Call of Duty being the unstoppable juggernaut of a franchise it is, it was only a matter of time before its first new-gen iteration was revealed. Using the tagline “A New Era”, Call of Duty’s official Facebook page has for several weeks been touting a worldwide announcement for the next Call of Duty title, which we now know to be called Advanced Warfare, for modern generation consoles such as XBox One and PS4.

That Global Reveal was scheduled yesterday for the 4th of May; and the intention was for the company to reveal the game’s title and trailers for each region on the day. Unfortunately, one of those trailers got leaked on Facebook a little too early – the UK Trailer was discovered earlier today and was confirmed by Call of Duty as legitimate, with this message posted on their Facebook page:

This was scheduled for Sunday but it just leaked, so why wait? Here’s the first look at Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. #ANewEra begins now!

The Trailer consists of what is claimed to be footage of XBox One gameplay, and shows off the new gen graphics; details some possible actions; and offers an insight into the game’s story via select FMV sequences. I’m sure you’re waiting to see it yourself – so check the Trailer below, courtesy their official YouTube channel:

Touchscreen phones are all the rage these days; and while they may do the job of giving you greater interaction with the phone; and haptic feedback is helping to bring back the feeling you get of actually "pressing" buttons etc. – sometimes there's just no substitute for real, physical buttons. As well as always knowing where they are – because they can't be moved or replaced by something else like on a screen – physical buttons often provide short-cuts to the parts of a phone you want to use, letting you get to them in one press even when trying to do the same through the phone itself would take multiple touches, gestures or flicking through different screens.

Dimple on the bank of a Nexus phone;
and a simulation of the app.
Image Credit: Dimple.io

Most Android phones lack any kind of physical button – even a Home button like on the iPhone – choosing to utilise virtual ones instead. If you found yourself nodding in the last paragraph and wishing you could add some physical buttons to your Android phone, let me introduce you to Dimple. As described on their website dimple.io, Dimple is "a small NFC™ sticker with four buttons for Android™ devices. You are the one who chooses the button functionality. It makes doing everyday tasks quicker and saves your precious time."

The actual Dimple hardware is a small, rubberised strip with four depressible buttons, which you can stick on an Android smartphone wherever you like – it uses an adhesive that makes it both easy to stick and to remove, though the owners point out repeated removal and reapplication may reduce the device's lifespan. Pairing it with its dedicated Android app turns each of the buttons into physical keys for the phone; and the app also allows you to set exactly what each key does. Using the magic of NFC, it literally just sticks to almost anywhere on your Android smartphone or tablet without the need for Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, or even its own battery. Each of the four buttons have their own unique NFC ID so that the Dimple's accompanying app and the Android OS can tell them apart when they're pressed. Dimple claims each button can withstand about 2 million clicks, and you can reassign the functionality of around 100,000 times before the button memory wears out.

Unfortunately, not every Android phone will be able to use Dimple. Dimple's reliance on NFC means you will need an Android phone that supports NFC – or to add it through an NFC-enabled case – to use the device. The app also requires Android 4.0 to run, so older phones or cheaper Android models running outdated Android builds are sadly left out of the lurch. Luckily, most brand-name Android Phones released over the past two years should meet both needs. Dimple may also not work correctly if your phone has a metal exterior or uses a metal case, as this may cause interference from the antenna, which means phones such as the HTC One are sadly also out.

If you're already sold on the idea – and your phone meets all the requirements – you might be dismayed to hear that the Dimple is not available for purchase just yet. To fund the full production launch of the device, the creators will be turning to Indiegogo, launching a crowdfunding campaign on May 6th. Assuming it's successful however, Dimple intends to start shipping the final product within 60 days of the campaign finishing – putting its release around August 2014 for early backers, retail will probably be a little longer away. As for price? The earliest backers will be able to get their hands on the first production run batch of Dimples for just US$15, rising to US$26.99 the later your pledge. The final retail price is currently planned at US$28.99 – which equates in current rates to just a shade over £17 in UK money, or €21 for the rest of Europe.

Bungie and Activision earlier today released a series of 35-second trailers that offer brief glimpses into the character classes in their upcoming first-person futuristic action game, Destiny. The videos – posted on the Destiny official website – actually reveal very little: It was pretty much a given already that Titans are going to be the tank-like fighters, Hunters the quick, stealthy rogues and Warlocks are going to have some sort of special powers to screw around with enemies or the environment; and there’s little else to go on from what we see here. But they’re still pretty cool videos nonetheless.

While we’d love to show you the videos right here like we always do, unfortunately YouTube is currently suffering technical issues that are stopping the videos from embedding properly, so they aren’t currently showing up. Meanwhile, the official website age-restricts the videos. So until we find a solution, if you’d like to see the trailers, head on over to Destiny’s website and to the page, Guardian Classes – but stay tuned to Sanitarium.FM for more news while it’s hot!

