The Windows Kinect hardware is apparently “PC optimised” and even sports a ‘near mode’ which will allow you to use the device at a much closer range. However, this ‘near mode’ is not due to any internal modification or replacement parts; it’s a firmware update, so the Xbox 360 version may also see this mode in the near future.

Recent rumours picked up by Gamespot and MCV have indicated that Microsoft are readying their next Xbox for a reveal at E3 this year and for this Xbox 360 follow-up – commonly referred to as the Xbox 720 and the newer code name Xbox Next – as being released in the holiday period later this year. Rumours have also surfaced about the PlayStation 4 also being unveiled at E3 2012.

It’s long been reported that Sony started working on a follow-up to the PS3 shortly after its release. In fact in November last year a rumour suggested that software development for a not-yet-announced system was underway.

Gamespot have also said there are “strong signs” that the new Xbox will feature a tablet controller similar to Nintendo’s Wii U. What these “strong signs” are is still unclear, as is their source, but it’s certainly an interesting rumour and a potentially expensive year for us gamers with the Wii U confirmed for a 2012 release. Nintendo is due to share release info for the Wii U at E3 this year.

Check out the concept models below for what we might – although almost certain will not – be in for with the next generation of consoles.

However, just like most Japanese shoot-’em-ups, it is insanely difficult, and I for one was hesitant to splash 1200 of my precious MS points on a game I might only spend 5 minutes with. In hindsight I am glad that I did, as I have even managed to surpass how far I got on the original Saturn version (not too far) and earned myself an achievement of two as well!

Firstly, it looks awesome. This is a Saturn game, but rather than just port that version and press the HD button, the source code was used to optimise it for the 360 hardware.(1) This means it looks stunning. The visuals are bright and although there is loads going on, you never feel you are getting overwhelmed or that the screen is getting crowded.  The cut scenes I have seen so far look good, but do show their age a little bit more, when compared to some modern day works.

Enemies can attack from all sides! Choose your weapons wisely.

One of the great things about Radiant Silvergun is the weapons. Unlike most vertical scrollers, there are no powerups to worry about collecting. You start the game with a weapon assigned to almost every button, of which the sword is for me the standout. This means that if you die, there isn’t that awful R-type moment, when you know that you won’t be able to get through with only the default weapon. Instead, the skill lies in knowing which weapon to use at which time.

In addition, the weapons can be levelled up by scoring points. Chaining enemies of the same colour, or destroying all of a boss before it self destructs, gives some major point bonuses to help with this. This colour mechanic is the fore runner of the more complex system that Ikaruga employs, and to be honest I found the action too frantic to be able to consciously worry about this.

The HD button has been well and truly pressed!

As I said at the beginning, I usually find shoot em ups too difficult, too hardcore, and find it hard to get my money’s worth. Radiant Silvergun has been a game changer in this respect, simply because of the level of customisation available. In arcade mode, there are several difficulty levels, and I immediately went for very easy. You can also ramp up the number of ships available too. However, it is training mode that I really love, as you can not only do all of the above, but also increase the power of each weapon AND slow the game down.  This allows you to learn patterns, experiment with weapons and practive bosses, and gave me, as a non-hardcore gamer, a real chance to experience what the game has to offer. One of the most telling things is that fairly quickly I got two achievements, which is a good start since I still have none on Geometry Wars 1 and 2, or Ikaruga!

Add into all this the score attack and online coop modes, and this game starts to seem really good value, especially against the £100+ prices that ebay is still showing for the original. If like me, you would love to experience why Treasure are so feted, and why this game is so beloved of the Saturn hardcore, I can reassure you that you will be able to experience it, and that as a way into this style of shooter game, it couldn’t come more recommended.

MLG Rating: 8/10
Platform:  XBLA  Release Date: 14/09/2011

British Engineers have been recognised for their part in the success of the record breaking Xbox Kinect.

The best of British Engineering and Computer Science has been recognized by the Royal Academy of Engineers this month. A Cambridge based team from Microsoft Research were awarded the UK’s highest innovation prize, the £50,000 MacRobert Award for their work in creating Microsoft Kinect.

From left, Toby Sharp, Dr Jamie Shotton, Dr Andrew Fitzgibbon, Professor Andrew Blake and Mat Cook

Answering a call for help from their colleagues in the US way back in September 2008, the Cambridge team, lead by Professor Andrew Blake applied ‘machine learning’ techniques for the system. Previous endeavors from the Laboratory on the recognition of objects in photographs have enabled them to engineer analysis of depth images efficiently enough for it to only use a minimal amount of computing capacity.

John Robinson FREng, Chairman of the MacRobert judging panel, said: “Everything about Microsoft Research’s Kinect project makes it a worthy winner of this prestigious award. Yet again, British engineers have solved a seemingly intractable problem that stumped the rest of the world.”

