Microsoft – Page 5

At X’10 – Need For Speed Hot Pursuit

August 28, 2010September 20, 2010 Doug Groves Autolog, Criterion Games, EA, Hot Pursuit, Microsoft, multiplayer, Need For Speed, racing game, taunt wall, x10, Xbox, Xbox 3601 Comment

Dana Sissons, Public Relations Manager for EA, talks to us about the latest version of Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit, developed by Criterion Games, makers of the Burnout series and set in the fictional Seacrest County, based on the California coastline. This offers up a variety of racing environments, with the four major variants being forests, mountains, desert and ocean. As Dana explains, the new Need For Speed aiming to provide short burst, intense racing, focusing on the thrill of the chase. He also mentions that the developers took inspiration…

At X’10 – Microsoft Kinect

August 27, 2010September 20, 2010 Doug Groves Dance Central, Dashboard, Kinect, Kinect Adventures, Microsoft, motion control, x10, Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox Live4 Comments

One of the highlights of X’10 was getting a chance to go “hands on” with Microsoft’s controller-free controller Kinect. The various mini games in Kinect are actually quite the workout (see about 1 minute in the above video), and though there is lag, it didn’t seem to affect gameplay. We also got a sneak peak at the Kinect friendly version of the Xbox Dashboard, which allows you to navigate the console with either gestures or voice commands. Both features were working spot on, and it seems that Microsoft’s goal of…

Halo: Reach – Deliver Hope live action trailer

August 26, 2010September 20, 2010 Doug Groves Bungie, Halo, Halo: Reach, Hybrid long, Microsoft, trailer, Xbox 360, Xbox Live0 comment

With less than a month to go until Halo: Reach hits store shelves, wrapping up Bungie’s involvement with the seminal Xbox franchise, new live action trailers have been coming out on a regular basis. Besides making a great game in its own right, the live action trailers are effective at delivering an emotional impact, and for me, always leave me saying… “Movie please?” Catch the earlier Hybrid live trailer after the break…

At X’10 – Rock Band 3, keyboard and up to seven players

August 25, 2010September 20, 2010 Doug Groves All Instruments Mode, harmonix, keyboards, Marc Nesbitt, Microsoft, MTV Games, PS3, Rock Band 3, x10, Xbox 3602 Comments

The keyboard isn’t the only thing new about the latest iteration of Rock Band, as it also rolls in the harmonies introduced with the Beatles version. At Microsoft’s X’10, we had a chance to talk with Marc Nesbitt, Senior Producer of MTV Games about some of the features and philosophy in bringing Rock Band 3 to market. Harmonix also found a way around the 4 player maximum on the console. By enabling an “All Instruments Mode”, up to 7 people can play at once (4 instruments, up to 3 singers). …

At X’10 – Windows Phone 7 with Xbox Live

August 24, 2010September 20, 2010 Doug Groves hands-on, interview, Microsoft, Mobile, mobile gaming, smartphone, Windows Phone 7, WP7, x10, Xbox Live68 Comments

Alex and I attended Microsoft’s X’10 event in Toronto, and the first order of business was to get a look at Windows Phone 7 in action – actually, I played a little Fable 3 before Alex showed up, but that’s another interview in the pipeline, but I digress. Greg Milligan of Microsoft gave us a demonstration of the new mobile platform, and showed off some of the Xbox Live integration as well. All in all it looks pretty impressive, and the screen response, even on the LG prototype phone (which…

Windows Phone 7 launch games announced

August 19, 2010 Doug Groves bing, Bing maps, Crackdown, Microsoft, Microsoft Canada, Project Sunburst, Star Wars, THQ, Windows Phone 7, WP7, x10, Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox Live2 Comments

In anticipation of the international fall launch of Windows Phone 7, Microsoft has announced the starting line up of games, clocking in at over 60 titles. This includes some casual mobile classics like Uno and the always addictive Bejewelled, and mobile interpretations of console titles such as Guitar Hero 5, Halo: Waypoint, and Assassins Creeed. For Star Wars fans there’ll be a couple of games developed by THQ – Cantina, which puts you in the role of a Tatooine bar owner, and Battle For Hoth, a tower defense game set…

