Edge - UK (2020-10)

KNOWLEDGE

THIS MONTH

APP

Half-Life: Alyx –

Final Hours

bit.ly/halfgeoff

A few months back, industry

hype man Geoff Keighley

dropped into the Edge inbox

with a request. He was putting

the finishing touches to the

latest in his line of ‘Final

Hours’ articles, which would be

presented as an interactive

Steam ‘app’, and cover Half-

Life: Alyx’s development. Due

to the pandemic, he and his

team hadn’t managed to make

it out to Valve. Would we share

our photography from our visit

for E344’s cover feature? We

were happy to. It forms a small

part of a 25,000-word piece

that includes an interactive

timeline, original illustrations,

3D renders, and videos of

prototypes. While the article is

illuminating, it’s wonderful to

see a fresh way of presenting

the long read: it’s the sort of

thing we’d love to try ourselves,

were a certain publisher –

cough – willing to invest.

VIDEO

Icon Of Sin Mechanics

And Oddities

bit.ly/iconofsin

Doom enthusiast Decino is one

of a rare breed of YouTubers:

skilled, insightful and capable

of conveying his excitement

for FPSes without reducing our

eardrums to a bloody pulp.

Still, there’s plenty of gore on

display in this video, in which

he dissects the programming

oddities of Doom II’s final boss

fight. Most captivating is his

explanation of how, if one of

the floating cubes that spawns

mobs shares the same value as

its target location, a code quirk

will continuously decrement

the ‘reaction time’, causing the

cube not to spawn a demon

until reaction time hits zero

again – 11.6 years later.

WEB GAME

Cursed To Golf

bit.ly/C2golf

Liam Edwards’ golfing

Roguelike is less a good walk

spoiled so much as a pleasant

afternoon cheerfully ruined.

Your golfer must make it

through nine randomly-

ordered holes of a labyrinthine

purgatory full of bunkers,

water hazards, fans, TNT boxes

and more. The twist is that you

can only hit right, forcing you

to bounce shots off walls to

reach the hole within par. The

only way to realistically survive

is to smash statues along the

way, since each gives you two

extra shots to play with, while

picking up coins lets you buy

power-ups between holes:

with a mulligan you can

destroy a blockade and then

rewind to play through where

it once was. Maddening by

design, it is nonetheless

moreish, with an upbeat main

theme that compels us to carry

on – even as we swear

vengeance upon its creator.

Joy con

...but we hate to think of

the effect it will have on the

already-secretive developer

History

Google Play bans Attentat

1942 in certain countries

due to Nazi references

Cringe culture

Horrifying – and

embarrassing – reports of

sexism at Ubisoft flood in

Title scream

Horror FMV Gamer Girl

is clumsily announced

and in poor taste

Cartridge blow

A huge leak of Nintendo

source code reveals

some incredible info...

Horrible

Hideo Kojima is in talks

about a project with horror

mangaka Junji Ito

New philosophy

UKIE reports UK studios are

managing post-COVID;

80% plan no redundancies

Drop the bomb

Metacritic now enforces a

36-hour grace period

before allowing user scores

When we weren’t doing everything else, we were thinking about stuff like this

THIS MONTH ON EDGE

BOOK continue
Ask Iwata
bit.ly/iwataasks
The influence of Satoru Iwata, who presided over one of the most
creatively and commercially fertile periods in Nintendo’s history, is
still felt; indeed, the company’s website still hosts his perceptive,
laughter-filled interviews with a range of developers. This tome –
brought to English-speaking audiences by publisher Viz Media –
will draw heavily from the Iwata Asks series, while offering further
insights from the great man. Required reading for any game
designer, then, and a fine tribute to one of the industry’s most
respected and sadly missed figureheads. Get a head start at the
above link while you wait for the book’s spring 2021 release.

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