I'm in the strange position of absolutely loving two of the games in this round-up, but not recommending them. There's either not enough content or there's a few issues that I can see past into the game behind, but right now are in the way of the enjoyment. It helps that with one Infinite Space III: Sea of Stars I've played the previous games and know they're capable of incredible, delightful things. Glitchspace works very well, but couldn't be more empty. The surprise to me is how well Tabletop Simulator works.

There's nothing quite like the Infinite Space series. It revels in the paradox of being a space game that generates a galaxy, and sends you out for a jaunt between the stars that only takes the length of a lunchbreak in the real world. I adored the previous two games and couldn't wait to find out what state Infinite Space III: Sea of Stars was in.



Each time you set-off, you're given 9125 days to return with enough loot to make a profit. Some loot adds to your overall total, other loot can be slotted into your ship or swapped for goods and services. So you click and your little ship whirrs through space, following the glowing line on the star map to your chosen destination. The galaxy has several stars to explore, and while some easy to get to, while others will be wreathed in a cloying nebula that slows you down. There's also the chance of being attacked at each planet you visit.

Which all seems very dry, but Sea of Stars continues the theme of the infinite space series by being charming as hell. If the loot isn't a ship part, it'll be described like this: "Lookout Frogs: Always met in pairs, these intelligent amphibians were uplifted ages ago by Garthan scientists for use as sentries, scouts and food." That's what loot in Infinite Space is. It doesn't even have a worth attached to it until you pay out at the end. Exploration is a trip through the writer's imagination, and it works thanks to its absurdity.

There is game, though. Items you collect can really improve the ship, giving you defensive and offensive buffs, radar boosts, and engines that can push through the nebulae. With a more powerful ship, you can start fighting rather than fleeing. The combat is all automated according to your set-up, but you can direct where your ship flies and order hired mercs into battle.

I think there's loads of potential in Sea of Stars, but I don't think it's quite ready for a larger audience. I found my ship's position in the world difficult to track, which is unhelpful if you're trying to pick a route through the galaxy for maximum gains. It's also tough to figure out the boundaries of the nebula, so it's possible to be caught when you thought you were clear. The game also launches in a tiny window and the large UI makes it feel super-cramped. There's some work needed to make is palatable for everyone, though previous fans will probably enjoy it.

If only I could change things myself. There's something very Matrix-like about Glitchspace. It's a game where the gun you have doesn't fire bullets, but code that changes the properties of the world around you. The simple levels enable you to manipulate the blocks that make up the challenges, presenting you with diagrams of their properties and letting you change their very nature. The fact that I'm capable of understanding what's going on is the real triumph.



To begin with, you don't deal with the gun at all. Instead you're presented with a red block and told to right-click on it: up pops a terrifying diagram of the block's properties. Actually, I'll just show you.



There's a lot going on there, but it will all be explained as you play. All you really need to worry about is the Scaleobject unit and the Object tab to the right. Everything else is locked. Clicking 'Object' will open a menu and present you with a 'mainobject' unit to drop into the diagram. It has the properties of a 'cube', and plugging it into the Scaleobject unit will transform the real-world object into a cube shape for you to walk on.

The context of the puzzle will help. With a little bit of wandering and staring, you'll understand what needs to be done to the blocks to give you access, and then when you start poking around in the properties the solution will emerge. It's a small but satisfying intellectual treat.

Reshaping the red boxes in the level is the main thrust, but you'll also be transforming movement, stretching and twisting blocks, and then the gun gets brought into play and allows you to affect multiple objects per puzzle, occasionally asking you to reprogram it between blocks. Eventually you'll be given a blank slate and asked to completely change the properties without any prompting.

But I currently can't recommend it. It needs more content. A lot more. There's, at most, about half-an-hour of story, somewhat augmented by a sandbox mode. But really, this lives and dies on the puzzles it provides, and it needs a lot more. When I finished I was disappointed and wanted there to be more, so it has that going for it. I also think the movement controls need tightened up, as most of my fails have come from misjudging a leap with the game's weak jump button. It's got lots of potential, and it's only 5 / $7, but I'd still wait for more game, or at least Steam Workshop integration.

Tabletop Simulator is a game largely based on the honour system: it's a multiplayer table simulator where every object is physics-enabled, meaning cards, dice, coins, and RPG pieces are all pluckable and tossable. There's even a 'flip table' button, and if you can end a game without clicking it, you're a better person than I'll ever be.



I'll admit that I'm here for the carnage. I revel in the tension that comes from sitting across a chess table at an invisible opponent and waiting for the move to end neatly. Make no mistake, there's nothing stopping anyone from toppling pawns or twanging bishops, or reaching over to your side and creating havoc. It's all down to human decency. But there's also a really lovely system here. Find someone you trust and hop onto voip while you're playing some chess or poker (or backgammon, checkers, dice, dominoes, etc) and it's a very easy way to lose an hour. You can even use it to coach someone, and of course eight person battle chess is a real possibility.

Speaking of that, it's the custom games that offer the most potential. There's a kit that'll allow players to create their own online game nights, ranging from simple hand-drawn boards to more complex RPG games with animated figures, lovely weighty dice throws, and that ever-present tension

It runs really well, feels lovely, the multiplayer is working (and allows you to blacklist disruptive types), and there's more to come. I think this is worth the money at the moment.

Worth buying right now?
Infinite Space III: Sea of Stars: Not Yet
Glitchspace: Not Yet
Tabletop Simulator: Yes

Asus have blinked first on the new 9-series motherboard launch, and their Z97-A is the first of the new boards to arrive in the labs. These new mobos are appearing in preparation for the launch of a slew of updated Intel processors, offering some key new features. The Asus Z97-A is one of their mid-range offerings, and should offer decent price/performance numbers.

It s not as garish as the previous generation of Haswell-compatible motherboards, with a more understated look than the shouty gold-coloured Asus boards. But this isn t a board designed for showing off through your Perspex side-panel, with fancy cold cathode lighting Asus have always got the pricey RoG mobos for that this board's all about functionality.

To that end Asus have packaged it with a new EZ mode in their always-impressive BIOS. It packs a whole lot of information into one screen, allowing you to set up memory profiles, boot drives and fan profiles quickly and simply.

M.2 is really built for the Ultrabook or small form factor generations

The big news though is the inclusion of a pair of new storage interfaces. First is the M.2 interface, which is similar to mSATA in that it provide a slot on the board itself for small form factor PCIe-based SSDs. There is also a SATA Express slot on the side of the board too. Like M.2 it s an interface that incorporates both PCI Express and SATA into one, providing both the compatibility of SATA and the speed of PCIe. The difference is that SATA Express is designed to connect to external devices like the 2.5 SSDs we re using right now.

This means we ll actually start seeing drives pushing past the speed limits the current iteration of the SATA interface have in place right now. Once manufacturers start making SATA Express drives, anyway.

SATA Express will allow for some seriously fast SSDs later in the year

Asus have also updated their optimisation suite to help you get the most out of your machine without having to go elbow deep into the mire of the traditional BIOS. You can theoretically leave the board to dynamically manage fans, power and clockspeeds to get you an effective setup.

Aside from the new storage options the 9-series isn t going to convince any gamers to upgrade from their 8-series boards just yet. That might change when the new Devil s Canyon processors arrive with their promise of increased overclocking potential, but I ve yet to be convinced that they re going to really offer us that much.

The Z97 is meant to be compatible with the upcoming Broadwell CPU launch next year as well. Intel sticking with the same socket for more than 5 minutes? It's almost unheard of.

Trying to come up with a best cards list for Hearthstone might seem like a Sisyphean task. No sooner have you rolled your list of cards to the peak of Mount Objectively Awesome, a patch or an update or a change to the metagame sends you tumbling back into the valley of Start All Over Again. Did that metaphor work? Let's just say that it did and move on.

Whether you're constructing your own deck from scratch, or hoping to tweak a popular one you ve found online, we re here to help with a guide to the game s 46 coolest and most powerful cards. Why 46? Why not. (Also, that was the point our fingers started bleeding.) To create the list we used a team of hand-picked expert players from the Hearthstone community, plus input from our own in-house card sharps. Here s the team lineup.

Former Dota 2 professional turned Hearthstone hotshot, TidesOfTime (TOT)
Icy Veins resident decksmith and Warcraft expert Poyo (P)
Hearthstone podcast The Angry Chicken co-hosts Garrett Weinzierl, William 'Dills' Gregory and Jocelyn Moffett (GW, DG, JM)
PC Gamer s in-house Hearthstone addict seriously, it's probably about time for an intervention Tim Clark (TC)
Deck-building neophyte Philippa Warr (PW)
Resident Hearthstone Help columnist, Vincent Sarius (VS)

Note that there s obviously a degree of subjectivity when it comes to calling these cards the best, but as you re about to find out, we think these are the most effective (and fun!) cards to have in your hand. They re certainly not all expensive Legendaries, either there are plenty of options for the budget Hearthstoner too. Let us know what else you think we ought to have included, and why, in the comments.

