Posted by: Jane Douglas

Loath as I am to push Nik's stellar GTA IV blogging down the page, it is time for a look at April's mailbag - where by 'mailbag' we mean the accumulated messages, comments and forum posts to and on Tech & Gadgets.

Yes, we do read the above - and though below I've just picked out a select few bits of feedback, there's plenty of great stuff to choose from.

Whether it's constructive or funny, positive or negative, we'll cast our editors' gazes over the lot. Keep it coming.

No mere coincidence?

Over on the gaming message board, commenter blabergeist had this to add on the subject of gaming lookalikes: "Has no-one else spotted Commander (John) Shepard from Mass Effect are Jack Shephard from Lost? Unbelievable similarity and not just the names!"

[I might have spotted it sooner, blabergeist, but I played through Mass Effect as Jane Shepard - and she didn't look anything like Matthew Fox...]

Best. Game. Ever?

This from 28GetReal, also on the message board, in response to Iain Lee's column declaring Elite the greatest game of all time: "I agree with the Elite verdict 100% - I played it compulsively (and daily) for more than a year when I was 8/9, forgot all about it for 20 years and then recently helped clear out my childhood home when my parents moved.

"I booted up the trusty Amstrad 1512 (with a floppy disc that was actually floppy), discovered that my Elite status was still in place and happily spent the remainder of my day attacking stuff and relearning how to dock without the ubiquitous computer.

"Didn't help much with the move (and was told as much) but how many games have that kind of lifespan and playability?"

British Broadband

On the topic of British broadband speeds, and relevant to this month's article on the threat of an 'internet overload', Osiris AM commented: "At present if we say that we are prepared to pay for a better service, the telecoms industry will try to make do with what they have to increase profits.

"The only way to get ultra-fast connections is a partnership between the government and the telecoms industry to put the appropriate cabling in the ground."

Space Junk pictures

Nik's gallery of Space Junk garnered some heartening positive feedback, and also this from Ian: "I have spent the last few days looking through my £8000 telescope to try and find those free range satellites you have reported... With that in mind, I think your pictures are on a time lapse exposure and you may have over-embellished 'just a tad'.

"We mere mortals are not all idiots, so come on, do the honourable thing and tell the truth."

The truth is, Ian, that we didn't produce the images ourselves - they were released by the European Space Agency. They are not 'real' photographs but computer-generated representations; it does say as much in Nik's text. Hopefully this clears things up?

Posted by Nik Taylor

12.00pm

The missions are starting to get really good now. I've just been chasing down some lowlife across rooftops, leaping across buildings to keep up with him. Then I had to hijack a van full of TVs and fly off a massive ramp just to stay clear of the police.

But that's about it for me today, unfortunately. I'll definitely be back on GTA pretty sharpish. As expected, this is a game that is going to finally oust COD4 from my disc tray.

Some of my favourite little bits from the game:

• Improved handling of the cars. Pulling a 180 turn is a joy.
• Ducking for cover behind a wall and then popping out with guns blazing.
• Super slo-mo cam when you make a massive jump.
• Driving aimlessly just to watch the sunset over the skyline.
• The comments from the Russian woman who runs the clothes shop.
• Being able to get around the city so quickly in taxis.
• The brilliant usage of the mobile phone feature.
• Cars that pack up when damaged instead of just blowing up.
• Choices within missions that change the path of the game.
• That moment when you realise you're starting to know your way around like a local.

I hope you've enjoyed my ramblings on the opening stages of GTA IV and that it's whet your appetite for getting stuck into the game. Do let us know all about how you get on and what secrets you find on the GTA IV message board thread.

10.50am

I've taken to being chauffeured around the city now. Trains are in the game again and by hopping on one you a great view of your surroundings. Taxis are my favourite though. Pretty quickly you get in with your cousin who will send a cab over whenever you need one. You choose where you want to be driven to, and then decide whether to appear there instantly or watch the world go by as you're driven there. It's a neat way to save time, but if you're not in a hurry it's also good fun to watch the city unfold while listening to the comedy banter coming from the cabby.

