Owing to Episode 4’s lacklustre experience, I was somewhat hesitant to venture into this, the final chapter of Sam & Max Season 3. The good news is that I needn’t have been; The City That Dares Not Sleep proved to be a good ending to an overall enjoyable season.

At the end of Episode 4 Max was turned into a towering beast-rabbit from the Dark Dimension who then proceeded to tear apart New York and feed off the psychic energy of the populous’ nightmares by releasing thousands of hypnotic, flaming Max-head spores. Pretty straightforward really. Naturally, Episode 5 is all about saving the city and (hopefully) saving Max in the process. In order to do this, Sam has to assemble a brave taskforce, disguise the trusty DeSoto as a three metre corn dog, and travel inside beast-rabbit-Max in the hopes of finding a way to reverse the transformation. It’s climactic Sam & Max insanity, but fortunately the puzzles make sense once again.

With Max out of action, this episode has a slightly different feel to it. Those concerned that the usual banter between Sam and Max might be missing need not fret as Telltale conveniently works Max’s dialogue into each scene, even though Max himself is busy wreaking havoc on Manhattan. There are also no Toys of Power to use, so the once-prevalent mechanics of Ventriloquism, Future Vision, Rhinoplasty etc. are nowhere to be seen in this last chapter. The result is that Episode 5 feels more like a classic point-and-click than any of the season’s earlier instalments. There is still very little inventory interaction and there is (sadly) no item combining at all. Having to solely rely on your immediate surroundings for answers rather than an always available suite of powers or expanded inventory, makes the experience somewhat compacted.

On the whole, The Devil’s Playhouse is a good season, and not just for fans of Sam & Max in general. If you’re into adventure games, or you’re young enough to be curious about this “point-and-click” genre that old-school gamers keep harping on about, then Season 3 is well worth dipping into. The Toys of Power make for a clever new mechanic and create some brilliant puzzles that will keep veteran adventure gamers’ brains pumping think-juice. If you’ve been putting off Season 3 until all the episodes have been released, then you’ve got a good fifteen to twenty hours of hilarity to look forward to – possibly more depending on how stupid thorough you are.

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Not much in the news today, but there is this little video we think you should see, so click the image below:

“So man created the rocket jump, and it was leet.”

Freddiew makes a lot of fun movies with rather good special effects. Look at the rest [here].

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The creators of the Sam & Max, Tales of Monkey Island and Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People series of episodic games are hard at work on an episodic series of titles based on the beloved Back to the Future trilogy (they’re also working on a little something based on Jurassic Park, in case you’re interested). They’ve now officially revealed a portion of what we can expect to see in the game.

Well don't they look smug?

Christopher Lloyd will revisit his role as the voice of Emmett “Doc” Brown for Telltale’s new series. They’ve also secured the likeness of Michael J. Fox so we can get an accurate recreation of Marty McFly in our BttF games.

OMG YAY!

The first series will be made up of five parts, filled with key characters and other recognisable elements from the movies. The town of Hill Valley? It’s in there. The DeLorean? It’s in there. They’re even consulting with Bob Gale – the screenwriter for the trilogy – to ensure that the story doesn’t disappoint. Exciting stuff.

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Batman: Arkham Asylum was one of the best games of last year. I don’t need to tell you this, you know it already, because you’ve played it. Right?

Well, here are some screenshots of the sequel – Batman: Arkham City - which will apparently have multiplayer, but there’s no word on if it’ll be just a deathmatch mode, or co-op with Catwoman. The game is expected to launch later near the end of this year.

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Been wondering how well StarCraft II has been selling in the month that has passed since its release? We all know that the game sold over a million copies within 24 hours of it hitting store shelves, making it the fastest-selling PC game of 2010 from day one. It then went on to hit the 1.5-million mark in its first 48 hours of availability. Everybody knew the PC-only RTS was going to be insanely successful, so these monstrous sales figures came as no surprise.

Blizzard has now released the sales figures for the game’s first month. Just as a matter of interest, StarCraft II went on sale in North America, Europe, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Russia, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau on July 27. Since that day, three million copies have crash landed on the hard drives of PC gamers in those regions. Three million! Take that, piracy.

Tychus is pleased.

“We appreciate all the enthusiasm that players around the world have shown for StarCraft II,” said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. “It was important to us to deliver an overall gameplay experience that was accessible, balanced, and fun, and it’s been gratifying to see how strongly the global community has already embraced the game.” Mr Morhaime seems pleased.

What makes this three million all the more incredible is the fact that this is a Blizzard game, which immediately means that this is just the start: StarCraft II will continue to sell many, many copies for many, many years and make everyone involved many, many beautiful moneys. They fully deserve it, because they made a damn fine game. If you don’t have it already, get it – you won’t be disappointed. Don’t believe me? Read the six-page, multi-writer review in this month’s issue of NAG, or check out NAG Online’s review here.

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So I step into the office this morning and waiting for me in my inbox is an e-mail from Ubisoft’s marketing people. My first thought? How nice of them to send me this lovely little e-mail. Perhaps they want to see how I’m doing, find out if everything’s okay, maybe send me some free things for being such an awesome guy. Turns out there’s more to it than that.

The cryptic subject line reads “make it big in Hollywood…” The body of the e-mail simply states the following: “You may not know it but everyone can make it big in Hollywood… with a glimpse of cruelty!”

Attached I find three images, which you’ll see scattered around this news piece. Each is a knock-off of a renowned movie poster from the past. We especially like the one for Chew, a replica of the Jaws poster.

WTF?

We’re not sure what this all means, or what Ubisoft is teasing, but we’re intrigued. We assume it has something to do with the unannounced (officially, at least) XBLA and PSN title Bloody Good Time. Bloody Good Time’s site describes the game using this bit of text: “Bloody Good Time is a game regrouping ambitious teen actors ready to kill for fame! Selected by a weird B-movie director looking for the best shot, they will do anything to get the lead role.”

OMG?

We’d like to know what this is all about (more specifically, what game this is tied to). Maybe we’ll find out when PAX rolls around?

BBQ?

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Some 26 years ago, two students, Ian Bell and David Braben (who went on to become a rock-star game developer) met at Cambridge and compared notes on games they were both working on, and pooled their efforts to release one of the most influential games of all time, Elite. While this was not the first ever title of its kind, it was a major breakthrough, and the one that launched, if you’ll pardon the pun, the space combat and trading genre. Even to this day, the occasional game developer will cite Elite as an influence and inspiration for his work. In the past few years, however, the “space sim” genre has been somewhat unpopular with developers, perhaps due to the joystick losing so much ground to the keyboard and mouse (in fact, one of the most famous space sims of recent years, Freelancer, doesn’t even support the joystick.) Nevertheless, there is still considerable demand for the genre, as proved not only by the likes of EVE Online, but also by a number of open-source projects out there. One such is Oolite (Object Oriented eLITE), which was started several years ago, and continues with great enthusiasm.

When we hear “open source”, we can’t be blamed for immediately assuming second-rate, user-unfriendly stuff that might only be appreciated by the Linux crowd – all too often that is exactly the case. Not so here. Oolite is a polished and completed game, impressively put together, which runs on multiple platforms (Windows, Mac, Linux.) It is a meagre 22MB download (which is still 1000 times the size of the original, which fitted in 22 kilobytes!), but to enjoy the full experience you will want to also grab some OXPs – Oolite eXpansion Packs. These vary in size between literally a few kB and many MB (for the larger model and texture packs), but mostly weight in at around a megabyte or two. They add a variety of extra features, but I’ll get back to those just now.

The core game is a re-creation of Elite, right down to the placements of all 2048 worlds (yes, that’s right – over 2000 of them!) in the 8 galaxies, their names, descriptions, and properties; the market prices; the ships; the stations; the missions – everything. The only differences are a couple of interface tweaks to make the game more friendly to today’s audience, and the ability to buy new ships (in the original, you could upgrade your ship, but could not trade it in for another.) The vast universe is procedurally generated using the original algorithm that allowed Bell and Braben to accomplish this on primitive machines such as the Spectrum 48K. The only major differences are graphical: the wireframe models have been replaced by solid models (though retaining their original shapes), and planets have been given textures. The gameplay itself revolves around flying around, trading, and kicking ass. The trading can be typical buy-low/sell-high shenanigans, or contract cargo-hauling, or passenger freight. Of course, one can also go the pirate route and attack vessels for their cargo (the cops will get upset!), or be a bounty hunter and go after criminals for the prices on their heads and their (often contraband) cargo. The game can be controlled with keyboard and mouse, but a joystick is highly recommended.

While a faithful reproduction, the base game gets tired pretty quickly: we have come to expect so much more from games these days, and while it is damn impressive that all this was achieved 26 years ago, today it fails to measure up for long, except as a curiosity. However, this is where the OXPs come in, and there are literally hundreds to pick from. They add a wide variety of content to the game: some are graphical enhancements that add high-definition models and textures to ships, stations, and planets, and transform the game into something that easily rivals, and even surpasses, commercially available titles. Others add custom HUDs (interfaces) to replace the default one, or alternative sound schemes (there is a variety of ship computer voices that can be added, though the game also offers synthesized messages – pretty darn cool!) The majority, however, add new ships, missions, or gameplay features. The latter can be things like refuelling satellites, in-system jump-gates, additional planets and moons, more realistic repositioning of planets relative to their suns, new weapons, new types of bases, flavour content for various government systems (each planet has its own political, economic, and technological profile), and more. The new ships OXPs are pretty self-explanatory – they generally add ships for both players and NPCs. And the mission OXPs provide either serialised campaign missions, or procedurally generated ones (such as the Random Hits OXP, which expands bounty hunting as a profession by generating felon NPCs to be hunted down, and adds seedy bars at Anarchy systems where hardened veterans can swing by to pick up contracts.) Literally, you can shape the game how you want it by adding the OXPs you want – and simply removing any you end up not liking.

