Author: Jamie Hoyle

ConnectiXX is a free puzzle game by the indie developer Matthias Lange where you have to connect all the dots with a certain amount of lines (the number of lines depends on the number on the dot) – for those of you who remember any Chemistry exams this …

Although the Nexus 7 is stonkingly good value for money, packing in a Tegra 3 processor at under £200, some people want some features that simply aren’t present on the Nexus devices. Like an SD Card slot, or a white version, or even a rear camera if you …

We’ve all heard of the Microsoft Surface. Our sister site CoolSmartPhone has covered it a fair bit, including this first impressions post by our very own James Pearce who took the plunge and bought one. A report from The Verge today suggests that a smaller, 7 inch Surface could …

5th November, remember remember, gunpowder, treason and plot. To celebrate this fiery time of year, we’re giving away a copy of CRC Pro-Cycling for iOS! Alternatively, for the Android users out there, we are also giving away a copy of the great volume-modification app Volume+, thanks to Danny …

Apple has today pushed out the first minor bugfix to their recently released iOS 6 mobile operating system. The bugfix resolves several issues with the OS including, the camera flash not going off in some cases, a bug where the iPhone may not use the mobile network and …

Join us live from the Windows Phone 8 launch to recap the best features of Microsoft’s recently-announced OS.

If you’ve come here as a user of CoolSmartPhone, our sister site, you may remember my original review of Hatchi, the Tamigotchi-like virtual pet (to refresh your memory, click here). Well, today Portable Pixels, the creators of Hatchi, launched their new game Alien Hatchi on iOS. Alien Hatchi …

Are you a Steam user who hasn’t got Left4Dead 2? Well then, we have some good news – this weekend, you can play the apocalyptic first person shooter for free on Steam! In L4D2, you play as one of four survivors fighting off hordes of the zombie-like ‘infected’. …

So, EXIF data has appeared as part of a set of leaks pointing towards the existence of a Nexus 10 tablet. Of course, EXIF data can be spoofed relatively easily, so up until now we haven’t really attributed that much credibility to the images. However, today the EXIF data …

Another month, another Apple event… Today we expect to see the iPad mini launch, but what else is in store? Find out with the rest of the CoolSmartPhone team live here! We’ll be tweeting our reactions, which you can see below – and hopefully there should be a …

We’ve all heard the horror stories. BlackBerry maker Research in Motion is on the ropes – with low profit, a distinct lack of apps in their App World and ridiculous developer videos being published. That’s not even mentioning their current line-up of phones, which I think (along with …

This offer has been around for a while, but being a new PlayBook owner it has only recently been brought to my attention. Basically, if you have a PlayBook or are currently in the process of getting a PlayBook (through Marmalade no doubt – for the developers amongst us anyway!) …

Valve today announced the creation of Steam Greenlight Concepts, a project that has come off the back of the recent decision to change a $100 mandatory donation the Child’s Play to help cut down on fake registrations such as ‘Half-Life 3’. The move didn’t exactly prove popular with …

UK retailer Argos has today confirmed the existence of a new 32GB Nexus 7 tablet in their Christmas Gift Guide. TheNextWeb spotted the entry in the brochure, which was released earlier today. Argos confirmed the existence of the tablet in a phone call, but said it would not …

Today’s Amazon Appstore free app is Dummy Defense (yes, it’s an Americanism) , a game where you have to protect a mannequin from various evils including bombs and spiky things. At this point I would normally talk about my brief experiences with the nappy having played it through. …

So, if you play Minecraft, you’ve probably heard of Sphax PureBDCraft. It’s a texture pack designed around the same principles of a comic book and it is the texture pack of choice for a fair few gamers, notably including the Yogscast in their Tekkit video series. Well, the parent site …

Have you got an Xbox 360, but you haven’t got Forza 4 yet? Well, now may be the time to get a copy – the nearly 1-year old game is available from £12.95 from Zavvi. Although Forza Horizon *is* due for release shortly, I still think that Forza 4 will …

Truffle Trails is a fairly new game from Salami Entertainment, a 3 person Finnish indie game development team. In Truffle Trails, you play as a pig on a rocket cart (no, we don’t know where the idea came from either…) trying to get to the end of each …

Hi there! We’ve got a great project lined up for TheCoolGamer and we need your help. Can you build awesome things on Minecraft? If so, we need you! Fill in the form below and we’ll contact you shortly.

