The Games News

Bungie Studios is releasing a Windows Vista version of its first person shooter, Halo 2, still wildly popular after two years on the market. The game is slated to ship after the December release of the new Microsoft operating system. With the Xbox 360 release of Halo 3 slated for Fall 2007, you have to ask yourself, what’s the point? Why release the dated game on the PC platform around the same time the new version is being released? There are plenty of reasons to get this enhanced port. Halo 2 Vista supports a 16 multiplayer mode like the Xbox (although interplay between PC and Xbox is not possible) and overall gameplay is expected to be similar to the Xbox version. However, Bungie points to massive improvements in visuals. Halo 2 Vista will support DirectX 10, which brings with it nearly photorealistic enhancements. And the game will take advantage of next generation video cards and computer hardware. (more…)

With the release of a compatible driver for the Xbox 360 controller onto PC-based systems, someone decided they would make the bulky 360 controller dual-compatible with both PCs and Macs. As an ongoing project at tattiebogle.net, the initial release has been slowly revamped twice in the past 5 months to allow for directional pad controls and the ability to recognize extra vendor/product ids.

One of the most interesting parts of this story is that Microsoft didn’t develop this first. With everyone pushing to develop anything and everything for the 360 and its accessories, one company that has seen the short end of the development has been Microsoft. Even though Microsoft didn’t develop the Mac compatible driver for the 360 controller, they still have many secrets up their proverbial sleeve that they will unleash when the time is right.

The driver can be located here

For the individuals that purchased the Microsoft Xbox 360, some of the things they were buying the next-generation system for were the great graphics, the games set to release for the system, the updated online play, and the HDMI capabilities. However, most fans were somewhat displeased with the HDMI capabilities of the Xbox 360 when there wasn’t even an HDMI capable available for the Xbox 360. How did Microsoft fix this? With announcing the soon release of an HDMI cable for the Xbox 360.

While the cable hasn’t been released yet, buyers of the Xbox 360 are placing themselves on the list to purchase one. Seeing that this cable is an official Microsoft product, the cable should come sooner than later and will most likely be offered in cheaper varieties through 3^rd Party companies. No official release date has been announced yet, but the HDMI cable should be available by the time the HD DVD drive is released.

The days of 32, 64, and 128-bit digital earthworms are now behind us. With the introductions of recent systems such as the PSP, Xbox 360, and future systems such as the PS3 and the Wii, reintroductions of former major hit video games seem in order as well. While Atari, former video game heavyweight and original developer of Earthworm Jim, is in the middle of a hefty sell-out, they have released names of current games in development; one of those names is our old friend Earthworm Jim.

While it seems that Earthworm Jim is officially making a comeback, rumors are still roaming around to which system the game will be on. With some advertisements claiming the PSP and others claiming the Xbox 360, the possibilities that the game will be released on both systems is a possibility as well.

I completely redesigned Earthworm Jim and all of the other characters and the game play is coming out amazing. We are aiming for the original feel of the first Jim game only it would be on a 3D platform.
- Doug TenNapel, father of Earthworm Jim, said of the new game -

Winning the “longest line to see a console” award at E3 2006, the lucky individuals that had a chance to experience the Nintendo Wii also decided they would tell there friends about their exciting opportunity. Since E3 and adding the fact that the Wii will be available before Christmas this year, Nintendo’s shares have risen a whopping 6.2%, Nintendo’s highest since April of 2002.

With Nintendo stealing every facet of the show at E3, making competitors like Sony’s PlayStation 3 and the Microsoft Xbox 360 look like unlucky competitors, the only thing that Nintendo didn’t offer to its fans was a price for the Wii. Unlike Nintendo’s competitors, Nintendo has yet to release whether the price will be around $300 or if it will be, as some are hoping, under $200. While the Nintendo Wii isn’t expected to be released until near-Thanksgiving or later, a price is expected soon to give consumers a chance to prepare to purchase a Nintendo Wii for the Christmas season.