Innehållsförteckning för June 2015 från New Age Gaming

In this month’s Reviews Intro question, I asked the team to name something from the gaming industry in the last three years that really stood out for them in a good way. While some of them found the question a bit challenging at first, I was chuffed with the variety of the answers. A few games, some big-picture concepts, gaming hardware, and even a simple moment. It helped me to remember that this industry, for all the headaches and controversy it attracts, is ultimately one that brings joy to its participants. I remember the feeling of exhilaration that I felt when I first stepped outside of Midgar in Final Fantasy VII. I remember beating the Mage’s Maze in Quest for Glory. I remember the thrill of taking my first Leap…

This is the best bit of fan created artwork we received at NAG this month. If you insert, use or create a piece of gaming artwork incorporating the NAG logo you might also end up here for your three lines of fame. Just don’t go and stick the NAG logo on a picture and send it in because that is dumb and dumb people don’t win things.…

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. Everyone collects something. Perhaps it’s sneakers. Perhaps it’s comics. Perhaps it’s ceramic cats. And perhaps it’s really expensive collector’s editions of video games. Sometimes ones that you already own. I know people who collect things. Ok maybe not ceramic cats, but certainly I know people who collect sneakers and collector’s editions. I have both of these things, and interestingly I own way more of the former than the latter, which considering the number of video games I own, is rather unusual when I think about it logically. Honestly I don’t own a huge number of collector’s editions myself, because much like gaming tattoos, there…

There comes a time in every gamer’s life where they have to look back and ask themselves “why do I play games?” Thankfully such moments of clarity are easily diffused by Heroes of the Storm or whatever the next crack-like addiction is. We might have a problem. Send help! … After this game. Meet your reviewers… Q What’s the best thing in gaming you’ve seen/played/held/secretly fondled in the last three years? Dane “Barkskin” Remendes Wolfenstein: The New Order. In addition to just being a great game, it proved that even when all you’re really doing is shooting Nazis in the face, you can still have an unexpectedly thoughtful, memorable narrative. CURRENTLY PLAYING Heroes of the Storm, Enslaved: Odyssey to the West (again) Miklós “Mikit0707” Szecsei The Oculus Rift. Without a…

PLATFORMS / 3DS REVIEWED ON / 3DS GENRE / Action role-playing game DEVELOPER / Ambrella PUBLISHER / The Pokémon Company DISTRIBUTOR / Digital WEBSITE / www.pokemonrumble.com/world Shallow but fun, Pokémon Rumble is a freemium action game where you fight with and collect toy Pokémon. The full 719 Pokémon species are in the game, though the differences between them is simplified. You move your little toy Poké around, attacking enemies and collecting ones that “topple” over. You can swap to any Pokémon you’ve collected on the fly, but it takes a little while to “wind up” the toy, during which you can be interrupted if you’re hit. The king of the Kingdom of Toys will send you on special quests with specific objectives, or you can just travel via balloon…

SUPPLIER LOGITECH WEBSITE gaming.logitech.com ERP R3,699 SPECS KEYS / Romer-G mechanical switcher, individually backlit ANTI-GHOSTING / 113 keys INPUTS / None MACRO KEYS / Nine, three memory banks each Let’s start with the obvious question: is the Logitech G910 worth R3,699? Personally, I don’t think so. There are keyboards on the market that offer a similar user experience to the G910 for a third of its price. That said, if you’ve got cash to burn, are fanatically loyal to Logitech and want a high-quality mechanical keyboard that’s sure to turn heads, you can’t go wrong with the G910. Like the G15 and G19 before it, the G910 has a screen that displays useful information while you game – but this time, the screen is that of your smartphone or…

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. Letter of the Month June 2015 FROM: BRANDON FOWLER SUBJECT: WORLD OF GAMING There are so many different kinds of game genres, you get your Shooters, Racers, Adventure/Exploration, but what I really want to see more of, especially on new gen, is Japanese Role Playing Games, you get your Final Fantasy games for sure but what about the one hit wonder ones? Such as Lost Odyssey, or Ni No Kuni, or even White Knight? These are such in depth games but we dont see…

@nagcoza T-Man Ending off my sunday night with @nagcoza :D Brian Akerman Can @nagcoza please add "Remember to spell-check and proof read" somewhere easily visible for those whom write in? >_< Lushano @nagcoza Thanks for the #Bioshock Big Sister poster! I've always wanted one. The Techno Jedi's @nagcoza You guys are the shizniz.. Amped for the next issue ;) say 1st_JESUS From next month I will embark on my new nerd journey of buying @nagcoza everytime till I die...lol, I just love games.…