Today’s Amazon Appstore free app is Radiant HD, a modern take on the 70s classic Space Invaders. (Editor’s note: sales quadrupled with the release of the Atari 2600 in the 80s, hence the original article stating that it was an 80s classic. Don’t worry, Radiant HD describes it …

Today it has been discovered that some Samsung TouchWiz-running devices can be wiped with a single line of HTML code without confirmation. According to the tweet below, the Galaxy S3 has been confirmed as vulnerable to the attack, with the S2, Ace and Galaxy S Advance (my phone!) …

So, I bought the Humble Indie Bundle 6. Over the next few days, I’ll be posting my first impressions of the 6 games I now have in my possession, starting with the space-shooter S.P.A.Z. S.P.A.Z. is a space-action shooter where you control every aspect of the game – …

Firstly, thanks for making our launch a huge success! We’ve had a lot of traffic since launch, although our first day was marred by issues with the CloudFlare network that took down a few hundred sites (it wasn’t just us). Secondly, we’ve got a totally new look! We …

Hi all, Firstly, thanks for making our launch a huge success! We’ve had a lot of traffic since launch, although our first day was marred by issues with the CloudFlare network that took down a few hundred sites (it wasn’t just us). Secondly, as you’ve probably noticed, we’ve …

Do you like the sound of a free copy of Borderlands 2? Are you the sort to do scary things to get said game for free? How about bungee jumping off a crane! From 10AM-4PM tomorrow (Sunday, 23rd September), the game studio 2K are running a crazy PR …

Here at TheCoolGamer, we want to showcase great work. That’s why we’re introducing the Indie Showcase – a chance for indie developers to get their games featured on our site.

If you’re a regular CoolSmartPhone reader, you’ve probably read Jamie Ryan’s post last week about their new ad campaign that bears the tagline “It doesn’t take a genius”. The ad was designed to take momentum away from the iPhone 5 launch and divert attention to the Samsung Galaxy S3, which …

Good news! The Humble Indie Bundle 6 is now available to buy from https://www.humblebundle.com/. The Humble Indie Bundle (or Humble Bundle for short) is a promotion where, for two weeks, you pay what you want for a selection of indie games – and a portion of the profits go …

Remember Ravi‘s article a few weeks back about his ideal gaming device? Well, this new KickStarter project will be right up his street. Based on the fairly popular iControlPad, the iControlPad 2 is an open-source (the first open source controller in the world, apparently) bluetooth gaming controller, keyboard and …

Thanks to R. M. Hoffman, we now have a great guide for getting Black Mesa, the Half-Life mod, to run on your fruity computer. Follow the steps below… Please Note: I’ve updated the guide with my experience in italics. Mileage may vary! Prerequisites: Wine or Winebottler Play on Mac …

TheCoolGamer has launched! Hello! After a lot of coffee, code, and hard work, TheCoolGamer.com is finally ready for your consumption! We hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed creating it. There’s been a lot of blood, sweat and tears along the way, but we hope that …

Welcome to TheCoolGamer.com! TheCoolGamer is a new gaming news and review site that encompasses all platforms and an integrated forum that also doubles as a comment system – meaning that there will always be something to talk about. We’re still in our testing phase, so I apologise for …

Yep, you read that right. The long awaited Black Mesa Half-Life total conversion is now available to download! For those not in the loop, Black Mesa is a total conversion (remake) of the critically-acclaimed Valve Corp. game Half-Life. Black Mesa re-introduces Gordon Freeman to the world, with remade …

Are you looking for a reliable Minecraft server host? If so, look no further! Thanks to Orange Hosting, you can now get a great server at a low price. If you see any TheCoolGamer Multiplayer Minecraft/Tekkit videos (coming soon!), then there is a strong likelihood that they would …

Bose today announced a couple of new speaker systems – namely the new SoundLink Air and SoundLink Bluetooth II. The SoundLink Air is the first AirPlay set of speakers from Bose, allowing you to send music to the speaker from your iOS device or iTunes library via WiFi. …

We’ve found another video demonstrating some of the iPhone 5’s undocumented features – it’s well worth a watch if you want to know the real story behind Apple’s new creation. Enjoy! (with thanks to @MatthewRoles and @Smosh)

As well as announcing the iPhone 5, Apple also announced a few new iPods. First up is the iPod nano. It’s 38% thinner than the 6th gen (5.4mm thick) and they’ve boosted the screen size – to 2.8″. It’s also multitouch and it has physical buttons on the …

Nokia have been in the news lately, not only for their release of the Nokia Lumia 920 & 820, but also because of the controversy surrounding it. Today, however, Nokia have announced another fairly crucial feature for the new 920 and 820 phones – Offline Maps. This will …

O2 announced today that they have blocked the release of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich for the Sony Xperia arc, Xperia ray and Xperia neo. The move, that was announced today over at the O2 Blog, cites “speed and performance issues” as the reason for O2 not releasing …

Amazon today announced the official release of the Amazon Appstore in the UK, France, Germany, France, Italy and Spain. Although European users have been able to unofficially download the app since it was released in the US, the timing of this launch could have something to do with …