NAG Magazine August 2010 Issue Out This Week

Thursday the 29th of July sees the August 2010 issue of NAG magazine arrive in stores.
Worthwhile features in the mag will be previews of top games that are due out within the next several months including Mafia II, Medal of Honor, Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Red Faction: Armageddon. Also, Bulletstorm gets the nod as the cover feature seeing as everybody’s raving about this new and improved FPS set to redefine the genre. Whether it does or not will have to be seen.

Reviews include that of Singularity, Raven’s latest title, as well as Alpha Protocol and Dead to Rights Retribution. Shadow! Awww!

There’s also a look at The Silver Lining: Episode 1, part one in episodic series of the fan-made project based in the same universe as the King’s Quest series. I’ve all ready read a rather scathing review of it on NAG Online, written by Tarryn Van Der Byl, NAG’s resident freaky Goth chick. It was less than complimentary as I’ve just mentioned, but then again, she likely doesn’t like a lot of things in life. I don’t know when NAG will put the game on the DVD if ever, seeing as it is supposed to be free, isn’t it? Activision wouldn’t allow them to make a profit off of it, surely. They tried to shut the project down at one point.

The Cover DVD has demos of Mass Effect 2, which came out in January all ready, as well as Sniper: Ghost Warrior – the first game which focuses heavily on sniping that I think I’ve ever taken an interest in, although there are no doubt others. No new drivers or patches, but there are the usual videos – 145 of them. This is the E3 issue you see, so plenty of footage from that event. The July issues of the past used to have all the E3 stuff but this year is different. Some extras on the DVD include music from the unreleased Deus Ex: Human Revolution and the usual odd stuff.
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Source: NAG Online

NAG Magazine August 2010 Issue Out This Week

Paul the Octopus May be Hiding a Secret [Random Madness]

To many, Paul is known to be a common octopus which hatched in 2008 in Weymouth, Dorset, UK, and now resides at Sea Life Centre in Oberhausen, Germany. He’s become famous for his accurate predictions of soccer match results. This has led to him being called a psychic octopus.

There have been may theories as to how he picked the winning teams during the Euro 2008 and the 2010 World Cup. Some even say that it’s not the same creature, and that the real Paul died.

But little do they know. The truth is that Paul has been hiding a deep dark secret.
Paul is a psychic cephalopod, but rather than a common octopus, he is actually better known as an Octabrain.

Octabrains were discovered years ago, back in the mid 90’s. They often inhabit water or areas near water, although they have the ability to travel from these places and onto land, as they can levitate above the ground. They are referred to as triclopses, which means they have three eyes, and also possess some wicked sharp teeth, as well as tusks or sharp mandibles. They have little need for their tentacles, but still they remain.

 
               
Images of an Octabrain, first sighted in the mid 90’s.

They have the ability, in addition to biting their prey, to attack with psychokinesis – hurling orbs of harmful energy at their victims, which serve to stun or even kill. This likely came about because of the large size of their brains. They might have evolved from another species, or may possibly be extraterrestrial.
Contrary to opinions which say that Paul will die soon, Octabrains have a longer natural lifespan than mere common octopuses, unless they happen to be blown up by a rocket propelled grenade, which would effectively mean their premature demise.

Paul has retired from his divination duties and now seeks retirement. There has been talk by some that he should experience what it’s like to be out in the ocean once before he passes away, seeing as he’s been in captivity since day one. Others warn that it would be dangerous for this very reason that he be released.
They’re right.



Images of a more mature, bigger version of an Octabrain, first sighted in 2007.

If Paul is released, it could mean catastrophic death for many, as Octabrains’ favourite food is human flesh – not mussels, like some would have you believe. He’s also nowhere near fully grown, as Octabrains can reach enormous sizes, as was seen in sightings in recent years – as big if not bigger than say, a giant squid.
It would be the biggest mistake they could ever make if he’s released. For goodness sake, if you read this, spread the word, and KEEP PAUL IN CAPTIVITY.

At least if he continues to grow while in his tank, and develops sentience, and more powerful abilities like psychokinesis, he may more likely be subdued and eliminated, and less likely to join up and plot world domination with all the other Octabrains that were flushed down the toilet and are now lurking in the sewers.

