Games
The Falcon Game Controller - with realistic force feedback
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UPDATED IMAGES June 30, 2007 We all know the keyboard and mouse are NOT the future of the computer human interface, and to be frank, we’re getting a bit sick of waiting for a replacement capable of generating critical mass. One device with the potential to play a role in the next generation interface, at least in the area of computer games, began shipping this month. Novint Technologies’ highly anticipated, award-winning Novint Falcon game controller is now available in a special Limited Edition bundle. The Falcon is an entirely new type of 3D game interface that makes virtual objects and environments feel real. Replacing a computer mouse or joystick, the US$190 Falcon is, essentially a small robot that lets you feel shape, weight, texture, dimension, dynamics, 3D motion, and force effects when playing enabled games. Read More
Fatal1ty continues to build cyber-athlete profile
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June 13, 2007 There are no really valid metrics for the sport of computer gaming, which encompasses multiple platforms, dozens of genres, thousands of titles and a billion regular participants, but all things considered, Johnathan Fatal1ty Wendel is unquestionably the world’s best gamer. The 26 year-old cyber-athlete turned professional in 1999 and has since won more pro comps and prize money than any other gamer, including 10 World titles on FIVE DIFFERENT GAMES. He has won 67% of all the competitions he has entered and been top three in 92% of them. Fatal1ty trains like an athlete at least eight hours a day, running and playing tennis and honing his reflexes, strategies and other requisite skills to ensure he remains the most visible and well remunerated cyber-athlete on the planet. In keeping with the cult of celebrity, Fatal1ty is now beginning to rub shoulders with iconic names in other fields. His latest exploits at Computex Taipei, where he won the final shootout with a scoreline of 74 to minus 3 will only add to the growing legend. Read More
Neural input device hints at gaming revolution
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June 6, 2007 It is perhaps the most sought after technological goal in the digital age, an interface that will allow you to throw away the humble keyboard and mouse and take control of your computer by simply thinking. The latest foray into this rapidly evolving field is the Neural Impulse Actuator, a gaming interface prototype unveiled at Computex 2007 that reads brain signals instead of keyboard strokes to provide a hands-free computer control. Read More
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire – the DVD game
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June 2, 2007 TV ratings don’t lie – for better or worse, it seems the format of the popular TV show “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire”, which somehow makes it look easy for anyone with an IQ larger than their shoe size to win a bundle, just keeps pulling massive audiences. In this age of multi-medium franchises, it was only a matter of time before the TV Show followed the path of “Deal or No Deal” and “Family Feud” and now we can report that Imagination International Corp (IIC) has inked a three-year deal with Disney/ABC for the exclusive rights to the Who Wants to Be a Millionaire DVD Game. The game will be available in Q3 for US$20. Read More
Spiderman 3 Review (Xbox 360)
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May 22, 2007 Movie licensed games are typically horrible, and should be avoided at all costs. The precedent was set way back in 1982, when lengthy licensing negotiations left a single Atari programmer with just 5 weeks to conceive and develop the entire "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" game. Despite being widely regarded as the worst game ever made, it sold 1.5 million copies - making it the eighth best selling game for the Atari 2600. For obvious reasons, countless movies have been turned into games since 1982, and a mere few gems like Goldeneye 007 and Star Wars Episode 1: Pod Racer have emerged from the noise. Did the developers of Spiderman 3 get enough development time to deliver a polished game in time for the movie? Our Games Editor has the full story. Read More
Geometry Wars: Galaxies coming to Nintendo Wii, DS
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May 22, 2007 Geometry Wars first appeared as a mini-game in Project Gotham Racing 2 for the Xbox, and much to the surprise of the developers, people loved it - enough to warrant a HD sequel on the Xbox 360. Geometry Wars: Evolved was the first game released on Xbox Live Arcade, and to this day remains the cheapest, and arguably, best game available on the service. Finally, Nintendo fans are set for a taste of the hellishly frantic action. Read More
Eball sports simulator goes mobile and inflatable
