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Kinect Sports 'Calorie Challenge' DLC lets you play with your food
New DLC for Kinect Sports, coming April 29, will add a new mode called "Calorie Challenge." This, of course, uses the Kinect sensor to scan every Twinkie, Monte Cristo sandwich, and bowl of melted butter you eat, keeping a running tally of exactly how many calories you consume within a time limit. Okay, we're kidding. The Calorie Challenge is actually a mode in which you face off against anthropomorphized snack foods in a series of challenges, with the goal to burn off as many calories as that food typically contains. You'll compete against "Peppy Pizza" to burn off 302 calories, for example, while Steady Celery will provide seconds of competition with 25 calories.%Gallery-121596%
Kinect Sports dev seeks participants for Guinness World Records attempt
A Guinness World Records achievement for "most people running a virtual 100m dash at one time" will take place over Easter weekend, on April 23. According to Rare, a free Xbox Nations gamer pic should be available in the coming week. Downloading it will "automatically enter you into the record attempt." Then, at the appointed time (listed after the break), all you need to do is pop in Kinect Sports and "complete a sprint mini-game while connected to Xbox Live." Make sure not to choose the entire track and field event from the menu or it won't count. All who download the gamer pic and participate in the record attempt will be rewarded with the Guinness World Records avatar tee (pictured). Beyond that point, you can totally make up the reason you earned it: "Yeah, I totally got that for putting four pool balls in my mouth. You should see how many you can do!" [Thanks, David]
Possible character model from canceled Kameo 2 surfaces
According to the portfolio of former Rare senior graphic designer Sergey Rakhmanov, the developer was once working on what may have been a very radical departure for Kameo 2. Rakhmanov's resume mentions the canceled project and includes images of a decidedly non-cartoony rendering of Kameo herself. Given the undeniably adorable status of the first Kameo, an Xbox 360 launch title, it seems unlikely that Rare was actually considering such a drastic change for its sequel. The character model may simply represent the daydreams of an imaginative artist. Either way, it's fun to envision a grittier take on the series. Check out Rakhmanov's portfolio for more Kameo images and a short video.
Get your rare Twentieth Anniversary Mac on eBay
Want a piece of Apple history? Bring your wallet and your cut-throat bidding skills and head on over to eBay, where there's an untouched, unopened Twentieth Anniversary Mac up for grabs. This wasn't celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Mac; rather, the TAM was created as an homage to the 20th birthday of Apple in 1996. The special-edition Mac didn't actually make it to market until 1997 due to the fact that Apple seemed to have overlooked the impending celebration in 1996. At the time it started selling, the Twentieth Anniversary Mac sold for US$7,499. What did you get for your money? A PowerPC 603e CPU running at 250 MHz, 32 MiB of RAM, a 12.1" active matrix display with a best resolution of 800 x 600 pixels, a CD-ROM drive, a floppy drive and a 2 GB hard disk drive. Those were pretty low specs even for the time, but the cool factor of the TAM was enhanced by the incredible design. Made in a metallic green / gold color, the TAM featured one of the first desktop LCD displays, leather palm rests on the keyboard, a built-in TV / FM tuner and remote, and it even had a custom-designed Bose sound system. Only 12,000 of these wonders were built, and of the manufactured TAMs, 399 of them were kept for spare parts. Both Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak were given TAMs, as well as a group of Apple Australia executives. While TAMs in good condition usually go for about $1,000, the bidding price as of the time this post was written was $1,205 -- probably due to the publicity that the auction of this rare Mac has received. Although the eBay listing shows this as being "unopened," there are photos of the inside of the box. We have video of Jony Ive (noted as Jon Ive in the video!) describing his design on the next page. Enjoy -- and then go make your bid for this rare piece of Apple history. (Photo from the All About Apple Official Website, licensed under Creative Commons) [via Electronista]
Rare appoints former Colin McRae, Sonic Racing dev as studio director
Rare has hired Craig Duncan to take on the senior studio director role. Duncan will oversee all product development and staff management at the UK-based developer, part of Microsoft Game Studios. Duncan comes to Rare with experience in product development at Codemasters, Midway Games and Sumo Digital. His credits include the Colin McRae Rally series and Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing (pictured). Duncan's appointment at Rare follows last month's report that the studio was replacing its full-time art staff with contract workers. Rare is rumored to be working on a sequel to the "breakout hit" Kinect Sports -- perhaps with a racing minigame, now?
