Xbox 360 to lose AT&T U-verse receiver support after December 1st
Unfortunately for Xbox 360 users who use their console as a U-verse TV receiver, you will no longer be able to use that service. AT&T is informing their customers that they will no longer have the IPTV support for the Xbox 360. AT&T says this will come in affect after December 31st.
Letter to Xbox 360 U-verse customers:
Dear Valued U-verse member,
We are writing to share important information regarding your Xbox 360.
We will be discontinuing the Xbox 360 as a supported U-verse receiver after December 31, 2013.
A previous communication referenced that you would need to purchase an Xbox 360 Gold membership for your Xbox 360 to work with U-verse service. We were planning to issue a $60 bill credit to cover that cost. We will now be issuing a $99 bill credit, which includes the $60, on your U-verse bill within one to two billing cycles.
If you would like to order an additional receiver to replace your Xbox please visit att.com/myatt or call us at 800.288.2020 for assistance.
We apologize for the inconvenience.
Thank you for being a valued U-verse member.
Sincerely,
Your AT&T U-verse Team
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Free games for those with problematic Xbox One Blu-ray drives!
We reported about the issues with some Xbox One consoles and their Blu-ray issues, but Microsoft is quickly jumping into damage control mode, offering anyone with a broken Xbox One free games.
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Rocki hits Kickstarter, wants to free your music to all devices
I've been waiting for Rocki to hit Kickstarter, but now is the time to back this awesome looking device. You might not know what Rocki is, so let's give you the quick once over: it's a Wi-Fi Music Sound System, easy, isn't it?
It's on Kickstarter for $45, which lands you the Rocki exclusive beta, and the Play device with the beta app and firmware. For just $45, Rocki is going to change the way you consume music in your house, for $45, it's a no-brainer.
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PDXLAN November charity event sponsered by Thermaltake
PDXLAN is a West Coast Mecca of LAN parties, usually with 500 PC gamers from all across the United States and Canada. They come together and game for four days straight. On November 8, 2013, 400 PDXLAN gamers donate over 37,000 Lbs of food to local charities thanks to a sponsorship from Thermaltake for the November charity event.
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Amazon's new Kindle Paperwhite to be released early next year
Amazon will be releasing their new Kindle Paperwhite early Q2 2014. The new Paperwhite e-reader will have a high resolution 300 PPI display as opposed to the current model that has a 212 PPI. The prototype of the new Paperwhite has a screen that sits flush with the edge of the device and not recessed in, like the current model. It weighs less and has a matte-like glass screen to replace the plastic.
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Microsoft doesn't want bad language on the Xbox One's Upload Studio
The Xbox One's Upload Studio is an app that allows you to upload video clips of your game footage and according to some reports some users are losing Xbox Live privileges due to the profanity used in their videos. Some have reportedly lost privileges to Skype and other apps, and according to Microsoft the excessive profanity in videos can result you in getting some or all of your privileges taken. These bans are temporary and non-permanent; users aren't getting banned from gaming. Just Kinect related apps and in most cases just the Upload Studio.
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FDA orders Google's DNA test startup, 23andMe, to stop all sales
Today reports have surfaced that state that the FDA has ordered the Google backed startup 23andMe to immediately cease and desist all sales of its DNA testing kits. The ban on sales is the result of the company failing to obtain "marketing clearance or approval" from federal regulators to sell its product.
In response 23andMe had the following to say. "We recognize that we have not met the FDA's expectations regarding timeline and communication regarding our submission. Our relationship with the FDA is extremely important to us and we are committed to fully engaging with them to address their concerns."
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Circuit Scribe is a rollerball pen that writes in conductive ink
One of the biggest bottlenecks in any project involving custom circuitry is troubleshooting the actual circuit itself before moving to manufacturing something permanent. A new project on Kickstarter will greatly improve on the speed at which one prototypes electronic circuits.
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Netgear launches what it calls the fastest NAS in the world
There is one word that you will find in just about every piece of marketing material related to both data storage and networking, and that word is "speed." Today Netgear unveiled a new network attached storage device that just might be worthy of excessive use of the word "speed"
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Leaked promo image of PlayStation 4 & PlayStation Vita bundle
There is no official announcement or release date for the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita "Ultimate Edition Bundle" but Sony's senior product manager; Ben Law mentioned a few days ago to MCV that the Ultimate Edition Bundle will be at retailers this holiday season before Christmas, more than likely early December.
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Futuremark delist several flagship Android phones for false scores
Designing your smartphone hardware to cheat the benchmark system seems to be the trendy thing to do, but some benchmarks are ensuring that this form of cheating is no-longer a viable method to boost the perceived performance of you device. Today Futuremark announced that it has delisted several phones from its results.
"People rely on Futuremark benchmarks to produce accurate and unbiased results. That's why we have clear rules for hardware manufacturers and software developers that specify how a platform can interact with our benchmark software. In simple terms, a device must run our benchmarks without modification as if they were any other application.
When a device is suspected of breaking our rules it is delisted. 3DMark scores from delisted devices should not be used to compare devices. Delisted devices appear unranked, and without scores, at the bottom of the 3DMark Device Channel and the Best Mobile Devices list on our website."
~ Futuremark
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Samsung officially announces the Samsung Galaxy Grand 2
Samsung has officially unveiled their new Galaxy Grand 2. Samsung's new large screen smartphone comes with a 5.25 inch HD display. The Galaxy Grand 2 runs on Android Jellybean 4.3. Other specs on the device are a quad-core 1.2 GHz processor, 1.5 GB RAM, Bluetooth 4.0, 2,600 mAH battery, a 8 megapixel rear camera and a 1.9 megapixel front facing camera. The Galaxy Grand 2 comes with 8 GB of built-in storage and is expandable to 64 GB with its microSD slot. Samsung will also be releasing models with dual-SIM capabilities. Samsung has not commented about availability or pricing for the Galaxy Grand 2.
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HTC continues the gold smartphone trend with new One variant
While we are on the topic of the HTC One, we might as well introduce you to the all new gold variant of HTC's flagship. While not actually gold plated, this new color for the HTC One comes courtesy of HTC's anodizing process, and is just dyed gold the same way the blue and red versions are.
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Android 4.4 KitKat arrives on the Google Play Edition HTC One
When Google first announced Android 4.4 KitKat, it said that Google Play versions of Android smartphones would be getting the update to 4.4 earlier than other phones. Today Google announced that the Android 4.4 update has began rolling out to the Google Play Edition of the HTC One.
While the HTC One is arguably the second best Android phone ever made, users should see a major boost in performance with the device running Android 4.4 as it requires significantly less RAM to run the OS. KitKat will also bring a redesigned status bar, navigation icons, text messaging system, and contact list. Additionally, the new OS ushers in native printing, and NFC payment support.
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Western Digital launches the worlds first SSD+HHD Dual Drive
Today Western Digital announced the launch of its all new WD Black2 Dual Drive, a unique smashup of a SSD and HDD combo. The new Black2 Dual Drive is the first of its kind and manages to pack in a 1TB HHD and 120GB SSD into a single 2.5-inch form factor case. This allows for easy integration into notebooks, small form factor PCs, and much more where the speed of an SSD is desired, but massive storage is needed.
Western Digital says that the Black2 is free of caching algorithms and greatly benefits from the SATA 6GB/s interfaces speed. The new Western Digital WD Black2 Dual Drive is covered by a five-year warranty, and retails now for $299. Our own Tyler Bernath has just finished up his review of the drive and you can find out how it performs by heading over to the review right here at TweakTown.
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BlackBerry looking to turn around, begins purging executives
2013 has been one heck of a year for BlackBerry. In the span of just eleven months, the company has launched its next-gen OS and devices, almost went out of business, and seen its CEO resign after no one wanted to buy the company. Today it appears that BlackBerry is attempting to make the changes necessary to turn the company around.
This major shakeup in management is widely seen as something that should have happen many months ago when BlackBerry first began to circle the drain. Following the ousting of CEO Thorsten Heins, today's announcement should do well to restore some investors faith in the company. With a fresh injection of $1 billion from FairFax Financial, BlackBerry just might manage to turn things around in 2014.
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Apple confirms Black Friday event with both online and in-store deals
This morning Apple announced that it will be participating in the madness that we like to call Black Friday. The announcement came unofficially via a page spotted by 9To5Mac on the company's Australian website, which has also gone live on the New Zealand Apple website.
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Top 10 TweakTown News Stories from the past week [25 November 2013]
Here are our top 10 news posts from the past week!
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AMD releases its new Catalyst 13.11 Beta 9.4 drivers
If you like to live on the bleeding edge of hardware and software, and you're running a new AMD Radeon R9 video card, these new Catalyst drivers are built for you.
- Includes all Feature Highlights of The AMD Catalyst 13.11 Beta9.2 Driver
- May resolve intermittent black screens or display loss observed on some AMD Radeon™ R9 290X and AMD Radeon R9 290 video cards
- Improves AMD CrossFire™ scaling in the multi-player portion of Call of Duty: Ghosts
- AMD Enduro Technology Profile updates:
- "XCOM:" Enemy Unknown
- Need for Speed Rivals
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DRAM to be replaced by MRAM, but not for a while yet
We aren't quite at the DDR4 stages yet, but as we do start slotting in DDR4 onto our consumer boards, we could begin to see over the horizon, and spot a new memory standard: MRAM.
MRAM will see data stored in magnetic storage elements instead of electric charges, or current flows. MRAM will also reportedly have just one-third the power consumption of DRAM, with 10 times the capacity, and wait for it - 10 times the writing speed. This will make the technology perfect for the next, next-generation of smartphones and tablets, too.
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TCL to unleash the Idol X+ smartphone with an 8-core processor
The 8-core processor smartphone market is relatively small right now, but TCL is set to become a player in that market. The Chinese company has revealed its Idol X+ smartphone, which will be a collaboration between TCL and Chinese online retailer JD.com.
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Samsung loses market share ground to Apple in Japan
Samsung seems to be struggling in Japan against its biggest rival, Apple. The Korea Herald reports that Samsung's share in the Japanese smartphone space dropped again last quarter, which makes four quarters in a row of decline.
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Apple confirms it has acquired PrimeSense
We thought it had happened last week, but now Apple has confirmed it has acquired PrimeSense. The company works on motion control devices, so this should be an interesting next few years for the iPhone maker.
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Star Citizen breaks through $30 million of funding, will it stop? No
Star Citizen is simply unstoppable right now - with its original $500,000 goal on Kickstarter now ballooning out to an amazing $30 million+. At the time of writing, it had received $30,374,530 of funding from 311,504 Star Citizens.
I'm going to be the first to say it: but if things don't stop with this funding, it will be the first non-AAA (as in, developed/funded by a huge company like EA, Activision, Microsoft or Sony) to reach $100 million - you heard it here at TweakTown first, folks!
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Halo 4 engine programmer leaves Microsoft for Naughty Dog
According to Corrinne Yu's LinkedIn page, the Halo 4 Principal Engine Programmer has left Microsoft's Halo team, and joined the developer of The Last of Us and Uncharted, Naughty Dog.
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Corsair Flash Voyager LS 128GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive Review
The Corsair Flash Voyager LS has come to market in a number of capacities. These include a 16GB, 32GB, 64GB and 128GB model. Compatibility of these drives extend to all modern Windows operating systems, while also including Mac OS X and Linux support. Looking into the specifications for this drive, the only marketing information I could find on was it offers "USB 3.0 performance". Warranty is listed at a very solid five years.
One of the lesser-known features of running Microsoft's new operating system Windows 8 is the native capability of USB Attached SCSI or UASP. In benchmarking flash drives, we utilize ATTO Disk Benchmark followed by DiskBench and our custom set of real-world data, and is by far the most important comparison when looking for a flash drive for everyday use.
Recently we have added our very own Price vs. Performance charts for both read and write performance of each drive, for these charts we take the average sequential performance over five runs and divide it by the price per GB. All pricing information is updated before a new drive is added and is taken from certified channel retailers such as Newegg or Amazon.
As with all products that come through the test lab here at TweakTown, I like to spend a bit of time with them to get a good feel for the drive. In testing the everyday use of the drive, I found the Voyager LS really easy to use in situations where you only have a single hand free. On the other hand, I found that the durability of the drive is in question. The reason for this is the metal retainer that controls the motion of the USB 3.0 port tends to slide off its pivot point at times, leaving you to spend time snapping it back in place.
Performance of the drive was quite good with sequential reads, where we topped 150 MB/s. Sequential writes, however, were pretty low for a flash drive in this day and age. Even with the slower than normal write speeds, the price/performance chart tells the story. Here we have the drive at the top of our charts thanks to Corsairs aggressive pricing.
Pricing for the 128GB Corsair Flash Voyager LS sits at $89.99 with the smaller 16GB, 32GB and 64GB models at $15.99, $25.99 and $44.99, respectively.
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D-Link DIR-868L Dual Band AC1750 Wireless Router Review
Introduction
[img]01[/img]If you're looking to upgrade your wireless network's capability to the newly released 802.11ac spec, there is certainly no shortage of products to help. In fact, like the days of wireless N, manufacturers are offering multiple devices, filling each performance niche in the market. While this is a good thing for users that want certain speeds and capabilities, it tends to clog up the market and lead to confusion of "what router do I buy?"
As we mentioned above, 802.11ac has introduced several markets for vendors to fill, and as such they have begun to do so with AC600, 750, 1000, 1200, 1300, 1750 and 1900 routers. At any rate you get the idea, the market has expanded rapidly and even more than ever before.
The D-Link DIR 868L is an AC1750 wireless router, as such it is also the top of the line when it comes to D-Link's portfolio. Capable of 1.3Gbps on the 5GHz band and 450Mbps on the 2.4GHz band, the 868L certainly offers, in marketing, top tier performance capabilities.
Though, we won't go into too much detail now as we're not quite sure if it has the increased range that makes the upgrade from 802.11n worthwhile.
Let's take a close look.
Pricing and Availability
As of this writing, the D-Link DIR-868L carries a MSRP of $189.99. However, I was able to find at several online retailers it priced at $169.99.Availability is quite high at this time with Google shopping listing the router at 15 stores.
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Top 10 TweakTown Content from the past week [25 November 2013]
Here are our top 10 articles, reviews and guides from the past week!
- Be Quiet! Pure Power L8 500-Watt 80 PLUS Bronze Power Supply Review
- Western Digital Black 4TB 3.5" Consumer HDD (WD4003FZEX) Review
- Adaptec by PMC ASR-8885 12Gb/s RAID Controller Review
- NZXT Source 530 Mid-Tower Chassis Review
- LSI SandForce SF3700 SSD Flash Controller Announcement Overview
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Western Digital Black 2 Dual Drive 2.5" Consumer HDD/SSD Review
Introduction
One of the latest technologies gaining ground in the market has been the SSHD or Hybrid Drive. With hybrid drives, we typically see some sort of hot data caching algorithm coupled with NAND flash put together with a 5400RPM HDD, allowing quick access to the most frequently used files on your system.
Today, we have yet another milestone in the HDD market with the introduction of the WD Black 2 Dual Drive. The Black 2 offers on one drive what has always taken two drives or two slots in a system to accomplish. Underneath, we have a 1TB HDD with a second interconnect holding a 120GB SSD.
Specifications, Pricing and Availability
Pricing of the WD Black 2 Dual Drive is set at $299.99 with a five-year warranty.
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Be Quiet! Pure Power L8 500-Watt 80 PLUS Bronze Power Supply Review
Introduction
Up to this point, we've only looked at their enthusiast-class offerings when it comes to power supplies and they have proven to be great units. Today we are looking at something a little bit more on the lower-end of the spectrum.
