READ, PLAY, REPEAT.

The LasT of Us: RemasTeRed

Naughty Dog’s besT seLLeR remastereD

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Can’t play online without one of these,

Might as well get the big ones.

Astro GamingA50 Battlefield 4™ Edition

Table ofConTenTs:

Upcoming games of 2014:super smash Bros. for Wii U and 3Ds

pages 4, 5

evolve page 6

Table of contents: page 3

ViDeogame reVieWs:The Last of Us: remastered

page 7

The Legend of Zelda: a Link Between Worlds

page 7

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Super SmaSh BroS. For Wii u and 3dSWhen exactly will all these fan favorites be bursting through a blue background and onto your console.by Kyle orlandas we enter into the middle of august, the release calendar for this holiday season’s aaa blockbuster games is pretty much set, running from The sims 4 on september 2 through to far cry 4 on november 18 (over a week before the all-im-portant Black friday hits on no-vember 28). practically every big-

name game coming out this holiday season now has a specif-ic, publicized north american release date within that timeframe, even if some of those dates may end up slipping into the

future. and then there’s the ex-haustingly named super smash Bros. for Wii U, which seems to be 2014’s only major holiday title yet to lock in a specific release date (aside from Nintendo’s official, amorphous “fourth quarter” re-lease window). That’s despite the fact that the nintendo 3Ds ver-sion of the same game has been set for an october 3 release.

even though nintendo has stressed how important super smash Bros. is to the Wii U’s holiday comeback plans, the lack of a specific release date and nintendo’s long history of game delays has some worried that the game may end up being 4

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pushed into 2015 after all. every day that goes by without a release date announcement makes it more likely that nintendo has decided to give the developers additional time to finish polishing the game.

and that would mean it’s less likely the company will have time to roll out the production, supply chain, marketing, and retail channel preparations it needs to get super smash Bros. for Wii U into consum-ers’ hands by the end of the year.The state of affairs got us wonder-ing just how long nintendo has to announce a firm Super Smash Bros. for Wii U release date before it be-comes implausible for the game to come out in 2014. put another way: how far in advance does nintendo

usually announce a game’s even-tual release before its actual re-lease, and where does smash Bros. fall on that timeline so far?We took a dive into recent nintendo history to answer that question, and while the results we found should give hope to those still longing for a new console smash Bros. this year, that hope dwindles a bit more every day we go without a firm release plan.

Then again, the new spuer smash Bros. could easily have a below-average lead time be-tween its confirmed release date and its actual release .

And finally! One of Capcoms stars, Megaman, joins the fray!

Graphics are stunning. Finally, Super Smash Bros. in HD!

Some characters will have different movesets.

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evolve, from the creators of left 4 Dead, makes its roots readily apparent. The four-against-one first-person shooter blends L4D with a Moba, and the results are invigorating. Developer Turtle Rock wasn’t content to just tell us about the game, however. Rather, they’re so confident in their new baby that they sat us right down in front of it and let us play it for a couple hours. The impressions of the Resp@wn editors in atten-dance was all about clutching.

Prioritizing the kill is clutch. When the Medic is healing the Trapper giving you grief, spit fire on her. Airstrike inbound? Leap attack toward the support character, and then nimbly clamber over a wall to make a great escape. Goliath is an empowering play-able character, and the satisfac-tion of obliterating four players cooperating well is intoxicating.

This game will change co-op gaming forever!

editors react to playing evolve for the first time.by Ryan McCaffrey

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The Lastof Us:remastered9.75one of the best games of all time keeps making jaws drop with all new graphics and controls.

The Legend of Zelda:a Link Between Worlds

8.25

by colin moriarty Let’s just cut to the chase, shall we? i’m happy to report that naughty Dog has successfully brought playstation 3’s single best game, The Last of Us, to playstation 4 in the form of The Last of Us: remastered. it’s as much a mas-terpiece on ps4 as it is on ps3, and it’s worth your undivided attention whether you’ve played it already or are about to jump in for the first time.

sure, we may not have really need-ed a port so quickly, but then again, The Last of Us isn’t just any game. as one of the best games of all-time, the more places it is and the more people that can play it, the better. The big-gest change remastered brings is its framerate. The original version of The Last of Us pushed the playstation 3 to its absolute limits to pull off 30 frames per second at 720p resolution, but the playstation 4 runs remastered at 60 frames per second and 1080p resolu-tion. It’s a jarring change at first, but one that i began to appreciate the more i played.

for as great as remastered’s little tweaks and additions are, the true value proposition comes in when

you start to talk about DLc. a slew of DLc that had to be purchased sep-arately on playstation 3 comes bun-dled-in on playstation 4. for instance, Left Behind, The Last of Us’ incredi-ble single-player prequel DLc, is in-cluded, as are a ton of online maps and modes that you’d otherwise have to acquire separately on ps3.

by Keza mcDonald i expected The Legend of Zelda: a Link Between Worlds to submerge me in comfortable familiarity, but what i didn’t expect is that it would be my fa-vourite Zelda since Wind Waker, or that it would present me with some of the most inventive, cerebral puzzles in the series’ 27-year history. Between Worlds is a powerfully nostalgic experience for anybody with memories of The Legend of Zelda: a Link to the past, but it’s also an exceptional game in its own right. it doesn’t just pay homage to Zelda’s past glories. it reinvigorates its spark.

Issue 001 · August 2014