Thursday 9 June 2011

Screenshot teasers ahead of Black Ops First Strike release

Ahead of the release of the new call of duty Black Ops add-on on February 1st, comes the first batch of screenshots. 

The content will initially be available exclusively on Xbox 360 and will feature four new multiplayer maps, including Berlin Wall, Discovery, Stadium and Kowloon, and a new Zombie map called Ascension. 

For Silver Xbox live members who haven’t yet experienced call of duty black opps multiplayer, Xbox live will host a Multiplayer Unlock event running on 28-30th January for new fans to join in. 


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Experience wireless freedom for the PlayStation 3

Released at the end of April 2011, plantronics P90 Bluetooth headset is specifically marketed as a wireless audio solution for playstation 3 gamers, though it’s also compatible with most Bluetooth enabled devices. 

The P90 looks like most conventional bluetooth; it’s lightweight (weighing 11.5 grams), shaped like a tiny coffin and predominantly black in colour. The silver panelling that runs around the square call button on the face of the headset, and the silver-coloured strip that runs horizontally across the centre, fits in nicely with the glossy black and silver styling of the playstation 3 console. An LED is embedded in the upper edge of the silver strip and flashes when you're pairing the device or if the battery is getting low, or stays a solid red colour when charging. 

On the front of the headset is a fairly large call button that is easily accessible and big enough to be clicked on and off with your thumb with little effort. The button also provides a subtle clicking sound so you’re well aware that you have answered a call or muted it. On the left side of the headset is a power on/off button, which requires you to use a small amount of force to push it up or down. On the right hand side of the unit sits the volume controls. You need to press two seperate buttons to lower and raise the volume and you hear a clicking sound each time you apply pressure. A tone also plays each time you turn the volume up or down indicating the level you've set it at, which is a nice little feature. 




On the back of the controller, the rubberised, contoured earbud is designed in such a way that it fits snugly in your ear, while the slim earloop catches over your ear and holds it into place well. Having used the official sony platstation Bluetooth headset extensively, the P90 does feel a lot more comfortable to wear for long periods of play, though the fragility of the earloop is a little concerning – it’s so thin it looks like it could quite easily snap off. 

Pairing the device with your mobile and the PlayStation 3 is quick and simple, requiring you to activate Bluetooth on your PlayStation 3 from the XMB by searching for a new Bluetooth device. You then press and hold the call button until the LED flashes and you’re all set-up You do have to remember to change your audio device settings on the XMB so that the P90 is your default audio input and output device, but you have to do that anyway everytime you change your audio set-up on your Console. 

PlayStation Vita - Sony's new hand-held

You may have missed it among the barrage of E3 news this week, but Sony has changed the name of its new hand-held, formely known as NGP, to playstation Vita - Vita means "Life" in Italian apparently, though we have no idea how that relates to the successor to the PSP, or what major connection Sony has to Italy. 

Anyhow, it's not about the name, it's about the hardware; and from what we've seen so far PlayStation Vita does look mightily impressive. The hand-held boasts dual analog sticks, front and rear cameras, front multi-touch display, multi-touch rear pad, GPS, six-axis motion sensors, and a three-axis electronic compass. 

It sports a new game medium, a small flash memory based card, dedicated for PS Vita software titles and a Six-axis motion sensing system. Much has been made about Vita's online and multiplayer functionality, which can connect via wifi and 3G and includes full PlayStation Network access. This will include a“LiveArea” (a space for sharing with others. From here you can use “near” (lets users identify what friends in the vicinity are or were recently playing), “Party” (enables users to enjoy voice chat or text chat not only during online gaming, but also when they are playing different games or using different applications such as the internet browser), and “Activity” (it logs the latest accomplishments from people playing the same games.) 


