xbox live
Windows Phone 7 Series Announced By Microsoft
February 15, 2010
Microsoft have just announced their re-branding of Windows Mobile; the Windows Phone 7 Series at the 2010 Mobile World Congress, in Barcelona. The name may be a bit of a mouthful, but it’s clear that their new mobile operating system has taken a drastically different approach than previous efforts from Windows Mobile.
Every Windows Phone will have three buttons on the front of it: Start, Search and Back. This consistency will allow for a better experience for the user with hardware and software working together better – it’s a theme that Google’s also been chasing with their Android devices (such as the Nexus One) by encouraging manufacturers to use their 4 button template on the front of their devices, offering consistency across the board. This is definitely a step in the right direction as not only does it allow hardware and software to work better together, but also allows a much easier transition between Windows Phone devices.
Continue reading »Is Society’s Internet Addiction Affecting The Children?
February 3, 2010
This generation of kids (and in fact even the ones before them) have often been portrayed as fat couch potatoes by the media at large, children who are slowly loosing the ability to use language and their legs correctly and who are developing a distorted view of the world based on bad communication skills, the Internet being for porn and mass killings with terrorists in Russian airports.
There will always be people to defend them – mostly a mix of gaming enthusiasts, the occasional scientist and games manufacturers PR departments – but the results of a recent survey are fairly condemning where they show that kids are spending nearly eight hours online every day!
Continue reading »Alien Breed: Evolution – Episode 1 Review (XBLA)
December 23, 2009
I never played the original Alien Breed which received cult status all those years ago, so I went into Alien Breed being new to the game. I have looked into the original to see what all the hype was about and from what I have read, Alien Breed: Evolution is very impressive and stays as close as it can to what made it so good all those years ago on the mighty Commodore Amiga!
I know people have slated Team 17’s latest game (the fanboys who just can’t let go), but I don’t see what they’re complaining about. I found this to be addictive as hell and couldn’t put it down, especially after first having a preview of it when we attended Eurogamer Expo 2009 in Leeds back in October.
The storyline of the game is a ship called the ‘Leopold’ crashes into another ship near a planet’s orbit and they then start to be pulled into the atmosphere and it’s up to you to get the ships power back online and avoid certain doom. But of course, you have hoards of aliens trying to stop you along the way.
Continue reading »Microsoft Bans ‘Chipped Xbox 360 Pirates’ From Xbox Live
November 14, 2009
As millions of people across the globe eagerly got started on probably the biggest game this year; COD6: Modern Warfare 2, some for in for a nasty surprise as they discovered that they were on the raw end of Microsoft’s plan to help curb the increasing amount of piracy: they had been banned from Xbox Live, permanently.
The crime? Installing new chips that allows them to run unofficial or illegal programmes and games, and easily pirate games and download them for free. According to Microsoft this modifying of the console with the express interest to play games illegally is an infringement of the terms of use of Xbox Live and have therefore banned them from the service.
A spokesman for the company said: “All consumers should know that piracy is illegal and that modifying their Xbox 360 console to play pirated discs violates the Xbox Live terms of use, will void their warranty and result in a ban from Xbox Live”.
Continue reading »Eurogamer Expo 2009 (Leeds) – Games Review: Part 1
November 8, 2009
So as you know, we here on Zath have recently attended the Eurogamer Expo’s in Leeds and London and we’ve played a few games that were there on show and I thought I’d share with you a few of the games that we managed to get our hands on this year.
Uncharted 2 (PS3)
First up is Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. After playing the first Uncharted I was expecting this to be just as good if not better and it certainly didn’t disappoint. I had played on the Uncharted 2 multiplayer BETA version before the expo, but the demos on show were the single player versions and it was brilliant.
How To Get Belkin N+ Wireless Router Working With Xbox Live
September 8, 2009
I’ve recently had to go through the process of trying to replace my aging Belkin N wireless router which has proven to be something of a challenge as any of you who read my Belkin N+ wireless router review will have found.
The main issue centred around being unable to connect to Xbox Live with the Belkin N+ “out of the box” which meant I spent several hours trying to get it to work. The Xbox 360 reported that the MTU setting of my internet connection was setup incorrectly on my router, which having double checked it with my ISP settings I could see was fine.
Continue reading »Belkin N+ ADSL Wireless Router Review
July 14, 2009
I’ll be honest from the start with the review of the Belkin N+ ADSL modem wireless router – it has a flaw and it’s a pretty fundamental flaw if you want to use it for one particular purpose like I did, but more on that later…
I bought the Belkin N+ ADSL wireless router as a replacement for the aging Belkin N1 ADSL modem wireless router which needed replacing as the “quirks” it had were finally proving too much to live with, but rather than talk about that here, I’ll update the original review after I’ve finished this one.
Suffice to say despite my reservations of buying Belkin again, I looked around some of the big well-known review sites and they seemed to like the Belkin N+ with some of them having it as their wireless router of choice. Therefore I thought I’d give them another chance.
Continue reading »The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition
June 2, 2009
The Secret of Monkey Island franchise is one of my all time favourite gaming series which I started first started playing way back in the day on my trusty Commodore Amiga, the original was such a great game – in between all the floppy disk swaps!
Well now Lucasarts have brought back what must be their premiere adventure gaming franchise in the form of The Secret of Monkey Island Special Edition! The guys over at Lucasarts (many of which played the original and it was a driving force for them wanting to make games) have basically taken the original game, which was admittedly looking very long in the tooth now that it’s almost 20 years old and re-made it for the current generation gaming systems.
Continue reading »Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe on Xbox Live
November 8, 2007
Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe, I sometimes look back on playing the mighty game of Speedball on my Commodore Amiga 500 and think that this was one of the true gaming greats…for me at least!
Everyone has their favourite games that they look back upon and think, ‘wow, that was a good game, now that was a game I was great at playing!’ – there were many others even on the Amiga, but Speedball 2 was one of the major ones for me! I remember playing it against my friends, no-one ever beat me, they gave up playing me in the end – that may well have been the true pinnacle of my gaming success! Well maybe – nostalgia and all that!
Continue reading »Simpsons Game Review
November 3, 2007
‘The Simpsons Game
I downloaded the demo of ‘The Simpsons Game’ off Xbox Live last week and was pleasantly surprised as to how good it looked – the style of the cell-shaded 3D graphics are that of the TV show and work very well, but more importantly it was fun to play!
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