9.59am

I've been having a quick blast around the multiplayer maps, and - as you would expect - this part of the game is going to be huge. Just opening up a simple Deathmatch is awesome. You're pitched into the middle of Liberty City with up to 15 other players and from there it all goes off. All the NPC characters are still wandering about and the traffic is still flowing, so you can jack a car and go burning down the road to take on one of your competitors. Just as you're catching up with one, someone else will pop out of nowhere, take out your tyres and you're a sitting duck. It's top stuff, and there are plenty of game modes to choose from, so you can team up, take the top motors out for a race, and so on. You're not going to be running out of missions in single player any time soon, but multiplayer is a great extra.

9.07am

Ah, you can't beat a bit of GTA over breakfast. I'm loving the gun-fighting in this version. They've built in a proper covering technique which feels a bit Rainbow Six-ey. You can hug the wall and peek out whenever you want to take a shot, which makes shooting far more tactical and satisfying. Previous games often left you with little option that to run blindly into a hail of bullets. Here  you can really think through your strategy.

Posted by: Nik Taylor

More on GTA IV from Tech & Gadgets

1.59am

Time to call it a night, I reckon. I'll be back online tomorrow morning for another blast around Liberty City. Hopefully there will be plenty of you who will have received your copies and developed a tactical cold in order to get the day off. Get in touch in the comments section or on this thread on the messageboard thread and let us know how you're getting on.

1.39am

The airport is a great place to go for some car chases. The gates are wide open - so it's possible to drive straight onto the runway. Doing that instantly gets you a four-star rating, so the cavalry aren't far behind. Once the rozzers turned up, I started weaving in and out of a taxiing jumbo jet. As they followed me they were mistiming it and getting crushed under its wheels. Great stuff.

Have settled on driving the Patriot (4x4) while on the first island. The steering is a bit twitchy but they can take a lot of punishment and are practically impossible to flip over.

1.01am

I really need to find a better car. I have a terrible problem with wanting to drive everywhere at top speed, even in a clapped out old Buccaneer. The trouble with that is that the slightest tap of the handbrake sends you into a huge spin. Driving more sensibly is the key, but where's the fun in that?

Have opened up quite a few more characters who are offering missions now. My favourite so far is Little Jacob - a slightly unhinged Jamaican drug dealer. Nico's a great character as well though - possibly the best central character from the GTA series as he really has a story to tell.

Hope those of you who've been midnight shopping have got what you wanted... :-)

12.04am

Well, I made it up to six-star wanted level - and it was a bit easier than I expected to be honest. I got hold of an assault rifle and used it to take down hordes of police in a stand-off. The new targeting system is very slick in these situations. That got me up to four star - then the SWAT teams got involved. Finishing off a few of those quickly got me up to the top level.

Escaping was also surprisingly easy. Maybe it's because I'm still early in the game, but I was able to stay comfortably ahead of the cop cars even in an average people carrier. There were no stingers on the roads, no road blocks and no FBI that I saw. I suspect it's a learning curve thing and the chases will get tougher later in the game.

11.46pm

Nico can't handle his drink. Have just been to a bar and, when you leave, his legs go to jelly. Very amusing (though not for the girl Nico was trying to impress). Try to get in a car and your vision goes haywire - which makes it very difficult to evade the cops if you happen to knock into one on the way back.

11.07pm

There's one thing that really transforms this game beyond the levels of San Andreas - and it's so simple. It's the fact that you never lose your weaponry when you've been killed (so no need to go find a nurse girlfriend).

It totally opens up the game as you can go belting around the city without worrying about whether you're going to get taken out. They've also added an autosave after every completed mission, so the frustrations of going back several levels after copping it have been removed.

Getting taken out has become REALLY cool as well. As the final bullet finds you, the whole scene goes into black and white and slow-motion. Even the voices are slowed down - very cinematic.

I'm getting in with the local gangsters now - looks like Nico is about to become a serious player...

10.03pm

There is so much to see in this game that I've spent the last two hours just driving around exploring and watching the city unfold around me.

Driving is a blast - there's a ring road that goes around the area where you get started. I've been finding fast cars and hammering it round that. Get a clear run and you can get up to speeds that almost feel as if you're playing Burnout. There's a roundabout near the Schottler area which has an enormous ramp before it - I've been quite happy for some time just getting massive air of off that and causing chaos. Crashes are great fun too, with the car flying about all over the place when you (literally) hit traffic. This gets some great chat from Nico: "I'm glad this is not my car..."

