Merged game companies rarely fuse their franchises together, but when the two partnered entities’ action-genre focus overlaps as much as Koei and Tecmo’s do, inter-brand cameos come naturally. That’s why we weren’t shocked to hear that Ninja Gaiden’s Ryu Hayabusa and Warriors Orochi’s Nu Wa would make appearances in the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions, respectively, of Dynasty Warriors Multi Raid. In addition, Multi Raiid’s Sun Shang Xiang and Zhao Yun will appear as costumes in Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2.
At this rate, we expect the many, many ninjas from Koei and Tecmo’s respective properties will soon be thrown into a “ninja pool,” which players of any their titles will be able to choose from. For the record, we’re strong advocates for this ninja unionization. Fairer wages for our shiruken-slinging brethren!
If you’ve been itching to give Wolfenstein a try but aren’t willing to plunk down any cash — a likely possibility at this point — you’ll be happy to know that a Wolfenstein demo is now available on Xbox Live Marketplace in Australia, Canada, France, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Korea, New Zealand, Singapore, Spain, Taiwan, United Kingdom and United States.
If you are somehow unfamiliar with the game allow us to sum up. There are Nazis. They are doing evil, occult-y things. You, the good guy, must stop them. With guns. And magic. If your experience varies significantly from this description, please check the game title. You’re probably playing something else.
Three new games hit Xbox Live Arcade this week. We’ve got a brawler in The Warriors, a twin-stick shooter in Zombie Apocalypse and … something different in Ion Assault (in a good way). Join us for the latest XBLA in Brief, as we take trial versions for a spin and see just what each game is about. Should you decide to take the plunge on any, each game will set you back 800 ($10).
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So, now you have ODST. The second you get home from work / school / gambling, you’re going to pop in that disc and get ready for some Firefight. But what’s this? You have a whole new character to customize and you haven’t done any planning? Getting your color scheme just right could take you hours, possibly even days. And that’s why we’re here to help by pointing you to the new Halo 3: ODST armor generator.
Now you can check out all the custom color and helmet options anywhere, even at work / school / the track. Just like the original Halo 3 armor generator, the ODST generator lets you pick your character, colors and even your helmet preference, and then shows you the results in real time. Go ahead and get your choices settled now. That way you won’t have to waste any time later.
Our suggestion: Go with a classic “Pink and Black Attack.”
It might not have a lot of sex appeal, or even a novel design, but Kingston’s DataTraveler 410 flash drives have been improved where it’s really important. Besides a maximum capacity of 32GB (they’re also available in 4, 8 & 16GB sizes) the DT410 features 20MB/sec read and 20MB/sec write speeds for faster data transfers. It also comes with Kingston’s SecureTraveler1 software which allows you to create a password protected area on the drive called the “Privacy Zone” for storing your indiscretions. $114.99 available from Newegg.com right now.
I don’t think Halloween can quite topple Christmas when it comes to being the holiday with the most themed crap filling store shelves, but it’s a close second. If it’s any consolation though, Halloween crap seems to be far more inspired and creative. Like these haunted, animated books. Stick ‘em on a bookshelf hidden amongst your other real tomes, and whenever someone walks by they’ll come to life, sliding in and out making “eery” haunted sounds. Will they actually fool or scare anyone? No. For $24.99 should you be disappointed if they don’t? Absolutely not.
If for whatever reason you’re still using a laptop that doesn’t have WiFi, or at least wireless N, Trendnet provides an easy and almost invisible upgrade with their new TEW-648UB USB wireless N adapter. It’s compatible with almost all popular flavors of Windows today (no mention of Mac support) and includes support for WiFi Protected Setup making it easier to connect to a password protected network. You’ll want to be aware that speeds max out at 150Mbps since it’s only a single-stream adapter, but since you’ll probably be buying it as an upgrade from a slower, older standard, I’m sure it’s a caveat you can live with. ~$25.
I use Gmail for all of my email conversations. Sure, I have a couple of other email addresses, but I just pipe them to a single one over at Google. I can still respond through Gmail and have it show as being sent from my other addresses, which makes it really convenient. With all of my email going through the one Gmail address, I’ve been waiting for an official Push solution. Sure, there are other 3rd party apps that can get the job done, but not until today have we had something straight from the source.
If you’re an iPhone or iPod Touch owner (running 3.0 software or better) you can now get your Gmail (plus contacts and calendar) pushed to your device. This means no more setting your phone to check for email every so often. The only real catch is that it uses Microsoft Exchange to get this done. Since your iPhone can have only a single Exchange account, you may be out of luck if you’re already using it.
For those wondering, I got this setup last night, and while it was a little slow at first, it’s working like a charm this morning. Emails are showing up only a few seconds after I see them on my desktop.
Backlit keyboards have become rather popular over the years, especially with gamers. Why? Because we tend to sit in the dark and game until the sun comes up. Sure, we know how to type without looking at our keyboards, but sometimes after grabbing a drink, we need to be able to quickly see where a specific key is without first finding home row. Oh, and it just looks awesome. Well fancy keyboards such as these can be rather expensive, so someone crafted a way to make the keys glow on any old keyboard.
Glow in Dark Keyboard Stickers are the perfect solution. Of course by “perfect solution” I mean “worst idea ever.” Take a look at your current keyboard, with careful detail to your home row keys. If you’ve had it for a while, you’ll probably notice that either the letters have started to wear off a bit, or there is at least some visible signs that your fingers spend a good bit of time resting there. Now imagine if you put stickers on those keys. How long do you think they’d last? Oh, and don’t forget the tedious task of putting them all on straight. Even at $9, I’d rather have a plain boring keyboard than one with glow-in-the-dark stickers.
Monster is a well-known name in the audio and home theater market with all sorts of gear from cables to power conditioners and surge protectors. Monster also offers a full line of headphones for different uses. Today monster has announced a new set of headphones called the Turbine Pro In-Ear Speakers.
The headphones promise to be the first in-ear headphones to deliver reference-quality sound needed to meet the demands of music pros today and audiophiles. The headphones retuned to create a personal listening solution with impact, power, and performance.
Monster is also unveiling a new ear tip design along with the Turbine headphones that is called the Super Tip offering superior noise isolation. The Super Tips with the Turbine Pro headphones come in small and large. Monster also includes its traditional ear tips for users who don’t like the new ear tip design. The headphones sell for $299.95 or for $329.99 with the Monster ControlTalk cable.
Ninja Gaiden characters to appear in Dynasty Warriors, vice versa originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 23 Sep 2009 16:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
