Posts Tagged
Gaming
Earlier this month, gamers growled on message boards on the supposed death of DirectX. Microsoft soon released a clarification, saying that DirectX is not dead, though Microsoft’s wording left some people miffed.
This is as good a time as any to describe what DirectX is, why it came to be, and why you should care.
Any new operating system will inevitably be judged by its games. This has traditionally been an area where Windows has excelled, and with the introduction of Windows 8, developers have had a chance to bring fantastic games to the Windows Store.
Though there are many games available in the store, many of them are cheaply made or not worth the money they cost. Hydro Thunder Hurricane is a definite exception.
Here at AppStorm, we love games! Why not relax for a minute and find a fantastic new game to enjoy – hopefully these roundups will help you out.
Mac.AppStorm:
Web.AppStorm:
iPhone.AppStorm:
- The 12 Top Racing Games You Need To Play
- 50 Incredible Sports Games
- 10 Awesome Board Games for the iPhone
iPad.AppStorm:
Android.AppStorm:
Windows.AppStorm:
Welcome to the third part of the Eurogamer Expo round-up. Today we’ll be covering some delicious sequels. Unsurprisingly, there were a lot of sequels on show at the Eurogamer, but that’s what brings the crowds, of course. Apart from Dishonored and a couple of Indie Games I’ll be telling you about later on, it’s pretty much all sequels.
Hit the break to head in to the hot, dense jungles of our first game.
Back in the old days of smartphone infancy, your options for some ravenous digital gaming were somewhat limited; anything more than downloading a basic open-source port of Civilization or ‘some game from some site somewhere’ would require the ownership of one of Nintendo’s coveted Gameboy systems, lest you be relegated to the living room sofa. However most of the handheld consoles of the day were generally regarded as mere child’s play, certainly much too juvenile a pastime for the crisp-suit-toting, HP iPAQ-wielding business elite.
Of course, with the completely game-changing advent of the iPhone, iOS and Android, focus has turned to the viability of the modern-day smartphone as a viable gaming platform to rival dedicated solutions from Nintendo and Sony. So far we’ve seen some rather stellar results, with titles such as the casual hit Angry Birds and the more console-quality titles such as Infinity Blade demonstrating that the phone of the 21st century can entertain you in the gaming space, too. With the welcome introduction of the Unity 3D platform to Windows Phone, things could get a lot more interesting.
Alert, gamer lot: if you are experiencing a sudden adrenaline rush after reading the title, don’t fret as this is what Counter-Strike is capable of doing! Let’s rewind back to 1999, the fateful day when Counter-Strike, the modification to Half-Life, was released.
Probably the most successful game modification till date, Counter-Strike development was subsequently supported by the (legendary!) Valve and resulted in a series of titles. However, none of the succeeding titles was able to achieve the same level of acceptance and following. Is this about to change?
For those of us who remember the 90′s with a certain level of fondness, you may have been a fan of some of the brilliant Sci-Fi strategy games of the era. Amongst such brilliant titles such as Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri and Starcraft stood one of the mightiest examples of the turn-based-strategy genre ever created: Master of Orion II.
Featuring great visuals and sound, an intuitive interface, and almost limitless depth, MOO2 (as it was lovingly referred to as by fans) became an instant classic. Unfortunately, a disappointing sequel amongst other things swept the series away on the winds of time, never to see a sequel again. However, the legacy of Master of Orion has by no means been lost! A new title flying under the moniker of Endless Space seeks to bring back a bit of the strategy that made MOO2 so engaging. Does it succeeed? Read on.
Alright, that pun could have been a lot better, but sadly the same can easily be said for the Windows Phone ports of what were, in their original forms, two excellent games. For those of you not in the know, the excellent fellows at 2K games recently ported two of my all-time favourite titles to Windows Phone, namely the empire-building Civilization: Revolution and swashbuckling Sid Meier’s Pirates!.
Those of us who are eager spectators of the gaming industry may know these two games as the brainchildren of Sid Meier; grandfather of the immensely popular Civilization series (of which I am a self-confessed fan), as well as a variety of other entertaining gems, including the one-shot wonder, Pirates! and the brilliant Alpha Centauri. Since both titles were released simultaneously, by the same developer and sadly suffering from the same underlying problems, I have decided to review both of them in one convenient package. So, for such a promising background, where did it all go wrong for the pair?
To the average denizen of the 21st century, the smartphone has become to say the least, the essential accessory. Whether you’re in need of checking emails, snapping impulse photographs, playing a questionably riveting round of Angry Birds, or I dare say make a call, your trusty touch-screen is the place to go.
Of course it’s no secret that the the mobile phone was not always this glorious; back in the day the only real portable telephone you could get your hands on was the size of a brick and weighed – just as much. Even then, you would be restricted to the then-revered practice of just making a call. Of course times have changed, and we now live in an age of all sorts of pocket-size wonder. In this, there are many parallels to the ways that other technologies have matured and branched, and this is what I intend to look into.
In a gamer’s life, there is nothing more interesting than the announcement of a title that’s been long awaited. I clearly remember being super excited right before the release of Battlefield 3 and totally charged up when DotA 2 was unveiled last August. However, my excitement was cut short by the realization that my PC might not be able to handle the load of these ‘heavy’ games.
While a game’s performance depends upon the specifications of the system (fellow geeks, read that as CPU, RAM, HDD, PSU & GPU), optimization is another facet that is frequently ignored by most gamers. Having the juice in your components and keeping the juice flowing when it matters are totally different scenarios, and I am going to focus on the latter one here. So, are you interested in getting the best possible performance out of your PC while playing your favorite games? Read on to find out how!
