Mercury Games And Jamster Team Up Again For New Allstars Release Mobile Characters Nessie, Sweety And Friends To Star In Their Own Video Game London: 27th July 2007 Having sold more than one million copies of the Crazy Frog video game franchise, Mercury Games today announces a deal with mobile content provider Jamba Gmbh to give more Jamster characters their own video game – Jamster Allstars. The Jamster Allstars must make their way through a series of challenges to discover who has stolen the all musical notes so that they can continue to make ringtones. The characters have to move through the platform style game with various challenges to collect musical notes and emblems, solving puzzles and beating bosses along the way. Jamster Allstars has 12 levels and is set in three distinct environments – Futuristic, Urban and Medieval. There are four playable characters – Sweety the chick, Nessie the dragon, Jambo the elephant and No1 from mad dawgz. Each character has its own skills and strengths, for example Nessie can breathe fire and Jambo can jump, creating earth shockwaves when he lands. Mercury Games, President, Leo Zullo said: “We are pleased to continue our relationship with Jamba, with the release of Jamster Allstars. Jamba characters are some of the most popular in the, ever expanding, mobile media sector. Previous Crazy Frog games have been very successful and Jamster Allstars is the perfect follow up.” Each copy of Jamster Allstars will include a free premium ringtone (in most major territories). Each game will also unlock exclusive Jamster media content. The game will be known as Jamster Allstars in all English speaking countries and Jamba Allstars in the rest of the world Jamster Allstars will be available on the Sony PlayStation 2 and PC. The game will be published under the Turtle Games label, a sub-brand of Mercury Games aimed at 5-12 year olds. It is due for release on the 14th September, priced at £14.99 / €19.99. For more information please visit www.jamsterallstars.com

Hey Nintendo Central, I just finished making my Gold Zelda GameCube. I am selling it on eBay and giving a portion to the 'child's play charity.' The auction is only going for 3 days and is located at http://cgi.ebay.com.au/Nintendo-GameCube-ONE-OF-A-KIND-Legend-of-Zelda-Mod_W0QQitemZ260133371228QQihZ016QQcategoryZ147872QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem This is my first ever console mod, so please don't be to hard in judging it. Thank You Michael

The Xbox 360 runs really hot and a number of companies have addresses this problem with some innovative cooling solutions. Titan recently jumped on the bandwagon with their version of a high performance silent plug and play aftermarket cooling solution for the Xbox 360.

 

The XFan is especially designed for the Xbox 360 as a powerful silent cooler, which helps reduce the internal operating temperature of the Xbox 360 and prevent potential crashing.

While playing games for long periods of time, you can feel very hot air from the X360 box, but after attaching the XFan, you can physically feel how much cooler the air is when it comes out the back of your console. The XFan sure does provide great cooling performance and ensures the Xbox 360 operates at peak efficiency without the overheating problem.

The installation of the XFan is very easy and doesn't require any internal modification. It just snaps onto the back of the Xbox 360 with simple plastic clips that pop into the ventilation holes on the back of the console. The XFan is powered via the USB, but Titan have made a pass-through port that allows you to use the USB port if needed. Operation is a breeze as it is automatically powered up once the Xbox 360 is turned on. 

If your Xbox 360 is crashing all the time this could be the simple solution you are looking for.

 

Hax0rs rejoice as a vulnerability to allow home brewed software on the 360 is found. Nobody can argue that the Xbox 360 is a great console (well at least nobody except PS3 fanboys) but the fact still remains that even with XNA Game Studio Express, Microsoft still calls the shots with the code on your green machine. Well until now.

A vulnerability has been discovered with the potential for hackers to create homebrew software on the 360. For the tech enlightened the official geek speak reads as,

 

a critical vulnerability in Microsoft's Xbox 360 that allows privilege escalation into hypervisor mode allowing the injection of data into non-privileged memory areas". This would allow an attacker (person who hasn't seen sunshine for over five years) to physical access on an Xbox 360 to run code with full privileges and full hardware access.

Woohoo. It's party time on the 360. Microsoft is aware of the exploit and has already patched kernel 4552 but hackers remain optimistic. Watch this space for a linux Xbox 360 coming to your living room soon!

Sony Computer Entertainment Europe announced today that the European version of the their PS3 console that will go on sale in Europe on 23 March has a different hardware configuration than those available elsewhere. The same version will be on sale in the Middle East, Africa and Australia.

Most notable change being removal of the systemÙs Emotion Engine, the piece of hardware that is responsible for PS2 compatibility. The European version will depend on software emulation for this instead. 

PS3 is first and foremost a system that excels in playing games specifically designed to exploit the power and potential of the PS3 system. Games designed for PS3 offer incredible graphics quality, stunning gameplay and massively improved audio and video fidelity that is simply not achievable with PS and PS2 games. Rather than concentrate on PS2 backwards compatibility, in the future, company resources will be increasingly focused on developing new games and entertainment features exclusively for PS3, truly taking advantage of this exciting technology.

The new combination of hardware and software emulation will enable the PS3 to be compatible with a broad range of original PlayStation titles and a limited range of PlayStation 2 titles. It is not known whether the same hardware changes are going to be applied to future consoles in America and Japan.

