GamingZap

Vanquish set for October

SEGA has announced the release date for its upcoming action-shooter Vanquish for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Apparently running on a modified version of the engine used earlier this year in Bayonetta, Vanquish handles its busy battlefield smoothly with impressive visuals. Russian robots skitter across the field while giant combat walkers fire thudding shots at US forces, with some fantastic explosions and lighting effects. There’s also a fair amount of atmosphere to the visuals, with liberal use of depth of field blur and aggressive color correction giving a distinctive look to everything. Character designs are straight out of mid-80’s era manga and anime like Macross with a sharp modern influence.

Those who pre-order a copy of the game at GameStop will receive a free downloadable in-game three-weapon pack. The pack includes the Boost Machine Gun, Anti-Armor Pistol and Laser Cannon for use in the single-player missions.
The Tri-Weapon pack contains a small arsenal of experimental technology, made up of the Boost Machine Gun, Anti-Armor Pistol and Laser Cannon. This triple threat of futuristic weaponry gives players an edge in surviving the frenetic and massive battles onboard the vast space station setting of Vanquish.

Fans of Gears of War and other third person shooters should definitely keep an eye out for this game. Right now it is unclear whether there will be a European pre-order bonus but it seems highly likely. Vanquish hits retailers on October 19, 2010. The game also releases in Japan on October 19, and October 22 in Europe. Accessories designed to keep you alive on the battlefield will be available on GamingZap.com across all platforms.

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Street Legal Tron Bike

With Tron Legacy, the sequel to the classic Tron film of the 80s, being released this year there is also a Tron computer game being released alongside it - Tron Evolution. Tron Evolution is set between the original and Legacy, filling in the the gaps between the two events. The game features a mix of platforming and combat with the classic neon stylings from the original game. Whilst the graphics look stylish with the characters and environments suitably designed to match the Tron theme - with the iconic tron disc and lightcycles included - this game could definitely be one of the surprise releases of the year.

The game will be released with a range of limited edition collectibles to celebrate both the movie and the game, although some people have taken that a step further. For this movie, the Parker Brothers team are creating 5 street legal lightcycle replicas to the exact specs of the movie bikes.

Each bike will come with either a high powered electric motor or a high performance gasoline motor and transmission depending on the buyers needs. Be the envy of everyone who sees this bike as it will make motorcycles as you now know them seem like antiques on the road. No future “Lightcycles” will be made to ensure the value of these custom motorcycles in the coming years.

The back cover opens up at the push of a button and there is a neon glow that exits from the back of the bike to resemble the lightcycles colored light trail from the original game. Although these will not be available on GamingZap.com, other accessories to help in your Tron gaming will be available across all platforms.

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New White Playstation 3

Sony has now announced the arrival of a new model - a sleek “Classic White” Playstation 3 with a larger hard drive. It will be arriving in Japan on July 29th and will come in a 160GB version to replace the old 120GB units. Retailing at 29980 yen (Around £225), it is set to cost the same price as the existing 120GB unit. The new 160GB model will still be coming in classic “Charcoal Black” for those who prefer the older styling.

At the moment, it is currently unclear if or when these white models will be appearing in the USA or any PAL countries although it is highly likely. I do find it a bit strange that Xbox makes a black model and then Sony immediately releases an upgraded base white model.

The white new model comes with a basic selection of attractive Classic White controllers. A new selection of white Playstation 3 accessories will be available on GamingZap.com along with the traditional black and many other items.

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Echochrome 2 uses Playstation 3 Move

The original Echochrome was one of the most basic yet revolutionary games of it’s day. Using a simple mannequin type character to move around stages and worlds where the physics depended on your point of view. This meant rotating the camera in certain ways to hide paths, reveal new ones and generally change the level around using only the camera. If there was a gap on a path, rotate the camera and hide it - if you can’t see it, it’s not there any more. The award winning original on Playstation 3 and PSP has now spawned a sequel to use the Playstation 3 Move.

One of the first truly innovative ways to use the Move, the controller shines a light against a set of blocks, casting a shadow across the wall. Instead of rotating the camera around a 3d world, the mannequin now walks along a 2d world controlled by the shadows cast by the controller. Seeing it in action in this Echochrome 2 video is much more impressive that reading about it.

Echochrome 2 will be released later this year with the Playstation Move, which will be available on GamingZap.com along with many other Playstation 3 accessories.

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Transformers Pre-Order Codes sell for over $100 on eBay

The recent hit Transformers game War for Cybertron released across Xbox 360 and PS3, coming soon to PC, has been widely acclaimed as the best Transformers game so far. To celebrate the release of the game, there were special pre-order characters available - Jazz, Soundwave and Demolisher. What the game developers didn’t count on was the fact that some of the pre-order codes were selling for more than the game itself.

Demolisher, apparently the rarest of the pre-order codes, was fetching over $100 at one point, almost double the price of the game itself. Whether the characters themselves are limited edition or if they will be released later as a downloadable content for a small fee is yet to be confirmed but is definitely not out of the question.

The game itself has been highly praised, with each console having several thousand users online at any given time in the UK alone. Xbox 360 and PS3 headsets have been put to good use in the co-operative game modes as well as the all out deathmatches. Multiplayer accessories to up your game for both consoles are available from GamingZap.com as well as a variety of other high grade peripherals.

