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NEWS: Daily Tech Deal: PC games bundle half price at Steam

Ben Crompton — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 13:00:00 +0000

Money saving deals, offers and innovations

We're spreading the word of what looks to be a pretty decent PC games-bundle offer today - and one that is likely to appeal, in particular, to those of you who enjoy war as the driving theme.

Steam is offering 18 different titles to download - since all purchases are delivered digitally - all bundled together for a very reasonable ?26.49. With an individual price of ?209.82 and a usual package price of ?52.99 this "Early Holiday Sale" seems pretty decent.

Titles include Company of Heroes, Red Faction Guerrilla and various releases from the Warhammer 40,000 series.

The offer is for today only and there is a link here which will take you through to the deal - enabling you to have a good look at all the titles on offer and join up if you're not already a member.?

Tags: Gaming PC games Steam Red Faction Guerrilla Daily Tech Deal

Daily Tech Deal: PC games bundle half price at Steam originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Thu, 26 Nov 2009 13:00:00 +0000

NEWS: 10 perfect Christmas presents for...PC gamers

Dan Sung — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:09:41 +0000

Desktop entertainment that they won't already have

Welcome to day 3 of the Pocket-lint Christmas gift guide bonanza. So we've got photographers covered and laptop addicts, but today is the turn of the gift guide for the PC gamer in your life. If you can coax these people down and away from COD or their meaty World of Warcraft habit, then you might want to give them one of our suggestions for the perfect gifts for PC gamers. Do go easy on them though. They probably won't actually realise it's Christmas Day.

Novint Falcon & Pistol Grip

How do you make Left 4 Dead even better than it already is? The answer: play it with the Novint Falcon pistol grip mouse controller complete with authentic recoil action. There's a school of purists that don't believe these items can compete with a trusty mouse but then there's a whole load of added fun they're missing out on. The tricky part is that these things are really quite difficult to get hold of. You can get the standard Novint Falcon shipped over from the States for $190 but the $20 pistol grips are very often out of stock. Keep your eyes on eBay and one might just come up.

Logitech G9X/Razor Naga mouse

Failing the Falcon, or if indeed your gamer is not a first person shooter fan, then a high quality mouse can also be worth its weight in gold. The Logitech G9X is a solid classic but, if you really want to impress, buy the 80 euro Razor Naga which has been specially designed for MMORPGs. It's got a whopping 17 buttons - left and right click, scroll wheel, the regular forward and back buttons on the sides, and also a pad consisting of another twelve buttons on the left hand side.

Naga, in case you're wondering, is Sanskrit for "snake", and is also the name of a prominent group of baddies in World of Warcraft. Best of all, it comes with an add-on for WoW that shows a grid and allows you to dynamically pick which spells correspond to the side buttons.

Logitech G110 Keyboard

If they've already got the perfect mouse covered, then the next port of call is the keyboard. Again, the Logitech is a good way to go with the Logitech G110 gaming keyboard. It has media controls, illuminated keys and 12 macro buttons but it adds a number of features of its own, too.

There's an integrated USB audio device in the unit, which will allow you to use a headset that has 3.5mm jacks as a USB audio device, providing clearer sound. Many gamers find that the plugs in their cases will "buzz" due to electrical interference, but this should solve that issue. There's also an extra USB port on the rear of the keyboard, and a "gaming mode" toggle switch that will disable the windows and menu keys so that you don't accidentally press them while mid-match. Very useful. You can pick one up for ?70 and make any gamer's day.

Logitech G13 Advanced Gamepad

Without trying to sound too Logitech sponsored all of a sudden, the US peripherals expert does offer a combi solution in the shape of the Logitech G13 gamepad. It's got three game modes, 25 programmable keys and a programmable analogue stick with 87 ways for you to control your game. You can even set up custom button-profiles and create macros without having to pause the game. There's also a 160 x 43 pixel GamePanel LCD for live game stats and system info, and backlit keys, with hundreds of colours to choose from. Finally, they've also crammed in some onboard memory, which enables you to program up to five ready-to-play profiles, and pre-configured settings for all the PC gaming faves. Days of over-complicated fun for just ?51.

