Amazon Prime - A New Delivery Method

Last week, online retail giant Amazon revealed its potential ‘Prime Air’ service. This fresh take on the delivery system is designed to get packages to customers within 30 minutes of their order using unmanned aerial vehicles.

While the retailer concedes that the project looks like a science fiction film, it will make a full change for the future and looks to set a new online standard for product ordering.

Amazon expect to be ready to enter commercial operations as soon as the necessary regulations are in place (as various rules and policies are being reviewed by the UK government currently)

The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is also currently determining the rules that will need to be in place in order for aerial drones to share United States skies with traditional aircraft. Amazon hopes the FAA rules will be set as early as some point in 2015 and promises that it will be ready at this time.

The retailer says that its vehicles “will be built with multiple redundancies and designed to commercial aviation standards” and that, at some point, seeing Prime Air vehicles in the sky “will be as normal as seeing mail trucks on the road today.”

You can check the Prime Air system below – if the link breaks YouTube has plenty of concept videos (although this is the official 'Amazon' YouTube concept page).

Levelling Up Pokemon Master Style

As most of you know; each and every Pokémon can reach a max level of 100. After a certain point in the game, it becomes really tough to gain the experience points required to boost through the higher levels but we have found a few techniques to speed this process up

Train a Pokémon received in a Trade:

The first obvious choice is training a traded Pokémon. Pokémon received from a trade with a different Trainer ID will receive more experience points than Pokémon you catch in your own game. This can speed up the entire levelling process and makes reaching that desired level 100 a much less time consuming process.

Increase your Pokémon’s affection in Pokémon-Amie:

Another way to get extra experience points from any Pokémon in your game is to increase that specific monsters affection using the Pokémon-Amie tool. Play games with it, pet it, and feed it until the hearts are filled up. You can check a Pokémon’s Pokémon-Amie stats when you try to switch to another Pokémon at the Pokémon-Amie menu. The happier a monster the more experience points it will receive.

Give your Pokémon the Lucky Egg:

This ‘hold item’ will dramatically increase the experience points given to your Pokémon during battle. It can be found in the Coumarine City Hotel.

Use Exp. Point Power:

If you use this O-Power, Pokémon will obtain even more experience points after battles, but only for three minutes after using the O-Power. This O-Power can be obtained in the Anistar City Pokémon Centre. 

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When you get into the later game, the techniques you use will have to change (or improve) as you obviously need more experience to go up each level as your critters become more powerful

The first option is the Battle Chateau. Battle a number of trainers each day to increase rank and find tougher trainers. You may even run into some Gym Leaders after becoming the Marquis (male) or Machioness (female) rank.

The second option is Restaurant Le Wow in Lumiose City. This restaurant cannot be entered until you become the Pokémon League Champion (which really is the end of the main story). It is recommended that you choose either a Triple Battle or a Rotation Battle. If you choose Double Battle, you'll only fight two Pokémon per trainer instead of 3, and you'll miss out on fighting Pokémon like a level 63 Audino, which gives a huge chunk of experience points.

The third, and more common, option is to challenge the Pokémon League again and again.

ONE FINAL NOTE:

Certain Pokémon will yield more experiences points that the average wild encounter, Luvdisc near Cyllage City (for lower levels) and Basculin, in the pond in Laverre City (for intermediate levels).

Spike VGA Nominations 2013

This nominations for this year's Spike VGX (formerly Spike TV) Awards are in, led by big hits like BioShock Infinite, Grand Theft Auto 5, The Last of Us and Tomb Raider – 2013 shows it hasn’t been  short of fantastic title.

Indeed, the shortlist for Game of the Year, which includes the above as well as Super Mario 3D world is very predictable (isn’t it always), but that’s because we love the games they nominate.

GTA leads the overall nominations, being mentioned in nine categories, followed closely by BioShock Infinite with eight and The Last of Us with seven. I thought I’d give my view below of my anticipated winner (in my opinion obviously).

The event will kick off on Saturday 7^th December – so not long to find out how your favourite titles fared.

Check out the full list of nominations below, along with my predictions/expected winners as mentioned before.

