http://nag.tidemedia.co.za South Africa's leading gaming, computer & technology magazine online Wed, 10 Mar 2010 18:46:21 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en He oils himself up and slides around the stage. He grapples his opponents and forces them into awkward homoerotic position. He's Hakan, and he's ready to make you feel good about making someone else feel bad. On the side, it seems Dan has been upgraded to have a real, fully-functional ... http://nag.tidemedia.co.za/2010/03/final-super-street-fighter-iv-character-revealed/ In a tragic turn of events, it seems that a three-year-old toddler from Tennesse, Cheyenne Alexis McKeehan,  accidentally shot herself after mistaking her stepfather's loaded pistol for a Wii gun peripheral. She was rushed to the hospital and pronounced dead a short time later. Apparently her stepfather left his gun ... http://nag.tidemedia.co.za/2010/03/toddler-mistakes-real-gun-for-wii-peripheral/ Anyone who has ever tried to make a game (or write a book / draw a comic series / insert long-term creative project here) is probably aware of just how gosh-darn difficult it is to keep going at it. Sure, that initial burst of creativity can fuel a working spree ... http://nag.tidemedia.co.za/2010/03/five-efficient-dev-habits/ Seven45 Studios thinks Guitar Hero is for babies, and real men play Power Gig: Rise of the SixString.  This ain't no red-yellow-orange-green plastic-toy guitar game, Power Gig was built from the ground up to work with a legitimate six-string guitar. Coming out for PS3 and 360, it uses proprietary technology ... http://nag.tidemedia.co.za/2010/03/guitar-hero-the-real-thang/ An enormous 466 contestants descended on the Cresta shopping centre, Johannesburg this past Saturday to compete in the FIFA Interactive World Cup (FIWC) 2010 local qualifier. As early as 9am, players had begun grinding through continuous elimination matches, until around 5pm, when the final seven had emerged. Amongst them was newcomer ... http://nag.tidemedia.co.za/2010/03/fifa-interactive-world-cup-2010-local-qualifier/ Writer Josh Michaelson over at DAMNLAG recently put up a very compelling article full of reasons why he thinks SEGA should just give it up and hand Sonic over to Nintendo. The general gist of it is that SEGA keeps on reiterating the same old trash with slightly new ideas ... http://nag.tidemedia.co.za/2010/03/sega-should-give-sonic-to-nintendo-writes-damnlag/ Through the grapevine come whispers that, due to the success of the first game, Lucasarts may be due to announce the release of a re-mastered Monkey Island 2 - this leak courtesy of Kotaku. Some more good news is that, if it does come, it will hit the PlayStation Network ... http://nag.tidemedia.co.za/2010/03/monkey-island-2-re-release-planned/ Still alive? Good. Portal 2 is officially announced. It'll be a retail game at a retail price, and include co-op missions. Not much else is known right now, as information is being released slowly by GameInformer. All we have right now, is the image above and the image below. Look ... http://nag.tidemedia.co.za/2010/03/portal-2-officially-announced/ A recent announcement by SCE Europe reveals that the anticipated God of War Collection is finally coming to Europe... which means it's finally coming to us. It's been available in the US for quite some time, and a few imports have found their way here, but it seems that now ... http://nag.tidemedia.co.za/2010/03/god-of-war-collection-coming-soon/ In 1999, mankind faces an unprecedented threat of an extraterrestrial nature: violent human abduction by UFOs and hideous experimentation are increasing rapidly, creating mass hysteria amongst the world's populace. All attempts by individual countries to resist the aliens have failed dismally; they were helpless in the face of vastly superior ... http://nag.tidemedia.co.za/2010/03/super-retro-roundup-the-x-com-series/ Yesterday, Sony Computer Entertainment announced that they had acquired the developer Media Molecule, who are best known for their PS3-exclusive action-platform creative funbox of a game, LittleBigPlanet. SCE Worldwide Presdient, Shuhei Yoshida, then went on to praise Media Molecule for the innovative and outside-the-box approach to games development, and mentioned ... http://nag.tidemedia.co.za/2010/03/sony-acquires-media-molecule/ It was bound to happen. Someone found a way to turn Heavy Rain into Hot Coffee (Rain?). Over at Kotaku, the person who discovered how to glitch Quantic Dream's new ultimate-quicktime-event game into having the female lead be totally nude when not behind the safety and cover of a shower ... http://nag.tidemedia.co.za/2010/03/heavy-rain-full-frontal-nudity-bug/ [quote] When it comes to console action games, three big titles