The big video game companies have opened up a new front in the console wars: motion-controlled games.

Sony and Microsoft have decided that Nintendo’s Wii has cornered the market for far too long and both are coming out with add-ons that hope to bring gamers off the couch, instead controlling the game action by flailing their limbs and moving and shaking their body.

Microsoft’s Kinect for the Xbox 360 ditches the traditional control pad altogether in favour of voice control and a camera that purports to map players’ movements with fine detail precision. It is due to launch in Australia by Christmas.

But Sony’s Move for the PlayStation 3 is the first cab off the rank, released on September 16 at $99.95 for the starter pack. A cross between Kinect and the Wii, the Move includes a Wiimote-style wand and Sony PlayStation Eye camera.

Playstation Move Demo

Sports Champions (launch)

Like Nintendo’s Wii Sports, Sports Champions is designed to introduce players to motion controls. It incorporates six separate games such as table tennis, archery, bocce (bowls), gladiator duel (sword fighting) and disc golf (a cross between frisbee and golf).

Table tennis is extremely fun to play, particularly with a friend, and it is impressive with how precisely you can control the pace and spin of the ball depending on how hard you swing and how much you rotate the wand. Also, do look forward to testing archery, which requires players to hold two wands in a way that mimics the real-world version.

Start The Party! (launch)

More for the casual than hardcore gamers, this “augmented reality” title features 20 mini games that uses the camera to put players into the game. You watch yourself flailing about on the screen and, depending on the game, the wand is transformed into anything from a paint brush to sword to a hand-held fan to even a fly swatter.

Playing with up to four players, you’ll be using the wand to swat bugs, slice fruit, blow baby chicks into baskets (without cutting them up on the fan blades), whack moles and eat flies. This game is most fun with several players and watching friends madly swinging the controller is truly hilarious. A fun party game with appeal across age groups.

The Fight (October)

More Fight Club than heavyweight boxing. Set in the world of illegal underground street fighting, this one is sure to give you a workout. By the end of the first bare knuckle fight, It makes you to sit down and take a breather.

The precision of the controls is fantastic, with your on-screen fighter bobbing, weaving and punching almost exactly in time with your own movements. You can angle your shot to target different parts of the body and the harder you swing, the harder the punch in the game. You’re also able to perform quick jabs, upper cuts or get the opponent in a headlock, before delivering a few elbows to the face. It’s probably not for kids, and the full frontal violence may be confronting for some, but for testosterone-fueled men like me who rarely have the guts to get involved in a real fight, this one is great for stress relief and a bit of exercise.

The Shoot (October)

This arcade shooter game has you taking out waves of sci-fi enemies while dodging projectiles. You don’t have much control of the character’s movements and gameplay involves little more than pointing at the screen and pressing the trigger button to take out enemies.

Anticipate the next wave of first person shooter titles that will be launched for the Move, such as SOCOM 4, Time Crisis and Killzone 3, which are far more tactical and have better artifical intelligence. The graphics and controls appear more refined, the enemies are tougher and more interesting and, in the case of Killzone 3, full 3D is supported.

Verdict: it’s still early days

On the whole, the Move’s controls are more precise than that of the Wii and the use of both a camera and a wand made it feel like one’s movements are far more connected to the in-game action.

Need for speed has been an amazing game since my childhood, those days of visiting the internet Cafe and paying high price for a single hour of fast paced driving on the lanes of Need for Speed tracks. The Need for speed has since carried on its tradition of  attracting  gamers to try its games for free with its free demo version which had very limited options like fewer cars and fewer tracks. Need for Speed has many versions to its names and most successful has to be the Need for Speed – Most Wanted which offered LAN game play. Then next few versions like NFS ( Need for Speed) Carbon and Pro street did not manage to attract much crowd as there was minute difference from its most successful NFS – Most Wanted version. Electronic Arts ( EA) has grown and adapted to the changing situation of gaming and the life of Gamers. These days the Gamers are 24* 7 Online and are very much into Social Networking. So combining these two factors is very important to the success of the company and hence they need to open up the Gaming scene to a big crowd.

So what is that makes NEED for SPEED …free ..free ..free.. Need For Speed World

Need for speed World is the first Massive Multiplayer Online Racing Game (MMORG) which is available for free. EA has always set gaming standards for others to follow by giving away this game for free and looks to make money in terms of virtual currency. The Zynga fever is everywhere and has hit Electronic arts.

In the past years, “free“ meant a free trial and level cap with lots of less features. These restrictions are removed now with improvements given for the more you play just like the Zynga games . The game is extended through a system of micro-transactions to unlock extra cars and features. Those who have previously bought the game have received a pleasant number of credits.

Need for Speed World is a decent installment in the series – you either love it or you hate it. Expect unrealistically dumb cops and easy physics, allowing you to work up some additional speed and adrenaline.

