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On Our Desk - Mionix Propus 380

Posted on 17th May 2011 at 08:20 by Paul Goodhead with 13 comments

As you can imagine, we get lots of natty little bits and pieces sent into the bit-tech offices. Annoyingly, though, much of it is just a little too small or a little too silly to write about in a full page review. As a result, I’m trying to resurrect the On Our Desk series of articles that we used to cover all these little bits of gadgetry.

So without further ado I’ll tell you about the Mionix Propus 380 mouse mat, on which my CM Storm Inferno has been happily sitting for the last few days.

Thoughts on Jumping

Posted on 15th May 2011 at 09:30 by Joe Martin with 29 comments

It may seem an odd subject to focus on, as jumping doesn't seem to be very important on the face of it – cut it out of a game, though, and it can make a huge difference. Games in which players can’t jump, or at the very least dodge or roll, can seem painfully slow, dull and static. Games in which players can jump around and use that movement to interact with the environment can seem immeasurably more fun because of it.

Take Half-Life 2, for example. It’s a game which nearly everyone would agree is well-made, decently written, fun and fast to play through. Now cast your mind back to the first scene in Kliener’s lab, where Gordon is first properly introduced to his allies, where the plot is given its first proper push and where you’re gifted with the HEV suit again. It’s a busy sequence; lots to do, lots to take in. You’d expect most players to pay close attention, at least the first time around.

Instead, every single player I know spends most of the time jumping around. Sometimes they try to jump on the scenery or knock over objects, other times they just leapfrog around the room when a simple stroll would suffice.

Gaming 26 - The Showman's Bag

Posted on 13th May 2011 at 12:17 by Podcast with 16 comments

Paul and Joe are joined in the studio by former PC Zone editor David Brown. First up on the agenda was the continuing PSN outage, and how the continuing lack of service is starting to affect games developers.

We also attempted to talk about the Witcher 2, but somehow we ended up on the topic of DLC and, unsurprisingly, Mass Effect 2. Joe also got a chance to talk about his experiences with Star Wars: The Old Republic, and why he thought the game deserved the savaging that he gave it.

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Hardware 23 - Socket to 'em

Posted on 9th May 2011 at 11:49 by Podcast with 5 comments

This week, Clive, Harry, Paul and Antony discuss Folding@home, going through what it's all about and what hardware you should be using to generate the most points per day.

Also on the agenda are some of our thoughts about factory-overclocked graphics cards. We discuss where in the market these provide real value, and when you’d be better of trading up to a better GPU altogether.

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Carcassonne iPad Review

Posted on 7th May 2011 at 10:18 by David Hing with 10 comments

The iPad is an ideal platform for board games. It's large enough for more than one person to sit round it for a local game without feeling stupid, and its touchscreen is sizeable enough to make it practical to move pieces, even if you have chubby fingers. Thus, it was only a matter of time before classic board games such as Carcassonne jumped to the platform.

The game itself is easy to learn, and is mostly based around the idea of developing the areas around the titular French town. At higher levels, though, the strategies and tactics involved can become enormously complex, although this iPad version eases you in with spoken tutorials and a full digital manual. It takes very little time to get to grips with the mechanics, with only a few references back to the documentation, and the interface is kept gloriously pristine.

There are a few different basic game-types, including a Solitaire mode that follows slightly adapted rules to the core game, plus online, local and AI matches.

Gaming 25 - Hegway Seaven

Posted on 1st May 2011 at 10:28 by Podcast with 14 comments

It's only a short week this week what with all the bank holidays and such like but Paul, Joe and Clive still managed to find time to sit down and mull over some of the goings on in the gaming world.

First up, predictably, is the current situation with Sony's PlayStation Network. The service is currently down due to a hacking attack and Sony are currently rushing to rebuild the network from the ground up. This is little comfort to the 75 million PSN users though who have been told that the hackers made off with their personal details and possibly their credit card details too.

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Hardware 22 - The Second Day Magazine

Posted on 23rd Apr 2011 at 09:52 by Podcast with 7 comments

It’s podcast time again, and this time we’re talking about all the lovely hardware we’ve seen in our labs over the last few weeks. Clive starts off by telling us all about the AMD Radeon HD 6790, and why it’s only likely to be around for a relatively short period of time.

We also get chance to quiz Antony on the Silverstone TJ11, which it was his pleasure to review. The case is humungous, but isn’t quite the water-cooling behemoth we expected. Paul then gives us an account of his recent trip to Istanbul to cover the MSI Master Overclocking Arena European finals. Extreme overclocking and benchmarking is a funny old world, and it’s always interesting to get to see the action first hand.

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Meet Heather Poe

Posted on 17th Apr 2011 at 10:38 by Joe Martin with 25 comments

This is Heather Poe. She’s a young woman, living in Los Angeles and attending college there, though it isn’t her hometown. She’s kind, happy, eager to please and a little bit geeky. She’s also one of the best features of one of my favourite games, Troika’s Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines.

You find Heather in the hospital, where she’s been rushed into the emergency room for some strange neck wound. As a newly turned vampire yourself, you know that there’s more to this story than meets the eye, but your heightened senses also tell you that she’ll survive her undead encounter if she just gets some fresh haemoglobin. Unfortunately, there isn’t a doctor to hand and the hospital is criminally understaffed.

iPad Review: Sword and Sworcery EP

Posted on 11th Apr 2011 at 10:50 by David Hing with 12 comments

Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery EP for the iPad is like nothing else you have ever played. Described as ‘a 21st century interpretation of the archetypical old school videogame adventure’ it uses beautifully crafted pixel-scapes to do for video gaming what the impressionist painters did for art.

A collaborative project from indie studio Capybara, rock musicians and art from the Superbrothers themselves, Sword and Sworcery EP is a essentially a point and click adventure game that sees you cast as a warrior out to destroy an ancient evil. To do that you’ll need to solve puzzles, fight bears and collect an artefact called the Megatome – so far, so adventure-game. What sets is apart from the likes of Kings Quest however are the lashings of surrealism, abstraction and poetry that somehow never slips into infuriating pretentiousness.

Gaming 24 - A Lovely Battlefield

Posted on 10th Apr 2011 at 10:21 by Podcast with 18 comments

Battlefield 3, Portal 2, Alice: Madness Returns and Crysis 2 - those are the topics of conversation this week. We also discuss why StarCraft II is awful, and why Clive thinks Shogun 2 is 'lovely,' rather than 'awesome.'

This week sees bit-gamer regulars Joe, Clive and Paul joined by a fresh face too; our new intern David Hing was brave enough to both lend us his vocal cords and sit opposite Harry this week. That boy has guts!

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bit-tech.net

On Our Desk - Mionix Propus 380

Thoughts on Jumping

Gaming 26 - The Showman's Bag

Hardware 23 - Socket to 'em

Carcassonne iPad Review

Gaming 25 - Hegway Seaven

Hardware 22 - The Second Day Magazine

Meet Heather Poe

iPad Review: Sword and Sworcery EP

Gaming 24 - A Lovely Battlefield

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