During Drew Brees marketing for Madden 11 in New York’s Times Square this past week, he handed out early copies of Madden 11 to the lucky crowd. However, Madden 11 isn’t due until August 10th. No, those aren’t real copies of the game. They are empty PS3 boxes with vouchers for the game. I wonder if they passed out any Xbox 360 or even Wii versions.
Hopefully the game will also be the greatest of all-time. After last years bug fest my expectations are low. However, I have a feeling that EA Sports’ NBA Elite won’t be blowing anyone away in its first attempt.
Motorola SLVR, iPhone 3G and iPhone 4
These are the last three mobile phones I’ve owned. I’ve actually have owned five phones all together but I no longer have all of them with me.
2006
In 2006 I switched from Sprint to Cingular and bought the Motorola SLVR. I liked the candy bar layout and Motorola was pretty popular at the time. Maybe you can recall the days of RAZR fever, I feel like everyone had one. At the time the SLVR was probably close to $200 but with a new 2-year contract I got it for around $50. Overall the phone was solid. I never had any real problems with it and the reception was strong. I got really good at T9 text messaging during my time with the SLVR.
2008
In 2008 Apple announced their second generation iPhone. The iPhone 3G brought higher speed data services and GPS to the iPhone. They also announced for the first time the iPhone could be acquired for a mere $199 if you signed a 2-year contract. When the first iPhone was released I didn’t even consider purchasing it because of the inflated price tag. Fortunately, this time around I was due for an upgrade, it was like the stars aligned.
Me and a couple of friends waited outside an AT&T store from 2am until opening on the iPhone 3G launch day. There were problems on launch day with activation but when the servers finally cleared up I could access the non-WAP internet from my phone for the first time. Having Google Maps at my fingertips changed my life. I could drive anywhere and I could decide where I wanted to go next on the fly. No need to call that 411 number ever again.
The iPhone apps brought flexibility to a device that would otherwise just be a phone. Steve Jobs was right. The touchscreen gave the phone the ability to be anything. It started with a keyboard with unlimited characters then a piano then a game controller and beyond.
On the downside the iPhone 3G suffered from pretty spotty reception and crashing. The hardware was just not up to par. For some reason it was incapable of making long calls in 3G mode from my bedroom.
2010
In 2010 Apple announced their fourth generation iPhone. The iPhone 4 brought a whole new look to the iPhone and sported a higher resolution screen, front-facing camera, and more powerful hardware. I was unable to upgrade my iPhone when the iPhone 3GS was released but the iPhone 4 was released as my 2-year contract was expiring. It was like the stars aligned again… but actually Apple just releases a new phone every year.
This time around Apple decided to go with a pre-order system. On June 15th hundreds of thousands of people rushed to make their pre-orders online. Obviously the web servers were crippled by the weight within seconds. That morning I headed to an AT&T store and found out they weren’t allowing any in-store pickup pre-orders. Lucky for me there was a Best Buy nearby that were giving out in-store pickup pre-orders. When June 24th came around I didn’t even have to wait in line. Best Buy’s appointment system made it really easy to just walk in the store pick up your iPhone 4. Unfortunately they only had about 20 iPhone 4’s on launch day.
The first time I saw the screen of the iPhone 4 I thought my vision improved. The iPhone 4 has twice the resolution of the iPhone 3G and it really makes a difference. The more powerful hardware was immediately noticeable. Finally, the front-facing camera allows the iPhone 4 to use FaceTime (wifi video chat).
Unfortunately, many people have complained about the iPhone 4 reception issues. I haven’t witnessed any dropped calls under regular use so far but I have been able to reproduce the depleted reception bars when holding the phone in the described way. I’m still claiming these people are just exaggerating.
The iPhone 4 hasn’t changed my life the way the iPhone 3G has but the hardware changes has made those life changing features faster and more stable.
So basically “Beast Mode” is the equivalent of the Gears of War 2 “Horde Mode” feature, but instead of playing against waves of Locust enemies you’ll be playing from the Locust perspective killing COG marines. Beast Mode will feature different Locusts types that you’ll need to unlock by advancing in the mode. In Beast Mode players will have more than a single life to live using a point system. Kill enough COG members to gain yourself more lives. This is especially important because you’ll even be able to take control of suicidal Tickers, those crawling time bombs.