Go check out the Need for Speed WORLD site and get amazed with the growing community of Gamers. Those who could not act in Fast and Furious series of movies, here is your chance to create your own Gang of Hardcore Drivers. Go get a Hang of it.

Do you dream of playing intense 3D game with your PC ?
Are you passionate in creating high definition digital videos?

Well, here is answer for you all. Intel Corporation is introducing Intel® Core™ i7 Desktop Processor. This is the new definition for the efficiency and performance. In a brief way I can say it delivers unmatched technology for intelligent performance on the most demanding tasks, such as creating digital video and playing intense games.

Good news to all the hardcore multitaskers, you might forget to bang on the desk while your system hangs out. The Intel Core i7 processor family delivers maximum processing performance in response to peak demands. You’ll fly through everything you do on your PC—from playing intense games to creating and editing digital video, music, and photos. With Intel® Turbo Boost Technology and Intel® Hyper-Threading Technology, you get intelligent performance when you need it most.

With these processors wield the ultimate gaming weapon for greater performance in 3D gaming applications. Experience smoother and more realistic gaming made possible by distributing AI, physics, and rendering across six cores and 12 threads, bringing 3D to life for the ultimate gaming experience. And take digital content creation to a whole new level for photo retouching and photo editing. Unlock your full potential with Intel’s top-of-the-line desktop processor and experience total creative freedom that’s limited only by your imagination.

What are these hardcore technical terms Intel® Turbo Boost Technology and Intel® Hyper-Threading Technology?

For the light headed guys who don’t want to scratch their head with these terminologies, I suggest to skip and move forward. If you are a tech savvy, then here is the answer for the above question.

Intel® Hyper-Threading Technology (Intel® HT Technology):

Delivers two processing threads per physical core for a total of eight threads for massive computational throughput. With Intel® HT Technology, highly threaded applications can get more work done in parallel, completing tasks sooner. With more threads available to the operating system, multitasking becomes even easier. This amazing processor can handle multiple applications working simultaneously, allowing you to do more with less wait time.

Intel® Turbo Boost Technology :

Dynamically increases the processor’s frequency as needed by taking advantage of thermal and power headroom when operating below specified limits. Get more performance automatically, when you need it the most.

Quad-Core Processing :

Provides four complete execution cores in a single processor package. Four dedicated physical cores help operating systems and applications deliver additional performance, so users can experience better multitasking and multithreaded performance across many types of applications and workloads.

Processor Comparison :

Micro-architecture for the processors :

The family of the processors which provide the blistering performance have originated from the micro-architecture named Nehalem.

Price tag of the processors :

• Intel Core i7 Extreme Edition 980X 3.33 GHz Processor – $999.80
• Intel Core i7 Quad-core i7-950 3.06GHz Processor – $298.81
• Intel Core i7 Quad-core I7-870 2.93GHz Processor – $289.99
• Intel Core i7 930 2.80 GHz Processor – Quad-core  – $259.99

Happy 3D Gaming to you all . Want to buy a HP Deskjet F380 all in one printer?

What! Did IBM enter the game industry? no, not really, but it is true that IBM has launched CityOne, the world’s first smarter planet interactive simulation game. More than 7000 people who pre-registered are being notified of the release yesterday (Oct 4, 2010). IBM calls it “a serious game”. The game does more than entertain. The idea behind creating a serious game is that many professionals like athletes, soldiers, doctors play serious games (games that simulate their professions) in order to prepare themselves for potentially disastrous or the worst scenario events. These games prepare them by allowing them to explore different permutations of possibilities so that they can come up with real solutions for the real world problems in an intuitive way.

CityOne: What IBM has in store?

In CityOne, players are given a series of missions with different challenges that are related to real world problems. The game features water, energy, banking and retail challenges in a city context. CityOne is a SimCity-styled game but unlike SimCity where the players start from scratch, CityOne starts with full-formed city. They have to deal with already messed up realities. It offers the opportunity for the players to optimize and come up with solutions via an online game in which the player has to guide the industries within a city through all the missions. The main goal of each of the missions is to improve the city by attaining revenue and profit goal, increasing customers’ and citizens’ satisfaction, and making the environment greener with a limited budge.

IBM is also smart enough that along with the entertainment involved in the game and solving the real world problems, it also helps players to learn some of latest technologies like business process management, cloud technologies etc.

This is not the first game IBM has released; IBM has previously released INNOV8, a 3D game.  But the game mainly concentrates on teaching some of the fundamentals of high tech concepts like BPM (Business Process Management), SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) and so on. It has become quite famous that more than 1000 universities downloaded the game and many universities  including Marshall School of Business have included it in its curriculum.

Anyway for all the gamers out there who love strategy games like AOE or games like SimCity, here is, literally a real challenge. Let’s see if you are gamer enough to solve real world problems. Play the CityOne game.

Image Courtesy: IBM