Newsflash: gaming in the future takes effort

This chap may have foreseen the future with his jury-rigged wiimote/kinect setup. Yes it's pretty impressive but it's not too far from the realms of possibility so I suspect it's on the level.



Very nice. It's just such a shame that games are becoming so bloody tiring to play - the next thing to add is clearly running on the spot like a lemon to make your in game character run (ever see the weird treadmill - world of warcraft experiment? Look it up...) The whole joy of gaming is sinking into the sofa while you deftly shoot the faces off hundreds of enemies with nothing more than the push of a few buttons.

demize2010 @ youtube.com

Total War: Shogun II minimum specs announced!

Yes Total War: Shogun II, the sequel to Shogun: Total War (what happened there?), is coming soon!



Is that frakking gorgeous or what?
This is the computer you need to play it:

Minimum Specs (Required for playing Total War: Shogun 2):
- 2 GHz Intel Dual Core processor / 2.6 GHz Intel Single Core processor , or AMD equivalent (with SSE2)
- 1GB RAM (XP), 2GB RAM (Vista / Windows7)
- 256 MB DirectX 9.0c compatible graphics card (shader model 3)
- 1024x768 minimum screen resolution
- 20GB free hard disk space

Recommended Specs (Recommended for optimum game play of Total War: Shogun 2):
- 2nd Generation Intel® Core™i5 processor (or greater), or AMD equivalent
- 2GB RAM (XP), 4GB RAM (Vista / Windows7)
- AMD Radeon HD 5000 and 6000 series graphics cards or equivalent DirectX 11 compatible graphics card
- 1280x1024 minimum screen resolution
- 20GB free hard disk space

Ouch.

Total War: SHOGUN 2 pushes forward the hugely successful Total War series by perfecting the features from previous games such as full 3D land and naval battles and a detailed campaign map, whilst adding an exciting new multiplayer experience. Total War: SHOGUN 2 releases in March 2011.

Hm. As we all know, minimum specs don't work and recommended specs get you a just about playable experience, so I'm thinking save up for an i7 peeps.



Interestingly these are the specs you needed (or indeed need) to play Total War: Shogun. The first one.

MINIMUM PC REQUIREMENTS
Pentium MMX or AMD K6-2 233MHz Processor
64MB RAM
4X CD-ROM Drive
650MB Hard Disk Space
8MB Video Card
Sound Card
DirectX 8.0

RECOMMENDED
Pentium II 300MHz Processor
128MB RAM
8X CD-ROM Drive
1.65 GB Hard Disk Space
32MB Direct3D compatible 3D Accelerated Video Card
3D ACCELERATED MODE
16MB 3D Accelerated Video Card
Compatible Cards: nVidia GeForce 2, nVidia GeForce 256, nVidia Riva TNT2, nVidia Riva TNT, ATI Radeon, 3Dfx Voodoo5, Voodoo3, Voodoo Banshee, Matrox MGA-G450, Matrox MGA-G400

MULTIPLAYER SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
33.6Kbps Modem
TCP/IP compliant Network

I doubt I'm the only person who has thrown away computers five times as good as that. What a waste. You can buy the game for about £3, it's still an AMAZING game and it might even work under Windows 7 if you're very lucky.

Ah Voodoo Banshee's, TNT2s... those were the days!

sega.co.uk
allgame.com

Big upcoming games of 2011

This happy fun time looking site has amassed what it believes to be a list of the 20 most anticipated games of 2011 and presented them on a convenient single page for your perusal. Thank's guys!

For example:
1. BRINK
6. DEUS EX: HUMAN REVOLUTION
11. TDU 2
16. MAX PAYNE 3

Certainly some big games in the list.

Mortal Kombat 9 should provide some much needed ridiculous violence.

Can't help but notice the lack of a little independent title from a small games developer called Epic; I believe it's the third in their largely overlooked but cult classic 'Gears of War' series...

gamesreviews2010.com

Console showdown 2010... and the winner is...

Wow on that first page I thought they had declared the Wii the winner...

Err, not that they might not do that on the last page!
(Yeah... they don't).

Welcome to IGN's Console Showdown for 2010. What's it all about? Well, each year we pit the games available for each system in a battle royale to determine which system had the best line-up for the year. It's not about hardware or services, it's about games and games alone. And guess what? On that basis, the PlayStation 3 has won the last two years. Can it pick up three Console Showdown titles in a row?

uk.xbox360.ign.com

Humble Indie Bundle 2

Lots of really great indie games for as much as you want to pay.