Overall, this is an amazing game put together by a handful of fans of the original title. Fleshed out, it surpasses commercial examples of its genre, and offers a deep, sometimes humorous, and long-lasting gaming experience for the discount price of – nothing! It supported by an active and very friendly community forum, frequented by the game’s developers, OXP developers, and just plain gamers like you and me. Oolite’s main drawback is that it has no multiplayer and, due to the structure of its universe, is unlikely ever to get it. If you want to check it out, head on over to www.oolite.org

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There’s a World of Warcraft movie in the works, with director Sam Raimi (director of the Spider-Man movie trilogy) steering the great big WoW-movie bus along – we’ve known about this for a while. A movie based on StarCraft, however, is not happening. Not unless someone like Avatar-boy James Cameron happened to come along and woo Blizzard with all his billion-dollar movie experience and his flashy smile.

The entire movie could be shot from an isometric perspective, with the majority of the shots focusing on resource gathering.

Speaking with MTV Multiplayer, Blizzard VP of game design Rob Pardo said that Blizzard is still looking for the right partners to pursue Hollywood projects beyond the WoW movie. “It’s really important to us that we find creative people that are really talented but also really excited about our properties,” said Pardo. “I think if Jim Cameron came to us tomorrow and said, ‘You want to make a StarCraft movie?’ we’d probably sign that.”

Like this, but with a bonus DVD filled with deleted hair-sex scenes.

A James Cameron-directed StarCraft movie would be kick ass – you know this to be true. The Protoss would be a peaceful race of blue space hippies sitting on a chunk of awesomesauce, the Terran corporations would come along to sap the awesomesauce tree of all its delicious, nutritous space juice, but then those dirty Zerg show up out of nowhere and Zergling rush the hell out of both of them and take the awesomesauce for themselves. Think about it: pure billion-dollar brilliance right there. Avatar, StarCraft II, James Cameron and Blizzard: each of them is amazing on their own, but put them together and the universe might just collapse in on itself from an overload of win. Come on Mr Cameron: you know you want to. Organise a lunch date with Blizzard.

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If you were around in the 16-Bit console era, then this one probably needs no introduction. Back then, console gamers didn’t have a whole lot of genres to choose from like we do today, and we were pretty much stuck with fighters, shooters, sports, the occasional racer and platformers, lots and lots of platformers. But even the fairly mindless platform game genre had a few titles that stood head-and-shoulder above the rest.

Earthworm Jim was one of these exceptional titles. Not only did the game have awesome cartoon graphics, excellent animation, kickass sound and funky music, but it was such a joy to play. Players took on the role of Jim, a relatively normal earthworm who spent his days doing whatever it is that earthworms do while dodging crows and other predators. One day, an experimental space suit accidentally fell on him and melded with his wormy body. Suddenly he had limbs, a gun, and a space rocket – so he did what anyone would do in that situation and became an intergalactic hero. His first adventure sees him on a mission to rescue Princess What’s-her-name from the evil Queen Slug-for-a-Butt. Yeah, it sounds kind of stupid, but hey, it’s a cartoon.

For most of the game, players will control Jim in a familiar, 2D action game style. Jim can run, jump and shoot with his gun – pretty standard stuff, but his unique physical attributes give him some unique abilities. Jim can pull his stretchy, wormy body out of the suit to use as a whip by attacking enemies or swinging from convenient, hook-like items. He can also spin his head like a helicopter to slow his descent and even abandon his suit entirely in certain situations to squirm through small openings. Okay, looking at it now, it does feel a little limited by the standards of today’s action games, but back then it was ground-breaking.

The updated HD version of the game, which is now available on the PlayStation Network and Xbox LIVE, contains the original game in its entirety, completely redrawn and reanimated in glorious HD with a groovy, remastered soundtrack to boot. The cool thing about it is that developers seem to be slowly learning that rehashing old games with HD graphics doesn’t quite cut it any more, and  Earthworm Jim HD comes with a few nifty extras. The first is the multiplayer mode, which allows up to four players to play a co-op mode. The second is a bunch on entirely new levels created from the ground up for this version, which is a plus for fans who remember the original a little too well.

While I want to stand on a soap box and recommend this game to everyone who passes by, I have to remember that it’s still a fairly limited action game compared to modern titles. So unless you’re an avid fan from the old days or someone curious about that era, you’ll probably want to play the demo first and then decide.

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Have you gotten tired of your plain old white Wii just sitting there, looking painfully boring and boasting a distinct lack of Disney’s flagship character? Then this ought to put a smile on your face. Game-industry legend Warren Spector’s newest baby, Epic Mickey, is getting a nifty collector’s edition if this Toys ‘R Us product listing is to be believed.

In the box you’ll find a copy of Epic Mickey (obviously), a behind-the-scenes DVD that’ll likely feature all the usual making-of videos (along with some extra stuff), an Epic Mickey-themed faceplate for your Wii remote and two skins for the console itself so you can pretty up your Wii. Also in that special packaging is a five-inch vinyl figure of the game’s beloved protagonist.

Here, have a pretty picture so you can see all the swag for yourself.

 Toys ‘R Us has their pre-order price listed as $69.99 (around R560). No word yet on local pricing or whether it’ll even be available here in SA.

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We apologise for the site being down over the weekend and also for the current intermittent problems. But it’s all cool because obviously we’re not really trying to run a serious business here after all – who needs a website to be working over the weekend right?

We have no idea what the problem is because the hosting company doesn’t know and they haven’t been able to fix it since: Friday 27th August 2010. Additionally, if you’re trying to send us mail please keep trying as this has also been a bit iffy, but (thankfully) is now apparently fixed. We know this is not up to scratch because surely a hosting company would have a contingency plan for this kind of failure – you know, like another server or something that they could switch to while they fix the problem. Use it, don’t use it, whatever – we’re not the experts. We’d hate to think how long we’d be down if something serious happened one day…

To show just how sorry we are for all the problems, have a lolcat to brighten up your day. It's lame, but at least we tried.

This site is hosted by Web Africa.

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It’s amazing how little has really changed in 30 years, if you watch this Activision Corporate Commercial (1981). Sure, the graphics have gotten better, but the underlying thinking, the blatant corporate double-speak and PR bull-manure, is just as bad then as it still is now.

Activision: We’ve taken Frogger, replaced the frog with a chicken, and made an entirely new game! Woo!

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Could a big-screen adaptation of Rockstar’s epic Red Dead Redemption be in the works? If the rumour mills over at ShowbizSpy are to be believed, then there is, and Brad Pitt has first refusal for the role of John Marston. ShowbizSpy’s sources apparently had this to say: “This is an exciting project with a great character at the center of it. The idea is to make this in the style of an epic Western movie but with a few modern touches. Brad is perfect for the role and he is being given first refusal.”

Brad Pitt as John Marston? Guess we could see that working. Needs more beard though.

Making a film that captures the grandeur of Red Dead Redemption wouldn’t be easy. We just hope that if this turns out to somehow be true (don’t count on it though – these are Hollywood sources we’re talking about here), whoever is at the helm doesn’t screw up our memories of what has quickly become one of NAG‘s favourite games in the history of ever. Rockstar Games has dismissed this as rumour and speculation, but we can’t help but think that with the right director, a Read Dead Redemption movie could rock.

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What if well-known videogame characters were the opposite gender of what they are now? Aside from how uncomfortable it might make the various princesses that need saving, these images found via Examiner could make you feel funny in new and interesting places. Just go with it man, just go with it.

Luigi

Kratos

Enzio

Samus

Master Chief

Sephiroth

Link

Lara

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Air guitar in the name of XP! ArenaNet has officially unveiled Guild Wars 2′s version of the Necromancer profession. Summoning minions, inciting fear in the hearts of foes and controlling the flow of battles is the Necro’s specialty.

Fueled by the dark arts, the new Necromancer has an awesome new game mechanic called Life Force, which is essentially a special power that is built up by attacking and killing enemies. Once your Life Force reaches a certain point, your Necro can leave his physical form behind and become a spectral apparition by entering the Death Shroud state (it’ll happen automatically when your HP meter hits the zero mark). When in effect, the Death Shroud uses your accumulated Life Force as a second health bar and grants access to abilities unique to the Death Shroud state. Get a kill while in this ghostly form, or run out of Life Force, and you’ll return to your body – whether it be lifeless or otherwise.

The Necromancer and his minions in action. Now ain't that a face for radio...

There’s more to the Necro than just Life Force, so surf on over here (where you can also check up on the other three professions that have been revealed so far – Warrior, Ranger and Elementalist) to learn more about the rest of the profession’s specialties. What do you think? Necro for the win, or does one of the other professions appeal to you more?

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Hot “action-RPG on co-operative tower-defense with loot” action, in majestic FULL COLOUR. Coming to PC and Xbox LIVE Arcade. The game’s website sells it best:

Dungeon Defenders is an original hybrid of two hot genres: Tower Defense and online Action-RPG!

The game puts players in the role of one of four distinctive hero classes, tasked with fending off hordes of invading beasties by strategically summoning a variety of Defenses & Traps throughout their castle.