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May 18, 2007 You may recall our enthusiasm last year when we reported on eballgames and its development of an interface between a real ball and ball games – think of it as a CHI (Computer Human Interface) for any real world ball game and you’re close. Motion and speed sensors take your kick, throw or golf swing and play out the results on the big screen, for better or worse. The crowd will roar or express their disappointment, and the commentator gives you a pat on the back or a serve for missing. The ball goes into a net and is ready for the next player to have a go. It's simple, quick fun and it continually breaks records for drawing crowds wherever it is installed. Now the company has taken its VR sports simulator and developed it into a number of inflatable structures so the promotional killer-app can be quickly set up anywhere, indoors or outdoors. Eballgames is already working on many different sports and is keen to discuss development opportunities with interested parties. We see it as the ultimate Wii peripheral for kids that want to play ball games. Indeed, there’s plenty of opportunity for the development of remedial and skills development games using this technology. Read More
Guitar Hero: Rocks the 80s announced
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May 11, 2007 It was only recently that we became properly aquainted with Guitar Hero 2, but that doesn't mean we're any less excited about Activision's announcement of the third game in the series, Guitar Hero: Rocks the 80s. Details are scarce, but read on for a sneak peak at the tracklist. Read More
NVIDIA releases the world's fastest Graphics Processing Unit
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May 4, 2007 One of the prime motive forces in computer technology is the gaming industry. And by releasing the world’s fastest graphics processing unit, NVIDIA has ensured that it is in the driving seat. Available on May 15, the GeForce 8800 Ultra is priced at US$829. Given that the graphics industry evolves extremely quickly, it is quite an achievement for a company to leapfrog its own performance milestones as NVIDIA has done with the GeForce 8 Series GPUs. Read More
Guitar Hero 2 Review (Xbox 360)
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April 30, 2007 As you might imagine, we're surrounded with technology at the Gizmag office...and we thought we'd learned to do a pretty good job of soldiering on despite all the distractions the wired lifestyle brings. Alas, those times are over now, and we refer to the period as BG (Before Guitar Hero). For the uninitiated, Guitar Hero is rock and roll condensed into a video game, complete with plastic guitar controller and a drummer who always turns up to practice on time (and doesn't hit on your girlfriend). The original Playstation 2 game sold over one million units in its first year, and the sequel sold over 1.3 million units in 2006 - 800,000 in December alone - and it's hooked everyone from the neighbors seven-year-old to members of the prog-rock super-group Tool. Now it's here on the Xbox 360 in crisp 720p resolution with 10 additional tracks - if you've listened to guitar music at all in the last thirty years, read on for the full review, video and track list. Read More
HP unveils plans for the gaming interface
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April 10, 2007 Hewlett Packard is expanding into online, mobile and PC gaming. With the international gaming market estimated at US$36 billion, a figure so immense it eclipses the GDP of entire countries, it is easy to see why. HP acquired VoodooPC last September (2006), and last week revealed a number of initiatives that have obviously resulted from the two companies integrating their core skills. The developments promise much more immersion for gamers in the future with HP showing a large, curved screen designed to fill a gamer’s entire field of vision, a high resolution “super projector” purpose-built for projecting multi player games on a large surface and a method of superimposing “multimedia digital experiences” on physical landscapes, enabling people to play a game throughout a city with wireless handheld devices. Read More
Blazing Angels: Squadrons of World War II Review (Playstation 3)
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April 10, 2007 When this landed on my desk to review, I had my doubts - of the forty million or so World War II games released during my years of gaming, I can count the ones I've enjoyed on one hand. Thankfully, Blazing Angels stands out from the noise just by not being a first-person shooter, and rekindles the almost forgotten air-combat genre. If piloting one of 50 authentic World War II era aircraft through several key battles over historic sites like Dunkirk, Pearl Harbor, Midway and Berlin sounds like your thing, read the full review. Read More
Playstation 3 continues to top Folding@Home statistics