 


Hex
Mana: 3
Crafting cost: NA
Class: Shaman
Rarity: Basic
Transform a minion into a 0/1 Frog with Taunt

GW: Imagine the scariest minion currently in Hearthstone. Now imagine that card becoming a 0/1 frog with Taunt, and for just 3 mana. Tirion loses Divine Shield, six attack, five health, and Ashbringer never triggers. Sylvanas never steals a minion. Baine never steps in for his fallen father, Cairne. Instead of dealing eight damage to you or your minions, Ragnaros literally croaks. Hex is the most well-costed, single-target removal in the game.

TOT: It's not situationally overpowered, it's just straight-up overpowered. Not to the point where it can win games on its own, but at 3 mana it s the strongest instant removal option in the game right now.


Faceless Manipulator
Mana: 5
Attack: 3
Health: 3
Class: Neutral
Rarity: Epic
Crafting cost: 400
Battlecry: Choose a minion and become a copy of it.

TC: Incredibly useful in any deck designed to make it through to the mid-game point.

This photocopier card is versatile, in that it can be deployed defensively, by cheaply mirroring the high mana minion which your opponent has just slapped down on the board, (note: to ensure you're getting true value, don t bother copying anything cheaper than 5 mana), or used offensively to double-down and copy of one of the best minions you've got in play.It s brilliance is proven by how annoyed it will make your opponent.


Big Game Hunter
Mana: 4
Attack: 4
Health: 2
Crafting cost: 400
Class: Neutral
Rarity: Epic
Battlecry: Destroy a minion with an Attack of 7 or more.

P: Based on the current metagame, I have two of these in my deck because all of the decks are playing several cards that are potential targets for Big Game Hunter. Played properly, Big Game Hunter always makes a two-for-one trade. You shoot something down and you're left with a 4/2 minion on the board for a really low mana cost.

TC: Does exactly what it says on the tin: Takes out big minions, and at a reasonable mana price. It s a handy inclusion in any deck which struggles with fat boy removal, but less so if you ve got Polymorph, Hex or Assassinate. That said, it never hurts to have an extra 4/2 minion. Best fielded in late-game decks where you re likely to face powerful minions.


Ragnaros the Firelord
Mana: 8
Attack: 8
Health: 8
Crafting cost: 1600
Class: Neutral
Rarity: Legendary
Can't Attack: At the end of your turn, deal 8 damage to a random enemy.

TC: Ragnaros is appearing regularly as a finisher in decks. Providing you can keep him alive, either by hiding him behind Taunt cards or buffing his health, his unconventional attack means he ll continue operating like a toasty removal turret, blazing a random enemy with 8 damage each turn without taking any in return. Note: If an enemy silences him, he can then attack normally.

P: It's a card you put on the board that has immediate impact and puts immense pressure on your opponent. They will always need to deal with it as a priority.


Summoning Portal
Mana: 4
Attack: 0
Health: 4
Crafting cost: 40
Class: Warlock
Rarity: Common
Your minions cost (2) less, but not less than (1).

TC: Best deployed behind a big minion with Taunt so it doesn t get blitzed too easily while active it slashes two mana off the cost of your minions, enabling you to rush the board. If you manage to get two portals out at once, you ll be able to play some absurdly powerful minions on much earlier turns. Timing is everything, though, so keep hold of the card until your troops are ready.




Polymorph
Mana: 4
Attack: N/A
Health: N/A
Crafting cost: N/A
Class: Mage
Rarity: Basic
Transform a minion into a 1/1 Sheep.

PW: An absolute godsend for beginners. It's not quite as good as the Shaman's Hex card, which is one mana cheaper, but it's still brilliant for dealing with beefy minions. Just don't forget that those sheep can still do 1 damage.

There's nothing more embarrassing than meeting a woolly end because you left your foe's flock unattended. Whenever playing against Mages, it's best to assume they're running two Polymorphs, because they almost always will be. Save your big minions until you've baited the Mage into using his removals on some more midrange threats.


Ysera
Mana: 9
Attack: 4
Health: 12
Crafting cost: 1600
Class: Neutral
Rarity: Legendary
At the end of your turn, draw a Dream Card.

TC: If you get this card drawn against you late game, the jig is often up. Unless you re holding a powerful removal card, Ysera s high health pool means it will keep generating random dream cards all of which are more effective than their mana cost imply. If the owner can keep Ysera alive, they re almost guaranteed card control in the closing stages of a match. Dreamy indeed.

P: Ysera is a bit worse than Ragnaros, but an outstanding card nonetheless. If Ysera stays on the board for two or three turns then your opponent has lost the game. Having 12 health it's usually quite hard to deal with it, especially because it has low attack. 4 attack is the most fucked up number in Hearthstone, particularly for a Priest, because it means neither Shadow Word: Pain or Shadow Word: Death can touch it, meaning the only counter Priests have to Ysera is using Mind Control or throwing away a lot of minions.


Dark Iron Dwarf
Mana: 4
Attack: 4
Health: 4
Crafting cost: 40
Class: Neutral
Rarity: Common
Battlecry: Give a minion +2 Attack this turn.

PW: Early on in your Hearthstone career you might just grow to love the Dark Iron Dwarf. His 4/4 stats make him a solid addition to the board but its his battlecry, the ability to bestow a +2 attack to a minion for that turn which can be crucial for finishing off an enemy minion unexpectedly.

Although it feels counter-intuitive you can also use that battlecry on enemy minions. Say you've got a card like Big Game Hunter which takes out minions with and attack of 7 or more, with Dark Iron Dwarf you can buff up an irritating minion like the 6/6 Stormwind Champion and then POW!


Azure Drake
Mana: 5
Attack: 4
Health: 4
Crafting Cost: 100
Class: Neutral
Rarity: Rare
Spell damage +1. Battlecry: Draw a card.

PW: This dragon has the same basic stats as the Dark Iron Dwarf, but costs one mana more. What do you get for your investment? Well, aside from being a solid mid-game minion with the magic 4 attack stat guaranteed to irk a Priest, you also get a spell damage increase and an all-important card draw.

This really is a great card regardless of deck, but the Azure Drake is especially strong in spell-centric decks and should be considered a must-pick in Arena mode.


Ancient of Lore
Mana: 7
Attack: 5
Health: 5
Crafting Cost: 400
Class: Druid
Rarity: Epic
Choose One - Draw 2 Cards or Restore 5 Health.

VS: As any card game aficionado can tell you, having card advantage , (i.e. more cards in your hand than your opponent), is hugely important. Ancient of Lore provides both cards and a respectable 5/5 minion.

This alone, if it were a Neutral card, would see it run in the vast majority of decks, but Ancient of Lore adds the flexibility of a sizeable heal, enabling Druids to outlast opponents in marathon matches, or buy that bit of time needed to fully stabilize against an aggressive opponent. A pair of this card should be in any respectable Druid deck.


Gadgetzan Auctioneer
Mana: 5
Attack: 4
Health: 4
Crafting cost: 100
Class: Neutral
Rarity: Rare
Whenever you cast a spell draw a card

GW: The Miracle Rogue deck wouldn t exist without this card. Any deck that runs spells is better for it. All spell cards become cantrips when the Auctioneer is out.

The five-mana cost allows a player to easily draw at least one card on the same turn their Auctioneer is played, while the 4/4 stats makes this minion hard to remove for most classes and, as with Ysera, a nightmare for Priests. The Auctioneer is even more effective if Rogues are able to use Conceal or Master of Disguise.


Unleash The Hounds
Mana: 2
Attack: 0
Health: 0
Crafting cost: 40
Class: Hunter
Rarity: Legendary
For each enemy minion, summon a 1/1 Hound with Charge.

TC: Timed right, this dog rush can be a game changer in Hunter decks because it synergises so well with so many other cards. Save it for when your opponent has board control, then combine with minions like Timber Wolf or Raid Leader to make the mutts more powerful. Also works superbly to draw cards in conjunction with Starving Buzzard, or can quickly buff a Scavenging Hyena as the hounds launch their kamikaze attack.

TOT: Combining this with Starving Buzzard, Hunter's Mark or Timber Wolf is brutal for two mana there's no other card in the game that can clear the entire board, or deal as much damage to the opponent. It's extremely versatile. The combo works because Buzzard lets you draw a card whenever you summon a beast, and each of the hounds counts. Opponents can't really play around Buzzard/Unleash either, because if they just sit around against Hunter right, they get killed quick. So you have to play your cards, which only makes for a stronger Buzzard/Unleash combo.