Game of the Year

•BioShock Infinite – Personal Winner

•Grand Theft Auto 5 – Expected Winner

•Super Mario 3D World

•The Last of Us

•Tomb Raider

Studio of the Year

•Irrational Games – Expected & Personal Winner

•Naughty Dog

•Rockstar North

•The Fullbright Company

Best Shooter

•Battlefield 4

•BioShock Infinite – Expected & Personal Winner

•Call of Duty: Ghosts

•Metro: Last Light

Best Action Adventure Game

•Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag

•Grand Theft Auto 5

•The Last of Us – Expected & Personal Winner

•Tomb Raider

Best Sports Game

•FIFA 14 – Expected & Personal Winner

•MLB 13: The Show

•NBA 2K14

•NHL 14

Best Independent Game

•Gone Home – Expected & Personal Winner

•Kentucky Route Zero

•Papers, Please

•The Stanley Parable

Best RPG

•Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn

•Fire Emblem: Awakening

•Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch

•Pokemon X/Y – Expected & Personal Winner

Best Fighting Game

•Divekick

•Injustice: Gods Among Us – Expected & Personal Winner

•Killer Instinct

•Tekken Revolution

Best Driving Game

•F1 2013

•Grid 2

•Forza Motorsport 5 – Expected & Personal Winner

•Need for Speed Rivals

Best DLC

•Borderlands 2: Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep

•Dishonored: The Knife of Dunwall – Expected Winner

•Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon – Personal Winner

•Mass Effect 3: Citadel

Best Xbox Game

•BioShock Infinite – Personal Winner

•Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons

•Grand Theft Auto 5 – Expected Winner

•Tomb Raider

Best PlayStation Game

•Grand Theft Auto 5

•Rayman Legends

•The Last of Us – Expected & Personal Winner

•Tomb Raider

Best Nintendo Game

•Pikmin 3

•Rayman Legends

•Super Mario 3D World – Expected & Personal Winner

•The Wonderful 101

Best PC Game

•Battlefield 4

•Gone Home – Expected & Personal Winner

•Papers, Please

•The Stanley Parable

Best Handheld Game

•Animal Crossing: New Leaf

•Pokemon X/Y – Personal Winner

•Tearaway – Expected Winner

•The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds

Best Casual Game

•Animal Crossing: New Leaf

•Disney Infinity

•Plants vs. Zombies 2: It's About Time – Expected & Personal Winner

•Skylanders Swap Force

Best Voice Actor

•Troy Baker as Joel in The Last of Us – Expected & Personal Winner

•Troy Baker as Booker DeWitt in BioShock Infinite

•Steven Ogg as Trevor Philips in Grand Theft Auto 5

•Willem Dafoe as Nathan Dawkins in Beyond: Two Souls

Best Voice Actress

•Ashely Johnson as Ellie in The Last of Us

•Courtnee Draper as Elizabeth in BioShock Infinite

•Camilla Luddington as Lara Croft in Tomb Raider – Expected & Personal Winner

•Ellen Page as Jodie Holmes in Beyond: Two Souls

Best Soundtrack

•BioShock Infinite

•Grand Theft Auto 5

•Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch – Expected & Personal Winner

•The Last of Us

Best Song in a Game

•"ADHD" by Kendrick Lamar (Grand Theft Auto 5)

•"Sleepwalking" by The Chain Gang of 1974 (Grand Theft Auto 5)

•"Survival" by Eminem (Call of Duty: Ghosts)

•"Will the Circle be Unbroken" by Courtnee Draper & Troy Baker (BioShock Infinite) – Expected & Personal Winner

Most Anticipated Game

•South Park: The Stick of Truth

•Destiny – Personal Winner

•Watch Dogs – Expected Winner

•Titanfall

•The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

BioShock Infinite - Buriel at Sea (Part 1) Review

BioShock Infinite is a Game of the Year contender due largely to its impactful storytelling, complete with one of the most amazing and thought provoking endings ever created -- the result of over a dozen hours of character development, careful pacing, and, yeah, a whole lot of BioShock action.

However, the first part of its story driven DLC, Burial at Sea (Part 1), tries to get across the suspense and mystery without having the luxury of time and as such it doesn’t work quite so well. Totalling 90 minutes of gameplay time; this return to Rapture is still alluring. It’s the New Year of 1958, just before the fall of the underwater city, and the alternate timeline for Booker and Elizabeth is kicked off with a chance meeting within his detective office. Elizabeth quickly tasks you, playing the role of Booker, to find a lost little girl. Immediately your careful, knowledgeable minds bends to find likes to Infinite proper and this is the hook that drives you forward.

Booker seemingly hasn’t changed much since our skyline adventure whereas this outing does give Courtnee Draper (the voice of Elizabeth) to play and old, more sophisticated 50’s bombshell. In fact the real joy here comes from the underwater playground itself – Rapture has never looked so good. It’s not as dank and dark as before but knowing the savage environment – post it’s terrible downfall – means you know the secrets ahead.

Familiar locations are sprawled around the single player content, used to tug at your nostalgia, and the gameplay mechanics of Infinite – Skyhooks n ’all – make their way into the Sea. The only potential issue here is that gamers who didn’t get around to the previous titles may miss some of the excitement that grips the ones that have.

Splicers also make a triumphant return and the Adam induced psychos are as ‘dark’ as ever.

The ending got my excited about the next episode but because it is very familiar to Infinite in scope, gameplay and story I was already braced for the revelations (even if I wasn’t sure what it would be).

If you are a fan of the full Infinite game then this gives you a good opportunity to both expand the story and play something you haven’t experienced before. It’s clever, witty storytelling is a joy to watch unfold and the studio – Irrational – provide another reason for us to remember what really is the game of 2013.