Another old game on XBox Live this week, and this time I'm so happy about it that it hurts. No, really it does actually hurt. The game, Jetpac Refueled. Here's the wikipedia page for the original. I've been waiting for this since playing the demo for Perfect Dark Zero, which had a clip at the beginning. Yes, I'm old enough to have played this on the Spectrum and I was a bit worried that it wouldn't play as well as I remembered. My fears seem unfounded though as although the retro version of the game (colour clash included!) is a...

The XBox 360 can have a video camera connected to it, and by all accounts it makes a pretty good video chat platform. Games can also take advantage of it, and so I give you Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars. This video shows how they are using the camera, which is a little window for each of your opponents with video chat while you play: http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/13124/CC-3-Tiberium-Wars-Live-Vision-Trailer/ Although in general I think it's a great idea to have video chat as well as voice chat in games and that it really adds to the experience when you're playing against mates, or...

This is the coolest thing I've since all day. We'll, since I shaved this morning at least. http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=290587 This is a great example of a depth sensing camera doing various tasks. The driving game is cool, the chess game is something I'm sure people would buy and the collaborative stuff is just amazingly useful. MS research are an amazing bunch and I just wish I was clever enough to work with them. Technorati tags: XNA, MS Research

Now that the age of digital downloads is upon us I'm looking at revisiting the solution for the box under my TV. Yes, a media center is wanted to replace my 1st gen Mac Mini (slow and no remote control at the moment) and I've narrowed it down to to needing the following requirements: Has to output HD Has to be able to play DivX (for legal reasons only, I assure you...) Has to have a remote Has to be able to play music, although not necessarily my DRMd iTunes music (which I must get around...

I'm a little obsessed with Crackdown at the moment, which means I'm not getting a lot of useful things done. I'm getting to the point where the achievements are going to be harder to get now so hopefully that'll die down and I get on with something useful. So what do I class as useful? Playing with XNA of course! I've pottered around for a while now not produced anything noteworthy so I need a project to play with. Lucky for me I have a massive number of notes on various ideas so I'm going to do something I never even...