Tag: gaming
HEARTWARMING TALE: Kid takes up Archery after playing Age of Empires
Next time you’re being ranted at that videogames cause violence, point the complainant to this story. A 17-year old guy, Ryan Tyack, is competing in the Australian Youth Olympic Festival in Sydney. He’s the flag-bearer for the ceremony, and is competing as an archer, a sport that he took up in 2001 after playing Age of Empires.
Over to Ryan:
I just sat around playing Age of Empires all the time and my mum wanted me to do a sport and meet some kids. So I chose either fencing or archery as Age Of Empires had swordsmen and archers
Thing is, I sorta know what he means. That game has improved me too – I was a bit of an AoE addict, and I had no idea what a Phalanx, Trireme or Trebuchet was before playing. Now, having played tonnes of AoE and Civilization, I’m considerably more knowledgeable about ancient empires! Perhaps “edutainment” works after all.
(via Kotaku)
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Danish police surround gamers, after loud PlayStation session triggers SWAT team attack
We’re not huge fans of Sony’s console division, but we wouldn’t go quite so far as to say that anyone who owns a PlayStation wants shooting – but that’s very nearly what happened to a couple of Danish gamers over the weekend.
A concerned neighbour heard gunshot sounds coming from their apartment – damn those cheap partition walls and declining modern building standards – and called the cops to investigate the possible slaughter going on inside flat 11b. Only there was no gun, or slaughter, only a game involving shooting being played way too loudly by a couple of kids…
CES 2009: Thrustmaster T.16000M joystick
I’ve just had a quick look in the archives, and it’s been a long time since we covered an actual joystick product, as opposed to some sort of joystick-related piece of art or hackery. For the few of you who still use a joystick, then (flight sim enthusiasts?), here’s the Thrustmaster T.16000M.
It’s got some brand new tech, called H.E.A.R.T., which pretends to stand for “Hall Effect AccuRate Technology”. Some “Hall Effect” magnets sit on the stick, giving the sensors far more precision than most other joysticks. On each axis, there’s over 16,000 different values. That’s a little ridiculous, but might be worth buying if the person with the steadiest hands in the world is your Secret Santa next year, and is a big flight-sim enthusiast.
The T.16000M is ambidextrous, comes with 16 action buttons, and offers a wide hand rest and weighted base as additional features. It’ll be available in February and cost £50. That seems fairly cheap. Maybe I should give it a shot.
For more CES-related goodness, check out our index post.
Rock adds Intel's Q9000 quad-core chip to its Xtreme 780 gaming laptop
There are very few true PC gamers that’ll willingly buy a laptop over a desktop, primarily because the performance-price difference is so great. Rock’s just added an Intel Q9000 chip to its flagship gaming laptop – the Xtreme 780, but I suspect the majority of gamers out there simply won’t care.
It’s not even that great a machine. Quad-core aside, the 512MB Nvidia GeForce 9800M GTS is merely adequate, the 2GB of memory will look very meagre before the end of 2009, and a 250GB hard drive is considerably less than most gamers will need. For £1700, which is what the Xtreme 780 costs, you could make two desktop PCs that outspec this laptop.
HP launching two Pavilion laptops, and one Firebird desktop
HP has announced a couple of new notebook PCs in its Pavilion range, and a successor to its high-end Blackbird desktop – the Firebird. Let’s take a look at the notebooks first.
They’re named Pavilion dv2 and Pavilion dv3. The dv2 is a slim-and-light machine, with 3.8 pound weight, and thickness of just one inch. The full specs aren’t available, but it’ll include an AMD Athlon processor, 12″ display, “nearly” full-size keyboard, discrete graphics and up to 500GB of hard disc space. There’s an optional external Blu-ray drive, too.
HP shows off "Firefly" concept gaming laptop
Pity it’s just a concept, but at least one laptop that HP will be showing off at CES next week looks *amazing*. Laptop Magazine has managed to get a hands-on of the HP Firefly – an innovative gaming laptop. Click over the jump for the full details of this beast.
WoW fan threatens suicide to Blizzard rep, gets arrested
An unnamed 17-year-old was taken into police custody the other day in Ohio, following a threat that he’d commit suicide to an in-game Blizzard representative (known as a GM). The staffer contacted local emergency services, who showed up at the kid’s house.
The kid told the GM that “he was suicidal and the game was the only thing he had to live for”. Other people have tried stuff like that on Blizzard before, but this is the first time that someone’s been arrested over it.
Shooting Watch will give you mad Track & Field skills
Remember Track & Field? The 1988 NES game where you bashed two buttons as quickly as you possibly could to make your way through a number of athletic events. Well, your poor finger joints won’t thank you, but now you can relive those days.
The Shooting Watch counts how many times you can hit the A and B buttons under a certain time limit. Think of it like a treadmill, but for toning your gaming muscles. Oh, and just so you don’t feel cheated, you can use it as a stopwatch, too.
The little keychain device can be yours for 1800 Yen (£13.50 or so) here.
(via DVice)
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"Hang and Play" joystick coathooks
Looking for a last-minute Christmas gift for a gaming-obsessed relative? Well, you’re probably too late. Even if you weren’t, these joystick coathooks aren’t available and don’t have a price attached. That said, with a bit of superglue or varnish, I’m sure you could do a similar thing with real joysticks. Head down to your local cash-converters and grab some old ones. Do it now.
(via CrunchGear)
Related posts: Home made arcade joystick – for old school finger tapping fan | Atari fan with too much time builds 15x working model of classic joystick
Dell launches XPS-730X extreme gaming desktop with Intel Core i7
Looking for an extreme last-minute present for a gaming freak? How about the Dell XPS 730X extreme gaming desktop featuring Intel’s powerful Core i7 or Core i7 Extreme processors and ATI Radeon 4870 X2 graphics card.
Also fitted is the Bigfoot KillerNIC gaming network card which offers more responsive online game play than a standard NIC.
Other features include internal lighting from a series of battery-powered LEDs, optional H2C high-performance cooled CPUs and chipsets, and up to 2TB of hard drive storage and 6GB of DDR3 memory…
