Going Crazy

If you were disappointed by Sega's first attempt to bring the Dreamcast's greatest hits back, then fear not as at the end of November they'll be taking another crack at it. While Sonic Adventure may have been a bit of a failed attempt, Sega will be releasing the Xbox LIVE Arcade version of Crazy Taxi on November 24th. This time they've put in the extra work and the Arcade re-release will be complete with a 720p upgrade and transition to 16:9 screen ratio. On top of that you'll also get another 2 game modes on top of the original, and all for a reasonable price of 800 Points.

Bloody Good Drive

Take any game today and you'll be able to say "well it's just like a mix of THIS and THIS"... Well what happens when you cross Twisted Metal with the zombie Freak splattering fun of Crackdown 2? That seemed to be the question on Activision's mind when they came up with Blood Drive. Heading our way in November, Blood Drive will say players take to arena settings in heavily armed cars to destroy each other and the horde of zombies walking around. Promising 4 player drop in / drop out competitive multiplayer, Blood Drive will certainly attempt to fill that hole in Xbox gamers hearts that Sony put there when they announced Twisted Metal for PS3.

Feeling Less Kinected

It seems like Microsoft spent a little too much time creating hype for Kinect and not enough time creating the actual device. One more piece of the Kinect experience has fallen to the wayside as it comes to light that mainland European gamers (still unsure if this will affect Aus) will have Kinect's voice recognition system locked off until early-mid 2011. Currently the voice recognition system only supports British English, American English, Japanese and Mexican Spanish, and so Microsoft have decided that any regions not fully supporting these languages (including Canada) will have the voice recognition part of Kinect locked off from use until the Spring 2011 update (March - May) when they can get the full language library incorporated. In previous news it seemed like Microsoft were unsure of how well Kinect would sell upon release, and between this and Fable 3 announcing it WON'T have Kinect support at release, i think gamers are fast losing faith in Kinect too.

Be Heard

It's been a while since we've seen a Xbox console update, but there is finally one on the way and its bringing us a whole new level of communication... ok, well it's fixing one that currently sucks. The Xbox currently uses a low bit rate codec to encode voice chat because Xbox LIVE was originally designed to be running on 64k connections, but these days the vast majority of people are running faster connections (at least in most countries that aren't named Australia) so with the Fall Update (which actually comes in Spring for Aussies) we'll be seeing an update to the voice chat system that aims to make the audio a much higher definition. Will this make it possible to communicate in a team game like Halo or CoD without sounding like your mic is wrapped in alfoil? yes... will it reduce the pitch of the billion 12 year old kids on Halo? probably not. The fall Update will likely be released in the first week of November to go with the launch of Kinect, and thus update the dashboard for Kinect control as well.

Brotherhood Beta Dated

The Assassins Creed: Brotherhood multiplayer beta has now been dated as starting October 4th... but remember it's exclusive to PS3 owners who have pre-ordered the game.

Song Central

Personally, I don't dance. I'd like to believe i make the world a better place by NOT dancing. Other people DO like to dance though, and for those people there is the upcoming Harmonix Kinect title Dance Central... Just so happens a few more tracks for Dance Central have been revealed. Dancers the world over can look forward to dancing away in front of their tv's to...

• Basement Jaxx – “Rendez-Vu”
• Benny Benassi – “Satisfaction”
• Cascada – “Evacuate the Dancefloor”
• Fannypack – “Hey Mami”
• Kool & The Gang – “Jungle Boogie”
• Kylie Minogue – “Can’t Get You Out of My Head”
• Nelly Furtado – “Maneater”
• Nina Sky – “Move Ya Body”
• Pitbull – “I Know You Want Me (Calle Ocho)
• Rihanna – “Pon de Replay”
• Technotronic – “Pump Up the Jam”

Cool, right?

Kinect Casting

When Kinect was announced what was your first thought? Lightsaber duels? OK, yeah, good call... but surely your second thought was casting magic spells... right? If so, then your wish has been granted (magic, right?) as the Challenge Mode has now been announced for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1, which will allow you to use Kinect to cast spells.

