the 3D future

The subscription television service has now given an official date of the 1st of October for its first ever 3D channels and will start off its 3D line-up with full coverage of the Ryder Cup from Celtic Manor.

Customers who already have a Sky+HD  box and the HD service will get the 3D channel for free and some major Hollywood studios have also upped the service by offering a handful of 3D blockbusters including Monsters vs. Aliens and Alice In Wonderland, with both premiering in 3D before Christmas and full coverage of the Premier League football also available from launch.

So if you have a spare few thousand pounds, you can get hold of a 3D TV and enjoy all the premierships goals in glorious HD in the comfort of your own home, if you haven’t just pop on down to one of the 1500 pubs that will be offering 3D.

The motion controller system is set to revolutionise the Xbox 360 as a gaming and media device, and is set to open the console up to a whole new market of gamers including casual and family gaming. Kinect will also this with an updated media setup will allow users to navigate and control the console without using any remote devices or even needing to stand up.

Both Play.com and HMV’s online stores have the Kinect standalone set (which include Kinect Adventures a which is basically Wii Sports for the 360) for sale at £129.99 and both do a bundle package with the new Xbox 360 4GB console + Kinect + Kinect Adventures for a slim line price of £249.99.

So alone the Kinect accessory is pretty expensive but for users who need a new console (or just crave the newest version) can get the bundle deal quite cheap.

Microsoft are still yet to confirm the release date as the 19^th of November so this could all change but for the meantime you can pre order your Kinect from HMV or Play now.

• MOAR: Bungie Reach teasers and console.
• FREE: a co-op game from the makers of Left4Dead.
• FUN: Modding Fallout 3 to make our minigun fire rockets.
• PLZ: Better weather, the rain is making me bored of gaming.

Moar free fun plz? No, it’s not a hidden message, since the item under FREE has been keeping us so busy that we really haven’t had time to bother using a more clever concealment technique… but more on that later.

Anyway, summer is still going strong for American audiences, with a hundred-degree heat wave ravaging the land of hope and glory… while over here it’s still raining. I would never have guessed. Anyway, enough climate-bitching, let the show begin.

Reach Remote

New Xbox +Reach = FTW!

The new Xbox is a large shiny black box, sitting in a warehouse somewhere, waiting patiently for a new owner to cover its smooth and shiny surface with horrible fingerprint marks.

But there is another way…

What if you could own an Xbox that could both show your allegiance to Bungie’s Halo franchise, and not have to worry about pesky fingerprint marks on yo’ Xbox? Well now there’s a way, as the new Xbox 360 redesign is also available in a smooth silver-white colour scheme, complete with a tantalizing Halo Reach decal finish, in the style of the green Halo 3 360 which came out a few years back and also lives on my shelf.

Halo Reach exclusive new Xbox 360 console

The look also comes with the neato decal’d Reach controllers and wireless headset too, which completes the kit. When the Halo 3 console came out, some retailers offered the limited edition of the game as a freebie, such as Gamestation in the UK, probably because of the limited edition’s bigger price tag.

As for pricing on the Reach version, in the US it’s been announced at $399, which exchanges to around £260, which was the price of the Halo 3 model back when it was released.

In other Reachy news, the new forge world editor looks great, and appears to be a highly functional upgraded version of the previous forge, offering players even more editing opportunities for their custom levels.

Valve = Free

FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEDOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

This title is either badass or annoying, but in no way as badass as the new game released by Valve, creators of Left4Dead, Alien Swarm.

Generic title aside, Alien Swarm encompasses everything that’s good about a Valve co-op shooter. The characters are amusing, the weapons whacky at best, the setting imaginative and the action addictive.

The game’s first campaign released follows three Interstellar Armed Forces Space Marines (I think Games Workshop’s going to sue somebody… and not just Blizzard.) on their task to clean up an icebound colony on a far-off planet. The subjects of the cleanup are the insidious Swarm, alien monsters who consume and destroy planets in their wake.

