Gaming

The latest Nintendo Wii U eShop download charts in the UK reveal a huge surge of retro games being downloaded in the weeks after the service officially launched on Wii U.

Sundays are for telepathy and cake. But that’s not all there is to life. There is also the contemplation of electronic contraptions. And they are many. An important (for the desktop colonel) article on recent developments in the strategy genre: “Strategy no longer means what it once did. The prominence of League of Legends and DOTA 2 and the recent failure of games like Age of Empires Online and Fall of Nations has led to a shift in what publishers and developers think people want. MOBAs now dominate the online space, there’s no getting around that, and who can blame them? These games are easy to get into, have a huge and dedicated community. Why would you develop anything else?” (more…)

RUMOURS: More unconfirmed Pokémon X and Pokémon Y rumours have surfaced, highlighting evolutions, rivals and classic starters, following on from the last batch. Remember - these with a dollop of salt until confirmed or denied by Nintendo/Game Freak. Whilst some of these are perhaps a little... farfetched, other Pokémon tidbits are interesting to read into.A new way of evolution - Inkay into Malimar - would require players to hold their 3DS upside down when it levels up. It's type would be Dark/Psychic.A Psychic Pokémon known as Espurr would evolve into Meowstick.Pancham would evolve into Pangoro in the level 30s, but would require a Dark-type Pokémon in your party. It's type is Fighting/Dark.Another Professor, Sycamore, gives the player Bulbasaur, Charmander, or Squirtle.There'll be two rivals as in Pokémon Black / Pokémon White - one is friendly, the other a traditional competitive rival. The friendlier one gifts you his or her fully evolved starter at the end of the game.HM exists in Pokémon X and Pokémon Y, but there are less of them this time round.A Poison-type attack known as Belch has a base power of 120 and requires a held berry to use it.A new Fairy type attack called Draining Kiss heals the use with the same amount as damage dealt with a base power of 60.The third version of Mewtwo is said to look similar to Mew's design.The Pokémon X and Pokémon Y, final evolutions are: Fire/Psychic, Grass/Dark, and Water/Fighting.What do you think of these latest batch of Pokémon X and Pokémon Y rumours? .

I spent this past week playing what is currently the best-selling game in the world: the Japan only 3DS game Tomodachi Collection: New Life. After scouring the internet for Miis to populate the game, I spent my first three hours with the game in a state of nostalgic, yet amused, bafflement. My extra hours with the game have done little to change my original opinion: it is a crazy random game designed from the bottom up to take as much of your time as possible. More »      

When Sony Ericsson became plain old Sony in 2011, the Japanese company made it clear that it was deadly serious about becoming a key player in the Android arena. As with all transitional periods, it's taken a while for the company to totally shake off the dust from the old days. The Xperia Z is the first handset that is 100 per cent Sony; compared to its predecessor the Xperia T, this latest effort certainly feels like it has been crafted with a different design philosophy in mind - gentle plastic curves and rounded edges have been disregarded in favour of tempered glass and stern, straight edges.Sony has made a concerted effort to ensure that what lies beneath that visually appealing exterior is just as worthy of praise. A quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro chipset provides the raw power and the 1080p HD screen offers the perfect platform for video viewing and gaming. Sony's really pulling out all the stops here - but the problem is that it is pushing the Xperia Z into a marketplace which is crowded with similarly-specced devices, and the arrival of the Samsung Galaxy S4 alters the playing field dramatically. With rivals such as the Nexus 4 and HTC One also competing for the title, does Sony's latest phone do enough to warrant closer inspection?Utilising Qualcomm's Snapdragon S4 Pro chipset running at 1.5GHz and sporting a native 1080p HD screen, the Xperia Z is a clear signal that Sony is upping its game. The 13.1 megapixel camera produces excellent images thanks to Sony's Exmor RS sensor, and the eye-catching design is dust and water resistant, making this handset more rugged that its sleek lines suggest.Read more…

The late 80s was the best time to be a toy-obsessed child. Back then toy companies weren’t afraid to release a toy that looked like a gun, contained toxic paint or weighed more than the kids it was being marketed to. It was a time when Hasbro, a couple years after releasing a toy aircraft carrier that measured more than 2m in length, gave Transformers fans the largest official Transformers toy on the market for more than 25 years — Fortress Maximus. More »      

Four members of LulzSec, the group behind 2011?s hacker attacks against Sony and Nintendo, were sentenced at a London court yesterday. More »      

Arrested Development‘s imminent return means that its stars have turned up in the weirdest places. Like frozen banana stands in various cities. And while Tobias Fünke’s sizzle reel had a brief snippet of video games in it, Capcom’s taken things to a whole new level. More »      

You can play as an orc or dark elf in loads of massively multiplayer online games. But you can’t marry someone of the same gender in most of them. That’s not the case in Nexon’s Mabinogi. More »      

Once bitter rivals, Nintendo and Sega have now joined forces in an unprecedented partnership with the iconic Sonic brand. Sega has agreed to 3-game exclusive [..] Related posts: Naka never going back to Sega or Sonic Sonic The Hedgehog 4 on PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, and iPhone – But not Dreamcast 2 SEGA rebounds with Bayonetta as the icing on the cake