basically ruled the roost: Devil May Cry, God of War and Ninja Gaiden. Recently, they’ve been challenged by the might of this young upstart called Bayonetta, which is a fantastic action game on every level, and not too long ago ... http://nag.tidemedia.co.za/2010/03/review-dantes-inferno/ [quote] Before the turn of the millennium, the PC was really the only way to go for in-depth role playing games. Sure, console gamers at the time had a lot Japanese-style, linear, hand-holding RPGs to play, but what few western-style, free-form RPGs were available on consoles weren’t all that comprehensive, to ... http://nag.tidemedia.co.za/2010/03/retro-review-realms-of-arkania-3-shadow-over-riva/ In a dramatic break from tradition, this news item isn't just something I've sourced from the usual press outlets -- it's something I've actually dealt with. Just yesterday my friend in the UK got ahold of me on Yahoo and mentioned that she couldn't play Assassin's Creed 2 on her ... http://nag.tidemedia.co.za/2010/03/crippling-ps3-bug-porks-older-machines/ With the Borderlands value-adding downloadable content clocking in at almost a total of 4GB for the three DLC packs released so far, it's no surprise that Take 2 is releasing Borderlands + DLC on a retail disc. The three DLC packs to be included are: The Zombie Island of Doctor Ned, ... http://nag.tidemedia.co.za/2010/03/borderlands-complete-edition-announced/ PlayStation Homeless According to sources, advertisers are abandoning PlayStation Home.  “The product has disappointed both users and advertisers,” says Brand Week. “In fact, Red Bull remains one of the few non-endemic advertisers to carve out space in the world.” What's PlayStation Home? It's this "free" virtual world thing on the PlayStation 3 ... http://nag.tidemedia.co.za/2010/02/freaky-friday-newsday-hurray/ [quote] After nearly a decade of waiting, fans of the Aliens versus Predator games were beginning to wonder if they’d ever get another acid-spraying, head-biting, marine-disemboweling fright fest. Sure, we’ve had the movies to turn to in the meantime, but let’s face it, those atrocities were more like a kick in ... http://nag.tidemedia.co.za/2010/02/feature-review-aliens-versus-predator/ Normally, I'm not one for free-to-play browser-based games as I find they tend to fall somewhat short of what I look for in a game. But they're obviously taking off, and I don't think it will be long at all before they tie in somehow with mainstream commercial games. This ... http://nag.tidemedia.co.za/2010/02/play-hitmas-life-free-online/ The Nintendo Media Summit in San Francisco, California, United States of America, has just finished. Lots of stuff happened, all Nintendo stuff, obviously. We've got you covered, right here. Super Mario Galaxy 2 Release (North America): May 23, 2010 [caption id="attachment_6997" align="aligncenter" width="460" caption="Super Mario World. Literally. Hah."][/caption] Mario returns, he'll jump on stuff, run ... http://nag.tidemedia.co.za/2010/02/nintendo-media-summit-summary-world-1-1/ People tend to roll their eyes at the idea of making design documents for small-scale game projects. Fair enough: screwing around for a few hours to make a generic platformer doesn't require the care, precision and co-ordination of, say, an Army of Two co-op snipe -- it tends to be ... http://nag.tidemedia.co.za/2010/02/the-lite-design-doc/ This is not the first, and it probably won't be the last time a website puts together their own Top Ten list of the scariest videogames of all time. But let's face it, we love Top Tens, especially to see where our favourite games rank in the eyes of those ... http://nag.tidemedia.co.za/2010/02/top-ten-scariest-games-of-all-time/ A recent post over at Slashdot, reporting on something said by Scott Harris over at Moviefone, posits on the the often baffling trend of Hollywood movie ticket and DVD sales. Sometimes things just don't pan out -- for no good reason. The Chronicles of Riddick movie, for instance, didn't perform ... http://nag.tidemedia.co.za/2010/02/possible-riddick-movie-sequel-made-possible-by-the-games/ Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment, who released their Stargate-themed online third-person shooter a few weeks ago and are working on a Stargate-themed MMO, have just filed for Chapter 11 (bankruptcy protection). This puts their new shooter and upcoming MMO in a dangerous position, and there is a good chance the MMO will never ... http://nag.tidemedia.co.za/2010/02/stargate-studio-in-peril/ 2010 is officially in full swing, but that's not enough to stop us from giving you a massive feature filled to the brim with awesome things that you need to be excited for. We get behind the scenes and hands-on with the Command and Conquer 