Just when we were all thinking that gaming was dead on the Mac (aside from some fantastic indie stuff, and World of Warcraft), Valve have announced that they’re going to be heaving Steam over to the Mac. And not just the Steam platform, but future releases from Valve will work on both PC and Mac. Heck, they’re even touting the ability to play a game on the PC then finishing it off on the Mac using their Steam Cloud voodoo.
There’s more detail over at our sister site Gametactics, but I’m quite frankly happy with the slight warm glow of playing Portal on my Mac. I just hope this is a triumph and Valve make a note of this future huge success… Can’t I make Portal jokes!? C’mon!
[Gametactics]
KontrolFreek has announced they have sponsored professional gamers Kelly Kelley, Jamal Nickens and Mark “Applesauce” Smith, all from the World Cyber Games (WCG).
Why are they sponsored? Because KontrolFreek want to hawk these adapters called FPS Freek and SpeedFreek that extends your joypad analog sticks to where it suddenly becomes far easier to aim and control, and since control means the difference between winning and losing, they wanted people who knew that difference to speak about them.
Take the wise words of Applesauce… Mark Smith… for example: adapters adaptors “When you’re playing to win, it’s important to be comfortable while taking advantage of products that are available on the market, and competing in gaming tournaments is about winning. The FPS Freek add-on’s for my controllers gives me more precision. Simply put, I wouldn’t play without it.”
I do have to wonder how much these plastic caps actually improve your accuracy. At least it beats buying a different controller.
Full PR after the jump.
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For the ultimate geek, we came across this Darth Vader Nintendo Wii Sensor Bar Holder. This stylish Darth Vader sensor bar holder is made out of high quality resin and costs a pretty penny at $49.99 USD and will be released this coming November. Truly this is for someone who loves Stars Wars so much that they must have Darth Vader holding their precious Wii sensor bar like a light saber.
Here’s all the specs of it: * Sculpture-quality Darth Vader character is cast in high-density resin * Vader’s specially crafted Lightsaber safely supports the Wii Sensor Bar while maintaining full range * Wii Sensor Bar not included * Official Star Wars item licensed by Nintendo and LucasFilm Ltd.
Toshiba UK has decided to announce a new laptop, the oddly named Qosmio X500 Gaming Laptop.
Consisting of a rewritable Blu-ray drive, 18.4″ screen, processing via Intel’s Quad Core offerings and Nvidia, it’s billed as a brilliant laptop for those that need to play something on the move. And quite frankly it looks damn good. The red trim on black? Gorgeous…
The main specs:
Toshiba say it’ll be out by late October. Full press release after the jump…
[Via Toshiba UK]
It brings a slight tear to my eye when I say this, but it’s been 10 years since the Sega Dreamcast was unleashed onto the shores of North America.
On the awesome date of the 9th of September, 1999 (9/9/99), the joyous white cuboid of happiness descended onto US stores, causing a stampede at the tills (500,000 consoles sold in just a fortnight, a record at the time) and filled the lives of people with great looking games and the promise of internet gaming. Sadly, at the start of 2001, Sega had deemed it to be a failure, with sales being dwarfed by the Microsoft Xbox, Sony PlayStation2 and the Nintendo 64, and shortly afterwards stopped production.
WIth that in mind, let’s look at some of the games that were unleashed shortly after the start of the console’s life to try and celebrate what could have been great…
Power Stone -- Fighting game on the 3D plane (as opposed to 3D rendering but still directly facing the opponent), with scenery weaponry and the ability to play with 4 people simultaneously in the sequel.
Soul Calibur -- “Tekken with Swords” as my family put it. Arena fighting in 3D, using weap…ons…
Sonic Adventure -- Sonic The Hedgehog, in 3D, marketed in Japan with quite frankly weird adverts (although this is apparently normal)
Thank you Sega. It was good while it lasted…
(Yes, I know that the DC was released in Japan the previous year and in the rest of the world after this date, but this is the one that everyone remembers it by)
Sony have now announced something that has been speculated for some time now: A Slimmer PlayStation 3. They have reduced weight, volume and power by a third and also rebranded the name so it’s no longer completely typed in upper case…
The US, Europe, Asia and PAL countries will get this 120GB version on September 1st, whereas Japan will get it on the 3rd. It’ll go for $299, 299 Euro or 29,980 Yen, depending on where you are in the world. The current 80GB PS3 will be dropped to that price now, with the 160GB version now going for $399
The system software will be 3.00 on release of the slimmer version (existing PS3 owners can upgrade from Sept 1st as well via their console). Oddly the “Install Other OS” feature will be removed, which will upset… barely anyone in fact. As for the PlayStation 3 name change, I’m not kidding. They’re really changing PLAYSTATION 3 to PlayStation 3 to unify the branding across the console range.
After the jump: The Press Release in full and a collection of images showing that it now looks less like a “low fat grilling machine”…
[via Gametactics]
Sony have now redesigned the PSP (Now called the PSP go) to make it hip and trendy again (at least, to compete against a legion of phones that play games, and of course the new Ninendo DSi), with a large sliding screen.
Officially unveilled at E3, the traditionally large screen slides up to reveal the controls stowed underneath. This is somewhat cool. In Sony’s wisdom, they’ve also removed the UMD slot, meaning that you can only play games you have stored on it’s 16 Gig drive. It also has bluetooth and wifi as expected and a few other small things, but the pricetag is now a whopping $249. Then again, it’s a small price for the coolness of a sliding screen…
The official press release is after the jump…
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