Around this time in 1989, this big grey brick to the left started to hit the shelves in a move which would revolutionise the way we play videogames. A bulky, squarish device capable only of greyscale graphics; and requiring no less than FOUR AA batteries to power (for these were the days when internal, rechargeable batteries were unheard of – though a later model, the “Game Boy Pocket”, would later slim down the console and reduce the power requirement to a more reasonable two AAA batteries), the Game Boy was a hand-held games console that, while neither Nintendo’s first foray into hand-held gaming nor the sole entrant in the market in its era, brought the idea of gaming on-the-move to mainstream attention; while its games, such as the still-addictive-today Tetris and the forever evolving, eternally popular juggernaut Pokémon would bring new emphasis to the concept of “accessible to all” and “better with friends” gaming respectively. And now, this piece of gaming history is 25 years old.

Cut me a slice of that cake – and let’s go grab a round of drinks.

Part of the team behind Civilization V and its many successors are now using the same engine they built for those games for a new spin-off title, which while part of the Civilization franchise is also intended to stand separate from the main series games. Called Civilization: Beyond Earth, the name alludes to its core conceit – taking the concept of Civilization intergalactic and seeing you settle not Earthen lands, but a whole new alien world.

Sounding familiar? The idea of colonizing an alien planet through the medium of turn-based strategy has certainly been seen before – over ten years ago, in fact, in cult classic Alpha Centuri. But even though the concepts may be similar, the team baulk at suggestions that their game is in any way a successor, pointing to numerous significant differences between the two titles.

Chief among these is that Beyond Earth doesn’t just follow the history of a single planet. “Our story begins with hundreds or even thousands of colony spaceships leaving Earth for potential new planets during an event called the Seeding,” explains Dave McDonough, one of the many members of the game’s Design team. “The idea is that every time you play a game, you pick up the story of one of those planet settlements.” Indeed, the Sci-Fi theme of the game and lack of focus on a particular planet offers the team an unprecedented freedom in defining the history of the lands you’ll play – something that, according to producer Dennis Shirk, is being taken full advantage of.

“When you started out in Civ V and you had Genghis Khan on one side of the map and Montezuma on the other, you had a very good idea of what your game was going to be like. Lots of pain and suffering, burning cities (laughs) … But because Beyond Earth is a total sci-fi game and we can do what we want, the leaders will have distinct personalities, and a flavor to them, but wanted each experience to feel completely different.”

Before you get taken to your randomly-chosen planet and begin to colonise it, however, you first have to make preparations back at Earth for your trip. This involves you deciding on what equipment to take with you; and setting up the faction you’ll be representing. You have a choice of eight factions, each completely distinct from each other; but that isn’t the limit to your choices – players can choose their colonists, cargo, and choice of spacecraft during the seeded start. The team are eager to give players the ability to customise their game however they like; and every decision affects the scenario you’ll end up with when the game officially starts.

“The factions do have named leaders that are representatives of their group. But the identity that your faction has is much more under your control. The first thing you do in the game is customize the colony ship and the expedition itself, and the faction leader is just the first step in that process.” – Dave McDonough

Speaking of the planet you’ll be colonizing, Civilization: Beyond Earth will make a strong attempt to emphasise the “alien” nature of your new territory with a wider range of geographical features, including some very strange structures. The game is taking a different approach in its mechanics as well. No longer will your technological advances follow a generally linear pattern; instead, Civilization: Beyond Earth is adopting a branched approach. A “technology web” will see you choosing to develop technology through three main branches, each of which ultimately leads to a different win condition for the overall game – but the team is keeping mum on the details for now.

Finally, the orbital satellite system is being overhauled. You’ll now build them like any other unit, so you’ll need to manage your resources effectively. When placed on the map, they can give passive bonuses like adding to research or food production, buff ground forces or help with terraforming, give a small combat ability or increase your field of vision. The satellites will degrade over time and eventually fall to orbit and explode, so they can’t be permanently relied on – though hopefully by the time they’re lost, you can replace them with better kinds. To make matters worse, your enemies will also be able to shoot them down. So investing heavily in satellites comes at a huge risk/reward dynamic.

Multiplayer is also already in the works for the new title, with the quality assurance teams already playing multiplayer matches against each other, although features are still being planned and implemented. Nevertheless, Shirk says the Multiplayer element of the game “will be ready for action when the game ships”.

Will Civilization: Beyond Earth also take a different approach to storytelling? Alpha Centuri was memorable for its approach to telling the story of its game world as you played, with an over-arching story that would be slowly introduced to you via text interludes as the game progressed that detailed the growth of the planet’s sentience. According to the team of Beyond Earth, we won’t see a strong overarching storyline here which leads the game down one single path; instead, a quest system will allow more emergent and random storytelling to take place. “Some of the early quests are based around exploration, or building your first new settlement, while others are complex, multi-part quests which feed into the victories within the game. They also help convey some information about the game and world to the player, and help people keep track of their progress towards victory,” they said.

But whether or not Beyond Earth comes to be seen as either Alpha Centuri or a truly original title, the very idea of taking Civilisation to outer space and playing a turn-based sci-fi game that’s based on a single planet, which is chosen by your early decisions and evolved through your actions within it – rather than jumping from system to system – is extremely exciting.