Are you wondering what all the fuss is about Diablo III? It's a huge release, but coming 12 years after Diablo II, it wouldn't surprise me if there were lots of people with little idea of what it actually is.
It looks like Blizzard are aware of this and they've released a video, which you can see below, called 'What is Diablo III?'. The game is released on May 15th on Windows and Mac, and boxed editions come with Guest Passes inside, which you can give to your friends so they can also try the game.
Klout is a social app that aggregates your social media/network data and gives you a score based on your activity. You can connect with your Twitteror Facebook account, and then link other networks to your account. The higher your score, the more 'influential' you are.
In June 2011 I was re-tweeted once by @Wired - my Klout score rocketed as my account was exposed to all the people who follow Wired on Twitter, and I got some follow on re-tweets. I was famous! Well, not quite, but this boost was short-lived, and a month later my Klout score had dive-bombed back to normal levels, leaving a gaping hole in my ego. Silly competition with friends and coworkers has seen me increase my score steadily - but the cost has been my online life turning into a giant game of FarmVille.
Codemaster's have excellent pedigree for racing games, and with DiRT Showdown, they've resurrected the ghost of 1995's classic Destruction Derby. You can play the demo now on Windows via Steam, which features one race and a multiplayer arena event.
DiRT Showdown comes out 24th May and as well as the derby events featuring fictional old bangers, there will be Gymkhana events like those seen in DiRT 3. I'm not sure if these will fit with the rough and tumble of the derby events, but we already know how much fun they are.
Check out some gameplay from the multiplayer mode 'Rampage' after the break below - it's a demo and still need some polishing, but you'll see how much fun it is. I think DiRT Showdown could be the multiplayer racing game of the year:
Ultrasurf is a freeware program designed to evade internet censorship that exists in some countries. In this post I'll explain how it works, and what Ultrasurf can and can't do.
It's a standalone .exe file - so you can run it from a USB stick without installation.
When it's running, you access sites through Ultrasurf's own servers. This can make browsing slower, but this seems to be the price to pay for avoiding online censorship and filtering.
While the bombastic and controversial single-player story usually grabs the headlines, it's for the multiplayer that people really buy Modern Warfare. Millions of players flock to new Call of Duty games every year, so if you have a reasonably powerful PC, you've got no reason to see what all the fuss is about this weekend!
PC games almost always have a DirectX requirement - it's often 'DirectX 9.0C'. If you're not sure which version you have installed, there's an easy way to check! These instructions will work on Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7. Read on to find out how.
Blizzard Entertainment's fantasy/horror game Diablo III comes out on May 15th, and the beta version is open for anyone to play this weekend. You'll need to sign up for a free account and download the client, then you can get down to slaughtering demons!
The beta isn't massively long, but it gives you a taste of how the game has been improved. The general feeling I got was one of smoothness - Diablo III is really slick, and everything just seems to work as it should. The sound is excellent, and visually it manages to be dark enough while keeping everything clear.
Minecraft developer Marcus Persson, better known as Notch, has started to release information about his next game. Called 0x10c, it's a Space game set in a parallel universe where the Space race never ended. A bug in deep sleep cells developed for space travel resulted in some people kept in deep sleep until the year 281 474 976 712 644 AD!
It's a pretty cool concept - the universe is nearing the end of its life and dominated by massive black holes. From what he has announced on Twitter, it seems that Elite is a big influence, and it sounds really ambitious. While 0x10c is in very early development, Notch says he expects to release it in the same way as Minecraft, so we should be able to sign up for early beta releases and watch the game develop.
Read on for some early screenshots and the preliminary list of game features.
Instagram is massively popular on Android and iOS devices, but there hasn't been a way to keep up with the people you follow on desktops before. Instagrille lets you do just that.
Instagrille lets you see your photos, your Instagram feed and also the current most popular images. You can see the latter with no account, but otherwise you have to sign in with your Instagram account.
Hotspot Shield is one of our favorite apps for hiding your location from websites, creating a virtual private network so you appear to be browsing from the US wherever you are in the world.
We have 10 codes to give away for Hotspot Shield Elite, which has no ads and includes malware protection and a much faster connection.
To win a Hotspot Shield Elite code, simply leave a comment below before April 9th at 12pm PDT (Pacific Daylight Time), and we'll do a random draw to select the winners. Winners will be notified on Tuesday 10th April.
When you comment, make sure you enter your email address properly. This is how we will contact you if you are a winner - we will not share your email address with anyone.
The free version is now much more powerful and won't bug users about premium updates, which is an excellent development. It's got a really clear interface, is relatively light on resources and effective.
If your main criticism of World of Warcraft is 'not enough cars', don't worry. There are now plenty of racing MMO games for you to play - here are my five favorites. They should cover everyone from the casual to the hardcore racer, and they're all free to play:
Need for Speed World
EA's Need for Speed World is basically some older Need for Speed games stuck together to make an open racing world. That's no bad thing though, because even though the series has had its ups and downs, it guarantees good arcade racing all the time. Need for Speed World is really well designed and lets you get right into the street racing its famous for.
Bioware's Star Wars: The Old Republic is free to play this weekend, Thursday March 15 at 12:01AM CT until Monday, March 19 at 2:00AM CT.
If you haven't tried this massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG), it's worth checking out. You can join the Empire or the Republic, and each with its own classes of character, who all have their own stories. It's the most ambitious MMORPG since World of Warcraft, and has impressed fans with its faithful recreation of the Star Wars universe.
Microsoft have today announced the release of their Windows 8 Consumer Preview, at the Mobile World Congress, available in 32 and 64 bit versions. We saw the developer's preview last year, but this is much improved - more stable and with more features. It's the ideal opportunity for Windows users to check out the new Metro interface and apps, which are a radical departure for Windows.
Read on for screenshots and my impressions of Windows 8.
Farewell to Android
Klout is FarmVille for grown-ups
Does Flash matter on mobile?
What is Twitter?
Are you wondering what all the fuss is about Diablo III? It's a huge release, but coming 12 years after Diablo II, it wouldn't surprise me if there were lots of people with little idea of what it actually is.
Codemaster's have excellent pedigree for racing games, and with 
PC games almost always have a 
Bioware's 
