This effectively makes 2013 the last year developers can really push the ‘old’ consoles to their limits. So far, we’ve seen some amazing strategy games being released early on this year, with many more to come.

This article reviews some of the new strategy titles being released for PC gamers. If you’re looking for more, try expanding your search by Googling ‘strategy games pc’ for more results.

Total War: Rome 2

The Total War franchise has consistently provided strategy gamers with the most involving and epic battles across a wide range of time settings. Many thought the widely acclaimed Total War: Rome was the zenith of Creative Assembly’s output, but it turns out that this was a baseless assumption.

As with Total War: Shogun 2, the player will have to make decisions that in turn will affect the way the campaign plays out.

Starcraft 2: Heart of the Swarm

One of the most acclaimed series in the strategy games genre, Starcraft returns with an expansion to Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty. It’s the second part of a planned trilogy. Its focus will be on the Zerg campaign this time.

The beta version has been available for the last month or two and the game has just been released. Fans of the franchise will be pleased to have new units and vastly improved gameplay mechanics, with a new 3D-graphics engine.

Command & Conquer

The highly anticipated sequel-of-sorts to Command & Conquer: Generals has been announced, oddly, as a free-to-play release by EA. A new firm under BioWare is developing the game and initially opted for a multiplayer-only game, which has since been dropped in favour of including a single-player campaign.

The game will feature a return to traditional, modern military factions, as opposed to the futuristic feel that the previous games had espoused.

Company of Heroes 2

The sequel to one of the highest-rated strategy games of all time is to be released in June. Like its predecessor, it will be set during World War II, only focused this time on the Eastern Front.

It will feature the Soviet Red Army as a new faction, and the adverse weather conditions they had to fight through will feature heavily in the game.

Perhaps the one of the biggest difference between laptops and smartphones is size. Laptops provide a larger screen from which to enjoy casino favourites. While laptops are portable they can be a bit more cumbersome to use in certain places. Smartphones on the other hand are usually with people at all times. Laptops are not. Smartphones make casino gaming a lot more convenient. It may be harder to pull a laptop out on a crowded bus than your smartphone. Also, obtaining a wireless connection on a laptop may be more difficult than simply using your smartphone.

Both laptops and smartphones require the use of an operating system. In the world of laptops, there are two top operating systems. These are Windows and Apple. Without a doubt most online casinos can be accessed by both systems. On the other hand, smartphones actually can use a multitude of operating systems. For instance, there are BlackBerry, Apple, Symbian, Windows and Android. As mobile gaming is relatively new, not all online casinos offer it. In order to make their mobile site accessible to this wide range of operating systems, the sites must make special mobile version for them. With Android and Apple being the most popular, most of the mobile sites have started with these two. This means if your smartphone uses an operating system other than Apple or Android, you will not have access to as many online casino sites.

Quick Review

After installing the app on my iPhone 4, I immediately opened the app to start playing. The app’s interface has a sleek glossy black and red design, easy on the eyes and makes you really feel as if you’re sat right in a casino around the poker table. All of the other players’ poker faces are displayed around the table as avatars.

More importantly, it’s clear to see the chip amounts of each and every player and view the cards. The table doesn’t feel cluttered, everything is organised and evenly placed.

A really good feature of this Poker app is that you don’t have to play for money. Although it can be much more exciting when there’s money being played with, there is a free option so that you don’t end up spending your months rent from a slight poker accident.

Another great aspect is that the app matches you up with similar players at your skill level, this ensures a beginner doesn’t end up playing an elite poker champion – which is neither fair or fun for either player. This is important when playing paid games, as it means gameplay is fair amongst all participating.

Aside from playing Poker, there are also many useful inbuilt features: chat, quick seating, multi-tabling and tutorials. All these features make gameplay more interesting and for those not very familiar with poker and aid in great learning resources which they can then go and implement right after.

As another additional application, PokerStars also has a PokerStars TV app. Here you can catch up with all the latest poker videos, full-length TV shows, live clips from worldwide events and player interviews. Although this maybe more aimed at the enthusiastic poker players, it makes for a great learning experience for a beginner just starting out – as often, learning from the experts is the best way.

PokerStars’ Mobile Poker isn’t compatible on all mobile/tablet devices. A full listing of support is below:

Mobile Support 

Pokerstars Mobile Poker app is supported by the following IOS Devices:

• iPhone® 3G S
• iPhone® 4
• iPad®
• iPad® 2
• iPod touch® 4th Generation

In order to play on Android, you need to ensure that you are running Andorid 2.2 or above and you have a minimum screen resolution of 800×480

Internet Support 

You can play using any mobile Internet connection, this includes (Wi-Fi, 3G or a cellular network).

Conclusion

From this review I can conclude PokerStars’ Mobile Poker app is a very fun and intuitive way to play Full tilt poker. I’m not an experienced poker player by any standards, but this app has allowed me to learn how to play, learn some game tactics and become a better player. The free play section is a great way to practise and play poker recreationally, whereas the paid option (where you bet real money) is great for those seeking excitement and looking to win some buck.

Recent reports have confirmed that Angry Birds Space, which was launched 35 days ago on iOS, Android and more, has hit 50 million downloads and has smashed the previous record set by Angry Birds Rio.

The figures seen here, which include downloads on iOS, Android, PC and Mac, definitely confirm that Angry Birds is here to stay, despite many believing that the Angry Birds hype has disappeared a long time ago.

