Random Gaming
Hacker group LulzSec has reportedly released a file containing Xbox Live user information in combination with logins for other services such as Facebook, Twitter and Paypal. The exact amount of information compromised is not known at this time but the hacking group isn’t picking targets – casual gamers, long time live players and even government official’s information may have been compromised.
The group uploaded a large file containing usernames and passwords for the various services including Xbox Live last night. The file has since been removed but not before LulzSec could claim that the file had been viewed thousands of times.
The leak was first exposed through LulSec’s twitter account. There they wrote about abusing the breached information and messing with compromised Facebook and Social Networking accounts.
“Envelope yourself in the sickening realization that you secretly love f—king someone’s Facebook life beyond repair.” - Quote from LulzSec Twitter Account
We’ve reached out to Xbox Live’s community team for comment regarding the possible breach of Xbox Live Accounts. Should any further information break regarding this possible security risk we will make sure to bring it to you. For now the best advice would be to check your Xbox Live account and make sure that your password still works and that no unauthorized purchases have been made on the Marketplace under your account.
Source: TeamXbox)
E3 2011:Dead Island: Last Chance on the wall gameplay
Over the past year and a half, Electronic Arts has launched a number of initiatives designed at pocketing more money from the games it sells. These programs includeEA Sports’ Online Pass, which erects a pay gate around online modes for those who play the label’s games secondhand, and the digital-download service Origin.
Now, EA Sports has made a move to cut out the middleman altogether. Speaking to Forbes, EA Sports VP of brand marketing Chris Erb said that the publishing label plans to open up its own chain of retail stores. The first EA Sports brick-and-mortar store is expected to open this fall. “As pervasive as digital is, there’s still an offline component to acquiring new customers that remains important,” Erb said. “Our approach is to be creative and innovative with whatever we’re doing offline and ensure that it connects with our digital strategies. For example, we just started construction on our first North American EA SPORTS retail store, which will open this fall in the Charlotte, NC, airport.” “It is the first of what we hope to be at least three new retail stores to open in the next year, and it’s a place people will be able to interact and buy their favorite EA SPORTS games,” he continued. “As we look to expand the overall sports game audience, it’s important for us to create environments for people to get their hands on our products and experience how much interactive sports experiences have evolved over the past few years.” The opening of the first EA Sports store coincides with the launch of some of EA Sports’ biggest brands, including Madden NFL and FIFA Soccer. (Source: Gamespot)
NCAA Football 12: Road to Glory
Nintendo Wii U: Zelda Tech Demo
Epic Games’ websites and forums were recently hacked, the company confirmed in a statement this afternoon. Epic says it expects everything to be restored in “a few days.”
Forum email addresses and encrypted passwords were “likely” obtained. The Unreal Developer Network was not compromised.
Below is a statement from Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney: Our Epic Games web sites and forums were recently hacked. We’re working on getting them back up and running, and expect everything to be restored in a few days.
The hackers likely obtained the email addresses and encrypted passwords of forum users. Plain text passwords weren’t revealed, but short or common passwords could be obtained by brute-force attack. Therefore, we’re resetting all passwords. If you have an account on the Epic Games forums, you can request to receive your new password by email it to the address we have on file for you.
The Unreal Developer Network (UDN) has not been compromised. None of our web sites ask for, or store, credit card information or other sensitive customer data.
We’re sorry for the inconvenience, and appreciate everyone’s patience as we get our servers back under control. (Source: IGN)
The Wii U controller is, in some ways, more of a traditional controller than the Wii Remote. Its button layout is similar to the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 controllers, and Nintendo’s own GameCube controller. The biggest difference from other contemporary controllers, besides the giant touch screen, is that the Wii U controller replaces dual analog sticks with dual circle pads, and analog triggers with regular buttons.
If you want to feel what Nintendo’s Wii U controller is using instead of analog sticks (like the stick found on the Wii Nunchuk), you don’t have to wait for the Wii U to hit stores. Just pick up any old 3DS right now and check out the circle pad on the upper left side. This slider functions on a basic level as an analog input — the further you push it in a direction, the stronger the effect is.
The thing is, analog sticks work much better than circle pads. There’s less friction and they are more sensitive to slight tilting movements that are so essential for tracking and popping tiny heads in the distance. Most people have been using analog sticks since the Nintendo 64, and so far the Wii Remote’s pointer functionality is the only thing that’s been an acceptable replacement for a stick on consoles (PC gamers have the all-powerful mouse).