The Pure Power L8 500W isn't meant to fuel a quad GPU system or break world records with overclocking. It is instead intended to power a budget gaming system with one high-end or two lower-end video cards.
The Pure Power L8 lacks modular cables, high efficiency, and a large price tag. Let's dig into the Pure Power L8 500W a little more and hope that it retains the quality and performance we've come to expect from them and that they haven't sacrificed too much to keep the cost down.
Specifications, Availability and Pricing
They do keep all of the cables fully sleeved, though. The Pure Power L8 500W features an 80 PLUS Bronze efficiency rating. Finally, the Pure Power L8 500W is not rated for 100% continuous output, but Be Quiet! states that it can make it as that is their standard.
Be Quiet! has an MSRP of $74.90 on the Pure Power L8 500W power supply. Be Quiet! still hasn't reached the availability status that many other companies have so you have to do some searching to find their stuff. Luckily we were able to track it down on NCIX for $79.99 with $10.98 shipping at the time of writing, bringing the grand total to $90.97. This makes it slight higher priced than a middle of the road 500W power supply, but few have the same features as the Pure Power L8 500W. Be Quiet! backs the Pure Power L8 500W with a three year warranty.
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NZXT Source 530 Mid-Tower Chassis Review
Introduction
What we learned about the NZXT Source series has been turned on its ear a bit with this latest chassis release. This time around, there is of course styling that fits the Source series and its heritage is plainly obvious. There are some other minimal changes to the exterior, which sets this new design apart, along with a handy feature from the much more expensive NZXT cases.
The inside is where things have definitely taken a turn for the better. Now there is plenty of room, convertible hard drive racks, room for water cooling - the list really goes on and on. The best thing to happen to the Source series is that this time they have went to a full-tower design.
While the price for this new Source 530 from NZXT that we are looking at today is a bit more expensive than the previous offerings, we will break it all down and show where the price increase comes from. It is rare that you see a chassis and its offerings scale so well within the same series of cases, but NZXT took a huge step and is now offering less of a "builder's special" case that is cheaper and readily available, to the lines of offering users a sleek yet simple design that offers just about everything needed to expand as you go, and take a while to run out of room if planned correctly.
The new Source 530 is not only a step up for potential source buyer's, but it is also a step in the direction of NZXT offering one of the better bang-for-the-buck solutions now offered.
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Western Digital Black 4TB 3.5" Consumer HDD (WD4003FZEX) Review
Introduction
Now that we have reached what seems to be peak capacity for the time being, with both Seagate and WD having reached 4TB across their entire product lineup (minus the WD Blue), you may wonder what is next. Well, if you are Western Digital, you increase the performance of your flagship product.
The WD4003FZEX is the second generation, 4TB high performance solution from Western Digital. With this drive comes increased performance using a new High Resolution Controller and dual-core processor to increase drive precision and performance. Additionally, WD has added Vibration Control Technology to compliment StableTrac, resulting in more accurate tracking during read/write operations.
Let's dive in now and take a close look at it.
Specifications, Pricing and Availability
In addition to the new technologies we mentioned above, Advanced Format capability was added to this second gen drive as well. Moving on, we find a slight increase in spec'd transfers rates, with the new drive reaching 171 MB/s over the previous 154 MB/s.
The WD Black still enjoys a nice 64MB cache and its 7200-RPM spindle speed across five 800GB platters. Additionally, the load/unload cycles have stayed consistent at 300,000. The bit-error rate stands at 10e14, along with an industry leading five-year warranty.
The WD Black is available in four capacities ranging from 1TB to the 4TB, which we have in house today. Pricing of the 1TB model is a set at $89.99 with the 2TB, 3TB and 4TB models coming in at $159.99, $209.99 and $269.99, respectively.
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Top 10 TweakTown Content from the past week [18 November 2013]
Here are our top 10 articles, reviews and guides from the past week!
- Cooler Master Cosmos SE Full-Tower Chassis Review
- Exclusive Interview with Monsters University Pixar's Kelsey Mann
- OCZ Technology Fatal1ty 750-Watt 80 PLUS Bronze Power Supply Review
- Mionix Avior 8200 Laser Gaming Mouse Review
- QNAP TS-470 4-Bay SMB NAS Review
- CyberPower Zeus EVO Lightning 3000 SE AMD-powered Gaming PC Review
- Supermicro X10SAT Workstation Haswell Xeon Motherboard Review
- Anker Astro2 9000mAh Portable USB External Battery Charger Review
- SilverStone ST65SF-G 650-Watt 80 PLUS Gold Power Supply Review
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LSI SandForce SF3700 SSD Flash Controller Announcement Overview
Introduction
LSI SandForce controllers were the catalyst that helped SSDs evolve from a niche application to the mainstream market we see today. There were precious few SSD's on the market, and even fewer SSD manufacturers, when the first SF family of processors were released. SandForce took their revolutionary new design and compression capabilities to market with a business model that allowed manufacturers to field a new SSD easily.OCZ was one of the first to offer SandForce SSD controllers in their products, and soon many companies, such as Corsair, Kingston, and others, followed suit. The key for manufacturers was the solid design of the controllers and firmware provided by SandForce. The reference firmware removed the requirement for teams of expensive firmware engineers. Soon SSD manufacturers began popping up left and right, anyone with access to flash and manufacturing capabilities could easily bring an SSD to market.
Two generations of SandForce processors made their way into everything from consumer SSDs to enterprise and PCIe SSDs, and then LSI purchased SandForce in October of 2011. The acquisition made sense for both sides for several reasons. LSI brought decades of experience in storage processor design and legendary product validation. SandForce provides unique IP with their DuraWrite technology and a series of products that fit well with LSI's existing product stack.
The LSI SandForce team has been working feverishly on their newest controller addition, the SF3700, since the acquisition. With many of the same features, but a more refined architecture and higher performance, the release of the SF3700 is probably one of the most anticipated SSD controller releases in history.
While the error rate rises, endurance is simultaneously shrinking. Some next-gen NAND is projected to only offer 1,000 P/E cycles. Managing less endurance and higher error rates requires intelligent controllers and error correction techniques. Unfortunately, merely expanding typical ECC requires more computational grunt power, and the additional overhead leads to lower performance.
Another key requirement is to build in forward compatibility with technologies that may not exist yet. The current LSI SandForce family was one of the first controllers compatible with 19nm Toshiba NAND; quite the feat considering its release almost five years prior to the rollout of 19nm. Mixing in the need for forward compatibility with different types of NAND, such as TLC, also raises the complexity level. Having a flexible platform is imperative with 3D NAND also on the horizon.
The controller natively supports SATA 3 and PCIe Gen2 to cover the bases with the new M.2 specification. There is also support for a slew of NAND types built into the backend.
Power management is a huge concern for today's mobile devices. The numerous cores provide a modular platform with tighter power control granularity. All 14 cores can be selectively suspended, or shut down entirely, to conserve power. The new architecture provides a flexible base to build newer controllers with a faster time-to-market in the future.
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Adaptec by PMC ASR-8885 12Gb/s RAID Controller Review
Introduction
Adaptec by PMC made a big splash with the entrance of their Series 7 controller. The controllers redefined the vision of storage density by providing up to 24 native ports of SAS 6Gb/s connectivity in one package, without the use of expanders. At the heart of the Series 7 controllers is the world's highest native port count in a single-chip, the PM8015 RoC. The new Series 8 controllers borrow heavily from the technological leap from the previous architecture.
The new PM8063 steps the port count back to 16 native ports of 12Gb/s connectivity. The RoCstar contention-free architecture is efficient and scalable. Adaptec eliminates system performance limitations of traditional RoC devices by interconnecting the internal subsystems. It sports an 8GByte/s PCIe 3.0 interface with IOV support and inline XOR to reduce DRAM access times and improve performance. This provides speeds in excess of 700,000 random IOPS for 12Gb/s, and 600,000 IOPS for 6Gb/s devices. This is a healthy 60% increase in IOPS over the previous Series 7. The 6.6 GB/s in sequential read and 5.2 GB/s of sequential write speed provides plenty of throughput to utilize the PCIe 3.0 connection.
The Series 8 controllers are designed with slim Low Profile/MD2 form factors to provide a dense storage management package. The high port count alleviates the requirement for expanders and associated hardware in many deployments. Removing this extra hardware eliminates compatibility issues, cost, and complexity from the server and brings the promise of lower TCO.
The fledgling 12Gb/s market isn't entirely ripe with products to utilize the interface, but as time progresses, the ecosystem will expand to many storage products. There can be tremendous value in moving to a 12Gb/s controller even with the few available devices on the market. The Series 8 controllers are fully backwards compatible with 6Gb/s SAS/SATA storage products to provide enhanced performance with existing infrastructure. The 12Gb/s connection boosts speed from 24GBps with 6Gb/s SAS up to 48GBps from a 4-lane cable.
The ASR-8885 prototype we are testing will be deployed into a plethora of use-cases with existing 6Gb/s infrastructure and new 12Gb/s storage products. We have amassed two impressive arrays of SSD's to push the controller to the boundaries of its performance. We will utilize 16 of our 26 x 400GB Micron P400m SSDs to test 6Gb/s performance, and 8 of the SSD800MH HGST SSD's, the faster version of the HGST SSD800MM SSD's we recently evaluated. Bear in mind that the test results of the prototype may not reach the maximum capabilities of the production ASR-8885, but we will be able to get a good taste of 12Gb/s performance.
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Hands-on with the BeagleBone Black, a 32-bit Micro Computer
Introduction
Naturally, when I first heard of the BeagleBone Black's existence, I knew that I had to have one. Unfortunately, my BeagleBone Black arrived at the same time life caught up with me and it sat on my workbench for a few months. Today, I finally get to sit down and introduce you to the BeagleBone Black.
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QNAP TS-470 4-Bay SMB NAS Review
Introduction
Reading that first paragraph, it quite easy to see how far the NAS market has traveled in just a few short years. The days when NAS appliances were deployed in small/medium business with slim penetration into the consumer market have passed with a high percentage of SOHO and SMB users now seeing the value and security in maintaining their own data.
The short story is rather simple, the next generation of network storage has arrived with the TS-470 Pro from QNAP.
Hardware Specifications and Pricing
Modern NAS servers have moved beyond data storage through a wire network. In order to get the most out of a NAS you need to look at the extra I/O hardware and the mountain of potential software features.
The rear I/O panel includes four Gigabit ethernet ports with Auto-MDIX capabilities, and optional 10Gbe support by replacing the PCIe adapter. You will also find two USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.0 and dual eSATA ports. In addition to this, you will find a single HDMI port accompanied by analog audio in and out.
Pricing of the 4-bay QNAP TS-470 at this time is set at $969.99 with a two year warranty, and high market availability.
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SilverStone ST65SF-G 650-Watt 80 PLUS Gold Power Supply Review
Introduction
Today we have the ST65F-G. This unit has a slightly larger footprint than the ST45F-G, but it is still one of the smallest ATX form factor power supplies on the market. It offers enough power and connectors to take care of a system with dual video cards and does so with 80 PLUS Gold efficiency.
Aside from the size, it shares the same features that we've come to love with the Strider Gold Evolution series of power supplies and as such, we expect this to be a great power supply.
Specifications, Availability and Pricing
SilverStone lists the ST65S-G with an MSRP of $124.99. That does make it a little bit more on the expensive side, but you can save a few bucks if you look around. Newegg currently has the unit with a $10.00 mail-in rebate and $5.99 shipping, so you can save about five bucks. The SilverStone ST65F-G has a three year warranty, which we feel is a little short in this day and age.
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Supermicro X10SAT Workstation Haswell Xeon Motherboard Review
Introduction
These days, small business needs and requirements are more demanding and applications require systems that are more powerful. Well thought out systems, designed to meet these requirements must perform well, but also do not need to cost high amounts of money. So naturally, a business needs to purchase systems that will be powerful enough, have expansion options for the future and have low running costs.
Supermicro is one of the leaders in server motherboard manufacturing and has developed technology using high quality designs and component that provides systems that are powerful and can fill a wide range of roles in the work place. On top of that, Supermicro builds motherboards that simply just work, and work well.
When deciding on a workstation motherboard, many factors come into play. You should consider support and longevity of the product. There is nothing worse than finding out that the system you purchased today will not support options you decide to add on later. Supermicro provides software updates and excellent customer service so your motherboards will have a long lasting value.
Considering Supermicro's history in motherboard designs of all kinds and the release of the new Intel Haswell CPU's, they have come up with a motherboard that will prove to be a solid performer in the marketplace and give users a high performing system with great value.
To allow many different setup options, the X10SAT has the ability to use both ECC and non-ECC RAM, which allow a greater flexibility in system setup and costs. In addition, three PCIe 3.0 slots give even further options to expand graphics or network cards depending on the requirement of the user.
Let us take a closer look at this new Haswell Xeon supporting workstation motherboard from Supermicro.
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Anker Astro2 9000mAh Portable USB External Battery Charger Review
Now, the best bit: actual testing. The Astro2 charger was impressive to use with its shake-to-activate charging, but I found this feature to not work at all times. Some of the time I'd really be shaking it, to the point where it would hurt my wrist, and nothing would happen. I found this quite poor, but other times I would gently shake it and it would turn on. Not that this is a showstopper, but it did have me scratching my head.
As for charges, I was able to charge my Nexus 4 smartphone - with a 2100mAh battery - over four times from 10% without an issue thanks to the 9000mAh inside of the Astro2 battery. This was great, as I used it over a weekend where I didn't need to use my normal charger when staying in a hotel.
I took it to Canada with me to the NVIDIA 2013 Editors Day, and had it charging my Nexus 4 on the way from Sydney to Vancouver on the Tuesday, and charging it every day between Tuesday and Friday without an issue. Being able to carry around 9000mAh of portable battery is just awesome. I could have my phone in my backpack, charging away, while I walked around or sat down at the hotel, or even in the plane.
The Astro2 feels great to hold, and it's quite stunning to the eyes. Not that the aesthetics of a portable battery really matter, but to some people, it does. I quite like the look of the Astro2.
Wrapping up, I hope that the shake-to-activate issues go away in the next revision, and that maybe there's an option to just turn it on. I'm afraid that if the shake-to-activate function of the Astro2 - for whatever reason - stopped working, would the Astro2 continue to charge? I'd guess not. Other than that, the Astro2 9000mAh mobile battery is an awesome device, with a very cool shake-to-activate feature.
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CyberPower Zeus EVO Lightning 3000 SE AMD-powered Gaming PC Review
Introduction
DICE recommends a Radeon HD 7870 or GeForce GTX 660, but that's what you need to make the game look decent at a playable frame rate. If you care about image quality and want the all of the digital bells and whistles, you need something more. That in the Battlefield series comes from the Ultra preset, a built-in setting that turns the GPU tech up and unleashes an amazing picture.
In Battlefield 4, you need a powerful GPU, but pushing all of those pixels also requires serious processing power. In this area DICE recommends an AMD Phenom II X6 1055T or Intel Core i7 930, again another recommendation just to make multiplayer playable with an average frame rate and average image quality.
Enter the new CyberPower Zeus EVO Lightning 3000 SE, a gaming PC with spectacular gaming performance, but at a very reasonable price point. CyberPower chose to go with all AMD components for this system; the best AMD has to offer.
System Specifications
Speaking of heat, the AMD Radeon HD 7990 is still AMD's single fastest video card. If you're playing Battlefield 4, it's also the best single video card on the market for the game. In his review, Shawn Baker called the HD 7990, "the fastest single video card solution on the market." Pairing AMD's fastest CPU to date and the fastest video card was a simple choice for CyberPower, a pair that work well together.