“Professor Blake and his team have taken Kinect from a first speculative idea to a retail product in just two years and their technical knowledge and achievements are quite outstanding. This is world-beating engineering by a world-leading team based in the UK. Everybody thinks Microsoft is American – but this superb engineering was done by British engineers at their lab in Cambridge. As a British engineer, I feel proud of them.”

Managing Director Professor Andrew Blake

Professor Blake said: “On behalf of the entire team, we are absolutely delighted to receive the MacRobert Award. We were certainly up against stiff competition and I commend our fellow finalists for their excellent entries.”
“For our work on machine learning for Kinect, and indeed the field of computer science, to be recognised by the top engineering award in the UK, makes us very proud. I would like to thank the team involved at Microsoft Research, our colleagues in the Xbox team at Microsoft, and the Royal Academy of Engineering, for making it possible for us to receive this prestigious honour.”
Other finalists for the award included Defence Science for their Ceramic Armour, Radio Design for Cellular Network Sharing and Jaguar Cars for their XJ Lightweight vehicle.

Everyone here at Midlifegamer.net would like to congratulate the team on this prestigious award and receiving the recognition that you deserve…and for going Balls Deep!

Microsoft have released The Kinect for Windows Software Development Kit (SDK) Starter kit which is free for non commercial use. If you’ve got Windows 7 and a Kinect Sensor, why not see what you can do…who knows, perhaps you could be an award winning engineer shaping games for the future?

Download it here: Kinect Windows SDK

Source: THE IET

We start things off with the Microsoft related trailers for Halo: Anniversary, Halo 4, Mass Effect 3, Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, Kinect Disneyland Adventures, Kinect Star Wars, Kinext Sports Season 2 and Dance Central 2.

Enjoy the trailers and be sure to share your thoughts in the comments section.

Halo: Anniversary Trailer

www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1J3z_2Uep8

Halo 4 Teaser Trailer

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Bm1-Zb7sY8

Mass Effect 3 Media Briefing

www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUdG2rIhKL4

Ghost Recon Future Soldier - E3 Trailer

www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0Vpx1ZqUOc

Kinect Disneyland Adventures Media Briefing

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dJ8OQxCi3c

Kinect Star Wars Media Briefing

www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUbVnRtmjqk

Kinect Sports Season Two Media Briefing

www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYvs11U16jw

Dance Central 2 Media Briefing

www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEVg8qGO-Vg

The conference started with gameplay footage of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, showing a unique underwater mission as a squad swam about planting explosives on the hull of a submarine before storming it after it surfaced, then escaping the ensuing battle on speed boat. Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 is due for release in November.

Next up, Crystal Dynamics show off gameplay of Tomb Raider. A much more human Lara Croft escapes from unknown captives, getting injured, feeling fear and relying on survival instincts – integrated as a vision mode which highlights objects – to frantically escape the collapsing cave structure.

EA Sports then take the floor to announce Kinect functionality for four upcoming titles: Tiger Woods, Madden, FIFA, and an unannounced sports title to be revealed later in the week. Additionally The Sims 3 Pets and Hasbro Family Games 4 were confirmed for Kinect compatibility.

Bioware then showed off Mass Effect 3 gameplay and show the Kinect support through voice recognition. The demonstration showed choosing dialogue options, and ordering team mates to use abilities and change tactics.

Ubisoft then come out and show Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, featuring Optical camouflage, and next generation Cross-Com HUD and tactical display. The Kinect functionality allows for weapon customisation with gestures and voice, exploding the gun down to its individual components. Also full control using Kinect is teased. It’s all confirmed that all future Tom Clancy titles will support Kinect.

Next up, new Xbox Live features and tweaks are announced. Increased partners for Xbox Live aims to bring more feature to the system, including YouTube, the Bing search tool for searching through the marketplace via voice control with Kinect, and more live TV including UFC fights with interactive menus and community features. More to be announced later this year.

Next came a whole host of footage of Xbox exclusive titles:

Gears of War 3 was demonstrated. Showing off coop, mechs, and absolutely gorgeous visuals.

Crytek announce a new title, Ryse for Kinect, based in Ancient Rome.

Halo HD footage is shown, confirming online multiplayer, coop and competitive, for the HD remake.

Forza 4 footage is shown, confirming Kinect voice control and head tracking. Forza 4 is due out in October.

Lionhead show Fable The Journey, a Kinect title that looks like a first person rail-shooter, casting spells against enemies. Due out in 2012.

The big surprise announcement of Minecraft coming to Xbox 360 Kinect.

Kinect Disneyland Adventures footage shown. You’ll be able to explore the entire park through Kinect, play rides like flying with Peter Pan, falling through the rabbit hole etc. Kinect Disneyland Adventures is out later this year.

Star Wars Kinect was finally shown and it looks fittingly grand, although it still seems to suffer from a delay in controls, and 1:1 is still questionable.

Double Fine also show off their Sesame Street Kinect game, which looks like a fantastic kid’s game.

