New Attachment for the Xbox 360 Controller

31 07 2007

Kontrolfreek just came out with a new gaming accessory designed to increase the precision and comfort of your analog sticks on your Xbox 360 controller. The SpeedFreek was initially made with racing games in mind however they claim it improves your experience in all types of games. The accessory is a plastic attachment that fits comfortably over the left analog stick (but obviously is compatible with the right analog stick as well).

controller attachment

While Kontrolfreek says this attachment is successful with all gaming genres and was tested with such titles as Gears Of War, Project Gotham 3, Forza 1, MotoGP, RalliSport 2, Test Drive Unlimited, Rainbow Six Vegas, Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2, Worms, and Oblivion among others, Gizmodo’s opinion is “It’s not great for anything but racing games, because the plastic attachment on the bottom makes pressing down hard on the stick slightly more uncomfortable.”

The price is pretty reasonable with two attachments selling for $9.95 while four can be purchased for $17.50. It may be a decent alternative for someone who enjoys those racing games but doesn’t want to spend the money on the more pricey racing wheels. The white color is pretty boring, but maybe they will come out with some more colorful options in the future.





My Top Three Favorite Recent Halo Videos

31 07 2007

I have already shared my top three favorite Halo videos with you. I still watch all of them regularly; some are simply hilarious, others are just very well done. There have been some amazingly entertaining Halo videos that have come out in the last few months that warranted doing another top three. So here is the list of my top three favorite recent Halo videos.

#3 - Red vs. Blue - Beta Complex

Red vs. Blue is always funny. Always. I miss the beta right now so watching this makes me nostalgic for the good ol’ days of frolicking in the waterfall on Valhalla or playing on the beach on High Ground.

The line you will repeat the most - We get tear gas grenades in Halo 3?! I need to go update my blog!


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My Top 10 Favorite Halo Avatars

30 07 2007

pink spartanI recently discovered who designed my most favorite Halo image ever (the one I had Pavel Dolgov paint on my custom painted Xbox 360 faceplate). I have also used this image as an avatar at several of the sites I belong to. I have adored this adorable picture ever since it was posted with a Bungie article detailing a Humpday Challenge I had the pleasure of participating in. Andrew, better known as agdTinMan to the gaming community, created not just this one but several Bungie Top Story icons over a period of a couple of years.

Andrew explains a little about the process :

I always had fun making them. Every Friday morning I’d ask Frankie what the update was about, and see if he had any preference for the picture, and then just run with it. It was one of the only things that managers didn’t have much input on, since they needed to be done so quickly. As long as Frankie liked them they were good to go :) These often reflected the more playful and joking side of Bungie.net and it’s Weekly What’s Updates.

I love his images. Each of them has a positive feeling that radiates from them. You just can’t help but smile and laugh. These avatars are pure pleasure and happiness. Here are my top 10 favorite avatars (in no particular order) that Andrew has created. Enjoy!

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Why I Won’t be Blogging This Afternoon

29 07 2007




Another LEGO Adventure : Indiana Jones

29 07 2007

I absolutely adore the Lego games. If you ever feel like enjoying some gaming by yourself (or even with your kiddos) and forgoing a night of battling foul mouthed randoms in matchmaking, they are a great option for relaxing gaming. The humor is very tongue-in-cheek and the gameplay is relatively simple with the achievements pushing you to play more competitively if you choose to take that path (which you know I always do!). I spent many hours happily playing the Star Wars version of this game. As a Star Wars fan and someone who grew up in that era, it’s a fun way to relive your favorite movie moments.

indiana jones

When I heard LucasArts and TT Games announcement of LEGO Indiana Jones: The Video Game, I knew right away it would be a must buy for me. I love the relaxed style of games as an offset to the more competitive games. When I tire of the trash talking and cheating that you find in random matchmade games, hitting a just for fun game in a single player campaign is quite refreshing.

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A Sexist Male’s View on Female Gamers

28 07 2007

I received this comment yesterday on one of my articles about female gamers. The subject matter was three mistakes that female gamers make that hurt our overall reputation. His sexist comment wasn’t entirely relevant to the subject at hand but instead a reflection (I use that term loosely) on female gamers in general. I didn’t publish it there as I wanted it to receive special attention. I thought it was worthy of its own article. These are his words, verbatim.

From Whiteguysamurai :

You are a girl, and this is a boy’s club. We built it, we funded it and we made it big.
There is no reason you should feel entitled to join our club.
If your gender had submitted anything more than Sims skins, you may be welcomed more often.
There is no glass ceiling in this industry, there are women big-ups, Rieko Kodama is just one of them, but if you ask her, she’s not even into games her self.
And frankly, just because you can play your boyfriend’s Xbox, does not make you a gamer.
Gamers are people who spend a great deal of time and money on getting games, building PCs for games and spending endless time perfecting their skills.
If you want to really earn that title of gamer, you will have to show more than a passing interest in halo, guitar hero or the latest weak attempt at getting non-gamers interested the Wii.
You will have to accept that you are not welcome here in the world of gaming, on the contrary you are seen as an intruder!
And whatever skill you may have, will never be as sophisticated as a man’s, because he’s had years of practice while you, at one point were not interested in games at all.

As i said, your gender will forever be ostracized from the gaming community at large, partly because of discrimination, but mostly because your gender never contributed anything other than rude looks while the men of your lives played madden instead of doing what you wanted them to do.

Also, pointing out the fact that you are a girl at almost every point in your blog does little to help your cause.

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