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April 10, 2007 Folding@Home is a distributed computing project where people donate spare clock-cycles from the CPU or GPU in their Internet-connected PC's, the result of which is one of the largest supercomputers in the world. The Folding@Home client for the Playstation 3, released as part of a recent system update for the console, quickly raced to the top of the statistics. Shortly after, just as the network of over 20,000 consoles was about to hit the team's goal of one petaflop, the Folding@Home team reevaluated the performance of the console - dropping it to half the original figure. In spite of this, the Playstation 3 remains the greatest contributor to Folding@Home, and currently provides over half of the processing power available to the project. Read More
fl0w Review (Playstation 3)
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April 4, 2007 The concept of games as art is rarely touched upon, undoubtedly due to the rarity of games one could bring up in a discussion of the concept with a straight face. fl0w is one of the exceptions - a Master of Fine Arts thesis by USC School of Cinematic Arts graduates Jenova Chen and Nicholas Clark. Originally realised in Flash, the game has improved in leaps and bounds after its jump to the Playstation Network, and it's here to manipulate your mood. Read More
The Xbox 360 is back in black
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March 29, 2007 After more rumours (and denials) than you can shake a stick at, Microsoft have officially announced the new Xbox 360 Elite, and somehow managed to leave us with more questions than answers. What we can safely tell you is that it's got an HDMI port, comes with a 120GB HDD...and it's black. Read More
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 Review (Xbox 360)
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March 28, 2007 If you have ever doubted just how much advantage the Dominator system equates to on the battlefield, here's your opportunity to sample it first hand. Was the development of the real Dominator and the interface to Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 linked? We don't know but when our games editor saw the real system demonstrated, he visibly paled. Ubisoft has already given gamers in Australia 10,000 good reasons (AUD$10,000) to play this game in an upcoming Xbox Live tournament. This no doubt left the majority of our readers, who can't play online games competitively and don't live in Australia, entirely unconvinced. Here's our games editor with a full review. Read More
Video Game Penetration grows and grows
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March 19, 2007 Once regarded as frivolous and inconsequential, the game console is fast gaining mainstream media clout and the third generation of consoles has further expanded its penetration into homes with 150 million US citizens now having access to at least one console - more than half (52.4%) of the total U.S. television population. As a medium it is particularly strong among key demographic groups with more than two-thirds (67.7%) of all men 18-34 and 80 percent of men 12-17 years of age. The number of video game consoles in U.S. television households has expanded by 18.5% in just two years, according to a new report. Specific console penetration details have not yet been released.
Australian Xbox Live tournament offers $10,000 first prize
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March 5, 2007 - Ubisoft-published game Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter (GRAW) was released last March, and went on to sell 1.4 million copies in its first seven weeks. Sales figures of this caliber generally guarantee sequels, and sure enough, this Thursday (March 8th, 2007) sees the release of GRAW 2. You've probably already played the multiplayer demo released on the Xbox Live Marketplace in February, but there's no question those who haven't will have a newfound interest in the game now there's a chance to win AU$10,000 playing it online. Read More
Piano Wizard integrates the video game and piano lesson
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March 3, 2007 - Parents rejoice! Finally a video game that you can give to your kids with no immediate hesitation or eventual regrets. The results of long hours spent in front of the game aren't just honed reflexes and hand-to-eye coordination, but the gift of fluency in the most beautiful and timeless language of all...music. Read More
Nyko Wii Charging Station simultaneously recharges two Wii remotes
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March 3, 2007 - In this day and age, disposable batteries are environmentally irresponsible, yet remain a desirable retail item due to convenience and price point - and those of our readers with Wii's or Xbox 360's will know how many AA's regular use of these consoles can chew through. This makes us a little surprised that Nintendo left this one up to the third-parties, but equally glad Nyko have stepped up to the plate with their Wii Charging Station. Read More
Is Sony adding rumble to the SIXAXIS?
