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E3: Microsoft press conference highlights
E3: Nintendo press conference highlights
E3: Sony press conference highlights [live updates]
E3: Final Fantasy XIII announced
Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam screenshots for Wii
New Metal Gear Solid to hit PSP in 2007
Sony Announces PS3 Controller NameTuesday, October 3, 2006, 9:37 PMSony today announced the new name for its PS3 controller, among other things. Now, some of you may remember back in June when I posted about the SoJ trademark application for P (infinity symbol) S, which made the same punsters who jumped all over the Wii-naming of the next Nintendo console giddy with glee at a new field of infantile references to make. However, that isn't the official title, thankfully. No, instead of Dual Shock(less) or Dual Shake 3, the new controller is hereby known as... Sixaxis. Sixaxis, as in "six axes", as in "six degrees of freedom", which is the controller's main feature. Additionally, it's a palindrome -- meaning it's spelled the same backwards as it is forwards. ANYWAY, also announced during this press release were an adapter to download PS1 and PS2 memory card data to the PS3 hard drive, for about $13, and a state-of-the-art Blu-ray/DVD controller for $31. Read More [Joystiq] Read More [Sony of Japan] Das (more) Oldskoolen: Commodore 64 Games on Virtual Console?Saturday, September 30, 2006, 3:54 PMFrom Gamasutra comes the following: "According to a report in the official Nintendo Power magazine, several Commodore 64 games are to be emulated on the Wii’s virtual console. Although no specific titles were named, the only indications so far are of titles from now defunct U.S. developer Epyx, maker of the likes of Impossible Mission and the Summer/Winter/World/California Games series. Best known for their work on the 8-bit Commodore 64 home computer, Epyx also designed the prototype Lynx console for Atari as well as several of its games." Two words: Freakin' SWEET. Even though the system was dead before most of us were born. Read More [Gamasutra] Call of Duty 3 Trailer wows with pre-rendered goodnessThursday, September 28, 2006, 7:20 PMEmbedded (you guessed it) after the jump is the X06 trailer for Call of Duty 3. While it looks heavily reliant on pre-rendered footage, it still looks DAMNED good, and it's worth a look if you're a fan of the series (or WW2 shooters in general). Halo Wars Trailer released to publicWednesday, September 27, 2006, 7:21 PMEmbedded after the jump is a minute-long prerendered trailer for the Halo RTS, Halo Wars. Ensemble Studios says some of the models used are from in-game though, so we'll wait and see. Halo Wars and more announced at X06Wednesday, September 27, 2006, 6:46 PMMicrosoft's X06 conference just ended, bringing a wealth of unexpected news. In a nutshell:
And finally Halo Wars was announced, a Halo RTS game developed by Ensemble Studios. According to Bungie: ""Halo Wars" is a brand new saga in the Halo Universe that explores the time of first contact between the UNSC and Covenant Forces. If you've ever wondered what it would be like to control dozens of Warthogs and Scorpion tanks instead of just a single vehicle, your time has finally come." More information is available at Bungie.net, and www.halowars.com is now live as well. Metal Wolf Chaos makes Zero Wing look goodWednesday, September 27, 2006, 6:35 PMEvery once in a blue moon, there comes a game with dialogue so bad, so horrible, so utterly inane that a highly amused geek culture adopts these horrid machinations against the English language as fads to be reckoned with. Dear Nintelligent readers, I submit to you the next such game: Metal Wolf Chaos. The 7-minute video you will see embedded after the jump is chock-full of some of the most BADLY DONE voice work I have ever seen. Gape in terror at the bad logic employed by the protagonist. Stare bemusedly as people turn to WILLIAM SHATNER-esque delivery of lines during what is supposedly a news brief from the U.S. government. And most importantly, laugh your ass off. Wii launch details revealedThursday, September 14, 2006, 6:05 PMAs I'm sure you've all heard already, Wii will launch on November 19 for $250 and come bundled with the five-game compilation Wii Sports. Unfortunately, the classic controller is not bundled with the system, but it does come with one remote, one nunchuck, and the sensor bar. Speaking of controllers, the nunchuck and the remote will be sold separately from each other -- the remote for a hefty $39.99 and the nunchuck at $19.99 Thanks, Nintendo. The classic controller will also be available, for around 20 bucks. Hold on to your seat for this next exciting piece of news -- Wii will not only come with the Opera web browser, but specific "channels" -- a way to share photos, check the news and weather, and a "Mii" channel that