Gateway launches new LT32 and LT22 Netbooks in Canada

August 9, 2010August 9, 2010 drsquid Acer, AMD, ATI Radeon, canada, facebook, Flickr, Gateway, HD, HDMI, LT22, LT32, Microsoft, Neo, netbook, social networking1 Comment

Gateway, the sister company of the world’s number 2 PC maker Acer, has just announced two new netbooks, the LT32 & LT22. Both these machines sport single-core AMD Neo processors, which are more powerful but more power hungry than the Intel Atom CPU’s found in most netbooks. This additional horsepower, with the addition of ATI Radeon 4225 graphics and an HDMI port, allow these ‘Premium Netbooks’ to server as portable HD entertainment centres – they both should have no problem outputting 720p video to any HDTV (however we can’t comfortably…

Telus HTC Desire launches

August 6, 2010 Doug Groves ActiveSync, Android 2.1, Exchange, first look, Friend Stream, google, HTC, HTC Desire, HTC Sense, Microsoft, smartphone, Snapdragon, superphone3 Comments

I think that Friday August 6th 2010 can unofficially be labeled Android day in Canada. That’s because Telus has officially launched HTC’s latest superphone, the HTC Desire, sporting the latest version of HTC Sense. It’s also a harbinger of a possible price war to come, as it’s a solid 1GHz processor priced at $79.99, which is more than competitive with other high end phones. The new phone comes with a 1GHz Snapdragon processor, 5 megapixel camera (with flash), and a 3.7″ 800 x 480 screen. We had a chance to…

Plants vs. Zombies stumbles onto Xbox this September

August 6, 2010August 6, 2010 Doug Groves Michael Jackson, Microsoft, multiplayer, Peggle, Plants vs. Zombies, Pop Cap, PvZ, XBLA, Xbox 360, Xbox Arcade, Zuma2 Comments

Since it’s release on the PC almost a year and a half ago, Plants vs. Zombies has migrated to both the Mac and iOS. This September, it’ll make it’s console debut on the Xbox 360 as an XBLA title, priced at 1200 MS Points (or $15). Besides getting a resolution bump to 1080p, the game will have 7 different play modes, including two new multiplayer modes (coop and vs.), and 21 different mini games. “With a ton of new features and content exclusive to the XBLA version, we’ve pulled out…

Halo 2600 kicks it old school

August 5, 2010August 5, 2010 Doug Groves Atari, Atari 2600, Ed Fries, Figure Prints, Halo, Halo 2600, Microsoft, Microsoft Game Studios, Xbox23 Comments

Ed Fries, who helped get Microsoft Game Studios get of the ground, and was a seminal part of the original Xbox project at Redmond, has kind of come full circle, then back again. Although he’s currently involved in a number of other gaming projects, it’s this little diversion called Hal0 2600 that is worth checking out. It’s a full fledged Atari 2600 adaptation of Halo… sadly it doesn’t include Warthog levels, as for some strange reason, the 128 bytes of RAM wasn’t quite enough… The thing you need to realize…

Acer launches new TimelineX thin and light notebooks in Canada

August 4, 2010August 4, 2010 Doug Groves 1830T, 3820T, 5820T, Acer, Aspire, ATI Mobility Radeon, canada, Intel Core i3, Intel Core i5, launch, LED backlit, Microsoft, notebook, Thin & Light, TimelineX, Windows 72 Comments

It’s been a while since we’ve seen a update to Acer’s Timeline series of thin and light notebooks. In fact, when they launched in North America, they weren’t officially known as Timeline machines at all, but the rather more pedestrian model numbers, such as the AS1410, which we took a look at last September. At the time, the AS1410 represented a great value for someone looking for something more powerful than a netbook, without the bulk that a more traditional notebook. Due to the ultra low voltage CPUs in the…

Microsoft Kin is dead

July 1, 2010 Doug Groves Kin, Microsoft, Windows Phone 7, Zune, Zune Marketplace3 Comments

Just a couple of months out of the gate, and Microsoft has killed it’s KIN line of no-so smart phones, before they even had a chance to get outside the US. This isn’t surprising on a number of levels. While the phones were well-spec’ed, with an interesting take on the UI, the target of younger social-media centric types (read: teens) were probably not ready to shell out real smartphone monthly fees. Not many teens (or their parents) were interested in paying $70 a month for a phone. The launch of…