PCGaming Magazine - Ariel Tsarfati

Contents #341 MARCH 2021 06 03 Warzone's New Map PC 04 Sonic Movie Review KINGDOM HEARTS 06 Kingdom Hearts 10 Coming to PC 08 NVIDIA RTX 3060 12GB Review 10 Hearthstone's Core Set Cards Revealed 11 Xiao - the newest Genshin Impact Hero 04

Call of Duty: Warzone’s current season will be the last to take place on its original Verdansk map, VGC understands. At the end of Black Ops Cold War and Warzone Warzone’s map revamp has been a long time Season 2 – which launched today – the battle coming. Originally, Verdansk’s 1980s reboot was royale game will finally transition to its second, due to more closely coincide with Black Ops 1980s-themed iteration, with new locations Cold War’s release last November, but several themed around the Black Ops series. factors have seen its launch timing moved closer to the game’s first anniversary in March 2021. The change will be marked by an explosive in- game event designed to narratively transition Given the huge popularity of the free-to-play Warzone from the Modern Warfare era, to a game, combined with the rich history setting more in line with the most recent premium of the Call of Duty franchise, it series release. makes sense for Warzone to continually evolve with content It’s likely that the nuclear warheads recently from each premium entry, uncovered on Warzone’s map will be used to rather than creating a different trigger the revamp, similar to how Fortnite used battle royale for each an in-game event to transition to Chapter 2, with sub-brand. the zombies introduced in the latest season kicking off the countdown. Call of Duty: Black Ops and Warzone’s Season 3 will start on April 22, according to an in-game counter on the current Battle Pass. MARCH 2021 3

MOVIE REVIEW It’s easy to be cynical about video Ryan Reynolds played an adorable game adaptations — they hardly Pikachu on a quest for redemption, having a glowing history. But while there were epic Pokémon battles and it’s too early to definitively say that it featured a heartwarming story about video game adaptations are now love and connection. And while it was good, recent releases like Sonic the rather strange (the final act in particularly Hedgehog prove that not only can is extremely odd), it signalled a change game adaptations be good, they can be in how video game stories are adapted. great. I put it to you that amongst a slew of Rather than the name-only cash-ins disappointing releases, Sonic the Hedgehog that video game fans were used to, is, in fact, the best video game movie ever adaptations began to show heart. made. Sonic the Hedgehog feels like a result of In 2019, Detective Pikachu arrived — and this long process. The love and attention it was, to the surprise of many, good. that went into the movie is clear. Adapting The Sonic Story Sonic the Hedgehog‘s movie adaptation operates as one long chase scene, paralleling Sonic’s constant race through every game level. The town where the film takes place is even called ‘Green Hills’, a nice little nod to the opening level of the original game. While elements like James Marsden’s buddy cop Tom Wachowski and Sonic’s place on Earth are added into the story, they’re all welcome additions that help viewers understand Sonic more. The difficulty in adapting a game like Sonic is that Sonic himself is a strange character and a hard one to make real and relatable. You only have to look at the struggle the production crew went through in creating a realistic, non-terrifying version of Sonic to understand just how hard adapting his character was. 4 MARCH 2021

MOVIE REVIEW Sonic’s Supporting Cast Sonic‘s film adaptation is brilliantly casted — and I’m not just talking about Jim Carrey’s high chaos performance here. Ben Schwartz, who voices Sonic, does a fantastic job balancing Sonic’s adolescent antics and his deep, soul-crushing loneliness with an endearing performance that makes Sonic a likeable and consistently funny character. He’s joined by James Marsden’s Tom, the And then you have the third key player — humanheartofthefilm.He’sdorky,embarrassing Jim Carrey as Dr. Robotnik. While Sonic is and very relatable. It’s the dynamic between a relatively grounded film, Carrey is (typically) Tom and Sonic that buoys the film and makes acting in a league of his own. While he’s it such an enjoyable romp. Maintaining a certainly capable of lower key, dramatic acting (his recent turn in Kidding sense of comraderie with comes to mind) he has no a CGI creation has to be interest in subtlety here. difficult, but Marsden pulls it off supremely — and the banter is always lively. It makes Sonic the Hedgehog feel like a good 80s buddy cop drama. Sonic the Hedgehog’s Humour Past game adaptations have given fans a reason to be wary — so I wasn’t expecting much when I first watched Sonic. Not twenty minutes had gone by when I stopped to message a mate: “how is this movie funny tho”. While many of the gags are tailored towards kids (at one point Sonic does the backpack kid dance, a reference that would’ve been dated even during filming), the humour is still highly accessible for adults and always entertaining. Jim Carrey does a fair share of the heavy lifting here, but everyone in the cast has their moments. Sonic‘s script is tight and while the story itself is unremarkable, the dialogue is excellent. It’s witty, fun and importantly, doesn’t talk down to its audience. You don’t need to be a Sonic fan to enjoy the movie. If you are, there’s plenty of subtle gags, clues and characters to love even more. Video game adaptations are a difficult art, and it’s only in recent years that we’ve seen films like Sonic the Hedgehog rise like a phoenix from the ash. Sonic fan or not, this is one adaptation that you should make time for. The sequel to last year's Sonic the Hedgehog movie officially has a release date of April 8, 2022. MARCH 2021 5

