Thumbs Up: The Rise Of Professional Gaming

Mark Oakley looks at how gaming has gone from the bedroom to the arena

What were you doing on Sunday 29th March 2015? Personally, I was most likely keeping an eye on my two kids, trying my best to stop them from arguing. Again. Perhaps you were enjoying a Sunday roast, or perhaps you were playing some games on your PC, or maybe even working.

Four young men in Los Angeles were playing some games on that very Sunday. They were also working, in a way, earning a joint prize of $400,000 for their efforts.

Welcome to the world of e-sports.

MSI A88X-G45 Gaming

One of the main benefits of an APU system is its potentially small size, so full-sized ATX Socket FM2+ motherboards such as MSI's A88X-G45 Gaming often seem like a bit of a contradiction. However, there's a few reasons to consider this particular board. Firstly, it has some of the best power circuitry cooling of any Socket FM2+ motherboard we've seen, which is important if you're thinking of overclocking.

AMD A10-7870K

When it comes to budget systems, AMD's APUs have remained fairly competitive against Intel's offerings, mostly due to the latter's poor ICP performance. With half-decent Radeon CPUs under their hoods, 1080p gaming has certainly been possible with some of the more recent APUs, and AMD has now released another flagship to the A10 line-up - the A10-7870K.

4tronix Agobo

Gareth Davies, of UK educational electronics specialist 4tronix, was kind enough to send mean early version of his Pi2Go-Lite Raspberry Pi-powered robotics kit last year. Now Davies is back with anew kit, dubbed the Agobo, designed for minimal cost and footprint.

Unpacking the Agobo kit, you first notice that it's a lot smaller and simpler than any Pi2Go model. There's a single circuitboard, which is already assembled - requiring none of the soldering of the Pi2Go-Lite. That’s a positive in terms of getting started quickly, but could be seen as an educational negative; thankfully, Davies has no plans to retire the Pi2Go family, though, so buyers still have a choice. There's another reason to keep both families around too: the small-footprint Agobo is designed exclusively forthe ultracompact and low-power Raspberry Pi Model A+, and will work with no other model.

Hatred

The carnage, the glorious, delectable carnage. That’s what we’re supposed to think right? That’s the take-away from playing Hatred that we’re supposed to get. Unfortunately, what we actually end up with is sheer monotony. An apathy for a parade of weightless violence that rushes by without any kind of message. And it’s not like we really need a message necessarily, except that if you’re not having fun there really should be another point to playing through a game like this.

The Return Of The Modders

How the rise of the modding community is about to change the industry forever

Modding is an odd concept. A subset of gamers devoting all their free time to adding content, improving issues or even dramatically overhauling their favourite games, often putting hundreds upon thousands of hours into their creations without expecting a single penny for the hard work. It defies the capitalist heart of the industry that such passion, dedication and – in many cases – success should lack any compensation. Until recently, that is. Modding has always been a significant part of gaming, often unknowingly altering the direction that the industry might travel in and the way games are made and played, yet now – more than ever before – modding has become popular. But why? What has changed to empower such determined communities?

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon

Dripping with features that professionals will love, but the steep price is hard to justify

The ThinkPad Carbon is this month’s most business-like laptop, offering enterprise-grade features that even Apple’s “Pro”-branded laptop lacks. For one, it’s the only laptop here with an integrated 4G adapter,so you won’t be left scouting for a Wi-Fi hotspot or faffing with smartphone tethering.

Make Google Now work for you

Google’s personal assistant is a key feature of your smartphone and tablet. Barry Collins reveals how to get the most from it

Google Now is arguably a better electronic PA than Apple’s Siri or Microsoft’s Cortana. For starters, it’s the only one of the three virtual assistants that’s properly cross-platform. Google Now comes built into Android smartphones, tablets and smartwatches, but is also available on PCs - through the Chrome browser - and rival mobile platforms via the Google app.