iPad World

Ever since savvy manufacturers realised that gamers were prepared to pay top dollar for pieces of near-useless plastic that claim to improve their gaming experience, there’s been a flood of largely pointless peripherals for home consoles. Right now, countless Wii Remote tennis racket attachments sit gathering dust in cupboards the world over, waiting forlornly for that dreaded day when they are unceremoniously recycled as landfill.

Traditionally speaking, these regrettable money-wasting exercises are largely confined to domestic hardware. Attempts to augment the functionality of portable consoles have proven largely unsuccessful in the past (remember the D-pad cross attachment that … Continue Reading

Sony toyed with removing the Vita’s twin analogue sticks entirely while prototyping the device, the platform holder has revealed.

Speaking in an interview on the PlayStation Blog, Sony designer Tokashi Sogabe revealed that his team discussed various alternative plans for control inputs, including “flat slide pads”.

“We also built a prototype with flat slide pads, a bit like what you have on your laptop, but it just didn’t feel responsive enough for gaming and we learned that you need that physical response of tilting the stick to feel like you have total control.

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For PC owners, recording game footage is a piece of cake. You buy FRAPS or check out a free alternative (like the intriguing MSI Afterburner) and a few mouse clicks later you’re on your way. But what are the cheapest options for console enthusiasts looking to capture their gameplay on a budget?

Digital Foundry’s entry-level recommendation is the Blackmagic Intensity Pro, readily available for around £130-£150. There are alternatives of course, which we’ll cover later, and the Blackmagic tech has a series of limitations that could put some people off, but for the average … Continue Reading

Swinging into shops in early 2012.

SEGA has announced Super Monkey Ball for PlayStation Vita.

It’s coming early 2012 (when Vita launches here) and has been designed specifically for Sony’s new machine.

That means that both analogue sticks are put to use, as are the front and back touch controls. Presumably you’ll be tilting the beast as well.

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You know you wood.

There once was a time when varnished wood was considered to symbolise the very height of affluence and sophistication. Cladding your product – be it a motor vehicle, wireless radio or television set – with timber panelling was widely regarded as a sound idea if you wanted to attract the attention of fashion-conscious consumers back in the 1970s, but then so were glitter-encrusted platform boots, bedside coffee machines and The Bee Gees.

Mercifully, mankind’s obsession for faux wood-effect consumer goods died out with the dawn of the plastic-obsessed eighties, but that doesn’t mean that electrical items crafted from … Continue Reading

Instantly drive any car in the game.

Hackers have revealed a button press code that allows access to a hidden, “special” options menu in Gran Turismo 5 Prologue that allows you to drive any car in the game and configure a number of other tweakables.

Mathieu Hervais, front man for the group that produced PSGroove, the open source version of PSJailbreak, revealed the code via Twitter.

Accessing the menu is simply a case of moving to the Miscellaneous section GT5 Prologue’s option screen, holding down L1 and R1 and pressing down, right, right, down, right, right, down, right, right, down, right, right … Continue Reading

Thinks Kinectimals can win over core.

Kinect is every bit as accurate as a traditional controller, if not more so, claims Kinectimal’s David Braben.

The Frontier Developments boss and Elite creator told Eurogamer, “People imagine that the analogue stick or D-pad on the controller is extremely accurate as we have got used to the way shooters control aiming with a gun, but that is only because the aiming is incremental. In other words, you are controlling the speed of movement of the gun sight, not the position directly.

“If you were to control the position directly with a controller, then it would … Continue Reading

Android-powered with joypad-style controls.

Engadget is reporting that Sony Ericsson is on the cusp of releasing a brand new Android-powered smartphone with PlayStation branding.

According to the report, the device is based on Android 3.0 (codenamed Gingerbread) and features a large 3.7″ to 4.1″ screen with at least WVGA resolution, meaning 800-854 pixels wide by 480 high. It’s a slide phone with PSP controls emerging from beneath the screen. Here you’ll find the traditional PlayStation buttons along with a digital d-pad along plus a curious multi-touch analogue bar, a kind of scaled-down laptop trackpad. Shoulder buttons are also included in the design.

Allegedly … Continue Reading

Caving in.

If you’re unaccustomed to the turbulent world of PC upgrades, the idea of your system not being man enough to run a game is probably entirely foreign to you. Outside of the N64′s fateful Expansion Pak, consoles are generally designed to run every game released.

But the iPhone and iPod Touch aren’t consoles, and they aren’t built with the same sensibilities. Unlike a dedicated handheld console, hardware updates for Apple’s fleet of devices aren’t bothered with backwards parity and legacy support. The thought process that left a second analogue stick off the PSP Go isn’t really present here.

This … Continue Reading