KINGDOM HEART COMING TO PC as an Epic Store exclusive 30/03/21 6 MARCH 2021

The Kingdom Hearts series, which began on the PlayStation 2 in 2002, is finally coming to PC. During its showcase today, Epic Games ran a trailer for the Kingdom Hearts series, coming exclusively to the Epic Games Store in March. The release, set for March 30th, includes the following games: Kingdom Hearts 3 + Re Mind DLC ($60) Kingdom Hearts HD II.8 Final Chapter Prologue ($60) Kingdom Hearts Melody of Memory ($60) Kingdom Hearts HD I.5 + II.5 Remix ($50) If you find those names confusing, you're not alone. That's kinda Kingdom Hearts' thing, so I'll break it down. Kingdom Hearts 3 is the latest mainline game in the series, released in early 2019. It was a long, long wait after Kingdom Hearts 2, which came out way back in 2005. In the intervening years there were a bunch of Kingdom Hearts spin-offs and re-releases, several of which are contained here. Melody of Memory is the most recent: It's a rhythm game, recently released on consoles in November 2020. Now it gets a bit more confusing. HD I.5 + II.5 Remix actually includes a bunch of games: Kingdom Hearts Final Mix Kingdom Hearts Re: Chain of Memories Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep Final Mix Kingdom Hearts RE:coded Several of those are HD ports of games that first appeared on handheld consoles. Finally, there's HD II.8 Final Chapter Prologue, which includes three pieces that were meant to lead up to the release of Kingdom Hearts 3. Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance HD Kingdom Hearts χ Back Cover, a movie Kingdom Hearts 0.2 Birth by Sleep - A Fragmentary passage, a one-off episode All the games will be available on the Epic Store on March 30th. There's a series page on the store already, and the individual game pages list their system requirements. 7

THE NVIDIA RTX 3060 12GB THE CHEAPEST RTX 30-SERIES GRAPHICS CARD TO-DATE. At a time when graphics cards are a precious commodity, It's destined to swiftly become a best seller… and then sold out in an instant. I'd bet my bottom dollar on it. But while you might expect a cookie cutter launch from Nvidia's fifth Ampere launch to date, you'd perhaps be surprised that the RTX 3060 12GB is something of a new beast altogether. WHAT ARE THE NVIDIA RTX 3060 12GB SPECS? specs The Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 12GB isn't quite what we The RTX 3090 is the only RTX 30-series card to top the were first expecting at this price, but that's more down to memory capacity of the RTX 3060, with 24GB of GDDR6X. its engorged memory capacity than its GPU specs. Again, that's all far quicker in practice. But you can That 12GB of GDDR6 memory sticks out like a sore thumb already see why the cheapest Ampere card arriving with from the crowd of RTX 30-series GPUs before it: The RTX the second-highest 3070 and RTX 3060 Ti both come with 8GB of the stuff, memory capacity while the RTX 3080 is fit with 10GB of GDDR6X. The chips is enough to raise denoted with that all-important 'X' are actually quite a a few eyebrows. bit faster than the standard GDDR6 silicon, though, so don't make for direct comparison. Performace HOW DOES THE NVIDIA RTX 3060 12GB PERFORM? With a few potentially governing factors in play for performance, you only know what to expect from this card across 1080p, 1440p, and 4K when you hit the graphs. On the first two counts, 1440p and 1080p, I'm pleased to report that all is well in the green camp. These resolutions are easily within reach for the RTX 3060 across most of our gaming benchmarks, even at highest available graphics settings. We don't expect anything less from even the more entry-level cards nowadays, and so a $329 GPU should absolutely score highly. That it does. Assassin's Creed: Odyssey at ultra high continues to kill off hopes of a stable 60fps on a budget—there's clearly more work to be done to trivialise that game at full whack. That's sure to be even more pronounced on a weaker CPU, which this title can be particularly punishing of. CONCLUSIONS The RTX 3060 delivers a healthy performance gain over the RTX 2060 and a lower asking price on launch day. That is admittedly more of a small hop compared to the generational leap we've come to expect from the Ampere RTX 30-series, and perhaps that's why the RTX 3060 12GB release has not shaken my resolve on the RTX 3060 Ti being a great buy. For $70 more you get that greater memory bandwidth, that bounding performance gain we've come to expect, and all the net benefits of the Ampere architecture. 8 MARCH 2021

