Any SEGA fan should know that Sonic the Hedgehog’s 20th anniversary is tomorrow and SEGA is celebrating this anniversary with the release of a demo for Sonic Generations. The demo will contain a modern level and the classic Green Hill Zone stage. The demo will be available in 3D for those who download the demo on the PlayStation 3 and have a TV capable of displaying the 3D properly.
Sonic Stadium obtained this news and the news that the demo will be going live tomorrow for both the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Also announced is a 20th Anniversary Bundle which will include Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1, Sonic Adventure and a Sonic 4 Dynamic Theme for the PlayStation 3. The bundle will cost $19.99 and is currently only announced for the PSN but one can expect an Xbox Live equivalent to be announced in the near future.
Have you ever wanted to aim down the sight of your gun, steady your aim and take down that twelve point buck but never really wanted to harm another living creature? Well my weak bellied friends you soon will be able to, or at least in some form because Activision has announced that their next Cabela hunting title will use the Kinect.
This news comes from the ActivisionHunts twitter account which handles everything Cabela related in the gaming world. The tweet itself says “We’ve reached 1500 followers! News: @ActivisionUSA / @Cabelas hunting franchise expands this year with a brand-new @Xbox #Kinect experience!” Exactly how the Kinect will be integrated has yet to be seen but will most likely be detailed in the future.
Valve’s Gabe Newell spoke at Games for a Change today in New York City and there he said that Portal 2 has reached over 3 million copies sold since it was released on April 18th. He didn’t actually mention what platforms had sold the best or whether or not this was sales on one specific platform but it can probably be inferred that he meant all platforms.
Gabe Newell is most likely the best source of sales data because Steam is usually quiet about sales through their service and Gabe actually has access to this data. When Portal 1 was released it had sold four million total copies between its release and Portal 2’s release. It’s always good to see a game sell well, which means that there could be another Portal title in the future, or maybe finally Half Life 3?
The Cursed Crusade has just received a new trailer from Atlus and it does a good job of picking up the hype for the title. I had a chance to get my hands on the title and run through an entire level and you can read my preview of the gamehere. There I was able to get a small taste of the story and a healthy sampling of the combat.
This new trailer however helps explain a little bit of the storyline and also shows off some gameplay segments. The Cursed Crusade is going to be released sometime in the Fall of this year for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC and will be fully co-operative both locally and online.
If you ever wanted to be a super hero but didn’t want to have to pay any extra money to be one then you are in luck. Paragon Studios has announced today that their seven year old MMO City of Heroes will soon be a free to play title. The developer has announced a City of Heroes Freedom version of the game that will be launched later this year.
The Freedom version of the game will give players access to most of the areas and features in the game and players can pick and choose exactly what areas they want to have access to instead of being restricted to a pre-set list. Anyone who chooses to still pay money will have access to the whole game for free and will also get a special reward each month to choose from. This certainly sounds interesting and should be a good way to attract new customers to the title.
You have to hand it to Activision and Treyarch. When it comes to getting the most out of their licensing of a song they really use the heck out of it. For example we have the song Gimme Shelter as the background music again for the first actual trailer released for the Call of Duty: Black Ops Annihilation map pack.
The trailer itself also features the hamburger cook who appears to be working in less than sanitary conditions. Besides the cook however we are also treated to a quick look at all of the multiplayer maps as well as a better look at some of the zombies and guns we will be using on the new zombie map Shangri-La.
Ah Supanova, how fun you were to us over the weekend 😀 Out of both days of the event, I remember the second day being the most fun considering all of the celebrity interviews we obtained, the panels we attended and having a massive Capsule Computers party at the event (party as in Final Fanstasy meaning, not so much alcohol and house trashing). Be sure to check out Day 1 if you haven’t already.
Day 2
Today’s event was much smoother from the time we were allowed in. I managed to buy some Star Wars: Legacy trade paper backs (the final three! *finally* get to see the series end) before I met up with Kelly at the event. After meeting up, we took a quick walk around and decided to play some Child of Eden at the GAME booth. Man, that game can be difficult sometimes! A friend of mine bumped into me while I was playing and asked me about the game. Unfortunately, I was in gaming mode an I’m sure my answer was close to undecipherable. Apologies.