Acer V193WBb Monitor

Monitors are one of the major keys to the whole experience and as much as we might recommend the likes of the stunning LG W2353, it is rather on the expensive side at ?170. Instead, at around the ?90 mark you can still get something very decent indeed like the Acer V193WBb 19-inch TFT-LCD display. It's got a 5ms response time to cut down on ghosting, a 1440 x 900 resolution and a nice vibrant contrast of 10,000:1. If that's going to break the budget still, you can get smaller version for more like ?60, just remember to check resolution, contrast and response times and the rest should follow.

Creative Inspire T6160 speakers

Soundwise, there's two options for excellence and this is one of them. The Creative Inspire T6160 speaker system is particularly aimed at gamers and movie fans, and offers vivid 5.1 cinematic surround sound. Creative has a very good name of late in the PC speaker department and, best of all, for such an impressive audio array, you only have to fork out ?55. Plenty of bang for your buck.

Sennheiser PC151 headset

Of course, if you happen to live with said PC gamer, you can actually spend around the same amount of money for your own personal peace and quiet. Sennheiser provides two, high quality level, on-ear, closed-cup headphones designed for gamers. Both sets are wired, for better and more reliable sound quality, and come with built-in booms for easy team talk. The PC151 you can pick up for as little as ?26 while the PC161, although definitely better, probably don't quite represent the same level of value at ?67. It all depends how much you love your gamer.

4GB DDR3 RAM

More memory. You can never have enough of the stuff. The good thing here is that you're already buying something that you know the other person has got and they'll still welcome it with open arms. The tricky part is getting the right stuff. If you buy any old RAM module for them, it simply isn't going to work. So, sneak into your friend/loved one's place in the dead of night and note down the make and model of their PC. Then head over to sites like this one and it'll tell you exactly what you need to go and get. DDR3 is the preferable choice at the moment.

Corsair H50-1 CPU Watercooler

Overheating is a serious issue for gamers, especially if they've started over stuffing their machines full of memory that they just got for Christmas. One excellent solution that's recently got a lot cheaper to get hold of is watercooler systems to keep your CPU temperature down. The added bonus is that they're a darn site quieter than the less efficient air cool fan systems too. Probably the best budget option is the Corsair H50-1 which delivers great performance at just under ?70.

Games!

Obvious one really but there have been so many good releases recently that there's a very good chance that your gamer isn't going to have them all. Ones we recommend include Modern Warfare 2, Left 4 Dead 2, Borderlands, Batman Arkham Asylum, Dragon Age: Origins or even a few months subscription for WoW. While we're on the subject. A year's worth of a good gaming magazine might be nice as well.

Or...

...of course, if you feel really flush and actually want to buy someone a computer - lucky old them - then take a look our Top Products section which will help guide you through to a suitable model and offer you only the best of the ones Pocket-lint's reviewed. And, as always, if you have any red hot tips for gift ideas of your own, then do let us know in the comments below. Good luck.

10 perfect Christmas presents for...PC gamers originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:09:41 +0000

NEWS: Best Video Games 2009 nominations

Stuart Miles — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 15:22:07 +0000

And the nominees are...

Here are the nominations for Best Video Game in The Vodafone Pocket-lint Gadget Awards 2009.

The following products were chosen because we feel they represent the best video games on sale in the last 12 months that are available in the UK.

The nominations are:

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

Guitar Hero 5

Battlefield 1943

Batman: Arkham Asylum

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

Now in its 6th year, the Pocket-lint Gadget Awards, thought to be the longest running in the UK, pick the best gadgets and gizmos from the last year released in the UK

Pocket-lint's vigorous vetting process means that all the gadgets up for nomination have to have been seen by a member of the Pocket-lint team (so far over 600) and have to have been available in the UK between December 2008 and December 2009.

The awards, voted by a panel of leading gadget journalists from around the world, including the staff from the Pocket-lint team, will decide the real must-have gadgets of the year, rather than those simply deemed cool or anticipated, being the definitive guide for consumers looking to buy gadgets.

Winners will be announced at an Awards evening in London on Monday 7 December.

If you would like to order tickets to the event please visit our awards event page.

Public voting will start on Wednesday 18 November.

