SOUTH AFRICA’S LEADING GAMING, COMPUTER & TECHNOLOGY MAGAZINE VOL 15 ISSUE 2 FEATURES G.E.L.F. Essential lifestyle gear Epic Mickey 2 Eek, a mouse Darksiders II Feel the chill PC / PLAYSTATION / XBOX / NINTENDO REVIEWS Exclusive: Prototype 2 SSX Kid Icarus: Uprising Journey This is my tomahawk, this is my gun. This one is for slaying, and this one is for fun. SOUTH AFRICA’S LEADING GAMING, COMPUTER & TECHNOLOGY MAGAZINE VOL 15 ISSUE 2 EXCLUSIVE Bonus digital cover! PC / PLAYSTATION / XBOX / NINTENDO REVIEWS Exclusive: Prototype 2 SSX Kid Icarus: Uprising Journey + MORE DARKSIDERS II I beheld a pale horse: and he that sat upon him, his name was Death FEATURES Assassin’s Creed III New game, new assassin, New World. Epic Mickey 2 Eek, a mouse G.E.L.F. Essential lifestyle gear Editor Michael “RedTide“ James [email protected] Assistant editor Contents Features Geoff “GeometriX“ Burrows Regulars 28 THE TOP 8 ADGs (ATTENTION- Staff writer DEMANDING GAMES) OF 2012 Dane “Barkskin “ Remendes 8 Ed’s note 2012 is looking like a scorching year for video games. 10 Inbox Contributing editor We pick the top eight that have us salivating with 14 Bytes Lauren “Guardi3n “ Das Neves thoughts of what gaming’s future holds. Technical writer 32 GAMER’S ESSENTIAL Neo “ShockG“ Sibeko Opinion LIFESTYLE FEATURE International correspondent 14 I, Gamer The lifestyle of a gamer is generally shrouded in Miktar “Miktar” Dracon 16 The Game Stalker gloriously nerdy pursuits that occupy our time when 18 The Indie Investigator we’re not actually playing games. Here be some Contributors 20 Miktar’s Meanderings things for you to want, and want now. Rodain “Nandrew” Joubert 83 Hardwired Walt “Ramjet” Pretorius 98 Game Over Miklós “Mikit0707 “ Szecsei 38 DISNEY EPIC MICKEY 2: Pippa “UnexpectedGirl” Tshabalala THE POWER OF TWO Tarryn “Azimuth “ Van Der Byl Warren Spector isn’t done with Mickey after just one Adam “Madman” Liebman Previews game. We bring you the skinny on its duo-fuelled innards. Art director 52 Sleeping Dogs Chris “SAVAGE“ Savides 54 Dead or Alive 5 56 ShootMania Storm 42 DARKSIDERS II Photography War is old hat – Death is all the rage right now. Chris “SAVAGE“ Savides Darksiders II puts the “action” in action RPG, Dreamstime.com promising more, more and more than its forebear Fotolia.com Reviews ever did. 58 Reviews: Introduction Sales executive Cheryl “Cleona“ Harris / [email protected] 59 Short Reviews: Army Corps 46 ASSASSIN’S CREED III +27 72 322 9875 of Hell / Lumines: It’s out of Italy and into the Americas for Assassin’s Electronic Symphony Creed. Let us hold your hand as we give you a journey Marketing and promotions manager Silent Hill HD Collection of the series’ new frontier. Jacqui “Jax” Jacobs 60 Prototype 2 [email protected] +27 82 778 8439 62 Armored Core V 46 INTEL Z77 64 Street Fighter X Tekken MOTHERBOARD ROUNDUP Offi ce assistant 66 Kid Icarus: Uprising Intel’s new hotness is here! We put fi ve Z77 Paul Ndebele 68 Journey motherboards through rigorous testing to inform you 70 Twisted Metal where your money’s best spent. Contact details 72 SSX P .O. Box 237, Olivedale, 2158, South Africa Tel +27 11 704 2679 74 Yakuza: Dead Souls Fax +27 11 704 4120 75 The Sims 3: Master Suite Stuff Subscription department 76 Blades of Time [email protected] 77 Tekken 3D: Prime Edition 79 The Jak and Daxter Trilogy Internet www.nag.co.za www.zinio.com/nag www.facebook.com/NAGMagazine Hardware www.twitter.com/nagcoza 80 Tech news Printing 82 Dream Machine Impress Web Printers 84 The lazy gamer’s guide: Cyborg 031 263 2755 F.L.Y. 9 Wireless Flight Stick 90 ASUS GeFORCE GTX 680 Distribution 92 AOC e1649Fwu Portable Laptop On the Dot Stuart Dickerson / 011 401 5932 Monitor / Acer Aspire S3 94 GIGABYTE RADEON R787OC-2GD 96 Asrock X79 Fatal1ty Professional 97 Sony Ericsson Xperia arc S Copyright 2012 NAG All rights reserved. No article or picture in this magazine may be reproduced, copied or transmitted in any form whatsoever without the express written consent of the publisher. Opinions expressed in the magazine are not necessarily those of the publisher or the editors. All trademarks and registered trademarks are the sole property of their respective owners. Don’t Pirate NAG! this magazine when you’re fi nished with it. 6 May 2012 www.nag.co.za PREORDER YOUR GAMES from Top CD and get a gift card for up to R100* No deposit needed when you Pre-Order: You only pay when the game is released and you will receive a gift card for up