After our time gaming, we headed down to the Guest area to interview Sean Maher, who everyone knows best from FireFly and Serenity. He played Dr. Simon Tam and is quite cool. Sean is an amazing guy and we absolutely loved him! Also, during the interview, when he faux punched me in the face, I landed on my sunglasses and they broke. TROPHY! The interview went really well and you can watch it here.
Thanks Sean! 😀 TROPHY!
Shortly after our interview with Sean Maher, we were able to score an interview with David Nykl! Who you all may know as Zelenka from Stargate Atlantis! That brings us to a total of two SGA cast members interviewed, I hope that in coming months and years that we are able to get the entire main cast. Anyways, we were only able to get ~10mins with him due to his signing obligations (and 5 of those were spent teaching us camera physics) but we ended up with an amazing interview and are incredibly greatful for the opportunity to meet him. Be sure to check out the interview here!
After completing this batch of interviews, we headed off to meet up with some other editors here at Capsule Computers, Spike and Grace, and hung out for a bit. We ended up going to meet the voice actor of Tychus Findlay (Of StarCraft) and Optimus Prime (Transformers, Robots in disguise), who is played by Neil Kaplan. Neil is such a friendly guy, I think we had a fair few of us get our autographs with him, which was great! We also got an interview with him, which *updated* Link here!.
KAMEHAMEHA!!!!
During this point in time, we also managed to check out the Kamehameha contest. This contest is now a staple at every convention here in Australia and is always entertaining to watch. For this edition of the contest, I’m kind of glad a serious entry won, as opposed to a silly entry, even if the winner was a small child with the cute factor going into it. The final round was a small Goku versus a Gengar (the pokemon). The winner recieved a very nice gaming headset, courtesy of Razer, as well as Razer themed clothing. The runner up also recieved clothing, but no headset. Gratz’ winner and runner up!
After scoring our interview and checking out the Kamehameha contest (as well as a little bit of the cosplay comp while waiting for Neil) we bumped into a friend of mine who is a quite popular cosplayer. On this day, he was walking around as a boxed pokedex for his costume, complete with working pokedex noises. Nice. He was also accompanied by a Cloud cosplayer, that we managed to convince to let us hold his sword (that’s what she said). We got some pretty cool photos of it.
Oh, did I forget to mention that it was a Buster Sword?
After spending some time exploring, we went down to see Barbara Eden, with whom we were able to interview about various things. Unfortunately we weren’t able to do a video interview, for various reasons, but were still able to record a voice interview. Be sure to check out our transcript here! Barbara was incredibly nice and beautiful! I know that both Kelly and Myself were quite proud to have met her.
We spent the rest of the day hanging out, having fun and the like. I ran into more people I know, like the Project Ouroborous team (they do Umberella Corps cosplays). We ended up buying some merchandise and maybe even a sword.
Tallies for the weekend
Energy Drinks Consumed – 4 (1 on the way to Sydney, 2 at the convention and 1 on the way home) Merchandise Obtained – 9 (3 shirts (Brewfest, Highschool of the Dead and Dungeons & Dragons), 3 Star Wars comics, a Soul Eater wallet, a Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann keychain and a Devil May Cry 4 armband) Photos taken – Many, not sure about the others though (mine were 3DS ones, which can be found here). People met – New ~6-7, Pre-Known ~15-20 Capsule Computers Staff in attendance (known) – ~5-6
I remember the first time I laid eyes on a Parrot AR.Drone, I knew immediately that I had to play with it. How could I not? Let’s be honest here, this thing looks like it’s from the future. A quadricopter that you control with your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad (coming soon to Android), the AR.Drone does pretty much deliver on it’s initial wow factor even if it has a couple of small downsides that go along with it.
Hardware:
On first impression the AR.Drone is actually much lighter then I had initially expected. Out of the box it comes with two casings, one with bumpers for indoor use and another without for outdoor adventures. You can swap the shells out really easily, everything fits over the front facing camera and connects to the back with a magnet. It’s able to take a bit of damage but will ultimately start to break down on you after too many big crashes. Fortunately, Parrot has an online store for anything you might want to replace if it comes to that.
