Take an Odyssey through console gaming history

New online game celebrates the new console generation with a trip down memory lane

To celebrate the release of the next generation of consoles, tech brand Ebuyer has released Odyssey, a game that takes the player through the history of gaming.

Odyssey tells the story of a young protagonist who is offered the chance to playtest a virtual reality headset, but when a glitch causes the computer's AI to degenerate into primitive fragments it's up to the Player to collect pieces of its memory in the form of past games consoles.

The run-and-jump platformer features seven unlockable levels, each corresponding to a console generation, going from simple Atari aesthetics all the way to the lush hand-painted graphics of seventh generation games. Throughout the game the player will collect consoles, which will be added to an inventory where you can learn more about each one.

Odyssey features a total of 102 consoles to collect - including many you may not be familiar with, like the Action Max and Sega Pico - as well as all your favourites such as the NES, PlayStation and Xbox.

Stuart Carlisle, Managing Director from Ebuyer commented: "We're all gamers at heart and we all remember the amazing consoles from our childhood. At the same time, we're excited about the innovative new Xbox One and PS4, so we wanted to create something special to celebrate everything we love about console gaming. We want players to be able to have fun with Odyssey and at the same time learn more about the history of gaming."

"We've been having a lot of fun playing it around the office, and I have to say that we've got quite good at it. We're looking forward to seeing whether players around the world can match up to our skills and collect every console."

Play Odyssey here: http://www.ebuyer.com/odyssey

WIN A PLAYSTATION 4 & CALL OF DUTY GHOSTS

With the next gen consoles due any day now, excited gamers are readying themselves for an awesome lead up to the Christmas season. The choice between the Xbox One and the Sony PS4 is a tough one, but the game choice for fans of first person shooters is a lot easier … with COD Ghosts being top of many a list.

The guys & girls at Music Magpie have put their generous hats on and have put together a nice prize booty. Head on over to THIS PAGE to enter and be in with the chance of winning a Playstation 4 with Call of Duty Ghosts (Hardened Edition). There are also some COD runners up prizes too. 

If you are looking to trade in some of your older game titles, check out the Music Magpie service whilst you are there.

Pebble Smart Watch Adds Support for All iOS 7 Notifications, New Developer SDK and APIs

Pebble today announced a significant update to its smart watch that allows any Notification Center alert to be pushed directly to the watch, a big improvement from the prior version which only allowed some notifications like calls and text messages to be sent.

Now, any iOS 7 notification -- whether from Facebook, Google Maps, Calendar or any other app -- will appear directly on the Pebble Smart Watch. The company also announced the next major version of the Pebble SDK for developers, including new APIs for Javascript, the accelerometer, data logging and persistent storage...

Read the full story here... Source: Mac Rumours

The Best Flash Games 2013

Now that computers have made our working lives so much more efficient (ha!), what are we supposed to do with all that extra time we’ve created for ourselves? There are only so many paperclips you can unbend, only so many rubber bands to be made into a ball...

Bright Idea

Luckily, someone had the bright idea of using Adobe’s Flash technology to allow us to play games within our browsers – and now the sheer variety of instantly available, often free games means there’s very little time left to actually do the stuff we came to the office to do in the first place. Let’s have a look at a few of the best ones...

Top Games

Happy Wheels, despite the innocuous-sounding name, is a gore-soaked platformer in which you attempt to conduct your vehicle to the finish line without loss of limbs or decapitation. It’s extremely unlikely that you’ll succeed, based on my experience. Very funny; not very nice.

At the other end of the spectrum are educational games such as Eight Letters In Search Of A Word. This is one for Scrabble players and fans of Countdown; make the longest word you can from the random letters, with an eight letter anagram every five rounds.

Crashing one’s balloon in a wasteland at night, and having to fend off weird creatures with increasingly advanced weaponry: it’s something we’ve all done, and at last there’s a Flash game that reflects our experiences. It’s called Balloon In A Wasteland, as you may have guessed.

Online bingo is a good way to use up those empty office hours. At bingo.com you’ll find all the bingo-related thrills you’ll need to keep you going until hometime. Bonuses are available for new players, and there’s a chat function.

Old people (i.e. people born in 1981 or earlier, like me) will be thrilled to hear that classic shooter Doom is now available as a play-for-free Flash version. Prepare to be sacked, as the chances of you stepping away from the game are exactly the same as they were twenty years ago, i.e. zero.