Rare's canceled 'Perfect Dark Core' revealed in concept art and video
After Perfect Dark Zero, Rare had Chris Seavor and the Conker team at work on another Perfect Dark, also for Xbox, called Perfect Dark Core. Unseen64 has found concept art, 3D renders, and even video of this cancelled game -- and the other cancelled game it metamorphosed into. In this "more realistic" Perfect Dark game, players controlled a male character who accompanied a "smoking, flirting" Joanna Dark on her mission. By late 2008, Core had been taken out of the Perfect Dark universe, and its team (cut down to three people) turned it into a mech FPS before the project was killed. It might not have been Perfect Dark, but it was probably really dark inside those mechs.
Rare official Apple playing cards up for auction on eBay
If your Apple collectibles case has an empty slot in it for something new, you may just want to check out these very rare Apple Computer Playing Cards up for auction on eBay. Brought to our attention by MacStories, this official Apple-branded set of OS 7 icon playing cards was purchased at an Apple campus store back in 1997 and is still in brand-new and unused condition. The cards come as a full deck of 52 cards plus two Jokers, and the icons are of OS 7 Bombs, Clocks, Mac Face and Trash Cans rather than the standard card illustrations of clubs, hearts, diamonds and spades. Bidding is now up to £205 with six days remaining in the auction. These sets were available only to Apple employees back in the day, so those of you looking for a rare Apple collectible may want to check them out. If £205 (and still climbing) seems like a little much dough to pull out of your wallet right now for these Apple cards, maybe something like a collectible iPad Cutting Board for US$19.95 is more your speed. Better yet, for the absolute low price of $0.00, Apple fans who are also playing card fanatics may want to check out Full Deck Solitaire, reviewed earlier today here on TUAW. [via MacStories and The Next Web]
Report: Rare replacing full-time artists with contractors
Edge reports that Microsoft's UK-based Rare studio is shifting from using permanent art staff to contract workers. According to Edge's sources, the studio is making a calculated move to narrowly dodge a "full consultation process" under European Union employment laws, whereby layoffs of twenty or more employees need to be announced at least thirty days before the first dismissal. Rare is reportedly in the process of cutting 19 staff, reducing its current art department of 42 employees to 23. The remaining 23 full-time employees (or fewer) -- supposedly more than 20 staffers have already taken the "very generous voluntary redundancy packages" -- will now fill new managerial positions, "in name or fact," according to a source, meaning that "the actual artists" will all be contractors in the future. The long term play here is to avoid paying wages during downtime (cutting contractors is a lot easier than laying off full-timers) and to wriggle out of pesky, strict European employment legislation. A contract worker needs two years of employment in a position to have the same rights as a full-time employee in the region. Now, we have to wonder: After all the artists are converted, who's next?
The Daily Grind: How important is uniqueness to you?
When it comes to clinging to one's uniqueness, I'm reminded of that classic line from Monty Python's Life of Brian in which huge crowd shouts in unison "We are all different!" and a tiny voice follows that up with "I'm not... ." The truth is that while we as people are unique, there are more similarities between us than we'd often like to admit. This is even more true when you get into MMOs, where character creation options are usually limited to a handful of races, classes and faces, and where everyone is a hero just like you doing all the same quests and activities and world-saving. Because of this, there's a tendency to rebel and forge a unique voice in the crowd, even if it's just a different look, a bizarre name, an odd personality or a piece of loot that's so extraordinarily rare that you're most likely the only one possessing it. We want to be known and remembered for something other than "being the same as everyone else," a feeling that manifests itself in a variety of ways. So how important is in-game uniqueness to you -- and how do you go about demonstrating it? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Dance Central and Kinect Sports sell 1 million each in US
Microsoft's Aaron Greenberg has called Kinect launch titles Dance Central and Kinect Sports "breakout hits" for the publisher, announcing that each has accounted for one million units in US sales. Globally, the Kinect device has already achieved 8 million units shipped. During Kinect's November launch month, Dance Central just missed making the top ten in US game sales for the month and was trailed by the Rare-developed Kinect Sports and Ubisoft's Your Shape: Fitness Evolved among the bestselling Kinect titles. Harmonix's dance game also just missed landing among our top ten games of 2010.
