One big trend in gaming recently is the convergence of card-based games and more traditional genres. And beyond that, the trading and collectible card game sub-genres have had considerable crossover lately. Now we have an upcoming game that combines RPG with both CCG and TCG elements to produce an exciting and fun experience that is both accessible and deep!
Are you a fan of the Netflix original series “House of Cards”? Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright are riveting are Frank and Claire in the popular series now in its 3rd season. In this season we see the video game-loving President play Monument Valley to decompress. And in turn, viewers turned to the app store to buy the game.
Just over four years ago Arrowhead Game Studios released Magicka, a hybrid RPG-action-adventure game with a smirking sense of humor and loads of fun and stuff to discover. Since then they have released a bunch of DLC and two expansions, been featured in Indie/Humble bundles, and the game remains an absolute blast to play – and now we’re getting a sequel!
Spellweaver, a brand new Digital Trading Card Game, is ready to unveil its first teaser video. Spellweaver is a classic style trading card game set in a fantasy world where various faction’s spellweavers battle for supremacy. The trading card game features a variety of unique features that set it apart from other card games on the market.
When I see something cool in an email or RSS feed, I check to see if it was covered by Gear Diary and I just missed it! Today I got a pre-order email for the Zagg Pocket Keyboard, a great mobile physical keyboard without the usual compromises, I was interested and saw we had done a YouTube preview!
Last year we celebrated 20 years of ordering food online (pizza – surprised?), and by now most of us have ordered some sort of food online – and many have used smartphone apps to place and track orders. Now Domino’s (is leading the way by allowing customers to place and track their order via Pebble and Android Wear smartwatches.
The NVIDIA Shield tablet is a solid gaming-centric device that has racked up some solid PC-port games since release. Now NVIDIA has returned at GDC with the announcement of a ‘set top gaming box’ that will be the world’s first 4K Android TV consumer product when it’s released, and also be loaded with great gaming features.
There’s quite a few hams I talk to every day that use D-star and a Raspberry Pi computer to use D-star even in places where there are no repeaters. The Pi is IDEAL for this as it has low power requirements and is small. This is just one of many uses hams have come up with for the tiny Raspberry Pi.
I loved Machines at War 3 for both Mac and iPad from Isotope 244, an indie developer known for making classic real-time strategy games for desktop and mobile. That game followed Land Air Sea Warfare, which was the sequel to Machines at War. LASW released for computers and iPad in 2010, and is now coming to Android on March 11!
This is a busy couple of weeks for technology folks between MWC, GDC, PAX East and SPIE (ok, the last one isn’t consumer focused but will drive the technology for the next decade). Today at GDC (Game Developer Conference) Frozenbyte announced Trine 3: The Artifacts of Power, the second sequel to the popular 2009 side-scrolling medieval fantasy platformer.
When last we heard about 3D Realms, it was with regards to the Duke Nukem franchise and the Gearbox release of Duke Nukem Forever, of which the less said perhaps the better. Their last release was 2006’s Prey, a solid game with a sequel that was cancelled. But now they are back with a great looking action-RPG called Bombshell!
We’ve talked about safety and gear when running outside before (Mike has done a great job of covering the important points), but it’s important to remember safety doesn’t get checked at the gym door. If you’re doing anything, from treadmill running to weightlifting, make sure you know how to be safe. I learned that the scary way this weekend!
iOS Blocks is an upcoming jailbreak tweak that will reinvent the way you think of widgets and your productivity on your jailbroken iPhone devices. Created by developers Matchstic, Gabriele, Aesign and TechofOu, iOS Blocks so far is the ability to use your home screen to see more information about any particular app using a pinch gesture. I can already see this, coupled with tweaks like Velox, being reasons why I NEVER put my device down for long. Just the Music app block alone will be a reason for me to stop having to open that app just to do particular…
After being pulled from the App Store in 2011, and a brief return before being removed in 2014, the popular open source media player “VLC for iPhone” is now back! VLC allows you to play nearly every kind of video format you can possibly think of.
As someone who was impressed by a 32MB Compact Flash card for my HP PDA 15 years ago, the growth of high-speed, high-capacity, ultra-compact storage continues to astound me, and at MWC 2015 that trend continues. Sandisk has introduced a number of products, the most visible of which is the 200GB SanDisk Ultra® microSDXC™, expanding on last year’s 128GB platform.
Withings has just made two big announcements about three of their marquee products. First, they announced that their gorgeous Activité and Activité Pop activity tracking watches will be compatible with Android starting tomorrow, March 2nd. And second, they announced that their Withings Home monitoring device will soon offer the option to save 30 days of video footage in the cloud.
While wearables and high-fashion smartwatches are dominating the news lately, we all need smartphones to power these devices, and many people can’t afford the price of the top-end Apple or Samsung or LG devices. So at MWC this year LG has announced three mid-range smartphones, each of which has great features and a solid design!
You can’t say HTC doesn’t listen to their critics. Every year their HTC One series has shown improvement and polish, and the new One M9 addresses many of the issues from the M8 and expands on what it does best: namely, there’s an improved camera and even better speakers!
HTC is busy at MWC this year; first they announced the One M9, and now they have a companion fitness product, the HTC RE Grip. It’s a fitness tracker with GPS, and it syncs with Under Armour (which means it will work with My Fitness Pal as well as the MapMyFitness products).
Last week Judie reviewed the Dell XPS 13, touting the reduced size and enhanced performance. Now HP is introducing the Spectre x360, which has a 13.3″ screen in an ultra-compact housing that features a fully rotating hinge so you can use the x360 as a tablet, tablet-on-stand and as as high performance ultrabook at a great price!
2015 promises to be a great year for wearable technology, with the Apple watch and Android wear coming out with great looking functional connected technology. One of the cool looking upcoming devices is the LG Watch Urbane, with a sapphire crystal, elements of Android and WebOS integrated and a feature set to make it something to get excited about!