Leeroy Jenkins
Mana: 4
Attack: 6
Health: 2
Crafting cost: 1600
Class: Neutral
Rarity: Legendary
Charge. Battlecry: Summon two 1/1 Whelps for your opponent.

TC: Best used as a late-game closer, Leeroy is a cheap guided missile thanks to his low cost and high attack. Even more effective if you can buff his attack before using Charge, but bear in mind that if you don t kill the hero you ll want a cheap AoE card handy to clear out the two Whelps.

Truthfully, it s worth playing having just to hear him say: All right, time's up, let's do this..." Works well in a combo with Unleash The Hounds, too.




Chillwind Yeti
Mana: 4
Attack: 4
Health: 5
Crafting cost: N/A
Class: Neutral
Rarity: Basic

TC: Glamorous? No. Effective? Yes. There s a reason the 4/5 abominable snowman pops up in so many basic decks, and that s because at four mana you won t find many better footsoldiers amongst the neutral class of minions.

Remember: not every card in your deck needs to have a fancy effect, so long as the baseline stats are attractive enough, but players of control decks should consider swapping for Sen'jin Shieldmasta, while heavy spell users might take the Ogre Magi as an alternative.


Cairne Bloodhoof
Mana: 6
Attack: 4
Health: 5
Crafting cost: 1600
Class: Neutral
Rarity: Legendary
Deathrattle: Summon a 4/5 Baine Bloodhoof.

TC: As the crafting cost confirms, this is one of the best legendaries out there and has become a must-have in many decks. Because Cairne summons another 4/5 Bloodhoof when he croaks, playing him is akin to sticking two Chillwind Yetis down on the board. And hey, you know how much we love those Chillwind Yetis.

He s also a bit like a deluxe version of the also excellent Harvest Golem. Both cards are likely to become even more important as Deathrattles become more of a factor after the release of the Curse Of Naxxramas content in the summer.


Water Elemental
Mana: 4
Attack: 3
Health: 6
Crafting Cost: N/A
Class: Mage
Rarity: Basic
Freeze any character damaged by this minion.

VS: Chillwind Yeti is often cited as the best 4-mana Basic minion. That might be true when considering only Neutral cards, but the Mage class has access to an even better option.

Water Elemental is stupendously durable at 6 health, without being totally passive. It s 3 attack allows it to deal with any 1-3 health minion. Essentially, it s a more durable Chillwind Yeti with the added benefit of dictating board trades by using freeze to prevent an enemy minion from attacking.

It can even stall weapons by hitting the enemy hero. In general, weapons are incredibly efficient in terms of tempo, so being able to stop them from removing your minions can often seal the game.


Harvest Golem
Mana: 3
Attack: 2
Health: 3
Crafting cost: 1600
Class: Neutral
Rarity: Common
Deathrattle: Summon a 2/1 Damaged Golem.

TC: A deceptively solid minion, thanks to its Deathrattle ability, which summons another weaker Golem. Add the two together and you re looking at 4/4 minion for 3 mana.

That also means it can t be taken out by a single attack, other than a removal card, and helps insulate it from area of effect spells. The Harvest Golem is cheap to craft too, so consider swapping a couple into your deck in exchange for footsoldier cards like Acidic Swamp Ooze or Faerie Dragon.


Lord Jaraxxus
Mana: 9
Attack: 3
Health: 15
Crafting cost: 1600
Class: Warlock
Rarity: Legendary
Battlecry: Destroy your hero and replace him with Lord Jaraxxus

GW: Jaraxxus completely changes how a Warlock is played. Knowing that you can reset your hero s life total to 15, equip one of the most absurd weapons in the game , and play a 6/6 minion for 2 mana on every turn gives Handlock players the safety net to use the Life Tap ability as much as necessary.

TC: I mean, be serious, why wouldn't you want to become Lord Jaraxxus?


Onyxia
Mana: 9
Attack: 8
Health: 8
Crafting cost: 1600
Class: Neutral
Rarity: Legendary
Battlecry: Summon 1/1 Whelps until your side of the battlefield is full.

PW: I do not have this card. I would like this card. What Onyxia does is make sure your side of the board has 7 minions on it, so if you play her after a boardwipe you're essentially bringing 14/14 to the table.

It's this ability to capitalise on a later game board disadvantage that makes her strong. You can also use her minion-flood in conjunction with cards like Knife Juggler which spits out random damage at the enemy according to how many minions you summon.


Gurubashi Berserker
Mana: 5
Attack: 2
Health: 7
Crafting cost: NA
Class: Neutral
Rarity: Basic
Whenever this minion takes damage, gain +3 Attack.

TC: The bashi Beserker s low attack is offset by high health and a potent reaction to being hurt, which results in a +3 attack boost each time.

It's particularly effective in Warrior decks, where cards like Rampage, Charge and Inner Rage can make that attack stat rocket (the latter instantly turns him into a 7/6 minion), but any hero can use low damage attacks and/or healing to juice him up. As ever, beware your opponent's removal cards.


Murloc Warleader
Mana: 3
Attack: 3
Health: 3
Crafting cost: 40
Class: Neutral
Rarity: Epic
ALL other Murlocs have +2/+1

TC: For a while Murloc rush decks, which overwhelm the opponent with low cost amphibians, were all the rage and cards like this are why.

Having slapped down a load of cheap Murlocs, (use Murloc Tidehunter), playing this in conjunction with a Coldlight Seer or a Grimscale Oracle, which offer yet more buffs, will create a froggy army. One note of caution: it will also buff any enemy Murlocs.




Defender of Argus
Mana: 4
Attack: 2
Health: 3
Crafting cost: 100
Class: Neutral
Rarity: Rare
Battlecry: Give adjacent minions +1/+1 and Taunt.

TC: If you tend to use a lot Shattered Sun Clerics to buff your minions, this is a great cheap upgrade to consider crafting.

Used judiciously, it s a powerful support card which can change the entire context of the board by creating two buffed minions on either side of it, which your enemy has to remove thanks to the Taunt.

Also consider the Sunfury Protector as a weaker alternative it s two mana cheaper, but loses the +1/+1 buff.


Harrison Jones
Mana: 5
Attack: 5
Health: 4
Crafting cost: 1600
Class: Neutral
Rarity: Legendary
Battlecry: Destroy your opponent's weapon and draw cards equal to its Durability

DG: This card changed the metagame all by itself. Suddenly you couldn't risk playing weapons like Doomhammers or Sword of Justice.

Hunters were giving me two cards with Eaglehorn Bows instead of 10 damage after I proc their secret for them. This card may well be partly responsible for the new weaponless hunters.


Pyroblast
Mana: 10
Crafting cost: 400
Class: Mage
Rarity: Epic
Deal 10 damage.

TC: Little explanation required for this: It s a brute force finisher for Mages. Once you ve drawn Pyroblast, the name of the game is reducing your opponent to 10 health in time for you the first turn on which you receive ten mana crystals. You ll be surprised how focused having this clear goal makes you.

The fact you can hit the hero regardless of taunt cards makes it almost impossible to defend against, other than with secrets. Obviously it can also be used as an (admittedly very expensive) removal card against OP minions.
Mind Control


Mana: 10
Crafting cost: N/A
Class: Priest
Rarity: Common
Take control of an enemy minion

PW: This is a pricey late game card, but what it does is offer the ability to both remove an awesomely powerful enemy minion and then play it yourself. It's an Assassinate plus a killer minion on the board for you.

It's reasonable to expect a Priest deck to have at least one Mind Control knocking about, so when playing against a Priest deck your foe will have to be very careful about slapping high powered minions down in case you bring them over to your own hand. It's less mind-bogglingly ridiculous now than when it cost 8 mana, but still a potent threat to worry about.


Leper Gnome
Mana: 1
Attack: 2
Health: 1
Crafting cost: 40
Class: Neutral
Rarity: Common
Deathrattle: Deal 2 damage to the enemy hero.

TC: Every deck needs some low cost pawns to play in the early turns, and the Leper Gnome is one of the best cheap cards.

Its Deathrattle means that pretty much however your opponent chooses to kill it, short of wasting a removal card in which case, fine! You re still getting great mana value they ll be taking a two-damage hit. The more defensive Argent Squire, and the versatile Elven Archer, are also strong one-mana options.


Ironbeak Owl
Mana: 2
Attack: 2
Health: 1
Crafting cost: 40
Class: Neutral
Rarity: Common
Battlecry: Silence a minion.

TC: Definitely does not look badass, but hugely useful nonetheless. It s silence ability will remove all abilities and buffs from a single minion which is particularly effective against large late game minions with Taunt, or ramped-up minions using Stealth. Being a beast, it also synergises well with Hunter decks. Druids have a more expensive option when it comes to silencing minions in the form of the versatile Keeper of the Grove card, which can alternatively opt to deal two damage as its battlecry.

