WELCOME
F
irst things first, I’d like
to wish you a very
happy New Year!
That said, onto the
meat and potatoes (of
which you probably had
your fill over Christmas).
This is the first issue of
Cubed magazine, a
new publication from
the Cubed Gamers team
aiming to summarise
the best of the games
industry every month.
We all grew up with
some favourites - the old
Emap mags like Official
Nintendo Magazine, or
Future’s efforts with Edge
and Official PlayStation
Magazine. But we know
it’s been a while since
they were on the up and
up. The traditional model
doesn’t work so well
any more - with printing
costs and distribution
outweighing the benefits
of sale.
But we’re volunteers,
and we have money
from elsewhere, so we’ll
do all we can for the love
of the industry.
From just $2 a month,
you’ll get to see exclusive
content you won’t find on
Cubed Gamers, drawing
on our contributors’ great
knowledge of games
past, present and future.
This month, there are
hard-hitting
comment
pieces on Fallout 4 and
the phenomenon of
non-games. There are
reviews of Just Cause
3
and
Xenoblade
Chronicles X from unique
perspectives, unafraid to
be critical of sacred cows
or to sing the praises of
underpromoted games.
We’ve
got
you
updates on eSports from
across the spectrum, and
we'll aim to have reports
from competitions when
we can.
And of course we'll be
taking a good hard look
back at the year behind
us - and a thoughtful,
hopeful guess at what
lies ahead.
I don’t pretend we’re
going to recapture all
the magic of waking
up as a child to find a
polythene bag full of
new
announcements
landing on your doorstep
EDITOR:
in the pre-internet age,
Robin
Wilde
but we’ll do our best.
If you’re reading this,
thank you for giving us a PRODUCTION EDITOR:
Sian Bradley
chance.
OVERLORD:
Phil Baker
CONTRIBUTORS:
Ed McCosh
James Pettegrow
Michael Hawthorn
Samuel McCosh
Nick Brown
Alex Wolfe
Jack Denisov
ROBIN WILDE EDITOR
Sam Willcocks
Mark Wilde
Alex Wolfe
Harry Barham
Gill Butler Orli
James Pettegrow
Want to appear here? Back
Cubed for just $3 a month at:
www.patreon.com/cubed
CONTENTS
6
Michael
Hawthorn looks at
the huge world
of Fallout 4
NEWS
2 HTC Vive Delayed
2 Steam Christmas Shutdown
3 The Year of eSports
4 The New Year in Gaming
5 Hide Your Wallet
COMMENT
6 Quantity Over Quality: A
Closer Look at Fallout 4
8 2016 for Microsoft
9 2016 for Nintendo
10 2016 for Sony
11 Non-Games Have Value Too
THANK YOU TO
OUR PATREON
SUPPORTERS:
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24
Just Cause 3
is out and
it certainly
delivers
Ed McCosh
launches the
Cubed Gamers
Cup on FIFA 15
FEATURES
12 The Cubed Review of the Year
20 Top 20 Mobile Games
22 Blood, Gore and Keypad Doors
REVIEWS
24 Just Cause 3
28 Xenoblade Chronicles X
30 Indie Corner
NEW GAME+
32 Top of Their Game
34 Games Within Games
35 Valentine's Day
36 Hindsight
WRITE TO US:
CUBED Magazine
496 Crookesmoor Road
Sheffield
South Yorkshire
S10 1BL
United Kingdom
EMAIL:
[email protected]
FACEBOOK:
facebook.com/
CubedGamers
TWITTER:
@CubedGamers
LEGAL STUFF
All copyrighted material used under
fair use provisions for criticism and
commentary, or under licence from
the copyright owner. Typefaces
licenced through Adobe TypeKit. All
opinions expressed herein are those
of the writers, and all information is
correct to the best of our knowledge
at time of writing.
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