Xbox – rgbFilter

Windows 8 and why the Zune brand needs to die

February 24, 2012May 29, 2012 Doug Groves Metro, Metro UI, Microsoft, Microsoft Office, Office, Office Web Apps, Windows Media, Xbox, Xbox Live, Zune56 Comments

Microsoft has taken a lot of flak for their horrible naming conventions and overly long names, and deservedly so. When first announced, Windows Phone was called Windows Phone Series 7. They officially chopped of the “Series” by launch, and now just advertise it as Windows Phone. It just makes more sense.

Similarly, they last year rebranded their paid Office cloud service to Office 365. Office 365 makes sense. It’s Office, all the time. Do you know what they called it previously?

Business Productivity Online Suite.

Animation Arts Featured Film Gaming

Deus Ex – The Title Sequence

January 31, 2012February 13, 2012 Doug Groves Art Of The Title, Deus Ex Human Revolution, interview, PC gaming, PS3, Xbox4 Comments

The always wonderful to read “Art of the Title”, which focuses on the craft of creating effective title sequences, generally using film and TV, has posted its first game sequence, with Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Included is an extensive interview with both Paul Furminger from Goldtooth Creative (director of the sequence) and Jean-François Dugas from Eidos-Montreal (Game Director).

Fallout New Vegas Review

October 26, 2010November 1, 2010 Raj Bethesda Softworks, Fallout, Fallout New Vegas, Microsoft, ohmpage.ca, PC gaming, PS3, review, Sony, Xbox5 Comments

Two years ago we fell in love with Fallout 3. It was a marvelously rich experience full of atmosphere and wonder. Now the wasteland is back with Fallout: New Vegas from Obsidian Entertainment. In this new title we’re transplanted to the west in and around what was once Las Vegas before the nuclear war. There is a lot to explore here so we’d better get started. It’s difficult to review this title without comparing it directly with Fallout 3. They have so much in common that playing Fallout New Vegas,…

Ubisoft crossover fever: Assassins Creed, CSI and Pets to have Facebook components

September 30, 2010October 3, 2010 Doug Groves Assassin's Creed, Brotherhood, crossover, CSI, CSI Crime City, facebook, Hamsterz, iPad, iPhone, Nintendo DS, PC gaming, Petz, PS3, Ubisoft, Wii, Xbox2 Comments

Do you like console gaming, but somehow find yourself wasting too much time on Facebook, making you fell guilty for not using your beatiful next gen console to its fullest potential? Depending on how you look at it, maybe Ubisoft is going to give you a reason to fire up the console more often, or maybe they’re just going to suck you all the way into the black (and blue – so much blue) pit that is Fb. At a press conference in San Francisco, they’ve announced that they’ll be…

Microsoft expanding Zune Services internationally

September 21, 2010September 24, 2010 Doug Groves Microsoft, MP3, press release, Windows Phone 7, Xbox, Xbox Live, Zune, Zune Pass7 Comments

With Windows Phone 7 just around the corner, it’s no surprise that Microsoft finally announced their first round of international expansion of the Zune service, providing digital entertainment services to more than 20 countries. Not all countries are created equal however. The much vaunted Zune Pass will be available in the UK, France, Italy and Spain, for 9.99 euros. The Zune pass allows users to have unlimited access to the Zune music library from Windows PCs, Windows Phone 7 and Xbox Live. Unlike the US version, which costs $14.99 US,…

Halo: Reach – a review and a fond farewell

September 14, 2010September 20, 2010 Doug Groves Bungie, FPS, game review, Halo, Halo: Reach, Microsoft, multiplayer, ODST, review, Xbox, Xbox Live1 Comment

A Fond Farewell When Halo: Reach was announced as a prequel, a lot of gamers expressed their concerns,making comparisons to Lucas’s critical failure with the Star Wars movie prequels. This totally ignores that one of the defining differences between film and video games is that it’s pretty hard to make a game worse than the original. Unless, as a developer, you’re completely phoning it in, a large part of the art of game making, as opposed to film making, is tweaking the elements of gameplay, not just making the graphics…