lets you create cutesy caricatures of yourself (which are stored on your Wiimote, so you can bring your avatar with you). Personally, I can't wait to browse the web on my TV set at 480i resolution, but that's just me. While Nintendo seems to be expanding Wii beyond simply a video game machine, it seems as if Wii doesn't support DVD playback, period. I'm sure all of you have at least thirty DVD players in your homes, so this shouldn't be a big deal. So, $250. November release. I was really hoping for Nintendo to surprise us all and announce a $179 price tag and possibly even an October release, what with all the recent rumors. $250 seems a tad steep -- even at half the price of the base PS3, it's only $50 less than the Xbox 360 Core pack, which, of course, has quite a bit more in the power department. With Nintendo trying to attract such a broad audience, including those who've never played games before, though, $250 is too much. Especially considering the GameCube launched at $200 in 2001, and Wii is using upgraded GameCube hardware! I fully expect a price drop in the spring, after the inevitable early adopters plunk down whatever price Nintendo initially set (I know I will). Impressively, Nintendo plans to ship 4 million units by the end of the year worldwide. Disappointingly, Metroid Prime 3 won't be available at launch, and is now vaguely a "2007" title. No Metroid or Mario, but I don't think anyone will forget about Zelda: Twilight Princess, which will be available for Wii day one. IGN has a nice preview of Metroid Prime 3, which continues to be my most anticipated title. Definitely check out the new gameplay videos, which show off some pretty stellar graphics and a more cinematic take on Metroid, not to mention the new "expert" control scheme. Also check out Wii.com for some demonstration videos. It's ShowtimeTuesday, September 12, 2006, 7:43 PMSteve Jobs took stage again in a very iPod-focused conference titled, "It's Showtime." After boasting that 450,000 Nike + iPod Sport Kits were sold in under three months, they quickly got down to business.
Splinter Cell: Double Agent to make Wii LaunchSaturday, September 9, 2006, 11:48 PMIt's no surprise that Ubisoft is porting their flagship Splinter Cell sequel to just about any platform it can -- but it is worthwhile to note that Double Agent will launch alongside Wii this fall. The good news: It's taking advantage of the nunchuck and remote, although exactly how is still vague at this point. One example, however, involves wiggling the remote to pick locks. Exhilarating. The bad news: No online play is planned, and the game is based on the GameCube and PS2 versions -- not even the Xbox version -- but will have some upgraded graphics. Lousy port or a worthy new way to play Splinter Cell? We'll find out soon enough. Apple introduces new iMac modelsWednesday, September 6, 2006, 5:00 PMIn a surprise announcement (surprising because it came before the planned "It's Show Time" Apple press conference next tuesday), Apple.com updated with new iMac models today. The new lineup is complete with 64-bit Core 2 Duo processors, and price drops for the 17 and 20-inch models. The biggest addition, however, is the 24-inch model, which includes a 2.16GHz Core 2 Duo processor for $1999. The 1.8GHz 17-inch model is now only $999, and the 20-inch model is $1499. While the announcement of new iMacs isn't the most exciting thing in the world, let me take this time to go over some of the more interesting rumors for next week's Apple event: iTunes Movie store, which is almost a given (the event is called "It's Show Time", after all); the long-rumored iPhone; the long-rumored new iPod, which may feature a widescreen display, bigger hard drive, new design, touch screen, or whatever other features a sad Apple fanboy can think of and submit to AppleInsider. LoZ Twilight Princess: Even more new controls!Monday, August 21, 2006, 6:14 PMMr. Miyamoto confided to the Japanese gaming magazine Nintendo Dream that players will no longer control Link's blade just by tapping the B Button, as was the scheme in the E3 Demo. Rather, Link will respond to swings of the Wiimote instead. Nintendo was intitially concerned that having to swing the Wiimote to attack would tire a player's arm out, but as Miyamoto said to ND, "Upon actually playing it, it's more interesting this way." This also allowed for the bow controls to be refined as well, now using the vacant B Button as opposed to the D Pad in the pull and release motion exhibited at E3, a set up that some demo testers found uncomfortable. It may also be possible to choose between the two control schemes to match a gamer's preference. Reggie: No online subscription fiiFriday, August 18, 2006, 12:56 AM(See what I did there?) Nintendo has saved us from onling gaming fees! Mr. Fils-Aimee recently stated in an interview with USA Today that "[Nintendo] will