Apples trackpads, however, are simply full of awesome. They are the stuff that other PC-makers dream of, and aspire to. Matched by innovative software and cleverly cross-pollinated from bred-in Touch devices like the iPhone, Apple’s trackpads are the gold-standard to be measured against. And now, there are serious rumors, backed up by an FCC match-up of reference numbers, of an external multitouch touchpad. Here’s what it looks like:

The wedge-shaped trackpad, which was leaked in June, has had its model number matched up with a device on the FCC site, so we think the rumors, might really be facts. The timing of the FCC report is interesting, because Apple, in it’s uniquely paranoid way, files confidentiality requests to hide new goodies for as long as possible to maximise announcement-day impact, so if it’s posted on the FCC site now, that means the product is going to be announced soon. Yay!

This is the Street Fighter Tournament edition stick, unfortunately not available locally... yet!

Enter the Hori series of fighting stick made for PS3 and Xbox360 (the Xbox version is compatible with your PC so hooray for that one!). Make your way to the closest Incredible Connection store and just have a feel of this range of fighting sticks and you’ll realise they were made specifically to emulate the arcade experience, to be quite honest the stick and buttons feel even better than an arcade setup and the responsiveness is just awesome.

For XBox and PC

for PS3

The button layout was specifically designed for you to have access to all the buttons necessary to pull of special moves and combos and the actual stick allows you to do the same with a great amount of ease.

Some rate the product as only being for the hardcore fighting gamer but with the very reasonable price tag, I’d recommend this to the casual as well as hardcore fighting game enthusiast. Your experience won’t be complete without it!

The mouse is wireless and comes with a unifying receiver which allows you to connect up to six devices through this single dongle. As can be expected, the performance mouse also comes with a USB recharging station, allowing you to re-charge your mouse while using it.

I’ve saved the best for last as this mouse comes out with what has been named “darkfield laser tracking” (sounds ridiculously cool doesn’t it?) … and what that is in a nutshell is a technology which allows you to use this mouse on basically any surface, even glass with pinpoint precision.

Desktop user or gamer alike should definitely be looking into this piece of hardware if you’re in need of a mouse with extreme accuracy and functionality; also if you find yourself using your mouse on some strange surfaces on the odd occasion, this mouse was made for you!

As a sponsored player with one of the strongest teams in Call of Duty 4 Online in South Africa, I took some new Logitech peripherals to a monthly LAN in Pretoria. Part 1 introduces this small series and why I am here. Part 2 looks at a few of the games and this the final part, is a small testament to the Grand Final between team xP and team sG.

A brief recap of the tournament so far, shows that =BFB= Trevor “qu1k_sh0t” Henry and =BFB= Andrew “xiR” Harper competed alongside 3 other gamers against some of Joburgs strongest teams! Coming out undefeated so far, xiR’s Pimps had made it to the Grand Final of the tournament. With no losses to their name, in order for sG to win, they would need to beat xP twice!
As sG were coming from the lower brackets, they had just defeated sKy Gaming in a close 13 – 10 game. sG got the choice to choose map first. The map that was decided was mp_crossfire a map that sG favoured as it is extremely fast paced. xP started off on the slightly more difficult side, defending first. It was apparent from the get go that xP was going to have an uphill battle. Round for round it went down to the wire and after an intense first half. On the more difficult side managing a score of 4 -8. xP now had the task of attacking, however being a mixed team on attack, they lacked the co-ordination to take advantage of the map balance to attack. After putting up a valiant fight, sG won 13 – 8 on the first map.

As the format was double elimination this meant the map choice of xP would be the final decider! The winner of mp_crash would be the victor of the MPLD COD4 Tournament! As the game started out once again xP found themselves on the slightly more difficult side of attack. Trading rounds back and forth xP grabbed a few then sG grabbed a few! The pressure was rising however xP maintained an almost level score! On a map that favours defence xiR and his Pimp’s managed a score of 5 – 7. Once again setting themselves up for an easy win in the second half!

Synergy Gaming however, had another thing in story for the xP team. They rushed A bomb site, the whole sG team pushed together shutting down the xP players time after time after time. With the score teetering closer and closer to the a win for sG disaster struck. The sG sniper’s pc over heated. So a time out was called, 10 minutes to allow the PC to cool down and continue the game with both teams at full strength. During this break xP did some shuffling, swapping out weapons, positions and strategy! And as the game came back to a live final, it was one way to the finish line.

xP seemed to have found some vigour that they did not have previously winning round after round, with some exceptional play from the Special Ops Class of Donovan “CaPunT” Gairns. Winning 2 crucial rounds alone against 2 sG players! It seemed losing the momentum lost sG the game. As the game drew to a close at 13 – 10, sG did not take another round! xiR’s Pimp’s was crowned champions once more, and from 3 appearances having 3 wins. xP pulled a game back from the brink of loss and Synergy Gaming was bitterly disappointed. However they walked away knowing they played well!

xP Champions Once more!

