Google+ Pieces o' Eight: May 2013

Wednesday 29 May 2013

Humble Indie Bundle 8 Review

The latest pay-what-you want, charity supporting Humble Indie Bundle has been released and will be available for the next fortnight or so. Is it any good? Well here's my round-up of the games included...

Tuesday 21 May 2013

I'm sorry console gaming, I'm leaving you. We've grown too far apart.

Today marked two things:

1) The reveal of Microsoft's forthcoming system, the XBox One.
2) Something I've long suspected coming true: my relationship with console gaming is at an end.

Given Sony's lackluster introduction of the PS4, concentrating as it did on 8GB of RAM!, I had hoped Microsoft's reveal of the next XBox would do something to rekindle my interest in console gaming.




Tuesday 14 May 2013

Improving PlayStation 2 Picture Quality on HDTVs

Recently I decided to pull my trusty old PlayStation 2 out of the cupboard to re-play some of my favourite games from the early-to-mid 2000's. Whilst I was initially very pleased that the machine still worked after 6-7 years of inactivity, I was surprised how poor the picture quality was on-screen and started wondering whether or not all these years of HD gaming on the PC and 360 had altered my memory of how good graphics really were back then (rose-tinted glasses syndrome!).



Happily, after a bit of research and tinkering, I managed to improve the picture quality quite dramatically. So here I present some handy-dandy tips on improving your PlayStation 2 experience on an HDTV!


Sunday 5 May 2013

Why Britain Sucks: Fuel Taxes

Welcome to the first in a new series of posts, Why Britain Sucks... And What We Can Do To Fix It. In this post I'm going to tackle the question of why fuel in Britain is so expensive. 

Fuel in Britain is expensive. Very expensive. A 2012 article by This is Money placed Britain as the 7th most expensive place in the entire world to buy fuel, calculating that more than 10% of people's income is spent at the pumps.

But why should this be the case? What is it about Britain that makes fuel so expensive? What are the implications for the wider economy? Why does Britain suck? What can we do to fix it?