4 multiplayer beta and Heavy ... http://nag.tidemedia.co.za/2010/02/nag-march-2010-issue/ [caption id="attachment_6915" align="alignright" width="235" caption="Guess what? I'm still yawning. *yawns*"][/caption] I have to admit, a lot of new tech that I read or hear about, or see, is enough to get me pretty excited. My internal hype engine is tuned only to technology and games these days -- the newest Lamborghini ... http://nag.tidemedia.co.za/2010/02/gimmick-or-no-gimmick/ Fear not, nerd brethren! According to a recent study* - while women say they want tall, dark and handsome, what they really want is slightly hairy and kinda geeky. The skinny straight from DailyMail: Most women claim to be attracted to tall, dark and handsome men, but a new study has ... http://nag.tidemedia.co.za/2010/02/science-says-women-secretly-want-hairy-geeks/ [quote] I often wonder what it must be like to work for a games studio, creating the sequel to a game that was highly acclaimed and won its fair share of Game of the Year Awards. Sure, you might surprise gamers and reviewers the first time round, but next time everyone ... http://nag.tidemedia.co.za/2010/02/feature-review-bioshock-2/ The master of turn-based onion-layered diplomatic strategy returns. Civilization V sports a new hexagonal tile map, a new combat system, more diplomatic options and a large community hub for sharing content and civilization-dueling. Developed by Firaxis (who've been doing all of Sid's good works since 1997 when he left Microprose), Civilization ... http://nag.tidemedia.co.za/2010/02/civilization-v-adding-more-angles-to-the-series/ OK, if there's ever any news on Street Fighter, you can be sure that I'll report on it. In this case, I'm particularly excited because three more characters have been revealed for the upcoming Super Street Fighter IV - the mandatory upgrade to long-awaited 2D versus fighter. Now, we've already ... http://nag.tidemedia.co.za/2010/02/more-super-street-fighter-iv-characters-revealed-2/ Over at the C&VG, a blog post from Capcom was recently quoted to say that the decision makers over at Capcom are toying with the idea of making Street Fighter IV on the PSP. According to Capcom project manager Natsuki Shiozawa, she and many of her colleagues believe that it ... http://nag.tidemedia.co.za/2010/02/street-fighter-iv-on-psp/ A report over at g-news reveals some shocking statements by Peter Molyneux at Microsoft's X10 convention. Among other changes to the upcoming Fable game will be the complete axing of the RPG elements. Yep, you heard that right - no more health bar and, more shockingly, no more experience bar. ... http://nag.tidemedia.co.za/2010/02/some-shocking-news-about-fable-iii/ Over the years, I've often expressed my deep and profound respect for the casual gaming industry: a branch of game development that is so often vilified because it supposedly appeals to stupid and unappreciative gamers. Aside from numerous write-ups in places like Dev.Mag, I also tend to explain my stance ... http://nag.tidemedia.co.za/2010/02/casual-aint-crap/ From boom to bust in a few short years: the rhythm game genre. Thanks to overzealous publishers who pushed too much product and super-saturated the market, the genre is no longer the cash-cow it once was and publishers are starting to cut and run. In the case of Activision and their Guitar Hero ... http://nag.tidemedia.co.za/2010/02/viacom-wants-a-rock-band-refund/ A recent article over at Nintendo Everything reveals some surprising facts about Nintendo's marketing around the world. Now, we know that some hardware developers are pretty pushy with their marketing and brand-building, but Nintendo takes the cake - and you'll see why if you read up here. Game shows, cunningly-placed ... http://nag.tidemedia.co.za/2010/02/nintendo-nintendo-nintendo/ [quote] Welcome to Oddworld, home of the Magog Cartel’s premiere consumer industrial facilities, and SoulStorm Brew™. When RuptureFarms 1029 carelessly exhausts the local population of Meeches, grinding its production of the immensely popular novelty meat snack Meech Munchies™ to an abrupt and potentially commercially devastating halt, CEO Molluck the Glukkon turns ... http://nag.tidemedia.co.za/2010/02/super-double-retro-review-oddworld-abes-oddysee-and-abes-exoddus/ One of the newsies over at C&VG posted a comment by Lionhead spokesperson Sam Van Tilburgh, who told us to expect Fable III round about Christmas time this year. In a later update to this post, it was confirmed by Microsoft that, yes, Fable III will be available in time ... http://nag.tidemedia.co.za/2010/02/fable-iii-confirmed-for-holiday-season-2010/ I remember playing the first AVP game for months and months with my LAN friends. We tried AVP2 for a while, only to