Gadgetoid

This Wednesday two arcade titles wing their way to the Xbox Live Marketplace.

Check after the fold for more information.

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Sennheiser are very quickly coming round to the popularity of their headsets amongst gamers. With so many PC peripheral companies churning out mediocrity or novelty and claiming it to be the greatest of gaming headsets (Razer, I’m looking at you) having Sennheiser step in and floor the competition with a genuinely high quality product is a breath of fresh air. Albiet at £150 it’s an incredibly expensive one.

Granted, with the Sennheiser brand behind these I’ve assumed that they floor the competition without having experienced them for myself but it’s an easy assumption to make if you’ve had any experience with Sennheiser products in the past. And. Seriously. Look at the things; a build like a brick outhouse must have been part of the design specification.

Anyway, enough of the ranting blurb… I use Roland headphones for all my gaming/audio/tv needs anyway! Check over the fold for specifications.

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With every purchase of an Xbox 360 HD-DVD player you can now get not one, not two, not even three or four, but a staggering five free HD-DVDs.

From the 1st of October right up to the 31st of January next year anyone who purchases the HD-DVD player for their Xbox 360 will be able to choose 5 of 13 film titles from studios including Warner Brothers, Universal, Dreamworks and Paramount. To claim your movies you need to send in a form along with the barcode of the HD-DVD player and Microsoft should have your selections with you within 28 working days. For more information you can hit the Microsoft promotion page.

In a nutshell that means you’d better damned well hurry if you want to get that special someone an HD-DVD player for Christmas.. *hint *hint*. 5 HD-DVDs and the Xbox 360 HD-DVD player for about £110 is money well spent and should tide the family through those cold winter evenings with some quality cinematic entertainment.

So, what are you waiting for? Head on over to Play.com now and get your HD-DVD player in time for Christmas. See overleaf for the choices.

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Okay, so I don’t keep an eye on the charts so I have only myself to blame but nobody but me could be more surprised that Two Worlds make the Xbox 360 Top 10 for a solid month. This can only indicate that the rest of the Xbox 360 lineup during that month was so utterly stagnant and poor that Two Worlds floated leisurely to the top with little competition.
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It seems Bungie have earnt their freedom by providing Microsoft with the giant that is Halo 3. It’s been rumored but today it’s official.

“Microsoft Corp. today announced a plan for Bungie Studios, the developers of the Halo franchise, to embark on a path to become an independent company. Microsoft will retain an equity interest in Bungie at the same time continuing its long standing publishing agreement between Microsoft Game Studios and Bungie for the Microsoft owned “Halo” intellectual property as well as other future properties developed by Bungie.”

Who knows what’s in store for Bungie in the future but we can only hope that their independance from Microsoft breeds new levels of creativity and we see some ground-breaking titles from them that aren’t related to Halo.

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Not satisfied with just the Razer Barracuda headset being exactly the effing same as the Terratec Headset Master Razer have brought their branding-hammer down on the Sennheiser PC156 or similar headset and produced the Sennheiser Razer Pirana. This goes further toward proving the rediculously obvious fact that Razer are nothing more than a branding company for gamers with pockets almost as deep as their skulls are thick.

Don’t get me wrong, Razer products are based on some pretty damned fine technology, and the re-branding does look good, but is it really worth the price premiums?

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I can’t keep eyeing up the SlouchPod XT, I know it’s old news but it may be the ultimate in gaming furniture short of a grands worth of reclining home cinema seat that I would never fit in my living room in a thousand years. £300 doesn’t seem insane for a chair/speaker hybrid but I could get a Halo branded Xbox 360 for that!

If anyone wants to buy one and tell me if it’s any good, go right ahead!

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You might have seen it before, but I only discovered Zero Punctuation today when a colleague of mine dropped me the link. After watching through them all I was surprised to notice a Halo 3 episode- as if Yahtzee had somehow read my mind. I’ve embedded it below for your perusal.

You might also want to check out the previous “issues” as they are almost guaranteed to make you laugh- unless you’re some sort of humor deprived, dried up old fart… or just have absolutely no knowledge or interest in computer gaming. I sometimes forget there are people in the world who don’t know or don’t care about my beloved world of computer-driven escapism.

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For the one off fee of £48 you could be playing Guild Wars with not just an ordinary but a GuildWars branded version of the Razer DeathAdder. There’s no disputing the DeathAdder is a solid gaming mouse, but putting the GuildWars logo on it seems ever so slightly redundant.

Still, if you’re a huge (and I mean HUGE) fan of the game then there’s no reason why you shouldn’t pick this up. Particularly if you’re still rocking a yellowing ball-mouse.

The GuildWars DeathAdder also signifies the beginning of a partnership between NCsoft Europe and Razer for upcoming gaming events. How about some GuildWars Barracuda Headphones next, anyone?

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Words and pictures by Johnus Maximus

“Believe”

The tagline attached to the advertising campaign of the most eagerly awaited game of the year/decade/millenia (delete as appropriate). And the sheer amount of hype behind this game was going to be a lot to live up to. So does it?

YES - believe it!!!

Many a fine citizen of Norwich turned out to get their hands on their copy of Halo on Tuesday night, myself and the gadgetoid included. Despite the cold and the rain, we queued anxiously in the cold and the rain, and at midnight our wait was finally over. Read the rest of this post »

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