PW: Don't forget that silence can also be applied to your own minions, meaning you can use it to remove unwanted attributes like the 'Can't attack' condition on your 4/5 Ancient Watcher. Sneaky owls!


Acidic Swamp Ooze
Mana: 2
Attack: 3
Health: 2
Crafting cost: N/A
Class: Neutral
Rarity: Basic
Battlecry: Destroy your opponent's weapon.

PW: One of the first things I learned in Hearthstone was the value of the Acidic Swamp Ooze. Some of enemy heroes have nasty weapons and this card gets rid of those cheaply.

Keep it in your hand to deal with weapon-wielding classes like Warriors, Rogues and Paladins but remember that Shaman and Hunter decks can also pack weapons. Even if you're sure you're up against a weaponless deck the Ooze is still a decent low cost 3/2 minion for you to play as required.


Bloodmage Thalnos
Mana: 2
Attack: 2
Health: 1
Crafting cost: 1600
Class: Neutral
Rarity: Legendary
Spell Damage +1. Deathrattle: Draw a card.

TC: Aside from looking absolutely badass, Thalnos is as good as inexpensive legendaries get. (Well, he s cheap in terms of Mana, not Dust if you want to craft him.)

Two mana for even a single turn of +1 spell damage and then drawing a card when he, inevitably, dies is well worth the cost. Make sure you play him once you can afford to also immediately cast a spell for maximum value.




Questing Adventurer
Mana: 3
Attack: 2
Health: 2
Crafting cost: 40
Class: Neutral
Rarity: Rare
Whenever you play a card, gain +1/+1.

TC: The power of the Questing Adventurer s ability will become obvious from how quickly your opponent always seeks to kill him.

Left unchecked, his stats will ramp as quickly as you re able to play cards meaning this card works best with Zoo and rush -type decks that favour lots of low cost minions. Playing the coin and cheap spells also works too. In short: a very effective annoyance to have in your hand.


Savannah Highmane
Mana: 6
Attack: 6
Health: 5
Crafting cost: 100
Class: Hunter
Rarity: Rare
Deathrattle: Summon two 2/2 Hyenas.

VS: This card is absolutely insane. Cairne Bloodhoof is considered a high value minion for his respectable 8/10 in combined stats, but Savannah Highmane gives you a surreal 10/9 spread out over three targets, which makes it even harder to deal with, requiring both single-target removal and a separate AoE spell to fully clear it from the board.

In addition, Highmane is a Beast, giving it increased synergy with Houndmaster, Starving Buzzard, and Tundra Rhino, to name a few of the scarier combos. When you re holding a Rare which trades favorably with every minion in the game except the 4/12 Dragons, Deathwing, or an Ancient of War, you know you have one of the best cards in the game.

JM: The most legendary non-legendary! At 6 mana, this 6/5 beast is fairly well costed already when you consider how well Beasts synergize in hunter decks. Add in the fact that you get another 4 health and 4 attack spread over two other Beast minions when your Highmane dies which will trigger any other Beast related effects like the +1 attack from your Timber Wolf or the card draw off your Buzzard and you're laughing all the way to the bank! Not to mention this card is only a RARE, which means you can run with two!


Swipe
Mana: 4
Crafting cost: 40
Class: Druid
Rarity: Basic
Deal 4 damage to an enemy and 1 damage to all other enemies.

TC: One of the main reasons why Druid control decks proved effective against the wave of minions coming from Shaman and Hunter rush decks.

It s one of the game s most versatile spells, because the 4 points of damage against its primary target can be applied to the enemy hero or a minion, removing many mid-range minions entirely.

The splash effect on other minions, particularly if you can also buff your spell damage first, also make it a brilliant board clearance card.


Knife Juggler
Mana: 2
Attack: 3
Health: 2
Crafting cost: 100
Class: Neutral
Rarity: Rare
Deal 4 damage to an enemy and 1 damage to all other enemies.

TC: An absolute bastard of a card for just 2 mana. The Juggler will have to be protected behind Taunt cards, or buffed effectively, in order to make the most of his ability, but played in a deck with a lot of cheap minions Paladin, Warlock and Shaman in particular this card can help take and maintain board control. Worst case scenario your opponent blows a removal card on him. A great trade at this price.

DG: I call him the Knife Juggalo cuz he stabs people. For some reason I got two gold Juggalos early on in the beta so they went in every deck, even before I realized how good they were. Lately I've added them to my midrange Hunter deck, and when I unleash the doggies I also unleash a flurry of throwing knives. It's amazing.


Soulfire
Mana: 0
Crafting cost: N/A
Class: Warlock
Rarity: Basic
Deal 4 damage. Discard a random card.

TOT: Four damage for zero mana. You discard a card, yeah, but Wow. That's a ridiculous tempo card. The Warlock's hero power is to draw a card, so discarding a card is more often than not irrelevant and, if Soulfire is the only card in your hand, you get to inflict the damage for free.

TC: For nada Mana, it's just a ridiculously versatile card which you can use to remove minions, or increase pressure on the opposing hero's health pool, while also still playing other cards. I can't think of a single reason why any self-respecting Warlock wouldn't carry a brace of these.


Youthful Brewmaster
Mana: 2
Attack: 3
Health: 2
Crafting cost: 40
Class: Neutral
Rarity: Common
Battlecry: Return a friendly minion from the battlefield to your hand.

PW: Given how helpful battlecries can be, why wouldn't you want the card which lets you get double their usage? Now Nightblade can do 6 damage to the enemy's hero and Novice Engineers and Gnomish Inventors get two card draws instead of one.

Youthful Brewmaster also allows you to reset any damage to the card. What you do is carry out whatever attacks you like with the minion, then return it to your hand damaged (but not dead, obviously). When you play it back onto the board, possibly in the same turn, it'll be back to its original attack and health, plus other effects like silence will have been removed. As will buffs. So it s not all gravy.


Equality
Mana: 2
Crafting cost: 100
Class: Paladin
Rarity: Rare
Change the Health of ALL minions to 1

VS: Equality is easily one of the best cards in the game. It's incredibly cheap in terms of mana, which allows it to be synergised with a host of other cards easily especially Wild Pyromancer and Consecration. Used in combo with Consecration, Equality allows for a complete board clear, regardless of the toughness of the enemy minions. Only creatures with Divine Shield will survive the sweep.

If we look at similar cards, Flamestrike costs 7 mana for a sorta-clear, but won t kill creatures with 5 or more Health. Another similar card is Twisting Nether, which clears both sides of the board for 8 mana. Equality enables a total board clear too, but for 4 mana less when played in conjunction with Wild Pyromancer. This card is arguably what keeps the Paladin from being entirely irrelevant and, in my opinion, is the best AoE attack in the game.


Doomguard
Mana: 5
Attack: 5
Health: 7
Crafting cost: 100
Class: Warlock
Rarity: Rare
Charge. Battlecry: Discard two random cards.

TOT: Even if you have to discard two cards, a 5/7 Charge? I don't think there's any card that comes close to the tempo boost of playing Doomguard. (Tempo being the pacing of the game as determined by how efficiently you use your mana.)

The Doomguard's 5/7 stats mean it can pretty much kill any 3, 4, or 5-mana drop in the game. And of course can also use it to hit the hero's face too.




Power Word: Shield
Mana: 1
Crafting cost: N/A
Class: Priest
Rarity: Basic
Give a minion +2 Health. Draw a card.

VS: So, I love cantrips. Always have. Being able to draw an extra card is very important in many card games, since it essentially 'thins' your deck from the regular size. A smaller deck-size effectively means fewer cards waiting to be drawn, so there s less chance of getting bogged down by cards which are ineffective in the current match. Power Word: Shield is probably the best cantrip in Hearthstone because it s cheap and also has a respectable primary effect.

Health, in general, is better than attack, because a durable card will enable you to attack several times for greater combined damage than a single high-damage attack. Being able to score advantageous trades at the start can also often snowball the match in your favor. Even when drawn late this card still enables advantageous trades, or speeds up you drawing the key finisher card that you need. As with Ancient of Lore, if this were a Neutral card, it would be run in a large amount of decks.


SI:7 Agent
Mana: 3
Attack: 3
Health: 3
Crafting cost: 100
Class: Rogue
Rarity: Rare
Combo: Deal 2 damage

VS: This card is insane, and a huge part of what makes the Rogue class so good in terms of Tempo . Being able to kill almost any 1 or 2 drop card, and leave behind a decent 3/3 minion is crazy value. When we look at similar Neutral cards, the Ironforge Rifleman only deals 1 damage and loses out on 1 health and 1 attack. The Stormpike Commando costs 5 mana for the same damage, but has 1 less health, though it does have slightly more attack.

