MumboJumbo released their latest casual game by starting the Angelica Weaver franchise. Weaver is a detective with a special gift, she is able to have supersensory visions to jump between historic London and present day Chicago and experience the final moments of victims’ lives. Paired with her razor sharp deductive skills, Weaver serves on Chicago’s Special Task Force. The game features over 150 realisticly rendered scenes, story driven puzzles, hidden object game play, a fully voice acted main character, three difficulties, and a collector’s edition with a bonus chapter and unlimited hidden object play mode. The game can be purchased at Big Fish Games here. iOS and Android versions will arrive in the coming months. Check out our interview about Angelica Weaver: Catch Me When You Can with the Director of Game Design at MumboJumbo John Newcomer here.
2K Games’ upcoming basketball game received a new trailer today. The Momentous trailer features plenty of in game footage full of slam dunks, lay ups, and three pointers and features the work of Momentous. NBA 2K13 is the latest iteration of the hit basketball franchise. This year the game has famous rapper JAY Z as Executive Producer of the game. The game features the 1992 and 2012 United States Men’s Olympic Basketball teams alongside all 30 teams of the NBA. The game is set to be released on October 2nd, 2012 in North America and October 5th in Europe for the Xbox 360, Wii, Playstation 3, PSP, and PC. The Wii U version is slated for the holiday season.
You may recall that just yesterday a video was leaked online which revealed some gameplay and story segments of the yet unannounced female fighter Mila. Well today Tecmo Koei chose to officially announce this red-headed MMA fighter as a member of the cast as they have released a slightly different video which shows Mila taking on Tina as well as Zack. The video can be seen below.
Also released today was a new Fighter Chronicle video, making it the third in the series so far and this time around it focuses on the philosophy and elements that went into designing every Dead or Alive stage. As you can see even in the Mila video, each arena features a slew of environmental interactions as well as tons of action in the background. Check it out below Mila’s debut video below.
Ubisoft is having a little mobile iOS sale on the iTunes App Store starting between now and all ending September 18th, so players looking to score some sweet deals on some or all of the games should be sure to check it out.
The sale kicks off today with  MotoHeroz going for as cheap as FREE for iPad available HERE or iPhone and iPod Touch HERE.
Next up is Michael Jackson The Experience HD going for just $0.99 on the iPad starting on Spetember 13th, which can be found HERE.
On September 15th, Babel Rising 3D will be available for FREE for iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch, found HERE when the day comes.
Last but not least, Prince of Persia Classic will be available for only $0.99 starting on September 17th on iTunes HERE.
Be sure to check all those links on the right days or you wont be getting the right deals and remember that it all ends September 18th, so don’t miss out.
Players interested in Assassin’s Creed III that haven’t pre-ordered the game yet may be interested in the video just released by Ubisoft. Â Maybe you haven’t ordered it because you aren’t quite sure which special edition, if any, you want to go with. Â Well, the video just released shows the unboxing of the Join or Die Edition, so if that one had sparked your interest at all or even if it hadn’t, it should be a good video to check out.
Showing off the different items in the edition up close, the video doesn’t add anything we didn’t already know about, just giving a better look at them. Â The most detailed aspects being the medallion and the notebook, the video shows off the wear and tear of the medallion giving it a more authentic look, while the video actually flips through the notebook for a few brief glimpses into some of it’s content. Â Players can still pre-order Assassin’s Creed III, including the Join or Die Edition before its release at the end of October 2012.
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SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT
NEW PRIZE ANNOUNCED
Each week, thanks to Razer, we will be giving away a prize a week competition held through Capsule Computers Gaming Podcast.
To win, simply listen to the podcast for the weekly question and SPECIAL CODE, once you have it send us an email with your name and address to [email protected], make sure you include the secret code. At the end of the week, a winner will be randomly selected from the pool of entries. The winner will then be announced on the next podcast.
This week, we’ll be giving away the awesome Razer DeathAdder, thanks to our good friends at Razer.
Thanks for listening. Copyright Capsule Computers Pty Ltd – All Rights Reserved.