Devon has been in the gaming industry for over eight years, with his roots in South Africa, he was recently picked up as the Export PR manager at 2K games in the United Kingdom. He loves to LAN and be with like-minded gamers as well as being on stage shouting to a crowd. [And using PowerPoint presentations to slowly kill members of the press. Ed]. I sat down to watch a movie called Video Games: The Movie – it’s a great documentary on the history of video games, where the industry came from, how it evolved, how it crashed, and where it could possibly go. It’s great because it gives perspective on the video games industry that I feel often gets ignored or forgotten, and I highly recommend watching it.…

Every month we’ll choose a screenshot from a random game and write a bad caption for it. Your job is to come up with a better one. The winner will get a copy of Farming Simulator 15 for PS4 from Apex Interactive. Send your captions to letters@nag.co.za with the subject line “June caption”. “I’m pretty sure that’s not how you head-bang.” “So you take a left, right? Then you cross two intersections, right?” - Sakkie Bekker Please note: the winner of the April Caption of the Month was incorrectly stated last month. It’s actually Kyle Tiley. Congratulations!…

RELEASE DATE TBA PLATFORMS PS4 GENRE Adventure platformer DEVELOPER Tequila Works WEBSITE us.playstation.com/ps4/games/rime-ps4.html PUBLISHER Sony Computer Entertainment Tequila Works is very upfront about what inspired the look and feel of Rime. Games such as Ico heavily influence the way the lead protagonist – an unnamed bright-eyed boy – moves around the mysterious island he is stranded on. The cel-shaded art direction invokes memories of Journey, Wind Waker as well as movies such as Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away. The vibe, the adventurous spirit, pulls from Jason and the Argonauts. The unnamed boy must escape the island – and a curse – by solving puzzles scattered around the environment. You can explore freely, though presumably some areas will be locked off until you gain a tool or ability that lets…

PLATFORMS / 3DS REVIEWED ON / 3DS GENRE / Puzzle platformer DEVELOPER / HAL Laboratory PUBLISHER / Nintendo DISTRIBUTOR / Digital distribution WEBSITE / boxboy.nintendo.com When you come down to it, platformers are one of the genres that feel most at home on the 3DS. Fans of the big N’s portable game system are spoiled for choice in that regard, as there’s no shortage of run-and-jump goodness available in its ever-growing library. If, however, you’re craving something slightly different from the usual franchises, you may be keen on checking out the puzzle experience that is BOXBOY! The game casts players squarely (ha!) in the shoes of a living cube named Qbby. Our 90-degree hero can generate more blocks which enable him to traverse his obstacle-ridden universe. These prove to…

PLATFORMS / New 3DS REVIEWED ON / New 3DS GENRE / Action role-playing game DEVELOPER / Monolith Soft PUBLISHER / Nintendo DISTRIBUTOR / Core Group WEBSITE / www.nintendo.com If you played Xenoblade Chronicles when it was originally released on the Wii in 2011, this is an uncompromised portable edition. Some areas even have better frame-rates than the original. The textures seem filtered down slightly in comparison, but it remains the full (and rather epic) console experience. For newcomers, Xenoblade Chronicles takes place on a world with an endless ocean. Two titans came into being and fought until they killed each other. On their massive corpses, tiny new forms of life emerged until eventually there was the 18 year old Shulk and his friends. After a tragic event, Shulk and…

PLATFORMS / 3DS REVIEWED ON / 3DS GENRE / Puzzle DEVELOPER / Genius Sonority PUBLISHER / The Pokémon Company DISTRIBUTOR / Digital WEBSITE / www.pokemonshuffle.com Like its non-freemium cousin Pokémon Battle Trozei, Shuffle is a match-three puzzler where you fight Pokémon and then attempt to capture them. You match three or more of the same Pokémon face on the bottom screen, and they’ll attack the Pokémon on the top screen. Some stages limit how many Pokémon you can take, and most limit how many moves you have before the enemy escapes. Certain Pokémon can Mega Evolve for special attacks, once you fill up a Special metre by matching their faces. If you’ve played Puzzle & Dragons, you’ve already got a good idea of what Shuffle is like, albeit far…

Be it we fangled the word or publishers and vendors did, we will never know. Personally I’m inclined to stay away from the term as much as possible, not only because it doesn’t mean anything material, but it has some very negative connotations to it of late (sexism, racism, general prejudice and negativity). By and large, “gamers” on the Internet complain more than anything else. Watch YouTube videos of The Witcher 3, GTA V, Batman Arkham Knight and Deus Ex – Mankind Divided or any video for that matter. Within the first five to ten comments you’ll read complaints or some negativity for any one reason or another. It’s as if “gamers” exist to be dissatisfied with their hobby, which is then projected to everything around them. It is a…

