PC Gamer - UK (2022-01)

(Maropa) #1
San Andreas every song is there: Ozzy, James Brown, Rage
Against The Machine, 2 Pac.”
This could be a headache for Rockstar. “In short yes I
think they could get in trouble even if access were
limited,” business lawyer Richard Hoeg says. “They
(presumably) don’t have the right to distribute those
songs. Now, the fact that you’d have to do some
significant things to get them to operate might be [at]
least a partial defence to a full legal claim, but what we
are really talking about here is content holders getting
upset before anyone goes to court [...] I think the
publisher has every reason to be concerned.”
This is all highly embarrassing for Rockstar, a
publisher that until now had a well-earned reputation
for polish and high production values. This is also just
one side of GTA Trilogy’s launch woes: the quality of the
ports is extremely poor, with bizarre implementations of
features like rain, terribly re-done textures, and various
glitches. For Rockstar to have sent out its flagship titles,
the games that made it what it is, in such a sorry state
suggests a severe lack of oversight on this project. Grand
Theft Auto: The Trilogy may be back on-sale, but it’ll be
some time before it can be considered worthy of the
games it was supposed to ‘remaster’.
Rich Stanton

Highs & Lows

HIGHS

Kasparov plays
Hearthstone
PCG spoke to former worldchess
champ GarryKasparov, “Yes, I do
play Hearthstone. I’m diamond five!”

Surprise Halo
Microsoftannounced an early
launch forHalo Infinitemultiplayer.

So long Bowser
Nintendo sued a 52year-old
Canadian manwho was selling
emulators. His name? Gary Bowser...

Premium Access
Many ‘premium’ games are now
launching withearly access weeks:
but only if you’ve bought a deluxe or
ultimate edition. This sucks.

Squid name
Streamer SquidGame got a lot of
grief overtheir name, picked in 2010.

NFT rush
EA, Epic, and Ubisoft are among
the big-hitters declaring their
interestin NFTs.

LOWS

Predictably,Battlefield
Portal’s suite of ‘make-your-
own Battlefield’ toolswere
quickly abused to create
quick ‘n’ dirty XP farms. But thanksto
server quirks, manyplayers quickly
found themselves on the unarmed bot
team, living fodder for otherplayers to
grind against. NC


BATTLEFARM 2042

XP TRAP


TOP: “This shit
doesn’t work the way
they wrote it below so
we’ll just show the text
and place the blip at
the beginning of the
mission,” reads one of
the developer
comments left in the
game’s code.


ABOVE: This is one
hell of an echo of the
San AndreasHot
Coffee farrago, a
removed sex
minigame that
modders eventually
accessed, resulting in
a controversy that ran
for years and
ultimately resulted in
an investigation into
Rockstar by the
Federal Trade
Commission.


MASSIVE SURPRISE

MASS EFFECT TO RETURN
A literal truckload of
graphics cards was stolen in
California in early November,
containing anentire
shipment of cards including Nvidia RTX
3090s and 3060s. No-onewas hurt and
police continue to investigate, but it
certainly shows theabsurd rarity of
high-end hardware at the moment. JR

GPU HEIST

THIEVES HIJACK TRUCK
The N7 Day tradition continues,
and this past November 7
BioWare dropped ateaser
image promising that,
“Mass Effectwill return.” No surprise,
really: Andromedabombed but the
LegendaryEditionwas a bigger-
than-expected hit, andfans are
eager for more. AC

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