The team played consistently well throughout the tournament and emerged victorious! The full tournament breakdown can be found here.

Personally the biggest achievement for me, was using all new equipment, the new Logitech G13, the Logitech G9x mouse and the Logitech G35 headset. And with no time to adjust the products performed flawlessly. Allowing me to reach the end goal of winning with my fellow team mates! I will run a thorough in depth look at each of the products used throughout the weekend and give some feedback on pricing and availability coming up to rAge 2009!

Don’t forget that Incredible Connection will be at rAge this year. And we are bringing some Incredible products at even better prices! Stay tuned to find out more!

The competition kicked off with some exciting games, in addition to the xP wins, sG beat UBS in commanding fashion, while sKy gaming beat the all girl line-up of Feisty Females. After a few games Synergy Gaming came up against sKy Gaming.

The game was greatly anticipated as sG were one of the favourites for the tournament, and the winner would qualify to face off against xP in the winner bracket final! As the game kicked off, sKy just never gained momentum, they struggled to find a grasp of the game and went down 13 – 3 to sG.

So that meant the last game in the winner bracket groups would be between xiR’s Pimps and Synergy Gaming. As the game kicked off, map elimination came into play with both sides removing two maps. The final battleground was decided to bemp_strike. This was the map that xP had bested Element on earlier in the tournament. With some confidence from that game, and the fact that sG line-up had trepidations going into the game it meant xP had the advantage when the game commenced.As the game started, once again xP was lucky enough to have the easier side of defence. The xP line-up waited for the sG players to push them, and attack them, however it seemed sG was playing very conservatively.  It almost seemed as though sG was afraid to push the experienced xP players. And as such, it allowed the xP players into positions they needed to get to. xP then managed to lock down the defensive half of the game and take a commanding lead into the attacking side. With the score sitting at 8 – 4 in favour of xP it was looking like yet another final was in store for qu1k and the boys!

Capunt Watching qu1k_sh0t Closely!

As the competition wore on, the rounds were hard fought and xP needed to convert some difficult rounds being one or two players down! However on the map, xP out played Synergy Gaming to win with a final score of 13 – 7.

This meant that xP was the first team to make it to the grand final, and that the team that would challenge xP would need to win two maps in order to be declared the winner of MPLD September!

So with xP making grand final’s who would they face off against? In the double elimination format in order for a team to be defeated in the tournament, they have to loose two games. So the remainder of the games to be played would be between the players in the Lower bracket. If a team lost here they are out of the tournament. After a few of the games leading up to the lower bracket final some big names were about the clash! The first big game was between UBS and Feisty Females. The game was played onmp_citystreets and after a draw of 12 – 12. They went into overtime, 3 rounds get played each way and the first to hit 4 is the winner. UBS got into the lead 2 – 1, however the ladies fought back with a score of 2 – 1 themselves. A Double Overtime was now to be played! This time however the UBS gentlemen bested the ladies to win 4 – 1. A final overall score of 19 – 16 to UBS meant they would go onto the lower bracket semi finals!

The next game was just as epic, with Element coming out on top beating UBS 13 – 11 in an extremely close game that came down to the wire! As this game was going on, xP was battling it out for bragging rights against sKy gaming. sKy had lost badly to sG earlier in the day and wanted some practise games against the veteran xP team. Both maps were extremely close xP only managing to win by a handful of rounds on the first map, and in fact drawing the second map! With some practise games out of the way sKy gaming felt stronger with some preparation leading up to their clash with Element and sG.

sKy Gaming beat Element fairly comfortably 13 – 5, and earned a spot in the lower bracket final. The loser would be knocked out of the competition finishing 3rd, whereas the winner would get another bit at the apple facing off against xP in the Grand Final!

The Lower Bracket final commenced, the map was mp_crash! sKy had some good practise games vs xP and had just beaten Element in a convincing fashion. They their heads up high as they went into the lower bracket final against a team that had beaten them extremely easy earlier in the day. As sKy won the knife round they got to defend first, once again the slightly easier side. However sKy was struggling to take a lead, and rounds went back and forth finally finishing 6 – 6. With the more difficult side over it looked like sG would be making it through to the grand final.

