Xbox 720 Countdown :

The countdown will end on June 11, 2013, with E3 running from this date until June 13.

COUNTDOWN CLOCK

Microsoft's IllumiRoom Concept Makes Your Living Room Look Amazing :

Microsoft is no rookie when it comes to experimenting with new gaming technology, as they've spent over two years trying to convince us that Kinect is a thing worth owning. Based on a new tech demo video showcased at Samsung's CES keynote, they're working on a new display-based accessory that incorporates the gamer's living room.

I'm no expert on display technology, but it appears that the IllumiRoom accessory makes it so a whole bunch of crazy crap gets shined all over your walls. The video below showcases flames erupting out of the side of the television, city streets and other backgrounds scrolling by on the room's back wall, and assorted particles flying all over the entertainment center's drawers and shelves. 

According to the official Microsoft Research YouTube page, this video is a real time demonstration. A thread on NeoGAF is currently speculating that the tech may be related to this patent. 

No details regarding a potential retail release were discussed, but the Microsoft Research site says that more info is coming in late April at the CHI 2013 conference in Paris.

Steam 'game console' hardware debuted at CES

 

A modular PC designed to let users to play Steam games on their TV has been unveiled at CES.

Some Xi3 small form factor PCs are based around dual core Intel chips
Codenamed "Piston", the prototype, developed by Xi3 Corporation and funded by Valve, was unveiled at the CES trade show in Las Vegas.

The set-top box will allow users to access thousands of gaming titles through an integrated system, a statement said.

Plans for the living room-friendly console emerged early last month.

"Today marks the beginning of a new era for Xi3," said Jason Sullivan, founder and chief executive of Xi3, in a statement.

"This new development stage product will allow users to take full-advantage of their large high-definition TV displays for an amazing computer game experience," he added.

"As a result, this new system could provide access to thousands of gaming titles through an integrated system that exceeds the capabilities of leading game consoles, but can fit in the palm of your hand."

Despite the grapefruit-sized device being on show on both Valve and Xi3's stands at CES no details of its internals have been given. Other Xi3 computers are based around dual core Intel chips and use solid state storage.

Valve, best known for the Half-Life, Left4Dead and the Steam online game store has long been known to be working on a console or set-top box that puts PC-based titles onto a TV. It is not yet clear if Piston is the hardware gaming gadget that will bring that project to fruition.

Razer’s Project Fiona is now the Razer Edge gaming tablet

Razer’s Project Fiona is now the Razer Edge gaming tablet :

Razer were busy teasing this device as Project Fiona a year ago. It re-emerged from the obscurity of Razer’s R&D shroud this week at CES this week with a new name and some new moves. The ungainly handlebar controllers that we saw a year ago are detachable, the base unit can slot into a keyboard to turn it into a more conventional desktop unit, or you can carry it around and use it as you would any touchscreen tablet.

It’s also quite powerful. An Intel Core i7 chip, 8GB of DDR3 RAM, a solid state HDD and an NVIDIA GT 640M LE GPU should push decent framerates to the 10.1″ 1366×768 screen. The downside? You’ll need $1,299.99 to buy one. Razer are giving potential customers a chance to register interest on the Razer Edge site now alongside a video showing off the Edge in its various guises. Watch that and grab the full specs below.

Here are the tech details for the Pro version of the Edge.
Processor: Intel Core i7 Dual core w/ Hyper Threading Base 1.9GHz / Turbo 3.0GHz
Memory: 8GB DDR3 (2x4GB 1600MHz)
Video: Intel HD4000 (DX11), NVIDIA GT 640M LE (2GB DDR3, Optimus Technology)
Display: 10.1” (IPS, 1366×768) 10-point capacitive touch
Operating System: Windows 8
Storage: 128/256GB SSD (SATA-III)#
Network: Intel WLAN (802.11b/g/n + BT4)
Others: Stereo speakers
Codec supports 7.1 (via HDMI)
HD Webcam (front-facing, 2MP)
Array microphones
Dolby Home Theater v4
USB 3.0 x1 (green, SuperSpeed)
Audio jack (3.5mm, 4-pole, stereo out / mic in)

Well, I definitely like it better than Lenovo’s giant table tablet PC.