Now, of course SI:7 does have to played after another card in order to create the combo effect and deal its damage, which can occasionally be a problem, particularly when going first. However, with the plethora of cheap minions or spells that Rogue decks run, it s less of a worry. Oh, and Coin, Backstab, SI:7, SI:7, Backstab is the best possible starting hand of any class in Hearthstone. Being able to drop an SI:7 on the second turn is absolutely huge.


Defias Ringleader
Mana: 2
Attack: 2
Health: 2
Crafting cost: 40
Class: Rogue
Rarity: Common
Combo: Summon a 2/1 Defias Bandit.

TC: Here s another really fun early-game combo for Rogues to experiment with. Play the Ringleader after any other card and he ll summon a 2/1 Bandit. Next, use Shadowstep to return the Ringleader to your hand, where because he now costs 2 mana less, meaning you can play him again for free, and because the combo is still in effect you ll summon another Bandit.

So that s three minions on the board, and a total of 6/4 in terms of attack/health points. And if you use the coin and luckily draw the cards in your starting hand, you can actually play it on your first turn!


Fiery War Axe
Mana: 2
Attack: 3
Durability: 2
Crafting Cost: N/A
Class: Warrior
Rarity: Basic

VS: This card is the ol' reliable of the Warrior class. It's certainly not very flashy, all it does is kill 2 minions for 2 mana. Wait, excuse me? That's right, Fiery War Axe, like many weapons, is a machine which you can use to convert health into minion removal.

Early-game advantage is very important, so being able to remove even a couple of low cost creatures, like a River Crocolisk and a Stonetusk Boar, already gives you not only a card advantage (because one Fiery War Axe destroys two Cards), but also a trading advantage (because it takes 2 mana to remove 3 mana s worth of minions).

Much like Ancient of Lore for Druids, every single Warrior deck I have ever seen runs two of this card, and for understandable reasons: Reliability and Efficiency.


Spellbreaker
Mana: 4
Attack: 4
Health: 3
Crafting cost: 40
Class: Neutral
Rarity: Common
Battlecry: Silence a minion

JM: The Spellbreaker is like a beefier Ironbeak Owl, The Owl gives you a 2/1 minion for 2 mana, whereas the Spellbreaker is a 4/3 for 4... It's like one bonus point of health! Silence will be huge in the metagame likely to result from the cards released as part of the upcoming Curse Of Naxxramas adventure mode, because you can remove anything really tricky effects, like Baron Rivendare causing deathrattles to trigger twice, completely disrupting a player's strategy.

When the initial silencing battlecry is complete, you still have a pretty threatening minion on board, especially if he is hidden behind a taunt minion. On top of that, like the Owl, he's a common card, so he doesn't cost a lot to craft.


Siphon Soul
Mana: 6
Crafting cost: 100
Class: Warlock
Rarity: Rare
Destroy a minion. Restore 3 Health to your hero.

VS: I really like Siphon Soul. For only 1 mana more than Assassinate, you gain 3 health. Which is a fair price (3 points of healing ought to cost 1 mana, judging by Holy Light), but it s also a crucial card for Warlocks . The Life Tap ability means Warlocks can always convert health into Card Advantage, so Siphon Soul is a very flexible form of removal. 6 mana is also a relatively flexible price.

In the late game you can drop a 4 mana minion in the same turn, and there is generally a large surge in power between 3-mana and 4-mana cards. So, would Siphon Soul be a better card if it cost 7 mana and let you destroy a minion and regain 6 health? Well, it would certainly be run in Control Warlock decks, but its best combo play would be with Earthen Ring Farseer. Now, a 9 health swing is certainly handy, but imagine dropping a 0 mana Molten Giant, using Siphon Soul to kill an enemy minion, and then using Taunt on the Molten Giant with Defender of Argus. Boom!


The Black Knight
Mana: 6
Attack: 4
Health: 5
Crafting cost: 1600
Class: Neutral
Rarity: Legendary
Battlecry: Destroy an enemy minion with Taunt

It's easy to see why players are regularly including this Legendary in all sorts of decks. The base stats are the same as our beloved Chillwind Yeti, but the extra 2 mana cost buys you instant death for a minion with taunt, regardless of how much health it has.

So, you get a very decent minion and an outstanding removal card rolled into one. Perfect for knocking a hole in your opponent's late-game defence "Sayonara, Ironbark Protector!" and leaving them open for the kill.


Lightning Storm
Mana: 3
Crafting cost: 100
Class: Shaman
Rarity: Rare
Deal 2-3 damage to all enemy minions. Overload: (2)

VS: The best standalone AoE spell in the game. At worst, this is like Consecrate for 1 more mana but playable a turn earlier. At best, it can be combined with +1 Spellpower for a 3-mana Flamestrike. Useable so early in the match, the Shaman can often insta-win against aggressive rush decks like Murloc or even Zoo. There are a lot of differing opinions on Overload as a mechanic, personally I think of it as 'borrowing' mana from the next turn, so you can play a 5-mana card like Lightning Storm on the third turn, but you can only play 2-mana s worth of cards on the next turn.

Often the problem with Overload is that it leads to a very damaging tempo hit if your opponent can play 4 mana s worth of cards whilst you only play 2, your advantage slips away. However, AoE spells like Lightning Storm by their nature lead to a tempo gain since you can potentially kill 6 mana s worth of minions on turn 3, and possibly far more in later turns. In short: The spell s power cancels out any disadvantage.


Northshire Cleric
Mana: 1
Attack: 1
Health: 3
Crafting cost: N/A
Class: Priest
Rarity: Basic
Whenever a minion is healed, draw a card

PW: This is an entirely selfish pick for this list because it was the card which caused my favourite Hearthstone victory of all time. Don't get me wrong, it's a good card anyway. It gives the Priest great draw power and synergises well with cards like Holy Nova and Circle of Healing. Perhaps a little too well sometimes.

Very early on I was playing against a Priest who decided not to end the game but do a spot of showboating. Instead of just going for the GG he decided to heal every one of his seven minions and drew seven cards. Except the draw power of having two Clerics had left the Priest's deck with only one card to draw. That meant thirteen hits of fatigue from drawing non-existent cards which works out at 91 damage to the Priest. A cautionary tale, to be sure, but one which left me DELIGHTED and victorious.

They say that power corrupts, but I suspect it also ages. A once freshfaced candidate, swept into office on an upswell of hope and enthusiasm, will inevitably leave as a wearied, greying husk. In that sense, Tropico 4 was the outgoing incumbent.

The last game in the politically parodic city-building series didn t introduce new ideas, it merely provided additions to existing features. It brought more buildings, more edicts and more superpowers for El Presidente to deal with, but the telltale tiredness was starting to show. To rejuvenate the franchise its developers, Haemimont Games, were in need of a systemic revolution.

Tropico 5 feels like that revolution. It s still built on the same foundation, but massively expands and develops the infrastructure of the game. Throughout the demonstration I was given of the preview build, producer Bisser Dyankov showed off the variety of situations and problems that players might face.

It s a sign that the team recognise one of the limitations of their previous games. While sandbox construction is usually thought of as the heart of city-building sims, earlier Tropicos were designed around scripted missions. When left to their own devices, players could all too easily settle into a comfortable routine, regularly deploying the same handful of tricks to ensure the smooth running of their island. While Tropico 5 will still feature a campaign, the real focus is on that sandbox. Haemimont want to unsettle dictatorial rulers through dynamic events designed to prevent them falling back on tried and tested solutions.



The most obvious example is in the challenges thrown up by the game s four eras. The series is no longer trapped in an indefinite Cold War. Instead, players progress in stages through to the 21st century. Each time period has not only a different architectural sensibility, but a distinct set of goals to meet. In the colonial era Tropico 5 s starting point you re not the island s glorious leader, but a governor appointed by the crown. Here you extend your stay in power through shows of loyalty to the motherland, rather than through elections (or election fraud).

That loyalty is feigned. You leave the colonial period by declaring your nation s independence, which means your real goal is to prepare for that separation from your imperialist masters. The challenge is to balance outward obedience with internal rebellion, reaping the benefits from the tropical commission while laying the groundwork for solo rule. Naturally, your colonial overseers will be unhappy about this act of secession when it comes. Survival depends on the readiness of an island s military, and the stability of its economy.

As an example of the choices players must make, Dyankov showed me an early event completion screen. Throughout the game, factions and rulers will ask you to perform certain actions. In this instance, a specific building was requested to help boost the island s ability to harvest raw materials, thus increasing its economic growth. As a reward for following orders, the governor s mandate his ticking clock of time in power was extended, and an extra boon offered. The issue became whether to choose an additional number of immigrants, a deposit in the island s treasury, a further mandate extension, or to make a donation to the governor s Swiss bank account. All are desirable: the player s choice will serve to determine which shortfalls will need correcting further down the line.