The game’s third-person top down view makes the environment really interesting to play in, but even more interesting once said Swarm arrive. The player controls their guns and kit with the mouse and their movement and some special items with the keyboard. Also, the game’s co-operative style allows up to four players to join a game at a time, and competent players can work together at the beginning of the game to co-ordinate their load out and classes to encourage coherency.

A level of Alien Swarm plays fairly straightforwardly. Players start at one end of the map, and have to reach the other end after completing certain objectives. On the way, as well as being harassed by aliens, the team may have to hack locked doors, extinguish fires blocking their path, or even wipe the deck clean of swarm breeding grounds.

With a four player setup, it’s quite easy for players to wander their separate ways, but this is not advised, as one of the most memorable, but annoying, enemies in the game, the Parasite (AKA facehugger, headhumper or sometimes just bastard.), preys on the lone player, infecting and eventually killing them if medical attention is not found quickly enough.

Unfortunately, it’s quite difficult to heal more than one infected squad member, as the parasites relentlessly infect and wipe out all four squad mates, and what’s more, they multiply every time they take a life. Just one will jump you, but usually about three or four will leave your ravaged corpse. In many situations, whole teams will get rushed and destroyed by these pests.

But never fear. There are a few ways of tackling the Parasites easily without (many) people getting hurt.

• Be aware: Make notes of popular breeding grounds in a level, use caution on approach.
• Use superior range: When you arrive close to a breeding ground, stay as far away as possible while moving the mouse to the far edge of the screen to increase view distance, then pick off any pests.
• Leave medics behind: The medic should hang back while players deal with the Parasites. Immediately on infection, players should withdraw from the combat and link up with the medic for healing. The Medic’s healing gun is the best way of handling Parasites.
• Spam the flamethrower/shotgun: Upon entering a Parasite nest, send some fire ahead of you to clear out any sneaky bugs.
• Work for the greater good: If the medic is down and you are infected with no way of escaping the infection, run away from your teammates and die alone in order to keep the fresh Parasites out of infection range but safely in gun range.
• Always use protection: Using the V45 Electric Charged Armour upgrade, players can be shielded by arcing lightning bolts. Activating this in a parasite nest literally makes you an effective weapon against them, as the pests will jump straight into your shocking shield to their deaths. The Tesla Cannon can also be shot at infected players to reduce the infection rate by fully half.

So apart from a genuinely frustrating enemy and some moderate lag issues (Although these can be smoothed over by reducing the anti-aliasing, shader, and texture filter levels.), Alien Swarm is a great game, and what’s more Valve released it totally free, so what could go wrong? Alien Swarm is available on Steam now, for literally nothing.

Video Break:

Best Halo Machinima ever, Season 4 is coming back with the original writer, producer and director due to bad reception of the spin-off, Arby ‘n’ The Chief in LA.

Watch from the beginning, and take it SO SUPER SERIOUSLY.

May your RoflCopter fly for many to come, Mastur Cheef. Soi soi soi. Lolololololoolololol.

http://www.youtube.com/show?p=H4Z8Vj7XZOc&s=1 (Episode guide.)

Kill or Save?

I’m an Xbox Live user. I can decide who lives and who dies!

Gears of War is a franchise for track records. Huge steroidal COGS, crazy-ass underground monsters, and of course, a nice guy named Carmine dying in a horrible fashion.

The original Carmine, Anthony, was sniped by a locust in what was probably the first real level of the game. Think Star Trek’s redshirts. A running gag was that he would’ve been able to avoid being shot if he hadn’t been wearing his helmet, as it muffled the sound of the rifle firing. This is referenced many times by banter between Dom and his younger brother Benjamin Carmine, who believes that his brother died a heroic death, before dying a similarily awful one himself.