The vibrating fork that stops you eating too much

• Gadget set to go on sale in April, and comes complete with an 'eating coach' app
• 
  
• Fork vibrates and lights flash if user tries too eat too quickly

 Smart cutlery that can monitor exactly how much you eat is set to go on sale within months.

The HAPIfork uses electronic sensors to monitor how much , and how fast a user is eating.

If they eat too quickly, the fork vibrates, and bright lights flash on its handle.

The Hapilabs fork, which wirelessly transmits details of how quickly you eat to an app. Eat too quickly, and it vibrates and flashes.

The fork also wirelessly connects to a user's phone to send their eating habits to a special app.

The HAPIfork's makers claim that people only naturally feel full after about 20 minutes of eating, and so by diminishing the amount eaten in that period users will eat less and consequently lose weight.

 

 

The project, which is set to be funded via Kickstarter, will sell for $99, also claims to reduce digestive problems and acid reflux

'Most people eat faster than they should and do not realise that eating too fast ins’t a healthy behaviour, negatively affecting things like digestion and weight control,' said HAPIlabs’ US President Andrew Carton.

The fork will track the duration of a meal, the number of fork servings and the duration of each interval between servings.

The smart fork can monitor any food, and warn user's if they are eating too quickly.

'Eating too fast, and not chewing long enough leads to poor digestion and poor weight control,' the firm says.

'Every time you bring food from your plate to your mouth with your fork, this action is called a 'fork serving'.

The HAPIfork also measures how long it took to eat your meal, the amount of 'fork servings' taken per minute and intervals between 'fork servings'.

The HAPIfork also comes with the HAPILABS app plus a coaching program to help you eat better and change your eating behavior, and is expected to go on sale in April.

The fork is set to go on sale in April for £60 ($99)

 

Samsung shows off paper-thin, bendable mobile screen :

 By showing off a phone with a flexible screen, Samsung is hinting at a day when we might fold up our large phone or tablet screens as if they were maps.

The Korean electronics company has provided a glimpse of such a device at a keynote speech at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

What it is

Brian Berkeley, head of Samsung's display lab in San Jose, California, demonstrated a phone that consists of a matchbox-sized hard enclosure, with a paper-thin, flexible colour screen attached to one end. The screen doesn't appear flexible enough to fold in half like a piece of paper, but it could bend into a tube.The company also showed a video of a future concept, with a phone-sized device that opens up like a book, revealing a tablet-sized screen inside.

How it works

The screen uses organic light-emitting diodes, or OLEDs. Only a thin layer of these chemicals is needed to produce a bright, colourful screen. They're used in many Samsung phones already, though with glass screens. For the bendable phone, Samsung laid the chemicals over thin plastic instead of glass. That's a trick you can't pull off with liquid crystals in standard displays.

Why you'd want it

You could pack a bigger screen in your pocket. In a more conventional application, Berkeley demonstrated a phone with a display that's rigid, but bent around the edges of the device, so it can show incoming messages even with a cover over the main screen. In short, OLEDs free designers to make gadgets with curved screens.

Why it might not work

It's tough to use a touch screen if it bends away from your finger. Flexible OLED screens have been demonstrated for years, but the OLED chemicals are extremely sensitive to oxygen, so they need to be completely sealed off from the air. Volume production of flexible displays that remain airtight has so far stumped engineers. Samsung's screens aren't yet flexible enough to fold, just bend.

Availability

Samsung didn't say anything about when flexible displays might be commercialised.

"The concept of the flexible screen has been around for some time, but it finally looks as if Samsung is really going to deliver on that technology," said Steve Bell, a technology consultant and president of KeySo Global.

