WINNING STARTS IN THE GARAGE All The Horsepower In The World Won’t Get You To The Finish Line If Your Electrical System Is Not Up To The Job. Stacey David Trusts Painless To Deliver Professional Quality And American Made Dependability Every Time.
All New 2014 Catalog Online At:
painlessperformance .com
American Made ®
PERFORMANCE PRODUCTS Find Your Dealer 800.54.WIRES
American Proud FOR 24 YEARS
Tech Line 800.423.9696
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Jennie Jaturapatporn
September/October Cover Model 20 questions with Jennie Photography by Andrew Gates Makeup & hair by Alisha Baijounas
14 Pit Pass
Get In The Driver’s Seat Featured Event: SEMA 2016 Las Vegas, NV
32 All Access
The Latest Albums Reviewed Albums Reviewed: The Game 1992
By Silas Valentino
Green Day Revolution Radio By Silas Valentino
36 All Access Spotlight Artists/Bands Featured:
38 Coming Up
Models To Keep An Eye On Featured Models: Mila Chernikova Canton, OH
42 Game On
The Latest Games Reviewed Games Reviewed: Forza Horizon 3 By Jesse Seilhan
Titanfall 2
By Joshua David Anderson
46 Game On Spotlight Games Featured:
Cherub, NOFX, and Sum 41
Nioh, Hitman: The Complete First Season, and Resident Evil 7
On The Cover
On the Back Cover
By Samuel Wendel
Photo by Andrew Gates Make-up & hair by Alisha Baijounas
By Jesse Seilhan
Photo by Andrew Gates Make-up & hair by Alisha Baijounas
This Page
Photo by Andrew Gates Make-up & hair by Alisha Baijounas
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EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Andrew Gates All Access Editor
Silas Valentino Games Editor
Jesse Seilhan Art Director
Andrew Gates All Access Contributors
Silas Valentino & Samuel Wendel Pit Pass Contributors
Andrew Gates Game On Contributors
Jesse Seilhan & Joshua David Anderson Contributing Photographers
Andrew Gates Social Media Guru
Rupa Begum Contributing Make-up Artists
Alisha Baijounas Contributing Hair Stylists
Alisha Baijounas Advertising
Andrew Gates
advertise@RUKUSmag.com Mailing Address
RUKUS MAGAZINE 11304 Chandler Blvd. #6131 North Hollywood, CA 91603
Copyright Š 2008-2016 RUKUS, LLC. All Rights Reserved! September/October 2016 issue, Volume 8, Number 5. ISSN 2161-4369 (print) ISSN 2161-4377 (online) Visit http://www.RUKUSmag.com for more images and content.
Jennie
Jaturapatporn Photography by Andrew Gates Make-up & hair by Alisha Baijounas
J
ennie Jaturapatporn is 100% Thai, but was born and raised in Orange County, California. When she was 15 years old, she represented her native country, Thailand, in the Miss Asia USA pageant. The following year, she entered in the Miss Quan dome, a local Thai pageant in Southern California, and made it into the top 5. She decided to take a break from her career in pageantry to focus on finishing high school and preparing for college. It wasn’t until she was 19, when she had her first test shoot, but ever since then, she has fallen in love with modeling. Jennie has shot with many talented photographers, and has built an impressive portfolio that consists of her experience in: print, editorial, commercial, runway, music videos, e-commerce, and professional modeling. She always enjoys putting herself out there and trying new things. In the near future, she plans on pursue acting, as well as becoming an international model.
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20 QUESTIONS
everything, and she has guided me into being the woman I am today.
1.What’s your Ethnicity? I am 100% Thai.
10.If you could change one thing in the world what would it be and why? No discrimination! We were all born equal, so no one should be mistreated for how they look or for who they are.
