk and sticking the head on an innocent passer-by just because, well, you can.

More than GTA 5’s vanilla modes allow, though, the roleplay scene lets you sign up to a 9-5 lifestyle wholeheartedly. In doing so myself, I’ve discovered an entirely new game. And I love it.

With this, combined with end-of-year reflection, new year’s resolutions and the spirit of giving during the holiday season in mind, my latest roleplay endeavour saw me throw myself into a courier job with GoPostal. I stuck religiously to an in-game schedule as I commuted to work on my BMX bike, bought my lunch at the local gas station, worked a shift, clocked off at the end of the day, and returned home.

Similar to how Andy enjoys simulator games, I found myself utterly captivated by the systematic monotony of my self-imposed rules, and, as conceited as it may sound, discovered a degree of serenity I never thought possible in a game otherwise associated with murder, drug deals and robbing banks.

Playing as a delivery man at Christmas, with Free Mode’s snowfall filter in full-swing, I quickly took on the mantle of makeshift Los Santos Santa Claus. I galvanised the holiday vibe by playing a Christmas playlist in real life, which, in essence, meant playing Chris Rea’s ‘Driving Home For Christmas’ on repeat, because, let’s be clear, it’s the best Christmas song in the history of Christmas songs.

I'm driving home for Christmas. Oh, I can't wait to see those faces.

What a tune, I think to myself, as I set up camp in the Clinton Residence – Auntie D’s house in Strawberry, otherwise known as the Forum Drive safehouse, and, for the purpose of this roleplay endeavour, ‘home’.

Monday, December 16

6am

In the Grand Theft Auto HD Universe (from GTA 4 onwards), one in-game hour is equivocal to two real-life minutes. One in-game day, then, is 48 real-life minutes-long. My day starts at 6am, and work begins at 8, which means I’ve allowed myself four minutes to grab lunch from the 24/7 garage round the corner, before cycling to the GoPostal depot in Downtown Vinewood on the other side of town. No bother.

“Welcome to 24/7, the most convenient store in America,” says the clerk as I come through the door. I nod, smile and order a handful of Meteorite bars, Ps & Qs and Ego Chasers. I grab a couple of cans of ECola, hop back on my BMX and head for work. Los Santos never sleeps, they say, but it’s a bit bleary-eyed at this hour as I make my way across the city, singing all the way.

I'm driving home for Christmas, yeah. Well I'm moving down that line.

7:50am

I climb the hill towards the office, take a glance over my shoulder and admire the morning sun that blankets the buildings at my back. I get changed into my uniform and receive my delivery route. My first drop is at the Paleto Bay Sheriff Office, which is quite a drive away. I pull away from headquarters, mute the in-game radio, turn up my real-life speaker, and hit the road.

And it's been so long. But I will be there. I sing this song. To pass the time away.

Driving in my car. Driving home for Christmas.

Honestly, man, what a tune. After Paleto Bay, I’m sent to Vespucci Beach, then to a property near Legion Square, north to Grapeseed, west to North Chumash, then south to La Puerta. I pull in to the side of the road in Little Seoul and tuck into my convenience store-bought lunch, before being sent to another handful of stops up and down the map before closing time at five bells.

5:15pm

Back at HQ, I ditch the work van, jump back on my two-wheeler and briefly consider stopping off for a cold one in Gefängnis to celebrate my first shift, but decide against it. I’ve got a busy week ahead, and these presents ain’t going to deliver themselves.

It's gonna take some time. But I'll get there. Top to toe in tailbaaaaaaccckkkkssss.

Friday, December 20

11:30am

The next few days play out much the same until Friday. Oh, my days, Friday. After a typically innocuous start to my route, my van breaks down because, the dummy that I am, I forget cars in this server require refilling at gas stations and I’m flat out. I push my car to the side of the road, and, despite being on the peripheral of the city, struggle to hitch a ride.

On foot, I make my way north, towards the Tongva Valley, which, I reckon, is as good as any place to catch another drivers’ attention. Before long, I do exactly that but appear to simultaneously piss off a roleplayer who promptly calls the cops on me. Bit harsh, I tell him, while refusing to “wait here for the authorities” – instead, pegging it back down the road in the opposite direction.

As fate would have it, a lovely Royal Mail worker does offer me a ride – odd, given Los Santos is a faux version of Los Angeles, situated some 5,160 miles away from where the five-century-old British courier service tends to operate. I don’t ask questions and assume it’s a Christmas miracle.

1:45pm

The Royal Mail operator, Becky, and I spend the next five minutes chatting about Christmas, our families, the San Andreas courier community, and our favourite festive tunes. Becky prefers Mariah Carey, it turns out, but admits Chris Rea is a close second. I don’t react. She’s doing me a favour, after all.

As we make our way over the Tongva Valley Bridge we chat some more before – BANG – some arsehole hits the side of our van and runs us off the road. We tumble down the embankment and crash into the river below. Panicked, I scramble out of the truck and swim to shore. I shout to Becky to see if she’s okay, but she’s nowhere to be seen. I look back and see a shadow bobbing just beneath the surface. She didn’t make it.

I make my way for the woods and keep walking. I don’t really know where I’m going but I keep walking. And walking and walking.

Oh, I got red lights on the run. But soon there'll be a freeway yeah. Get my feet on holy ground.

Saturday, December 21

2:10am

It’s all gone a bit Planes, Trains and Automobiles by this point, as I’m starving, exhausted and without any means of transport. After half-a-days’ worth of roving, I make it back to Auntie D’s house and turn in.

9:30am

In the morning, I arrive at work and explain my day from hell to my boss who takes the news surprisingly well. I’m assigned a new van, a new route and told to go about my day as normal.

And so I’m back on the road, navigating snowy San Andreas, delivering gifts and half-considering switching up my Christmas playlist in memory of my fallen courier comrade. I mean, I won’t. That’d be ludicrous. But I will croon in her honour.

So I sing for you. Though you can't hear me. When I get through. And feel you near me…

Driving in my car. I'm driving home for Christmas.

Driving home for Christmas. With a thousand memories.

I’ve sunk hundreds of hours into exploring San Andreas from top-to-tail in pursuit of outlandish RP ventures, and I’ve gradually grown to appreciate the beauty of the setting. For me, despite it now being over six years old, there’s not a modern open-world setting out there that comes close to the faux California’s beautifully incongruous sprawl – a dysfunctional hash of urban, suburban and rural regions, all boasting their own charm and allure.

Sure, breaking the rules yields entertaining tales, but there’s something to be said for just living in Los Santos, and appreciating its world without its in-yer-face distractions.

10:00am

I’m now stuck in gridlock and the city is abuzz around me. I take it all in. The bright lights. The steady hum of traffic. The revellers pouring out of nightclubs onto the sidewalks. The police choppers marshalling the sky like mechanical angels above. I love this city.

I take a look at the driver next to me. He’s just the same.

Just the same.

Merry Christmas.