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March 2, 2007 - Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) and Immersion have agreed to conclude litigation at the U.S Court of Appeals, and have entered into a new agreement to explore the inclusion of Immersion's technology (read: rumble) in PlayStation products. This is in stark contrast to Phil Harrison's recent comments regarding rumble as a "last-generation feature", which were widely criticised as a desperate attempt to hide the fact that the lack of rumble in the SIXAXIS was a design decision based more on legal proceedings with Immersion, than last/current-generation feature sets. Read More
Australia's Best Games of 2006 - Interactive Entertainment Awards
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February 26, 2007 Last Friday, more than 350 industry types hit Doltone House in Sydney, Australia for the Interactive Entertainment Awards. Twenty awards were handed out - twelve industry voted, and eight based on GfK sales data from January 1 to December 31, 2006. Read on for the unsurprising results of the industry voted awards, and the surprising winners (and some truly bizarre categorisations) of the best sellers. Read More
Crackdown (Xbox 360) Review
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February 23, 2007 - If you haven't heard about this game yet, you must be living under a virtual rock. We covered the release of the demo last month, but to sum things up, you're a cop with constantly evolving superhuman abilities, cleaning up crime in a city overrun by it. Today sees the game released on shelves worldwide, and our Games Editor has had a few days head-start to determine whether the cool premise was backed up by an equally cool game. Here's the scoop. Read More
New Wii channel - Everybody Votes
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February 14, 2007 - Nintendo launches a new channel for the Wii Menu today, the Everybody Votes Channel, which allows up to six players per console to vote in regional and worldwide polls...a tired premise with an interesting touch - the ability to predict the results of the polls, and track your accurate predictions in a "How Tuned In Are You?" section. Read More
Register for Playstation Network in Europe, get Casino Royale on Blu-ray
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February 13, 2007 - Even with the delayed launches of the Playstation 3 in PAL territories, Sony is still light on solid launch titles, with Resistance: Fall of Man and Motorstorm being the only exclusives receiving substantial acclaim from reviewers. To shift the focus back to their current strengths, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe have announced that the first 500,000 PS3 owners to register with Sony's free online service "PLAYSTATION Network" will receive a copy of the latest James Bond blockbuster "Casino Royale" on Blu-ray. Read More
Ubisoft plans expansion - 1,000 new jobs by 2013
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February 12, 2007 Ubisoft is currently one of the world's largest video game publishers, home to 1,600 employees at its headquarters in Quebec, and a number of hit franchises including Rayman, Prince of Persia and Tom Clancy. Today the company announced a major expansion of its operations in Quebec - expanding its current video game studios, and creating a CGI studio, with 1,000 hires planned by 2013. The CGI studio will create short films based on Ubisoft games, with the first planned film based on the massively hyped Assassin's Creed. Read More
Perfect score in Wii Sports: Bowling
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February 12, 2007 No doubt many of our readers lucky enough to own a Nintendo Wii have witnessed a few killer streaks on Wii Sports: Bowling, however none will have topped this. If you want to blow away the competition next time your friends are over, watch this video of a gamer known only as el moco take down a perfect 890 pins on the Power Throws training game, and then read his incredibly detailed post on the method he used to get there.
Future Combat System Live-Fire testing begins
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Feb 6, 2007 While we’re not big fans of the “if it aint broke, don’t fix it” edict (break it – there’s always a better way), there’s also no point in reinventing the wheel just so a system can be different - if you can focus on the key parts and use off-the-shelf parts for the other bits, then so be it. Given that the XBOX 360 controller is extremely hardy, we’re not surprised to see it being trailed by the military as part of the Army’s Future Combat System - after all, it's a highly evolved bit of kit ergonomically-designed for eight-hour-a-day usage. The Army completed the first live-fire exercise, Experiment 1.1, involving Future Combat Systems technologies and equipment at the Oro Grande Range at Fort Bliss, Texas, last week. The exercise is the first step in accelerating the delivery of key FCS capabilities to current-force Soldiers, and part of the most comprehensive Army modernization effort in more than half a century. The iRobot derivative RedOwl which the soldier is using is an ongoing rapid development program led by The Photonics Center at Boston University with iRobot, Insight Technology, and BioMimetic Systems. The RedOwl is a remote, deployable sensor suite designed to provide early warning information, gunshot detection, intelligence, surveillance and targeting capabilities to military forces and government agencies. The RedOwl robot also employs a suite of advanced optics including a thermal camera, 300X zoom daylight/infrared camera, infrared laser illuminators, a rangefinder, high intensity white driving light, and voice communication microphones and speakers, all in a package that weighs less than five pounds.