 

Nvidia Shield: Gaming tablet review

Nvidia Shield: Gaming tablet impresses(Hands-On) 

Whether the device will actually be called Shield when it debuts has yet to be decided, but that's the name Nvidia's going with for now. Shield is shaped and feels like a gaming controller. In fact it could be described as an Xbox 360 controller with a 5-inch screen at the top. Weight-wise it felt a bit heavier than a stock controller, by maybe a pound or so. Overall, it felt nearly as comfortable as my beloved Xbox 360 controller, but I did notice that the screen on one of the models felt kind of loose and wobbled a lot when I moved the device.

 Streaming has its limits

The coolest feature of Shield is most definitely its ability to stream games from your PC to the device. A really cool concept that feels part Wii U, part OnLive, but as exciting as the prospect is, there are limitations.

For one, it only streams over Wi-Fi; unless your buddy also has a powerful PC and doesn't mind you playing games at his house while you two hang out, this will be something you only do in the comfort of your own home. Also, there is latency. If you're a frame counter or someone who plays games professionally, that's going to be a problem. Admittedly, that's a very small percentage of the public, however.

 Also, the quality of your experience will depend on the quality of the Wi-Fi network you're connected to. During my demo, the Wi-Fi network lost connection to Shield and the connection had to be re-established, which took a few minutes. An Nvidia rep, however, did comment that this is one of the reasons the device is not yet on shelves.

The final stipulation/caveat I'll mention is the fact that in order to stream games, the PC you're connected to must house a GeForce GTX 650 or later to function. AMD/ATI owners need not apply.

First thoughts
Despite the caveats I've mentioned, I'm champing at the bit to see the final product. Nvidia plans to release Shield in the second quarter of this year, but the real question is price. While Nvidia wouldn't tell me outright what to expect, it hinted at what not to expect: a heavily subsidized device.

No, expect the price to reflect the advanced hardware housed within, and while streaming from a PC is a cool novelty, as a gaming device, this thing will live or die based on the quality and proliferation of the games natively available for it. Hopefully the several months of lead time before release will be enough for Android developers to get Android gaming into a much more impressive state. 

The New Lego Mindstorms EV3 hands-on:  

 

Lego Mindstorms build-your-own-robot kits have been with us since 1998, back when programming them required a computer with a serial port. The new Linux-based Lego Mindstorms EV3, however, doesn't even need a computer: you can set up basic routines right on the programmable Lego brick itself, and / or remote control a robot from an Android or iOS smartphone. For many buyers willing to spend $349.99, though, the best part will probably be this: the EV3 is an absolute blast to play with, right out of the box. We just got to try the EV3 at CES 2013 today, and each and every one of the included designs is a wonderful, thought-provoking toy even on its own. 

There's a robot snake that slithers along on wheels, and actually snaps out to bite your hand when the infrared sensor sees you there. You can shake a smartphone to make it hiss and strike, or tilt to use the phone's inertial sensors to steer. There's a robotic rover that can track lines on a floor, with a set of four working snap-on interchangeable tools: a gripper claw, a ball launcher, a hammer, and a spinning bladed chopper for some purely plastic BattleBots action. There's a treaded design with strong gear-driven arms just large enough to bring you a beer soda can. And then there's the scorpion with a seek-and-destroy mode, where it hunts down your infrared remote control brick, then flips up its missile launcher of a tail to blast it with little plastic balls. It didn't work quite right in our video, sadly, but the scorpion shot us earlier.

BLAST, GRAB, FOLLOW, CHOP, HAMMER, WALK, STRIKE, SLITHER, ROLL

If you've got an iPad, they're even easier to build, because Lego's got an app with animated step-by-step instructions courtesy of Autodesk. (A company rep tells us that Mindstorms is the first, but future Lego set instructions might also be available there.) The infrared remote control and sensor, color sensor, touch sensor and three motors give the kit room to expand on these designs, too. What if you put a color sensor next to the infrared one on the robot snake, programmed it to ignore that color, and then wore that color of shirt? You could have a snake that snaps at other people... but not its master. We can't wait to see what Mindstorms EV3 will do when builders like Akiyuki —and NASA — get their hands on it.

Do Not Disturb !!

