Sharkoon announced two new gaming headphones for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC, and Wii. First is the wired native 5.1 headset the X-Tatic Pro. The headset comes with a decoder box that can decode Dolby Digital 5.1, Dolby Digital 2.0, and Dolby Digital Pro Logic II and has inputs for 3.5mm jack, coaxial, and optical S/PDIF plug. The headset sports a quick detach microphone that is compatible with both Xbox Live and Playstation Network chat. Check them out here.
Next is a 2.4GhZ headset called the X-Tatic AIR. Capable of transmitting a signal up to ten meters away from the base station with a clear line of sight, the X-Tatic AIR has a ten hour battery life on AAA NiMH rechargeable batteries and a noise canceling microphone. The base station doubles as a quick charger to charge devices like the Playstation 3 controllers that draw power from a USB port and the headset’s AAA batteries but is also able to charge the AA batteries used by Xbox 360 controllers. Check out the X-Tatic AIR here.
Zerg rushing retail stores near you is a Sci-Fi twist of the classic game RISK. Activision Blizzard is pleased to announce that RISK: StarCraft Collector’s Edition is now on sale to ignite a galactic war.
The contents of the box holds a total of 333 game pieces. Here is what you can expect to receive when purchasing the board game:
Additional to the custom game pieces, players will have several ways to attempt to play the board game. Available variations of gameplay are as follows:
Basic Training – a quick and easy mode for beginners
Command Room – a fast-paced, yet strategic take on RISK, using StarCraft heroes and abilities
Total Domination – an updated version of the classic game
Team Play – 2 v 2 and 3 v 3 game-modes
To grab this great collection piece, you can find it directly at the Blizzard Store or try Amazon.com for a great deal. Look at the unique collection of cards that are part of the game’s contents below!
FLY’N hits oceanic Steam stores today and as such we are treated to the very colourful launch trailer from Ankama Games. The third person instalment features 40 levels over 5 different worlds where players will have to Smash, Stick, Sing and Soar their way through increasingly challenging puzzles.
The exclusive to PC game follows the journeys of 4 buds, the buds are creations spawned from the world trees to protect themselves against the evil hairdryer Dyer. The trailer gives hints on how to effectively use the buds different skills to navigate puzzles is some surprising and unconventional ways enjoying the creative and original feel the developers strive to achieve. Visuals are simple but effective and Ankama makes wonderful use of 3d ambient imagery to surround an already exciting 2d plane, the result as you can see is something rather fantastic.
The games soundtrack is both calming and exciting depending on what’s happening, Ankama’s lead sound developer Guillaume Pervieux crafted interactive new sounds to bring the project to life for players, Guillaume mentions:
“The idea was to enhance sounds to fit to the visual aspect of the game and to give the players the right sensation at the right time (a sense of urgency in some levels, for example).”
FLY’N is now available for purchase in all regions and will surely be a fun addition to your library this year. Enjoy the trailer below.
Need For Speed: Most Wanted Developer: Criterion Games Publisher: EA Platform: Playstation 3 (Reviewed), Xbox 360 and PC Release Date: 1st November, 2012 Price:$44.99 – Available Here
Overview:
What does it mean to be the ‘Most Wanted’? Is it about fame? Is it about fear? Is it about being the best? Well it’s really a question that Need For Speed: Most Wanted never true asks, but it does answer it. This is in fact a game about being the best. Everything about this game lives and breathes ‘being the best’. It’s a game so positively obsessed with the notion of ‘being the best’ that it almost entirely forgets to try and do that itself. It’s evocative of the times really, the notion transcends the reality – the notion is everything.
Gameplay:
Need For Speed: Most Wanted is set up to be something special for the franchise, a new path for it to take moving forward. It’s been 7 years since the Most Wanted IP was used, after 2005’s moderately successful racing game of the same name. So what’s different with this game? Well a fair bit, but unfortunately it’s not all for the better.
Like the 2005 game, this take on Most Wanted is set within an open-world (although a much more immense world at that) and tasks players with taking down the 10 Most Wanted drivers. Only they aren’t so much drivers as they are just cars for you to unlock. There is no personality behind the wheel, it’s simply a vehicle to slay and take for yourself. Now this in itself isn’t too bad, but it does leave a lot to be desired. The game features no story whatsoever or characters to speak of, leaving the large portion of the game simply based around racing and unlocking cars until you can’t anymore. It’s all trivial and doesn’t give much motivation or satisfaction to players in regards to taking down these Most Wanted cars. The only real reason to progress forward is unlock more races as most vehicles are limited to a certain number of races for that car type at any given time.
The single-player experience is fairly lacking in general. Although the open-world is quite vast, it provides very little enjoyment in terms of exploration. In most open-world games, exploring the open-world is fun in and of itself, however in Most Wanted there is no necessity to explore the world of Fairhaven. You will slowly progress throughout the world but there is no reason to go and explore the sights, because quite frankly it’s an overall bland attempt at an open-world. There is very little about Fairhaven that would engage or interest players outside of the occasional secret path or jump. It feels very routine and as such leaves a lot to be desired in terms of creative flair. It is just not a very fun place to venture through and with many repeated sights and similar looking locations spread closely through-out it is difficult to maintain any significant interest in Fairhaven for an extended period of time.