There are two cameras equipped on the AR.Drone, the forward facing clocks in at a resolution of 640X480, and delivers somewhere in the neighbourhood of 15 FPS. The bottom camera is actually a bit lower at a 176X144 resolution but the FPS is notably higher. You’re able to fly the quadricopter using only the cameras and it’s perfectly serviceable in that regard, but I found just keeping it within line of sight always worked best. The unit I received came with 2 batteries in the box, which is fantastic as they only last about 40-50 minutes per charge. Recharging takes about 90 minutes so as long as you’re on top of keeping one on the charger you’re never going to have to wait too long to get back in there.
Usage:
There’s a free iOS App to pilot the AR.Drone and you’re able to connect to it via a Wi-Fi signal the quadricopter puts out. Once connected it’s actually rather easy to control. There’s a little bit of a learning curve but after just a few minutes of playing around with it you’ll be flying like a pro. Take off and landing are handled automatically with a button and you’re able to control flight with onscreen thumbsticks or motion controls. I never ran into a situation where the AR.Drone became off balance or spazzed out on me, there’s also some nice touches like if you’re out of range from the Wi-Fi signal, the device will softly land itself.
Unfortunately we were only sent one so we didn’t get a chance to try out some of the AR Apps like AR.Pursuit, which is a cat and mouse chase game. As of this writing Parrot has released new game Apps for iOS such as AR.Race, which gives you the ability to make your own circuits and AR.FlyingAce, which is a multiplayer dogfight game. Parrot has also released an open API for developers to create their own Apps, so expect even more support in the future. This is actually the most exciting thing I find about the AR.Drone; since it’s an open platform to develop on we’re going to see some really innovative stuff in the future. There’s already some Apps which allow you to record using the cameras for all you amateur film makers (given the resolution is pretty low, but it’s neat none the less).
Real World Applications:
I was able to affix cotton balls to the AR.Drone with some tape and ingenuity to disguise it as a cloud… Which for the most part worked fairly well I’d say. I then followed it around making thunderous noises as a friend of mine sprinkled water on people. To my disappointment I was unsuccessful in fooling anyone that a cloud was actually following them regardless of how realistic my thunder noises may be. I can only assume that since the propellers were visible it lost the illusion as clouds typically (or so I’m told) don’t come equipped with them. I tried to create a better disguise for the quadricopter, but unfortunately it wasn’t able to lift off. However, every single person who came across the magical cloud with propellers thought it was amazingly cool and was extremely curious as to what it was. After being the good samaritan and directing them where they might learn more about the AR.Drone I called it a day.
Conclusion:
I’m not going to lie. If I could go back in time and give the AR.Drone to myself when I was obsessing with RC toys as a child I don’t think I would be able to calculate how amazed I would be. So let me be frank: the AR.Drone is easily the coolest RC style device I’ve ever heard of or seen. It has some small issues, like a low resolution camera or the inability to disguise itself convincingly as a cloud, but if you’ve got $349 burning a hole in your pocket and this seems like its something you’d be into, then I implore you to pick one up. With the API out there’s only going to be more and more support. So play with a toy from the future and try out an AR.Drone. You’ll have a smile on your face, I guarantee it.
The adorable pink blob Kirby is returning to Wii on 23rd June, 2011, as part of his own dedicated TV Channel. The Kirby TV Channel will be available across much of Europe, as well as in Australia and New Zealand, as a completely free download that will feature TV shows staring Kirby as he battles King Dedede in Dream Land.
The channel will allow you to view over 50 Kirby episodes that will be updated twice a week over a six month period. Every week, two new episodes will become available – one on a Monday and one on a Thursday. The episodes will be available to view for two weeks before being archived to make way for new episodes. Fans of Kirby will be able to check the programming schedule just like a real TV channel and choose from four streaming episodes at a time.
The Kirby TV Channel will be available to fans in the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland, Greece, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Austria, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Australia and New Zealand. Most episodes will be available in English, German, French and Italian with only a few exceptions.
I will definitely be checking this out. Is anyone else excited?
Just Sing: 80s Collection (DSiWare: DTP Young Entertainment, 500 Nintendo Points)
Delbo (DSiWare: Neko Entertainment, 200 Nintendo Points)
Interestingly, there aren’t any Wii downloads confirmed as yet, but the 3DS eShop is being padded out nicely. One of this week’s highlights is Double Dragon which comes to the 3DS Virtual Console service courtesy of Arc System Works. The title was originally released for Game Boy in 1990 and sees Jimmy and Billy Lee taking on rival gangs, beating them up to assert their superiority.
