Usually you’d find Week In Tech in this spot, but it’s been a particularly big week in tech already. With the big Microsoft Win10 and Holowhatsit announcements covered here and here and here, for this column I’m proposing to go off the reservation. Let us, each one of us, reminisce and indeed celebrate our earliest experiences of the internet and of course gaming thereon. And then ponder what the future holds for our internet connections and how we game on them.

I’m thinking less social history, more unapologetic geeky nostalgia. … [visit site to read more]

Heyo if you don’t follow the BAFTA Games Twitter feed you might have missed this one the Young Game Designers competition has come round again and is now accepting entries.

The competition is for 10 18-year-olds (which I suppose is one definition of young, although I still get ID-ed I’ll have you know) who have ideas for games or fancy trying to make one themselves. Even if that’s not you, I figure you might have some younger relatives or kids of your own who might be interested in taking part.

… [visit site to read more]

“It’s time for us to talk about gaming in Windows,” promised Head of Xbox Phil Spencer in December. A little over a month later, Microsoft has finally stepped up to the plate with a slew of big announcements about Windows 10, Xbox and PC gaming delivered at its Redmond campus yesterday morning.

The big news for gamers aside from holograms is that Windows 10 will not only support multiplayer gaming between Xbox One and PC, but allow you to stream Xbox One games locally to PCs or tablets.

Which is all well and good for Xbox fans, but where does that leave PC gamers, especially ones who don’t particularly care about Xbox?

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A phishing scam has caught out more than 1,800 Minecraft users who have had their account email addresses and passwords posted online, say Mojang.

Mojang have reset those accounts’ passwords and e-mailed their owners to let them know about the situation. As evidently not everyone is clued-in about online security, let’s consider this a public service announcement to really, really be careful with our online accounts.

… [visit site to read more]

Oh my goodness, Infinifactory is difficult.

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Earlier this week, GoG exhumed the last remaining X-Wing games from Lucasarts; grave, and as promised they’ve now added more long time ago games to their good ol’ shelves. Most of them have been available from other download stores for quite some time, but it’s the first time on the digi-block for ponderous 4X Star Wars: Rebellion and spaceship shooter Rogue Squadron 3D. … [visit site to read more]

It is literally impossible that World Of Goo is from SEVEN YEARS AGO. That absolutely, categorically cannot be the case. There has simply been a malfunction in chronology. We had that world exclusive review maybe three years ago at most.

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The original Blackguards was like a wax apple. I saw it sitting there in the fruitbowl of the internet – shiny, red and tempting – but when I plunged my pegs into it and tore off a mouthful I made a face like Stan Laurel chewing a wasp. I love tactical RPGs but the early missions of Daedalic’s villain ‘em up felt like puzzles with a single solution rather than reactive scenarios.

Enter the sequel, with a somewhat dynamic strategic map and increased scope for customisation of the main character. I’ve taken a bite.

… [visit site to read more]

The family that slays together, stays together – or at least falls to gribbly enemies together. “Narrative-based roguelike” Children of Morta perked Adam’s interest late last year with its detail-packed pixel animations, and it’s now launched on Kickstarter. At the time of writing it’s a promising third torwards its funding goal, and the pitch video has plenty more lush animations and hack-and-slash combat.

… [visit site to read more]

“Is it real?” I ask. I’m looking around at the landscape of Mars, where a dusty, rocky desert stretches in every direction, reddish mountains rising in the distance. It looks so vivid, so strangely plausible that it’s hard to believe that I’m actually looking at the surface of another planet and not the set of a sci-fi movie.

The gentleman who works for Microsoft assure me that it is, in fact, real depending on how you think about it. I’m currently wearing a prototype version of the HoloLens, a new augmented reality headset announced yesterday by Microsoft, and exploring real three-dimensional images collected from the Mars Curiosity rover using a tool called OnSight.

… [visit site to read more]