I am an avid PC gamer and when I play, I always use headphones. I use headphones because they don’t disturb the people in my home and it helps block out the noise in the environment that disturbs my play. Typically, when I play I use a set of Razer Barracuda headphones that provide very good surround sound audio quality.
Razer has introduced what may be my next set of headphones called the Megalodon 7.1 surround sound gaming headset. The headset uses Razer’s new Maelstrom Audio Engine to process positional audio cues 800% faster than comparable virtual surround sound systems according to Razer.
It’s back-to-school time across much of the country, and many people are out buying the notebooks for the coming school year. I’m sure there are many students headed off to college for the first time, who would like to take a nice gaming notebook with them. The reality is that most decent gaming notebooks cost around $5000, more than most college students can afford.
Gateway announced that it has added a new, affordable gaming notebook to its FX series called the P-7811FX. The cost of a notebook is only $1399.99 at Best Buy, making it very price competitive with basic notebooks on the market. Despite the low price, Gateway packs it full of higher-end features that you wouldn’t expect to see at this price.
Personally, I’ve never been a big fan of sports games on the PC or consoles. I have always leaned more towards games that had stuff that you can do in real life — like shooting zombies or racing cars at 250 miles an hour downtown with cops chasing you. Despite my gaming preferences EA’s Madden NFL is one of the biggest franchises of any type to ever hit a game console.
Today marks the launch of EA’s Madden NFL 09, and this year’s version marks the 20-year anniversary of the Madden NFL franchise. EA says that the Madden NFL 09 assesses your skills and adjusts the gameplay to keep the experience fun and challenging as you get better. The constantly adjusting difficulty also means that the veteran players can play with the inexperienced without new players getting spanked too badly.
I grew up on Atari, moved on to Nintendo and then to PC gaming as the years went by. I am always looking for cool gaming gear that will make games more fun and enjoyable. Driving and racing games are one of my favorite genres and things like force feedback steering wheels make the games much more fun. I am still waiting for full-motion simulators to get affordable so I can add one to my collection of gaming gear.
Gyroxus released what it calls a full-motion video game chair this spring. The chair sold for $489 when it was first launched — not too bad for a full-motion simulator. The Gyroxus price was cut significantly today making the chair now sell for $389. The chair is compatible with the PS3, PS2, Xbox, and Windows PCs. The chair has an adjustable back to accommodate users of different heights and a USB port on the chair so you can plug the controller and chair in with one cable.
I have spent every day since the iTunes App Store launched fighting with iTunes tech support to get them to believe the fact that I couldn’t download anything from anywhere in the store wasn’t related to the amount of traffic the store was getting with the new iPhone. It seems that wait until later and try again was the best answer they could give me for 3 days until someone finally bothered to actually check my account and fixed it within 5 minutes.
With my account fixed I downloaded all sorts of cool apps today including the free game called Tap Tap Revenge. The game is sort of along the lines of Guitar Hero, but with tracks nowhere near as good. The game has a red, blue and green beams that have orbs of light and the occasional arrow that slide down them. The object of the game is to tap the orbs as the hit the bottom like you would do in guitar Hero. Read the rest of this entry »
Have you got a thousand dollar budget for your next party or office meeting? Then you can rent out the 8-lane Scalextric race track. The track is computer controlled and can keep track of statistics like lap times, winners of each race and championship points.
The track measures roughly 19 feet by 9 feet so you’ll definitely need a big room. You also get a real live Race Director, a public address system and head microphone, full race structure and a choice of racing styles.
For an extra $400 you can get the Championship mode which includes race theme music, race flags and cones for decorations and 2 race marshals that will pick up your cars if they fall off the track.
Personally I’d keep the $400 and somehow find the strength to do the arduous task of picking up my own car myself. The only downside to this is that it’s currently only available in the United Kingdom.
Headphones have always been a good friend of the gamer. They keep the parents, girlfriend, neighbors or pets from ruining a perfect moment by shouting/barking “Turn that damn game down” just as you were about to execute a perfect headshot. Many times you had to sacrifice comfort for functionality or vice-versa. But the AudioFX Pro 5+1 gaming headset hopes to give you everything you need, including comfort.
They do look rather comfy and the 5.1 surround sound is a really nice feature. Bonuses to the design are the included force feedback effect and LED lights on the side that indicate the volume level. It’s a USB headset and has a price tag of $79.94. Be sure to use the mute mic button if you still live at home and you don’t want to be caught on YouTube being chastised by your mom and laughed at by millions of others.
Running around in virtual reality has always been a problem, since it’s pretty hard to physically move anywhere while you’re standing in a room and hooked up to a computer. VirtueSphere took a stab at the problem with a giant ball on rollers, but the Omni-Directional Treadmill (ODT) is a much more elegant (and, let’s face it, way cooler) solution. As you can see from the video above, the ODT allows you to move continuously in any direction (even sideways or backwards), and the current version will handle jogging speeds. It uses a bunch of little treadmills moving in one direction, all mounted on one large treadmill that moves orthogonally. It may not surprise you to hear that the US Army has dibs on all of the current versions, but the designers envision all sorts of applications, of which gaming is at the top (yes, top) of their list.
Related Tags: headphones, razer
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