Multi-touch 5-inch organic light emitting diode (OLED) front display




Full measurements - 182.0 x 18.6 x 83.5mm


Vita will support  trophies and users will be able to play PSP and mini titles purchased from the PlayStation Store. At E3 2011 this week, Sony showcased some great looking games, the most impressive being Uncharted: Golden Abyss. You can see from the screenshots below that it does particularly nice on the multi-touch 5-inch organic light emitting diode (OLED) front display. Sony claims that 80 titles are currently in development for Vita, including entries from a host of familiar franchises, including WipEout, Bioshock and Call Of Duty. 

New Uncharted game showcases the graphical capabilities of Vita


The announced prices for Vita at the moment are: Wi-Fi version, ¥24,980 in Japan, $249 in the US and €249 in Europe, while the 3G version will cost ¥29,980, $299 in the US and €299 in Europe. Though no official sterling price has been announced, Amazon has listed Vita at 229.99/279.99 GBP. Sony has confirmed that PlayStation Vita will launch across all regions before the end of 2011. Tempted to pick one up? 

Microsoft has right of refusal on NVIDIA takeovers

Late last week Information Week got everyone in a tizz by highlighting this final paragraph in the ‘risk factors' category of NVIDIA's latest 10-Q quarterly report filing, submitted on 27 May. This was also brought to our attention by a HEXUS reader.
"Under the agreement, if an individual or corporation makes an offer to purchase shares equal to or greater than 30% of the outstanding shares of our common stock, Microsoft may have first and last rights of refusal to purchase the stock. The Microsoft provision and the other factors listed above could also delay or prevent a change in control of NVIDIA."
Obviously this is an intriguing revelation as it puts Microsoft in the front seat when it comes to any potential take-over of NVIDIA. Given Microsoft's struggles in the phone and tablet markets, and the ascendance of NVIDIA's Tegra chip in both of those, it posed the possibility of Microsoft acquiring NVIDIA and making itself self-sufficient in mobile chips, much the way Apple has.
But for some reason the author chose to omit the first sentence of that paragraph, which went as follows: "On March 5, 2000, we entered into an agreement with Microsoft in which we agreed to develop and sell graphics chips and to license certain technology to Microsoft and its licensees for use in the Xbox."
The same paragraph appeared, also as the last of the risk factors, in the 10-K annual report filing in March. According to All Things D, which did a bit of sniffing around, this information has appeared in every quarterly and annual filing since the deal was struck - an estimated 55 times. So it's old news, but only to anyone who cares to read the entirety of these lengthy documents.
That doesn't mean it's not intriguing, given how very different things are now to when the deal was struck. NVIDIA was a much smaller company back then, and this was part of a deal in which Microsoft paid NVIDIA a $200 million advance to make graphics chips for the original Xbox. The clause in question was to protect Microsoft against one of its competitors - in this market mainly Sony and Nintendo - from acquiring NVIDIA and scuppering its Xbox plans.
Eleven years later Xbox is nicely established, but the big thing is mobile now. WP7 is exclusively a Qualcomm affair chip-wise right now, but that might change. But the bigger picture concerns Windows 8 and its ARM support. NVIDIA was the first to announce it would be designing a CPU specifically for this new OS back as CES.
The Project Denver chip will presumably be a cornerstone of Microsoft's strategy to prove Windows is every bit as relevant as iOS and Android in the mobile device era, and Microsoft will be reassured to know that none of its deep-pocketed rivals can acquire the graphics outfit without it having a decisive say in the matter.

The Future Of Kinect for Xbox 360: googly eyed casual gamers, or hardcore lightsaber wielders?

At E3 this week, Microsoft has given us a sneak peak of what we can expect from Kinect over the coming months. Having launched in November 2010, the "controller-free gaming and entertainment experience" has largely been a disappointment, with Microsoft and third-party developers failing to capitalise on the impressive technology. While Dance Central impressed, the mediocre list of casual games has only shown glimpses of what the future might hold for the technology. Finally, Microsoft has laid down some firm plans, giving us hope that the great games are coming and Kinect can really become the centre of living-room entertainment for casual and core gamers alike. 

