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January 22, 2011
Industry / Gamer News -
Obesity isn't linked to Gaming!It's no question that United States and other countries like the U.K. and Canada have been growing in its numbers of obesity lately, and a lot of blame is put on video games. But made recently, some researchers say that it isn't really true. Now in the past, video games are the blame for obesity. First Lady Michelle Obama "Let's Move" campaign cited that the released of the Playstation was a a major event in the cause of childhood obesity's growing numbers. Then, internationally, the World Health Organization pointed out that video games had
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January 22, 2011
Capcom Game cures more Rage Quits?
Rage quitting is an actionnewer to consoles then it is to PC, but the term and the actionhave been around for quite awhile. Rage quitting is exactly as it sounds, it's when a player is frustrated and has the suspicion they're going to lose an online game so they choose to disconnect rather then accept defeat or ruin their win ratio. Street Fighter 4 players dealt with this fairly regularly although Capcom worked to fix the problem by revealing the disconnect ratio of players to encourage them not to disconnect until their match was over.
With Marvel vs Capcom 3 Capcom has a different approach. The disconnect ratio of players isn't so public, but hidden more in the back end, more involved with which players
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January 21, 2011
Bloggers' Game Reviews - Plants vs Zombies
After bugging the entirety of the Evil staff to download the game for Xbox and play, I thought it would be only fitting to blog about my current addiction, Plants vs. Zombies. Developed by PopCap Games and available for Microsoft Windows, Mac OSX, iOS, Xbox 360, and as of recently the Nintendo DS, Plants vs. Zombies is sweeping the nation (and world) by getting players addicted to the highly rewarding strategy game.
For those of you who havent played, the game involves the player setting up an arsenal of offensive and defensive plants to protect from zombies crossing either the front yard, back yard,
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January 21, 2011
Games - A Game made with Real Creatures
Usually you type in lines and lines of code in order to program a video game. Heck, I remember back in college I spent around three weeks worth of hours trying to program something like ZORK for my COBOL II class. But Stanford physicist Ingmar Riedel-Kruse found an easier way but incorporating single cell organisms into a game.
The single cell organisms named paramecium, are placed inside a fluid chamber where a camera shows their functions through a computer screen. They are then controlled by an electrical current or a chemical scent injected into the chamber. You can see some video of it here.
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January 20, 2011
Console News - Record Sales for Microsoft's XBOX 360
Looks like Microsoft hit its record sales on the Xbox 360 at the closing of the last year, so big that Microsoft had to even pull from January and Februarys 360 inventory in order to keep pace with demands.
According to NPD, a U.S retail tracker, Microsoft sold approximately 1.9 million Xbox 360 consoles in December alone, closing up what Microsoft referred to as their biggest year. Apparently, 2010s sales rose up by 42 percent from those of 2009. Because of this, although Microsoft assures plenty consoles are still available, the demand was so high in December that they experienced out of supply situations during the holiday season that an estimated supplies
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January 20, 2011
Games / Console News - You'll go Bananas for this Donkey Kong Contest!
This is probably the coolest promotional campaign Nintendo made yet, putting Donkey Kong on Chiquita Bananas. Placing Donkey Kong on the stickers is just the start for a campaign between Chiquita Bananas and Nintendo. The two companies are hosting a campaign where people can enter in their Donkey Kong dance entries (photos or videos) fromJanuary 7th through February 28th. On the first of March, the public will vote on which ones are the best entries. You can read more about it here, which tells more details of the contest.
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January 15, 2011
Skype? There's an App for That
The iPhones FaceTime function will now be vastly improved with the addition of Skypes iOS 4 update released the middle of last week. As opposed to the prior need for a Wi-Fi connection to speak via face-to-face video conferencing, Skypes updates will allow users to connect to mobile video over both Wi-Fi and 3G.
This update will come free and is already available for download. Users will be able to call anyone able to use video conferencing, including those using PCs, laptops, and other iPhone 4 devices. Furthermore, users with the iPad or the older versions of the iPod touch (without the camera) will be able to receive video chats, but
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January 15, 2011
Game Review - Kirby's Epic Yarn
Entertainment Weekly dubbed Kirbys Epic Yarn as the worst game from 2010. Jeff Jensen a writer for the company disagreed with many of the outstanding reviews the game had received. And what was his explanation for his provocative decision? Jensen said, Theres a fine line between cute and grating, delightfully busy and irritatingly overwhelming – and for me, this hyperactively adorable side-scrolling
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January 14, 2011
The Best Gran Turismo Controller to be more than half a grand.
Okay so you threw down about sixty dollars for Gran Turismo 5 for your PS3, but you feel like racing with your PS3 controller really isn't up to par with the game. Well you got around $600 lying around? How about the best controller for the game that was requested by the game's creator itself. The Thrustmaster's T500 RS is a racing wheel controller specifically created with Gran Turismo 5 in mind. Gran Turismo creator Kazunori Yamauchi himself tasked Thrustmaster with creating the device to his exact specifications. His goal was for the team was to design a precise wheel with no latency and to reproduce the feeling as if you were driving the real thing of what you are
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January 14, 2011
Game Music Industry News on - Harmonix
Harmonix has lived the ultimate dream of any wannabe musician. They've gone from nobodies, to rockstars, to washing out as has beens in less then a decade. But don't be sad for them, they're probably exactly where they want to be.
Harmonix started out as a small independent studio that created and published their own games. Starting on consoles with Frequency and Amplitude which were both well received critically while not selling that particularly well they did leave an impression on the industry. The only people making music games before them was Japan. When Harmonix teamed up with Red Octane to make Guitar Hero shortly after those titles, they