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Final Fantasy 14 Release Date

The upcoming successor to Square-Enix’s successful MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) Final Fantasy 11 has finally been set a release date. After being in development for over 5 years, Final Fantasy 14 is due for a simultaneous worldwide release this September 30th on PC and the following March for PS3. The official announcement confirms there will be two versions of the game at release as expected, the standard pre-order edition and the Collectors Edition. In the PC special edition, there will be a the usual set of goodies including:

• Early Access allowing players to jump into Eorzea a whole six days before the rest of the world
• Security Token
• Behind the scenes DVD
• Adventurers branded tumbler
• Map of Eorzea
• Travel Journal- A journal containing never before seen concept art
• Free 30 days of game play
• Guest pass to invite a friend to play for a limited time

Both versions will also be getting exclusive in-game items, the Collectors Edition comes with a code for a helmet that reduces the penalty when you’re paralyzed. The standard version includes a code for goggles that increase the speed of your skill growth.

Pre-orders for this have already started rolling in as the game gets hyped up closer to release date. With the game being macro heavy and attempted to be optimised for both console controls and keyboard controls, many gamers are also planning a complete system overhaul for the new age of MMOs. Controllers like the Razer Naga and Xbox 360 Controllers for Windows are among a few of the popular choices for the long gaming sessions, all of which will be available at GamingZap.com soon.

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UK Kinect Price Leaked?

The UK retail price for Kinect has long since been a mystery. The new input controller has been given a public statement of $149.99 for the USA release since E3 but so far there has been nothing official regarding the UK prices. For $149.99 the Kinect controller is usable by up to 2 people at once, making it slightly cheaper than 2 sets of Playstation Move controllers.

The first UK prices may have been leaked however, with online retailer ShopTo having a preorder MSRP of £129.99. This comes as a heavy blow to all the consumers as well as developers hoping for it to be around the £100 mark, as although it is suitable for 2 players at once it is still a fairly high price tag. Although there is still no official statement this price seems possible as the exchange rate currently means that $150 is close to £100, but Microsoft typically seems to add a premium on top of that figure. Since it is possible to buy a basic standalone Xbox 360 for close to that price, £150 for an Xbox 360 accessory does seem like a big price tag. However, Microsoft has already announced that there will be Kinect bundles released together with the new consoles for a relatively low cost and there are bound to be great release day offers to entice new customers later this year. The Xbox 360 Kinect and many other accessories will be available on GamingZap.com at release.

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ESWC Finals

The Electronic Sports World Cup will be held in Disneyland Paris this July. The Finals will be from the 1st to the 4th of July, with their usual selection of games:

• Counter Strike
• Counter Strike Women
• Warcraft 3: Frozen throne
• Trackmania ESWC
• Need for speed Shift
• Street Fighter 4
• Fifa 2010
• Quake Live
• Guitar Hero
• DotA

Fighting for a prize fund of $213,500 to be divided between the champions, this is one of the largest competitions in e-sports and pro gaming. The National Media Museum in England was the venue for the recent nationals, seeing AdamW through as the top UK seed for Fifa10 alongside. With the seeds now chosen for all of their rounds according to their recent match results, there is strong competition in all groups throughout every event. As expected, there are various high profile Razer teams such as Mousesports and WeMade Fox throughout the tournament that have made it to the top seed categories.

Team Razer will be using their gaming grade Razer peripheral of choice, as will many of the other teams. Professional Razer peripherals as used by the Razer teams will be available from GamingZap.com as well as many other high grade accessories.

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Sega working with Kinect

With the upcoming release of all the new controllers this autumn (the Move for Playstation 3 and the Xbox 360 Kinect), there is a lot of pressure on the release titles to really set the consoles apart. The Xbox 360 has enlisted Sega’s mascot Sonic as one of it’s opening titles in Sonic Free Riders. A demo of the game using kinect at E3 showed controlling the characters involves mimicking the actual movements that the characters would do in game such as leaning, punching and even doggy paddling.

However, this is too a big step away from the hardcore games that the Xbox has been known for? During an interview with CVG, Sega has reassured us that they are making a much more serious game for a different audience, but it’ll take time to take advantage and develop for the new hardware. The Sega rep has said that “We’ve got one good idea and hopefully something will be out the back end of next year, perhaps early 2012, which we think will use the aspects of Kinect a lot more originally and in a more sophisticated way”, hopefully this means that we will be getting different types of unique games to take advantage of the Kinect.

There have been worries regarding this as fears of Wii-style “shovelware” may become mainstream and plague the other consoles too, although this statement from Sega is slightly reassuring. Titles like Kinectimals bring a breath of fresh air onto the console and hopefully there will be many more different types to come. Sonic Free Riders is one of eight games prepped for launch alongside Microsoft Kinect, which will be available on GamingZap.com amongst many other Xbox 360 accessories.

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Xbox 360 Red Ring of Death fixed?

Any Xbox 360 fan will know about the red ring that plagues the console. Dubbed the “Red Ring of Death” or RROD, the general cause of this is the Xbox 360 overheating and causing one of the components inside it to fail. With the release of the newer redesigned Xbox 360, the Red Ring is supposedly a thing of the past. Is this true? Well technically yes…but not really.

The new Xbox 360 has been redesigned to be quieter and with larger air vents in a bit to improve the air circulation problems that plagued some of the original Xbox 360 models. The reason however that the new Xbox 360 will never flash the Red Ring any more is that it isn’t possible to to go red any more. Instead, as some gamers on NeoGaf have found out,  it has been replaced with a red dot in the middle of the power button and green lights around the outside as before.

In fact, the Xbox 360 is still susceptible to being overheated just like any other console. It is now a Red Dot of Death instead. However, this time at least there is a warning message and your console shuts down instead of melting itself to death. An improvement over the previous result for sure, but surely this safety measure should have been implemented on the original console in the first place.

The overheating rate has yet to be determined since the console is still new, although it seems to be much better than in the previous models. It might still be wise not to risk it and use an extra cooling fan just in case though, especially for those long gaming sessions. These will be available from GamingZap.com along with many other Xbox 360 accessories.

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