The bad news for Xbxo 360's core gamers is that Microsoft's E3 press conference was heavily geared towards Kinect's casual audience, with the likes of “Kinect: Disneyland Adventures,” “Sesame Street: Once Upon a Monster" and...wait for the groans, “Kinect Sports: Season Two" being key features. These games, however, will be just what families who have purchased Kinect will be waiting for; and in all fairness, my young daughter was jumping up and down with excitement at the thought of walking around a vitual Disneyland. I'm not complaining, because forking out £40 for the game is better than shelling out a few hundred to actually take her there. 

A new Dance Central game is also, inevitably, in the making which is sure to delight those who enjoyed shaking their booties to the first critically-acclaimed game. From a personal point of view though, I've really been looking forward to seeing how, or if, Kinect will integrate with core, mature gaming experiences - after all that's what Xbox 360 was really all about when it launched, right? Well, there's some good news. The announcement of Kinect Star Wars was a welcome surprise, and though graphically it doesn't look amazing, it does suggest that Microsoft isn't going to forget its core audience. The implementation of Kinect in the new Ghost Recon Future Soldier looks particularly impressive; and if customising your weapon set-up instantly by speaking, or moving your hands is as smooth and quick as it looks it may well give Kinect owners an advantage on the battlefield -- that's exactly how Kinect can really engage core gamers. 

Ubisoft's Splinter Cell will also receive the Kinect treatment, alongside Fable The Journey and Mass Effect 3, where players will be able to step into the role of Commander Shepherd and use their voices to interact with characters, rather than having to select options on the conversation wheel. Ubisoft is most certainly leading the way for Kinect implementation, with Ghost Recon Future Soldier looking remarkably impressive with Kinect, and if third-party developers follow their lead there's no reason mums, dads, children, teenagers - and those who have been gaming since the days of Chuckie Egg - can't all get something out of Kinect. 

Voice search will also soon be 100% functional, rather than the half-baked experience that it currently is. Before Christmas, Microsoft promises us that if you say it, Xbox will find it immediately, regardless of where your favorite entertainment resides across Xbox Live. That's kind of how I envisioned the future when I was child; sitting on my arse commanding things to happen without lifting a finger -"Kinect sausage sandwich, and a can of Stella Cidre, please!" There's also Video Kinect, which will allow users to hook up instantly with anyone else who has Kinect to video chat without the need of a headset. That's a great function, especially for those who might have family overseas, but it does mean you might not want to lounge about in the living room in your pants too often in case you get a call. 

Microsoft concluded its Kinect-focused conference with news that Kinect Labs is now available to download on Xbox 360. It's essentially a set of experiences that showcase Kinect's technology. The likes of 'Googly Eyes' allows you to scan an object (no, don't even think about waving your penis in front of that camera) and put a pair of googly eyes on it. You can then move around the screen, jump up and down and record your own skit and share it with other like-minded nutters on the official website, or just pals on your friends' list. You can create art with your fingers, transform yourself into a bobblehead, and bring your teddies to life by following a few simple steps. In truth, I've played each of these "games" a couple of times and I'm unlikely to play them again, but it's pretty cool technology and kids will no doubt love it. The most impressive aspect of Kinect Labs, however, is the ability to create an avatar that looks like you. Okay, so it's not exactly perfect - it makes you look slim when you're fat (wife loves that,) doesn't get your hairstyle right, and makes you look slightly more handsome/pretty then you really are - but it's far more accurate than trying to create an avatar that looks like yourself from scratch. It even scans in your clothes perfectly, so your avatar wears what you're wearing. 

It's this gimmicky side of Kinect and its casual offerings where its future will undoubtedly lie, but it is looking increasingly like the core gamers won't get left out either. It's still not a brilliant time to invest in Kinect, but come the end of the year it could well be the perfect Christmas present. 

