Gaming Charts – Mafia II Somehow Takes Top Spot

Last week’s entry Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days managed to take the spot despite being little more than a mediocre title and, worse still, Mafia II has achieved the same thing. Top of the charts for both the XBox 360 and the PS3, Mafia II proves that if you’ve got an average game and you want to get attention then you wait until there’s a lull in the releases.

View The Full Charts…

XBox Live Prices Going Up But Audio Upgrade And Avatar 2.0 Incoming

It’s bound to cause a stir but there’s a price rise in store for XBox Live Gold membership and, in all honesty, it’s not really that big a surprise. As Microsoft has said in their blog post, they have added and upgraded the service considerably since 2002 and haven’t since then increased the price. Yes, the additions helped to make the service more popular but the proposed rise to £6 per month still represents good value for money we think.

While the increase isn’t quite global, it will see prices in the US rise from $50 to $60 a year and in the UK it will go up to £6 per month with a Canadian subscription increasing to $12CAD per month. When you consider what else you can get for these kinds of prices it really isn’t that bad.

To help appease the masses and partially because of the launch of Kinect, one suspects, there is an audio upgrade inbound. The quality of multiplayer chat has been somewhat limited by the audio codec which only required a 64k connection. As msot gamers now pack seriously more punch than this, Microsoft has quite rightly deduced they can afford to improve the quality of the codec.

You won’t have to put up with the crackly abuse anymore, and you’ll be able to quite clearly hear the insults being hurled at you by annoying foreign kids.

There’s also news of another XBox Live upgrade coming our way, this time in the shape of Avatar 2.0. The upgrade will mean that avatars will appear considerably more realistic and lifelike than the current cartoon or caricature looking ones.

Avatars are extremely popular and they’ve undoubtedly proven a good little money spinner for Microsoft as new outfits and accessories, which generally cost a fairly minimal amount of Microsoft Points, are downloaded my masses of people.

Does £6 a month still represent good value for money?

Join us on Facebook and let us know what you think of the price increases.

This Week In Gadgets – Facebook More Popular Than Cheap Student Booze

With an update of everything from the last 7 days in gadgets and tech, the weekly round up is your quick fix of all things gaming, TV, design concepts, eco-gadgets, and Internet news.

Read This Week’s Tech News…

Mafia 2 – Too Linear But Not Too Bad

Mafia 2 has been a very long time in the making; seven years to be exact. And, as this means that the developers would have started work for consoles like the original XBox and Playstation this means that it has essentially enjoyed two games’ worth of development – the burning question for such a massively popular franchise (in terms of films and crap amateur impressions at least) is whether it has been worth the wait and whether players will benefit from such a lengthy development time. The honest, albeit entirely non-committal answer is “in parts, yes, and in other parts, probably not so much so”.

The first thing you’ll probably notice is that the graphics are incredible. Fortunately, gone are the days where you basically had a straight up choice between great looks or superio gameplay. Numerous titles have managed to combine both now so there’s really no excuse.

And, in all honesty, Mafia 2 does what it does quite well, it’s just that we as a collective group of gamers and we here expect more from a next-generation game than a bunch of linear based missions which tend to amount to nothing more than driving or shooting. There are some reasonable cut scenes in there too but again not all that much to write home about (unless you’re really stuck for stuff to write).

The game is also short which might mean that missions won’t become too repetitive but it also means that you won’t care about Vito by the time you reach the conclusion of the game. It also means that after 15 to 20 hours of gaming you’ll also be wondering whether it really was the best way to spend £40 of your hard earned money; we suspect the answer will be “probably not, but it could have been worse”.

Our Mafia 2 review in a Tweet?  Looks stunning and has a great soundtrack but is way too linear, too short, and overall a little bit too old school. 

You can follow GadgetsAndGizmos on Twitter, Facebook, or RSS Feed to stay in touch with the latest gaming news and other technology news.

Gamer’s Broadband Released As Defence Secretary Slams Medal Of Honor Game

World of Warcraft and XBox Live addicts are getting a new hypodermic needle to fill their craving bodies with more online gaming as Demon Internet is releasing a new gamers’ priority Broadband package. Gaming traffic is given priority with the £22 per month package which means that there should be a lot less lag and fewer interruptions while playing favourite online games. For anybody that’s got caught out with dodgy buffering in the midst of a round of Call of Duty will testify it could just be the icing on the cake.

Installation of the new package costs gamers £30 but there is a limit on bandwidth or usage. 100GB a month should be ample even for the heavy gamers and the restriction “only” applies during the hours of 8am and 11pm when most gamers are presumably enjoying their much needed rest ready for another all night gaming session.

One game that you may not be able to play through the new service, at least if defence secretary Liam Fox has his way, is the new Medal of Honor game. Fox has branded the title as unBritish under the misguided belief that players are rewarded for fighting as the Taliban and killing British soldiers.

The latest MOH title is another realistic title this time taking on the Taliban and the war in Afghanistan. The game is an 18 rated title and the single player campaign sees gamers playing as US soldiers attempting to fight and ultimately defeat the Taliban.

One thing Fox should have considered before urging retailers to stop selling the title is that the game is US manufactured and, as is tradition, it is short sighted enough to exclude all but the US from the allies side. Players can play as the Taliban in multiplayer as the game takes on the traditional route of pitting player against player so Taliban vs the US it is.

Will you play as the Talian in the new Medal of Honor game?

