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by Published on May 7th, 2012 21:07- Categories:
- PC News
Valve has released the latest Steam top ten sellers chart for the week ending on May 5th.
Sniper Elite V2 sold well in its launch week, ending up in the runner-up position; however, this weekend’s big Arkham sale was not to be denied.
Batman: Arkham City earned the top slot thanks to a 50 per cent discount the past few days, and the Batman Arkham Bundle, which was offered at 58 per cent off, filled in right beside Sniper Elite, sharing the two spot as well.
Full list follows:
- Batman: Arkham City
- Sniper Elite V2 and Batman Arkham Bundle
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and The Walking Dead
- The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
- Torchlight II
- Bastion
- Port Royale 3
- Toy Soldiers
- Risen 2: Dark Waters
- ORION: Dino Beatdown
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/steam...9-may-5/095619 ...by Published on May 7th, 2012 21:04- Categories:
- DCEmu
Electronic Arts took to London last month to show the press its upcoming triple-A blockbusters.
And alongside the core console shooters, it demonstrated its latest PC, Facebook and iOS titles.
The biggest games on display were shooters including upcoming modern day blaster Medal of Honor Warfighter (October 23rd).
EA also fully revealed the upcoming sci-fi sandbox shooter Crysis 3, which isn’t available until spring 2013.
PopCap unveiled special retail bundles for Bejeweled 3 at the event, too. The DS version features Bejeweled 3 only (and will also be available over the Nintendo online store as well), while the PC, 360 and PS3 retail editions come bundled with different PopCap games. For example, Zuma and Peggle on PC and Zuma and Feeding Frenzy 2 on PS3.
There were a number of major digital properties showcased at the event for console, Facebook, iOS and PC, too.
The Battlefield 3: Close Quarters DLC (June 2012) was revealed at the showcase, as were mobile versions of Need for Speed, Battleship, Burnout, Shaun the Sheep and Mass Effect.
The customary new FIFA game must be due a reveal soon, too.
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/ea-de...n-event/095561 ...by Published on May 7th, 2012 20:53- Categories:
- DCEmu
Pay attention. One of the most popular online ‘teen hangouts’ says digital games need to fight harder to battle brief attention spans.
The man in charge of Habbo says that the migration of games to the web is inevitable, but makes fighting for consumers’ time more difficult.
“10 years ago, in online games, the assumption was that people spend all their time looking at their computer screens,” CEO Paul LeFontaine told MCV.
“But today all of us spend less time looking only at a computer screen. We’re also looking at our phone screens and our tablet screens.
“So we have to adjust our product to match the time people have for us, when they use our service around TV, radio, online or other devices.”
Each month over 10m 13 to 15-year-olds log on to Habbo’s user-generated and branded chat rooms, which play host to browser games and celebrity ‘appearances’. The firm also recently launched a new mobile app.
“Fortunately we’re used to dealing with a segment that has a very short attention span, so we always think in terms of short interactions. For us, thinking about mobile is natural because short attention span is very much the audience we have.
“But attention span and time is probably the largest challenge for any media company wanting to move from one platform to another.”
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/habbo...t-atten/095562 ...by Published on May 7th, 2012 20:51- Categories:
- PS3 News
Sony expects its upcoming Move game Sorcery to be a flagship product for the motion accessory.
The company says it “raises the bar” for Move games, and has kicked off an ad campaign to get it in front of kids this summer.
TV advertising will run around Cartoon Network programmes such as Ben 10 and Transformers, while cinema spots will feature at screenings of Men in Black 3.
There will also be print ads in Future Publishing magazines and online activity on Miniclip, YouTube, Disney and Nickelodeon websites.
Sorcery will be a part of Sony’s Summer Move Sampling tour which will cover retail, festivals and other high footfall areas.
“Sorcery raises the bar for PlayStation Move titles, and our retail expectations are reflective of that,” Sony’s UK product manager John Aikins told MCV. “With a comprehensive marketing campaign and great press feedback, Sorcery is the perfect title for all households, and is a great advertisement for the benefits of Move.”
There will be three Sorcery SKUs available on May 25th – a £30.99 standalone game, £70.99 Move bundle and PS3 console pack.
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/sorce...or-move/095560 ...by Published on May 7th, 2012 20:48- Categories:
- Xbox 360 News
Microsoft Research, working with the University of Washington, has developed a Kinect-like system that uses your computer's built-in microphone and speakers to provide object detection and gesture recognition, much in the same way that a submarine uses sonar. Called SoundWave, the new technology uses the Doppler effect to detect any movements and gestures in the proximity of a computer. In the case of SoundWave, your computer's built-in speaker is used to emit ultrasonic (18-22KHz) sound waves, which change frequency depending on where your hand (or body) is in relation to the computer. This change in frequency is measured by your computer's built-in microphone, and then some fairly complex software works out your motion/gesture. The obvious advantage of SoundWave over a product like Kinect is that it uses existing, commodity hardware; it could effectively equip every modern laptop with a gesture-sensing interface. The Microsoft Research team is reporting a 90-100% accuracy rate for SoundWave, even in noisy environments.
