Wii have a problem!

This is really funny ... well maybe not for the people involved. Check out the website wiihaveaproblem.com to see what people have managed to smash with flying Wiimotes. The list includes TV's, walls, a laptop, a PDA, a ceiling fan and a window so far! Don't these people hang onto to wiimote when they play? Sure the wrist straps should not break but if you were holding onto the wiimote in the first place then there would be no strain on the wrist strap...not so?

Keyboard & mouse for Xbox360... finally

Well sometimes prayers do get answered.. or so it seems after reading this article over at teamxbox.com. A company called XCM is manufacturing a nifty little USB device that allows you to connect a USB keyboard and mouse to the Xbox360. Its called the XFPS360 and should be available late December or early January. It even lets you connect a PS2 controller to the 360 as well... which is nice if you already have some PS2 controller lying around or even a dancemat maybe? Saves you from having to buy extra controllers for your 360. Check out the rest of the pics at the link above.

No (playing) Gears .. only news.

The weekend has come and gone and I didnt play any Gears of War...sadly. I was hoping to finish it in coop mode this weekend and then start all over again in single player.. but we just never got to it. I did do some other gaming this weekend though. In fact I started playing Halo again on the PC. With all the hype going on about Halo 3 these days I thought I could use a refresher course in what Halo is all about. My plan was to play Halo on the PC and then Halo 2 on the Xbox.. but now with Halo 2 also being released on the PC (Halo 2 Vista) I might just wait till next year and play it on the PC rather (I still dont like FPS's on the 360... prefer the mouse and keyboard.) Other than Halo I have also been playing Battlefield 2 and started playing Company of Heroes as well.

I downloaded Megadeth's Gears of War song ealier and I must say ... I like it. But then again I have always liked metal. For those of you interested, the song is available for free from Megadeth's website or using this link. Just go to the Nov 22nd link on the front page.

In some other Gears of War news...Microsoft accidentally admitted last week that Gears of War will be a trilogy when Jeff Bell from Microsoft said: "The goal of this ad is to establish Marcus Fenix as the hero of the Gears of War trilogy." Now that the cat's out of the bag Epic followed it up by saying: "If we can keep making quality games that fans obviously then why would we have to stop at three?" I think all Gears of War fans will agree.

I haven't really had any/much PS3 news on here but here's something interesting. The first rips of PS3 Blue Ray games have appeared on the net already. The first games to appear were Madden 07 and Resistance. It seems they manage to do this by running Linux on the PS3.

The PC is back!

As of yesterday I have a PC up and running again that can run some proper games. Since I moved to the UK in October I have only had a laptop to work on untill now but my wife managed to bring the insides of my PC with her from South Africa so I just needed a casing, drives, etc. As I am writing this my KVM switch just arrived so I can now easily share my monitor between my PC and Xbox360 without having to unplug the cables all the time. The first game I played on the PC .... Battlefield 2! My favourite multiplayer game... although I enjoy it just as much playing against the bots. I have not had the opportunity of checking out BF2142 yet since it was released after I left SA and therefore didnt have a PC to play it on. I sure will now. Another game I am really looking forward to playing again which I just started playing before I cam over is Company of Heroes. I thoroughly enjoyed the bit of it that I have played and will definately put a lot of hours into that game soon.

I also managed to get my hands on a Limited Edition copy of Halo 2 this week. Fortunately it works just fine on the 360 (being an original Xbox game) so I'll be spending some time with that as well to see what the hype is about. Apart from that our nightly Gears of War coop sessions are still continuing and I think we'll probably finish it this weekend... or get close at least.

Emergence Day..... again...

Yesterday was finally Emergence Day for me. My Limited Collector's Edition copy of Gears of War arrived in the morning but I only started playing it yesterday evening...... untill now. Just stopped playing now.. at the scene where you need to get the Beserker outside to use the Hammer of Dawn on it. What an annoying, irritating stage... I don't know why they felt they had to put such a stage in the game... it was fun up till then but that stage has me wondering about the rest of the game. Was playing it in split screen coop mode. Lots of fun...untill that scene. Getting a bit late now so will try again tomorrow.

The game is not as impressive as I hoped it would be. The graphics are good... but not THAT good. Then again I am playing it on a monitor at a resolution of 1280x1024, not a widescreen display and the graphics looks a bit squashed. Other games look fine.. its just this one that looks as if the aspect ratio is a bit wonky.

I was impressed by how smoothly the game ran in split screen mode though. It's very playable in this mode even though you only basically see half of what you would see playing full screen. I will start playing the single player campaign after I get some sleep.

Wii launches

Well last night (early hours this morning in the UK actually) was the launch of the Nintendo Wii in North America. Europe has to wait till 8 December though. At least the wait is not as long as for the PS3. From what I have read the launch went very well and people had plenty of fun.. unlike the PS3 launch which got out of hand in some places and plenty of people got hurt. Here's wishing Nintendo all the best with their new console. Check out Gamespot's article about the launch here.

Emergence Day

Today is Emergence Day ..... for this site/blog at least. Yesterday was actually the real Emergence Day here in the UK (the day Gears of War is released for those who dont know.) This blog is all about my rants and raves about the gaming industry in general and it's not going to be platform specific. Personally I am a PC gamer and own a Xbox 360 but there is also a PS2 and a PSP in the house (not mine but I do play on it often.) Obviously there will be more posts regarding the platforms I own (especially the 360) but I am "openminded" when it comes to consoles and am by no means a "fanboy". So welcome and please check back regularly for posts and updates.