Winding up the police is as entertaining as ever - and tricky to deal with. Even at two star level, there are suddenly five or six squad cars on the scene, which you have to outrun rapidly. I'm going to need some serious weaponry to get anywhere near six star level, but will give it a shot before the end of the session.

It's about time I got stuck into the missions seriously so I can open up some more areas. Keep posting and let me know if there's anything you want to know more about.

Posted by: Nik Taylor

Here we go then folks, the wait is almost over. GTA IV goes on sale at midnight tonight, with many shops opening up in the wee small hours to provide wide-eyed gamers with their pre-order copies.

And although I should really be doing some work, I have no intention of being left out. So I've swiped Jane's pre-release copy of Rockstar's latest epic and will be embarking on a marathon session in a few minutes. After that I'm going to be playing through until 12pm tomorrow lunchtime (aside from a few hours kip once the caffeine supplies run low.)

Throughout the next 18 hours I'll be blogging my progress with the game - but most importantly I want to hear from you. What are you looking forward to in the game? What do you hope they've improved upon since San Andreas? Are you taking a sickie to get in a full day's gaming on the day of release? And, if you're also playing the game in its first few hours of release, what are you making of it? Post your messages on the blog or add your posts to the thread on our message board.

Right, I'm off to Liberty City. Back in a couple of hours with some first impressions.

7.06pm
Well, I'm a couple of hours in and I still feel like a newcomer. As ever the beauty of GTA is in the exploring. Grabbing a car and hammering round the streets is excellent fun. The car mechanics feel more fluid than before - the first time I threw a handbrake turn made me laugh out loud.

Some other things that have made me grin inanely...

• Crash your car too hard and you go flying through the windscreen.
• Smash up an old banger too much and its engine cuts out rather than blowing up.
• Having sat-nav built in to the map system.
• Being able to call 911 and send the police out on prank calls.

It's a lot of fun so far and I'm really still in the intro tutorial section. A long way to go... :)

One other thing for now, for those of you who've said you're already playing the game. Is it just me or does Nico sound more than a little like Borat...?

Posted by: Jane Douglas

Things don't get much better than hooking a Nintendo Wii and a Wii Fit up to an enormous flatscreen television in an empty meeting room, then inviting the entire office to come and have a go on Nintendo's new fitness-training game.

Following the Life & Style channel's week-long diary of a Wii Fit beginner, MSN collectively had a bash on the sensor mat, showing off our yoga techniques. Evidently, some of us have better natural balance than others.

I was pleasantly surprised by the accuracy and sensitivity of the combined Wii sensor bar and Wii Fit mat, and I definitely will mull over the prospect of adopting this game as a fitness regime rather than getting down to finally joining a new gym.

Actually, when I say things don't get much better than an office- wide Wii Fit trial, I mean to say that it could possibly be topped by a trip to the Rockstar London pad and getting a three hour demonstration (and hands-on) with Grand Theft Auto IV.

Which is what I did yesterday. These are exciting times, people. You can catch Tech & Gadgets' first impressions on GTA IV over here: A first look at GTA IV.

Other highlights, as is custom:

I hardly need to refer to the rest of the web when looking to Tech & Gadgets' great content this week, but I will nonetheless...

Popular Mechanics gives us 10 genius inventions we're still waiting for. Are we really ready to convert from comfy hot water showers to sci-fi sonic ones?

More importantly, is the world ready for TETRIS: THE MOVIE?

The geektastic Wikipedia Vision (Beta) lets you see who is editing Wikipedia, what they're editing, and where they are - live, and on a world map.

Posted by: Jane Douglas

Nothing gets me through a long train journey like an immersive handheld console game and a set of headphones.

The game currently nestled inside my DS Lite is The World Ends With You, Square Enix's newest portable action RPG.

Dramatic though it is, the title doesn't give much away. This is possibly because no title could give much away. Unless you called it, I don't know, 'Urban Tokyo role-playing rhythm-based fashion-themed action game wherein sulky amnesiac protagonist is threatened with deletion should he fail to complete random tasks set by shadowy supernatural strangers.'

Which is the gist of it.

Oh, and it's played across two screens.

I don't mean there's a map on one screen and your character on another, or a helpful inventory of all your stuff on the upper screen while you run around on the lower.