2.What’s your zodiac sign? Libra. 3.Where are you from originally? I was born and raised in Orange County, CA. 4.What did you like most about growing up in Orange County? I liked living right next to the beach. 5.What kind of mischief did you get into while growing up? Surprisingly, I was a pretty good kid growing up, so, I don’t have any crazy stories to tell. 6.If you could have a super power, what would it be and why? Having the power to read a person’s mind because everyone is so different and unique in their own way, it would be interesting to see how other people think and work. 7.What’s your favorite hobby and why? Currently, I am very much into being healthy and training my body to be the best that it can be, so I really enjoy going to the gym, running, and staying fit. 8.What’s your guilty pleasure? FOOD! I love to eat, which is also another reason why I like going to the gym, so I can eat what I want. 9.Who do you admire and why? The person I look up to and admire the most is my mom. She is the definition of a strong, hard working, and loving mother. She’s supported me through www.RUKUSmag.com
11.What’s one of your personal goals? I have many goals I wish to achieve in my life, but my number one goal right now is to get signed with an international modeling agency. 12.What do guys compliment you on the most? My smile. 13.What’s your favorite body part on yourself? My favorite body part are my legs. 14.What do you look for in a guy? Ambition, goal-oriented, intelligent, etc. [smile] 15.What’s the first thing you notice about a guy? The way they carry themselves, posture is very important. 16.What’s your ideal first date? I enjoy simple dates, so I’d be content with just a dinner and a movie. 17.What turns you on? Knowing what you want out of life. 18.What turns you off? Bad hygiene. 19.What’s your biggest pet peeve? When people don’t do what they say they’re going to do. 20.Who’s your celebrity crush? Dave Franco. Sept/Oct 2016 • RUKUS
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Knowing what you want out of life.
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STATS: Birthday:
October 6
Height:
5’8”
Weight:
120lb
Measurements:
32B-25-34
See more of Jennie at instagram.com/jennie_jay www.RUKUSmag.com
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SEMA 2016 Photos by Rupa Begum Written by Andrew Gates
We came, We saw, and It kicked ass…Sema 2016 was another great opportunity to see some killer whips with style for days. As always, at the beginning of November in Las Vegas, NV, petrol-heads from around the world convene to share their passion, which is automotive madness. We have been coming to Sema for the past five years, and it has been a pleasure seeing the builds, meeting new people, and watching the progression of the automotive industry. Although, our passion is drift racing (drifting), we all have a lot of the same interests, and they all start with the world famous automobile. As always, we encourage those who are into anything automotive, to come out and check this place out. This was the 50 year anniversary for the show, and they did not disappoint. Although, there is a lot of walking to be had when you attend this show, it is well worth the time and potential blisters, especially if you are into cars like the staff here at RUKUS magazine. There is always something for everyone at the Sema show as you’ll see in our collection of photographs taken throughout the four-day event. At the end of it all, Formula Drift put a special nightcap on the show, with their drifting spectacular, featuring some of the best drifters in the business. And as always, if you hang out long enough (Friday Night), you can witness the “roll-out” where you never know what will happen. Until next year, enjoy the images, and Keep it RUKUS.
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WINNING STARTS IN THE GARAGE All The Horsepower In The World Won’t Get You To The Finish Line If Your Electrical System Is Not Up To The Job. Stacey David Trusts Painless To Deliver Professional Quality And American Made Dependability Every Time.
