The latest version of the XFPS 360 - the bestselling keyboard/mouse/Playstation 2 adapter for the Xbox 360, is almost upon us! The enhanced XFPS 3.0 Sniper model features even greater mouse sensitivity, smoothness and precision than ever befores, so you can be sure to get the upper hand against your friends (or foes).
The Sniper model retains all of the favourite XFPS functions -mappable keys, a PS2 adapter (great for Pro Evo), auto-fire and compatability with PS/2 or USB keyboards/mice, as well as wireless models. It also requires the use of a wired 360 controller plugged in at the same time.
They say a picture speaks 1,000 words, so enjoy three thousand more and a video clip of the silky smooth mouse action sniping some villains in Crackdown. It gives you all the precision of an expensive PC setup at a fraction of the cost. This is available to pre-order here. Stock is expected in within 1-2 weeks.
The conventional battery in the Playstation 3 Sixaxis joypads lasts for approximately 20 hours of gametime from a 2-3 hour charge. With the Playstation 3 finally getting some decent games (Call of Duty 4, Eye of Judgment, Pro Evo 2007, Assassin's Creed...), you might find you want to squeeze a little more juice from your controller before you have to wire it back to the console to charge.
The 1200 mAh battery lasts twice as long as the original battery that comes with the PS3 - a massive 40 hours! It's also an ideal replacement if your pad has died and you don't want to fork out a lot of money on a brand new controller, or if you're finding the battery isn't lasting as long as it used to.
But how do you install the battery into a PS3 Sixaxis controller? It's actually a very easy three stage process:
1.Using a crosshead screwdriver, unscrew the 5 deep screws on the back of the PS3 controller: 2. Push the back of the casing forward to remove the back of the pad. This will reveal the battery. Unclip the wire that connects the battery to the controller Remove the battery from the pad: 3. Clip the wire from the 1200 mAh into the clip where it was previously disconnected. Slot the battery into place. Place the back of the pad onto the controller and screw back the 5 screws.
Component to VGA transcoders are very useful devices. Amongst other things, they'll let you play your next get consoles on your PC screen in full HD glory.
Follow this tutorial and you’ll learn how to set your Wii to 480p mode without a HDTV so that it will work with a VGA converter on your monitor. This guide only needs to be done once:
2. Plug the green plug from the component cable into the yellow phono input of a regular non-HDTV. This will give you a black and white screen from your Wii.
3. Navigate to the Wii Setup Menu.
4. Select ‘Screen Resolution’
5. Select 480p.
6. Insert the green plug, along with the other component cable plugs into the VGA Box
7. Switch off the Wii.
8. Power the AC adapter on at the mains and connect your VGA cable to the VGA box and the PC monitor.
Many gamers find that they prefer to use their PC monitors for their gaming, whether because their VGA monitor offer a bigger or better quality screen or simply for the sake of convenience. While there have been VGA solutions for the Xbox 360, Wii, PS2 and PS3 for some time, until now there’s been no way to play your PSP on a VGA PC screen.
Using the XCM 1080p VGA box along with a PSP Lite(oops, sorry Nintendo) PSP Slim Component cable, not only can you play your PSP games on your monitor, you can do it in high definition. This feature only works on the new PSP Slim model as it allows video output.
The XCM VGA box is designed to convert a HD component signal from a next gen console (PS3, 360 or Wii) into a VGA signal that can be played on a standard monitor, maintaing the high definition format and suffering no picture quality degradation. It also has a passthrough so you can connect your PC to it at the same time and just flick between your console/PC with the switch (if you’re feeling extra techy you can wire up more than one console with a component switch box as well, but there’ll be time for that in another post…)
The great news is that the XCM VGA box works with the PSP Slim using a standard PSP Component cable. The display is a little bordered to reflect the smaller screen used on the PSP but retains the high resolution and vibrant colours that would appear on the PSP itself, there's no picture degradation. It’s a simple eight step process to get your PSP Slim running on your PC screen. Here are the instructions:
In the PSP menu, select ‘Switch video output’ and set the ‘Display video output on a connected device’.
If there is no picture on your monitor, switch ‘input format on/off on the VGA Box.
Some monitors don’t support 480i resolution, so you may need to set your PSP to output 480p.
Enjoy the games!
To use your PSP Lite on a normal HDTV screen that natively accepts a component input, you just need to plug your PSP Component Cable into your TV and follow this condensed tutorial:
Connect the PSP Slim Component Cable from your PSP into your TV.
Turn on PSP Slim.
In the PSP menu, select ‘Switch video output’ and set the ‘Display video output on a connected device’.
For the best quality picture, set your PSP to output 480p.
Last night we went to see Ratatouille at the Cineworld Birmingham, which has finally hit UK screens (great film but take plenty of popcorn, it’ll make you feel hungry). In addition to the usual TV style product adverts, adverts about advertising and forthcoming film adverts, there was also an interactive videogame-like advert, sponsored by car manufacturer Volvo.
Effectively, the idea was to turn the cinema audience into a giant joystick that would guide your car to victory by leaning left and right in unison, avoiding obstacles and collecting power-ups along the way. So, as a pre-recorded James Dreyfus (of British TV’s overlooked Thin Blue Line and overated Gimme, Gimme, Gimme) instructed us to put our hands in the air (like we did care mind – we were playing online against 15 other Cineworld cinemas, this was serious stuff), the expensive looking camera sitting at the front of the screen calibrated our extreme left and right as we leant to each side.
Now the Volvo marketing people have called the whole experience an ‘interactive test drive’. Ignoring the fact that the controls bore more resemblance to riding a bobsleigh than driving a car and that the game’s graphics made the original Playstation Gran Turismo look like a shiny futuristic dream, the technology just didn’t work. From the word go our car veered hard right and hugged that lane for the ensuing painful three minutes. No matter how much effort the audience put in to try and shift our car, it wouldn’t budge from its predetermined path. Even the over excited 15 year old kid a couple of rows ahead of us, who seemed to think he was in 2-0 down in the final of the Electronic Sports World Cup failed to have any effect on our car at all.
Ok, so maybe we hadn’t calibrated properly (the sound was set way too low and a lot of the audience probably didn’t hear what we were meant to be doing and only picked up on it after following somebody else’s lead) or maybe someone walked in front of the camera just as were meant to be leaning right. Then the results came through from the other cinemas and we came in third of fifteen despite having zero control over our car (apparently Nottingham must have had more technical faults than us, they registered a score of zero). If we came third and we couldn’t move properly, clearly something was going wrong up and down the country.
It was disappointing that people who wouldn’t normally play videogames, but would go to the cinema had to experience a game that was so lacklustre. Once they’ve ironed out the technology, I’d be all in favour of this type of game replacing the usual TV style product adverts at the start of a cinema showing. As it happens, this was played in addition to all the usual advertising, pushing the adverts up to 30 minutes before the film even rolled.
You can view footage of a similar game playing in America below, just before the Spider-man 3 showings. Replace the enthusiasitic, motivated audience with a frustrated and reserved group and you're closer to our experience. Our advice? Stick to the Wii:
