If you enjoy a good game of Guitar Hero and/or Rock Band but can’t help that nagging feeling in the back of your mind telling you that playing these is all very well but it’s not actually teaching people to play an instrument – well, my gadgety friends, Seven45 Studios may be our saviours for they bring Power Gig. The first instalment of this game sounds almost like a ManOWar album: Rise of the Six String!
As the title suggests – the game controller is an actual, real, stringed instrument.
It sounds like the proto-axes and alpha build of the game were pretty impressive and the fact that not only will you be able to buy individual packs you’ll be able to get you buddies involved with the “band bundle” that includes the game, a guitar (plus a strap, picks and an extra set of strings), a drum set and a microphone. Unfortunately the latter two items are still in the very early stages of production and weren’t available when Engadget was there.
The Guitar Hero/Rock Band beat matching game is still very much in evidence but Power Gig turns it up to 11 and brings “chording” into play. Yup, you’ll have to strum actual power chords that match the chords used in the song. This means that whilst you’re playing you’re learning a real song on a real guitar.
That real guitar can really be amped-up so you can rock out with your newly learned skills. All you have to do is depress the dampening pad beneath the neck and you can Smoke on the Water to your hearts content.
The good news is that Rock Band and Guitar Hero guitars will work with the Power Gig titles. The even better news is that Seven45’s guitars will work with existing music band games.
For more pics and info slip on your leather pants and rock over to Engadget!
Ok, so the iPad isn’t floating everyone’s boat is it?
I’ve actually been interested in Microsoft’s offering for quite some time now and there’s some more info seeping through about the twin screened tablet known as Courier.
So, we all already know that the Courier will react in a nice way to being stroked and poked by either finger or stylus but the video below also shows that Microsoft’s Courier has shrunk since we first got sneaky peeks at it.
The shrinkage will obviously help it be more portable and, as it looks to be around 5″x7″ and about an inch think, should be luggable +++
It beats the Apple table by seemingly sporting a camera. The Courier, as well as having the pinch-zoom touchscreeness can also recognise handwriting when using the stylus which combined with being able to cope with multiple apps running is going to make Mr Jobs weep. I particularly like the cut and paste using the stylus shown in the vid below.
You are able to keep ‘Journals’ which, given its book-like form factor, are kinda like multi-media scrapbooks. This makes me think that the big M may be pushing the Courier as Filofax for the 21st Century. It’s neat that you can make a journal your homepage so if you’re off to a meeting you can have all your relevant notes, pics, etc right at the front of your do everything organiser.
According to the whispers on Engadget the Courier UX will be purring along using the Tegra 2 OS as found on the Zune HD and not Windows 7 – so a little similar to Apple’s choice of using the iPhone OS and not Mac OSX.
As I mentioned before: We should be looking at the Micorsoft Courier UX as a small Surface device. The OS indeed resembles the Surface operating system with the added bonus of mobile niceties such as maps and internetweb.
Reckon it’s a no-brainer to think that the Courier would make a great e-Book reader huh?
Microsoft is aiming to launch this in the second half of this year and it sounds like it will be keenly priced as they’re planning large volume sales.
This odd Dali-esque gel remote comes courtesy of Panasonic’s concept dept.
The control lays limp when not in use, pulsating with a soft light.
But when it detects a warm hand coming to grip it and put it to use it stiffens – ready for action!
The remote is made from soft, flesh-like gel and appears cold [...]
The crazyily great, talented and renowned modder, Ben Heck, has already built both an Xbox 360 and a Wii Laptop - but now he’s gone and done a PS3 version.
Granted, it has taken him about 18 months – but he’s also a busy fella.
Spec-wise this is what it’s flexin:
Original backwards compatible 60GB model
17-inch LCD HDTV screen: 720p
HDMI-DVI connection
Keyboard, USB ports, stereo [...]
If you’re looking for a gaming lappy but not willing to shell out more than £1,000 then Engadget may have spotted a likely purchase.
The beast in question is Gateway’s latest 17-incher, the P-172X FX.
It features a Core 2 Duo CPU (the 2.4GHz T8300), 1920 x 1200 resolution, 4GB of RAM, a 320GB hard drive, NVIDIA’s GeForce [...]
Grabbed from Engadget
It’s not like folks haven’t been tinkering with something like this, but it’s quite refreshing to see an actual product emerge that promises to deliver on the claims we’ve been hearing about. Apparently, the Memor 32 memory card enables PlayStation 2 owners across the globe to effectively chip their console without requiring a [...]
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If you enjoy a good game of Guitar Hero and/or Rock Band but can’t help that nagging feeling in the back of your mind telling you that playing these is all very well but it’s not actually teaching people to play an instrument – well, my gadgety friends, Seven45 Studios may be our saviours for they bring Power Gig. The first instalment of this game sounds almost like a ManOWar album: Rise of the Six String!![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=9f126638-f129-40a9-8d06-d7b2cd97b8e6)
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