Games

April 10, 2007 Folding@Home is a distributed computing project where people donate spare clock-cycles from the CPU or GPU in their Internet-connected PC's, the result of which is one of the largest supercomputers in the world. The Folding@Home client for the Playstation 3, released as part of a recent system update for the console, quickly raced to the top of the statistics. Shortly after, just as the network of over 20,000 consoles was about to hit the team's goal of one petaflop, the Folding@Home team reevaluated the performance of the console - dropping it to half the original figure. In spite of this, the Playstation 3 remains the greatest contributor to Folding@Home, and currently provides over half of the processing power available to the project.  Read More

April 4, 2007 The concept of games as art is rarely touched upon, undoubtedly due to the rarity of games one could bring up in a discussion of the concept with a straight face. fl0w is one of the exceptions - a Master of Fine Arts thesis by USC School of Cinematic Arts graduates Jenova Chen and Nicholas Clark. Originally realised in Flash, the game has improved in leaps and bounds after its jump to the Playstation Network, and it's here to manipulate your mood.  Read More

March 29, 2007 After more rumours (and denials) than you can shake a stick at, Microsoft have officially announced the new Xbox 360 Elite, and somehow managed to leave us with more questions than answers. What we can safely tell you is that it's got an HDMI port, comes with a 120GB HDD...and it's black.  Read More

March 28, 2007 If you have ever doubted just how much advantage the Dominator system equates to on the battlefield, here's your opportunity to sample it first hand. Was the development of the real Dominator and the interface to Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 linked? We don't know but when our games editor saw the real system demonstrated, he visibly paled. Ubisoft has already given gamers in Australia 10,000 good reasons (AUD$10,000) to play this game in an upcoming Xbox Live tournament. This no doubt left the majority of our readers, who can't play online games competitively and don't live in Australia, entirely unconvinced. Here's our games editor with a full review.  Read More

March 19, 2007 Once regarded as frivolous and inconsequential, the game console is fast gaining mainstream media clout and the third generation of consoles has further expanded its penetration into homes with 150 million US citizens now having access to at least one console - more than half (52.4%) of the total U.S. television population. As a medium it is particularly strong among key demographic groups with more than two-thirds (67.7%) of all men 18-34 and 80 percent of men 12-17 years of age. The number of video game consoles in U.S. television households has expanded by 18.5% in just two years, according to a new report. Specific console penetration details have not yet been released.  Read More

March 5, 2007 - Ubisoft-published game Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter (GRAW) was released last March, and went on to sell 1.4 million copies in its first seven weeks. Sales figures of this caliber generally guarantee sequels, and sure enough, this Thursday (March 8th, 2007) sees the release of GRAW 2. You've probably already played the multiplayer demo released on the Xbox Live Marketplace in February, but there's no question those who haven't will have a newfound interest in the game now there's a chance to win AU$10,000 playing it online.  Read More

March 3, 2007 - Parents rejoice! Finally a video game that you can give to your kids with no immediate hesitation or eventual regrets. The results of long hours spent in front of the game aren't just honed reflexes and hand-to-eye coordination, but the gift of fluency in the most beautiful and timeless language of all...music.  Read More

March 3, 2007 - In this day and age, disposable batteries are environmentally irresponsible, yet remain a desirable retail item due to convenience and price point - and those of our readers with Wii's or Xbox 360's will know how many AA's regular use of these consoles can chew through. This makes us a little surprised that Nintendo left this one up to the third-parties, but equally glad Nyko have stepped up to the plate with their Wii Charging Station.  Read More

March 2, 2007 - Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) and Immersion have agreed to conclude litigation at the U.S Court of Appeals, and have entered into a new agreement to explore the inclusion of Immersion's technology (read: rumble) in PlayStation products. This is in stark contrast to Phil Harrison's recent comments regarding rumble as a "last-generation feature", which were widely criticised as a desperate attempt to hide the fact that the lack of rumble in the SIXAXIS was a design decision based more on legal proceedings with Immersion, than last/current-generation feature sets.  Read More