Postcard from E3 2011: Irrational Declares Grey the Color of Girly-Men


The way I figure it, there are are two major advantages to working at Irrational. One, you get to create great games like BioShock and BioShock Infinite; and two, you transform into a paragon of physical human perfection. Seriously, check it out sometime. Pretty much everyone who works at Irrational is some kind of golden god with crazy muscles and an affinity for tight shirts. Well, except the ladies, who go easy on the muscles but enjoy certain other traits that are handily highlighted by the aforementioned tight tees.
Even so, when Irrational boss Ken Levine stepped out on stage tonight at Sony's E3 press conference to talk about Infinite and the upcoming BioShock title for the Vita handheld, I wasn't admiring his Adonis-like beauty. I was far too busy gaping over the gorgeousness of his game. BioShock Infinite isn't the most beautiful or technically impressive game I've ever seen, no doubt about it. What it is, however, is one of the boldest and brightest first-person shooters around.
In a genre dominated by muted greys and dreary earth tones, Infinite stands out by employing lots of bright, primary colors. Not in a garish way, merely a colorful one. The original BioShock was set beneath the ocean in the 1950s, and its art style reflected the nature of the city of Rapture with lots of muted blues and warm-but-dark brassy tones. Infinite is set at the turn of the 20th century high in the sky, so its visual palette is markedly different to reflect the change. It's canny design, but it's also a much-needed antidote to the grimy bleakness of the shooter genre.
One gets the impression that so many shooters feature nothing but grimy shades of dirt and concrete for fear that anything resembling actual color will seem too cartoonish. Too sissy. But I dare you to take one look at Levine's biceps and tell me that man is a wimp. Nope, real men aren't afraid of a little color saturation. From now on, my measure of a shooter's manliness will be to compare the game's graphics to its creator; if the creators' real-life palette is more colorful than the game's fantasy palette, you can be pretty sure they're trying too hard to impress you. Don't settle for grey. Demand some macho, bright primary colors in your shooters!

The History of Nintendo Console Pre-Release Hype

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With a brand new home console just weeks from being revealed by Nintendo, it seems apt to look back at Nintendo's past systems, specifically the rumor-mongering and pre-release hype that preceded their reveals. After all, the best way to find hints about Nintendo's future is to look at their past to see what concepts they talked about but never released or fully realized.

Project Reality and the Ultra 64

In late 1993, Project Reality was revealed, starting one of the first well-documented pre-console-launch hype examples. Nintendo's third home console made use of a then-powerful Silicon Graphics chip that would produce "infinitely evolving worlds that instantly and continuously react to the commands and whims of the individual players." Project Reality eventually became the Nintendo 64, and, while it did help usher in an era of 3D graphics, it didn't feature anything remotely close to infinitely evolving worlds.
Space World 95 Ad
Even before we knew of Project Reality's real name, rumors swirled around the system's supercomputer-like power. Rivals such as Sega and Sony decried the system, which was slated for a low $250 price point, saying that Nintendo shouldn't write checks they couldn't cash.
Meanwhile, Nintendo executives were making bold statements, such as this comment by Nintendo of America's then vice president Howard Lincoln: "Our work with Silicon Graphics enables us to actually skip a generation by diving straight through to 64-bit, 3D video entertainment."
The hype train rolled along even more so when, in 1994, Nintendo announced a partnership with Rare and Williams Entertainment, who was the parent company of Midway at the time. The two companies worked on arcade games purportedly using Nintendo 64 (at the time known as the Ultra 64) hardware. Sadly, that wasn't actually true, as the two games, Killer Instinct and Cruis'n USA, ran on arcade hardware that was in actuality far more powerful.
Ultra 64
Nintendo also announced a partnership with GTE Interactive Media. The popular thinking there was that Nintendo wanted to cultivate a game content delivery service over the Internet and/or phone lines, much like their previous effort on the Super Famicom, the Satellaview. Although it should be noted that Nintendo has a history of developing ideas behind the scenes for years, so maybe this ahead-of-its-time concept has developed into something innovative and different for their next system.
The Nintendo 64 was originally set to come out in late 1995, but delays pushed it back several times. The system was playable for the first time at Spaceworld 1995, Nintendo's gaming expo held in Japan, with a playable Mario, and a better handle on the system's inner workings ended the pre-launch speculation.