But as far more than a strategy game, players directly participate in the action-packed combat with their hero characters, while upgrading their statistics, gathering tons of loot and inventory items, customizing & upgrading equipment, and developing unique class abilities. All of this can be enjoyed in seamless online and split-screen local multiplayer, as players cooperate and compete through the story campaign and challenge missions to build the strongest heroes and achieve the highest scores in the kingdom.

Combining the depth of strategic gaming with the satisfying action of RPG character building in a beautifully stylized ‘toon fantasy setting, Dungeon Defenders is designed to be a distinctly addictive, easy-to-play experience for casual and hardcore gamers alike.

Tower-Defense Meets Action-RPG

Choose your class, customize your your character & equipment, strategically assemble your defenses, and participate directly in action-packed battle to preserve your castle against the invading horde!

Seamless online and Local Multiplayer

Team-up with 3 friends to defend cooperatively, with character classes that support each other’s strengths and weaknesses. Dynamically combine local (splitscreen) and online players, and leave/join any time, so that the game’s always full.

Distinct Character-Classes

Each character class has a unique balance and set of weapons, towers, and special abilities, for a different style of gameplay.

Loot & Level-Up

Grab the mounds of money and items that your defeated foes drop, trade them or store them for later use in your Item Box! Getting Kills and Completing Waves earns you experience points, which can be used to upgrade your character, your skills, your equipment, and your Towers on a per-statistic basis – do you want to enhance Hit Points, Attack Rate, Damage, etc? The choices are yours to make. Store your massive overflow of money in the “Mana Bank”, and then spend it to improve your equipment or trade with other players. Proudly show off your best equipment in your own “Adventurer’s Tavern”, without fear of item theft!

Relentless hordes of enemies and Massive Bosses

Over 100 simultaneous enemies will attempt to tear through your defenses, and at key points gigantic Boss Monsters will appear to rain down havoc upon everyone. Only by employing the most effective defensive strategies, teamwork, and strong characters will you defeat such devilish foes! Many Enemy Types, run the gamut from big dumb Orcs swinging huge axes, to sly lithe Dark Elves striking from the shadows with bow & arrow, to crazy goblins armed with explosive packs. Unique boss monsters provide set-piece battles, among them a gargantuan Ancient Dragon and a cantankerous Goblin Mech.

Variety of levels and game modes

Each level has a different visual setting, layout, enemy types, traps, and distinct scripted surprises. Four difficulty settings from novice to master, which also adjust the rate of experience and loot earned. Storybook-style cinematics tell the tale throughout the Campaign Mode, and endings vary depending on which characters were used. Survival Mode pits increasing waves of enemies against the players until they fall, with the goal being to defend long enough to achieve the highest leaderboard score. Challenge Mode allows players to play any level with uniquely altered rule sets and goals!

A Mountain of Stats

Every shot you take, every kill you make, each defense you build, and every other action & event within gameplay is logged and recorded for posterity. Pore over the voluminous charts and graphs at the end of each session to analyze your team’s performance, quickly review your best statistics for each level, and compare your data online with other players to see who is the greatest hero of all. Furthermore, your Achievements are visible for all to see within your very own Adventurer’s Tavern, and the highest scores for each of your heroes are ranked on the worldwide leaderboards!

A Helpful Friend…

Discover cute “familiars”, pets which tag along during your adventure, and provide distinct status and gameplay effects. These too can be levelled-up and customized, and even traded with other players… if you have the heart to part with your dear little friend!

Stylin’

Expressive water-colored cartoon visual style, and self-aware humor that playfully tweaks classic fantasy archetypes.

Downloadable Content

Additional character classes, equipment, levels, and game modes are on the way. Take your DLC with you into any online game!

HOT PICS!

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Do you still cry yourself to sleep at night over Modern Warfare 2′s lack of dedicated servers on the PC? Do you still feel like Infinity Ward should rather have shot you in the eyes with arrows than removed mod tools from their game? Do you still feel like the world hates you because you lost your dev console and are now left with no way to hack your way into winning every match you play? Then you and your fellow clannies will be glad to hear that all of these glorious, whinge-inducing (when they’re not around, at least) things will be present in the next Call of Duty title, Black Ops.

Campers - they're gaming's Chlamydia. Chances are you won't know they're around until they ruin all your fun.

It’s been known for a while now that dedicated servers will return, but now that we have official word on the return of mod tools and the dev console, it’s clear that developer Treyarch is looking to turn your PC-gaming frown upside down. CoD on the PC is reverting to its good old self, so it’s officially safe for us to put the pitchforks down and stop flaming and whining on Internet forums everywhere. We don’t know when the mod tools will arrive, because mod tools must be the last thing on the minds of the Treyarch developers while they’re furiously working to get the actual game ready for store shelves, but at least we know they’re definitely coming after the game is released.

In other Black Ops-related news, check out the crazy cool Prestige Edition (pictured below) for the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of the game, if you haven’t already. OMG radio-controlled car with spy camera! Couple that with the night vision goggles you got last year with Modern Warfare 2′s Prestige Edition, and you’re well on your way to being much, much cooler than your friends. More details on the Prestige Edition can be found here.

Pity the RC car doesn't go boom like it does in that multiplayer gameplay trailer.

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If you let your Steam suck your delicious bandwidth dry today, by letting it update Alien Swarm (which is free, so you should have it by now), you’re in for a treat. A wonderful, painful treat.

Valve has added a new “Onslaught” mode which switches on AI Director (that thing that controls how and when the zombies attack you in Left 4 Dead). Now, dynamically generated swarms of aliens (based on your stress level, which the game somehow knows) wait for you in the dark. Onslaught works with any difficulty setting, making each playthrough unique. Valve has also added a new difficult level called “Brutal”, that they claim is so brutal, nobody at Valve has managed to complete the game on it. If Brutal is too easy for you, there’s also a “Hardcore Friendly Fire” mode. Full damage from everything, including turrets. Not recommended if you’re going to play with people who suck.

As a reward, there are new awards: 3 new IAF Promotion Ranks: Platinum Star, Osmium Star, and the coveted Iridium Medallion.

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Ever wondered what it would be like to play Halo on an Atari 2600? Yeah, us too. Well, now you can! Just click [here]. It has all the glory and joy of every Atari 2600 game ever, except for perhaps Yar’s Revenge.

Hint: Go up one screen to get the gun.

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The September issue of NAG will be on shelf on the 26th of August.

Click here for the contents PDF [137KB]

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We assume that Telkom will eventually upgrade it’s 384 and 512 subscribers. Those will receive a boost this year, but no information has come to light about how much it will improve. 384 could move up to 512, and 512 could go up to anything near 4Mb/s. Hell, I’m on a 3G connection, and I still get better speeds than either of those two*.

*If you can really call it better, that is.

My beef with Telkom these days is the long wait. We’re ranked so far down the ladder in terms of average speeds that we don’t even register a blip on the radar of the top 10 countries with the fastest connection in the world, and it’s all thanks to “South Africa’s Leading Telecommunications Provider”. Yeah, you’re forgetting that you’re the only one, jackass. We’re being fed scraps of the potential that Telkom has, and they’re perfectly satisfied sitting there and making us pay heaps for a connection that  would cost the same as a good meal out. And do they still think we’re blind?

I don’t pretend to understand the nuances of running such a large enterprise the size of Telkom, but there are some numbers that I think are applicable here.

In South Africa around 5,300,000 people are connected to the Internet as of a 2009 survey, over 1.5million which use ADSL. Thanks to the line speed upgrades, it has been revealed that 19,400 users on the 4Mb/s lines are due for an upgrade at the moment, the equivalent of 2.9% of the entire 4Mb/s ADSL subscriber base. And it’s only for those who sync at near full speed.

Cheap bandwidth does kinda help, but it's not helping. Urdoinitwrong!

I had a huge argument planned about how easily Telkom could afford to upgrade everyone, what with all the riches they’ve been accumulating over the years (apparently they’re going broke now, eh?) but I realize I’m just farting against thunder; I mean, what could I achieve here, one solitary technical writer on the NAG Online block? It begs the question as to what the other 4Mb/s users who don’t even sync at 3Mb/s will be getting in the long term. Stability? Full Sync speed? Lower prices? Or will they suffer as they always have, paying for double the service that they’re actually getting?

I’ve never been one to defend Telkom, and I’m absolutely not going to become one who does either. They need to catch a wake-up and see that the rest of the world has progressed far beyond what they’ve achieved here. Perhaps the impending leadership change might do some good, but I’m not holding my breath. Telkom only jumps when it wants to impress other countries, it seems, so what does that say about its loyalty to the userbase?

Oh, right. Food for thought.

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I’m trying to figure out another way to open this review without sounding like an old git harping on about the good old days and the forgotten art of graphic adventure games – but it doesn’t seem like there’s any other way to do it. At any rate, one of the most famous and well-loved games from this golden era is LucasArts’ Monkey Island series. This series told the story of Guybrush Threepwood, a “fearsome” pirate out to prove that he has what it takes to stand tall among other buccaneers by hunting legendary treasures.

In this particular game, he’s on a quest to find the fabled treasure known as “Big Whoop”. The only problem is that, as the game starts, he’s stranded on tiny Scabb Island, having shown up looking for said treasure only to find that the island is under lockdown by a bully pirate known as Largo. Largo beats up and robs everyone he comes across, meaning that nobody has any money to leave. Before Guybrush can resume his grand adventure, he’ll have to find a way to rid the island of this pint-sized predator.

