Indholdsfortegnelse for April 2015 i New Age Gaming

Happy birthday to us! That means cake (really)! And presents (not really)! And a fresh design courtesy of a currently very stressed-looking art director (really really)! Every year Savage swears that he’s not going to do a redesign and every year he does it anyway. What fun! April is our birthday month and this year we’re celebrating our 17th loop around that big ball of fire in the sky. Next year we’ll be old enough to play Mortal Kombat. We’ve nipped and tucked a few things throughout the magazine, mostly in the form of a visual overhaul (including a snazzy super-legible font family that I’m told was very expensive – just look at those elegant serifs (I have no idea what I’m talking about)), but also in the form of…

www.facebook.com/NAGMagazine Jesse Green Please don't stop adding posters in the NAG! They awesome! Tyron Toejam Keys I must say that My oldman and myself have been buying the magazine for years now, more issues than I can keep track of, and today Nag reaches out to me and is more than willing to help me find outlets on where to buy their copies from since I have been struggling to find the usual outlets. I seriously do appreciate it and I want to say thank you for looking out for your fans/readers. Just another reason why Nag has earned +1 respect from me to add to their already abundant attribute list. You guys are seriously amazing I seriously enjoy reading the replies on the questions by many in the mags…

New D&D announced: Sword Coast Legends Are you in the mood for a PC exclusive Baldur’s Gate-esque RPG? You are? Good. Currently being co-developed by Digital Extremes and n-Space, Sword Coast Legends is billing itself as “the compelling and complex RPG you’ve been waiting for”. Built around the 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons rulebook, the game will let you create a character from five races and six classes. Story details are still thin at the moment, and all that’s been revealed is that the player will “explore and defend the Sword Coast”, and that the game supports up to four player co-op. Another interesting feature is the Dungeon Master mode. It looks like a level editor, and will see a fifth player setting up traps and challenges for the other…

By day a TV producer, by night a mom, a gamer, and a writer. In fact she does too many damn things for her own good. In the spirit of the annual birthday redesign, this month’s column is about reinventing yourself. This is really what most games are about, in their essence, so the link is quite obvious. One of the reasons I love RPGs as much as I do is because of the fact that they require you to create an entirely new character and personality. In fact if you really want to get the most out of any RPG, you normally need to complete multiple playthroughs of the game with multiple characters. Feel like taking out your frustrations on the world, but your moral compass doesn’t allow you…

A silent game means one of two things: it’s trying to create tension, or your speakers are broken. Audio in games is one of the least considered things but with the right soundtrack and sound effects, a game can go from good to perfect, or rubbish to at least moderately entertaining. Whether it’s a full orchestral score or just a few computerised bleeps and bloops put together by someone who thinks the 8-bit generation is where gaming evolution peaked, game soundtracks push into our hearts and minds for the hours on end that we spend with them. If you’re making your own games or fancy yourself a bit of a musician, or simply appreciate the stuff in games that you can hear as much as that which you can see,…

Q What game (new or old) do people need to play right now? Dane “Barkskin” Remendes Dungeon Keeper and its sequel. Mostly because they’re fantastic games and everyone should play them, but also so anyone who doesn’t get what all the fuss is about can understand exactly why Peter Molyneux’s spectacularly saddening fall from grace is so tragic. CURRENTLY PLAYING Evolve, Homeworld Remastered Collection, Heroes of the Storm, Oddworld: New ‘n’ Tasty Miklós “Mikit0707” Szecsei Doom. Because the FPS genre is one of the biggest in the industry, and YOUTHS need to learn which game entrenched that genre in the gaming consciousness. CURRENTLY PLAYING Elite: Dangerous Delano “Delano” Cuzzucoli Minecraft. Because it’s a game you need to play once before you die, if you haven’t already (played it, not died…

PLATFORMS / 360 / PC / PS3 / PS4 / PSV / XBO REVIEWED ON / PC GENRE / Action / horror DEVELOPER / Capcom PUBLISHER / Capcom DISTRIBUTOR / Ster Kinekor Entertainment WEBSITE / www.capcom.com Resident Evil has had its ups and downs over the years, but during its lowest point (just before the appalling Operation Raccoon City), a surprising champion emerged on the 3DS. Revelations proved to the world that Capcom can still make a Resident Evil with classic scares, and based on its positive reception, Capcom figured that that was the way forward for the series. Resident Evil: Revelations 2 continues the story laid out by its predecessor: something vaguely related to a few key characters and plot points in the series, but otherwise doing well…