This lack of analog sticks on the Wii U controller is especially unusual since Nintendo popularized the analog stick themselves, deeming it the only way to control Mario in 3D space. The purpose of the circle pad on the 3DS is, ostensibly, to save space. It’s unclear why the sticks fell out of style on the Wii U controller, since there’s plenty of space for sticks — the thing is massive.
The rear triggers on the Wii U controller are simplified buttons, unlike the sensitive analog triggers you would use to gradually accelerate in any modern driving game on Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3. Again, the 3DS shares similarly lacks analog triggers if you want to check it out. This seems like less of a big deal, but the loss of the standard analog controls altogether may dissuade gamers from playing multiplatform games on the Wii U. It’s hard to imagine the various advantages of the controller outweighing basic loss of functionality that even the GameCube controller had a decade ago.
The Wii U controller is still a prototype, and if Nintendo is truly serious about wooing the biggest third party developers, you can count on those porting existing games like Aliens Colonial Marines to make a fuss about the lack of analog controls. But that might not be enough — so we’ll lay on the pressure too — and you should let us, and Nintendo, know about your concerns in the comments below.
(Source: IGN)
Personally, this E3 was not that great in my opinion. On the top layer, the ingredients are there that would make this year a spectacular event: new home console being unveiled, new portable gaming system, host of games that are eye popping and FREAKING YOUTUBE ON XBOX 360. However, Nintendo Wii U is not a next generation system by any means, not saying that it’s not gonna be fun but it is a sub-current generation system in terms of graphical abilities. It’s basically a current Wii with a new controller, updated RAM, CPU and GPU. It’s essentially the DSi of the home consoles….not impressed by any means.(Sure, it’ll be fun to play with friends, just like the Wii is, but really this isn’t gonna compete with the Playstation 4 or Xbox 720-whatever they call it). Playstation Vita, which is carrier locked to AT&T, was boo’d very loud by the scores of AT&T haters(Can you blame them if you had a iPhone.) Great processing power, great features, and 3G service but I doubt this can topple the Gameboy/DS/3DS train that Nintendo has been on for 20+ years.Which brings me to the games, which again are great but nothing that was brand new really stuck out to me, more video games series that we know and love but nothing that was amazingly fresh or new.
Overall, I’d give this year a 7 out of 10.
Okay, so the U-shaped contraption you see above won’t get a motorsports enthusiast’s blood boiling quite like the Fanatec CSR Elite wheel we tested earlier, but for a lot of gamers the CSR is a bit too much. The Xbox 360 Wireless Speed Wheel, on the other hand, is rather more manageable — and affordable, with a $59.99 price. It’s a simple, lightweight thing, with an over-sized trigger on the back of each grip. These have very low resistance, so they tend to clap against the back when you mash the throttle, but this plus a long throw means it’s easy to be precise on the gas or brake. And that, of course, is what they’re intended to be used for. On the right prong are the four face buttons, on the left a D-pad. Start and Back are in the middle along with the Guide button, but sadly the L and R shoulder buttons didn’t make the start.
That’s a mighty shame, making us wonder what compatibility will be like for racers that use those for up- and down-shifting. Regardless, with Forza Motorsport 4 the wheel works like a charm. There’s an almost imperceptible amount of lag between you turning the thing in air and your reaction being conveyed on screen, but it’s not a problem. The triggers feel great and, while shifting using the D-pad is a little clumsy, it works. Ultimately and predictably the Speed Wheel doesn’t deliver the most hardcore of racing experiences, but it’ll be a lot more couch-friendly than your average wheel and pedal setup when it ships this October.
(Source: Engadget)
The Spanish police said on Friday that they had apprehended three men suspected of computer hacking in connection with recent attacks on Sony’s PlayStation Network as well as corporate and government Web sites around the world.