What this translates into is an old-school point-and-click adventure. Guybrush advances by talking to other characters for information and clues, finding items and solving puzzles. Figuring out what to do next is basically the only play-mechanic Monkey Island 2 has. This is really good, old-fashioned gameplay right here folks, the kind that went out of fashion when the term “replay value” entered our gaming lingo. Yes, it’s true, once you’ve played through the game, there are no more surprises in store and, unless you really enjoyed the story, there’s no real incentive to play it more than once.

To ease the transition for new players and to add value for returning fans, the graphics have been completely redrawn in glorious HD and all of the text dialogue has been voiced-over by decent voice actors. It’s very impressive, but perhaps the coolest feature of all is the ability to transition between the old game and the new HD version. With the press of a button, the player can switch instantly between the two at any time, and I mean any time. Not only is this cool for nostalgia purposes, it’s a great reminder of how far gaming has come. This is not like playing an HD version one day and then firing up the old version in ScummVM the next day – I mean this happens right before our eyes: updated version – click – original version. You really have to see it to appreciate how cool it is.

If you were ever a fan of the Monkey Island series, you simply have to own this, but the devout gamer in me says I have to recommend it to anyone who will listen, even gamers not of the era, so check it out.

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This is the story of man, a hero to the downtrodden, a protector of the weak, a wearer of a purple thong, and, most importantly, a dispenser of justice – like, really, I’m not kidding here, he dispenses justice, like a… soap dispenser, or something. More on that later. The hero is question is named DeathSpank, a mighty adventurer on a quest to find a rare and powerful artefact, and to “dispense” as much justice as he can along the way.

The reason he’s looking for this artefact is largely unexplained apart from the fact that he was told to do it by some red-haired woman he didn’t really know, and he even admits that he wasn’t really listening to a word she said, but it seems like the kind of thing a hero would do. This ridiculous premise should give you some idea of what to expect from the rest of the game. It’s an action adventure game bursting with that evergreen mix of fantasy of black humour. You’d think we’d be sick to death of that combination by now, but it’s like peanut butter and jam or fish and chips: it’s not particularly exciting but it’s something you can keep on coming back to without really losing your taste for it. Luckily, DeathSpank is genuinely amusing and good fun too.

The game is played from a locked-camera, overhead perspective giving players a good view of the action. There’s a large world to explore populated by inhabitants eager to reward DeathSpank for such heroic deeds as digging their house keys out of a garbage dump, curing their livestock of constipation, rescuing orphans (by stuffing them into a sack of orphans in his inventory), and so on. There are over a hundreds quests to do, ranging from simple fetch quests, to bounties, rescues, dungeon puzzles, item combination quests and so on. Along the way, DeathSpank will have to do battle with endless hordes of enemies, but luckily there are hundreds upon hundreds of weapons, items, magic gadgets, potions, food, armour and other junk to aid him against the forces of darkness. At first, it might seem like DeathSpank can simply mow down any enemy with any weapon of his choice, but as players progress, they’ll find that combat steadily becomes more involved. The crux of it is DeathSpank’s “justice” ability. Upon filling a purple gauge in the middle of the screen, DeathSpank can dispense it (hence: dispenser of justice) in the form of powerful special attacks with certain weapons.

The graphics are bright, cheery and wildly varied from one region to another and the jazzy music is funny in its own right. The voice acting is good and there are plenty of hilarious conversation trees to follow with the many characters DeathSpank will meet. So if you’re sick of getting your confidence crushed in Demon’s Souls, how about a nice, easy-going fantasy action game for a change of pace?

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Here we go with some more news as part of my sneaky campaign to have gaming seen a positive light. I must admit, I really don’t understand this at all, but apparently some scientists working on the Rosetta@home project decided to give gamers a chance to see if they could break down a protein strand by rendering it in a 3D, game-like interface and allowing gamers to fill in the blanks that their computers were struggling with – and it worked. I’d probably be much more impressed if I could understand even a word of what they’re saying, but I can’t. Anyway, if you can make more sense of it, check out the original article here.

Of course, this stuff all makes total sense to a gamer. Scientists should give us a shot at quantum theory and zero point energy.

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Don’t get too excited, I think we’re still a long way away from exciting, fast-paced hovercraft races. I the meantime though, Wipeout fan Malte Jehmlich decided to create his own “real” version of the game by hooking up a camera to a remote controlled car screaming around a carboard track based on a popular Wipeout track. He then hooked up the controls into an arcade racing cabinet with a monitor that allows the player to see what the car sees. You could argue that this is taking geekiness to new heights, but how many of you can say that you would pass up a chance to actually try it? I sure as hell wouldn’t mind giving it a go. Anyway, check out the article at Geek.com here, it has video of the thing in action.

Like many things in life, playing with plastic toys is as close as we'll come to the real thing

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“The air was electric at the Fountain Court at Sandton City on Saturday, 7 August 2010 as the contestants arrived at the 2010 WCG National Team Trials as sponsored by SAMSUNG.

The eight players who had qualified during the year through the MSSA’s Provincial LAN Championships were all chomping at the bit. It was clear that nothing would have kept the finalists from competing!

The eight finalists present were:

Free State:

• Ryno Gildenhuys (2010 ASUS Free State Champion)
• Quintin Sweetman

Gauteng:

• Sebastian Collins (2010 ASUS Gauteng Champion)
• Kevin Doran

KwaZulu Natal:

• Werner Buter
• Nialle Momsen (2010 ASUS KwaZulu Natal Champion)

Western Cape:

• Dominic Brummer
• Gage Ridley (2010 ASUS Western Cape Champion)

Not only were the eight players excited to be at the Trials, they were all fully practiced and ready to take on their counterparts from all over South Africa.

The WCG song list had previously been circulated to the finalists to ensure that the gamers would be at their best – and they were…

It was expected that the only thing that would really differentiate the gamers from each other was nothing more than Big Match Temperament (BMT).

The Trials were done as a Round Robin where each finalist played against every other finalist under the most gruelling of circumstances and while thousands of shoppers looked on in awe at the skill exhibited by each and every finalist.

Between SAMSUNG and MAYHEM, a quality network and electrical service was provided during the entire Trials which allowed the finalists to be at the top of their game.

Right from the word go, the Trials were hotly contested between the players from the Western Cape and from Gauteng.

However, a much improved Kevin Doran rocked the floor and the audience while he demolished all his opponents one-by-one.

His skill could not be matched as he played his way into first place to win the Trials and to earn his place at the WORLD CYBER GAMES (WCG) in Los Angeles later this year.

Photographs of the event can be found on Mind Sports South Africa’s facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/mindsportssa

Issued by:

Colin Webster

President

Mind Sports South Africa”

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I’m ready to argue that Batman: Arkham Asylum is likely the best superhero game ever made, mostly because it was a good game on every level and didn’t simply rely on the license alone. The news has slipped out along the way that the sequel will feature Mr Freeze, Two Face and Cat Woman, but the developers have also revealed some story details. It seems that Arkham City’s criminals have taken over an entire district of the city, and in response, the city authorities have walled it off and fortified it heavily. Obviously, Batman will have to go in there for some reason, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see what that reason is.

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In what can only be described as the most charitable, spiritual and non-secular opinion I’ve ever heard from the games industry, developer Jeff Vogel from Spiderweb Software made a blog post all about how he doesn’t mind his games being pirated in certain instances. In fact, it almost sounds like he’s encouraging it sometimes. When you sort through all of the points he makes, it essentially boils down to the fact that he’d rather have someone who genuinely can’t afford to buy games pirate the game and play it rather than have them not play it at all. He finishes it up by saying that, if you can genuinely afford to buy his games, however, he’d really prefer you did that. You know, I honestly can’t argue with any of that. Anyway, check out the blog post here.

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A recent announcement by Peter Molyneux at the Engadget Show revealed that there will be no Kinect functionality in Fable III at the game’s launch. That’s not to say that the game won’t have Kinect features at all – just not when it hits the shelves. This was apparently due to the fact that Microsoft was still working on it and it wasn’t in a state that Lionhead was ready to use at the time. Expect a patch at some point after the launch that adds the promised functionality in.

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Back in 1998 I played StarCraft and really enjoyed it, but I am by no means a StarCraft fanboy. Consequently I like to think that I am able to approach this review with at least a smidgeon of objectivism. Now that that’s out of the way, the following sentence should, theoretically, hold a little more weight: this game is the best thing to happen to the RTS genre since the original StarCraft (and yes, I’m including Company of Heroes in that). Many of you probably already knew that, but we at NAG Online feel the urge to fling our opinion into the vespene choked ether, just like the guts from a zergling might be flung about after meeting the business end of a siege tank. Ready to roll out?

Single Player Campaign

Wings of Liberty focuses on the Terran chapter in the StarCraft II trilogy. Players take on the role of Jim Raynor from the original StarCraft as he sets in motion a string of events to spark a revolution against Arcturus Mengsk’s corrupt Terran Dominion. Naturally, his efforts are inextricably tied up with the Protoss and Kerrigan – the Queen of Blades and leader of the Zerg race. As far as canon goes, the StarCraft universe is a dense one and many new-comers to the series may feel slightly overwhelmed by the bulky plot. Luckily, while you wait for the game to install you are taken through a series of summaries of the events that occurred in the original StarCraft and its expansion Brood War. By the time the progress bar hits 100% you should have a good idea of what to expect and who is who in this sci-fi epic. If you still don’t, then fortunately the game ships with a booklet that details the events in much more depth – good job Blizzard.