All Other Samples Are Copyright And Property Of Their Official Copyright Holders.
Avatar 4 will be a prequel. But wait! Avatar 2 hasn’t even hit the theaters! Hang on, let me explain…
Avatar 2 and 3 are being shot back-to-back much like the 2nd and 3rd The Matrix films, The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Parts 1 & 2…you get the idea. However creator James Cameron has already begun thinking up ideas for 4th installment stating that he’d like Avatar 4 to be a prequel.
“I haven’t really put pen to paper on it, but basically it goes back to the early expeditions of Pandora, and kind of what went wrong with the humans and the Na’vi and what that was like to be an explorer and living in that world…because when we drop in, even in the first film in ‘Avatar 1,’ as it will be known in the future, we’re dropping into a process that’s 35 years in to a whole colonization. That will complete an arc and if that leads into more, we’ll start, not imitating ‘Star Wars,’ but it’s a logical thing to do because we’ll have completed the thematic arc by the end of three. The only thing left to do is go back to see what it was like on those first expeditions and create some new characters that then become legacy characters in later films. It’s a plan.”
-James Cameron, Writer & Director
Although the story is still being written, Twentieth Century Fox aims to release Avatar 2 in December 2014, and Avatar 3 in December 2015.
RPG specialists Obsidian Entertainment are teasing a new project. The developer, well known for their work on Neverwinter Nights 2, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2 and Fallout: New Vegas, is teasing what is being dubbed “Project X” via it’s new landing page.
Visiting the Obsidian website reveals the number 4, which may represent a countdown, inside of an Ouroboros. The Ouroboros is a symbol that originated in ancient Egypt, seen for the first time in a funerary text placed on a shrine in Tutankhamun’s tomb. The symbol, which depicts a snake or dragon eating it’s own tail, can be interpreted as reflecting cyclicality, completion or infinity. The Ouroboros has most recently been used in promotional material for the upcoming MMORPG The Elder Scrolls Online.
What could it mean?
On the splash page, below the Ouroboros, are two lines of text that read: “What do the words mean? Nothing. The Dirge of Eir Glanfath is sound without form, a lone voice crying out in mourning because it must.” Clicking the image brings you to a Project X forum page. Initial speculation suggested an Elder Scrolls connection, due to the timely use of the Ouroboros symbol, however that is highly unlikely due to Bethesda Softworks owning the rights to that franchise. What do you guys think this game is going to be?
Rev up your engines Formula 1 fans! That’s right the demo for F1 2012 will race into consoles this week and yes racing fans you should be excited. After all this will be the first chance F1 fans get to play the latest instalment in the enduring racing franchise.
The demo for the game is set to launch this week on XBLA and PSN a week ahead of the game’s release on September 20th. To mark this launch they have realeased a new trailer for title which can be seen below.
Be sure to check out the new trailer for F1 2012 and let us know what you think of this news in the comments section.
I think that this is actually a first for this website. We’ve gotten to review many different kinds of PC peripherals in the past, we’ve also reviewed things as strange as iPhone cases. However – I’m reasonably certain that this is the first review we’ve ever put out for a laptop. As such, this may seem a little messy as we don’t really have a preset method of writing for one of these things and if it does become a huge mess; I apologise in advance. Now that we’ve gotten that over and done with, it’s time to move into the review.
The M17x is the current mid-range laptop in the Mnumberx line of laptops from Alienware. This product line contains the following machines: the M13x, M17x and the M18x laptops. Each one of these varies in power, with the M13x being the weakest and the M18x being the strongest and most powerful. The M17x is the unit that we have received and as a mid-range gaming laptop, you -really- can’t ask for anything better.
The first things I want to talk about are the machines gimmicks. The gimmicks in this case would be the things that make the device unique in comparison to other laptops on the market. So obviously, these things might be superficial, but others are a little functional.
I’m going to talk about some of the more superficial features first. As you may already be aware, Alienware machines generally are not very plain computers. In fact, the M17x was actually a really pretty machine. For instance, it came in this really nice reddish carry bag that, when removed, revealed a more pretty maroon-ish laptop within. Upon opening this unique looking lid (with grooves and stuff), you are greeted by a pretty flashing looking keyboard and control panel.