Related links:

Link - Vodafone Pocket-lint Gadget Awards 2009

Tags: Gaming Xbox 360 PS3 Nintendo Wii PC games Sony Activision Warner Bros EA Pocket-lint Awards Pocket-lint Gadget Awards 2009

Best Video Games 2009 nominations originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Mon, 16 Nov 2009 15:22:07 +0000

NEWS: Vodafone Pocket-lint Gadget Awards 2009 - gaming hardware

Dan Sung — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 11:30:00 +0000

What gets your vote?

2009 has been something of a glass ceiling for gamers. Yes, the software has continued to come and in more inventive ways than ever, but it's been pretty much the same kinds of consoles available on the shelves. At the same time, at E3 this summer, we saw some of the most ground-breaking and exciting projects for years with motion sensitivity and augmented reality the stars of the show.

Unfortunately, there are no prizes in the Vodafone Pocket-lint Gadget Awards 2009 Best Gaming Hardware category for anything still caught up in the ether. The fact is what we need is feedback from people and that's exactly what we hope you give us in the comments below. Which do you think are the worthy winners?

The Machines

With the major boxes and handhelds still in their place, 2009 was very much a year of upgrades. The bloated PS3 went slim, the Nintendo DS got itself an "i" and the PSP, controversially, ditched its UMD slot favouring digital downloads with the PSP Go. With rumours already of a PSP-4000, you wonder whether that's a move that Sony regrets. Even the new gaming conundrum that is the iPod touch/iPhone only got a minor perk in power and performance with the new iPhone 3.0 software, and 3rd generation and 3GS releases. But, with apps getting all the more sophisticated, it's no longer a platform we can ignore.

Perhaps more interesting on the hardware side was the advance in PC gaming that's once again on the rise owing to a clutch of hugely popular and painfully addictive titles. Asus came out with two turbocharged super-PCs with the W90 and G60 - both featuring over 1GB of memory on the graphics units alone as well as all the usual trimmings. 2009 was also the year that Dell decided to hand Alienware the complete set of keys to its gaming line and brought out both 17 and 15-inch laptops in the familiar sci-fi-look colour schemes, complete with Alien language and more chip ports than you could shake a stick at. Even budget specialist Medion took the time to get involved with the launch of the Erazer. Naturally, it's a lot cheaper than the others, despite impressive specs, but the catch is that she ain't much of a looker.

Game controllers

With the machine manufacturers taking a breather - relatively speaking - it's given the peripheral gang an excellent chance to both catch up and really push themselves to get inventive. Naturally, those unleashing the limitless potential of the Wii have been having a lot of fun. To add to the already brimming closet of unused plastic you can now bag yourself a Wii Bowling Ball, a slightly disturbing baby doll controller for Baby and Me, a series of machine guns - as well as one that transforms into a sawn-off - and some dumbells. Mercifully, there have been some serious technological developments with the Wii Motion Plus improvement to the original WiiMote, as well as the addition of the Jog for Wii controller for fitness fans everywhere.

Probably the most interesting developments in the field have been in the controllers for the software explosion that is still the Rock Band and Guitar Hero games. You no longer have to put up with having Fisher Price-looking toys in your arms when striking out on a solo. Logitech brought out some enviable wireless instruments plus, of course, Harmonix splashed out on making guitars and even a drum kit that ape those of the Fab Four for the release of The Beatles Rock Band. Just a shame we're still waiting on the availability of the Krator Orpheous WG-07. Beyond that, Activision broke the mould with an entirely new device for DJ Hero, however there are very few opinions on just how well that's worked out as yet.

Of course, for Logitech, there's nothing peripheral about peripherals and it wasn't just music games where the company spent some money. Naturally, there's a load of mice and keyboards with their logo stamped on, but the Logitech G27 Racing Wheel and pedals complete with VR3 racer was quite clearly a drool-fest for petrol-head gamers and the G940 Flight Simulator was equally well-received by the specialists.

Last of all was the highly entertaining Novint Falcon gun controller for the PC, riding on the back of the success of games like Left 4 Dead. Anything with a realistic sense of recoil is always guaranteed to get a smile out of gamers.

