Little Printer lives in your home, bringing you news, puzzles and gossip from your friends. Use your smartphone to set up subscriptions and Little Printer will gather them together to create a timely, beautiful mini-newspaper.

Connecting with your favourite social networks, it creates an alternate interface to enjoy your news feeds – similar to the much loved Flipboard on the iPad. Promising a huge selection of customisable options and enough cute to last a lifetime, Little printer will be hitting shelves next year.

Steve Jobs, 1955-2011 – Rest In Peace.

1984 – Steve Introduces the first Macintosh…

[Video found via. Leisureonly]

Seems like a rash of decent fan films have popped up recently, we got the second part to the excellent Purchase Brothers production – Escape From City 17, and now another VALVE creation has had the Machinima treatment. If you haven’t played either the original Portal or the 2011 follow up – Portal 2, then you’re missing out, a unique set of gameplay mechanics coupled with offbeat humour make for one of the best game series in recent memory.

Just like in the games, the protagonist awakes in a room with no memory of how they ended up there… and our adventure through a series of gruelling tests begins…

You can check out the video below and find out more about its creator Dan Trachtenberg at dantrachtenberg.com.

Back in 2009 a fairly unknown pair of Canadians directed a video game fan film that would forever change the perception of “home-made” tributes to game universes. Escape From City 17 was made on a budget of just $500 and with leftover equipment from a Coca Cola commercial, it was set just after the events of Half Life 2: Episode One and was released on Youtube to heavy critical acclaim. We originally covered the film and similarly regarded films in an article on Machinima in our debut print edition.

The pair have just released the follow up and it’s as guerilla as ever – made with even less money ($250) than the first, it follows our two original hero’s as they meet two more and start to come in to contact with the series zombie headcrab characters.

You can view the film below and find out more at youtube.com/purchasebrothers

The award-winning short film is now an interactive iPad narrative experience. William Joyce’s “The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore”, blurs the line between picture books and animated film. Is it a game? is it a book? Its equally sits between the two.

Inspired, in equal measures, by Hurricane Katrina, Buster Keaton, The Wizard of Oz, and a love for books, “Morris Lessmore” is a story of people who devote their lives to books and books who return the favor. It’s a poignant, humorous allegory about the curative powers of story. Using a variety of techniques (miniatures, computer animation, 2D animation) award winning author/ illustrator William Joyce and Co-director Brandon Oldenburg present a new narrative experience that harkens back to silent films and M-G-M Technicolor musicals. “Morris Lessmore” is old fashioned and cutting edge at the same time.

Check out the video above and you can find out more at morrislessmore.com

Do you have a PlayStation 3? Are you are a fan of challenging adventure games? Then chances were that back in June of last year you might well have picked up Demon’s Souls, widely considered to be one of the hardest games ever created. It was hailed as a triumph of old-school action-adventure game-play combined with a fiendishly challenging difficulty level where even the most experienced of players would find it hard to stop dying. Essentially, it was a lesson in perseverance: get past the constant knockouts and eventually you would succeed and feel quite proud of yourself at the same time.

Just a year later a spiritual sequel is being lined up. Dark Souls might not be connected to its predecessor in terms of plot, but the people at Namco Bandai are set to outdo themselves once again. Worryingly, this sequel is said to be even harder to play, with online players being able to see each others’ deaths and enemies becoming more aware of tactics and inventive rather than just mindlessly attacking the player. The game will also feature an open-world environment where the player is free explore the world at their leisure – or their own peril, depending on how you see it.

Perhaps the most exciting addition though is simply a hardware one. Instead of being confined to the PlayStation 3, Dark Souls is set to unleash its demons on to the Xbox 360 as well, offering a whole new audience the opportunity to take on the challenge that this series offers.

The sequels to Dragon Age and Portal earlier this year were worthy additions to their franchises but despite their merits – Portal 2 in particular boasting an intelligent plot and genuinely witty script – they lacked a little something in the challenge department. Both could also be completed in less than 20 hours by a decent player, making Dark Souls a tantalising prospect for those looking for an adventure sequel they can really get their teeth into. All signs suggest that this installment will be devilish.

Dark Souls is released on October 7th via Namco Bandai

Two months worth of blood, sweat & tears at the Little White Lies office during the creation of their Black Swan issue condensed into two minutes. It reminds me of how the stress & fun in the Faux offices when we were putting out our print issues (which will return in 2012).

Little White Lies is our favourite film magazine out their, in-depth and intelligent content coupled with sleek and well executed design. You should check it out here.

The Confined was produced by up & coming film maker Nathan A. Quattrini, who created it as an homage/audtion for the Silent Hill films. Suitably dark and unashamedly brutal, the trailer below gives great hope to what the guy can produce in the future and what we can expect from the full short film later this year.

Nathan explains: “This video was originally made to send to Michael Bassett to try and get a creature role in the new Silent Hill film. The creature was created as a haunted theme park character last Halloween season and I am carrying it over into film. The full short film will be out later this year which will explain the creatures and their looks, etc. I felt I should show fans the video to garner support.

As for story – the backstory and the explanation of the creatures will be understood when the film is completed. I can guarantee that it will be as dark, twisted, and disturbing as you expect from these scenes. It is not supposed to be Silent Hill, rather inspired by SH, so the laws of the game world do not necessarily apply.”

Its good to geek out once in a while….

‘Fable’s popularity over the years has increased massively and the games have never dipped in quality. The third instalment in the franchise set in the mythical world of Albion, where snowy mountains sit side by side with lush green fields and treacherous swamps, doesn’t disappoint the diehard player. If anything, this is the best title in the series yet.