The Lost System of Atlantis and the Game Boy Advance

The history of the system that would become the Game Boy Advance, and to an extent the DS, oddly dates back to around the Nintendo 64's launch, five years before the system would be released. In 1996, several gaming magazines talked of Project Atlantis, a super-powerful handheld system with graphical capabilities on par with the PlayStation and the Nintendo 64. Reportedly promised to boast 30 hours of battery life, Atlantis quietly disappeared into the ether, and most assumed that, following the announcement of the Game Boy Advance, it was being refined to become the Game Boy Advance. However, that wasn't exactly the case.
Project Atlantis
In a 1998 interview with GameSpot, Howard Lincoln commented directly when he was asked about Project Atlantis, saying "At one point there were some people in the UK working on that. But that project was closed down years ago."
Lincoln could have been coy, not wanting to reveal Nintendo's hand prematurely, but a DSi-focused presentation by Nintendo's Masato Kuwahara at GDC 2009 recalled the rumors surrounding Atlantis. According to pictures revealed during the presentation, the prototype dwarfed the DSi, which in itself is one of the bigger Nintendo handhelds. It was structured like the Game Boys of the era, but featured four face buttons set up in a similar manner as the Super Nintendo controller.
Rumors began swirling around the Advanced Game Boy/Game Boy Advance (both of which were referred to as temporary names) in 1999. Early reports, which ousted the chip maker as UK-based ARM (likely the "people in the UK" Lincoln referred to regarding Project Atlantis), also jumped to the conclusions that, since ARM made cell phone chips, the new Game Boy would be online-enabled. Whether that was ever actually considered is unknown, though there were a few Japan-only experiments that might have spun out of this, such as Mobile Golf for the Game Boy Color and GBA, which used cell phone networks to play online.
Game Boy Mobile Adapter
Reports also came in that the Game Boy Advance would use discs, but those were squashed early on as the Game Boy and Game Boy Color backwards compatibility was widely speculated. The buzz around the Game Boy Advance was, for the most part, severely overshadowed by a big aquatic mammal: The Dolphin.

Swimming with the Dolphin

Shortly before E3 1999, Nintendo's fourth home console system, commonly referred to as N2000 at the time, was revealed to be codenamed Project Dolphin. IGN broke the story at the time, with their Nintendo insider saying, "Management is claiming better graphics than the [PlayStation 2], and supposedly it will run on DVD, but that's still a big maybe at this point."
The DVD talk was a hot-button issue at the time. It was well known that Nintendo wouldn't make the same cartridge-based mistake they made with the Nintendo 64, but the idea of the Dolphin having DVD playback was up in the air, especially as Nintendo later revealed the proprietary mini-discs that the system would use. After the GameCube was released, a DVD playback version, dubbed the Panasonic Q, was released in Japan.
Project Dolphin
The Internet, which was filled with all sorts of Nintendo-related fan sites at the time, blew up with all sorts of new system rumors. There were several rumors sprouting from Nintendo sources that the GameCube might feature a tilt-sensing controller, something similar to what the Wii would introduce in 2006.
The name of the system was one of the biggest question marks up until the GameCube name was announced in August 2000. The leading rumored candidate was StarCube, and while Nintendo has never publicly commented on the name, it had a lot of support from trademarks and patents, meaning it very likely was a potential title for the system. There is a rumor about a rumor that stated that StarCube was going to be the system's name until the last second when a Nintendo executive demanded they put the word "game" in the name.
The GameCube's Spaceworld 2000 reveal answered all the pressing questions, though there was the lingering problem that circulated throughout the next few months: Would the system only come in purple?