I mean that you are controlling two Japanese kids at the same time, one top screen and one bottom, with your left hand/d-pad and right hand/stylus respectively.

I originally had my suspicions that The World Ends With You was designed for a putative next generation of super-powered mutant gamers. Their enormous brains, I presumed, would have evolved  to the point where each eye can independently focus on a different screen and each hand undertake completely different tasks with freakish dexterity.

Because - to me at least- gameplay at first seemed like 'rub your belly and pat your head' taken to a brain-melting new level.

And then I realised that it's more like a game of air hockey, with a glowing green power-up as the puck: you pass said puck back and forth between screens and the character to concentrate on is the one who needs to whack it back.

That'll teach me to pay more attention to in-game tutorials.

Posted by Jane Douglas

...and also for a Friday round-up! First up, the pick of this week's T&G features:

Next, in time-honoured T&G tradition, our favourite finds from the web:

Both tech and art in one: Boy of Blue Industries' unnerving but beautiful cameras. The first, named Untouchable, pumps HIV positive blood through its pinhole to form a red filter. It's not just shock value, either; the camera was designed for a photographic project, a geographic comparison of people suffering from HIV.

In case you didn't go and watch it on Wednesday, Yahtzee's Zero Punctuation review of Condemned 2: Bloodshot was top notch.

It occurs to me that I've never included one of favourite sites on here: icanhascheezburger.com, the one stop for all your lolcats needs. If you like funny captioned pictures of cute animals - and how could you not - it'll be well worth your time.

And finally, no matter how tangled the cables behind your PC get, they're never going to look as bad as this: Disturbed Wiring for the world's worst electrical set-ups.

Posted by: Jane Douglas

T&G is hungry for your feedback. We feed on your feedback. We'd particularly like more on our first gaming podcast. Get in on the ground floor and tell us what you want to hear over on the message board.

As for the last month's feedback, here's a few of the best blog comments - this month we'll be scouring the message boards as well.

Byron Review

Patrick Goss, our gaming columnist, reflected on March’s Byron Review, highlighting parental responsibility when it comes to which video games children play. Tech & Gadgets reader Will responded: “Patrick Goss, Guardian of Sane Thought: ‘Adult games should not be played by kids.’

“There is no need for a new rating system. Games have clearly stated for years their intended audience, and even without the ratings it’s easy as anything to rent a game first to see if it is suitable for your child. That’s what’s missing. Parents taking an interest in what their children are doing. If parents are not strong enough to say ‘no, that game is unsuitable for you. When you’re older you can play it,’ then that says it all. Parents are at fault, not the industry.”

Technological Convergence

Following Tech & Gadgets’ article on the downside of increasingly multipurpose gadgets, reader Dave Horton wrote: “Just had to write and express how right you are, I really couldn’t have said it better myself. Camera on phone – sometimes useful, but a replacement for a camera? No!

“My biggest nightmare is the all-in-one scanner, printer and photocopier. One of them is bound to go wrong and I am the 24-hour tech support for friends and family (who, incidentally, didn’t seek my advice pre-purchase) who has to fix it or, more often than not with this machine, give them the bad news. Anyway, I am just moaning now really. Like I say, spot on article.”

Iain Lee’s ‘console wars’ column

Feedback was decidedly mixed for Iain Lee’s first column for Tech & Gadgets, in which he detailed his preference for the Xbox 360 over the Sony Playstation3.

“I understand this is a puff piece, and everyone is certainly entitled to their own opinion,” writes Jason, “but fact of the matter is the channels are all wrong. Maybe if you had a comedy column this piece would have worked to better effect.

"However, to anyone in the know statements like, ‘Firstly, the 360 came out and is as close to perfect as you can get. Don’t get me wrong, I may be in the employ of Microsoft to write this column, but there is no way I’m taking dirty money,’ is a mild slap in the face because of the obviousness of his total disregard for certain facts, such as the 360 having the highest failure rates in console history… Although I guess this sort of thing is to be expected – a good thing many of us were taught at an early age to check our sources.”

Posted by: Jane Douglas

As the weekend draws tantalisingly closer, Tech & Gadgets presents the pick of this week's litter of homegrown content - plus all the web-based wonders that have caught our eye of late.

