A major problem faced by smartphones today is app clutter. With millions of apps out there, it can be difficult to sort through all the half-hearted efforts and find something really great. In my case, I sought after a good JRPG that wasn’t merely a port or remake of an existing game. What I ended up with at the end of my quest was Chaos Rings. So I know that this game has been out for a couple of years and has already spawned a sequel and prequel , but I still wanted to make this review because, if you’re like me, you’d prefer to play a series from the start even if the sequel claims superiority over its predecessor. And indeed, even though Chaos Rings II offers a few enhancements, Chaos Rings the first is still a very worthy addition to your app collection. I also wanted to take a bit of a look backwards because the latest offering from developer Square Enix, Drakerider , simply fails to be a worthy smartphone JRPG in my opinion. So without further ado, let’s take a look. Story In C...

Polygons. They’re all around us. Well, when we’re playing games, anyway. And while polygons are generally pretty well regarded in the gaming scene for being the means by which we get all those fancy 3D models, could it be that we’re actually severely limiting our games by using polygon-based 3D engines? Australia-based company Euclideon says “yes”. Last time, I ran a post on how a new technology from a relatively nameless company is seeking to revolutionize the CPU–and how it makes sense that they’ll succeed at doing so. Today we have another such nameless company, only this time it is seeking to revolutionize the 3D engine. But does it have as good a chance of succeeding as the Parallella coprocessor? Well, first of all, I suppose you might want to know what exactly we’re talking about here. Since polygons have been the lifeblood of 3D engines ever since virtual 3D began, it may be hard at first to imagine an alternative. Therefore, you’ll probably be surprised to learn that you’ve al...

A while back I ran a post examining the current trends in the hardware and software industries and expressed my concern at the direction they seem to be heading. In the last decade and the last few years in particular, technological advancement has slowed to a crawl despite companies finding ways to keep current tech interesting. But in that process, the same companies have in some ways also been slowly murdering their own industries and the personality types of people that could keep them going in the future. Technologically we’ve hit a wall, and the time is ripe for a major breakthrough to come in and change everything again. That’s where Parallella comes in. In the 90s we saw, among many other rapid advances, the genesis of the modern video card. Of course we already had 2D video cards, but then 3D Accelerators came along and supplemented the video cards in order to deliver unprecedented increases in performance and detail. Jump ahead a few years more, and you end up with a comple...