Tech Olive

This month’s retro review for me was hardly a choice. I grew up with this game, playing it quite a bit. Granted, this is surely not the first game I played, but this is the game that would make the biggest impact on my gaming future. Before I laid eyes upon Wolf3D, I had only really played basic platformers and random console games. Wolf3D is really the game that gave me the push and showed me not only that PCs where awesome gaming machines, but also that this “first-person shooter” game and genre was unlike anything I had ever played before.

Continue Reading »

The Wii already has many controllers, one of which is the Classic Controller, which is good for retro games, but lacks in overall usefulness. However, this may quickly change. Nintendo Japan has announced the Classic Controller Pro. Basically, they have redesigned the Classic Controller and made it heavier, thicker and created a little more breathing room for the thumbsticks. It is now very similar to the ever popular Gamecube controller.

Continue Reading »

As if the Portal Gun recreation was not cool enough, that same gaming fan has recreated another iconic piece of gaming history. A prop-maker by the name of Krix has made an incredibly accurate, real-life replica of the ADAM-extracting syringe that the Little Sisters uses in the game BioShock.

Continue Reading »

It seems that Microsoft is still unhappy with the precision and feel of the directional sticks of their Xbox 360 controllers. They have already upgraded them once with the limited edition set they released a few months ago, but they are planning to once again upgrade the feel, response and precision of their designs. It is unsure as to what they are changing, but it must be trivial because Microsoft is not planning to replace the current standard Xbox 360 controller, but rather offer an alternative. Stay tuned.

After a little mix-up about the last reported news regarding video cards, I hope to revive myself with this bit of info from Guru3D who has reviewed the ATI Radeon RV740 40nm prototype video card, which is the company’s first 40nm GPU. Right off the bat I must say that the results were positive, despite using beta drivers and an early engineering sample board for testing. Guru3D says that the card performs fairly close to a Radeon HD 4850, which is quite surprising when noting the affordable price tag.

Release date for this card is expected to be in April or May with a price less than $100USD.

News recently released from Microsoft says that their researchers are currently working on a new browser called Gazelle which Microsoft is claiming will be faster, more secure and be all around more powerful the both Mozilla’s Firefox and Google’s Chrome browsers. A rather tall claim considering Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and all of its issues and weaknesses. According to a paper released by the research department, Gazelle will offer much improved security over current browsers.

“No existing browsers, including new architectures like Internet Explorer 8, Google Chrome and OP, have a multi-principal operating system construction that gives a browser-based operating system the exclusive control to manage the protection of all system resources among web site principals,”- Microsoft added in the report.

So, should we expect Microsoft to take the throne away from Firefox? It’s actually a possibility when it comes down to the numbers. Due to statistics gathered in January ’09, just over 67% of internet browsers are Internet Explorer, while Firefox is just over 21%.

Because of the ingenious way that Valve chose to release information about their newest Team Fortress 2 update, chances are that you have read something about the Scout update over the past week. But the time has come and Valve has released the update to the public. For information on what is included in the update, view Valve’s site.
On top of the free update, Valve has lowered the price of Team Fortress 2 by 50%, costing a mere $9.99 from Steam. (Valid until Friday)

Palit Microsystems has released a GeForce GTX 285 fitted with 2GB of memory. All other GTX 285s currently ships with only 1GB. The added memory might not be a worthy investment, but it’s worth noting that the GTX 285 is Nvidia’s fastest single-GPU card available. Palit also claims that this is the first custom GTX 285 by smacking on two PWM fans and four heat pipes onto the bad boy.

“Conceived for two GPUs, the two PWM fans are able to provide sufficient air flow to cool the GPU quietly. The PWM fans’ speed can be changed depending on the GPU’s temperature.” -Palit press release

Palit also offers the GTX 285 in the traditional 1GB model. No word yet on pricing or availability for either model.

Sony has pulled a card from their sleeve and announced they are going to release LittleBigPlanet and Motorstorm on their handheld system some time this year.

While details on LittleBigPlanet are scarce at this point in time, it has been confirmed that players will be given the opportunity to create and share levels just like on the Playstation 3 version. I also think we can expect some kind of link-up play between the PSP and the PS3 with this title, much like what Resistance: Retribution will offer.

“There are a lot of big claims in the gaming industry but we’re confident when we say that 2009 is going to be an exciting year for PSP,” said Mark Hardy, European Marketing Director, SCEE. “Our fans have demanded big PSP titles and this year, we’re going to deliver again and again. With Resistance: Retribution, already on its way to stores, PSP gamers are going to get one big franchise after another.”

As we mentioned earlier, we expected the Limited Edition Xbox 360 to hit around the same time as Resident Evil 5. Well, Microsoft has just officially announced the details on this limited edition console. Set for release on March 13th (along side RE5) it will be a limited edition red Elite console with a 120GB HDD and will include other extras. Although we are unsure what this entails, we know it will include a fresh copy of RE5 and a bonus card to download Super Street Fighter ll Turbo HD Remix from XBLA. All this is set to release at a retail price of $399 at select retailers.