The combination works well together, but requires clean power and high quality components that can perform under higher than normal temperatures. CyberPower put those components together and powered them with a Lepa G1000 1000w PSU, a product that received a TweakTown Best Performance Award.
Pricing and Warranty
The price is right for a pixel pushing gaming system, but now we need to see how many pixels this system can actually push. Before that, let's take a look at the system and see the build quality.
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Cooler Master Cosmos SE Full-Tower Chassis Review
Introduction
But what about those who aren't in the market for a super tower, but still fell in love with the concept? Well, today is your day, as Cooler Master delivers a lighter, more agile, road and track version of the Cosmos design. Keeping all that is holy to the name Cosmos, it is obvious that this new chassis is befitting of the naming - it is more like they threw it in the dryer on high heat, and now we have a medium sized version. While the exterior carries a lot of similar things to the Cosmos II, with the reduction in size, the interior had to be reworked, but Cooler Master still figured out ways to add things that are firsts for ever being done before.
Over the last year or so, Cooler Master has really stepped up their game and want to run with the big dogs now. Everything from new AIO coolers coming out, to always keeping up and setting trends with their mice and keyboards, it doesn't surprise me that they are able to pull off new and insinuative things year after year.
Sticking with that trend, while really hard to destroy the name Cosmos anyways, even with the reduction in size, Cooler Master has run through this new Cosmos SE we are looking at today with a fine toothed comb, and truly thought of everything when putting together this aggressively sleek chassis.
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Mionix Avior 8200 Laser Gaming Mouse Review
Introduction
The idea this time around was to deliver all of the same level of software and components, but the exterior of the mouse has completely changed. Where thumb and finger rests once were, there are now concave sections to the side of this new contender. Even the top of the mouse, where the palm of the hand will rest, has been changed. Rather than a bulbous egg shape of the Naos, the roofline has been chopped, leaving the top of this new mouse much better for a relaxed finger tip grip or a claw grip. What sets this new submission apart from a lot of other mice is that Mionix cares about the "lefties" in the world, and designed this to be ambidextrous.
While there is still plenty we could discuss about this new Avior 8200 mouse from Mionix, we will be saving most of it for later in this review. Up front, it isn't very often that we get ambidextrous mice, and for our left handed readers, this may be exactly what you are looking for. As for the right handed users out there, of course this may be the perfect fit for you as well.
Stick around and find out if the new Mionix Avior is capable of taking on mice like the Steel Series Sensei RAW that is in use daily at the lab, and better yet, if the Avior is designed well enough to be chosen over the vast selection of "normal" mice as well.
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Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies Nintendo 3DS Review
Dual Destinies picks up a year after the last game which introduced Apollo Justice, Phoenix Wright's understudy. Phoenix Wright has decided to get back into the legal game and hires a young new upstart into his practice straight out of legal college named Athena who has a few special abilities and this is where the main gameplay changes introduced for this title are found.
Athena has the ability to read and adjust emotions within testimonies. If a testimony seems out of character, the game will move into a mood matrix mode where you can see the mental state of the character versus the testimony to find contradictions. For example, a character might have a happy emotion mentally when talking about how they found someone dead. This does not make sense and this is another way you can unlock lies within the testimony of characters now.
There can be significant amounts of time between sections where the user does not interact with the game and has to just sit there reading. This has always been part of the series so fans will not mind, but anyone new to the series may start to find the game formulaic and repetitive after a while. It is almost the perfect commute game. In short goes, the game is at its best, but lengthier play sessions can become boring.
One area where we were quite impressed is the visuals of the game and more specifically the 3D effect with the 3D mode on the 3DS enabled. The cartoon style of the previous titles returns, but with a higher fidelity on the graphics department. This really is the first game that we can strongly recommend you play through in 3D because it really adds to the experience of the game. There is no voice acting within the game, which makes the lengthy story sections even harder to endure, but overall the visuals somewhat make up for this.
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Call of Duty: Ghosts PlayStation 3 Review
Call of Duty: Ghosts picks the story up during an attack by a combined South American continent against the United States from space. The US has developed a space project named 'Odin', which is a space defence system that can be used to strike any target on earth, at any time. Early in the game, this structure is taken over by what the game terms the 'Federation' and is used to destroy the major cities of the United States. From there we are told about the Ghosts, a specialist military unit which performs the most dangerous tasks behind enemy lines.
The storyline is also incredibly weak. The missions feel as cookie cutter as they come and it feels like there was a checklist next to the design document about what a Call of Duty game needs. Big explosions? Check. Helicopter sequence? Check. Tank sequence? Check. Playing through Ghosts gives you really nothing new (aside from one underwater sequence) that you haven't seen before during the previous campaigns. Call of Duty 4 was a game that shocked and surprised with the nuclear sequence and subsequent death of one of the main characters. We haven't had such a poignant moment in Call of Duty since, and it's a shame. And as for the ending? Don't get us started. The most unnecessary cliff hanger in gaming history.
Much has been made of the dog character within the game and that it would be Ghosts defining gameplay moments, but it turns out that isn't the case. The dog is one of the most underused sidekicks around and it appears only for a few missions through the campaign. When you do take control of the dog, however, the game shows some of its unique gameplay. Stalking an enemy character in the bushes as a canine is quite enjoyable and it would have been nice to see IW put even more focus on the dog squad, rather than relegating it to a few missions within the campaign.
The campaign is also fairly short with our play through clocking in just over five and a half hours - we finished it in one sitting. Infinity Ward has also dispensed with some of the better additions that Black Ops II added last year, including the RTS style defence sections known as StrikeForce and also the addition of multiple endings has gone out the door as well. This just enhances the feeling we have that this is a cookie cutter release.
Aside from the storyline being rubbish, the campaign plays as well as ever and from that perspective it is worth playing through just to see how over the top the campaign has become. Despite the numerous explosions and other crazy visual sequences that occur during the campaign, the game did not exhibit any frame rate hiccups and that is actually quite impressive to say the least.
Once you move onto the multiplayer, you will find yourself again in familiar territory and whether that is a good or bad thing really comes down to whether you want major change in the multiplayer or not. You still get kill streaks, you still level up and prestige and the game still is as fun as ever to play. But there have been a few additions and changes that make a good multiplayer game even better in some respects.
First of all there is the addition of the new 'Extinction' mode. In Extinction, you and a few friends take on an alien race that is invading the planet and it is up to you to stop them coming and to eradicate their hives. This mode reminds us a lot of games like Payday and Left 4 Dead with co-operative gameplay only on offer. It's an interesting move for the COD franchise to go in this direction and it does provide at least a distraction from the main campaign and multiplayer modes. The level system is contained within the Extinction mode, that is, none of the level gains you may get within Extinction carry over to the main multiplayer.
Aside from Extinction, the other new mode is 'Squads', which is basically a fully functional offline multiplayer mode with bots. All the game modes from the main multiplayer are available and in a surprise move, any levels that you gain offline are accumulated to the main multiplayer mode, so it's entirely possible to just continuously level up offline, before heading online. We think Squads is a fantastic addition to the game because it allows you to enjoy the superb multiplayer of Call of Duty without having to put up with some of the vile rubbish that this franchise unfortunately attracts online. It also is a fantastic way to prepare yourself for the multiplayer online arena if you are new to the franchise and as the saying goes, practice makes perfect.
Perhaps one of the more unique and interesting additions to Ghosts is the 'Hunted' mode. In this mode, you begin with a pistol with very little ammo, two throwing knives and a grenade, and in a death match style mode, you have to survive. Every so often crates fall into the battlefield containing significantly better weapons and so this plays on risk and reward. Do you go for the crate and risk it, or hang back and be happy with what you already have. This is one area of Ghosts were some truly unique gameplay can be found.
The maps of the multiplayer mode are significantly varied and different and larger than those seen in the past. On the current generation of consoles, this represents a slight problem in that the player count has been unable to be boosted and so sometimes it can be quite some time before you find another character on a map, which is in stark contrast to previous Call of Duty games. The higher player count on the next generation consoles will clearly account for this and fix the issue, but on the current generation, this is an issue.
When it comes to the visuals, the game on the PS3 is a mixed bag. There is most certainly sequences on the PS3 console and in the game where you can tell they were built for the next generation and to ensure the frame rate didn't take a hit, the developers dropped the detail level. There are still some impressive moments, but overall it feels very washed out and not as impressive as for example, Black Ops II, in the visual's department. The voice acting is as cheesy as ever and a cinematic score does generally add to the huge set pieces the game offers in the campaign mode.
With Titanfall gaining huge hype and looking like a super serious competitor (and from the brains behind the massive Modern Warfare success), Activision could have a problem in 2014. Call of Duty needs major work if it is to continue to succeed in the future with the competition catching up faster than ever. The multiplayer saves this from being an almost complete write off. Knock 20% off the score if you are only buying this for the campaign, and in that case, you may as well look elsewhere.
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Need for Speed Rivals PlayStation 4 Hands-On Preview
The first major change with NFS Rivals is that there isn't much of a storyline to speak of. Gone are the cheesy CG movies from titles and instead it is replaced by pure racing. There are two sections to the game; the police section and the racer section, with each side offering a different gameplay experience. The police side tasks you with taking out racers, calling in helicopters or setting up roadblocks, whilst the racer side as the name implies, is all about racing, escaping from the cops and in many ways just having a fun time in a selection of souped up supercars.
You can switch between the two careers after each mission and on the part of the designers that appears to be a masterstroke. We put four hours into the game during our preview and about halfway through of playing the cops, felt it was time for something else. Being able to then just jump into the racer mode was the perfect way to feel reinvigorated to keep playing the game.
In an interesting move, the police cars are gained as you progress through the chapters for free, whilst the racing cars have to be purchased. According to Ghost Games, this is because the police cars would be provided to the officers to fight the racers so it makes sense and we tend to agree.
In terms of the actual gameplay, the Need for Speed style is here for all to see. Fast cars, fast cops and huge crashes are all part of the game. However, it's when you look beneath the surface that you find the true genius of the game.
Whenever you are playing the game, there is the opportunity to connect with other players. There is no specific multiplayer mode for the game. Instead as you progress through your career, you will either be playing against AI targets or human targets, depending on if you have connected to the EA servers or not.
This feature is seamlessly implemented and EA has termed it AllDrive. You will know when it has been triggered because the game will display the username of the other racer. So you as a cop can go around hunting the local area looking for some gamers to take out and if it happens to be another human, the game pops up with that information. This also leads to some of the tasks in the game. For example, if you are a racer and get taken down by a cop, if you then take that cop out next time, you get a revenge point bonus.
The game is also about risk and reward. As a racer, you gain heat levels each time you escape from the cops or perform something illegal that a cop sees. The more heat you have, the harder the police will chase you as they get a bigger bonus for taking the car down. The more heat you have the more points you will have and it is these points that allow you to buy new cars. The longer you keep a point bonus going, the higher the score gets, but the riskier it becomes. Banking the points is as easy as visiting a hideout, but if you do it too often, you just won't get the high scores.
For PS4 specifics, the game handles just fine on the DualShock 4 controller and the visuals of the game are impressive. Although it is locked to thirty frames per second, the game still gives off a strong sensation of speed, especially in the bumper view. Where we noticed the most difference between current generation games and the PS4 build was the lighting. There was some truly stunning effects of lights bouncing off the road, especially as night turned to day during our play session. Ghost Games has definitely tried to tap into the stronger power of the console and there will be a significant difference between the PS3 and PS4 build upon release.
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Batman: Arkham Origins PC Review
Batman: Arkham Origins is a prequel set before Batman: Arkham Asylum. For one night only, a bounty has been placed on Batman and the world's most fearsome criminals come to town, intent on taking down the masked bat. Batman sets out to discover not only who the criminals are and to take them down, but also who put the bounty on his head. If the storyline sounds generic, that because it is, but it does keep the game ticking along somewhat.
That's not to say there isn't interesting elements to the game. One of the key changes is being a prequel, Batman is not the most well-known character in the universe. You will fight cops and other law enforcement agencies trying to take you down as you are not acknowledged as actually doing some good. This flips the series on its head a bit with the previous two games acknowledging Batman as well known and not just a rumor on the street.
There are other slight changes as well, including new gadgets to play around with like the remote claw. This is used heavily in the puzzle sections of the game with Batman regularly tasked with having to pull objects apart or towards him to progress, along with other weaponry like the electric gloves, allowing Batman to combat electricity based enemies a lot easier, but overall the formulaic approach to the gadgets remains the same. However, one area where that has seen major change is getting around the city.
Where in the previous game you had to traverse the entire city yourself, in Arkham Origins, there is a fast travel system. Employing a method like that seen in Far Cry 3, for example, you have to take out radio towers around the city to gain access with the Batwing. It is possible to complete the game without actually taking these down in general, but it does mean a lot more combat and time between missions. It generally is worth taking the towers down. Using fast travel can see you miss one of the other additions to the game, the side missions on offer which are known as crime in progress and basically are like random events scattered throughout the city.
Aside from this though, we often wondered why we were actually performing the tasks we were. The game is narratively sound, but it just at times wasn't enjoyable to perform the tasks which are on offer in the game. It's entirely possible that this is franchise fatigue to an extent, but there are a few areas where the game feels a little phoned in.
There are also some technical issues with the game we encountered. There was a sequence after which the game got stuck on a loading screen forcing us to restart and from what we have seen, the technical problems were not unique to our play through.
Multiplayer also makes its debut in this title and again the fear is that this has been forced in to boost the sales of the product, rather than add to the series. The single player campaign is actually fairly short this time around, clocking in at about seven to eight hours. The multiplayer itself is quite interesting with three teams in play; two gangs and Batman and Robin. The hero gameplay is quite a bit different to the other two, with those teams basically playing a team based first person shooter, whilst Batman and Robin have to play in a stealth manner - caught unawares and they fall easily. It's an interesting twist and reminds us of the mercenary's mode from Splinter Cell.
On the PC at least the graphics are impressive to say the least with a grizzled Batman taking down enemies in a fluid motion and with some stunning animation. The game moves along at a fast pace most of the time and despite the large environments and long draw distance, even with an older PC, you should be able to handle this game quite well. Those with higher powered machine are in for a treat with Warner Brothers putting a huge effort into making a beautiful game.
There is a scene early on in the game when Batman returns to the Batcave. Batman informs Alfred of the bounty on his head and that he needs to take the criminals out. The paraphrased reply from Alfred is basically if Batman stays in for the night, he will have no danger, and the bounty will not be filled. It was a poetic moment that got us wondering about this game and whether it should have stayed on the drawing board. The answer to that question is no because it is a solid outing for the winged man, but if you come into this game expecting a revolution, not just an evolution, then you will be disappointed.
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Battlefield 4 PlayStation 3 Review
The campaign mode in Battlefield 4 is not a bad experience, at least not as bad as the previous game. However, yet again, we get the feeling that DICE felt pressured to go after the Call of Duty style scripted gameplay and campaign style when it really isn't the game's strength. Battlefield 4 tells the story of Tombstone, a specialist ops unit within the US Army who become caught behind enemy lines and have to escape to warn commanders of an impending disaster.
Battlefield 4 is a lot closer to the traditional console style of Battlefield Bad Company and this isn't a bad thing. Unlike Battlefield 3, you stick with the same characters throughout, allowing the story to develop and expand as you go along, and there is an overall single narrative, whilst Battlefield 3 felt more like a series of short stories.