As far as gameplay is concerned the fundamentals haven’t changed much since 1998. You will still be marshalling your forces, harvesting minerals and vespene gas, researching new technologies and trying desperately to fend off wave after wave of Zerg and Protoss. It’s classic StarCraft with a shiny new coat of 3D paint. Well, that’s what it seems, but look closely and there are a number of subtle tweaks, additional units and ideas that make the experience a much greater one. The most obvious addition is the quasi-RPG element in between missions, which serves a dual purpose. The first is to provide a more interactive way of progressing the story as you can speak to various people, watch news reports (which are often hilarious), and soak up background details via the interactive screens. This is in stark contrast to traditional RTS plot progression that, rather impersonally, pushes the narrative forward through a series of pre-rendered sequences and mission debriefings. That’s not to say that there aren’t any pre-rendered cutscenes to be found. Blizzard is still the king of stunning cutscenes and a retrospective one involving Kerrigan’s betrayal at the hands of Mengsk is undeniably excellent and is almost guaranteed to give you goose bumps.

The second effect from the RPG additive is allowing you to select specific tech upgrades and research elements. Within each mission will be certain objectives and pickups that will allow you to accumulate research points that unlock tiered additions to your army. For example: collecting enough Protoss research points will allow you to unlock an ability that lets you drop instant supply depots from orbit. Furthermore, missions may have secondary objectives with credit payouts for successful completion, but most missions will award you with a credit payout upon completion. You can then use your credits to hire mercenary troops or to permanently upgrade your units (such as giving marines shields or battlecruisers the ability to fire anti-air missiles). This, coupled with the tech upgrades in the field, means that you can customise your army and style of play quite significantly.

What will delight many is the variation to be found within the missions – this is something Blizzard is becoming very good at and gone is the RTS staple of “build base and destroy enemy base”. One particular mission called “Outbreak” has you defending your base at night from waves of sun-sensitive, infected colonists, and launching counter attacks by day while the enemy is in hiding. Alternatively, another mission has you constantly uprooting your base to relocate it as a firestorm slowly spreads across the map. Little elements like this means that the fundamental gameplay is kept fresh in every mission. Out of the twenty-six or so missions in the single player campaign, I never felt bored in any of them as they are all unique in their own way.

Multiplayer

Let’s face it: many people are only into StarCraft for the multiplayer. This time around, however, Blizzard shipped StarCraft II with Battle.net functionality central to the overall experience. Many bewailed the fact that LAN support had been dropped and online play made mandatory for all multiplayer matches, but the truth is that the new Battle.net system is slick and functional. With Facebook friends lists built in, finding your friends on Battle.net is a breeze and in general the UI is accessible and easy to navigate (with the exception of finding your three digit profile code – protip: you can see it when you hit the “add friend” button).

Naturally, the competition out there is tough and those new to the StarCraft competitive scene will lose – a lot. For those who take their multiplayer gaming seriously, there are ladders and ranked matches to be found with ease. For those new to the scene, you have an option to splash around in a beginners’ pool for your first fifty matches. Here you will likely find players of similar experience, but once those initial fifty matches are used up then Blizzard thinks you’re ready to play in the big league (gulp). This beginner’s pool is entirely optional and you can opt to bypass it and move straight into ranked matches.

There are alterations to available unit types and tech research methods to be found in the multiplayer section, so don’t expect to find a carbon copy of the load-outs and tech trees from the single player campaign. This has obviously been done to keep things balanced, but it also adds another obstacle to overcome for people new to the online scene.

One gripe is that, at the time of writing this, Battle.net accounts are region locked meaning that until Blizzard changes their approach, you will only be able to play against people in South Africa and Europe. If you have any friends in Australia or the USA for example, then you’re out of luck.

Closing Comments

Sadly, I experienced some pretty rough graphics glitches and the game crashed on one or two occasions. Fortunately, during the online experience I was only ever dropped from one game, so the new system seems very stable, especially if you take into consideration that the game launched worldwide on the same day meaning the server load must have been massive.

It’s been twelve years since the first StarCraft but the universe and game that Blizzard created so long ago seems as fresh as ever. The single player campaign is the stuff of true science fiction brilliance, and the climactic ending is only overshadowed by the realisation that this is just the first chapter. Bring on Heart of the Swarm.

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While the Xbox 360 version of Fable 3 is still on track for the end of October, Lionhead has announced that the PC version’s development will have to fall behind a little while they overcome challenges specific to the platform and optimise it perfectly. Whether or not this is bad news depends on whether or not you were eagerly awaiting the PC version of the game. I’m quite surprised that the entire project hasn’t been pushed back because, let’s face it, Fable 3 is being produced in an ambitious period of time.

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According to UK-based C&VG, StarCraft 2 has already surpassed the lifetime sales of the original within only a week of going on sale. That’s five working days for StarCraft 2 to sell more copies than StarCraft 1 did in its entire lifetime. Bear in mind that these figures only apply to the UK, but it’s still pretty impressive. Truly gaming is a different industry from what it used to be back in the day, what with the marketing and promotional muscle gaming has now.

Your dungeon heart is being attacked! --- no... wait, wrong game.

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After reading the title of this review, I have no doubt many of you are drooling in anticipation; it’s not every day we get a high-end Alienware laptop in South Africa. For those that aren’t drooling, this is probably because you’ve never heard of Alienware before now, so a quick history lesson is in order. A few years back, Alienware was a pre-built system, gaming-orientated company, providing high-end, overpriced and gimmicky laptops to north America an later on Europe. Since then, they’ve been bought by Dell, who now have Alienware laptops as their premium brand of gaming hardware. Following so far? Good. Since the Launch of the Alienware M17X (this review unit’s bigger brother) Alienware is now sold in over 35 countries, and luckily for us South Africa happens to be one of them.

As "gamer focused as you get."

So what really happens when you go all out to create a high end gaming laptop in every sense of the word? Read on to find out.

The most noticeable aspect of the M15X is undoubtably its styling. High performance laptops generally stay conservative in order to widen their appeal from gaming to other area such as Photoshop and CAD users. Not so with the M15X. Dressed in what can only be described as a suit of red armor, the M15X really breaks away from convention. A glowing alien head as the status light, front “exhaust” ports complete with mesh and cheesy green backlight, a multi zone keyboard whose backlight can be customized to almost any colour you’d care for (and a few you wouldn’t), and we haven’t even gone over the half of it. An extremely thick base houses the powerful heart of the machine, touch sensitive media keys sit above the keyboard, and there’s that DVD drive loader unlike any other you’ve ever seen on a laptop, there is simple too much to talk about. So rather than read my waffling, have a look at the pictures throughout the article, then take a look at them again, because you’re bound to see something new each time.

The styling is anything but conservative.

Cheesy or revolutionary, the styling of the M15X leaves little room for doubt, this device has but one use, portable gaming at only the highest of settings.

You can often tell by the size of a box how expensive something is. Bigger is always better, and after spending a small fortune on a gaming laptop, you’d want the box to be the size of a small car. The M15X’s box isn’t quite that size, but it’s not far off. Unboxing reveals the laptop and plenty of shock absorbing material, as well as a rather large box filled with the most comprehensive bundle I have ever seen. First off there is a cap to let everyone know that, yes, you are a gamer, and yes, you have more money than them. Next up, the power brick (of substantial size), power cable, DisplayPort to HDMI adapter, and a leather-bound user manual that would make for some light reading on many sleepless nights, and happens to be of far better quality than the one found in my car’s glove box. Add to this a mouse pad and a micro fiber pouch for the laptop and you have a bundle that all but screams, “You get what you pay for!”.

With the sheer size and weight of the M15X, portability isn’t quite a word that springs to mind. This isn’t so much a laptop as it is a desktop replacement unit. However, for transporting to LANs, the M15X works superbly. Bundled into its box which has ample room left for any other accessories you might need at a LAN, the M15X is far easier to transport than even the small desktop system, and is really what the M15X was built for. That being said, don’t expect to take this with you on your flight to London or for some light internet browsing at your local cafe. Battery life is surprisingly good considering the amount of hardware packed into the M15X. 4 to 5 hours is possible if all you’re using the laptop for is, say, typing out a review. When you crank up the usage, the battery seems to fade away into something close to nothingness, as it barely lasts 1 hour of looped 3D Mark 06 testing. When you come to think about it though, this isn’t a problem. You don’t buy the M15X for hours of operation on end, you buy it to game on and so sacrifices have to be made.

Stop! Before the lack of numbers and graphs confuses you, read this: The M15X had an unfortunate throttling issue where the CPU was stuck running at a far lower than standard frequency for the majority of synthetic and gaming benchmarks. Adjusting the BIOS didn’t work as the settings refused to save on reboot, so what we were left with was an underperforming laptop and no more time to tinker with it. All benchmarks reported scores far lower than expected (in some cases 10% of the expected score) and most games were unplayable at low settings at 800 x 600. To be fair to the M15X, which is no-doubt a gaming powerhouse, rather than posting the terrible scores, we’ll reserve this section for a future update when we can test the M15X running in all its glory.

With local pricing starting at around R18,000 for the entry-level unit (and closer to R25,000 for the unit on review), the M15X is really out of reach of most gamers, especially if you use it with its designed purpose of LANning in mind. However, with build quality, specifications and a bundle like this, that massive price tag is justified. The M15X from Alienware is unlike any laptop you’ve ever experienced before, it truly is a masterpiece of engineering, design and kitch factor, and we love it. The dream of every LANner is to have an Alienware laptop, and that’s exactly what the M15X is, the stuff dreams are made of.