Do Not Disturb iPhone and iPad bug found in iOS 6 :

Those iPhone 5 owners who decided to sleep through the coming of the New Year may have found a library of messages they never heard thanks to a new iOS 6 bug

   

UPDATE:

Apple has announced that the bug affecting the Do Not Disturb app for iPhone 5 and iPad will sort itself out by January 7th. In a statement on its official support blog, Apple said:

"Do Not Disturb scheduling feature will resume normal functionality after January 7, 2013. Before this date, you should manually turn the Do Not Disturb feature on or off."

ORIGINAL STORY:

A bug has been found which stops the Do Not Disturb feature for iPhone 5 and iPad turning off after the 1 January. The feature which comes withiOS 6 allows users to silence everything except their most important contacts.

Engadget reports that the bug is connected to 1 January with users finding that when they woke up the Do Not Disturb feature was still enabled with the only fix being to change the date on the phone or restart the handset.

Apple hasn't yet come forward to comment which suggests that there may not be a fix available at Apple stores yet either. This isn't the first time that the technology company has come unstuck thanks to the date.

In 2011 an iOS clock bug meant that many users found their alarms failing to go off on New Year's Day with the clocks then failing to update to DST automatically.

Rumour: Apple and Intel working together on smart  "iWatch"!!!!

Anyone for an Apple smartwatch? One Chinese site reckons Apple has teamed up with Intel to conceive a wrist accessory with Siri and iOS, which could control an iPhone

The 2013 Apple rumour mill is likely to be focused on the possibility of aflatscreen iTV set, but here's one for you to chew on over the New Year festivities: Reports in China suggest that Apple has teamed up with Intel to build an iWatch.

Chinese site TGBUS claimed to have received word from supply chain sources that Apple is working on a smartwatch that would bring iOS and Siri to the wrist and connect with an iPhone or iPad via low-power Bluetooth 4.0 tech.

The iWatch, according to the site, will be powered by Intel chips as part of the processing giant's move into mobile.

The smartwatch could have a 1.5-inch touchscreen, much like the previous generation iPod nano, and would allow users to control the iPhone through touch or Siri voice commands, while allowing users to keep the device safely in their pockets.

The demand for a wrist accessory to control smartphones was recently evidenced by the phenomenally successful Pebble Smartwatch project (pictured), which raised $10m (£6.2m) from over 70,000 backers on the popular crowd-sourcing site Kickstarter.

Naturally, the report can be taken with a pinch of salt at the moment, but the possibilities are intriguing. Would you be interested in an iOS-powered Apple smartwatch? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below. 

Bye Bye PlayStation 2

Sony stops shipping PlayStation 2 in Japan after 150m sales 

150m and out. Sony has decided it'll no longer ship the legendary PS2 console to retailers int he land of the rising sun. Is this a sign than the PS4 is imminent?

Sony has decided to stop shipping the phenomenally successful PS2 console to retailers in Japan, marking the end of a gaming era.

The console, first launched in 2000, has sold over 150m units worldwide and continued selling well long after its successor the mighty PS3 arrived in 2006.

Despite six years playing second fiddle to the Blu-ray toting, HD-rocking PlayStation 3, developers had continued to produce versions of games for the PS2 due to its enduring popularity and user-base.

It even comfortably outsold the PS3 for much of the next-gen console's early life.

Sony has not revealed when it will stop shipping to other countries around the world, but with the heavily-rumoured PlayStation 4 rumoured to be making an appearance sometime in 2013, you can't imagine it'll be too long before the plug is pulled.

One thing's for sure; the PS2, not only deserves its spot in the console Hall of Fame, it deserves its own wing. 

iPhone 6: Release date, rumours, features and news :

Here you'll find all the latest news on the iPhone 6 release date, the rumours, upcoming features and of course specs on the eagerly anticipated iPhone 6 update

 

 

With the iPhone 5 release date still fresh in our minds it is no surprise that the rumour mill is already looking ahead at the next iPhone from Apple whether it's a refresh in the form of the iPhone 5S or the even bigger update in the form of the iPhone 6.