Best of the rest (of the web)

Virtual Me (above) is something I'm going to make time to try out this weekend. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I really like customisable avatars. My first forty minutes of playtime with Mass Effect consisted of fiddling around in the character creation screen.

The history of data storage, in pictures: educational and fun. The 1024 bit Selectron tube looks like either a torture implement or a time-saving tattooing device. Possibly both.

With luck I won't be needing one in the near future, but I'd definitely be up for these barcode gravestones. Scanning the monument's barcode with your cameraphone reveal pictures and details about the dead. Perfect for flowery epitaphs too long for your standard headstone.

Photoshop Disasters presents the worst (and funniest) photo manipulation mistakes found in advertising imagery and celebrity shots. Spot the celeb with an extra arm - the Photoshop equivalent of a serious typo.

Posted by: Jane Douglas

This week Tech & Gadgets has been snap happy with a couple of new digital cameras from Fujifilm. We even drafted in MSN's Photo Editor Antony Bennison (pictured) for some expert opinion.

The experience has proved particularly instructive for me, since my formerly trusty compact camera gave up the ghost last weekend. Its LCD screen now displays a spooky, spiky, purple-tinged alternate reality that only vaguely resembles the intended subject of the photo - which makes for an interesting special effect but also, and more importantly, gives me an excuse to upgrade to a newer, flashier model.

The two Fujifilm models we've been putting through their paces come from both ends of the amateur photography spectrum: firstly, the FinePix J10, from Fujifilm's brand new 'J' range of affordable point-and-shoot cameras. Secondly, and at the other end the price scale, the FinePix S100FS, announced as "Fujifilm's most advanced consumer digital camera to date."

The J10 (pictured above right) is a neat, simple digital compact camera - with special emphasis on 'compact'. This slim gadget is less than 2 cm thick and pleasingly lightweight.

Fujifilm claims that the J10 is "as easy to use as your TV remote". That's no great accomplishment these days, given the fiendish complexity of the average digital television remote, but we take their point: the J10 is probably as simple as a digital camera is going to get.

It has just the few features that your casual snapper is going to require - including a 3x optical zoom - and with an 8.2 megapixel sensor plus a £120 price tag, it's good value for money too.

Onto the meatier (and pricier) S100FS, and onto our Photo Editor's expert opinion.

In Auto mode, this camera is easy to use and effective at adjusting to different environments; the auto-focusing works well too. A casual user could get some nice photos quickly and easily with the S100FS.

It's not a true DSLR (digital single lens reflex) camera, though it may look like one. Indeed, in Fujifilm's own words the camera is for "advanced amateur photographer seeking the manual controls and functionality of a DLSR without the bulk, hassle of and expense of additional lenses."

The £530 S100FS is very lightweight for its size (about 13 cm x 9 cm x 15 cm) with a big, clear LCD screen that can be tilted to the angle you want. The furtive photographer in Antony notes that "this is very handy if you're trying to be a bit sneaky when taking your photos - you can hold the camera at waist height and look down to see where it's aiming."

On the downside, we weren't huge fans of the electronic viewfinder provided by the S100FS - rather than the actual view through the camera lens that would be provided by a single lens reflex mechanism.

"When I look through the viewfinder of a camera," Antony says, "I want to look through the lens. Otherwise I'd just buy a smaller camera."

We also have our doubts about the camera's CCD sensor. Although it boasts some 11.1 megapixels, after the 7 or 8 megapixel mark the significance of pixel count diminishes and the quality of the sensor itself becomes all-important. With 11.1 megapixels you may be getting an enormous picture, but not necessarily a better result. Comparing the S100FS shots to those of a price-equivalent SLR with fewer megapixels seems to bear this theory out.

Still, after transferring to a laptop, the photos produced by the S100FS appeared to have well-adjusted adjusted colours and were accurate representations of their respective subjects. All in all, a nice piece of kit for someone who wants the manual control (and fancy look, perhaps) of an SLR but isn't quite ready to take the plunge.

Posted by: Nik Taylor

EA Games has confirmed today it will release Rock Band exclusively on the Xbox on May 23. There's no definite release date for the other platforms yet - the game will be released on Playstation and Wii 'later in the summer' according to a press release - but my understanding is that non-Xbox gamers will be waiting until August.

