High-performance wireless gaming is here! Using optimized technology, the Xbox 360 Wireless Controller lets you enjoy a 30-foot range and up to 40 hours of life on the two included AA batteries – and when they run low, you’re given ample warning so you can connect a Play & Charge Kit for uninterrupted play. Plug the Xbox 360 Headset into the controller for full two-way voice communication: a wireless first.

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Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Conviction is the fifth installment in the wildly popular Splinter Cell series. A stealth-action combat game centered around the continuing adventures of black ops agent Sam Fisher, Splinter Cell: Conviction continues where the storyline of the earlier Splinter Cell: Double Agent left off. Packed with a mix of an engaging story, classic Splinter Cell stealth action, unique co-op gameplay and new gameplay mechanisms that are applicable to both single player and multiplayer modes, it is a worthy addition Splinter Cell catalog of games. .caption { font-family: Verdana, Helvetica neue, Arial, serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; } ul.indent { list-style: inside disc; text-indent: -15px; } table.callout { font-family: verdana; font-size: 11px; line-height: 1. 3em; } td.vgoverview { height: 125px; background: #9DC4D8 url(http://images.amazon.c (more…)

In Just Dance players learn real dance moves to songs they know and love across a wide genre of music over the past sixty years. Requiring only one Wii Remote per player, up to four people can break it down at a time, as they follow on-screen choreographed moves set to classic dance tracks, covering a wide variety of musical genres and bringing everyone to the dance floor. The game includes more than 30 chart-topping and foot stomping hits designed to get players mo (more…)

The StarCraft Battle Chest is an incredible package of the great StarCraft games, on one DVD! StarCraft boasts award-winning advanced control features, such as waypoints and training queues, to provide enhanced gameplay. In addition to the intuitive interface, StarCraft has the superb graphics and outstanding sound and music that have come to be expected from Blizzard Entertainment.

The full versions of StarCraft and the acclaimed expansion pack Brood War, as well as complete strategy guides for each, make StarCraft: Battle Chest a treasure chest for real-time strategy fans.

Instead of two similarly powered enemies facing off, the three distinct races in StarCraft have unique capabilities and strategies. Everyone still competes in the RTS genre’s typical race for resources, but that’s the only shared trait. Terrans can move their bulky mechanized bases as necessary, while the reptilian Zerg grow their colonies and warriors from mutating larvae. Meanwhile, the noble Protoss warp in equipment from their home world using psionic powers.

Not only does game maker Blizzard juggle the races’ playability and match it with superb art and sound effects, it also weaves together an engrossing three-act plot. Early on, as a Terran magistrate, you spend a breathtaking 30 minutes defending against a Zerg onslaught. As the story unfolds around you, you’ll experience the Zerg’s hive mentality and decipher the mysterious Protoss by the game’s dramatic conclusion.

Missions vary in scope and are effectively framed with dialogue, chapter screens, and in-mission exposition. Multiplayer games are also very well represented by Blizzard’s own free Battle.net service. If you’d rather play over a local area network, StarCraft will generously “spawn” up to seven copies so your friends can join in.

In keeping with StarCraft‘s groundbreaking design, Brood War presents you with three sides of a galactic conflict. Scheming humans, insidious Zerg, and proud Protoss collide again, with stunning new cinematics setting the stage. Old friends and foes and ominous new arrivals give the story a breakneck pace, while a handful of additions to each race’s arsenal makes for tense battles. Brood War also features stellar new environments and ambient art, as well as more than 100 additional multiplayer maps.

Some missions require a bit of finesse, breaking the resource-gathering routine while making good use of the new units. Humans now have Valkyrie missile frigates as well as medics who automatically try to heal your grunts. New for the Zerg air force is the acid-spewing Devourer; the new Lurker unit provides heavy-duty (under)ground support. Along with the Corsair fighter, the Protoss reenter the fray with Dark Templar, which can merge to form the devastating Dark Archon. Unfortunately, units old and new still suffer from weak artificial intelligence in path finding. Read More>>

Real-time strategy games don’t get any more epic or any more satisfying.

Launch into a new universe of gravity warping worlds in the sequel to one of the greatest games of all time! Yoshi joins Mario as they traverse a wild variety of galaxies exploding with imagination, helping out our hero as he gulps enemies, runs at super speed, or inflates like a blimp to reach high cliff tops. Whether Mario’s leaping into orbit around tiny micro-planets, tumbling through rooms with constantly flip-flopping gravity, or drilling through craggy worlds to emerge (more…)

Broken Steel will be available on PlayStation Network starting on September 24. Broken Steel raises the level cap and changes the ending of Fallout 3.

Operation Anchorage and The Pitt will be released on October 1 for PS3.  Point Lookout and Mothership Zeta will be released on October 8.

Fallout 3 Game of the Year Edition will be released on October 13. The GOTY package includes the original game and all five DLC packs and sells for $59.99.

“After analyzing our open beta test results Aion will not feature GameGuard at launch. We will however continue to pursue ways to effectively utilize GameGuard within Aion in the future. Right now we’re focused on providing players with the best possible Aion experience.”

nProtect GameGuard (sometimes called GG) is an anti-cheating software developed by Korean company INCA Internet. It is installed alongside many Asian MMORPGs such as Aion: The Tower of Eternity, Lineage II, 9Dragons, Cabal Online, Phantasy Star Universe, GunZ: The Duel, Flyff, Pangya and Ragnarok Online to block malicious applications and common methods of cheating. nProtect GameGuard provides B2B2C (Business to Business to Consumer) security services for online game companies and portal sites.

GameGuard hides the game application process, monitors the entire memory range, terminates applications defined by the game vendor and INCA Internet to be cheats, blocks certain calls to DirectX functions and Windows APIs, and auto-updates itself to change as new threats surface. nProtect GameGuard is launched via GameMon.des with a driver dump_wmimmc.sys.