Microsoft contest pits UK Kinect Sports players against actual gold medalists
Hey, UK-based readers: Do you feel like totally humiliating yourselves? You should look into Microsoft's "Game with Fame" competition, in which one lucky, Kinect Sports-playing family will compete in virtual track and field events against actual Olympians Linford Christie and Mark Lewis-Francis.
Breakfast Topic: Just how lucky are you?
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages. Getting random drops always involves a bit of luck. In a PUG, not only do you need to have what you want drop, but you have to manage to win a /roll as well. In guild groups, you have to have DKP or whatever currency your guild uses for a loot system. Gear for the most part comes from time; eventually, you get the loot you need, but getting these random drops becomes far worse when farming for low drop-rate items such as pets and mounts. Baron runs, heroic MgT runs, Anzu runs, ZG trying to farm the various whelp and raptor pets ... some of us spend hours or days or weeks, and still never see it. I have been on a pretty major achievement kick since prior to the Cataclysm launch, topping off old reps, farming pets and mounts, doing fishing achievements, all the things that take a back burner to leveling and new instances and raids. Trouble is, I have awful luck. Being a druid, I have run Anzu so many times I lost count and have never seen the mount; same with Baron, ZG and heroic MgT. No mounts from any of these places in hundreds of attempts. On the other hand, I have a guildie who has both ZG mounts, both Brewfest mounts, the Horseman's Reins, Anzu, and Rivendare's Deathcharger. He even got two of the raptor pets from ZG the same week he got the mount. How lucky are you when it comes to farming rare drops? Have you been able to go in and get the drops in a few attempts, or have you given up in frustration, cursing the WoW gods?
China tightens hold on rare earth exports, markets soar
If you own a flat screen TV, a hybrid, a PC, or any number of cell phones, chances are you own a small but very sought after piece of China. The country accounts for 97 percent of the world's rare earth production, which is used in all manner of gadgets, and it recently announced plans to scale back exports by 10 percent in 2011. The move probably won't have a big impact on the average consumer, but it's certainly gained a lot of attention on the world market: the US threatened action in the World Trade Organization, stocks for rare earth mining companies spiked significantly, and Sony Corp. vowed to decrease its dependence on the minerals. It's actually not like the rest of the world is lacking for rare earth resources -- American's are actually sitting on 13 million metric tons of the stuff, which companies in the US and Canada are making a mad dash to mine. Trouble is, just getting the stuff out of the ground isn't enough -- China still has a monopoly on rare earth processing, and US companies are reluctant to spend the eight years and minimum $500 million necessary to construct a chemical separation plant. So what does all this mean for you? Well, not a whole lot, unless you happen to be China's Minister of Commerce, in which case you should probably stop surfing the web and get back to work.
PSA: Kinect Sports demo out now for Xbox Live Gold members
Tis the season to shame your familial relations in contests of virtual athletic prowess! If you're a Gold subscriber, you can now grab a free demo for Kinect Sports on the Xbox Live Marketplace -- just make sure that you don't completely crush your Maw-Maw. She deserves better, you know?