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/05...ker-microphone
...by Published on May 7th, 2012 00:34- Categories:
- Xbox 360 News
The cycle of brief campaigns and endless multiplayer mayhem continues this year with Black Ops 2, the sequel to Treyarch's 2010 pre-Christmas blockbuster and the latest addition to Bobby Kotick's pension fund. From what we've seen so far Black Ops 2 continues the gritty tone of espionage, psychological warfare and end-of-the-world crises that made the original game a hit.
Despite the familiarity of the overused basic premise, the teaser trailer that hit the web last week unveiled some impressive scenes of death and destruction. It also established a firm focus on technological warfare in the future and the trouble encountered when your weaponised toys are turned against you, Black Ops 2 looks set to keep the saturated FPS-fire alive for just...one...more...year.
So what do we want from Black Ops2? We've seen the same ideas churned out every 12 months for a while now, so we're desperate for something, not least to keep Activision's cash cow at the top of its game, the pressure is on for Treyarch. Here's some of our ideas...
http://www.computerandvideogames.com...e-want-to-see/
...by Published on May 7th, 2012 00:28- Categories:
- Wii U News
Ubisoft and Nintendo would doubtless prefer that one of the biggest news stories of the week never happened. The release of gameplay video showing off the forthcoming Rayman Legends apparently running on Wii U revealed some great stuff: superbly animated 2D visuals spliced expertly with polygon 3D elements, topped off nicely with beautiful cartoon animation and some lovely dynamic lighting. Not only that but we also were treated to a preview of one of Wii U's new features: the tablet controller's Near Field Communication (NFC) wireless tech.Some say that it was a canny move by Ubi in generating terrific buzz for a title which performed badly last time around - despite Rayman Origins being an excellent release. Others saw the exciting video as a strategically leaked hors d'oeuvre for the Wii U loveliness to come next month at the E3 games convention. In reality, the combination of pre-production controllers and music lifted from the Back to the Future and How to Train Your Dragon movie soundtracks all but confirms that it was indeed an internal Ubisoft presentation that was never meant to see the light of day.And unfortunately, the gameplay footage we did see gives away very well little about the Wii U's hotly contested "next-gen" credentials, which have dominated headlines recently. Does the Wii U's graphics tech disappoint compared to the Xbox 360? Or, as developers likeGearbox have suggested, does the new hardware allow for improved versions of multi-platform titles?On the face of it, Wii U's capabilities are fairly self-evident. We've seen Nintendo's game demos, we've seen their tech presentations - from a graphics perspective, this is PS3/360 stuff. Perhaps more obviously, it is telling that company has made no effort whatsoever to suggest that Wii U offers next-generation rendering in any of its marketing - something that would surely be a major selling point that the company would want to get across to the core audience. Yet rumours appear suggesting that Wii U will be twice as powerful as Xbox 360.The existing body of evidence suggests it won't be (though this particular claim is somewhat lacking in context - 2x what, exactly?) but there's a strong possibility that individual components could see an impressive boost over what is found in current-gen consoles. Similarly, other elements may fall a little short. There's no reason why both the anonymous briefings on the machine's deficiencies and the on-the-record statements can't be equally true. So what exactly should we expect from this year's next-gen entrant?..."Does Wii U graphic tech fall short of the Xbox 360 as rumours have stated? Or can the console exceed current gen performance? In different applications, both situations could be true."
Nintendo doesn't typically talk specs, but the combination of official information released thus far plus a basic knowledge of existing hardware production infrastructure can give us a pretty good idea. Consoles are not built in a vacuum - their parts are fabricated by companies whose facilities and outputs are a matter of public record.Processing power is driven by Moore's Law, which is typically a factor of the amount of transistors you can cram onto a piece of silicon. The current-gen consoles launched at 90nm (a state-of-the-art fabrication process at the time) and have gradually transitioned to 45nm, being refitted into smaller cases in the process. Nintendo has already revealed that its IBM Power7-derived CPU runs at the same fabrication process as the current PS3 and Xbox 360, and the worldwide shortages in "next-gen" 28nm production suggest that the Wii U's AMD Radeon graphics chip will also be produced at 40nm/45nm - it's the only way to create millions of viable chips in time for a 2012 release, and also opens the opportunity for a die-shrunk cheaper unit to be put into production sooner rather than later.Combine the realities of chip production with the miniscule dimensions of the Wii U casing (172mm x 45mm x 267mm according to Nintendo's E3 PR - a bit bigger than a current Wii) and we're looking very much at current gen ballpark power - a true "next-gen" upgrade over the current Xbox would be extremely challenging to cool in a box that's so tiny compared even to the slim versions of the PS3 and 360.Efficiencies in design can make a difference, of course. The Xbox 360 CPU is clocked at 3.2GHz for example, but by Microsoft's own estimates, most games only process around 0.2 instructions per clock - suggesting it's a somewhat poor design that can be improved. GPU design is set to change somewhat going forward with more efficiency in mind (something we've seen with NVIDIA's Kepler tech) but to date, graphics power has been driven very much by Moore's Law, which combined with the rest of the available information suggests that Wii U GPU processing will be very much in the ballpark of the Xbox 360 and PS3.Some have interpreted the "re-introduction" of the Wii U at this year's E3 as a showcase for a revised spec, withby Published on May 7th, 2012 00:26- Categories:
- Retro Consoles/Translation News
Despite the interactive entertainment industry's manic obsession with relentless technological progress, improved audio visual capability and cutting-edge artificial intelligence, the enduring popularity of vintage software proves that good old-fashioned gameplay remains the biggest draw for most players. All three current console manufacturers offer the ability to digitally download past classics to their systems, and on the PC, retro enthusiasts are ably served by the likes of Steam and GOG. Clearly, all the deferred rendering, anisotropic filtering and bump mapping in the world can't change the fact that good games never die, they just mature....