SUPPLIER GAMDIAS WEBSITE www.gamdias.com ERP R399 SPECS SENSOR / 8,200 dpi sensors WEIGHT / 132g (with cable) SIZE / 124.5x81.3x40m BUTTONS / 7+1 GAMDIAS managed to impress us with the Zeus, so much so that it garnered the NAG Dream Machine award. With the Hades, the second mouse we’ve come to examine from the vendor, things are not as peachy. Granted this is a much cheaper mouse and so it should not be expected to be as grand as its more expensive stablemates. Having said that though, there’s no excuse for the build quality of the Hades mouse especially given just how novel it is in so many areas. Essentially a wonderful ambidextrous budget mouse, it is as if the engineers did their part, then accounting came in and…

SUPPLIER ROCCAT WEBSITE www.roccat.org ERP R1,699 SPECS SENSOR / Pro Aim R3 (8,200 dpi) WEIGHT / 126g (without cable) SIZE / 135x78mmx40m BUTTONS / 16 ROCCAT has forever been relentless in its pursuit of the ultimate gaming peripherals, from headphones to mice and everything in between. With some misses along the way, the company has more often than not hit the right notes with their products. This isn’t a mouse that only offers small cosmetic changes and advancements over the KONE and their previous offerings. This one builds anew from the ground up and what ROCCAT has come up with is simply incredible. First off you’ll notice the single analogue thumb paddle on the left side of the mouse. This works to control pitch, throttle or tilt inside vehicles…

SUPPLIER Asbis WEBSITE www.prestigio.co.za ERP R1,999 SPECS CPU / Quad-core ARM 400 @1.3Ghz CHIPSET / Mali-400 MP RAM / 1GB STORAGE / 16GB (MicroSD supported) DISPLAY / 7” IPS @ 800x1280 CONNECTIVITY / 3G, Wi-Fi, NFC The mid-range market of tablets is flooded with low-quality stock, but thankfully Prestigo knows what it means to make a product that isn’t afraid of being middle-of the-road, nor does it stoop any lower. Sporting a decent quad-core CPU and a gig of RAM, the Prestigio Multipad Color 7.0 3G (what a mouthful!) chugs along at the rate you’d expect for something with the specs of a three-year-old high-end device. Multitasking within the sadly outdated operating system does tend to be a little sluggish, but single-application performance is respectable. This isn’t a device…

SUPPLIER ASUS WEBSITE www.asus.com ERP R5,699 SPECS CHIPSET / Intel X99 MEMORY / 8x 280-pin DDR4 CPU SUPPORT / LGA 2011-v3 EXPANSION / 3x PCIe x16, 1x PCIe x4, 1x PCIe x1 SIZE / ATX ASUS has once again released a new board to add to its X99 line-up. The Sabertooth, like its predecessors, is supposedly built with the most robust components on the market. Each of them meeting and some exceeding the requirements for military grade testing. What that means in theory is that this motherboard and others like it in the family are less susceptible to component failure be it through user error, electronic malfunction, dust, humidity and all kinds of hazardous matter that may visit a motherboard. What this means in practice though is not clear, as at…

BENQ XL2720Z PRICE The XL2720Z is costly compared to average FHD monitors, but this is a premium gaming monitor. What you pay for is not only the gaming specific features, but the display technology as well. TN panels that support such high scan rates are expensive especially at this size. Over and above that, BenQ uses a completely custom design on their monitors that is tailored specifically for those who would transport their monitors from and to any number of places. Paying over R7,500 for a monitor may seem exorbitant, but as we have previously mentioned in the XL2430T review (see March 2015 issue page 66) a gaming monitor is where all your other hardware investments culminate into a single experience. Thus, the price relative to other components is in…

When times are tough, when your dog looks bored at you and your significant other rolls their eyes every time you tell them about pwning some noob in whatever, you know it’s time to reach out to a community of like-minded, helpful, and spiritually fulfilled individuals. When you find them, let us know, but for now you should join us at www.nag.co.za/forums Q What was the last game that you gave up on, and why? Metro Last Light. I lost interest in the game because I started to find it really repetitive. - Sylar_dl Assassins creed IV Black flag: I really hated those sea missions it just annoyed me - Infamous_Killer Every Zelda game ever. Because we all know he's going to save the princess one way or the…

