Gaming - Page 2141

You can say what you like about Microsoft and the way it runs its business and competes in the technology market, but the company knows how to market its wares. My kids are going bonkers over the Kinect technology for the Xbox 360 after seeing commercials for Kinectimals on TV. I am a bit torn on the tech; we rarely play the Xbox 360 in our house leaning more towards the PS3 and Wii. If you are on the fence about the Kinect as well, a new hack that has surfaced may help push you over the edge towards purchase.

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The Kinect has been hacked to run with Windows 7 computers already. A New York-based firm called Adafruit offered up a bounty of $2000 for the group or individual who could come up with an open source driver for the Kinect that would let it work for things other than the Xbox 360. According to reports, that bounty has now been collected and a video has been posted on YouTube showing someone using Kinect with a Windows PC.

In the video, you can see the Kinect camera motion tracking the user running on a Windows 7 PC. That is pretty cool and I guess Kinect would be an interesting way to control games for PC users too. Considering PC gamers tend to be more hardcore than their console brethren and stick religiously to the mouse and keyboard I question how many people will want Kinect for gaming control on their PC. Still, that is certainly a cool development so soon after Kinect launched.

For a long time gaming on a mobile phone really sucked. The graphics were bad, the games stunk, and most of us just didn't play mobile phone games for the most part. When the iPhone landed all of that changed for many of us with a big screen and serious mobile gaming chops. Today the market is flush with all sorts of mobile devices that can play some games and one of the things really needing work now on some platforms are the controls.

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A geek has taken in upon himself to improve the gaming controls for the Dell Streak, and he has done an epic job of it. The builder goes by the name 0TheRain0 and he took an old SNES controller and hacked it to work with the Android-powered Dell Streak. The hack required the use of a Streak connector taken from a real accessory and some hard work.

The mod also uses a Teensy USB microcontroller board. When all was finished the SNES controller plugs into the Streak's PDMI port and is recognized by the device as a USB keyboard. The controller can navigate the menus on the phone and claims to work with any game emulator on the market. Check out the video below to see it in action.

Wave your hand across the screen if you'd like to see a few reviews of Micrsosoft's upcoming gesture/body based gaming revolution.

If you are a Wii gamer, you probably have a MotionPlus accessory that you use for some of your games. I think that we can all agree that having that MotionPlus accessory sticking off the end of your controller isn't the ideal way to get better control in your games. Nintendo is working on a new controller that has MotionPlus built-in. Sunflex has announced the Snakebyte controller claiming the title of first third-party controller to integrate MotionPlus.

Nintendo has been busy the last few months with the celebration surrounding the 25th birthday for Mario and for the original Nintendo game system. Nintendo is offering up some sales details on the Wii and its accessories to show off how many units it has moved even if the popularity of the Wii is waning today. The number of controllers sold by Nintendo is impressive.

When it comes to mobile gaming I stick to my iPhone or iPad. I have a couple PSPs here in the house along with a couple Nintendo DSi systems that my kids play. We haven't used the PSPs in over a year now so the PSP format altogether isn't very appealing around my house. When I first heard of the PSP Go I thought it sounded cool enough until I realized that the games you have for your old PSPs were useless on the new Go. Many people felt that way and many retailers were mad that they could not sell software for the Go making it a bag of fail.

I thought piracy was only big on the PC? Oh how people are wrong...

There are many music games on the market today with offerings like Rock Band and Guitar Hero at the top of the market. There are other smaller and lesser-known music games though and some of them have some awesome controllers. Power Gig is a music game that works sort of like Guitar Hero in that you have a wireless guitar controller to play with, but Power Gig uses a real six-string guitar.

The gaming world has many iconic characters that have been part of some of the most important video games around. A few of these iconic characters include fan favorites like Pac-Man and Mario. Nintendo has been celebrating the 25th birthday of Mario all year long and has offered some cool facts about the game and is offering up some cool new bundles of hardware for Mario fans.

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The latest hardware bundles include special edition glossy red Wii and DSi XL game systems. The red Wii bundle includes a glossy red console, the new Super Mario Bros. Wii game, a red Wii Remote Plus controller with built-in Motion Plus capability, a red nunchuk, and the Wii sports game that typically comes with the Wii. The coolest part is that the special edition console has a price that is affordable at $199.99 while supplies last.

The red DSi XL bundle has Super Mario Bros. themed graphics, includes Mario Kart DS game and a pre-loaded Brain Age Express title. The DSi XL bundle will also be offered only while supplies last and will sell for $179.99. Nintendo has also unveiled a new FlingSmash bundle that has a game with pinball action and the new Wii Remote Plus controller inside for $49.99.

Popular gaming brand SteelSeries has saddled up with GUNNAR Optiks to release a range of gaming glasses.