The campaign could be so good if DICE decided to step away from the scripted nonsense that has come to define Call of Duty, and now Battlefield. They have a major scale combat game engine in multiplayer that could be used much better in the single player campaign. It really is a travesty that in the single player campaign you do not touch helicopters or aircraft once. That said, the campaign is significantly better than Battlefield 3, so improvements are happening.
Once you finish the campaign (or choose to ignore it), you get to the meat of the game and that is multiplayer. There hasn't been much changed this time around (and why would it, when it's so popular?) yet the improvements which have been made have successfully made the game feel even more epic in scale than its predecessor.
When it comes to the mode most people will buy the game for, multiplayer, the game shines, but with one exception. During our playtest, the PS3 server browser just did not work at all and we found it difficult to find games. In fact, the only way we could find a game was to select quick match. Having asked around, this was not unique to us and seems like a problem systemic to the PlayStation 3 release right now. As well as this, it's quite difficult to pair up with friends because you cannot make a party or group before joining sessions, which for such a multiplayer focused game, is quite hard to understand.
Moving away from the peripheral problems, the game is impressive and a heck of a lot of fun to play. The tried and tested modes are back including conquest where you battle to remove reinforcements from the enemy by removing tickets from their score. Once the tickets reach zero, no more reinforcements can be had. The game also now has an obliteration mode where tickets are removed and it is just full scale warfare where you have to gather a bomb and take out enemy targets with it.
In a surprise, one of our favourite modes was domination, where vehicles are removed and the combat becomes a lot tighter. On the console systems, the player count is much lower than next generation and PC, so on the larger maps, they can seem a bit barren. Other modes include rush, typical death match style games as well as defuse and obliteration.
Obliteration is a mode that plays right into the Levolution feature of the game where instead of taking out enemy units, the aim is to destroy areas within the map. This can completely change the gameplay and also is a welcome addition. This is one of the better new modes within Battlefield 4 because it shows off the technology that DICE has employed for the game so well and specifically the Levolution feature.
One of the major surprises this time around is that the real star of the show is the environments the game is set in. Not the levels themselves because they are the typical fare of urban and desolate war torn environments, but more what can occur within those levels. Termed 'Levolution', basically at any time, particular structures within the levels can be taken down and smashed to the ground with enough weaponry. You can be running through the level minding your own business and all of a sudden an attack helicopter will destroy a building, sending debris and rubble everywhere.
This can completely turn a game in an instant. One team might be completely dominating a map only for the other team to get a lucky shot off that takes out a large building and chaos ensues, especially if people are caught camping, for example, in that area of the map. There was a fear that Battlefield 4 could turn out to be nothing more than a large expansion pack, but Levolution certainly changes the game in a way that you cannot experience in Battlefield 3 - and that is a good thing.
Visually the game impresses on the PS3, despite the game being designed for next-gen consoles and the PC platform. There are some moments in the game where it's a mixed bag, but others where it looks absolutely stunning and the key factor in this appears to be whether the current gameplay is indoors or not. When taken to wide expanses and open areas, the graphics level drops down significantly to maintain frame rate, but in close quarters, there are areas where the PS3 build compares very nicely to what has been seen of next generation and PC versions. For those of you who may have issues with colour blindness, then is also some friendly graphical options to help with this.
There was a chance that Battlefield 4 was going to be a mega expansion pack as opposed to push the franchise forward, but the two years DICE spent on this game has been well worth it. Levolution completely changes the game in many ways and the campaign whilst short, does its job. We'd really like DICE to go and have a think about how the single player can be improved, because that's really the only let down in this whole package. With the chances being that next time around DICE won't have to deal with current gen technology, the sky could be the limit for this now formidable franchise.
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Pokemon X Y Nintendo 3DS Review
The story of Pokemon X Y remains the same as before. You either play as a boy or a girl (with the main character from the series Ash, being consigned to history it seems) who receives a letter from a professor about the Pokemon and invites you to go on a journey to discover all about the Pokemon and to fill your Pokedex with the goal of becoming the regional champion for Pokemon. This remains fairly similar to previous games, but there are a few things in the story we won't spoil that mixes this up a bit and keeps the interest in the game fresh until the credits are rolling.
You can if you wish turn this off. This also means you can use Pokemon at any time even if they are a low level. For example, I desperately needed a water based Pokemon so got a level 2 one off the GTS, even though I had level 50 characters. Within about 30 minutes of grinding, the character was up to level 40. It just makes the game simpler and easier to fix mistakes.
The main gameplay of the series remains intact and is made up of three key tasks; catching Pokemon, battling them and trading them. The key addictive nature of the game comes from trying to find and collect rare Pokemon and as per usual there is some Pokemon unique to each version of the game.
Another change is the introduction of a number of Internet and Wireless features which really assist with the game. First of all it's a lot easy to trade Pokemon than it once was. No longer meeting in person, you can now just randomly jump on the internet anywhere and connect either to the Global Trade System which is now enhanced for 3DS or the wonder trade. The wonder trade is like a lucky dip.
You put up a Pokemon up for trade and then the system finds a random person to trade Pokemon with. The difference is you don't get a choice as to whether the trade goes ahead or not, so it can go either very good or very poorly. We traded a level 11 Pokemon on wonder trade and ended up with a level 61 Pokemon. It really is a lucky dip. EXP Share means if you lose a high level Pokemon, it's not too long before you will have a high level Pokemon again, and so it somewhat negates the potential downsides to this system.
Perhaps surprisingly, I wouldn't consider the 3D implementation one of the best features of the game. Whilst it is impressive, it seems like an afterthought in many ways for the game, and with the release of the 2DS recently, this does not surprise us. There is not many areas in the game which uses 3D - in fact, it's generally consigned to the fights only. And not only that, fights which are either against hordes or multiple characters also do not appear in 3D. There appears to be good reason for this. When 3D is enabled, the frame rate can be very poor and most of the time we had it turned off. However, in the towns, the over world and the other areas no 3D is enabled.
A lot of what makes Pokemon the game it is still remains, and if you have played and understood the many mechanics of Pokemon in the past, you will be at an advantage. You can still breed Pokemon, the weaknesses and strengths of each Pokemon remains the same and there is a new fairy type to mix things up a little bit more. If you are new to the series, then the game is a very good place to start, however we would recommend downloading a strength and weakness comparison table for the different Pokemon types. The game isn't the best at teaching you how to play.
Pokemon X Y is the revolution the series needed. It fixes many problems that some players have had in the past, and even though it is a well-established series, Gamefreak has done a very good job at making this new game accessible for people new to the series. If you own a 3DS, you really should own this game.
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Beyond: Two Souls PlayStation 3 Review
A few years back, Cage announced Beyond, a game that was going to use real-world actors and actresses and a game that would focus on how gaming could be an emotional experience. It is Cage's opinion that gaming has not explored emotionally enough, and the possibilities it can bring to the industry. Beyond: Two Soul begins to explore this further than his previous games, but the failure to take more out on the cutting room floor keeps this game from being a classic.
Beyond takes place during 15 years of the life of Jodie (played by Ellen Page). During her infantile years, it is discovered that Jodie has a gift and that she has a special connection to an entity known as Aidan. Aidan can assist her and protect her and can also be controlled by the player. Her parents leave her with a secretive government department early on in her young life, and from there she has trained under lock and key to ultimately become a weapon for the United States in their various wars around the globe.
Here's an example. In one scene, you are on a date with Jodie in her apartment. The game tasks you with choosing a dinner, and then preparing the meal. This means cutting up vegetables, then moving the vegetables into the pan and finally flipping the pan to cook them. Need I go on? It is things like this that really harm the game. There are times where the interactions within the world are extremely important and very interesting to play, but when there is other elements which ask you to do mundane tasks, it leaves a sour taste.
Aside from the mundane tasks and lack of cohesion to the story, the gameplay can be interesting, especially when taking control of Aidan. As Aidan, you can float about the environment and assist Jodie in her tasks. It may be that you choke an enemy out, or smash a wall into them or even something as simple as flash lights to show that Aidan is around to other characters. Funnily enough, this is somewhat where the game works. This also represents the multiplayer component where two players can work together - one as Jodie and one as Aidan.
To call this game a bunch of QTEs in a row is a bit harsh, but overall that is pretty much the case. The only area where the game starts to diverge from this is Aidan, but also when Jodie is involved in combat. When in combat, you need to move the analogue sticks in the direction that Jodie is leaning. For example, if it looks like she wants to duck, pull the sticks down.
This also leads us to the next interesting part of the game, and that is there is no real consequences for failing QTEs. The game carries on, but you will see different outcomes. The game never really punishes the player for doing something wrong, which is one of the reasons why it can be such a boring experience to play through.
The game also encourages exploration and most of the ten hours you will spend playing this falls into exploration. At the start of each scene, you are generally just placed into the center of an environment and tasked with what to do next. That's not to say the game doesn't give you hints as to what may be the goal, it does, but it very much encourages exploration. It is almost impossible to get stuck in this game because there is generally always something to interact with.
The other focus on Beyond is trying to get casual gamers involved and playing. Cage should be commended for this, because consoles can be quite inaccessible and so to assist with this a Beyond app is available on Android and IOS to actually play the game. Once connected, instead of using a regular controller, you can control the game with a simplified control scheme. As well as this an easy mode has been included that simplifies the controls and also gives a bit more hints as to where Aidan can interact.
There is one thing that stops this game from being instant bargain bin, three out of ten status, and that is Ellen Page. Her performance throughout is unbelievably good, perhaps some of the best performances of a virtual character in a game to date. If you want an argument as to why game studios should go after Hollywood talent more often and that it can work, then Beyond: Two Souls is the new benchmark.
There is flashes of brilliance in this game that shows that Quantic Dream can actually put together stunningly beautiful titles. I will admit that there are emotions I felt playing this game I generally do not feel when playing games, and in that regard Beyond is a huge success. This is a game that focused on emotions and emotional connections and in that regard this is a David Cage master class. This is why it is such a shame that the rest of the game really is close to a mess. If Cage can take this emotional investment that you have in Beyond and pair it with some very interesting gameplay, he will really be onto something big. It's a simple fact though that this isn't what Beyond: Two Souls is.
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FIFA 14 PlayStation 3 Review
The focus for EA this year with FIFA has been all about momentum. On the next generation consoles (which will have FIFA at launch), EA has built a brand new engine called IGNITE, however on the current generation, we have more one more go around with the old technology and the strain on the systems is starting to show a little bit. EA wanted a game where players couldn't turn on a dime and first touch wasn't guaranteed. They said it was a bit more like what you see on the television, but the result has turned out to be a bit more frustrating than EA may have intended.
FIFA 14 is the first time really I have felt frustrated playing a football game. Most of the time if a goal is scored against me, I know why and get on with the game, but in FIFA 14, it is a constant struggle in general to get the ball, let alone score. FIFA has focused on being a slow methodical game like PES the past few years and overall it's worked. This year is no different, but the realism is going to be despised by just as many as those who love it.
However, for the rest of us, this is a frustrating game. It is almost controller smashing frustrating sometimes and this for a football game is disappointing. You pass a ball not knowing if the player will take it properly and it's all random. Seemingly nothing you do really can influence the random number that determines if the player makes a mistake or not. That said, there are positives from this new gameplay. Players at full speed can no longer turn on a dime (in fact, they have a turning circle more like a cruise ship), and you can use a player's momentum against them. If you see a player move one way and dodge to the other, that player has to stop, turn around and start running just like in the real-world. This is one area where this system does actually improve the game.
EA Sports Matchday returns and is already well into action with the new European season under way. Basically Matchday downloads stats from the EA servers based on the latest results. So, if your club team is on a roll, their stats will get a boost and so will their attitude, but in a relegation battle, the opposite happens. This is actually an incredibly interesting component of the game and to see how the teams can flip flop during a season.
On the licensing side, EA has had some wins and losses this year. First of all the Brazilian team is not licensed this year which is interesting considering they one of the top teams globally right now, but they have had a win in the Camp Nou from Barcelona returning as a selectable stadium. However, overall, they still remain formidable in this area with the Premier League, La Liga, Serie A, Hyundai A-League, J-league and others all appearing in the game. There is no doubt that this is where EA is dominating right now and it is hard to see whether the other side can fix this.
We recently got the chance to see FIFA 14 on the next generation consoles and it is clear as day that is where this year's product is going to shine. There is the possibility that they have tried to translate changes from the next gen product down to this level and it just hasn't worked. The game can be frustrating to play, but it can also be enjoyable.
Most games have this ebb and flow and really not knowing what the game is going to do next (be it a player's first touch or if a player will pass correctly) is frustrating. FIFA 14 isn't necessarily a bad game, but it's certainly in our opinion the worst of a very good bunch from the previous few years. Next generation will see this title return to the top upon its release, but for now, wait until then.
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Saints Row IV Xbox 360 Review
The storyline picks up after the ending of Saints Row III. The saints manufacturing machine rolls on and they become even more popular, so much so the leader (who you play) becomes the President of the United States. After ascending to the most powerful position in the free world, the globe is subjected to a surprise Alien attack and earth falls and is obliterated. It is up to you as the POTUS to rewrite history and try and save earth once and for all.
In terms of the core gameplay, not much has changed since Saints Row III. The game is still mission based in an open world and with the story progressing as you complete missions. What thankfully also hasn't changed is the Saints Row series penchant for unique humor. The characters are as witty and funny as ever, and the game just rolls on. Hours turn to minutes when playing through the campaign as the story becomes crazier by the minute.
Tasks on offer are sometimes run of the mill, but sometimes out and out crazy and many push the 360 console to its absolute limits, with frame rate issues all over the place. The side missions are where most of the generic stuff is found with the good missions saved for the main campaign, as you would expect. You might be stealing a tank, lining up some portals or trying to rescue a character. In fact, it is these missions where one of the many surprises found in the game is found.
One thing that has carried over from Saints Row III is the tight controls. The 360 controller just seems perfect for this game with fluid movement present throughout. We never really had to think about what we were doing with the controls, and that is always an indication as to how tight the controls are.
The thing is about this game is that it really is pure unadulterated fun. It just feels fun - like a video game should feel. It never really gets frustrating because there is a lot in the game to assist with getting past difficult points in the story. Your character can be upgraded as per previous games with health, more weaponry and other improvements, and you can of course customize your character with crazy clothing or wear nothing at all (with a censor bar). It just screams fun. In a time where a lot of video games take themselves far too seriously, SR4 is a breath of fresh air in this regard.
In terms of the open world, the game impresses, but it is a bit disappointing that it is not set in a new city. Instead you basically get Saints Row 3 with a bunch of alien ships included. However, it feels different, and that is because one of the key additions is superpowers for your character. Being able to jump over buildings and up them instead of just being on the ground makes the world feel new and different - so much so that when those powers are not present, it really does feel like a run of the mill SR3 mission.
It's clear that Volition had to stick with the SR3 world, but they have done enough to make it feel new, which is quite an achievement, but the super powers come at a cost. The QA of this game would have been intense and so it's almost expected that you will get stuck in the world occasionally, and you do. The game sometimes cannot handle just how fast and quick you are moving about and you get stuck. It happened a few times during our play through.
Saints Row IV was quite an anticipated game that in many ways lives up to the hype, but in others it does not. The fact you play as the POTUS is not exploited enough by the storyline, and whilst there are some crazy moments, after Saints Row 3, they do not have the same impact. What started out as an expansion pack has become a full blown sequel and it shows. If you were a cynic you could call SR4 a total conversion for SR3, but that would be unfair given the amount of work Volition has clearly put into the title. Play it, just don't expect the same impact that SR3 had on the gaming world.
