Lenovo Y50-70

Another middle-of-the-road machine

It’s been a while since I’ve seen a gaming laptop from Lenovo, so I jumped at the chance to check out its refurbished Y50 model. Given how tough the gaming laptop market is at the moment, with MSI and Aorus offering killer laptops, I was very interested to see how the Y50 would perform, especially with its rather friendly price point.

Logitech G29 Steering Wheel and Pedals

The G27 gets a facelift

It’s been six long years since Logitech introduced the popular G27 steering wheel, and a lot has changed since then. The PS4 has become the console of choice for serious gamers looking to supplement their PC addiction, while Fanatec and Thermaltake both shook up the steering wheel world with their monumental leap forwards in force feedback technology… and prices. Logitech’s answer to these changes is the G29, a revamped version of the G27.

Rocket League

A Top Gear Special without Clarkson

I am rubbish at Rocket League. Genuinely terrible. Most of my matches are something akin to watching an under six soccer team play. There’s a lot of running around in random patterns trying vainly to touch the ball with whatever flailing limb has the longest reach interspersed with moments of stillness and confusion. Of course, I’m playing a game of PC car football but you get the picture. I’m genuinely terrible at the game, so much so that I think with enough practice and time I could only progress to being really bad. But it doesn’t matter. There is a competitive spirit at the core of Rocket League but so far that doesn’t seem to boil over into the actual experience. It’s ridiculous, fast and most importantly fun, win or lose. It’s a sports game that boils down the appeal of sports without featuring any of that actual sporting crap.

World of Warships

DAVID HOLLINGWORTH takes to the high seas in the World of Warships beta

So here I am, cruising through the eastern straight on one of the more challenging maps in World of Warships. It’s a passage that must always be contested, because it’s effectively a path straight into your own territory – where your own heavy and somewhat slower carriers tend to be.

You almost never see battleships here, but fast and agile destroyers love it. They can dash in, and fire off a spread of torpedoes. In the narrows, they can be hard to dodge.

The Rise (and Fall?) of Starcraft

The once undisputed king of competitive gaming is on the decline. PATRICK STAFFORD investigates

The name “Day9” is easily recognisable to anyone familiar with the eSports scene – and even to some who aren’t. The seemingly random name is the online handle used by Sean Plott, widely recognised as one of the nicest and most helpful personalities in professional gaming.

Gigabyte P55W v4

A top gaming laptop at a reasonable price? What’s the catch?

When it comes to gaming-capable laptops at this price point, the P55W v4 faces some stiff competition. Yet based purely on specs, it certainly gets off to a solid start: it’s about the cheapest 15.6-inch laptop you’ll find that packs a top-end Core i7 CPU, GeForce GTX graphics chip and both an SSD and secondary hard drive for storage. And those aren’t budget parts — they’re basically just a step or two down from the top spec, meaning overall performance is first-rate.

Configure the OS X application firewall

With the number of malicious attacks on Macs increasing, Matthew JC. Powell shows you how to build a wall against them

If you watch a lot of Hollywood movies, you’re probably familiar with the term ‘fi rewall’ as some sort of defence mechanism against computer-based attacks. Of course, since no screenwriter in Hollywood actually seems to know what a firewall is or what it does, that may well be the extent of your understanding of it.