Feature review: The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword Feature review: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Feature: hands-on with Spec Ops: The Line Feature review: Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception Feature review: Modern Warfare 3
Feature review: The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword As the Wii enters its closing few months, Nintendo’s Zelda Team have finally given the wee white console its very first Zelda entry made from scratch for the system, something we (ahem) fans have been salivating over for years. From the moment the game launches you will notice the more cinematic approach Skyward Sword takes [...]
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Feature review: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim You don’t have to be a serious gamer to know why The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was one of the most anticipated games of the year for some people. If you’re looking for a massive, highly-detailed world you can lose yourself in for weeks, months or even years at a time, few games can match [...]
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Feature: hands-on with Spec Ops: The Line The last time I saw Spec Ops: The Line was nearly two years ago at the reveal event in Berlin. The game’s ducked way below the radar since then, having barely shown its sand-swept face in the time between then and now. Just as I was starting to wonder if the game had stumbled into [...]
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Feature review: Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception Naughty Dog is back to take us on a whirlwind tour of the globe in chase of the seductive Iram of the Pillars,pulling us back into the sweaty jeans of our favourite wisecrack adventurer, Nathan Drake. Following 2009’s mighty Among Thieves was no easy task but Naughty Dog have stepped up their game in almost [...]
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Feature review: Modern Warfare 3 To say that Call of Duty means a lot to a lot of people would be an understatement. The franchise ranks worldwide alongside series like Gran Turismo, Grand Theft Auto and The Sims. In the NAG office alone, we have collectively logged over 4,400 hours between Black Ops and Modern Warfare 2. Perhaps it’d be [...]
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Meet Nintendo’s new Nintendo Network

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has introduced the company’s new online network during an investor’s meeting. The Nintendo Network will be available on the 3DS and the upcoming Wii U. You can think of it as Nintendo’s answer to Xbox Live Marketplace and the PlayStation Network, as it is to be a structured and branded online service.

According to Iwata, the aim of the Nintendo Network is to “establish a platform where various services available through the network for our consumers shall be connected via Nintendo Network service so that the company can make comprehensive proposals to consumers.”

What sort of “comprehensive proposals”? Downloadable content is one example but it’s unlikely to stop there. There are also plans to offer full-retail games as downloadable, digital versions.

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Posted by Miklós Szecsei Jan 27, 2012
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Bitch-slapped: An open letter to my gaming PC

Dear Overmind,

Hi, how are you? Actually, I’m not sure you can even read this, because you’re not plugged in. I know, I know, it’s been about seven months now since I moved into this flat, but there you are, a great black behemoth with no cables to give you life. I think they’re in a cupboard somewhere.

I don't open this cupboard very often.

Behind the fish flakes, maybe.

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Posted by Tarryn Van Der Byl Jan 27, 2012
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Review: Resident Evil: Revelations

Oh deary, deary me. It seems the poor little 3DS is having a hard time of it, not being able to attract developers with its miscalculated selling point of a glasses-less 3D screen which seems to give more than half of its buyers eye-strain and headaches with any kind of prolonged use. Nobody would blame you if you considered (or actually did) pawn the thing while it was still worth something.

But if you stuck it out on faith that something worthwhile would eventually come your way – something not a rehash or remake of an old title, the likes of which seem to typify the 3DS library to this point – then you’ll be happy to know that Resident Evil: Revelations has finally arrived.

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Posted by Matthew Vice Jan 27, 2012
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THQ cuts more staff, ex-employees air dirty laundry

Publisher THQ is in a bit of a pickle at present. The company’s monumental failure with their uDraw product has resulted in massive financial issues. To put it into perspective, THQ share prices were valued at $30 not too long ago; currently, the shares are worth $0.70. Drastic action is needed in order to salvage the company, and that has resulted in them permanently dropping their children and family game labels in order to focus on core, AAA titles titles like Saints Row: The Third. I’m sure many gamers don’t have a problem with this new strategy.

THQ has just announced further employee layoffs, with those from the administrative and publishing departments receiving pink slips. None of the five internal development studios have been affected, so at present this looks like a structure shuffle for THQ itself and not its collection of dev teams.

How did this all happen? Well, a fairly insightful and venomous explanation can be found in an open letter issued to the THQ Board of Directors. The letter was penned by those THQ staff members who have lost their jobs in this recent restructuring – the ex-employees refer to themselves as “The Formerly Mismanaged”. They’re placing all of the blame on the publisher’s senior management, specifically CEO Brian Farrell.

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Posted by Miklós Szecsei Jan 27, 2012
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Street Fighter X Tekken goes to crazy town

That’s right. Pac-Man and “American Mega Man” have joined the roster for the PlayStation Vita version of Street Fighter X Tekken. “American Mega Man” is modelled after the bad box art of the American release of Mega Man, while Pac-Man rides atop a Tron Bonne-style mechanized Mokujin.

You can find a character reveal trailer after the break.

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Posted by Miktar Jan 27, 2012
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Nintendo’s financial year is looking grim

Well, it’s looking grim by Nintendo standards, which is to say that they’re not posting their normal 55 bajillion yen profit. In fact, it’s kind of the opposite, as the Japanese company has just issued its third quarter financial statements for the current fiscal year.

Nintendo has forecasted a much lower annual turnover than initially expected and this is largely thanks to underperforming hardware sales and a stronger Yen, which makes things expensive for foreign countries to purchase Japanese exports.

Initially, Nintendo forecasted a loss of ¥20 billion, which is just over R2 billion. Now, however, that forecast is looking a little grimmer, with the expected loss to come in at ¥65 billion, or R6.5 billion by March 2012.

