Games and Gear
The 6 worst video game samples in rap music 
Hip-hoppers are a shameless bunch who will literally rap over anything. The Fugees' Ready or Not borrowed Enya humming, Kanye's Diamonds from Sierra Leone sampled Shirley Bassey, and Cypress Hill's Insane in the Brain is actually built around a braying horse noise from a Mel & Tim track.
Some artists, however, take things too far, sampling audio from their favourite video games in the hope they'll supplement their meagre fanbase with a glut of music-obsessed gamers. Occasionally this practice leads to things you could actually class as music, but more often than not, the resultant songs make you want to do a Van Gogh and chop your ears off. Here are six of the very worst. Continue reading...
Top ten gaming blogs
Some parts of the print media have suffered more than others from the advent of the Web, but games magazines would come near the top of any death list. Monthly titles have seen their news coverage poleaxed by hundreds of blogs and sites that are able to run with the tiniest scraps of news and screenshots as soon as they emerge.
But the best gaming blogs also offer sparky analysis and pointed reviews, while some simply serve up epic belly laughs. Here are the ten best we've found... Continue reading...
Interview: Zero Punctuation's Ben 'Yahtzee' Croshaw reveals all
"Ninja Gaiden 2 is part of a dying breed, so I'm inclined to be nice towards it as I would towards anyone else with a terminal illness." -- Ben Croshaw, creator of Zero Punctuation.
Zero Punctuation is the greatest online video show about video games that didn't come out of GameSpot. Anyone who disagrees is almost certainly ill, so feel sorry for them. For five minutes each week, Ben 'Yahtzee' Croshaw unleashes some of the most quickly executed verbal abhorrence towards the most odious of new games, all illustrated with brilliantly crude on-screen animation. We asked him some pertinent questions... Continue reading...
Sky Player on Xbox 360 launch suffers technical problems
We've been waiting a while, and now Sky Player for the Xbox 360 has finally launched after technical difficulties forced Sky to pull the service yesterday. It's not clear exactly what the problems were, and Sky weren't being specific, just saying they were unexpected. As of today, however, the service is back up and running.
Sky Player offers both subscribers and non-subscribers the option to watch Sky content in a variety of places. Initially launched as a competitor to the BBC's iPlayer, the service has everything from news to sport and movies. It's one of the best commercial services we've seen, easily beating the offerings from Channel 4 and ITV in both quality and programme selection. Continue reading...
Using the new iMac as a games console display: Not that easy
Apple's 27-inch iMac is a thing of highly reflective, hedonistic beauty. With up to 2.8GHz of quad-core Intel i7 power, 16GB of DDR3 RAM, 2TB of hard disk space and powerful ATI Radeon HD 4850 graphics, this £1,600 beast is probably the most powerful all-in-one on the planet.
But it has a much-discussed additional feature over its smaller, less powerful 21-inch brother: Mini DisplayPort input. Theoretically, this allows you to hook up anything that either outputs video via Mini DisplayPort (such as a MacBook), or via HDMI when used with an adaptor. Continue reading...
Nintendo's limited-edition black Wii launching in UK in November
It's quiet around here today, so here's something bitesize. Nintendo is launching a limited-edition black version of the Wii games console in the UK, complete with black controllers.
Yes, a black console! That's news. Who said it wasn't? It'll launch here on 6 November and come bundled with Wii Sports Resort and the original Wii Sports. Continue reading...
Forza 3 hands-on: Only better if it came with a free Audi R8 
We'll be perfectly honest about this. Forza 2 is our favourite racing game of all time. Well, it was, before a review copy of Forza 3 landed on our desk late yesterday. There was a brief scuffle, a few Cravers got a little bit punched in the face, but eventually a winner emerged to take the game home and give the Xbox 360 a workout. The result: a beaming smile and an urge to complete the day's work so he can get back and play some more... Continue reading...
Twitter, Facebook and Last.fm apps ready for Xbox 360
Microsoft is nearly ready to launch its delayed social-networking apps for the Xbox 360, and gave our sister site Crave US a sneak peek. Twitter, Facebook and Last.fm are all in the bag, but as Josh Lowensohn points out, the first two are very passive experiences without a proper keyboard, or a Web browser to click on links people have posted. Facebook's photo viewer looks useful though, and the app offers an easy way to find real-life friends on Xbox Live. Continue reading...
Spore to evolve into major motion picture
The pseudo-Darwinian life simulator Spore has been pegged by publisher EA to evolve from video game to full-blown cinematic feature film.
Twentieth Century Fox is behind the CGI movie, and Variety reports that Ice Age director Chris Wedge is splicing its genes. What's unclear is exactly how the schizophrenic sandbox game might translate to 90 minutes of family-friendly linear story-telling. Continue reading...
Help us find the most reliable games console and win £200 of gadgets!
Xboxes go wrong, while Wiis and PlayStations are virtually indestructible -- that's the myth. We're hoping to find out whether there's any truth to it -- and we need your help.
We're running a short survey on the site to try to find out what the most reliable games console is, and to see how many of you have experienced the dreaded red ring of death.
So if you have a PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 or Nintendo Wii, please fill out our games console survey and tell us if it's ever gone wrong. We've kept the questions to the bare minimum, so it will only take a few minutes. We'll share the results with the world here in a few weeks, so be sure to check back soon. Continue reading...
