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Gaming gear I wish I had on this 12-hour flight
Posted by Alex Lifschitz Categories: Accessories, Culture, Features, Music, Nintendo, Sony,
As I write this, I am squeezed into a coach seat on a 12 hour flight from an undisclosed location in the middle east to New York City. Once I get done with this, I have another 6-hour jaunt to Los Angeles, and the memory of my last 2-hour flight here fades with every drop of overpriced airline beer. In these trying times, a man needs to keep entertained. My DS is charged, but alas, I have completed Castlevania already.
There are three - no, four crying infants on board. The man to my left has clearly not showered since the Reagan administration. If I don’t survive, let me leave you with these thoughts of what could have been, if only I had taken this frightening possibility into deeper consideration.
Hit the jump for my last coherent thoughts before the chilling onset of complete madness.
Click to continue reading Gaming gear I wish I had on this 12-hour flight
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Power Gig: Authentic Guitars for Games
Posted by Alex Lifschitz Categories: Accessories, Features, Music,
Looks like a couple of guitars, right? Look closer.
Closer still. We weren’t at NAMM or anything. See those little colored marks on the fretboard? Yup, those are real, honest-to-god game controllers. These Power Gig guitars were being shown off at the GDC by the fine folks at Seven45 studios. And by “shown off,” we mean they had their employees using them in an enclosure on a TV screen that nobody could see. Great marketing, that.
Apparently, these are real, functioning electric guitars. Between sets of an unseen music and rhythm game being developed by Seven45, the employees would plug the controller into an amp stack and shred for a while. And it sounded good! Oh lord, did it sound good.
Now, we didn’t have a chance to actually use one of these guitars or see the game they were playing (which apparently has Cult of Personality by Living Color as one of the songs), nor did anybody else - this was eyes only for the guitars, and ears-only for the game. We were told that these will, in fact, function as controllers for Rock Band and Guitar Hero, and you’ll play them in much the same fashion (though you can choose whether to pick a string or strum them all). Their proprietary game, though, has a mode that will involve hitting specific strings and notes, like tablature. (One source who saw the game in action voiced some negative opinions, but Seven45 isn’t showing anything else off until E3.)
A similar microphone and drum setup has been announced, but we have yet to see how they will differ from the current stable of music controllers.
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Mafia II: Hands-on impressions
Posted by Alex Lifschitz Categories: Action, Features, PC, PlayStation 3, Reviews, Xbox 360,
Poor Mafia. When the first game released in 2002, it drew plenty of criticism for being too much in the vein of Grand Theft Auto. The game actually had a flair of its own and a distinct cinematic style, with plenty of interesting moments and glowing reviews. Some moments in particular (notably the one involving crashing a funeral) were altogether more memorable than anything in other open-world games.
Nearly a decade later, 2K Games has decided to bring the series to current-gen consoles with Mafia II. We got a hands-on sneak peak at the game at the GDC. Do your best Marlon Brando impersonation (note: please do not do your best Marlon Brando impersonation) and hit the jump to see how it stacks up to its namesake.
Click to continue reading Mafia II: Hands-on impressions
Xbox 360 250GB hard drive now available for purchase
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Accessories, Microsoft, Xbox 360,
Heads up, all you Xbox 360 owners that are constantly feeling the pinch when it comes to hard drive space - Microsoft has finally released the 250GB Xbox 360 hard drive as a standalone device! Previously, you were only able to get the drive with the purchase of one of the many special edition consoles, like Modern Warfare 2 or Final Fantasy XIII. The 250GB hard drive can be purchased now, and costs $129.99.
Read More | Xbox 360 250GB Hard Drive
Three Rings of Death? Send off your Xbox 360 in Style!
Posted by Finnian Durkan Categories: Culture, Microsoft, Xbox 360,
For those of you out there who have spent the greater part of the last few years since the release of the Xbox 360 in a dark hole yelling ‘PWN’D!!!’ at 11 year-olds via the interwebz there is nothing more face-punchingly painful than the 3 Rings of death. For the uninitiated, the 3 Rings of Death (or RROD( on an Xsox 360 mean that the machine has eaten itself and you are now left with a very expensive bookend. For the you, avid gamer, this is a truly traumatic experience. You are forced—for a couple of weeks at least—to shuffle your way outside, blinking 12-inch-wide gollum-eyes at the sun all the while, and to begin socially interacting with people. An event this traumatic deserves to be memorialized, forever etched in the asocial fabric of the basement of your parent’s house where you live, yes? Well look no further, fearless devourer of the Hot Pocket, your savior has arrived in the form of an artistically morbid coffin for your Xbox. Created by Australian designer Alexis Vanamois, this sleek little number can serve to either a) memorialize your crawling out of the dungeon of social leprosy and beginning a new life, or b) as a badge of honor mounted on your wall and waiting for more XBoxes to be memorialized along side it as you travel down the road to becoming the comic-book guy from The Simpsons; the choice is yours.