Paul the Octopus May be Hiding a Secret [Random Madness]

Features that Every Game Should Have: Full Body Awareness

I remember one of the first times I encountered this feature in a game. It was Thief: Deadly Shadows, back in 2004. Now it might not have been the first to use it (that would be Trespasser: Jurassic Park, apparently), but it was likely one of the first I encountered. Certainly most of the other major titles of that year, like Doom 3, Half-Life 2, or Far Cry, didn’t incorporate it, as far as I know.

What is this feature? Full Body Awareness. And to date only 30-odd games seem to have this feature.

There have been other titles from around the same time that did too, like the excellent Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay, and most of the games in the F.E.A.R. franchise, starting with the progenitor of the series back in 2005, as well as Condemned: Criminal Origins – a game by the same creators of the previously mentioned series. Other more well-known examples would include Dark Messiah of Might and Magic.

Full body awareness is a feature that when, in a game, you look down, and you can see the character’s legs and feet as well as their arms and hands. It adds to the realism of a game. And it seemed to be a big thing a few years ago, but nowadays it just doesn’t really make it in to many games. One exception would be Mirror’s Edge, a game by DICE – but that was released a couple of year ago now… in 2008.

A lot of games released before the time period described above, and a lot of titles today, have that disembodied set of arms and hands holding a gun. When you move the mouse downwards, you see nothing. Some games might have a shadow or something on the ground, but few actually go to the lengths of having a chest and a set of legs which makes it seem less like you’re barely a torso with arms and a camera for a head, floating in mid air. And when you realise this, it kind of lets me down, for one. This is what I call Lack of Legs syndrome, or “LOL” for short.

“Hey, where’s my legs?! I can’t feel my legs!” - Lack of Legs [LOL] syndrome as demonstrated in Metro 2033 [2010]

There are those games that make up for this lack of realism by being able to switch to a third person view – like Fallout 3 or Oblivion – where you can see the character move and so on. But still, it seems like a cop out, especially when you factor in that sometimes the animation of the characters in third-person, or just the animation in general, isn’t all that good; something that a game like STALKER has a problem with.

Some other games cheat in a way by not allowing you to look all the way down to the ground, but less than the full 90 degrees.

A title like Thief: Deadly Shadows does both first-person and third-person, as well as full body awareness to boot. It’s one of those games, that although not recognised as one of the greatest games of all time, or even within the series, does something right; and that was one of them.

Full Body Awareness in Thief: Deadly Shadows [2004] – image courtesy of Giantbomb

I don’t know why this is. It’s a small thing that I often find myself checking with new games from time to time. It’s like a test on my checklist, and I’ll be going along in Modern Warfare 2 or Battlefield: Bad Company 2, and after being wowed by the gunfights, and the explosions, and the destructible environments, I’ll be like: “Okay, this all seems to be in order. I’ll just take a look down here, and… oh, dear. FAIL.”

Like I said, it’s a small thing, but something that I often think about. Full Body Awareness was a small but thoughtful addition to games and realism a few years ago that seems for some reason to have gone out of style, and developers just don’t go to the effort anymore. I don’t know if it’s a lot of effort to put it, seeing as I’m not a programmer or an artist or any sort of game developer, but still. They claim that leaving out the legs is a sacrifice in order to enlarge upon the quality of weapons and items that the player holds.

Needless to say, it’s a little thing that I would like to see make a comeback, and become a regular feature in not only first-person shooters, but in RPGs, and so on, to add that extra little bit, so a game gets an A+ instead of an A- for realism.

Check here over at Giantbomb for more on FBA, or Full Body Awareness.

Features that Every Game Should Have: Full Body Awareness

The Dark Mod Coming to A DVD Near You… Hopefully

I decided I would put the now occasional post up here. I went over the NAG forums today and saw that the August DVD request thread is still open a month later, probably soon to be locked and the key thrown away.

Anyway, I saw an interesting post there that talked about The Dark Mod – something I’ve wanted on the NAG DVD for months now, since last October.

The poster is a member of the TDM development team, who arrived over at the NAG forums, likely thanks to one of my posts here on the blog talking about wanting the mod on the DVD.

This poster talked about putting the mod into a more accessible form – right now it’s one of those install while online things which I dislike, so I understand. But that might change seeing as they might make a regular installer that can be downloaded in its entirety and run offline, which will come bundled with some of the current maps available off the website.

