During E3 we spoke with third-party peripheral manufacturer Nyko about its line of FrontMan guitars and which games the different versions were compatible with. We did a quick and dirty post on what we were told during the E3 madness, but Nyko just sent over the chart above, which, admittedly, is much easier to understand.
You make your way down the hallway in City 17, and push open the door into the bright sunlight reflected off of concrete. A Combine soldier stands before you, so you life your semiautomatic weapon, and as you pull the trigger and fire, the gun recoils in your hand. Another Combine stands across the viaduct, and when he fires at you, you feel the bullet strike you from the left, so you turn, and feel the gun jump in your hand again as you take him out.
That's the ideal experience with Novint's Falcon controller. The controller itself is about an eight inch orb that sits on your table, with a three-inch sphere sitting on the end of three arms coming off of it -- like a Soviet satellite sticking out of the globe. The idea is that you push the little sphere around to move your cursor, and the three arms provide resistance against whatever you bump up against. We got to use the controller at E3, and the verdict is that while it does provide a nice experience, the costs might be a little overwhelming for most players. More after the jump.
In Eguchi's own words, Nintendo is "looking at whether or not it will be an attachment or built in," so a MotionPlus Wiimote is far from confirmed. Still, we certainly hope Nintendo never ceases production of the attachment altogether -- forcing a populous that scrambled to acquire the Wii's elusive controller last year to chase after a new Wiimote SKU could lead to an unforeseen, if not slightly ironic, revolution against the prosperous company.
Want a Zapper-type gun shell for your Wiimote but don't want to overpay for what basically amounts to a handle? Well ... you're basically out of luck. But if you want to overpay somewhat less than the usual too-high price, Amazon.com is offering CTA Digital's Wii Magnum Gun, a Perfect Shot ripoff, for $8.99 as their Deal of the Day.
If you're concerned about the quality of this plastic gun shell versus other plastic gun shells, just remember: seriously, it's a piece of plastic, and probably does just as good a job of being that as any other piece of plastic. Don't think our dismissal of their complexity means we don't recommend a gun shell; anything that gets you playing Ghost Squad is a good thing.
When (and we're talking hypotheticals) you're in a Capcom meeting room and there just happens to be a gigantic replica Bionic Commando arm lying about (with working claw), what else is there to do but put it on and crush Yoon's head? Jem Alexander had to face that tough choice in real life, and he kept a cool enough head to make the smart move.
Apparently, Bionic Commando producer (and voice of Phoenix Wright!) Ben Judd constructed this arm in his spare time ... when not working on Bionic Commando. It's amazing work (even if it doesn't shoot a grappling hook).
Plastic instrument rivalry news now, with Stephen Totilo of MTV Multiplayer confirming that the upcoming Xbox 360 version of Guitar Hero: World Tourwill happily work with non-Guitar Hero peripherals – including those from Harmonix's first Rock Band game. The fate of Rock Band 2's instruments has yet to be decided – they haven't become available for testing just yet.
We're happy to see Activision tear down this wailing wall, even though we'll have to tweak our peripheral compatibility matrix for the umpteenth time. We're not quite sure how many an "ump" is, but we're thinking it's somewhere in the region of 119.
Nintendo has announced Wii Sports Resort, a sequel of sorts to the most popular title on the best selling console system this generation. It will include the previously announced Wii Motion Plus controller, and allow players to experience a fun "day at the beach" -- there will be a frisbee game, as well as a jetskiing experience, and a... sword dueling game?
Nintendo plans to replicate the success of Wii Sports and Wii Play, and throw in a new accessory with the pack as well. The game is set for a release in spring of next year.
During their announcement of Animal Crossing: City Folk at E3, Nintendo announced a new "community microphone" called WiiSpeak -- from the look of it, it sits on your television right on top of the sensor bar, and Nintendo says it'll let you speak with other players around the world.
Here's hoping they enable other online activity with the microphone as well. Finally, some Mario Kart voice chat? Yes please!
You're in the Movies was announced by Shane Kim and Don Mattrick at the Microsoft press conference today. The game will come with an Xbox Live Vision camera, and will place animations and backgrounds around actual video recorded from the camera.
Sounds silly to us, but you never know -- maybe some aspiring filmmaker out there will find their medium with a game that can make it look like you're fleeing Godzilla.
Back to button mashing for Kazooie. Microsoft has sent along a brief statement allegedly clarifying what Microsoft Game Studios creative director Ken Lobb meant when he said, "you twist the controller around and it'll move different things in [Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts]." The explanation goes a lil' something like this:
"There is no truth to this speculation. Ken's comment is in reference to rotating the left analog stick while hitting the X-button to move different things in the game."