Powering on the machine took a few moments for me to work out, as the Alien face power-button initially looks aesthetic only. However, it is not. Pressing this button lit up the entire control panel and keyboard, as well as the monitor. What was really cool about the powering on, was that it took an incredibly short period of time to go from POST to Windows. By default, the keyboard lights up with the default Alienware theme of blue, purple and some other colours, IIRC. However, you can easily modify this theme by pressing a button on the devices control panel whilst in Windows.
What was also really good about this particular machine is that it has an abundance of ports for your various devices. These were also located on both sides of the device, however I think the side with the Blu-Ray player had slightly less. Have three pairs of headphones? Why not plug them all in at the same time? The only detriment to this, I found, was that at night, it was incredibly difficult to see which jack did what.
The laptop is also running a graphics card and monitor that is 3D compatible. That is, it is running a 120Hz monitor with incredibly fast response times. And a graphics card that is strong enough to render two images together and keep up with the monitor. Gaming in 3D, watching Blu-Rays in 3D – it is all incredibly awesome. Like, really, really, awesome. However, the only negative to having 3D is that you have to wear these bulky-as glasses which sit on your head in an uncomfortable fashion. Why not do some magic like the 3DS does to make the 3D? The laptop should be sitting a similar distance away from your face anyway.
Okay, now moving on to the stuff that is most important to us gamers. How does it handle gaming? Well, I can tell you that I tested a bunch of hardware hitting games under a few different conditions to give you a fairly accurate description of how it is that the laptop performs.
The M17x is a brilliant gaming machine that is capable of playing the latest of games at Max – or near Max – settings. Or at least, it has this capability so long as it is plugged into a wall. Unfortunately, whilst it is unplugged, it does not handle gaming half as well as it does plugged in. As someone who is only mainly technically able, I assume this has to do with the graphics card not feeding enough power out of the battery without the power cord. However, with the cord in, it is a beautiful gaming machine capable of so much awesome.
If you’re the gamer that really can’t play without a power point nearby, you will find that gaming severely drains the laptops batteries. In my play session of a few different games of varying qualities, I only managed to pull out about an hour and a little bit of gameplay before I started noticing a bunch of graphics processing errors. When returning to Windows, it was evident that the laptop was about to run out of battery power. Cunningly, I was able to retreat to a power-socket and find some extra juice.
The laptop also has some pretty decent built-in speakers. These were particularly useful whilst I was partaking in an impromptu LAN-party at a mates place. Having quality speakers on a laptop makes all the difference whilst gaming. While having a pair of gaming headphones will obviously increase your gaming experience whilst playing by yourself, in a LAN situation where annoying the crap out of your mates and opponents is part of the fun, having a good pair of speakers is particularly useful.
In my honest opinion, this laptop is a great supplement to the average gamer that is often out of the home or frequents gaming events such as LANs. This is not just because of the great amounts of graphical performance whilst plugged into a wall, nor is it just because of the pretty cool audio set up. But it’s also because the laptop isn’t really all that heavy to carry. For something as powerful as it is, I was expecting it to weight a hell of a lot more than it does.
From memory (as we’ve since returned the device), the laptop we were given had a whooping 16GB of RAM, 2TB of HDD space, the latest in nVidia graphics technology and a fairly awesome 2.7GHz i7-something or other processor. When you’re purchasing from the Alienware website, you are actually able to add and remove from these components, so individual mileage may vary. It also has an amazingly good wifi device. I can’t remember it’s name off the back of my hand, but it could run in the N range and was able to connect at a much higher speed to my modem than the dongle I’m using for my PC.
Overall the Alienware M17x laptop is an amazing gaming device for the gamer with portability in mind. It handles all current games incredibly well and it has nearly no flaws. The only negative points about the device are quite minor and were probably only encountered because I was adamant about gaming under all conditions. Users will be thrilled to own such a magnificent machine.