Related to this, a version 1.03 is on the way, likely to be released within the next few months, which will have even more fixes and so on for the mod. And there’s also talk that after id Software releases the source code for Doom 3 or id Tech 4 engine, likely next year after Rage comes out, the mod will be looking at running standalone, without the player needing Doom 3, like it currently does. And of course there will be messing around with the graphics, features and so on too.

“I noticed thanks to referrer traffic that NAG had a few posts over the last few months asking for The Dark Mod (TDM) to be put on the DVD, and as I don't exactly follow NAG, but seeing as I'm part of the TDM dev team, I'd like to offer to put it into a more accessible form if you guys are interested. At the moment the maps are separate from the installer, and the installer requires internet access. I'd be happy to roll an installer and include a handful of the 25 odd missions (40 hours+ gameplay) that we have so far had released.

It would however most likely be left for a later date when you can spare the space and once 1.03 comes out, we should have HDR and a lot of AI/gameplay fixes. Failing that, Carmack has told us that the Tech4 source will be released shortly after Rage (he seems to have permission from Zeni, yay), so early next year we can look at a full distribution, without the need for doom3 and with increased graphical goodness and performance.

Just an offer if people are still interested.”

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Source: August DVD Request Thread [NAG Online Forums]

The Dark Mod Coming to A DVD Near You… Hopefully

Classic Game Collecting: Thief, Hitman, Deus Ex

Well, I went over to Makro today and went over to the multimedia and technology department. My brother and I had a look at a new DVD player seeing as his had packed up the other day. It was a Telefunken that barely lasted a year.

While we were doing that, I also had a look at the games section which has since last time, really gotten an overhaul. Makro got its act together in the last month or so. So, this time a few games caught my eye, and they were mainly in the Eidos stable of titles. I saw that they got a couple of PC Gamer racks up which have collections like the Thief Complete Collection, as well as the Hitman Collection, and the Deus Ex Collection. These I’ve never seen in any store locally before, let alone this one.

Thief Complete Collection has Thief Gold, The Metal Age, and Deadly Shadows – which goes for R99; Hitman has Hitman, Hitman 2: Silent Assassin, and Hitman: Contracts – which sells for R150. Deus Ex has Deus Ex GOTY as well as Invisible War, for R99.

I was tempted to pick up one or two, but I’ll be honest: I’ve had a few instances in the past where some of these games that I’ve picked up didn’t work on my system. I was tempted though. I haven’t played Thief Gold which is included in the pack, which basically is The Dark Project with a few extra missions and extras, released in 1999. My TDP disc doesn’t work for some reason. I’ve all ready got the other two.

I also haven’t played Deus Ex: Invisible War, the second game in the series by Ion Storm, which some say wasn’t that great.

Out of the Hitman series, I’ve played two of those game – namely Silent Assassin and Blood Money, which I own. The other two I didn’t really eve bother much with.

I might consider it at one point in the future though. It was just nice to see that they’ve extended their PC games section, as well as catering to the classics.

Classic Game Collecting: Thief, Hitman, Deus Ex

AAA has been MIA

I haven’t posted on this blog for over a week now, and most of the regular posts that I do have not cropped up because of it.

You see, I’ve been busy on other projects, like my other blog, UNF, or The Unnamed Feeling. I’ve become more involved in it and the community that is springing up around the blog and the network.
It also took me a long time to finally get tired of doing post after post for this blog, neglecting a lot of my other projects, when there was no real reward in this blog for the most part. And I’m not blaming anybody – this blog exists in an oversaturated market where there are plenty of blogs and websites that I couldn’t hope to ever compete with. I mean, a lot of the time it’s “copy and paste”, like it is with many other sites.

That’s why I’ve shifted my focus onto my other blogs and projects, as well as my articles and maybe some fiction writing too. I still may post the odd thing here in the future, which will more than likely be an editorial or original post, rather than news and that sort of thing seeing as there are plenty of places that cover that sort of thing.

So for anyone who cares, maybe when things quieten down a bit the blog could resume regular posting, but likely not the same sort of thing. It had a good run though – nearly a year and a half of posting every day. But that time seems to have come to an end.

Okay. Sob story over. Now clear off.

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AAA has been MIA

The Sims 3 Experiment: One House, Eight of the Biggest Gaming Icons Ever

I’ve played The Sims 3. There, I said it. Guess what else? I still have The Sims 3 on my computer – it’s been there for nearly a whole year.

