Deeper Reading

Classic adventure games, for all their archaisms, are about doing, not watching. In a medium frequently obsessed with the ability to replicate the tight focus and action climaxes of cinema, there’s something radical, even subversive about a genre that gives you so much to work with, so many ways to interact. By Joe Skrebels

So many ways to interact, in fact, that the thrust of the adventure genre – that videogame spaces can be toyed with as well as dashed through, that conversation can be a pleasure and reward in itself, that there are moments to miss – has become commonly overlooked, jettisoned in pursuit of more immediate pleasures as studios eschew increasingly expensive redundancy. And so modern games reductively trade story agency for commands to “Hold X to pay respects” at a funeral. Narratives have but one path. You read from the script, with the voice recorded by an actor, and express yourself in how the corpses pile up. This is not all gaming, not by any means – RPGs such as Dragon Age: Inquisition, The Witcher and Wasteland 2 provide one type of counterweight, while Thimbleweed Park, Broken Age and the remake of Grim Fandango are seeking to offer another – but it is a dominant trend.

Fable Legends: heavy on the magic

Lionhead goes back to Albion’s roots to conjure up the most ambitious Fable ever. By Chris Schilling

This most quintessentially British of game worlds was no longer such a green and pleasant land. The Industrial Revolution had transformed Bowerstone into a factory town, all belching chimneys, filthy slums and open sewers – grim with one ‘m’ instead of two. While Lionhead’s reluctant to admit it, when it talks about trying to recapture the magic of Albion, it’s not just referring to taking Legends back to a time when Will users were more prevalent either. “It’s an opportunity to reset things, and try a new direction,” says studio director Stuart Whyte.

Western Digital My Passport Wireless

When it comes to the storage devices found inside enthusiast PCs, solid-state drives reign supreme at this point. Their performance is crazy fast, and they have no moving parts. But there’s still a lot of demand for the old mechanical drives. They may be pokey, but the cost per gigabyte is much lower. And if they're in an external enclosure, you can have a pretty handy mobile backup device. But lately, mech drive makers haven't been willing to go quietly into that good night. Western Digital's answer is a unit with a built-in wireless hub, mobile apps, a rechargeable battery, and SD card slot, in an enclosure that's about an inch tall.

Are citizen journalists killing reportage?

Citizen journalists are satisfying the 24/7 thirst for news images like never before. Can amateur and professional photographers work side-by-side? Chris Cheesman reports on a growing phenomenon

Picture the scene. It is a dull Monday morning as a man crosses Vauxhall Bridge in London on his way to work. All appears normal to Chris Follows. But 15 December 2014 would turn out to be anything but routine.

This passer-by was about to witness a breaking news event. Luckily, he was carrying a camera phone and was equipped for the job.

Canon EOS-1D X

With its 12fps shooting speed and outstanding low-light capabilities, was the Canon EOS-1D X ever going to be anything but perfect for Callum McInerney-Riley?

Several years ago, my photography mainly involved shooting products and portraits, with the occasional on-location reportage shoot thrown in for good measure. However, things have become far more diverse in recent years. As weddings, festivals and events have become more of a staple, the luxury that was ample time and light has evaporated. Often I find myself in near-dark conditions, attempting to photograph erratically moving subjects – be that the groom’s dodgy two-step dancing or the joyous arm-raising of an excited crowd from a bass-heavy beat. Whatever the situation, I still have to capture the moment.