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Halo 3 documentary broken down into itty, bitty pieces
89 of 'em to be exact. That's really making the Et tu, Brute? documentary last a little while longer, and moves things up to a whole new level of fanaticism. It also proves that Halo fans are hardcore, and are probably going through Bungie's trash bins on a nightly basis. Let us know if you find anything good, but if you find Frankie's chewed gum ... spare us the dental records. Check out all of the photo-remnants from the chop-job on YouNEWB.com, and try to find new tidbits about the upcoming Halo 3. At the very least, you've got all new desktops for your computer, and at the worst, you've wasted 15 minutes of your life. Blame us or love us, it's your call. [Thanks, Billy Bob]
Gauss' GP-219 electromagnetic pistol fires steel projectiles silently
Sure, mechanical sentries and AirSoft turrets are novel, but there's nothing like whipping out an electromagnetic pistol to show folks you mean business. The Gauss GP-219 looks like it came straight from level 5 of Duke Nukem 3D, and rocks a PIC microcontroller, dual coils with "precision pulsing" to fire steel projectiles, twin infrared sensors to assist in positioning, and even a laser sight to keep your enemies pegged. Powered by an NiCd battery pack, this bad boy also features a bar display to track "capacitor bank charge progress," battery and fault LED indicators, and is "completely silent" when fired. The wildest part about this science-fiction dream come true is how effective it actually is, so be sure to click on for a few more pictures, and hit the read links for all the nitty gritty and even a few live action videos. Read - Gauss Pistol GP-219 Read - Pistol whipping in action, Nukem-style
Buy fake products from a TV show...enter to win a HDTV and Blu-ray player
Unfortunately this post isn't about where you can go to buy a DVD hologram projector, plasma vision walls or TemporalVision truly-time shifting television as those products only exist within the world of SciFi Channel show Eureka. However if you go to the Made in Eureka website and try to order one you will be entered to win a Sony KDS-R60XBR1 HDTV and Sony BDP-S1 Blu-ray player. Whether you're a dyed-in-the wool Blu-ray fan or a longtime HD DVD supporter we'd think that free is just about the right price for some next gen high-def viewing. We'll just keep waiting for that TemporalVision monitor, it will probably actually be available long before we find out what's really going on in Lost.[Via TV Squad]
PC impressions: Aion
We spent some time with Aion, an upcoming MMO from NCsoft. The gameplay is immediately familiar -- we've been here before. Floating exclamation points, a variety of quests and skills and a fantasy setting all combine to make a surprisingly uninspiring cookie-cutter game.Aion has some beautiful environments -- we saw a range of lush, green settings. Combined with fairly realistic faces, the game certainly looks good, but the pretty mask hides a reinterpretation of standard MMO features with little to differentiate it from the crowd. Combo-style skills -- execute a main hand attack, then an off-hand attack, then a followup -- make combat a little more varied than in other games. A quest system with a detailed breakdown of goals helps navigation.Ultimately we saw nothing about Aion that seems to appeal to anyone other than those currently engrossed in fantasy MMOs. If that's your genre of choice, you'll likely love Aion for its graphics and good-vs-evil setting, but anyone else will have to look hard to find anything special about the game.
PC impressions: EVE Online
Three years after its launch, EVE Online has racked up 100,000 players and a dedicated fanbase. Developer CCP is in the midst of a graphical revamp, upgrading the game's look and feel without increasing its system requirements. As a game where it takes months to even learn to fly a ship, let alone build it, there's a refreshing contrast to the instant gratification of some other MMOs. Skills are learnt in real-time, rather than based on level, but specialisation options and the power of numbers mean new players can stand alongside older ones.
PC impressions: Tabula Rasa
Tabula Rasa is a sci-fi themed MMO from NCsoft. Among its arsenal of features are: party-based voice chat, instances and open battlegrounds, a range of weaponry and an interesting cloning system. The class system is branching, and players can clone their character at any time -- change your mind about a class, and you can just dust off the clone and try again, rather than re-roll at level one. Playing the game, it comes across as the crazy lovechild of a MMORPG and MMOFPS. Combat is fast-paced and loud, with a big focus on guns and special abilities. Aiming isn't the FPS-style twitch-based shooting, though, and players progress through levels and missions much like in other MMOs. Being able to zoom into first-person view makes Tabula Rasa play almost like a straight-up FPS at times, but without the response and accuracy that FPS games are used to.