I recently got back into it, and decided to do something which I dabbled in a while back. That was to create a family, although not related, of the biggest names in gaming, and put them in one house.

As of writing this I all ready have seven.

One is none other than Duke Nukem. Duke has been around for nearly the past two decades, and has had quite a few games under his belt- one of which was no doubt Duke Nukem 3D, his most successful  game to date, which still sells to this day. Duke is currently pursuing the Law Enforcement career in the house, with hoped of becoming a super hero.

The next one is Doom Guy, otherwise known as John “Reaper” Grimm, if you’ve ever watched the atrocious movie based on the series of games. Doom Guy entered the gaming market after Duke Nukem, in 1993 [Duke Nukem was in 1991], and starred in a series of games that revolutionised gaming for years to come, as well as establishing first-person shooters as the popular genre it is today. Currently Doom Guy is in the Military career, hoping to become an astronaut.

Who’s next? Lara Croft. You couldn’t have a house filled with gaming icons without the Tomb Raider. Lara was probably the first real female character that you took control of in game, and had three big hits in the series – the first three games – before hitting a stumbling block, which was most of the entire series for the next several years. But, she came back in Tomb Raider Legend, and has since seen another two great additions to the long running series. Lara is currently pursuing a career in journalism [couldn’t get any adventure clubs or something, although they are probably present in one of the expansions, which I don’t have… yet].

The fourth one should be a give away by now, seeing as this in order of when they actually hit the gaming world. Yes, it’s the G-man. No, not that G-man, but Gordon Freeman from Half-Life. Gordon has never spoken in any of his games, and lacks that personality and attitude [although borrowed] of Duke Nukem. Still, he was the main protagonist in a series which saw FPS titles become more than mindless killing sprees, but added a little logic and puzzle solving in to the mix as well, along with characters that you actually game a damn about… instead of killing everyone. Clad in his usual science laboratory get up, he no doubt works at the science laboratory in the town.

The fifth one came just after Gordon Freeman in Half-Life, and that would be Garrett from Thief. Okay, so this guy is likely the underdog of the entire bunch. He’s been in three or four titles over the past dozen or so years [four if you count Thief Gold, five if you count Thief II Gold, which didn’t actually ever see the light of day], and is set to star in a true sequel in the series soon, Thief IV… or THI4F… or is it ThIVes? Anyway, Garret and the Thief series brought about a new genre in gaming, and that was the first person sneaker. Thief probably wasn’t the first game to do this, as Metal Gear had some of that sneaking stuff in it too, but Thief helped popularise it, and many games to this day, especially Splinter Cell and the likes, owe their gratitude to the series. No doubt, Garrett is in the Criminal career path, and likes to steal, or “mooch” off of other Sims.

The sixth one? There was a hint in the above paragraph. It’s Snake. Snake? Snake?! SNAAAKKKEE! Yes, Solid Snake from Metal Gear fame, with probably one of his best titles in Metal Gear Solid, of 1999. Solid carried on the appeal of the stealthy approach in games, sort of like Thief, but in a modern, militaristic universe. He has had numerous games since then over the past decade, some of which he didn’t even really star in, in a sense. Like Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater, or MGS 3 for short, which saw Naked Snake take the main role. Snake is also in the military career, and also has natural cooking and gardening abilities, which he picked up from his dad, Naked Snake, or Big Boss.

Number 7 would be a character who also cropped up in the 90’s: SHODAN. She’s appeared in two games in the System Shock series, namely System Shock and the sequel, System Shock 2. She’s been voted as one of the best villains to appear in a game, and one of the greatest all-round characters too. She even has the greyish-blue skin, complete with blue and green hair just like in the games and has an evil personality comparable to the real rogue AI.

In the game, Shodan is climbing up the rungs of the political career, seeing as she eventually wants to become the leader of the free world, or the neighbourhood at the very least. And she’s going to make people suffer and have fun while she’s doing it too.

Who will be number eight? Who do you think? Maybe we should have a vote, and you can leave your thoughts in the comments. So many choices, and you can only have eight in a household unfortunately. I guess I’ll be starting new houses with other characters who didn’t make this list.

Candidates who are on my list to make the eighth member of the household include: Agent 47 from Hitman, B.J. Blazkowicz from Wolfenstein, and some others.

The Sims 3 Experiment: One House, Eight of the Biggest Gaming Icons Ever