While it's unquestionably a positive thing that modern-day players have access to such a wide range of retro titles through current-generation hardware, there's a definite buzz to playing on the original systems. The unmistakable feel of the authentic joypad, the sound of a cartridge clicking home and the strangely addictive pleasure of sourcing games in their original packaging - all of these elements drive a retro gaming industry which is worth millions worldwide, and shows no signs of flagging.
Many collectors do it for the love of the systems; they might have owned a particular console when they were younger, and now that they possess a large disposable income wish to revisit their misspent youth and attempt to replicate the thrill they got when they saw Street Fighter II running for the first time on a Super Nintendo. Younger collectors don't have that nostalgic link, yet the high esteem in which some of these ground-breaking machines are held means that even those who weren't even born during the original release period still crave a piece of history.
Below is a selection of some of the world's most popular and collectible vintage gaming machines, some of which you'll no doubt be familiar with, others possibly less so. Regardless of whether or not you recognise the name or can recall when you last booted one up, each of these platforms is well worth reassessing from a modern perspective.
The RPG King: Super Nintendo
Nintendo faced a stern challenge when it came to creating the successor for its 8-bit NES, but the Super Nintendo did not disappoint. Launched as the Super Famicom in Japan, there were reports of buyers being mugged for their newly-acquired consoles, such was the unprecedented demand.
"While heavily criticized for its seemingly slow processor, the Super Nintendo quickly became the system of choice for some of the best platformers and shoot 'em ups to come out of the 16-bit generation," explains Nintendo Life's Corbie Dillard. "It didn't hurt that the system was packaged with what is still one of the greatest Super Mario titles ever crafted."
Nintendo enjoyed what was arguably its golden era with this console, producing some brilliant titles. To supplement games like F-Zero, Super Metroid, Yoshi's Island and Pilotwings, the SNES was ably supported by every developer worth their salt, with the likes of Konami, Capcom, Square, Irem, Hudson, Taito, Koei and Enix all throwing their weight behind the machine. The list of third-party must-have titles is exhaustive: Super Ghouls 'n' Ghosts, Cybernator, Parodius, Super Castlevania IV and Axelay - amongst many, many others - proving to be solid gold slices of interactive brilliance. However, it's for its services to the RPG genre that the SNES is possibly best remembered.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/df...llectors-guide
by Published on May 6th, 2012 23:59- Categories:
- PC News
For the lucky few who have a Raspberry Pi board in their hands, you can now use the GPIO pins as a web interface (German, google translation). [Chris] is turning this magical board is turning a small device that can play 1080p video into something that can blink LEDs via the web.
The build started with an example of driving GPIO pins under Linux. [Chris] cobbled together a bit of PHP and Javascript on the Raspberry pi. Whenever he goes to the website hosted on the Pi, he’s greeted with the status and direction of a couple of expansion IO pins.
On a semi-related note, [Tony] is building a GPIO MIDI interface for his Pi. Yes, he could just get a USB to MIDI adapter and call it a day, but this is a far more professional looking solution to all the MIDI goodness the RasPi will deliver. If you’ve got any info on other RasPi breakout boards you’ve seen, send them in on the tip line.
http://hackaday.com/2012/05/05/contr...web-interface/ ...by Published on May 6th, 2012 23:56- Categories:
- PC News
Since the Arduino was launched years ago, many ‘shields’ or add-on boards providing additional functionality have been released. There are hundreds of different shields, from video capture shields to touch screen shields. Now that the Raspberry Pi is out in the wild, it was only a matter of time before a RasPi to Arduino shield bridge was created.
[Omer] calls his bridge ‘Ponte’ and it allows Arduino shields to be used with the incredible horsepower of an embedded Linux system. While [Omer] originally expected to write the RasPi to Arduino software converter himself, but foundWiringPi halfway through the build. Of course this build comes just a day after we saw a tutorial on controlling the GPIO pins on the RasPi, and we expect to see similar GPIO-hacking builds in the future.
Right now, the Ponte only supports Arduino Uno-sized shield, so the possibility of an all-in-one RepRap controller using the RAMPS motor driver is impossible for now. We expect that to change very quickly as more people get their RasPis delivered.
http://hackaday.com/2012/05/06/using...-raspberry-pi/ ...
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