The Games News

During the final months of the development of Halo 3, the testers have begun testing the multiplayer aspect of the third and possibly final game in the series. Most of the testing has been on non-HDTV screens on a usual 4:3 480i NTSC TV screen. With the majority of the testing using non-HD definition, this means that Microsoft and Bungie are making sure that Halo 3 will be great for everyone, not just the lucky ones that possess HD. I am curious to see how the game will turn out. As an avid player of the first and the second Halo games alike, I played the multiplayer version to a point of insanity. It, in my opinion, is one of the greatest first-person multiplayer modes ever created. The hope that they continue their testing on the multiplayer and make it their top priority until the release of the game is one of my greatest concerns. The storyline of the game started on a downfall during the middle of Halo 2 while the multiplayer stole the spotlight. For college students and gamers alike, let’s all hope Halo 3 will live up to the hype.

In the upcoming months, both of Microsoft’s greatest competitors are releasing their next-generation systems to compete and possibly deter Microsoft’s seemingly relentless onslaught of the video game industry. Both of the competitors, Sony and Nintendo, will be ecstatic to hear that Microsoft has had no interest whatsoever of dropping the price of the Xbox 360.

With the Xbox Core system at $299 and the Premium system at $399, Microsoft has sold millions of the Xbox 360 while the people who buy it seem to aimlessly shell out the cash (or credit) to buy one. With the price of the Wii officially at $250 and the PlayStation 3 at a indecisive $599, the Xbox 360 stands right between both and should continue to sell the system with but a slight drop in sales due to the release of the two newer systems. With no price drop in sight for the Xbox 360, it will be interesting to watch the developments come mid-November.

Rockstar’s controversial Grand Theft Auto franchise was in news again but not because of its comprehensiveness, graphics or game play. This time, GTA was victim of the allegations imposed on it. The players were so influenced by this game that they started playing it in real life. Many stories in this regard came up. A year ago, man named Tyrone McMillan was taken into custody after a 55 minute car chase on the roads of Albany, New York. Initially, officers wanted him to pull over for the parole violation, but McMillan assumed he can outrun the cops because he has done it so many times on his PS2 playing GTA. With the experience of navigating the illusory San Andreas and Vice City in hand, he thought that he can easily out smart the cops. He even had his girlfriend’s daughter and her cousin in the backseat. After slamming into two cars, he was finally caught. In his statement to the police, he blamed GTA for what ever happened. No Attorney could help him now, as a court judge slapped him with two concurrent seven-year jail terms. After serving time, he will be on parole for 10 years.

GTA has a care free environment. You can do anything you want to. Roam the roads, steel the cars, kill people whenever you like to, start rivalry, date hookers and end police chase by re-painting your vehicle. This seems to be a perfect life. But this doesn’t mean at all that you start practicing same way in the real life. Games are meant for entertainment. If games are reality, then I am the current WWE champion as I won it playing WWE Smackdown5 last night, Also, I have just won the FIFA world cup beating Brazil 4-2 in the finals. Many more achievements we all have in the gaming world. But it should not encourage a player to become immortal in real life. I think such victims, who claim that games like GTA are responsible for their disruptive behaviors, should be given psychological guidance. On the other hand, if someone uses a house knife for murder, it doesn’t mean that people will stop using them in future because they are dangerous. Therefore, totally blaming the games is not appropriate. Games are a source of entertainment and that’s it.

Xbox Media Center was declared the winner of Sourceforge’s Best Multimedia and Best Game. Operations like unpacking a movie are now done on the fly, and the system is gaining constant popularity. Xbox Media Center is a free open source multimedia player resource. It can be used to play/view most common video/audio/picture formats such as MPEG-1/2/4, DivX, XviD, MP3, AAC, JPG, GIF plus many more less known formats directly from a CD/DVD in the Xbox DVD-ROM drive or from the Xbox hard-drive. Xbox Media Center can also stream files from a PC over a local network and even stream media streams directly from the internet. Now all the programs runs faster and this application have a lot of new features. Maybe Xbox Media Center is not only one of the best existent SourceForge projects, but one of the most useful pieces of technology you can find nowadays. Xbox Media Center comes with a full Python install with extensions to access the menu system. A built in web server is also included so you can use your gaming console even for that.

The software emulation rumored to be used for backwards compatibility on PlayStation 3 is the same trick used by Microsoft on Xbox 360 to play original Xbox titles. Sony must get the majority of its back catalogue compatible with the new PlayStation or they will lose an important advantage. Yet a surprising number of PlayStation 2 titles are already working on PlayStation 3 prototype hardware. This is because some components from PlayStation 2 are used on the PlayStation 3. The gaming console will be compatible with virtually every TRC compliant PlayStation 1 and PlayStation 2 title. PlayStation 3 will have a combination hardware and software emulation solution - unlike the retarded last minute hack Microsoft was forced to throw into the Xbox 360.