Pete rather liked Dream Chronicles so we thought what better way to celebrate this, than to give away 5 Xbox 360 copies of it?

All you have to do to win a copy is to tell us the weirdest dream you’ve had and email your answer to competitions@resolution-magazine.co.uk along with your full name.

Entries need to be in by midnight Sunday ^14th of November. Please restrict to one entry per household.

Winning entries will be picked at random.

Competition isn’t open to staff members or freelancers of the site, or their families. Sorry!

It’s competition time again and we have five copies of History: Great Battles Medieval for the PS3 to give away, a hidden gem of a strategy game developed and published by Slitherine Software. Check out our review here.

All you have to do to win a copy is correctly answer the question below and email your answer to competitions@resolution-magazine.co.uk along with your full name and address.

The question is:

In what year did the Hundred Years War begin and in which year did it end?

Entries need to be in by midnight Sunday 7^th of November. Please restrict to one entry per household.

Winning entries will be picked at random.

Competition isn’t open to staff members or freelancers of the site, or their families. Sorry!

And the winners have been announced! Congratulations go to:

Duncan Campbell

Irene Wright

James Barrett

Melanie Gardiner

James Stant

Someone will be in touch soon regarding the prize :)

Explaining the changes…

Site redesigns are always a touchy business. Will people like it? Will people hate it? Editor Lewis Denby explains why things are new.

So, Resolution looks slightly different. You noticed, then.

I’m always looking for ways to maintain Resolution Magazine’s rate of growth, and to ensure our ever-increasing readership – and anyone who might stumble upon the site for the first time – feels this is a place where they feel comfortable on the web. Of course, when you’re talking about comfort, making drastic changes is a risky business. Be hasty, do something wrong, and the whole feel of a publication has collapsed.

I’m confident this isn’t the case here. For the past month, we’ve been working away behind the scenes to reskin Resolution in order to give it a new, smart, professional aura. Certain changes are cosmetic – the way the bulk of the front page is presented, for example. Others are to assist navigation. You might notice there’s a sidebar login now available. Why not register, so you don’t keep having to type in your details every time you leave a comment? Further changes have been made behind the scenes, which have little effect on your reading experience but make it significantly less hassle for us to manage our content.

Work this way?

So. Do you like it? Don’t worry, we’re braced for the response. I’m fairly confident, though. The alterations were made through the feedback of community members, and the comments we’ve been receiving since the site changed over late last night have been almost exclusively positive. If you just hate the whole thing and want us to change back to how it was, well, tough luck, I’m afraid. The new look is here to stay. But if you have suggestions for further small tweaks, then absolutely tell us. We’re looking to implement a couple of new features and possibly make one further navigational change in the near future. Even though the bulk of the new look will remain the same from now on, we’re always open to suggestions for improvements.

One more thing you might notice: there’s a new site listed under Resolution Network on the right side of the website. Did we mention we’re having a baby? That’s right. B4HD, our new retro gaming blog, is due on Monday 19 April. We’ve already packed our overnight bags, and we can’t wait to be proud parents again.

And that’s that. A new look for Resolution Magazine, a new addition to the network, and – fingers crossed – many more moons of delightful content. We hope you’re here to stay.

From 9AM GMT on the day of the event, participants will have 24 hours to collect Achievements or Trophies on their Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 consoles, or through Valve’s Steam service on the PC. Donations can be collected per achievement, at a suggested rate of up to a few pence each, or in a lump sum.

All the proceeds generated by the event, along with any further sponsorship money, will be split between two children’s charities: Great Ormond Street Hospital and Child’s Play.

And we’re doubly proud to be involved, as the brains behind this crazy scheme is none other than Resolution’s own deputy editor, Daniel Lipscombe.

From the man himself: “We, gamers, are a massive community and a determined bunch of people. Charities such as Great Ormond Street Hospital and Child’s Play need money to keep up the great work they do, and if we come together we can give something back and do some good.”

Also supporting the event are our pals at Nidzumi+.

Our copy of New Star Tennis was provided by the developer at the start of the week preceding its release. This is a fairly standard time-frame in which to receive an evaluation copy of an upcoming game. It is our internal review policy to assume that any game provided to us for review purposes is, if not the absolute final version, at least indicative of the version that will be available to consumers. In other words: if someone sends us something to review, we assume it’s ready to be reviewed. It seems only reasonable.