All New 2014 Catalog Online At:
painlessperformance .com
American Made ®
PERFORMANCE PRODUCTS Find Your Dealer 800.54.WIRES
American Proud FOR 24 YEARS
Tech Line 800.423.9696
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Memories Written by Silas Valentino
36-year-old Jayceon Taylor is having a banner year. Known to us plebs as The Game, 2016 has been a succession of little successes for the Compton rapper. He released two albums over the summer: Streets of Compton in June, the original soundtrack for an A&E documentary of the same name, and the quick follow up Block Wars in July, another soundtrack but for The Game’s own Atari-produced mobile game. And then a mere three months later he returns with his latest release, 1992, his 8th studio album. All of this comes just one calendar year after he released his previous LP The Documentary 2. Just listing these releases is almost obnoxious but just goes to prove that The Game is all about the hustle. 1992 was a pivotal year (this measly rock writer was born that very Valentine’s Day) but to the then 12-year-old Taylor, the year was riddled with conflict. As depicted on the album artwork – completed by none other than Darryl “Joe Cool” Daniel who fashioned Snoop’s Doggystyle artwork – 1992 was a tumultuous time of the Rodney King beating, O.J. Simpson’s media parade and the Los Angeles race riots. Yet at the center of the album’s artwork, and at the center of the album itself, is The Game, pulled apart by Bloods and Crips plus the world at large. Translating these disputes into dialogue, The Game treats 1992 as a nostalgic call back that pays respects to his heroes as he upheaves his various roots. Before a single line is delivered, album opener “Savage Lifestyle” begins with a news segment comparing visuals of the Rodney King race riot to Operation Desert Storm as a sample of Marvin Gaye’s seminal “Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)” starts to creep in. The Game soon follows with a steady flow calling out “the trap” where “red and blue don’t matter when you black.” He describes gun smoke filling the air, contempt for President Bush and “Niggas robbin’ liquor stores with taped up ‘Duck Hunt’ guns,” a sharp use of imagery that plays on the innocence lost of a 12-year-old boy submerged in violence and chaos. The sampling of old school beats doesn’t stop with Gaye and later in the album The Game remixes “Colors” by Ice-T and the Wu-Tang Clan’s “C.R.E.A.M.” 1992 is far in the rearview and The Game isn’t through with paying his dues. Topping off the album is the Tupac-referencing “All Eyez” (clearly a nod to ‘Pac’s landmark All Eyes on Me album) but unlike any of the philosophical gangster rap expressed on the former, “All Eyez” is a lady-loving slow jam featuring the R&B crooner Jeremih. Over a bouncy beat with glossy production, it takes a full 38 seconds before The Game appears to prove that this is actually one of his tracks and not a mistake. Without any context and with a fresh pair of ears, if “All Eyez” came onto the radio, chances are listeners would be strapping in for a Justin Bieber-like single. It’s that poppy, trading left hooks for the left field. Even though this a honey-smooth track is rumored to be about model Karrueche Tran, you can’t teach new tricks to an old dawg and The Game spends part of the time blasting young foes: “Back when lame niggas hit you with the one liners/ All sounding the same like Future and Desiigner.” The music video for the single matches the polished production with images of The Game snuggling up with his lady friend while enjoying the ultra-affluent side of life, but the boy has been officially taken out of Compton when at the 1-minute mark he’s seen slipping his feet into some sandals, socks intact. This may very well be the visual that ultimately discredits The Game. Or he’s just comfy – we all get to decide.