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Killzone: Mercenary PlayStation Vita Review
You play as Arran, a mercenary for hire on a routine mission to evacuate a captured ambassador, when things predictably go awry. You come across a young boy who turns out to be the difference between winning the war and losing the war. As you would expect, the story focuses on the struggle to keep control of the boy, and to stop him from falling into enemy hands.
For the most part, the objective remains to shoot a lot of enemies and get to the other end of the level, although the touchscreen has allowed the developers to mix up the gameplay somewhat. Unfortunately this often results in frustrating game mechanics that leave you wondering if the additions enhance or detract from the game. One such mini game is the firewall hacking system. This is done via the touchscreen by matching up polygonal shapes to that which is displayed. The main problem with this mini game is that it's not well explained within the game, and there isn't a single mention of it within the game's electronic manual.
There are also other problems which come from the gameplay that could have been avoided. It seemed that on almost every mission, we were asked to defend a position, whilst an area was hacked or a character hid, as we defended them. This becomes tedious and the generic nature of some of the missions will leave you turning off the Vita and coming back later - especially if you are not playing this on the move, and are instead playing at home, for example.
However, looking past some of the problems with the missions themselves, the game is a technical marvel. We finally have a game that shows the true power of the PS Vita system, and the claims of console level gaming on the move by Sony has finally been found to be true. The control system also works perfectly - whilst we have seen first person shooters attempted on systems without dual sticks, there is no doubt that the dual sticks are what makes this game as good as it can be, in terms of control.
Another disappointment comes from the actual core gameplay and missions. The checkpoint system within the game just doesn't lend itself to a portable game. Many times we lost around ten minutes of mission progress because the checkpoint system is built more for a home console game than a portable, and many times we found ourselves just turning off the Vita at that point and coming back later. This is one of the main flaws we found with the game. This is a console game that has been put on a handheld system, which at times does not take into account the fact that it's portable. There are many things which happen that would be acceptable in a home version, but on a portable game, are incredibly frustrating.
The environments in which the missions take place are that of which you traditionally see in Killzone. Run down urban areas, caves and huge enemy structures are the name of the game and one issue which wasn't present on the home versions rears its ugly head here. There are times where the game becomes really dark with not much lighting, and in sunlight it can be hard to see the screen. This became such an issue that we found ourselves adjusting the brightness setting, which of course can impact the system's battery life.
From a graphical perspective, as said before, this game is a technical marvel. There are some stunning visual effects that you tend to only see on home consoles, such as reflective surfaces, and overall the game is beautiful. What's most amazing is that the game runs constantly without nary a sign of frame rate drops. This is a game that could easily be mistaken for a PS3 game and that is a credit to the graphics team on this title. The sound effects are also impressive with voice acting present and a strong cinematic soundtrack.
Killzone: Mercenary is a game that in many ways proves why the PS Vita exists. Up until now, we haven't really had a game that delivered on Sony's promise of console level gaming on the road. The game is stunning, to say the least, and whilst there are some problems with the design and some of the missions can become repetitive alongside the multiplayer, it's still a very strong package. If you have a Vita system already, this is a must buy game, and may just be enough with the recent Vita price drop to entice some more gamers into its ecosystem.
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Spelunky PlayStation VITA Review
Spelunky tells the story of an adventurer who stumbles upon a book with secrets about some hidden caves that the user explores. What the book fails to tell our character is just how dangerous the journey is and how many have gone before him or her and failed. Aside from that, there isn't much backstory to the game, but that is not a major issue because the focus is on the core gameplay, and that is where this game shines.
Ultimately the core gameplay of Spelunky is platforming, however, it does contain puzzle elements. Before each jump, you need to figure out if there is a trap or other enemies waiting for you, and rushing through the missions is a recipe for disaster.
However, this is the beauty of the game. Knowing you are seconds away from having to restart generally leads to cautious play, but the game is also incredibly good at lulling you into a false sense of security. Most of the time you will succumb to the levels because you are rushing as opposed to the level being unfair and most of the time when you do die, you will know why it happened. It is entirely possible for you to sneak through to area three, lose your life and then get stuck in area one for hours trying to progress again. But again, this is the beauty of the title, and if this doesn't sound like something you can handle, don't buy this game.
To assist with this, you can unlock shortcuts as you progress through each area. However, to unlock the shortcut, you need to progress through the area three times, and also give the shortcut man some goods like bombs or ropes. In many ways, this is proving to the game you have conquered the area. With levels randomly generated, the challenge is never the same, and sometimes you will get a good set of levels, and sometimes you will get some brutal levels.
The visuals of the game are impressive and suit the style of game well with cartoon style visuals playing into the comedic style deaths that the character often will encounter. There will be times where you will want to smash the VITA because of what happened, but the visuals do tend to keep you from really exploding in rage when playing.
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Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Blacklist Wii U Review
The storyline of Blacklist focuses on funnily enough the Blacklist. The Blacklist is a series of terrorists and planned terrorist attacks being led by one major terrorist group known as "the engineers". After a successful terrorist attack, Sam Fisher is thrown onto the case, along with some of his old crew like Anna and some new characters that enhance the storyline well. The days where Sam was a single killing machine are over, and instead you now have a lot more of a relationship with your staff and see how all the puzzles fit together for a successful mission.
One of the biggest changes to the series is the ability to upgrade structures. The main base of Blacklist is the Paladin, a large US air force plane, which contains the operations center for Sam to get the job done. As you progress through missions, you earn cash that can be used to upgrade the Paladin. For example, if you upgrade the infirmary, Sam will have access to purchase health upgrades, whilst upgrading the tech side will lead to access to black market weaponry. How you wish to play is up to you and this is the theme of this game. Ubisoft has tried to cater to everyone and no more so than the upgrade system. Sam can also be upgraded and you can have multiple load outs.
If you play in a stealth style, you are rewarded for it. You will gain cash for exploring areas of the mission that generally are only found on a stealth play through and you gain more cash for taking down enemies silently than in combat. Yet generally the way most people will play is a combination of both. That is aside from a few specific areas in the game where there is not much of a punishment for being detected, and as long as you can take the enemies that will charge at you down, the mission will continue on and even then you can just run towards the objective to progress as well. Once or twice we just bolted for the next objective, and as soon as it was reached, the previous enemies stood down and stopped following - not the most realistic AI in that regard.
It's hard to criticize Ubisoft because they have crafted an incredible experience. The old feeling of Sam being one of the toughest bastards on the planet returns, and as you silently take out enemies, it feels rewarding. It feels much more rewarding to creep through an area undetected, instead of just shooting the place up and that plays right into the hallmarks that makes Splinter Cell the franchise that it is. As well as this, many of the locations you visit are iconic, and there is one particular mission that gave us the same feeling the CIA mission did in the very original game.
It would be remiss of us not to mention the control set especially considering we played it on the Wii U - the good news is the controls have ported just fine. The touchscreen is used in many ways and not just for a map. If you are controlling a drone that will be done via the touchscreen, whilst switching weapons quickly and easily can also be achieved on the tablet. It is also possible to play the game entirely on the tablet. By default, motion controls are enabled, and we found that frustrating and it increased the difficulty on some missions. Thankfully you can turn that off.
On the multiplayer side of things the infamous spy's vs. mercenary's mode is back and better than ever. For those unaware in Spies vs. Mercs one team plays from a third person perspective, whilst the other, the mercs, play first person. The spies have to complete single player style objectives, whilst being hunted by the mercenaries. During its time it was one of the most original and interesting multiplayer features around, and it remains so. The only problem with multiplayer specifically on the Wii U is that local co-op is not possible.
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Blacklist sure took its time to come out, but the wait has been worth it. The single player campaign is an interesting tale of typical intrigue from the series, whilst the additional co-operative play and multiplayer areas really add up to a well-rounded package. The Wii U port is fine when compared to the other consoles, and the lack of Wii U local co-op shouldn't be missed too much.
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Divekick PS Vita Review
Shortly after the Kickstarter went live, it disappeared, with the announcement that Iron Galaxy Studios were going to take the concept and run with it. Divekick is not meant to be a serious fighting game, but it contains serious elements, and in many ways, it can be hard to know at times as to whether it wants to be a proper fighting game or one that is a parody, and that is one of its core problems.
The main gameplay of Divekick completely removes most of the complexity associated with fighting games. In fact, you only need to learn two buttons. You do not directly control your character, but instead only control when the character jumps either high, backwards or dives foot first towards the opponent.
Each round lasts a maximum of 20 seconds, with most significantly less than that, giving the game a very snappy feel. Although every so often in the single player, a story cut scene will play, which takes you out of the game somewhat and really breaks the snappy feel the rest of the game builds so well.
There are other parodies, but we won't ruin those because some of them are truly laugh out loud funny. However, there are times where the game reminds you that it is trying to be serious. For example, in the options, you can set a maximum ping and GGPO frames, something that will be a completely foreign language to most casual players.
And this is where Divekick to a degree is a failure. This is not really a game that can be enjoyed by a casual player (to the degree others can) that has no idea about the elite fighting game tournaments and people involved in them. Many of the characters are based on people prominent in that arena such as Markman, the community manager from Mad Catz, and S-Kill, who is clearly based on Seth Killian, one of the more prominent fighting game people in the United States.
The other characters are generally based on parodies from other popular fighting games such as Street Fighter and Marvel vs. Capcom. To get the most out of this game, you really need to be in on the jokes, and whilst we were, not many people just buying something on PSN will be.
However, the game does exhibit a level of depth that was unexpected, and is not a game that can be completely mastered within a night. Each of the characters has a special move set and as well as this also dives and jumps with different angles. Just like a typical fighting game, it is likely you will find a character you like and will stick to that character. Also some of the characters have moves which go against the rest of the game where they will create lightning by dive kicking for example, as opposed to actually just hitting the other character. Again this adds to the challenge of the game.
Multiplayer is where you will gain the most value from this game, and if you have no interest in playing fighting games online, this really isn't a game you should buy.
Divekick is an interesting game and actually we found it somewhat a difficult game to review. We actually enjoyed it, but we know we enjoyed it a lot more than a typical person off the street would, because we could pick out most of the in-jokes present in the game.
If you are knowledgeable about the fighting tournament community or really just want a crazy fighting game to play, then this is the one for you. You may enter it thinking it will be a throw away game that you can be done with in a night, but the opposite is true. Divekick has an unexpected level of depth that may see it become popular for months to come.
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Pikmin 3 Nintendo Wii U Review
Pikmin 3 takes a step away from the previous two titles with the main protagonist Olimar being replaced by three new characters. These human characters are from a planet which has run out of food and is stranded in space. They are sent as the last real chance to save the human race from starvation and are sent to an island where food has been detected. Little do they know there are many challenges and obstacles to gain that food and it is that which forms the core gameplay of Pikmin 3.
Not much has changed in the gameplay stakes from Pikmin 2, but there are definitely additional challenges to tackle. First of all the change to three characters has been a major positive. This leads you to be able to have three different groups of Pikmin spread over the map to finish tasks. Every so often the game will force you to work in these groups (or at least, it's not possible to finish some levels without doing it) to reinforce the fact that this strategy can be used. Tasks range from bashing down walls, to carrying fruit and defeating boss characters. The other strategy involved is the various Pikmin on offer which have differing abilities, such as the new winged Pikmin.
The main challenge with Pikmin 3 is managing time and fruit. Each day has a set time and if you are not controlling Pikmin when the sun goes down, they will perish and so time management, one of the hallmarks of the Pikmin series, makes a return and is key. You will find yourself having some days where you are just consolidating a previous day's work, such as finding fruit or bringing a dead boss back to the ship. It is important to gather fruit, because if you do not, eventually the crew runs out of food, and it is game over.
The biggest surprise we found with Pikmin 3 is the lack of handholding that the game offers the player. The first few hours do feel a bit like a tutorial, but there is nothing like what we have seen in recent Nintendo games. First of all there is no super guide to speak of, and in general, the game opens up on a brand new day and says go for your life.
However, this isn't a major problem, as one of the key aspects of the Pikmin series has always been exploring the game map trying to find new Pikmin, a boss character or new objectives. In many ways this is one of the least casual friendly games Nintendo has released recently, but also a game that should appeal to the casual market. This is why it's a surprise Nintendo decided to leave most of the formula alone.
Aside from the main game mode, there is a single player and multiplayer challenge mode, which tasks you to take down as many enemies as you can in a set time frame, progressively getting harder. The game also has the ability for you to play the main campaign multiplayer as well, however, inexplicably Nintendo has limited the multiplayer options to local only. The game itself should take you around ten hours to complete first time through, and there certainly is room to go back and better your score, because you can jump to any point in the day cycle, at any time.
Pikmin 3 is Nintendo's big hope to shift Wii U consoles out of stores. There is no doubt that this game is a success, but there is huge doubt that this is the game Nintendo thinks it is going to be. It's a fantastic game for Wii U owners that you simply must play if you have one of the consoles, but whether it is worth picking up a console just to play this game... well, that is debateable.
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Payday 2 PC Hands-on Preview
For those who haven't played the original Payday, the game basically revolves around you and a team of three taking down banks. There isn't too much of a story to go with it, although that has changed somewhat in Payday 2. Before each mission, you are presented with a small information cut scene to detail what you need to do and how. Aside from that, you are on your own, and in a multiplayer focused game, that isn't surprising.
The reason being you as the single player have to carry each bag back one at a time and dump it in the car. The reason why this is quite frustrating is that the same problem was present in the original game and so not much has changed. The offline component is definitely more for training than a significant single player campaign, but considering how useless the AI is, we wonder if it should even be there at all. Hopefully something changes before the release in this aspect.
However, move onto the multiplayer, and you start to see why Payday 2 is one of the most anticipated games of the year. It takes everything right with the original game and continues it, whilst improving and including some brand new features to really take it to the next level. As you complete heists, you gain experience points, which level your persistent character up and at some point you will need to choose between four specialities. This again makes the single player component hard, but again shines in multiplayer.
This may not necessarily turn out to be a huge problem, but in a game so multiplayer focused and class based, in the longer term, it may be. There is nothing wrong with having four technicians for example, it just makes the missions a tad more difficult to complete.
In each mission there is also a whole bunch of ways to tackle problems and situations that may arise - there is also generally a risk reward element to each one. For example, you can silently knock a guard out and then patch in a radio to be able to communicate with the other guards. The risk is that every so often the guards won't believe you and trigger an alarm. Once an alarm is triggered, the police will arrive and it really does just turn into a shootout at that point... generally not what the game is about.
After which you move into the casing phase. Your characters can freely move about the environment figuring out where cameras and other detection devices may be, but there is always the risk that you will be detected and finally the execution phase where it either all goes to crap or runs perfectly, depending on how well you planned.
During the planning phase, you can use money obtained in earlier heists to unlock additional help during the next mission. That help may be something as small as another way to enter the target building, through to something like a camera feed to help you keep an eye on the cops. This takes the strategy and planning to another level in Payday 2, and utilizing this will be the key to success.
In the multi-day missions, your performance is looked at during each mission to see how the heist will progress. If you perform poorly during a mission and alert the cops, you will most likely then encounter an escape mission, but perform well and that will not happen. Dynamic changing of events is a core component of this game and will really add to the replay value.
This is why the game is one of our most anticipated for the year. It really has the potential to be a deep game with incredible gameplay and the version we played definitely has an inkling of that. No two games ever play out the same, and despite the focus on multiplayer gameplay, it's still looking like it could be one of the year's best.
