By Celeste Carrigan
Apple's Latest Gadget the Ipad2 Source: Apple
It is a gadget filled weekend with the release of the Nintendo 3DS and the Apple Ipad 2.
Thousands of people began queuing last night to get their hands on two of the biggest gaming gadgets as they battle it out for sales. Nintendo 3DS had a midnight launch with thousands queuing outside shops nationwide. London’s Oxford HMV store held the official launch of the Nintendo 3DS with Plan B playing for the crowds. [Read more...]
Developers ready to face COD gamers(Image from Flickr user mouriran)
by Chris Enderby
When Activision Blizzard launch a game they expect big sales. With titles under their belt such as World of Warcraft, Starcraft, Modern warfare 2 and many others hit games, they know a thing or two about creating a great game.
Within the first 24 hours of Call of Duty: Black Ops going live, there were over a million games being played on Xbox live and with each game consisting of between 12-and 16 players, there is little doubt that this installment will perform just as well as its previous incarnations.
Its predecessor Modern warfare 2 sold $1bn, or £618 million worth of units, putting it in a legendary hall of fame, standing with greats such as Micheal Jackson’s “Thriller”, the highest grossing song of all time and James Cameron’s “Avatar”, the highest grossing film of all time.
While Black ops is predicated to gross 20% less than Modern warfare 2, the producers of the game have opened up an alternate revenue stream by releasing the game across three consoles at once: the Xbox 360,Playstation 3 and the Nintendo Wii.
With this extra avenue open, the bonus sales from having a third console instead of the standard two normally associated with large game launches will help mitigate the predicted 20% less sales than Modern warfare 2.
Even with the expected 20% drop in sales, Black ops is expected to sell more than 18 million units across the three consoles.
The game has received favorable reviews scoring 90% on metacritic.com from a total of 36 reviews, while eurogamer and IGN awarded a score of 8 and 8.5 respectively.
Gamer Mark Green, a typical university student, said “Call of Duty brings joy to many a man”, as he waited outside a store for his copy of Black ops at one of the many world-wide midnight launches for the game.
Though this game may not live up to its predecessors reputation or sales figures ,it is not a total write off,It will no doubt entertain the masses for many years to come, with its gameplay and new zombie game mode.
The new XBOX game console and Kinect bundle
By Antonia Landi
The XBOX Kinect is scheduled for release in the UK and Europe this Wednesday, 10 November. As the eagerly anticipated motion sensor arrives in stores throughout the conuntry, reactions in the gaming community remain mixed.
The XBOX Kinect is the highly anticipated motion sensor add-on by Microsoft, promising you “hours of hands-free fun where you’re the controller.” It features a camera, microphone and a depth sensor, allowing the user to play videogames without the aid of a controller. While the Kinect is being marketed as a revolution in gaming, it is in fact the product of a recent trend that has swept through the community. Consoles like the Wii and the new Playstation 3 motion sensor controller are designed to make videogames more accessible to casual gamers. While this has proven to be greatly successful, it has also created a divide between ‘real gamers’ and ‘casuals’. Christian Mugiraneze, a member of staff at Gamestation Edinburgh states that “Motion controllers will alienate real gamers” and “controllers are for ‘real’ gamers”. At HMV Gamerbase in Edinburgh there will not be any Kinects available to buy on the day of release, as the store has already sold out of them for the next two deliveries. However, there are XBOX consoles available that include the Kinect, but these are selling fast as well. Both Gamestation and HMV Gamerbase have Kinects set up to try in their stores since Saturday. A member of staff at HMV Gamerbase said “it is an expensive add-on so it’s good to try it before you buy it.”
While the Kinect has attracted a lot of people, many gamers remain sceptical. Mr Mugiraneze describes consoles that rely on motion sensors to be designed to “bridge the gap between ‘easy gamers’ and ‘hardcore gamers’”, while members of staff at HMV Gamerbase agree that “there is something nice about having a grip on something” and that “generations of people grew up playing with consoles” and this is not likely to change anytime soon. Whether the Kinect will become a ‘second Wii’ and will focus entirely on appealing to casual gamers or if it will actually innovate the way we play videogames can only be answered once games will have been released for it. But with exciting releases already in the pipelines finding this out is at the very least likely to be a lot of fun.
Useful links:
Click here to go to HMV Gamerbase
There is a familiar issue experienced by students: what to do when there are no classes, no work to do and no money in the drinking column. The answer for a good few is to game, and that is no longer just an answer for the geekier among us. Ever since Modern Warfare 2 overtook Avatar in Box Office sales, gaming has become a serious media.
So how does the world of student and gaming combine? In RestBYTE, a new student run website. Liam Anderson, a co-creator and the website designer for the project explains “we know you can get a review anywhere that tells you HOW good the game is. The problem is these 5 star games then over-exhert themselves on to us and we end up with poor grades. The answer is a website that advises how addictive the game is.”
On this premise RestBYTE has designed a rating system that includes: “unplayable”, “dont try this at home unless your an achievement or trophy whore”, “good dipping”, and “leave it till summer honey”! The aim is to be humourous but informative and to help students avoid a controller addiction over term time.
“There is the aim of total interactivity – forums and comment pages, within a user-friendly setting” states Anderson, which should make RestBYTE the first of its kind. The writing staff are keen however to remain cutting edge but realistic. “After all this is a free publication, we will be writing from our own stocks of games”: what comes across is the websites awareness that it may not necessarily review the must-have game right away but have a catalogue of hundreds of older games once it is up and running. The features sound intersting to, exploring the eternal debate of Guitar Hero v. Rock Band, 360 v. PS3, and what older console rocks!
The site is still taking its baby steps, but is hoping to collaborate with Edinburgh Napier as well as other Universities post launch.
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