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Posted by Miklós Szecsei Jan 26, 2012
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Fresh details on Deadlight

About a week ago we got a first glimpse of Tequila Works’ new indie game Deadlight. Billed as a “horror puzzle platformer” the game stars a sole survivor of a viral outbreak. Now, courtesy of website Joystiq and their interview with creative director Raul Rubio, we have some new details regarding the intriguing title.

The story begins with the viral outbreak starting in British Columbia, Canada. The virus has turned everyone into “killer automatons” which Tequila Works has named “shadows”.

The game is set during 1986 for a reason. According to Rubio, ’86 is significant for having “a lot of lunar events” (the Challenger space shuttle disaster, Halley’s Comet, the Russian Mir space station etc) which will supposedly tie in to the plot premise and possible explanation of where this virus originated. Furthermore, the mid eighties saw the release of films like Rambo: First Blood and Day of the Dead, both of which the team at Tequila Works is specifically referencing for the game’s unique style and mechanics.

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Posted by Miklós Szecsei Jan 26, 2012
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Local BF3 team competes in Nations Cup

First in Battle (FiB), a local Battlefield 3 team, will be competing as an official SA team in the international online ClanBase NationsCup XV. The MSSA hosted an online championship in January, where most of South Africa’s top BF3 teams competed.

“Clan FiB performed very well in the competition, winning all their rounds except one against Clan ASF. We’ve got a strong set of Battlefield 3 players in Team South Africa to represent us at the Nations Cup and we wish them the best of luck,” said Colin Webster, President of MSSA.

Twenty four countries have secured their spot in the competition, and have been split into four groups of six. South Africa are in Group C along with Australia, Belgium, Finland, Portugal and Russia, and will need to place in the top 3 of their group to make it through to the next stage of the comp. Team South Africa play their first match against Finland on Sunday 29 January at 9pm.

Posted by Guardien Jan 26, 2012
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Rumour: Xbox 720 has Blu-Ray, anti-used game system

I really wish these “industry insiders” and “sources close to Microsoft” could have got their acts together and leaked all this supposed information at once; it would have obviated my having to post a second Xbox 720 rumour piece in twenty-four hours.

So this is day two of the rumour-fuelled speculation on Microsoft’s Xbox 360 successor. Yesterday was all about graphics chips, processing power, supposed release dates and whisky distilleries. Today’s Xbox 720 rumour talks disc medium, motion sensors and potential DRM systems for the next console.

First off, Kotaku is referencing a “games industry source” for the information that Microsoft will switch to Blu-Ray as a disc medium for the Xbox 720 (again, the console probably won’t be called Xbox 720). Some might find this unlikely because of the misconception that Blu-Ray is Sony’s disc format; it is not. Sony was one of nine corporations, along with MIT, to form the Blu-Ray Disc Association back in 2002 in order to develop and market the new disc medium. Incidentally, Sony also helped to develop DVDs, and Microsoft has had no issues using that format.

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Posted by Miklós Szecsei Jan 26, 2012
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Cocky twits exploit PunkBuster, ban honest players

A hacking and cheating forum called ArtificialAiming has hacked Battlefield 3 servers that are running the anti-cheating software PunkBuster. The reason: to ban honest players so as to prove how shaky the anti-cheating protocols are for Battlefield 3.

Focusing on third-party anti-cheating tools GGC and PBBans, junior members of ArtificialAiming have managed to issue bans to over 150 honest Battlefield 3 players. They’ve managed this by “framing” the user accounts so that the anti-cheating systems kick in to ban the player.

According to the cocky little buggers hacking group: “We are bringing back the unerring of PunkBuster back for a third season. We have selected GGC-stream as the target since they have the most streaming BF3 servers and makes it very easy to add fake bans. In 2011 we hit them with a mass ban-wave, and now we are banning real players from Battlelog while GGC-stream is totally unaware. We have framed 150-plus BF3 players alone.”

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Posted by Miklós Szecsei Jan 25, 2012
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2000+ employees and $1 billion net-worth? Clone games!

 

When Famville developer Zynga couldn’t acquire NimbleBit, the three-person developer behind the recent iOS hit game Tiny Tower, they simply stole what they couldn’t have.

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Posted by Miktar Jan 25, 2012
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Official Minecraft LEGO is now a thing

In the January edition of NAG Magazine, you may have come across a news piece about Mojang spearheading a drive to get official Minecraft LEGO sets produced. Anyone can suggest a LEGO set theme via the LEGO CUUSOO website: an online submissions platform type thing. If the LEGO set gets more than 10 000 votes by the general public, then the proposal is taken to the LEGO bigwigs for final approval or denial.

Minecraft LEGO reached more than 10 000 votes on CUUSOO in a matter of days. As a result, the CUUSOO people took Mojang’s proposal to the important LEGO people (who I’m hoping have never been seen by the world and are actually yellow men with basic facial features and stiff limbs) who have given the LEGO sets the green light.

At the moment, the LEGO design team is in the stages of developing ideas that will eventually go into productions for retail LEGO sets; the header image is not indicative of their direction. The official CUUSOO blog didn’t have much more to share on the matter other than stating a desire to develop “a concept that celebrates the best aspects of building with the LEGO system and in Minecraft”. That shouldn’t be too hard seeing as Minecraft and LEGO are practically identical. If the little LEGO Minecraft men don’t have square heads and pixelated features, I will be very disappointed.

Source: CUUSOO Blog
Via: Joystiq

Posted by Miklós Szecsei Jan 25, 2012
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