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Hotline Miami PlayStation VITA Review
Hotline Miami has not got much of a storyline and that which is present is incredibly weird, to say the least. You play as an unnamed protagonist who picks up the phone one day to be told to go and pick up a box of food at a particular location. Inside the box is a message to go and return a brief case, whilst eliminating everyone at the location via any means possible. From there the madness and mayhem of the game begins.
However, this is a 2D game and plays very much like the original Grand Theft Auto. You control the player from a top down perspective (like a floor plan view) and have to quickly get through the missions set in various buildings. As the game progresses, the challenges get harder and start to be set on multiple floors. Another challenge is that the environments begin to change and include things such as glass windows, allowing enemies (and yourself) to shoot through them. The difficulty progression is balanced incredibly well and you never feel like the game is being 'cheap', so to speak.
The hardest part is that the protagonist can only take one hit or bullet before being taken out and that is where the true challenge lies. You need to quickly move through each room, perform the tasks quickly and get out, all the way knowing that one false move and you have to start again.
To assist with this, when you reach high scores, the game unlocks new masks for the protagonist to wear, such as a zebra or horse mask - these mask change the game in many ways. Some masks allow you to have silent guns, and other masks allow the protagonist to kill enemies with a single punch. Working out the right mask to use in the right situation is all part of the allure of the game. And here's the surprising part - Hotline Miami in many ways is not an action game, but instead a puzzle game where you have to figure out the exact sequence of events to follow to succeed.
This may sound frustrating, but it is anything and this can be put down to the quick restart option. Whenever the protagonist is taken out, within about half a second, you are back playing again, trying out a new strategy. This is the crucial point of the game, had this not been present, it would have completely killed the flow of the game and frustration levels would've through the roof.
Hotline Miami is a controversial game with a controversial setting and story. However, once you look past the violence and destruction within, you start to see that it is not a 'shock' game. It is not one that relies on its shock level and adult content to actually be interesting. In fact, the gameplay probably could have been done in another way and been just as good. The PSVITA is fast becoming the system to have to play indie games on and Hotline Miami is one to add to that list.
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Far Cry 3 PC Review
In Far Cry 3 you take control of Jason Brody, a young college kid with rich parents enjoying life to the max on an island paradise when things go awry. Jason and his friends are captured by pirates and the infamous Vaas. Taken for ransom from their wealthy parents, Jason manages to escape with his brother and from there the story becomes that you as Jason must rescue your friends, but also as you build acquaintances on the island, decide how you want the future to be for those people. There is a point where the story just becomes boring and formulaic unfortunately, but until then it's one of the best stories of this generation.
As expected based on the first two games, Far Cry 3 puts you in a massive open world with side missions and main story to complete. One of the key facets of the title is exploration and the game significantly rewards you for exploring. Whilst there are scripted elements to some of the missions, sometimes it's just interesting to wander about the island and see what the enemy and other NPCs are doing. One example was we were closing in on an enemy kill, only to see a crocodile jump out of the water to take him alive. If someone else was to go to that exact spot, it may not happen because those sequences are not scripted.
For example, if you get some shark skins, you can craft a new pouch which improves your inventory level - something which is a lot more interesting to do than just buy a new pouch. You can pick up leaves and plants to help you concoct medicine to heal Jason. At no real point in the game are you forced to buy things. For example, one area which encourages exploration is the local stores. If you manage to take over the local radio tower, the shops will give you free weapons as a reward whilst that tower is not held by the enemies. It's a really interesting mechanic that rewards exploration in a manner that is tangible rather than just 'let's see this entire island'.
For the most part the missions are also enjoyable to play as well. There are over thirty campaign missions with quite a number more side missions to complete. To complete Far Cry 3 without doing side missions will take you about 10 hours and so it is a fairly meaty game when you compare it to most releases. The game does contain fast travel once you have visited a location although sometimes it is better to just explore and see the world on offer.
What Far Cry 3 manages to achieve is a believable world. This island could be a real world thing (although it's not), and the developers have clearly put a lot of work into building a fantastic world for the game. It has the crazy professor and the tribal warriors to complete the mix. But what takes it to the next level is the various fauna milling about the place. You can be swimming quietly in the rivers or ocean and the next minute a shark or crocodile attacks. The first time this happens you will literally jump in your seat and it's generally over before it even starts. You can imagine this is how it happens in the real world as well with most victims attacked before they even know it's happening.
On the PC at least, Far Cry 3 is a visual tour de force and one of the best games graphically we have ever played. If you have the hardware and video card to push this to the max you will see a visually stunning world with amazing graphics. Tone the graphics done a little and the game still shines even on older hardware, so it is clear Ubisoft has done its job in optimizing this game for fairly run of the mill systems as well. This is something that the original Far Cry game was criticised for not doing.
The game also features a co-operative multiplayer portion for up to four players to take part in. It is set six months before the actual events of the single player campaign and so in many ways is its own story. Introducing co-operative into such an awesome, open world game is something that Ubisoft had to do to take this game to the next level. With a length of about six hours, you certainly get your money's worth even though it's not the main campaign.
Far Cry 3 started out with a great E3 presentation that put the hype levels through the roof. Usually when this happens games significantly let us down, but in this case Ubisoft has delivered. No doubt they felt the pressure of such an awesome opening with Vaas and our main character, but instead of crumbling, they produced what is sure to be one of the best games of 2012.
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Hitman: Absolution Xbox 360 Review
This game became Kane & Lynch which had middling success in both sales and critical format. So six years later we have the return of Agent 47 and it's not without changes. Absolution completely changes up the series in many ways and we still aren't sure if all the changes and decisions made were the right ones.
Absolution picks up with Agent 47 being tasked to kill his agency handler Diana. She has gone rogue and has been selling secrets to enemies of the agency so his final contract becomes her. The agency has produced another agent from a child, Victoria with Diana on her deathbed asking 47 to protect her at all costs. This is what the story primarily revolves around; the protection of Victoria and escaping from the agency that 47 once called home. From the outset this shows just how much of a departure Absolution is to the regular format with previous games tasking 47 with contracts to fulfil for the agency.
This is only apparent on some of the levels. On many levels within the game there are no targets and instead it is 47's goal to reach another area to continue the story. As well as this there are times where the game takes control from you and performs kills in cut scenes. For a series which has focused so much on clean quiet kills from a gameplay perspective, to have this happen is frustrating. There are some sections in the game where quiet kills just cannot occur.
This is where you will like this game or not. Whilst in the past each mission was one huge environment for 47 to traverse and come up with sneaky ways to take out the target, in this game you are instead tasked with basically getting from point a to point b. Hitman in many ways becomes a third person shooter with the amount of sandbox missions able to be counted on less than two hands. Given that there are 20 missions overall in the game, this is a bit disappointing.
However, on those levels which do give you the freedom to explore and come up with various ways to take out the targets, the game absolutely shines. Previously seen at E3, the King of Chinatown level is one such example where there is many different ways to take out the target such as poisoning fish or blowing up a car. And it is these missions that you will revisit over and over again to try and come up with different ways to end the mission without being seen.
As well as the actual targets each mission contains a number of challenges to complete. Sometimes these challenges are to take out the targets in various different ways whilst other times it can be tasks such as finishing the mission only using 47's suit. Given that you very often traverse areas where you should not be, doing this is harder than it sounds.
Many of the elements we have seen in previous titles have again come back. You can still take the disguises of other characters although this is a bit harder than last time around.
Enemies will spot that you are not one of them quite easily and so it becomes a case of still having to focus on stealth even when blended in. To aid with this, 47 now has an instinct ability which allows you to see enemies through walls and walk near enemies in disguise without being spotted. You gain more instinct by performing quiet kills and tasks.
One of the more frustrating elements of Absolution is the change from limited save games to checkpoints. Instead of being able to save at any point in the game (within a limited number), you now have to track down and find checkpoints in the level. They are generally off the beaten track and this can be very frustrating especially on the tougher levels. The checkpoints also do not get retained if you leave your game which we have no idea why IO Interactive decided that was a good idea.
On the visual and environmental side of things the game is generally impressive. Whilst there is quite a variety to the locations that you will visit during your time with the game, it is not as varied as it was in Blood Money with some locations being visited more than once. Some of the missions are quite large in size whilst others are almost corridors only. It goes without saying the larger missions are the ones where 47's abilities can really shine. One thing that is true is that in general IO Interactive has used the environments to the best of their abilities with 47 being able to perform numerous environmental based kills on his targets.
Multiplayer comes in the form of contracts mode and in an ironic twist this system is much closer to that of the older games. You can either build or download contracts from other users and basically you are dropped into a world and have to kill targets silently to fulfil the contract. As you do so you gain money which can be used to upgrade your weaponry in multiplayer. This is an interesting take on multiplayer and we hope that users really embrace this system because it's entirely possible this could give the game a lot of legs.
Hitman: Absolution is a game that made us think about how we review games in many ways. Should we review a game based on what the name is on the box, or what the content actually is. Of course the latter is the answer, but we can't help but feel that this is not the greatest Hitman game. It's significantly different to other Hitman titles, but it's also not a bad game. If you come into the game expecting Blood Money 2 you will be disappointed, but if you look past this you will find a competent Hitman game that has just enough elements of its predecessors to ensure you should play as 47 again.
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Assassin's Creed III: Liberation PlayStation Vita Review
However, with the release of a new platform, the PS Vita, Ubisoft decided to give the portable space another crack with the AC series and have come out with mixed results. Liberation is not necessarily a bad game, but there are some areas which can be quite infuriating to play.
Liberation for the first time introduces a female character as the main lead. You play as Aveline, the black daughter of a rich businessman in the 1700's. A result of infidelity, Aveline lives with her step mother and father in New Orleans as one of the wealthy and famous. However, Aveline wants to rid the world of slavery, especially for her people and sets about trying to bring down the tyranny which existed in the time. Set in the 1700's, the game takes place during the same timeline as that of the main console game, and to get the most out of the story, you need to play both.
This is probably the most interesting change to the franchise because it means you often have to change your clothing to complete tasks. Having to change clothing to complete a task can be a tad tiresome (especially when it's not clear which clothing you should be wearing), but all the same the addition enhances the franchise.
As well as the main city, you will also visit the bayou of New Orleans which gives you the opportunity to partake in tree climbing and jumping. Ripped directly from the console game with Connor you can at will climb trees and often have to when completing assassination tasks. The game controls well and it's very obvious when you can and cannot climb trees. The Bayou has a very Metal Gear Solid 3 feel to it - a large, lush jungle full of crocodiles and other animals that can hurt Aveline. The main difference being that Aveline does not need to eat animals to survive.
The structure of the game takes on that of its console big brothers. The game includes nine sequences to complete which is a little on the short side and you will have this game down in around six to eight hours depending on how good you are at it. There is no difficulty setting so once you finish it, that's it really.
There are a number of side tasks to complete and there is a meta game where you can control a shipping company to gain money, but really in the grand scheme of things, you can ignore these and easily complete the game. One of the interesting elements is that the story you get if you just play the main missions is not the actual story. To get the real ending you need to take out a particular hidden character in each sequence.
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One of the biggest bugbears we have with the game is the PS Vita controls. The main controls themselves are fine, but when the developer is trying to shoe horn in the touch mechanics of the game, it just starts to break. For example, the game will at times ask you to put the Vita camera near a bright light. It took us a while to find a light that would give the Vita what it wanted, and there was no indication at all whether we were getting closer or not.
There are also other sections of the game which use the back touchpad such as paddling a canoe. There is nothing wrong with trying to include Vita specific controls, but when they work like they do in Liberation (it's a lucky dip as to whether your motions will be picked up), it would have been best to leave them out.
The environments that the game is set in are impressive for a handheld product. The city of New Orleans is beautifully represented by period buildings and the actual city itself is quite large, but nowhere near what you find in the console games of course. The split of the bayou and the city is an interesting feature with both environments having graphical problems as well as also some impressive sections. Voice acting on the system is impressive especially for a handheld and whilst the soundtrack can become repetitive, it suits the game and setting well.
There is no doubt that Assassin's Creed III: Liberation is the most impressive handheld version of the series yet. Ubisoft has used some of Vita's power well, but also included some utterly frustrating mini games based on the touch and camera features. It is on the short side and that means it's not really suitable as something for a long distance trip, but for short spurts on the way to work, it works almost perfectly.
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Top 10 TweakTown Press Releases from the past week [25 November 2013]
Here are our top 10 posted press releases from the past week!
- New Generation of Market-Leading LSI SandForce(R) SSD Controllers Drive Flash to Higher Levels of Performance, Reliability and Endurance
- ORIGIN PC Launches Elite Gaming Peripherals
- Seagate Offers Windows Storage Server to Small- and Medium-Sized Businesses
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HighPoint's New SAS/SATA DAS RAID Storage Solution delivers 4GB/s Performance!
November 2013 - Milpitas, CA -HighPoint Technologies, a pioneering force in the storage industry for the past 18 years, launches a groundbreaking new breed of storage controller designed for high-speed applications: the RocketRAID 2720C2 6Gb/s SAS/SATA Cross-Sync RAID Solution.
Tuned for High-Speed Applications: Cross-Sync Delivers 4GB/s Storage Performance!
HighPoint's Cross-Sync RAID Solution eliminates the performance bottlenecks associated with high-port count controllers, allowing the RocketRAID 2720C2 HBA's to fully exploit the Dual PCIe 2.0 host x8 interface, and operate at their full potential. 16-disk Cross-Sync RAID configurations are capable of delivering transfer performance over 4.0GB/s - ideal for professional HD media projects, video streaming devices, and A/V post production workstations.
Dynamic Storage Expansion
The RocketRAID 2720C2 Cross-Sync RAID Solution delivers an unprecedented level of flexibility and control; solution providers and administrators can custom tailor, scale, and fine-tune storage configurations to suit any platform and application. The Cross-Sync RAID Solution can link up to 2 storage controllers for high-performance 16-disk RAID arrays, or as many as 4 storage controllers for large-scale 32-disk JBOD configurations.
Advanced features such as Online Capacity Expansion (OCE) and Online RAID Level Migration (ORLE) allow clients to expand, upgrade or convert existing storage configurations as needed without compromising data.
The Cross-Sync RAID Solution maximizes the performance of small-footprint storage configurations, and is ideal for compact storage chassis and workstation environments.
Rocket 2720C2 Cross-Sync RAID Solutions double the performance of SAS Expander configurations and are capable of supporting up to 128 storage devices.
Comprehensive Platform Support
The RocketRAID 2720C2 Cross-Sync RAID Solution utilizes industry-standard Mini-SAS connectivity for maximum compatibility. The PCI-Express 2.0 host interface and low-profile form-factor allows Cross-Sync HBA's to be easily integrated into any workstation or server PC platform, and industry standard 3.5" or 2.5" storage chassis.
Complete RAID & Storage Management Suite
HighPoint delivers a comprehensive selection of intuitive management interfaces for all computing platforms and operating systems. These streamlined interfaces simplify the RAID configuration process and provide user-friendly controls for every setting and configuration option imaginable, and allow administrators to monitor the health of host-to-target storage devices and RAID configurations on-site or remotely.
The Web-based management interface allows administrators to login remotely via an internet connection or local network, and configure Email notification to inform one or more administrator of changing storage conditions while in the field.
Availability and Pricing
The RocketRAID 2720C2 RAID Solution is set to release in the first half of November 2013, and will be available from HighPoint's world-wide network of Distribution and Retail channels.
