SA’S LEADING GAMING, COMPUTER & TECHNOLOGY MAGAZINE PC / PLAYSTATION / XBOX / NINTENDO Vol 14 Issue 11 Anno 2070 Need for Speed: The Run Saints Row: The Third Zelda: Skyward Sword WWE ‘12 Our girl lollipop, she’s made our hearts A typical go giddy-up example of a zombie-slaying cheerleader. FEBRUARY 2012 SOUTH AFRICA R42.00 OUTSIDE SOUTH AFRICA R36.84 EXCL. VAT / contents / Editor Opinion Michael “RedTide“ James Regulars [email protected] 8 Ed’s Note 12 I, Gamer 10 Inbox 14 The Game Stalker Technical Writer 12 Bytes 16 The Indie Investigator Neo “ShockG“ Sibeko 18 Miktar’s Meanderings 65 Hardwired Akimbo campers 82 Game Over Geoff “GeometriX“ Burrows Dane “Barkskin “ Remendes Contributing Editor Lauren “Guardi3n “ Das Neves Features International Correspondent Miktar “Miktar” Dracon 400 24 Top 11 list of “Just a list”. Xbox LIVE Arcade is a veritable goldmine for prospective indie Contributors connoisseurs. For those not brave enough to wade through the muck Rodain “Nandrew” Joubert in order to find the precious gems, we’ve got a list of 11 XBLA games that Walt “Ramjet” Pretorius made us smile, that made us cry, that made us thankful for the creative Miklós “Mikit0707 “ Szecsei minds of their respective developers. Pippa “UnexpectedGirl” Tshabalala Tarryn “Azimuth “ Van Der Byl 26 Dude, where’s my Half-Life 2: Episode Three? Adam “Madman” Liebman Seriously, where the hell is it? Art Director 32 Lollipop Chainsaw Chris “SAVAGE“ Savides Just when you thought slaying the undead wasn’t quite sexy and/or provocative enough, in walks Juliet and her pompoms made of zombie- Photography slaying win. Chris “SAVAGE“ Savides Dreamstime.com Fotolia.com Sales Executive Cheryl “Cleona“ Harris Previews Reviews [email protected] +27 72 322 9875 28 Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time 38 Reviews: Introduction 30 SSX 39 Short Review: LEGO Harry Potter: Years 5-7 Marketing and Promotions Manager 40 The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword Jacqui “Jax” Jacobs 42 Saints Row: The Third [email protected] 44 44 Mario Kart 7 +27 82 778 8439 46 Anno 2070 48 Need for Speed: The Run Office Assistant 50 The Lord of the Rings: War in the North Paul Ndebele 51 Trine 2 52 Cities XL 2012 Contact Details 53 Dawn of Fantasy P .O. Box 237 54 WWE ‘12 Olivedale 56 Go Vacation 2158 58 South Africa Blackwater / Michael Phelps: Push the Limit Tel +27 11 704 2679 60 Professor Layton and the Spectre’s Call / Fax +27 11 704 4120 Men of War: Vietnam Subscription Department [email protected] Internet www.nag.co.za Hardware Printing 62 Tech News Impress Web Printers 64 Dream Machine 32 031 263 2755 66 Dell XPS L702X 68 ASUS VG278H Distribution 70 CM Storm Trooper / WD TV Live On the Dot Streaming Media Player Stuart Dickerson / 011 401 5932 72 GIGABYTE X79-UD3 74 Samsung Series 7 Gamer 700G7A 76 Patriot Pyro SE 240GB SSD 78 G.Skill RipjawS Z F3 2400MHz Quad Copyright 2012 NAG. Channel RAM All Rights Reserved. No Article Or Picture In 79 Evetech i7-3930K-based Gaming PC 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. 74 Don’t Pirate NAG! this magazine when you’re finished with it. 6 / www.nag.co.za / editor’s note / Amped Like the hullabaloo of a thousand and one flightless birds trying to get airborne, 2012 has arrived, poked around and started moving along at a fair lick of speed. Welcome to the February issue of NAG magazine1 and in reality our first proper issue of 2012. Seeing that we’re quite possibly the best gaming magazine south of the equator and definitely the biggest gaming and technology magazine in South Africas we have to be seen to be making a decent effort each year. More of an effort than anyone else really, or year for the human race, let’s all try something we’ll be accused of resting on our laurels and different these next 10 months. If you don’t like not trying hard enough. Of course our loyal and fighting games… too bad, go play some Mortal long-time fans will say bah to this because Kombat. Think you can’t play shooters on a they know we always approach each issue as console… load up Halo and play it to the very though it was our first date. You know how end. RPGs never tickled your fancy… get Skyrim it goes, spending too much time combing the and toss a few fireballs at a dragon. Same goes turf, hosing on dad’s Old Spice and brushing our with people who don’t play shooters. Let’s tongues while trying to avoid going too deep all make 2012 the year of