Keyboards and Mice

Of course, if it's all about PC gaming for you, then there's no more important tools than your keyboard and mouse and, as ever, 2009 has seen advances here too. Whether or not, they help you get more kills is another thing altogether but at least it might make it a little easier to keep up with the pack. Logtiech has been as busy as ever with the highly inventive G19 keypad as well as the full G110 board and the G500 mouse and headset too. Razor has honed in with the RazorNaga MMO mouse with more buttons and shortcuts than ever right where you need them - all very well if you can remember what they're for - and Sidewinder has stuck with wireless and produced the X8 mouse which the company considers to be the fastest in the world.

Audio

Audio is rarely top of most people's lists for gaming, but add the right piece of kit and it can add a profound finish to your experience. If you need to do things on the quiet Verbatim, Sennheiser and Creative have each come up with excellent value solutions at a respective price increase. Whether you're after a heavy sub, some in-ear isolation or on-ear noise cancelling, they represent something for everyone.

Of course, if you're happy to blast the premises, Creative and Logitech have sculpted and tuned several high quality and good looking options for serious desktop power and Altec Lansing have gone and invented something highly unique for the home in the shape of a stage-monitor type speaker for guitar console games. You can even put your foot on it like you're really there having underwear thrown at you. Hello Cleveland!

Displays

Last of all come the screens on which you get to enjoy your interactive entertainment, and 3D has been the new projector in 2009. Yes, the likes of Epson, Optoma and LG are still supplying some wonderful hardware to make your Street Fights 60 inches tall, but ViewSonic, Nvidia and Vuzix are working on the idea of your avatars actually leaping out and punching you in the face. Admittedly, this works with varying degrees of success, depending upon whether you're going for a goggles or traditional monitor solution but it's certainly a serious edge that can add to the fun.

What do you think?

But these are just some of the fantastic choices our readers have had in 2009. What would you like to see held aloft as the winner of Pocket-lint Best Gaming Hardware 2009? What have we missed out? Which are your unsung heroes and of those we've already mentioned, which would get your vote? Let us know in the comments below and you can help our panel decide which make the shortlist of nominees to be announced here on Pocket-lint on 16 November. We'll have all out coverage of the Vodafone Pocket-lint awards 2009 right here. Don't miss a minute of it.

Vodafone Pocket-lint Gadget Awards 2009 - gaming hardware originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Mon, 09 Nov 2009 11:30:00 +0000

NEWS: Why are game-inspired films so terrible?

Dan Sung — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:38:52 +0000

COMMENT: Will the torture never end?

The Prince of Persia film trailer has just hit the intertubes and with it our hearts both flutter and sink at the same time as we realise that it's going to be terrible. It may sound premature but anyone who knows anything about either games, films or ideally both, will know that out of countless console to silver screen conversions there has been a sum total of no good ones whatsoever. Yes, some have had brushes with the acceptable - Tomb Raider and Silent Hill at a push - but the fact remains that history just doesn't lie. Not here.

So, why are they so bad? What's the deal? First and foremost game plots just aren't up to it. At the best we get some lengthy cut scenes between gruff-talking men in over-sized armour between levels of dealing death to any creature that gets in the way of Player 1 and the next room/access key/elevator/bigger weapon/mushroom. They may contain over 200 hundred hours of gameplay but you could probably condense the storyline into around 20 minutes.

Even if these plots do have any staying power, then they're rarely as sophisticated as what hundreds of years experience of stage and screen writing can produce, and the results are laughable. We laugh, usually around an hour in, well after our hearts have been broken in two because our favourite title is being ridiculed in front of the world. The trouble is that video games aren't designed to be stories. They're games. They're about skill and puzzles rather than a meaningful narrative. There are narratives, more and more, and they're better than ever these days, but they're still tertiary to the structure of the game beneath both playability and graphical appeal.

Then there's characters who are largely two-dimensional. We don't really want to know about Ryu's anxiety when taking on Zangief and fortunately Capcom didn't bore us to death in case we did. Even more involved RPG or adventure pieces only ever get as far as overt emotions like fear or anger at current events and only at the most complex might we see a flashback from the character's past, and only then if it's germane to the plot. The point is that it's up to us, the players, to form the deeper reaction in response to a series of ruthless/kind/good/evil and if we're really lucky, traitorous characters. The added colour simply isn't written in for a very good reason - that of personal subjective involvement.

