Persuasive Tactics

Where others rise and fall, strategy remains: powerful, ever-present, adored. We takes a look at the evolution of the genre that pre-dates all of gaming

It’s the oldest genre in the world, predating videogames, computer games, any form of organised game. It forms a base element of near enough all thought processes. Nations have risen – and fallen – because of good and bad use of it. Without strategy, there would be nothing – never mind Civilization, we wouldn’t have a civilisation as we know it. Strategy is, in short, quite an interesting genre.

Remembering… Donkey Kong

It’s all about apes, rolling barrels and rescuing damsels in distress this week

It may not be every gamer’s cup of tea, but Nintendo’s moustachioed plumber is one of the most recognised and successful characters in the history of the videogame world. However, he wasn’t always the star of the show. Many years ago, he had a pet ape.

Venturer BravoWin 10K

Mark reviews an inexpensive hybrid design that is surprisingly well featured

I’ve yet to be really convinced by hybrid laptop/tablet systems, as these generally seem to offer nothing special either way. However, spending Microsoft Surface levels of cash is one thing, and this the price of the Venturer BravoWin 10K is entirely another.

At less than £150 it's truly affordable, yet building a hybrid machine as this price was always going to be challenging for those designing it.

Lexar Professional 1800x microSD UHS-II 64GB

Lexar demonstrates well that the limits of SDXC are about to be breached

With people starting to transition to 4K video capture, the SD and micro-SD card really needs to up its game, given that it’s the most popular flash storage media for cameras.

The standards for SD cards were enhanced first by micro-SDHC and then micro-SDXC specs in 2009. SDXC supports speeds of up to 300MB/s and capacities up to 2TB on SD cards, and 200GB on micro-SDXC.

Minix NGC-1

Our favourite mini-PC just got a whole lot better

One of the best media centre PCs we’ve ever owned is the Minix NEO Z64, a wonderfully small and reasonably powerful machine that still sits in our AV cabinet hooked up to a TV. Now, though, Minix has upped the ante and released a new micro-sized media machine, the NGC-1.