Beauty and power, the stuff dreams are made of.

Specs:

CPU: Intel Core i7 720QM (1.60Ghz, 6MB L2 cache)

RAM: 4096MB (2×2048) 1333MHz DDR3 dual channel

Storage: 320GB Serial ATA (7200RPM) HDD

Optical drive: 8X DVD RW (slot-load)

GFX: 1GB NVIDIA GeForce GT260M dedicated gfx

Battery: 9-cell

Connectivity: 802.11a/g/n, Bluetooth

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Who is DAE_JA_VOO/Ettienne Venter

Intro to this mod

Dremel sponsoring DAE_JA_VOO

Full photo shoot, sketches, renders, and some ideas

Some new gear for the NAG case mod

Man, I’ve been having so much fun on this project. The more I think about it, the more excited I get.

I bought some 1.2mm thick aluminium yesterday for use in the mod.

There are four pieces lying there. Let me explain what they’re all for. The big guy is for the motherboard tray. Quickly have a look at the stock tray:

This motherboard tray caters for almost every motherboard form factor that exists, hence all the holes. While that’s a great feature, I don’t need it. I only need it to support ATX, and perhaps EATX. The tray also has three big holes along the bottom for cables, etc. I don’t need those either, because I want to make the holes for the cables in the perfect places, not general places like this. So how do we solve this? With a piece of aluminium that’ll cover all of that stuff, like so:

Obviously, it’ll get modded a whole lot before it’s finished, and I’ll get into that just now. The two smaller pieces are for the sides of the bay area. here’s the standard bay area:

And the bay area with the alu sheet covering it:

That’s just a quick test, though. By no means is that the finished setup. This is just to give you an idea of what I’m going for. The last thing I want is a million holes all over the place, so I’m trying to clean it all up

So I started off with the motherboard panel. I needed to cut a big chunk of that alu out. So I’ve got it all masked up and ready for action:

After a few minutes with the Dremel 4000 series, I had this:

I’ve just got to mention something to you guys quickly. That Dremel 4000 series is freaking incredible. I’ve had a 300 series for a few years, and I got the 400 series Digital from Dremel when I just partnered with them (a few months ago). About 6 weeks ago they sent me this 4000 series, and it feels significantly better than anything I’ve used before. Don’t get me wrong, the 300 and 400 series are fantastic tools, and I still use both of those all the time, but the raw power and strength of this 4000 series is just incredible.

Anyway, after a few minutes with my file(s), I was left with some straight and clean edges:

And then it was time for a quick test fit to see if I had done what I wanted. So far, it’s looking exactly how I want it to be looking!

Alrighty. My next step was to cut a small piece out of the bottom of the new panel so as to make space for the rear end of the case getting in the way. These two photo will explain:

So, I measured it all up and got ready for some more Dremel lovin’:

All cut!

After some filing and sizing, it seems to fit pretty well. I’m pleased with the result:

Okay, now onto getting the new alu panel fitted to the motherboard tray. There are a few things standing in the way. A few stand-offs, and this guy:

I’m not going to lie to you guys – I have no idea what that’s even for. My best guess is that it’s for cables or something, but then again, it’s in the way, so who cares anyway, right? I need two things to get rid of this guy. First thing – my Dremel Multi Chuck:

Essentially, this little guy lets me use non-standard sizes in my Dremel tools. Where I’d normally need something with a shaft that’s around 3-3.2mm in diameter, this Multi Chuck allows me to use a wide range of sizes. If I pair that up with a small drill bit from my Dremel Precision Drill Bit set, I have a perfect match:

Wait for it…

BAM!

Now that that’s out of the way, all I need to do is drill holes in the new panel for the stand-offs to come through:

This allows the new panel to sit directly against the motherboard panel, which means it won’t cause any short circuits or anything like that. Perfect!

So, all done, here’s a look at where it’s going:

I actually made a dummy motherboard and GPU specifically for photos and so on, but the progress pics of those were lost  There’s a possibility that I still have those photos on another memory card, but I don’t have that card at the moment. If I find the pics, I’ll upload them.

That board is the EXACT size of a regular ATX motherboard, and the GPU fitted there is the size of a GTX295 (measured from my own one ). Having this dummy allows me to be sure that I don’t build things that will conflict with each other. It also looks awesome in photos.

Anyway, I fitted the board to get a feel for how the board would sit over the panel beneath it, and it’s sitting exactly how I wanted it. Freaking perfect if you ask me!

I’ve left it masked up to protect it. In case you guys may have missed it (or in case I didn’t mention it), the inside of this case will be black. Once I’m done all the cutting work, this case will get sent off to the powder coaters for some fun. I may have it anodized instead. In fact – yeah, I think anodizing is what I’ll go with.

As mentioned, this new alu panel covers up the three holes that the case’s motherboard tray has in it for cables on stuff. While this might seem a little counter intuitive, it’s actually another reason I made this cover in the first place. Those holes cater for a general field of motherboards. That’s great and all, but that’s not what I need from a case. I need this case to cater for one specific motherboard, and I’ll cut the holes for the cables to fit just right for the motherboard I use in the mod. This approach should give the case a much cleaner look and feel, and make the case look a lot more professional.

Unfortunately, I can’t make these holes just yet, because we’re waiting until a few weeks before rAge before we get the hardware for this case, so as to ensure that the machine is running bleeding edge tech.

I’ll start with the bay panels and the other panel next. I’m quite excited for that stuff.

The cable sleeving that I ordered for the project has arrived, and I’m going to get it from NAG today. I’m really amped to get my hands on this sleeving, because I made sure that we use the very best sleeving in the world for this mod. It was imported from Germany specifically for this project. I’m very excited about this stuff.

That’s about it for now. I hope you’ve enjoyed this post. As always if you’d like to get hold of me, drop me an email. Alternatively, you can follow me on twitter (@dae_ja_voo) for real-time modding updates, like quick photos I throw up with my phone. Also, be sure to check out my website (daejavoo.com) for any updates/news on any other projects I may be working on.

Cheers!

Ett

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OK,  I know I said I’d try to lay off the Top 10 X posts, but it’s Friday and I’m in a good mood, so when I saw this, I thought back fondly to one of the things that has made gaming so much fun over the years: developers with a sense of humour. Finding secret pop-culture references in games or sneaky pokes at similar games made by other developers has to be one of the greatest small joys a nerd can have. I mean, everyone remembers the old Doomed space marine you could find in the prison level of Duke Nukem 3D, the unfortunate Lara Croft in Shadow Warrior, the dildo in GTA: San Andreas, and the literally hundreds of Easter Eggs in the Metal Gear Solid series. Gamingbolt recently put together a Top 25 list of their favourite Easter Eggs from games both archaic and recent. I didn’t even know about some of these gems, and I’m sure I’m not the only one. They’ve got a few obvious ones, including the Cow Level in Diablo II, looking at Ashley’s panties in Resident Evil 4, and the hundreds of pop culture references in World of Warcraft. Check it out here.

Here's one that was in all the magazines: The appearance of Commander Keen in one of Doom II's secret levels.

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As usual, I decided to hop onto the PlayStation Network last night to see if anything new or interesting had been made available. After all, I’ve got my uncapped connection now, it would be nice if I could get some use out of it. I was expecting the usual barrage of Minis, trailers, themes and other junk I couldn’t be less interested in, when I noticed a title in the new feature window that nearly made me swallow my tongue:  Earthworm Jim HD. Apparently this has been news for some time, but I somehow managed to miss it – and you can imagine my surprise. I played the Megadrive games to death and loved every minute of it. If you don’t know why you should be interested in Earthworm Jim, then dig up some retro reviews and find out. It was easily one of the most impressive platformers of its time with amazing cartoon graphics to boot. Well, it’s now available on the PlayStation Network, and probably Xbox LIVE also, although I can’t get online with my 360, so I can’t verify this. It’s surprisingly small too, weighing in at a lightweight 250MB. As is the standard practice for these things, you download the trial version first – which is basically the entire game – and then if you like it, you pay for and download a tiny little 6k unlock patch which gives you access to the full game. Apart from the redrawn graphics in glorious HD, the game also features a remastered soundtrack, four-player co-op, and new levels designed exclusively for this version. Do you honestly need any more prompting than that?

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For eight consecutive years PC gamers have known that the excitement and pure glee of Christmas arrives early in the form of the adrenalin charged 53-hour NAG LAN @ rAge, brought to you this year by Alienware.  The giant of South African gaming LANs will see 2,080 players prepare to defend their honour with their AK-47 loaded and ready to engage in countless sleep-depriving battles.

NAG, the award winning heavyweight of gaming and entertainment technology publications, in conjunction with Alienware, presents SA’s gaming fanatics with the ultimate gaming experience at rAge from 1-3 October at the Coca Cola Dome.   With 12-years of indisputable experience NAG knows what gamers want, and gives it to them!  Ten Intel servers, Internet access and the thrilling hum of 2,080 computers in unison sets the stage for unadulterated gaming nirvana that is synonymous with the NAG LAN @ rAge.

So set your calendar reminders and cellphone alarms – hell, just to be safe get your mother, brother, gaming widow, boss and/or local petrol attendant to remind you that tickets to the unprecedented gaming event of the year go on sale at Computicket on 01 August 2010 (R300.00pp for the entire weekend, which includes free access to the expo as well as a R100 gift voucher from BT Games).   Avoid having to explain the grown-up tears and get in early as tickets are expected to sell out within a couple of days – as in two.  Catch you at the action!