Gears of War 3 is shaping up to be a pretty nice package with the 4 player co-op campaign but like last year the longevity of the game will hinge on the quality of the online multi-player system. Most importantly prevent hack/glitch abuse, fix lag and hosting issues, and finally a match system that doesn’t kick you out after each game.
Hacks and glitches will no doubt occur. Just take a look at Modern Warfare 2. However, I still believe Infinity Ward handled these issue diligently and Epic will need to match that same level of constant updating.
Other than the fact that I still frown at the character models everything else looks spot on. The hyper attacks and the combos are back! PROTON CANON! The match seemed a bit drawn out to me, but maybe it’s because I’ve been getting used to how short the Street Fighter 4 matches are.
Today at E3 Nintendo unveiled the Nintendo 3DS. It now has two cameras on the lid for 3D picture taking. On the interior it features a 3.5″ 3D screen (no glasses necessary) and a new analog stick. Notice the new placement of the start, select buttons and a new home button. The power button has also been moved to the inside to make room for a 3D slider on the side. This slider will control the depth of the 3D screen effect, and when in camera mode control the depth of the 3D picture.
Now because you’re viewing the 3D screen without glasses the 3D effect seems to just hover right above the screen. Also the distance and angle you are viewing the screen screen from will alter the effectiveness of the screen. Regardless of these nuisances, I hear its pretty amazing. The world, not just the gaming industry, will be clawing to catch up to Nintendo’s new technology. The ability to take 3D pictures alone could probably create an outburst of 3D point and shoot cameras. 3D televisions requiring 3D glasses have just become obsolete within a few short months of their inception.
Glasses who needs them! Lookout PSP your stock just plummeted! Oh that’s right, the PSP Go already did that…
Below is a full list of upcoming 3DS games in the works.
Price: TBA
Release: TBA
Colors: Blue, Red and Black
All images credited to Kotaku.com
Just announced today at E3 is the Xbox 360 Slim! It is slightly smaller than the current Xbox 360s and ships with a 250GB hard drive and a built-in wireless-N adapter. It will be priced at $299 and will be in stores by the end of the week.
I think we were all expecting this would happen with Microsoft’s big release of Project Natal, now named Microsoft Kinect. Also I’m assuming the currently priced Xbox 360s will drop in price. I’m crossing my fingers that the external wireless adapters will drop in price too so I can snatch one of those up.
The comic-ish stylings in this trailer standout in this new trailer, not to mention the addition of two new characters.
This trailer is keeping me optimistic for this title.
*UPDATE* – Actually, someone pointed out that Nova is actually blonde. This is most likely pre-infested Kerrigan since she was a red head. From looks of it this is probably a flash back of when Mengsk abandons her and she gets taken by the Zerg.
Yea that’s right, this looks a lot like Nova from the canceled Starcraft Ghost game. Don’t get your hopes up though, from the looks of it her cameo appearance won’t end nicely.
Forget that Starcraft is just a strategy game. These cut-scenes make James Cameron cringe when he watches Avatar.
<a href=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jALkypU9UG8″>”War is Coming” Trailer</a>
*UPDATE 2* Nova is actually in Starcraft2! Evidence and spoilers in the following video:
While developing a game application in Android its nice to have the full real-estate of the screen so hiding the Status Bar and Title Bar are a couple of things you’ll want to attack early on. Unfortunately, information on trying to do this isn’t that easy to find. Sifting through the API and Googling up forums is time consuming. So here it is, quick and simple.
Add this to your Activity’s onCreate() method to hide the Status Bar.
getWindow().setFlags(WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_FULLSCREEN, WindowManager.LayoutParams.FLAG_FULLSCREEN);
Modify the application tag in your AndroidManifest.xml to look something like this. The important part is (android:theme=”@android:style/Theme.NoTitleBar”).
<application android:icon="@drawable/icon" android:label="@string/app_name" android:theme="@android:style/Theme.NoTitleBar">