So, here's how the situation works given the already shaky starting materials. First, a game gets big enough and a movie producer gets bored enough to decide that they're going to make a film out of it. So, they plonk it down in front of an upcoming writer and director, most likely still learning their trade or they'd probably have an original or more worthy project on the slate. Faced with a thin plot and characters that no one's going to care about, they then do their level best to add some colour to the proceedings which is inevitably flawed, most likely because they won't be big players of the game, and what they fabricate will not be in the spirit of thing. Either that or they don't add enough and it's dull as ditch-water anyway.

They then present the project to similarly aspiring actors who take it on because, hey, it's work whereby a few months down the line and several million on special effects later we have one film destined to disappoint.? What's worse is that this film will make more money than it cost and so the cycle repeats itself. Perhaps the only good that's ever done is that the artists involved might have graduated to the higher echelons of film making by then. Good luck to them.

There are, of course, minor exceptions. Dennis Hopper was in Super Mario Bros, Angelina Jolie was Lara Croft and now Jake Gyllenhaal has taken the lead in the Prince of Persia, but these stars alone aren't going to be enough to fill all the gaps. Incidentally, if you want a real laugh, watch the DVD extras on Dungeons & Dragons for the out take where Jeremy Irons storms off the set. There's the look of an actor regretting the fact they got involved with it in the first place.

So, what of Prince of Persia then? Is it as doomed as we make out? Well, it's got a stronger plot than some. They've integrated the use of the Dagger of Time really nicely (I'm a sucker for films with time travel). They've got an excellent director in the shape of Mike Newell and a star studded cast with class acts like Ben Kingsley and Alfred Molina supporting the adept and watchable Gyllenhaal, but a good game adaptation that's not necessarily going to make. What do they know about the Prince of Persia? Gyllenhaal has said himself that he's over-prepared for this movie by bulking up with five or six pounds in added muscle. Now, that doesn't sound like the right kind of training. How about a copy of the game, a dark room and bulking up with five or six pounds in added KFC?

Mercifully, the game's creator, Jordan Mechner, has been part of the team on the script, but time will only tell whether Jerry Bruckheimer listened to him or not. Still, most of you reading this will probably watch it, you'll probably hate it and you'll probably wonder why you fell for the same trick again. Thankfully, you'll probably have downloaded it for nothing too.

Tags: Gaming PS3 Xbox 360 PC games Prince of Persia Films Movies Comment

Why are game-inspired films so terrible? originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:38:52 +0000

NEWS: Vodafone Pocket-lint Gadget Awards 2009 - games

Dan Sung — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:30:19 +0000

Who gets your vote?

The Best Game nominees for the Vodafone Pocket-lint Gadgets Awards 2009 are likely to be much more of a fight than last year's cut and dry selection. Without quite such monumental hits as Little Big Planet, GTA IV and Wii Fit, the field is wide open and there are one or two more platforms of maturity to compete with the big three consoles. Who would you choose?

The Blockbusters

Somehow sequels are infinitely more respectable in video games than they are at the movies, which is fortunate for the industry seeing as pretty much all the big hits this year have been just that. The annual releases of FIFA 2010 and PES 2010 probably take the award for the longest running of the lot but with Resident Evil 5 and its slightly awry publicity stunt zombie hunt coming in close behind. Back from the dead came Street Fighter IV with all your favourite faces plus a few new ones just waiting to be pummeled by a few well placed Shoryuken and a cheap 100 hand slap.

COD looks like it might just squeeze in its sixth episode in time for the deadline with Modern Warefare 2 but it looks as if both Left 4 Dead 2 and the hugely anticipated Tony Hawk Ride have left it too late this time. Probably just so they can be hot favourites for our pick of 2010.

The Halo series has managed two releases on its own with its first person shooter and strategy lines - Halo ODST and Halo Wars respectively - and if it's shooters you're after, then there's the recent launch of both Uncharted 2: Among Thieves and the highly regarded Borderlands to consider - the latter of which comes with strong RPG elements and a gaggle of console players currently at its mercy.