PSU Corsair AX1500 R5,799 / www.corsair.com GRAPHICS EVGA GTX 980 Classified R10,870 / www.evga.com OS DRIVE OCZ Vector 150 R2,899 / www.ocz.com STORAGE DRIVE WD Black 4TB FZEX R3,199 / www.wdc.com CHASSIS Corsair Obsidian 900D R4,299 / www.corsair.com DISPLAY BenQ XL2430T Gaming Monitor R6,399 / www.benq.com KEYBOARD Razer BlackWidow Ultimate R1,899 / www.razerzone.com COOLER Cooler Master Nepton 280L R1,499 / www.coolermaster.com MOUSE GAMDIAS Zeus gaming mouse R869 / www.gamdias.com MOUSE PAD ASUS Whetstone TBA / rog.asus.com SOUND Creative Sound Blaster ZxR R3,599 / www.soundblaster.com HEADPHONES HyperX Cloud R1,499 / www.kingston.com INTEL Intel Core i7 5960X R13,999 / www.intel.com MSI X99S XPOWER AC R5,999 / www.msi.com Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 2,800MHz 16GB Kit R5,599 / www.corsair.com R68,826 AMD AMD FX 8350 R2,999 / www.amd.com ASUS Crosshair V Formula-Z R3,699 / www.asus.com…

SUPPLIER MSI WEBSITE www.msi.com ERP R1,499 SPECS CHIPSET / AMD 970+SB950 MEMORY / 4x 280-pin DDR4 CPU SUPPORT / AMD Athlon II / PhenomII / FX EXPANSION / 2x PCIe 16X, 2x PCIe 1X, 2x PCI SIZE / ATX There hasn’t been anything meaningful taking place from AMD on the CPU front for years now, at least for the AM3+ platform. If you invested in a Visherabased CPU and are looking for an affordable board to tide you over while you wait for next year’s refresh, then the 970 Gaming is worth a look. It isn’t high-end by any means and it should not be compared to our current AMD Dream Machine board, but it is just under half the price. For the price you’ll get support for all…

So sorry, not sorry I cheated in Destiny. I’m a cheater. I’m also a massive hypocrite because I’ve always said that cheating in games is stupid and boring and super-mega lame1 . The problem with Destiny, though, is that cheating – or the more euphemistic “cheesing”, which is basically cheating but calling it something else so everybody can pretend they’re not, you know, cheating – is probably the only way to finish the game’s two raids without also breaking your controller, burning the house down, and signing up for the Mars colony program so you can die of exposure on a barren wasteland, gasping and terrified, as one of NASA’s decommissioned rovers slowly rolls towards you from base camp, a big, blood-spattered specimen of tholeiitic basalt rock gripped in its…

THIS MONTH'S PRIZE The Letter of the Month prize is sponsored by the good folks at Megarom. The winner receives two games for coming up with the most inspired bit of wisdom of cleverness. NOTE: You can’t change the games or the platform they come on. "If you’ve identified something in a game as unoriginal, lame, boring, etc., there’s a very good chance that the developers know about it too..." Letter of the Month April 2015 From: Justin van Huyssteen Subject: Not Gonna Pre-Order 1886 I have no idea why, but I seem to be the only person amongst a group of friends and other people (such as the wondrous writers of this here magazine) that is not excited about The Order: 1886 in the slightest. There was never a…

Graeme Selvan recently took up a position at Megarom Interactive as PR manager. He spends most of his day dealing with some of the biggest publishers in gaming and takes regular coffee breaks to harrass Geoff from NAG, often hurling obsene comments his way. All in a day’s work for the local PR man in gaming! I consider myself to be a very fortunate person, video games have always played a major role in my life. From my early years, getting a new game was always a memorable occasion, and a special one at that. I often found myself checking my bag twice to make sure it was still there on my trip home, glancing over box artwork a few times also helped elevate my excitement to the next level.…

Got a legal boxed game and need some technical help? Before you call please do the following. Update your system software, drivers and have a look online for a game patch. Just these simple tasks eliminate 93% of all problems – it’s a made up statistic but probably close enough.. Publishers / Activision / Blizzard 2K Games Rockstar / Ubisoft / Codemasters / NC-Soft / Namco-Bandai / Disney e-mail / support@xtremems.co.za Telephone / 0861 987 363 Publishers / Microsoft Xbox Telephone / 0800 991 550 Publishers / Electronic Arts e-mail / zasupport@ea.com Telephone / 0860 EAHELP/324357…

NAG: What is the process like working remotely, as in the case of Stasis ? Did you find it more challenging or, possibly in some way, easier than working face-to-face with game developers? Mark: In the last few years, with the exception of the InXile games, most of my work has all been done remotely. Because of my proximity to their studios we did have face-to-face meetings in which work was accomplished, but to be honest most times we used it for hang time. It’s cool because you’re able to work with people that in the past would have been almost impossible. Working remotely on Stasis was very cool because Chris, being the artist he is, was able to convey his ideas without too much conversation. Because…