offer online-enabled games that the consumers will not have to pay a subscription fee for. They'll be able to enjoy that right out of the box. The Wii console is going to be Wi-Fi enabled, so essentially, you'll be able to plug it in and go. It won't have hidden fees or costs.” Taking their cue from the sucess of their free WiFi service for the DS, Nintendo is bringing the service to their big boy console. Of course, as of now, no information has been revealed as to the mechanics of the WiiConnect24 online service, other than that it will utilize WiFi and, as its name suggests, will be constantly active. Now that the price issue has been settled, the big question that remains is whether or not the system will use the inefficient Friend Codes of the DS, or whether it will simply or even eschew them all together. In the same interview, Reggie decidedly denied that Nintendo is supporting the so called "Wii60", which is the name given to the situation of an Xbox360 and a Wii together costing as much as the PS3. The interweb is abuzz with this concept. “I'd much rather have the consumer buy a Wii, some accessories and a ton of games versus buying any of my competitor's products," he responded. Apple WWDC 2006 HighlightsApple's WWDC 2006 keynote, hosted by Steve Jobs has just ended. As many guessed, he unveiled the Intel Power Mac successor -- the Mac Pro -- and, of course, debuted Leopard, the next version of Apple's OS X Operating System. LeopardJobs didn't want to reveal all of Leopard's "top-secret" features, so Redmond (Microsoft) doesn't "start their photocopiers too soon". He did, however, outline several features of Leopard:
The Mac ProThe successor to the PowerMac looks the same on the outside (with the exception of a second optical drive), but the Mac Pro is powered by two Dual Core Intel Xeon 5100 processors at 2GHz, 2.66GHz, or 3GHz. The specs of the base model ($2400) are below, but the system can be built-to-order with tons of options: up to 16GB of RAM, 2TB of storage, and upgraded video cards. Two 2.66GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon "Woodcrest" processors 4MB shared L2 cache per processor 1.33GHz dual independent frontside buses 1GB memory (667MHz DDR2 fully-buffered DIMM ECC) NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT graphics with 256MB memory 250GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s 7200-rpm hard drive 16x double-layer SuperDrive (DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW) E3 to be downsizedTuesday, August 1, 2006, 2:19 AMYou may have heard rumblings on the internet: "OMG E3 Cancelled!" Well, although the trade show isn't cancelled, to say, it's going to be dramatically different next year. The newly titled "E3 Media Festival" will take place in July instead of May and will host 5,000 people rather than the massive numbers that attended previous E3s. Instead of being held in the LA Convention Center, E3 next year will be held inside conference rooms in LA hotels. E3 as we know it is gigantic event -- the entire internet feels slower during Nintendo's press conference -- and is characterized by huge crowds, expensive and exuberant booth designs, and myriad publishers trying to make their game stand out among the rest with buzz words and freebies. As a result, a few games get bathed in attention while some go unnoticed altogether. Although I was looking forward to the media rush that is E3, hopefully the smaller-scale event will put the focus back on the games. What I'm Playing: Fighting the good fightSunday, July 30, 2006, 4:47 AMPrey I just finished playing through The most unique part of Prey, however, is your ability to leave your body and walk around as a spirit. No, not like in Geist. Here, you can't posses anything, but you'll use it quite frequently to solve puzzles and find hidden crannies in the space station. The game re-uses the same puzzles over and over -- I lost count of how many times I walked through a force field as a spirit to press a switch on the other side to disable it. When you die in Prey, instead of re-spawning at a checkpoint, you leave your body and must shoot some bird-like creatures with your spirit arrow to regain life. Once you do that, you land right back where you were, with no consequence. This makes the game much easier than it should be. For example, some of the bigger enemies take a lot of firepower to bring down and do a fair deal of damage. With this life system, you can stand right in its face unloading your weapon as you get clawed to death, respawn with the enemy at half health and finish the deed. It takes the element of stress out of the game, though, which is usually a good thing. I had a really fun time playing through Prey without getting overly frustrated. After all, why should a game piss me off? Prey is solid; it has enough uniqueness to differentiate it from the sea of