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Standing Up! Photo by Meeno Written by Silas Valentino
Revolution Radio arrives just in time as idiots run rampant in America. The 12th album from this little California power punk trio called Green Day thrusts politics onto the kitchen table and demands intervention with finger-pointing lyricism executed by choppy power chords. Following a decade of back-to-back rock operas and fast-break triple-album releases, Green Day prepare Revolution Radio with a conventional format. No overarching storylines or frills, just 12 songs steaming with fury. Or as Billie Joe Armstrong succinctly sings in the album opener “Somewhere New”: “I put the ‘riot’ in patriot!” This bombastic introduction into Revolution Radio quickly defines characteristic that will be repeated throughout the LP’s 45 minutes. “Somewhere New” begins with a Who-esque acoustic guitar plucking that’s so reminiscent of “Behind Blue Eyes” it makes you wonder if Armstrong actually shares this shade of pigment. (He doesn’t; he has green eyes.) Green Day have never shied from revealing their influences from The Clash to The Kinks to The Replacements and now it’s ever-so clear just how prevalent The Who’s three-chord power structures are to The Green Day’s sound. Speaking of sound, the audio clarity of Revolution Radio is so crystal and concise it could transform shabby computer speakers into Bose-worthy stereos. As Armstrong sings the final line in the first verse of “Somewhere Now” the sonic quality of the song quickly shifts and is enhanced, as if the standard “Wall of Sound” technique was reimagined as a wool blanket of aural comfort. The band recorded the album in their Oakland studio OTIS and the proof of expertise is in the sound. The accusations begin on the following track, lead single “Bang Bang.” Detailing our culture of mass shootings through the viewpoint of a murdering perpetrator, Armstrong enlists empathy as his ammunition for discussing such a problematic issue. “Shoot me up to entertain/I am a semi-automatic lonely boy,” he sings, all in a manner that coerces the listener to almost momentarily pity the monster. Armstrong exhibits true grit by giving the narrative of this song to a demonized and overlooked member of our society. Although it’s a truly disturbing gander, you must appreciate the songwriter for this controversial and fleeting perspective. Next in line is the title track “Revolution Radio” which was reportedly inspired when Armstrong found himself marching in a Black Lives Matter protest in New York City. Nothing like the pulsating momentum of contemporary social activism to outline your melodies. He poses rhetorical questions (“Do you wanna live out loud?”) and condemns the modern lifestyle (“The dawn of the new airwaves for the anti-social media”) but accomplishes this without airing on the side of preachy. Plus, the chorus is effortlessly catchy. The LP’s hidden gem nestled between the political outcry is the dumb-yet-fun “Youngblood” that boldly rhymes “supernova” with “cherry cola” all while maintaining a straight face. While the tune won’t garner any strong lyrical acclaim (though the imagery in the line “I wanna hold you like a gun” is surprisingly sleek) it’s a chipper love letter to Armstrong’s wife that even manages to get a show-stopping nod to the city of Oakland. Propped against an album of furious political passion, “Youngblood”’s momentary detour into silliness and glee is a pleasant sidestep. Standing tall as the album’s most ambitious track is the near seven-minute epic “Forever Now” that rips a game-winning technique originally used by John Lennon in “Happiness is a Warm Gun” (whereas the songwriter tapes together multiple extracts of uncooked verses and song ideas to create mosaic music). There are three parts to “Forever Now” (including a quick callback to “Somewhere Now”) but minced melodies make up the mortar to the structural bricks. One brief moment even recalls the bar chord blues of Everclear’s 1997 hit “Father of Mine.” Despite the fact that Revolution Radio is not a rock opera album, “Forever Now” captures the concept in a single song. Guarded by the anonymity of their own recording studio and through the clout of being one of today’s most successful rock bands, Green Day was able to record Revolution Radio in secrecy. This freed up their creative process and alleviated much of the pressure. That being said, surrounded in a cone of comfort, the trio opted for an abrasive record that challenges before rewarding you with tasty pop hooks only to then demand your attention, not just to the music, but to the world that influenced it.
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facebook.com/CherubLaMusica
Written by Samuel Wendel
Cherub, Bleed Gold, Piss Excellence
After scoring a recent viral hit with the charmingly titled “Doses and Mimosas,” electro-pop dance bros Cherub are back with their third studio album and looking to keep the party rolling. Entitled Bleed Gold, Piss Excellence, Cherub’s newest is firmly entrenched in the EDM-influenced electro-pop arena, but it manages to incorporate a nice mix of Eighties-indebted synths, funky basslines and multilayered melodies. The resulting soundscape gives Bleed Gold, Piss Excellence an endearing feel to it. It’s not a complete blast from the past, but it eschews the normal sterile computer programed feel of most EDM releases. Big choruses are Cherub’s bread and butter, and the boys aim big but mostly hit their targets. Such as the track “Dedicated to the Bubble.” It also features a star turn from the one and only T.I. on the track “Signs,” a slinky little club-ready jam. While it likely doesn’t feature a hit single to equal “Doses and Mimosas,” on Bleed Gold, Piss Excellence Cherub manages to consistently deliver big hooks and hummable choruses. Standout tracks include “Life” and “Outside My Life.”
