Brian Crecente

Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft Are Finally Competing on Common Ground

With the launch of the Xbox 360’s Kinect last week, all three major video game consoles now have motion-based gaming support. But which is the best? That’s not as easily answered as one might think. While all three allow you to forgo button-mashing for body movement to interact with games, they all do it in…

iTunes Chart Toppers: Tap Zoo and Plenty Of Stories

As we approach the often expensive holidays it seems that the free-to-play games are making a resurgence on the iPhone. Here’s the full list of games for both platforms: iPhone Position Title Price Weeks Last Week 1 Angry Birds (Clickgamer.com) $0.99 26 2 2 Restaurant Story (TeamLava) Free (with paid DLC) 3 7 3 Tap…

How Microsoft Plans To Put A Video Game Controller In Everything

Microsoft is spending half a billion dollars to make sure that when you hear the word Kinect you think “the future of video games.” But Microsoft believes that the real potential for the voice recognition, motion-based technology is how they plan to use it with cell phones, computers and perhaps in the military and health…

The Ice Tea

To: Owen From: Crecente True story. Earlier today Ice T tweeted that he was hoping to get Call of Duty: Black Ops early because he’s a fan. I bugged some Activision folks about it and they called Ice T to hook him up. That’s right, I did Ice T a solid. Now he owes me…

Will Kinect’s “Thousand Points of Light” Interfere With the Wii’s Remote?

Let’s say for some odd reason you want to have both your Xbox 360 Kinect on and your Wii? Why? I haven’t a clue, but if you did, would the two systems, which both use infrared, interfere with one another? I tried playing Rally Ball with the activated Wii Remote in my hand and had…

Call of Duty: Black Ops Gets Its Own Pro Gaming Glasses

When Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 hit last year it arrived in stores escorted by a virtual phallanx of tie-ins of varying quality. There were the controllers, the controller faceplates, the throat mic. Some were good, some were bad. We all rolled our eyes at the marketing and moved alone. This year Call of…

“Questing” and Hero Creation in The Sims Medieval

I was a little disappointed to learn that The Sims Medieval is essentially The Sims gone… medieval. I guess I should have suspected that, but trailers like this don’t help. It makes you think it’s got a little RPG or action in the game. From what I saw at Gamescom, it really doesn’t.

Xbox 360 Kinect Stress Test, Technology Vs. Dogs, Darkness, Disguises

The Xbox 360 Kinect can be confused by large dogs and wildly flailing children. Those are two stress tests that Microsoft’s controller-free add-on failed in a series of trials involving lighting, human and dog distraction, rubber masks and voice confusion. The audio and vocal tests returned mixed results, but everything else we threw at the…

The Fire-Breathing Tanks of Battlefield Bad Company 2 Vietnam

This look at the Vietnam-themed download expansion back for Battlefield: Bad Company 2 gives us a good look at the fight for hill 137 where GI recon have discovered NVA regulars defending an outpost. Oh, it also shows us how amazing the fire looks in the game, in particular when it’s spewing out of a…

That was a fast week

To: Ash From: Crecente Wow, this week zipped by. Totilo and I spent a bulk of the week working on our Kinect coverage and preparing for November’s month of deals, gift guides and features. I suspect next week won’t be any slower. Yes, I realize it’s only Thursday, but I like to pretend the week…

A Visual Guide to the Black Ops Sunglasses

Review: Sonic Free Riders Shows How Bad Kinect Controls Can Be

Sonic Free Riders is a cautionary tale about the importance of controls in gaming. Make a game interesting, give it solid graphics and some unique hooks, but don’t lock down the controls and you’re going to have a disaster on your hands. Kinect-enabled Sonic Free Riders is the third in the Sonic Riders series which…

Sonic Free Riders Visual Guide

Maybe I’m not smiling enough when I play. Or perhaps I need to play the game in a giant white box. I had some issues with the game at Gamescom, but it was much worse in my home. This game needs less commercials and more patches.

The Many Reviews of Kinect and Its Games

The Xbox 360’s Kinect launched today with more than a dozen games. We played through half a dozen of them. Here’s a run down of the reviews for quick reference. Click on the game’s name to go to the full review which is much more detailed and packed with videos of us playing the games.…

Setting Up and “Tuning” Your Xbox 360 Kinect

Setting up your Kinect array of cameras and microphones doesn’t take too long, but it’s much more involved than setting up the Wii or Playstation move. This video walks you through the initial set-up process and then some of the fine tuning you can do if you run into problems.

Examining Kinect’s Minority Report Effect

Kinect may be touted as the Xbox 360’s answer to motion gaming, but it’s not just about making you the controller. Kinect can also let you interact with television, movies, music and the Xbox 360 like Tom Cruise in Minority Report, just without the fancy gloves. This video is a quite long, but in it…

Review: Kinect Sports

The Xbox 360 finally has its motion-based sports game. Packed with six sports, ten if you include all of the events of track and field, Kinect Sports drops you controller-free into an eclectic mix of athleticism. Aesthetically, Kinect Sports falls somewhere between Wii Sports and the Playstation Move’s Sports Champions. Kinect Sports uses your recently…

Review: Dance Central

Dance Central is a dancing rhythm game from the folks who created Guitar Hero and Rock Band. Packed with an eclectic mix of music and dance moves from the artists, it hopes to redefine the way we play dance games. Dance Central is among the most visually polished of the Kinect launch titles. Gamers stand…

Review: Kinect Adventures

Kinect Adventures is the game that every Kinect owner will soon be playing. That’s because it’s the one that comes with the hardware. So it should give players a taste of what they can expect from Xbox 360 motion gaming. As with a bulk of this first round of Kinect games, Kinect Adventures looks an…

What We Loved, What We Hated About the Xbox 360 Kinect

Microsoft calls it a new console, but the Kinect is really a fresh coat of paint for the Xbox 360, promising to deliver not just motion gaming, but controller-free gaming to the masses. We’ve had the peripheral add-on in our offices for a little more than a week now, time enough for us to play…