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ORIGIN PC Launches Elite Gaming Peripherals
MIAMI - Nov. 18, 2013 - ORIGIN PC announced today it has partnered with Razer, the industry leader in gaming peripherals, to bring the ultimate keyboard, mouse and mouse mat to ORIGIN PC. Using Razer's proven formula for delivering the utmost quality and performance, ORIGIN PC chose the best Razer has to offer for ORIGIN PC Edition peripherals with an exclusive black and red backlit color scheme. The ORIGIN PC Razer BlackWidow keyboard, Taipan mouse and Goliathus mouse mat puts the power of an ORIGIN PC at a user's fingertips, providing the tools needed to obliterate the competition.
"Razer and ORIGIN PC have a shared passion for advancing the state-of-the-art in PC performance to support the advanced needs of gamers," says Min-Liang Tan, Razer founder, CEO and creative director. "The opportunity to collaborate on bringing Razer's market-leading, gaming-grade hardware to ORIGIN PC systems customers is a great way to underscore both of our brands' commitment to gaming in a real and immediately impactful way."
ORIGIN PC Razer BlackWidow Keyboard Features:
- Full Mechanical Keys for Superior Tactility and Faster Response
- On-The-Fly Macro Recording & Profiles for Effortless Configuration
- Individually Backlit Keys with an ORIGIN Exclusive Black and Red Color Scheme
- ORIGIN PC Backlit Logo
- Razer™ Synapse 2.0 Enabled
ORIGIN PC Razer Taipan Mouse Features:
- 8200 dpi 4G Dual Sensor System
- Improved Ambidextrous Ergonomics
- ORIGIN PC Exclusive Black and Red Color Scheme
- Razer™ Synapse 2.0 Enabled
ORIGIN PC Razer Goliathus Mouse Mat Features:
- Heavily Textured Weave for Precise Mouse Control
- Optimized for All Mouse Sensitivities and Sensors
- Anti-slip Rubber Base
- Highly Portable Cloth-based Design
For more information and to purchase any ORIGIN PC Edition Gaming Peripherals, please click here: http://www.originpc.com/gaming/originpc-keyboard-mouse/
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Seagate Offers Windows Storage Server to Small- and Medium-Sized Businesses
CUPERTINO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Seagate Technology plc (NASDAQ: STX) today introduced the latest addition to the company's business storage product offerings, Seagate Business Storage Windows Server 4-bay NAS. Designed for offices or workgroups with up to 50 employees, this new 4-bay NAS centralizes storage to allow access, collaboration and sharing of files securely from all computers within a business network, while simultaneously hosting PC backups in one central location.
Seamless Windows Integration
Seagate Business Storage Windows Server 4-bay NAS makes it easy to expand into a branch office or add local storage to an existing network because it's designed specifically for businesses utilizing an existing Windows IT infrastructure. With native support for Active Directory, management of users is easy with simple setup through an existing directory instead of the manual entry of users for access and control on each device. Perfect for the IT pro, the Windows Storage server seamlessly integrates into existing Windows environments, including complete compatibility with Active Directory.
"Seagate takes great pride in our ability to develop specialized solutions for a wide-range of business storage use cases," said Scott Horn vice president of global marketing for Seagate. "As businesses grow, they will need a simple way to seamlessly integrate more storage capacity within their existing business applications. The new Seagate Business Storage Windows Server 4-bay NAS provides a reliable yet simple data management and data protection solution for these fast-growing small business customers."
Keep Business Critical Data Secure
Windows Storage Spaces helps protect your data by storing redundant copies on multiple disks. The BitLocker encryption provides peace of mind in knowing that files are secure from unauthorized access. Windows Storage Spaces automatically manages installed drives to give you the best blend of capacity and redundancy.
"Growing small businesses demand dependability and security for their data storage, backups and transactions," said Richard Doherty, research director for The Envisioneering Group. "Seagate's employment of Windows Server 2012 in the company's latest addition to their new Business Storage portfolio delivers on these storage demands that are so central to the growth of small businesses."
Performance at a Value
The Seagate Business Storage Windows Server 4-bay NAS delivers on performance at an affordable price point for small to medium businesses.
- Powered by a 2.13 GHz dual-core Intel Atom processor combined with Windows Storage Server 2012 to deliver incredible network file transfer performance.
- Featuring best in class hard drives optimized for NAS to support customized error recovery controls, specialized power management and vibration tolerance for optimum performance and reliability, Seagate NAS HDD drives provide the best performing high-capacity storage for NAS servers.
"HDD manufacturers, such as Seagate, are uniquely positioned in the SMB NAS market given their expertise to integrated workload-optimized HDDs into a multi-bay Windows Storage Server device," stated Mark Geenen, president of TRENDFOCUS. "Seagate's NAS-specific HDDs include datacenter-class features tuned for smaller multi-drive racks, ensuring high performance, reliability and affordability for a wide range of small and medium business environments."
Pricing and Availability
Seagate Business Storage Windows Server 4-bay NAS comes in a range of capacities from 8TB for $1599.99 MSRP to a high capacity 16TB for $1999.99 MSRP to meet the needs of IT professionals with existing Windows Servers systems deployed.
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New Generation of Market-Leading LSI SandForce(R) SSD Controllers Drive Flash to Higher Levels of Performance, Reliability and Endurance
DENVER, Nov. 18, 2013 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- SC13 -- LSI Corporation (Nasdaq:LSI) today unveiled the third generation of its market-leading SandForce(R) flash controller line, the industry's most widely deployed flash management technology for driving PCIe(R) and SATA solid state drive (SSD) and flash card solutions. Designed to support power-sensitive client computing applications as well as I/O-intensive enterprise and hyperscale environments, the new LSI(R) SandForce SF3700 flash controller family provides the increased levels of flash performance, reliability and endurance needed to meet the exacting needs of SSD manufacturers.
With the addition of the SF3700 family's PCIe interface support, users can achieve breakthrough client performance of over 1.8GB/s sequential reads, a 3x improvement compared to SATA-based solutions.
"From our everyday lives to the hyperscale datacenter, flash storage solutions are transforming the speed and efficiency of data storage," said Huibert Verhoeven, vice president and general manager, Flash Components Division, LSI. "The SF3700 family brings a new architecture, designed from the ground up to deliver unmatched flash performance and the longevity required to drive current and future portable client computing, enterprise and big data applications."
"Intel is focused on providing unique offerings optimized for our customers' specific needs," said Rob Crooke, Intel corporate vice president and general manager for the Intel Non-Volatile Memory Solutions Group. "Intel expects accelerated and broader industry adoption of PCIe clients, including those with the new LSI SF3700 PCIe controller family, helping to ensure our customers have the right solution for every application."
Unique and industry-first LSI SandForce SF3700 features and benefits:
- Native PCIe and SATA Interfaces: M.2 form factor cards designed with the SF3700 flash controller's industry-only dual PCIe and SATA interface can use a simple manufacturing jumper to select the final desired interface for better inventory and cost management. The SF3700 family's PCIe interface supports AHCI and NVMe protocols to enable both legacy applications of PCIe flash and efficient NVMe flash storage application acceleration solutions.
- Optimized DuraWrite(TM) Data Reduction: Exclusive SandForce controller data reduction technology combines several techniques to extend NAND flash memory life as flash geometries shrink and trend toward lower reliability. The SF3700 family's optimized DuraWrite data reduction technology helps to maximize SSD endurance by further lowering write amplification and the number of program erase (P/E) cycles.
- SHIELD(TM) Error Correction: This technology extends flash memory life and significantly improves data integrity by implementing a flash-optimized low-density parity-check (LDPC) code that combines hard-decision, soft-decision and digital signal processing (DSP) together with unique adaptive error correction code rates. This enables SSD manufacturers to deliver enterprise-class product life and data integrity, even when using less expensive flash memory.
- Enhanced RAISE(TM) Technology: Redundant of Independent Silicon Elements (RAISE) technology, which is similar to RAID, delivers new levels of data protection specifically designed for SSDs by protecting against page, block and full die failures in a single drive environment. The SF3700 family's unique ninth channel for an extra flash package enables more RAISE protection and user capacity options.
- Dual AES-256 Encryption: Data security is an important component in today's digital age, and the SF3700 family enterprise controllers feature unique dual AES-256 drive-level encryption to secure data without incurring additional host processor load. Optional support for TCG Opal and Enterprise specifications ensure broad interoperability and ease of data security management.
LSI is demonstrating the new SF3700 family controllers this week at the SC13 conference in Denver, Colo., and at LSI's Accelerating Innovation Summit (AIS) taking place in San Jose, Calif.
The AIS demo will showcase the SF3700 family's breakthrough client performance of 1.8GB/s sequential reads using Toshiba's second generation Advanced 19 nanometer (A19nm) NAND flash memory. LSI will also display initial reference designs, which support flash memory vendors Micron, SanDisk and Toshiba. In addition, SandForce flash controller customers ADATA, Avant and Kingston will showcase SF3700-based PCIe and SATA SSD products.
SF3700 flash controllers are currently sampling to select SSD OEM customers. Volume customer shipments are expected in the first half of 2014.
For more information on LSI SandForce flash controllers, visit
http://www.lsi.com/sandforce.
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Top 10 TweakTown Press Releases from the past week [18 November 2013]
Here are our top 10 posted press releases from the past week!
- G.SKILL Sponsors HWBOT Country Cup OC Competition with Exclusive Memory Kits!
- Eurocom Ships Intel Core i7-4960X in its Panther 4.0 Supercomputer-Class Laptop
- QNAP Releases New Turbo NAS TS-212P for Home Users
- AMD Announces First "Supercomputing" Server Graphics Card With 12 GB Memory
- ASUSTOR NAS Products Now Compatible with PowerWalker UPS Units from BlueWalker
- Mad Catz Announces S.T.R.I.K.E.M Mobile Keyboard
- Toshiba FlashAir II Wireless SD Cards Launched in North America
- ASUS Unveils a Miracast Dongle
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The Award Winning iPin Laser Presenter Now Available in North America
22 October 2013, Taipei, Taiwan - Conary Enterprise is pleased to announce that the COMPUTEX 2013 d&i Gold Award winning iPin Laser Presenter is now available in North America. The iPin is a tiny, iPhone-powered laser pointer and presenter that comes with its own slide-controlling app. This delicately designed device can turn an iPhone into a professional presentation system in a matter of seconds, making it the ultimate companion for anyone using an iPhone.
Unlike similar devices, the iPin sits nearly flush with the phone surface, and can be turned on and off with a simple twist. When turned off, it doesn't interfere with normal phone operations. As a result, this tiny laser can be left in the audio jack between uses, providing unrivaled convenience and making it almost impossible to misplace. If there is a need to plug a headphone into the plug, the laser can be stored in the complimentary headphone clip, which can be attached to any headphone cable.
Professional Presentation Toolkit
The bundled professional software, a free downloadable app and its computer host program, turn the iPin into a professional presentation toolkit, giving users full remote control of their presentations. IP recognition is used to ensure a secure connection to the right host computer. With a quick swipe of the thumb anywhere on the screen, slides can be changed, and by pressing down on the screen, the laser is activated. Other features include a trackpad for controlling the cursor and a presentation timer.
From Construction to Tourism - In the Office or On-The-Go
There are plenty of ways in which the iPin can be used. The iPin offers a great way for business professionals or professors to manage slides, keep track of time and point out details during a sales pitch or a lecture. Thanks to its powerful laser, construction site managers can use the iPin to point to a new section of a wall from a distance of 40m by simply taking out their iPhone from their pocket.
Tour guides can use the iPin to point out a sculpture, and then call the hotel to confirm an arrival without switching between devices. All of these qualities make the iPin an ideal tool for anyone - as a laser pointer, a presentation tool, or both. The iPin is also compatible with the new iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c, on the iOS7.
Price and Availability:
The iPin can be purchased in the United States on Amazon.com, Bestbuy.com, Brookstone.com, BHPhotoVideo.com, iPin US Store and ShopNextGen.com and will soon be available on NewEgg.com. It can also be purchased in Canada at Memory Express stores and on line retailers like Amazon.ca, Memory Express.com, NCIX.ca, and Walmart.ca and will soon be available on Bestbuy.ca, Futureshop.ca, theSource.ca, Staples.ca, through SYNNEX CANADA.
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Silicon Power Presents the White Christmas Series Storage Lineup
Here comes the jolly Christmas! While the whole world is overwhelmed in delightful spirit, are you ready to light up your holidays with more Christmas flavors? This year, SP/ Silicon Power, the world's leading provider of memory storage solutions, is glad to present you the "White Christmas Series", which features snow-white and extremely elegant designs to dress up your storage devices with splendid Christmas-fashion. Inspired by the pureness of white snow, SP "White Christmas Series" perfectly turns the devices into the most eye-catching and stylish fashion accessories.
Stream S03 USB 3.0 portable hard drive is characterized by the folding design with the inspiration of folded pages which are generally used to signify the precious memories. The folding design demonstrates the wonderful connection between technology and human beings. Moreover, Stream S03 features the pure-white enclosure, making itself as shining as the snowflakes in the sunlight.
Armor A30 rugged USB 3.0 portable hard drive owns an ergonomically streamline design, allowing users to hold and operate at ease. Additionally, Armor A30 is comprised of a shock-resistant silica gel to add an extra shield to withstand crushes and shocks. Topping up with the refreshing white color and ultra-speed transfer rate, the military-grade shockproof A30 perfectly suits for travelers, sport enthusiasts, and businessperson on the go.
Ultima U03 flash drive features the elegant design which makes itself a perfect tech accessory to go with your belongings. The chic design of Ultima U03 is simple yet classic. Ultima U03 shows true elegance with its snowy white design and luxurious diamond cut pattern with a glossy surface. Furthermore, the textured rear cover includes a retractable USB connector for easy access and storage.
SP "White Christmas Series" offers the whole package in which all the portable hard drives offer the SuperSpeed interface of USB 3.0 and capacity options up to 1 TB while flash drives are available in 4 GB, 8 GB, 16 GB, 32 GB and 64 GB. All Silicon Power products come with a global warranty and the software application of SP Widget, which provides seven major back up and security tools and a 60-day trial version of NIS (Norton Internet Security). Also, SP provides users with the Recuva File Recovery which allows users to easily rescue the deleted files including digital photos, documents, music and videos. For more information, please visit the Silicon Power website: http://www.silicon-power.com
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ADATA to Showcase Latest SATA and PCIe SSDs at Accelerating Innovation Summit
ADATA Technology has announced its presence at the 6th annual Accelerating Innovation Summit (AIS 2013) as a gold sponsor. Responding to the latest industry and market needs, ADATA will display two potent solid state drive (SSD) offerings: the SX1000L server SSD and the company's groundbreaking PCIe based SSD solution. These storage systems are designed for both server applications, and for system integrators to effectively manage the rising data challenges faced by today's organizations and systems planners.
ADATA's PCIe based SSD comes in M.2 Next Generation Form Factor (NGFF) as well as 2.5" size, with cutting-edge transfer performance three times than SATA 6Gb/sec. These speeds are achieved with no sacrifice in reliability or size options; capacities as high as 2 terabytes are available. With support for both AHCI and NVMe, the PCIe SSD offers Enhanced Error Correction with LDPC, as well as self-encrypting-drive readiness. This leading PCIe Gen2 4-link single System on Chip (SoC) solution is an impressive offering in terms of innovation, performance, and reliability.
This event will see a gathering of industry leaders and experts, with ADATA once again demonstrating a front running position in the implementation of NAND flash storage products. For more information, visit the ADATA booth# 13 at AIS 2013.