Even here, there are further considerations in the long term. Immigration will be a key factor during the early game, as new workers for your industries are in short supply. But while the promise of growing your population is appealing, any new citizens will be of the royalist faction loyal to the crown, and thus damaging to your attempt at independence.

While each era has a distinct set of goals and considerations, they combine to form a continuous timeline for your city. By the time you get to the modern era, an island s history is written into everything from its layout to its architectural variety. A stately colonial mansion might border a block of mid-20th-century concrete tenements, both in the shadow of looming modern skyscrapers. It s not simply an aesthetic touch, but also a question of efficiency, cost, infrastructure and resources.

Many buildings can be upgraded over time, provided players unlock the relevant technology through the new research system. Improve a farm, and the large fields requiring manual labour are replaced with a more efficient and more compact greenhouse. As always, there s a downside to the reduced real-estate. High-tech buildings require both electricity and skilled workers, which means the effort to get them running may outweigh the benefits.





Some buildings can be repurposed in later years. A military fort can be both the bulwark of a colonial city, and the tourist centrepiece of a modern one.

In this way Haemimont hope to enable players to experience the development of their city, and to imbue their choices with far-reaching consequences. The effects of one era can be felt in the next, as the political and societal landscapes shift. Based on the dilemmas I was shown, it seems unlikely that careless play will completely sabotage the late-game stages, but the number of possibilities suggest that sound planning will be rewarded, and that small variations can lead to a diverse set of problems to solve as the game unfolds.

An island s constitution provides another way for players to define their rule. After leaving the colonial era, you enter the World Wars phase, where your tiny banana republic must thrive amid the turmoil of warring superpowers. It s at this point that the game starts to more closely resemble previous Tropicos, as the island s ruler takes the familiar title of El Presidente. It s also here that players set the founding tenets that will come to shape their future civilisation.

The constitution is designed to be a lasting and slowly evolving document alterations to it are only possible after a ten-year period. Once again, your choices will have a lasting effect of positives and negatives. Male-only voting rights might ensure easier election victories and a stronger military, but increase the chance of a revolution from the disenfranchised population. The changing eras have an influence here too. The religious faction will initially be thrilled and further bolstered by a declaration of theocracy, but even they will become unhappy if it persists through to the modern age.



Certain game systems will ask you to make difficult decisions within individual eras. Trade offers enable players to take advantage of timelimited offers of increased value for goods and resources. In the World Wars era, steel is a key resource that will be in higher demand during periods of international conflict. The dilemma lies in whether you want to gear your industrial production to take advantage of the economic potential, only to be lumbered with a less efficient industry when the demand lowers. Trade can bring further unintended consequences. Bootleg liquor is another valuable commodity during this early era, one that can be smuggled to the USA as it struggles to enforce prohibition. It sounds profitable, but comes at the cost of an influx in organised crime.

If this is all starting to sound distinctly un-Tropican, it s more a case that these new features are designed to build neatly onto the series familiar elements. The returning systems have been fleshed out to provide an added purpose to their role in the game. A case in point is the Swiss bank account, which in previous Tropicos served only as the player s score. Here, the money that you embezzle can be used to level up El Presidente s dynasty.

Rather than a single ruler, in Tropico 5 you re responsible for an entire family. Not only will they walk and work around the island, they can also be selected to trigger an election and take over the presidential role. Each member of your dynasty will have different, upgradeable attributes that can be beneficial at certain times throughout the life of a city. Maybe you ll want an economic leader to make the most of a particular trade deal, or a diplomatic one to cool tempers and hold off a foreign invasion.



During one such election, Dyankov was trailing heavily in the polls. The resulting workaround was a promising example of how the new systems will enhance the old. On course to lose the election, his only solution was to enact the martial law edict. To do this, a city needs three barracks something time and economy wouldn t allow. Dyankov was able to raise the necessary funds by borrowing bonds from international capital markets. With the barracks ordered, he could speed their construction through new, expanded options for building management. Increasing funding for the construction office ensured quicker build times on the barracks enabling a declaration of martial law before the election results were called.

It was a classic Tropico move. The economy was in ruins, the people were incensed, but, most importantly, El Presidente was still in power. Tropico 5 may be the energetic young reformist with fresh ideas and smart innovations, but it seems set to be as delightfully corrupt as ever.

Zero is a customer service representative for one of the biggest video game cheat providers in the world. To him, at first, I was just another customer. He told me that the site earns approximately $1.25 million a year, which is how it can afford customer service representatives like him to answer questions over TeamSpeak. His estimate is based on the number of paying users online at any given time, the majority of whom, like me, paid for cheats for one game at $10.95 a month. Some pay more for a premium package with cheats for multiple games.

As long as there have been video games, there have been cheaters. For competitive games like Counter-Strike, battling cheaters is an eternal, Sisyphean task. In February, Reddit raised concerns about lines of code in Valve-Anti Cheat (VAC), used for Counter-Strike and dozens of other games on Steam, that looked into users DNS cache. In a statement, Gabe Newell admitted that Valve doesn't like talking about VAC because it creates more opportunities for cheaters to attack the system." But since online surveillance has been a damning issue lately, he made an exception.

Newell explained that there are paid cheat providers that confirm players paid for their product by requiring them to check in with a digital rights management (DRM) server, similar to the way Steam itself has to check in with a server at least once every two weeks. For a limited time, VAC was looking for a partial match to those (non-web) cheat DRM servers in users DNS cache.

I knew that cheats existed, but I was shocked that enough people paid for them to warrant DRM. I wanted to find out how the cheating business worked, so I became a cheater myself.

That s how I found Zero. After we finished talking, he reminded me to send him the $25 I promised him. I did not at any point say anything that could possibly even suggest that I would pay him for any reason. I asked him if he meant that was something I promised him or something that I should just do. Both, he said. I also advise you not to use this information against me. That wouldn't be wise.
How I became a cheating scumbag
Bohemia Interactive (Arma, DayZ) believes that only 1 percent of online players are willing to spend money to cheat on top of an already expensive hobby. Even by that estimate, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive alone had a potential 25,000 cheaters out of a total of 2.5 million unique players last month. Put on your green accountant visor, add up the player-bases of all the other popular multiplayer games cheat providers are servicing (Call of Duty, Battlefield, Rising Storm), and you ll see a massively profitable market.

I wanted to cheat in CS:GO. I was good, once, when I had a high school student's endless free time to pour into Counter-Strike 1.3. These days, if I can play with friends, it s fun. If I jump onto a random server I m cannon fodder.

I Googled Counter-Strike: Global Offensive cheats, and quickly ended up at a user-friendly cheat provider. Based on the size of its community and traffic, it s one of the biggest. I'm going to call it Ultra Cheats, a fake name, to protect the anonymity of the sources I talked to. Those sources, like Zero, have also had their online handles altered.



Ultra Cheats didn't accept credit (other sites did), so I used PayPal to buy a one-month subscription for CS:GO cheats for $10.95. This gave me access to the site s VIP forums where I could talk to other members, administrators, cheat coders, and download Ultra Cheats cheat loader, which checks in with its DRM server. It also gave me access to around-the-clock technical and customer support via TeamSpeak.

I followed a simple list of steps, including disabling Windows default anti-virus protection. I launched a new copy of CS:GO on a fresh Steam account belonging to Perry C. Gamble, loaded the cheat using the cheat loader, and entered a match. For the first time, I wasn't just another player, but a kind of god.

The most obvious of my new superhuman abilities was spying on other players through walls. In CS:GO, wallhacking is incredibly useful. Faceoffs around corners come down to millisecond reactions. My ability to see exactly when the enemy was coming, or to know exactly where he was hiding when I was coming, was unfair to say the least.

It was also super fun. Maybe the most fun I've had with Counter-Strike in years. I was finally getting kills, more than one in a round, but I wasn't crushing everyone else. It was like a little boost that got me back into my high school fighting shape.

I wanted to see how far I could push it. I was paying for this. I wanted to feel powerful and get my money s worth. I turned on auto-aim, and auto-trigger, which fires your weapon automatically when you point your cursor at an enemy.

I played with these options and others for a handful of matches. They didn't seem as useful as wallhacking, or they simply didn't work as well, but I was vote-kicked out of a match before I could make an educated decision. Halfway into my next match, two hours total since I started cheating, I was VAC-banned from CS:GO.




Counter-terrorists win?
VAC bans are usually irreversible. Perry C. Gamble would never play another match of CS:GO unless he opened another Steam account and bought another copy of the game. That s where the charm of cheating wore off for me. It was fun while it lasted, but I couldn t imagine paying another $15 for a new copy of CS:GO plus the ongoing $10.95 a month Ultra Cheats membership just to get easy kills.