For more information go to www.rageexepo.co.za

Dates: 1-3 October 2010

Expo Times: Friday: 10:00 – 18:00 | Saturday: 09:00 – 18:00 | Sunday: 10:00 – 16:00

Venue: Coca Cola Dome, Johannesburg

Admission: NAG LAN @ rAge: R300.00 Tickets only available from Computicket

rAge Expo General Admission: Day ticket R50.00 pp | Weekend ticket R80.00 pp | Family ticket R160 (2 adults & 2 children) | Kids under 6 free Tickets only available at the door

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During the first five minutes of this episode I thought I was about to witness something witty and ingeniously satirical – you know, what we’ve come to expect from Sam & Max games. Episode 4 opens with our heroes fleeing in terror from wave after wave of mindless Sam clones (“Dogglegangers!”). From that point onwards, the zombie apocalypse references are just itching to burst forth with typical Sam & Max flair, but they never really do. In fact, this entire episode seems to be a continual string of fizzle-outs, missed opportunities and anticlimaxes.

Is that... Upside Down Uzbekian Blood Cake Surprise? My favourite!

So far, Season 3 has kept true to the Sam & Max ethos and has been an exceedingly quirky and utterly insane take on the whole adventure game genre. That being said, the episodes to date have managed to maintain genuine intelligence amongst the madness specifically with regard to the puzzles. Having a plot, characters and events dripping with absurdity is one thing, but when that absurdity overflows into the puzzles, that is when the point-and-click adventure element starts to take strain. Beyond the Alley of the Dolls frequently falls victim to this and what adds to the frustration is that you are never really certain what it is you are supposed to be doing. Too often the puzzles whittle down into trial and error situations. The most infuriating of these is the puzzle that leads you to finding the Cthonic Destroyer in the Realm of Skittering Ingestion – don’t be fooled by the setup, it’s not nearly as entertaining as you think. I did not discover the required piece to this particular puzzle by being led to it, but rather I found it by complete accident. Furthermore, once discovered, the additional requirements for solving the puzzle were so intensely obscure and seemingly haphazard that I was left randomly trying various combinations. This is the worst possible situation one can find in the adventure game genre; it is damaging to the overall experience and does little more than foster a sense of resentment towards the developers for utilising cheap tricks in order to stump the player.

Cthulhu's cameo appearance cost Telltale millions in actor fees.

While there are immensely funny moments found scattered about this episode (the interaction with the self-aware arcade machine cabinet from Season 2 in particular), they are not enough to make up for the fact that the overall plot and puzzles leave much to be desired. The ending is no different and you will, in all likelihood, have to repeat the same sequence of events over and over, each time furiously clicking through the same inane dialogue in an attempt to finish the scene – which, I might add, finishes in a completely predictable manner. Here’s hoping the concluding episode can pull something amazing out of the bag because up to this point I have really enjoyed the season.

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Every now and then a game comes along that irrevocably shatters your conviction of what gaming is all about. LIMBO is, without question, one of those games. I honestly wish that I could force every person I know to play through it just once. The premise is simple: “Uncertain of his sister’s fate, a boy enters LIMBO”. This deliberately minimalist approach to a storyline pervades the entire game: the control scheme is mapped to the analogue stick and two face buttons; there is hardly any music; there is no text and no speech at all; and there isn’t even any colour. Despite this sparse use of gaming conventions, LIMBO is a deep and moving experience.

The game is exceedingly beautiful to look at and the world that you are thrust into is both eerie and dangerous. Players take on the role of a nameless little boy in his relentlessly brave search for this sister. Throughout his journey you will have to traverse spike pits, bear traps and all manner of device that exists to stop your progress. And your progress will be stopped often; the world of LIMBO makes it abundantly clear that you are not welcome there. Despite the fact that you play as a young boy, that doesn’t stop the world and its few inhabitants from killing him in the most gruesome of ways. Before you reach the end of the title you will witness the child being impaled, squashed, drowned, burned alive, electrocuted and sliced into dozens of pieces by buzz saws. It is horrific, and a multitude of childhood horrors are brought to bear as well. This creates a phenomenal juxtaposition: the environment is gorgeous and you’ll want to explore it, but the impending, gruesome deaths that loom around every corner are horrendous deterrents.

Death is not the only obstacle however, as the game throws some fiendishly tricky puzzles at you. Fortunately, they’re those rare breed of puzzle that is not too easy, but not hard enough to make you feel stupid. That being said, you will get stuck at times but the best advice would be to realise that everything in the scene is there for a reason. And that just goes to show how much polish and attention to detail has gone into this game.

Of course, the title of the game carries a number of undertones – limbo is supposedly that first area of hell where un-baptised children are left for eternity. This imbues the protagonist’s sister with an enormous amount of innocence. What’s more, the fact that the young boy has entered limbo in order to find her creates all sorts of uncomfortable scenarios regarding how he got there in the first place. This type of information is left deliberately absent so that you’re forced to come up with background and reasons for yourself. In doing so you also become inextricably connected and emotionally invested in the plight of your young charge. At times the game is truly heart wrenching, and the lack of any audible feedback from the boy makes him all the more detached and his ordeal all the more mysterious.

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It’s one of those inevitable incidents, like the next rainstorm or power-outage, and it’s something we’ve just come to accept as part of gaming culture: the next FPS game. Since the phenomenon was set in motion roughly 15 years ago by Doom, we’ve had to endure FPS releases almost on a monthly basis.

Thankfully, most developers these days realise that they need something more than bleeding edge graphics and surround sound, and most FPS games include a hook of some sort to set them apart from the rest. It’s been a while since we’ve seen a really terrible one, and the whole practice has become something akin to visiting a fancy ice cream store – you simply choose your flavour. Activision’s recent shooter, Singularity, is a case-in-point.

In Singularity, players take on the role of an Allied Forces soldier, Renko, parachuting into a secret, decommissioned Russian weapons lab to investigate some strange occurrences in the region. As you’ve probably guessed, things go horribly pear-shaped right from the start, and Renko quickly finds himself among a mere handful of survivors fighting their way to a radio tower for emergency extraction. The problem is that island is overrun by strange creatures and the very fabric of reality itself seems to be strangely malleable.

If you judge Singularity by the first hour or so of gameplay, you might chalk it up as completely unremarkable or nothing special, another pretty shooter – and it is pretty – with rudimentary gameplay. But if you stick it out just a bit longer and acquire the Time Manipulation Device, the game suddenly takes on a new, almost Half-Life-like charm. This tool is the very crux of the gameplay, allowing the player to fast-forward or rewind time for objects imbued with a newly-discovered element known as E-99 – which is a clever way of limiting the player to only being able to age certain items. For example, if the player encounters a broken stairway, they can rewind time to a point when it was in a good state of repair, then age it back afterwards so that enemies can’t follow. This tool also has the capabilities of Half-Life’s gravity gun, for all kinds of physics-related puzzles. It can also double as a weapon by aging enemies – which is incredibly good fun as you watch them turn to skeletons and crumble into dust.

There is also a plethora of interesting weapons to use, all of which can be upgraded with the E-99 element to improve damage, reload speed and the like. Certain weapons also have special functions, like time-slow for sniper rifles, and the seeker’s ability to give players control over its projectile in mid-flight a-la Heavenly Sword. Players can also beef up their own, innate abilities by investing in their TMD unit to increase their health, movement capabilities, and so on. Once you’re done with that, there are a few interesting multiplayer modes you may or may not want to try.

At the end of the day, I’d recommend this shooter like I’d recommend any other. It looks good and plays well, and if it sounds like your flavour, you should probably check it out when the hankering strikes.

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I feel that my opinion of laptops and portable devices has changed significantly over the past few months. Now that I’m actually selling them to customers, I have to see where the allure is for a particular notebook, and for what workloads it would be suitable for. Business laptops are always elegant, yet thick and sturdy, entertainment notebooks are mostly thin and light these days, and for students the netbook is always going to be a winner. But for gamers, our choice was always a limited to a few choice brands and sizes. Things have picked up since my last gaming laptop column, so let’s have a look around…

Up to R5000

Always a staple in this list, HP keeps the budget gaming crown with the 625 series. The AMD Athlon dual-core still works well, the integrated ATI HD3200 GPU lets you play older titles like Starcraft, Counter-Strike, and several newer games at great speeds, and is still lighter and more efficient than a desktop built for the same purpose. Windows 7 Home Basic might be an eyesore for some, but this is what budget buying gets you – severe cost-cutting.

Up to R6000

This is specifically for a strange type of gamer – they want something to play most older LAN games, but also be small enough to not weigh them down. For this purpose, the ASUS 1201N works wonders. An Atom dual-core, 2GB of RAM, the same Nvidia M9400G found in Macbooks, and a tiny 12″ LCD screen gives you a powerful little thing that’s not to be underestimated. Considering playing some newer strategy games with all the settings dialed down at rAge? This is for you.

Up to R7000

This is where it all starts, though. R7000 is usually the baseline for gaming laptops, and the three contenders here are worthy enough. The ASUS K50ID-SX103V is a solid beginner’s choice. The Pentium dual-core is good enough for most things, the build quality is great, and the Nvidia graphics suits the price range quite well, if a little underpowered. If you’re big on brand names and image, go for this one. The other two, however, set the bar quite high for other laptops in the higher price ranges. The Core 2 Duo-packing Toshiba A300-1QE floors the K50ID with superior sound quality and a strong ATI HD3650, not to mention a more comfortable keyboard. It comes with Vista, but you get the optional Windows 7 upgrade as well. A slightly smaller profile also helps when choosing a carry-bag for the 2.7KG lummox.