Duke’s back, Hail to the King – lines courtesy of Sam Raimi, Bruce Campbell, John Carpenter & Roddy Piper

September 6, 2010 drsquid 2k Games, 3D Realms, Army of Darkness, Ash, Bruce Campbell, Duke Nukem, Duke Nukem Forever, Evil Dead, Gaming, PC gaming, PS3, sam raimi, Xbox0 comment

Now that Duke Nukem is back in the public eye, perhaps Sam Raimi, Bruce Campbell, John Carpenter, and Roddy Piper should consider taking action to ensure that they are properly credited in the new game for the lines ‘appropriated’ from Army of Darkness and They Live…(oh and Scarface). Check out a clip from They Live after the break.

At X’10 – Fallout: New Vegas

August 29, 2010September 20, 2010 Doug Groves Bethesda, Bethesda Softworks, Fallout, Fallout New Vegas, interview, Matthew Perry, PC gaming, PS3, x10, Xbox, Xbox 3609 Comments

Taking place about 3 years after the events of Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas spans an area about the size of the Capital Wasteland, but it’s not quite the post apocalyptic environment. Since Vegas wasn’t directly targeted in the attacks of the Great War, they still have power, which means there’s going to be a lot more colour in the new game. You can expect about the same amount of game play as in the Fallout 3, but they’ve introduced a few new elements, such as the Companion Wheel, which…

At X’10 – Need For Speed Hot Pursuit

August 28, 2010September 20, 2010 Doug Groves Autolog, Criterion Games, EA, Hot Pursuit, Microsoft, multiplayer, Need For Speed, racing game, taunt wall, x10, Xbox, Xbox 3601 Comment

Dana Sissons, Public Relations Manager for EA, talks to us about the latest version of Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit, developed by Criterion Games, makers of the Burnout series and set in the fictional Seacrest County, based on the California coastline. This offers up a variety of racing environments, with the four major variants being forests, mountains, desert and ocean. As Dana explains, the new Need For Speed aiming to provide short burst, intense racing, focusing on the thrill of the chase. He also mentions that the developers took inspiration…

At X’10 – Microsoft Kinect

August 27, 2010September 20, 2010 Doug Groves Dance Central, Dashboard, Kinect, Kinect Adventures, Microsoft, motion control, x10, Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox Live4 Comments

One of the highlights of X’10 was getting a chance to go “hands on” with Microsoft’s controller-free controller Kinect. The various mini games in Kinect are actually quite the workout (see about 1 minute in the above video), and though there is lag, it didn’t seem to affect gameplay. We also got a sneak peak at the Kinect friendly version of the Xbox Dashboard, which allows you to navigate the console with either gestures or voice commands. Both features were working spot on, and it seems that Microsoft’s goal of…

Windows Phone 7 launch games announced

August 19, 2010 Doug Groves bing, Bing maps, Crackdown, Microsoft, Microsoft Canada, Project Sunburst, Star Wars, THQ, Windows Phone 7, WP7, x10, Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox Live2 Comments

In anticipation of the international fall launch of Windows Phone 7, Microsoft has announced the starting line up of games, clocking in at over 60 titles. This includes some casual mobile classics like Uno and the always addictive Bejewelled, and mobile interpretations of console titles such as Guitar Hero 5, Halo: Waypoint, and Assassins Creeed. For Star Wars fans there’ll be a couple of games developed by THQ – Cantina, which puts you in the role of a Tatooine bar owner, and Battle For Hoth, a tower defense game set…

Halo 2600 kicks it old school

August 5, 2010August 5, 2010 Doug Groves Atari, Atari 2600, Ed Fries, Figure Prints, Halo, Halo 2600, Microsoft, Microsoft Game Studios, Xbox23 Comments

Ed Fries, who helped get Microsoft Game Studios get of the ground, and was a seminal part of the original Xbox project at Redmond, has kind of come full circle, then back again. Although he’s currently involved in a number of other gaming projects, it’s this little diversion called Hal0 2600 that is worth checking out. It’s a full fledged Atari 2600 adaptation of Halo… sadly it doesn’t include Warthog levels, as for some strange reason, the 128 bytes of RAM wasn’t quite enough… The thing you need to realize…