However sKy had something to say about that, attacking they had a drive and a focus that was not present earlier in the day. They pushed sG hard and took the lead for a few rounds. As the score drew to 9 – 9. At this point however, sG had seen what sKy were doing and shut them down. As the score reached game point at 12 – 9, sKy took one last round before falling prey to sG. A Good Game was called at 13 – 10. Synergy Gaming would face off against xiR’s Pimps in the Grand Final!

Part 3 will close off the grand final, as well as look at the goodies used in order to get to the grand final.

MPLD Filling up on the Friday Night

The idea was to field test these gadgets and gizmo’s and see if they could keep up in the heat of battle! The Logitech G19 Keyboard, the Logitech G9x Mouse, Logitech G35 headset and the Logitech G13 What better way to do this than by using Incredible Connections sponsored players!  This is part one of the three part story following last weeks events.

MPLD, or Montly Pretoria Lan Day, is a LAN party that takes place the first weekend of every month. This event plays host to 150 gamers each month and is widely regarded as one of the LAN’s to attend if you wish to compete in high level competition! September was no different and the Call of Duty 4 (COD4) tournament played host to a wide variety of teams, most of whom have many hours experience competing against the best of the best. This months event included some of the strongest teams in the country, Synergy Gaming, Ubersoldaten, sKy Gaming and Element. Against all this competition is where I would test out the Logitech products. As most of the =BFB= players are based in Cape Town for this event, I played alongside Andrew “xiR” Harper, a fellow =BFB= member and 3 players from a rival team known as the Cyborgs. This mixed team is known as xiR’s Pimps and they have won the previous event hosted here at MPLD in June. Could it be done again?

Logitech Goodies G13, G9x, G35 and G19

As the morning of the competition arrived, the teams were seeded and placed into different brackets. A double elimination format was selected. meaning that you had to loose two games to be knocked out.

So as the first battle lines where drawn xP awaited there first opponent. Team Mouse would be the first team to face off against the reigning champs xP! After a map elimination it was decided that we would play mp_crash. With the map decided it was time to get down to playing! A shaky start meant that we were going tit for tat round for round. And with the score level on 3 – 3, Team Mouse was getting excited about the possibility of keeping up with xP! xP however had other plans, after a few rounds getting into the swing of things they managed to power ahead and take most of the remaining rounds finishing the half with a score of 8 – 4. Defending is the easier side, and xP would need to pull up their socks on attack. After a few rounds it was clear that xP would walk away with the win, however Team Mouse would not go down without a fight. For every two rounds xP would take, Mouse replied with one of their own, a final score being 13 – 7 to xP.

With the first win in the bag, xP would go on to face a stronger team in the second round. The format of Double Elimination means that as you progress further and further into the tournament the teams get stronger and stronger. xP was hungry for more games, and we would not be disappointed, xP had to play off against, Element Air. This team is has qualified for the invite only tournament at rAge and consisted of players with lots of experience in this competitive format.

The game started with the map being mp_strike. xP won the knife round and managed to get the slightly easier side of defending first. This time around xP did not underestimate their opponents and they went into the game wanting every single round. The xP players managed to best the Element team without much hassle and it seemed as though whatever Element through at us, we could deal with. xP ran away with the game to a final 13 – 4 victory.

Logitech G13 Gamepad

After this game xP had to face off against its strongest competition at the event, Synergy Gaming (sG). This team is competing for top honours and was the favourite going into the competition. How would xP fare against sG?

The next part of this blog, will show the last three games that we played and whether or not xP managed to grab the win. Finally the third part will touch on some of the goodies used!

The OCZ Neural Impulse Actuator or NIA for short is something quite spectacular, it use’s your brain to send controls to your PC!

Well this little unit has probably been the most successful in actually reaching that goal. The NIA is worn on the forehead, similar to the sweatbands worn by tennis players. It is extremely light, weighing only a few grams in total!

While some of you may be aware, these types of units have been released before claiming they can tap into the brains electric signals and convert those into commands to control your home PC. However most struggled to interpret the signals correctly and ended up falling away. The NIA is different in that it reads facial expressions and muscle movements. 

This little baby has been designed to be used in conjunction with your mouse and keyboard. By adding an extra peripheral with which to control your in game characters. Think about never having to press the Space bar again to jump, you could just raise an eyebrow!

In practise the device works as well! If you take a look at a few reviews from PCFormat and Gamesradar they all confirm that it does work! The only catch being, how much the individual can control the device. 

So if you think this little baby is for you, then give it a bash, it is retailing in the US at around $150. The OCZ NIA is definitely a taste of the future when it comes to extrasensory controllers and instead of trying to re-invent the mouse, they have added something to compliment it.