Gaming

When it comes to computer building, Asus is one of the top brands; I am speaking from experience here. Building systems is one of my favorite hobbies and when selecting a motherboard or graphics card, Asus is always one of the brands at the top of my list. Of course, with great quality sometimes comes a high cost, but while Asus hardware sometimes costs more, I respect the adage of "you get what you pay for". I am willing to pay more for reliable, well-built components, whether it is Asus or other manufacturers.

Today however, Asus turns the volume up to 11 with a new gaming brand called Strix. What does "Strix" mean? The company says "taken from the ancient Roman and Greek word for owl, Strix means the keenest hearing and sharpest eyesight. Strix means feeling your environment so that you detect and react to the slightest movement. Strix means survival on the very edge of instinct. Strix is in your blood, as it is in ours". Deep stuff, bro. What does it mean to me? Kick-ass gaming hardware! Check this stuff out.

Germany and Nazism have history; one doesn’t have to be much of a history buff to know that. But the aftershocks of Hitler's Germany are still being felt; the country is still rather sensitive, shall we say, about the whole idea of the Nazis. So touchy, in fact, that as part of post-World War Two denazification the display of Nazi symbols (or "use of symbols of unconstitutional organizations") is illegal. This presents an issue for the game Wolfenstein which concerns itself largely with escaping from Nazis, killing Nazis, tracking down Nazis... there are lots of Nazis involved. Ultimately this meant that the popular game series was banned from Germany since it was first conceived back in the early 80s.

The latest installment in the series, Wolfenstein: The New Order, is set in the 1960s after a Second World War won by the Nazis. But this time around the game got a German release -- yesterday in fact. Bethesda's Pete Hines said last month that Germany has "a thing about Nazis", describing the country as "a little touchy" about the subject. So how was the release possible? This is not because the country has relaxed its laws -- the display of Nazi-related material can still result in a three year jail term -- but because the game has been censored.

The web browser has become one of the most important inventions of all time. It has become ubiquitous in our lives -- hell, for some of us, it has become our lives. Many of us spend hours on the web, navigating around with Safari, Chrome or Internet Explorer to name a few. And so, the browser has actually become a computing platform in itself. Google's Chrome OS and Mozilla's Firefox OS are both built with that philosophy in mind.

Today, the ever-increasingly cool Microsoft announces that it has teamed up with Ubisoft to bring Assassin's Creed: Pirates to Internet Explorer (and other modern browsers too) by embracing HTML5 and other technologies. The results are breathtaking.

The past week was one dominated by privacy and security related stories. A court ruling in Oracle's favor means that the company is able to claim copyright protection for APIs subsequently used by Google in Android. The long term effects of the ruling are yet to be understood, but they could certainly be far-reaching. Privacy hit the headlines again as SanDisk works on a self-encrypting SSD, and Google was told that users can request that information about them be removed from search results -- of course it didn't take long for the requests to start rolling in.

New research shows that there has been an increase in online suspicion, indicated by a huge increase in the levels of encryption used. The UK government approved the use of Samsung KNOX devices which could help to allay fears about BYOD. Google announced GAME -- Google Apps Message Encryption -- to provide end-to-end encryption for email outside of the Gmail ecosystem.

For many consumers, when they buy a desktop, they use whatever keyboard the manufacturer thew in. Sometimes though, the keyboard will break or the user just wants better quality for something like gaming. When selecting one, that consumer has several decisions to make; wired or wireless? number-pad or not? membrane or mechanical? Wait, what?

That third one is not something consumers have had to consider in a while. Mechanical keyboards have fallen out of favor for cheaper membrane variants, largely because of cost. Inexpensive, spongey, creaky keyboards are "good enough" for many. Sadly, consumers just don't know what they are missing. Luckily, mechanical variants are making a comeback in a big way. I have been testing the Feenix Autore for a couple of weeks and I would like to share my experience with you.

Real life sims are very easy to get wrong -- just look at The Sims, for instance -- and Nintendo's latest venture into this branch of gaming, Tomodachi Life, demonstrates this perfectly. Taking a collection of Miis (Nintendo's sickly sweet customizable avatars) and dumping them on an island, the game presents players with a "world full of possibilities". The game's website proclaims, "in Tomodachi Life, populate your very own island with the Mii characters of family, friends or anyone else you can think of!" As long as the Miis are not gay that is.

Yes, in the Disney-like world of Nintendo, same-sex relationships are not possible. You're free to do pretty much anything you like in the game, but when it comes to striking up a relationship and getting virtually married, it's boy-girl action only. Homosexuality simply does not exist in Nintendo's little bubble, and this is something that was noted by one gamer who then launched a campaign on Twitter to try to get the gaming giant to change its ways. Tye Marini 's Miiquality Twitter account was started to try to persuade Nintendo to rethink the game and allow for lesbian and gay relationships.