Free Kinect Sports 'Party Pack' DLC available now, Joy Ride DLC coming Jan. 4
If you'd like to freshen up your Kinect Sports experience with fresh fruit and fresh ... chicken, head to the Xbox Live Marketplace right now. Microsoft has posted a free DLC suite, the "Party Pack." The free download adds a "Challenge" feature to track friends' minigame scores. Appropriately, the DLC adds six new minigames: Super Striker (for Soccer), Pinvaders (for Bowling), Rapid Runner (for Track & Field), Target Smash (for Table Tennis), Fruit Splatter (for Volleyball), and King of the Ring (for Boxing). It also includes new games for the multiplayer Party Play mode, and three new "crazy" Party Play mascots: "Zippy Zombie" (okay, so maybe it's not all fresh), Champion Chicken, and Sportastico. Check after the break for descriptions of the minigames. MS also announced that new DLC will arrive for Kinect Joy Ride on January 4. The "Chevrolet Car Pack" adds the Camaro, Corvette, and Cruze to your game. It's free -- all you'll have to do is ... select a Chevy ad in XBLM. Update: Catch a trailer after the break -- a trailer that refers to the set as the "Samsung Party Pack."
Viva Pinata one buck on Games for Windows today, Blacklight: Tango Down tomorrow
The Games for Windows platform understands how mercurial our mood can be from day-to-day. Today, the storefront's offering the charming, friendly Viva Piñata for a dollar. According to its RSS feed, it's applying the same discount to the somewhat angrier, shootier Blacklight: Tango Down tomorrow.
New Donkey Kong Country Returns trailer looks so tough a monkey's gotta do it
This new Donkey Kong Country Returns trailer means this game's not kidding around. Retro Studios may have borrowed Rare's colorful designs, but it added a vicious platforming challenge to Kong's new banana-collecting adventure. Guess it really is on like ... well, you know.
All you ever wanted to know about Rift's gear and were not afraid to ask
While some players may possess the tact not to come right out and say it to a dev's face, when an upcoming MMO is being discussed there's always the inner voice shouting, "What about my loots? Is the gear pimpin' or what?" Forget zones and races and dynamic events -- today at Ten Ton Hammer, the crowd finally got the Rift: Planes of Telara dev team to open up about the outfits that constitute a bulk of the rewards of the game. In this reader Q&A, Game System Designer Drew Clowery tackled numerous questions about Rift's gear. Rift will launch with 48 armor set models -- each boasting a number of variants and texture options -- but will not initially offer armor set bonuses. Veteran MMO gamers will feel at home with Rift's armor system, which is restricted by class (warriors will be able to wear heavier armor than rogues, for example) and can be bound on pickup or equip. Loot comes in one of four levels of rarity -- common, uncommon, rare and epic -- based on its utility and difficulty to attain. Crafted gear will be competitive (and apparently customizable) to dropped gear. And finally, Rift will not launch with an appearance system that replaces the look of worn gear with cosmetic items. Clowery feels that the team has struck a good balance between loot being useful and being a barrier: "Loot is an important part of our game, and so it has to have an important impact upon the characters. That said, it's not completely overwhelming... We don't design encounters to be gear checks. We design them to see if you can get together and do this."
See how Goldeneye 007 stacks up to its N64 predecessor
If there were any question about how much the recently released Goldeneye title for Nintendo Wii closely resembles its N64 predecessor -- regardless of the source material -- this video from RewindReplayTV certainly cements it. Beyond the game's setting and characters, there are shot-for-shot moments that directly recreate the original game (albeit with far more detail and polish). Also, if you needed a stirring reminder of how much a Nintendo 64 game can age over the years, Goldeneye 64 is perhaps the pinnacle among available examples. Seeing it against Eurocom's sterling Wii effort only serves to highlight the ravages of time all the more. See for yourself below the fold.
Kinect Sports review: A first-round pick
Since the launch of the Wii with its bundled Wii Sports, Nintendo's competitors have been ready with sports compilations designed to show off their respective motion control technologies. Sports Champions was arguably the most successful part of PlayStation Move's launch lineup and now, Microsoft brings Kinect to market with a completely stand-alone title: Rare's Kinect Sports. In my (significant) time with it, I found an actual game that manages to deftly side-step being just a collection of tech demos through its polish, presentation and wide variety of genuinely fun activities.%Gallery-106498%
