Game Informer Issue 251

Full cover:

Features:

• Letter From the Editor: The Death of Handheld Consoles? (Andy McNamara discusses the future of handhelds and why smartphones and tablets won't replace them)
• Feedback (Reader Letters, Responses and Artwork)
• Opening The PlayStation Archives (Matthew Kato discusses Sony's unveiling of it's streaming service, PlayStation Now)
• The Blockbuster Rule (Interview with Harvard professor Anita Elberse, author of Blockbusters: Hit-Making, Risk-Taking, and the Big Business of Entertainment.)
• Watching People Play (Mike Trinh explores the birth and rise in popularity of Let's Play videos)
• Impulse (A look at upcoming indie games Monument Valley and Road Not Taken)
• Afterwords (Interview with commercial director for The Room Two)
• Thinking Inside the Box (Ben Reeves explores the various Steam Machines set to be released)
• Massive (A look at 5 features that will set Wildstar apart from other MMOs)
• Return to Black Mesa (The story behind the Black Mesa Modification Team, a group of modders recreating the original Half-Life using the modern Source engine)
• Interview: Nathan Vella (Interview with the president of Capybara Games)
• Classic GI (The Legacy of Dungeons & Dragons)

Cover Story: Metal Gear Solid V(In depth look at both Ground Zeroes (PS4, PS3, XBOX One, 360) and The Phantom Pain (PS4, XBOX One), the next games in the long-running Metal Gear series)

A Journal Of Death (A look at the first five hours of Namco Bandai's Dark Souls II (PS3, 360, PC))

Previews:

• Dying Light (PS4, XBOX One, PS3, 360, PC)
• The Elder Scrolls Online (PS4, XBOX One, PC, Mac)
• Super Smash Bros. (Wii U, 3DS)
• Strider (PS4, XBOX One, PS3, 360, PC)
• Drakengard 3 (PS3)
• Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number (Ps4, Vita, PC, Mac, Linux)
• Atelier Escha & Logy: Alchemists of the Dusk Sky (PS3)
• The Witch and the Hundred Knight (PS3)
• Hex: Shards of Fate (PC)
• Starbound (PS4, PC)
• LIfeless Planet (PC, Mac)
• Trove (PC)
• Grim Dawn (PC)

Multiplatform Reviews:

• Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 (360, PS3)
• Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII (PS3, 360)
• Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition (PS4, XBOX One)

Wii U Review:

• Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze

PC Reviews:

• Broken Age: Act I
• The Banner Saga

3DS Review:

• Bravely Default

Vita Reviews:

• OlliOlli
• Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc

The Score (Small, one-paragraph reviews):

• Dr. Luigi (Wii U)
• Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Z (PS3, 360)
• Fable Anniversary (360)
• Republique: Exordium (iOS)
• Nidhogg (PC)
• Joe Danger Infinity (iOS)