Gadgetoid

Review by Johnus Maximus

Released in February 2008 on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC, The Club, developed by Bizarre Creations and published by Sega, is a foray into a seedy underground club of guns, violence and points multipliers.

In a world already packed to the brim with quality first person shooting games, The Club actually provides a refreshingly unique cross genre gaming experience and can be enjoyed by both hard-core and casual gamers alike.

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With products ranging from £1,500 to £150,000 there’s no doubt that Meridian are a true audiophile and videophile brand. Meridian, founded in 1977, family-owned and based in Britain, manufactures everything from loudspeakers, complete music centers and home cinema systems and, until now, has done so below the radar of many of their potential customers. Now they are attempting to break into the luxury goods market and gain a higher degree of brand recognition as a company that delivers the highest possible performance gear to discerning customers and not necessarily just discerning audiophiles.

And this isn’t an unbased claim, Meridian is a multi-award winning company with much critical and industry acclaim as a world-leader in digital and analogue audio reproduction. They have some 135 awards for 156 products/innovations to date and have won the British Design Council Award for Outstanding British Products an unprecedented three times.

You can visit www.meridian-audio.com for more information or check over the fold to learn about some of their key products.

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The very latest addition to the Korg Pa series is the Pa588, a Stage Piano/Workstation hybrid that combines the sound and playability of Korg’s excellent stage pianos with professional arranger features.

The Pa588 has an 88-note real weighted hammer action keyboard designed to emulate the feel of a concert grand. This, combined with powerful arranger features, an intuitive interface, the same synthesis engine found in the Korg M3, more than 880 additional sounds and over 50 drum kits makes the Pa588 a very promising and flexible workstation on paper.

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It’s not often you find a product changing the way you work, normally you pick something you expect to fit in with your workflow and go with it. Being a journalist I end up trying products I would not normally consider for purchase and just occasionally I find them becoming irreplaceable.

The Novation Remote 61SL is one such product. As an owner of a Roland Fantom X8 I was heading down the road of live audio recording from hardware synthesizers, but this posed two problems that I did not fully recognise until getting my hands upon the Novation Remote 61SL

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Review by Johnus Maximus

Released in Europe on March 7th 2008, also available on PS3, Dynasty Warriors 6 is the latest incarnation of the “Romance of the Three Kingdoms” story, developed by Omega Force and published by Koei.

Set in 3rd century China amongst a backdrop of political turmoil, the game tells the stories of the leaders and warriors of the Wei, Wu and Shu kingdoms as they fight for dominance over the land.
Although somewhat exaggerated in terms of their appearance, demeanour and weaponry, each of these characters had an important part to play in one of the most turbulent times of Chinese history.

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Back in October the Sennheiser PXC 450 were rated the best noise canceling headphone on the market, in november a black edition was released dubbed the PXC 350 and retailing for some £70 less. It’s this version I managed to obtain for the Gadgetoid once over, and it didn’t take much more than the insertion of batteries and the flip of just one switch to realize exactly how the Sennheiser PXC 450 stole the noise canceling crown. In fact, the PXC 350s have won the very first Gadgetoid “really rather good” award.

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The Korg MicroKORG is an impressive, ultra-portable and robust
synthesizer which makes up for its diminuiative size and somewhat
controversial half-sized keyboard in droves with powerful synthesizing
features including a vocoder, arpeggiator, effects and 128 genre-grouped
pre-programmed patches to get you inspired and playing music out of the box.
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Review by Johnus Maximus

Mass Effect, an immersive futuristic rpg that despite some minor flaws offers an exciting cinematic rpg experience that most 360 owners should find enjoyable.

While the gameplay itself does not offer anything more innovative than any other game in this genre, what really makes this game special is the overall presentation of the story that takes place, especially with regard the music and dialogue.

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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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My first love in the world of keyboards is my Roland Fatom X8; I’ve not given it any of the Gadgetoid limelight, however, because it is a decidedly expensive niche product. The 61-key Juno-D on the other hand is what I would consider to be affordable and is a great little synth and good all-round stage keyboard that will not break the bank. Not only that but the Juno-D looks fantastic, all black with a tasteful brushed metal finish and a very refined and clean appearance that puts the similarly priced and specified Yamaha MM6 to shame.
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