Apple iPhone 6 screen

With the Retina display likely to appear onthe iPhone 5S it would appear as though Apple may shift to a larger iPhone screen for the 6 with reports suggesting the company will finally try and compete with the screen of smartphones like the upcomingHTC J Butterfly.

Reports are flying around that Apple could be looking to implement a 4.8-inch Retina+ IGZO screen made by Sharp which will make the iPhone display thinner, brighter and much clearer boasting better than HD resolutions.

According to those inside the manufacturing industry Sharp is working on making its super HD display iPhone-ready however because the technology is so advanced it’s unlikely to appear on the iPhone 5S with Apple saving the bleeding-edge tech for the likes of the iPhone 6 and possibly even the iPad Mini 2.

Source: MacRumours

Apple iPhone 6 features

With the iPhone 5 featuring the super-fast and super-efficient A6 processor it’s believed that the iPhone 6 will come with the new A7 chip which would be limited to the next-generation iPad and the 6.

The source that suggested this also believes Apple will be looking to launch the iPhone 5S quicker than usual in order to give them enough of a window for the iPhone 6 to be a significant update on the previous model.

A new feature that could well appear on the 6th generation iPhone is the use of sonar as a replacement to the current infared sensors which use sound as a proximity sensor letting the phone detect where it is, either as a way of alerting the user about an incoming object, or as a way of detecting whether the phone is being held to the users ear.

Apple iPhone 6 release date

The Apple iPhone 6 release date could well be one key reason why there may not be an iPhone 5S at all. Tech website Technorati believes that Apple will be looking to regain the wow factor and to do that it needs to restrict its launches to game changing products.

While they could well launch the iPhone 5S as the ‘budget iPhone’ the iPhone 6 will be the next major version of Apple’s smartphone and the website believes that Cupertino could be looking to release it late 2013 possibly even 2014 in order to compete directly with what would surely be the Samsung Galaxy S5.

Tomb Raider review:

With Tomb Raider (2012) Square Enix is taking Lara Croft back to her roots in what can best be described as a brutal initiation story

Tomb Raider 2012 is a title that pretty much any young adolescant teen can remember, not least for Lara's polygon-filled figure but for its hideously addictive puzzles blended into cinematic set-pieces that saw our heroine travel the globe.

Since those first few years the brand has sky-rocketed into the stratosphre of becoming a household name senonemous with gaming, in fact Lara Croft has regularly topped many a list as the best videogame character of all time.

Square Enix, then, is under a pair bit of pressure, not least because it's taken a whole new direction but also because in some ways, it actually had no choice but to do exactly that.

While the last few Tomb Raider titles have been good, they've never really reached the standards set by the early titles, only better by the likes ofUncharted, which turned up and proved that not only was treasure hunting still 'cool' but that it could also be a hell of a lot more cinematic.

Tomb Raider: Plot

You'll be glad to hear this new direction is not one that blindly stumbles through cliches by reimagining the present, instead Square Enix and Crystal Dynamics have taken the bold move of heading back into the past, this time telling a coming-of-age story with a 21-year old Lara Croft struggling to find her place in the world.

Unfortunately any 'what shall I do with my life?' questions are firmly removed from her vocabulary as she finds herself shipwrecked on an island with little or no training and significantly injured.

From here on Tomb Raider is quite simply a relentless, desparate, primal battle for survival that finds you moulding this timid but headstrong character into the hot pants-wearing treasure hunter that we know today.

Without giving too much of the plot away this is very much a 'in it for the long haul' kinda story, there's no quick fixes and no way of avoiding how to learn to use a knife all the while battling to save your friends and escape from the island.

Tomb Raider: Characters

At present the only two main characters we know of are Conrad Roth and Lara Croft herself. Conrad Roth is the captain of the doomed ship and also happens to be a personal friend of Lara's father, he's very much the mentor of the game and can sometimes be your only link to other allies over a walkie talkie.