PLATFORMS / PC REVIEWED ON / PC GENRE / Space simulator DEVELOPER / Frontier Developments PUBLISHER / Frontier Developments DISTRIBUTOR / Digital WEBSITE / www.elitedangerous.com “It’s just you, your space ship, and the vast emptiness of space.” I’ve used that line to describe Elite: Dangerous on more than one occasion as I gush about the game to anyone who will listen. With the dawn of crowd funding eliminating the need for overly-cautious publishers, niche appeal games are making a comeback, and Elite: Dangerous certainly fits the bill. This game will not be everybody’s idea of a good time. It requires patience in order to make any meaningful progress, and it requires that you actively sit down and learn how to play the game. You actually have to read a…

NAG: There is plenty of Mad Max content out there, but not so much in terms of video games. What are you drawing from with the game? Is there a Tina Turner Thunderdome or how is it all working? John: When crafting the Mad Max game, we tried to understand the heart of Max as a character and of the universe as a whole. The original films are obviously an enormous source of material, but even there different pictures emerge from one film to the next. There has also been a very active fan base and cult movement surrounding Mad Max since the last film. All of this, including cosplay groups and events like Wasteland Weekend also contribute to fans’ expectations of what a Mad Max…

Before we get to that though, let’s take a quick look at what adaptive syncing is. The basic refresh rate of your LCD monitor is 60Hz. What that means is the screen is refreshed every 16.667ms. That is, your entire screen is re-drawn in 16.667ms intervals. So if frame 1 is at 16.667, frame 2 can be displayed next at 33.334ms, frame 3 at 50ms and so on. The issue however is that the graphics card or system doesn’t send frames to the display at those precise intervals. So for instance, if the graphics card renders frame 1 in 16.667ms, then frame 2 at 40ms, then frame 3 at 50ms, you can already see that these do not match the refresh rate intervals of the 60Hz screen. The frame rendering…

SUPPLIER ASUS WEBSITE rog.asus.com ERP TBA SPECS MOUSE SENSOR / 5,000 optical sensor WEIGHT / 116g BUTTONS / 6 (Omron D2F/Cswitches, swappable) MOUSE PAD SIZE / 320x270 mm MATERIAL / Hybrid silicone fabric The ASUS ROG SICA gaming mouse and ROG Whetstone gaming mouse pad were sent to us as a combo, but can be purchased separately. So let’s take a look at the Sica mouse first. This is smaller than the Gladius and the most affordable in the trio of the new ROG gaming mice. ASUS has plenty of other gaming mice, but it’s important to realize that the STRIX line of products does not fall under ROG, and are very separate product lines. The Sica is an ambidextrous mouse with basic functionality designed for use with MOBA…

SUPPLIER TIDAL WEBSITE www.tidalhifi.com ERP $9.99 P/M For those who have been hiding away for the last few years, online streaming services are the cool new way to listen to music. They’re convenient, affordable, and most services have huge repositories of music from all genres. TIDAL is a relative newcomer to this space, but they’ve done the smart thing and carved out a niche for themselves as providers of high-quality audio above all else, and the results are impressive. The service is capable of streaming lossless audio at up to 1,411kbps in Hi-Fi mode. If that’s a little much for your Internet to handle (it certainly proved to be the case for me more often than not), then you can switch to AAC 320kbps or even AAC+ 96kbps. Music…

If you’re looking for deeper meaning in your life, join the NAG forums. If you want to meet new people, make friends, learn to love again and master the art of social interaction, join the NAG forums. If you’re looking for healthy discussion, lifestyle tips, or anything at all ever in the world, join the NAG forums. Join us at www.nag.co.za/forums/ Q If you could live the life of a video game character, who would you choose? Edward Kenway from AC4, He kinda had it all, the open water, the gold, the family, he had a happy ending and got what he wanted from life. - Sylar_dl I'm going with Roger Wilco, because who has greater adventures than a space janitor that escapes death at every turn?! -…

When Rodain isn't writing about game development, he's doing it. With years of experience in the local community and the critically acclaimed Desktop Dungeons under his belt, he's at least 50% confident that he's not talking entirely out of his ass. Last year, I covered a local project called Cadence. It’s a lovely, minimalist audio puzzle game that has players making music while they play the game. Looks and sounds gorgeous, among other things. Exposure to this game eventually inspired me to lend my own assistance a few months later, and I’ve generally avoided the idea of blowing my own horn in this column since. But as I write this, I realise I have something personally relevant to discuss with gamers and game developers alike: what it’s like to have…