When it comes to progressing through the single-player mode, there is some fun to be had as the races themselves are quite enjoyable despite some problems with the games mechanics. It is just a shame that you couldn’t use your favorite vehicle for every single race in the game, instead you are forced to change in order to play other races. When it comes to race mechanics there are some issues with collision detection. The game does not appear to follow any clear structure of what level of collision will cause a ‘Crashed’ sequence which halts the race similar to the ‘Totaled’ sequences from Burnout. Unlike Burnout, Most Wanted often detects minor scrapes as major crashes and will frequently engage the ‘Crashed’ sequences which can ultimately cost you a race. There are times when it genuinely registers a major collision as a ‘Crashed’ sequence correctly, but it is the minor collisions being registered a major ones that really messes things up. The fact that it’s almost random as to what it will register as a ‘Crash’ really feels like the player is being punished for driving fast. This is a big mistake as in a game like this it depends heavily upon the adrenaline pumping action that comes hand in hand with putting the pedal to the metal. Unfortunately the game makes you feel safer driver slower than faster, which is a major mistake on the part of Criterion Games.
The other main facet of the single-player is of course the Speed Points which can allow to unlock a variety of different things and progress through the rankings of the top 10 Most Wanted cars as well as leaderboards with both your friends and the rest of the world. The speed points are part of the aforementioned notion of ‘being the best’. Those who have the most speed points will undoubtedly have the best vehicles are parts. Gaining speed points however feels besides the point for the most part unless you are a high score junkie trying to earn the most points. Of course like most things in this game, collecting speed points grows tiresome very quickly. Which is a shame because this component could have been far better used had speed points been more heavily emphasised other than just being a number attached to a task or an item.
One other problem the game suffers is that it does not feature a simple race mode. There is no simple option to just do a race, instead single-player is simply restricted to being thrown into the open-world. There is no selecting a track and just racing, you are forced into the open-world to find a race to partake in. This is a misstep as it eliminates casual single-play from the table. To make matters worse, there is no split-screen multi-player (another point towards the death of couch multi-player?) which is troublesome to say the very least.
Thankfully the racing in itself, despite some collision issues, is a lot of fun. The races are inventive and push the somewhat bland locale to its utmost limits in terms of creativity. It’s sure to provide some enjoyment but it’s clear this game was designed with bigger things in mind, namely the online multi-player.
This may just be the first online-multiplayer game that I have seen on a console which places players in an open-world together free of any significant lag. It’s a strange feeling sharing the open-world with other players, and it’s very clear very quickly that it’s not exactly the greatest of ideas although it is quite enjoyable.
The online multi-player places a number of players together in the open-world of Fairhaven and gives them a number of tasks, the trouble is, the game also rewards the players for destroying each others cars, so it more often then not ends up being complete utter chaos instead of you know a race or whatever else you are supposed to be doing. This wouldn’t be too much of an issue provided that the game would provide incentives to actually do the different tasks, but instead it spends too much time glorifying the destruction of your opponents to actually allow multi-player games to progress at a reasonable pace. In one instance it took 10 minutes for us to get a race going because other players wouldn’t stop crashing into one another mindlessly as it gave them speed points. This is simply too much of a side-track from the main objective of multi-player and while it is silly fun it does make multi-player far too chaotic and experience to truly be appreciated.
From top to bottom, Need For Speed: Most Wanted is an inconsistent gameplay venture to say the very least. There are some portions that are heavily lacking in content and there is no real focus on any aspect of the game in any meaning way. It is all a collection of half-baked ideas that are never fully-realised due to the over-bearing yet simultaneously benign speed points and autolog system. There is fun to be had though if you can overlook the faults present.
Visuals and Audio:
For most gamers, Need For Speed is remembered for it’s ‘gangster’ style of previous games like Underground and the original Most Wanted. With this incarnation of Most Wanted, Criterion Games have brought the slick and fast look of their Burnout franchise and given this game a distinctive yet familiar appearance. Visually, it is impressive and quite a sight to behold, but there are a fair share of graphical glitches that damage the image of slick sophisticated street racing that Criterion has crafted. The worst graphical glitches are tearing and glitched shadow effects which flash about at a rapid pace at times.
The open-world of Fairhaven is well conceived and despite being fairly routine aesthetically, it does a well enough job at providing a realistic appearing location for the games events to take place in. Unfortunately it is relatively bland and is haunted by a feel of familiarity which is most likely brought on by the overwhelming shades of Burnout in the game.
With the game’s soundtrack, I have to say that Criterion could have put in more effort in order to make the tracks more suitable and better timed. The game also could do with a radio feature, but sadly it does not have one. Although individually the tracks are solid, they don’t mesh too well at times with the gameplay and can be either distracting or completely unnoticeable. It’s really a mixed bag for a soundtrack and shows that very little effort was put into selecting the different songs for the game.
