You can pre-order it now on Amazon! But until then Ubisoft has built something to keep us all busy…

If you head over to unlocktheanimus.com you can take on the series of challenges they’ve created leading up to the game’s launch, but be warned, they’re not easy and you’ll only get 5 attempts to get it right.

It states at the end of the video that the trailer was made purely from in-game footage. I really like this, there’s too many games with incredible trailers and then the actually gameplay sucks. But this is sort of a half-truth, yes it’s all in-game footage, but they’re all cut scenes, what would’ve been cool would be to see some actual gameplay.

I remember playing the first game and enjoying it, anyone else remember ‘bullet-time’? With a team like RockStar behind the new game, I’m sure it’s going to impress.

Thing is, there’s so many games like this out now, so what must a game do to really stand out?

You can buy the box (£69.99) which comes with a controller, you plug it into your TV and Broadband and play games. OK so far, nothing ground breaking, here’s the magic… All the games are streamed over the internet. So no discs, and even better, no downloads!

When you select to play a game it streams the game to your TV screen, all the processing is done on their servers, so there’s nothing to download! That what makes the box so cheap, it’s basically just sending your controller movements and receiving the streaming video that comes back.

What’s really impressive is they’ve got some really big gaming titles signed up, Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, Dues Ex: Human Revolution and Batman Arkham Asylum (I even saw the Arkham City title on their menu for future release). You can demo any of their games for free, you can rent access to a game for 3 or 5 days, or you can buy unlimited access to a title for £35. They also have a monthly subscription on offer, it’s £6.99 and gives you unlimited access to over 100 of their older games, it also gets you a 30% discount on newer titles.

OK here’s where it gets crazy!? If you’re playing a game on your TV, you could continue the same game on your PC, Mac or your laptop. Yep that’s right, because it’s all streamed over the internet it doesn’t matter how you access it. You can use keyboard and mouse, or a controller (the wireless Xbox controller works if you get the PC wireless adapter for your computer).

This really changes everything for the world of gaming, so I’ll spread this out over a few posts – it raises so many questions… Is this the end of console gaming? What about our local video game stores? What are the technical specs? Is it as good as Xbox/PS3? Can my Broadband handle it?

So far I’m very impressed, but not entirely convinced… could this be the future of online gaming? I’m half excited and half terrified, but either way I can’t wait to see how this unfolds…

So what’s new? Well the graphics are better, although you might barely notice it. The thing is, when the first Gears game came out, it came out strong! It had sharp detailed, dark and gritty graphics, a decent story line, and lots of action. This makes it really tough for the team to produce sequels and must leave them thinkin “how do we top that?”

I’ve viewed the two games (first and third) side by side, and yeah the graphics have improved! In the first game they sneakily got around it by hiding a lot of the environment in shadows. The new game still has that dark feel, but it’s not pitch black, revealing a lot more detail in the surroundings. Where you notice it most is in the little things, the light beams shining through cracks  in a bordered up window, or the very fine detail in the characters faces.

Speaking of characters, you play as Marcus Fenix, although at various points in the game I expect you’ll take over the other characters in the team. They’ve also introduced four new playable female characters to the game: Samantha Byrne, Anya Stroud, Queen Myrrah, and Bernadette Mataki.

I’m sure this game is going to be awesome, as have the past two Gears games, but I’m not desperate to play this one. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll definitely be buying it, but I get a bit fed up of all the hype games some games receive, and this is one of those games. It’s available in 3 different editions: Standard, Limited Edition and (my favourite) the Steelbook Edition.

343 Industries are the new Microsoft team who’ve taken over the Halo series and on 15th November, exactly 10 years since the original Halo game lanuched, they’re going to re-release it, but wait it gets better…

So what will this game include? Well they’re remastered the campaign story, and not just the graphics but all the sound too! Often our fond memories of older games are too kind, and when we go back and play them we’re bitterly dissapointed. But the guys have worked really hard to bring the original game up to spec. Not just that, they’ve also added the ability to play the campaign in co-op mode over Xbox Live, which was never available on the original game. What’s also cool, is they’ve included a feature to let you switch off the re-mastered graphics. So if at any point you want to see how the original game looked, you can at the press of a button!

