Video game developers flock to E3

Playstation TV and dancing game are contenders for tech innovation at E3 fair in Los Angeles

Just Dance Now has the potential to revolutionise online play.

E3 attracts video game developers, publishers and exhibitors from around the world to Los Angeles each summer, all hoping to get to grips with the latest technological marvels. We pick the surprise standouts of the event.

PlayStation TV

Released in Japan last November, this microconsole shares essentially the same innards as the handheld PS Vita – it's even called PS Vita TV in Japan. The machine can play Vita games bought on the proprietary memory card format or stream content from a PS4 using the same system link software as its portable cousin. It can also access the back catalogue of hundreds if not thousands of games on the PlayStation Store. Launching late 2014 at £80, the PS TV is another step towards digital and streaming content for Sony.

Near Field Contact Toys

A boring-sounding umbrella term but these hi-tech figurines which come to life through video games show no signs of losing their vice-like grip on kids' attention. Skylanders remains the champion of the field, now in its fourth iteration with Skylanders Trap Team, but Disney Infinity has proven surprisingly strong, merging characters from across the Disney vaults into one game. Now Nintendo has joined the party with amiibo, colourful and well-sculpted figures that connect with Wii U games and allow training of toy Mario and pals between different titles. The notoriously conservative Nintendo's arrival in the field is an indication this trend isn't going anywhere.

Nintendo, full stop

E3 2014 marked a welcome return to form for Nintendo, seemingly having a renewed confidence in its content. Nintendo introduced new IPs for the Wii U, including puzzle platformer Captain Toad: Treasure Hunterand arena shooter Splatoon, where you battle for dominance as a team of squid/human hybrids. Mario Maker, a creation tool allowing players to make their own Super Mario levels, is also a rare case of Nintendo trusting its fan base with any control of its most important mascot. A new open-world Legend of Zelda was the true star though, offering a remarkable new world ripe for exploring, and promise of a new Star Foxis almost as exciting.

Just Dance Now

Ubisoft's dancing game is an unlikely contender for tech innovation, much less its mobile offshoot. Yet Just Dance Now has the potential to revolutionise online play. Thanks to some patent-pending (read: can't talk about it yet) wizardry, the game allows players to test their moves using only the accelerometer in their smartphone and any browser-based device. The communication between the two has effectively zero latency, allowing for real time scoring and play. Dancing games may not be your thing but if the tech can be applied elsewhere, the ramifications for online gaming could be huge.

Virtual reality

Once thought a gimmick, VR seems set to make huge strides in the near future. Oculus Rift has become the big name in the industry since its $1bn acquisition by Facebook, but Sony's in-house effort, currently dubbed Project Morpheus, is also showing promise. Having tried several games and tech demos over the week – a downhill street luge and being trapped in a shark tank on Morpheus, plus a pants-wettingly terrifying session on Sega's Alien Isolation on Oculus – it's hard not to come away thinking VR could be the biggest change to the games industry since the arrival of 3D worlds. And outside of games, the potential for entertainment, sports, education and business is practically endless.

Source:

www.theguardian.com

Posted by Editorial Team on 4:25 AM in arena shooter, developers flock, machine, microconsole, platformer, PlayStation Store, shares essentially, Skylanders, video game, Wii U games

You can now explore a full 3D copy of Denmark in Minecraft

While building a copy of an entire country in a video game world might seem like a massive waste of time, the undertaking was actually attempted in hopes of making broad statements about public domain information.

Since 2009, players have been using the game of Minecraft to build a virtual world of their own. The game, which started out as a public PC release and eventually evolved into an online title supported by the Xbox One and the Playstation 4, essentially asks players to place blocks and build structures. There is also a bit about fighting nocturnal monsters, and some players just like to run around blowing stuff up, but on the whole, Minecraft is a game of creation.

And creation is precisely what the government of Denmark has done with the game. According to a report from Gizmodo, the Denmark Geodata Agency compiled a vast array of geographical and geological information about its country and put it into Minecraft. In other words, there is now a complete copy of Denmark in the Minecraft world, and the Denmark Geodata Agency has been kind enough to make the entire thing downloadable on its website, though the file size is, naturally, quite hefty. For those who have a spare terabyte of space on their hard drives, however, a virtual vacation in Denmark is now possible!

While building a copy of an entire country in a video game world might seem like a massive waste of time, the undertaking was actually attempted in hopes of making broad statements about public domain information. The Danish government recently established a program designed to give its citizens free access to huge amounts of information. The Denmark Geodata Agency is a part of that program, and the agency’s Minecraft experiment has successfully delivered detailed data maps that accurately reflect Denmark’s geology, its urban designs, and more.

In addition to simply making a statement about free and accessible data, the Minecraft version of Denmark was built in hopes that young people through the country would find it, explore it, and be inspired by it to pursue fields like geography, geology, cartography, architecture, or earning planning. 

Source:

www.statecolumn.com

Posted by Editorial Team on 11:00 AM in Denmark, Denmark Geodata, explore, full 3D copy, geology, Minecraft, Playstation 4, successfully, video game, Xbox One

Navy laser weapon with 'video game-like controller' set to deploy

Pew! Pew! The Navy has a terrifyingly accurate and deadly laser it plans to send to the Persian Gulf for further testing this summer.

Scared of drones? Then you should see the new weapon the US Navy hopes to use to knock them out of the sky. I'm talking about frickin' lasers here, folks.

After years of testing, the Navy says it's making final adjustments on a new prototype of a Laser Weapons System -- dubbed LaWS -- that will be deployed into the real world in late summer.

In tests over the past few years, LaWs has proven itself to be effective at using directed energy bursts to hit airborne targets, lighting them on fire and sending them to a dramatic final meeting with the desert or ocean floor. Next up, the system will be deployed aboard the U.S.S. Ponce for at-sea testing in the Persian Gulf.

In recent months, the Navy has been testing LaWS with existing weapons systems to see if they could successfully hand off tracking and targeting capability to the laser system. The results, according to a Navy release, have been positive:

"The result is a weapon system with a single laser weapon control console, manned by a surface warfare weapons officer aboard USS Ponce who can operate all functions of the laser -- and if commanded, fire the laser weapon."

Source:

www.cnet.com

Posted by Editorial Team on 5:31 AM in controller, deploy, deployed, frickin, Laser Weapons, Navy laser, sky, US Navy, video game, weapon