Miklós once at an entire wheel of cheese without telling anyone. He began in the morning with good intentions and a box of crackers, but by the end, there was nothing good left in him. Only cheese. The Game Developers Conference has just come and gone. In those few days, the future of the gaming scene was irrevocably changed. Virtual reality is coming this year, and it’s going to be big. I’ve been waffling on about this topic since 2013 – since I first drank the Kool-Aid and got a chance to try out the initial Rift dev kit that Oculus produced. That was almost two years ago, and we still don’t have a consumer version aside from the mobile-centric Gear VR. Then something happened at GDC that had to…

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If you’ve been to a rAge Expo, you’ve been to a PAX East, held in Boston, USA. They are, in essence, the same thing. A kind of (and pardon my phrasing) “Mecca” for gamers of the region. The massive influx of like-minded (if not always of the same opinion) families brings with it fun, camaraderie, joy, affirmation and so... much... spending opportunity. I count myself sort-of lucky that I usually have no money when I attend things like PAX East. Melyne (and Felyne) Monster Hunter hoodies. Posters of All The Things. Games to buy, awesome T-shirts… Waiting in line to try some upcoming games early is free, so that will do for me. I only had one day, even though PAX runs three. The lines this year were longer than…

PLATFORMS / PC / PS4 / XBO REVIEWED ON / PC GENRE / First-person action DEVELOPER / Turtle Rock Studios PUBLISHER / 2K Games DISTRIBUTOR / Megarom WEBSITE / www.evolvegame.com Iwasn’t sure how to feel about Evolve at first. Ignoring the controversy that erupted prior to the game’s launch surrounding its preposterously confusing pre-order incentives and plans for a flurry of expensive post-launch DLC, the actual game didn’t grab me. It felt a bit lifeless, especially when played solo with bots (which is to be expected), a little less so when played with random humans on the Internet. Its silly system for unlocking content only made things worse, making me feel as though I was grudgingly grinding my way through the game to gain access to all its toys…

PLATFORMS / PS4 REVIEWED ON / PS4 GENRE / Third-person shooter DEVELOPER / Ready At Dawn PUBLISHER / SCEE DISTRIBUTOR / Ster Kinekor Entertainment WEBSITE / www.playstation.com/en-za/games/the-order-1886-ps4 I wanted so desperately to like this game. The graphics are amazing. Like, some seriously next-level stuff. The world they’ve created shows a lot of promise, because Arthurian legend and science is a combination that, just... yes. Knights are the new zombies. Everything is so beautiful in this game that you really want to be able to explore the enticing nooks and crannies; but all you can really do it pick a few things up and sometimes make something of what you find. This is true for the characters too. Including yours. Which kind of sucks. You don’t know some pretty important…

For a time, it seemed that with the advent of mobile platforms taking over the consumer space and disposal income of end users, all was tied exclusively to those models and ecosystems. So the consumption of media, music and gaming moved from Hi-Fi and stereo systems to portable players, then smartphones and now the cloud. Gaming also seemed set to follow the same path exclusively with free-to-play, freemium and pay-to-win, while TV series and movies saw a shift to services like Netflix. Fortunately, most industries and consumers have sobered up, if only a little. Mobile technology, with regards to available processing power and what end users are doing with it, is hitting a plateau or a saturation point that computing reached years ago. That’s not to say that progress isn’t…

SUPPLIER ASUS WEBSITE www.asus.com ERP R6,250 SPECS NATIVE RESOLUTION / 2560x1440 (23.8”) REFRESH RATE / 60Hz (5ms) INPUTS / Dual HDMI (1.4a), VGA PANEL TECHNOLOGY / IPS (white LED backlight) Ideally, we would all have low response time, high resolution monitors with professional grade image quality and high scan rates. Sadly this isn’t going to happen because there are very few of those monitors capable of such and the ones that do exist cost a fortune. So what do you do when you’re looking for something better than full HD, want a better image than what TN panels can produce but aren’t willing or perhaps are unable to afford these high-end gaming monitors? Well you could consider the ASUS VX24AH monitor. This is not a monitor that ASUS would…

SUPPLIER Cooler Master WEBSITE www.coolermaster.com ERP R799 SPECS DIMENSIONS / 470.7x326.9x54.9mm; 173.2mm max height WEIGHT / 1.92 kg MATERIAL / Mesh, plastic, rubber Standard cooling on your notebook is adequate for sure, but under some intense loads, the CPU and GPU could throttle to performance levels that are undesirable. If you’re running a high-end or gaming notebook then you may need to look at a notebook cooler. The SF-17 is built for units that have a 17” screen and smaller. It is made from plastic and rubber, and features a single 180mm configurable fan and four port USB hub. It has four angle/height adjustments, and power is drawn through your notebook’s USB port. You lose one port but gain four. These additional USB ports ensure that you can leave…