There’s also going to be 6 online multiplayer maps and a firefight map included! These will all be built on the new Reach engine, so I’d expect you still get your special abilities and knife kills, but will feature some of the most popular old maps.

After watching this interview with Frank O’Connor (studio director – 343 industries) I’m a little confused. He said that Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary edition wouldn’t retail at the same full price as a normal retail game, but that’s not what we’re seeing in the online stores that already have it on pre-order at full price. If the creator thinks it would retail at less, they obviously don’t value it as a complete game.

So what do you guys think? Will you be buying the anniversary edition? I’m very tempted, whilst I’ve completed it before (many years ago) I think they’ve put a lot of hard work into remastering it, there’s the addition of new ‘Reach-engine’ multiplayer maps, plus it’s a huge landmark game and the reason I bought an Xbox in the first place and what founded the friendship that lead to us launching theLostnFound. So I’m sure me and Tamak will enjoy blasting through this campaign again together for old time’s sake.

Halo 4 will be the next Halo game in the series and is not scheduled to be released until Holidays 2012 so there’s gona be a fair bit of time to fill before that one comes out.

There are different levels and maps where there is an objective to complete, to either save your villages from a Tsunmai or a volcanic erruption or create higher mountains or pathways for the raging rivers.  The people learn songs from the past in which aid them to protect their own villages from destruction from nature. You have the power to move mountains and create a safe environment for your people.

Even though there are many different natural disasters and you will fail many times before you get it right, the game is in-fact very peaceful. Being the higher “god” figure, you can only just hear the distant screams of your tribes as a Tsunami ploughs through their village. If you’re wanting a break from mainstream games, then this is it! This is a pleasantly brilliant game and chance to take some time out for some “relaxed” gaming.

The game play is great and it also looks amazing, the graphics are great. There is something very satisfying about this game, by creating a world however you want, from beautiful islands to lush landscapes, rocky mountains or monstrous and disastrous volcanoes.

It is available as a free demo in the XBOX live market place  and the full game is available for 1200 MS points.

Game:  From Dust

Company: Ubisoft

Genre: Strategy /Virtual

Available: XBOX PSN PC

Released: 26 July 2011

Official Website

If your anything like me, you have probably been moving your TV set up all around your lounge / bedroom to get enough space to use the Kinect properly.  Especially in the small houses that we have here in the UK.

Well fret no longer as the good people at NYKO ( I’m not sure if they really are good, but hey if your a company making gaming accessories you can’t be all bad) seem to have come up with an answer – a clip on wide angle lens called the ZOOM.

Firstly as a photographer I just want to point out that the name is kind of backwards, as it’s doing the opposite of Zooming, but hey that’s just the name.

Basically what it does is increase the viewing angle of the Kinect, meaning that you can stand closer to your TV.  Seems simple enough, so simple it makes me wonder why MS didn’t incorporate as part of the initial design, but hey it wouldn’t be the first time.

I’m really glad someone has done something to improve the Xbox and it’s amount of space needed problem.  My only concern however is that I know that with wide angle lens you get a lot of distorting at the edges.  I just wonder how that would effect game play. But I haven’t had one to try so wouldn’t really be able to tell you for sure.  If you are in a tiny lounge with a Kinect going to waste this might just be the answer for you, and for only $30 it’s worth a try.  Check it out on there website at http://www.nyko.com/products/product-detail/?name=Zoom

That’s when I came across the controller mod kits. Now there’s really two reasons you’d mod a controller 1) to add extra functionality such as rapid-fire or new programmable buttons, or 2) purely for cosmetics. I decided to go for the latter. The kit I bought was £20 plus you needed a standard controller to fit it onto so it wasn’t cheap. It was a replacement housing for the controller which was a matte black finish with a slightly rubbery texture, and built in LED back-lit buttons. When it arrived in a small brown box marked ‘made in China’ I was a little worried…

I opened the box to find cheap plastic components and no real instructions, I managed to find the instructions online and followed them through which was fairly straight forward, if not a little fiddly and prizing off the old triggers and replacing them with the new ones, was a little difficult. Forcing plastic is never good, waiting for it to either click in place, or snap beyond repair, and trying to do all of this with a spring loaded trigger.