The Mecer W765CU is the one to look at, though. Not only does it match the Toshiba, it also offers a degree of customisation above its standard specs. There’s even an option for a SSD as an add-on! The choice of anything up to a Core i7, up to 8GB of RAM, and whichever version of Windows you need is also something that might help it seal the deal for you.

Above these select models, there isn’t anything really enticing, or remotely affordable, until you have a look at MSI’s range. Their baseline is the GE660: a Core i3 powerhouse along with an HD5730, 4GB of DDR3 RAM, amazing build quality, and the ability to tease those running equivalent desktop rigs. For under R10k, this brings the gaming laptop far closer to the us than we imagined. But wait! There’s also something for R4k more! The GX740 needs no introduction, being a member of the now-legendary GX family. Its a god amongst laptops.

Need one word to sum it up? Orgasmic.

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From the hardware front, Neo recaps his epic adventures at the GIGABYTE Open Overclocking Championship 2010, we put the ASUS Rampage III Extreme against the GIGABYTE X58A-UD9, test out the impressive Intel Core i7 980X and the gigantic ASUS AREA Limited Edition, and loads more.

The August issue of NAG will be on shelf on Thursday the 29th of July.

Click here for the contents PDF [251KB]

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I find stuff like this very amusing. Apparently a Mortal Kombat fan was so stoked by the news of the new game returning to its roots and going a bit more old school that he made and entire animated video of the fatalities from the first game out of construction paper. It’s quite impressive, actually, in a weird, nerdy kind of way. Anyway, be sure to check it out here, because it’s just amazing to see fandom taken to this level.

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Man, it seems like Capcom is really milking this Street Fighter thing, aren’t they? It seems they’ve realised how much the world loves the game – even some gamers who aren’t all that into 2D fighters – and they’ve decided to sell us as much Street Fighter merchandise as they can manage. And I’m such a hopeless fan I’ll keep on lashing out for all of it. But during Comic-Con, in what can be described as the best news I’ve heard regarding DLC in a long time, Capcom producer Yoshinori Ono announced that they were indeed working on an online edition of Street Fighter III: Third Strike. He didn’t comment on whether or not the game would be updated for widescreen, or be given the HD treatment. I strongly believe the former and seriously doubt the latter. I was nearly jumping for joy when I read this, not least of all because the only copy of Street Fighter III: Third Strike I have is on my Dreamcast, and those machines aren’t known for their reliability, and the day will come when it gives up the ghost entirely. We never got the PS2 version of SFIII:TS here, so I don’t have one of those either. But soon I’ll be able to have one my PS3. Yay. If you’re not sure why you should be excited about this, then just know that Street Fighter III: Third Strike is perhaps the very pinnacle of hand-drawn 2D animation in fighting games – contested only by SNK’s Fatal Fury: Mark of the Wolves. The animation is silky, silky smooth and has a feeling of weight and impact like nothing ever seen before. It doesn’t hurt that the game itself is a technical masterpiece and damn good fun to play. I’d imagine it will be coming some time early next year.

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Two more characters have been added to the lineup in Capcom’s upcoming Marvel vs Capcom 3. The first in on the Marvel side, and it’s none other than the Norse god, Thor. Yep, I guess we can expect a lot of hammer bashing and lightning bolts being thrown around in some crazy combos. The second is Capcom’s Amaterasu, the lead character from the action adventure game, Okami. She’s a wolf god that fights with a combination of feral bites and headbutts, and with the disc and swords that float above her back. I personally wouldn’t mind seeing Shuma Gorath making a return, and possibly Rebecca Chambers from Resident Evil. OK, we’ve already had a Resident Evil girl in Marvel vs Capcom 2, but I like Rebecca a lot more than Jill Valentine.

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Recently, a writer over at Bitmob directs readers to a website containing a lot of in-game screenshots that were taken so skillfully that they could stand as legitimate photography in their own right. He then asks the question: can videogame screenshots serve as art? I found myself thinking the same thing when I played with the photo mode in Wipeout HD and more so in MotorStorm: Pacific Rift. For the longest time, I became more of a shutterbug than a racer in MotorStorm, trying to purposefully create the best crashes  I could and then pausing the game in the middle of a cataclysmic pileup and spending ages trying to find the best angle and composition for the shot. OK, it’s a bit sad, I know, but seriously, when you consider the quality of graphics in games today and the cinematic attention that is being paid to the lighting, it’s hardly surprising that skilled photographers can take some very decent shots in games where they have a free camera to mess around with. I actually wanted to run a competition on this exact kind of thing back in the PlayTech days. Anyway, check out some of the shots here.

I have a feeling this is going to end badly for this guy.

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In an event organised and coordinated by Vogel’s, the creators of the PS3 Twistdock charger, a team of six Dutch enthusiasts logged a 50 hour multiplayer session of Red Dead Redemption. I’m pretty sure they had small breaks for eating and other necessary acts, but apart from that it was beginning to end – 50 hours straight. The event started on Friday at 12:55pm and ended on Sunday afternoon. That’s crazy. I consider myself  a hopelessly hardcore kind of gamer, and I have been known to dedicated entire weekends to playing a single game – but not every-waking minute! Anyway, these are the names of our new champions:  Sven de Vries, Renzo Bos, Robbie van Eijkeren, Marcel van Waardenburg, Edward Leest and Maykel Leest. Hats off to these guys for proving their incredible endurance if nothing else. I suspect their might be more than a handful of WoW players in the world who have them beat.

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A lifetime of repressing his baser instincts now an untold burden on the mild-mannered goblin, Fingus secretly ponders the pleasures of casual violence.

Anyway, the games play like a mashup of something like, say, The Lost Vikings, room escape puzzlers, and point and click adventures. So you’ve got a bunch of goblins (or one goblin and a series of ad hoc comrades, in the third game), each with their own special abilities, and you have to solve a bunch of puzzles in a scene before moving onto the next one and starting over. There’s also a story in there somewhere, but in between jamming bits of stuff together to make stuff happen (or not), it seems mostly irrelevant.

The first game has a lot of obvious problems. There’s no interaction feedback whatsoever, so working out what you can actually do anything with is part of the fun. Where “fun” actually means “not much fun at all, really.” This utterly impenetrable approach to gameplay is significantly compounded by an additional complication – you have a limited amount of health shared between your goblins, and mucking up means losing chunks of this. Muck up enough, and it’s game over. Sure, there are checkpoints, and you can simply restart the scene, but the game all too quickly lapses into a tedious series of pixel-bashing trials and error (or a trial of errors, perhaps).

A severed hand. Supporting adventure game props since 1984.

The second game adds mouseover object highlighting, but chucks the simple, unambiguous character class system for a sort of personality system that’s ultimately rather too nebulous. In theory, the goblin Fingus is smart and diplomatic, while Winkle is stupid and dauntless. In practice, however, this means surreal, inscrutable predicaments where, for example, Winkle can’t figure out how a switch works in one scene, but has no difficulty negotiating the otherwise complex mechanisms of a doorbell in another. Adventure games do tend to rely somewhat on illogical – if illogically predictable, at least – approaches to problem-solving, but this character inconsistency can be quite frustrating.

Third time around, and Goblins 3 plays much more like a regular adventure game. Although the main character, Blount, is supplied with companions throughout the game, their usefulness is generally more transparent. Also, every scene features an objective summary, providing a practical context that’s altogether absent in the other games.

It’s needless to say, maybe, but none of these games are particularly easy. Many of the puzzles are necessarily – and, paradoxically, unnecessarily – obscure, meaning you’ll frequently find yourself stuck with absolutely no idea what to do next. Given their uncompromising linearity, this also means you can’t get busy doing something else in the meantime. As a rather unique series, it’s certainly worth checking out – but only if you’ve a prodigious capacity for failure and resentment to go with your old school sensibilities. Which you likely do, of course.

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This Christmas, there will be two ways to purchase Kinect in South Africa: The standalone unit for R1999.99, or the bundle package for R3699,99. Let’s take a look at what you get for your money:

The bundle, which is arguably more attractive from a price perspective, will include the new “slim” Xbox 360, but not as you might have been led to expect. This particular unit will not include the 250GB hard drive, but will rather have 4GB of flash storage built in to the motherboard. Now, 4GB is more than enough for saved games, and maybe a couple of XBLA titles, but if you want any additional storage, you’ll either have to use a couple of flash drives to expand the storage by up to another 32GB, or fork out for the separate hard drive when it hits retail (although we can’t confirm that this will happen, at this stage). The new Xbox 360 also includes built-in Wi-Fi, and will have a matching black (although mercifully matte) wireless controller. The bundle will obviously include the Kinect unit (which won’t require external power if used in conjunction with the new Xbox 360), as well as Kinect Adventures – a motion-controlled game made up of 20 mini-games like navigating through rapids, dodging your way through mountain obstacle courses and “other exotic locations.”

The standalone Kinect will include Kinect Adventures, and there will be 15 games available to purchase for the unit when it hits store shelves.

Alternatively, you can buy the standalone new Xbox 360 for R2399.99. This is the 4GB version; no word yet on pricing for the 250GB variant. Microsoft will begin shipping the units to EMEA territories (that’s us) from the 20th of August .

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