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. Collectible card games (or CCGs) have always enjoyed prominence in gamer culture. If you don’t play them yourself, you probably know someone who does, and this overlap of interests paves the way for successful CCGs in the digital realm, like with Blizzard’s Hearthstone. Digital card games are, in short, pretty damn great. It’s hard to match the tactile satisfaction and personality of a real-life table-top confrontation, to be sure, but any veteran can tell you that the speed and convenience of playing on a digital device is phenomenal. Clumsy…

Miklós once ate 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. When you’re next online, try this experiment: head onto any video game website and browse the comments sections. Try to find articles on Star Wars Battlefront, Batman: Arkham Knight, or The Witcher 3 (I’m writing this a mere week before Witcher 3 launches, and currently every article is about the alleged “downgrading” of the game’s visuals or how the Xbox One version doesn’t run at a fixed 1080p). If you’re feeling brave you could even head onto the gaming subreddits, but you’re on your own with that one; abandon all hope etcetera etcetera.…

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…

RELEASE DATE Q3 2015 PLATFORMS PC / PS4 / XBO GENRE Interactive fiction DEVELOPER Three One Zero WEBSITE threeonezero.com PUBLISHER 505 Games You wake up inside a severely damaged space suit, with no memory as to how you got there. Or why the space station around you is completely destroyed, leaving you in hard vacuum. You appear to be the only survivor of whatever happened, your oxygen levels dwindling fast. Director Adam Orth claims the concept of Adrift comes from his own experiences on Twitter. Space, social media: the two are totally comparable, yeah. Orth used to be a creative director at Microsoft Studios, but after some unfortunate statements by him on Twitter in 2013 after the Xbox One was announced, he resigned from the company. He compares the…

PLATFORMS / 360 / PC / PS3 / PS4 / XBO REVIEWED ON / PS4 GENRE / Fighting DEVELOPER / NetherRealm Studios / High Voltage Software PUBLISHER / Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment DISTRIBUTOR / Ster Kinekor Entertainment WEBSITE / www.mortalkombat.com 2 011’s Mortal Kombat reboot did everything it could to change the world’s impression of this brutal franchise, and for many modern gamers was considered the most worthwhile entry point into the series in years. This year’s release, the aptly-named Mortal Kombat X, continues the story of MK by spanning 25 years of combat, dark plots, and a few unsurprising romances. For those who care enough about the lore and characters of Mortal Kombat, the story mode that’s on offer is entertaining, and a great way to get exposure…

PLATFORMS / PC / PS4 / Wii U (pending) / XBO REVIEWED ON / PS4 GENRE / Racing DEVELOPER / Slightly Mad Studios PUBLISHER / Slightly Mad Studios / Bandai Namco Entertainment DISTRIBUTOR / Megarom WEBSITE / www.projectcarsgame.com I got goosebumps while playing Project Cars. What set it off was my pit crew leader telling me, before heading out on the track, that the brakes were still cold, so I needed to slow it down a bit. Sure enough, three turns into Brands Hatch GP, the brown stuff hit the fan and I had less stopping power than I anticipated. Ploughing across the field straight towards the tyre wall, I knew this was going to hurt. My bumper was smashed, I had no steering to speak of and the…

PSU Corsair AX1500 R5,799 / www.corsair.com GRAPHICS EVGA GTX 980 Classified R10,870 / www.evga.com OS DRIVE Intel 750 1.2TB PCIe R17,999 / www.intel.com/ssd STORAGE DRIVE WD Black 4TB FZEX R3,199 / www.wdc.com CHASSIS Corsair Obsidian 900D R4,799 / www.corsair.com DISPLAY Acer S277HK R10,000 / www.acer.com KEYBOARD Razer BlackWidow Ultimate R1,899 / www.razerzone.com COOLER Cooler Master Nepton 280L R1,499 / www.coolermaster.com MOUSE ROCCAT TYON White R1,699 / www.roccat.org MOUSE PAD ASUS Whetstone R469 / rog.asus.com SOUND Creative Sound Blaster ZxR R3,599 / www.soundblaster.com HEADPHONES HyperX Cloud R1,199 / www.kingston.com INTEL Intel Core i7 5960X R13,999 / www.intel.com MSI X99S XPOWER AC R5,999 / www.msi.com Corsair Dominator Platinum Limited Edition DDR4 3400 R12,999 / www.corsair.com R95,326 AMD AMD FX 8350 R2,999 / www.amd.com ASUS Crosshair V Formula-Z R3,699 / www.asus.com Corsair Vengeance…