GameGuard is criticized for being flawed, using employing root-kit like techniques and causing conflicts with many hardware configurations.  A stability problem during the open beta caused an outcry in the gamer community.  The decision to drop GameGuard is welcome by the gamer community.

With over 400,000 pre-orders that broke MMORPG records, Aion is projected to be the largest MMORPG release for 2009 in the western market.

It is believed that the “The Yellow Light of Death” is limited to the 60GB model when PS3 were sold at launch time. Media and user requests to Sony about the failure rate and affected models have been met with repeated refusal by Sony,  claiming that it is sensitive information.

Sony states that: “The phrase “yellow light of death” has been adopted by certain members of the online community to describe the situation in which PS3 systems have shut down following the illumination of the yellow light on the PS3′s front panel. The yellow light indicator is simply a non-specific fault indicator that can be triggered in a range of different circumstances.”

What is bad is that this failure typically occurs after about 18 to 24 months after purchase, just after the one year warranty period expires. So the consumer is left with a dead machine that costed a lot of money. If it is out of warranty, in the US, Sony charges $150 to fix it.

BBC’s Watchdog reports that some repair shops have found that heating up specific parts of the circuit board will fix the “The Yellow Light of Death” failure. Heating the circuit board up to allow the solder joints to melt may correct some bad connections from poor solder job when the circuit board was initially made.  Sony has countered that the heating procedure is amaturish and is not a recommended pratice to fix the problem.

Have you been hit by the “The phrase “yellow light of death”? How did you resolve it?

The Tetrad brings something different to the PC experience.

The Cyro Tetrad is a member of the High Performance Designs family where it is simply the best when discussing value for money. The high performance power PC is aimed at power users and game addicts.

When unboxing the Tetrad monster, it is all so boring since you have to unravel your way through huge levels of packaging and then coming to a huge dull, black Lian-Li case. However, from then on it all becomes exciting because when you have finished attaching all the wires and press the power button, its quite invigorating.

If you look inside the computer, you will envisage that all the wires are elegantly put together, perhaps to help have clean airflows. The dominant computer lights up, the Cryo logo turns neon blue and the mesh underneath does so also, what a sight!

In addition to the lighting effect, when connected all it up, there is a small LCD screen standing on top of the PC which shows the systems information i.e. the date and time of start up.

Booting Vista up is really quite rapid for this leading gaming PC unit, but you must customize your package from the website before purchasing because you could be let down by the less developed graphics card, which could ruin your pricy experience.

Product Features

• Revolutionary Intel Core i7 920
  with Cryo Boost @ 3.8GHz
  (4 cores + Hyperthreading)

• Intel X58 chipset
  QPI 4.8GT/s (Boost 6.4GT/s)

• Fast and powerful graphics with Cryo NVidia GTX 260+ Core216 – Cryo Boost OC

• High Memory Performance  with 3GB 1600MHz DDR3 and latency Cryo Boost overclocked.

• Flexible 1TB (1000GB) SATA-II RAID0

• Enhanced Performance Air Cooled added efficiency.

• Lian-Li P60 case in Black

• Realistic HD Creative X-Fi Extreme Gamer sound

• 650W Power Supply Unit

Get the full specifications here.

For more of Cryo products visit here.

Our Opinion

Pros

• Unique small gadgets such as fan speed controller.
• Huge processing speed with 8 cores each 2.67GHz.
• New Core i7 processor technology.
• Built-in SAS RAID for high speeds.

Cons

• Less RAM than other cheaper models.
• GeForce GTX260 Graphics card could be much higher since it is the ultimate gaming pc
• £1595 bit too much for something a normal consumer will use for perhaps less than 4 hours daily.

Verdict

Overall, I feel this is a great gaming PC but it does have a large price tag which, during these difficult economic times, will put off consumers. Nevertheless, other consumers such as gamers will most probably be enticed into this deal since the specs are mouthwatering. However, Cryo could have included further components for example a Blu-ray drive would have gone nicely, since we are paying a huge sum. Thus, the Cryo Tetrad is definitely aimed at the top end of the market and to those who don’t fear spending £1000′s on one single PC.

If the government succeed, there will be a whole lot of games taken off websites that sell the games.

Many of us aren’t aware what is going on in other countries in regard to online e-commerce. However, we think you should become more involved so that you will benefit it. For example, if you see a decent buy on Ebay but it is based in Australia, and is MA15+, you cannot purchase this item as a result of what the Australian government are planning to do. From personal experience, I have found Australia sell the most up-to-date games online and so this will be a huge blow economically.

What is being planned?

Well, the Australian government are attempting to target the gaming market by fully utulizing their “internet censorship” system. The regime will block all websites selling games that are only appropriate for users who are 15 or older resulting in a huge decline in online gaming sales. Is this the right thing to do seeing as the economy is going to be hit by the recession hard?

This may not be so bad in most countries as they have 18+ gaming categories whereas in Australia MA15+ is the highest it goes! This drawback means that companies need to use more resources by lowering the violence in most of the games.

Has it already begun?

According to reports, the filtering scheme has been applied to shops selling these MA15+ games and Senator Conroy said that the Internet Service Providers (ISPS) will block all content related to games including flash, web and downloadable games.

This filter plan will effectively block all gaming websites with a tiny bit of violence which, as I said before, affect retailers who sell online, including eBay and Amazon.

What do you think about the issue? Personally I feel its a bit naive seeing as the economy is already going down and also that Australian 17 year olds are permitted to join the army, which is 10 times as violent than any gory video game.

Remember, feel free to comment. We are happy to respond to any of your views and questions.