While the statement seems to confirm that Banjo-Kazooie will stick to conventional controls, it by no means denies that Microsoft is preparing a magic show for E3. Will the wand be waved? Stay tuned.
Update: Rare has this to say: "There's no truth to the Banjo motion control rumor. Banjo has been designed to be played using a gamepad from the outset. People shouldn't take rumors that gestate in comments sections so seriously. They can often turn out to be red herrings, as is the case with Banjo and motion controls."
About 4 minutes into a new Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts developer commentary video, Microsoft Game Studios creative director Ken Lobb drops the line, "So you basically grab with the wrench and then you twist the controller around and it'll move different things in the game." Twist, you say? Earlier, we catch Kazooie doing just that: twisting an Xbox 360 controller (recreated above; full video embedded after the break). So what do we make of all this?
Well, there's that nagging rumor of some Abracadabra action going on behind closed doors at Microsoft, with Rare allegedly being one of the first studios to waggle the magic wand before passing it up for Vision cam support in the upcoming XBLA title, The Fast & The Furriest. It's not much of a stretch to assume that if Microsoft is to unveil a motion controller (say, next week!), Banjo-Kazooie could be one of the first titles to support the new feature. Waggletech® isn't exactly cutting edge or expensive, so a hardware manufacturer can essentially tack on motion sensitivity at any point (to varying degrees of success).
One theory suggests that Microsoft could install motion control into preexisting gamepads with an add-on device; perhaps a modified battery pack that also plugs into the headset port. Bundle the gizmo with Banjo-Kazooie, and you've got yourself a tried and true practice. Case closed? Certainly not.
Let's get this out of the way first: Rock Band 2 isn't the innovator Rock Band 1 was. But if it walks like Rock Band 1 and rocks like Rock Band 1, then what makes it Rock Band 2? If you're afraid of getting a glorified song-pack, Harmonix has a handful of new features in store that they hope will assuage your fears, and they all seem to revolve around the user experience. That means no new instrument types and no fancy, new graphics, but a whole lot of what you love about Rock Band 1 has been fixed up and added onto. We got a chance to check the game out at EA's EA3 event last month and EA shared a fact sheet with us that lays out all the new features.
The sequel's major feature seems to be "backwards compatibility" – that means all your previously purchased DLC will work, no need for redownloading or authorizing. It just works. The same philosophy extends to your equipment: all of your Rock Band 1 equipment will work with Rock Band 2.
Old hardware doesn't die ... it just gets hacked. As documented in the above video, Jeff Ledger has pieced together a clever little collection of chips and wires to bring vaguely Wii remote style interaction to the Commodore 64.
Perhaps it should be called Wii-ffle Ball, since he's taken a wiffle bat, attached an accelerometer to it, and created an interface that lets the C64 read the sensor's output as a button press. When the bat is swung fast enough, it triggers the switch and, in this case, tells Street Sports Baseball to "swing away."
The latest rumor to come from the pages of EGM lends further credence to one of last month's marketing leaks that Activision has gotten a little gung-ho with their plastic controllers. According to EGM's "skater spy," the next Tony Hawkgame will feature a "new fancy plastic peripheral" (we're thinking something like the Wii Balance Board); for reference, the marketing leak called it "a new motion sensing board controller." Additionally, the game will supposedly not be developed by Neversoft, who at the moment have their hands full with Guitar Hero World Tour's peripherals.
We have a hard time imagining Neversoft, who created the Tony Hawk series and has worked on all previous iterations, not having a part in the next version. We've sent our network of spies into action and will let you know what we come up with.
Alright, this is getting ridiculous. Activision has yet to respond to our requests for clarification, and anecdotal reports continue to contradict our finding that the Rock Band Stratocaster does not work with Guitar Hero: Aerosmith on the Xbox 360. If you'll consult our guitar compatibility matrix, you'll find that incompatibility is par for the course, so we left it at that. But conflicting reports keep coming in.
Our original tipster, who works for a rather large gaming magazine, tested all manner of guitars with Guitar Hero: Aerosmith but, alas, he was on an XDK – the Xbox 360 debug kit (and no, the above is not Photoshopped, it's a direct screen grab). Perhaps something, however unlikely, has changed from the reviewable code to the final retail code? Even then, we've gotten tips as recently as this morning claiming the Rock Band guitar does not work with the retail release of Guitar Hero: Aerosmith. Frankly, we can't keep track anymore so we'll do the next best thing: power of the masses.
The latest rumor to come from the pages of EGM lends further credence to 