Shadow Boxing

After the news that Fable 3 wouldn't feature Kinect support at launch, it started to look like Kinect was moving more and more towards the gimmicky game library everyone associates with the Wii. Luckily Ubisoft are going to change that... No, they're not really, but they've announced a cool fighting game for Kinect. Fighters Unleashed looks to be a cross between Street Fighter and UFC and will feature complete Kinect control... Just make sure you're not standing near any solid objects when you play it.

Prestigious In Vietnam

The Prestige edition of Call of Duty: Black Ops have been announced, and while you won't be getting another pair of night vision goggles, i'm sure most people will be happy with what you DO get.

The prestige edition will include the game (obviously) in a steelbook case, Four exclusive co-op maps (apparently these will be updated Zmobie maps from Call of Duty: World at War), 'Woods' avatar outfit, Black Ops medal and...  Black Ops RC-XD Remote Control Car with onboard video camera and microphone that sends an audio and colour video feed back to the controller. For those thinking it (and i know some of you are), no, the remote control car does NOT feature an exploding function. Presumably the Hardened version will be the same, minus the remote control car and probably without the medal.

Microsoft Faithless In Kinect?

Microsoft have revealed that Kinect will NOT be able to read sign language as was revealed by its patent. Microsoft have put it nicely by saying not everything they put to patent is brought to market immediately, however sources close to Kinect have apparently popped up saying the ability to read sign language had to be removed when the resolution of the camera was halved during part of a dumbing down process... and here's the kicker, the source goes on to mention the camera was dumbed down to make it cheaper in case Kinect failed to sell well. Seems like even Microsoft are a little doubtful of Kinect's success. Not something you want coming out with Kinect's launch in less than 3 months.

The Brotherhood Gets More Exclusive

Don't get too excited yet as this seems to be a U.S. only offer, but there is ANOTHER collector's edition of Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood hitting the market. The collectors edition comes with:

• a Doctor Jack-in-the-Box (or Harlequin Jack-in-the-Box for Gamestop shoppers)
• Two extra maps
• Hard Copy Strategy Map of Rome
• Exclusive Art Book
• Bonus DVD containing: Making Of video, Sneak Peek at the AC Comic, Trailers and the Game Soundtrack

Considering Australia is already getting 3 different editions (Standard Edition, Auditore Edition and Codex Edition), i don't think we'll be seeing this on our shores, but you never know.

Kinect Can Read The Signs

The patent for Kinect has now been made publicly available and it reveals that Kinect is more than meets the eye. No it's not going to turn into a robot and try to kill you, however it WILL understand what you're saying if you can speak in sign language. Supposedly the camera will be capable of reading American Sign Language (i didn't even know there was an American version of sign language, oh how naive of me) which speaks volumes for the cameras sensitivity and may potentially bring in a new class of gamers... the educated :D... and you thought i was gonna say deaf.

One on One with Kinect

Ever since Microsoft's Kinect and Sony's Move were brought to light at E3, there has been much debate over which is better and the advantages and disadvantages of each. The most interesting of which has been Kinect's ability to follow movement. I've heard reports that the camera has difficulty following movement, but i've also heard that the camera keeps track perfectly well. So which is it? Well, according to Harmonix (who are working on Kinect launch title, Dance Central) the camera is perfectly capable of reading 1:1 movement with no lag. So if Harmonix is right, then you'll be able to flail around in front of your TV come November and the on screen avatar will be able to keep step with you just fine... Of course this still doesn't make me any more interested in picking up Dance Central. Sorry Harmonix.

Betahood

I recently received the usual newsletter email from Ubisoft and noticed it has a button saying 'Get access to the PS3 limited multiplayer beta' of Assassins Creed: Brotherhood. Sadly, when i click said button i'm taken to a Ubisoft 'page cannot be found' page. I'm sure Ubisoft just accidentally put out the email earlier than they've put the actual page up (considering i haven't heard the beta mentioned anywhere else yet), but this does tell us that the beta should be here soon and it will only be available to PS3 owners.