SUPPLIER Rebel Tech WEBSITE www.rebeltech.co.za ERP R899 SPECS SENSOR / Up to 5,670 DPI BUTTONS / Ten, programmable ACCELERATION / 30 G REPORT RATE (USB) / Up to 1,000 reports per second Func’s MS-3²’s most striking feature is the odd shape and size of its design. The left side of it is fairly normal, but the right side extends outwards such that your ring and pinkie fingers permanently rest in grooves on the mouse, rather than hanging off it and partially dragging along the surface on which you’re playing. This strange shape ensures that the mouse definitely leans more toward palm-gripped players, although you can get away with claw grip just fine. Left-handed players are out of luck, however. Its abnormal shape and large form do take some time…

SUPPLIER Livdigital WEBSITE www.asbis.co.za ERP R379 SPECS SENSOR / Optical, up to 3,200 DPI BUTTONS / Six, programmable ACCELERATION / 30 G REPORT RATE (USB) / Up to 1,000 reports per second Given its low price tag, it’s easy to dismiss the Canyon Tyrant and assume that it’ll offer up subpar gaming performance. That’d be a mistake, because it offers fantastic value for money, and anyone who thinks spending around R1,000 on a gaming mouse from a better-known brand is ludicrous would do well to pay attention. Obviously it doesn’t match up to the overall quality and attention to detail of its vastly more expensive rivals. It feels cheap because it is, but it’s nevertheless a perfectly functional device outfitted with all of the features we’ve come to expect…

SUPPLIER Pinnacle Africa WEBSITE www.asustor.com ERP R6,499 (excluding hard drives) SPECS RAM / 1GB DDR3 STORAGE / Up to 4x 2.5/3.5” SSD/HDD (WD Red drives recommended) CONNECTIVITY / Gigabit Ethernet, 2x USB 3.0, 2x USB 2.0, Infrared OUTPUT / HDMI 1.4a, 3.5mm audio jack Sometimes a piece of tech comes along that you won’t know you want until you’ve spent some time with it, and in this case the ASUSTOR AS304-T is now a necessity in my life. Hey, I’m a sucker for cool stuff. This is a network-attached storage (NAS) device with more flexibility than a circus performer. Setup is a little odd: there’s HDMI and rear USB 2.0, but out of the box you can only access the device from your network via a browser-based interface. But…

SUPPLIER Rectron WEBSITE www.corsair.com ERP R12,999 SPECS FREQUENCY / 3,400MHz TIMINGS / 16-16-16-36 (XMP 2.0) VOLTAGE / 1.35V Corsair has done it again, releasing the fastest DDR set money can buy. Just as we were forgetting that they were the original enthusiast and overclocking memory experts, the firm quietly makes available not only the highest frequency DDR4 set available, but also the only kit tuned specifically for the highest overclocking motherboard - the GIGABYTE X99 SOC-Champion. To further illustrate the close relationship between this motherboard and this kit, Corsair has employed an orange metallic finish on the DIMMs which matches the SOC CHAMPION’s orange heat sinks and accents. The only part Corsair didn’t customise, which also happens to be the poorest aspect of this kit, are the new Dominator Air Flow…

SUPPLIER MSI WEBSITE www.msi.com ERP R69,999 SPECS CPU / Intel Core i7 4890HQ GPU / 2x NVIDIA GTX 980M (16GB) MEMORY / 32GB DDR3L 1,600MHz (dual channel) STORAGE / 512GB SSD (4x 128 in RAID) OPTICAL DRIVE / Blu-ray writer WEIGHT / 4.49kg BENCHMARKS PCMark 8 Creative Suite (OpenCL accelerated): 7,085 Battery time 1h 8m 28s 3DMark Fire Strike 12,832 Tomb Raider DX11 (maximum) 1080p 179.9fps The MSI GT80 Titan is the most powerful gaming notebook that has ever existed. The specs comprise of nothing but the most high-end components and as the name suggests, includes two GPUs in SLI. These are not Titan GPUs though but GTX 980M MXM graphics cards in SLI. If you’re not satisfied with the single GPU performance of the most powerful mobile graphics card around,…

No offence, but but but… I had this super rad English lecturer during my postgraduate studies. Let’s call him John. This one time, in the middle of a class discussion, I said something that upset him. His usually nonchalant demeanour changed instantly from one moment to the next – he looked suddenly furious and… kind of terrified. “Don’t say that word,” he told me. “It’s a horrible word.” For the remainder of the lesson, he was visibly distressed and I was confused. Later the same day, I emailed him that image of Stephen Fry you’ve maybe seen on Facebook or 9GAG or some other ivory tower of intellectual thought featuring the quote about how being offended has “no meaning” and “no purpose” and “no reason to be respected”. Except, no,…