The trouble with most big games is we hear about them 12 months before they arrive. By the time they get here, they're almost old news. There was a seemingly endless wait for a certain DC title in the dark shape of Batman: Arkham Asylum, but it didn't disappoint when it turned up at the end of the summer. Definitely another big title worth a shout for the award.

Rock Band & Guitar Hero

We were going to use Rhythm Games as a title but frankly these two warring factions pretty much eclipsed every other party in 2009, so between Harmonix and Acitvision it is. Both companies have world domination on their minds releasing multiple titles for multiple platforms. Probably biggest of all was the moment the Fab Four finally went digital with the release of The Beatles: Rock Band but the EA backed franchise has also remembered to think small with the launch of Rock Band for the iPhone as well.

The big release for Activision was a little harder to spot. You'd have to pick between Guitar Hero 5 and and DJ Hero for the largest splash, but with Band Hero out today, there's room for a third party in the debate. GH too went portable with Guitar Hero On Tour: Modern Hits for the DS and brought another band their own version of the game with Guitar Hero Metallica too. The list for both dynasties is set to continue despite Rock Band's latest confession. We're told there's a version for The Who in the pipeline and we're sure there's plenty of acts to get through before they start scraping the barrel with Guitar Hero Color Me Badd.

Portable

Just when you think portable gaming has exploded, it explodes some more. According to one Steve Jobs, Sony and Nintendo have a new kid to worry about now that the app store is in full swing. Whether you believe it has the same potential as a platform or not is one thing, but what we have seen for sure this year is that there are a lot of big titles focusing on an iPhone release.

Rock Band we already know about but some of the other stand out serious titles for Apple have been the wildly addictive Championship Manager, Command and Conquer Red Alert, for those who just can't put the mouse down, and the return of a classic in digitised form with the Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone Fighting Fantasy role play series getting an app of its own.

As for the PSP and DSi, there have been hundreds of titles but the two standouts for our money are GTA Chinatown Wars, which brought the first 18 certificate to Nintendo's handheld, and the enormous cult success that is Monster Hunter Freedom Unite.

PC

Some games are still just too hardcore for a simple console interface and this year has seen Will Wright come back one more time with the latest chapter of his god game classic, the Sims 3 - even if it did arrive a little earlier than anticipated. But it wasn't just the one classic for 2009. Another season brings us another Championship Manager, but it was the people's champion who made the biggest splash in this field bringing the beautiful game to the Internet with Football Manager Live, and they weren't the only ones to do so. The seminal first person shooter, Quake also hit the Web and ruined worker efficiency everywhere with Quake Live as well.

Thankfully, we also had a few fresh starts in PC gaming or perhaps more accurately computer gaming in this case. Playfish brought out another of their social networking phenomenon games with Quiztastic - to challenge and annoy your friends with and there was also proof that Flash gaming is as strong as ever with the appearance of the Super Mario 63 web game for all to enjoy. Last of all though was another of the big hitters for 2009 in the small and cute form that is Plants vs Zombies. The game is set to take over the world on just about every level as soon as it hits the iPhone but for now you can enjoy it from the comfort of your own computer.

Wii

At the other end of the scale there's a certain brand of games that are only going to work on the Nintendo Wii. The fitness wave rolls on with Wii Sports Resort and more recently Wii Fit Plus but there's also been the resurrection of Punch Out, this time without Mike Tyson. Finally, though, one of the biggest storms in a d-pad was caused by the release of the dark MadWorld beat'em up from Sega, which received plenty of complaints given its launch on such a family minded console. It's unlikely to cause issues when it comes to other machines soon but it's the gameplay that counts and word is that it's one that certainly delivers.

What do you think?

But these are just some of the fantastic choices our readers have had in 2009. What would you like to see held aloft as the winner of Pocket-lint Best Game 2009? Who have we missed out? Which are your unsung heroes and of those we've already mentioned, which would get your vote? Let us know in the comments below and you can help our panel decide which make the shortlist of nominees to be announced here on Pocket-lint on 16 November. We'll have all out coverage of the Vodafone Pocket-lint awards 2009 right here. Don't miss a minute of it.

Vodafone Pocket-lint Gadget Awards 2009 - games originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:30:19 +0000