find that they messed up the Xenomorph side of things. I also played the single-player mode repeatedly, yelping every time a face-hugger managed to get my marine. So ... http://nag.tidemedia.co.za/2010/02/interview-with-avp-producer/ I work at Ibayi PC, one of the busiest IT solutions companies in Port Elizabeth. I've worked here long enough to start seeing patterns in the problems customers have, and with my previous personal experience fixing friends' computers, I though I'd share a bit of my troubleshooting knowledge with you, ... http://nag.tidemedia.co.za/2010/02/troubleshooting-101-less-expensive-lessons-to-learn/ [quote] Constructor is a DOS-based, tongue-in-cheek management sim that places you in control of a construction company trying to do what construction companies do best. This means, of course, that you'll spend most of your time building cheap houses, pacifying annoyed tenants, making deals with the mob and completely screwing over ... http://nag.tidemedia.co.za/2010/02/retro-review-constructor/ I found a link to this chart while surfing general news sites, digg.com in this case. It's meant to be a joke, I'm sure, but there's a kind of ironic truth to it. Now, I'm not the sort of gamer who trades in games (at least, not my games). I ... http://nag.tidemedia.co.za/2010/02/ironic-videogame-graph/ Sonic 4 Episodic, exclusively over download for Wii, PS3 and 360, the blue speedster is back and serious this time (about not sucking). 2D, side-scrolling, traditional, Spin Dash, Rolling Attack, CG-rendered enviroments, special stages... everything inspired by the Genesis-era style. What could go wrong? Read an interview with the developer, or check ... http://nag.tidemedia.co.za/2010/02/important-things/ There have been a lot of things attributed to game development, but normality probably isn't one of them. In fact, it's been scientifically proven that the concepts of "regular" and "game developer" are mutually exclusive, and even addressing someone as "a normal game developer" brings the entire universe that much ... http://nag.tidemedia.co.za/2010/02/the-global-game-jam/ If you've never been the websites of ScrewAttack or Cinemassacre, and never seen anything by the Angry Videogame Nerd, then you don't know what you're missing. He's basically long-time gamer who makes videos in which he moans about some of the worst old games out there - and often they're ... http://nag.tidemedia.co.za/2010/02/the-angry-videogame-nerd-on-ninja-gaiden/ [quote] I’m not an avid Bioware fan, but I must admit, I was waiting with bated breath among the Bioware fanatics for the release of Mass Effect 2 -- the sequel to one of the most critically acclaimed RPGs of 2008 with exciting shooting elements and in-depth character interaction. Mass Effect 2, ... http://nag.tidemedia.co.za/2010/02/feature-review-mass-effect-2/ OK, that intentionally bad rhyme aside, THQ recently revealed their upcoming lineup during a telephone interview with the C&VG. In this interview, they revealed that sequels have been confirmed for Red Faction: Guerrilla and Saints Row 2. The Red Faction sequel is likely to land this year some time, but ... http://nag.tidemedia.co.za/2010/02/something-new-from-thq/ EA’s action game based on Dante’s Divine Comedy is just around the corner, so to give you some insight as to why people are so excited for it, check out this montage of gameplay footage to get an idea. It only gives us a glimpse of a few interesting ideas, ... http://nag.tidemedia.co.za/2010/02/dante%e2%80%99s-inferno-gameplay-footage/ It seems that SEGA has barely enough faith in their failed Shenmue series to make a third installment – as long as one of the big hardware developers, Sony, Nintendo or Microsoft, front the cash for the endeavor in exchange for platform exclusivity. Shenmue was amazing when it came out ... http://nag.tidemedia.co.za/2010/02/shenmue-3-yeah-as-long-as-someone-else-pays-the-dev-costs/ Sometimes a game relies on the element of surprise to keep players on their toes and generate tense or action-filled moments. Horror titles do this a lot -- sometimes a monster will leap out of the closet, or your in-game avatar will be shocked to find that dinner is actually ... http://nag.tidemedia.co.za/2010/02/fair-warning-the-devs-guide/ On the gaming front: [caption id="attachment_6727" align="aligncenter" width="498" caption="Catbird is sad if you don't love him."][/caption] The Last Guardian website (Japanese) has gone live, so get some screens and trailers of your favorite cat-bird thing. You want to. [caption id="attachment_6728" align="aligncenter" width="447" caption="Looks like a Wii, quacks like a SEGA Genesis..."][/caption] The SEGA Zone ... http://nag.tidemedia.co.za/2010/02/stuff-and-things-the-reckoning/