facebook.com/NOFX
NOFX, First Ditch Effort
Legendary L.A. pop punks NOFX are still alive, somehow, and as the title of their latest album indicates, they’re still as insolent, freewheeling and raucous as ever. Fortunately, the tunes back up the brag. Their 13th studio album sounds as fresh and haphazard as anything they’ve done in recent memory. From the first riffs of album opener “Six Years On Dope,” NOFX pummel ahead with the same reckless aplomb that they’ve honed to a science over the last 30 years. It’s largely incoherent, but First Ditch Effort marches ahead with brutal efficiency that doesn’t allow for too many moments of self-reflection wherein a listener might get cold feet. The guitar riffs and basslines are punchy and frenetic, and the lyrics gleefully center on NOFX’s favorite subjects: drugs and general mayhem/debauchery. It’s not perfect, but First Ditch Effort is anything but a half-assed effort from a bunch of aging punks. With all bandmembers pushing 50, time will eventually catch up to NOFX, but today is not that day.
facebook.com/Sum41
Sum 41, 13 Voices
After five years of radio silence, perennial Warped Tour poster boys Sum 41 have graced us with another album, entitled 13 Voices. The sixth studio effort from the Canadian pop-punk rockers finds them true to form, digging deep into the sound that won them the hearts and minds of early 2000’s teenagers. While it doesn’t feature any iPod Nano-worthy uploads like “In Too Deep” and “Fatlip,” Sum 41 haven’t forgotten how to write melodic, radio friendly nu-metal gut busters (if that still exists). And at 40 minutes, there’s plenty of new material for Sum 41 fans to pour through. 13 Voices starts fast and the riff-heavy album chugs ahead unrelentingly. You’ll find few slowburn ballads here, but plenty of solos and fist pumping choruses. The overall atmosphere and lyrics are dour and angsty, at times even evoking echoes of esteemed peers such as Linkin Park. In summation, 13 Voices finds Sum 41 comfortably doubling down on the sound that catapulted them into the mainstream all those years ago. Standout tracks include “Fake My Own Death” and “Goddamn I’m Dead Again.”
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Mila
Chernikova
Photography by Andrew Gates Make-up by Alisha Baijounas
M
ila Chernikova was born in Canton, Ohio. She’s a mix of Russian, and Italian. Her modeling career began, when she was recruited by a modeling agent, back in 2011, and landed her first photo shoot for a sportswear brand. Since then, Mila has opened many runway shows, walked in Fashion Week and Style Week, shot for a variety of clothing designers, and has been published. Currently, she has a worldwide campaign promoting Synergy Clothing on social media. Her future goals are to book more modeling campaigns, and to become successful working in the business of real estate.