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AMD Announces First "Supercomputing" Server Graphics Card With 12 GB Memory
AMD today announced the new AMD FirePro S10000 12 GB Edition graphics card, designed for big data high-performance computing (HPC) workloads for single precision and double precision performance. With full support for PCI Express 3.0 and optimized for use with the OpenCL compute programming language, the AMD FirePro S10000 12 GB Edition GPU features ECC memory plus DirectGMA support allowing developers working with large models and assemblies to take advantage of the massively parallel processing capabilities of AMD GPUs based on the latest AMD Graphics Core Next (GCN) architecture. AMD FirePro S10000 12 GB Edition GPU is slated for availability in Spring 2014.
- Compute/Visualization Server: finance, oil exploration, aeronautics and automotive, design and engineering, geophysics, life sciences, medicine and defense
- Double precision: genetic sequencing, computational fluid dynamics, structural mechanics, numeral analytics, reservoir simulation, automated reasoning and weather forecasting
- Single precision: seismic processing, molecular dynamics, satellite imaging, explicit crash test simulation, video enhancement, signal processing, video transcoding, digital rendering and medical imaging
- Ultra High-end Workstation (Requiring GPU compute and 3D graphics performance): Oil and gas, computer aided engineering
"AMD is proving again to be a key player in providing outstanding 3D graphics and GPGPU compute solutions based on the OpenCL Khronos Group standard for the industry with the announcement of the new AMD FirePro S10000 12 GB graphics card," said Nicolas Duny, VP R&D Technologies, Dassault Systèmes. "AMD is an industry innovator by responding to our customers' needs with cutting edge technology. The AMD FirePro S10000 12 GB card will be a welcome addition to the market and to our customers."
"Our customers are always eager for additional memory, so the introduction of the AMD FirePro S10000 12 GB Edition graphics card means key applications will finally be able to take advantage of the graphics compute capabilities," said Laurent Bertaux, CEO, CAPS. "As a leading provider of software and solutions for the HPC community, CAPS recognizes that this is a great opportunity for customers to reduce the potential for the bottleneck of data transfer, thus improving overall application performance. CAPS is a long-time AMD supporter so we're pleased that CAPS FORTAN and C compilers for OpenCL can immediately make full use of the 12GB memory offered in this new AMD FirePro solution."
The current AMD FirePro S10000 graphics solution with 6 GB of GDDR5 memory has received great acclaim. For example, the University of Frankfurt's Institution of Advanced Studies use of the card with the SANAM supercomputer ranks in the top five on the Green500 List as one of the most powerful and energy-efficient supercomputers powered by graphics processors.
The AMD FirePro S10000 with 6 GB of memory is currently available for purchase while the AMD FirePro S10000 12 GB Edition graphics card is slated for availability in Spring 2014.
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NVIDIA Dramatically Simplifies Parallel Programming With CUDA 6
NVIDIA today announced NVIDIA CUDA 6, the latest version of the world's most pervasive parallel computing platform and programming model.
It offers new performance enhancements that enable developers to instantly accelerate applications up to 8X by simply replacing existing CPU-based libraries. Key features of CUDA 6 include:
- Unified Memory -- Simplifies programming by enabling applications to access CPU and GPU memory without the need to manually copy data from one to the other, and makes it easier to add support for GPU acceleration in a wide range of programming languages.
- Drop-in Libraries -- Automatically accelerates applications' BLAS and FFTW calculations by up to 8X by simply replacing the existing CPU libraries with the GPU-accelerated equivalents.
- Multi-GPU Scaling -- Re-designed BLAS and FFT GPU libraries automatically scale performance across up to eight GPUs in a single node, delivering over nine teraflops of double precision performance per node, and supporting larger workloads than ever before (up to 512 GB). Multi-GPU scaling can also be used with the new BLAS drop-in library.
"Our technologies have helped major studios, game developers and animators create visually stunning 3D animations and effects," said Paul Doyle, CEO at Fabric Engine, Inc. "They have been urging us to add support for acceleration on NVIDIA GPUs, but memory management proved too difficult a challenge when dealing with the complex use cases in production. With Unified Memory, this is handled automatically, allowing the Fabric compiler to target NVIDIA GPUs and enabling our customers to run their applications up to 10X faster."
In addition to the new features, the CUDA 6 platform offers a full suite of programming tools, GPU-accelerated math libraries, documentation and programming guides.
Version 6 of the CUDA Toolkit is expected to be available in early 2014. Members of the CUDA-GPU Computing Registered Developer Program will be notified when it is available for download. To join the program, register here.
For more information about the CUDA 6 platform, visit NVIDIA booth 613 at SC13, Nov. 18-21 in Denver, and the NVIDIA CUDA website.
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Microsoft Unveils state-of-the-art Cybercrime Center
Microsoft Corp. on Thursday announced the opening of the Microsoft Cybercrime Center, a center of excellence for advancing the global fight against cybercrime. The Cybercrime Center combines Microsoft's legal and technical expertise as well as cutting-edge tools and technology with cross-industry expertise, marking a new era in effectively fighting crime on the Internet.
The Cybercrime Center is located on Microsoft's campus in Redmond, Wash. The secured facility houses groundbreaking Microsoft technologies that allow the team to visualize and identify global cyberthreats developing in real time, including SitePrint, which allows the mapping of online organized crime networks; PhotoDNA, a leading anti-child-pornography technology; cyberforensics, a new investigative capability that detects global cybercrime, including online fraud and identity theft; and cyberthreat intelligence from Microsoft's botnet takedown operations.
The Cybercrime Center includes a separate and secure location for third-party partners, allowing cybersecurity experts from around the world to work in the facility with Microsoft's experts for an indefinite period of time. The dedicated space enriches partnerships across industry, academia, law enforcement and customers - critical partners in the fight against cybercrime. With nearly 100 attorneys, investigators, technical experts and forensic analysts based around the world, the Microsoft Cybercrime Center is well positioned to make it safer for people online worldwide.
"In the fight against cybercrime the public sector significantly benefits from private sector expertise, such as provided by Microsoft," said Noboru Nakatani, executive director of the INTERPOL Global Complex for Innovation. "The security community needs to build on its coordinated responses to keep pace with today's cybercriminals. The Microsoft Cybercrime Center will be an important hub in accomplishing that task more effectively and proactively."
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QNAP Releases New Turbo NAS TS-212P for Home Users
QNAP Systems, Inc. today announced the release of TS-212P Turbo NAS for home and small/home office use. The new 2-bay model is equipped with a 1.6 GHz CPU and 512 MB DDR3 RAM, delivering reliable performance for daily tasks including file storage, sharing, data backup, and serving as an ideal media center for enjoying multimedia files across a range of platforms.
The TS-212P is an ideal home multimedia hub, with rich multimedia applications for entertainment. By using the Photo Station, Music Station and Video Station, users can easily archive, manage and share all of their photo, music and video collections. The support of DLNA and AirPlay also allows users to enjoy a high quality TV experience. With these features and more, the TS-212P brings more fun to enrich home entertainment.
The TS-212P provides multiple backup solutions. Windows and Mac users can use the QNAP NetBak Replicator and Apple Time Machine respectively to easily back up their data. The model also supports disaster recovery solutions including Real-time Remote Replication (RTRR) for real-time or scheduled data replication backup to cloud storage including Amazon S3, ElephantDrive, Symform, Dropbox, and Google Drive.
Users can also increase the functionalities of the TS-212P with QNAP's built-in App Center that provides various install-on-demand apps developed by QNAP and third-party developers, including backup/sync, business tools, content management, communications, download, entertainment and more. QNAP's development platform also allows developers to create various applications, adding even more value to the TS-212P and providing near-unlimited functionality for users.
Key Specifications:
TS-212P: desktop design, 2-bay, 1.6 GHz CPU, 512 MB DDR3 RAM, SATA HDD, 2X USB 3.0, 1X Gigabit LAN port.
Availability
The new TS-212P Turbo NAS is now available.
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Eurocom Ships Intel Core i7-4960X in its Panther 4.0 Supercomputer-Class Laptop
Eurocom is shipping the newest Intel Core i7-4960X Extreme Edition, i7-4930K and i7-4820K processors in its Panther 4.0 CPU and VGA upgradeable, custom built mobile supercomputer.
The EUROCOM Panther 4.0 is a supercomputer class laptop that is perfectly adept as a Professional Workstations, NVIDIA Quadro Mobile Workstation and a High Performance Gaming Station.
The EUROCOM Panther 4.0 is fully upgradeable and custom built, allowing customers to choose exactly the processor, graphics, storage and memory they need to get the job done right and meet there specific computing requirements. Utilizing a heavy duty mechanical design the Panther 4.0 is built to last in the most demanding environments.
The 17.3" EUROCOM Panther 4.0 weighs just 12lbs/5.5kg and measuring 419 (W) x 286 (D) x 57.9-62.1 (H) mm / (16.76 x 11.44 x 2.31-2.48 inch) is equipped with an integrated keyboard, 17.3" LCD Display, touch pad and Uninterruptable Power Supply (Battery Pack).
Eurocom has offered customers fully upgradeable notebooks since its inception in 1989. Processor, graphics and memory upgradeability allows users to extend lifespan of their equipment while increasing performance and capability. Eurocom has been utilizing socket based CPU and MXM graphics technology to allow customers to choose the components they want at the time of purchase as well as give them the ability to upgrade the system long after.
EUROCOM Panther 4.0 Specifications
Processors
The new 4 and 6 core processors consist of the Intel Core i7-4960X, I7-4930K, 4820K, 4th generation processors built upon the 22 nm architecture and running at up to 4 GHz. The Intel Core i7-4960X, I7-4930K and 4820K family is the perfect engine for power users who demand unrivaled performance in data and financial analysis, 3D modeling and gaming. The large 15 MB L3 cache and quad channel memory interface of the Panther 4.0 are especially beneficial when running heavily threaded applications.
With new features that make working with media faster than ever, new 4th generation Intel Core i7 processors help multimedia enthusiasts create, render, edit, design and engineer-how they want and where they want on their EUROCOM Panther 4.0. Power efficiency in the new processors allows for significantly longer battery life combined with increased performance.
Graphics
The Panther 4.0 is equipped with dual MXM 3.0B slots rated for 100W GPUs and is ready to SLI the fastest NVIDIA GeForce, Quadro and AMD Radeon GPUs. The EUROCOM Panther 4.0 is a Workstation class Laptop with support for professional class NVIDIA Quadro K5000M, K4000M, K3000M, K2000M graphics as well as NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M, 770M, 765M and AMD Radeon HD 8970M.
Fully OpenGL 4.1 compliant and supporting a colour depth of 10 bits per channel provides the tools graphics and multimedia professionals need to do their jobs on the go. For heavy duty rendering where the utmost accuracy is required, the K5000M's ECC (error correcting code) memory is up to the task. NVIDIA Quadro cards offer OpenGL quad buffered stereo support, for a smooth experience working with complex 3D models.
Memory
EUROCOM Panther 4.0 uses quad channel memory, and enables the Panther 4.0 to initially support up to 32 GB of DDR3 1600 MHz RAM via four 8GB SODIMM 204 pin modules. With such massive amounts of RAM available and high performance Intel Core i7 processors, the Panther 4.0 becomes a great tool for virtualization and high performance professional computing environments.
Storage
The Panther 4.0 has support for four Solid State, Hybrid, or Enterprise level drives with RAID 0,1,5,10 capability. With support for up to four 1.5 terabyte storage drives, the Panther 4.0 is able to offer 6 terabytes of storage. RAID 0,1,5,10 capability gives users the ultimate in performance or redundancy. SSD drives in particular will benefit from the use of the SATA 6Gbp/s standard available on 2 ports, eliminating bottlenecks for the fastest SSD drives.
Display
The EUROCOM Panther 4.0 has six choices of 17.3" Full HD 16:9, 1920x1080 displays, with choices of Matte, Glossy and 120 Hz matte.
The EUROCOM Panther 4.0 is available as a 3D enabled system or a non 3D system, as always Eurocom puts the choice in the hands of the customer. Supporting 3D technology provides users with an immersive 3D experience in games, movies, and any content with built in depth.
The EUROCOM Panther 4.0 will also support Quad Buffering 3D technology, via supported NVIDIA Quadro cards to further enhance the capability and professional deployment of the Panther 4.0.
Ports
The Panther 4.0 is equipped with a multitude of ports to connect to a variety of specialized equipment. High definition audio and video interfaces are supported to connect the Panther 4.0 to all the peripheral devices you need: S/PDIF is a digital audio interconnect standard based on the professional AES3 standard, it can carry two channels of PCM audio or multi channel surround sound. FireWire 800 is a high bandwidth, low latency isynchronous and asynchronous data delivery interface, ideal for audio, video and graphics transfer. HDMI 1.4a is a high quality audio and video interface ideal for transferring uncompressed audio and video from the computer system to digital devices. Display Port 1.2 is generally used to connect a video source, being the computer to a display device but can also be used to transmit audio. DVI-I is a digital and analog interface designed to transmit uncompressed video. The system allows for fast and easy media transfer though the 9 in 1 card reader.
The slot ExpressCard 54 slot is compatible with 34 mm wide cards as well as 54 and allows for additional connectivity of peripheral devices to the Panther 4.0, including a Magma Express Box expansion chassis containing optional PCIe cards such as video capture, media transcoding, audio processing.
Security
The EUROCOM Panther 4.0 is an enterprise class system for professionals creating, studying and manipulating sensitive data, because of this security is essential. Eurocom equipped the Panther 4.0 with a Trusted Platform Module 1.2 (TPM), finger print reader and Kensington lock port.
Power
The EUROCOM Panther 4.0 has a built in lithium-ion 78.44WH battery pack for added stability during potential power loss or need for transportation during operation. A 330 W, 100-240V AC adapter ensures the Panther has enough power to get the job done.
New Intel Core i7 Processors supported in Panther 4.0 Mobile Workstation:
Intel Core i7-4960X
Cores: 6
Threads: 12
Clock: 3.6 GHz (4 GHz max frequency)
TDP: 130 W
Lithography: 22 nm
Cache: 15 MB
Socket: FCLGA2011
Intel Core i7-4930K
Cores: 6
Threads: 12
Clock: 3.4 GHz (3.9 GHz max frequency)
TDP: 130 W
Cache: 12 MB
Socket: FCLGA2011
Intel Core i7-4820K
Cores: 4
Threads: 8
Clock: 3.7 (3.9 GHz max frequency)
TDP: 130 W
Cache: 10 MB
Socket: FCLGA2011
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Western Digital Names Tim Leyden As Chief Financial Officer
Western Digital Corp. today announced that Tim Leyden has been named chief financial officer, effective Nov. 18, and that Jim Murphy will succeed Leyden as president of the company's WD subsidiary. Both executives are experienced leaders from within the Western Digital organization.
Murphy, 54, has served as executive vice president of the WD subsidiary since 2008, responsible for storage products and worldwide sales, overseeing sales teams in all WD business units and geographies. WD's revenue has grown significantly under his sales leadership since 2005. He joined the company from Read-Rite Corp., where he headed the worldwide sales and supply/demand organizations. Murphy began his career with IBM.
"These new roles for Tim Leyden and Jim Murphy reflect the depth and talent of the leadership team at Western Digital," said Steve Milligan, president and chief executive officer. "We are fortunate to have a veteran executive like Tim lead the Western Digital finance organization at this important time in our history. His leadership experience and proven judgment skills in all aspects of our business will be invaluable as we continue to evolve the organization in the rapidly changing storage industry."
"Similarly, we are pleased to have a successful and experienced leader like Jim Murphy take the helm of the WD subsidiary at a time when it is advancing strategies to address important opportunities in the overall growth of digital content, including storage in thin and light devices and in the Connected Life for consumers and small businesses, as well as continuing to deliver outstanding overall performance."
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