As a result of the email from New Star Games, however, along with a number of comments on the review itself, we decided to take a look at the release version. We contacted New Star Games for a copy, but did not receive a response. As such, we downloaded the demo version of the game (which is version 1.0 – the review version was 0.93). Thomas noticed considerable differences between the stability of the two builds, but no differences in terms of content, leading to our decision not to purchase a copy of the full game in order to run a re-review. For the record, if there had been differences in both stability and content, that’s what we would have done.

Instead, we have amended the score based on the improved stability of the final build. However, Thomas’ primary gripes were with the content of the game itself. He has explained his viewpoint and clarified the differences between the two builds in an addendum to the original review. You can read that here.

I remain confident that our experienced and talented staff writers, as well as our freelance contributors (of which Thomas is one), are fully capable of examining a range of computer and video games, and accurately and fairly reporting their findings. All reviews are by definition opinion-led, and I absolutely stand by Thomas’ right to express his professional and personal opinions on New Star Tennis – and, indeed, any other game that is provided to us for review. In no way do I see reason to doubt his qualifications to review the game, as has been suggested by some – as he is a fan of both tennis and previous New Star games, I consider him to have been the perfect writer to assign to the job.

However, we are always working to ensure that our reviews function as honest and informed critique of a product that is available for you to purchase. In this case, that the version we reviewed was different to the one released meant our original review was no use to anyone. I hope the amendments, and this post, go some way to explaining the changes made to that review and its associated score. By Lewis Denby, Editor.

We’ve spent a couple of hours asking around those in the known in a mad panic, as our PR contact at Electronic Arts will long have left the office.  And eventually we’ve been able to discern that, seemingly, we were accidentally given the wrong time.  In fact, the general embargo for Left 4 Dead 2 reviews in the UK clears at 5AM GMT.

Daniel’s been playing the game for the past couple of weeks, surviving the onslaught with a group of German games journalists.  His review is written, screenshots have been added, and it’s all ready to go.  All that’s Left 2 Do is click the big blue ‘Publish’ button in our content management system.

We could schedule it to go up automatically, technically.  But on occasion, something goes a bit wrong with that, and it doesn’t post properly.  For that reason, we – by which I mean me, the ever brilliant editor Lewis Denby – will be rising bright and early at 5AM to make sure it’s there, front and centre (well, top-left, actually) on the site.

Then promptly heading back to bed.

Enjoy your zombie slaying, folks…

The nomination period for this year’s Open Web Awards, in association with Mashable and Motorola, has rolled around.  And we think you should totally nominate Resolution Magazine in the ‘Best Online Magazine’ category.

This is for a whole multitude of reasons.  We have enormous egos, for example, and would like a trophy to massage them with.  But we’d probably be better off downplaying that one.  So, without further ado, here’s some more.

• We’ve only been running for… wow, less than a year.  In that time, we’ve grown from a small, monthly online mag with only a few hundred readers per month, to a fully-fledged gaming website with several updates a day and several thousand unique visitors per week.  That’s pretty awesome, don’t you think?
• A pool of professional and amateur journalists contribute tirelessly to Resolution without any monetary compensation.  Indeed, it’s only in the last few months that the site has started bringing in any coins at all… and all of them went straight back on renewing our hosting and domain, and chipping in for our trip to the Eurogamer Expo.
• We’re fiercely independent.  And wouldn’t it be great to see a relatively tiny gaming site like us sitting in the finals alongside “proper” online mags like The Onion and Cosmopolitan’s website?  Wouldn’t it be hilarious, more than anything?
• We’re rooting for the little guy, so it would be lovely if people did the same for us.  We pride ourselves on the diversity of our coverage, including high-quality writing about a multitude of small-time indie releases.
• We’re all really, really attractive.

If you’re convinced, which you bloody should be, head on over to this here web page and nominate resolution-magazine.co.uk in the ‘Best Online Magazine’ category.  And tell all your friends to do the same.  And make sure you all do so every single day until nominations close on November 15th, because for some reason it seems you can do that.  Do it do it do it!  Wethankyou.

We’re working particularly hard at Resolution today.