Dual Screens and Rumors

The first murmurs of Nintendo's next portable might have actually been before the Game Boy Advance even came out. In an interview with Next Generation magazine from early 2000, Nintendo's then director and general manager Hiroshi Imanishi said "We're developing [Game Boy Advance] and also at the same time developing the next portable system."
Nintendo DS Mock-up
Imanishi's words were never clarified to be related to the DS and nothing more was said about the GBA successor during that time. It wasn't until 2003 that word leaked that Nintendo was working on a new Game Boy. Soon, word spread about a peculiar two-screened portable. The system was named in January 2004, though at the time "DS" stood for Developer's System. The way Nintendo spoke about the DS made it seem that two screens would change the face of the world.
"We have developed Nintendo DS based upon a completely different concept from existing game devices in order to provide players with a unique entertainment experience for the 21st century," Nintendo president Satoru Iwata said in the system's debut press release. In that same release, Nintendo also deliberately mentioned how the DS would be marketed separately from the GameCube and the Game Boy Advance, bringing in the idea of the DS being a third pillar for the company.
The idea of dual screens and the absence of any official images from Nintendo spawned a wide variety of fan-made DS system mock-ups that speculated as to what the company had up their sleeves with the DS. Nintendo gave the example of seeing the whole field of a soccer game on one screen and focusing on one player on the other. People also speculated that one screen could be used as a persistent map in a Metroidvania game.
Nintendo DS Mock-up
Details trickled out from various sources before the system's full reveal at E3 2004. Nintendo faced heat because Sony's recently revealed PSP was looking to be a graphical powerhouse while the DS seemed to be a 2D-focused two-screened gimmick. Rumors swirled about a decent 3D graphics engine, an innovative touch screen, Wi-Fi capabilities, and an instant messaging system. The last tidbit in particular was something that clearly got lost in translation, as the purported instant messaging system turned out to be PictoChat, which is great fun at places like E3 or PAX, but is unfortunately limited to local multiplayer only, making the dreams of an AIM-like service wistful.
The system's name was something else that came into contention, mostly thanks to Nintendo's own insistence that the Nintendo DS was just a placeholder. The system's internal codename was Nitro, and after journalists found out about it, a lot of them pegged that as the system's name. Despite repeated insistence that the Nintendo DS was a mere placeholder name, Nintendo confirmed the system's name as just that in late July 2004.

Nintendo's Talking About a Revolution

In the years leading up Wii's release, Satoru Iwata hinted at how the graphical prowess of systems was reaching a point of diminishing returns, and in order to combat that, Nintendo needed to do something different. That something different, he said, would be immediately apparent when you saw what they had in mind. In retrospect, I don't think even Iwata could've imagined the Wii being as big of a success as it turned out to be.
At the close of Nintendo's E3 2005 press conference, The Nintendo president stood on stage holding an unassuming box that was described as "three DVD cases put together." Nothing more was said about the system, except that it would be called the Revolution. While Project Reality, Atlantis, Dolphin, and Nitro all generated buzz, none of those rivaled the speculation of Nintendo's system that threatened to change the game.
Nintendo Revolution Mock-up
Following E3 2005, there was very little information known about the system, codenamed the Revolution. Some details trickled out, chiefly involving high-definition graphics and a downloadable Virtual Console for old games.
In an interview with The New York Times, Nintendo's Perrin Kaplan said that the system would play standard DVDs and feature wireless controllers. The curious part is this: "It will play GameCube games as well as a new class of high-definition games, with new emphasis on online play." As we all know, the Wii does not support HD capabilities, and the online play has been a bit of an afterthought. Shortly after Kaplan's interview, it was revealed that the Wii wouldn't support HD graphics, which prompted a good deal of criticism. Speculation about the controller also ran rampant, and a few stray rumors appeared that predicted Nintendo's Wii Remote, which was unveiled at Tokyo Game Show 2005.
So what does all of this mean? It means that Nintendo's eyes are sometimes bigger than reality. It also shows that, over the years, Nintendo has gotten crazier and crazier with their ideas. When Iwata comes on stage on June 7th to unveil Project Café, the only surefire way to prepare yourself is to expect the unexpected, and put some stock into the rumors, even if you don't actually see them pay off until a system or two later.