The next instalment of the franchise, Gears of War 3, is due next year, and of course we’re due for some more Carmine, the new one is named Cray. But there’s a problem. Epic doesn’t know whether to kill off this recent addition to a cursed slot in the cast, or leave him to fight another day, since this Carmine is actually kind of a badass in comparison to the others, one of the few screenshots of him shows that he can easily Punch a locust drone to death in a single blow TO THE FACE. Marcus and Dom would approve.

So, Epic has decided to let you handle it, using your consumer powers. You can purchase a SAVE CARMINE or a CARMINE MUST DIE t-shirt for your avatar from the avatar marketplace, with the profits going to a gaming charity called Child’s Play, which donates toys, games and consoles to children’s hospitals.

The fate of Carmine will be decided by the number of shirts sold, and the game will feature the outcome when it is released. Let’s hope the community shows mercy, I’d like to see this Carmine stay around for a while, especially in the Gears 3 time of turmoil.

It hasn’t been too long since 3DTVs were released, but Panasonic are developing 3D technology at a rate of knots. They’ve unveiled two new Full HD Plasma TVs over in Japan which are not only 3D, but have a built in 3D Blu-ray drive on the side as well as an internal Hard Drive for recording directly from the Hi-Def tuner.

Panasonic have somehow managed to cram a 500GB Hard Disc Drive into the new models, the 42 inch TH-P42RT2B and the 46 inch TH-P46RT2B. The inbuilt 3D Blu-ray drive will not only feed full HD Blu-ray picture and audio to your TV, but it also has the ability to archive your recorded media from the HDD onto recordable Blu-ray discs.

If that isn’t enough mind-blowing technology crammed into one TV, Panasonic have also included Internet Services such as Skype and Youtube. The plasma screens have a claimed contrast ratio of 5,000,000:1 and are Panasonic’s awesome full black PDP panels, meaning you’re going to be getting one of the best pictures around.

Now, you’re thinking this is pretty incredible right? Well unfortunately incredible comes at a price, 440,000 Yen for the 46 Inch model and 390,000 Yen for the 42 Inch option to be precise. That’s around £3310 and £2930 respectively if these sets were priced up for sale here in the UK.

The unfortunate news is that these sets are only set for sale in Japan for now, and there hasn’t been any indication they’ll be making their way to European shores. We’re keeping our fingers crossed that Panasonic decide to give us the chance to get our hands on these beauties.

Asus are currently testing prototypes of the unit with the current Froyo version of Google Android, but we’re hoping they will be releasing the tablet with 3.0 onboard. There’s currently no word on why Asus have dumped Windows Embedded Compact 7, perhaps the current success and popularity of the Android operating system has swung the decision in Google’s favour, who knows.

We at the Gadget Helpline are excited to get our hands on this product even more so now that it’s going to be running Android, the OS is a firm favourite within the team. Which would you prefer, Windows Embedded Compact 7 or an Android OS? Let us know by leaving a reply.

The leaked version of the New Xbox 360 reportedly comes with a meagre 4Gb of storage, as opposed to 250GB harddrive that is out on the released version new Xbox 360 and appears to be even smaller than the latest incarnation, but with the ability to upgrade the storage to a further 16GB via a flashdrive.

click to expand

The Amazon.de site also lists the “Arcade” console as being  €149 (£125 roughly) and is stated as being part of a bundle so you can expect a few little extras like some family games to appeal to Microsofts growing Family Orientation.

The shipping date is down for the 20 August, which coincides with the Gamescom 2010 event in Cologne, so we can expect a update then with a immediate release of the console following the announcement.

3D in 2013?

French game publisher Ubisoft, has gone on the record to say that they think that 3DTV”s will be in most homes by 2013, and they point to what happened with the sudden uptake of HDTV’s two years ago.

Speaking to Eurogamer, Head of Marketing, Murray Pannell said: “like HDTV, I wouldn’t rule out the fact that this will be installed in everyone’s living room in three years’ time”.

Pannell added: ”For the naysayers, if you like, I would say, ‘Just watch this space’, because when you have global corporations like Sony pushing 3D as hard as they possibly can, Sky, equally, showcasing 3D content on TV, I believe it will become a much more important part of consumer electronics than a lot of people believe.