The National Police identified the three as the local leadership of the shadowy international network of computer hackers known as Anonymous, which has claimed responsibility for a wide variety of attacks. Anonymous is composed of people from various countries organized into cells that share common goals, the police said, with activists operating anonymously in a coordinated fashion. One of the three suspects, a 31-year-old Spaniard, was detained in the southern Spanish city of Almería sometime after May 18, the police said. He had a computer server in his apartment in the northern Spanish port city of Gijón, where the group is believed to have attacked the Web sites of the Sony PlayStation online gaming store. The same computer server was also believed to have been used in coordinated attacks against two Spanish banks, BBVA and Bankia; the Italian energy company Enel; and government sites in Algeria, Chile, Colombia, Egypt, Libya, Iran, Spain and New Zealand, the police said. The two other men, both also Spaniards in their early 30s, were picked up in Barcelona and Valencia. The police statement did not make clear the timing of those detentions, but a police spokeswoman said all had occurred recently. The spokeswoman, who did not want to be identified in accordance with department policy, said all three were subsequently released, without bail, pending formal charges. They were expected to be charged with forming an illegal association to attack public and corporate Web sites, a charge that carries a potential sentence of up to three years in prison. The police opened their investigation last October, after hackers overwhelmed the Spanish Ministry of Culture’s Web site to protest legislation increasing punishments for illegal downloads. It was not immediately clear how much of a role the group may have played in the recent attacks on Sony. About a dozen Sony Web sites and services around the world have been hacked; the biggest breaches forced the company, which is based in Tokyo, to shut down its popular PlayStation Network for a month beginning in April. The Japanese company has acknowledged that hackers compromised the personal data of tens of millions of user accounts. Earlier this month, a separate hacker collective called Lulz Security, or LulzSec, said it had breached a Sony Pictures site and released vital source code. Sony has estimated that the hacker attacks will cost it at least 14 billion yen ($175 million), in damages, including spending on information technology, legal costs, lower sales and free offers to lure back customers. Mami Imada, a Sony spokeswoman in Tokyo, said she had no information on the detentions and declined to comment. The police said that they had analyzed more than two million lines of chat logs since October, as well as Web pages used by the group to identify the leadership in Spain “with the capacity to make decisions and direct attacks.” Members of Anonymous used a computer program called L.O.I.C. to crash Web sites with denial-of-service attacks, the police said. Among recent attacks, the hackers also brought down the site of the Spanish National Electoral Commission last month before regional and municipal elections. It was that attack, on May 18, that led to the detention of the suspect in Almería. The movement against the antipiracy law has been closely linked to the broader youth-led political movements that have occurred in Puerta del Sol, the central square in Madrid, and in other city squares since May 15. These protests have called for a complete overhaul of Spain’s political system and laws aimed at stopping illegal downloading. (Source: NY Times)
Perhaps ironically, perhaps not, Far Cry 3 opens with a psychotic bandit lecturing you on the nature of insanity. Crazy is doing the same thing, expecting different results, goes the oft-quoted saying. And again, for the third time now in this series, you are surrounded by a jungle, up to your ass in trouble. You’re soon up to your neck in it, and beyond, as the bandit kicks a cinderblock, bound to your feet, into a deep pond. The protagonist, this time a guy named Jason Brody, struggles free of his bonds and surfaces in a cavern in a two-stage quicktime event. He then transits into a one-man ambush of the bandits’ camp, a scene of civilian executions and other atrocities. Far Cry 3, due in 2012 for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360, seems to deploy much of what made the first two games critical successes: Richly detailed environments with complex lighting and heart-in-your-throat sound design. The drowning escape sequence, Brody is fighting to free himself, surrounded by dozens of corpses tethered to their blocks, arms bound and raised over their heads in a ghostly pose. In the shootout, Brody was free to use the sniper scope to scan a very broad environment, using it to identify hostiles, assets, and his objective, a helicopter. The thugs went about their business in the desaturated color of the scratched-up scope. I saw all of this in a live gameplay demonstration at E3 2011. What unfolded was reasonably conventional combat that, while plainly the optimal way to negotiate the challenge, was not forced by the game itself or funneled to the key points by the environment. Brody sought out a zipwire to begin his guns-blazing party crashing, but I got the sense he could have run in on foot and handled business that way, if a bit more difficult. Enemy AI appeared very challenging, as the demonstrator was constantly flanked and taking fire, but naturally shrugging it off. Cover was abundant and firing from it blindly was the predominant tactic I saw. A sense of action-movie desperation pervaded the encounter. Introducing the sequence, our demonstrator said only that Brody had found himself on an island, his boat had been destroyed, his girlfriend had been kidnapped, “and everyone here is crazy.” It seemed to be in the South Pacific, as a wrecked World War II-era fighter was part of the landscape during the brief exploration period preceding Brody’s capture. The game is being developed by Ubisoft Montreal, which handled Far Cry 2 and served up the rich visuals one expects of a game series with its roots in CryEngine. I was shown the game on an Xbox 360. In the windup of the opening battle, Brody fights his way to a helicopter, puts a gun to the pilot’s head and orders him to take off. The helicopter is barely airborne when a rocket-propelled grenade slams into its fuselage, bringing it down with an ear-ringing explosion. Brody blacks out and awakens where he started. Surrounded by jungle, up to his ass in trouble, and the bandit lecturing him on the nature of insanity.Far Cry 3 Sanely Delivers the Same Results, with the Same Methods