John Gibson, president of Tripwire Interactive (Rising Storm, Killing Floor) told me plenty of cheaters feel differently. We see a spike in hackers after we have a sale on one of our games, he said. Their last 10 Steam accounts have been banned, and the game is on sale for $3, so they ll buy 10 copies for $30 on 10 different accounts and they ll keep cheating.

I told Gibson that I found that behavior mind-boggling. He isn t confused by it. He s just angry. Give me five minutes alone with a hacker or a hack writer, he laughed. That s what I think about that mindset.

Newell called cheating a negative-sum game, where a minority benefits less than the majority is harmed. It s obvious Valve and other developers take the issue seriously, but talking to Gibson made me realize it s also personal. Before he would even talk to me, I had to prove that I wrote for PC Gamer. He s been burned before. One of his first experiences with a hacker was someone who pretended to be a journalist with a fake, up-to-date gaming blog. He leveraged his early access to Tripwire and other developers games to provide hacks and pirate games.

He s in jail now for stealing credit card data, not cheating.



 

Gibson told me that, legally, it s not worth going after sites like Ultra Cheats. Most of them are based out of Russia, China (Ultra Cheats is registered in Beijing), or other places where extradition is, in Gibson's words, questionable. At the very least, Tripwire would have to pay another lawyer in that country, making it prohibitively expensive and complicated.

Criminal justice systems, perhaps understandably, aren't preoccupied with people cheating in online games. Especially when it s international, Gibson said. Then you re talking about the FBI and Interpol. If someone stole $10 million in diamonds, call them. If someone is hacking your game, they don t care.

If Tripwire, Valve, or other developers want to reduce the number of cheaters, they have to do it themselves. Note that it s reduce and not eliminate. Like Newell, Gibson knows that this isn't a battle he can finish. It s like the Wild West, he said. It s more about managing the risk and hacks without inconveniencing your legitimate players too much.

Tripwire s anti-cheat strategy is three-pronged. The first is technical, using both VAC and Punkbuster. This is one topic Gibson was secretive about, but he said Tripwire uses both because they handle things in different ways.
"If Tripwire, Valve, or other developers want to reduce the number of cheaters, they have to do it themselves."
The second is being a proactive developer. When Tripwire notices a loophole, it closes it as fast as possible. When Red Orchestra 2 first launched, it didn't do a whole lot of server-side validation on hit detection. The game was plagued by hacks that allowed your machine to tell the server you shot someone in the head even when you were clear across the map. Very quickly we put up an update that basically verified, within a reasonable margin of error, that they kind of have to be where you say you shoot them at, Gibson said. If they re not, then we know that it s a hack and we ignore that shot.

The third is having an engaged server admin community and giving them the tools to be the third line of defense. That s a huge thing for us, Gibson said. Hackers come in, it s obvious fairly quickly that they re hacking, the server admin bans them from the server and problem solved.

Punkbuster also allows server admins to take screenshots of what players see. If the server admin captures evidence of cheating, he or she can submit the proof to PBBans, a global database of hackers, making it very difficult for that hacker to join any Punkbuster servers.

This also allows server admins to pass along evidence of cheating to Tripwire, which can use the information to close more loopholes.

Overall, Gibson thinks this strategy works very well. I have over 1,275 hours in Red Orchestra 2 and Rising Storm, he said. I ve been on a server with about two hackers in all that time. I asked him if Tripwire downloads paid cheats as part of its efforts to prevent them. We re a proactive dev, he chuckled. Infer from that what you will.


Gross Income
After being banned from Counter-Strike, I spent several weeks poking around the Ultra Cheats forums hoping that someone would talk to me about how the site was managed. I only got real attention once I admitted that I was writing a piece for PC Gamer. I bounced from admin to admin until I got to Slayer, Ultra Cheats manager and lead coder.

Slayer didn't want to talk at first. I don t think any good for Ultra Cheats would come from this, he said. I promised him I wouldn t use any real handles or even the site s real name, and that I wanted him to respond to quotes from developers like Gibson. I suspect the notion that he d get a reaction from a game developer is what got him on board.

Like Gibson, he needed confirmation that I was really writing for PC Gamer, and he was more thorough about it. I gave him my real email address and name (not Perry C. Gamble s), Twitter, and an email confirmation from an editor.

Gibson was worried about hackers posing as journalists. Slayer was worried about giving legal ammunition to parties that want Ultra Cheats gone, and competing cheat providers.

We set a date to talk over Skype, but when the time came Slayer wouldn t agree to a voice call, just text, because he was worried about me recording him as well as other reasons. To my surprise, he brought along another Ultra Cheats administrator, Prophet, and they d only talk to me together. I guessed that this was to keep one another from saying anything they might regret.



They said part of Ultra Cheats money comes from a different site that it operates in Brazil (a huge gaming market) and reseller sites, which sell Ultra Cheats product under a different brand in exchange for a cut of sales.

Slayer said that Zero s $1.25 million a year was a little inflated, but that I could come up with a rough estimate of Ultra Cheats annual revenue by gauging the size of the community.

On March 20, over 2,500 members logged into the Ultra Cheats forums, almost all of whom are plainly listed as paying for standard or more expensive cheat packages. At an average of $10 per user a month, Ultra Cheats makes $300,000 a year. Add to this the fact that the forum has almost 150,000 members overall (though we don t know how many are active, paying users), the Brazil site, and resellers, and it s not hard to imagine Ultra Cheats breaking a million dollars a year. Slayer declined to share the exact number of their active users.

He said coders supply cheats on the site in exchange for a cut of the sale. These vendors, as Slayer calls them, take in about half the profits of the whole operation. Both Prophet and Slayer said that they get paid enough, but not enough to quit their day jobs. More than minimum wage, they said. Customer support, technical support, and other people like Zero who help run the site get paid as well, but less. Zero didn t want to say how much he makes, but admitted that he has a day job and that free cheats attracted him to the position.

I do this because I really think of the community and staff as a big family, Prophet said.

The rest of the money goes to the ownership entity, which Slayer and Prophet refused to talk about in any way. All they would say is that the entity controls the PayPal account I paid (and hence all Ultra Cheats' money) and that only Slayer knows anything about it. Anything between this ownership entity and the rest of Ultra Cheats goes through him. For all I know, this ownership entity doesn t even exist and Slayer and Prophet were the actual owners.


Rage cheaters and closet cheaters
Gibson said that if you cheat, you always get detected eventually. After talking to cheaters, I m not sure that developers are as effective at preventing cheats as they think. According to Slayer, there are two kinds of cheaters: rage hackers and closet hackers. A rage hacker is someone who uses cheats to their fullest potential, even employing features that kill everyone on the server instantly. They're the ones you notice and hate.

Zero said that if it wasn't for hacking, games wouldn't be fun. He said cheating is a rush, similar to the one he got when he used to deface websites. In life, you re always going to have rebels, he said. It s like coming up to someone and asking, 'Why do you rape or kill?' But in this case it s cheating.

Since he compared cheating to the worst crimes a human can inflict on another human, I asked him if that means he thinks it s a bad thing. He didn't answer. I asked him how he would feel if he was in a game with another player who was using cheats against him. Doesn't matter to me because he s probably one of our customers, he said.

Slayer agrees with Gibson that anti-cheats like VAC and Punkbuster, which work similarly to anti-virus software, are effective at catching ragers and detecting public cheats quickly. But their methods are so reverse-engineered it s not even funny, he said. Punkbuster's signature scans are easily dumped using public knowledge available on public forums. If you re smart enough and you know the methods they employ, you can get around it easily.
"In life, you re always going to have rebels. It s like coming up to someone and asking, 'Why do you rape or kill?' But in this case it s cheating.' "
Punkbuster is basically defeated, Slayer said. If I write cheats and give them away on a public forum I can have my cheat up and running in 20 seconds because I found out exactly what they detected. If I was smart I would build that into my cheat and have my cheat fix itself on the fly, which isn t a stretch. Call of Duty dropped Punkbuster for a reason.

I asked Slayer why Valve, for example, doesn't download his cheats, track the server, block it, and come after him. If it wasn't obvious already, I wasn't a Computer Science major. Slayer is, and my questions amused him. You could do that, but what if I cycle my server IP every day, or every hour? Or I could reasonably and securely move DRM to the client with check on a less regular basis, or I could just spoof what VAC sees :). To be honest Emanuel, I can rent a server using a prepaid credit card via a VPN in another country and you will NEVER find who rented it.

