Gaming - Page 2067

Razer is promoting their new Taipan gaming mouse this year at E3. This new mouse is an ambidextrous mouse which means that it is designed to be comfortable for both left-handed and right-handed users. They had roughly 10 stations set up using this mouse along with their Razer Blade gaming laptop.

I got a chance to mess around with it and it's both comfortable and good. The technical aspects explain why it is so good, but the comfort of it is not always guaranteed. The mouse operates at 8200dpi and features laser and optical sensors, along with Z-axis tracking and cutoff. The specs of the product are:

"We have designed the Razer Taipan with the goal of offering pro gamers the best weapon to achieve victory in the competitive world of e-Sports," said Robert 'RazerGuy' Krakoff, president of Razer USA. "The Razer Taipan is engineered to deliver an astounding 8200 dpi 4G Dual Sensor System to provide gamers with the fastest mouse tracking, enhanced ambidextrous ergonomics and Razer Synapse 2.0 support. Anything is possible with the Razer Taipan."

It's time for another round of awards, this time based on my experiences from day 2. Once again, these are based solely on my opinion and are for fun only. But, they are also meant to allow you to gain a better insight into the trade show happenings. Without further ado, let's begin.

The biggest fail award goes to WeMade Entertainment. I got quite the chuckle out of this marketing mess-up, almost as much as Intel's "Actual Size" 2-foot Atom processor mess-up. This time, WeMade was showing off the "World's largest iPhone." What it should have said was "World's largest iPad." Take a look for yourself:

Nintendo wins a couple of awards. First, I'm giving them the award for most booth babes. I swear there was one at every single demo station, of which there were quite a few. More importantly, I am awarding Nintendo with the honor of having the best way to get people to go through their booth. In this case, they gave you a pin for the different attractions you went to in Nintendoland.

I got a chance to check out some new technology by ViviTouch. This new vibrator technology has no moving parts yet provides firm and varying vibration. As opposed to traditional vibrators, the technology demonstrated by ViviTouch allows for directional vibrations which improves the feel of the game's vibrations.

ViviTouch installed the technology into an Xbox 360 controller and I got a chance to play with it for a little while. Let's put it this way: I tried to steal it. Not literally, of course, but I did ask them where I could buy one almost immediately after picking it up. Currently, there is no solution on the market.

In addition to the Xbox controller, they had installed the technology into a pair of headphones. The technology, which was turned off by pressing a button on the side, seemed to increase the quality of the sound. Human hearing is done by vibrations, so having the headphones vibrate puts those vibrations directly into the bones of the ear.

Nintendo is really pushing the whole WiiU thing at this E3. Their massive booth is almost entirely dedicated to the WiiU with many different demo stations demoing many different games. They had an interesting way of getting people to try out all 5 different "attractions" in Nintendoland: They gave a pin after you played the attraction hands-on.

I've spent a good hour with the WiiU now and can give you some idea of how it is. The tablet controller works much better than I previously thought it would. Players really only need to watch the tablet controller's screen in most instances. The TV provides a different view for those watching the game.

Since the tablet can display a completely different screen than the TV, it allows some forms of competitive play that would not be possible without it. For instance, in Luigi's Ghost Mansion, the player with the tablet plays as the ghost, and the rest of the players use a regular Wii controller to walk around hunting the ghost. You can see the obvious issues if everyone were watching the same screen.

A new game from Boldai aims to make game programming accessible to everyone by allowing users to design and program games without any sort of technical knowledge. Blocksworld allows players to drag and drop blocks and then program them to do things through a drag-and-drop interface. The graphics are simple and so is what you can do, but I imagine the game could be fun.

There are currently 938 open free beta slots, so if you would like to check it out, sign up on Blockworld's website. The game features 4 main parts: build, play, share, and remix. First, players build an object, or anything really, by dragging different LEGO-like blocks into place. Once the blocks are in place, colors, textures, and custom behaviors can be added.

Once a player is content with the design, they then press play and watch the object or simulation come alive. The creations are basically endless in variety. Once happy with a design, the user can share it on Blocksworld.com, Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks so that everyone can marvel at your creativity.

I'm going to hand out some awards that are based solely on my opinion from what I have seen over the show. Some of them will be serious, some not so much, so without further ado, I shall begin.

I have to give Ubisoft the award for best press kit. No, it wasn't some amazing game or flash drive. Instead, it was a just a plain old business card with information on where to download it from. Well, why does it win? Because it is hilarious. Take a look for yourself:

Crysis 3 undoubtedly wins best game of E3 Day 1. Even in pre-alpha stage, the game has a polished look that we have come to love from Crytek. I was not allowed any pictures or videos of the game, but did post my hands-on thoughts already. I may be partial to the Crysis series, but if you had played the demo, I'm sure you would agree with me.

I got a chance to play Trion and Crytek's new game Warface. Warface is a new, online, free FPS that uses CryEngine3. The pitch from the creators is that Warface is all about bringing down barriers to Crytek games. The cost, often a major barrier, has been dropped to $0 which will allow almost anyone to play.

Additionally, the controls are intuitive and easy to use and the graphics, stunning. The game has already launched in Russia and China to wide acclaim. Crytek has already seen 50,000 simultaneous users and have over 1.5 million registered. The game, currently in closed beta, should be coming to the United States soon.

The game is said to run on hardware as old as the 8600GT which means another barrier has been removed. Most everyone in the world has a graphics card that is as capable as the 8600GT was, so it shouldn't require upgrades like Crysis 3 will. It also has a nice system of introducing players to the game so they aren't losing right off the bat. This prevents users from raging and not coming back to the game.

Words will not do the new Crysis 3 game justice, but they will have to suffice as I was unable to take pictures or video of the demo that I was able to play. As previously reported, the game returns to the jungle by turning New York City into a jungle. The graphics, as we have come to expect from Crysis games, are stunning.

Electronic Arts demoed what they were calling "pre-alpha code" but you couldn't tell that by looking at it, save for the message telling you such. Game play was absolutely fabulous except that I was used to Call of Duty. Once I returned to the PC-style gaming, the controls became intuitive and easy-to-use.

I did manage to break the game, however, and I was the first person at E3 to do so. I'm a bit proud of that achievement because it means I played the game in a different way then everybody else. That's the beauty of this upcoming Crysis: the world is incredibly open and the route to objectives is not nearly as defined as in other first-person shooters.

Valve today announced through a press release that the upcoming DOTA 2 will be a free-to-play title, and in preparation for the DOTA 2's release, also announced the DOTA Store. When the DOTA 2 Store's doors open, it will offer items created by Valve, and members of the community.

These items can be used immediately, and will be carrier over after the public launch of DOTA 2. Early access to the game isn't required in order to purchase items before the launch. Gamers may, however, get into the game now by purchasing the DOTA 2 Early Access Bundle of items. IceFrog, design lead on DOTA 2 says:

The producers of Far Cry have released a trailer ahead of E3 so that they could advertise the live stream of their press conference. In the video, it shows some pretty good graphics, but these could be pre-rendered which would give them an advantage over actual in-game footage. It doesn't give much of the story away and contains some NSFW language.

Overall, the upcoming game looks pretty good. If you are a Far Cry fan, then you should watch Ubisoft's press conference. It will start June 4 at 3PM PDT and is available on www.youtube.com/ubisoft or www.uplay.com. This means 6PM for NY, 11PM for London, and June 5 for Paris, Moscow, Tokyo, and Sydney.

We will do our best to bring you the latest Far Cry information from E3 while we are there covering the show. Let us know what you think of the trailer in the comments!