Gaming posts

It’s that time of the year again, folks! No no – not the new iPhone. It’s time for E3, gaming’s most important conference, where Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony announce their latest hardware, games and services. Fanboy battles will rage, marketing execs will boast – but if all goes according to plan, gamers will find out what will dominate their time over the next few months. Microsoft What We Know: Expect Microsoft’s big push to be about Natal. Everything we’ve heard from the Redmond-based company so far has suggested that this isn’t just another peripheral – it’s essentially a console relaunch….

CEOs of EA and Capcom respectively, John Riccitiello and Haruhiro Tsujimoto recently whispered some sweet nothings about Nintendo’s upcoming 3DS in interviews, giving us clues to the future of handheld gaming. “I will tell you, I’ve seen it; it’s cool,” teased Riccitiello, probably knowing full well he’ll be black-bagged and never seen again if he says anything useful before Nintendo’s E3 presentation. Yeah, we know it’s gonna be cool, John, what else? Tsujimoto, however, has been a bit more bold. “Of course, it allows us to do things that couldn’t be done until now, so the development…

Heard of Pad Racer? If you’re busy sensually yet inadvertently rubbing your iPad against your shirtless self, you probably have. Once or twice. For the rest of you, Pad Racer is essentially slot car racing for Apple hardware. Using your iPhone/iPod Touch, you control a tiny stain of pixels – er, ‘car’ around a track displayed on your iPad. The play control looks pretty good, and I can imagine multiplayer matches are totally fun fun super lucky best time. But why am I writing about a single iPad app? Well, the latest version of Pad Racer lets you set two iPads next to each other, allowing for double the…

3D Gaming will be coming to your door a lot sooner than we all expected. NVidia and Asus have announced three new 3D computers this week, with a game-ready laptop adding another dimension to the gaming world in Taipei. Asus has unveiled its 3D lineup with the G51Jx-EE 3D gaming laptop, as well as the Eee Top ET2400 and CD5390 tower based PC. All three of these machines will ship with 120Hz displays, active shutter 3D glasses, and discrete graphics processors from NVidia. The 3D Vision active shutter glasses from NVidia shipped with the gaming ready PC erase the need for an external IR emitter to be running…

Remember that racecar bed you loved so much when you were a kid? What was the deal with that, anyway? Does anyone really feel like they’re racing a car when they’re lying or sleeping in one of those things? Childish flights of fantasy abound, here’s a similar concept. The racecar Wii controller by CTA Digital. Pretty obvious really, this is actually a pretty neat idea. Like most Wii controllers, you simply attach your Wii or Wii Motion Controller to the device and your gaming experience is enhanced. In this case, the device is an inflatable racing car. Your Wii controller attaches to the steering…

With over a million sold in the US alone, the iPad hits nine more countries later in the week. We’ve taken a look at some of the insanely interesting apps available for the new Apple product, and here’s our weekly run-down of five of the most interesting iPad apps around. 1. Pro Keys $0.99 Want to play a little piano? You can, with an iPad and rather lovely app, Pro Keys Piano. This seems to be a lot of fun and has many different modes – there’s a variety of pianos, including a grand and an electric, an organ and many more. There’s fifteen instruments in all. The two visible keyboards can be set differently,…

I think we can all agree at this stage of gaming that DRM sucks. Doing little more than putting our paid-for content under lock and key, there have been some truly ludicrous implementations of DRM over the last couple years. I myself have pretty much turned exclusively to indie gaming as a result. Apparently, Blizzard is on our side. According to Frank Pearce, executive producer for StarCraft II and co-founder of Blizzard itself, has assured us that SCII will feature no DRM, due to Blizzard’s desire to get more people using its Battle.Net service, which requires a legitimate copy of the game to run….

We’ve been casting our eyes around for cool iPhone apps this week, and have come up with some stunning apps, including some which vastly improve iPhone photography and a few others which just couldn’t help but catch our eye — including one superb music-creation solution. 1. Twitter for iPhone Free Formerly Tweetie 2 and now produced by Twitter itself, the official Twitter client is an essential tool for anyone who is into the 140-character idea sharing service. Twitter for iPhone will let you browse users, check trends and write tweets. You can download it here. This version (released last…

Dear Game Publishers, what are you thinking? For years, loyal supporters of your games have dealt with ridiculous price increases, overpriced downloadable content, and silly DRM schemes. Yet now, in these most critical times for the game industry, your idea of repaying them is to make us pay even more? Really? Furthermore — stooping to an all-time low — EA has stepped up for your industry and decided that users should be pushed (if not forced) to purchase new games only, punishing gamers who legitimately purchase used games. The idea behind this is essentially to make them pay extra money…

Despite its continued success in Japan, PSP sales elsewhere have fallen off a cliff. Software sales are still woefully low – and it’s best we just not talk about how badly the PSP Go bombed. But if rumors are to believed, there’s a chance we may see the PSP2 announced at E3 this year. And with Nintendo continuing to dominate the handheld space – with a new 3D model on the way – and Apple having quickly become an imposing force among casual gamers, Sony has to be feeling the pressure. So regardless of when the PSP2 does come – whether this year or next – what does Sony have to do make sure it’s a success? A Second…