You play as either the prince or the princess of Albion, on a quest to gain allies for the nearing revolution to take back the crown from your evil brother Logan and herald a new golden age for the citizens of the world. Although this is the major storyline, you could spend your hours just traipsing around Albion looking for treasure with your trusty dog, killing enemies, amassing a real-estate empire or settling down to have a family. Your actions in the game determine what kind of ruler you will be. If you perform good deeds, your appearance will be pure and people will respect you. If you decide that killing citizens and committing other heinous crimes is more fun, then your appearance will be corrupted and people will fear your presence.

What’s more challenging about the non-linear gameplay in ‘Fable III’ is that you have to unlock special chests in order to be able to befriend or settle down with the people of Albion. Unlike its predecessor, you can’t advance in job levels easily and weapons and skills are harder to advance. This makes ‘Fable III’ stand out in its difficulty level. Other adventures would allow you to simply gain experience points, accumulate gold and advance at a much faster rate than enemies but in this game you are forced to think much more tactically, using a range of abilities to vanquish your foes. Combat is still very much a hack’n’slash affair, but the lack of a visible HP bar means it’s more difficult to judge how much damage you’re taking on board, sometimes meaning that you have to wait until the edges of the screen glow red until you can heal yourself.

Perhaps the true majesty of all the ‘Fable’ games lies in the landscape and people of Albion itself. While chopping the head off yet another hollow man can be fun, just taking time out from adventuring to see how detailed and realistic the world is can also be rewarding. In ‘Fable II’, the locations were beautifully rendered but ‘Fable III’ takes this a step further, making the layouts of towns and villages less contrived, and adding to the detail and look of the people. Walking around Brightwall Village for the first time is like stepping into a time machine: the sheer level of realism and detail put into the location is quite breathtaking, like actually being in an industrial town. This is added to by the talents of star names, such as Simon Pegg and Sir Ben Kingsley, who lend their vocal talents to bring the people of Albion to life.

The game is not hampered by a fiddly set of controls. All you really need to truly master the game is a few buttons to move around and participate in combat. The menu screen has also been taken a step further. Instead of the long and unmanageable lists that ruined the inventory system of ‘Fable II’ your items, weapons, status and achievements are stored in The Sanctuary, a place looked after by your butler and friend Jasper. It’s easy to move around, allows you to travel to destinations with ease and helps store all your gold, gifts and trophies in an ordered and easy-to-use manner that doesn’t feel separated from gameplay like contrived menu screens of most adventure games.

It’s hard to see where Lionhead could take the ‘Fable’ series next. No doubt they have a cunning ace up their sleeve to make Albion an even better place to go exploring but for now ‘Fable III’ is about as close as anyone will get to playing a fully-immersive, expansive and very challenging adventure. That’s no mean feat, and speaking as an experienced gamer this title will stand the test of time. Now it’s back to being a pie-maker.

Fable 3 is out now exclusively on Xbox 360 via Microsoft Games & Lionhead Studios. You can check out the trailer below.

Then things started to get interesting. Alex Garland, most famous for writing ‘The Beach’, joined the project as co-writer and Andy Serkis used his extensive motion-capture experience to bring life to the main character Monkey. He also voiced the grumpy brute. Nitin Sawhney was then brought in to compose the game’s subtle and somewhat eerie music. A great deal of hype was generated around the game as is went through the production process and for once that anticipation has lived up to expectations.

In the game, loosely based around the ancient Chinese scriptures ‘Journey To The West’, you control Monkey, a loner who gets by in a post-apocalyptic world by using a combination of technology and brute strength. At the beginning of the game he’s trapped in a cell on a slave ship run by “mechs”, the powerful robots responsible for overthrowing humanity. He freed by pure chance when fellow captive Trip manages to escape from her cell and overload the ship’s systems. After escaping, Trip places a slaving device on Monkey.

This is where the game really gets compelling. Thanks to the slaving device, Monkey has a duty to keep Trip safe: if she dies, he dies. So, like other tag-team games like ‘Ico’, you control the force of the operation while trying to keep the brains alive in a brutal world. You can tell Trip when to move, create a distraction or to help you buy upgrades but she is for the most part uncontrollable. Stray too far and she will activate the headband, causing you to lose health and be disoriented.

The environments are simply stunning to walk around. Every plant, creature, abandoned car and ruined landmark are rendered in minute detail, giving the most vivid sense yet that you are actually part of a world that is simply beautiful and awe-inspiring on the one hand but deadly on the other. The motion capture effect used with Monkey in particular gives the most realistic human effect in a video game that I’ve ever seen. For all that CGI cut-scenes can create a basic look of a human, such as in the Final Fantasy series, ‘Enslaved’ takes it a step further. You can actually see each muscle and section of skin moving when he frowns (which he does a lot).

Overall gameplay is actually quite basic. The controls are simple with only a few buttons needed to control Monkey’s actions. This means it’s easy to get used to how it works but because the overall difficulty level of the game is quite high, even on normal mode, the game forces you to think before acting, a trait not often associated with your average adventure game.

My only slight criticism of ‘Enslaved’ is that sometimes the active camera will swing in such a way that Monkey will occasionally head off in the wrong direction when moving, although instances like this are quite isolated and it hasn’t once detracted from my overall enjoyment of the game and the story. People who are less confident with the workings of platfomers might find this slight glitch disorientating though.

What Namco Bandai and Ninja Theory have achieved with ‘Enslaved’ is to set the bar just that little bit higher for all platform-adventure games. In terms of graphics it can’t be beaten and the overall gameplay experience is completely compelling, keeping you gripped from start to finish. Who needs first person shooters?

Enslaved is out now on Ps3 & Xbox 360 via Namco/Bandai games. You can find out more info here or check out the trailer below.