to R100. Spec Ops: The Line Hitman Absolution Far Cry 3 Resident Evil 6 Grand Theft Auto V Bioshock Infi nite StarCraft II: Medal of Honor Assassins Creed III Heart of the Swarm Warfi ghter Expansion Pack Find us on See the great selection of games at Top CD stores in: Facebook Pretoria: Menlyn Park / Centurion Mall / Kolonnade / The Grove Wonderboom Junction / Quagga Johannesburg: Cresta Shopping Centre Dial 08610 Top CD (08610 867 23) to speak to your nearest Top CD / EDITOR’S NOTE / It’s my nightmare and T-SHIRTS Supplier AWX (Cheshire Cat) / Cosmic Comics I’ll scream if I want to! (Batman) Price They say when you start talking about your dreams in print R225 (Cheshire Cat) / R199 it’s time to look at other career choices and perhaps get a (Batman) nice hobby that involves plenty of sunshine and fresh air. Lucky for me then talking about my dreams is not what “They glow in the this is about. dark” is the answer Actually, I do need to talk a little about them for context, to the question of but this isn’t about them – you’ll see. why these are so So the other night I had what most people might call a special. Besides nightmare: Tarryn was in it (not the scary part), and we were looking cool they going under the ground to explore some evil house or a school off er other pluses and minuses. that was infected by some oozy, slimy meaty entity (Dead Plus: let’s say, for Space – not sure). Tarryn disappeared down a hole in the fl oor example, your (into the entity) and I took another route fi ghting shapeless airplane crashes things in the dark. Before things got too intense and weird I into a mountain woke up. Anyway, in this dream and ones like it my view of and you’re thrown the action switches to third person and not fi rst person. So out and land I kind of watch what’s happening to me while I’m doing it. I unconscious only have fi rst person dreams when they are fun, pleasurable in a dark fi eld. or exciting and interesting. The “bad” stuff like slaying acid Emergency services will have vomiting aliens and/or nuking the Dome at Northgate (don’t no trouble fi nding ask) I do in the third person – to keep me detached, I think a you. Minus: getting psychiatrist would guess. So laying there in the dark a thought I’D LIKE TO THANK… mistaken for an dropped out of the collective and I mused, “I wonder if you I don’t know if I’m going to get all of this in before the eradiated worker dream like that because you’re a gamer.” People who don’t play orchestra starts playing but I’ll give it a go. For our cartoony at a nuclear power games have no perspective other than the fi rst person. They Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two feature thanks must go plant. don’t do anything that involves controlling anything from to Gail from Prima Interactive and Warren Spector from a third person perspective. On the other hand, we gamers Junction Point. Then, for Darksiders II: Death Strikes, switch from fi rst to third and from 2D to 3D and top-down to thanks go to Howard from Ster Kinekor and Marvin Donald isometric all the time since we started gaming. The fi rst time (game director) for taking the time to speak to us about his I grasped just how clever and complex games could be was game. For the epic Assassin’s Creed III, we say hey to Rene’ playing an isometric puzzle game called Head Over Heels on from Megarom, Dan Gardener and Hayley Johnstone from the Commodore 64. You had to split up a pair of characters Ubisoft London and of course Matt Turner (lead script to solve the puzzles. This was a long time ago when a concept writer for ACIII) for taking the time to talk to us. Almost like this was on the bleeding edge but it was a new way of done... Last, but not least, Sarah from Claudia’s Travel who looking at games, a diff erent perspective as it were. Since then had to make a million fl ight alterations across four diff erent I’ve played from so many diff erent viewpoints (even inside countries so that we could get to London. Finally, thanks to rocks thanks to Tomb Raider) I’ve lost count, and I think this Rob Guillory for kindly letting us to use his artwork in NAG has changed the way I view my dreams. and also for taking the time to answer a few questions. All I’d like to hear from you lot about your gaming related you people rock! dream perspectives, not so much dreams about games, because we’ve all probably had plenty of those, but how you OUT OF SPACE think playing games aff ects how you dream.