Closet hackers hide the fact that they cheat. I'm proof that cheaters do get caught Steam banned me after a little more than two hours of aggressive, blatant cheating but members of the Ultra Cheats community told me that I was simply doing it wrong. In one of the most friendly, polite exchanges I ve ever had with online strangers, especially in the gaming sphere, they gave me tips on how to cheat without being detected.



Play like you re not hacking, one user who s been cheating in CS:GO with the same Steam account for over 250 hours told me. Play as you would normally, only you re able to see through walls. Act.

That means don t stare at walls, don t use an aimbot (since it moves the camera erratically and results in unreasonable kills), and make sure someone kills you in every match. He also believed you re less likely to get banned if you buy in-game items and get some hours in before you start cheating. He suggested that next time, I should launch the game and let it idle for a few hours before I do anything.

Another cheater suggested I practice cheating in free-to-play games. That s what I love about free games, he said. You can just keep coming back and there s nothing they can do about it.

If you re a good closet hacker you also won t get caught by statistical anti-cheats like FairFight, used in Titanfall and other Electronic Arts games, or Overwatch, another, peer-review layer of CS:GO s anti-cheat strategy, where approved players view flagged replay footage and vote on whether another player was cheating.

Image via free-hacks.com

Tripwire closes loopholes as fast as possible, but Ultra Cheats is fast too. If a vendor s cheat stops working, Ultra Cheats stops selling it and the money stops flowing. Detected cheats come back online within hours, days at the most.

And these are only the cheats that we know about. Anti-cheat can t detect what it can t get its hands on, as Slayer said. Between that and the proficient closet cheaters, I can guarantee that you ve played with way more cheaters than you think.
Supply and demand
If closet cheaters aren't trying to crush other players, why do they turn to cheats in the first place? Prophet started cheating so he could play with his kids. He s over 50, and suffers from a serious visual impairment. He says that without ESP (extrasensory perception), part of the wallhacking cheat that highlights enemy players with bright red boxes, he wouldn't be able to keep up. If I did not use cheats I would not be playing at all, he said.

Slayer said that they've heard from a few other people with disabilities who use cheats this way. It enables them to enjoy a game like you or I would normally, without cheats, he said. But even if there weren't players with disabilities cheating to rise to a normal level of play, as Prophet calls it, the reality is some players will always feel that they want special assistance.

If matchmaking worked perfectly and everyone always felt like a capable player up against equally skilled opponents, maybe there would be fewer of the closet cheaters that make Ultra Cheats a profitable business. When matchmaking works, you won't win every game, but you'll never feel dominated. It s like a friendly neighborhood basketball game. When it doesn't work, it feels like being mercilessly dunked on by LeBron James. That's not fun.

Image via 47r-squad.com

At that point some players dedicate a significant amount of time to get better. Others quit. A small minority turns to cheats. Even Slayer admits that what he does isn t good for games, but as long as there are enough of the latter he ll provide supply where there s demand.

Ultimately, the most effective anti-cheat strategy is to make cheating feel unnecessary. That means either more sophisticated, accurate matchmaking or some kind of handicap system, which some fighting games (Street Fighter IV, Smash Bros.) already implement.

Similar solutions in other games won t stop ragers. Nothing will. But they'll get caught, eventually. For closet cheaters, it might offer a legitimate way to play with others and undercut the paid cheats business.

Until then, this cycle is unstoppable, as Slayer said. If we didn't do it, someone else would.

Look, I don't want to waste your time here: this is not the most revelatory game trailer you will ever see. Across the thirty seconds of Mad Max footage, we get cars, crashes, swirling cameras and big text saying things like "THIS IS MORE THAN A MACHINE," while doing little to back up that statement.

It does have a few things going for it. Firstly, it's a brief chance to catch a glimpse at Avalanche's next game something I have high hopes for given their work with Just Cause 2. Secondly, if you play the video and then start tapping the number keys on your keyboard, the time-stamped sound effects make for a great industrial music soundboard.



Try it now! Here are some highlights to get you started:


Tap 2: A short-sharp metallic thud. Think Broken-era Nine Inch Nails.
Alternate 5 and 6: An energetic refrain with a high-pitched percussive smash. Definitely Pitchshifter-esque.
Tap 8: A full cacophonous assault of drones, scrapes and smacks. KMFDM would be proud.


Mad Max is due out next year, which is probably why we're only getting a thirty-second segment of some cars.

I've got it! The only explanation for Battlefield 4's ongoing campaign of unfortunate bugs, glitches and miscellaneous issues: the game was cursed by a wizard. I've arrived at this conclusion because as part of the blog post announcing the end of the "Death Shield" bug DICE also revealed a console based Rent-a-Server program. Then, soon after, they updated to say it wasn't working properly. Seriously, who has that luck?

The important thing is that one of the game's stranger quirks is now fixed. As discovered only a few weeks ago, but potentially present much longer, the Death Shield would block projectiles from passing over the bodies of incapacitated soldiers.



"We d also like to inform you that with today s server update," DICE wrote, "we are deploying a fix for the issue being referred to as Death Shield, where an invisible shield would appear around killed enemies, blocking weapons fire. Thank you for being patient as we worked to get this resolved."

That server update also deployed with the now traditional BF4 refrain, "General stability improvements".

Last week, DICE announced that they'd found the cause of a rubber-banding that had emerged around the release of the Naval Strike DLC. "We are already seeing performance improvement with 64-player matches and expect this to continue," they wrote.

"While the process took longer than we would ve liked," DICE continued, "we wanted to be 100% sure it was done right and that the long-term solution was properly in place."

In the UK, most arcade machines are gaudy, flashing money-sinks, designed to trap the arms of extra-strength-beer-swilling drunks as they attempt to pry loose change from the coin return slot. They are places of hellish despair, rich with unique smells and suspicious stains. In other countries, they also contain the promise of fun, friendship, and not stepping in a puddle of sick. Nowhere is this more the case than in Japan, where an array of popular arcades can still attract the interest of developers. Valve, for instance, are now collaborating with arcade specialists Taito on an arcade port of Left 4 Dead.

An informative trailer has surfaced on the port's official site:



Titled Left 4 Dead: Survivors, the concept will likely be similar in scope to Valve/Taito's previous collaboration, Half-Life 2: Survivor.

That's right, there was a Half-Life 2 arcade game, and it looks amazing. Terrible, sure, but also amazing.





In fairness, those are modes designed for arcade. The game's story mode is... sort of Half-Life 2. If you squint a bit.



If we're all very lucky, Left 4 Dead: Survivors will be similarly terribrilliant.

Valve has announced the teams that will participate in its third championship for our eSport of the year 2013, Dota 2's The International.

11 teams automatically qualify for the event, including the three prior champions:

Alliance
Titan eSports
Evil Geniuses
Fnatic
NewBee
Vici Gaming
Natus Vincere
Team DK
Invictus Gaming
Cloud9
Team Empire

These teams will compete against four regional qualifiers from the Americas, Southeast Asia, China, and Europe, in addition to the winner of the "Play-In" series, which is made up of the four runner-ups from the regional qualifiers. These regional qualifiers begin May 12 at 12:00 PM EST with the Americas series, ending May 27 with the conclusion of the European qualifier.

Valve's description of the qualifier format says that "In the first phase, each team plays every team once to determine which teams make it to the next phase. The top four teams advance and the other six are eliminated. The second phase is a double elimination best of three format with the 1st and 2nd place teams starting in the upper bracket and 3rd and 4th in the lower bracket. Each Regional Grand Finals is a best of five match."

All this action will lead up to the main event beginning July 18 at KeyArena in Seattle, Washington.

As a fellow hacker-warrior in Watch Dogs, T-Bone has a special complementary relationship to gruff nerd Aiden Pearce's vigilantism. Where Pearce douses for critical data within ctOS's sprawling net, T-Bone taps a few keys on his phone and blows up a bunch of cars. When Pearce draws heat from the law and kills power to a city block to sneak away, T-Bone shoots at a bunch of cop cars. Which blow up. I'm sensing a pattern here and I'm sure there's more to T-Bone beyond detonations and dreadlocks but finding out more means nabbing the $20/ 12 Season Pass for the single-player DLC, as Ubisoft's latest trailer reveals.

T-Bone seems like an outcast from a Grand Theft Auto game, ranting to Pearce with the air of someone gripped by conspiracy theory before jumping into a car and wreaking havoc on the streets. As Tyler touched upon in his preview, the Season Pass content looks like it's trying to simultaneously deliver a story-driven episode and another outlet for just running around and causing chaos in Chicago. I'd like to know more about T-Bone and how he got involved with Pearce or I can switch on They Live mode and start zapping disguised robo-civilians. At least that's a bit more subtle than giant spiders.

Watch Dogs and its Season Pass launches on May 27. Until then, take note of its system requirements and reliance on Uplay.