Learn Stuff!

There’s a profusion of poker sites of course, but if you want to practise before you play for hard cash, you could do worse than either Poker Practise or Learn Texas Holdem, both available at Flashgamepoker.com.

Finally, another brain-tester that’ll maybe teach you something. Flags Of The World is fast and attractively designed, and really quite addictive as you battle the clock and other players to identify as many flags as possible. It’s online at Geography-map-games.com. Enjoy!

(Images via Wikipedia, totaljerkface.com, bingo.com, geography-map-games.com)

Nintendo says sayonara to the original Wii

Nintendo on Monday pulled the plug on the original Wii, a modest end to the best-selling console of the current generation. The company hinted at the move earlier this month, and it has officially followed through with a simple posting of the words "seisan shuuryou," or "production ended," on its Japanese Web site.

The Wii, the first video game console to make motion control mainstream, was considered an underdog when it first hit store shelves in 2006. It didn't sport high-definition graphics -- an exclusion that made it the butt of many Sony and Microsoft fanboy jokes -- and skepticism was the order of the day for its apparent indifference to the hard-core gaming community and for its eagerness to rope in fitness junkies and families. But it went on to both outsell the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, with more than 100 million units sold worldwide...

Read the full story here... Source: CNET

Archos announces GamePad 2 gaming tablet

The original Archos GamePad didn't attract much attention, despite the fact that it offered what a lot of hardcore gamers seemingly wanted: built-in game controls in the form of dual control sticks and lots of buttons. It was, for all intents in purposes, an Android-powered Sony PSP, though with a bigger screen and a lot more games to choose from.

No doubt hoping for a better reception, Archos just unveiled the GamePad 2, which promises a host of improvements over the original...

Read the full story here... Source: CNET

GTA V is Cheaper in Britain Than Any Other Country

GTA's characters might be a bunch of villainous rip-off merchants, but the game itself is anything but. In an unusual reversal of the usual rip-off Britain, the UK is the cheapest place to buy GTA V.

Pre-orders here were around £35 for the hi-def crim-ulator, significantly less than our chums across the Channel are paying, and less even than in the US, which doesn't add VAT.

A copy of the latest in the larcenous series will set you back $60 in the US, which works out to £38 here. In France, this jeu video costs £41, while other euro-using countries are even more expensive: Germany is £47 (Xbox 360) or £48 (PS3); Italy is £45 or £47; and Austria is £47 or £50...

Read the full story here... Source: CNET

Microgaming could win you Millions

One of the latest games from the successful gambling company Microgaming comes in the form of Mermaid Millions, a soothing underwater adventure to find the Sea King and his beautiful Mermaid daughter. Five reels and fifteen pay lines, coin sizes ranging from $0.01 to $1 with 1-5 coins per pay reel, add up to a maximum bet of $75, meaning that this isn't a serious betting machine – more like entertainment with a gambling kick. However, payouts can get pretty big, with several ways to acquire multipliers and opportunities for bonus games.

As well as the standard ten, jack, queen, king and ace cards – which all have jewels, octopi and other sea memorabilia wrapped around them - the young mermaid is the scatter card, and king Neptune operates as a wild card which can be swapped out for any other card (except the mermaid, of course). Other cards are a magical pearl, treasure box, treasure chest and sea horse. Five Neptune symbols in one spin triggers a jackpot of a potential $37,5000, and from two to five mermaid cards gets you 4x, 50x and 400x your original bet.

The Treasure Bonus symbols sets another Bonus game in motion which plays as a “Pick Until Pop”, where the player keeps picking sunken containers with win values in each until they get the “pop”. The number of treasure chest symbols in your spin defines the number of selections you get, starting from three. As another bonus, three to five scatters in one spin gets you a reward of ten free spins with a 3x multiplayer – there's no limit to how many times you can get this reward.

The whole style of the game is really what sets it above over slot games. The www.MermaidMillions.net slots game has cute graphics in calming blue underwater tones and adorable pictures around the screen. All of the sounds are fully customisable, allowing you to listen to the soothing sounds of the ocean, or turn them on and listen to just the rolling machine while you keep your own lucky soundtrack going.