There's no official confirmation of any of the prices yet, but you would be well advised to save up significantly more than the $170 cost of the US version.

So, good(ish) news for Xbox owners who've been waiting for this game, but something of a slap in the face for Playstation and Wii fans. Presumably, the delayed and staggered release dates are intended to increase excitement about the game - but it seems a lot of people are just getting fed up that they're being kept waiting for so long. Combined with the likely high cost of the game, would it be a surprise if Rock Band struggles to make the same impact over here as it did in the States?

Price update:

It's been confirmed the Rock Band instruments package (mic, guitar, drums) for Xbox 360 will cost £129.99 in the UK. That's without the game, which has a RRP of £49.99. If you want to have a mate on bass for the full Rock Band experience, you will need to shell out another £59.99 for another guitar. That's a whopping £239.97 for all four peripherals and the game.

In practice retailers will reduce these prices. Play offers the instruments package for £99.99 and the game for £39.99 - so a total of £139.98 for the mic, one guitar, drums and game.

Let's compare the price in the US. Amazon.com is selling the Rock Band Special Edition (mic, guitar, drums and game) for $147.99. In today's exchange rate, that's £74.84. That's £65.14 cheaper even than Play's discounted price.

EA's official take is to blame the price difference on manufacturing costs and UK VAT, which is a cop out. Quite simply, UK consumers are being ripped off once again. Our consoles cost more, our games cost more, our peripherals cost more. There's no justification for putting a game package out at twice the price it costs over the pond - no matter how good that game might be.

Posted by: Nik Taylor

Having spent a weekend at the Xbox sponsored Snowbombing festival, I'm now fully addicted to Rock Band. However, I now find myself back in the office with no access to the Fender Stratocaster I'd developed such an attachment to.

Fortunately, before I left Snowbombing I was able to find out the release date and price for this new game. I'm currently sworn to secrecy under pain of being forced to listen to my own singing being played back to me, but rest assured an announcement is coming very soon. Keep tabs on this blog to find out the details first - and what I can say is that you may not have to wait as long as you might be expecting...

Over the weekend I also got to have a chat with some of the head honchos from Xbox Live. There were some interesting points raised over the future of the service - look out on the site for the full interview.

Posted by: Nik Taylor

I can't think of many games that, even when being played particularly badly, can draw a crowd of hundreds of people. Rock Band managed it today at Snowbombing, with a stage set up especially for the game at the top of a mountain.

First to play were members of several of the festival's bands, such as Los Hermanos Cubanos and The Metros. After a decent stab at Bon Jovi's Wanted Dead or Alive, the bar had been set.

But then the stage was opened to the public and the quality took an immediate nosedive. I don't know whether snowboarders don't make good gamers, or if the participants had had a particularly heavy night, but when Rock Band is played badly, it sounds really bad. It's not like karaoke, where a shoddy singer can mangle a decent tune. If the guitarist playing Rock Band doesn't know his buttons, there is no tune and all you're left with is a over-exuberant boarder howling out off-key Nirvana lyrics.

It's easy to put up with such issues when the view is this good though. In the background of the picture below you can see the stage on which the game was set up. Could there be a better place for playing a bit of Xbox?

Mind you, the view from the stage itself was even better.

The crowd also made interesting viewing. The whole festival has an unofficial fancy dress theme, so the sight of a fully robed monk skiing down a black run is not unusual. Nor is the sight of various gangs of snowboarding superheroes, such as these. 

I had a chat with The Metros after they'd had a bit of time thrashing Rock Band earlier, and immediately felt a lot better about my own drumming inadequacies when it turned out drummer Freddie has been kicked off drumming duties in the game for losing too often. So maybe my lack of scoring on the skins is because I've just got too much rhythm for the game to cope with. Hmm, maybe. The band gave the game the thumbs up with a general consensus on a score of 8/10.

I've been hoping for some other pre-release games to look at while out here, but Rock Band is being pushed very hard by its Xbox backers so the only other games on show are those that are already out in the shops - the likes of Sega Superstars Tennis, Burnout Paradise and Conflict: Denied Ops.

I'm still hunting down those Xbox execs for a chat about their plans for the console. However, they've not been seen since entering an all-day Madness gig in the forest yesterday afternoon...