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THE STATS Birthday: July 9 Zodiac Sign: Cancer Measurements: 34B-24-35 Height: 5’9” Weight: 114lb Ethnicity: I am Russian, and Italian. Hometown: Canton, OH Turn Ons: Confidence. Turn Offs: Ignorance, cocky attitudes, and being insecure. Ideal first date: Playing guitar with each other by the fire as we sip on red wine. Guilty Pleasure: Lately, chocolate chip frappe’s. Pet Peeves: Country music...Watch I’ll probably become a country singer. [laugh] Celebrity Pass: Miranda Kerr, she’s perfection. See more of Mila at
instagram.com/officialmilachernikova
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Third Time’s The Charm Written by Jesse Seilhan
Forza and its Horizon spinoffs are known for visual quality and automobile quantity, but so are all driving video games. The good ones at least attempt to hit both of those targets, but where Forza Motorsport comes off clinical in its execution, Horizon is the chance for a studio like Playground Games to inject some personality and style into the series. The prior two titles have attempted this with music festivals, crazy races, and a living world that can be seamlessly driven across, but in Forza Horizon 3 they finally nailed the one thing most racing games almost never achieve: addiction. There have been open world racers before, and games like Ubisoft’s The Crew have attempted to give you a sprawling expanse to explore, but not since Burnout Paradise has a game understood progression like Horizon 3 does. You start the game in a hurry, roaring through the beautiful Australian coastline en route to the hub of your music festival. Yes, you are running the show this time and get to pick the location, events, competitors, and more across the various habitats Down Under has to offer. But back to the coastline, where you transition from a super fast sportscar to a jeep, as the game highlights the luscious vegetation Colorado and France were lacking. From there, you hop into a dune buggy, seamlessly moving to the sand and roaring toward the finish line. And while you never have this vehicle swapping experience again in the game, the feeling of seamlessly moving from one exciting moment to the next is exactly what makes Horizon 3 so much fun. Everything in terms of progression about the prior games returns, meaning the persistent XP gathering from doing every possible action is back. Just driving from event to event will level you up as you slide, hop, speed, and smash your way from the sandy dunes to the farmlands. You will drive past (and into) hundreds of other racers along your way, all of which have names borrowed from your friend’s list and the greater community, making the rival challenges more fun, even if it is an asynchronous multiplayer that is using their Drivatar, a simulated amalgamation of that person’s real skills and ability. You can now add those players to your festival crew after besting them, earning credits and XP for their journeys along their own gaming sessions. The whole thing feels extremely organic and requires little to no work from you, another hallmark of a well-designed progression system. And since the reverse is also true for your Drivatar, logging in after an absence immediately rewards you with a bounty from your ghost’s accomplishments in someone else’s game. The game has a few multiplayer modes if you want more direct competition, but it also has a giant open world lobby where you and a bunch of other players just play the game normally while also hopping into races against one another. It’s a sort of casual, low stakes mode that doesn’t force you into heats without your acceptance and will simply populate your regular game with other real people if that’s all you want. But the single-player has such a diverse swath of terrains and vehicles that no two races feel the same, and those over-the-top head-to-heads against helicopters and the like are better just by being set in this new territory. A game like Forza Horizon 3 is not for racing purists, as you won’t find the real-world tracks and locales that games like Gran Turismo sweat every detail over. But the cars are real, the landscape is accurate to Australia, and the feeling of driving is fantastic. Xbox One owners absolutely must play this game and PC gamers should as well, and you can do both buy buying the digital copy on either platform, as FH3 is a part of the Play Anywhere promotion Microsoft is running. All of your progress is synced between the two, you can race against anyone on either system, and if your PC is powerful enough, you can experience some of the greatest visuals ever put into a game. Still, even at it’s worst, FH3 is a hallmark for the genre and should not be passed up.
