Tech Olive

We’d obviously love to have our own full-size arcade cabinet sitting right next to us, but we just don’t have the real estate to make room for it. However, with a little know-how and a few tools, it’s now possible to turn your netbook into a miniature arcade MAME cabinet. A dedicated fellow is heading up Project MAME, and he created a DIY kit that gets the conversion job done. While it does take your old netbook and turns it into a mini arcade, it will actually accept any 10-inch display and a mini-ITX motherboard. Mind you, the kit alone is $350, so be prepared to spend just as much as you would buying a brand new netbook.

[Nanocade via Engadget]

Through his Twitter account, Treyarch community manager Josh Olin announced that Black Ops‘ first double XP event would be taking place on the weekend of February 4th to the 6th for all platforms.

On a related topic, with the “First Strike” first map pack hitting Xbox 360 on February 1st, we’ve got some screenshots to drool over until PC gamers are deemed important enough to get some map pack lovin’ (should be sometime in March):

via [Twitter]

Intel made the announcement today that they have discovered quite a major design flaw in their new Sandy Bridge 6 Series chipsets. This affects all P67 and H67 motherboards that were sold since release and ones that are currently stocked. Intel says that the issue is related to the SATA degradation of the motherboard and that throughout the lifespan of the board, there is potential of a big decrease in performance and even non-recognition of attached devices. For now, Intel has stopped its chip manufacturing to find a way to fix the issue and is working with OEMs and motherboard manufacturers on customer support procedures and it’s very possible that recalls will be implemented.

Intel estimates the cost of repair and replacing the chipsets will be over $700 million, but they do think that new and updated chipsets should begin shipping by late February.

Thanks, Daz

[Hardware Canucks]

The Bargain Bin is a weekly feature that helps out gamers in this 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.

Magicka, the Steam-topping hit from Paradox Interactive is the focus of our cheap recommendation this week.

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Undeniably the first of its kind, the original Grand Theft Auto title ushered in a whole new sub-genre of gaming: open world. Nowadays we take this type of gameplay for granted, even going to extremes by often labeling them as “GTA clones.” Today, we pay respect to the game that started a revolution and a series that continues to blow our minds with each new installment.

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The past week’s best news and featured content that you might have missed…

Nvidia Releases 2nd-Gen Fermi: GeForce GTX 560 Ti
- Wow, it seems like yesterday when Nvidia released its first-generation Fermi cards, and now a year later, here we are admiring the second coming of Fermi in the form of the GeForce GTX 560 Ti. This hunk of a beast boasts 384 CUDA processing cores, 822 MHz graphics clock, 1.6 GHz processor clock, 4.0 GHz memory clock, and a full gig of GDDR5 memory. Prices will start at $250 at numerous online retailers. More >>

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This week on Steam’s Weekly Top Sellers list, Magicka gets the top spot, while the newly released Monday Night Combat takes the number two slot. Both The Sims 3 Ultimate Bundle and Penny Arcade Adventures make it on the list thanks to their respective limited-time discounts. And after many weeks, Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is still managing to make sales. See the complete top ten list after the break.

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During last night’s episode of Saturday Night Live, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg made a quick appearance during actor Jesse Eisenberg’s (The Social Network) opening monologue. SNL veteran Andy Samberg first came out dressed up as Zuckerberg claiming he was the real deal, but then the CEO himself finally jumped on stage, which sparked a comedically awkward conversation between Zuck and Eisenberg. Watch the complete opening monologue after the jump.

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