Kinect Fun Labs was then announced, which will act like a hub for new Kinect software and community created content using Kinect, including Kinect avatar scanning creator, kinect finger tracking allows you to draw in 3D and the ability to finally create digital version of physical items. Kinect Fun Labs is available to now.

Kinect Sports Season 2 was announced and will include Skiing, baseball, golf, darts, tennis and American football.

Dance Central 2 was announced and will allow simultaneous two-player dancing as well as backward compatibility with Dance Central’s DLC songs.

Call of Duty DLC was confirmed as continuing to be available first on Xbox 360.

Last, but certainly not least a new trilogy of games were announced, with the new trilogy beginning in 2012 with the release of Halo 4. The footage was short and sweet but Master Chief is back and I for one couldn’t be more excited.

Well that’s the round up of Microsoft’s Conference. Sony is up later tonight and we’ll be gathering all the news for you to post straight after the conference here on Midlife Gamer.

Now it’s been said that we like a bit of ‘Gears’ around these parts, and it’s also been said that alcohol can add a further element of fun to the proceedings. Which is why we’re getting rather excited and ‘jazzed’ for this game.

So whether you’re a pro with the sniper rifle or simply a ‘chainsaw noob’ you’re in good company here. Come join us every Friday night for ‘Gears & Beers’, new comers always welcome.

Here’s the beta lowdown from Microsoft…

Gears of War 3 Beta, 25 April – 15 May
The full public beta period begins 25 April. Players can look forward to special events and playlists throughout the beta period. Two additional competitive game modes, Capture the Leader and King of the Hill, will be added during the final week of the beta.

And what about all those lovely unlockable goodies?

Beta Tester Medal - Complete one match in the beta to unlock the Beta Tester medal, which will carry over to your gamer profile in the final game. The Beta Tester title will be featured in the Gears 3 multiplayer lobby as well.

Thrashball Cole - Complete 50 matches in any game type to unlock the Thrashball Cole character variant in the beta. Once unlocked, complete 10 matches as Thrashball Cole during the beta and the character will carry over to your gamer profile in the final game.

Gold-Plated Retro Lancer - Show your ultimate Gears of War fandom by unlocking the Gold-Plated Retro Lancer. Complete 90 matches in any game type to unlock it for the beta, and score 100 kills with it once unlocked to carry the exclusive weapon skin over to your gamer profile in the final game.

Flaming Hammerburst - Complete one match by Sunday, 24 April and unlock this weapon variant.

Flaming Lancer - Complete one match during the week of 25 April and unlock this weapon variant.

Flaming Sawed-Off Shotgun - Complete one match during the week of 2 May to unlock this weapon variant.

Flaming Gnasher Shotgun - Complete one match during the week of 9 May to unlock this weapon variant.

Enough of this bullshit, how do I enter?

To enter simply leave a comment on this post explaining why you want access to the Gears of War 3 beta. This will count as your entry.

Ooh wait. There’s more…

If you’d like an extra entry then follow @midlifegamernet & tweet the phrase: I’ve entered the Gears of War 3 Beta access giveaway run by @midlifegamernet. You can too: http://bit.ly/hmjGgD #Gears3

All 5 winners will be picked at random from the above entry methods and announced on this page shortly after the closing date of 23:59 on Sunday 24th April 2011. The winners must then contact us via email at admin@midlifegamer.net to verify their entry and receive their redeemable code on 25th April 2011.

Full Twitter entry Ts & Cs are available here.

*UPDATE* Congratulations to Brother Brown, Cramtheman, Starscreme, DangerousBobby and DrunkRogue68 who have each won a Beta access code!

The rumours flowed about what this Wii 2 would bring to the market. Sources told Blu-ray.com that Nintendo’s new system would adopt Sony’s Blu-ray disc technology. Sources reportedly told French site 01net the specs for this new system, saying the console will have a custom IBM PowerPC CPU with three cores, a GPU from the ATI R700 family with a shader unit at version 4.1, and at least 512Mb of RAM. As well as talking about the new controller, originally reported by CVG, to feature a built in HD touch screen.

The consensus at the moment is that Ninendo will reveal this new console at E3 in June, although these recent reports may force them to show their hand a little sooner, that is if they are in fact developing this console at all.

The prospect of a new console is always an interesting and exciting time. New technology means new games and new experiences. It also raises some questions as to what, if anything, Sony and Microsoft will do in response.

Crytek have reported in a recent interview with Eurogamer that they want to see Sony and Microsoft’s next consoles with 16 times the RAM they current hold.
Tiago Sousa says “My finger-pointing at Microsoft/Sony would really be on the memory side, It’s way too low, and the biggest crippling factor from a visual perspective,”.”I would really like to see next-gen console platforms with a minimum of 8GB,”.

So whilst I would bet Microsoft and Sony will not be making any console announcements any time soon, I certainly agree with Tiago Sousa on the RAM increase and would love to hear of the next generation of consoles in a few years time to contain such power.

What do you guys think?