Tomb Raider: Gameplay

 

 

There's no denying it, Tomb Raider has bitten the Uncharted bug, this doesn't turn out to be a bad thing but it can seem a little off putting at first.

Luckily in the demo we played it becomes apparant fairly quickly that any such influence is limited to the use of cinematic camera angles and the occassionally staggering set piece which involves assisted involvement from you.

This is where the similarities end however for while Uncharted will often coax you through its levels Tomb Raider does everything in its power to make you feel as uneasy and as naive as the character you're playing.

The HUD is non-existant, aside from prompt icons and the ability to temporarily show your objective the screen real estate has been entirely devoted to the harsh jungle that we found ourselves traversing.

Each level is a bubble, an open world landscape that can be explored, with a base camp as your HQ you can hunt, explore and upgrade using a experience points system that allows you to increase your abilities, from shooting to creating objects from junk.

It's a neat and inventive way of showing her transition from novice to pro and the few upgrades we saw really affect how Lara interacts with the world.

This leads us to the character herself. While we only saw one level, the 20mins of gameplay we did experience hammered it home that this really is a character that will not help you, she's as unsure of the world as you and so as a team you have to try and bring her home.

While we only experienced hunting with a bow and arrow and a small amount of shooting it looks to be a very slick offering adopting the same 'difficult to aim' tactics that many third-person games employ (Max Payne 3 we're looking at you).

Tomb Raider: Verdict

Tomb Raider has fantastic potential, with superb graphics and a storyline that feels emotional and engaging it's now up to Square Enix and Cystal Dynamics to tweak and tinker until the balance between plot, puzzles and action is perfect.

MERRY CHRISTMAS !!! AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR !!!

Clelebrate!!!!

The Gadget Club celebrating 500 pageviews , thank you everybody .

Dark Souls : II Trailer

Dark Souls : II Trailer

From Software's Hidetaka Miyazaki was the director of both Demon's Souls and Dark Souls and his influence is everywhere in those games. He's an exceptionally sharp and unusual character, utterly uncompromising in his vision and fastidious about realising it. He takes an extremely active role in everything from art design to player feedback, from the intricacies of the game's mechanics to the overarching themes of death and hopelessness that permeate every tiny element of it. And he's not directing Dark Souls 2. Instead we've got Tomohiro Shibuya and Yui Tanimura, both of whom are a mystery. Shibuya's MobyGames profile shows games from Resident Evil Outbreak to Monster Hunter, but I don't know how long he's been at From. 

This really concerns me. When we interviewed Miyazaki in 2011, he gave the impression that he wouldn't do another Souls game unless he knew it was breaking new ground once again. Miyazaki is apparently staying on as an advisor, but if he's no longer in charge of Dark Souls, does that mean he can't think of where to take it next? Frankly, if Miyazaki can't take Dark Souls in brave new directions, I'm a bit sceptical that anyone can. A Dark Souls rehash would definitely not be the worst thing in the world, but it also wouldn't be in the spirit of the series.

Accessibility and approachability :

This is the big one. Edge magazine were the first people to see Dark Souls 2 and their issue about it doesn't come out until December 20th, but they've released a few preview paragraphs that are making my stomach tighten a bit:

"An eternal battle rages at the heart of Dark Souls II. On one side stands the stern force of challenge, the very soul of the Souls series. It has inspired thousands of fans to hack their way through two of the most demanding and rewarding games of an era, fans who expect at least the same test on the next go around. On the other side is the bright promise of accessibility. And why not? Why shouldn’t FromSoftware and Namco Bandai open Souls up to a wider audience when it could otherwise be in danger of becoming stuck in a cult cul-de-sac? [...] “I personally am the sort of person who likes to be more direct than subtle,” [Shibuya] tells us. “[Dark Souls II] will be more straightforward and more understandable.” We sympathise if that sort of statement concerns you, but at the same time, we can surely agree that we would all like to see Dark Souls attain as great a presence as The Elder Scrolls."