We’re always battling with omnipresent deadlines and vast swathes of text, but today’s a particularly busy one.  That’s because, tomorrow morning, we’ll be heading out en masse to the Leeds leg of this year’s enormous gaming expo, run by our fine pals at Eurogamer.net.

Over the next few days, we’ll be running around like a group of madmen, playing an abundance of exciting, upcoming games and bringing you all the latest news from the show floor.

Expect developer interviews, to-the-minute news posting from a variety of industry talks, and hands-on previews of titles such as Mass Effect 2, Alien vs Predator, New Super Mario Bros Wii, Star Trek Online, Heavy Rain and loads, loads more.

Bringing you this fantastic coverage will be Resolution staffers Lewis Denby, J.D. Richardson and Greg Giddens, along with freelance extraordinaires Phill Cameron and Graham Jones.  We might even do a podcast!  Fancy that!

You can track our panicky progress by following us on Twitter, and read all our coverage as it appears by clicking here, or on the little black button in the top right corner of the site.

Finally, should anyone be attending the Expo, or be in Leeds for unrelated reasons, you should totally come and say hi!  After a hard Tuesday’s work, we’re sure we’ll be heading out for a welcome, pub-based relaxation session.  Make sure you’re following our Twitter feed for relevant updates.

Wish us luck.  We’re going to need it.  Oh, man, are we going to need it…

//I thought you hated news!
Well, we never hated it, as such.  We just chose to avoid it, since we didn’t really have the resources to do anything useful in that capacity.  Now we do, a bit.  And since a few of you said you’d like to see us try it out when you answered the recent survey, we thought we’d give it a run.

//Is that the only reason?
Well, not really.  We’re trying to expand the site, and one of the ways of doing so is to ensure a large amount of content is posted on a regular basis.  This will potentially help our readership grow, and in turn allow us to deliver all sorts of fabulous stuff for you lot.  We’re also trying to develop a better connection between related articles on the site.  With added news functionality, we’ll be able to provide multiple pieces of content for each game, accessible with a simple mouse-click.

//But I don’t care about the news!
That’s fine.  We reckon a lot of you won’t.  That’s why the news posts don’t appear on the front page, thus cluttering it up.  We’ve tucked away a news feed on the right hand side, which updates every hour (if you want to get a more frequently updated news feed, click ‘More News’ below it, or subscribe to the direct feed here).  We’re aware that the news currently appears on your standard RSS feed.  Please bear with us while we attempt to separate the news posts from the rest of the content for RSS subscribers.  If it’s really bugging you in the meantime, you might want to subscribe to individual feeds that interest you, accessible via the following URL pattern:

resolution-magazine.co.uk/content/category/category name/feed/

UPDATE: The new feeds are ready.  Please update your RSS subscriptions to one of the below:
Subscribe to all Resolution updates including news
Subscribe to just article updates

//Does this mean you’ll be focusing less on articles, previews and reviews?
Absolutely not.  While we’re considering rejigging when certain items are posted, we’ll still be delivering in-depth, daily articles on a variety of topics pertaining to gaming.  Features, editorials, previews, reviews, whatever – they’ll all still keep appearing with exactly the same regularity and quality as you’re used to.

//My question isn’t answered here!
Ooh, you scamp.  Email contact[at]resolution-magazine.co.uk and we’ll try to help you out.

When we surveyed our loyal readership the other week, it was clear that while you were happy with the majority of the website, you’d grown tired of the percentage scoring system.  In fact, not a single vote was registered in favour of keeping it.

A few people fancied an out-of-five system, but mainly, the results were split between those who wanted no score at all, and those who’d prefer an out-of-ten system.

For a whole multitude of reasons, which are too boring to go into here, we’ve opted for the latter.  But we’ve also drawn up a whole new scoring guidelines document, an abridged version of which you can see by clicking the ‘About our reviews’ link on the sidebar, or the ‘What does this score mean?’ link on each review.

Our hope is to try to disperse the great big bulk of games that, in the old system, sat in the 60 and 80 per cent region.  We want to make sure we’re using the whole scale here, rather than falling into the trap of relying too heavily on the high end.  In the new system, anything above a five is a decent game, and worth checking out of you like the look of it.

We’re still going through and changing the marks on the archives page, and we’ll continue to make a few tweaks as and when over the coming days.  We hope you’re happy with the new system.  If not… well, tough, basically.  This is as democratic as we’re ever likely to get.