Will you fork out £30 installation and £22 per month for the gamer’s broadband package?

Review – Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days

The original Kane & Lynch game gave plenty to write home about – assuming nothing had happened in your life and you instead wanted to write a description of possibly one of the most overrated and unplayable games to hit the next-gen consoles. OK, so there were far worse games in many respects but Kane & Lynch managed to take the crown largely because it was controversial and really, really bad at the same time; not a good combination.

And yet, despite the awful fighting mechanics, dreadful storyline, and lack of just about anything we’ve come to expect in such games, a second title was virtually agreed to before the first one had even had chance to flop.

At first glance, Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days is a definite improvement on the original and for a few reasons. The camera work looks grittier, there’s less in the way of controversial but oh-so-poor storyline, and the gun mechanics have been improved. However, all of this comes at a trade-off – there’s a whole lot less to do in the second than there was in the first.

Dog Days is a regrettably repetitive game. Move and shoot, shoot and move, cover and swear at the clumsy cover system. Swear, move, shoot, cover and that’s about your lot all the way through. Except that the cripplingly realistic weapons mean that you’ll also spend a very large amount of time looking for better weapons strewn on the ground.

In its defence, the multiplayer side of things has been shored up a little. There’s a couple more multiplayer modes but most notable there is a multiplayer co-op. The very nature of the story, which includes two people working in tandem, meant that the first game truly lacked this mode – something that developers Square Enix have moved to remedy and good on them.

Did you play the original Kane & Lynch?

Will you be running out to buy the second instalment?

Gaming Charts – Kane & Lynch 2 Takes Top Spot From Toy Story 3

They couldn’t be much more polar in their game play and content, but Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days has overtaken Toy Story 3 to hit the top spot for all platforms in its debut week.

The game is number 1 for both the XBox 360 and the PS3 while Super Mario Galaxy 2 remains top for the Nintendo Wii. Last week’s new entry Madden 11 has slipped while the Nintendo’s only new entry this week, We Sing: Encore, has only managed to reach number 6.

View The Full Charts…

Google Games And Sony Videos

Apps are absolutely everywhere, and Google is bringing an app store to Google Chrome that will include in-browser gaming. Showing off the potential of the new apps, they said that they would charge a 5% fee to developers for including their games in the app store that is set to launch in October. It could also be part of the reason why Google has been buying up social gaming companies and online gaming companies, although many believe that they’ve done this to help them launch a social networking site to rival the likes of Facebook.

Many users turn to sites like Facebook in order to play games because it offers a central location, a single account, and a simplified way of finding the games that interest them the most. The app store which will include some pretty big games straight from the off including Doom and Worms games, it is a bold move but could potentially help them gain a greater market share from their Google Chrom web explorer software which competes with Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Mozilla’s Firefox.

Gamers will be able to pay using Google Checkout online payment system and it will support free game trials, regular subscriptions, and discounts.

Meanwhile, in gaming, Sony has announced that the next incarnation of the PS3 will include streaming videos and ITV Player. This means that you will be able to watch BBC programs through the iPlayer feature and ITV programs, and you will also be able to stream videos from Mubi. There was no announcement regarding the alleged deal with Channel 4 to bring 4OD to the gaming system but that could also be just round the corner.

As with most things Sony, there will be a community side to the whole thing which will let users chat and enjoy Facebook integration and more.

Will you be watching free TV shows and streaming movies on your Sony?

Microsoft Could Soon Challenge In Smartphone Wars With XBox Live Integration

Microsoft has finally confirmed the details of what could be a major change in the smartphone wars having given full details of the crossover between XBox Live and Windows Mobile 7. If you own a phone that rocks up Windows 7 then you will be able to play XBox Live games directly on your phone. You will be able to bag achievements, play multiplayer, and download some high quality games.

What’s more, Microsoft has announced the initial list of games which noyt only includes some of the titles that certain other mobile phones have been offering for a while but it also includes console specific titles like Halo Waypoint and Splinter Cell games.

The phones will also offer full avatar, achievement, and gamerscore support so pretty much whatever you can do on your XBox 360 you’ll be able to do on your Windows based mobile phone. It could well turn out that the new mobile phone operating system is the only choice for the 360 owning gamer. At launch, there will also be a good range of more casual titles such as Bejeweled and Uno which will help attract those that are probably less likely to own a 360.

Microsoft has kind of struggled to get the kind of attention it craves from its mobile operating system and the phones that boast it but this could be a move in the right direction. Not only is it offering decent quality but it’s also unique and plays on the fact that many people own and love their XBox 360 as a total gaming machine.

There will be 50 titles straight from launch and bearing in mind the fact that XBox Live on your console keep expanding with new features including Netflix video on demand don’t be too surprised to see a few other extra features added in time.

Will you swap to a Windows mobile to gain access to XBox Live on the move?

Gaming Charts – Toy Story 3 Still Top Of The Pile

There’s been a little more change this week in the gaming charts and while Toy Story 3 still heads up the all platform chart there’s a new entry for Madden 11 that’s made the top 5 for the PS3 and XBox 360.

Things have been pretty stagnant in the charts for the last few weeks with just the occasional swap and change and while there’s hardly a plethora of new titles or mass changes there is some movement worth noting. New entry Madden 11 has only managed to take the number 10 spot for the all platform title but is number 3 in the XBox 360 charts and mnumber 4 on the PS3.

View The Full Charts…

<Next Page » 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Next Page »