Straighforward and understandable are two adjectives that do not exactly roll off the tongue when talking about Demon's or Dark Souls. I am absolutely not a fan of treating gaming as a horrible self-congratulatory incestuous hardcore niche rather than a huge and wildly varied entertainment medium, and I'm not about to go all hipsterish about Souls and claim that it can only possibly be any good if it's not popular, but it would break my heart totally to see it sacrifice what it is in order to become something that Namco/From/whoever imagines will appeal to more people. Absolutely no to this. I really, really hope this doesn't happen.

The trailer music :

This is probably amazingly paranoid and nitpicky, but that trailer music just isn't giving me the Souls feeling. I mean, the beginning's fine, but then the voiceover starts and it's an... American guy? Or maybe Australian? Nothing against Americans or Australians, obviously, but Demon's and Dark used more olde-worlde British and European voice work, which really became a part of the games' personalities. I'm just... not sure what this is. The accent has thrown me.

THAT'S NOT WHAT'S REALLY BOTHERING ME, THOUGH! Hear that, starting innocuously about halfway through? That's electric guitar. Nonononono. Power chords over a title screen is not Souls AT ALL. Try bleak nothingness punctuated very occasionally by eerie discomfiting choral noise or screams of pain.

Those power chords. They chill my soul. Nggggg. Still, it's only the trailer. It's only the trailer. *bites nails* .

Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Blacklist Preview

Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Blacklist

Plot

Following the events of Splinter Cell: Conviction, the President of the United States, Patricia Caldwell, officially terminates Third Echelon and orders all their current operations grounded immediately. President Caldwell chooses to replace the corrupt agency with the newly-formed "Fourth Echelon" - an elite team of operatives, drawn from different agencies, that operate in a mobile environment and travel the globe performing individual missions assigned by the President. Sam Fisher is formally appointed acting commander of the agency.

While Fourth Echelon conducts their primary mission of shutting down all Third Echelon activities, a group of twelve rogue terrorists initiate a terror ultimatum called "The Blacklist" - a deadly countdown of escalating terrorist attacks on United States assets.

Fisher and his team must now track and hunt these terrorists down, by any means necessary, and stop the Blacklist countdown before it reaches zero.

Along with President Caldwell, Blacklist sees the return of Anna 'Grim' Grímsdóttir, and will include the addition of new characters named Isaac Briggs and Charlie Cole.

[edit]

Gameplay

Blacklist introduces a new gameplay mechanic called killing in motion, allowing the player to highlight targets and take them out in quick succession, with a new fluidity while on the run. As well, there will be voice integration with Xbox’s Kinect peripheral, which will allow gamers to say things to distract enemies and then attack.

[edit]

Multiplayer

The game's designer Maxime Béland confirmed that the "spy vs. mercs" competitive mode from the prior games of the series would be making a return.^[2]

[edit]

Development

In November 2010, Jade Raymond from Ubisoft Toronto announced that the studio was developing a new Splinter Cell game^[3] During the Microsoft's press conference at E3 2012, Splinter Cell: Blacklist was officially revealed; the talk highlighted new features for the series including Kinect integration.

It was also announced that series veteran Michael Ironside would not reprise his role as the voice of Sam Fisher, with this part filled instead by actor Eric Johnson, who will also be performing motion capture duties. In a "Blacklist" developer diaries Ironside stated that he would not return to voice the character, but instead pass the torch to another actor.

Ubisoft executives said that the change was made to take advantage of new performance capture technology to create a richer experience, with Ironside assisting Johnson in the role. Elias Toufexis, voice actor for Andriy Kobin in Splinter Cell: Conviction, has a major role in the game.^{[citation needed]}

[edit]

Pre-release reception

Based on early screenshots and videos of Blacklist, the game been praised for removing Conviction's monochrome visuals, according to Joystiq.com's Mike Schramm.^[4] The voice acting, however, has not been well received by fans.^[5] Ubisoft responded with a statement saying that Ironside wasn't returning as Fisher because they needed an actor that was "physically capable" of a motion capture performance. Thus, Johnson was hired for the job.^[6]