Tech Olive

Microsoft announced today a new Xbox 360 Controller,which has a D-Pad that apparently doesn’t suck. Now, you’re probably wondering why we’re covering this bit of console news, but to explain, the Xbox 360 controller can also be used with a PC and we here at the Olive absolutely love that fact. There are simply some PC games that are just better with a gamepad.

Now, more about this new controller: It has a better D-pad that transforms. It can be the traditional “disc” that we all know and hate or with a small twist of the D-pad, it can turn into a “plus.” Other significant changes include the color of the ABXY buttons, which are now assortments of different shades of gray. The color of the new controller is a matte silver with black trim and black trigger and bumper buttons. The “dome” has a chrome finish rather than just a normal gray color (same with the D-pad), and the analog sticks are still concaved, but instead of the small dimples, the edges are raised slightly to avoid annoying thumb slip-off.

The controller will be available on November 9th. It will only be available as a Play-n-Charge kit bundle for $65. Hit up the break for another photo and a short video featuring Larry Hryb, Director of Programming for Xbox Live.

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In a new post on their official blog, Treyarch has announced that they’re hosting what sounds like an online press conference of sorts. Being called the “Black Ops Multiplayer Reveal Event,” Treyarch is asking fans to submit questions to the game’s Twitter or Facebook pages to be addressed during the reveal event. Unfortunately, the blog post doesn’t mention what time the press conference will be.

“Do you want to be a part of the Black Ops Multiplayer Reveal Event? We’ll be sharing a TON of great info with the press & community about Black Ops MP on September 1st, but we’d like to hear some of your burning MP-related questions. Simply ask your questions in the comments below, on our Facebook Page, or via @JD_2020 on Twitter. For the most commonly asked questions, we’ll be fielding them at the Multiplayer Event, and will promptly provide answers here on CallOfDuty.com/BlackOps – So ask away!”

[Blog Post]

Back in my early days of gaming, I remember going to a friends house and catching glimpses of his older brother playing this top-down military strategy game that captivated me. I never learned of this game’s name, so I was tortured by this mystery for many years.

Fast-forward about 8 years and I stumble across that very same game on the internet. I was speechless and knew that I would have to put this game through the tests. Was it worth the wait? Could this game possibly have been as good as it looked all those years ago? Time to answer some questions.

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While the development of Far Cry 3 has been in the slightly-more-than-a-rumor stage of development for a while now, no official information has been released. It seems Swedish retailers Webhallen and GAME Sweden know something that we don’t. Both retailers have posted full retail listings accompanied by seemingly official box art. GAME Sweden had the following description for their listing of Far Cry 3:

“A sequel to the phenomenal success in 2008. Rumor says that this time the game will be played out in Africa but with an even larger world and with a completely updated Dunia engine. More information will follow closer to launch.”

While the cover art is convincingly official looking, it seems very unlikely that the game is set for a 2010 release due to the fact that Ubisoft hasn’t been promoting it at any of their events over the past year.

via [Game Informer]

If you didn’t know (and you should), AMD owns ATI. Now that we settled that, the micro processor manufacturer is finally throwing out the ATI brand. They will keep the names of the product lines, such as Radeon, Eyefinity, and FirePro, but instead of it being called ATI Radeon, it will now be known as AMD Radeon.

This really isn’t a huge surprise. Some people have already been referring to ATI as AMD, even though it was still ATI. And they both sound the same anyway; three letters, both start with ‘A’, both are medioc…..erm…..you get the picture.

via [Tech Report]

The Bargain Bin is a weekly feature that helps out gamers in the tough economy. How does it help? Once a week, it offers a great and cheap game ($10 or less) to keep you going until your next paycheck.

Sales were a bit disappointing this past week, but we’ve managed to find a nice deal that should appeal to most of the RPG hack-n-slash fans out there.

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The past week’s best news and featured content…

Mini Review: Razer DeathAdder Left-Hand Edition
- I’ve been waiting for the day when big-name peripheral manufacturers would start making left-handed products for the few and the proud. Logitech was first with a left-handed version of the MX 610. Now, Razer is wanting in on the left-handed action with their new DeathAdder Left-Hand Edition.

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I kept wondering why the past couple days my favorite image hoster has been down. I simply just figured they were having server issues and would be back up soon. Several days pass with still no sign of a return. Finally, we remember their Twitter account and this is where we received the bad news. Our favorite image hoster has deceased due to insufficient funds necessary to keep the site up and running.

RIP PiC.LEECH.iT! You were great!

To make the lefty gamers feel more at home here, we have an extra Razer DeathAdder Left-Hand Edition gaming mouse lying around that we will be giving away to one lucky reader! And if you haven’t already read our review, then you definitely should. To enter the giveaway, all you have to do is leave a comment in this post and you’ll automatically be entered into a random drawing. Sound good? Good. Be sure to get your comment in by 11:59PM EST on Friday, September 3rd.

Some Basic Rules

- Only U.S. residents are able to enter. Sorry, foreigners.
- Only one comment will be counted per reader.
- Please don’t use multiple email addresses. We have evil robots that check.
- The winner will be randomly selected and then immediately notified via email for further action.

View the official rules here.

Flash Game Friday is a weekly feature that provides gamers with (uh…duh) a free, browser-based flash game. You may have played it before and you may have not, but it’s always worth checking out. We’ll be bringing you the latest, time-wasting, challenging, lose-sleep-into-the-wee-hours type of flash games.

Portal. It’s no secret that this game holds a special place in the hearts of Tech Olive. So it would come as no surprise that anything even loosely Portal-related would at least gain an audience from the Tech Olive staff. Some of these projects are even worth the time that we spend admiring them. So, not only is this week’s flash game related to Portal, but it’s also worth the few hours that you’ll sink into it. Whether those extra gray hairs are worth it, however, is entirely up to you.

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