Interactive Storytelling

JOSH LUNDBERG is listening to your audio journals

There are many ways to tell a story in a videogame; linear, non-linear, cutscenes, full-motion video, loading screens, pre-level briefings... the possibilities are almost endless.

The quality of a story is usually featured in reviews, but the manner in which it is told isn’t.

Ever since playing Half-Life I’ve had a fascination with storytelling methods in videogames, and I rarely understand why the easiest ones are so often employed.

World War GPU

NATHAN LAWRENCE reports on several AMD warning shots across Nvidia’s bow

Nvidia has a fair bit of catching up to do in its ongoing GPU war with AMD if revelations from the recent Future of Compute event are anything to go by. What began as a celebration of AMD-forged firsts quickly extended into new announcements and official pledges for greater future computing efficiencies. PC PowerPlay was on hand at the event to glean the most interesting details.

Future of Compute marked the first public announcement of AMD’s Excavatorbased CPU (it’s optimised for low-power notebook/convertible devices), codenamed ‘Carrizo’, which is slated for release in 2015. Details were, unfortunately, scant, but AMD’s CVP and Product CTO Joe Macri confirmed Carrizo will take advantage of unified computing efficiencies as the first CPU with full HSA 1.0 support.

Acer V Nitro Black Edition

Acer jumps on the gaming bandwagon

If there’s one category of laptops that is bringing in the mega bucks, it’s those of the gaming variety. The perfect storm of powerful new mobile GPUs combined with booming player numbers has seen gaming laptops experiencing the highest growth rate of all laptops. Acer has taken note of this trend, delivering the Acer V Nitro in an attempt to scoop up some of these gaming dollars. Can a brand that is better known for mainstream laptops deliver a laptop worthy of your entertainment hours, not to mention dollars?

Alienware Alpha Core i7

Welcome to the console PC

Alienware’s new Alpha PC aims to finally deliver a gaming PC that is even smaller than a gaming console. And when we say smaller, we mean way smaller – this thing is about the size of a box of chocolates. It’s an admirable goal, but has Alienware been able to cram game-ready hardware into such a small form factor?

This War of Mine

What evil lurks in the hearts of men.

They are hungry. The refridgerator is long since empty. Marko is a good scavenger but lately he has had bad luck. There was a confrontation last night, at the supermarket. Men with guns. Marko escaped with his life but that is all. No salvage, no food.

Pavle has not slept and is showing signs of starvation. He is tired and depressed and requires constant encouragement from the house’s livelier inhabitants merely to continue living.

He won’t last much longer. If his hunger doesn’t consume him his demons will. And the rest of the group will breathe a silent, guilty sigh of relief as they mourn his loss.