Hands-On with Sony’s PS3 3D Games
Posted by Alex Lifschitz Categories: Features, PlayStation 3, Reviews, Sony,
3D was a fad that died a well-deserved death during the 90s. Of course, the flame was kept alive by evil, evil hipsters who swapped between polarized lenses and shutter shades for a while, but only recently has it come back in a big way (thanks to new glasses, new technology, and the ability for us as a culture to forgive transgressions for existing as fads before being properly implemented.)
Sony is apparently on board with the 3D revival, and they had a bunch of games and TVs showing off their 3D technology at the GDC. Hit the jump for our hands-on impressions.
Click to continue reading Hands-On with Sony’s PS3 3D Games
Nintendo DSi XL: Hands on
Posted by Alex Lifschitz Categories: Features, Nintendo, Nintendo DS, Portable/Mobile,
You know, when I look at the Nintendo DSi XL, I can’t help but notice the similarity in form factor to Apple‘s iPad (though the DSi XL was released first - thanks for catching that, astute readers!). Nintendo recently announced the US release of the n-th iteration of the DS, now focusing on a bigger screen. Come to think of it, both companies have a penchant for constantly releasing new SKU’s of existing hardware every few months with minor tweaks to inexplicable demand by an attention-deficit public, all while making the people who just bought their newly-outdated hardware feel small and relatively ashamed.
Either way, we got our hands on one at the GDC in San Francisco. Hit the jump for relevant deets.
Click to continue reading Nintendo DSi XL: Hands on
Halo: Reach Multiplayer Beta Trailer Released
Posted by Finnian Durkan Categories: Action, Bungie, First Person Shooters, Microsoft, Release Dates, Xbox 360,
The trailer for the beta version of the newest addition to the Halo family, Halo: Reach, drops today. From the footage it looks completely insane and has some pretty cool additions to make the multi-player aspects of the game that much more intense. For example, now when you headhunt people they collapse slowly to the floor shooting dozens of flaming skulls out of the tops of their heads. What, that isn’t normal? I know when I creep around Seattle in my ninja costume from 5th grade this happens all of the time when I come upon some hapless fool who has wandered into my territory. Well, maybe not quite; replace ‘shooting flaming skulls out of the tops of their heads’ with ‘stare at some idiot dressed in his pajamas from Christmas 1988 who just threw a plastic ninja-star at them’. Yep, that about sums it up. I am so alone.
Nintendo DSi XL launches in US on March 28th, $190
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Hardware, Nintendo, Nintendo DS, Portable/Mobile,
Earlier today, Nintendo announced that their new DSi XL will be launching in North America on March 28, 2007, selling for $190. The DSI XL is basically a jumbo sized Nintendo DSi, boasting two 4.2-inch LCD displays (up from the smaller DSi’s 3.25-inch displays.) At launch, the DSi XL will be available in two colors: burgundy and bronze. The new model also comes preloaded with a few games, including a couple of Brain Age DSiWare titles, Photo Clock, the DSi web browser, and Flipnote Studio. Europe gets in on the fun as well, as the XL launches bear on March 5.
Project Natal launching on October says UK’s Jonathan Ross
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Accessories, Microsoft, Rumors, Xbox 360,
Long-tenured UK TV host Jonathan Ross was able to give the upcoming Xbox 360 motion gaming add-on, Project Natal, a try. Aside from the hint of jealousy he left us all with, he also tweeted out an interesting tidbit of information on his Twitter account, which in a nutshell says that he feels that Natal has potential, and that Microsoft has until October to get it right. So the obvious question is, does that imply that Natal gets an October launch (which does fit in with the holiday 2010 launch period)? Or does it mean it has to all be done so they can start packing and shipping devices for launch in early November? I’m sure everything will be made clear in a couple of months at E3.
Hit the break for a video of Jonathan giving Project Natal a try.
Click to continue reading Project Natal launching on October says UK’s Jonathan Ross
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