Speaking before the show, Chris Lewis, vice president, Interactive Entertainment Business for Microsoft Europe said:
“We are bringing the Kinect experience to Europe for the first time at Gamescom 2010, because this is the biggest show in the region and we’re committed to investing in Europe and the critical role it plays in Xbox’s global success.”

We took a look at how the Kinect technology is put together in a previous post, as well as Sony’s Playstation Move, in a related post. The big thing that came out of that excitement, was that Nintendo has a HUGE lead and Microsoft and Sony are playing catch-up. We see Microsoft taking the approach of delivering a plethora of titles on launch day to give gamers a rich choice, as well as driving the Windows Phone 7 platform, with the first wave of Xbox LIVE games launching on Windows Phone 7, ready for the Xmas rush.

Four years after the Brood War devastated the Koprulu sector, most of the superficial damage has been repaired – but the true wounds still run deep, and far away from human eyes, the zerg’s final metamorphosis has just begun…

The three races which were a feature of the original, the Terrans, the zerg and Protoss are still the protagonists, and the game has not changed enough in execution, to warrant jabbering on about. To wit:

“In almost all scenarios, you start with a command centre and a few worker units with which to mine resources – in this case diamond-like minerals and vespine gas. You use these to construct buildings, which in turn produce military units. You then use said military units to blow the enemy into its component atoms before tapping out one of many fine ‘noob’ based insults you’ve been working on. Happy days.”

The big kick is in how much more refined the strategies are, and how absolutely uniquely, the three races of StarCraft play. The Zerg feel more evil and biological, the Protoss – telepathic, telekinetic and smug.

Of course, StarCraft plays best in multiplayer mode. Blizzard’s new gaming portal, Battle.Net, is where this happens – you can’t even play the single player campaign without registering for a Battle.Net account – It all happens there. Yay for uncapped Internet in SA!

If you haven’t already, you should rush out and grab your copy from your local Incredible Connection store. At R529.99, it’s a price worth paying. This title as been one of the most anticipated of all time, and the boys and girls at Blizzard had quite some pressure to perform. Kudo’s to them, they aced it.

You can also follow Starcraft on Twitter. Patches, maps, advice and all the latest SC2 news.

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!

We know that Kinect uses a multi-sensor strategy to track a ton of 3D data, about what’s going on inside a room. To start, there are a pair of cameras. A simple colour camera for metadata (pictures, face-recognition, etc), and an interesting monochrome CMOS camera sensor working together with an IR emitter. Called the “depth sensor,” the combo acts very much like a radar setup, the IR emitter “painting” the area, and the camera watching and reading the “paint-work”, to build a 3D map of the objects within Kinect’s field of view. These opticals are backed up with some audio tracking, with a multi-array microphone setup to detect location of voices and to cancel out ambient noise. Like sonar…

The sensor array is mounted in a motorised, articulated base. Yes, you heard right. Like a target-tracking radar dish, the Kinect pans and tilts to keep its sensors locked on you as you move around the room. Too cool! The base is quite power-hungry, so unless you have one of the brand new Xbox 360s, which include a special powered USB port, you’ll have to plug Kinect into the mains, as well as your console.

Now for some bad news. Kinect is a slave device. It doesn’t have it’s own dedicated processor for all this tracking alchemy. It’s a cost issue, and the upshot is that the xBox processor runs the whole show. That means a performance hit on both ends and consequently, the Kinect/xBox 360 combination is just not as snappy as the Sony Playstation Move.

Finally a couple of numbers to describe the system:
1. Kinect “sees” 57 degrees of azimuth and 43 degrees of elevation Field of view. (The motorised base contributes 27 degrees.)
2. Depth of field extends from just over a meter to almost 4 meters.
3. Skeletal tracking (accurate, full-body data), tracks 2 active players at a time, while the Kinect tracks up to six people in the background.
4. Resolution is 320 x 240, 16-bit at 30 fps (IR camera), 640×480 32-bit color at 30 fps (colour camera).
5. Audio is 16-bit, at 16 kHz

The wand has the four familiar action buttons and trigger from the regular PS3 controller but some games will need the supplementary navigation controller. This is bought separately and includes a joystick and directional pad.

Gamers who’ve back-to-backed the Move with Nintendo’s Wii, say that the Move system is more accurate, more precise, and more connected. Pity there are so few games which take advantage of the technology, yet. Existing games will be able to include Move support through software updates. Scenes below are from The Fight: Lights Out, which was the hot item to play in the demo pit, at E3.

There’s an analog stick control on the left side, that Nintendo is calling a “Slide Pad.” Reactions to the stick were mixed, with some saying it felt too “slidey”. There is a gyro, motion sensor, it’s compatible with DSi games, and has two cameras enabling 3D photos. Of course, you’d have to view and show them on the 3DS, but, small price to pay, right?

So, how good is it? The guys from ARS Technica were at E3 and got their hands on the hardware immediately after the press conference. They were really impressed, saying:
“it’s instantly clear that Nintendo is on to something special”
A 3D game console and camera in your pocket. Imagine that…

From a South African perspective, all I can say is, “What a pleasure!” All the stadiums are there, beautifully rendered as we’ve come to expect, all 32 teams (actually all 199 sides that went through qualification are available if you choose not to play World Cup mode)(only international teams in this version, for obvious reasons), and some excellent (and pretty smart) vocals from Clive Tyldesley and Andy Townsend. Gameplay is reported to be “the sharpest of the franchise to date”.

The “The Story of Qualifying” and “Captain Your Country” features add even more depth and ensure that this is not just a one-trick pony of a game. There’s even a two-button mode for the, um, “controller-challenged” amongst us…

The World Cup is the largest sporting event in the world. Wanna play?

This simply means that you can now plug in your USB compatible storage device(s) and use it as if though it were your Xbox’s actual hard drive.

Now you can use this...

with this

We can speculate as to the why and when for this decision, the important part of the story is that even if you purchased a Xbox with a tiny hard drive you will now be able to plug in a removable storage device and install full games at will thanks to this new feature.

The maximum storage amount is 16 gb per drive, as you can use up to two drives this leads to extra storage space totalling 32 gb. We all know how expensive console based storage is, this is a great initiative coming from the Xbox camp and the update is available in the form of a firmware update download.

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!

As usual the latest Final Fantasy has its own unique story totally independent from previous Final Fantasy storylines with the exception of a few familiar names and of course Chocobos! The main character is a woman who goes by the name Lightning; Lightning will be the first female who is the main protagonist in a Final Fantasy game (with exception to Luna in FFX-2, but we’re not counting that).  Square Enix have always created totally unique Worlds set in complete fantasy and the land known as “Cocoon” looks as if though it will be no exception.

Square Enix have also created a completely new fighting system which looks quite interesting indeed (check it out: http://www.finalfantasy13game.com/#/uk/news/15 ). From what can be seen in the game play videos Final Fantasy XIII’s combat is quite a bit faster than its predecessors and incorporates a new form of summoning which looks incredible visually. Also check out the launch trailer:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TU-mCRvtX8g .

Final Fantasy 13 is set for release during this month of March 2010 for the PS3 and Xbox360. Sony will be releasing a special limited edition Final Fantasy 13 PS 3 slim console bundle (pictured below); this was already released in the East as it has been out there for some time now.

I can carry on yapping for hours on why you should buy this game when it comes out, suffice it to say that Final Fantasy 13 will push your consoles graphic capabilities to the boundary of its known limits and this is definitely going to be a totally awesome and inspiring game. Check out the official website (link posted above) and witness the beauty that is Final Fantasy 13.