trying something and barfing up our lunch. different. Hell, I might even load up Zelda on the In this regard we’re launching a few new Wii this week. Share your experiences this year projects this year, tweaking NAG a bit and of at the usual address. course rAge is going to be a monster as it’s our tenth one! I can’t say too much because when Enjoy it people. you lead the pack everyone is watching… ;) RedTide THE MADNESS OF ME [Editor] So you know how I was talking about planning to play new games in December – well, I didn’t. Like a tool sack I spent too much time playing what I had been playing during 2011 (Modern Warfare 3, Terraria and so on) – old stuff and NEW DISTRIBUTOR nothing really new. I also ate my way back In some rare NAG business news we’re saying into heart attack territory, watched some cool goodbye to JMD as our magazine distributor and movies and too much rubbish TV and socialised hello to On the Dot (OTD) this month. JMD ran into and so on, so it wasn’t a total loss overall… I some difficulties and have decided to close that felt good and happy until I got back to work and division of their business permanently. What this spoke to Dane. During a random office insulting means to you: better visibility and availability of session he asked me what I really played in NAG in your area. We’ll be on-shelf a day earlier 2011 and I couldn’t tell him anything other than in some parts of the country and overall NAG the usual suspects. I was mocked and ridiculed will just be easier to find everywhere. The new while trying to defend myself using lies and guys are putting their necks on the line and bravado. Bottom line: I needed to break the have offered all our readers a problem-reporting addiction and broaden the horizons. SMS service as part of the deal. Should any of Long story short: I downloaded and played our readers find there is no NAG in their regular the brilliant Bastion that same night and loved retailer, they can send an SMS to 36485 (at a it. I then got cracking on Trine 2 and Joe Danger: cost of R1.00) to report the problem. [The shop Special Edition as well as Skyrim and Serious name, address and area should be sent to 36485]. Sam 3: BFE and even Universe Sandbox. I loved If you don’t want to SMS but would still like to every minute of not playing MW3. Of course report a distribution or availability problem you I’ll still play MW3 and Battlefield 3 but not as can call Stuart Dickerson on 011 401 5932 and let obsessively as I used to. Quick update, last night him know or call the NAG office line on 011 704 I gave Choplifter HD a quick spin (it’s even got 2679 or email [email protected]. The good news 1 We’ll be back up to 100 is that we’ll pick a random SMS from the batch pages in March. a zombie mode). This whole interesting but pointless (or is that pointless but interesting?) each month and give that person a free 12 month insight into my personal life serves as the subscription to NAG so they’ll never have to burn 2 I just heard Avatar 2 is game time looking for NAG again. only coming in 2016 so I foundation, and lead ups to the message I want guess we’ll never see it. to get across here. Seeing that 20122 is the last 8 / www.nag.co.za *Disclaimer: All letters sent to NAG are printed more or less verbatim (that’s as / inbox / we get them for you kids at the back), so ignore any spelling or grammatical errors.) Letter of the Month February 2012 From: Justin bragging about, the amount of time have felt this and perhaps you guys Subject: Game Addiction - taken to firstly get enough metal and NAG could do a special on game Experience and Opinion to even buy an item worth a lot to addiction and ways of playing a lot 5 Days. I have finally kicked the habit someone is in the order of months, while remaining healthy mentally – my addiction? Team Fortress 2, For perhaps years. I know the game has and physically and perhaps a the past 5 days, amid trying to study been out for a long time, so people critique on the extent to which the (and failing), I have been getting shot have had time to slowly accumulate game makers are perpetuating this, in the head, setting people on fire, stockpiles of items, but it is not this by increasing level caps and dripping spinning up my mini-gun and trading that bothers me, it’s the fact that it out new items or charging money for everything I could get my hands took me 5 days to realise that I was those in a hurry to get them.