We were expecting this after hearing a slew of rumors in the past month. And finally, it happened. Play.com , a UK Retailer has cut the price of the Xbox 360 Core version to £149.99 (used to be £199.99 earlier). This makes the console cheaper than the highly successful Nintendo Wii which is retailing for £179.99.

Now, this price cut can be seen in many ways. Firstly, its just Play.com trying to get rid of the stock of the core systems. And we heard the rumor - a 360 with HDMI in the works - this could mean the new 360, code named Zephyr is on its way. If this is the case, is it possible to see the same price cut in other areas too?

The Wii has clearly won the next gen console battle and Sony are struggling with their PS3. With the PS3's UK release scheduled somewhere around next month, this could be a real blow to Sony if other retailers follow suit.

Sony seems to be going the Microsoft way as they announced that their Play Station 3 owners are going to get movie downloads on their consoles.

As part of SonyÙs long-range plans for its newest gaming console, the PlayStation 3 will be getting a movie-download service as well as additional music and HDTV capabilities. The inclusion of a hard drive in the PS3 is part of a larger strategy to boost the PlayStationÙs presence as an entertainment hardware device, rather than just a game machine.

SonyÙs move to integrate movie downloads with the PlayStation 3 console is not surprising, given the arms race mentality that has been running rampant in the gaming scene for the past year. In creating a movie and music download service for the PlayStation 3, Sony will be putting itself in competition most directly with Microsoft and the Xbox 360 platform.

In creating a movie and music download service, Sony will be putting itself in competition most directly with Microsoft, which launched a similar service last November. Called Xbox Live Video Marketplace, the Microsoft download service allows Xbox 360 Premium owners to buy movies and TV shows.

A new IGN preview of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion reveals that the PS3 version of the game has been optimized to take advantage of the Cell processor and hardware that the system offers.

"The PS3 version of Oblivion isn't a simple port of the game either, although players who have picked up the 360 version will be very familiar with the control scheme. For one thing, the PS3 version has been optimized to take advantage of the Cell processor and hardware that the system offers. As a result, the game runs a lot faster than the 360 build. Entering dungeons or buildings results in a load of 3-5 seconds, compared to the 7-10 seconds or longer for the 360 version of the game. Similarly, the amount of framerate drops or hitches that cropped up in the wilderness as you accessed a new area on the 360 have been substantially reduced on the PS3 version. There is a plan to completely eradicate these issues as the game nears release, as well as fixing a number of bugs that were present in the other builds. Kiss the item duplication glitch goodbye.

Visual textures are much sharper in the PS3 version of the game. The visual presentation of Oblivion has also been significantly enhanced. While it was a beautiful title on the 360, far off environmental details often displayed low resolution textures. This has been fixed with new shaders dedicated to rendering the foreground cleanly with sharper details, so rocky landscapes now have craggy appearances instead of smooth, non-distinct surfaces. While there is still a fair amount of pop-in that occurs (which can't be helped due to the size of the world), the draw distance is farther than the 360 version. As a result, screens from the PS3 version should approach those from high end PCs running Oblivion, which is an impressive feat.

If you are having a hard timeheat to dissipate from your 360, take a look at the Gamexpert Cooler King. This is basically same as the Nyko Intercooler 360, but the Cooler King does more.

Not only does it keep your 360 cool via an internal fan system, but it also acts as kind of a dock, turning the Xbox's proprietary AV port into standard outputs for component video, composite audio/video, S-video, VGA, and optical audio and you'll also find four USB ports.

The internal fan cooling system reduces the operating temperature of the console - helping to prolong gaming sessions. At the same time the Cooler King gives you the option to connect VGA, Component and S-VHS cables for high definition gaming, and optical output for digital surround sound.

You can also connect your MP3 player, digital camera and additional wired controllers through the USB hub multi-tap facility. The Cooler King is easy to install - just plug into the XBox 360 and go! Also included in the package is a scart lead for connection to standard definition TV.

You can buy this product from PLAY.COM for just £17.99 (inc shipping). This is one damn good deal!!

Sony Computer Entertainment Europe today announced that PS3 will be launched in the PAL territories including the United Kingdom on 23rd March 2007 at a price of £425 along with over 30 titles.

Responding to retail and consumer demand, Sony confirmed that initially only the 60GB model would be available, with the 20GB model to follow later in the year dependent on demand. An expected one million PS3 units will be made available during the initial launch period to all SCEE territories.

Sony also announced a stellar launch line-up of over 30 game titles for PS3, including eagerly awaited titles published by SCEE such as Resistance: Fall of Man, MotorStorm, Genji: Days of the Blade, FORMULA ONE CHAMPIONSHIP EDITION and Ridge Racer 7. An exceptional range of titles in every genre will also be available at launch from the world’s leading third party publishers, including Electronic Arts, Activision, Namco Bandai, Sega, Take 2, Ubisoft, Vivendi Universal, and Sony Online Entertainment.

In addition to games on disc, an exciting range of fully-featured downloadable games will debut on the PLAYSTATION Network. These will include gaming icons such as Tekken: Dark Resurrection and Gran Turismo HD Concept; the fully-featured PS3 debut of the best-selling franchise Gran Turismo, realised with full HD (1080p) visual quality. Created by Polyphony Digital Inc and published by Sony Computer Entertainment, Gran Turismo HD Concept has been downloaded by more than 350,000 users since it was released in December 2006 in North America and Japan.

Read on for the full press release and a list of the launch title line-up.