So there you go, 3D looks like it’s here to stay, but seeing as we have yet to get any content (apart from a couple of sample games) we have yet to see any 3D Blu-rays hit the market. We at the Gadget Helpline are thinking its going to take a little while longer and think it’s going to at least 5 years before 3D becomes the norm or at least a household favourite!

Via Eurogamer

Now Available on Virgin Media

Yesterday we reported on the news that terrestrial TV company, Channel 5 (or Just Five as they now are called), had pulled out from taking part in the upcoming Project Canvas which is aimed at delivering a one stop place for all online and on demand TV services, Five reportedly pulled out due to the cost of the partnership.

Today Five have announced that evene though money is a bit tight, they will; be launching a Five HD channel available on Virgin Media and Sky.

Five have been looking to get a HD version of its service for some time but after failing to get a proposal for a HD partner together for Freeview HD, Ofcom passed the deal over to the BBC and Five were not included in the launch of the Freeview HD service 2 months ago.

Not long after, Five dropped out of Freeview HD the RTL owned company announced that it will in fact be providing a HD channel but was originally exclusive to Sky customers, but as of today both Sky and Virgin media users will be able to enjoy CSI, Live from Studio Five and lots more in HD.

Currently Sky subscribers will need to pay an additional £10 a month (plus have a Sky HD box) to get HD channels whilst Virgin Media customers with a V+ HD box will get the channels for free. – Sky are currently offering 42 HD channels (including Movies and Sports) whilst Virgin are only offering 13 HD channels (but with Sky Sports HD and Movies HD incoming). It’s still a give or take on which service is better.

Five HD is available now to Sky and Virgin Media HD customers.

Senior director of Sony Europe, Mick Hocking, revealed that the update will come “in the Fall” but reports are suggesting that the update will be available specifically in September, plus, Sony have also revealed that this will not be the last update for 3D functionality as the console will benefit from a continuous update of the 3D technology including a 3D photo compatibility (for .mpo 3D image files) update coming soon.

3D Blu-Ray update coming September?

Recently Sony announced update to 2 of its Cybershot cameras to enable them to capture 3d images so an update to Sony’s most mass market device will assist in the sales of the cameras.

Mick Hocking also stated that whilst 3D Blu-ray movies and pictures are currently on the horizon for Playstation owners, 3D Gaming is very much at the forefront of the console’s future plans, with games like Killzone 3, Motorstorm Apocalypse and Gran Turismo 5 already lined up to have 3D compatibility.

It looks like September is the time to start investing in a 3D TV and some glasses!

3D Gaming in your living room

YouTube officials announced the latest update to its internet changing website last week at the Vid-Con three-day conference, which brings together the brightest lights in the billion-views-a-day community known as the online video industry.

The move means that YouTube videos can now be displayed from 360p and all the way up to 4096p resolution sizes and the enhancement is available right now!

"Original" resolution for up to 4k

YouTube’s official Blog states that the 4096×3072 pixel resolution is the equivalent of a 25foot screen or “IMAX movies are projected through two 2K resolution projectors” so a picture similar to an IMAX screening!

Now, whilst the idea of a 4K video is very cool the actual logistics of watching and more specifically recording are very limited as very few people posses the ability to capture an image in 4K resolution (James Cameron can probably get excited about this!) but even fewer people have the means to playback the full res vids. either, so this begs the question as to why YouTube have done this?

Well, earlier last week, the video sharing site launched a new service aimed squarely at the living room called YouTube Leanback. Leanback is a full screen, HD service, that is optimised for big screen TV viewing. Unlike the original YouTube site, you won’t see text or comments – it’s more like a YouTube TV channel.

So BIG things are ahead for YouTube, and if you want to check out a 4K video click the vid. below and select the Resolution size a “Original”, but be warned the playback will need a very, very good broadband connection and high specc’d PC or you will experience a juddery video!