Posted by: Nik Taylor

As promised on Wednesday I'm blogging from the snowy Austrian town of Mayrhofen, currently the home of Xbox's Snowbombing event. The whole town has been taken over by the festival, and among all the music and snowboarding there's also plenty of gaming going on.
There's no doubting the biggest draw in town - the long awaited Rock Band. Xbox has set up a stage purely for this game, and it's been constantly packed with people trying various Slash solos and extravagant drumming techniques.
I'll be posting a full review of the game next week on the site, once I have improved my drumming beyond its current pitiful state (oh lordy though, it's tough!)

Some of the bands that are around have been showing people how it should be done. Indie newcomers The Whip (right) took a crack at Should I Stay or Should I Go, racking up near 100% scores first time round and proving that musical talent actually does count for something in games like these. Not sure about the singer's day-glo 118 runner get-up though...

I'm hoping to find out a definite European release date for Rock Band while I'm out here, and with plenty of Xbox execs wandering around the place, should have some interesting news on other upcoming games to post up tomorrow.

Posted by: Nik Taylor

Well, what's to be made of the latest rumours of a Blu-ray drive being developed for the Xbox 360?

This one has been doing the rounds for as long as HD DVD tottered around on its last legs, but it got new life yesterday when Digitimes reported hardware company Lite-On to be supplying Blu-ray drives to Microsoft by the second half of 2008.

Digitimes said the tip came from the mysterious-sounding 'industry sources', but Lite-On gave it added credence when it declined to comment because of 'client confidentiality'.

But the rumour is complete bobbins, according to a Microsoft source quoted on TechRadar.com. This source says the Xbox is still being aimed squarely as a gaming machine, with any HD movie content an added bonus.

It's hard to see Sony being interested either, as Blu-ray is one of the PS3's key edges over the 360.

No matter what, this rumour looks likely to run and run. And if it comes off, I'll be first in line for the new upgrade.

Heading off Snowbombing

Just as a quick heads-up, over the next few days I'll be blogging from the Snowbombing festival in Austria.

Among the snow junkies and festival goers, there's going to be some serious gaming going on, which is why I'll be there. We've been promised some quality time with the hotly anticipated Rock Band game, as well as a first look at a bunch of other new releases.

Presuming I can avoid injury on the slopes, I'll have updates on here throughout the weekend. 

Posted by: Jane Douglas

I'm not sure T-Mobile owners Deutsche Telekom knew what they were getting themselves into when they wrote to Engadget, demanding that this highly popular gadget blog stop using the colour magenta.

Deutsche Telekom claim that the colour used by Engadget in the graphic for their mobile phone section could lead to "confusion in the market place", since the T-Mobile logo uses a very similar shade of pinky purple.

I'm afraid DT's chances of getting what they want here are slim to none; most likely they've just earned themselves a place in the bad books of Engadget's many fans.

Ah, well. It's probably for the best. A successful law suit over rights to use certain colours in the field of consumer technology would set a disastrous precedent. Who would then get exclusive rights to blue? Grey? Beige? Black? Not to mention all the firms Apple would have to take on in order to protect the market place from 'confusion' over white gadgetry...

Posted by: Jane Douglas

In the wake of all the fuss kicked up around the ever-so-slightly irresponsible Miss Bimbo game I've been looking at a few alternative options for kids looking to play with other kids online.

If you're a teen or a tween* you might like to consider VizWoz. This UK-based endeavour launched very recently, and is part social network, part online gaming experience. It also looks a bit like a point-and-click 2D adventure game.

VizWoz is free - up to a point. The basic experience costs you nothing, though you are invited to fork out a £2.95 subscription fee for access to extra content.

There's a customisable avatar (I always like customisable avatars) and an apparent 'world first' in online safety: a dedicated in-game police force, VizCops. I swung by the police station and they even have a cell block for offenders. Neat.

With effusive music that will either charm you or drive you stark raving mad, the new Hello Kitty Online massively multiplayer online game is another option for young gamers. The profusion of pink graphics gives just the tiniest hint that Sanrio is angling its game at a girly demographic.

In other news: Portal's GLaDOS, the psychotic supercomputer we love to love takes over www.zorbu.com for the 1st April.

*A term coined by marketing folks, meaning kids aged 8 to 12, in case you didn't already know.