Hint, pay at least $7.80 and get indie bundle 1 as well as the 2nd pack.

Nice Christmas present from these guys, thanks you awesome lovely people!

humblebundle.com

And a very Merry Christmas from me too!

Stream movies with a Sony BDP-S370 Blu-ray

This is a Sony BDP-S370. It's a blu-ray player. It also plays DVDs, and SACDs (and normal ones) and perhaps even VCDs if anyone still has any of those. It costs around £120 and I just bought one.

I didn't buy it for any of those functions (although playing DVDs is nice since my old DVD player is dead naff), I bought it because it is a DLNA certified 'network media streamer' or whichever phrase you prefer to use to describe it. This means that if I share my folders full of videos on my home PC, then attach the blu-ray player to the network via it's RJ45 socket, I can watch all of those aforementioned videos on my big living room TV. Happy days!

Actually this isn't something new and exciting for me, I had an xbox 360 in the living room which can perform the same function. But this is a £100 box that also doubles as a super duper new fangled blu-ray player and a DVD player too. Plus it's much smaller. Plus it's much prettier. And it doesn't make any noise (well... a teeny weeny amount of noise, inaudible as far as I'm concerned). Anyone using a 360 to stream media can attest to the ridiculous volume levels you need to set to drown out the console's noisy fans.

Anyway the point of posting this is that, whilst all these sexy functions are obviously great, getting it working isn't always incredibly easy. If you are running Windows 7 on your 'server' PC, you are set. Good to go. No problems, Windows Media Player 12 will act as a DLNA server and your PC will appear in the 'network' tab on the S370's main menu (as long, of course, as you have enabled media sharing in the Network and Sharing Centre). If, however, your media server is using XP or (dare I say it..) Vista, you need a separate server application. It took a lot of goes to find one that worked (I had TVersity running when I had a 360, no go with the BR player) but I finally did and it seems entirely perfect. It is...

TVMOBiLi - tvmobili.com

Installation is simple, and setup is all via a web interface. Once you've installed it, and assuming your BR player is turned on, it should appear in the 'discovered devices' section of the status page like so.

On your S370 your computer should appear in the list of network services. Now you can navigate through all the folders you should choose to share through TVMOBiLi - simply go onto the 'settings' page in the web interface (I'd strongly recommend a bookmark / favourite for this page!) and tap in the details under 'New Directory' at the bottom. You might want to remove the default shares - the usual crap like 'my videos' etc.

After that it's time to enjoy your vast library of intellectual programming from the comfort of your sofa!

The S370 can also, should you be interested in buying one, access the BBC iPlayer service and Demand Five. Oddly enough the Demand Five service is the faster and more easy to use of the two, but regardless of that just having them directly on the TV rather than using a computer is an excellent feature. It also supports several other 'on demand' services dependant on geography, I'm obviously using mine in the UK. It's well worth a hundred quid (£120 at time of going to press, sorry looks like I got a bargain!) of anyone's money.

The steps above will also apply to users of the BDP-S570 (flash gits) and any Bravia television sets with DLNA capabilities.

Indie devs not fans of the new new xbox experience

I like the look of the new xbox dashboard, it's pretty clean. But it's also kinda sparse, as if they cleaned up a bit too much. I can't find any of the stuff anymore! Which is precisely what indie game developers are worried about...

The Xbox 360's newly launched dashboard has been met with criticism from developers of Xbox LIVE Indie Games as the console's bake your own service is demoted to its darkest corner.

Once a prominent part of the Game Marketplace, Xbox LIVE Indie Games are now bundled together with the Avatar Marketplace and Game Room as part of a new section titled Speciality Shops – a move that has attracted derision from developers.

"I'd like to know the rationale behind it - at least then the community could try and come up with constructive alternatives, rather than being pushed further into obscurity," said App Hub forum user and developer of Indie title Clover Deej in comments picked up by Gamastura.

uk.xboxlive.ign.com

Fable III seems to be taking names

Hooray, killing dogs!

These kind of games are not for me. This has been a very popular example of 'these types of games' and I guess all those millions of people can't be wrong.
Well... they can actually. But I'm sure they're not.

uk.gamespot.com

Red Undead Redemption

Rockstar want another tenner. Looks reasonably fun though.

Now for some really important gaming news from IGN

Look, Atari pants.



Don't get me wrong, this is a fantastic use of time and resources. But why is IGN producing it?