There are a lot of slot games out at the moment, with Microgaming being at the forefront of the technology. Mermaid Millions is a great low stress game, with small bets but potentially pretty big winnings, and can be played on smart phones and tablets as well as computers so you're never far away from an underwater opportunity to win a few grand!

SimCity Finally Launches on the Mac With Native Version and Cross-Platform Servers

After being delayed for six months, EA has finally released the Mac version of the newSimCity. The game was originally set to come out in February of this year, but EA decided to delay it to "ensure a great experience" for players.

EA has repeatedly emphasized that the Mac version of SimCity is not a "port" of the PC game, but a fully native version designed specifically for the Mac using OpenGL. However, the game will include full cross-platform support to facilitate 'region play' where the cities of multiple players are connected to share utilities and citizenry, with PC and Mac Mayors able to play in the same regions...

Read the full story here... Source: Mac Rumours

PS4 and Xbox One get you free stuff in Podcast 352

 Extra, extra! It's all about the added extras, the seductive swag and the freshest free stuff as we find out what bonuses you can get with the PS4, the Xbox One and the rest of your technology.

Announcing the PS4 release date this week, Sony revealed special broadband deals for gamers from Virgin Media and other Internet service providers -- while the Xbox One will come with a free copy of FIFA 14...

Read the full story here... Source: CNET

Best of E3 – Gamergraphic

Did you enjoy the coverage of the E3? Sad that it is now over? Well not to fear as the creative chaps at NetVoucherCodes.co.uk created a brilliant Gamergraphic which highlights all the brilliant things seen at the E3. So expect it to be full of stats, tips and trivia on all of the next generation games and consoles. 

So what is a Gamergraphic? The Gamergraphic is a mini game littered with loads of interesting facts. You start the game with the choice of either next-gen console, PS4 or Xbox One. Once you have made your choice, you jump from platform to platform collecting game cartridges each revealing fun facts. If you can collect all of the E3 cartridges NetVoucherCodes will reward you with a single-use 10% Zavvi discount code - but make sure you hurry as there are only 1000 available! Click through to play  game.

Gaming - there’s never been so much choice

The rise of casual gaming over the last few years has changed the face of ‘video gaming’ and made it far more mainstream. Once the sole provenance of teenage boys, gaming has blossomed into a multi-million dollar industry with so many different choices, there is a way of playing games out there for everyone.

The emergence of wifi and hyper fast internet speeds have opened up online gaming to the masses, for example. Not that long ago, you had to be a dedicated gamer to want to get online and play with other people, necessitating as it did waiting for dial ups and tying up the phone line for hours. These days, anyone and everyone can hop online whenever they fancy - and from wherever they fancy with 3G and 4G making it pretty much instantaneous to play games from buses, trains, while shopping, eating and walking. In fact there isn’t anywhere where games can’t be played today!

Consoles are, of course, hooked up to fast internet as well, allowing players to play against people all over the world in complicated games like Call of Duty, requiring skill, dedication and many hours of gameplay.

Smartphones and tablets have given us simple games like Plants vs Zombies and Bejewelled Blitz, which are phenomenally popular with the casual gamer market - the vast number of people who have become interested in playing games, often following first exposure through social networking sites like Facebook. There are literally thousands of gaming apps available, catering to lots of different interests, from sport lovers to brain training experts and the number of people playing them continues to rise.

Added to these are online gambling and casino sites, which offer a different way to play games online. Although poker and casino games have always been popular, with console games and simple card games available for many years, the rise of online poker recently has seen a huge uptake in players. The ability to play professional players and play many hands at once has opened up real life tournament play to dedicated online poker players as well - they can win places in tournaments and go on to advance their game that way.

In a similar way, online bingo sites have also taken off in recent years, with many thousands of regular players discovering a way to harness an old favourite in a completely new way. It’s possible to play online bingo on sites like chitchat bingo and enjoy socialising with other players, as well as play bingo in many different ways.

With online games also aimed at children - for example Disney’s Club Penguin and Mind Candy’s Moshi Monsters proving phenomenally popular and introducing children to the world of online gaming at a very early age, it seems that no age group or interest group has been left out of the rise of online gaming. There really is something for everyone, and it;s fantastic to see something that was once so niche, become so popular and educationally important. You can’t underestimate what can be learned from video gaming and online game playing and, of course, the fun that can be had exploring all the different ways to play.