Lost Planet: Extreme Condition - multiplayer update, new cheat codes
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February 6, 2007 Capcom have announced the release of a patch for Lost Planet: Extreme Condition, currently scheduled for March 9th. The patch addresses numerous bugs in the multiplayer game, and throws in some essential new functionality that will alleviate the problems gamers are having finding servers for Ranked matches that aren't across the other side of the world. To ease the pain of the fairly lengthy wait, Capcom have released three new cheat codes which will breathe new life into the title for people who are still stuck early in the game, and haven't seen the more impressive (and fun) later missions as a result. Read on for the full details, and cheats. Read More
Nintendo Australia adds four games to Wii Virtual Console line-up
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Nintendo Australia today added four more titles to the Wii Virtual Console service, comprising of Sega Mega Drive games Comix Zone, Bonanza Bros. and Gain Ground, and the NES game Gradius. This brings the total number of games available to 36 - read on for the entire list, complete with recommendations from our Games Editor. Read More
Crackdown demo about to hit Xbox Live Marketplace
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January 23, 2007 [UPDATE: Read our full length review of the retail version] Crackdown is the latest brainchild of Dave Jones, whose prior masterpieces include smash hits such as Lemmings and Grand Theft Auto. Realtime Worlds have developed the title exclusively for Microsoft Game Studios and the Xbox 360, and a demo offering both single and multiplayer modes is set to hit the Xbox Live Marketplace later today. Read More
Lost Planet: Extreme Condition (Xbox 360) Review
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January 24, 2007 After you've heard about Lost Planet selling one million copies since its initial release less than a month ago (only a week if you're outside Japan), you're probably wondering if this figure is more to do with the lack of any Christmas blockbusters for the Xbox 360, or because it's a great game in its own right. Our Games Editor has the lowdown after spending a bit too much quality time with the game. Read More
Trivial Pursuit Intellectual Property dispute drawing to a close
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January 6, 2007 Humans have been playing board games for at least 8000 years, with the most popular board game in history being Monopoly. In 1981, Trivial Pursuit burst onto the scene, establishing a new genre of board game and with more than 90 million games sold in 33 countries and 19 languages, three television shows spawned (in the United States, United Kingdom and Germany), and an electronic version now available on mobile phones from most major mobile carriers in the U.S., the success of the game and its inventors is the stuff of legend, business school case studies and … law suits. A case currently before the courts in Nova Scotia (Canada) is going down to the wire to decide the rightful inventor of the wildly popular board game. The dispute dates back 12 years and centres around the claims of Cape Breton resident David Wall who says Chris Haney (one of the two acknowledged inventors of the game along with Scott Abbott) picked him up hitchhiking in 1979 and during the ride he described his concept for the game to Haney who went on to collect the biggest royalty cheque in board game history. The local newspaper, the Cape Breton Post, has all the details. If there’s a moral in the story for our audience of people who love clever ideas, it’s that good ideas (i.e. valuable Intellectual Porperty) should not be disclosed to complete strangers. Read More
Call of Duty 3 (Nintendo Wii) Review
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December 14, 2006 The shooting scenes in Rayman: Raving Rabbids proved that on-the-rails shooters work very well on the Wii, which as well as whetting our appetites for a port of Virtua Cop or Time Crisis, led us to have fairly high expectations of how a first-person shooter (FPS) would fare using the Wii Remote. Call of Duty 3 is the first Wii FPS we've had our hands on - and it's a bittersweet experience. Read More
Game of the Year - Gears of War (Xbox 360)
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December 14, 2006 An epic story line, polished controls, amazing graphics and a furious (and incredibly addictive) multiplayer game make Gears of War the game of the year. Our games editor hasn't been very productive for the last week - here's his fairly detailed excuse. Read More