Remember Unreal Tournament? Remember the hours (days?) you invested in it? Well, it's back! Or at least it will be soon… It's a game that we've heard nothing of for some time now, but Epic is wheeling out the classic title for a new airing. This time around, the gaming community is being called upon to contribute. In a post on the Unreal Engine Blog, Steve Polge says, "work on the future of Unreal Tournament begins today, and we're happy to announce that we're going to do this together, with you".

What does all of this mean? To cut to the chase, a new version of Unreal Tournament is, as of right now, being developed. Yippee! The UT community is a passionate one, and the new project is going to take full advantage of this. This is a collaborative project and the finished product will call upon the input of fans, Unreal Engine 4 developers, and Epic. If you fancy getting involved -- be it to contribute code, artwork, or just ideas -- you are free to do so.

The Nintendo Entertainment System was the best console of its day and I still have very fond memories of playing classic games like Metroid, Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out and -- of course -- Super Mario Bros 3.

If you’re hankering after a little old school NES action, but scaled up to a more modern 1080p, Analogue Interactive’s Analogue Nt could be just what you’re looking for. It’s the original NES guts (Ricoh 20A3 CPU and Ricoh 2C02 PPU) packaged into a single, stylishly crafted solid block of 6061 aluminum. The result is a lovely modern, yet thoroughly retro, console.

Ouya began life as a Kickstarter darling that everyone was talking about. However, since its actual launch, the little Android gaming console has largely been a non-factor in the market.

Now Playcast may bring a bit more legitimacy to the platform, as the service has begun beta testing on the Ouya box. Playcast, if you aren't familiar, is a cloud gaming service that licenses and offers console-level games, from shooters to action, sports, and more.

At GDC last month Sony announced update 1.70 for the PlayStation 4 gaming console. Now some details are beginning to trickle out about what customers can expect from the update, the biggest of which seems to be a new method for editing and sharing gaming videos.

Known as SHAREfactory, the service will let gamers edit and customize these clips before sharing them with everyone. This isn't just simple editing either, it will allow the customer to utilize filters, transitions, and even add text and stickers.

The rather crowded market of set-top boxes out there just got a bit larger with the announcement from Amazon that it will be joining the battle for control of your living room. Competing with the likes of Roku, Google TV and Apple TV is not easy, but Amazon is the equivalent of a 600-pound gorilla in the room.

The online retail giant already operates a popular TV and movie streaming service through its Prime program, and also has seen success in the hardware market with Kindle -- both e-readers and tablets. Now it attempts to take that experience and roll it into a device that it hopes will be welcomed into your daily entertainment experience.

It has been a day of purchases today. If Intel purchasing wearable tech outfit Basis was not enough, everyone's favorite social network (or something like that), Facebook has splashed the cash on virtual reality startup Oculus VR. In a deal worth $2 billion, Mark Zuckerberg's company will hand over $400 million in greenbacks, in addition to 23.1 million Facebook shares. The purchase comes just weeks after Facebook bought messaging service Whatsapp for $19 billion.

Oculus VR is most readily associated with gaming, but Zuckerberg is more interested in the communication potential. Millions of people use Facebook to keep in touch with friends, family, celebrities and companies, but the firm wants to take things further. "We have a lot more to do on mobile, but at this point we feel we're in a position where we can start focusing on what platforms will come next to enable even more useful, entertaining and personal experiences", says Zuckerberg in a statement on Facebook.

The gaming industry continues to move forward. While consoles and PCs are still popular platforms, mobile has become a growing force for game developers, with smartphones and tablets providing the perfect platforms for casual touch-based entertainment. The market becomes a bit more crowded today, as one more major name jumps into the ring.

Yahoo announces a new Games Network that will feature classic titles that it hopes will spark interest and nostalgia. It comes in two parts, really, because it is also for developers who wish to distribute new titles.

It used to be that if you were a gamer, you needed to run Windows or buy a console. For the most part, that is still true -- Windows is the king of PC gaming. However, gaming on OS X and Linux has made incredible progress. One of the biggest game-changers for Linux gaming has been Valve's SteamOS. This is a specialized Linux distribution that focuses on game playing and management.

While Valve deserves the appreciation of the Linux community, it is never a good idea to put all of your eggs in one basket. The old saying is that absolute power corrupts absolutely. With that said, the future of Linux gaming cannot be trusted with Valve alone -- nothing against the company, of course. Today, Dell's Alienware division announces a partnership with game-developer Crytek to further the progress of Linux-gaming.

Games consoles, like any complicated piece of hardware, can go wrong in myriad ways, and usually at the most inappropriate moment -- when your wife’s out for the evening and you’ve got a freshly purchased copy of Titanfall, and a group of trigger-happy friends standing by, for example.

Popular product Q&A service Fixya has sifted through over 40,000 troubleshooting requests relating to the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Wii U and put together a report detailing the top five commonly encountered problems for each of the next-gen consoles. It doesn’t break down the number of problems per console (thereby neatly sidestepping fanboy accusations of one being shoddier than the other) but does still make for interesting reading.