RAY TRACING & DLSS PERFORMACE How much of an impact that 12GB of VRAM is having on 1080p and 1440p performance is nebulous and tough to track, but it appears to have had some impact at 4K, where frame rates look a little more favourably on the RTX 3060 12GB. POWER & THERMALS It's at greater resolutions where the memory capacity will be tried and tested the most, and if it's not Nvidia's silicon then it's that 12GB of memory that's making the difference. We're still not seeing a massive upheaval in every game, though, suggesting that gaming demands for memory still aren't creakingly high for even a 6GB card like the RTX 2060. That's also likely $70 that will be chewed up by premium third-party cards and factory overclocked RTX 3060s with a high sticker price. For my money, then, I'm sticking with the RTX 3060 Ti as the mid-range champion. The Nvidia RTX 3060 strays a little too far from the pack of high-end Ampere to have the same impact generation on generation. But in that same breath it must be said that the RTX 3060 a fine upgrade for a 10-series or older card, especially if it stays anywhere close to MSRP, and one that will likely see you confidently through the next few years of major game releases. MARCH 2021 9

CORE SET'S CARDS HAVE BEEN REVEALED It's a mix of rebalanced Classic and Basic cards, brand new designs, and returning 'favourites' from Wild. Blizzard has pulled the curtain back The Core set replaces the Classic The intention on Blizzard's part on the cards that will be included and Basic sets as the bedrock of any regarding the Core set is twofold:To in Hearthstone's revamped Core Hearthstone player's collection. As make it easier for new and returning set, which is due to launch when such, you'll be able to earn all 235 players to get into the game by the Year of the Gryphon begins. cards for free, simply by playing providing them with tools that Somewhat weirdly we still don't aren't hopelessly underpowered, have the exact date for that, but the game and levelling as much of the Classic and Basic it'll coincide with the release up each class. That cards had become, and to create a of the Forged in the Barrens also means that set that can be changed each year expansion and the set rotation many players will to provide a better foundation for of the Standard format. You already have the the next cycle of expansions. A free can see a gallery of all the cards unlocked set of cards enables the dev team Core cards on Blizzard's site. once the Year to make changes, including adding of the Gryphon and subtracting cards, without comes into effect. upsetting players who've spent resources on crafting them. The cards in the Core set comprise a mix of unchanged stalwarts from Classic and Basic, other vanilla cards which have been rebalanced to make them more relevant, some brand new cards, and returnees from old expansions that are currently only playable in the Wild mode. • Warsong Commander is being buffed to give I feel like the dummies have won a bit with that last subsequently played minions Rush. one, but whatever. It's well worth spending some time perusing the gallery as the impact • Stonetusk Boar now has Rush instead of Charge this is going to have on the but has been given 2 attack to compensate. forthcoming meta is likely to be • Cairne and Baine Bloodhoof are a little more substantial. threatening too: they now have 5 attack. You can also pour one out • The Dragon aspects Onyxia, Malygos, Deathwing, for the old cards Ysera and Alexstraza have all had their which didn't make effects reworked substantially the cut and will now be sent to live out • Much to the delight of players who struggled to their days unloved in understand its value, Tracking is now used to Wild. Ancient Watcher, Discover a card but will no longer discard the we barely knew (or played) thee! ones you don't pick. 10 MARCH 2021

WHO IS XIAO? HOW TO GET HIM? Xiao's a demon hunter who lives in the Xiao is the only new five-star character in the Wangshu Inn. He’s the only remaining 1.3 update’s first banner, Invitation To Mundane member of the Five Yakshas, whose quest Life. He’s joined in the banner by three featured is to eliminate the demons around Liyue. four-star character who were already in the game: Diona, Beidou, and Xinyan. As well as XIAO: AN OVERVIEW Xiao, five-star characters Jean, Diluc, Mona, Qiqi, and Keqing are also in the banner, along with a few other four-star characters with lower pull rates than the three featured. Xiao is a polearm fighter, and he comes with a unique power which trades HP for extra strength. While his Elemental Burst is active, Xiao wears a mask which drains his HP while giving him a damage and range boost. He’s also an Anemo fighter, and deals Wind damage alongside his regular attacks. He’s generally quite polite, if blunt, and is something in the mould of a silent assassin. Despite his reserved nature, he’s quite the cinematic fighter. BEST BUILD Xiao is a DPS fighter, and since his abilities can turn his regular attacks into Anemo attacks, build should be focused on raising his Attack stats so this transformation is even more deadly. Artifacts Weapon Gladiator’s Finale Set: Primordial Jade Winged Spear Halberd 2-parts: 18 percent extra attack On a hit, this weapon gets a This three star weapon is the damage. 4 parts: 35 percent extra attack 3.2 percent attack boost for six cheap alternative to increasing damage for polearm attacks. seconds, and can stack seven Xiao’s damage. One attack If you don’t have enough Gladiator’s times, occurring once every every ten seconds will deal an Finale artifacts, you can have a mix of 0.3 seconds. A fully levelled up additional 160% damage, or 2-parts Gladiator’s Finale and 2-parts Primordial Jade Winged Spear 320% damage when fully Bloodstained Chivalry, which grants gives a 6 percent attack boost leveled up. This lasts for 18 percent extra attack damage per attack, or 24 percent just one attack and and 25 percent physical damage. once full stacked. does not stack. MARCH 2021 11

12 MARCH 2021