Life & Style, Play

New venue brings downtown New York to Edinburgh

19 Nov 2008

Edinburgh’s art scene has another new addition. The Bowery on Roxburgh Place in the Southside, opened last Saturday and takes its name from one of the famous city's hippest streets. The venue aims to replicate the quirky and semi mod attitude of the…

Air apparent

2 Oct 2008

I am so stupid. I’m shuffling forward on a bench in a King Air plane above Hollister, California. Only now, at 15,000 feet, after a quarter of an hour of shivery anticipation, and a mere stride from an open door to the sky, do I realise the implications…

BloodRayne II: Deliverance

18 Sep 2008

The name Uwe Boll may well strike fear into many a gamer’s heart. The German director is famed for his videogame adaptations, with his myriad of delights to date, including House of the Dead, Alone in the Dark, In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege…

Game On

14 Aug 2008

Too Human Xbox 360 (Microsoft) Third-person actioner as you play cybernetic god Baldur in the first part of a mighty, world-conquering trilogy from developer Silicon Knights. It mixes hardcore melee and long-range combat as you battle humongous war…

Unusual Gameplay

14 Aug 2008

Time to burn your joysticks and throw away your control pads as game developers begin shifting away from the norm by introducing some innovative, unorthodox and plain silly methods of play this summer. If you thought the future was here when the Wii hit…

Edinburgh Interactive Festival

7 Aug 2008

Now in its sixth year, the Edinburgh Interactive Festival is offering even more for gaming enthusiasts. To complement the usual conference, the games screenings are expanding with sneak previews of videogames. Expect hands-on exhibits, a recruitment…

WALL-E

Video Game Review

17 Jul 2008

Whatever the merits of the original work, game-of-the-movie titles tend to be rushed to market to coincide with a cinema release for the most cynical of purposes. The multiple development years that characterise genre-defining titles such as Halo and…

RSNO: Video Games Live

19 Jun 2008

Last year in the UK, videogames overtook the music industry in terms of money made and it looks like the film industry could be next. But today’s gaming technology is working in tandem with these industries in interesting new ways, making cut-scenes…

Grand Theft Auto IV

8 May 2008

Typical, isn’t it? You wait two years for the most anticipated videogame of all time and it turns out all wrong. What have Rockstar being doing with their time? The driving feels different. They’ve changed the shooting. And Liberty City is only a…

Hammer on the web

8 May 2008

The internet has irrevocably changed the way we consume media. ‘Instant’ has become standard and even institutions like the BBC have taken to OnDemand in a big way. Access to downloadable films old and new is increasing and, of course, piracy and…

Online gaming

28 Feb 2008

Downloading media has become increasingly easy in recent years. Your mobile phone can download games, your television can stream radio and DVDs can be rented over the net and played on your games console. While users are increasingly warming to the idea…

Retro technology

14 Feb 2008

In some ways Jack Black and Mos Def’s new film Be Kind Rewind (see our review on page 46) highlights the end of an era for old technology such as the VHS. Today it’s hard to imagine DVD disappearing completely and being replaced by Blu-Ray and HD DVDs…

Retro websites

14 Feb 2008

www.aquarterof.com From Anglo Bubbly and Wham! bars to foiled chocolate cups and Space Dust, this website is a joy to behold for those of us nostalgic for long-forgotten treats. Oh, to return to the days when a two pence Highland toffee was the size…

Play - 2000AD

17 Jan 2008

While movies based on superhero comics are still doing big business (Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk and The Dark Knight are coming in 2008), comic books remain as ghettoised as ever. The genre’s mass appeal has been on the wane for 20 years, with comics…

Play - Crysis

17 Jan 2008

PC (EA) Did Santa bring you a nice new shiny computer? Is it so powerful you need your own wind farm to run it? Let’s hope so because Crysis demands it. Actually, that’s not fair. The new shooter from the Far Cry team is perfectly playable on a…

Play - Guitar Hero III

17 Jan 2008

XBOX 360/PS3/PS2 (Activision) Guitar Hero is always a joy. As a party game it is unsurpassed, producing some of the silliest sights you’ll ever see. The game’s perfectly pitched balance of piss-take and rock reverence always delights while the…

Play - Super Mario Galaxy

17 Jan 2008

WII (Nintendo) Richard Dawkins, Oxford University’s Chair for the Public Understanding of Science, believes humanity’s ability to understand the world is limited by its interaction. Because of our size, our lifespan, the pace at which our lives…

Preview 2008 - Gadgets and Gizmos

4 Jan 2008

From James Bond to your office colleagues, everyone loves gadgets. Technology is growing at such a fast pace that buying that new phone or MP3 player sometimes seems a bit of a gamble. You never know when the gadget you’ve just bought will be replaced…

Review of the year - video games

13 Dec 2007

What promised to be a rather mundane year in gaming turned out to be a surprising 12 months. Two lessons were learned in 2007: firstly, discount Nintendo’s infectious innovation at your peril. And secondly, punters can’t get enough of imaginative…

Weird Websites - book review

John Blake

13 Dec 2007

WEB GUIDE JESSICA ASHBY Weird Websites (John Blake) A good few years back, when the web was in its infancy there were tons of books, magazines and guides to the internet. But these seem to have slipped into the shadows of late. Split into topics…

Letters to eBay - book review

Hodder

13 Dec 2007

Subtitled ‘antics of a virtual prankster’, Letters to eBay is a prime example of a man with way too much time on his hands and ‘obsessive-compulsive tendencies’. A school teacher by day and internet time waster Art Farkas by night, the author scours…

Edge presents: The 100 Best Videogames - book review

13 Dec 2007

If you really appreciate the art of videogames there’s only one magazine that matters: Edge, the serious gamer’s magazine that takes a genuinely adult and considered look at gaming culture. So when they produce a top 100 you know it’s likely to be an…

Hitman - Blood money

29 Nov 2007

Hitman is the latest in a long line of videogames to make the jump from console to big screen. Despite the flops (think Super Mario Brothers and Street Fighter) studios just don’t seem able to keep their hands off videogame properties, with the Resident…

Assassin's Creed

29 Nov 2007

XBOX 360/PS3/PC (Ubisoft) How refreshing to enjoy an interesting story well told: thanks to an imaginative, if slightly bonkers, flashback device, Assassin’s Creed tiptoes nimbly through the obvious modern politics of a story set in the Holy Land…

The Orange Box

29 Nov 2007

PC/XBOX 360 (Valve) ‘Oh Mr Valve, with zees expansions you are really spoiling us!’ The Orange Box is ridiculously good value, containing the genius of Half Life 2 and its episodic expansions, the mind-bending challenge of Portal and Team Fortress 2…