Month: July 2016

"Hunter Arts" are fun and flashy, without breaking the spirit of the game.

Pick up your charge blades, insect glaives, and cheese fondue—there’s monsters what need hunting. The aptly named Monster Hunter series has returned, this time without a number following the name. This time, it’s just Monster Hunter Generations, and the name refers to more than the time it takes to learn these games (assuming you’re in what seems like the majority of Western players that are rightly intimidated by Capcom’s Japanese moneymaker).

As with every Monster Hunter since the first, what you're learning is how to strike down massive, and not-so-massive, creatures of the wild. Think of each major monster as a boss fight—one that can take nearly an hour to complete as you track and hack away at prey over wide, repeatedly visited zones.

Doing so successfully means chopping them up for parts and turning the material into better equipment. Break it all up with some grinding, gathering, and fetch quests and you've got the thousand-hour-plus loop the series has been known for over multiple "generations" of hardware.

It's a legacy this latest entry is particularly aware of. “Generations” refers to the fact that this Monster Hunter is pulling from past entries. It’s like a greatest-hits album for the franchise, if you will. Familiar hunting grounds return from Monster Hunter Freedom 2, the Japan exclusive Portable 3rd, and even the debut game in the franchise. Each locale has been ever-so-gently modified to make available elements from Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate. That means there are more ledges on beasts’ backs for you to grab on to as you ride them down to the ground.

Specs at a glance: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060
CUDA CORES	1280
TEXTURE UNITS	80
ROPS	48
CORE CLOCK	1,506MHz
BOOST CLOCK	1,708MHz
MEMORY BUS WIDTH	192-bit
MEMORY BANDWIDTH	192GB/s
MEMORY SIZE	6GB GDDR5
Outputs	3x DisplayPort 1.4, 1x HDMI 2.0b with support for 4K60 10/12b HEVC Decode, 1x dual-link DVI
Release date	July 19
PRICE	Founders Edition (as reviewed): £275/€320/$300; Partner cards priced at £240/€280/$250

What a difference a little competition makes. Nvidia was always going to release the GTX 1060, just like it released the GTX 960, GTX 760, and GTX 560 before that. But few could have predicted how soon it would appear after the launch of the GTX 1080 and GTX 1070, the company's first Pascal-based graphics cards. Fewer still expected it to be faster than a GTX 980, a card that launched at £430/$550 and still sells for a hefty £320/$400 today.

We've got AMD to thank. Its aggressively priced RX 480—which offers excellent 1080p and VR-ready performance for a mere £180/$200—brought the budget fight to Nvidia in a segment where its competitor has traditionally struggled. If you want the fastest, buy Nvidia; if you want the best value, buy AMD. The GTX 1060 changes that. For the first time in a long time, Nvidia has a mainstream graphics card that can compete on price and performance with AMD.

The GTX 1060 is (mostly) faster than the GTX 980; it runs cool and quiet with a light 120W TDP; and best of all the GTX 1060 costs £240/$250. Yes, that's more expensive than the GTX 960's launch price, continuing Nvidia's tradition of jacking up prices this generation. And yes, AMD's RX 480 is a wee bit cheaper. But with around a 15 percent boost in performance on average for a 10 percent jump in price over the comparable 8GB RX 480, it's good value, and it overclocks like a champ with very little effort.