Gun accessories for your Wiimote or Move wands are old hat but, we can’t help but be at least a little intrigued by this rifle-like dock for the iPhone. The appBlaster is an accessory from apptoyz designed specifically for use with the company’s Alien Attack iOS game. Slide in your iDevice and fire up the AR shooter and you’ll be treated to a bit of Piper-vision, exposing the invisible aliens in our midst. Pull the triggers and two capacitive pads touch the screen to fire at the invaders that only you can see. The appBlaster is available for pre-order now at RED5 for

For this game (and we imagine many more to come), you use the iPad as the controller — both while navigating through menus and in race mode — while the game appears only on your TV (though the tablet does display some vitals, and a map of the track). There’s noticeable lag between the iPad and Apple TV when using AirPlay, which may be an issue for games where timing is important, such as Rock Band, but didn’t seem to set us back while playing Firemint’s racing game. Overall, AirPlay offered a seamless gaming experience without a single hiccup — surprising, considering iOS 5 just hit beta last week. It’s difficult to do this hands-on justice without a video demo, so jump past the break for an exclusive look at wireless, dual-screen gaming on the iPad and Apple TV.

Continue reading Real Racing 2 HD wireless, dual-screen gaming with iOS 5 on iPad 2 hands-on (video)

Real Racing 2 HD wireless, dual-screen gaming with iOS 5 on iPad 2 hands-on (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 17 Jun 2011 11:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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They’re a growing threat, these simple games with their simple designs, simple controls, and simple graphics. They don’t offer the full, premium experience that the real gamers want. They aren’t hardcore enough. They aren’t serious enough. They’re just too… casual.

In the ’90s these were all complaints used to describe the strengthening console menace. Back then, a younger me squandered his meager income at the local Babbage’s or Electronics Boutique, stores full of PC games in cardboard boxes — console titles relegated to a few little shelves. It wouldn’t take long for those consoles to take over those stores and, along the way, the entire industry. Between just 1998 and 2006 console software sales more than doubled, from $2.5 billion to $6.7 billion, while PC game sales dropped from $1.8 billion to $970 million. Even the FPS, once exclusive domain of the PC, is now a console enterprise, with Call of Duty: Black Ops launching on 4.9 million sales on the Xbox 360 and PS3. The PC version, meanwhile, sold less than 400,000 copies (the NPD lumped them in with sales of the Nintendo DS and Wii versions).

Who cares about ancient history? If you’re a gamer you should, because it’s happening again. This time, though, its console gamers lobbing the same lamentations at Angry Bird players, Words With Friends addicts, and ever-sneaky Fruit Ninjas. As smartphones and tablets get more powerful, the dedicated gaming machine looks more and more quaint. Where once software supported hardware in one big, happy family, it’s all becoming rather more… disjointed. For a gamer like me, that’s a little troubling. If app gaming does for consoles what those consoles did to the PC scene a decade ago, a lot of big game studios are going to be in trouble, and a lot of gamers are going to be pining for the good ‘ol days.

Continue reading Console vs. PC redux: how mobile gaming will reshape the industry (again)

Console vs. PC redux: how mobile gaming will reshape the industry (again) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 15 Jun 2011 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Continued here: 
TechFaith to Showcase New Mobile Phone with Range of Existing …

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TechFaith to Showcase New Mobile Phone with Range of Existing …

T-mobile, WildTangent to bring 25-cent game rentals to Android devices, harken back to arcade days originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 09 Jun 2011 06:43:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Back in our day, overclocking one’s PC was akin to a fine art. It took skill. Precision. Effort. Cajones. These days, it’s just about as simple as blinking. Or winking. Or winking while blinking. MSI’s made the simplification of PC overclocking quite the priority over the past few years, with OC Genie and an updated Wind BIOS from last decade putting all sorts of power into the hands of mere mortals. At Computex this week, the outfit took things one step further with the Afterburner Android app. Purportedly, the GPU tool enables users to monitor the temperature, voltage and fan speed of their graphics card via a WiFi connection, and if you’re feeling froggy, you can overclock and overvolt to your heart’s content. Details beyond that are few and far betwixt, but we’re hearing that it’ll soon work with GPUs from other vendors, and that an iOS variant is en route.

Continue reading MSI’s Afterburner Android app makes GPU overclocking as easy as Facebooking

MSI’s Afterburner Android app makes GPU overclocking as easy as Facebooking originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 06 Jun 2011 06:37:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Updated: Sure enough, this appears to be just a developer unit, one which we expect to be seeing a lot more of at E3 next week.

[Thanks, Sam]

Continue reading Does this Xperia Play have HDMI output? (updated: dev unit)

Does this Xperia Play have HDMI output? (updated: dev unit) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Jun 2011 07:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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To Fix My Xbox 360 Wireless – Recently Knowledgable | Latest New …

Sony considers incorporating Android into more (as yet unnamed) products originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 21 Oct 2010 15:37:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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