Gaming Gadgets
Calibur11 Mass Effect 3 Collector’s Edition Vault
Mass Effect 3 is not going to be released so soon, but that does not mean the hype surrounding the game has not led to plenty of interest? There are many people out there who cannot wait to see what Mass Effect 3 brings to the table in terms of gaming experience, as well as the different plots that unfold with each choice that one makes. Well, Calibur11 intends to whet your appetite ahead of the game not by releasing a spoiler, but rather, through the introduction of its Calibur11 Mass Effect 3 Collector’s Edition Vault that will cater for the Xbox 360 S and the PS3 Slim.
Now up for pre-order, this unique vault will transform your beloved console into a Commander Shepard textured chest piece, coupled with a dual-mode LED N7 logo which lights up, while the Mass Effect 3 Vaults will ship with exclusive downloadable content for the title that cannot be found anywhere else – we are talking about the N7 Valkyrie rifle and defender armor. There will only be 25,000 of these puppies that roll off the production line, so you can tell that these will go fast! The Calibur11 Mass Effect 3 Vault will cost you $89.99 a pop as it ships on March 1st.
Antec Three Hundred Two gaming chassis
Gamers are known for their meticulous attention to detail when it comes to their rig – they more or less know where each screw lies, and what components they need in order to eke out that extra bit of performance. Well, for gamers who prefer to take the DIY route and build a gaming machine that is good enough to pummel your friends’ benchmark scores into submission, Antec might have a decent solution for you in the form of the Antec Three Hundred Two gaming chassis.
This is considered as the next generation of gaming chassis with high-performance cooling advantages and extensive expandability, all without breaking your bank account in the process and getting the other half upset at spending “frivolously” (that depends on whose point of view it is now, isn’t it?).
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Command & Conquer coded in HTML5
There are moments in life when we look at a particular object and think, “Now why didn’t I think of this before?” I am quite sure that many of us who spent our teenage years in the mid-1990s would have played the game Command & Conquer at some point in time or another, where the almighty tank could be stopped by something as simple as sandbags, and had hours and hours of fun honing our RTS skills in front of the computer. Well, a hardcore coder decided that playing the game today on a legacy system is just too mainstream, and coded the entire Command & Conquer in HTML5, where the entire thing runs on 69k of Javascript.
Aditya Ravi Shankar built the clone as part of his attempt to improve his coding skills, where he gave himself an entire month to do so, building the game in the browser while going through the original game’s files in order to get sprites, sounds and specs just the way it was. According to Shankar, “In hindsight, I might have wanted to take smaller steps and make a tower defense game instead of jumping directly into an RTS. Trying to do the whole thing in under a month all by myself wasn’t the smartest idea.”
Still, he got the job done, and there were some glitches here and there during testing, such as tanks getting stuck in the sea, and it works best in Chrome or Firefox. If you want to help improve Shankar’s work, check out the source code here.
Hot Pockets extruder makes for one lazy Xbox 360 gamer
Gamers are known to be a lazy bunch already – where they are willing to survive on nothing but fast food deliveries and Coke, just to make sure that their gaming experience is interrupted as little as possible. Modding guru Ben Heck has come up with something interesting for the sloths among the Xbox 360 crowd – the Hot Pockers extruder that is attached to the Xbox 360 game controller. This unique plastic carrier comes with a manual slider that is able to snugly hold a Hot Pocket, and you can move it forward easily as you eat.
When attached to the top of the game controller’s charge and play plug, you get the ideal device which allows every Hot Pockets lover to enjoy a tasty snack without skimping on their gaming time. Even better is, you need not stop the game, and neither are there dishes to wash up after you are done with your food. How about that? Hopefully you do not mind the crumbs and perhaps, a little bit of grease around your controller during the more frenzied moments of gaming while eating.
Apptoyz AppBlaster
The £14.99 Apptoyz AppBlaster is the first interactive gun in the world that is meant for gaming, where your iPod or iPhone will be housed within the viewfinder in order to provide you with a truly unique gaming experience. Of course, each purchase will need to be accompanied by the free app to get you going, transforming just about anywhere you are into a virtual battleground. I would say that you should play this in the comfort of your own home or somewhere private, since you won’t look at your most attractive when you are playing with this particular puppy in public, what with the “pew pew” moments.
The AppBlaster comes with a unique trigger to touch screen technology alongside a double trigger that enables 2 interactions with the game. Being a snap to set up, and no matter how frustrated you get, your iPhone or iPod will remain securely locked in place. Tilt back to reload (something like Virtua Cop at the arcades where you shoot outside of the screen), you can play in 90, 180 or 360 degrees. It is compatible with the iPhone 3GS/4 and iPod touch 4G or newer, and does not require any batteries to play – now how about that?
Resident Evil 6 announced
When Resident Evil for the Sony PSOne was released, that game gave me sleepless nights. There were moments when I played the game (with all the lights turned off and curtains drawn to get that extra creepy effect), and the events in the game literally caused me to jump out of my skin. Well, since then, there were other subsequent Resident Evil titles released, where they comprised of hits and misses.
Capcom, having seen the relative success of the movie transition, decided that the world has enough appetite to have another go at zombies, hence confirming the latest installment of the franchise, by announcing that Resident Evil 6 will be heading towards home consoles this coming November.
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NES games played over the iPad
There is always a place in the hearts of many for retro items – otherwise, how do you explain the kind of fashion that keeps on coming back from time to time, not to mention timeless classics where music is concerned? Gaming too, has its fair share of retro fans, and those who love to have a go at old school games on the iPad will probably wish that Santa brought them a physical controller last Christmas instead of having to dabble with virtual keys. You know what they say – if you want something done, then you have got to do it yourself, and this is exactly what Paul Rickards, a self-professed tinkerer, did.
He realized by accident that it was possible to tinker around with a homebrew C64 keyboard and an iPad, creating a connection between the two after using an Arduino board to “talk” to the iPad through a USB connection via a V-USB library. This is followed by setting it up for an NES controller, where the only step required was to plug the NES controller into the board, followed by the board being hooked up to the iPad. Voila! iCade games can then be played using a classic NES controller.
Thermaltake Level 10 M Mouse
Because a standard gaming mouse from Razer is just too mainstream in terms of looks, which is why Thermaltake has commissioned DesignworksUSA to come up with this particular conceptual design for an innovative gaming mouse that seems to hail from the distant future, despite being ever ready to be cradled by a curved palm, wreaking havoc on your opponents with razor sharp precision and smoothness you will not believe until you give it a go.
This partnership between BMW Group subsidiary DesignworksUSA and Thermaltake is certainly 10 levels up from the ordinary (which could be one of the reasons for its unique name), and we are pleased to hear that the Level 10 M Mouse will actually hit the gaming market sometime this spring – although pricing details have yet to be confirmed, I am quite sure it is not going to be cheap at all, considering the amount of investment poured in for such a future forward design. Definitely high end stuff that might break your monthly gaming budget.
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