Rovio recently said: “Angry Birds Space hit 50 million downloads within 35 days, making it the fastest growing mobile game yet and breaking all our previous records. This has been simply amazing, and the whole Rovio team is thrilled to see such a fantastic reception for the game.”

“We extend our deepest gratitude to all fans of Angry Birds everywhere. While numbers like this certainly say something about the popularity of Angry Birds, for us the main goal is to keep creating fun new experiences that everybody can enjoy! We just launched the first free update for Angry Birds Space, with plenty more surprises in stock.”

Have you checked out Angry Birds Space? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Temple Run, which basically involves you running from evil monkey-like creatures, whilst also collecting coins, has been downloaded over 45 million times on iOS devices.

It has topped the iOS charts and the developers are finally bringing the fun to Android.

With a whole range of sharp turns, jumps and the ability to unlock new characters by obtaining points, Temple Run is definitely one to check out if you haven’t already.

Temple Run is available to all Android users running Android 2.1 and above. And best of all, it’s free to download!

In addition to great game releases, mobile devices are releasing thousands of fantastic apps all the time. Motors.co.uk have recently released a very useful app which can help you find cheap second hand cars from a huge range of manufacturers. Download the app for free!

Are you a fan of Temple Run? Let us know in the comments below.

The struggling retailer GAME has officially entered administration after no buyer was found, to take on the mass amount of debt the company has managed to accumulate. It’s being reported that out of the 609 UK stores, 277 of them will close with immediate effect meaning that over 2000 employees will be made redundant by the end of the week.

If you visit the GAME website, you’ll just be greeted with the following message:

So, anyone who has purchased items recently, no refunds or exchanges will be able to take place “unless your item is faulty or not fit for purpose.”

The company owes a staggering amount, which includes £85 million to a fair few banks and another £95 million to suppliers. So with a debt equating to £180 million it’s been quite hard to find someone to take on that much debt.

Despite the debt, and no buyers interested, now that the company is in administration a few companies appear to be interested including state-owned bank RBS, American retailer GameStop and OpCapita group, which owns Comet.

With another 400 stores facing closure, a total of 6000 jobs could be under threat if the remaining stores are closed.

Will you miss GAME? Let us know in the comments below.

Reports of this new “Xbox Lite” are quite a surprise to us, and most likely you too, seen as though we haven’t heard anything about a “lite” version of the current model at all. However, if the reports are true, we could be seeing quite an impressive games console for less than £100.

The rumoured “Xbox Lite” will apparently be an ARM-based console, but that’s all we know at the moment. It would have been nice for this report to mention some specs, but oh well we’ll have to wait!

The reports did claim that we will see a true successor to the Xbox 360 after the “lite” version though:

“At some point after [the Xbox Lite], we’ll see a Xbox Next, a true successor to the 360. Details about it are very hazy, except that, like the 360, it will do games for core-audiences and the same media apps as the other device, also with Kinect.”

Would you be tempted by a sub £100 games console? Let us know in the comments below.

Fans of the Angry Birds franchise have been going crazy over the latest iteration of the popular bird-chucking game, and since its launch last Thursday the amount of times it has been downloaded just keep rising and rising, with the game now well above 10 million downloads.

Angry Birds Space sees the “angry birds” enter a new and exciting space-themed adventure with a whole range of new birds and levels.

With this latest edition, the 10 million download figure has completely blown Rovio’s previous record, of 10 million downloads in 10 days with Angry Birds Rio, out of the water.

As well as Angry Birds Space launching on Android and iOS, Rovio recently announced that Angry Birds Space will be coming to Windows Phone devices as well. Originally, Rovio stated that it would be too much work to re-write the code for Microsoft’s OS, but soon changed their mind.

Have you had a chance to test out Angry Birds Space? Let us know in the comments below.

The Nintendo Wii U is apparently bringing Nintendo into line with consoles such as the Xbox 360 and PS3. When the Wii U was officially unveiled at E3 2011, the feedback was very good.

Games developer Vigil Games, who are currently preparing Darksiders 2 as one of the Wii U launch titles, have claimed that the Wii U is only on par with the current console generation, meaning that the game will look pretty much the same on the Wii U as on the PS3 or 360.

“So far the hardware’s been on par with what we have with the current generation,” Donald said. “Based on what I understand, the resolution, textures, polygon counts and all that stuff, we’re not going to being doing anything to up-rez the game, but we’ll take advantage of the controller for sure.”

He added: “We got the game running on their hardware pretty quickly and the controller’s been great to work with. Now it’s just down to deciding what we really want to do to make it a unique experience on the Wii U, taking advantage of the extra screen and the touch capability and all that. So we’ll have a few new features for sure, but I think visually, for the most part, it’ll be pretty much the same.”

The Nintendo Wii U is again being shown off at this year’s E3, with an official release date being announced as well.

Are you looking forward to the Nintendo Wii U? Let us know in the comments below.

This news is most likely of no shock to anyone who has been following the recent reports regarding GAME’s financial and stocking situation.

The company, who declared that it would be going into administration after the company decided to take itself off of the stock market, will apparently “rise from the flames” according the EA UK boss Keith Ramsdale.

At the Westminster Media Forum EA pointed out that even though they failed to renew any previous deals with GAME because of credit issues, they do hope to see GAME reborn. Ramsdale stated that “GAME is full of good people, it’s a good store, I just think they need a different approach and I’ll think they’ll have one.”

Is GAME a good store? We just don’t see how this will affect hardly anyone, seen as though you can get everything that GAME sell for a much lower price online. What do you think? Let us know in the comments below.