NAG December 2009 Issue Impressions, Highlights

So, it’s the last issue of the year, well, not technically, since there will be one last one belted out before Christmas, usually, just before the new year. Okay, so it’s the second last issue.
I purchased this one last Thursday, and I’ve since had a look at some of the stuff on there, played some of the demo, etc.
Anyhow, just a short note: I’ve been buying NAG, a local gaming magazine for over ten years now. It started up in 1998, about April, and I started buying it soon thereafter.
NAG is one of my sources for trailers, demos, patches and such that are way too large to download from the net all the time. The NAG DVD was once upon a CD which could only pack about 700 MB. Then it progressed to a 4.7 GB DVD, and later a 9 GB DVD (one of those dual sided ones, or whatever, except you don’t have to turn it over to access the other side, like PC Format DVDs).
So, this month, I’m going to give my thoughts on the DVD and the magazine. First off, I’ll write about the DVD, and the highlights on it, seeing as that’s the first thing I get out of the package and pop in my DVD-RAM drive.
We have demos, and these consist of Darkest of Days, an anachronistic-type shooter which involves time travel and such, going back between the past and future, and lets you use modern weapons in battles in the American Civil War.
Then there’s Painkiller Resurrection, a demo of a fan-made sequel to the original game, I’m led to believe. There’s also the Wolfenstein Demo. I’ve played the full game of this- not bad.
So, some pretty good demos this month. There were some others that I haven't really looked at.
The next folder on the disk reads “Drivers”, and contains ATI and nVidia drivers. I was disappointed here, seeing as there were only nVidia drivers for Vista- nothing for XP this month.
Then we have extras, with some other folders inside, which contains a free magazine…on cars. I should give that to my dad. The free full game of Death Rally is on there, so it would have saved me downloading it last month. There’s also Warsow, a game similar to Quake III Arena. I think it uses a derivative of the same engine.
No patches this month either.
As always, lots of trailers and such. This seems to be where most of where NAG’s effort goes as far as the DVD is concerned. It’s got a WarCraft retrospective series, seeing as I was just reading the other day that it’s been fifteen years since the first game in the Blizzard series was released. There’s the ScrewAttack videos as well. Some good videos on there include an AvP trailer, some Assassin’s Creed stuff, lots of BioShock 2 stuff, Borderlands, and of course the embarrassing Modern Warfare 2 Fight Against Grenade Spam movie that caused such a fuss because of its acronym. There’s a disturbing movie of the SAW videogame too.
Interestingly enough, on the cover it says the the printers that usually do the DVD went out of business, so this one had to be done overseas. I’m not sure if this is true, seeing as NAG usually likes to joke around sometimes, damn them.
As for the magazine, it’s still no where as large as it was years ago. At one stage it was brimming with content – sometimes 140 or so pages, but for the past while it’s been below 100 pages, and there are lots of ads. NAG claims this is because of the recession. I’ve noticed that instead of waiting until the next magazine is printed where there can be a proper review for a game, on their website they have posts about games and such, in order to keep up with other websites and blogs.
Magazines are slowly becoming obsolete.
So, highlights this month in the magazine include a review of Operation Flashpoint (I was disappointed with this game), Brutal Legend (The Soundtrack sounds like something I’d be more interested in), Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, and Borderlands (tough to love with its bugs, but good).
There’s also some previews of games like Metro 2033, a game that I’m quite keen on playing, seeing as it’s very STALKER-ish (by some of the guys who worked on STALKER), as well as quite a bit of stuff on Avatar, and Darksiders gets the cover story this month.
So, all in all, not bad. About a 7 out of 10.
      
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NAG December 2009 Issue Impressions, Highlights