But this proved the easy bit, what followed was a series of soldering, attaching the new front plate of the controller onto the existing circuit board, this would power the LEDs to back-light the buttons, before finally trying to put all the components back inside the new casing.

After a few attempts I got everything into it’s proper place, and managed to close the housing and  put the screws back in place, the controller mod was complete.

Once kitted out with some black Caps4Stix, my controller was looking pretty stealth and i was really happy with it, especially once you power it up…

So all in all, I’m pretty happy with the outcome, I hope you’ll agree – it looks pretty awesome. But could I recommend it? Unfortunately not for a couple of reasons.

For the price you pay, the components are too cheap, the plastic housing doesn’t fit together as snug as I’d like, and right from the beginning I’ve had problems with the triggers sticking. I’ve narrowed this all down to the bottom half of the controller shell not fitting properly, and sometimes when you use the triggers, whilst the trigger springs back the sensor inside gets stuck and in the game it behaves like your squeezing it rapidly. After contacting the seller, they unfortunately refused to send me out a new bottom-half to the shell. They insisted I would have to return all the components and failed to acknowledge that I’d had to solder them to my controller already!

Ok rant over, I’m sure with a bit of tweaking I’ll probably fix the triggers and end up with a very unique controller!

These photos appeared on Xbox’s Facebook page and show both sides of the new console. It’s primarily a white Xbox slim, with dark, misty Batman graphics. One side features the Joker with green blood dripping from his mouth and the other Batman with red blood on his arm. Or is it his own blood?

Who’s that behind Batman…? Needless to say this console is amazing! In fact I’m kind of hoping my 360 dies in the next couple of weeks so I’d have an excuse to go buy this piece or art. Of course there’s no point in buying a custom console and then tucking it away on a shelf under the TV, this deserves to be stood vertically for all to see.

Now if we’re being honest, Kinect has been somewhat of a dissapointment. At first the sheer concept of being able to interact with games without a controller just blew my mind, throw in voice recognition and some cool games and I’m there! But in reality, the actions offer suffer from lag or not being detected, voice recognition is hardly used and the games… well…. yeah.

One of the games that really got me excited at the launch on Kinect was Star Wars, I mean c’mon tell anbody they can game without a controller and they instantly want to wield some kind of weapon, not hit red bouncing balls. So the lightsaber coupled with the iconic Star Wars style and you should be onto a winner. On first watch I was impressed by all the actions you could preform, it looks like you can really swing a lightsaber, as well as kick, jump and use the force. Obvoiusly you can’t make your character run in any specific direction, so I imagine the game will take a preset journey through the Star Wars world, in a similar way to Time Crisis (for gamers as old as me!)

The graphics seem a bit of a let down, the world designs look great, but your character looks pixelated. In my experience Kinect is not 100% smooth and resposive either, my avatar normally ends up with legs and arms pointing in bone-breaking angles, leaving me to repeat actions waiting for the game to respond. My other real problem with Kinect is the amount of space you need to play, maybe it’s different in the US but here in the UK most of us live in small houses or apartments, and Kinect simply doesn’t pick you up, we don’t have 10-12ft square free space in the center of the room, with a window casting light as exactly the right angles, (haha, hopefully you can feel my pain). Many people have simply accepted that they cannot get Kinect as it just wont work in their home, which is a huge shame and could’ve been easily resolved using a wider-angle lense.

Despite there being two kids in the video, I’n pretty sure this is going to be single player, as you never actually see them both playing together at the same time. But it’s a bit sneaky the way they’ve filmed this, as the way the second kid steps up it looks like he’s joining in on the game. Hmmm

So overall, I’m not holding out too much hope and have personally retired my Kinect apart from the occasional fitness game, but I’d love to be proven wrong. What do you think? Have you bought Kinect and how has in worked for you?