Overall:
At the end of the day, this is definitely a case of the notion transcending reality. There is a lot that could be improved upon in Most Wanted, a game which feels very much like a mix between addictive arcade racing with a tacked on open-world with very little to do and it ultimately results in nothing less than a chaotic mess. There is some fun to be had, but there are a lot of issues that will need to be over-looked in order to be able to extract that enjoyment from Most Wanted. While it is a messy product overall, there should be enough here to entertain fans of the series, but it could be so much better than it is. This is regrettably not what we ‘most wanted’.
A free-to-play strategy game co-published by Warner Brothers Interactive and Kabam, Kingdoms of Middle-Earth is based on The Hobbit trilogy of movies. The game is set around players building their own bases and going to war with other kingdoms for supremacy, all in mobile format. Elves, dwarves and human take part in the action, as well as those dastardly Uruk-Hai, Goblins and Orcs.
“Kabam has crafted a mobile game that will thrill strategy gamers and The Hobbit film fans alike,” said Andrew Sheppard, President of Kabam Game Studios. “We’re excited to partner with Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment to deliver a free-to-play game for iOS and Android that fans can experience wherever they go.”
A tie-in to the first movie, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, players will build a kingdom, forge powerful alliances and strategize with other gamers to purge Middle-Earth of all who oppose them. Releasing on iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch and Android Devices and can be played in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian or Portuguese.
“We expect The Hobbit Trilogy to be one of the biggest events in entertainment history,” said Greg Ballard, Senior Vice President, Digital Games, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. “The Hobbit: Kingdoms of Middle-earth provides an interactive way for film fans to engage in the adventure as they explore the characters, conflicts and locations in this epic fantasy world.”
Developed exclusively by Kabam, The Hobbit: Kingdoms of Middle Earth has just been released for the majority of mobile devices and The Hobbit: Armies of the Third Age (another tie-in free-to-play game) is currently in development and will also be available later this year. Check out the game here.
As well as being ultra busy defending Skylands again from the evil maniac overlord Kaos the Skylanders have made a move to iPad and iPhone with a completely new challenge at hand. Their good friends the Mabu who helped guide and assist them throughout their various journeys are in a bit of a bother and need the Skylanders help to rebuild their once great lands. In Skylanders Lost Islands players will be in charge of building and evolving their own magic islands complete with a huge array of customisable options as well as 35 unique Skylanders to unlock and power up. Lost Islands will support players existing physical figurine collections, importing them into the game and bringing them to life in amazing HD graphics.
In June 2013, one man (Brad Pitt) will race against time to bring a divided world together on the eve of its final hour. Every culture, every weapon and every army will rise because the only hope for survival is war.
Zombie fans are in a frenzy eagerly anticipating the upcoming Paramount Pictures Post Apocalyptic Horror “World War Z”, starring a bearded Brad Pitt and hitting cinemas sometime June 2013. Judging from the teaser trailer, the action looks intense and fast paced and hopefully will be void of too many lovey dovey heart felt scenes, sticking closer to fear, suspense and a little bit of gore just for good measure that would be more in tune with flesh eating zombies breathing down your neck. Ive always seen Brad Pitt as one of the more adaptable and natural actors of our times so his transition into this role should be fairly smooth. Take a look at the first screenshot and teaser trailer and let us know your first impressions.
World War Z will hit cinemas in Australia in June 2013
Today a new batch of screenshots for Dead Space 3 were released and a number of them feature some rather horror packed screenshots of creepy looking necromorphs attacking both Isaac Clarke and his co-op partner Carver.
Now while some people may complain about how Dead Space 3 now features a co-op mode, EA has already stated that gamers can choose to play a completely single-player version of the game if they wish, or start up a game with two people and experience some new co-op story elements between Isaac and Carver. Currently Dead Space 3 is set for a release sometime on February 15th next year.
Today Epic Games and Microsoft revealed that anyone who pre-orders Gears of War: Judgment will receive some special incentives regardless of which retailer they pick it up from. The content will be multiplayer exclusive and will take the form of the Classic Hammerburst, which was a standard weapon of the Locust Army during E-Day.
As for retailer specific bonuses, they will include special multiplayer character skins for Young Marcus, Young Dom, Anya, and Alex Brand. Currently the retailers which will carry each skin have not been revealed though Microsoft has said that they will do so in the next few weeks. Until then, you can check out the Classic Hammerburst in the video below.
The Wii U is almost upon us, folks – and with that comes promotion for all of the launch titles that will be bursting out during the first month. One of those is the new fighter Marvel Avengers Battle for Earth, which will also see a release on the Xbox 360.
For those unfamiliar thus far, here is a bit of info:
Developed by Ubisoft Quebec, Marvel Avengers: Battle for Earth is the ultimate super hero brawler set in authentic comic book-style art environments based on the iconic Secret Invasion storyline. Battle for Earth provides endless entertainment through a variety of gameplay modes including co-op, campaign, arcade, challenges, versus and tournament.
Marvel Avengers: Battle for Earth features 20 different characters that fans will enjoy embodying, including Avengers such as Captain America, The Hulk, Iron Man, Hawkeye, Black Widow and Loki and Iron Man plus other fan-favourite Super Heroes and Super Villains from the Marvel Universe.
You can check out the launch trailer below, and get ready as this fighter is just a week away from hitting shelves.