FPSs. My only qualms: the game is too short to be $60 (I probably beat the game in around six or seven hours), and the multiplayer mode is l a g ridden. By the way, the rest of the game is much better than the boring intro that happens to be the bit they used for the demo on the marketplace. And even though the human character models are blocky, flat jaggy messes, the rest of the game does look pretty damn good. Tekken: Dark Resurrection It's not often I buy PSP games; I'm not a fan of poorly ported PS2 games with horrible, crippling control schemes. I do, however, love Tekken very much. I am pleased to say that Tekken: Dark Resurrection is, in fact, the Messiah in UMD form. I have never seen so much content jam-packed into a portable game that looks and plays this well. 30+ characters, tons of costumes and stages, character customizations, the return of Tekken Bowling, beautiful CG endings, and more game modes than you can shake an Iron Fist at. Fights run at an incredibly smooth 60fps, and the game is gorgeous. Slight jaggies are my only (minor) visual complaint in an otherwise beautiful package.At its core, Dark Resurrection is about as perfect as Tekken can get. I've been playing the series since its inception and it's at a point of complete refinement. The core gameplay from all Tekken games is virtually identical (let's just forget about Tekken 4), so if you weren't a fan of those games you won't like this one, either, but to be able to play such a deep, complex fighting game anywhere is really awesome. Sadly, I've come to the conclusion that I absolutely lost all Tekken-related skill that I may have had. I used to know a few characters very well, and now I've got the AI kicking my ass even on normal difficulty. Fortunately, this supports game sharing, so I can bring my PSP over to a friends house and play with one copy of the game -- this is very welcome and almost (but not quite) makes up for the lack of a true online mode (you can share ghost data and place on leader-boards, but not actually fight). You may be wondering how Tekken holds up on the PSP controller and the answer is surprisingly well. The d-pad makes it a little awkward to hit diagonals, especially in succession, but I was doing Dragon punches in no time. Hitting O and square at the same time, though, proves to be more difficult as you have to change your entire position. Honestly, we've dealt with so much crap concerning terrible controls on PSP (mostly 3D games that require camera control, such as Splinter Cell) that this is a godsend. The controls are completely responsive, and while you may have some initial trouble performing certain moves, it's almost a non-issue. I can pick up my PSP and have a completely competent match of Tekken, and that's all that matters. Apple introduces $70 wireless mouseTuesday, July 25, 2006, 10:43 PMIf you thought $50 was a lot for Apple to charge for their wacky multifunctional Mighty Mouse, prepare to be amazed: a wireless option is now available for 70 bucks. It offers the same features of the regular mouse -- that is, two-button functionality with Apple-trademark aesthetic and over-engineering, the nifty scroll ball, and side "squeeze" buttons. Except now it uses bluetooth and can run on one or two AA batteries. And it costs 70 dollars. Even as a vehement defender of Apple products and fan of the Mighty Mouse, this is at least ten dollars overpriced. But, then again, the wired Mighty Mouse is ten dollars overpriced, too, so at least Apple stays consistent. External Link: Apple Splinter Cell: Double Agent multiplayer footageSunday, July 23, 2006, 5:57 AMThe spies-versus-mercs multiplayer mode in Splinter Cell is getting revamped once again for this fall's Splinter Cell: Double Agent. After the jump, check out two videos of the game in action. Apple now has a twelve percent marketshare in US notebooksFriday, July 21, 2006, 3:15 PMIt has been a good year for Apple. They shipped 8.11 million iPods and made a profit of $472 million for the quarter alone. But something even more impressive is happening. Their notebooks are finally penetrating the US market. The new superfast, Office-running, video-chatting, crash-resistant, podcasting MacBook has helped Apple double their marketshare to 12%. This is thanks in part to the free Nano they are giving away to college students who are making the switch. Read More: Reuters Lumines II soundtrack may surprise someTuesday, July 18, 2006, 11:18 PMYou might be expecting a bunch of J-Pop you've never heard of to fill the soundtrack for the next Lumines title. Well that isn't the case. Q Entertainment will be using a whole bunch of western music for this game. The music videos for the songs will be playing in the background while the game is played.
Legend of the River King DS revealedTuesday, July 18, 2006, 3:07 AM |
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