Elite Dangerous - Never Not Scanning

Some months ago I wrote a blog post summarising the appeal Elite: Dangerous held for me, and relating my early experiences in the game. After roughly 30 hours, I had a Cobra Mark III, and an excited feeling that 'the real Elite: Dangerous begins here'. I was about to dive into the explorer class headfirst.

Approximately 150 hours later, I haven't come up for air yet.

Elite: Dangerous - Space Truckin'

I'm obsessed with space. If you're one of the twelve-ish people who read my short-lived series of blogs covering my time with Kerbal Space Program, you already know this. I am so riddled with space madness that I once shook hands with Arjun (perhaps you know him as arjybarjy) in agreement that we would both sign up to Eve Online. Thankfully, I have so far reneged on that promise - I don't need more spreadsheets in my life, my day job more than satisfies that quota. Meanwhile, the concept of Kerbal fascinated me, but its realistic physics and rulesets ultimately limited my ability to interact with it. My ideal space game, should it ever arrive, needed to deliver the mindblowing vastness of the cosmos with the comparatively mundane tools of, say, a Euro Truck Simulator-style open world.

Enter, stage Space, Elite: Dangerous.

Mind: Path to Thalamus Really Makes You Think

There's a good chance you haven't heard of Mind: Path to Thalamus. The name is perhaps not the most memorable, and I'm guessing the marketing budget of a small indie studio from Spain is fairly modest. I came across it by chance, and while at first I felt it aped Dear Esther a little too much, the story premise, first person puzzles and stunning surreal visuals make this game well worth a look.

The LCS starts soon and I am stoked! (With a few little predictions)

If for some crazy reason you have no idea what the LCS is then take a seat and let me explain. Once I have I hope that you will join me on a thrill a minute ride through the world of competitive gaming. LCS stands for The League of Legends Championship Series and it represents the highest level of League of Legends competitive play in Europe and North America. This year there will be ten teams in both EU and NA leagues all vying for the chance to represent their region in international and worldwide tournaments culminating in the League of Legends world championship. If you would like more information on this great game then checkout this site. It will explain it a lot better than I ever could.

Pre-E3 Pre-E3-dictions and Stuff

I thought I'd poop out a few thoughts on the imminent E3 PR farts happening tomorrow, so please excuse my crappy word usage and repetition of shitty toilet-words.

What's in a Name? Reflections on my Irrational Mistrust of the Online Persona

Xbox Live, harsh but fair.

Usernames, gamertags, SteamIDs, whatever you want to call them, the online pseudonym has been around since Alexander Graham Berners-Lee first tied two soup cans together and invented the internet (I think that's how it went, anyway). I'm hardly a stranger to them, mainly because you just can't do much on the net without having one, especially with the ubiquitous connectivity of today's gaming platforms. For some reason, I've always felt uneasy about the idea of being referred to or known by an internet nickname, and I can't fail to notice that others online take a very different tack on this. I thought I'd write a semi-comprehensible post here to explain my username Luddism, self-critique a little bit and give my co-bloggers the opportunity to tell me what it's like on the other side of this fence I'm pretty sure I just made up.

Handheld Funtimes: Introducing My Friend Playstation Vita

Handheld gaming devices have played a curiously limited part in my gaming history. Like practically everyone in the 90s, I had a GameBoy - first a Pocket, sadly lost to supermarket thieves, and then a Color, still mostly operational to this day. The likes of the GameBoy Advance, DS, PSP and Sega Game Gear passed me by and I never particularly felt like I was missing out. This decade-long hiatus finally ended last month when I purchased a PlayStation Vita, and seeing as I seem to be the only person alive who owns one, I thought I'd share my first impressions of it and maybe, just maybe, convince some fellow gamers to pick one up.