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Robots in the Skies Written by Joshua David Anderson
The first Titanfall, released in 2014, was an important title for many reasons. It was the first game from Respawn Entertainment, a new developer made up from the people that brought you the Call of Duty series. It was headed up by Vince Zampella, the man responsible for changing the shooter world with Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. It was one of the big exclusive titles for the newly released Xbox One. And it was the first title of the new generation to arrive on the heels of a massively hyped marketing train that somewhat hurt the title in the long run. Titanfall was a great game, but it was clear that it also was the first title in the franchise. With the release of Titanfall 2, Respawn gets a chance to show off what they can do with refinement. Talking about Titanfall without talking about its mechanics misses the point of the game. Titanfall 2 is defined by its mechanics and controls, and they are the best in class. Movement in Titanfall 2 feels unlike any other game. In fact, the game can have an adverse effect on other games by making them feel sluggish and slow. With that speed also comes incredibly tuned movement options. You can run on the ground, jump up onto a wall, wallrun along the side of it, jump off, and double-jump in the air to cover a huge distance to the wall of another building, and continue that chain on and on. There is a fluidity to the movement simply not found in other games, and the skill ceiling within combat is very high. It feels great to get better at pulling off incredible moves in the game and that is before you even shoot a bullet. All of this movement is bolstered by an incredible single-player campaign. Missing from the first game, Titanfall 2 provides a fully realized story for the lone player to experience, and while this campaign feels like others in length, it absolutely does things differently from your standard holiday shooter. As for the story, it is good without getting in the way, perhaps not ever hitting the highs of other notable campaigns, but also never hitting any of the lows. The story, about a man and his robot pal, is totally serviceable. What the Titanfall 2 campaign actually does well is give you some awesome set pieces for which to use the movement mechanics, plenty of things to shoot, and moves at a pace that keeps you engaged at all times, while constantly doling out new puzzles, boss battles, and game mechanics. To even say what some of those are would ruin the surprise as this is a campaign that has to be played. The other side of Titanfall 2 is the multiplayer, which is basically all the last game was. While Respawn has made quite a few changes to the formula and details, the competitive mode remains wonderful and exciting. The most important change is the amount of content offered. A common criticism of the first game was that there just wasn’t too much there. Respawn went about making that the top priority in Titanfall 2, and it shows. There are nine different game types for you to choose, three different playlists that will mix up different modes, and if none of those do it for you, you can set up your own private matches. In addition to all these modes, weapons and loadouts all have various unlocks and perks to work towards, and there are tons of customization options. Add in the fact that maps and modes will always be free and you have a much more robust offering than last time. But even with all those options, the gameplay of Titanfall 2 is really where it shines. All of that refined movement is put to the test when you are playing against other people, both when you are wallrunning towards an objective or when you see an enemy pilot doing the same. The weapons all feel great, and the game has almost instant respawning on death, so there is very little downtime. This coupled with the innovative Network feature that allows you to join a group of players makes it so matchmaking is fast and easy. Titanfall 2 goes out of it’s way to get you playing the game, so you can be calling down a giant robot of your own to jump into. In every way, Titanfall 2 is a fantastic game that improves on almost everything from the original. It is more than worth your time.
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Written by Jesse Seilhan
Nioh
Dark Souls, Onimusha, and other Japanese lessons in masochism combine to bring us Nioh, the next in the tradition of super-challenging Eastern games. This PS4-exclusive is built for punishment unlike most modern games, with the very first enemy in the game able to destroy you if you aren’t ready. The game features some gorgeous visuals, tight combat, and plenty of mysteries to be solved, but mostly it features a badass protagonist who is dope with a sword. This is not Devil May Cry or anything close to a casual romp through the countryside, so only engage if you’re up for a punishing journey through a difficult yet rewarding landscape.
Hitman: The Complete First Season
To say Hitman’s initial venture into episodic downloadable was a success would be downplaying the absolutely addictive and mastercrafted world IO Interactive has built in 2016. Each mission feels like a living, breathing locale filled with unique characters and millions of possibilities. Most importantly, they kept and improved upon the beloved stealth assassination gameplay and bolstered it with dozens of hilarious and fulfilling opportunities. The entire first season is finally coming to disc in January complete with all the missions, bonus content, and DLC that was exclusive to Sony. Do yourself a favor and get your murder on with Agent 47 as soon as you can.
Resident Evil 7
Don’t let the number fool you, as this is almost the millionth game in the franchise, but a hard seven indicates Capcom’s belief that this is the next step for the Resident Evil franchise. Things are back to the basics, focusing on the scares and environment over crazy guns, giant set pieces, and decade’s worth of lore. All we’ve seen thus far is a creepy house in the woods with some psychotic family hellbent on ending your life. Instead of popping heads and loading up your rocket launcher, you’ll be searching the shadows for shimmering objects and green herbs, taking you back to the original PlayStation days of playing under the covers with the lights off.
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RUKUS • Sept/Oct 2016
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